LIVER

PROBLEMS

wo tents are set up near a fire ring. Crickets chirp. Inside one tent, two young men, Brad and Gary, are playing head-to-head handheld video games. "Dude, you're cheating." Says Brad.

"No, you just suck." Gary replies. Something growls outside. In the other tent, a third guy, Tom, records a video message on his cell phone.

"Hey Haley, day six, we're still out near Blackwater Ridge." Something dark flicks behind the tent wall behind him, too fast to be identifiable as more than 'something dark', but the screen on Tom's phone caught it. "We're fine, keeping safe, so don't worry, okay? Talk to you tomorrow." He stops recording and sends the message.

Brad closes his game system and tosses it aside. Gary stares at his system for a moment, then turns to look at Brad, who is getting up and unzipping the tent. "Hey, where ya goin'? My moment of victory." Gary says.

Brad turns to him. "Nature calls." He goes outside and zips up the tent behind him. He goes to stand against the tree to relieve himself.

The fire crackles. Something snaps a stick. Brad looks towards the sound and sees the trees rustling. He shakes his head and returns his attention downward, then looks up sharply. Something growls.

Inside Tom's tent, he hears Brad scream. Inside Gary's tent, Gary hears the same and rolls over. "Brad?" Gary calls out.

"Gary, what's goin' on?" Tom asks. Gary opens the tent and sticks his head out to look around. He sees nothing. Growling. He looks up. Something pulls Gary out of the tent. He screams and Tom turns out the lantern he had on.

Shadows move very quickly around the outside of his tent. Tom looks around, his eyes following the shadows and growling. Silence falls. Something slashes open his tent and he screams.

irds are chirping as Sam carries a boquet of various flowers to a cemetary. Sam sighs and stops next to a gravestone. It reads 'Jessica Lee Moore', 'Beloved Daughter', 'January 24th 1984 - November 2nd 2005'.

There is a small picture of a grinning Jess set into the stone above her name, a black-and-white picture of her leaning against the stone between a white teddy bear and a wooden box with a crucifix leaning on the picture, a small American flag next to the box, and three candles standing on the gravestone.

Sam looks between the gravestone and the flowers. "I, uh..." He laughs. "You always said Roses were, were lame, so I brought you, uh..."

Sam looks at the picture set into the gravestone, then looks away, choking back tears. He steps closer to the gravestone.

"Jess...oh God..." Sam kneels to set down the flowers. "I should have protected you. I should have told you the truth." He leans the flowers in front of the crucifix. An arm covered in dirt shoots out of the ground and grabs Sam by the wrists.

He jolts awake. Sam blinks and rubs his eyes. Dean has a concerned look on his face. "You okay?" Dean asks his brother.

Sam straightens up and looks in the backseat. Elena is laying in the back asleep. "Yeah, I'm fine." He says and faces the front.

"Another nightmare?" Dean asks and Sam clears his throat. "You wanna drive for a while?"

All of a sudden, Sam starts to laugh. "Dean, your whole life you never once asked me that."

"Just thought you might want to." Dean says. "Never mind."

"Look man, you're worried about me." Sam says. "I get it, and thank you, but I'm perfectly okay." He says and grabs the map. "What you really need to be worrying about is what we're gonna do with her. "

He motions to Elena who is still asleep. "She says her name is Elena and that's all she knows." Dean says. "We'll find out what her story is and drop her off at her home. Easy as pie." Dean laughs at his own joke.

"Alright, where are we?" Sam asks while looking at the map.

"We're just outside of Grand Juntion." Dean says and Sam nods.

Sam folds down the map, which is of Colorado and has a large red X labeled 35-111. "You know what? Maybe we shouldn't have left Stanford so soon".

"Sam, we dug around there for a week. We came up with nothing. If you wanna find the thing that killed Jessica-" Dean starts and Sam cut him off.

"We gotta find Dad first." He says annoyingly.

"Dad disappearing-" Dean starts. " -and this thing showing up again after twenty years, it's no coincidence. Dad will have answers. He'll know what to do."

Sam looks at the journal. "It's weird, man. These coordinates he left us. This Blackwater Ridge." He says.

"What about it?" Dean asks.

"There's nothing there. It's just woods." Sam puts down the map. "Why is he sending us to the middle of nowhere?" They drive past the National Forest sign that says, 'Welcome to Lost Creek Colorado National Forest'.

Later on, the Impala is parked next to a sign that says 'RANGER STATION Lost Creek Trail, Lost Creek National Forest'. "So Blackwater Ridge is pretty remote." Sam says to himself.

Elena is with them too, looking around at things. Sam looks at a 3D map of the national forest, paying particular attention to the ridge labeled "BLACKWATER RIDGE". Dean looks at the decorations.

"It's cut off by these canyons here, rough terrain, dense forest, abandoned silver and gold mines all over the place." Sam says.

"Dude, check out the size of this freaking bear." Dean says as Sam looks over. They're looking at a framed photo of a man standing behind a much larger bear.

Sam comes to stand next to Dean. "And a dozen or more grizzlies in the area. It's no nature hike, that's for sure."

"What exactly are we doing here?" Elena asks.

Dean looks over at her. "Since you have no idea who you are or where you came from, we're working on a case until you remember something." He says.

"Oh."

A forest ranger walks up behind them. When he speaks, Dean and Sam whip around, startled. "You boys aren't planning on going out near Blackwater Ridge by any chance?"

"Oh, no, sir, we're environmental study majors from UC Boulder, just working on a paper." Sam says and laughs a little.

Dean grins and raises a fist. "Recycle, man." He says.

"Bull." The Ranger says and Sam's eyes flick to Dean, who doesn't move. "You're friends with that Haley girl, right?"

Dean considers this. "Yes. Yes, we are, Ranger-" Dean checks his nametag. "Wilkinson."

"Well I will tell you exactly what we told her." The Ranger said. "Her brother filled out a backcountry permit saying he wouldn't be back from Blackwater until the twenty-fourth, so it's not exactly a missing persons now, is it?"

Dean shakes his head. "You tell that girl to quit worrying, I'm sure her brother's just fine." The Ranger says.

"We will. Well that Haley girl's quite a pistol, huh?" Dean says.

"That is putting it mildly."

"Actually you know what would help is if I could show her a copy of that backcountry permit. You know, so she could see her brother's return date." Dean asks and the Ranger eyes him. He raises his eyebrows.

Dean, Sam, and Elena leave the ranger station. Dean is holding a piece of paper and laughing. "What, are you cruising for a hookup or something?" Sam asks and Elena looks at them weirdly.

"What do you mean?" Dean asks.

Sam sighs. "The coordinates point to Blackwater Ridge, so what are we waiting for? Let's just go find Dad. I mean, why even talk to this girl?" Dean and Sam stop on opposite sides of the Impala.

"I don't know, maybe we should know what we're walking into before we actually walk into it?" Dean says.

There is an audible pause. "What?" Sam asks defensively.

"Since when are you all shoot first ask questions later, anyway?" Dean asks.

"Since now." Sam turns away and the sound of the car door opening is heard.

"Really?" Dean goes around the car.

ean and Sam are standing at the door to a house. The door opens to reveal Haley. "You must be Haley Collins. I'm Dean, this is Sam and Elena, we're, ah, we're rangers with the Park Service. Ranger Wilkinson sent us over. He wanted us to ask a few questions about your brother Tommy."

Haley hesitates. "Lemme see some ID." Dean pulls out a fake ID with the name 'Samuel Cole' and holds it up against the screen. She looks at it, then at Dean, who smiles. Then she finally opens the door. "Come on in."

"Thanks. Dean says. The door swings open and Haley catches sight of the Impala.

"That yours?" She asks.

"Yeah." Dean says. Sam is looking back at the Impala.

"Nice car." Haley turns to lead Dean and Sam into the kitchen, where Ben is sitting at the table on a laptop. Dean turns his head to mouth something to Sam, who rolls his eyes.

"So if Tommy's not due back for a while, how do you know something's wrong?" Sam asks.

Haley comes back into the room with a bowl she places on the table. "He checks in every day by cell. He emails, photos, stupid little videos-we haven't heard anything in over three days now."

"Well, maybe he can't get cell reception." Sam suggests.

"He's got a satellite phone, too." She says. Elena was currently in the living room, picking up a picture of Tom and Haley. "Hey, put that down!"

Haley yells and snatches the photo out of Elena's hands. "I was just-" Elena starts.

"You were just nothing." She says and Sam speaks up.

"Haley, calm down. She's...new." He said and Elena gave him a thankful smile.

Dean cleared his throat and continued talking. "Could it be he's just having fun and forgot to check in?"

"He wouldn't do that." Ben says and Dean eyes him suspiciously.

Haley puts more food on the table. "Our parents are gone. It's just my two brothers and me. We all keep pretty close tabs on each other."

"Can I see the pictures he sent you?" Sam asks.

"Yeah." On a laptop, she pulls up pictures. "That's Tommy." She clicks twice and another picture comes up, then the still frame opening the latest video.

Tom speaks. "Hey Haley, day six, we're still out near Blackwater Ridge. We're fine, keeping safe, so don't worry, okay? Talk to you tomorrow." Sam spots the shadow flicking past.

"Well, we'll find your brother. We're heading out to Blackwater Ridge first thing." Dean says.

"Then maybe I'll see you there. Look, I can't sit around here anymore. So I hired a guy. I'm heading out in the morning, and I'm gonna find Tommy myself." Haley said. Elena realized she was a tough chick.

"I think I know how you feel." Dean says.

Sam looks over at her. "Hey, do you mind forwarding these to me?" He asks.

"Sure." She says.

am, Dean, and Elena are at a nearby bar working on a case. A waitress goes past carrying beer. "So, Blackwater Ridge doesn't get a lot of traffic. Local campers, mostly. But still, this past April, two hikers went missing out there. They were never found." Sam says and opens his Dad's journal.

"Any before that?" Dean asks. Sam pulls out newspaper articles to show Dean.

"Yeah, in 1982, eight different people all vanished in the Same year. Authorities said it was a grizzly attack."

Dean reads the headline. Sam pulls out his laptop. "And again in 1959 and again before that in 1936." He says and opens the laptop, which already has a window open to Tom's video.

"Every twenty-three years, just like clockwork. Okay. Watch this. Here's a clincher. I downloaded that guy Tommy's video to the laptop. Check this out." Sam pulls up the video and goes through three frames of the video one at a time.

A shadow crosses the screen. "Do it again." Sam repeats the frames.

"That's three frames. That's a fraction of a second. Whatever that thing is, it can move." Sam says just as a waiter brings Elena a drink. Before she can pick it up and drink, Dean takes it out of her hands.

"Hey!" She exclaims.

Dean drinks some. "You do not need to be drinking this. For all we know, you could have a liver problem."

"And you look like you're about to catch one." She snapped and she surprised herself. She had never talked to anyone like that.

Sam chuckles to himself and Dean hits him. Sam looks up. "Told you something weird was going on." Dean says.

"Yeah." Sam closes the laptop. "I got one more thing." He hands over another newspaper article. "In 'fifty-nine one camper survived this supposed grizzly attack. Just a kid. Barely crawled out of the woods alive."

Dean looks at The Lost Creek Gazette. "Is there a name?" He asks.

An old man named Mr Shaw, talks to Sam and Dean while leading them inside his house. He had a single cigarette in his mouth.

"Look, ranger, I don't know why you're asking me about this. It's public record. I was a kid. My parents got mauled by a-"

Sam interrupts. "Grizzly? That's what attacked them?" Shaw takes a puff of his cigarette, takes it out, and nods.

"The other people that went missing that year, those bear attacks too?" There's a pause. "What about all the people that went missing this year? Same thing?"

Shaw continued not to talk. "We knew what we were dealing with, we might be able to stop it."

"I seriously doubt that. Anyways, I don't see what difference it would make." He sits down. "You wouldn't believe me. Nobody ever did."

Sam sits down across from him. "Mr. Shaw, what did you see?"

"Nothing. It moved too fast to see. It hid too well. I heard it, though. A roar. Like...no man or animal I ever heard."

"It came at night?" Sam asks. Shaw nods. "Got inside your tent?"

Shaw corrected him. "It got inside our cabin. I was sleeping in front of the fireplace when it came in. It didn't smash a window or break the door. It unlocked it. Do you know of a bear that could do something like that? I didn't even wake up till I heard my parents screaming."

"It killed them?"

"Dragged them off into the night." Shaw shakes his head in remorse. "Why it left me alive...been asking myself that ever since."

His hands go to his collar. "Did leave me this, though." He opens his collar to reveal three long scars. Claw marks. Sam and Dean look at them. "There's something evil in those woods. It was some sort of a demon."