CRAYOLAS AND TOY SOLDIERS

younger man sits at the kitchen counter eating cereal and older guy at the table reading the newspaper. A young girl comes through the room. She kisses her father on the cheek. "Morning, Daddy."

"Morning, sweetheart." He says and she goes to get something out of the refrigerator.

"All these workouts, Soph, I don't know. Guys don't like buff girls." The second guy, Bill says.

"Yeah, well, girls don't like guys who still live at home." Sophie says.

The first guy, Will, drains the milk from his cereal bowl and slides off the counter. "Ha ha ha." He says.

"Ha ha." She mocks. Sophie opens the door to leave.

"Be careful." Bill yells after her.

"I will." Sophie replies. She leaves and closes the door after herself.

Later, Sophie stands on the dock, looking at the lake. Will watches from a distance as she dives in. She swims and comes up for air, looking around; she sees no one. She keeps swimming. She comes up for air again and looks around some more; still no one. Someone approaches her from underwater and pulls her under. Bubbles.

And then there was nothing.

truck goes past a neon sign that says Hotel, behind a building that says The Lynnwood Inn. The Impala is parked in front. Sam, Dean, and Elena are sitting in a diner, eating food. Currently, the boys were asking her all kinds of questions, trying to find out something about her.

"I don't know, okay!" She yells and a few people look at their table. "I know the important things like who the president is. I just don't know who I am."

Sam sighs. "There's no use in asking her questions. She obviously doesn't know anything."

"Hello, still sitting here."

Dean nods. There is a mostly empty plate in front of Dean, who is circling obituaries in a newspaper. An attractive Waitress, whose nametag says Wendy, approaches.

"Can I get you anything else?" She asks, mainly to Dean. Dean looks up and grins around the pen he's chewing on.

Sam comes over and sits down. "Just the check, please." He says.

"Okay." She says and walks away.

Dean drops his head, then looks at Sam. "You know, Sam, we are allowed to have fun once in a while." Dean points to Wendy. "That's fun." Sam looks at him. Dean hands Sam the newspaper.

"Here, take a look at this, I think I got one. Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin. Last week Sophie Carlton, eighteen, walks into the lake, doesn't walk out. Authorities dragged the water; nothing. Sophie Carlton is the third Lake Manitoc drowning this year. None of the other bodies were found either. They had a funeral two days ago."

"How do you have a funeral with no body?" Elena asks.

"Yeah, it's weird, they buried an empty coffin. For, uh, closure or whatever." Dean said.

"Closure? What closure? People don't just disappear, Dean. Other people just stop looking for them." Sam says, a little frustrated.

Dean is annoyed. "Something you want to say to me?" He asks.

"The trail for Dad. It's getting colder every day." Sam confesses.

"Exactly. So what are we supposed to do?"

"I don't know. Something. Anything."

Elena knew an argument was about to start. "You know what? I'm sick of this attitude. You don't think I wanna find Dad as much as you do?" Dean asks.

"Yeah, I know you do, it's just-"

"I'm the one that's been with him every single day for the past two years, while you've been off to college going to pep rallies. We will find Dad, but until then, we're gonna kill everything bad between here and there. Okay?"

Sam rolls his eyes as Wendy walks by, distracting Dean. "All right, Lake Manitoc. Hey!" Dean returns his attention to Sam.

"Huh?" Dean asks. Elena shakes her head.

"How far?"

ean knocks on the door and a younger man opens it. "Will Carlton?" Dean asks.

"Yeah, that's right." Will says.

"I'm Agent Ford. This is Agent Hamill and Dawn. We're with the US Wildlife Service." Dean holds up an ID.

Bill Carlton is sitting on a bench on the dock. Will brings Sam, Dean, and Elena around to see him. "She was about a hundred yards out. "That's where she got dragged down."

"And you're sure she didn't just drown?" Dean asks.

"Yeah. She was a varsity swimmer." Will states. "She practically grew up in that lake. She was as safe out there as she was in her own bathtub."

"So no splashing? No signs of distress?" Sam asks.

Will sighs. "No, that's what I'm telling you." He says.

"Did you see any shadows in the water? Maybe some dark shape breach the surface?" Sam asks again.

"No. Again, she was really far out there."

"You ever see any strange tracks by the shoreline?" Dean asked.

"No, never. Why? Why, what do you think's out there?"

"We'll let you know as soon as we do." Says Dean.

Dean heads back to the car. "What about your father? Can we talk to him?" Sam asks Will.

"Look, if you don't mind, I mean...he didn't see anything and he's kind of been through a lot." Will says.

"We understand." Sam says and goes to follow Dean and Elena to the car.

ake Devins talks to Sam, Elena and Dean. "Now, I'm sorry, but why does the Wildlife Service care about an accidental drowning?"

"You sure it's accidental? Will Carlton saw something grab his sister." Dean asks.

"Like what?" They walk into Jake's office. Jake motions to chairs in front of his desk. "Here, sit, please. There are no indigenous carnivores in that lake."

Dean and Sam sit in the seats while Elena stands next to them. "There's nothing even big enough to pull down a person, unless it was the Loch Ness Monster." Jake jokes.

"Yeah." Dean laughs. "Right."

Sam glances at Dean. "Will Carlton was traumatized, and sometimes the mind plays tricks. Still-" Jake sits down. "We dragged that entire lake. We even ran a sonar sweep, just to be sure, and there was nothing down there."

"That's weird, though, I mean, that's, that's the third missing body this year." Dean says and Jake looked over at Elena.

"She doesn't talk much, does she?" Jake asks.

"She's uh...new." Dean explained and Elena waved.

"Anyway," Jake averted. "These are people from my town. These are people I care about."

"I know." Dean says.

"Anyway..." Jake sighs. "All this...it won't be a problem much longer."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the dam, of course." Jake says.

Dean acted like he knew what he was talking about. "Of course, the dam. It's, uh, it sprung a leak." He says.

"It's falling apart, and the feds won't give us the grant to repair it, so they've opened the spillway. In another six months, there won't be much of a lake. There won't be much of a town, either. But as Federal Wildlife, you already knew that." Jake said, knowing there was something off about these guys.

"Exactly."

A young woman taps on the door. "Sorry, am I interrupting? I can come back later." She says.

"Lady and Gentlemen, this is my daughter." Jake motions.

"It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Dean."

Dean shakes her hand. "Andrea Barr. Hi."

"Hi." Dean says and smiles at her.

"They're from the Wildlife Service. About the lake." Jake says.

"Oh." Andrea says. A boy walks around Andrea and stands behind her.

"Oh, hey there. What's your name?"

The boy walks away without speaking, Andrea follows. "His name is Lucas."

"Is he okay?" Elena asks.

"My grandson's been through a lot. We all have." Jake stands and goes to the office door. "Well, if there's anything else I can do for you, please let me know."

Dean, Sam, and Elena leave the office, with Jake close by. "Thanks. You know, now that you mentioned it, could you point us in the direction of a reasonably priced motel?" Dean asks Andrea. Elena shakes her head.

"Lakefront Motel. Go around the corner. It's about two blocks south." Andrea explains.

"Two-would you mind showing us?"

She laughs. "You want me to walk you two blocks?"

"Not if it's any trouble." Sam and Elena exchange looks.

"I'm headed that way anyway." Andrea turns to her son. "I'll be back to pick up Lucas at three. We'll go to the park, okay, sweetie?"

Dean waves as they leave. Jake nods. "Thanks again." Sam says.

Andrea leads them along the street. "So, cute kid."

"Thanks." Andrea says.

They cross a street. "Kids are the best, huh?" Dean says as Andrea glances at him and ignores him. They keep walking.

They stop in front of a building that says Lakefront Hotel. "There it is. Like I said, two blocks."

"Thanks. Must be hard, with your sense of direction, never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line." She leaves, calling back over her shoulder. "Enjoy your stay!"

Elena didn't know why, but she burst out laughing. Dean looked over at her. "Ha ha ha." He says sarcastically.

"'Kids are the best'? You don't even like kids." Sam points out.

"I love kids." Dean says, but they knew he was lying.

Sam rolled his eyes. "Name three children that you even know." Dean thinks and comes up empty. Sam waves a hand and walks into the motel. "I'm thinking!"

am is working on his laptop with Elena sitting down next to him. Dean is going through his clothing. "So there's the three drowning victims this year." Sam says.

"Any before that?" Dean asks.

Sam looks closer at the computer. "Uh, yeah." Sam has a browser window open to The Lake Manitoc Tribune. He clicks, and another browser window comes up, again. "Six more spread out over the past thirty-five years. Those bodies were never recovered either. If there is something out there, it's picking up its pace."

Dean tosses an item of clothing onto a bed. "So, what, we got a lake monster on a binge?"

"This whole lake monster theory, it, it just bugs me." Dean comes over to read over Sam's shoulder.

"Why?" Dean asks.

"Loch Ness, uh, Lake Champlain, there are literally hundreds of eyewitness accounts, but here, almost nothing." Sam looks at the Tribune homepage. "Whatever it is out there, no one's living to talk about it."

Sam scrolls to the comments section of an article. Dean points at it. "Wait, Barr, Christopher Barr. Where have I heard that name before?"

Sam reads from the page. "Christopher Barr, the victim in May." Sam says. Sam clicks a link, opening a new page. LOCAL Man IN TRAGIC ACCIDENT. The picture loads: it shows a police officer with LUCAS. "Oh. Christopher Barr was Andrea's husband, Lucas's father. Apparently he took Lucas out swimming. Lucas was on a floating wooden platform when Chris drowned. Two hours before the kid got rescued."

Sam clicks the picture for a better look, then scratches his head. "Maybe we have an eyewitness after all."

"No wonder that kid was so freaked out. Watching one of your parents die isn't something you just get over." Dean says.

ids are laughing and playing in the park. Andrea sits on a bench and watches her son, who is at another bench coloring and playing with toy soldiers. "Can we join you?" Sam asks. She looks up. The Winchesters are there, along with Elena.

"I'm here with my son."

"Oh. Mind if I say hi?" Dean goes over to the boy.

Andrea turns to Elena. "Tell your friend this whole Jerry Maguire thing is not gonna work on me." She says.

"Oh, he's not my friend." Elena replies. Sam sits down next to Andrea.

Dean approaches Lucas. "How's it going?" Dean kneels down next to the bench where Lucas is coloring; when Lucas doesn't even look up, Dean picks up one of the toy soldiers. "Oh, I used to love these things."

Dean imitates guns and explosions, then tosses the toy soldier down. "So crayons is more your thing? That's cool. Chicks dig artists."

Dean takes a look. The top one is of a big black swirl; the second one is of a red bicycle. "Hey, these are pretty good. You mind if I sit and draw with you for a while?" Dean picks up a crayon. "I'm not so bad myself."

"You know, I'm thinking you can hear me, you just don't want to talk. I don't know exactly what happened to your dad, but I know it was something real bad. I think I know how you feel. When I was your age, I saw something." A pause.

"Anyway. Well, maybe you don't think anyone will listen to you, or, uh...or believe you. I want you to know that I will. You don't even have to say anything. You could draw me a picture about what you saw that day, with your dad, on the lake. Okay, no problem. This is for you."

Dean holds out to Lucas the picture he drew. It's stick figures. "This is my family." Dean points at each person in turn. "That's my dad. That's my mom. That's my geek brother, and that's me. All right, so I'm a sucky artist. I'll see you around, Lucas." Dean heads back to everyone else. Lucas picks up the picture.

Dean steps up to them. "Lucas hasn't said a word, not even to me. Not since his dad's accident." Andrea says.

"Yeah, we heard. Sorry."

Andrea nods. "What are the Doctors saying?" Sam asks.

"That it's a kind of post-traumatic stress."

"That can't be easy. For either of you." Sam asks.

"We moved in with my dad. He helps out a lot. It's just...when I think about what Lucas went through, what he saw..." Andrea says and pauses.

"Kids are strong. You'd be surprised what they can deal with." Dean says.

Lucas leaves the bench, heading for the group. "You know, he used to have such life. He was hard to keep up with, to tell you the truth. Now he just sits there. Drawing those pictures, playing with those army men. I just wish-" Andrea says. Lucas walks up, carrying a picture. "Hey sweetie."

Lucas goes over to Dean and hands him a picture. "Thanks. Thanks, Lucas." It's a picture of the Carlton house.

ill is sitting in a chair, doing nothing. "Hey, Dad? You, you should probably eat something. I'm gonna make some dinner, okay?" Bill says nothing and turns his head away. I

Will washes a fish at the sink. He does not turn the water off when he begins cutting up the fish. The water turns brown. Will notices and shuts off the water.

Black water comes up through the drain and fills the sink. Will rolls up his sleeve to pull the plug out of the drain. He comes up with the plug, but the water doesn't drain.

He sticks his arm back in the water, and something grabs it, pulling him into the sink. He drowns. The water drains.