While Howie and Brian boarded their own individual buses (their wives and children were travelling with them for this leg of the tour) to set off for Colorado, Nick and AJ headed to a club which had been recommended. Without their girlfriends accompanying them on tour, they figured they ought to make the most of a night out, plus a bit of window shopping wouldn’t hurt. They could still look even if they couldn‘t sample the goodies!

The atmosphere in the club was great, just the right amount of fans for it to not be too awkward, and a fantastic selection of music. Girls in body hugging dresses which left nothing to the imagination vied for their attention, and the two single Backstreet Boys were loving every minute of it. AJ, always the extrovert, danced with a few girls, whilst Nick remained where he was, quite happy to just observe. Despite his reputation as a ladies man, Nick was in fact nothing of the sort, at least not anymore.

“Fancy another one?” AJ asked as he held up his empty beer bottle a while later. The pair of them had gone through hard times when it came to drink and drugs, but were now in a place in their lives where they could enjoy one or two and then walk away.

“Go on then” Nick replied, draining the last remains of his bottle of Bud Light and placing it down on the bar.

By about two in the morning they were ready to go, and so had a car take them back to the bus at the concert venue.

“Man, I’m so tired” Nick yawned as he kicked his shoes off when they were back on the bus.

“Me too. We must be getting old, remember the nights where we’d party all night long?” AJ reminisced.

“Hey speak for yourself, I’m only thirty!” Nick replied “I could still party all night if I wanted to. It just happens that I don’t want to all that often”

“Same here” AJ agreed.

“Y’know, I’m too tired to even play ’Premonition’, I think I’m just going to go straight to bed. Night” Nick yawned again and crashed down onto his bed, not even bothering to undress.

“Night” AJ replied and decided he’d have one last cigarette before going to sleep himself. He stood outside the bus and lit his cigarette, inhaling deeply and looking up into the starry night sky. No, he had to agree with Nick that he didn’t miss the old days, not one little bit. But he also wouldn’t change a thing either as every step he’d taken had brought him to where he was right now - a happy place in his life.

~*~

Back in their motel room, Dean and Sam mused over the evening’s events. After finishing their meals and talking to the teens in the diner, they found out that Jacob was a well liked guy, if a little on the geeky side. No one could think of any reason why someone would slay him so brutally in his own bedroom. In fact, the kids were more than a little shocked by it. That kind of thing just didn’t happen in Holden.

“We’re going to have to try and get into that house” Dean declared “we need to see what we’re dealing with here, seeing as the police don‘t seem to have any leads”

“What are we going to be this time?” Sam asked, thinking of the many aliases they’d used in the past to gain entry to crime scenes.

“FBI maybe” Dean answered and rummaged through their many fake identifications for the ones he wanted.

“Yeah, that should do it” Sam replied. He knew they’d never be able to pass themselves off as friends from college, or police officers. This was the kind of town where everyone seemed to know everyone, including the local police. They’d be sussed out within seconds.

The following morning, after just a cup of coffee, they got into the Impala and made their way over to the Taylor house, badges in their pockets at the ready.

“I really hope we’re not dealing with another poltergeist” Dean murmured.

“I’ve got a feeling it’s something worse than that” Sam replied. He didn’t know why, but sometimes he had these feelings, like he knew something was about to happen, but couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

“You and your feelings” Dean teased.

They arrived at the Taylor house, which was in a quiet tree lined street in a nice well maintained area neighbourhood. Dean parked the car outside and they climbed out, putting on their professional faces as they walked up the path. Within a few moments of ringing the doorbell, a smartly dressed woman in her early fifties opened the door.

“Mrs Taylor?” Dean asked.

“Yes“ the woman replied cautiously.

“I‘m Agent Northman and this is Agent Compton, we‘re from the FBI“ Dean announced, flashing his badge and smiling inwardly at his little True Blood reference. If only people realised that vampires were far from fiction and not at all like the brooding handsome actors who portrayed them on screen, they‘d soon lose their appeal.

“How can I help? The police did all they could when it happened” she asked.

“Well, as you know, the case is still open and far from resolved, the police called us in to investigate it further. Do you mind if we ask a few questions?” Sam said politely, hoping she believed who they’d proclaimed to be.

“And maybe take a look at the scene of the crime?” Dean added, glancing towards the staircase, itching to get into the house and up those stairs to where the dead teenager’s bedroom was.

“Do you mind showing me some identification first?” she asked and the brothers pulled out their fake FBI identification. “Well, you’d better come in” Mrs Taylor pulled the door open further and stepped back to allow them in.

The brothers followed Mrs Taylor into a comfortable looking living room, decorated tastefully in neutral colours.

“Take a seat” she offered and sat down in the armchair closest to the fireplace.

“Thank you” Sam replied and they both sat down on the expensive leather sofa. Sam pulled out a notepad and pen and sat poised ready to make note of anything useful.

“Could you start by explaining to us what your son was doing that night? Was it anything out of the ordinary?” Dean asked.

“No…he wasn’t doing anything unusual. We’d had dinner at seven o’clock as usual, and then after helping me clear away, Jacob disappeared up to his room to play some new game he’d got that day” she began.

“Game?” Dean asked to clarify.

“He liked to play his Xbox…a lot. In fact he’d spend hours and hours up in his room playing those games, chatting to his friends on Xbox live sometimes” she told them “to be honest, I never saw the appeal of those games, too violent”

“Did anyone call the house…or did you notice anyone hanging around outside?” Sam asked.

“No, nothing” Mrs Taylor replied “I didn’t see or hear anything”

“When did you discover your son‘s body?” Dean asked with as much empathy as he could.

Mrs Taylor began to cry, tears rolling down her perfectly made-up face. “It was the following morning” she sobbed “I called him for breakfast a couple of times and when he didn’t answer…my husband went to wake him up…but he was…he was…dead” she choked out the words.

The brothers knew it wouldn’t be right to ask anything further, the poor woman had been through enough, so they asked whether it would be alright to take a look upstairs in his bedroom.

“I suppose” she sniffed “it’s the last door on the right”

Upon entering the room, the brothers quickly discovered that something supernatural had been there - they just didn’t know what. Obviously there were no visible traces of evidence left, but that didn’t mean that everything had been cleaned away. There were still traces here and there which were invisible to the untrained eye.

“You making a note of all this?” Dean asked as he rummaged around the teenager’s desk and found nothing suspicious. There was no sign of any new game, in fact the Xbox drive was empty. Maybe the boy’s parents had tidied his games away. It didn’t seem that important though.

“Yep” Sam replied “but there’s not a lot to go on”

They finished up in Jacob’s room, thanked Mrs Taylor for her time and then left the house.

Meanwhile, not too far away, another family had just discovered something so unspeakably horrendous, the screams could be heard down the street.