Lights Out, Conclusion
Disclaimer: Being the property of their respective copyright holders, Supernatural, its characters or any other publicly recognizable names don’t belong to me in any way, shape or form. This was written for the sole purpose of entertainment, not monetary gain. No copyright infringement is intended.
~ Oh my, would the boys be in trouble if I had a say... Just one word: SFTCOL(AR)S
Summary:
The Winchester brothers investigate a string of creepy accidents in a candle factory. When Sam gets snatched from right underneath Dean’s nose, it all goes to hell in a hand-basket, and fast. House of Wax-ish
Warning:
Language, violence, h/c, disturbing images… so, the usual by Winchester standards.
Giving a detailed account of previous night’s events wasn’t easy for Sam by any stretch of the imagination. Nevertheless, they needed to gather as much information as possible about the evil thing haunting the factory and therefore couldn’t spare him reliving the traumatic experience while the memory was still fresh in his mind.
Shaking hands locked in a death-grip around the whiskey flask, the shaggy-haired young man recounted his observations most accurately and in a tone of voice that belied his agitation. To their great disappointment, however, his recollections revealed nothing new about the spirit - besides that it was most definitely no Poltergeist. Even Bobby drew a complete blank on the subject.
“My best guess is that something inside that factory is keeping it here,” Bobby mused. “There has to be a connection between the spook and the factory, for goodness sake!”
“What do you think, we go there - you and I, Bobby -, have a good look around. Maybe we can find anything while our college boy here sees if he can dig up anything useful on the internet?” Dean suggested.
“You’re kidding, right?” Sam ground out bemusedly. “This thing - and we have no idea what it even is or what keeps it here - is just itching to lay its foggy hands on its next victim. Hell, it almost turned me into a frigging wax figure; and you want to go there half-cocked, strolling down the game trail? What are you, insane?!”
“That is exactly the point, Sammy! If we don’t go there tonight, someone else might get killed, some unwitting guy who hasn’t got the slightest clue what’s going on,” the older Winchester argued. “C’mon, we know for a fact that it is not immune to rock salt; we’ll figure the rest out.”
“Bobby, tell him what a stupid idea this is.” Sam prompted desperately.
The seasoned hunter stalled for a moment, then shook his head. “Sorry, kiddo, but I think your brother has a point here.”
“No.” Sam was dead-set on not allowing this idiocy. “No, I’m not going there again, not before we have anything substantial on how to destroy the spirit.” Trying to stare the other two men down, he crossed his arms in front of his body for effect.
“Great, then everything is settled. As I already said, Bobby and I will go; you are supposed to search the internet for further information.” Dean explained off-hand, packing his duffel.
“Come again?” Sam asked incredulously, totally taken aback.
“You’re staying, we’re going. While we’re keeping any innocent bystanders out of harm’s way, you see what you can find out about the history of the place. Maybe we missed something the first time around.”
“Dean-” the younger boy pleaded.
“That’s final.” He was brushed off rather harshly. “And when you find anything, call us.”
“Fine, where is my phone, anyway?” The underlying whine was unmistakable.
“Huh, must still be in the factory, I guess …with the rest of your clothes,” Dean trailed off, unwanted memories assaulting him.
“Why didn’t you bring them as well?” The question was innocent enough, completely oblivious to the fact that he knew exactly why.
“Geeze, I was a little preoccupied lugging my pain-in-the-ass little brother around!” Dean snapped when his temper got the better of him. Grabbing his duffel, he headed towards the door but hesitated when he turned the handle. Then, in a much softer voice, “We’ll be careful, Sammy. Don’t worry.”
xXxXx
Sam’s back rested against the headboard of the bed as he typed more furiously than the keyboard deserved. Being angry while researching a hunt, more often than not was a recipe for disaster but it was nothing new for him, either. Growing up, he had spent countless days degraded to research after his father had cut him down to size. Naturally, it messed with your concentration, BIG TIME, which made you more prone to overlooking something important. On the other hand, the fire in your gut drove you on, teased and tempted you, and sparked ideas you might not have considered otherwise.
So when he virtually stumbled over a locked down entry in a secluded corner of the police reports after following dozens of promising leads into dead ends, his interest peaked. Moreover, he was livid enough not to be deterred by the irritating obstacle the high-level passwords proved. After all, there had to be something worth looking into if they were going through so much trouble to keep it hidden.
The younger Winchester had to hand it to whoever was responsible for locking down the page. The code was a real bitch to decipher but Sam was as smart as they came and nothing if not resourceful. It took him almost twice as long to access the site than what he had presumed but when he was finally there, scanning the police report that popped up, it had been well worth his effort. In the nineteen-twenties a night watchman, Isaiah Baker, had accidentally fallen into one of the candle wax tanks, dying a horrible death.
‘Okay, so he had a name. That was a start. But why was the spirit active just now. Everything had started merely three months ago; before that, nothing! What had caused the spirit to kill its colleagues, more than eighty years after its initial demise?’
Remembering a snippet from a recent article on the deaths and leafing through his notes, a terrible suspicion dawned on Sam. Perusing numerous birth and death certificates, comparing them with the names scribbled on his notepad, suddenly all the missing links clicked into place. This wasn’t a usual unrestful spirit they were dealing with, nor was it a vengeful spirit by any means. This was a Gidim; the first that crossed their path.
Frantically typing Dean’s cell number into the internet phone program on his computer, Sam’s worry for Bobby and Dean rose. They really needed to get the hell out of that factory, NOW!
“Pick up, already!” He shouted at the screen when the call went to voicemail after 30 seconds without Dean taking the call. Immediately cutting the connection and hitting dial once more, he eagerly waited for his brother’s answer. “Come on, come on, come on!” he coached. This time the no reception sign popped up and the call went straight through to voicemail.
“Dean, it’s a Gidim! There are no remains at the damn factory, we gotta torch the bones. I’ve got a name. Now get the fuck out of there! Like yesterday!”
Ending the phone call, the young hunter dialled Bobby’s number but wasn’t surprised at being notified that the signal wasn’t going through. He closed the lid forcefully enough to risk damaging the display. “Fuck! Damn WiFi! I knew this was gonna suck!” Sam burst out. With his right foot he hammered a staccato rhythm into the floor, contemplating his options.
Calling his brother and their friend every unprintable name under the sun, Sam rolled gracefully out of bed. “I’m so gonna kick your asses into the middle of next week once I find you in the factory!” he swore under his breath.
xXxXx
Parking Bobby’s hot-wired car right next to the Impala, Sam gave his brother’s baby a kick against the front tire in passing. Sometimes it really felt good to have a substitute for his pent-up aggressions when his warnings were dismissed or ignored as usual.
A cold shiver crept up his spine as he entered the candle factory once more, last night’s experience multiplying the building’s eerie atmosphere. Focusing on his goal of finding Bobby and Dean, it still took all his willpower to keep moving.
From afar he could make out a fuzzy gleaming light. Since the rest of the factory was completely dark and silent, that could only be them, their flashlights leading his way towards them. The light continuously ebbed away during his cautious approach but the faint glow remained, which was kind of weird but the two hunters could have split up and gone down different aisles.
When he reached the spot, he recognized it at once; and Sam’s heart dropped right down onto the floor upon seeing the table. The very table he had been lying on just yesterday. Thus distracted for a handful of seconds, before he was able to regain his composure, the attack came totally out of left field. The Gidim was upon him before he had time to raise the muzzle of his rock-salt gun.
“No!-” The protest died on Sam’s lips as the disconcertingly familiar warmth spread through his body again, the paralysis taking hold instantaneously. He sank to the ground like a boned fish, unable to move the tiniest muscle.
Soon the young hunter was lifted onto the waiting table where his clothes were unceremoniously cut away again. His panic skyrocketed when the fuzzy shade returned with a canister and began to wash him carefully from head to toe with lukewarm water, taking its sweet time to complete the task.
‘Dean and Bobby must be around here somewhere. The place wasn’t this big to begin with. How could he have missed them? Where the fuck could they be?! …Unless… No! No, he was not going there. Never!’ He refused to believe in the most logical explanation. It had to be something else.
Suddenly he remembered his undeveloped psychic powers, how they had helped him in dire situations before. Concentrating on his inner strength, he tried to reach out to Dean with his mind.
‘You are strong, young one’, an unfamiliar voice echoed inside Sam’s head, ‘but that won’t help you this time. Your brother and the old one don’t possess this skill. They won’t come to your aid.’
‘I- I know what you are,’ Sam thought aloud. ‘Let me go and I will help you find peace.’
The presence chuckled evilly. ‘I don’t want peace. You cannot help me other than with your death.’ To drive his point home, the spirit picked Sam’s tall frame up telekinetically and hauled him towards the looming candle wax tank only a couple of feet away.
The youngest Winchester’s terror reached new, untrespassed heights as he hovered only inches above the hot wax, totally helpless to do anything. ‘You are Isaiah Baker’s spirit, a Gidim,’ he pleaded.
‘So?’ came the cold reply but the slow descent halted for a moment.
‘Your spirit rises from oblivion when you are utterly forgotten in the world of the living, if you are powerful enough that is.’ Sam remembered having read an exhaustive article about these in one of Bobby’s old volumes ages ago.
‘And powerful I am indeed as you can see. I had seven sons, and prosperous were the years. But my line failed; there are no living descendants from me now.’ Despite the voice becoming quieter, tinged with regret, the Gidim tightened its invisible grip on the hunter and commenced lowering him towards the brewing surface, toes already sinking into the wax, which was surprisingly less scorching on touch than he had expected.
Sam’s mind reeled, he was going stir crazy inside. Already the wax reached above his calves. ‘Please,’ he beseeched tearfully, ‘I know what happened to you. I know they discarded your memorial plate at the wall in the watchman booth and shredded the old files about former employers. Please, I could restore your memory.’ His breath hitched when his hip sank deeper into the mass. Covering half his body, the wax had gradually become painfully hot. If his begging couldn’t sway the Gidim, it would be over soon.
‘You are irrelevant, young one,’ came the damning words from the spirit, and his last slivers of hope vanished. There was no way out anymore. He was already coated in wax up to his torso. In a few seconds even his head would dip underneath the surface.
An odd calm spread through his mind; death was near. Sam fondly remembered his brother one last time, thinking of all the times the elder boy had made good-natured fun of him; he recalled their dad avoiding his gaze on that last day in the hospital with Dean, or Bobby taking them in afterwards like a father.
Breathing was becoming increasingly difficult when the wax reached his neck. His chest felt constricted and the painful burning had intensified into a bone-deep, blazing ache that flooded all his senses.
With the wax already covering the underside of his chin, it was time to let go.
Sam’s toes meeting resistance, effectively stopping his descent, puzzled him beyond measure. He had seen the tank, seen that it was filled to the brim with wax. He couldn’t be tall enough not to be submerged entirely; and yet, here he was, his chin barely covered.
Then he heard the sudden commotion around him, voices, disturbing his peace, familiar voices! Several rounds were fired, there was shouting but he couldn’t make out the words.
An all-encompassing, ungodly screech echoed through the factory, shaking its walls in their very foundations. Obviously still interconnected with the Gidim’s telepathic abilities, the hideous shriek’s resonance unleashed a tsunami in Sam’s mind that threatened to split his head.
As suddenly as it had begun, the noise evaporated into nothingness, leaving utter silence in its wake. Then, like a levee breaking, the spirit’s paralysing grip fell away and the young man felt the numbness seep out of his body. Sam would have sunken bonelessly to the bottom of the tank if it weren’t for the inflexible shell that still held him immobile.
He was unable to conceal the hot tears of joy that ran down his face. He wanted to take a relieved sigh at his last-minute rescue but realized that due to the coat of wax hugging his body tightly, he couldn’t inhale nearly deep enough to satisfy his aching lungs. Trapped in a body completely covered with candle wax, a new kind of panic threatened to take him under.
“Sammy?” “Sam?” Dean and Bobby’s worried voices were almost synchronous. The ghost of a smile graced his lips, the panic and discomfort subsiding almost instantly.
“Are you okay? Sammy?” Judging from the sound of their voices, they were peeking inside the tank now, looking down at him.
“Hm hmmm.” Sam tried to be as reassuring as possible. The wax locking his chin in place prevented him from moving his jaw though, or pretty much any other muscle in his body, which made communicating rather challenging. He hoped the message had come across, anyhow.
“Sit tight, boy, we’re getting you out of there in a moment.” Bobby sounded as much in charge of the situation as ever. “Let me just seal the leak before your idjit-brother and I slip on the friggin’ wax.”
‘A leak?’ For the first time Sam noticed the gradually retreating surface of the wax inside the tank. ‘So this was how they had ensured his not submerging as soon as the Gidim lowered him into the tank. Obviously he was not the only one smart as they came. Duh.’
Calling being heaved out of a candle wax tank with an improvised crane while you were frozen in stillness, an awkward experience, was the understatement of the century! After an eternity of waiting for something to happen, Sam had lost track of time. He was dying to get out of the tank and especially out of his waxy prison while Dean and Bobby slaved away lifting the heavy figure inch by painfully slow inch. Their laboured breathing was the only measure of time the younger brother had.
“Dude, you really need to lay off the healthy food,” Dean groaned once they had Sam standing safely next to them outside the tank. “You weigh at least as much as a grown elephant.” It was grotesque seeing Sam stock-still in his milky shell of wax. Bobby had gathered their gear while Dean had started checking his brother superficially for any injuries or obstructions that needed to be taken care of before they could return to their motel.
“Hey, Bobby,” Dean winked in Sam’s direction. “I just came across this cute wax figure. Can we keep it?” Both hunters burst out laughing, and even the incapacitated Sam chuckled inwardly.
If he had thought being lifted out of a tank completely coated in wax was awkward, it was nothing compared to being carried across the premises like a log when your carriers seemed determined to surpass each other’s string of curses about your weight. Sam wished for merciful unconsciousness by the time they reached the cars, his desire turning into a desperate prayer for being allowed to pass out when Dean looked at Sam, looked at Bobby, looked at Sam, and then announced, “There is absolutely no way we fit him into the Impala like that!”
“Maybe we could get him into my car; I can dispatch the passenger seat.” Bobby answered thoughtfully.
‘Seriously!’ Sam furrowed his brow, and continued to pray for oblivion.
The youngest Winchester didn’t pay attention to what exactly Bobby and Dean had to do to get him inside one of the cars as he was; he only cared that they did. What felt like hours later, Sam was in Bobby’s sports car, lying in a most uncomfortable position when they were moving out to their motel room. Apart from the considerable discomfort of not being able to move at all and breathing being reduced to shallow sips of much-needed air, an itch had formed near his left shoulder blade. To his utter dismay, there was no chance in hell he was able to scratch that itch, nor could he talk to direct either Bobby or Dean to doing so. He was so screwed! Despite his miraculous rescue, which he was beyond grateful for, this was going to be a very long night!
xXxXx
When they finally arrived at the motel, he was manoeuvred, or better yet, wrestled out of the car like an oversized Christmas tree, and Sam called all his blessings when they eventually managed to lay him onto his bed.
“Now we need to figure out how to get all this wax off of you,” Dean looked doubtful.
“Doesn’t this motel have hair dryers? Then we could warm the wax, so it would be easier to peel off,” Bobby suggested.
Actually, the hair dryer proved to be a pretty decent idea when it came to removing the wax. The only problem was that they had only one hair dryer and it took ages for them to peel away the rather thick layers. The part around his chin alone, plus a tiny spot on his right arm where they had practised their technique to make sure they weren’t removing more skin than wax, took the three men more than half an hour to get rid of. At least he was able to speak now, engaging the other two in conversation while they kept on working.
While Bobby had busied himself with peeling away the wax on his right upper forearm and biceps, all the while telling him how they had managed to get the drop on the Gidim, Dean had whispered reassurances and begun stroking his brother’s still covered left hand encouragingly. It was a very peculiar feeling through the layers of wax but Sam leaned into the loving gesture as best he could. It provided comfort, strength and most of all, a sense of safety.
Since the beginning of their account, Sam had learned that Bobby and Dean had instantly known when the younger boy had been taken again because the air inside the building had suddenly come to life and sizzled with supernatural energy. They had seen the missed calls and therefore, had a rather accurate idea of what was going on.
The Gidim had paid them no heed when they observed the scene unfolding from the shadows. When Dean had attacked the spirit, purposefully distracting it with a couple of buck shots, Bobby had taken care of cutting a leak into the tank, so the level of hot wax to dump Sam into would lower. Between the two of them, they had managed to lay a full circle of salt around the Gidim, rendering the malevolent spook confined and powerless.
“How come the spook never touched one of you, anyway when it knocked me on my ass in ten seconds flat? You had been at the factory long before me. I mean, why wait for me when it didn’t even know that I was coming at all?” the immobilized boy asked curiously.
“First of all, it’s in the looks, Sammy,” his big brother teased. “Neither Bobby nor I have damsel in distress written all over our face like you do. Plus, we had doused our clothes in salt to prevent an attack.”
“Smart.” Sam said admiringly.
“Yeah, well, you’re not the only genius in the family.” Dean dead-panned.
“What time is it?” Sam began getting nervous again. He couldn’t see the wall clock from his vantage point. Moving his head was still an issue because they hadn’t bothered to continue with his neck after removing the wax from his chin, claiming that some of the wax had got into the lower part of his hair which would require shaving away. Sam had protested till he was blue in the face, literally. He had learned the hard way that not breathing properly and talking a mile a minute didn’t mix well. Certainly, it was at least another half an hour that had dragged by without them making much progress on freeing him from the stiff wax suit. This was all taking such an incredibly long time.
Comprehending the full extent of being confined in a skin-tight, unyielding shell of dried candle wax did nothing to assuage his nerves, and again, he felt panic rise, his breaths coming out in puffy gasps that bordered on hyperventilation.
“You need to calm down, Sammy. Please,” Dean coaxed.
“I’m trying.” The younger brother sounded breathless.
“He’s panicking again, Dean. And who can blame him?” Bobby added sadly. He started digging in one of his bags.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked. He wasn’t able to turn his head and see what Bobby pulled from his bag, secretly showing it to Dean. The older man nodded before approaching the bed.
“What are you doing?” the younger boy demanded nervously, realizing that they were purposefully withholding information. A cool liquid touched his skin on the arm the wax was already partly peeled away from, followed by a sharp prick.
“An injection? What for?” His throat was going dry as the meds kicked in.
“Just relax. This is gonna make it a lot easier for you.” Bobby gently rubbed the spot where the needle had pierced the skin.
“No… I don’ wan’ a go t’sleep,” Sam slurred groggily.
“It’s okay, kiddo. Everything’s gonna be fine, Sammy.” Dean resumed stroking the palm of his hand comfortingly. Sam’s eyes closed of their own volition, and his consciousness was lost in fog.
xXxXx
It took them two days to finally dig up Isaiah Baker’s bones. Not that it took so long to locate the gravesite or for Sam to recover, but with the Gidim thoroughly imprisoned and posing no immediate threat anymore, they had decided to take a day’s rest and be wonderfully lazy with the end of their hunt.
Also, they wanted to give Sam the opportunity to finish the Gidim himself, once and for all since he had been the one to suffer most extensively from its evil nature. After the events of the past days of course, finishing the hunt didn’t mean for Sam to actually dig up the corpse. Quite the opposite because Bobby and Dean did all the digging while the younger boy sat on a nearby gravestone and made sure no unexpected visitors showed up, be they human or supernatural.
Called to the open grave, Sam took the offered match book from his brother and the canister from Bobby, pouring another liberal amount of lighter fluid onto the salt-covered remains. He lit the matches, staring absently into the flames while he thought back to what the nasty spirit had done to him. Eventually letting go of all the ill-feelings he harboured against the Gidim, he cast the blazing match book into the casket.
FIN
Story Endnote: Sorry for any inconsistencies concerning the spirit. I have but a vague idea of what a Gidim is; and its general concept worked perfectly for the fic, so I wrestled the notion into submission to fit into my story.
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~ Oh my, would the boys be in trouble if I had a say... Just one word: SFTCOL(AR)S
Summary:
The Winchester brothers investigate a string of creepy accidents in a candle factory. When Sam gets snatched from right underneath Dean’s nose, it all goes to hell in a hand-basket, and fast. House of Wax-ish
Warning:
Language, violence, h/c, disturbing images… so, the usual by Winchester standards.
Giving a detailed account of previous night’s events wasn’t easy for Sam by any stretch of the imagination. Nevertheless, they needed to gather as much information as possible about the evil thing haunting the factory and therefore couldn’t spare him reliving the traumatic experience while the memory was still fresh in his mind.
Shaking hands locked in a death-grip around the whiskey flask, the shaggy-haired young man recounted his observations most accurately and in a tone of voice that belied his agitation. To their great disappointment, however, his recollections revealed nothing new about the spirit - besides that it was most definitely no Poltergeist. Even Bobby drew a complete blank on the subject.
“My best guess is that something inside that factory is keeping it here,” Bobby mused. “There has to be a connection between the spook and the factory, for goodness sake!”
“What do you think, we go there - you and I, Bobby -, have a good look around. Maybe we can find anything while our college boy here sees if he can dig up anything useful on the internet?” Dean suggested.
“You’re kidding, right?” Sam ground out bemusedly. “This thing - and we have no idea what it even is or what keeps it here - is just itching to lay its foggy hands on its next victim. Hell, it almost turned me into a frigging wax figure; and you want to go there half-cocked, strolling down the game trail? What are you, insane?!”
“That is exactly the point, Sammy! If we don’t go there tonight, someone else might get killed, some unwitting guy who hasn’t got the slightest clue what’s going on,” the older Winchester argued. “C’mon, we know for a fact that it is not immune to rock salt; we’ll figure the rest out.”
“Bobby, tell him what a stupid idea this is.” Sam prompted desperately.
The seasoned hunter stalled for a moment, then shook his head. “Sorry, kiddo, but I think your brother has a point here.”
“No.” Sam was dead-set on not allowing this idiocy. “No, I’m not going there again, not before we have anything substantial on how to destroy the spirit.” Trying to stare the other two men down, he crossed his arms in front of his body for effect.
“Great, then everything is settled. As I already said, Bobby and I will go; you are supposed to search the internet for further information.” Dean explained off-hand, packing his duffel.
“Come again?” Sam asked incredulously, totally taken aback.
“You’re staying, we’re going. While we’re keeping any innocent bystanders out of harm’s way, you see what you can find out about the history of the place. Maybe we missed something the first time around.”
“Dean-” the younger boy pleaded.
“That’s final.” He was brushed off rather harshly. “And when you find anything, call us.”
“Fine, where is my phone, anyway?” The underlying whine was unmistakable.
“Huh, must still be in the factory, I guess …with the rest of your clothes,” Dean trailed off, unwanted memories assaulting him.
“Why didn’t you bring them as well?” The question was innocent enough, completely oblivious to the fact that he knew exactly why.
“Geeze, I was a little preoccupied lugging my pain-in-the-ass little brother around!” Dean snapped when his temper got the better of him. Grabbing his duffel, he headed towards the door but hesitated when he turned the handle. Then, in a much softer voice, “We’ll be careful, Sammy. Don’t worry.”
xXxXx
Sam’s back rested against the headboard of the bed as he typed more furiously than the keyboard deserved. Being angry while researching a hunt, more often than not was a recipe for disaster but it was nothing new for him, either. Growing up, he had spent countless days degraded to research after his father had cut him down to size. Naturally, it messed with your concentration, BIG TIME, which made you more prone to overlooking something important. On the other hand, the fire in your gut drove you on, teased and tempted you, and sparked ideas you might not have considered otherwise.
So when he virtually stumbled over a locked down entry in a secluded corner of the police reports after following dozens of promising leads into dead ends, his interest peaked. Moreover, he was livid enough not to be deterred by the irritating obstacle the high-level passwords proved. After all, there had to be something worth looking into if they were going through so much trouble to keep it hidden.
The younger Winchester had to hand it to whoever was responsible for locking down the page. The code was a real bitch to decipher but Sam was as smart as they came and nothing if not resourceful. It took him almost twice as long to access the site than what he had presumed but when he was finally there, scanning the police report that popped up, it had been well worth his effort. In the nineteen-twenties a night watchman, Isaiah Baker, had accidentally fallen into one of the candle wax tanks, dying a horrible death.
‘Okay, so he had a name. That was a start. But why was the spirit active just now. Everything had started merely three months ago; before that, nothing! What had caused the spirit to kill its colleagues, more than eighty years after its initial demise?’
Remembering a snippet from a recent article on the deaths and leafing through his notes, a terrible suspicion dawned on Sam. Perusing numerous birth and death certificates, comparing them with the names scribbled on his notepad, suddenly all the missing links clicked into place. This wasn’t a usual unrestful spirit they were dealing with, nor was it a vengeful spirit by any means. This was a Gidim; the first that crossed their path.
Frantically typing Dean’s cell number into the internet phone program on his computer, Sam’s worry for Bobby and Dean rose. They really needed to get the hell out of that factory, NOW!
“Pick up, already!” He shouted at the screen when the call went to voicemail after 30 seconds without Dean taking the call. Immediately cutting the connection and hitting dial once more, he eagerly waited for his brother’s answer. “Come on, come on, come on!” he coached. This time the no reception sign popped up and the call went straight through to voicemail.
“Dean, it’s a Gidim! There are no remains at the damn factory, we gotta torch the bones. I’ve got a name. Now get the fuck out of there! Like yesterday!”
Ending the phone call, the young hunter dialled Bobby’s number but wasn’t surprised at being notified that the signal wasn’t going through. He closed the lid forcefully enough to risk damaging the display. “Fuck! Damn WiFi! I knew this was gonna suck!” Sam burst out. With his right foot he hammered a staccato rhythm into the floor, contemplating his options.
Calling his brother and their friend every unprintable name under the sun, Sam rolled gracefully out of bed. “I’m so gonna kick your asses into the middle of next week once I find you in the factory!” he swore under his breath.
xXxXx
Parking Bobby’s hot-wired car right next to the Impala, Sam gave his brother’s baby a kick against the front tire in passing. Sometimes it really felt good to have a substitute for his pent-up aggressions when his warnings were dismissed or ignored as usual.
A cold shiver crept up his spine as he entered the candle factory once more, last night’s experience multiplying the building’s eerie atmosphere. Focusing on his goal of finding Bobby and Dean, it still took all his willpower to keep moving.
From afar he could make out a fuzzy gleaming light. Since the rest of the factory was completely dark and silent, that could only be them, their flashlights leading his way towards them. The light continuously ebbed away during his cautious approach but the faint glow remained, which was kind of weird but the two hunters could have split up and gone down different aisles.
When he reached the spot, he recognized it at once; and Sam’s heart dropped right down onto the floor upon seeing the table. The very table he had been lying on just yesterday. Thus distracted for a handful of seconds, before he was able to regain his composure, the attack came totally out of left field. The Gidim was upon him before he had time to raise the muzzle of his rock-salt gun.
“No!-” The protest died on Sam’s lips as the disconcertingly familiar warmth spread through his body again, the paralysis taking hold instantaneously. He sank to the ground like a boned fish, unable to move the tiniest muscle.
Soon the young hunter was lifted onto the waiting table where his clothes were unceremoniously cut away again. His panic skyrocketed when the fuzzy shade returned with a canister and began to wash him carefully from head to toe with lukewarm water, taking its sweet time to complete the task.
‘Dean and Bobby must be around here somewhere. The place wasn’t this big to begin with. How could he have missed them? Where the fuck could they be?! …Unless… No! No, he was not going there. Never!’ He refused to believe in the most logical explanation. It had to be something else.
Suddenly he remembered his undeveloped psychic powers, how they had helped him in dire situations before. Concentrating on his inner strength, he tried to reach out to Dean with his mind.
‘You are strong, young one’, an unfamiliar voice echoed inside Sam’s head, ‘but that won’t help you this time. Your brother and the old one don’t possess this skill. They won’t come to your aid.’
‘I- I know what you are,’ Sam thought aloud. ‘Let me go and I will help you find peace.’
The presence chuckled evilly. ‘I don’t want peace. You cannot help me other than with your death.’ To drive his point home, the spirit picked Sam’s tall frame up telekinetically and hauled him towards the looming candle wax tank only a couple of feet away.
The youngest Winchester’s terror reached new, untrespassed heights as he hovered only inches above the hot wax, totally helpless to do anything. ‘You are Isaiah Baker’s spirit, a Gidim,’ he pleaded.
‘So?’ came the cold reply but the slow descent halted for a moment.
‘Your spirit rises from oblivion when you are utterly forgotten in the world of the living, if you are powerful enough that is.’ Sam remembered having read an exhaustive article about these in one of Bobby’s old volumes ages ago.
‘And powerful I am indeed as you can see. I had seven sons, and prosperous were the years. But my line failed; there are no living descendants from me now.’ Despite the voice becoming quieter, tinged with regret, the Gidim tightened its invisible grip on the hunter and commenced lowering him towards the brewing surface, toes already sinking into the wax, which was surprisingly less scorching on touch than he had expected.
Sam’s mind reeled, he was going stir crazy inside. Already the wax reached above his calves. ‘Please,’ he beseeched tearfully, ‘I know what happened to you. I know they discarded your memorial plate at the wall in the watchman booth and shredded the old files about former employers. Please, I could restore your memory.’ His breath hitched when his hip sank deeper into the mass. Covering half his body, the wax had gradually become painfully hot. If his begging couldn’t sway the Gidim, it would be over soon.
‘You are irrelevant, young one,’ came the damning words from the spirit, and his last slivers of hope vanished. There was no way out anymore. He was already coated in wax up to his torso. In a few seconds even his head would dip underneath the surface.
An odd calm spread through his mind; death was near. Sam fondly remembered his brother one last time, thinking of all the times the elder boy had made good-natured fun of him; he recalled their dad avoiding his gaze on that last day in the hospital with Dean, or Bobby taking them in afterwards like a father.
Breathing was becoming increasingly difficult when the wax reached his neck. His chest felt constricted and the painful burning had intensified into a bone-deep, blazing ache that flooded all his senses.
With the wax already covering the underside of his chin, it was time to let go.
Sam’s toes meeting resistance, effectively stopping his descent, puzzled him beyond measure. He had seen the tank, seen that it was filled to the brim with wax. He couldn’t be tall enough not to be submerged entirely; and yet, here he was, his chin barely covered.
Then he heard the sudden commotion around him, voices, disturbing his peace, familiar voices! Several rounds were fired, there was shouting but he couldn’t make out the words.
An all-encompassing, ungodly screech echoed through the factory, shaking its walls in their very foundations. Obviously still interconnected with the Gidim’s telepathic abilities, the hideous shriek’s resonance unleashed a tsunami in Sam’s mind that threatened to split his head.
As suddenly as it had begun, the noise evaporated into nothingness, leaving utter silence in its wake. Then, like a levee breaking, the spirit’s paralysing grip fell away and the young man felt the numbness seep out of his body. Sam would have sunken bonelessly to the bottom of the tank if it weren’t for the inflexible shell that still held him immobile.
He was unable to conceal the hot tears of joy that ran down his face. He wanted to take a relieved sigh at his last-minute rescue but realized that due to the coat of wax hugging his body tightly, he couldn’t inhale nearly deep enough to satisfy his aching lungs. Trapped in a body completely covered with candle wax, a new kind of panic threatened to take him under.
“Sammy?” “Sam?” Dean and Bobby’s worried voices were almost synchronous. The ghost of a smile graced his lips, the panic and discomfort subsiding almost instantly.
“Are you okay? Sammy?” Judging from the sound of their voices, they were peeking inside the tank now, looking down at him.
“Hm hmmm.” Sam tried to be as reassuring as possible. The wax locking his chin in place prevented him from moving his jaw though, or pretty much any other muscle in his body, which made communicating rather challenging. He hoped the message had come across, anyhow.
“Sit tight, boy, we’re getting you out of there in a moment.” Bobby sounded as much in charge of the situation as ever. “Let me just seal the leak before your idjit-brother and I slip on the friggin’ wax.”
‘A leak?’ For the first time Sam noticed the gradually retreating surface of the wax inside the tank. ‘So this was how they had ensured his not submerging as soon as the Gidim lowered him into the tank. Obviously he was not the only one smart as they came. Duh.’
Calling being heaved out of a candle wax tank with an improvised crane while you were frozen in stillness, an awkward experience, was the understatement of the century! After an eternity of waiting for something to happen, Sam had lost track of time. He was dying to get out of the tank and especially out of his waxy prison while Dean and Bobby slaved away lifting the heavy figure inch by painfully slow inch. Their laboured breathing was the only measure of time the younger brother had.
“Dude, you really need to lay off the healthy food,” Dean groaned once they had Sam standing safely next to them outside the tank. “You weigh at least as much as a grown elephant.” It was grotesque seeing Sam stock-still in his milky shell of wax. Bobby had gathered their gear while Dean had started checking his brother superficially for any injuries or obstructions that needed to be taken care of before they could return to their motel.
“Hey, Bobby,” Dean winked in Sam’s direction. “I just came across this cute wax figure. Can we keep it?” Both hunters burst out laughing, and even the incapacitated Sam chuckled inwardly.
If he had thought being lifted out of a tank completely coated in wax was awkward, it was nothing compared to being carried across the premises like a log when your carriers seemed determined to surpass each other’s string of curses about your weight. Sam wished for merciful unconsciousness by the time they reached the cars, his desire turning into a desperate prayer for being allowed to pass out when Dean looked at Sam, looked at Bobby, looked at Sam, and then announced, “There is absolutely no way we fit him into the Impala like that!”
“Maybe we could get him into my car; I can dispatch the passenger seat.” Bobby answered thoughtfully.
‘Seriously!’ Sam furrowed his brow, and continued to pray for oblivion.
The youngest Winchester didn’t pay attention to what exactly Bobby and Dean had to do to get him inside one of the cars as he was; he only cared that they did. What felt like hours later, Sam was in Bobby’s sports car, lying in a most uncomfortable position when they were moving out to their motel room. Apart from the considerable discomfort of not being able to move at all and breathing being reduced to shallow sips of much-needed air, an itch had formed near his left shoulder blade. To his utter dismay, there was no chance in hell he was able to scratch that itch, nor could he talk to direct either Bobby or Dean to doing so. He was so screwed! Despite his miraculous rescue, which he was beyond grateful for, this was going to be a very long night!
xXxXx
When they finally arrived at the motel, he was manoeuvred, or better yet, wrestled out of the car like an oversized Christmas tree, and Sam called all his blessings when they eventually managed to lay him onto his bed.
“Now we need to figure out how to get all this wax off of you,” Dean looked doubtful.
“Doesn’t this motel have hair dryers? Then we could warm the wax, so it would be easier to peel off,” Bobby suggested.
Actually, the hair dryer proved to be a pretty decent idea when it came to removing the wax. The only problem was that they had only one hair dryer and it took ages for them to peel away the rather thick layers. The part around his chin alone, plus a tiny spot on his right arm where they had practised their technique to make sure they weren’t removing more skin than wax, took the three men more than half an hour to get rid of. At least he was able to speak now, engaging the other two in conversation while they kept on working.
While Bobby had busied himself with peeling away the wax on his right upper forearm and biceps, all the while telling him how they had managed to get the drop on the Gidim, Dean had whispered reassurances and begun stroking his brother’s still covered left hand encouragingly. It was a very peculiar feeling through the layers of wax but Sam leaned into the loving gesture as best he could. It provided comfort, strength and most of all, a sense of safety.
Since the beginning of their account, Sam had learned that Bobby and Dean had instantly known when the younger boy had been taken again because the air inside the building had suddenly come to life and sizzled with supernatural energy. They had seen the missed calls and therefore, had a rather accurate idea of what was going on.
The Gidim had paid them no heed when they observed the scene unfolding from the shadows. When Dean had attacked the spirit, purposefully distracting it with a couple of buck shots, Bobby had taken care of cutting a leak into the tank, so the level of hot wax to dump Sam into would lower. Between the two of them, they had managed to lay a full circle of salt around the Gidim, rendering the malevolent spook confined and powerless.
“How come the spook never touched one of you, anyway when it knocked me on my ass in ten seconds flat? You had been at the factory long before me. I mean, why wait for me when it didn’t even know that I was coming at all?” the immobilized boy asked curiously.
“First of all, it’s in the looks, Sammy,” his big brother teased. “Neither Bobby nor I have damsel in distress written all over our face like you do. Plus, we had doused our clothes in salt to prevent an attack.”
“Smart.” Sam said admiringly.
“Yeah, well, you’re not the only genius in the family.” Dean dead-panned.
“What time is it?” Sam began getting nervous again. He couldn’t see the wall clock from his vantage point. Moving his head was still an issue because they hadn’t bothered to continue with his neck after removing the wax from his chin, claiming that some of the wax had got into the lower part of his hair which would require shaving away. Sam had protested till he was blue in the face, literally. He had learned the hard way that not breathing properly and talking a mile a minute didn’t mix well. Certainly, it was at least another half an hour that had dragged by without them making much progress on freeing him from the stiff wax suit. This was all taking such an incredibly long time.
Comprehending the full extent of being confined in a skin-tight, unyielding shell of dried candle wax did nothing to assuage his nerves, and again, he felt panic rise, his breaths coming out in puffy gasps that bordered on hyperventilation.
“You need to calm down, Sammy. Please,” Dean coaxed.
“I’m trying.” The younger brother sounded breathless.
“He’s panicking again, Dean. And who can blame him?” Bobby added sadly. He started digging in one of his bags.
“What are you doing?” Sam asked. He wasn’t able to turn his head and see what Bobby pulled from his bag, secretly showing it to Dean. The older man nodded before approaching the bed.
“What are you doing?” the younger boy demanded nervously, realizing that they were purposefully withholding information. A cool liquid touched his skin on the arm the wax was already partly peeled away from, followed by a sharp prick.
“An injection? What for?” His throat was going dry as the meds kicked in.
“Just relax. This is gonna make it a lot easier for you.” Bobby gently rubbed the spot where the needle had pierced the skin.
“No… I don’ wan’ a go t’sleep,” Sam slurred groggily.
“It’s okay, kiddo. Everything’s gonna be fine, Sammy.” Dean resumed stroking the palm of his hand comfortingly. Sam’s eyes closed of their own volition, and his consciousness was lost in fog.
xXxXx
It took them two days to finally dig up Isaiah Baker’s bones. Not that it took so long to locate the gravesite or for Sam to recover, but with the Gidim thoroughly imprisoned and posing no immediate threat anymore, they had decided to take a day’s rest and be wonderfully lazy with the end of their hunt.
Also, they wanted to give Sam the opportunity to finish the Gidim himself, once and for all since he had been the one to suffer most extensively from its evil nature. After the events of the past days of course, finishing the hunt didn’t mean for Sam to actually dig up the corpse. Quite the opposite because Bobby and Dean did all the digging while the younger boy sat on a nearby gravestone and made sure no unexpected visitors showed up, be they human or supernatural.
Called to the open grave, Sam took the offered match book from his brother and the canister from Bobby, pouring another liberal amount of lighter fluid onto the salt-covered remains. He lit the matches, staring absently into the flames while he thought back to what the nasty spirit had done to him. Eventually letting go of all the ill-feelings he harboured against the Gidim, he cast the blazing match book into the casket.
FIN
Story Endnote: Sorry for any inconsistencies concerning the spirit. I have but a vague idea of what a Gidim is; and its general concept worked perfectly for the fic, so I wrestled the notion into submission to fit into my story.
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