Tommyknockers I
Part One of Approximately Six
Crossover Between Insidious and Supernatural
PG 13 for Language
Updates Fridays
Previous Arc
Summary: Ben and Dalton finally make it to Maine, just in time for Ben's least favorite time of year: Halloween. Dalton is determined to get his hunting partner in the mood for a good scare, but something darker may be waiting for them in the shadows.
Ben blew over the state line of Maine at 12:05 in the morning, two days before Halloween. He knew this because of the static-muffled radio announcer babbling needlessly over the ending of the previous day’s last music set.
“And it’s five past midnight, two da… ys before Halloween. Here a… we like to make… point of celebrating, so here’s… treat for you!”
The opening notes of “Monster Mash” began to pour from the stereo, and Ben punched the search button without hesitation. The station had been getting less intelligible anyway, no point in suffering through that.
As he brought his hand back to the steering wheel, the lit up screen of his phone caught his attention, and he was reminded of his missed calls, unanswered texts. Ben was sure not all of them were from his father and uncle, but he also knew that most of them were, and he would rather not face his guilt any more than he had to.
Ever since the deadline for meeting his family in Boulder had passed, Ben had done his best to stay far below the radar. He knew he couldn’t evade Sam and Dean forever, but he didn’t want to see them any time soon either.
A blast of sudden static from a station the search was passing over jolted Ben’s passenger awake. Dalton sat up a bit and rubbed his eyes, his fingers automatically going to the keys of the laptop sitting open on his legs.
“When’d I fall asleep?” he asked.
“Around eleven, you haven’t been asleep long.”
Dalton tapped a key lazily, then ran a hand over his face again, yawning.
“Where are we now?”
“Just crossed into Maine.”
“Guess we finally made it.”
Ben smiled faintly, keeping his eyes on the road.
“If it hadn’t been for you dragging us into Roswell on the way-“
“Not to mention the two hunts we took.”
“We would’ve been here a week ago,” Ben finished.
The stop in Roswell had been purely Dalton’s doing, a side trip that ended in utter disappointment and the death of Dalton’s belief in UFOs. That hadn’t taken very long, and neither had the ghost in Iowa. It was the nest of vampires in New Orleans had taken up a significant portion of the trip.
“We made it just in time for Halloween,” Dalton noted. “Was that why you were so intent on getting here?”
“Yeah, maybe the snow will keep all the tiny assholes from going on candy rampages.”
“No way, I bet Maine has the best Halloween parties outside of California,” Dalton sounded excited, much to Ben’s chagrin.
“Nothing could please me more,” Ben hoped the sarcasm in his voice would end the conversation. He was sadly mistaken.
“What’ve you got against Halloween?”
“A celebration of monsters, ghosts, and little tyrants entitled to demand sugar from anyone they see? Where the fuck can I sign up?”
“It’s not that bad,” Dalton closed his laptop.
“Yeah the trick-or-treating is beyond us now, but come on, Halloween in Maine?”
“I don’t see what Maine has to do with anything.”
There was a heavy silence, in which Ben could feel Dalton staring at him.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Well, it is beginning to sound like a cosmic joke at my expense.”
“Ben, Stephen King’s from Maine.”
“Is he a serial killer or a psychic or something?”
“You’re telling me you don’t know who Stephen King is.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
The sound Dalton made was distress on the verge of anguish
“He’s one of the best horror writers of all time, Christ! I’ve read everything he’s written, and because of him, I’ve read everything Lovecraft has written too. Those two used to give me countless nights of insomnia as a kid.”
“That explains it,” Ben got off the interstate, stifling a yawn. “Horror is the biggest waste of time I could possibly think of. Why read misleading stories about evil things when I can just learn to kill them instead?”
“Horror’s not about the creatures, it’s not that shallow,” Dalton said.
“You can learn a lot about fear through horror stories. Why we have it, how we fight it- that sort of thing.”
“I don’t know about you, but I fight my fear with a knife under my pillow at night.”
“Suppose that’s one way,” Dalton sighed. He leaned back in his seat, staring through the windshield at the road empty ahead of them.
“How much longer?”
“Hour and a half. You might as well go back to sleep.”
“I’d rather go another round with the New Orleans crew.”
Despite his retort, it was only ten minutes later that Ben heard Dalton’s faint, raspy snore over the radio. Ben didn’t begrudge him the extra sleep at all. Dalton had been keeping up admirably for the last two weeks.
Ben had even been impressed by his actions in New Orleans. Against the full fury of the nest, Ben didn’t mind admitting he wouldn’t have stood a chance without Dalton’s help.
They pulled into the parking lot of a small motel outside of Augusta just before two. Dalton stirred when Ben switched off the ignition.
“We made it,” Ben said.
Dalton blinked drowsily, “I’ll grab the bags, if you get the room.”
Ben slid him the keys to the Camaro and trudged across the parking lot. He kept his head down and his hands in the pockets of the leather jacket he’d picked up at a Good Will in Iowa.
The snow still managed to drive its chill through his clothes. The collar of his jacket was icy against his neck.
He blew into the motel lobby with a gust of October wind strong enough to force him to fight it as he shut the door.
“One room, twin beds,” he told the man behind the counter. The man, watching some kind of wrestling match on an ancient television, didn’t even look up as he grabbed a key.
“Seventy bucks.”
“You take cards?”
That got the clerk’s attention. He looked Ben over balefully.
“Yeah, but most pay here in cash.”
“I just have my card,” Ben held it up impatiently.
The clerk’s attention went back to the television briefly as garbled cheers broke through the noise-clouded picture. Muttering sourly, he took Ben’s card and limped over to the register.
It took five painful minutes for the clerk to type in Ben’s car number and give it back to him, along with the key.
“You’re in Room 16,” he grunted. He scratched at the stubble on his chin absently as he spoke.
“Be careful. Weird folk about this time of year.”
Ben nodded and left. He had received roughly that same spiel at every motel he’d stayed at between Maine and California. It seemed to be a staple for seedy motel owners.
Dalton stood just outside the door, shivering miserably.
“Why didn’t you come in?”
“I just got here. I had to work up the nerve to get out the car and face the cold.”
Both had to speak slowly to keep their teeth from chattering.
“Come on,” Ben grabbed one of the bags Dalton carried and half-ran, half-hobbled down the icy sidewalk to their room. For a moment, it looked like his key was going to stick in the lock, but Ben’s numbed fingers managed to turn it and a blast of heat rushed out to greet them.
The room was one of the nicer ones they had stayed in, though the wallpaper and bed sheets were a little worn and faded.
Dalton sat down and pulled out his laptop, as was his habit. He wasn’t addicted as Ben had previously though, he simply took a moment at every motel to check the wireless connection. It looked like this one wasn’t to his liking.
“There’s no Wi-Fi, not even a secure connection to hack.”
“The clerk looked like he was still determining whether his register was run by sorcery. Wasn’t expecting much.”
Ben dropped his bag and his jacket on the end of his bed and went to check out the bathroom. A twenty-four hour drive with only one stop was rough on his bladder.
“We should look for a Dunkin Donuts or something in the morning, I’m starving,” he called through the door.
Something landed lightly on his shoulder. Ben brushed at it with one hand, but when it stuck to his fingers, he glanced down. He swore and shook his hand violently until the black spider clinging to him was thrown off.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine, just tripped,” Ben said. He changed the subject quickly, his skin still crawling as he unbuttoned his jeans.
“Maybe we could get you one of those traveling Wi-Fi hotspots. It would be a lot easier than praying for cheap motel Internet.”
“Those things don’t get reception in some areas and they’re expensive as hell.”
Ben was still on edge from the first spider, so the second one didn’t scare him as badly, but he still stepped away from the toilet as fast as he could.
This time, Ben looked up to see where they were coming from. He caught sight of a few too many dexterous legs scrabbling over the sheer shower curtain. The plastic sheet didn’t look like it could hide much, but Ben pushed it aside to find more than he ever wanted to see.
Dalton was flipping through fuzzy TV channels when Ben threw the bathroom door open. Ben pointed, his lips drawn together in a thin line.
“Deal with them.”
“With what?” Dalton came toward him, one hand going to the knife he’d started wearing on his hip.
“That, that infestation.”
Frowning, Dalton ducked into the bathroom, looking in the direction of Ben’s finger. When he realized what it was, he broke into a grin.
“Please don’t tell me you’re afraid of spiders, there are only like six little ones there.”
“It’s a common fear, plenty of people have it,” Ben snapped.
Dalton wasn’t cutting him any slack, “These aren’t even poisonous.”
Ben didn’t care if their bite would give him superpowers, he didn’t relax until Dalton had swept the confusion of web and arachnids into the bathroom trashcan and taken it out the door.
Ben went back into the bathroom and checked for any stragglers before finishing what he’d started. He noticed that he’d accidentally drafted Dalton’s help with his jeans open, but he didn’t really care about that either.
Dalton was still smiling broadly when Ben came back out.
“I guess that knife under your pillow didn’t help very much with spiders in the bathroom.”
“Like you’re not afraid of anything.”
Ben’s tone was sharper than he intended. The long drive and the spiders had not helped his bad mood about his family problems.
Dalton shrugged, unbothered, “That’s the benefit of horror. At the very least, it desensitizes you to pretty much everything.”
Ben stripped off his jeans, content just to climb into bed in his boxers and tee shirt, intent only on sleep. He pulled back the motel sheets slowly and deliberately.
“Fear has its place. Numbing yourself to it with violence and special effects is a denial of the real harm these things can do to you.”
He thought of the spiders again and pulled the blankets over himself tighter, his back to Dalton.
“Fear’s a weapon in more ways than one.”
Crossover Between Insidious and Supernatural
PG 13 for Language
Updates Fridays
Previous Arc
Summary: Ben and Dalton finally make it to Maine, just in time for Ben's least favorite time of year: Halloween. Dalton is determined to get his hunting partner in the mood for a good scare, but something darker may be waiting for them in the shadows.
Ben blew over the state line of Maine at 12:05 in the morning, two days before Halloween. He knew this because of the static-muffled radio announcer babbling needlessly over the ending of the previous day’s last music set.
“And it’s five past midnight, two da… ys before Halloween. Here a… we like to make… point of celebrating, so here’s… treat for you!”
The opening notes of “Monster Mash” began to pour from the stereo, and Ben punched the search button without hesitation. The station had been getting less intelligible anyway, no point in suffering through that.
As he brought his hand back to the steering wheel, the lit up screen of his phone caught his attention, and he was reminded of his missed calls, unanswered texts. Ben was sure not all of them were from his father and uncle, but he also knew that most of them were, and he would rather not face his guilt any more than he had to.
Ever since the deadline for meeting his family in Boulder had passed, Ben had done his best to stay far below the radar. He knew he couldn’t evade Sam and Dean forever, but he didn’t want to see them any time soon either.
A blast of sudden static from a station the search was passing over jolted Ben’s passenger awake. Dalton sat up a bit and rubbed his eyes, his fingers automatically going to the keys of the laptop sitting open on his legs.
“When’d I fall asleep?” he asked.
“Around eleven, you haven’t been asleep long.”
Dalton tapped a key lazily, then ran a hand over his face again, yawning.
“Where are we now?”
“Just crossed into Maine.”
“Guess we finally made it.”
Ben smiled faintly, keeping his eyes on the road.
“If it hadn’t been for you dragging us into Roswell on the way-“
“Not to mention the two hunts we took.”
“We would’ve been here a week ago,” Ben finished.
The stop in Roswell had been purely Dalton’s doing, a side trip that ended in utter disappointment and the death of Dalton’s belief in UFOs. That hadn’t taken very long, and neither had the ghost in Iowa. It was the nest of vampires in New Orleans had taken up a significant portion of the trip.
“We made it just in time for Halloween,” Dalton noted. “Was that why you were so intent on getting here?”
“Yeah, maybe the snow will keep all the tiny assholes from going on candy rampages.”
“No way, I bet Maine has the best Halloween parties outside of California,” Dalton sounded excited, much to Ben’s chagrin.
“Nothing could please me more,” Ben hoped the sarcasm in his voice would end the conversation. He was sadly mistaken.
“What’ve you got against Halloween?”
“A celebration of monsters, ghosts, and little tyrants entitled to demand sugar from anyone they see? Where the fuck can I sign up?”
“It’s not that bad,” Dalton closed his laptop.
“Yeah the trick-or-treating is beyond us now, but come on, Halloween in Maine?”
“I don’t see what Maine has to do with anything.”
There was a heavy silence, in which Ben could feel Dalton staring at him.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Well, it is beginning to sound like a cosmic joke at my expense.”
“Ben, Stephen King’s from Maine.”
“Is he a serial killer or a psychic or something?”
“You’re telling me you don’t know who Stephen King is.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
The sound Dalton made was distress on the verge of anguish
“He’s one of the best horror writers of all time, Christ! I’ve read everything he’s written, and because of him, I’ve read everything Lovecraft has written too. Those two used to give me countless nights of insomnia as a kid.”
“That explains it,” Ben got off the interstate, stifling a yawn. “Horror is the biggest waste of time I could possibly think of. Why read misleading stories about evil things when I can just learn to kill them instead?”
“Horror’s not about the creatures, it’s not that shallow,” Dalton said.
“You can learn a lot about fear through horror stories. Why we have it, how we fight it- that sort of thing.”
“I don’t know about you, but I fight my fear with a knife under my pillow at night.”
“Suppose that’s one way,” Dalton sighed. He leaned back in his seat, staring through the windshield at the road empty ahead of them.
“How much longer?”
“Hour and a half. You might as well go back to sleep.”
“I’d rather go another round with the New Orleans crew.”
Despite his retort, it was only ten minutes later that Ben heard Dalton’s faint, raspy snore over the radio. Ben didn’t begrudge him the extra sleep at all. Dalton had been keeping up admirably for the last two weeks.
Ben had even been impressed by his actions in New Orleans. Against the full fury of the nest, Ben didn’t mind admitting he wouldn’t have stood a chance without Dalton’s help.
They pulled into the parking lot of a small motel outside of Augusta just before two. Dalton stirred when Ben switched off the ignition.
“We made it,” Ben said.
Dalton blinked drowsily, “I’ll grab the bags, if you get the room.”
Ben slid him the keys to the Camaro and trudged across the parking lot. He kept his head down and his hands in the pockets of the leather jacket he’d picked up at a Good Will in Iowa.
The snow still managed to drive its chill through his clothes. The collar of his jacket was icy against his neck.
He blew into the motel lobby with a gust of October wind strong enough to force him to fight it as he shut the door.
“One room, twin beds,” he told the man behind the counter. The man, watching some kind of wrestling match on an ancient television, didn’t even look up as he grabbed a key.
“Seventy bucks.”
“You take cards?”
That got the clerk’s attention. He looked Ben over balefully.
“Yeah, but most pay here in cash.”
“I just have my card,” Ben held it up impatiently.
The clerk’s attention went back to the television briefly as garbled cheers broke through the noise-clouded picture. Muttering sourly, he took Ben’s card and limped over to the register.
It took five painful minutes for the clerk to type in Ben’s car number and give it back to him, along with the key.
“You’re in Room 16,” he grunted. He scratched at the stubble on his chin absently as he spoke.
“Be careful. Weird folk about this time of year.”
Ben nodded and left. He had received roughly that same spiel at every motel he’d stayed at between Maine and California. It seemed to be a staple for seedy motel owners.
Dalton stood just outside the door, shivering miserably.
“Why didn’t you come in?”
“I just got here. I had to work up the nerve to get out the car and face the cold.”
Both had to speak slowly to keep their teeth from chattering.
“Come on,” Ben grabbed one of the bags Dalton carried and half-ran, half-hobbled down the icy sidewalk to their room. For a moment, it looked like his key was going to stick in the lock, but Ben’s numbed fingers managed to turn it and a blast of heat rushed out to greet them.
The room was one of the nicer ones they had stayed in, though the wallpaper and bed sheets were a little worn and faded.
Dalton sat down and pulled out his laptop, as was his habit. He wasn’t addicted as Ben had previously though, he simply took a moment at every motel to check the wireless connection. It looked like this one wasn’t to his liking.
“There’s no Wi-Fi, not even a secure connection to hack.”
“The clerk looked like he was still determining whether his register was run by sorcery. Wasn’t expecting much.”
Ben dropped his bag and his jacket on the end of his bed and went to check out the bathroom. A twenty-four hour drive with only one stop was rough on his bladder.
“We should look for a Dunkin Donuts or something in the morning, I’m starving,” he called through the door.
Something landed lightly on his shoulder. Ben brushed at it with one hand, but when it stuck to his fingers, he glanced down. He swore and shook his hand violently until the black spider clinging to him was thrown off.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine, just tripped,” Ben said. He changed the subject quickly, his skin still crawling as he unbuttoned his jeans.
“Maybe we could get you one of those traveling Wi-Fi hotspots. It would be a lot easier than praying for cheap motel Internet.”
“Those things don’t get reception in some areas and they’re expensive as hell.”
Ben was still on edge from the first spider, so the second one didn’t scare him as badly, but he still stepped away from the toilet as fast as he could.
This time, Ben looked up to see where they were coming from. He caught sight of a few too many dexterous legs scrabbling over the sheer shower curtain. The plastic sheet didn’t look like it could hide much, but Ben pushed it aside to find more than he ever wanted to see.
Dalton was flipping through fuzzy TV channels when Ben threw the bathroom door open. Ben pointed, his lips drawn together in a thin line.
“Deal with them.”
“With what?” Dalton came toward him, one hand going to the knife he’d started wearing on his hip.
“That, that infestation.”
Frowning, Dalton ducked into the bathroom, looking in the direction of Ben’s finger. When he realized what it was, he broke into a grin.
“Please don’t tell me you’re afraid of spiders, there are only like six little ones there.”
“It’s a common fear, plenty of people have it,” Ben snapped.
Dalton wasn’t cutting him any slack, “These aren’t even poisonous.”
Ben didn’t care if their bite would give him superpowers, he didn’t relax until Dalton had swept the confusion of web and arachnids into the bathroom trashcan and taken it out the door.
Ben went back into the bathroom and checked for any stragglers before finishing what he’d started. He noticed that he’d accidentally drafted Dalton’s help with his jeans open, but he didn’t really care about that either.
Dalton was still smiling broadly when Ben came back out.
“I guess that knife under your pillow didn’t help very much with spiders in the bathroom.”
“Like you’re not afraid of anything.”
Ben’s tone was sharper than he intended. The long drive and the spiders had not helped his bad mood about his family problems.
Dalton shrugged, unbothered, “That’s the benefit of horror. At the very least, it desensitizes you to pretty much everything.”
Ben stripped off his jeans, content just to climb into bed in his boxers and tee shirt, intent only on sleep. He pulled back the motel sheets slowly and deliberately.
“Fear has its place. Numbing yourself to it with violence and special effects is a denial of the real harm these things can do to you.”
He thought of the spiders again and pulled the blankets over himself tighter, his back to Dalton.
“Fear’s a weapon in more ways than one.”