Season 1, Episode 2: A Game of Clues

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Morning found Bobby Singer back in the Gamble Acres subdivision.  Sunlight streamed in through the window.  If he didn't know better, Bobby thought, he'd be tempted to believe it was the start of a perfectly normal day in the 'burbs.  But it was just that veneer of normalcy that made this place so strange.

The sound of water running through the A-frame's aging plumbing system pulled his attention back to reality, or as close to reality as anyone had a right to expect from the afterlife.   Ellen Harvelle was awake.   Bobby got a pot of coffee started.

"Mornin', sunshine.  You're sure back early.   Thought you were going to get some sleep before heading back,"  Ellen greeted him with her usual good-natured scolding.  "You drove straight through the night, didn't you, ya damned fool!   What if you'd fallen asleep at the wheel?"

Bobby just scoffed, her nagging not worthy of a reply.  As if he'd never pulled an all-nighter before, whether on the road or poring over his books in search of some tidbit of lore.

Ellen stepped closer and laid her hand on his arm, reassurance in the gesture.  "You really were spooked, huh?"

He  ignored the question for the time being, asking one of  his own instead of giving her an answer.  "You want some breakfast?  Bacon and eggs?  Or I could fix you an omelette," Bobby offered.  Truth was, they both enjoyed having someone to fuss over.

"Just coffee for now, thanks,"  she said, taking her seat at the kitchen table.
"Make it Irish?"  Bobby reached for the liquor on top of the refrigerator.  
"It ain't even eight o'clock yet, Bobby!"  
He rolled his eyes but put the bottle back in its place.  "Clean livin'... Kinda ironic, considering we're dead."

Ellen wanted every detail of Bobby's encounter with Caleb, a man who'd grown up in 'the life' and was well known in the tight-knit, secretive world of monster hunters.  Bobby described their friend's transformation from the community's go-to arms dealer to civilian tire salesman.  "I'm tellin' you, Ellen, he wasn't putting me on.   He really believed he was this Blake character.   'Bout as mundane as they come--"

A blast of sound from the front of the house startled both hunters.  The blast didn't stop.  If anything, it got louder, a barrage of noise.

Bobby drew his gun without conscious thought.  Pure reflex. 

Ellen reacted just as swiftly, and just as aggressively.   Knife in hand, she dropped into a fighting stance.

Just as quickly, the meaningless blast of sound resolved into the crashing guitar chords and pounding drum beat of hard rock. "Now you're messin' with a--A son of a bitch!  Now you're messin' with a son of a bitch!"  

Ellen shook her head ruefully as she relaxed her stance.   Bobby cursed and holstered his gun.  

He rushed into the living room, where the vintage turntable blasted Nazareth's 'Hair of the Dog' at decibel levels impossible for such a small device.

"Damned infernal contraption!"

Bobby lifted the needle and the noise stopped, except for a ringing in his ears that he knew from past experience would linger.  

He glared at the record player, now innocently silent.

"I never did like that band,"  he muttered as he slid the offending album into its protective sleeve.

Ellen came into the living room.

"Liquor supply's almost doubled,"  she announced, bottles in hand as evidence.

"Good, we were runnin' low,"  Bobby said.  

"Now, who do we know who's a heavy drinker and an unrepentant son of a bitch?"

Bobby shook his head.  "That description fits just about every hunter I ever met."

"Look."  He indicated an olive drab Army-issue ammo can on the mantel that hadn't been there before. 

"Who do we know that's a heavy drinker, unrepentant son of a bitch, and hoards ammunition?"

"Just about every hunter I ever met?"  Ellen arched her eyebrows, skeptical, as she repeated Bobby's words.  

"Yeah, but for a fifty cal?"  The bullets in Bobby's hand were nearly six inches long.   Overkill, even for monsters.

"That narrows it down considerably."

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