SPN fic: "Hickory Hill" 1/8+epilogue (Gen, PG, casefic)
Yay, my last fic of the year! Also, officially my longest fic in this fandom. I feel so accomplished
Title: Hickory Hill
Author: marinarusalka
Rating: PG
Pairing: none, it's gen
Characters: Sam and Dean
Spoilers: This is set in late Season 1, sometime after "Shadow" but before "Dead Man's Blood," so anything up to "Shadow" is fair game.
Summary: A formerly harmless haunting suddenly escalates, and Sam and Dean investigate why.
Feedback: Hell, yeah!
AN: Huge thanks to innie_darling, researchgrrrl and ignipes for beta-reading, not to mention endless hand-holding and putting up with my whining since I started working on this damn fic way back in the spring.
Chapter 1
They were in a diner north of Camden, waiting for their lunch, when Dean's cell phone rang. Sam sipped his root beer, twirled the paper wrapper from the straw around his fingers, and watched with what he hoped was a relaxed and casual expression while Dean took the call.
"Hey Walter, how's it going?" Dean said cheerfully, and Sam didn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed that the caller wasn't Dad.
Only a few weeks earlier, disappointment would've been the easy winner, but that was before. Before Michigan, before the visions, before Max. Before his sudden, apparently unrepeatable burst of telekinesis, before the discovery that theirs wasn't the only family touched by the demon. If their father called now, Sam would have to decide what, if anything, he wanted to say about that. It was not a decision he felt even remotely ready to make. The aborted reconciliation in Chicago still felt so new, so fragile after all the years of fighting and estrangement. Sam wasn't sure he was ready to test it with "hey, Dad, did I mention I'm a supernatural freak who might go crazy and start killing people one of these days?"
"Yeah... uh-huh... when? What happened?" Dean flipped over his placemat and scribbled on the reverse side with one of the crayons the diner provided for the entertainment of its younger customers. "Right... uh-huh? Was anyone hurt?"
A job, most likely. Sam leaned forward to read what Dean was writing. It didn't look like the neatly organized notes his brother made when he was taking down new intel; it looked more as if he was randomly jotting things down just to keep his hands busy. WK pgeist attck, Sam read upside down. Old Sl Hse Equality. Well, gosh, that made everything crystal clear.
"We'll be there in a couple of days... No problem." Dean snapped the phone shut and gave Sam a pleased grin. "We've got a gig."
"Don't tell me: let me guess." Sam tapped his fingers against Dean's scribbles. "Somebody named Walter K. is being attacked by a poltergeist in an old... slaughter house?"
"Close, but no cigar." Dean flipped the placemat over just in time for their waitress to plonk his turkey club with a side of fries down on top of it. "Old Slave House."
"Oookay..." Sam leaned back and took his arms off the table to make room for his plate of meatloaf. "And how does equality come into it?"
Dean smirked at him around a mouthful of sandwich. "Look it up, geekboy."
"Jerk," Sam muttered, and leaned over to retrieve the laptop from the backpack at his feet.
By the time they were done eating, Sam had pulled up over a dozen on-line articles about a house called Hickory Hill in Equality, Illinois. An Illinois history website helpfully informed him that the place had been built by a man named John Crenshaw, who'd made his fortune leasing slaves from Tennessee and Kentucky to work the salt mines along the Saline River. Some high-school kid's personal site recounted (with a little too much relish for Sam's liking) lurid tales of tortured and murdered slaves. And a seemingly infinite number of paranormal sites and blogs provided the usual vague reports of cold spots, rattling chains and murmuring voices in the slave quarters of the old house.
"Huh," Sam said, "with all these reports, I'm surprised Dad hasn't checked it out before."
"He did." Dean reached across the table and snagged a French fry from Sam's plate, even though his own pile was only half-gone. "Twice. Once by himself, about twenty years ago, then the two of us together three years ago."
"Okay. So what's the story?"
Dean made a disgusted face, the sort he normally reserved for disco music or small, yippy dogs. "The story is, Hickory Hill is being haunted by the wussiest poltergeist in the history of the species. I swear to god, dude, that thing should be making woo-woo noises at the kiddies in Disneyland instead of trying to haunt a real house."
A wussy poltergeist. Sam picked absently at his food as he tried to wrap his mind around the concept. He knew that Dean and Dad had tangled with several poltergeists over the years, but the only one he'd ever encountered himself was the one in Lawrence. The memory of that still made his skin crawl and his stomach churn all these months later, but if he forced himself to think rationally he knew that had been an extreme case. Most poltergeists were more mischievous than malevolent and very few were strong enough to do any real damage. They hung around places where bad things had happened, feeding off the residual negative energy and playing pranks on the occupants. The one in Lawrence had been nastier and more powerful than most because it had been feeding off real demonic evil. The evil at the Hickory Hill, great as it had been, was still human.
"So if it's that lame," Sam finally asked, "why is it still around?"
Dean shrugged. "Wasn't worth the bother. The first time Dad went there, the place was a museum. The owners live somewhere else, but this guy, Walter Kravitz, was the curator, and he lived on the ground floor. Dad offered to do a cleansing ritual for him, but Walter said no. Said the poltergeist drew in the tourists."
"Tourists?" Sam blinked. "Oh, that's just brilliant."
"Hey, I'm just telling you what the guy said. Anyhow, it couldn't have brought in that many tourists, 'cause when Dad and I came by the last time, the museum was closed down. Walter was still living there, though, as caretaker. He had a wife and a kid by then, and they all thought having a geist in the attic was the funnest thing ever. We offered to clear it out again, and they looked at us as if we'd offered to shoot the family dog." Dean shook his head, looking disgusted. "Some people have no common sense."
Sam had to agree, despite the irony of his brother pointing fingers at anyone else for lack of common sense. Dean had done a great many insane things in the course of a misspent life, but at least he'd never attempted to keep a semi-sentient incorporeal entity as a household pet.
"So I take it the poltergeist got less wussy recently? Is that why this Walter guy is calling all of a sudden?"
"Uh-huh." Dean nodded. "Stacey -- that's Walter's daughter -- had a slumber party over the weekend while her folks were out of town, and the geist went psycho on them. Broke Stacey's arm, nearly brained one girl with a chair, and chased everyone out of the house in their jammies. Apparently, the family dog's gone rabid."
Sam frowned. "But that doesn't make sense. According to the stories I've found, that poltergeist's been there for over a century. Why would it suddenly escalate now?"
"That," Dean said with cheerful confidence, "is what we're going to find out."
Chapter 2
Title: Hickory Hill
Author: marinarusalka
Rating: PG
Pairing: none, it's gen
Characters: Sam and Dean
Spoilers: This is set in late Season 1, sometime after "Shadow" but before "Dead Man's Blood," so anything up to "Shadow" is fair game.
Summary: A formerly harmless haunting suddenly escalates, and Sam and Dean investigate why.
Feedback: Hell, yeah!
AN: Huge thanks to innie_darling, researchgrrrl and ignipes for beta-reading, not to mention endless hand-holding and putting up with my whining since I started working on this damn fic way back in the spring.
Chapter 1
They were in a diner north of Camden, waiting for their lunch, when Dean's cell phone rang. Sam sipped his root beer, twirled the paper wrapper from the straw around his fingers, and watched with what he hoped was a relaxed and casual expression while Dean took the call.
"Hey Walter, how's it going?" Dean said cheerfully, and Sam didn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed that the caller wasn't Dad.
Only a few weeks earlier, disappointment would've been the easy winner, but that was before. Before Michigan, before the visions, before Max. Before his sudden, apparently unrepeatable burst of telekinesis, before the discovery that theirs wasn't the only family touched by the demon. If their father called now, Sam would have to decide what, if anything, he wanted to say about that. It was not a decision he felt even remotely ready to make. The aborted reconciliation in Chicago still felt so new, so fragile after all the years of fighting and estrangement. Sam wasn't sure he was ready to test it with "hey, Dad, did I mention I'm a supernatural freak who might go crazy and start killing people one of these days?"
"Yeah... uh-huh... when? What happened?" Dean flipped over his placemat and scribbled on the reverse side with one of the crayons the diner provided for the entertainment of its younger customers. "Right... uh-huh? Was anyone hurt?"
A job, most likely. Sam leaned forward to read what Dean was writing. It didn't look like the neatly organized notes his brother made when he was taking down new intel; it looked more as if he was randomly jotting things down just to keep his hands busy. WK pgeist attck, Sam read upside down. Old Sl Hse Equality. Well, gosh, that made everything crystal clear.
"We'll be there in a couple of days... No problem." Dean snapped the phone shut and gave Sam a pleased grin. "We've got a gig."
"Don't tell me: let me guess." Sam tapped his fingers against Dean's scribbles. "Somebody named Walter K. is being attacked by a poltergeist in an old... slaughter house?"
"Close, but no cigar." Dean flipped the placemat over just in time for their waitress to plonk his turkey club with a side of fries down on top of it. "Old Slave House."
"Oookay..." Sam leaned back and took his arms off the table to make room for his plate of meatloaf. "And how does equality come into it?"
Dean smirked at him around a mouthful of sandwich. "Look it up, geekboy."
"Jerk," Sam muttered, and leaned over to retrieve the laptop from the backpack at his feet.
By the time they were done eating, Sam had pulled up over a dozen on-line articles about a house called Hickory Hill in Equality, Illinois. An Illinois history website helpfully informed him that the place had been built by a man named John Crenshaw, who'd made his fortune leasing slaves from Tennessee and Kentucky to work the salt mines along the Saline River. Some high-school kid's personal site recounted (with a little too much relish for Sam's liking) lurid tales of tortured and murdered slaves. And a seemingly infinite number of paranormal sites and blogs provided the usual vague reports of cold spots, rattling chains and murmuring voices in the slave quarters of the old house.
"Huh," Sam said, "with all these reports, I'm surprised Dad hasn't checked it out before."
"He did." Dean reached across the table and snagged a French fry from Sam's plate, even though his own pile was only half-gone. "Twice. Once by himself, about twenty years ago, then the two of us together three years ago."
"Okay. So what's the story?"
Dean made a disgusted face, the sort he normally reserved for disco music or small, yippy dogs. "The story is, Hickory Hill is being haunted by the wussiest poltergeist in the history of the species. I swear to god, dude, that thing should be making woo-woo noises at the kiddies in Disneyland instead of trying to haunt a real house."
A wussy poltergeist. Sam picked absently at his food as he tried to wrap his mind around the concept. He knew that Dean and Dad had tangled with several poltergeists over the years, but the only one he'd ever encountered himself was the one in Lawrence. The memory of that still made his skin crawl and his stomach churn all these months later, but if he forced himself to think rationally he knew that had been an extreme case. Most poltergeists were more mischievous than malevolent and very few were strong enough to do any real damage. They hung around places where bad things had happened, feeding off the residual negative energy and playing pranks on the occupants. The one in Lawrence had been nastier and more powerful than most because it had been feeding off real demonic evil. The evil at the Hickory Hill, great as it had been, was still human.
"So if it's that lame," Sam finally asked, "why is it still around?"
Dean shrugged. "Wasn't worth the bother. The first time Dad went there, the place was a museum. The owners live somewhere else, but this guy, Walter Kravitz, was the curator, and he lived on the ground floor. Dad offered to do a cleansing ritual for him, but Walter said no. Said the poltergeist drew in the tourists."
"Tourists?" Sam blinked. "Oh, that's just brilliant."
"Hey, I'm just telling you what the guy said. Anyhow, it couldn't have brought in that many tourists, 'cause when Dad and I came by the last time, the museum was closed down. Walter was still living there, though, as caretaker. He had a wife and a kid by then, and they all thought having a geist in the attic was the funnest thing ever. We offered to clear it out again, and they looked at us as if we'd offered to shoot the family dog." Dean shook his head, looking disgusted. "Some people have no common sense."
Sam had to agree, despite the irony of his brother pointing fingers at anyone else for lack of common sense. Dean had done a great many insane things in the course of a misspent life, but at least he'd never attempted to keep a semi-sentient incorporeal entity as a household pet.
"So I take it the poltergeist got less wussy recently? Is that why this Walter guy is calling all of a sudden?"
"Uh-huh." Dean nodded. "Stacey -- that's Walter's daughter -- had a slumber party over the weekend while her folks were out of town, and the geist went psycho on them. Broke Stacey's arm, nearly brained one girl with a chair, and chased everyone out of the house in their jammies. Apparently, the family dog's gone rabid."
Sam frowned. "But that doesn't make sense. According to the stories I've found, that poltergeist's been there for over a century. Why would it suddenly escalate now?"
"That," Dean said with cheerful confidence, "is what we're going to find out."
Chapter 2