Trama

Dean gets a second chance to right a wrong from his past when the brothers get a mysterious tip from their father about a case they'd worked years ago, but left unfinished after Sam was nearly killed by the creature.

John Winchester sends the coordinates of Fitchburg, Wisconsin, to Dean and Sam, where children are mysteriously getting sick and their bodies running out. They lodge in a motel, and after their investigation, they realize that a Shtriga, an Albanian witch that feeds of life-force of children, is attacking the local children. Further, The Shtriga is only vulnerable while feeding. When the young brother of Michael, the son of the owner of the motel, is attacked, Dean convinces him to be the bait to kill The Shtriga.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Something Wicked opens in Fitchburg, Wisconsin, a small town of some 20,000 residents. Little Bethany aka Monkeypuss [Chandra Berg] is saying her prayers while her father stands in the doorway. Monkeypuss jumps into bed and asks Dad if Mom is coming home tonight. Dad says no; Mom is going to stay at the hospital with her older sister, who has recently taken ill. After the light is turned out and Monkeypuss tries to fall asleep, she notices the shadows of tree branches outside her window. The branches turn into long bony fingers, and the fingers start to open the window. Soon the fingers are touching the covers on Monkeypuss's bed. Monkeypuss looks up into the eyes of an ugly old witch who starts sucking the lifeforce from Monkeypuss's mouth. Monkeypuss screams.

Dean and Sam have arrived in Fitchburg, although they have no idea why Dad has ordered them there. The only thing unusual is that they see no children playing, even though it's after 4 PM and school is out. Dean sits on a bench next to the one mother who is watching her little girl play on the jungle gym in the park. He comments about the quietness, and the mother tells him how worried everyone is about the sickness that has put six children in the hospital. Thinking this might be the situation earmarked by Dad, the brothers don suits and false IDs and pass themselves off as doctors from the CDC in order to pay a visit to the pediatric ward. While making their way to the ward, Dean notices an old woman sitting in her room. There's an inverted cross on her wall, which immediately raises Dean's suspicions. In the pediatric ward, they are introduced to Dr Hydecker [Adrian Hough], who explains how he originally diagnosed bacterial pneumonia, but the children are unresponsive to antibiotics and their immune systems seem to be wearing out. The spread of the disease is also unusual in that it works its way through a family, but only among the children. Because all six children are unconscious, Dean and Sam ask to interview the parents of the most recent admission. Monkeypuss's father blames the pneumonia on an open window in Bethany's bedroom.

Betting that Mr Monkeypuss will be at the hospital for a while, the boys decide to snoop around the Monkeypuss house. They let themselves in with their lockpicking tools and make their way to Bethany's bedroom. Using their homemade supernatural entity detectors, they find nothing until Sam notices a bony handprint on the outside of Bethany's window. Dean recognizes the handprint immediately. Some 15 years ago, when they were staying in a motel in Fort Douglas, Wisconsin, Dean saw a handprint just like that one after Sam was attacked when Dean was supposed to be babysitting him but was playing videogames instead. Dean has felt guilty about it ever since.

It's a shtriga, Dean explains to Sam, who has no memory of the attack. Since Dean remembers little about the shtriga, other than it's a kind of witch, Sam looks it up on the Internet and learns that a shtriga is a type of witch from Albanian folklore, although legends about them date back to ancient Rome. The website he reads says that they feed on "spiritus vitae," Latin for "breath of life" aka life-force or essence. Shtrigas can feed off anyone, he reads, but they prefer children, and they are invulnerable to "all weapons devised by God and man." Not true, Dean interrupts. She's vulnerable only when she's feeding; she can be killed by blasting her with consecrated iron rounds. Sam continues to read that shtrigas can take on a human disguise, usually the form of a feeble old woman. Dean suddenly remembers the old woman with the inverted cross. Checking the addresses of the afflicted children, he notices that they fall in a circle around the hospital. It's late in the evening, but they decide to pay a visit to the old lady's room. She is asleep in her chair but wakes up when the boys enter her room. They make up a story about being maintenance, and she lights into them about fixing the inverted cross on her wall. Nope, she's not the shtriga, they conclude.

Figuring they're going to be in town for a while, the boys get a room at the Court Motel, where Dean meets a precocius young boy named Michael [Colby Paul], his younger brother Asher, and their Mom Joanna. Dean and Michael form a bond when Dean sees himself (the older brother responsible for the younger brother) in the relationship between Michael and Asher. When Dean finds out the next morning that Asher was just taken to the hospital with pneumonia, he again sees himself as Michael blames himself for not seeing that his little brother's window was latched. While Dean drives Joanna to the hospital, Sam heads over to the library to see what he can find on microfiche. He traces the sickness back to Fort Douglas at about the same time the Winchesters were staying there. Before that, the same thing occurred in Ogdenville. Before that, it happened in North Haverbrook, and before that in Brockway, all spaced at 15-20 year intervals. The earliest episode goes back to 1893 in Black River Falls, and Sam is surprised to see a photo taken during the Black River Falls epidemic that shows Dr Hydecker as one of the attending physicians.

Later, back in their motel room, Dean and Sam come up with a plan. Knowing that the shtriga works through families, it's likely that Michael is going to be the next victim. Since the shtriga is only vulnerable when feeding, Michael is going to have to be bait. Dean tries to explain the situation to Michael, but he refuses--until he admits that he saw the shtriga attack Asher, although he thought he was having a nightmare. Finally, Michael agrees to help because he'll do anything to save his little brother. That night, while Joanna is still at the hospital with Asher, Dean and Sam rig up a videocam focused on Michael's bed. They will watch from the next room and be able to destroy the shtriga before it harms Michael.

It's 3 AM. Michael is still awake; Sam and Dean are vigilant. Suddenly, they notice a long, bony hand outside Michael's window. The window opens, the shtriga enters, and the Winchester boys cock their guns. The shtriga bends over Michael and opens its mouth to suck. Dean and Sam burst into the room. As soon as Michael has rolled off and under the bed, they open fire on the shtriga. The shtriga falls to the floor, but the moment Dean and Sam lower their guns, it tosses Dean across the room and goes for Sam. Just as Sam's spiritus vitae begins to pour from his mouth in the shtriga's, Dean blasts a hole through the shtriga's forehead, followed by three more for good measure. The shtriga vaporizes, leaving behind only its raggy cloak.

Epilogue: The next morning, Dean and Sam are packing the Impala, preparing to leave, when Joanna returns from the hospital with good news. Asher has recovered, as have all the other children. Dr Travis has taken over the ward because Dr Hydecker didn't show up today. Joanna takes a happy Michael to the hospital to visit his little brother, while Dean and Sam bemoan Michael's loss of innocence. [Synopsis by bj_kuehl].