1.14 Nightmare

In Saginaw, Michigan, Jim Miller pulls into a garage and turns off the car. The garage door mysteriously shuts. Then his doors started to lock and the car starts up again. The car starts pumping out exhaust fumes and Jim cannot turn it off. Exhaust fumes start coming into the car. Unable to unlock the doors, he dies of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Sam wakes up from the dream he has been having of the man's death. He wakes Dean and on the road they go to find the man, because Sam has a feeling that what he had dreamed will come true and insists they must try to prevent it. Dean is still not convinced that his dream will come true, but Sam decides to call information about the license plate he saw in the dream. Turns out that it was a real license plate. They track the owner to Saginaw, Michigan. Sam tells Dean to drive faster. They arrive just as the paramedics are removing the body of Jim Miller from the garage. The police assume he killed himself, but the way he died was the exact same way Sam dreamed. Sam looks over at the crying family, the Millers, and needs to walk away from the crowd. Dean follows Sam and tries to comfort him in saying that it was not their fault. Dean tries to tell Sam that maybe it could have been a suicide, nothing supernatural. Sam is convinced something, some spirit, murdered Jim Miller. He does not understand why he is having these dreams, or what the hell is happening. Dean is worried about Sam, but comments to pick this up in the morning. Sam points out the family is devastated, and they will not talk. Dean comes up with a plan.

The next day, Dean and Sam go to the house and introduce themselves as priests. Jim's brother, Roger, answers the door. He is very edgy and does not want to be bothered by the priests. Jim's wife, Alice, then introduces herself. They start to question her and she reveals their son Max found him. Sam decides to talk to him while Dean remains with Alice. Dean asks questions about the house they live in. There were no leaks, light shortages, odd settling noises at night, or anything like that. Dean excuses himself to "go to the bathroom." Sam finds Max and introduces himself. Max Miller is a young man about Sam's age, who is living at home to save up money for school. He claims he woke up and heard the engine running, but does not know why his father did it. Sam sympathizes with him about not knowing answers. Upstairs Dean takes out an infrared thermal scanner and searches the area for any spirits, but finds no evidence of the supernatural. He hears footsteps coming, and it ends up being Sam. They leave.

Back at the motel, Sam researches into the house and the land, and finds a whole lot of nothing. Dean still stands by that there is nothing wrong with the house, but Sam wonders about his dream. Sam starts to get an intense headache; it is his first painful vision. Roger Miller is at his apartment. A window opens, Roger closes it, and then it reopens by itself. Roger tries to close it without success; when he sticks his head underneath, the window comes down, decapitating him.

As Dean and Sam drive to Roger's apartment, Sam finds out information by using his police badge. Sam then opens up - he is scared, and the visions are getting more intense and painful. He wonders why is he watching the Millers die and what is happening to him? Dean assures him they will figure it out. Sam pushes him, saying it is never been in the family like this, and he asks Dean if they do not freak him out. Dean answers, "This doesn't freak me out."

Dean and Sam get there in time to find Roger still outside and they attempt to warn him. Roger does not want their help, instead he just wants to be left alone so he ignores them and goes into his security apartment and closes the door on them. Dean, with Sam following, head around the corner and break into the locked fire escape area around back. Sam, with Dean following, run up the fire escape, but when they are one floor down they hear the window decapitating Roger. Dean races up and checks over the scene, Sam arriving with a sick look, knowing his vision had come true. Dean pulls out a handkerchief for Sam to rub all fingerprints off, and he ducks inside to check out the scene inside. Again, there is no signs or traces of ghostly activity and Dean suspects the family itself is cursed. Sam saw a shadowed figure in his vision, so their thoughts are now running more into a curse or vengeful spirit. Sam mentions both their families are cursed, but Dean disagrees, saying they only have their "dark spots". Next step - talking with Max.

Dean and Sam are back in their priest's garb, talking with Max. Sam asks if Jim and Roger used to be close. Max says yes, Roger even used to live next door when he was younger. Dean asks if the family ever went through something unusual? Max becomes upset when he speaks of the old house he and his family used to live in, where his uncle lived next door, but claims that they were totally normal and happy. The boys take off. Outside, Dean and Sam agree Max sounded scared talking about the old neighborhood, and their next stop is to find out what life was like for the Millers.

Dean and Sam speak with an old neighbor, Kenneth Phillips. He tells them Max used to get regularly beaten by both Joe and Roger when he lived there, even breaking Max's arm twice. Alice, his stepmom, never did anything to protect him. He called the cops seven or eight times about it. Dean asks about the stepmother, and Kenneth reveals Max's mother died in a car accident. Out of nowhere, Sam gets a blinding headache. Dean, realizing it is another vision, takes him back to the Impala. Sam is overwhelmed by a vision of Max confronting his stepmother about how she did not stop them. Max levitates a knife and kills her with it, by stabbing her through the eye.

While Dean is driving back to the Millers' to stop Max, Sam finally pieces everything together about Max having telekinetic abilities. He still wants to know why he has these visions about Max and wondered if it is their shared psychic abilities. Dean and Sam clash over how to handle Max - Sam partially sympathizes with Max because of the beatings he went through, while Dean is ready to stop Max, by ending his life. He asks Dean to let him handle it since he is not comfortable with killing Max, a person. Dean agrees to let Sam talk to him, but he grabs his gun, thinking he is not going to let Max hurt anyone else.

They arrive at the house as Sam's vision starts to come true, and they burst into the kitchen, interrupting Max. Sam asks if he could speak to Max outside. On their way out, Max spots Dean's gun in the hall mirror, and decides to stop them. Max slams the door Dean is holding, and closes all the blinds. Dean draws his gun, but Max yanks it from Dean's hand and holds it himself. When Alice asks what is happening, Max tosses her telekinetically into the kitchen island, where she hits her head on the countertop and it knocks her out. Sam calms Max down, and he convinces Max to let Dean take Alice upstairs while they talk for five minutes. Dean is NOT happy about leaving Sam alone with Max, but goes along with it. Dean takes an injured Alice upstairs. Sam and Max talk; Sam trying to convince Max not to kill his stepmother. Max is angry about the beatings and how she never protected him. His dad blamed him for his job, his life, for his mom burning to death over his crib. Sam realizes they are connected, but does not know why. He tells Max that Dean and he are searching for answers, but the stepmother must be let go. Max is tired of being scared. With his abilities he could finally protect himself. Deaf to Sam's pleas to stop killing, Max telekinetically throws Sam in a closet, barricading him in there, and heads upstairs.

Max shows up in the bedroom, closing the door behind him. Dean starts for him, but Max throws him against the wall using his power. Max pulls out Dean's gun. Dean gets up and starts towards him once more, freezing when Max floats the gun. Cocking the gun, it swings towards Alice. Dean steps in front of Max's stepmother, and says he needs to go through him first. Max shoots Dean in the head, with blood splattering across the walls. Dean falls over, dead with a hole in his forehead. A white flash; it was another one of Sam's visions. In response to this horrifying image, Sam discovers a new psychic power as he inadvertently moves the hutch that was blocking the closet door, telekinetically. Sam is shocked, but runs upstairs.

Upstairs, Max threatens Alice and Dean with the gun. Dean claims if Max is going to kill Alice, he will have to go through him. Just as Max is about to shoot Dean, Sam arrives and tells Max it is not going to fix anything. Max then agrees, before he turns the gun on himself.

Later on, a police officer is asking Alice questions, to get the statement straight. She provides a cover story to explain what happened before breaking down and starts to cry about how she lost everyone. The questions stop and Dean and Sam are free to leave. Outside, Sam wishes he could have gotten through to Max somehow, but says that they were lucky to have their dad because they could have had Max's childhood. Dean is surprised to hear Sam say they were lucky they had Dad.

At the motel, while they were packing, Sam wonders why the thing killed their mother, Jessica, and Max's mother. He wonders if the demon is after Max and him both. Dean assures Sam it is not after him, because it would have just taken him. Dean tells Sam this is not his fault, it is not about Sam. It is about the thing that did this to their family, that they will find and that they will kill. Sam reveals he used his own telekinesis to get out of the closet. Dean picks up a spoon and asks him to bend it. Sam cannot control it though, so Dean is sure it will not happen again. Sam asks Dean if he was worried about him, if he could be like Max. Dean assures him that as long as he is around, nothing bad will happen. Dean then cracks they need to take Sam's premonitions to the craps tables in Vegas; they would clean up. Sam throws him a bitchface before walking out. Things seem back to normal, although Dean is clearly worried.