Darkness Falling Pt 1a GEN
Darkness Falling Pt 1
Author: Linda Atkinson
Fandom: Supernatural
Rating: Gen
Warnings: Some language, violence
Summary: I don’t like the fact that John is dead. I know he is supposed to resurface, one way or another, but I want him alive again, with his boys again. So I’m fixing it, at least in my little corner of the universe.
My thanks to Sioux_Sioux for the wonderful beta on the story.
Adams, Tennessee.
The road faded into a dirt track just barely visible in the knee tall grass of the meadow. The fall weather was remarkably mild for this time of the year and the rain had not began falling leaving the grass dead, yellow and sharp bladed. Wading through the mass of vegetation two teenagers halted their progress across the meadow looking back at the burgundy colored Pontiac Grand Am parked just off the road. The car was a small dot on the horizon and the girl nervously glanced up at her companion.
"Jessie," she said tugging on the blue jean jacketed arm around her waist. "Maybe we should just go back to the car. I don't think we should go all the way to the cave. My daddy'll be real mad if I'm late for supper."
The boy rolled his eyes and tugged her around to face him.
"Crystal Ann, we just need to get one stupid little rock from the cave and take it back to Tyler. It'll be our proof that we went all the way…"
He grinned at her and she punched him on the arm.
"All the way to the cave, I mean. Jeez don't you have any kind of a sense of humor anymore?"
Crystal Ann looked doubtfully at him and Jessie could see the furrow beginning to form between her brows. It was her ‘I want’ look and he was increasingly subject to it in the recent weeks that they had been dating. He also knew that if he didn't get her moving he risked losing the battle before the war even started. Turning he dropped his arm from around her waist and took off in a long loping stride toward the creek and the little stone bridge crossing it. On the other side of the creek was a path up the rolling foothill to the old coal mines and the even older Civil War cave. The cave supposedly had been a hideout for Confederate soldiers who deserted from the battle of Adam’s Meadow, a little known and unremarkable battle early in the war.
All that anyone was sure about the battle was that two Confederate and three Union soldiers had died in Adam’s Meadow, near the mouth of the old cave. Their graves were set aside in the cemetery of Prospect Baptist Church on Brickyard Road. The only thing that Jessie could remember hearing about the deaths was that they were ‘funny’, not funny ha-ha, but funny peculiar. All five boys didn't have a mark on them. But all were as dead as proverbial doornails come morning time.
It was only after the war that rumors started with distance cousins or some relatives of old John Bell relating that the Bell girls had died in the same ‘funny’ way. All three girls stone cold dead and not a mark on them either. It was then that tales began circulating about the Bell Witch.
Jessie turned back smirking at the girl following reluctantly behind him.
"Come on, Crystal Ann."
He waved her forward and frowned when she stopped short, jutting her chin out at him. He turned back to the mouth of the cave.
"I'm going to get a geode from the cave. Charlie Marcum said that there's about a hundred in there and that way Tyler will know that we actually went into the place instead of just picking up any old piece of granite out of the meadow."
Crystal Ann glared at him, the ‘I want’ line forming between her brows again.
"There are bats in that cave, too. What if one of them gets caught in my hair? They bite you know. Can bats get rabies?"
"I don't know," he replied not looking back. "Look, we don't have to go too far in, just enough to get to that first big room, area, whatever you call it. That's were all the rocks are. I'll just grab something quick and we'll get out. We'll be back at the car before you know it."
The hike to cave was a short one, but both kids were still winded when they got to the top of the hill. Jessie gasped for breath grabbing Crystal Ann's wrist and hauling her the last few inches up the hill. She leaned back against him. His arm came up around her waist automatically, without conscious effort. With a panted breath Crystal Ann pulled her hair out of the collar of her blouse and wrapped it around her fingers. Quickly she tugged the scrunchie she was wearing on her arm over her wrist and wrapped her hair into a sloppy ponytail.
"God, I'm sweating," she hissed glaring at the boy. “This had better be worth all the trouble.”
He offered her a lame smile and then glanced at the mouth of the cave. The interior of the cave was inky black and he fished a small flashlight out of his jeans pocket.
She looked at him.
"Is that it? That's all you brought for light? We'll never find anything in there."
He was beginning to get seriously annoyed with her now.
"Oh shut up," Jessie hissed and flinched at the look that earned him. "I…mean. It'll be enough."
"I'm not wasting another Saturday afternoon with you doing this, Jessie McAllen."
Crystal Ann put out her hand for the flashlight and Jessie surrendered it with modest good grace. She flicked the light on and aimed it at the mouth of the cave. Both kids ducked although the cave opening was more than high enough for them to enter.
The cave entrance was narrow and they had to squeeze in slightly sideways. Jessie slipped past her as she played the light beam over the cave floor. The entrance opened up into a fairly large room.
The cave was rough hewn almost as if it had been purposely cut out of the living rock. When Jessie stepped closer to the cave wall he could see that the surface was covered in some kind of slimy moss. The slick mass glowed with a faint, sickly green luminescence that cast a pale glow on the cave walls and floor. Tentatively Jessie stretched out his hand, swiping his fingers through the sticky mass. The moss clung to his hand. He jerked it away, half expecting the stuff to burn but it did nothing. Crystal Ann leaned in close behind him and the boy jumped. She snickered into his ear,
“Boy, if I knew that you were going to be such a scaredy cat, I wouldn’t have come up here with you.”
Jessie shot her a look over his shoulder. Quickly he picked up the pace, tugging her along in his wake. She resisted.
“Don’t go so fast.” Grumbling under her breath Crystal Ann struggled to keep up. “I can’t see in this dark. I don’t want to trip over something.”
“I don’t see anything for you to trip over. I was hoping that the geodes would be here in the entrance so we didn’t have to go too far inside. But there’s nothing.”
Crystal Ann demurred, “Look, I don’t want to get lost in here. It would take them forever to find us. Maybe we should go back…”
Jessie shook his head, swearing softly.
“Just a little bit further, I know that they’re in here somewhere. We won’t go off into any of the side paths, okay? One way in and one way out. We can’t get lost.”
“We better not.”
The girl paused cocking her head to one side. From some where far off she could hear a faint sound, like the creaking of a tree branch in a hard wind, or the tread of a footfall.
“Do you think that there’s anyone else in here but us?”
“No, I don’t think so why?”
“I think that I hear something. Maybe like an animal or something. It’s not your stupid friends, is it? If you think they’re going to jump out all covered in fake blood or something and scare me, you’d better think again.”
Jessie rolled his eyes,
“I swear it’s nobody. There is nobody here but us. Come on I see a little dip in the wall, maybe there’s a rock there and we can get out of here.”
The path that they were walking on veered sharply to the right and the little dip in the wall became the entrance to another room in the cave. Jessie flashed the light over the wall. The opening to the other room was covered by wooden railroad slats nailed into the wall with rusted iron spikes. There were at least fifteen boards, some laid haphazardly over the others and held in place by the thick iron nails. Jessie leaned against the boards, tugging at the overlapping slats. The boards wouldn’t budge. He handed the light to Crystal Ann and ducked his head under the topmost board.
“Hey, shine the light in here. I see a whole new room. I wonder what’s in there. Look at all the boards they used to keep the opening closed. They must have really wanted to keep people out.”
Nervously Crystal Ann stepped back.
“Maybe they wanted to keep something in.”
Jessie shrugged.
“Well, we’re not getting in there.”
He bent down trying to look under the bottommost board. Sipping he dropped his hand down quickly to steady himself. The he glanced down. Quickly he flicked the flashlight beam onto the floor. The ground in front of the entrance was covered in white crystals. They were large and coarse and he raked his finger through the pile, lifting them to inspect the stuff. He put his hand to his nose and sniffed experimentally.
“What is it? Is it a diamond?” Crystal Ann asked, pressing up against Jessie.
He shook his head.
“No, it’s just rock salt and ashes. It’s piled up all around the entrance to the room. And it looks like its all over the inside, too.”
Jessie rose, his feet slipping in the loose soil breaking the line of salt, scattering it over the floor. He stumbled over something just beneath the board and dropped to his knees scraping the dirt and salt away from the entrance. With a gleeful grin he triumphantly raised a small, egg-shaped rock into the air. Quickly Jessie turned to the girl handing her the flashlight.
“Crystal Ann, shine it over here.”
Dutifully she flashed the beam over the rock as Jessie turned it over in his hands. It was grey in color and broken open just at mid point. The crystals inside the dull outer shell were blood red, deep crimson and strikingly beautiful. Crystal Ann leaned over running her finger over the inner surface of the geode. Suddenly she jerked her hand back.
“Ouch, damn it, I cut my finger.”
She held up the wounded digit for the boy to inspect. Jessie squeezed the finger and several drops of blood well up, spattering on the floor.
“Hey, stop it that hurts.”
The drops of blood sank into the salted ashes and the faint breeze stirred causing the dust of the cave floor to dance and whirl. The breeze rose lifting the helm of the girl’s shirt and she shivered, hugging her arms around her self. Jessie noticed her shaking and touched her arm.
“Jeeze Louise, you’re freezing. Let’s get out of here; we got what we came for.”
“Yeah, come on, it is getting pretty cold in here. That sure is a pretty one. You’re not going to give it to Tyler are you?”
Jessie smiled at her, knowing a hint when he heard one.
“No, I’ll just show it to him. You can have it.”
Crystal Ann smiled up at him, tucking the geode into the crook of her elbow.
They had almost made it to the mouth of the cave when the earth began to tremble. From somewhere behind them an explosion rattled the walls of the cave. The boards covering the side room in the cave bowed outward, sending shards of wood through the air. A splinter caught Jessie in the face, digging a trench in his cheek but he barely noticed the pain. Stumbling he hit the wall of the cave, putting up a hand to steady himself. Crystal Ann grasped his arm trying to keep him from falling to the ground but Jessie was thirty pounds heavier than the girl and both kids bounced once off the cave wall and tumbled to the floor.
There was a rush of cold air jetting out of the cave mouth and something large and black swirled out of the darkness. The thing floated above both teenagers briefly and Crystal Ann screamed throwing one arm over her head. The black figure swooped down and then flew out of the mouth of the cave.
Shakily Jessie rose to his feet. Quickly he pulled the girl up beside him staring out of the cave into the late evening sky. The sun had dipped behind the hills and the meadow was shrouded in deepening gloom. Far above their heads the first faint glimmering stars sparkled in the sky.
“Did you see that?” Crystal Ann asked brushing her hair out of her face. “What was it; it looked awfully big for a bat.”
Jessie shrugged.
“It was probably just an owl. They get pretty big. Come on it’s a lot later than I thought and I’ve got to get to football practice. I’ll drop you off at your house on the way.”
The two kids raced across the meadow as fast as the tall grass would allow. Jessie slammed the car door shut and revved the engine. The Grand Am swung into a shaky
u-turn and headed back toward town. As the lights of town came into view Jessie slowed the car. As he turned the last curve onto Brickyard Road they passed the church and the cemetery. The faint shapes of the headstones darker shadows beneath the lush branches of the oak trees. Jessie pulled the car into the driveway of a large white and brick house a few blocks down from the church. A Sheriff’s department patrol car was parked beside a jeep and a mini-van. Crystal Ann jumped out of the Grand Am rushing up the driveway. A man dressed in a kaki uniform and green jacket raised a hand waving at Jessie as the boy pulled out of the driveway and sped off up the street.