Supernatural S01E11

The hunters are newly arrived to Elkhorn, Wisconsin and have made it to a local watering hole. The Hunters strike up a conversation with the bartender, Karen Witten. She’s in her mid-30s, dark-haired and attractive with librarian glasses and tattoos that disappear into a low-cut blouse. She tends bar four nights a week at All Thumbs and writes local-interest articles for a periodical called The Walworth County Monthly. For the last decade she’s been writing pieces on the Beast sightings every time there’s something to say. Scott in particular says that he's in town for the same, and offers a press ID from Alaska.

The “Beast of Bray Road” was given that name since sightings started in the 1980s. There have been sightings off and on ever since, all the way up until the recent attacks. Karen’s research revealed sightings of really big wolves or even coyotes going back at least a hundred years. Descriptions of the creature haven’t always been the same. Some witnesses say it resembles an oversized wolf or coyote, while others say it’s more bear-like. More than a few say it’s kind of half-wolf, half-man, and either walks upright or on all fours. It’s either brown or gray. It’s been seen scavenging on the side of the road or feasting on freshly killed deer on the edge of the wood line. The Beast has frightened people, chased them, and killed pets and livestock over the years but has never actually hurt anyone before now. People are truly scared, and there is talk of local hunters (the Elmer Fudd variety, not supernatural hunters) organizing to track the creature down and put it down. One name Karen remembers is a Joey Brown—which sticks out in her mind because Brown and his family are reclusive and quiet.

It all started with the death of Stan Cleary. He played center for the Fox High School’s football team and was about to go into his senior year in the fall. Apparently Stan had car trouble, pulled over to check under the hood, and was ravaged by “a large gray wolf ” according to LeeAnn Robinson, the sole witness. Since the attacks the Beast chased some girls near the high school. It was hiding out in a garage, though the girls’ description varied from Mrs. Robinson’s. The girls said it looked like a “hairy man” while the homeowner said it looked like a “scrawny bear.”

Ultimately, Airy is highly intrigued at the possibility of a werewolf, but the team does plan to do fair research on the Beast for any other possibilities.

Unfortunately, Karen's ex, a dude named Tugg comes in, actually trying to catch her in the act of cheating, and seems to find it with the Hunters. They have a scuffle and put the drunk in his place.

Research is quite promising from a slew of internet sources and forum legends to old newspaper articles. A running theme in these legends is the connection between the creatures and pre-Colonial peoples in the area.

They also look up Stan Cleary and get some information about local sporting events he was involved with, including some online blogs by kids who thought he was a bully and a douchebag as well as the MySpace page that’s been kept up after his death.

The Hunters look into the girls the creature frightened, it doesn’t take much asking around to find out their names are Leah Hartley, Rose Garstin, and Mandy Graves—cheerleaders all. They report they were walking home to Rose’s nearby house from practice when the thing came out from behind a tree. It tried to grab Leah, but they ran off and it chased after them. After only a minute, it stopped dead and then “just howled and screamed.” The Hunters notice that Leah is wearing a boy’s class ring (with the symbol of a football etched into one side) on a gold chain around her neck. When asked, she grabs it and confirms she was Stan's girlfriend. Leah talked about going to college and becoming a teacher, but Stan planned to marry her right out of school and start a family. When the girls are questioned about what they think it was, Mandy dead-ass says it was a werewolf, just like in the movies. After this, the Hunters decide to send a pair to interview kids separately from Fox High School.

Meanwhile, flirtations with Mrs. Robinson happen, continuing the trend of spunky old ladies hitting on Scott. Literally, this adventure says Mrs. Robinson likes to flirt; any male hunter with Allure is going to get some possibly uncomfortable attention and compliments."

LeeAnn Robinson is a 62-year-old widow and a bit of a local eccentric, determined to live life to the fullest. Comfortable but not rich, she attends a local community college and is earning a degree in English Lit. She drives a Coup de Ville and puts away a bottle of wine or a bourbon on the rocks before bed each night. LeeAnn was driving her Caddy home on Highway H from an evening class (she’s reading The Brothers Karamazov) when she saw a car’s emergency flashers on the road ahead. Always ready to lend a hand, she slowed down to see what she might do. She could see the hood of the car was up and that’s when it appeared—the Beast of Bray Road. It was an oversized wolf, dark gray and the size of a pony, with its big jaws seizing the already limp body of Stan Cleary (“that nice young man”) by the neck. Blood was everywhere—on the Beast, on the ground, on the front of the car. Mrs. Robinson was so frightened by the sight she hit the gas and drove at least ten miles before calming down enough to pull over into a gas station, run inside, and dial the police on her cell phone.

The Hunters spilt the part and Jon and Marcus head back to school, convincing the admin team that they are investigators. learn the following:

• Stan’s father left for cigarettes when he was four and never came home. He was raised an only child by a well-meaning but always-gone mother
• Stan Cleary wasn’t an especially great guy, but he

was no bad egg. He was a decent football player with mediocre grades; nice enough, but he smoked, drank, and got into trouble. He worked part-time at a burger place called Butterburgers

• Stan’s best friend was Jim Whitmire, a running back whose other major interest was cars. His dad bought a junked Corvette Stingray and Jim’s already spent over a year on it. Jim’s dad, who helps him with

the mechanic work, figures in six months it will be gorgeous and ready to drive again. Jim acts tough and casual when asked about Stan’s death but anyone can tell he’s shaken up and scared.

• Stan and cheerleader Leah Hartley had been a serious couple for the last six months. Leah talked about going to college and becoming a teacher, but Stan planned to marry her right out of school and start

a family. The last three fights he got into at school were over boys getting too friendly with Leah. The last brawl happened in auto mechanics class the day before he died

• The kid on the receiving end of the beating was Dwayne Ward, a quiet loner who reads a lot and is something of a poet. He read passages from Allen Ginsberg’s famous Beat Generation poem “Howl” to Leah, and after a confrontation in the auto mechanics class Stan gave the sensitive

younger man a pretty hellacious beating. Admin confirms that Dwayne took a couple days off of school afterwards.

• The auto shop teacher, Mr. Mark Corrigan, talks about Stan with a hefty dose of leftover anger. Apparently, when he broke up the beating Stan was administering to Dwayne, the jock took a swing at his teacher and dropped a few choice four-letter word- bombs. When Mr. Corrigan told him he was getting written up and would be missing the next football game, Stan flipped him off and told the teacher to attempt something anatomically impossible. Marcus notices that he has a warrior tribal tattoo with roots in the Native American tribes that used to live in Michigan, Wisconsin, and northern Illinois. It turns into a red herring for Marcus, as Corrigan doesn't even know what it means.

Meanwhile, Airy goes to visit the Coroner. Dr. Loomis says the injuries are consistent with an animal attack, along the lines of what happens when a wolf or coyote gets a hold of a small child. The proportions of the bite marks are all wrong. Even a bear wouldn’t have left injuries like that. It was a canine standing some four feet at the shoulder. That’s a dog as large as a pony.

Ciaran hits up the Walworth County Sheriff’s Office has jurisdiction over cases like Stan Cleary’s death. Deputy Bill Rogan responded when the dispatcher said a “hysterical old lady” was reporting a kid being ripped apart by a giant wolf. The official report is pretty straightforward: Stan’s neck was both broken and ripped open. One of his arms was savagely bitten and pulled so hard it was nearly ripped from its socket. The official cause of death was the broken neck; even without that, the blood loss and open wounds would have killed Stan anyway. Bill claims to have found the boy dead at the scene and no other signs. On the other hand, Ciaran can tell that the man has been drinking heavily (but masking it like a pro) and with some pressing, the deputy confesses that he saw something, a large shape bounding away as he approached. He had been terrified and froze before finally securing the scene and calling it in. He can't see others believing him, but maybe Ciaran would.

Amanda had decided to chat with kids around school informally, to see what she might glean from them. When she meets back up with Marcus and Jon, sh winds up having one heck of a vision. It reads as follows:

You suddenly feel as if a railroad spike is through your skull. Your vision is dark and murky and you taste blood in your mouth. The world before you begins to clear, but through the pain you realize that you’re no longer seeing with your own eyes. What you can see is a hallway ... lined on each side with orange lockers. As you lope through the empty corridor you see doors leading to rooms with chalkboards and desks. It’s a school, but there isn’t anyone around. You move faster through the halls, though the echoing gym. You hear breath coming in grunting gasps and the clicking, scraping sound of claws on the floor. The voices can be heard before you can see them, and a quick shove with clawed hands breaks the lock as the double-doors leading outside fly open. A boy and a girl are sitting on a bench outside, the boy wearing a letterman’s jacket and the scent of the girls is soft and sweet and comforting. Their heads turn in shock when the door flies open but you saw what was going on: The boy was trying to put his arms around the girl and his mouth onto hers but she was pushing him away. They yell and try to say something but the blood pounding in your ears is the only thing you can hear as you leap forward toward the boy.You barely notice the sweet, flowery scent of the girl fade as she runs away. You rend flesh with your claws and sink your teeth into the boy’s bloody throat. The gurgling screams and gore delight you. But suddenly the vision fades as if someone slammed some psychic door. You collapse, for several long moments unable to move while you come to yourself again.

Jeez. It takes a minute to recover, but they quickly realize that the vision was about Jim, through the POV of the Beast. It doesn't take long to hear sirens.

Jim has, indeed, been savagely mauled. The Dr. Loomis decides that while it’s “freakish and disturbing” to have two animal attacks, the bite radius and other data from the wounds do not match between the two attacks.

Leah ran her ass off during the attack, and made the call to 911 on the move. After the frantic phone call no one has seen or heard from her. She hasn’t made it home and all of her friends report that they haven’t seen her.

Meanwhile, the sheriff puts out notices and makes an announcement on the local radio station. He’s convinced there is a “rabid coyote” on the loose AND Leah must be found for her safety and as a witness; (Never mind there is no evidence of rabies from the evidence, or that a coyote would be much too small, but Leah is connected to both deaths so far and hasn’t been the direct target.) The county is putting out a call to all local hunters to assist in finding and killing this dangerous animal. The Hunters go on patrol to try to catch the vision, while unlikely to prevent it taking another of the students, and hopefully not one of the hunters or other civvies out looking to help. They load up on silver.

Leah is hiding out with her best friend and fellow cheerleader, Mandy Graves. She’s scared and just wants to hide, because she’s convinced that everyone thinks she’s crazy. The police have already knocked on the door at the Graves’ 2-bedroom ranch-style house and the girls simply didn’t answer. They run for the woods behind the house, with Leah just shouting “Leave me alone!”

The hunters aren’t the only ones to track Leah to Mandy’s place. Dwayne is here, too. By now he’s shifted to a form that’s mostly wolf, with just hints of his human face and hands. One big hint, though, is the fact that bits of his human clothes are still hanging on. Dwayne is incapable of thinking clearly as this point, driven by obsession and hunger. But he knows he doesn’t want to hurt Leah, though anyone who gets near her is fair game. If the girls run from the house with the hunters giving chase, or if the girls are cornered and can be heard screaming from inside, Dwayne goes berserk. He explodes from his hiding place in the brush and goes for the closest hunter. Of course, that’s when all the people with guns attempt to light Dwayne up like a Christmas tree. And whether he’s missed entirely or badly hurt, Dwayne doesn’t want to stick around to get shot dead. He bolts for the woods with no way for the hunters to catch him on foot.

Mandy passes out from fright. Leah runs until she sees the Beast and then freezes. She cries and freaks out, but eventually calms down enough to tell them that she knows sweet, sensitive Dwayne Ward is the Beast of Bray Road. She’s afraid of what Dwayne wants with her, though she thinks that he doesn’t want to hurt her. He certainly could have killed her more than once by this point.

Attempts to track Dwayne/The Beast are complicated by a few factors:

• Will Stackpole and Mike Niebling are local blue-collar guys. They mean well, but are not experienced or expert hunters and have a bit too much liquid courage to make them any threat to the real Beast—silver bullets or no. Will and Mike can be heard long before they are seen.
• There are real coyotes out in the Wisconsin woods, and a hunting pair stumbled onto a half-eaten deer carcass just minutes before the hunters wander into the clearing, ruining a perfectly good meal.
• There’s another hunter in the woods, but this one absolutely knows what he’s doing and exactly what he’s up against - Joey Brown. He’s actually ahead of the group on the trail of the Beast, and he shows them the tracks he’s been following and demonstrates knowledge for where it’s likely going

It’s a wolf, he says. Rare in these parts but long ago they used to be everywhere before they were hunted out of the area. It has a taste for human blood and it’s going to keep hurting people until it’s stopped.

If the wolf had a pack, it’s broken off from them and has gone rogue. It would have as much to worry from its former pack mates as it does from the humans who are looking for it. The Meskwakie-Sauk Indians who used to live in this area considered the wolves of this area sacred protectors of the land. He says the stories said they were large, intelligent, and lived in a peaceful pact with those tribes that had already been pushed from the east.

Joey tells the hunters that they should either stick together or go back into town so as not to get in his way. The Hunters convince Joes to open up by demonstrating some of their own tracking skills. Marcus is able to strike up a conversation with him, especially after Joes learns he is half indigenous. He can demonstrate his superior tracking skills and expertise. He also does not want to talk about certain topics, so it's pretty clear that he hasn't been sharing everything that he knows or understands.

They hear the snap of a twig or the rustle of the brush nearby. A four-legged shape darts out and then stops in the center of the trail. Dark gray and white, it’s most definitely a wolf—except that it’s huge. From this distance you guess it must be almost four feet high at the shoulder. It stands still, chest out and head held high, looking at them. This is not Dwayne. His name is Brian, if you really want to know, a member of Joey’s pack. He and a dozen others have been trailing and flanking Joey and the hunters for a while now as they tried to track down the lost member of their family. They’re close and the pack is circling together and needs to know what their Alpha wants them to do next. Huge wolves are circling with bared teeth, but all looking to Joey deferentially—waiting for his command. It’s as if there isn’t one Beast of Bray Road— there’s a dozen.

Joey first yells for the hunters to stop, and put down their weapons, then he carefully does the same, raising his hands up. He then offers the chance to explain. He tells them that Joey Brown is not his real name—that his real name has no human equivalent. He is not, and never was, human. But the lands they walk on have been the hunting grounds of his people for thousands of years. The local tribes called them the mahwêwatoni, which translates to “mouth wolves,” more or less, or more rather wolves who talk.

Joey explains his people are to wolves and coyotes as men are to gorillas and orangutans. They are larger, stronger, smarter, and work as a team—as a family—to survive and bring down prey. He doesn’t know where his people came from, but they lived in the American Midwest far longer than any people have.

Long ago, the first men came to this region. They were not perfect, but they considered the wolf a sacred animal and left offerings and paid respect. In return, Joey’s people, the mahwêwatoni, guarded the native tribes and aided their hunts. They lived in peace until other men, white men, began to push into the area. Joey’s ancestors tried to help their friends fight, but the white men had guns and made short work of the attackers. In addition, the sight of huge wolves was frightening enough that the mahwêwatoni began to be hunted. The tribal elders offered the pack a way to stay hidden in their ancestral lands without fear: Using powers that no one today understands, the elders disguised the wolves as men, and to make them blend in with their attackers, they looked like white men. For hundreds of years and many generations, the mahwêwatoni have lived among their former enemies. They are quiet, keep to their own business, and try not to get too involved in the affairs of men.

Once a month they must resume their true form for a night and hunt. By satisfying their natural instincts for a day, they can live the rest of their time as men. But ... there is another condition, the wolves of Joey’s pack are forbidden to taste human blood or to turn on each other. They all take vows from their earliest years to not harm anyone. Anyone who harms a human becomes cursed from the pack. The line between wolf and man becomes blurred, and the changes induce contact physical pain to add on to the emotional torment. Joey is carrying tranquilizer darts to hopefully subdue Dwayne and knock him out of the cycle, see if there is any chance at all of helping him.

The Hunters share that Dwayne is probably trying to head back to Leah, so rather than just track him, they should go to the (unintended) bait. Leah's presence forces him to shift back to human, but he isn't able to control it and wolfs out. He smells his family this time, knows that the other wolves are near, so he doesn't run. Dwayne rushes Joey and knocks him down. In his current state, Dwayne is stronger than the alpha wolf, and the hunters wind up with more of the spotlight, helping subdue with silver and taking up the tranq gun.

Joey makes his plea for Dwayne’s fate to be left to his own people. The hunters might be tempted to hand Dwayne over to the authorities, but if this gets voiced remind them that Dwayne is in no shape to be tossed into a lockup. The curse that strikes the mahwêwatoni when they become killers may strike again, and there are really only two possible cures. One is to kill the cursed wolf, and the other is up to Joey. Joey shares that he could end the curse by forcing the situation - to give up the gift of human form and live as wolves.

The Hunters, however, caution against that, that it is far safer for them to be able to walk as humans, and doing the noble thing here doesn't really solve anything. The harder thing, in fact, is to try a fresh start with Dwayne, and whatever therapy he might need, and find ways to live with the curse. That's the harder, courageous route they need to take as a people.

This outside perspective was the clarity and freshness they needed. The Hunters stick around while Airy monitors Dwayne, and the boy takes some initial steps to recovery. The mahwêwatoni and the Hunters end up parting on good terms. They might be an odder contact to have, but a special one.