Bearing Witness, SPN, PG-13, Gen
Title: Bearing Witness
Author: Katie/kaethe
Rating: PG-13 for language, violence, general haunted-house gore; gen
Author's notes: Written for the spn_summergen challenge for ignipes. Based on a "real" ghost story (the LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans. Set during season 1, roughly between "Bugs" and "Home".
Summary: Sam and Dean are asked to investigate a haunted house. The only problem? It seems like nothing bad has ever happened at this place. But looks are deceiving...
The road sign claimed it was twenty miles to Gattsburg. Which meant, Dean figured, that they'd been driving about forty minutes from the last town. At approximately 5,000 trees per mile, he'd seen enough of them to build his own Old West town. And not just some one-street dot on the prairie, either. No, this was Tombstone material. Complete with saloons, jails, and plenty left over for as many O.K. Corrals as the ghosts of the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday could ever want.
Dean was tired of trees. Tired and terribly, terribly bored after three days of nothing but driving, and at least for the last day, no scenery except trees. With Sam's attention focused on the laptop almost that entire time, Dean had run out of things to entertain himself with and was reduced to counting trees. Sam definitely owed him.
"You owe me," Dean said.
Sam didn't look up from the screen. "Huh?"
Dean reached over to poke Sam's shoulder. "You. Owe me. Big time."
"How'd you figure that?"
The jerk sounded distracted, like he wasn't taking Dean seriously. Dean hated that.
"Because I'm doing all the driving and you're just sitting over there being boring. You're supposed to keep me entertained. That's part of the job description."
"Hmm."
"And you suck at it, dude. The trees are more interesting than you are."
"Uh-huh."
Dean glanced at his brother suspiciously. Either Sam was being deliberately aggravating, or--
"You're over there playing Minesweeper, aren't you?"
Sighing, Sam scrubbed a hand over his face. "No, Dean, I'm working. You remember the haunted house job you insisted we take? When we could be following a lead that takes us to Dad, not that that's important or anything."
Dean's eyebrows shot up. "Remind me not to skip the coffee next time I buy us breakfast."
"This isn't about coffee, it's about staying focused on what we're here to do. How are we ever going to find Dad if we keep running off in all directions after whatever ghost or demon has decided to be a problem this week?" Sam grimaced like maybe he'd actually thought about what he'd just said. "Okay, so maybe demons need to be dealt with fast, but ghosts? Pretty much by definition aren't going anywhere. I don't see why they can't wait until we get done with more important things."
Dean turned to stare at him. "You're serious, aren't you? I thought you were just being pissy, but you're really serious."
"You don't think finding Dad is worth getting serious over? Dude, you're the one who came to me for help in finding him. Now it's like you don't even care anymore. Any excuse to go off--"
Dean's fingers tightened on the steering wheel as he fought to keep his voice level. "How many times are we going to have this conversation, Sam? Do you really think I don't want to find Dad?"
When Sam didn't answer, Dean looked over at him. Sam's mouth was pulled into that tight line that meant he didn't like the direction his thoughts were taking him.
"No," Sam said finally. "I know you want to find him. But--"
"Then, what? When that guy called us about the haunted house, you didn't think the fact that he had kids getting mysteriously scratched and bruised and scared out of their minds made it an urgent case?"
"I think he should have gotten the kids out of the house so they'd be safe."
Dean rolled his eyes. "He called us from a motel, dude. But they can't exactly live there the rest of their lives."
Sam muttered something that sounded a lot like, "We had to," but Dean wasn't in the mood for that particular argument. In fact, he was wishing he'd just stuck to counting trees.
Sam sighed again. "Look, I know you're right, okay? This case needs to be dealt with. So did the last one, and so will the next one. I'm just--it doesn't seem like we're getting any closer, you know? Wherever Dad is, we're still as far from finding him as we were the night you broke into my apartment."
"Well," Dean shrugged, "we've made a little progress. At least now we know where he's not."
Sam made a huffing sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "Oh, yeah. That's progress, all right."
**
Sam was willing to admit that maybe he was a little under-caffeinated. Not to mention sleep-deprived and stressed and tired of sitting in a car without enough leg room, squinting at a laptop monitor that wasn't designed to be viewed in the ever-changing sunlight that streamed through the windshield. And maybe, just maybe, he was a little cranky as a result. It was also possible that he was taking his mood out on Dean, but wasn't that in the fraternal job description?
What was giving him a headache at the moment was an integral part of the hunting job description: research. Whenever they'd been near a wireless connection, he'd downloaded whatever information he could find on the history of Gattsburg and the antebellum house they were going to investigate. In between the times when he could get online, he read the files he'd downloaded.
The history of the town was interesting enough, especially during the Civil War period, but it didn't seem to have much about it that was paranormal. Sam had thought he'd hit the jackpot when he found that Gattsburg had a historical preservation society and that someone in that society liked to make webpages. Unfortunately, even though the site mentioned the possibly haunted house, the "historic Dupree Farm", it didn't give a hint that the house might have ghosts. In fact, all it did was give a brief description and say "more information coming soon." Sam couldn't find any records of grisly murders, epidemics, or even a Civil War battle that might explain why the dead were still hanging around. The lack of information didn't mean they weren't dealing with a ghost, but it did leave Sam with a bad taste in his mouth. He didn't like working blind.
Dean just shrugged when Sam told him what he hadn't learned.
"We've worked with less information. At least we've got a place where the action's happening."
"I guess it's better than just working from coordinates," Sam agreed. "Maybe we'll get lucky and that guy--what was his name?"
"Kurt Foster."
"--Kurt Foster will have more information than what he gave us on the phone."
Dean nodded at the Gattsburg city limits sign on the side of the road. "Looks like we'll be finding out soon."
The hotel where Kurt Foster was staying with his family was near the edge of town. It was a typical roadside motel, upscale enough to advertise a swimming pool but otherwise not any different from the ones Sam had spent a good portion of his life in. Dean pulled the Impala into a parking space in front of room 114, the room number Kurt Foster had given them. Sam unfolded his legs and got out of the car with a sigh of relief. He tried to ignore Dean smirking at him over the hood as he stretched the kinks out of his limbs.
"Getting old there, Sammy."
"You'll always be older."
"And wiser, and better looking," Dean agreed. "But don't let that discourage you."
"Believe me, it doesn't." Sam matched him smirk for smirk for a moment, then let it go with a laugh. "Shall we see what Mr. Foster has to say?"
Kurt Foster turned out to be a man in his late thirties or early forties, with shaggy brown hair and a worried look on his otherwise kindly face. He invited them into the air-conditioned hotel room, a double that was strewn with the belongings of a family trying to fit their entire lives into one room and a bathroom. Twin teddy bears sat on one bed along with a pile of coloring books, and the vanity was covered in toothbrushes, make-up, and the contents of a shaving kit. Peanut butter and jelly jars sat next to a loaf of white bread on the dresser, along with a variety of children's snack packs and a cooler. Sam couldn't help a visceral sense of uneasiness. Dad would have tore Dean and him both a new one if they'd left their hotel room in such an unready state. Being prepared to bug out at a moment's notice was such a basic part of their lives that even at Stanford it had been more than a year before Sam completely unpacked.
Sam pulled his attention back from the memories and focused on Kurt, who was gesturing them to the chairs at the tiny dining table by the window.
"My wife has our two girls down at the pool," Kurt said. "It's probably for the best. They--the girls--were pretty shaken up by what happened at the house. They're just starting to put it behind them."
"Why don't you fill us in on just what happened?" Dean suggested.
Kurt sighed as he sat on the edge of the bed. "Like I told you on the phone, my wife and I just bought this new house over the Christmas holidays. The Dupree Farm. It seemed perfect for us. My wife and I are both teachers, and we just got jobs here in Gattsburg. We wanted the girls to grow up somewhere that they could run outside and see something besides asphalt, you know? And Marsha and I were sick of driving for an hour or more to get to a job that was twenty miles away. We moved in before the semester started, and we've been working on repairs and redecorating in the evenings and on weekends. This week is Spring Break. We were planning on getting a lot done."
Sam watched Dean's fingers drum lightly on the table and interrupted gently. "When did you first notice something strange happening?"
"Almost from the beginning. We just didn't realize at the time that it was something more than the problems that came from the remodeling and the fact that the house was nearly two hundred years old." Kurt grimaced. "I'm a math teacher. I always prided myself on being logical, not superstitious. So when things ended up broken or out of place from where we'd put them, I thought it was my wife and I being absent-minded or the girls getting into things. But then it started getting worse."
When Kurt paused, looking nervously at his hands, Sam leaned forward to prompt him. "What happened?"
Kurt took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "First, it was just stuff like Marsha falling off the ladder when she was painting a room. She said it felt like someone shook the ladder. She wasn't really hurt and we laughed about it. A few days later, I fell down the stairs. Right before I went down, I could have sworn someone pushed me, but I was the only person in the house at the time. I just attributed it to imagination and felt lucky that I only had a few bruises.
"Then, about a week ago, my oldest daughter, Heather, woke up with scratches on her arm that hadn't been there when she went to bed. They looked like marks from human nails, but they were too far apart for them to have been done by Heather scratching herself in her sleep or for Abby--my younger daughter--to have done it. They looked like they were from an adult hand. Marsha and I tried to remember if either of us had somehow grabbed her roughly on accident; we'd been playing tag and catching fireflies outside the night before, so we finally decided that one of us must have done it even though we couldn't remember any time when it could have happened.
"The next morning, Abby woke up with bruises on her legs. They were in the shape of a hand, too, but it was too big for either of the girls and too small for Marsha or me. We still thought there had to be a rational explanation for whatever was going on, you know? I actually thought about the possibility that someone might be slipping into the girls' room at night through the window we'd left open, and then I thought it was too crazy an idea to report to the police without more evidence. Marsha and I decided that she would bring the girls into town and stay here at the motel for a few days while I kept working on the house. We told the girls it was a vacation."
"So what made you decide you had a ghost?" Dean asked.
"This."
Kurt reached down and pulled up his pants' leg. Just above his ankle, he was missing a strip of skin that ran for more than an inch across. The unusual thing about the cut was how it was a perfect rectangle with surgically precise edges.
"I woke up in the middle of the night. I was alone in the house. Marsha had taken the girls to the motel, so I wasn't really sure what had woken me up. It was so strange. I was lying there, I know I was awake, but then this, this shadow leaned over me. I couldn't move, but I wasn't really scared, you know? It was like I was dreaming the whole thing. I felt a hand on my leg--" Kurt shuddered. "I felt it trace that shape, and then there was this sharp, burning pain that woke me up all the way. The shadow had disappeared, and I had this. I couldn't come up with a rational explanation for this."
He gestured at his leg, his hand shaking.
"Ghosts are a rational explanation," Dean said in what Sam thought was supposed to be a comforting tone. "Just not one most people expect."
Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes. As a therapist, Dean made a great ghost hunter.
"Is there anything that you know of in the house's history that might lead to a restless spirit?" Sam asked. "A murder, someone dying young--"
"Native American burial grounds, insane relatives locked up in the attic," Dean added helpfully.
Kurt shook his head. "Not that I know of. But then, my wife and I haven't had as much time as we want to learn about the history of the place. I do know that there's an old family cemetery on the property where various members of the original Dupree family are buried along with some of their slaves. We walked out to see it one evening. It's pretty interesting, with all the old headstones. But the real estate agent never mentioned any tragedies in the Farm's history."
"Imagine that."
Sam shot Dean a hopefully repressive scowl.
"We'll just have to go out and see what we can find," he said to Kurt, ignoring Dean's "who, me?" look.
"Of course. I'll give you the keys and directions." Kurt looked back down at his hands. "I'd rather not go back out there myself."
Sam could see Dean's relief at that statement; he felt the same way. It was easier dealing with ghosts when they didn't have to protect people who didn't know what they were doing.
Kurt was more than happy to send them out to the Dupree Farm with keys to everything and permission to poke into anything they wanted. It was close enough to nightfall that they decided they'd spend the night at the house and see if they could spot any paranormal activity. After getting enough fast food to hold them for a while, they followed Kurt's directions out of town.
The Dupree Farm had an appropriately spooky setting. Dupree Road was only one lane wide and trailed off into dirt more than a mile from the house. It wound through ancient, looming trees that grudgingly opened up to show a large, two-story white plantation-style house with empty, glaring windows. Sam suppressed a shudder, glancing over at Dean quickly to see if his brother had noticed his unease. Luckily, it seemed like Dean was more interested in the house.
"What do you think?" Sam asked.
Dean shrugged as he pulled the Impala into the driveway. "The description sounded sort of like a poltergeist. That, or a really unhappy spirit."
"The house has been here long enough to have its fair share of those," Sam agreed. "Guess we won't know till we go inside."
"Then what are we waiting for?"
**
Dean liked old houses. In spite of the occasional angry ghost, old houses usually had a sense of history and permanence that just hadn't had time to wear into newer structures. From the moment he put his foot on the steps leading up to the veranda, Dean could feel the past of the Dupree house hanging heavy in the air. So many feet had climbed these steps, so many lives had spun out their threads across these hardwood floors. Such things left an imprint on the house, a faint energy that hinted at how 'family' and 'home' could be enduring concepts. Whenever he felt the bitter taint of an angry spirit overlay that sense of history, he took it as a personal insult.
"Hey, Dean. You okay?" Sam called from the front door, frowning down at where Dean still stood on the steps.
Dean took the rest of the steps at a jog. "Yeah. Just trying to remember if I got the EMF meter out of the trunk."
Sam's expression shifted to his patented "what an idiot" look. He held up the black duffel bag they carried equipment in. "You gave it to me, remember? Along with everything else."
"Well, I've got the house keys to keep track of," Dean said, knowing it was a lame response even as he said it. The house's negative vibes were distracting him. To make up for his lack of coolness, he added, "Anyway, it's the assistant's job to carry the bags. Although, next time, I want my assistant to be blonde and curvy, if you know what I mean."
Sam rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I bet Pamela Anderson is a whole lot of help when it comes to getting rid of ghosts. And if I'm your assistant, I want a raise and dental, at the very least."
Dean sighed deeply as he tried out the keys on the door lock. "I bet Pam wouldn't be this much trouble. She'd want more interesting fringe benefits, too." He wiggled his eyebrows to make sure Sam got his meaning.
"You're such a pervert."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
Finally, the key that Dean was trying turned in the lock, and the door opened. Stepping through the doorway, he gave a faint whistle as he took in the scope of the house. He and Sam were standing in an enormous entryway that held a large, flared central staircase leading up to a second floor landing. From the landing, balconies stretched out like the legs of a U along the left and right walls to give access to the second-story rooms. On the first floor, the U shape was repeated, with rooms and a narrow hallway running back past the stairway on either side. From the depth of the halls, it looked like there was at least one room behind the wall that supported the stairway, along the base of the U. The smell of reconstruction, of paint and sawdust and cleaner, held an undertone of dust and time.
"Hell of a house," Sam said. "No pun intended."
Dean rolled his eyes before he nodded. "Foster said they got an amazing deal on it because it had been sitting empty for so long. Guess the former owners got tired of uninvited tenants."
"So they just dumped their ghosts on an unsuspecting family."
"The gift that keeps on giving." Dean walked over and sat on the stairs. "Let's eat, then we can take a tour."
The hamburgers and fries had grown cold on the drive out to the house, but Dean was hungry enough to wolf his down in a few bites. Sam did the same as he walked idly around the entryway, pausing from time to time to look out the window or poke his head into one of the rooms on either side.
"This one's where they're storing their furniture," he reported from the room on the right. "It's wall-to-wall dust covers in here."
"At least the ghosts have supplies if they want to play Casper." Dean grinned at the disgusted look Sam shot him.
Dean stuffed the last of his fries in his mouth and hooked the supply bag with his foot, pulling it over so that he could dig through it. The EMF meter was a given, along with flashlights for when it got dark. Baggies of salt to complement the cigarette lighters he and Sam already carried. Plastic bottles filled with holy water that hooked onto their belts, and small containers of lighter fluid that easily fit into jacket pockets. Two sawed-off shotguns that he quickly loaded with rock salt and handed off to Sam, who came over to him still licking his fingers from the fries. And Sam always said Dean didn't have any manners.
Dean turned on the EMF meter, which immediately started the low hum that indicated there was electricity somewhere close by. No immediate spikes, though, so he led the way into the first room on the left, intending to do a complete circuit of the bottom floor before looking upstairs where most of the Fosters' run-ins with the paranormal had happened. Sam followed, skimming his fingers over whatever surfaces interested him. Dean had never figured that habit out, even though Sam had been doing it since he was old enough to walk. It didn't matter if they were investigating a haunted house or staying in a new motel room. Sam had to touch, had to look out the windows and through the doors, running his fingers along the wood frames, tables, lamps--anything within reach.
Nothing showed up on the EMF meter in the first room, where the smell of chemicals, scattered buckets and tools, and partially stripped wallpaper showed the Fosters' attempts at renovation. The next room along the line was probably intended to be a dining room, based on the intricate crystal chandelier and the fancy but hideous wallpaper.
"Thank God the sixties are over," Sam said, tracing an embossed grape on the wall.
Dean snorted his agreement as he moved into the third room, a small sunroom or breakfast area with French doors that led out to a patio. Next was the kitchen that stretched along the back of the house. Obvious signs of the Fosters' inhabitance were all over the room--a round table with four chairs; the counter holding pots, pans, and dishes; relatively recent appliances that made the EMF meter hum happily. Then, finally, as Dean walked around to the inner wall and ran the EMF meter across the heavy door there, the humming rose to a squeal.
Dean grinned. "It's about time."
"What do you think is behind there?" Sam asked.
"It's up against the stairs on the other side, so there can't be much. Maybe a pantry?"
Sam came up behind Dean and looked over his shoulder at the door. "Why so many locks on a pantry?"
Sam had a point, Dean had to admit. Aside from the lock in the doorknob, there were also two dead bolts; all of them looked positively antique.
"Maybe they didn't want their food escaping?" Dean shrugged as he pulled out the keys Kurt Foster had given him. One worked in the doorknob lock, but nothing would budge the dead bolts.
"Want me to deal with it?"
As Dean looked back at him, Sam wiggled his eyebrows and his fingers in a way that was probably supposed to make him look like a hip cat burglar, but really just made him look like he had a tic.
"Yeah, why don't you 'deal with it'," Dean made the same fingers back at Sam, "while I check out the rest of the house."
"Don't get eaten by any ghosts."
"I'll try not to."
Dean made his way through the rest of the downstairs, finding a laundry room, a half-bath, and two more rooms that were probably parlors or studies, the last of which held the furniture Sam had noticed earlier. He detoured into the kitchen again to find Sam working on the second lock.
"Let me know when you get the door open," Dean said.
"Mm-hm," Sam mumbled around the pick in his mouth.
"Don't go down there without me."
Sam rolled his eyes and made a shooing motion with one hand.
Upstairs, Dean found two rooms on each side of the U and two rooms across the back, each set with a bathroom in between them. He found a king-sized mattress and box springs in the master bedroom and a pair of twin mattresses in the front left room, along with open suitcases in both rooms. It looked like the Fosters were doing their own version of camping out while they worked on their house.
It was in the girls' room that the EMF meter started squealing again. Dean couldn't find a specific spot that the electro-magnetic waves were emanating from. They seemed to be coming from all over the room, or else had just dissipated in the time that had passed since the paranormal activity. Whatever the situation was, Dean had evidence to support the Fosters' claims and two places, the bedroom and whatever was behind the mystery door, to focus the investigation.
He heard footsteps coming up the stairs and smiled. Sam was pretty good with those picks; maybe he should have tried a career as a cat burglar after all.
"Hey, Sammy, I got EMF readings in this bedroom. What did you find?" he called.
When he didn't hear an answer, he shut off the meter and stepped out onto the balcony that ran the length of the rooms. From that perspective, he could see the entire staircase and landing. No one was there.
"Sam?" he called again. "Sam?"
"What?" Came the reassuring answer. "You okay?"
"Yeah. I found something. How about you?"
"Not much. I'm coming up."
**
Sam heard Dean walking up the stairs, a heavy tread that sounded like it was right over his head. Then the creak of old floorboards as Dean walked around. Sam imagined he could follow Dean's movements even if he were blind.
Turning his attention back to the locks, Sam eased his pick across the pins, feeling for the give that would tell him he was on the right track. Just . . . there. A few more, and the bolt slid back. Sam gave a satisfied sigh as he stood and stretched, then winced as his shoulders popped. At least Dean wasn't around to tell him he was getting old again.
As he was putting his tools back in their case, Dean's footsteps thumped right overhead and the door cracked open with a sound like a sigh. Frowning, Sam pulled it open further, peering into a darkness that just barely showed a set of stone stairs leading down. A basement rather than a pantry, then. Sam picked up his flashlight from where he'd laid it on the floor and pointed it downward. All he could see was the narrow steps; the blackness was too thick for the flashlight beam to illuminate anything else.
He started to lean in and see if he could see all the way to the bottom. Almost immediately, he caught an odor that made him wince. Musty, sour, and yet somehow sickly sweet, it was the smell of air gone stagnant and rotten. Sam pulled back. There was no telling how long it had been since the door had been opened. With a job that led into old, abandoned places frequently, Sam had learned early about the dangers of bad air. A few hours of ventilation would do the basement a world of good.
Stepping back, he glanced around the kitchen and spotted a wooden stool under the window. It looked sturdy enough to prop the basement door open. He went over to retrieve it, his eyes straying across the window and the dark face of a young girl staring at him.
Sam jumped so violently that he dropped the stool on his foot. By the time he was done hopping and cursing, the only thing at the window was the white lace curtains that looked like they might have been hung when the house was new. Sam sighed. There was no real way to know if he'd actually seen anything other than the curtains. It was a weird testament to how his life worked that he was more likely to assume ghosts than moving fabric when he saw something in the window.
"Sam?"
The yell came from upstairs, and there was an edge to Dean's voice that made Sam's shoulders tense instinctively.
"Sam?"
"What?" Sam shoved the stool in front of the basement door and started toward the stairs. "You okay?"
He relaxed marginally when Dean called back, "Yeah. I found something. How about you?"
Sam glanced back at the window, but it showed nothing but innocent glass and lace.
"Not much. I'm coming up."
He jogged up the stairs and found Dean in one of the bedrooms, running the EMF meter along the back wall of the closet.
"What've you got?" he asked, leaning against the door jam.
Dean glanced over his shoulder before going back to his investigation.
"There was something in this room for sure. The EMF reading is even higher than downstairs. For some reason, it's really strong here in this closet."
"Any idea what?"
Dean shrugged.
"Not a clue, dude. Not a clue. So, what was behind Door Number Two?"
Sam filled him in on the state of the basement and the maybe-ghost in the window. As he finished, Dean came out of the closet--Sam manfully refrained from commenting--and dropped down to sit cross-legged on the mattress by the wall. Dropping the EMF meter beside him, he ran a hand through his hair and sighed.
"So. We've got creepy curtains, creaky stairs, and something making the EMF squeal. That's not much to go on."
"Well, then, what do you want to do?" Sam asked. "We need research, but it's kind of late to head back into town and hit up the local library."
"Right. But since it's night anyway and ghosts tend to screw around more at night, why not just hang out and see what happens? If nothing comes up, we can head into town tomorrow and see what you can dig up."
Sam didn't miss the "you" in that sentence, but he didn't comment on that, either. Dean would gripe, but he would help with the research if there wasn't something more interesting for him to do. He just liked to pretend that he was the intrepid hunter and Sam was lowly research boy.
Sam nodded. "I think little girls that died here might be a good place to start. Assuming I really did see a ghost, then either she might be who we're after, or she could be an earlier victim."
"Makes sense," Dean agreed. "You want first watch or first sleep?"
Sam took first watch; he hadn't been sleeping much lately anyway. Dean, on the other hand, had driven all day and looked worn out. While Dean brushed his teeth and curled up on the mattress, Sam wandered around the upstairs and then back to the first floor. The basement still had the same overpoweringly musty odor. The window still had curtains and nothing else. Everything was quiet and distinctly not haunted.
After more than an hour of nothing happening, Sam had walked around the house so many times he'd lost count. He was bored enough that he was almost ready to see a ghost. Almost. He could imagine what his father would say to that. John Winchester liked kicking ghost ass more than just about anything, but he'd never wish for one, not even as a joke. John Winchester never took the job anything less than seriously. It had driven Sam crazy before he went to Stanford. Lately, though, the longer he looked for his father, he found himself vaguely missing his father's determination and confidence. It was reassuring to know his dad was there, directing the hunt and keeping one eye on him and the other on Dean while somehow still keeping both on their target.
Of course, Sam thought as he went to grab his laptop, if his dad had been there, he would have been telling Sam to review the information they had, and Sam would have been resenting the hell out of his authoritarian mannerisms. They'd probably end up scaring the ghosts off with their yelling at each other. With a private smirk, Sam pulled up the files he'd saved on the Dupree Farm and Gattsburg. Maybe he hadn't found anything obvious before, but that didn't mean there wasn't something in the local history that might prove useful at some point.
Before long, he was lost in the story of the town's founding, which incidentally was driven by the Dupree family. Apparently, they were one of the main families in this area, and the Farm had once been fairly decent-sized, complete with five or six field slaves. The Dupree family hosted dinner parties and soirees; they helped the poor, practically paid for the construction of the church, and occasionally participated in local politics. On the one hand, their status in the community was promising, because any major events that happened at the Dupree Farm were likely to be reported in the news. On the other hand, all Sam had access to at the moment were the files from a few historical and tourism sites that essentially gave summaries of the area's history. He didn't have any actual text from newspapers of the time or other primary sources, which was what he really needed. He could only hope that the resources in town would be better than what he'd been able to find so far.
Suddenly, a shout from upstairs broke the silence. Heart pounding, Sam all but dropped the laptop as he rose and dashed for the stairs.
**
Dean's dream was one of the type he wished he could have every night. A woman was leaning over him. Her face was obscured by her long, wavy black hair, but her scent was a subtle floral and the smooth curve of her arm hinted at greater delights. He could feel the silken touch of her hair as it brushed across his chest. The woman's lips touched his, sending a shiver down his spine.
Out of nowhere, a trail of cold fire ran across his collarbone.
"Son of a bitch!" Dean yelled, lunging upward.
He reached for the shotgun by his bed as he looked wildly around the room. There was nothing to suggest that he'd had a visitor, supernatural or otherwise. He could hear feet pounding on the stairs, but they were coming closer, not running away. Sam's "Dean!" confirmed what Dean had already guessed. He lowered the gun to make sure he wasn't pointing it at the door as Sam burst in, his own gun ready.
"What the hell?" Sam gasped, looking around just as Dean had done.
"I think I just had a run-in with our ghost," Dean said, pulling out the collar of his t-shirt in an effort to see what was making his collarbone sting. It was an awkward angle; as best he could tell, he had what looked like scrapes from fingernails, three bright red marks that were beading up with drops of blood.
Sam was still peering into corners like he expected to see Casper. After another minute of no apparitions, however, he gave up and crossed the room to look at Dean's wounds.
"Friendly," he commented. "Want me to put some alcohol on those?"
"I don't know, do you think I can get an infection from something that's already dead?" Dean asked, but he didn't argue when Sam grabbed the alcohol and cotton swabs out of his duffel and dabbed them on Dean's scrapes.
"Was your 'something dead' a little girl somewhere between eight and twelve years old? Wearing some kind of bonnet-like thing?" Sam asked as he put the medical supplies away. "Because that's what I thought I saw in the window downstairs."
Dean shrugged. "I didn't see anything. Just woke up when this happened." He gestured at his scratches. "Too bad. I think I was dreaming about Rachel Bilson."
"Why is it I get pre-teens ghosts and you get dreams about Rachel Bilson?"
"At least your ghost didn't try to skin you."
Sam raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at Dean's scrapes, but said only, "It's a pretty safe guess that yours is the one that the Fosters were having trouble with, don't you think?"
Dean nodded. "Yeah. The cuts on Foster's leg are similar enough to what it did to me. That at least gives us a directly to look in tomorrow. You think it was your little girl?"
"I don't know. Child spirits aren't necessarily any nicer than grown-up ones. I guess we'll just have to see what we can find out tomorrow."
Dean glanced at his watch. "It's nearly midnight. You want to get some sleep? I'll stay in here in case something comes back."
Sam looked doubtful for a moment before shrugging. "Yeah, I guess. Whatever it is seems to like sleepers. Maybe it'll come while I'm out and you can get it with the rock salt."
"As plans go, that may be the dumbest I've heard in a while," Dean said pleasantly, then ducked the pillow Sam threw at him. "I'm just saying, what if I missed? You'd be blasted full of tiny, salty holes."
"Yeah, like you'd miss." Sam shook his head disdainfully. "Yell if you see anything dead, okay?"
In minutes, Dean was left with his shotgun and the sound of Sam's muffled snores.
**
Sam was walking through the dark hallway that led to the main staircase. He wasn't sure why the lights were off. Before Dean had gone to sleep earlier that night, they'd agreed to leave the lights on in case of ghost attack or other emergencies. But now, the only lights in the hall came from the window at the front of the house, a dim, bluish moonlight that made the shadows look as if they were moving.
Dean was down in the basement. Sam really didn't feel right about him being down there by himself, even though Dean was probably one of the most capable human beings he knew when it came to taking care of himself. Still, the basement gave Sam a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, a vague intuition that something down there wasn't right. He walked a little faster as he turned around the balustrade and started down.
The boy was standing about half way down the stairs, his back to Sam. The moonlight made his loose-sleeved white shirt almost seem to glow. Some part of Sam knew that running into a kid on the stairs shouldn't be happening, but the greater portion of his mind accepted the situation as normal. There were people all over the house; why wouldn't this boy have stopped on the stairs?
With an odd slowness, the boy turned to look at Sam. His eyes were pits of blackness, opened wide and pleading, and his mouth gaped in a silent scream. He held something out, as if asking Sam to take it from him.
Two things came to Sam at once: first, that the object in the boy's hands wasn't rope, as he'd first thought. It was a long, coiled strip of skin, still glistening with blood. And second, the boy's shirt was hanging open, showing the path on his thin chest where the skin had been carefully, precisely cut away.
Instinctively, Sam reached out to take the boy's burden. Only at the last minute did it occur to him what he was taking. He started to jerk his hand away, and in that instant, the boy disappeared. Feeling oddly relieved, Sam continued down the stairs, hurrying just a bit faster than before. He really needed to get to Dean.
He was practically running by the time he reached the kitchen. The basement door stood open. A light had apparently been turned on in the basement; yellow brightness spilled across the floor in an almost welcoming manner. Sam approached cautiously, squinting down the stairs in the hope that he'd see Dean grinning up at him. But the light was too strong after so long in the dark. Sam's eyes watered and he couldn't see anything. Throwing caution to the wind, he started down the stairs, keeping one hand on the brick wall beside him as he took the steep steps two at a time.
The room had a hard-packed dirt floor and brick walls. At least some of the bricks looked old enough to be original to the house. Sam took the details in as he glanced around the room, looking for his brother. Only Dean wasn't there. The only thing in the basement, as a matter of fact, was a table down at the far end where the light didn't quite reach. Something was on the table, but it was the wrong shape for a human. Totally the wrong shape, because humans didn't have wings.
Wishing that Dean was there to watch his back, Sam started toward the end of the basement slowly. He needed to see what was on that table, yet he knew he didn't want to. The urge to run away was so strong it was all Sam could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Inexorably, he drew closer to the table until he could see what was lying there.
At first, the only thing his brain would let him recognize was feet--a man's feet, bare and white in the dim light, with a sprinkle of black hair across the arch. Long, strong legs, clad in blood-soaked jeans. Above the jeans--at first, he couldn't comprehend, and then the side of his brain that learned torts and codes and methods for disposing of poltergeists took over. It catalogued the ribs, obviously separated from the spine because they'd been raised on both sides to splay out like wings. It noted the emptiness under the ribs and how the area seemed almost to have been cleaned, as if whoever had removed the lungs had washed out the body cavity. It took in the arms, stretched above the corpse's head, and how the wrists were stripped raw from fighting against the rope. It even supplied a name, dug from some memory of research long ago: the blood eagle.
But even disassociation could only get him so far. Nothing could protect him from the face of the victim on that table. Sam's whole body was freezing cold and trembling. It felt like he was floating as he took that last step forward and saw.
"Daddy?"
The word tore from his throat, ice-edged. It was horror and denial at the same time. But John didn't stir, didn't open his eyes, didn't sit up and tell Sam it was all a joke. He simply lay there, face waxen and grayish-white and pulled tight with pain. Sam took another step, reaching out, hoping against all his senses that his touch would make the horror disappear as the boy on the stairs had.
His father's cheek was cold and unyielding, not like human skin at all. But Sam knew death, and he knew he was touching it now. And it wouldn't, didn't go away.
**
Dean was bored. There had been no more ghostly visitors. Nothing except Sam snoring away on the other mattress--which Dean was grateful for, yes, because Sam hadn't slept nearly enough since Jess died. But it still wasn't entertaining. Dean was a man of action, not a man of sitting around counting his brother's inhalations. If something didn't happen soon, he was going to--
And then, with a half-gasp, half-shout, Sam sat straight up. Dean grabbed for the shotgun, ready to blast some ectoplasmic ass. Only Sam wasn't bleeding from any mysterious scrapes, he was rubbing at his eyes in a way that Dean had become all too familiar with in the past several weeks.
"Nightmare?" he asked.
Sam blinked at him like he had no idea who Dean was. Sam never had woken up well. It took a minute for recognition to set in, and then Sam gave a jerky nod. Abruptly, he clambered to his feet and stumbled out the door. Dean was just about to follow him when he heard the water running in the bathroom next door. A few moments later, Sam came back in, the strands of hair around his face wet from where he'd splashed water on himself. He dropped onto the mattress beside Dean, mirroring his posture--back against the wall, knees up, hands in his lap, except Dean couldn't help but notice that Sam's fingers were laced together so tightly that they were turning white and his breath was still a little too fast.
"You okay?" Dean asked, more to get Sam talking than because he didn't already know the answer. Sam hadn't been "okay" since the night his world went up in flames for the second time in his life.
Sam just shrugged. Obviously he was going to make Dean work for any response. Dean sighed. What else was new? It wasn't even like he desperately wanted to have an emo moment with his little brother. He just worried that Sam was getting wound tighter and tighter, and the nightmares only served to confirm his suspicion.
Dean took a deep breath and plunged straight in. "Was it about Jess?"
Sam flinched but shook his head. "No. Just . . . this house. I guess it's getting to me."
Dean eyed him sharply, but Sam was meeting his gaze with no sign that he wasn't telling the truth.
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
Leaning his head back against the wall, Sam was silent for a moment. Dean was just about to declare the emo moment over when Sam asked, "Do you think Dad's okay?"
And that was the sixty-four thousand dollar question, wasn't it? No, Dean didn't totally think their dad was okay; if he had been, they wouldn't have needed to be hunting for him. That just wasn't exactly what Sam needed to hear at the moment.
"I think it would take a hell of a lot to make him not okay," Dean said finally. "I'll feel better when we catch up to him, though."
"Me too."
There was an odd note in Sam's voice, a vulnerability that Dean wasn't used to hearing when it came to their dad. Sam's usual reaction to their father was tension at best, anger at worst. Dean wouldn't have been willing to bet anything important on the notion that Sam missed John, but that was what he was hearing in Sam's voice now. He didn't dare comment for fear of ruining the moment, but he tucked the memory away for the next time they had a fight about their father and he needed something to keep him from kicking Sam's ass.
"You want to get some more sleep?"
Sam's shake of the head was more emphatic this time. "No. No, I'm good."
"Sam--"
A crash from downstairs interrupted Dean's probably futile attempt to reason with Sam. Feeling his pulse pick up, Dean aimed a grin at his brother.
"Feel like a little recon?"
**
The downstairs area was flooded with light and the laptop sat somewhat precariously on the bottom step. Nothing had changed from how Sam had left it when he dashed upstairs. Even so, he couldn't suppress a shudder, tightening his grip on his shotgun as he recalled his dream. But a dream was all it was, not a harbinger of his father's fate. He was sure of it. The visions he hadn't even admitted to Dean that he was having felt different. Aside from the brain-crushing migraine that accompanied them, they also had a more distant feel to them. He watched the visions; he lived his nightmares every night.
"Stick together," Dean said as they reached the bottom of the stairs.
Sam grunted his assent. He really hadn't had any intention of letting Dean out of his sight; he could remember the frantic need to find him all too well. Sticking close, he kept one eye on Dean's back and the other open for any potential threats.
At first glance, it looked like the worst they were going to have to face was a wooden ladder that had fallen in the room where the wallpaper was being stripped. The ladder had apparently crashed into a white plastic bucket and sent it sliding across the floor to land in front of the door. Looking around cautiously, Dean stepped over the bucket as he walked into the room. Sam hung back by the door. He wanted to be able to keep watch on the stairs and the hall leading toward the kitchen. Something was making the hairs on his neck stand on end. While it might be the leftover freakiness from his nightmare, he didn't want to take any chances.
"Find anything?" he asked, glancing back at Dean. The windows on the opposite wall were darkly reflective, a dividing line between the night and the brightness indoors. Dean's image, bending over the ladder with the EMF meter, was oddly incorporeal. Sam looked away quickly, back to the real thing.
"EMF seems to think so," Dean answered over the squeal. "Looks like our friendly neighborhood ghost is either a klutz or wanted our attention."
"Or had a tantrum."
Dean grinned up at him. "Or didn't like the changes in decor."
It was weirdly appropriate that the bucket at Sam's feet chose that moment to rise up and slam into his stomach. By reflex, Sam caught the bucket in his free hand as he stumbled backward.
"Sam?" Dean's voice was sharp, just on the edge of worried.
Sam stepped back into the room.
"Man, everyone's a critic," he said, dropping the bucket back to the floor.
Dean had stood up when the bucket went flying. It was the only thing that saved him from getting bashed in the face as the ladder suddenly jumped and swung around, landing at a ninety degree angle from its previous position. Dean stepped back, bringing the shotgun up into a position where he could turn it on the threat as soon as they figured out where it was coming from. Sam did the same as he moved closer to Dean, stopping where he could cover the part of the room Dean couldn't see.
"Seems like someone's getting pissy." Dean's voice was amused, taunting. Waving a red flag in front of a bull.
"Tantrum, just like I said," Sam agreed, willing to do his part. "Seems like our ghost is a spoiled brat."
Spoiled or not, the ghost didn't seem to take well to constructive criticism. Strips of wallpaper flashed through the air, hitting Sam's face with stinging slaps. He ducked as the bucket hurtled toward him again. It bounced off one of the windows and came back for a second pass. Sam blasted the bucket with rock salt. Even if he didn't hit the ghost, he was getting a little tired of being attacked by a chunk of molded plastic.
Behind him, he heard Dean's gun go off. His ears were ringing from the two blasts so close together. Looking around quickly, he saw the ladder rising off the floor and aiming for Dean, who was too busy battling a step-stool to notice.
"Dean! Duck!"
Dean went down in a smooth move, under the flying ladder and back up again, shooting in that direction while Sam aimed at the area where the ladder came from. The problem was that they were shooting blind. They could see the effects of the ghost, like the filled spray bottle that Sam barely managed to deflect by twisting his hips, but the ghost hadn't incorporated enough to make rock salt shot effective.
"Sam!"
Out of instinct, Sam moved, lunging down and to the side. Something went over his head, clipping his shoulder hard enough that he stumbled. Dean let out a shout that started as a cry of pain and ended as a curse. Before he had his balance back, Sam was already whirling around. But Dean was on his feet, his hand clamped on his forearm. A few feet away, a putty knife was rolling to a stop on the floor.
And as abruptly as that, the onslaught was over. Sam gave it a second, just in case, but Dean had already set his shotgun down and was poking inquisitively at the cut on his arm.
"You okay?" Sam asked.
Dean tilted his arm so that Sam could see the trickle of blood curving down toward his elbow. Stepping closer, Sam grabbed Dean's wrist and turned his arm to get a better look. With a tinge of relief, he saw that the cut was close to two inches long, but not so deep that it would need stitches.
Sam shook his head in mock reproach. "That's what you get for saying someone's pissy."
Dean shrugged. "Sometimes the truth hurts."
"And not always the recipient. Come upstairs and I'll bandage that up."
"This is getting to be a habit," Dean replied grumpily, but he followed Sam upstairs all the same.
( Part 2)
Author: Katie/kaethe
Rating: PG-13 for language, violence, general haunted-house gore; gen
Author's notes: Written for the spn_summergen challenge for ignipes. Based on a "real" ghost story (the LaLaurie Mansion in New Orleans. Set during season 1, roughly between "Bugs" and "Home".
Summary: Sam and Dean are asked to investigate a haunted house. The only problem? It seems like nothing bad has ever happened at this place. But looks are deceiving...
The road sign claimed it was twenty miles to Gattsburg. Which meant, Dean figured, that they'd been driving about forty minutes from the last town. At approximately 5,000 trees per mile, he'd seen enough of them to build his own Old West town. And not just some one-street dot on the prairie, either. No, this was Tombstone material. Complete with saloons, jails, and plenty left over for as many O.K. Corrals as the ghosts of the Earp brothers and Doc Holliday could ever want.
Dean was tired of trees. Tired and terribly, terribly bored after three days of nothing but driving, and at least for the last day, no scenery except trees. With Sam's attention focused on the laptop almost that entire time, Dean had run out of things to entertain himself with and was reduced to counting trees. Sam definitely owed him.
"You owe me," Dean said.
Sam didn't look up from the screen. "Huh?"
Dean reached over to poke Sam's shoulder. "You. Owe me. Big time."
"How'd you figure that?"
The jerk sounded distracted, like he wasn't taking Dean seriously. Dean hated that.
"Because I'm doing all the driving and you're just sitting over there being boring. You're supposed to keep me entertained. That's part of the job description."
"Hmm."
"And you suck at it, dude. The trees are more interesting than you are."
"Uh-huh."
Dean glanced at his brother suspiciously. Either Sam was being deliberately aggravating, or--
"You're over there playing Minesweeper, aren't you?"
Sighing, Sam scrubbed a hand over his face. "No, Dean, I'm working. You remember the haunted house job you insisted we take? When we could be following a lead that takes us to Dad, not that that's important or anything."
Dean's eyebrows shot up. "Remind me not to skip the coffee next time I buy us breakfast."
"This isn't about coffee, it's about staying focused on what we're here to do. How are we ever going to find Dad if we keep running off in all directions after whatever ghost or demon has decided to be a problem this week?" Sam grimaced like maybe he'd actually thought about what he'd just said. "Okay, so maybe demons need to be dealt with fast, but ghosts? Pretty much by definition aren't going anywhere. I don't see why they can't wait until we get done with more important things."
Dean turned to stare at him. "You're serious, aren't you? I thought you were just being pissy, but you're really serious."
"You don't think finding Dad is worth getting serious over? Dude, you're the one who came to me for help in finding him. Now it's like you don't even care anymore. Any excuse to go off--"
Dean's fingers tightened on the steering wheel as he fought to keep his voice level. "How many times are we going to have this conversation, Sam? Do you really think I don't want to find Dad?"
When Sam didn't answer, Dean looked over at him. Sam's mouth was pulled into that tight line that meant he didn't like the direction his thoughts were taking him.
"No," Sam said finally. "I know you want to find him. But--"
"Then, what? When that guy called us about the haunted house, you didn't think the fact that he had kids getting mysteriously scratched and bruised and scared out of their minds made it an urgent case?"
"I think he should have gotten the kids out of the house so they'd be safe."
Dean rolled his eyes. "He called us from a motel, dude. But they can't exactly live there the rest of their lives."
Sam muttered something that sounded a lot like, "We had to," but Dean wasn't in the mood for that particular argument. In fact, he was wishing he'd just stuck to counting trees.
Sam sighed again. "Look, I know you're right, okay? This case needs to be dealt with. So did the last one, and so will the next one. I'm just--it doesn't seem like we're getting any closer, you know? Wherever Dad is, we're still as far from finding him as we were the night you broke into my apartment."
"Well," Dean shrugged, "we've made a little progress. At least now we know where he's not."
Sam made a huffing sound that wasn't quite a laugh. "Oh, yeah. That's progress, all right."
**
Sam was willing to admit that maybe he was a little under-caffeinated. Not to mention sleep-deprived and stressed and tired of sitting in a car without enough leg room, squinting at a laptop monitor that wasn't designed to be viewed in the ever-changing sunlight that streamed through the windshield. And maybe, just maybe, he was a little cranky as a result. It was also possible that he was taking his mood out on Dean, but wasn't that in the fraternal job description?
What was giving him a headache at the moment was an integral part of the hunting job description: research. Whenever they'd been near a wireless connection, he'd downloaded whatever information he could find on the history of Gattsburg and the antebellum house they were going to investigate. In between the times when he could get online, he read the files he'd downloaded.
The history of the town was interesting enough, especially during the Civil War period, but it didn't seem to have much about it that was paranormal. Sam had thought he'd hit the jackpot when he found that Gattsburg had a historical preservation society and that someone in that society liked to make webpages. Unfortunately, even though the site mentioned the possibly haunted house, the "historic Dupree Farm", it didn't give a hint that the house might have ghosts. In fact, all it did was give a brief description and say "more information coming soon." Sam couldn't find any records of grisly murders, epidemics, or even a Civil War battle that might explain why the dead were still hanging around. The lack of information didn't mean they weren't dealing with a ghost, but it did leave Sam with a bad taste in his mouth. He didn't like working blind.
Dean just shrugged when Sam told him what he hadn't learned.
"We've worked with less information. At least we've got a place where the action's happening."
"I guess it's better than just working from coordinates," Sam agreed. "Maybe we'll get lucky and that guy--what was his name?"
"Kurt Foster."
"--Kurt Foster will have more information than what he gave us on the phone."
Dean nodded at the Gattsburg city limits sign on the side of the road. "Looks like we'll be finding out soon."
The hotel where Kurt Foster was staying with his family was near the edge of town. It was a typical roadside motel, upscale enough to advertise a swimming pool but otherwise not any different from the ones Sam had spent a good portion of his life in. Dean pulled the Impala into a parking space in front of room 114, the room number Kurt Foster had given them. Sam unfolded his legs and got out of the car with a sigh of relief. He tried to ignore Dean smirking at him over the hood as he stretched the kinks out of his limbs.
"Getting old there, Sammy."
"You'll always be older."
"And wiser, and better looking," Dean agreed. "But don't let that discourage you."
"Believe me, it doesn't." Sam matched him smirk for smirk for a moment, then let it go with a laugh. "Shall we see what Mr. Foster has to say?"
Kurt Foster turned out to be a man in his late thirties or early forties, with shaggy brown hair and a worried look on his otherwise kindly face. He invited them into the air-conditioned hotel room, a double that was strewn with the belongings of a family trying to fit their entire lives into one room and a bathroom. Twin teddy bears sat on one bed along with a pile of coloring books, and the vanity was covered in toothbrushes, make-up, and the contents of a shaving kit. Peanut butter and jelly jars sat next to a loaf of white bread on the dresser, along with a variety of children's snack packs and a cooler. Sam couldn't help a visceral sense of uneasiness. Dad would have tore Dean and him both a new one if they'd left their hotel room in such an unready state. Being prepared to bug out at a moment's notice was such a basic part of their lives that even at Stanford it had been more than a year before Sam completely unpacked.
Sam pulled his attention back from the memories and focused on Kurt, who was gesturing them to the chairs at the tiny dining table by the window.
"My wife has our two girls down at the pool," Kurt said. "It's probably for the best. They--the girls--were pretty shaken up by what happened at the house. They're just starting to put it behind them."
"Why don't you fill us in on just what happened?" Dean suggested.
Kurt sighed as he sat on the edge of the bed. "Like I told you on the phone, my wife and I just bought this new house over the Christmas holidays. The Dupree Farm. It seemed perfect for us. My wife and I are both teachers, and we just got jobs here in Gattsburg. We wanted the girls to grow up somewhere that they could run outside and see something besides asphalt, you know? And Marsha and I were sick of driving for an hour or more to get to a job that was twenty miles away. We moved in before the semester started, and we've been working on repairs and redecorating in the evenings and on weekends. This week is Spring Break. We were planning on getting a lot done."
Sam watched Dean's fingers drum lightly on the table and interrupted gently. "When did you first notice something strange happening?"
"Almost from the beginning. We just didn't realize at the time that it was something more than the problems that came from the remodeling and the fact that the house was nearly two hundred years old." Kurt grimaced. "I'm a math teacher. I always prided myself on being logical, not superstitious. So when things ended up broken or out of place from where we'd put them, I thought it was my wife and I being absent-minded or the girls getting into things. But then it started getting worse."
When Kurt paused, looking nervously at his hands, Sam leaned forward to prompt him. "What happened?"
Kurt took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "First, it was just stuff like Marsha falling off the ladder when she was painting a room. She said it felt like someone shook the ladder. She wasn't really hurt and we laughed about it. A few days later, I fell down the stairs. Right before I went down, I could have sworn someone pushed me, but I was the only person in the house at the time. I just attributed it to imagination and felt lucky that I only had a few bruises.
"Then, about a week ago, my oldest daughter, Heather, woke up with scratches on her arm that hadn't been there when she went to bed. They looked like marks from human nails, but they were too far apart for them to have been done by Heather scratching herself in her sleep or for Abby--my younger daughter--to have done it. They looked like they were from an adult hand. Marsha and I tried to remember if either of us had somehow grabbed her roughly on accident; we'd been playing tag and catching fireflies outside the night before, so we finally decided that one of us must have done it even though we couldn't remember any time when it could have happened.
"The next morning, Abby woke up with bruises on her legs. They were in the shape of a hand, too, but it was too big for either of the girls and too small for Marsha or me. We still thought there had to be a rational explanation for whatever was going on, you know? I actually thought about the possibility that someone might be slipping into the girls' room at night through the window we'd left open, and then I thought it was too crazy an idea to report to the police without more evidence. Marsha and I decided that she would bring the girls into town and stay here at the motel for a few days while I kept working on the house. We told the girls it was a vacation."
"So what made you decide you had a ghost?" Dean asked.
"This."
Kurt reached down and pulled up his pants' leg. Just above his ankle, he was missing a strip of skin that ran for more than an inch across. The unusual thing about the cut was how it was a perfect rectangle with surgically precise edges.
"I woke up in the middle of the night. I was alone in the house. Marsha had taken the girls to the motel, so I wasn't really sure what had woken me up. It was so strange. I was lying there, I know I was awake, but then this, this shadow leaned over me. I couldn't move, but I wasn't really scared, you know? It was like I was dreaming the whole thing. I felt a hand on my leg--" Kurt shuddered. "I felt it trace that shape, and then there was this sharp, burning pain that woke me up all the way. The shadow had disappeared, and I had this. I couldn't come up with a rational explanation for this."
He gestured at his leg, his hand shaking.
"Ghosts are a rational explanation," Dean said in what Sam thought was supposed to be a comforting tone. "Just not one most people expect."
Sam resisted the urge to roll his eyes. As a therapist, Dean made a great ghost hunter.
"Is there anything that you know of in the house's history that might lead to a restless spirit?" Sam asked. "A murder, someone dying young--"
"Native American burial grounds, insane relatives locked up in the attic," Dean added helpfully.
Kurt shook his head. "Not that I know of. But then, my wife and I haven't had as much time as we want to learn about the history of the place. I do know that there's an old family cemetery on the property where various members of the original Dupree family are buried along with some of their slaves. We walked out to see it one evening. It's pretty interesting, with all the old headstones. But the real estate agent never mentioned any tragedies in the Farm's history."
"Imagine that."
Sam shot Dean a hopefully repressive scowl.
"We'll just have to go out and see what we can find," he said to Kurt, ignoring Dean's "who, me?" look.
"Of course. I'll give you the keys and directions." Kurt looked back down at his hands. "I'd rather not go back out there myself."
Sam could see Dean's relief at that statement; he felt the same way. It was easier dealing with ghosts when they didn't have to protect people who didn't know what they were doing.
Kurt was more than happy to send them out to the Dupree Farm with keys to everything and permission to poke into anything they wanted. It was close enough to nightfall that they decided they'd spend the night at the house and see if they could spot any paranormal activity. After getting enough fast food to hold them for a while, they followed Kurt's directions out of town.
The Dupree Farm had an appropriately spooky setting. Dupree Road was only one lane wide and trailed off into dirt more than a mile from the house. It wound through ancient, looming trees that grudgingly opened up to show a large, two-story white plantation-style house with empty, glaring windows. Sam suppressed a shudder, glancing over at Dean quickly to see if his brother had noticed his unease. Luckily, it seemed like Dean was more interested in the house.
"What do you think?" Sam asked.
Dean shrugged as he pulled the Impala into the driveway. "The description sounded sort of like a poltergeist. That, or a really unhappy spirit."
"The house has been here long enough to have its fair share of those," Sam agreed. "Guess we won't know till we go inside."
"Then what are we waiting for?"
**
Dean liked old houses. In spite of the occasional angry ghost, old houses usually had a sense of history and permanence that just hadn't had time to wear into newer structures. From the moment he put his foot on the steps leading up to the veranda, Dean could feel the past of the Dupree house hanging heavy in the air. So many feet had climbed these steps, so many lives had spun out their threads across these hardwood floors. Such things left an imprint on the house, a faint energy that hinted at how 'family' and 'home' could be enduring concepts. Whenever he felt the bitter taint of an angry spirit overlay that sense of history, he took it as a personal insult.
"Hey, Dean. You okay?" Sam called from the front door, frowning down at where Dean still stood on the steps.
Dean took the rest of the steps at a jog. "Yeah. Just trying to remember if I got the EMF meter out of the trunk."
Sam's expression shifted to his patented "what an idiot" look. He held up the black duffel bag they carried equipment in. "You gave it to me, remember? Along with everything else."
"Well, I've got the house keys to keep track of," Dean said, knowing it was a lame response even as he said it. The house's negative vibes were distracting him. To make up for his lack of coolness, he added, "Anyway, it's the assistant's job to carry the bags. Although, next time, I want my assistant to be blonde and curvy, if you know what I mean."
Sam rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I bet Pamela Anderson is a whole lot of help when it comes to getting rid of ghosts. And if I'm your assistant, I want a raise and dental, at the very least."
Dean sighed deeply as he tried out the keys on the door lock. "I bet Pam wouldn't be this much trouble. She'd want more interesting fringe benefits, too." He wiggled his eyebrows to make sure Sam got his meaning.
"You're such a pervert."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
Finally, the key that Dean was trying turned in the lock, and the door opened. Stepping through the doorway, he gave a faint whistle as he took in the scope of the house. He and Sam were standing in an enormous entryway that held a large, flared central staircase leading up to a second floor landing. From the landing, balconies stretched out like the legs of a U along the left and right walls to give access to the second-story rooms. On the first floor, the U shape was repeated, with rooms and a narrow hallway running back past the stairway on either side. From the depth of the halls, it looked like there was at least one room behind the wall that supported the stairway, along the base of the U. The smell of reconstruction, of paint and sawdust and cleaner, held an undertone of dust and time.
"Hell of a house," Sam said. "No pun intended."
Dean rolled his eyes before he nodded. "Foster said they got an amazing deal on it because it had been sitting empty for so long. Guess the former owners got tired of uninvited tenants."
"So they just dumped their ghosts on an unsuspecting family."
"The gift that keeps on giving." Dean walked over and sat on the stairs. "Let's eat, then we can take a tour."
The hamburgers and fries had grown cold on the drive out to the house, but Dean was hungry enough to wolf his down in a few bites. Sam did the same as he walked idly around the entryway, pausing from time to time to look out the window or poke his head into one of the rooms on either side.
"This one's where they're storing their furniture," he reported from the room on the right. "It's wall-to-wall dust covers in here."
"At least the ghosts have supplies if they want to play Casper." Dean grinned at the disgusted look Sam shot him.
Dean stuffed the last of his fries in his mouth and hooked the supply bag with his foot, pulling it over so that he could dig through it. The EMF meter was a given, along with flashlights for when it got dark. Baggies of salt to complement the cigarette lighters he and Sam already carried. Plastic bottles filled with holy water that hooked onto their belts, and small containers of lighter fluid that easily fit into jacket pockets. Two sawed-off shotguns that he quickly loaded with rock salt and handed off to Sam, who came over to him still licking his fingers from the fries. And Sam always said Dean didn't have any manners.
Dean turned on the EMF meter, which immediately started the low hum that indicated there was electricity somewhere close by. No immediate spikes, though, so he led the way into the first room on the left, intending to do a complete circuit of the bottom floor before looking upstairs where most of the Fosters' run-ins with the paranormal had happened. Sam followed, skimming his fingers over whatever surfaces interested him. Dean had never figured that habit out, even though Sam had been doing it since he was old enough to walk. It didn't matter if they were investigating a haunted house or staying in a new motel room. Sam had to touch, had to look out the windows and through the doors, running his fingers along the wood frames, tables, lamps--anything within reach.
Nothing showed up on the EMF meter in the first room, where the smell of chemicals, scattered buckets and tools, and partially stripped wallpaper showed the Fosters' attempts at renovation. The next room along the line was probably intended to be a dining room, based on the intricate crystal chandelier and the fancy but hideous wallpaper.
"Thank God the sixties are over," Sam said, tracing an embossed grape on the wall.
Dean snorted his agreement as he moved into the third room, a small sunroom or breakfast area with French doors that led out to a patio. Next was the kitchen that stretched along the back of the house. Obvious signs of the Fosters' inhabitance were all over the room--a round table with four chairs; the counter holding pots, pans, and dishes; relatively recent appliances that made the EMF meter hum happily. Then, finally, as Dean walked around to the inner wall and ran the EMF meter across the heavy door there, the humming rose to a squeal.
Dean grinned. "It's about time."
"What do you think is behind there?" Sam asked.
"It's up against the stairs on the other side, so there can't be much. Maybe a pantry?"
Sam came up behind Dean and looked over his shoulder at the door. "Why so many locks on a pantry?"
Sam had a point, Dean had to admit. Aside from the lock in the doorknob, there were also two dead bolts; all of them looked positively antique.
"Maybe they didn't want their food escaping?" Dean shrugged as he pulled out the keys Kurt Foster had given him. One worked in the doorknob lock, but nothing would budge the dead bolts.
"Want me to deal with it?"
As Dean looked back at him, Sam wiggled his eyebrows and his fingers in a way that was probably supposed to make him look like a hip cat burglar, but really just made him look like he had a tic.
"Yeah, why don't you 'deal with it'," Dean made the same fingers back at Sam, "while I check out the rest of the house."
"Don't get eaten by any ghosts."
"I'll try not to."
Dean made his way through the rest of the downstairs, finding a laundry room, a half-bath, and two more rooms that were probably parlors or studies, the last of which held the furniture Sam had noticed earlier. He detoured into the kitchen again to find Sam working on the second lock.
"Let me know when you get the door open," Dean said.
"Mm-hm," Sam mumbled around the pick in his mouth.
"Don't go down there without me."
Sam rolled his eyes and made a shooing motion with one hand.
Upstairs, Dean found two rooms on each side of the U and two rooms across the back, each set with a bathroom in between them. He found a king-sized mattress and box springs in the master bedroom and a pair of twin mattresses in the front left room, along with open suitcases in both rooms. It looked like the Fosters were doing their own version of camping out while they worked on their house.
It was in the girls' room that the EMF meter started squealing again. Dean couldn't find a specific spot that the electro-magnetic waves were emanating from. They seemed to be coming from all over the room, or else had just dissipated in the time that had passed since the paranormal activity. Whatever the situation was, Dean had evidence to support the Fosters' claims and two places, the bedroom and whatever was behind the mystery door, to focus the investigation.
He heard footsteps coming up the stairs and smiled. Sam was pretty good with those picks; maybe he should have tried a career as a cat burglar after all.
"Hey, Sammy, I got EMF readings in this bedroom. What did you find?" he called.
When he didn't hear an answer, he shut off the meter and stepped out onto the balcony that ran the length of the rooms. From that perspective, he could see the entire staircase and landing. No one was there.
"Sam?" he called again. "Sam?"
"What?" Came the reassuring answer. "You okay?"
"Yeah. I found something. How about you?"
"Not much. I'm coming up."
**
Sam heard Dean walking up the stairs, a heavy tread that sounded like it was right over his head. Then the creak of old floorboards as Dean walked around. Sam imagined he could follow Dean's movements even if he were blind.
Turning his attention back to the locks, Sam eased his pick across the pins, feeling for the give that would tell him he was on the right track. Just . . . there. A few more, and the bolt slid back. Sam gave a satisfied sigh as he stood and stretched, then winced as his shoulders popped. At least Dean wasn't around to tell him he was getting old again.
As he was putting his tools back in their case, Dean's footsteps thumped right overhead and the door cracked open with a sound like a sigh. Frowning, Sam pulled it open further, peering into a darkness that just barely showed a set of stone stairs leading down. A basement rather than a pantry, then. Sam picked up his flashlight from where he'd laid it on the floor and pointed it downward. All he could see was the narrow steps; the blackness was too thick for the flashlight beam to illuminate anything else.
He started to lean in and see if he could see all the way to the bottom. Almost immediately, he caught an odor that made him wince. Musty, sour, and yet somehow sickly sweet, it was the smell of air gone stagnant and rotten. Sam pulled back. There was no telling how long it had been since the door had been opened. With a job that led into old, abandoned places frequently, Sam had learned early about the dangers of bad air. A few hours of ventilation would do the basement a world of good.
Stepping back, he glanced around the kitchen and spotted a wooden stool under the window. It looked sturdy enough to prop the basement door open. He went over to retrieve it, his eyes straying across the window and the dark face of a young girl staring at him.
Sam jumped so violently that he dropped the stool on his foot. By the time he was done hopping and cursing, the only thing at the window was the white lace curtains that looked like they might have been hung when the house was new. Sam sighed. There was no real way to know if he'd actually seen anything other than the curtains. It was a weird testament to how his life worked that he was more likely to assume ghosts than moving fabric when he saw something in the window.
"Sam?"
The yell came from upstairs, and there was an edge to Dean's voice that made Sam's shoulders tense instinctively.
"Sam?"
"What?" Sam shoved the stool in front of the basement door and started toward the stairs. "You okay?"
He relaxed marginally when Dean called back, "Yeah. I found something. How about you?"
Sam glanced back at the window, but it showed nothing but innocent glass and lace.
"Not much. I'm coming up."
He jogged up the stairs and found Dean in one of the bedrooms, running the EMF meter along the back wall of the closet.
"What've you got?" he asked, leaning against the door jam.
Dean glanced over his shoulder before going back to his investigation.
"There was something in this room for sure. The EMF reading is even higher than downstairs. For some reason, it's really strong here in this closet."
"Any idea what?"
Dean shrugged.
"Not a clue, dude. Not a clue. So, what was behind Door Number Two?"
Sam filled him in on the state of the basement and the maybe-ghost in the window. As he finished, Dean came out of the closet--Sam manfully refrained from commenting--and dropped down to sit cross-legged on the mattress by the wall. Dropping the EMF meter beside him, he ran a hand through his hair and sighed.
"So. We've got creepy curtains, creaky stairs, and something making the EMF squeal. That's not much to go on."
"Well, then, what do you want to do?" Sam asked. "We need research, but it's kind of late to head back into town and hit up the local library."
"Right. But since it's night anyway and ghosts tend to screw around more at night, why not just hang out and see what happens? If nothing comes up, we can head into town tomorrow and see what you can dig up."
Sam didn't miss the "you" in that sentence, but he didn't comment on that, either. Dean would gripe, but he would help with the research if there wasn't something more interesting for him to do. He just liked to pretend that he was the intrepid hunter and Sam was lowly research boy.
Sam nodded. "I think little girls that died here might be a good place to start. Assuming I really did see a ghost, then either she might be who we're after, or she could be an earlier victim."
"Makes sense," Dean agreed. "You want first watch or first sleep?"
Sam took first watch; he hadn't been sleeping much lately anyway. Dean, on the other hand, had driven all day and looked worn out. While Dean brushed his teeth and curled up on the mattress, Sam wandered around the upstairs and then back to the first floor. The basement still had the same overpoweringly musty odor. The window still had curtains and nothing else. Everything was quiet and distinctly not haunted.
After more than an hour of nothing happening, Sam had walked around the house so many times he'd lost count. He was bored enough that he was almost ready to see a ghost. Almost. He could imagine what his father would say to that. John Winchester liked kicking ghost ass more than just about anything, but he'd never wish for one, not even as a joke. John Winchester never took the job anything less than seriously. It had driven Sam crazy before he went to Stanford. Lately, though, the longer he looked for his father, he found himself vaguely missing his father's determination and confidence. It was reassuring to know his dad was there, directing the hunt and keeping one eye on him and the other on Dean while somehow still keeping both on their target.
Of course, Sam thought as he went to grab his laptop, if his dad had been there, he would have been telling Sam to review the information they had, and Sam would have been resenting the hell out of his authoritarian mannerisms. They'd probably end up scaring the ghosts off with their yelling at each other. With a private smirk, Sam pulled up the files he'd saved on the Dupree Farm and Gattsburg. Maybe he hadn't found anything obvious before, but that didn't mean there wasn't something in the local history that might prove useful at some point.
Before long, he was lost in the story of the town's founding, which incidentally was driven by the Dupree family. Apparently, they were one of the main families in this area, and the Farm had once been fairly decent-sized, complete with five or six field slaves. The Dupree family hosted dinner parties and soirees; they helped the poor, practically paid for the construction of the church, and occasionally participated in local politics. On the one hand, their status in the community was promising, because any major events that happened at the Dupree Farm were likely to be reported in the news. On the other hand, all Sam had access to at the moment were the files from a few historical and tourism sites that essentially gave summaries of the area's history. He didn't have any actual text from newspapers of the time or other primary sources, which was what he really needed. He could only hope that the resources in town would be better than what he'd been able to find so far.
Suddenly, a shout from upstairs broke the silence. Heart pounding, Sam all but dropped the laptop as he rose and dashed for the stairs.
**
Dean's dream was one of the type he wished he could have every night. A woman was leaning over him. Her face was obscured by her long, wavy black hair, but her scent was a subtle floral and the smooth curve of her arm hinted at greater delights. He could feel the silken touch of her hair as it brushed across his chest. The woman's lips touched his, sending a shiver down his spine.
Out of nowhere, a trail of cold fire ran across his collarbone.
"Son of a bitch!" Dean yelled, lunging upward.
He reached for the shotgun by his bed as he looked wildly around the room. There was nothing to suggest that he'd had a visitor, supernatural or otherwise. He could hear feet pounding on the stairs, but they were coming closer, not running away. Sam's "Dean!" confirmed what Dean had already guessed. He lowered the gun to make sure he wasn't pointing it at the door as Sam burst in, his own gun ready.
"What the hell?" Sam gasped, looking around just as Dean had done.
"I think I just had a run-in with our ghost," Dean said, pulling out the collar of his t-shirt in an effort to see what was making his collarbone sting. It was an awkward angle; as best he could tell, he had what looked like scrapes from fingernails, three bright red marks that were beading up with drops of blood.
Sam was still peering into corners like he expected to see Casper. After another minute of no apparitions, however, he gave up and crossed the room to look at Dean's wounds.
"Friendly," he commented. "Want me to put some alcohol on those?"
"I don't know, do you think I can get an infection from something that's already dead?" Dean asked, but he didn't argue when Sam grabbed the alcohol and cotton swabs out of his duffel and dabbed them on Dean's scrapes.
"Was your 'something dead' a little girl somewhere between eight and twelve years old? Wearing some kind of bonnet-like thing?" Sam asked as he put the medical supplies away. "Because that's what I thought I saw in the window downstairs."
Dean shrugged. "I didn't see anything. Just woke up when this happened." He gestured at his scratches. "Too bad. I think I was dreaming about Rachel Bilson."
"Why is it I get pre-teens ghosts and you get dreams about Rachel Bilson?"
"At least your ghost didn't try to skin you."
Sam raised an eyebrow and looked pointedly at Dean's scrapes, but said only, "It's a pretty safe guess that yours is the one that the Fosters were having trouble with, don't you think?"
Dean nodded. "Yeah. The cuts on Foster's leg are similar enough to what it did to me. That at least gives us a directly to look in tomorrow. You think it was your little girl?"
"I don't know. Child spirits aren't necessarily any nicer than grown-up ones. I guess we'll just have to see what we can find out tomorrow."
Dean glanced at his watch. "It's nearly midnight. You want to get some sleep? I'll stay in here in case something comes back."
Sam looked doubtful for a moment before shrugging. "Yeah, I guess. Whatever it is seems to like sleepers. Maybe it'll come while I'm out and you can get it with the rock salt."
"As plans go, that may be the dumbest I've heard in a while," Dean said pleasantly, then ducked the pillow Sam threw at him. "I'm just saying, what if I missed? You'd be blasted full of tiny, salty holes."
"Yeah, like you'd miss." Sam shook his head disdainfully. "Yell if you see anything dead, okay?"
In minutes, Dean was left with his shotgun and the sound of Sam's muffled snores.
**
Sam was walking through the dark hallway that led to the main staircase. He wasn't sure why the lights were off. Before Dean had gone to sleep earlier that night, they'd agreed to leave the lights on in case of ghost attack or other emergencies. But now, the only lights in the hall came from the window at the front of the house, a dim, bluish moonlight that made the shadows look as if they were moving.
Dean was down in the basement. Sam really didn't feel right about him being down there by himself, even though Dean was probably one of the most capable human beings he knew when it came to taking care of himself. Still, the basement gave Sam a cold feeling in the pit of his stomach, a vague intuition that something down there wasn't right. He walked a little faster as he turned around the balustrade and started down.
The boy was standing about half way down the stairs, his back to Sam. The moonlight made his loose-sleeved white shirt almost seem to glow. Some part of Sam knew that running into a kid on the stairs shouldn't be happening, but the greater portion of his mind accepted the situation as normal. There were people all over the house; why wouldn't this boy have stopped on the stairs?
With an odd slowness, the boy turned to look at Sam. His eyes were pits of blackness, opened wide and pleading, and his mouth gaped in a silent scream. He held something out, as if asking Sam to take it from him.
Two things came to Sam at once: first, that the object in the boy's hands wasn't rope, as he'd first thought. It was a long, coiled strip of skin, still glistening with blood. And second, the boy's shirt was hanging open, showing the path on his thin chest where the skin had been carefully, precisely cut away.
Instinctively, Sam reached out to take the boy's burden. Only at the last minute did it occur to him what he was taking. He started to jerk his hand away, and in that instant, the boy disappeared. Feeling oddly relieved, Sam continued down the stairs, hurrying just a bit faster than before. He really needed to get to Dean.
He was practically running by the time he reached the kitchen. The basement door stood open. A light had apparently been turned on in the basement; yellow brightness spilled across the floor in an almost welcoming manner. Sam approached cautiously, squinting down the stairs in the hope that he'd see Dean grinning up at him. But the light was too strong after so long in the dark. Sam's eyes watered and he couldn't see anything. Throwing caution to the wind, he started down the stairs, keeping one hand on the brick wall beside him as he took the steep steps two at a time.
The room had a hard-packed dirt floor and brick walls. At least some of the bricks looked old enough to be original to the house. Sam took the details in as he glanced around the room, looking for his brother. Only Dean wasn't there. The only thing in the basement, as a matter of fact, was a table down at the far end where the light didn't quite reach. Something was on the table, but it was the wrong shape for a human. Totally the wrong shape, because humans didn't have wings.
Wishing that Dean was there to watch his back, Sam started toward the end of the basement slowly. He needed to see what was on that table, yet he knew he didn't want to. The urge to run away was so strong it was all Sam could do to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Inexorably, he drew closer to the table until he could see what was lying there.
At first, the only thing his brain would let him recognize was feet--a man's feet, bare and white in the dim light, with a sprinkle of black hair across the arch. Long, strong legs, clad in blood-soaked jeans. Above the jeans--at first, he couldn't comprehend, and then the side of his brain that learned torts and codes and methods for disposing of poltergeists took over. It catalogued the ribs, obviously separated from the spine because they'd been raised on both sides to splay out like wings. It noted the emptiness under the ribs and how the area seemed almost to have been cleaned, as if whoever had removed the lungs had washed out the body cavity. It took in the arms, stretched above the corpse's head, and how the wrists were stripped raw from fighting against the rope. It even supplied a name, dug from some memory of research long ago: the blood eagle.
But even disassociation could only get him so far. Nothing could protect him from the face of the victim on that table. Sam's whole body was freezing cold and trembling. It felt like he was floating as he took that last step forward and saw.
"Daddy?"
The word tore from his throat, ice-edged. It was horror and denial at the same time. But John didn't stir, didn't open his eyes, didn't sit up and tell Sam it was all a joke. He simply lay there, face waxen and grayish-white and pulled tight with pain. Sam took another step, reaching out, hoping against all his senses that his touch would make the horror disappear as the boy on the stairs had.
His father's cheek was cold and unyielding, not like human skin at all. But Sam knew death, and he knew he was touching it now. And it wouldn't, didn't go away.
**
Dean was bored. There had been no more ghostly visitors. Nothing except Sam snoring away on the other mattress--which Dean was grateful for, yes, because Sam hadn't slept nearly enough since Jess died. But it still wasn't entertaining. Dean was a man of action, not a man of sitting around counting his brother's inhalations. If something didn't happen soon, he was going to--
And then, with a half-gasp, half-shout, Sam sat straight up. Dean grabbed for the shotgun, ready to blast some ectoplasmic ass. Only Sam wasn't bleeding from any mysterious scrapes, he was rubbing at his eyes in a way that Dean had become all too familiar with in the past several weeks.
"Nightmare?" he asked.
Sam blinked at him like he had no idea who Dean was. Sam never had woken up well. It took a minute for recognition to set in, and then Sam gave a jerky nod. Abruptly, he clambered to his feet and stumbled out the door. Dean was just about to follow him when he heard the water running in the bathroom next door. A few moments later, Sam came back in, the strands of hair around his face wet from where he'd splashed water on himself. He dropped onto the mattress beside Dean, mirroring his posture--back against the wall, knees up, hands in his lap, except Dean couldn't help but notice that Sam's fingers were laced together so tightly that they were turning white and his breath was still a little too fast.
"You okay?" Dean asked, more to get Sam talking than because he didn't already know the answer. Sam hadn't been "okay" since the night his world went up in flames for the second time in his life.
Sam just shrugged. Obviously he was going to make Dean work for any response. Dean sighed. What else was new? It wasn't even like he desperately wanted to have an emo moment with his little brother. He just worried that Sam was getting wound tighter and tighter, and the nightmares only served to confirm his suspicion.
Dean took a deep breath and plunged straight in. "Was it about Jess?"
Sam flinched but shook his head. "No. Just . . . this house. I guess it's getting to me."
Dean eyed him sharply, but Sam was meeting his gaze with no sign that he wasn't telling the truth.
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
Leaning his head back against the wall, Sam was silent for a moment. Dean was just about to declare the emo moment over when Sam asked, "Do you think Dad's okay?"
And that was the sixty-four thousand dollar question, wasn't it? No, Dean didn't totally think their dad was okay; if he had been, they wouldn't have needed to be hunting for him. That just wasn't exactly what Sam needed to hear at the moment.
"I think it would take a hell of a lot to make him not okay," Dean said finally. "I'll feel better when we catch up to him, though."
"Me too."
There was an odd note in Sam's voice, a vulnerability that Dean wasn't used to hearing when it came to their dad. Sam's usual reaction to their father was tension at best, anger at worst. Dean wouldn't have been willing to bet anything important on the notion that Sam missed John, but that was what he was hearing in Sam's voice now. He didn't dare comment for fear of ruining the moment, but he tucked the memory away for the next time they had a fight about their father and he needed something to keep him from kicking Sam's ass.
"You want to get some more sleep?"
Sam's shake of the head was more emphatic this time. "No. No, I'm good."
"Sam--"
A crash from downstairs interrupted Dean's probably futile attempt to reason with Sam. Feeling his pulse pick up, Dean aimed a grin at his brother.
"Feel like a little recon?"
**
The downstairs area was flooded with light and the laptop sat somewhat precariously on the bottom step. Nothing had changed from how Sam had left it when he dashed upstairs. Even so, he couldn't suppress a shudder, tightening his grip on his shotgun as he recalled his dream. But a dream was all it was, not a harbinger of his father's fate. He was sure of it. The visions he hadn't even admitted to Dean that he was having felt different. Aside from the brain-crushing migraine that accompanied them, they also had a more distant feel to them. He watched the visions; he lived his nightmares every night.
"Stick together," Dean said as they reached the bottom of the stairs.
Sam grunted his assent. He really hadn't had any intention of letting Dean out of his sight; he could remember the frantic need to find him all too well. Sticking close, he kept one eye on Dean's back and the other open for any potential threats.
At first glance, it looked like the worst they were going to have to face was a wooden ladder that had fallen in the room where the wallpaper was being stripped. The ladder had apparently crashed into a white plastic bucket and sent it sliding across the floor to land in front of the door. Looking around cautiously, Dean stepped over the bucket as he walked into the room. Sam hung back by the door. He wanted to be able to keep watch on the stairs and the hall leading toward the kitchen. Something was making the hairs on his neck stand on end. While it might be the leftover freakiness from his nightmare, he didn't want to take any chances.
"Find anything?" he asked, glancing back at Dean. The windows on the opposite wall were darkly reflective, a dividing line between the night and the brightness indoors. Dean's image, bending over the ladder with the EMF meter, was oddly incorporeal. Sam looked away quickly, back to the real thing.
"EMF seems to think so," Dean answered over the squeal. "Looks like our friendly neighborhood ghost is either a klutz or wanted our attention."
"Or had a tantrum."
Dean grinned up at him. "Or didn't like the changes in decor."
It was weirdly appropriate that the bucket at Sam's feet chose that moment to rise up and slam into his stomach. By reflex, Sam caught the bucket in his free hand as he stumbled backward.
"Sam?" Dean's voice was sharp, just on the edge of worried.
Sam stepped back into the room.
"Man, everyone's a critic," he said, dropping the bucket back to the floor.
Dean had stood up when the bucket went flying. It was the only thing that saved him from getting bashed in the face as the ladder suddenly jumped and swung around, landing at a ninety degree angle from its previous position. Dean stepped back, bringing the shotgun up into a position where he could turn it on the threat as soon as they figured out where it was coming from. Sam did the same as he moved closer to Dean, stopping where he could cover the part of the room Dean couldn't see.
"Seems like someone's getting pissy." Dean's voice was amused, taunting. Waving a red flag in front of a bull.
"Tantrum, just like I said," Sam agreed, willing to do his part. "Seems like our ghost is a spoiled brat."
Spoiled or not, the ghost didn't seem to take well to constructive criticism. Strips of wallpaper flashed through the air, hitting Sam's face with stinging slaps. He ducked as the bucket hurtled toward him again. It bounced off one of the windows and came back for a second pass. Sam blasted the bucket with rock salt. Even if he didn't hit the ghost, he was getting a little tired of being attacked by a chunk of molded plastic.
Behind him, he heard Dean's gun go off. His ears were ringing from the two blasts so close together. Looking around quickly, he saw the ladder rising off the floor and aiming for Dean, who was too busy battling a step-stool to notice.
"Dean! Duck!"
Dean went down in a smooth move, under the flying ladder and back up again, shooting in that direction while Sam aimed at the area where the ladder came from. The problem was that they were shooting blind. They could see the effects of the ghost, like the filled spray bottle that Sam barely managed to deflect by twisting his hips, but the ghost hadn't incorporated enough to make rock salt shot effective.
"Sam!"
Out of instinct, Sam moved, lunging down and to the side. Something went over his head, clipping his shoulder hard enough that he stumbled. Dean let out a shout that started as a cry of pain and ended as a curse. Before he had his balance back, Sam was already whirling around. But Dean was on his feet, his hand clamped on his forearm. A few feet away, a putty knife was rolling to a stop on the floor.
And as abruptly as that, the onslaught was over. Sam gave it a second, just in case, but Dean had already set his shotgun down and was poking inquisitively at the cut on his arm.
"You okay?" Sam asked.
Dean tilted his arm so that Sam could see the trickle of blood curving down toward his elbow. Stepping closer, Sam grabbed Dean's wrist and turned his arm to get a better look. With a tinge of relief, he saw that the cut was close to two inches long, but not so deep that it would need stitches.
Sam shook his head in mock reproach. "That's what you get for saying someone's pissy."
Dean shrugged. "Sometimes the truth hurts."
"And not always the recipient. Come upstairs and I'll bandage that up."
"This is getting to be a habit," Dean replied grumpily, but he followed Sam upstairs all the same.
( Part 2)