"She Just Wanted to be Heard Days 30-31," PG-13, The Ring/Supernatural
She Just Wanted to Be Heard
Day 30: The Shadow People
Part of Story Arc 1: Counterclockwise
A "The Ring/Ringu" Fanfic
by Laurel (Sailorhathor)
Chapters: 30 of 100
Rating: Overall Rating PG-13 (adult theme; horror elements that might be too scary for children under 13; bad language)
Dates: Begun September 2006. Some material is based on previously written stories from 2003-2005. This chapter was written in March 2009.
Word Count: 3,960
Summary: Sam Winchester, Quinn, and Svetlana are pulled into a dream of young Charlotte and Samara, and the moment when they decided to start using their powers for revenge.
Warning: Contains spoilers for the entire Ringu and The Ring series.
Beta Thanks: Thanks to Sammie for beta'ing this chapter!
Fanfic Challenges: Fits 50_darkfics prompt #30 Chains and coclaim100 prompt #30 Rain.
Author's Notes: Incase you do not have these places in your state or country, Olive Garden is a chain of Italian restaurants, and Charlotte Russe is a chain of women's clothing stores.
"Wake Me Up Before You Go" is a Wham song from the 1980's.
X-over with the TV series Supernatural. Set pre-series, during Sam's years at Stanford.
The Kirklands' ride from the airport proved to be far more lively with conversation than the ride in. Danica chattered about music school, her progress in learning how to play the guitar, and how much she loved singing duets with her boyfriend. "Colin's teaching me some new chords. He's much better at it than I am. But he's been playing a lot longer." She looked at her brother, sitting next to her, and then at Jodie, on her other side. Danica sighed dreamily. "Colin Phillip Owens, my fi - " Catching herself, she tried a save. "...my friend. My best friend."
"Such a British name, Colin Phillip," Steven teased.
Svetlana, sitting behind Quinn and Danica, leaned up on the seat and popped her head in between them. "Phillip?" She suddenly exclaimed, "Like the lamb!"
Quinn and Jodie, knowing to what she was referring, winced, while Danica and her parents just looked confused. "Like the lamb?" Danica repeated, but in a bewildered tone.
Svetlana, sheepish, tried to wave it off. "Nothing. I was thinking of TV show."
Quinn couldn't help but let out a brief chortle. Even if Svet's little slip-up did concern the pet of the ghost tormenting them, it was kind of funny.
"We've all got to meet up for dinner tonight. Danica gets to choose the restaurant," Steven declared.
"Olive Garden!" she practically squealed.
"How did I know she'd pick that?" muttered Quinn, giving his sister a teasing look out of the corner of his eye. "Probably because she always picks Olive Garden."
Smacking his arm with the back of her hand, Danica retorted, "They have great food."
"Oh, those breadsticks!" Jodie added.
"Olive Garden it is. Quinn, do you want to just meet us over there later?" his father asked. "I thought I'd drop you all off at your place so you can finish your project."
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Good idea."
By that, Danica had a sneaking suspicion there was no project. She wondered what they were really up to.
"Shall we say, six?"
Danica, pouting, said, "Aw, but I wanted to spend some time at Quinn and Jodie's this afternoon."
"You can go over there after dinner." Dahlia turned in her seat until she could see her daughter better. "The afternoon belongs to you, me, and Charlotte Russe."
Bouncing in her seat, Danica squealed with delight. "Yay, shopping!"
As soon as they arrived home, Quinn and Svetlana headed for the bedroom. "I want to be more awake than this so I can actually enjoy Danica being over here tonight," he said. "We're going to take a nap. Wake us up at 4:30, okay?"
"You got it," Jodie replied. "I just hope Danica's awake, what with the jetlag she's bound to have."
After Svet got into bed, Quinn followed her, pulling the covers up to his chin. "Don't go to dinner without us."
Svetlana added, "Wake me up before you go-go," before putting the blanket over her head.
It was such a random music reference that Jodie couldn't help but laugh the entire way out of Quinn's room.
She called her mother on Jolene's lunch hour and got the full story on all the new things she had experienced since the last time they talked. "If he isn't cursed by the tape, then what was this Sam guy doing in your dream?"
"Boy do I have no flippin' idea," Jolene sighed.
"Maybe he's like this Dean guy. Knows how to stop it and all? If you see him again, ask him how to end the curse."
"Yeah. If I see him again, it means I'm having another one of those fucked up hallucinations. You'll excuse me if I won't look forward to it."
"I'm just saying, if you happen to see him. I didn't tell you to go looking for him," Jodie laughed.
Laughing a bit too, Jolene said, "I know what you meant, honey." She paused to take a gulp of coffee. "How are Quinn and Svet holding up?"
"Uh, not so good. Lots of bad dreams, very little sleep." She stared at Quinn's closed door. "They'll be fine... if they can make it through the next two and a half days."
"That all we got left?" Rolling her eyes, Jolene pretended to wipe sweat off her forehead and blurted out, "PHEW!" so loud that her assistant turned and looked at her funny.
Hearing that, Jodie was struck by how easy she'd gotten off in all this, and wondered, not for the first time, why that was. Was it something she'd done differently?
Beyond the door, Quinn and Svetlana slept restlessly. And they dreamed.
They came upon a white ranchhouse with a barn, and horses eating grass in an attached, fenced pasture. A tree stood watch on one side of the house. From this tree hung a wooden swing, and in the swing was the sullen, pouting figure of Samara Morgan. She turned the swing a few inches one way, and back, the other way, and back, not so much swinging as sulking, digging the toe of her mary jane shoe into the soft, damp dirt. Looking up, Quinn saw the sturdy branch that held the swing, heard the sound of the rope that held it pulling and creaking against its bark, and noticed the grey cast of the sky.
"It's all so real. Like we're actually here," he said quietly to Svetlana.
She took hold of his hand. "What you think she want us to see this time?"
Quinn sighed. "I'm sure we'll find out."
Another little girl walked over and pulled up the little weather-worn bench near the tree. She sat down. "Hey Samara."
The long black hair, the way she walked, the inflection of her voice... Svetlana's lips twitched in contemptful recognition.
"Hi Charlotte," Samara said without looking up.
"It's her," Svetlana remarked. "She younger here, but I still know it's her. Charlotte. So that's your name."
With sympathetic eyes, Quinn squeezed his girlfriend's hand lightly. The things Charlotte had said to Svetlana in that one dream... they had been too harsh for Svet to brush off so easily.
"You're sad, huh?"
"Of course I'm sad. You're moving away. Your whole family and all your horses and stuff, you're all going to Texas." Samara looked up at her for a few seconds, obvious pain in her eyes. "We can't even play with your dollhouse or Phil or Buttercup or Lightning one more time before you go, because you're going today." The child held back tears; they could all hear it in her voice.
Charlotte kicked at a rock stuck in the dirt. "I don't want to go. I don't want to leave you either." Now both girls were trying not to cry.
"Are we suppose to feel sorry for them?" Svetlana muttered to Quinn. The tone in which she said it showed that she had no intention of doing such.
"We should run away. That would show them, for trying to sep'rate us," Samara said defiantly.
"Samara, we don't have nowhere to go."
"I could hide in your stuff and go to Texas with you. I could live in your treehouse and you could sneak me food."
Charlotte bowed her head, shaking it in doubt.
"Then we'll run 'way with Christina. She's older, she knows where we could go," declared Samara. "I bet she could get a job and buy us food."
"She's not old enough to get a job. She's only twelve," Charlotte reminded her.
Then Samara did start to cry. "You're not even trying to keep us together! You don't care if you do leave me." Head down, her curtains of black hair obscured the sides of her face as she sobbed.
Charlotte put a hand on her knee. "I do, I do care. I want to stay together. But we're just little kids. We can't stop this from happening. We're only seven and nine. Kids don't have any say in stuff like this." Now she bowed her head, hands clasped tightly in her lap, toe kicking ruthlessly at the stuck rock.
The two girls were quiet for several seconds, the only sound being Samara's sobs. "Stupid parents don't care what we want," she cried.
Charlotte looked up. There was a new gleam in her eye. "There are ways they can never break us apart."
Sniffling, Samara said, "How?"
"I know things they don't." Charlotte glanced around as if they'd be sharing conspiracies she didn't want the adults to hear, then moved her bench closer to Samara. "Have you seen the shadow people?"
An involuntary shudder moved up Quinn's spine. He already didn't like the sound of that. Shadow people. How ominous.
Looking confused, Samara repeated it. "Shadow people?"
"You can't always see them head on. Most of the time, you have to look out the corner of your eye..." Charlotte demonstrated, pointing to her left eye and looking out of its corner. "...And there you'll see them. Just dark shadows. They look like people, but they got no faces. No clothes, nothing like that. They're like shadows without a person to follow."
Recognition came to Samara's eyes. "Oh yeah, yeah! I think I've seen them."
"They slink along walls, around corners..." Charlotte moved her hands like feet walking along a floor. "When you try to look at them, they disappear. At least for most people."
Biting at her bottom lip, Svetlana suddenly glanced over her shoulder. "I thought... I see something," she tried to explain to Quinn.
"You don't have to explain, Svet," he sighed. "She's spooking me too."
Charlotte continued, "The shadow people got no one to follow, so they look for someone who will take 'em in. They're our friends, Samara. They're loyal to us."
"Like a doggie?"
"Kinda. They're smarter than a pet. They want to do things for us. They have for a really long time."
It was obvious that she had gone over Samara's head. "What kinda things?"
Rolling her eyes, Charlotte replied, "I'm getting ahead of myself. I have to tell you what the head shadow guy told me. Their leader, the guy who tells them what to do, he's the one in the flat hat. Have you seen him?"
"I think so..."
"You'll know him 'cause he's the only one who wears a hat. The others don't."
"He tells all the shadow people what to do?" Samara asked with wonder.
"Well..." Charlotte, choosing her words, finally said, "I don't think this is all of them. They're all over the world." She dramatically spread out her hands, as if spanning the globe. "We got, like, a little group of them."
"Like a club?"
"Yeah, I guess that's a good word for them. The Sawyer and Morgan Club."
Sawyer. Quinn made note of that last name; it might be important at some point.
Her face bright with the idea of everything Charlotte was telling her, Samara piped up, "Can I be in the club?"
"Samara, we're the whole point of the club," Charlotte reminded her, rolling her eyes again.
"Oh. So what did the man in the hat tell you?"
Charlotte thought about it a moment and blurted, "A fedora! I think it's called a fedora!" She noticed Samara staring at her. "The hat."
"Oh," she said again, and smiled.
Realizing that Samara had stopped crying, Charlotte smiled along with her and continued her story. "Anyway, the hat man you can see straight on if he wants to tell you something. I was sleepin' in my bed and he woke me up, whispering in my ear." Her eyes opened wider. "I was scared at first, but he told me I had nothing to fear from 'im. He told me how come we can do things, stuff other people can't do."
Samara, who had been kicking at the dirt, looked up sharply. "You mean like making things move by thinkin' about it?"
Charlotte nodded. "Uh huh. And putting pictures in people's heads and stuff."
"Why can we do those things, but other people can't?"
Leaning forward, she said, "Because we're special." Charlotte checked again to make sure no one was coming. "Your mom told you we were both adopted, right?"
Samara bobbled her head up and down. "I'm a big girl now. I'm old enough to know."
"Do you know what that means?"
She nodded again. "Somewhere, I got a second mom and dad. But they couldn't take care of me and they're never coming back."
Charlotte's eyes gleamed. "The hat man told me that we're not really cousins. That's just our adopted family. Samara, we got the same father. Our real dad is magic. He's got powers."
Instantly springing to her feet, Samara hugged her around the neck. "You're my sister! I knew it!"
Charlotte hugged her back. "We both knew that, right? We always could feel it."
"Then my suspicions were right. They're both the daughters of Heptamera."
Quinn and Svetlana turned to see a very tall man with brown hair standing just a few feet away. "Who the hell are you?" Quinn asked.
At first, Sam's eyes widened, but then he realized it only made sense that they could see him. "Of course you're not part of this scene; Charlotte wouldn't be checking to make sure no one was listening if you were really just standing there. You've been cursed, haven't you? By one of the videotapes?"
"Yeah," Quinn uttered, amazed. "And I repeat, who the hell are you?"
"I'm Sam. My involvement in this... is complicated." He put up a hand to shush them. "They brought us here for a reason. Let me listen."
When he told them his name was Sam, in response, Svetlana looked bewildered. The name held significance to her for some reason, but she couldn't currently remember why. "What is it you try to figure out?" she asked.
Sam almost said, "How to save you," but held his tongue. Were they aware that this curse could kill them? Was he right, in that all it would take to keep them from dying is for them to make a simple copy of the videotape they'd watched? Or was Alexandra telling the truth when she said Sam hadn't figured out everything?
To survive the curse of the seven paintings, you reproduce them, so doesn't it follow then that to survive the videotape curse, you copy it as well? Oh Dad, I wish I could run all this by you, Sam thought.
He'd been quiet, lost in thought, for too long. "Sam?" Svetlana said.
He shrugged. "I want to make sure my theories are right."
Quinn started to ask what theories, but the little girls began to talk again, interrupting his train of thought.
Sitting back down on her swing, Samara urged Charlotte to continue. "So we got our powers from our dad?"
"Yeah. He's almost like God. Strong." To illustrate, Charlotte flexed her little arms like a bodybuilder. "If we practice, we can get really strong too. Grown-ups will never tell us what to do ever again."
"Woooow..." Samara cooed.
"The hat man told me a story about the first daughter our dad ever had. Her name was Sasha."
The things Alexandra had said... All he wanted was to have a family. But they took that away from him. Took it all away! My little girl! I am not Heptamera's only bride, but I was his first. "Sasha Baptiste," Sam muttered to himself.
"You mean we got other sisters?" Samara asked.
"There are a lot of 'em. And there will be more." A wrathful edge colored Charlotte's voice as she spoke about Sasha Baptiste. "One of the powers our dad gave Sasha was she could see the future. You can do that sometimes, can't you?"
Samara nodded, her eyes wide and sparkling with amazement. All of her attention was on Charlotte and this story.
"Well, 'cause Sasha could see what was gonna happen, she knew that some people in the village was gonna die. They were going to get real sick, you know? And she told them this. They just thought she was kiddin' or something, you know, 'cause she was just a little girl. Nobody listens to little girls on stuff like that."
"Don't I know it," Samara remarked, rolling her eyes.
"When the people did die, suddenly everybody was like hey, that Sasha girl said they were gonna die. You'd think they'd be grateful, and ask her if anybody else was sick so maybe they could take some medicine or something and stop it, but that's not what happened at all," Charlotte spat. Her voice became more disgusted and indignant with each passing second. "They thought she had caused those deaths. That she had cursed those people."
"Oh wow," Sam said to himself. If the events had really happened that way, then no wonder Alexandra and these other girls were so angry with the world. Perhaps the curse had begun over a simple, tragic misunderstanding.
Samara said nothing, just listened with a stunned look upon her face. How easily something like that could happen to her...
"After that, the people were terrified of Sasha. They thought she could kill someone by just saying it would happen. And do you know what they did to that little girl?"
Now Samara's eyes were full of fright, and she shook her head.
Charlotte leaned forward. "They took her away from her mother, and they trooped on down to the caves with her, and they held her down and cut out her tongue." The intensity in her eyes made Charlotte look older than her mere nine years. "So she could never speak another curse."
Covering her mouth with both hands, Samara didn't say anything. She was afraid to.
"Then, those people left Sasha to die in that cave. They found a hole that formed a natural well and threw her in it. She was trapped down there, up to her waist in water, for seven days before she died. Couldn't call for help. Couldn't even scream."
"Charlotte, quit it. You're scaring me."
"You should be scared. Because it could happen to us."
Jumping up from the swing, Samara argued, "My mommy would never let anyone do those things to me!" and defiantly waved her finger in Charlotte's face.
"Don't be so sure, Samara. Don't be so sure."
"So what are we supposed to do?" She took her seat on the swing once again.
Charlotte, grinning impishly, let out a little giggle. "We practice."
"With our powers?"
"Yeeees." The way the girl drew out the word, Sam wondered if her gleeful wickedness was all a bunch of childish bravado, or if Heptamera started 'em early in the family business of soul reaping. "They thought Sasha was cursing people, and they killed an innocent kid because of it. As revenge, her mother made sure they would all be punished. There wasn't a curse before, but after Sasha died, her mom and dad cursed them all. They worked together to make it happen. The curse goes on even today.
"If we practice using our powers, we can curse anyone who would ever try to hurt us. Maybe we'll even get so good that the world will never forget who we were after we're gone."
"Maybe one day you'll even be able to curse innocent people who did nothing to hurt you!" Quinn yelled angrily; he didn't care if the children could hear him or not. "When did that become one of your goals, huh?"
Sam looked at Quinn and Svetlana with sympathy. It was written all over their faces that Samara had already put them through hell.
The girls didn't seem to hear him. "The shadow people thought we could start with films. Making our own little films."
"With our minds?" Samara asked.
"Um hm. Maybe the Beta videotapes your dad bought for his video recorder."
"But those are expensive!"
"We could make tapes for each other, though. Just to start off. For practice." Charlotte grinned again. "We can build up to curses. The curses will be for them." She tipped her head toward the house. "For separating us."
Nodding, Samara agreed, "Yeah. For Daddy." She slumped and pouted at the ground. "Daddy loves the horses."
They both looked up at the window on the side of the house. Sam made note of the distinctive look of the black shutters, striped diagonally with white lines at the top and bottom, in case he needed to give a description to... well, any hunter who might go looking for this house. Richard Morgan stood in this window, gazing down at the girls for some reason. Watching them. When he realized they had noticed him, he turned his head to the right, trying to appear casual.
"We'll make him sorry. The shadow people are loyal to us and all our sisters, so they'll help us every step of the way." Charlotte leaned forward to whisper to Samara, "They told me that when we get really good at cursing people, they'll help us by watching them, and let us know what they're doing. That's in case we have to curse more than one person at a time. We can't watch everybody at once."
Samara laughed. "No, that'd be hard."
Quinn and Svetlana looked at each other, and she squeezed his hand. "You hear that?"
"Yeah."
"Shadow people, watching us..."
"If I had trouble sleeping before..." Quinn shuddered all over.
"Samara, we talked about reading people's minds before, didn't we?"
Samara nodded, as if this wasn't a strange topic of conversation.
"Have you noticed that you can't do it when people are asleep?"
She nodded again.
"If you feel like someone's thinking about hurting you, like your dad, your adopted dad, keep them awake, so you can read their mind all the time. The shadow people will help you." Grinning, Charlotte gave a nod of her own. "They like to watch what we do. They think it's cool."
Sam wondered how long they'd been practicing at these various powers. Years? It wasn't a pleasant thought, children with such abilities, wielding them like toys against the people around them.
"I want you to remember something for me, Samara." Charlotte took her by the shoulders. "No matter what happens, I will always be there for you. Always looking after my little sister. No matter how many miles they put between us. Just call." She tapped her head, then gave Samara a big hug.
In reaction, Samara appeared sad, eyes and mouth drooping. "You're talking like we're never going to see each other again."
"I just want to make sure I get to say everything before my parents make us leave. It could be any time now."
As if the sky could hear her, thunder rumbled across the grey clouds above them.
The twelve-year-old Samara had mentioned, Christina, came out of the house and walked down toward the tree, hugging her sweater around her. Sam let out a gasp. The girl was younger here, with longer hair, but he recognized her instantly - the blonde riding a horse across a beach. The girl from the dream he had, the image that flashed across his TV screen. The girl from Alexandra Baptiste's painting, One Regret. It shouldn't have surprised him, not really, what with the paintings being all about the lives of Heptamera's daughters. Charlotte Sawyer's adoptive sister had been a big part of her life once.
"Hey you guys, Mom wants you to come inside. It's going to rain," Christina said.
Samara, rocking her swing back and forth, asked, "Christina, will you run away with us? We don't want to be sep'rated."
"You could get a job," Charlotte added. Even after she had doubted this idea herself, she was feeling desperate enough now to back it up.
Christina rolled her eyes and snickered. "No, I'm sorry, no one's running away. It won't be that bad, guys. You can write and visit each other. You're welcome anytime, Samara."
"But it's not the same," Samara pouted.
Christina just shrugged. "Let's make the best of our last night together, okay? Dad said because of the storm coming that we're going to stay overnight here after all. He doesn't want to drive in the rain."
Charlotte and Samara jumped up and hugged each other. "Hooray!"
"If you promise not to pout, I'll play a few games of Clue with you until dinner's ready. I'll even let you be Miss Scarlett and Mrs. Peacock." Christina put an arm around Charlotte's shoulder, then Samara's.
Both girls hopped up and down excitedly.
One of their mothers came around the side of the house just as the raindrops began to fall. "Hurry, girls. Rain's coming."
Taking his chance, Sam turned to Quinn and Svetlana. "I think I've figured this whole thing out. You two aren't staying in this on purpose, are you?"
"No, of course not."
"We just want it all to end," Svetlana added.
None of these people seemed to be hunters, then. "Alright, I've done some research on these girls, and all signs point to a very simple solution. You still have the videotape, don't you?"
"Yeah..."
"I want you to take it and - "
Someone came from Sam's left side, moving around him quickly and slapping her hands together in front of Quinn and Svetlana's faces. The sound was so loud it was almost like a thunderclap.
They came awake in Quinn's bed, startled out of the dream.
it won't stop
She Just Wanted to Be Heard
Day 31: Peripheral Vision
Part of Story Arc 1: Counterclockwise
A "The Ring/Ringu" Fanfic
by Laurel (Sailorhathor)
Chapters: 31 of 100
Rating: Overall Rating PG-13 (adult theme; horror elements that might be too scary for children under 13; bad language)
Dates: Begun September 2006. Some material is based on previously written stories from 2003-2005. This chapter was written in March-April 2009.
Word Count: 4,784
Summary: Sam meets Katherine Sawyer, sister of Anna Morgan, and becomes more deeply invested in saving the people cursed by Samara. Danica's secret is revealed to her parents, and she finds out there's something very mysterious and alarming going on with her brother, Quinn.
Warning: Contains spoilers for the entire Ringu and The Ring series.
Fanfic Challenges: Fits 50_darkfics prompt #31 Flame and coclaim100 prompt #31 Snow.
Author's Notes: This chapter is a cross-over with the tv show Supernatural. Set pre-series, during Sam's years at Stanford.
Lighting hairspray on fire (and bushes) is dangerous. You could get blowed up. Don't try this at home.
The reason why I gave Anna a twin named Katherine is for two reasons - one, because I wanted to create some cursed tape images for Charlotte and it was just easier if I could use images of Anna to represent Katherine, and two, because I thought it would be interesting to see how Richard Morgan and Katherine would interact with her looking just like Anna, especially after Anna's death.
"You still have the videotape, don't you?"
"Yeah..."
"I want you to take it and - "
Someone came from Sam's left side, moving around him quickly and slapping her hands together in front of Quinn and Svetlana's faces. The sound was so loud it was almost like a thunderclap.
They came awake in Quinn's bed, startled out of the dream.
Gasping, Sam blinked in surprise as the woman who had come out of the house to retrieve the girls whirled on him, shoving herself angrily into his personal space. He thought he recognized her as Anna Morgan, from some of Alexandra's paintings. The height he had over her apparently didn't phase her at all. "Just what do you think you're doing, Sam Winchester?"
"I'm trying to save those people. I don't get why you'd want to help Samara and Charlotte take them. Of all people, I wouldn't think Anna Morgan would be on their side."
"I'm not Anna Morgan!" she spat. The rain began to fall harder; Sam could feel it pitter-pattering on his arms and head, getting him wet. "You seem to think you know everything, but you're not yet aware that Anna had a twin sister, are you? I'm Katherine Sawyer. Charlotte was my adopted daughter."
Sam had assumed she was Anna because the woman before him looked just like her, but in time, he would have noticed the differences. While Anna seemed to prefer long, old-fashioned dresses and traditional horseback riding attire, Katherine dressed as if she'd stepped off an episode of a popular 1980's soap opera like "Dallas" or "Dynasty." Knee-length pencil skirt, silk dress shirt, expensive leather pumps, and gold jewelry everywhere, including a chain made up of oversized links around her neck. Until he got a better handle on their personality differences, Sam would use their clothes to tell them apart.
He practically had to yell to be heard over the rain now, it was coming down so hard. "I ask you again, why did you do that? You scared those two people out of the dream before I could tell them how to save themselves. Why are you helping the daughters of Heptamera?"
Katherine backed Sam up a few feet at a time by advancing on him, continuing to yell and rant in his face. "Why should they be saved? Why should the people who tried to show Charlotte love and give her a home when her crazy mother couldn't take care of her go on suffering for eternity while the rest of the world is saved? Why us?"
Not having an answer for that, Sam just put up his hands in a baffled shrug. "I - I don't know. As bad as this sounds, I think it's because she needed someone to practice her powers on and you were just there."
"PreCISEly!" the woman screeched. "Why would anyone put such power in the hands of a child? I ask you, WHY!" Katherine slammed her fists into Sam's chest, knocking him back a step. "Charlotte and Samara were too young to understand what they were doing to us. You think the nightmares and the hallucinations you're experiencing are bad, you should try having it forced on you for years on end. I only slept when my daughter let me."
"Look, I'm sorry that the girls were so hard on you and your sister, but that's no reason to let innocent people die." By this time, Sam's hair was sticking to his forehead, and his shirt to his skin.
Katherine didn't even seem to notice the rain, she was so focused on her hysterical rant. "Did you hear their tale of the shadow people? I saw them, you know. I'd just be sitting there reading a magazine or taking a bath and I'd see one out of the corner of my eye. Never saw them straight on, no. Can you imagine how terrifying it is to know something is in your home, watching you bathe and sleep and so many other vulnerable things, and there's nothing you can do to make it go away?"
"Mrs. Sawyer - "
She shoved him again. "You SHUT up! You don't know the worst of it yet, not by a long shot. Have they started randomly placing their idols around your home yet?"
Giving her that bewildered look again, Sam questioned, "Idols?"
"The statues! The idols of them that Alexandra Baptiste created! Don't tell me you haven't gotten to that part of the book yet?"
"I haven't finished the books, no."
"Oh, well, then skip right to the chapter about her sculpture. You're going to love it." Katherine shivered. "Dead eyes staring at you... they follow you, you know. They move. Charlotte made me hallucinate them in my home for a year after she disappeared. Looking at me accusingly, as if I was the one who killed her. They never found her body, but I knew she was dead from the way her idol glared at me. Oh, you're going to enjoy your own personal, delusional sculpture garden whenever they decide to spring it on you. I haven't even told you about the monolith yet!" Laughing wildly, she added, "You're already in over your head."
"Stop trying to intimidate me, Mrs. Sawyer." Sam stood his ground.
"You should give this up now. You should be intimidated." Sam, rolling his eyes, started to say something, but she cut him off. "You and Mysteria stop playing your little games."
"Mysteria? Who the hell is Mysteria?"
"Oh, that's a good one," Katherine laughed. "You know something? You're a real hypocrite." She looked him up and down. "You're not that much different from our girls. Who's tainted your blood?"
Now, Sam really looked confused, eyebrows dipping deeply in the middle. "What are you talking about?"
For a second, she just looked at him, sizing him up, before barking out a laugh. "You really don't know. Well... that's interesting."
"Tainted my blood?"
"Never mind." Katherine seemed to be satisfied, as if she felt she'd gotten a leg up on him. "Do you really want to know why I'm not helping you save the people you've seen... and the ones you haven't?"
Sam remembered the strings of numbers on the television in the Bloodworth vault. Countdowns. "Christ... there were at least fifteen of them."
"Yes." She began walking toward him. Sam instinctively backed up for every step she took; she wouldn't cease her advance. "Young girls with monstrous powers need something to do to occupy their time, just like regular girls. But the way our girls entertain themselves... and soothe their hurt... is by torturing everyone around them. That means my husband, Anna, Richard, and myself. That means us."
Looking to his right, Sam saw a thin tree bowing in the wind. He recognized that tree.
"So you see, if we allow our girls to take these lives, they will have their little playthings."
Sam had seen that tree in one of Alexandra's paintings. Anna Morgan, standing on a cliff, a skinny tree beside her, bowing in the wind. It was entitled Breeder's Suicide.
He looked behind him. His heels were only inches from the muddy edge, the ocean surf crashing against the rocks below. If he darted to the left, Sam thought that he might be able to get around the woman without hurting her -
"And when they have their playthings..." Katherine lunged at him, screaming in his face. "THEY LEAVE US ALONE!"
Pinwheeling his arms, Sam fell backward over the edge of the cliff.
And landed in his beanbag chair.
He was glad Gerald was out at class, because Sam hit the chair screaming. When he finally stopped flailing and realized he wasn't really falling off a cliff, he flopped limply in the chair with a sigh of relief.
Shadows, statues, tainted blood... Sam had a lot to try and sort out after this dream. But first, a shower and a change of clothes.
He was soaking wet with rain.
Quinn and Svetlana sat up in bed, both feeling that for the first time, they had awakened from one of Samara's nightmares too soon. "What was he going to tell us?" she asked, thinking out loud. "Is Sam like Dean? He going to save us too?"
"I don't know," Quinn replied with a shake of his head.
She took hold of his wrist. "Oh God, Quinn...! His name is Sam! In dream I have in the forest, Dean mention a Sammy. They know each other! And he know how to stop the curse!"
"It seems that way." Sitting on the edge of the bed, Quinn put his head in his hands. That was all he needed, another good-looking guy to save his girlfriend instead of him. He knew it was a jealous way to react, but any guy would think that way, as far as he was concerned.
"How we get in touch with him again?" Svetlana knew he didn't have an answer to any of her questions, but she couldn't stop asking them. "Mysteria?"
"Maybe," he muttered from behind his hands. "God, I'm so tired."
"Maybe we go back to sleep, we dream of him again. Or Dean."
"Maybe," Quinn repeated. He uncovered his face. "Svet, I really wish I knew. At least we don't have too much longer to wait this out." Turning to her, Quinn suddenly jerked his head in the direction of the door, searching the room with his eyes.
Svetlana noticed. "You see something."
"I... I thought I saw... there was a shape... slinking along the wall."
Her eyes widened in surprise, then fear. "You saw shadow person," she whispered.
"It's - it's the power of suggestion." He looked around the room continuously as he spoke, trying to confirm or discount that he'd really seen the black humanoid shape in his peripheral vision. "Charlotte was talking about them in the dream, how the shadow people would be watching us, and now I start seeing them. Now. It's the power of suggestion."
"Or maybe they really here."
Quinn shook his head almost too hard. "People suffering from sleep deprivation hallucinate all kinds of things."
"Was the rosary a hallucination? The bridle strap?" Sighing, Svetlana took his face in her hands. "Quinny, please... don't shut down on me now. You know all is real. We have two and a half days left." She kissed his lips, begging him not to retreat into denial. "Stay with me until all is over."
"Svetlana... my sister is home," he almost whined. "I just want to have a fun visit with her. I don't want any of this curse shit to ruin our time together. She spends nine months of the year on the other side of the world..."
"Well... do you really think you can keep from her? Look at us, Quinn. You think she not going to ask what the hell we've been up to?"
His face in his hands again, Quinn sighed. "Okay. Okay, fine." He looked at the clock. "We've got a few hours until we have to get ready for dinner. Maybe in that time, we can figure some of this shit out."
"How?"
"How many sketch pads do you have over here?"
At first, she just stared at him. Then Svetlana replied, "Sketch pads? I don't know, three? Four?"
"Get them." Quinn slid off the bed and went to his desk, grabbing the can of pens and pencils.
"What we going to do?"
He turned back to her. "I don't know why, but I have this overwhelming urge to draw again."
*****
Great new clothes; new earrings; a visit home; and a gorgeous diamond ring on her finger, given to her by the man she loved: There couldn't be anything wrong with the world when Danica had this incredible day and her even more incredible future to look forward to. She twisted the engagement ring on her finger with the side of the finger next to it, grinning and laughing at the stories she and her parents were telling while they waited for Quinn and the others to arrive. "I was hoping there'd be some snow for us to play in, but no such luck. Spring broke early this year."
"Oh, I remember you and Quinn and snow," Dahlia said with a wink, and sipped at her glass of wine.
Steven started to laugh in that way that people did when something someone else had said had triggered a fond memory. "There was many a time I was very happy to have a camera handy when you and your brother got out in it."
Danica laughed too. "We'd bundle up like Randy from A Christmas Story and just get lost in those drifts until our toes and fingers felt like they were going to freeze off. I mean, just how many times can two kids sled down a hill?"
"You found out. Every winter. I bet you even kept count," Dahlia chuckled.
"You know, I think we kept a chart one time..."
Her mother laughed harder. "I remember you two begging Janet to pull you up the hill with you both on the sled. She'd do it sometimes, but she'd complain the whole way about how heavy you two were."
"And then when I got home from work, Janet would come in the room, her shoulders covered in snow, and announce that I was going to take over the job for her," Steven added with a grin.
"Yeah, and after Quinn got Mukluk, we'd put him on the sled with us too. I'm surprised you weren't left a permanent hunchback after that, Dad."
Dahlia giggled into her wine. "Remember the time Quinn almost burned the whole neighborhood down because he couldn't find Mukkie?"
Danica, breaking a breadstick in two, instantly began to laugh. "Oh! 'Mom, I lost my dog. I can't find my dog,'" she said, imitating her brother.
"Well, Mukkie was just a puppy then. It's easy to lose a dog that little, especially one that's half white, in the snowdrifts we get around here."
"Especially when Mukluk loves to bury himself in the snow," laughed Steven. "Quinn was just convinced Mukkie would freeze to death if he didn't find him as soon as possible. Which one of you had the bright idea to make a blowtorch out of a lighter and a can of hairspray again?"
Snorting with laughter, Danica raised a guilty hand. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"Yes, melt the snow quicker, find the missing puppy." Dahlia pantomimed her kids pushing the nozzle on the hairspray and lighting it on fire, then moving the can back and forth in a mad dash to get the snow melted before the can blew up in their faces. "Oh, this isn't going fast enough. Let's light the Nelson's bush on fire, that'll speed up the process."
"Hey, that was Quinn's idea." They all had a good chuckle over it.
"My favorite part is once we'd all come outside to goggle at what you two knuckleheads had done, Mukkie sticks his head out of the snow on the complete opposite side of the street. 'Hey, what chou guys doin'?'" Steven pretended he was the dog poking his head out of the snow and looking around.
"Oh, lord... where are they?" Danica checked her watch. "It's not fair that Quinn isn't here to defend himself."
"Well, we've been waiting twenty-five minutes... I say we go ahead and order. They'll get here soon," assured Dahlia with a shrug.
They were halfway through dinner when Dahlia finally saw the engagement ring for what it was.
"I want to go call them and see what the hangup is, but this chicken fettucini is so good," Danica was saying as she reached for her drink.
The light glimmering off the diamond in her ring, Dahlia narrowed her eyes at it. "Danica, is that a real diamond?"
Danica stopped moving for a brief second. Then she casually took a sip of her Cherry Coke and cleared her throat. "Um, yes. Yes it is."
For a moment, her parents just stared at her. "It's... quite big. Where did it... well, where did it come from?"
Steven almost stepped on what his wife was saying when he cut in with, "It looks like an engagement ring."
A beat of silence passed between them. "That's because it is," Danica finally said. Oh, she was going to kill Quinn for not being here for this. Not only because she wanted him there for the formal announcement, but for the moral support. "Colin has asked me to be his wife."
Dahlia's mouth dropped open in shock; Steven was a little more subtle, but Danica could tell that his leg was fidgeting nervously under the table. "You're only twenty years old," he started.
"Honey, there's a whole world out there left to see," Dahlia continued. "You're too young to be thinking about things like marriage."
"He lives on the other side of the world from you, Danica," her father said, barreling ahead with all the things she had known they were going to say. She'd heard that tone of voice before, the controlled anger that wanted to spill out at what he thought was a rash decision.
As a potentially devastating thought occurred to her, Dahlia's face darkened with grief. "You're not going to stay in England permanently?!"
Danica broke in with, "No, no. Colin and I have discussed this. He's graduating this year, and he's going to go to work. Once I finish college, he'll transfer over here and we'll live in America." She also had to put a tight reign on her anger. They didn't even know Colin and they were already freaking out over this marriage.
"So, it's going to be just that easy."
"Yes."
Steven shook his head and scoffed, his body language saying that he thought she was being a dumb kid. "Honey, life is complicated. All you're doing is making it harder on yourself."
Danica tried to stand her ground. "All I'm doing is planning my future with the man I love."
"But, aren't his parents upset that he'll eventually be living here, so far away from home?" Dahlia asked. She wrung her napkin in her hands.
"We've talked about that too. Colin's career field allows for a lot of travel. He can go back and see them several times a year."
"What about your children, Danica?" Steven had stopped eating altogether and had crossed his arms, the ultimate sign that he wasn't happy with the situation at hand. "Colin's family is going to understand hardly ever seeing their grandchildren?"
"We'll visit..." Looking at her mother, Danica realized she was near tears.
"Honey, you just don't understand. Your sister lives in New York; you'd think that wouldn't be too far, but it's far enough away that we only see Kelsey a couple times a month. Do you know how hard that is, to only see your grandchild every few weeks? And you're talking about depriving these people of their grandchildren save for one or two trips a year?"
"Mom, don't cry..."
"How do we know that they're not going to get upset and beg you to move to England with the kids? We may wind up being the ones who only see our grandchildren a couple times a year." Dahlia grabbed her daughter's hand. "Honey, please don't do that to me. I just couldn't take it."
It took all of Danica's strength not to roll her eyes. "Mom, you're getting upset over something that won't happen. We don't even have a child yet."
Steven's displeasure with the news their daughter had sprung on them caused him to jump to hasty conclusions. "Is that why you're getting married? Danica, are you pregnant?"
It was her turn to stare in horror with her mouth open. "Dad! No. No, of course not." Danica, exasperated, slapped her hands down on the table with a loud bang. "God, this is why I waited so long to tell you. I knew you'd completely freak out."
Her father narrowed his eyes at her. "When did he ask you to marry him?"
Uh oh. She'd let that one slip. "Uh... November."
Her mother gaped again. "Oh, Danica."
"I'm sorry. But I didn't even tell Quinn, so it wasn't just you." And I didn't tell Quinn because I knew he'd blab it by accident. "You don't have to freak out about your future grandchildren, okay? Colin and I have already spoken to Mr. and Mrs. Owens, and - "
"They've gotten to have dinners and holidays and who knows what else with you, and we haven't even met Colin," Dahlia cut in, obviously hurt.
Danica tried to continue. "We've already spoken with Colin's parents, and they said that they understand that a marriage of this type is a comprimise. They understand that we're eventually going to live in America, but... they did ask us one favor."
Grinding his teeth, Steven asked, "And what's that?"
"That, um, the wedding take place in England."
Dahlia let out a cry so hurt and surprised that several people at nearby tables turned around to see what was the matter. "Danica, you can't! You've got at least ten relatives I can name off the top of my head who would never be able to afford an overseas ticket. How can you do that to them?"
Reaching her boiling point, Danica slammed a fist down on the table this time. "Don't you think this is hard enough on us without you laying on the guilt? We're doing the best we can to make everybody happy. I love Colin and he loves me, and nothing is going to keep us apart."
"Danica, calm down. I don't like the way that you're talking to your mother - "
"Then tell her to stop with the guilt trips."
"She's not laying a guilt trip on you. Your mother is just being realistic. These are all things you should be thinking about."
"And we ARE," Danica nearly growled.
His controlled anger was almost as infuriating as the guilt trip they were trying to lay on her. "I'm going to ask you again, calm down, and stop yelling at your parents."
"You're not asking, you're telling me, Dad. But I'm an adult, and you can't tell me what to do here." Taking one of the things her father had said to heart, Danica gripped the edge of the table and took a deep breath to calm herself down. "Look, I know that I'm not just marrying Colin, and he's not just marrying me - we both have families who want everything to happen their way. But that's just not possible. We've got to make our own decisions in this. It would be easier if you would back me up and trust that I'm still your intelligent daughter who's going to make the best decision she can."
Steven let out a sigh. "Honey, I don't think you're incapable of making intelligent decisions. I just think those decisions are a bit clouded by the fact that you're both still very young. He's only 21 himself, isn't he?"
"We just want you to wait, and be sure," Dahlia added.
At this point, Danica did openly roll her eyes. "I didn't say we were getting married tomorrow, for pete's sake." She got up from the table. "I'm going to go call Quinn, and see where the hell he is. He should be here for all this, and he's not, and I want to know why."
As she stepped away from the table, Danica knew her parents would be gabbing up a storm about her major announcement while she made the phone call. She'd hoped it would be different, with hugs and congratulations and at least a couple people happy over it, but that couldn't happen without someone her own age at the table with her. Someone her age would understand what it felt like to be in love and believe that anything was possible. Parents had too many years and mortgages between them and youth to even remember what it felt like, Danica thought.
She tried the house phone first. Jodie answered. "Uh, hey," she said sheepishly.
"Jodie, where the hell are you guys?" she asked, visibly upset. "The shit's hitting the fan here."
"Over what?"
"I'd rather tell you in person. What's up?"
"Uh..." Jodie looked at Quinn's closed door. "...I haven't been able to get Quinn and Svetlana out of his room."
"What the hell do you mean?"
"Well... it's a long story, Danica. Um, let me give it another try, okay?" Going to the door, Jodie knocked. "Quinn? Your sister's on the phone. I'm coming in." She didn't wait for an answer, just turned the knob and opened the door.
Jodie's eyes took in the state of their situation in only a few brief seconds; it was enough. She understood why she hadn't been able to rouse them for dinner when she saw the piles of paper, the ink and pencil lead, the looks of obsessive determination on their faces... unable to help it, she babbled into the phone almost hysterically, "Danica, I can't handle this anymore. I don't know what to do. I've tried to be there, but there's just nothing I can do to fix this."
The desperation in Jodie's voice scared her. "Jodie, what are you talking about? Are they okay?"
"You know what? No. They most definitely are not okay."
Danica didn't know what was going on, but she thought it had something to do with the fact that Quinn and Svet hadn't been sleeping. "I'm coming over, alright?"
"Please. Please come over," Jodie said, and burst into tears.
Getting away from her parents proved to be difficult, but Danica finally found the right excuse to make them lay off of her for the time being. "I'm sorry to leave right in the middle of dinner, but I need some time to think about what you guys have said. I'm going over to Quinn's so I can tell him about my engagement."
They agreed, and when she refused to let them drive her over, gave her some money for a cab.
When Jodie opened the door, she immediately hugged Danica in despair, tears still rolling down her face.
"Hey... hey, it'll be okay." She closed the door behind her. "Where are they?"
Danica wasn't sure what she expected to see when she entered Quinn's bedroom. With the way Jodie reacted, she probably wouldn't have been surprised to see her brother and his girlfriend shooting up heroin. But this... what the hell was this?
They were drawing. Both of them, completely engrossed, engulfed, in what they were sketching, to the point that their arms, hands, and faces were smeared with ink and pencil lead. Danica had never seen such a wild look of concentration on Quinn's face.
Fascination. Obsession. She wasn't even sure what to call it.
They were sitting on Quinn's bed. The space on the bed around them could not be seen; it was covered with drawings. Worse still, the floor around the bed was in the same state - piles of drawings completely obscured the carpet halfway to the bedroom door. They must've gone through two or three large sketchpads already.
"Holy shit," were the first words Danica could manage. "What the hell are they doing?"
"I'm not even sure anymore."
Quinn had drawn something round and black; he was frantically trying to color it in some more. His hand went round and round in urgent circles, faster and faster, digging the fat charcoal pencil into the paper.
Disturbed by this, Danica started to move the drawings aside with her feet and make her way to the bed. She looked at some of them. Several sketches of a well. Oh, so that's what he was drawing - the overhead view of this well. So, why?
Svetlana had spent all of her time drawing two different guys, people Danica didn't recognize. They were labeled 'Savior,' 'Dean,' 'Sam,' and other titles that seemed to be in different languages. Danica pointed to the drawings and mouthed, "What the fuck?" to Jodie.
Jodie gave her a, "See, what'd I tell ya?" shrug back.
Danica moved some of the drawings off the bed and sat down in front of Quinn. "Quinn? Quinny? It's Danica. Whacha doin'?"
His hand kept making those frenzied circles, muscles taught with tension. "It's not dark enough." Breathing hard, he rubbed his forearms and the backs of his hands over his face and through his hair, as if trying to groom himself, but only succeeded in smearing more charcoal all over his forehead and cheeks. The intensity in his eyes scared the hell out of his sister. He was like a tightly wound spring about to snap. "It's not black enough!"
"Quinny..." Danica scooted closer so she could take his face in her hands. "What's the matter with you? What are you doing?" She made a point of maintaining eye contact.
Somehow, it all got through to him. Quinn's eyes softened, looking no longer crazy but only exhausted. The longer she touched his face, the more it crumpled, until he was beginning to cry. "Danica."
"Oh... Quinn? Quinn, what's happening to you?"
He took hold of her wrists. The contact, it grounded him, brought him back. "I feel like something's stalking me! No matter what I do, I can't escape her!"
"Who? Who's stalking you?"
Quinn started to cry so hard, she could no longer understand most of what he said, just, "Help me, help me, Danica," over and over.
Svetlana seemed oblivious to all of this. She continued to dreamily fill in Sam's hair in her latest drawing of him.
Danica yanked the pad of paper off her brother's lap and tossed it aside so she could hug him to her. "It's okay, Quinny, it's okay. I'm here now. I'll help you. We'll fix it." As she patted his back and stroked his hair, Danica looked up at Jodie, standing near the bed. "What the hell is going on here?!"
it won't stop
The Ringu series is (c) 1998 The Ring/The Spiral Production Group. It is based on the novels by Koji Suzuki. My fanfic is more based on ideas presented in the films, which were created by director Hideo Nakata and screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi.
The motion picture The Ring is (c) 2002 DreamWorks Pictures. The title "She Just Wanted to Be Heard" comes from a line of dialogue spoken by Rachel Keller in this movie. The motion picture The Ring Two is (c) 2005 DreamWorks Pictures. This fanfic is heavily inspired by ideas presented in the American movies, which were directed by Gore Verbinski and Hideo Nakata and written by Ehren Kruger.
I do not know if the prequel, The Ring 3, will have any bearing on this story or not until I see it.
Supernatural is (c) 2005 Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland, & Warner Brothers/The CW Television.
Everything else is (c) Demented Stuff.
Day 30: The Shadow People
Part of Story Arc 1: Counterclockwise
A "The Ring/Ringu" Fanfic
by Laurel (Sailorhathor)
Chapters: 30 of 100
Rating: Overall Rating PG-13 (adult theme; horror elements that might be too scary for children under 13; bad language)
Dates: Begun September 2006. Some material is based on previously written stories from 2003-2005. This chapter was written in March 2009.
Word Count: 3,960
Summary: Sam Winchester, Quinn, and Svetlana are pulled into a dream of young Charlotte and Samara, and the moment when they decided to start using their powers for revenge.
Warning: Contains spoilers for the entire Ringu and The Ring series.
Beta Thanks: Thanks to Sammie for beta'ing this chapter!
Fanfic Challenges: Fits 50_darkfics prompt #30 Chains and coclaim100 prompt #30 Rain.
Author's Notes: Incase you do not have these places in your state or country, Olive Garden is a chain of Italian restaurants, and Charlotte Russe is a chain of women's clothing stores.
"Wake Me Up Before You Go" is a Wham song from the 1980's.
X-over with the TV series Supernatural. Set pre-series, during Sam's years at Stanford.
The Kirklands' ride from the airport proved to be far more lively with conversation than the ride in. Danica chattered about music school, her progress in learning how to play the guitar, and how much she loved singing duets with her boyfriend. "Colin's teaching me some new chords. He's much better at it than I am. But he's been playing a lot longer." She looked at her brother, sitting next to her, and then at Jodie, on her other side. Danica sighed dreamily. "Colin Phillip Owens, my fi - " Catching herself, she tried a save. "...my friend. My best friend."
"Such a British name, Colin Phillip," Steven teased.
Svetlana, sitting behind Quinn and Danica, leaned up on the seat and popped her head in between them. "Phillip?" She suddenly exclaimed, "Like the lamb!"
Quinn and Jodie, knowing to what she was referring, winced, while Danica and her parents just looked confused. "Like the lamb?" Danica repeated, but in a bewildered tone.
Svetlana, sheepish, tried to wave it off. "Nothing. I was thinking of TV show."
Quinn couldn't help but let out a brief chortle. Even if Svet's little slip-up did concern the pet of the ghost tormenting them, it was kind of funny.
"We've all got to meet up for dinner tonight. Danica gets to choose the restaurant," Steven declared.
"Olive Garden!" she practically squealed.
"How did I know she'd pick that?" muttered Quinn, giving his sister a teasing look out of the corner of his eye. "Probably because she always picks Olive Garden."
Smacking his arm with the back of her hand, Danica retorted, "They have great food."
"Oh, those breadsticks!" Jodie added.
"Olive Garden it is. Quinn, do you want to just meet us over there later?" his father asked. "I thought I'd drop you all off at your place so you can finish your project."
"Huh? Oh, yeah. Good idea."
By that, Danica had a sneaking suspicion there was no project. She wondered what they were really up to.
"Shall we say, six?"
Danica, pouting, said, "Aw, but I wanted to spend some time at Quinn and Jodie's this afternoon."
"You can go over there after dinner." Dahlia turned in her seat until she could see her daughter better. "The afternoon belongs to you, me, and Charlotte Russe."
Bouncing in her seat, Danica squealed with delight. "Yay, shopping!"
As soon as they arrived home, Quinn and Svetlana headed for the bedroom. "I want to be more awake than this so I can actually enjoy Danica being over here tonight," he said. "We're going to take a nap. Wake us up at 4:30, okay?"
"You got it," Jodie replied. "I just hope Danica's awake, what with the jetlag she's bound to have."
After Svet got into bed, Quinn followed her, pulling the covers up to his chin. "Don't go to dinner without us."
Svetlana added, "Wake me up before you go-go," before putting the blanket over her head.
It was such a random music reference that Jodie couldn't help but laugh the entire way out of Quinn's room.
She called her mother on Jolene's lunch hour and got the full story on all the new things she had experienced since the last time they talked. "If he isn't cursed by the tape, then what was this Sam guy doing in your dream?"
"Boy do I have no flippin' idea," Jolene sighed.
"Maybe he's like this Dean guy. Knows how to stop it and all? If you see him again, ask him how to end the curse."
"Yeah. If I see him again, it means I'm having another one of those fucked up hallucinations. You'll excuse me if I won't look forward to it."
"I'm just saying, if you happen to see him. I didn't tell you to go looking for him," Jodie laughed.
Laughing a bit too, Jolene said, "I know what you meant, honey." She paused to take a gulp of coffee. "How are Quinn and Svet holding up?"
"Uh, not so good. Lots of bad dreams, very little sleep." She stared at Quinn's closed door. "They'll be fine... if they can make it through the next two and a half days."
"That all we got left?" Rolling her eyes, Jolene pretended to wipe sweat off her forehead and blurted out, "PHEW!" so loud that her assistant turned and looked at her funny.
Hearing that, Jodie was struck by how easy she'd gotten off in all this, and wondered, not for the first time, why that was. Was it something she'd done differently?
Beyond the door, Quinn and Svetlana slept restlessly. And they dreamed.
They came upon a white ranchhouse with a barn, and horses eating grass in an attached, fenced pasture. A tree stood watch on one side of the house. From this tree hung a wooden swing, and in the swing was the sullen, pouting figure of Samara Morgan. She turned the swing a few inches one way, and back, the other way, and back, not so much swinging as sulking, digging the toe of her mary jane shoe into the soft, damp dirt. Looking up, Quinn saw the sturdy branch that held the swing, heard the sound of the rope that held it pulling and creaking against its bark, and noticed the grey cast of the sky.
"It's all so real. Like we're actually here," he said quietly to Svetlana.
She took hold of his hand. "What you think she want us to see this time?"
Quinn sighed. "I'm sure we'll find out."
Another little girl walked over and pulled up the little weather-worn bench near the tree. She sat down. "Hey Samara."
The long black hair, the way she walked, the inflection of her voice... Svetlana's lips twitched in contemptful recognition.
"Hi Charlotte," Samara said without looking up.
"It's her," Svetlana remarked. "She younger here, but I still know it's her. Charlotte. So that's your name."
With sympathetic eyes, Quinn squeezed his girlfriend's hand lightly. The things Charlotte had said to Svetlana in that one dream... they had been too harsh for Svet to brush off so easily.
"You're sad, huh?"
"Of course I'm sad. You're moving away. Your whole family and all your horses and stuff, you're all going to Texas." Samara looked up at her for a few seconds, obvious pain in her eyes. "We can't even play with your dollhouse or Phil or Buttercup or Lightning one more time before you go, because you're going today." The child held back tears; they could all hear it in her voice.
Charlotte kicked at a rock stuck in the dirt. "I don't want to go. I don't want to leave you either." Now both girls were trying not to cry.
"Are we suppose to feel sorry for them?" Svetlana muttered to Quinn. The tone in which she said it showed that she had no intention of doing such.
"We should run away. That would show them, for trying to sep'rate us," Samara said defiantly.
"Samara, we don't have nowhere to go."
"I could hide in your stuff and go to Texas with you. I could live in your treehouse and you could sneak me food."
Charlotte bowed her head, shaking it in doubt.
"Then we'll run 'way with Christina. She's older, she knows where we could go," declared Samara. "I bet she could get a job and buy us food."
"She's not old enough to get a job. She's only twelve," Charlotte reminded her.
Then Samara did start to cry. "You're not even trying to keep us together! You don't care if you do leave me." Head down, her curtains of black hair obscured the sides of her face as she sobbed.
Charlotte put a hand on her knee. "I do, I do care. I want to stay together. But we're just little kids. We can't stop this from happening. We're only seven and nine. Kids don't have any say in stuff like this." Now she bowed her head, hands clasped tightly in her lap, toe kicking ruthlessly at the stuck rock.
The two girls were quiet for several seconds, the only sound being Samara's sobs. "Stupid parents don't care what we want," she cried.
Charlotte looked up. There was a new gleam in her eye. "There are ways they can never break us apart."
Sniffling, Samara said, "How?"
"I know things they don't." Charlotte glanced around as if they'd be sharing conspiracies she didn't want the adults to hear, then moved her bench closer to Samara. "Have you seen the shadow people?"
An involuntary shudder moved up Quinn's spine. He already didn't like the sound of that. Shadow people. How ominous.
Looking confused, Samara repeated it. "Shadow people?"
"You can't always see them head on. Most of the time, you have to look out the corner of your eye..." Charlotte demonstrated, pointing to her left eye and looking out of its corner. "...And there you'll see them. Just dark shadows. They look like people, but they got no faces. No clothes, nothing like that. They're like shadows without a person to follow."
Recognition came to Samara's eyes. "Oh yeah, yeah! I think I've seen them."
"They slink along walls, around corners..." Charlotte moved her hands like feet walking along a floor. "When you try to look at them, they disappear. At least for most people."
Biting at her bottom lip, Svetlana suddenly glanced over her shoulder. "I thought... I see something," she tried to explain to Quinn.
"You don't have to explain, Svet," he sighed. "She's spooking me too."
Charlotte continued, "The shadow people got no one to follow, so they look for someone who will take 'em in. They're our friends, Samara. They're loyal to us."
"Like a doggie?"
"Kinda. They're smarter than a pet. They want to do things for us. They have for a really long time."
It was obvious that she had gone over Samara's head. "What kinda things?"
Rolling her eyes, Charlotte replied, "I'm getting ahead of myself. I have to tell you what the head shadow guy told me. Their leader, the guy who tells them what to do, he's the one in the flat hat. Have you seen him?"
"I think so..."
"You'll know him 'cause he's the only one who wears a hat. The others don't."
"He tells all the shadow people what to do?" Samara asked with wonder.
"Well..." Charlotte, choosing her words, finally said, "I don't think this is all of them. They're all over the world." She dramatically spread out her hands, as if spanning the globe. "We got, like, a little group of them."
"Like a club?"
"Yeah, I guess that's a good word for them. The Sawyer and Morgan Club."
Sawyer. Quinn made note of that last name; it might be important at some point.
Her face bright with the idea of everything Charlotte was telling her, Samara piped up, "Can I be in the club?"
"Samara, we're the whole point of the club," Charlotte reminded her, rolling her eyes again.
"Oh. So what did the man in the hat tell you?"
Charlotte thought about it a moment and blurted, "A fedora! I think it's called a fedora!" She noticed Samara staring at her. "The hat."
"Oh," she said again, and smiled.
Realizing that Samara had stopped crying, Charlotte smiled along with her and continued her story. "Anyway, the hat man you can see straight on if he wants to tell you something. I was sleepin' in my bed and he woke me up, whispering in my ear." Her eyes opened wider. "I was scared at first, but he told me I had nothing to fear from 'im. He told me how come we can do things, stuff other people can't do."
Samara, who had been kicking at the dirt, looked up sharply. "You mean like making things move by thinkin' about it?"
Charlotte nodded. "Uh huh. And putting pictures in people's heads and stuff."
"Why can we do those things, but other people can't?"
Leaning forward, she said, "Because we're special." Charlotte checked again to make sure no one was coming. "Your mom told you we were both adopted, right?"
Samara bobbled her head up and down. "I'm a big girl now. I'm old enough to know."
"Do you know what that means?"
She nodded again. "Somewhere, I got a second mom and dad. But they couldn't take care of me and they're never coming back."
Charlotte's eyes gleamed. "The hat man told me that we're not really cousins. That's just our adopted family. Samara, we got the same father. Our real dad is magic. He's got powers."
Instantly springing to her feet, Samara hugged her around the neck. "You're my sister! I knew it!"
Charlotte hugged her back. "We both knew that, right? We always could feel it."
"Then my suspicions were right. They're both the daughters of Heptamera."
Quinn and Svetlana turned to see a very tall man with brown hair standing just a few feet away. "Who the hell are you?" Quinn asked.
At first, Sam's eyes widened, but then he realized it only made sense that they could see him. "Of course you're not part of this scene; Charlotte wouldn't be checking to make sure no one was listening if you were really just standing there. You've been cursed, haven't you? By one of the videotapes?"
"Yeah," Quinn uttered, amazed. "And I repeat, who the hell are you?"
"I'm Sam. My involvement in this... is complicated." He put up a hand to shush them. "They brought us here for a reason. Let me listen."
When he told them his name was Sam, in response, Svetlana looked bewildered. The name held significance to her for some reason, but she couldn't currently remember why. "What is it you try to figure out?" she asked.
Sam almost said, "How to save you," but held his tongue. Were they aware that this curse could kill them? Was he right, in that all it would take to keep them from dying is for them to make a simple copy of the videotape they'd watched? Or was Alexandra telling the truth when she said Sam hadn't figured out everything?
To survive the curse of the seven paintings, you reproduce them, so doesn't it follow then that to survive the videotape curse, you copy it as well? Oh Dad, I wish I could run all this by you, Sam thought.
He'd been quiet, lost in thought, for too long. "Sam?" Svetlana said.
He shrugged. "I want to make sure my theories are right."
Quinn started to ask what theories, but the little girls began to talk again, interrupting his train of thought.
Sitting back down on her swing, Samara urged Charlotte to continue. "So we got our powers from our dad?"
"Yeah. He's almost like God. Strong." To illustrate, Charlotte flexed her little arms like a bodybuilder. "If we practice, we can get really strong too. Grown-ups will never tell us what to do ever again."
"Woooow..." Samara cooed.
"The hat man told me a story about the first daughter our dad ever had. Her name was Sasha."
The things Alexandra had said... All he wanted was to have a family. But they took that away from him. Took it all away! My little girl! I am not Heptamera's only bride, but I was his first. "Sasha Baptiste," Sam muttered to himself.
"You mean we got other sisters?" Samara asked.
"There are a lot of 'em. And there will be more." A wrathful edge colored Charlotte's voice as she spoke about Sasha Baptiste. "One of the powers our dad gave Sasha was she could see the future. You can do that sometimes, can't you?"
Samara nodded, her eyes wide and sparkling with amazement. All of her attention was on Charlotte and this story.
"Well, 'cause Sasha could see what was gonna happen, she knew that some people in the village was gonna die. They were going to get real sick, you know? And she told them this. They just thought she was kiddin' or something, you know, 'cause she was just a little girl. Nobody listens to little girls on stuff like that."
"Don't I know it," Samara remarked, rolling her eyes.
"When the people did die, suddenly everybody was like hey, that Sasha girl said they were gonna die. You'd think they'd be grateful, and ask her if anybody else was sick so maybe they could take some medicine or something and stop it, but that's not what happened at all," Charlotte spat. Her voice became more disgusted and indignant with each passing second. "They thought she had caused those deaths. That she had cursed those people."
"Oh wow," Sam said to himself. If the events had really happened that way, then no wonder Alexandra and these other girls were so angry with the world. Perhaps the curse had begun over a simple, tragic misunderstanding.
Samara said nothing, just listened with a stunned look upon her face. How easily something like that could happen to her...
"After that, the people were terrified of Sasha. They thought she could kill someone by just saying it would happen. And do you know what they did to that little girl?"
Now Samara's eyes were full of fright, and she shook her head.
Charlotte leaned forward. "They took her away from her mother, and they trooped on down to the caves with her, and they held her down and cut out her tongue." The intensity in her eyes made Charlotte look older than her mere nine years. "So she could never speak another curse."
Covering her mouth with both hands, Samara didn't say anything. She was afraid to.
"Then, those people left Sasha to die in that cave. They found a hole that formed a natural well and threw her in it. She was trapped down there, up to her waist in water, for seven days before she died. Couldn't call for help. Couldn't even scream."
"Charlotte, quit it. You're scaring me."
"You should be scared. Because it could happen to us."
Jumping up from the swing, Samara argued, "My mommy would never let anyone do those things to me!" and defiantly waved her finger in Charlotte's face.
"Don't be so sure, Samara. Don't be so sure."
"So what are we supposed to do?" She took her seat on the swing once again.
Charlotte, grinning impishly, let out a little giggle. "We practice."
"With our powers?"
"Yeeees." The way the girl drew out the word, Sam wondered if her gleeful wickedness was all a bunch of childish bravado, or if Heptamera started 'em early in the family business of soul reaping. "They thought Sasha was cursing people, and they killed an innocent kid because of it. As revenge, her mother made sure they would all be punished. There wasn't a curse before, but after Sasha died, her mom and dad cursed them all. They worked together to make it happen. The curse goes on even today.
"If we practice using our powers, we can curse anyone who would ever try to hurt us. Maybe we'll even get so good that the world will never forget who we were after we're gone."
"Maybe one day you'll even be able to curse innocent people who did nothing to hurt you!" Quinn yelled angrily; he didn't care if the children could hear him or not. "When did that become one of your goals, huh?"
Sam looked at Quinn and Svetlana with sympathy. It was written all over their faces that Samara had already put them through hell.
The girls didn't seem to hear him. "The shadow people thought we could start with films. Making our own little films."
"With our minds?" Samara asked.
"Um hm. Maybe the Beta videotapes your dad bought for his video recorder."
"But those are expensive!"
"We could make tapes for each other, though. Just to start off. For practice." Charlotte grinned again. "We can build up to curses. The curses will be for them." She tipped her head toward the house. "For separating us."
Nodding, Samara agreed, "Yeah. For Daddy." She slumped and pouted at the ground. "Daddy loves the horses."
They both looked up at the window on the side of the house. Sam made note of the distinctive look of the black shutters, striped diagonally with white lines at the top and bottom, in case he needed to give a description to... well, any hunter who might go looking for this house. Richard Morgan stood in this window, gazing down at the girls for some reason. Watching them. When he realized they had noticed him, he turned his head to the right, trying to appear casual.
"We'll make him sorry. The shadow people are loyal to us and all our sisters, so they'll help us every step of the way." Charlotte leaned forward to whisper to Samara, "They told me that when we get really good at cursing people, they'll help us by watching them, and let us know what they're doing. That's in case we have to curse more than one person at a time. We can't watch everybody at once."
Samara laughed. "No, that'd be hard."
Quinn and Svetlana looked at each other, and she squeezed his hand. "You hear that?"
"Yeah."
"Shadow people, watching us..."
"If I had trouble sleeping before..." Quinn shuddered all over.
"Samara, we talked about reading people's minds before, didn't we?"
Samara nodded, as if this wasn't a strange topic of conversation.
"Have you noticed that you can't do it when people are asleep?"
She nodded again.
"If you feel like someone's thinking about hurting you, like your dad, your adopted dad, keep them awake, so you can read their mind all the time. The shadow people will help you." Grinning, Charlotte gave a nod of her own. "They like to watch what we do. They think it's cool."
Sam wondered how long they'd been practicing at these various powers. Years? It wasn't a pleasant thought, children with such abilities, wielding them like toys against the people around them.
"I want you to remember something for me, Samara." Charlotte took her by the shoulders. "No matter what happens, I will always be there for you. Always looking after my little sister. No matter how many miles they put between us. Just call." She tapped her head, then gave Samara a big hug.
In reaction, Samara appeared sad, eyes and mouth drooping. "You're talking like we're never going to see each other again."
"I just want to make sure I get to say everything before my parents make us leave. It could be any time now."
As if the sky could hear her, thunder rumbled across the grey clouds above them.
The twelve-year-old Samara had mentioned, Christina, came out of the house and walked down toward the tree, hugging her sweater around her. Sam let out a gasp. The girl was younger here, with longer hair, but he recognized her instantly - the blonde riding a horse across a beach. The girl from the dream he had, the image that flashed across his TV screen. The girl from Alexandra Baptiste's painting, One Regret. It shouldn't have surprised him, not really, what with the paintings being all about the lives of Heptamera's daughters. Charlotte Sawyer's adoptive sister had been a big part of her life once.
"Hey you guys, Mom wants you to come inside. It's going to rain," Christina said.
Samara, rocking her swing back and forth, asked, "Christina, will you run away with us? We don't want to be sep'rated."
"You could get a job," Charlotte added. Even after she had doubted this idea herself, she was feeling desperate enough now to back it up.
Christina rolled her eyes and snickered. "No, I'm sorry, no one's running away. It won't be that bad, guys. You can write and visit each other. You're welcome anytime, Samara."
"But it's not the same," Samara pouted.
Christina just shrugged. "Let's make the best of our last night together, okay? Dad said because of the storm coming that we're going to stay overnight here after all. He doesn't want to drive in the rain."
Charlotte and Samara jumped up and hugged each other. "Hooray!"
"If you promise not to pout, I'll play a few games of Clue with you until dinner's ready. I'll even let you be Miss Scarlett and Mrs. Peacock." Christina put an arm around Charlotte's shoulder, then Samara's.
Both girls hopped up and down excitedly.
One of their mothers came around the side of the house just as the raindrops began to fall. "Hurry, girls. Rain's coming."
Taking his chance, Sam turned to Quinn and Svetlana. "I think I've figured this whole thing out. You two aren't staying in this on purpose, are you?"
"No, of course not."
"We just want it all to end," Svetlana added.
None of these people seemed to be hunters, then. "Alright, I've done some research on these girls, and all signs point to a very simple solution. You still have the videotape, don't you?"
"Yeah..."
"I want you to take it and - "
Someone came from Sam's left side, moving around him quickly and slapping her hands together in front of Quinn and Svetlana's faces. The sound was so loud it was almost like a thunderclap.
They came awake in Quinn's bed, startled out of the dream.
it won't stop
She Just Wanted to Be Heard
Day 31: Peripheral Vision
Part of Story Arc 1: Counterclockwise
A "The Ring/Ringu" Fanfic
by Laurel (Sailorhathor)
Chapters: 31 of 100
Rating: Overall Rating PG-13 (adult theme; horror elements that might be too scary for children under 13; bad language)
Dates: Begun September 2006. Some material is based on previously written stories from 2003-2005. This chapter was written in March-April 2009.
Word Count: 4,784
Summary: Sam meets Katherine Sawyer, sister of Anna Morgan, and becomes more deeply invested in saving the people cursed by Samara. Danica's secret is revealed to her parents, and she finds out there's something very mysterious and alarming going on with her brother, Quinn.
Warning: Contains spoilers for the entire Ringu and The Ring series.
Fanfic Challenges: Fits 50_darkfics prompt #31 Flame and coclaim100 prompt #31 Snow.
Author's Notes: This chapter is a cross-over with the tv show Supernatural. Set pre-series, during Sam's years at Stanford.
Lighting hairspray on fire (and bushes) is dangerous. You could get blowed up. Don't try this at home.
The reason why I gave Anna a twin named Katherine is for two reasons - one, because I wanted to create some cursed tape images for Charlotte and it was just easier if I could use images of Anna to represent Katherine, and two, because I thought it would be interesting to see how Richard Morgan and Katherine would interact with her looking just like Anna, especially after Anna's death.
"You still have the videotape, don't you?"
"Yeah..."
"I want you to take it and - "
Someone came from Sam's left side, moving around him quickly and slapping her hands together in front of Quinn and Svetlana's faces. The sound was so loud it was almost like a thunderclap.
They came awake in Quinn's bed, startled out of the dream.
Gasping, Sam blinked in surprise as the woman who had come out of the house to retrieve the girls whirled on him, shoving herself angrily into his personal space. He thought he recognized her as Anna Morgan, from some of Alexandra's paintings. The height he had over her apparently didn't phase her at all. "Just what do you think you're doing, Sam Winchester?"
"I'm trying to save those people. I don't get why you'd want to help Samara and Charlotte take them. Of all people, I wouldn't think Anna Morgan would be on their side."
"I'm not Anna Morgan!" she spat. The rain began to fall harder; Sam could feel it pitter-pattering on his arms and head, getting him wet. "You seem to think you know everything, but you're not yet aware that Anna had a twin sister, are you? I'm Katherine Sawyer. Charlotte was my adopted daughter."
Sam had assumed she was Anna because the woman before him looked just like her, but in time, he would have noticed the differences. While Anna seemed to prefer long, old-fashioned dresses and traditional horseback riding attire, Katherine dressed as if she'd stepped off an episode of a popular 1980's soap opera like "Dallas" or "Dynasty." Knee-length pencil skirt, silk dress shirt, expensive leather pumps, and gold jewelry everywhere, including a chain made up of oversized links around her neck. Until he got a better handle on their personality differences, Sam would use their clothes to tell them apart.
He practically had to yell to be heard over the rain now, it was coming down so hard. "I ask you again, why did you do that? You scared those two people out of the dream before I could tell them how to save themselves. Why are you helping the daughters of Heptamera?"
Katherine backed Sam up a few feet at a time by advancing on him, continuing to yell and rant in his face. "Why should they be saved? Why should the people who tried to show Charlotte love and give her a home when her crazy mother couldn't take care of her go on suffering for eternity while the rest of the world is saved? Why us?"
Not having an answer for that, Sam just put up his hands in a baffled shrug. "I - I don't know. As bad as this sounds, I think it's because she needed someone to practice her powers on and you were just there."
"PreCISEly!" the woman screeched. "Why would anyone put such power in the hands of a child? I ask you, WHY!" Katherine slammed her fists into Sam's chest, knocking him back a step. "Charlotte and Samara were too young to understand what they were doing to us. You think the nightmares and the hallucinations you're experiencing are bad, you should try having it forced on you for years on end. I only slept when my daughter let me."
"Look, I'm sorry that the girls were so hard on you and your sister, but that's no reason to let innocent people die." By this time, Sam's hair was sticking to his forehead, and his shirt to his skin.
Katherine didn't even seem to notice the rain, she was so focused on her hysterical rant. "Did you hear their tale of the shadow people? I saw them, you know. I'd just be sitting there reading a magazine or taking a bath and I'd see one out of the corner of my eye. Never saw them straight on, no. Can you imagine how terrifying it is to know something is in your home, watching you bathe and sleep and so many other vulnerable things, and there's nothing you can do to make it go away?"
"Mrs. Sawyer - "
She shoved him again. "You SHUT up! You don't know the worst of it yet, not by a long shot. Have they started randomly placing their idols around your home yet?"
Giving her that bewildered look again, Sam questioned, "Idols?"
"The statues! The idols of them that Alexandra Baptiste created! Don't tell me you haven't gotten to that part of the book yet?"
"I haven't finished the books, no."
"Oh, well, then skip right to the chapter about her sculpture. You're going to love it." Katherine shivered. "Dead eyes staring at you... they follow you, you know. They move. Charlotte made me hallucinate them in my home for a year after she disappeared. Looking at me accusingly, as if I was the one who killed her. They never found her body, but I knew she was dead from the way her idol glared at me. Oh, you're going to enjoy your own personal, delusional sculpture garden whenever they decide to spring it on you. I haven't even told you about the monolith yet!" Laughing wildly, she added, "You're already in over your head."
"Stop trying to intimidate me, Mrs. Sawyer." Sam stood his ground.
"You should give this up now. You should be intimidated." Sam, rolling his eyes, started to say something, but she cut him off. "You and Mysteria stop playing your little games."
"Mysteria? Who the hell is Mysteria?"
"Oh, that's a good one," Katherine laughed. "You know something? You're a real hypocrite." She looked him up and down. "You're not that much different from our girls. Who's tainted your blood?"
Now, Sam really looked confused, eyebrows dipping deeply in the middle. "What are you talking about?"
For a second, she just looked at him, sizing him up, before barking out a laugh. "You really don't know. Well... that's interesting."
"Tainted my blood?"
"Never mind." Katherine seemed to be satisfied, as if she felt she'd gotten a leg up on him. "Do you really want to know why I'm not helping you save the people you've seen... and the ones you haven't?"
Sam remembered the strings of numbers on the television in the Bloodworth vault. Countdowns. "Christ... there were at least fifteen of them."
"Yes." She began walking toward him. Sam instinctively backed up for every step she took; she wouldn't cease her advance. "Young girls with monstrous powers need something to do to occupy their time, just like regular girls. But the way our girls entertain themselves... and soothe their hurt... is by torturing everyone around them. That means my husband, Anna, Richard, and myself. That means us."
Looking to his right, Sam saw a thin tree bowing in the wind. He recognized that tree.
"So you see, if we allow our girls to take these lives, they will have their little playthings."
Sam had seen that tree in one of Alexandra's paintings. Anna Morgan, standing on a cliff, a skinny tree beside her, bowing in the wind. It was entitled Breeder's Suicide.
He looked behind him. His heels were only inches from the muddy edge, the ocean surf crashing against the rocks below. If he darted to the left, Sam thought that he might be able to get around the woman without hurting her -
"And when they have their playthings..." Katherine lunged at him, screaming in his face. "THEY LEAVE US ALONE!"
Pinwheeling his arms, Sam fell backward over the edge of the cliff.
And landed in his beanbag chair.
He was glad Gerald was out at class, because Sam hit the chair screaming. When he finally stopped flailing and realized he wasn't really falling off a cliff, he flopped limply in the chair with a sigh of relief.
Shadows, statues, tainted blood... Sam had a lot to try and sort out after this dream. But first, a shower and a change of clothes.
He was soaking wet with rain.
Quinn and Svetlana sat up in bed, both feeling that for the first time, they had awakened from one of Samara's nightmares too soon. "What was he going to tell us?" she asked, thinking out loud. "Is Sam like Dean? He going to save us too?"
"I don't know," Quinn replied with a shake of his head.
She took hold of his wrist. "Oh God, Quinn...! His name is Sam! In dream I have in the forest, Dean mention a Sammy. They know each other! And he know how to stop the curse!"
"It seems that way." Sitting on the edge of the bed, Quinn put his head in his hands. That was all he needed, another good-looking guy to save his girlfriend instead of him. He knew it was a jealous way to react, but any guy would think that way, as far as he was concerned.
"How we get in touch with him again?" Svetlana knew he didn't have an answer to any of her questions, but she couldn't stop asking them. "Mysteria?"
"Maybe," he muttered from behind his hands. "God, I'm so tired."
"Maybe we go back to sleep, we dream of him again. Or Dean."
"Maybe," Quinn repeated. He uncovered his face. "Svet, I really wish I knew. At least we don't have too much longer to wait this out." Turning to her, Quinn suddenly jerked his head in the direction of the door, searching the room with his eyes.
Svetlana noticed. "You see something."
"I... I thought I saw... there was a shape... slinking along the wall."
Her eyes widened in surprise, then fear. "You saw shadow person," she whispered.
"It's - it's the power of suggestion." He looked around the room continuously as he spoke, trying to confirm or discount that he'd really seen the black humanoid shape in his peripheral vision. "Charlotte was talking about them in the dream, how the shadow people would be watching us, and now I start seeing them. Now. It's the power of suggestion."
"Or maybe they really here."
Quinn shook his head almost too hard. "People suffering from sleep deprivation hallucinate all kinds of things."
"Was the rosary a hallucination? The bridle strap?" Sighing, Svetlana took his face in her hands. "Quinny, please... don't shut down on me now. You know all is real. We have two and a half days left." She kissed his lips, begging him not to retreat into denial. "Stay with me until all is over."
"Svetlana... my sister is home," he almost whined. "I just want to have a fun visit with her. I don't want any of this curse shit to ruin our time together. She spends nine months of the year on the other side of the world..."
"Well... do you really think you can keep from her? Look at us, Quinn. You think she not going to ask what the hell we've been up to?"
His face in his hands again, Quinn sighed. "Okay. Okay, fine." He looked at the clock. "We've got a few hours until we have to get ready for dinner. Maybe in that time, we can figure some of this shit out."
"How?"
"How many sketch pads do you have over here?"
At first, she just stared at him. Then Svetlana replied, "Sketch pads? I don't know, three? Four?"
"Get them." Quinn slid off the bed and went to his desk, grabbing the can of pens and pencils.
"What we going to do?"
He turned back to her. "I don't know why, but I have this overwhelming urge to draw again."
*****
Great new clothes; new earrings; a visit home; and a gorgeous diamond ring on her finger, given to her by the man she loved: There couldn't be anything wrong with the world when Danica had this incredible day and her even more incredible future to look forward to. She twisted the engagement ring on her finger with the side of the finger next to it, grinning and laughing at the stories she and her parents were telling while they waited for Quinn and the others to arrive. "I was hoping there'd be some snow for us to play in, but no such luck. Spring broke early this year."
"Oh, I remember you and Quinn and snow," Dahlia said with a wink, and sipped at her glass of wine.
Steven started to laugh in that way that people did when something someone else had said had triggered a fond memory. "There was many a time I was very happy to have a camera handy when you and your brother got out in it."
Danica laughed too. "We'd bundle up like Randy from A Christmas Story and just get lost in those drifts until our toes and fingers felt like they were going to freeze off. I mean, just how many times can two kids sled down a hill?"
"You found out. Every winter. I bet you even kept count," Dahlia chuckled.
"You know, I think we kept a chart one time..."
Her mother laughed harder. "I remember you two begging Janet to pull you up the hill with you both on the sled. She'd do it sometimes, but she'd complain the whole way about how heavy you two were."
"And then when I got home from work, Janet would come in the room, her shoulders covered in snow, and announce that I was going to take over the job for her," Steven added with a grin.
"Yeah, and after Quinn got Mukluk, we'd put him on the sled with us too. I'm surprised you weren't left a permanent hunchback after that, Dad."
Dahlia giggled into her wine. "Remember the time Quinn almost burned the whole neighborhood down because he couldn't find Mukkie?"
Danica, breaking a breadstick in two, instantly began to laugh. "Oh! 'Mom, I lost my dog. I can't find my dog,'" she said, imitating her brother.
"Well, Mukkie was just a puppy then. It's easy to lose a dog that little, especially one that's half white, in the snowdrifts we get around here."
"Especially when Mukluk loves to bury himself in the snow," laughed Steven. "Quinn was just convinced Mukkie would freeze to death if he didn't find him as soon as possible. Which one of you had the bright idea to make a blowtorch out of a lighter and a can of hairspray again?"
Snorting with laughter, Danica raised a guilty hand. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"Yes, melt the snow quicker, find the missing puppy." Dahlia pantomimed her kids pushing the nozzle on the hairspray and lighting it on fire, then moving the can back and forth in a mad dash to get the snow melted before the can blew up in their faces. "Oh, this isn't going fast enough. Let's light the Nelson's bush on fire, that'll speed up the process."
"Hey, that was Quinn's idea." They all had a good chuckle over it.
"My favorite part is once we'd all come outside to goggle at what you two knuckleheads had done, Mukkie sticks his head out of the snow on the complete opposite side of the street. 'Hey, what chou guys doin'?'" Steven pretended he was the dog poking his head out of the snow and looking around.
"Oh, lord... where are they?" Danica checked her watch. "It's not fair that Quinn isn't here to defend himself."
"Well, we've been waiting twenty-five minutes... I say we go ahead and order. They'll get here soon," assured Dahlia with a shrug.
They were halfway through dinner when Dahlia finally saw the engagement ring for what it was.
"I want to go call them and see what the hangup is, but this chicken fettucini is so good," Danica was saying as she reached for her drink.
The light glimmering off the diamond in her ring, Dahlia narrowed her eyes at it. "Danica, is that a real diamond?"
Danica stopped moving for a brief second. Then she casually took a sip of her Cherry Coke and cleared her throat. "Um, yes. Yes it is."
For a moment, her parents just stared at her. "It's... quite big. Where did it... well, where did it come from?"
Steven almost stepped on what his wife was saying when he cut in with, "It looks like an engagement ring."
A beat of silence passed between them. "That's because it is," Danica finally said. Oh, she was going to kill Quinn for not being here for this. Not only because she wanted him there for the formal announcement, but for the moral support. "Colin has asked me to be his wife."
Dahlia's mouth dropped open in shock; Steven was a little more subtle, but Danica could tell that his leg was fidgeting nervously under the table. "You're only twenty years old," he started.
"Honey, there's a whole world out there left to see," Dahlia continued. "You're too young to be thinking about things like marriage."
"He lives on the other side of the world from you, Danica," her father said, barreling ahead with all the things she had known they were going to say. She'd heard that tone of voice before, the controlled anger that wanted to spill out at what he thought was a rash decision.
As a potentially devastating thought occurred to her, Dahlia's face darkened with grief. "You're not going to stay in England permanently?!"
Danica broke in with, "No, no. Colin and I have discussed this. He's graduating this year, and he's going to go to work. Once I finish college, he'll transfer over here and we'll live in America." She also had to put a tight reign on her anger. They didn't even know Colin and they were already freaking out over this marriage.
"So, it's going to be just that easy."
"Yes."
Steven shook his head and scoffed, his body language saying that he thought she was being a dumb kid. "Honey, life is complicated. All you're doing is making it harder on yourself."
Danica tried to stand her ground. "All I'm doing is planning my future with the man I love."
"But, aren't his parents upset that he'll eventually be living here, so far away from home?" Dahlia asked. She wrung her napkin in her hands.
"We've talked about that too. Colin's career field allows for a lot of travel. He can go back and see them several times a year."
"What about your children, Danica?" Steven had stopped eating altogether and had crossed his arms, the ultimate sign that he wasn't happy with the situation at hand. "Colin's family is going to understand hardly ever seeing their grandchildren?"
"We'll visit..." Looking at her mother, Danica realized she was near tears.
"Honey, you just don't understand. Your sister lives in New York; you'd think that wouldn't be too far, but it's far enough away that we only see Kelsey a couple times a month. Do you know how hard that is, to only see your grandchild every few weeks? And you're talking about depriving these people of their grandchildren save for one or two trips a year?"
"Mom, don't cry..."
"How do we know that they're not going to get upset and beg you to move to England with the kids? We may wind up being the ones who only see our grandchildren a couple times a year." Dahlia grabbed her daughter's hand. "Honey, please don't do that to me. I just couldn't take it."
It took all of Danica's strength not to roll her eyes. "Mom, you're getting upset over something that won't happen. We don't even have a child yet."
Steven's displeasure with the news their daughter had sprung on them caused him to jump to hasty conclusions. "Is that why you're getting married? Danica, are you pregnant?"
It was her turn to stare in horror with her mouth open. "Dad! No. No, of course not." Danica, exasperated, slapped her hands down on the table with a loud bang. "God, this is why I waited so long to tell you. I knew you'd completely freak out."
Her father narrowed his eyes at her. "When did he ask you to marry him?"
Uh oh. She'd let that one slip. "Uh... November."
Her mother gaped again. "Oh, Danica."
"I'm sorry. But I didn't even tell Quinn, so it wasn't just you." And I didn't tell Quinn because I knew he'd blab it by accident. "You don't have to freak out about your future grandchildren, okay? Colin and I have already spoken to Mr. and Mrs. Owens, and - "
"They've gotten to have dinners and holidays and who knows what else with you, and we haven't even met Colin," Dahlia cut in, obviously hurt.
Danica tried to continue. "We've already spoken with Colin's parents, and they said that they understand that a marriage of this type is a comprimise. They understand that we're eventually going to live in America, but... they did ask us one favor."
Grinding his teeth, Steven asked, "And what's that?"
"That, um, the wedding take place in England."
Dahlia let out a cry so hurt and surprised that several people at nearby tables turned around to see what was the matter. "Danica, you can't! You've got at least ten relatives I can name off the top of my head who would never be able to afford an overseas ticket. How can you do that to them?"
Reaching her boiling point, Danica slammed a fist down on the table this time. "Don't you think this is hard enough on us without you laying on the guilt? We're doing the best we can to make everybody happy. I love Colin and he loves me, and nothing is going to keep us apart."
"Danica, calm down. I don't like the way that you're talking to your mother - "
"Then tell her to stop with the guilt trips."
"She's not laying a guilt trip on you. Your mother is just being realistic. These are all things you should be thinking about."
"And we ARE," Danica nearly growled.
His controlled anger was almost as infuriating as the guilt trip they were trying to lay on her. "I'm going to ask you again, calm down, and stop yelling at your parents."
"You're not asking, you're telling me, Dad. But I'm an adult, and you can't tell me what to do here." Taking one of the things her father had said to heart, Danica gripped the edge of the table and took a deep breath to calm herself down. "Look, I know that I'm not just marrying Colin, and he's not just marrying me - we both have families who want everything to happen their way. But that's just not possible. We've got to make our own decisions in this. It would be easier if you would back me up and trust that I'm still your intelligent daughter who's going to make the best decision she can."
Steven let out a sigh. "Honey, I don't think you're incapable of making intelligent decisions. I just think those decisions are a bit clouded by the fact that you're both still very young. He's only 21 himself, isn't he?"
"We just want you to wait, and be sure," Dahlia added.
At this point, Danica did openly roll her eyes. "I didn't say we were getting married tomorrow, for pete's sake." She got up from the table. "I'm going to go call Quinn, and see where the hell he is. He should be here for all this, and he's not, and I want to know why."
As she stepped away from the table, Danica knew her parents would be gabbing up a storm about her major announcement while she made the phone call. She'd hoped it would be different, with hugs and congratulations and at least a couple people happy over it, but that couldn't happen without someone her own age at the table with her. Someone her age would understand what it felt like to be in love and believe that anything was possible. Parents had too many years and mortgages between them and youth to even remember what it felt like, Danica thought.
She tried the house phone first. Jodie answered. "Uh, hey," she said sheepishly.
"Jodie, where the hell are you guys?" she asked, visibly upset. "The shit's hitting the fan here."
"Over what?"
"I'd rather tell you in person. What's up?"
"Uh..." Jodie looked at Quinn's closed door. "...I haven't been able to get Quinn and Svetlana out of his room."
"What the hell do you mean?"
"Well... it's a long story, Danica. Um, let me give it another try, okay?" Going to the door, Jodie knocked. "Quinn? Your sister's on the phone. I'm coming in." She didn't wait for an answer, just turned the knob and opened the door.
Jodie's eyes took in the state of their situation in only a few brief seconds; it was enough. She understood why she hadn't been able to rouse them for dinner when she saw the piles of paper, the ink and pencil lead, the looks of obsessive determination on their faces... unable to help it, she babbled into the phone almost hysterically, "Danica, I can't handle this anymore. I don't know what to do. I've tried to be there, but there's just nothing I can do to fix this."
The desperation in Jodie's voice scared her. "Jodie, what are you talking about? Are they okay?"
"You know what? No. They most definitely are not okay."
Danica didn't know what was going on, but she thought it had something to do with the fact that Quinn and Svet hadn't been sleeping. "I'm coming over, alright?"
"Please. Please come over," Jodie said, and burst into tears.
Getting away from her parents proved to be difficult, but Danica finally found the right excuse to make them lay off of her for the time being. "I'm sorry to leave right in the middle of dinner, but I need some time to think about what you guys have said. I'm going over to Quinn's so I can tell him about my engagement."
They agreed, and when she refused to let them drive her over, gave her some money for a cab.
When Jodie opened the door, she immediately hugged Danica in despair, tears still rolling down her face.
"Hey... hey, it'll be okay." She closed the door behind her. "Where are they?"
Danica wasn't sure what she expected to see when she entered Quinn's bedroom. With the way Jodie reacted, she probably wouldn't have been surprised to see her brother and his girlfriend shooting up heroin. But this... what the hell was this?
They were drawing. Both of them, completely engrossed, engulfed, in what they were sketching, to the point that their arms, hands, and faces were smeared with ink and pencil lead. Danica had never seen such a wild look of concentration on Quinn's face.
Fascination. Obsession. She wasn't even sure what to call it.
They were sitting on Quinn's bed. The space on the bed around them could not be seen; it was covered with drawings. Worse still, the floor around the bed was in the same state - piles of drawings completely obscured the carpet halfway to the bedroom door. They must've gone through two or three large sketchpads already.
"Holy shit," were the first words Danica could manage. "What the hell are they doing?"
"I'm not even sure anymore."
Quinn had drawn something round and black; he was frantically trying to color it in some more. His hand went round and round in urgent circles, faster and faster, digging the fat charcoal pencil into the paper.
Disturbed by this, Danica started to move the drawings aside with her feet and make her way to the bed. She looked at some of them. Several sketches of a well. Oh, so that's what he was drawing - the overhead view of this well. So, why?
Svetlana had spent all of her time drawing two different guys, people Danica didn't recognize. They were labeled 'Savior,' 'Dean,' 'Sam,' and other titles that seemed to be in different languages. Danica pointed to the drawings and mouthed, "What the fuck?" to Jodie.
Jodie gave her a, "See, what'd I tell ya?" shrug back.
Danica moved some of the drawings off the bed and sat down in front of Quinn. "Quinn? Quinny? It's Danica. Whacha doin'?"
His hand kept making those frenzied circles, muscles taught with tension. "It's not dark enough." Breathing hard, he rubbed his forearms and the backs of his hands over his face and through his hair, as if trying to groom himself, but only succeeded in smearing more charcoal all over his forehead and cheeks. The intensity in his eyes scared the hell out of his sister. He was like a tightly wound spring about to snap. "It's not black enough!"
"Quinny..." Danica scooted closer so she could take his face in her hands. "What's the matter with you? What are you doing?" She made a point of maintaining eye contact.
Somehow, it all got through to him. Quinn's eyes softened, looking no longer crazy but only exhausted. The longer she touched his face, the more it crumpled, until he was beginning to cry. "Danica."
"Oh... Quinn? Quinn, what's happening to you?"
He took hold of her wrists. The contact, it grounded him, brought him back. "I feel like something's stalking me! No matter what I do, I can't escape her!"
"Who? Who's stalking you?"
Quinn started to cry so hard, she could no longer understand most of what he said, just, "Help me, help me, Danica," over and over.
Svetlana seemed oblivious to all of this. She continued to dreamily fill in Sam's hair in her latest drawing of him.
Danica yanked the pad of paper off her brother's lap and tossed it aside so she could hug him to her. "It's okay, Quinny, it's okay. I'm here now. I'll help you. We'll fix it." As she patted his back and stroked his hair, Danica looked up at Jodie, standing near the bed. "What the hell is going on here?!"
it won't stop
The Ringu series is (c) 1998 The Ring/The Spiral Production Group. It is based on the novels by Koji Suzuki. My fanfic is more based on ideas presented in the films, which were created by director Hideo Nakata and screenwriter Hiroshi Takahashi.
The motion picture The Ring is (c) 2002 DreamWorks Pictures. The title "She Just Wanted to Be Heard" comes from a line of dialogue spoken by Rachel Keller in this movie. The motion picture The Ring Two is (c) 2005 DreamWorks Pictures. This fanfic is heavily inspired by ideas presented in the American movies, which were directed by Gore Verbinski and Hideo Nakata and written by Ehren Kruger.
I do not know if the prequel, The Ring 3, will have any bearing on this story or not until I see it.
Supernatural is (c) 2005 Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland, & Warner Brothers/The CW Television.
Everything else is (c) Demented Stuff.