"They just started growing?" Runa said. "When people were first noticing them, was anything odd happening around here? Anything that couldn't be explained? I know every town has its quirks, but I'm looking more along the lines of something unusual for your town. New people suddenly showing up, or someone suddenly up and moving without warning, anything like that."

Sam looked over when Kyra showed up with some books.

"Find anything?" he asked.

"Not that I've heard of," the officer said with a little shrug. "I know a few people have moved to town this year, but none of them have been around the park. Not that I know of." He shrugged again.

"Could we get those names and addresses?" Dean asked. "They might have moved from somewhere these plants grow, or they might recognize the plants."

"Just some carnivorous plants, things like fly traps and such." Kyra huffed. "I've never heard of a plant eating a dog, though."

Runa nodded in agreement.

"We'll need the names and addresses, and anything you or your department has gathered about the plants," she said. The officer nodded.

"There's no lore on anything like this, either," Sam said. "Closest thing at all would be dryads, but even those are humanoid, and they're bound to trees, besides."

Dean waited semi-patiently while the officer got the information for them and printed it out before handing it over. He nodded his thanks and headed for the Impala again.

"Yeah. This is weird, to say the least." Kyra shrugged. "Well, shall we find a table and start looking?"

Runa followed him, leafing through the papers as they headed back for the hotel.

"There's not much here," she said. "Three new homeowners moved in since the new year. And the plants seemed to spring up practically overnight. They didn't start eating flesh for a month, but they grew in hours, it looks like."

Sam nodded and settled in to research.

"Weird. I can't think of any reason for that." Not that Dean was an expert in plants, but still. "Well, think we should go talk to some of the people around the park? See if there's anything we've missed?"

"I want to try to get closer to the plants, at least," Runa said. "Make sure they're not Hell-flowers or something like that." Because the last thing they needed was some sort of demonic plant growing rampant on earth.

"Well then, let's go take a look." Dean settled in his car and headed for the park where the plants were growing. He thought it was about time he got a look at the things, anyway.

"Alright," Runa said. Reaching back into the back seat, she grabbed the pair of jeans she'd stashed back there. "Don't mind me, I'm going to swap my skirt for real jeans."

"I might have to pull over for this," Dean said with a shit-eating grin. But he didn't stop driving (even if he did peek over at her a few times).

"Shut up, you, you've gotten a better view than this before," Runa replied as she shimmied the skirt off and quickly pulled on the jeans instead. "I just refuse to wear a pencil skirt if I have to fight things. I've done it before, it's not fun."

Dean just snickered at her and kept driving to the park, parking the Impala and getting out. The plant was fairly easy to see, since it was much taller than the grass and a much darker green.

Runa was hesitant to approach the plants. They seemed harmless enough, although they did seem to sway in a nonexistent breeze. That set her a bit on edge.

"There's nothing demonic about them," she said as she crept closer. "That's something, at least. Just regular monster stock."

"Yeah." Dean looked at the nearest plant, eyeing it mistrustfully. He debated shooting it for a few moments before deciding no, he was grown up enough to not shoot the plant.

Plus it would attract too much attention.

"So should we fall back on normal monster lore or plant knowledge?" Runa asked. "Monster lore tells us behead, behead, behead, but apparently people already tried tearing these things out. The roots either run deep or are all connected, so it didn't work. So should we fall back on fire?"

"Maybe?" Dean shrugged. "I don't know much about plants. Maybe weed killer?" That was about the best he could come up with at the moment.

"I'll ask next time we talk to the police," Runa said. "But if it were me, I'd have gone to town with weed killer as soon as these things ate a dog." She jerked back, biting back some startled blasphemy, as one of the plants suddenly snapped at her.

"Okay, no, this shit has to go," Dean said, almost pulling his gun on reflex. "Screw this, we're getting a goddamn flamethrower. Come on, I've got the makings back at the hotel." He took a few steps back, eyeing the plant warily.

"Let's check in with Sam first," Runa said. "I'm all for a flamethrower, trust me, but we should be sure it'll work before we set the whole town green on fire."

Dean grumbled but headed back to the Impala so they could check in on Sam and Kyra.

Those two, meanwhile, had gotten bored with research, having found nothing interesting, and had devolved to just chatting.

Sam and Kyra were sitting close enough to an open window that Sam was able to hear the Impala drive up.

"I guess they're back," he said, glancing out the window. "Wonder if they found anything."

"Dunno." Kyra stretched a bit and got up. "I guess we should go see what they want."

Sam nodded and stacked the library books neatly, then followed her outside. He could see Dean's expression, and it wasn't the look Dean wore when things went well.

"What happened?" he asked.

"The damn things are definitely carnivorous," Dean said. "And I don't think it'll be happy with dog meat next time. Please tell me you have some ideas for torching the thing."

"Not much," Sam said. "We haven't been able to find anything on them. Whatever they are, nobody's encountered them before, at least not recently." He paused. "Recently here meaning 'in living memory'."