Hell House (8/17)
Title: Hell House (8/17)
Author: narukyu
Characters/Pairings: Gabriel/Sam, Sam/Andy (one sided); Jake, Lily, Ansem, Ava, Azazel
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, adult language, death (OCs, minor character), gore (not much worse than 3x15), sex, AU (pre-season 1), high school fic (ish), slash, minor femmeslash.
Word Count: 60K-ish
Summary: A devotedly unreligious man sends his youngest son to a private religious school. If that wasn't suspicious enough, Sam can't get a hold of John or Dean, people are disappearing right and left, and, in the night, something whispers in the silence of the old chapel. Soon enough, Sam discovers that something terrible lingers behind the doors to the sacristy--something that sheds a light on the secret holy mission of the Soldiers of Christ as well what happened to his family so many years ago.
I buried my wife today. Even as I write that down, I don’t believe it. Last week, we were a normal family… eating dinner, going to Dean’s T-ball game, buying toys for baby Sammy. But in an instant, it all changed… when I try to think back, get it straight in my head… I feel like I’m going crazy. Like someone ripped both my arms off, plucked my eyes out… I’m wandering around, alone and lost and I can’t do anything.
John Winchester's journal, November 6, 1983
-----
The next day, Sam stepped out of his room, his vest, his tie, and a Bible tucked under one arm as he one-handedly tried to button up the rest of his shirt. He’d stayed up late reading and re-reading entries from Thompson’s journal. While some entries were straight forward, most of them were a notch above nonsense, written in a jargon he didn’t understand with meanings he couldn’t fathom.
He hurried outside, trying to walk and dress himself at the same time. He stopped mid-step, seeing the profile of a glum Andy, fully dressed and leaning against the wall.
Moodily, Andy stared at Lily’s door under lowered lashes. “They got Jake yesterday,” he said without looking back.
Sam was immediately alarmed. “Why?”
Andy finally tore his gaze away from the door. Lines and shadows stretched on under his eyes, obviously a product of missed sleep. He looked up at Sam under heavy eyelids, clearly hesitating. Then he crossed the distance between the two of them, quick hands doing up the rest of Sam’s buttons.
“Thou shalt not make unsupervised communications,” he muttered. The top of his head was about level with Sam’s throat. “Fitting, isn’t it? How they both get in trouble at the same time, like two peas in a pod.”
Not knowing what to say, Sam swallowed hard, then looked sharply to the left when a picture fell.
It was Jake. His sweat-slick face was turned to the floor. When he looked up, the whites of his eyes flared. He walked with his back to the wall, staring at every person who passed by like he was trying to see into their soul. Kids walked around him carefully, quickly, shooting looks at him behind his back.
Then Jake looked at them. The realization slammed Sam like a blow to the face-he was frightened, like the others. Like Lily the night before. Like Ansem, like Ava.
What the hell happened?
The question hung heavy in Sam’s chest, even after he voiced it-especially after it was ignored.
In the end, Jake never said a word to them. He moved carefully, making his way to his room. He slammed the door behind him. After a moment, they heard the noise of wood scraping over floor, like Jake moved his desk or dresser. Shadows danced under the door.
He was barricading himself inside. Sam let out a low, shaky breath.
Andy turned to him suddenly. “We’re the last sane people in our year!” he burst out. He paused for a moment, and then said quickly, “O’Malley fixed Ansem and Ava, maybe-”
“No,” Sam croaked. His mouth was dry. He dropped the Bible to the floor and, with a quick flick of his wrist, pulled his tie under his collar.
“What?”
Sam shot him a glare as he finished putting on his tie. “Don’t ask him for help.”
Andy disappeared from sight for a moment as Sam pulled the vest over his head, but when he reappeared, Andy looked equal parts pissed and frustrated. “What are we supposed to do then, smart guy?”
“I don’t know,” Sam admitted, picking up the Bible. “Just hold off on talking to him. I don’t… I don’t trust him.”
“Big surprise,” Andy said bitterly, turning away sharply. “You don’t trust anyone, Sam.”
That stung, but it wasn’t a lie, and Sam wasn’t going to lie to make Andy feel better-to make Andy like him more.
He didn’t need Andy to like him. He just needed Andy to shut up and listen, because there was something going on here, something that neither of them understood. And Sam had to be the one to figure it out.
He had to.
-----
Days passed. The mystery of the sacristy didn’t offer up any answers and, with time, Jake and Lily didn’t get any better. They only became more and more exhausted, more and more high strung, and more and more panicky, rather than less.
It didn’t make sense. Ansem and Ava had showed minor signs of getting better before O’Malley stepped in, but Lily and Jake did not. It was getting bad. It was getting so bad that even the school staff was reacting to it. Lily had been excused from class six times in half as many days and Jake hadn’t been seen outside his room in a week.
Sam had ruled out physical assault and was reluctantly looking into a supernatural explanation. Their reactions were too uniform for him to be comfortable with ruling out curses and spells entirely, so he looked into that too.
But he strongly doubted it was magic or witches or anything of the like. Saint Mary’s was a church, after all. Some things, in his mind, just didn’t mix-like black magic and hallowed grounds.
While he was trying to figure all this out, Andy pushed and pushed to have them talk to O’Malley.
“There’s, like, seventy other kids here! He won’t notice unless we tell him.”
“I don’t want him around Lily or Jake,” Sam said stubbornly, leafing through a contraband psychology book. It was the text in his hand that convinced him to look elsewhere for explanations. Some many things overlapped with one another-he didn’t know how psychologists did their work at all.
But the book stressed individual differences too, and talked about how one disorder could present itself in a population in a dozen, unique, personal ways. So it didn’t make sense to Sam how two wildly different people could present the same exact reaction to the same exact stimulus-and for all those reactions to be blithely classed as something as broad as ‘nervous breakdowns’.
This left him with his strong suit, the explanations he was more familiar with-the supernatural. Unfortunately, the best explanation for their reactions with that filter was some kind of fear spell, and he had no idea how to go about hunting for that.
Without warning, the book was snatched from his hand and tossed to the floor. Andy was angry, he realized.
“You want them to suffer?” he demanded, trying to crowd Sam, but it was like a mouse trying to crowd a horse.
It worked, though. Uncomfortable defending his position now that he had to meet Andy’s eyes, Sam said slowly, “I don’t think O’Malley’s helping at all. I mean, look at Ava-”
“You just… God!” Andy shouted. He stomped around in a circle in the grass. “People are suffering and you can’t let go of a little preacher hate!”
“I don’t hate preachers,” Sam protested. He waited for a moment and then said, gently, “Just… give it some time, okay? Let’s see if they snap out of it first.”
Andy was fuming. His jaw worked under his skin as he looked away. Then, finally, he shot Sam a baleful glare under his mop of hair. “Tomorrow.”
That wasn’t enough time. “Andy-”
Andy jabbed his finger in Sam’s direction. “If they’re not doing better by tomorrow, I’m going to O’Malley, with you or without you.” With his words still ringing in the air, he turned around and walked away, leaving Sam to stare at his back.
Well, that was it then. He had less than twenty-four hours to figure out what was wrong with Lily and Jake-and with Ansem and Ava by extension.
Sam covered his face with his hand. Shit.
------
Later that day, Sam could be found in the library, sorting through contraband newspapers. Some of them were old and yellowing, but others were fairly recent. He flipped open one only a month old, scanning over the articles with a hunter’s trained eye, looking for any articles on Saint Mary’s.
He’d thought to look for any outside perspective on the school and its staff, thinking that a different view point would help him figure out how to retackle this issue.
At this point in time, he had nothing. His brain was shot.
All he knew was that, somehow, the church seemed to be causing the reactions, and that it was somehow a part of the ‘punishment’. What the punishment was, he didn’t know. No one would talk. Neither would they talk about who did the punishing or why it was done.
He only knew where it was by fortune alone, and the last time he’d gotten near the sacristy, he’d almost been caught by Bailey.
He was starting to get the sneaking suspicion that the only way he was going to figure out what caused Lily and Jake’s reactions was to piss off the staff to the point where he was punished too. He was hesitant to do that.
It was hard to be a hunter when you were also the hunted, after all.
Frustrated, he turned the page, eyes scanning quickly over the dense text. He paused, lingering over the story of a memorial when a familiar name caught his eye.
Kevin Michaels.
The story talked about a tree that the high school planted in memory of the fallen high school student-when, how>-and included quotes from his friends. The reporter briefly summarized the events that led to Kevin’s death-when?-and referenced to a news story they had weeks ago.
Abandoning that paper, Sam sorted through the other newspapers quickly, searching for the date and that particular issue. Fortune smiled on him, because there it was-November 3rd, 2000.
The story was headline news. Wild Animal Brutally Attacks Family.
Grimly, Sam read through. An animal broke into the Michaels house that night, attacking and murdering Troy, Kevin, Abigail, and Jason Michaels. The animal wasn’t identified or found on the scene, and there was some speculation on if it had rabies. The article went on to discuss the community’s loss, but, by then, Sam had quit reading.
He sat down heavily, staring blankly at the text. It was the exact kind of story that would spark a hunt, he knew. And Kevin Michaels. Wasn’t that Ava’s townie boyfriend?
He thought about it longer and, yes, it was. Ava mentioned it once, making fun of the fact that he had a first name for a last name.
Sam’s heart ached for her. Did she know he was dead? He’d have to tell her if she didn’t.
But… but of course she did. Sam flipped back to the front page, staring at the date. Kevin died a week ago on the day Ava said she was going to visit him.
White noise seemed to trickle into his ears the longer he stared at the newspaper. His heart beat quickened as his body tensed and his mind wrestled with a thought he didn’t want to touch.
She would have known. She had to have known. But she said nothing about it. She didn’t even grieve, which was so out of character for her-Ava, who wept over dead birds.
But he couldn’t trust his previous assessment of her, could he? She was different now-colder, aloof. She looked down her noses at them, like she was examining a mildly amusing but inferior species. She was different.
She acted just like Ansem. He lifted his head, running with that thought. Maybe that wasn’t so bad of an analogy.
Maybe she killed someone too. It wouldn’t be the first time a human murder was mistaken for a brutal animal attack. Humans were animals too, a fact that too many people seemed to forget. Maybe she killed Kevin in some twisted idea of revenge.
Sam rubbed his hand through his hair for a moment, staring blindly at the floor before surging to his feet. He scooped up the whole pile of papers and hastily tucked them back on the top shelf, stepping down from the newly unnecessary stepladder with a heavy plop.
Ava, a murderer.
He rubbed his hands over his eyes. No. His knees were shaky. No, no, no. He didn’t want to think about this again. But it was one of those things you couldn't just unthink. Worse, his gut was screaming at him that there was something to this theory, even when his heart said no.
Not Ava. Ava was his friend, god damn it.
Depressed and guilty for his dark imaginings, Sam staggered into the main chapel for his hour of self-reflection. He needed it, now.
Sam had barely passed the back pew before he was noticed. He tensed at the sight of Bailey standing by the open door of the confessional.
On top of everything else, they were required to do at least one confession a week, and Sam hadn’t done his yet. He hated doing them, but now? This was the worst time to sit through that bullshit. He didn’t have the patience.
But, at the pointed look of the priest, Sam shuffled to the confessional, awkwardly folding himself into the small place.
When Sam was quiet for too long, Bailey cleared his throat meaningfully. The priest was out of sight, but not out of mind.
Sam closed his eyes. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," he said flatly. There was nothing but stony silence from the other side of the wall. Sam struggled to find something to say. "I engage in pride and wrath... and envy.”
I think one of my classmates killed her boyfriend. And I think you did something provoke it. I think you’re rotten to the core, all of you. I think you give religion a bad name. I think you-and that bastard O’Malley-are the ones who turned Ava into the twisted shell of a human being she is now.
Sam swallowed back the angry words, and tried again. “I try to stop myself from sinning, but it's hard. But I'm getting better."
"What about lust?" Bailey rasped.
Sam cocked his head to the side, trying to see through the partition. "No lust, sir."
"A boy your age..."
An image suddenly popped up in his head: a loose limbed Andy sprawled over Sam’s bed, a sliver of pale skin peeking out over his waistband. He thought about Andy’s hands finishing the rest of his buttons on his shirt. He remembered a daydream in which Sam undid his.
"Thoughts are not actions, Father," Sam said, turning red. Everything was goddamn platonic, no matter what his mind said.
And then Sam waited, breath held in his chest, a glutton for punishment. He waited for the words of absolution, for the forgiveness, for the hint of something positive from the man who sat across from him, face obscured by wood and shadow.
He waited for something he knew would never come.
"Ten Hail Marys." The partition slammed shut between them.
Sam tried to ignore the dark, hurting feeling in his chest, because he wasn’t surprised. His fists tightened over his knees. Same damn thing, every damn time.
He forcefully opened the confessional doors, stalking across the church blindly until his hands caught on the edge of the first pew that would support him and his shaking legs. Swallowing heavily, he followed the wood with his hands, counting pews as he walked down the aisle before finally settling into one.
Sam was so, so angry.
This place. This horrible, stupid place. He clenched his eyes shut, trying to will himself anywhere but Hell House.
Memories trickled in through the buzzing-memories of a different, better church.
Dean broke his arm once on a hunt. Unwilling to risk them both with one hunter down, John had carted them off to Pastor Jim. They’d stayed there in the hunter’s home for two months while John went after the thing that broke his boy’s arm. It was easily the best summer of Sam’s life.
It was because of the pastor that Sam developed such strong respect for religion, Christianity in particular. But, where the pastor’s teachings had brought him peace before, they only brought him pain now. Sam felt betrayed.
Churches were safe havens, he learned, sanctuaries from evil and hate. Churches were supposed to be warm and full of people who cared about you.
But, here? Everything-everyone-was cold and indifferent. Always, there were eyes directed at you, looking for fault. When they found it (and they always did), they would gleefully rip it apart, parading it around for all to see, like it justified their existence to see other humans brought low by sin.
And, really, their so-called righteousness was merely hypocrisy writ large-and you were damned if you dared to point that out, shuffled off to be one of the millions crushed under the heels of angels once the calendar hit Judgment Day.
Sam hated this place so much.
Suddenly exhausted, Sam let his forehead touch the wood in front of him. He was so alone here. He pressed his fingers into the wood of the seat on both sides of him, staring silently at the pocket of hymns and Bibles set into the pocket the pew.
Sam wanted so desperately to talk to somebody and confide his thoughts and feelings and worries. He no longer gained that peace of mind from writing Dean’s letters, now that he knew the church staff read them. He didn’t dare try to send them off on his own-he’d learned from Jake’s mistake too.
And he couldn’t discuss anything important, not with anyone-not with Ansem, who’d laugh. Not with Ava, who didn’t care. Not with Andy, who’d sell him out. And certainly not with Lily and Jake, who were about two seconds away from stressing themselves right into an early grave.
Sam clenched his eyes shut, his shoulders hunching in. He was so goddamn alone, he could hardly stand it.
A door opened from the back, revealing a priest. Not wanting to have to deal with accusing stares, Sam lifted his hands up and clasped them in front of his nose, absently running through the Lord's Prayer. He braced his elbows against the back of the pew in front of him, at once feeling too big and too awkward and too... wrong. His knees nudged the other pew and his back hurt from bending so awkwardly.
He was getting tall. Really tall. His clothes didn’t fit him right anymore, and he’d outgrown even Jake’s old clothes. One of the staff members heavily implied gluttony on his part, though Sam didn’t know what the hell he could have been eating in order for him to make like a tree. He ate no more than the portion grudgingly shoveled out to him and, even then, went to bed hungry sometimes.
Stupid school.
The door swung close again, echoing loudly through the empty church. Sam slowly unfolded himself, glancing around instinctively before shifting into a more comfortable position.
He let his head fall back and his eyes close. God, he was tired.
His eyes slowly opened, letting in light-gold light. He blinked several times until the picture righted itself, and he found himself looking up at the crucifix in the front of the room. Bare, vulnerable flesh made up the sculpted figure of the Christ.
Sam cocked his head, staring at the figure a little longer. Just a man, he thought. A poor, sorry bastard. Even Sam wasn’t as bad off. At least he didn’t have to suffer the indignity of looking quiet and peaceful through a depiction of eternal torture.
Sam looked away, blinking rapidly. He’d always hated the crucifix, even the little tiny ones. When he was younger, he used to pry the Jesus figure off of John’s crosses, some half-baked plan to save the poor little guy running through his head.
When John found out, well, that probably would have been a good time to have a conversation about death and dying and how life needn’t be nearly so frightening. John instead lectured him on bending the metal of the cross-like he’d broken a blade and neglected to fix it or can it. Like the crucifix was just a tool to be used. Like it was no different than a lighter, a switch blade, a tin of salt.
Sam smiled a little bit at the memory, the expression not entirely one of bitterness because, yeah, he missed his dad too. He could admit that now. Sam missed John like he missed Dean, like he missed the Impala, like he missed the back seat and the seedy hotels and the books they’d let him touch.
Sam clenched his eyes shut tightly, because, if he didn’t, he was going to cry. He pinched his nose. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing here. He wasn’t Dean or John or a real hunter, really. All he had was a head decent enough for research and a lexicon of nearly useless apocalyptic religious information. He didn’t have the skills to handle this-Ava, Ansem, the Hell House, any of it. He was just bobbing along here, useless.
He needed help.
Sam opened his eyes. He averted them from the cross, gaze flying over the walls. The left wall was built nearly flush up against the old chapel, and thus had nothing more than a few religious objects on the wall and a table for candles. The right wall was a different story. More than half of the wall was sacrificed to a series of stained glass pictures telling different stories.
Mary was in there, he noted. So were a few other saints and Biblical figures. Abraham, John, Paul, Francis… his eyes moved over each one idly.
Michael. He lingered on the image, frowning a little. Michael was a frightening figure in their stories. He’d always thought of angels as guardians, beings that watched over humanity from above, but Hell House taught him differently. According to the teachers here, angels were not harp wielding cherubs, nor were they kind hearted beings.
They were soldiers of God. They smote entire towns and destroyed huge human populations as easily as they did something vaguely helpful. They were warriors first and foremost. They struck down the wicked in the world with extreme prejudice-which would be a comforting thought, he figured, if one wasn’t always accused of being wicked.
Michael, of all the angels mentioned in the Bible, was the epitome of all that, and he was frightening. Even in the stylized image, in which he was made mostly of triangles and squares, he made for a mean, scary figure. With one foot planted on a man, one arm arched back, ready to thrust a spear through his unfortunate enemy, he was a symbol of every vengeance fantasy made real.
It made Sam feel uncomfortable, so he looked away, eyes moving over the other pictures in the windows.
There was only one other angel depicted in the scenes, and Sam found himself looking at that one instead, preferring it. Michael and the other angel were as different as night and day. Whereas Michael took up an entire panel, his wings spread wide, the other angel was crowded in a corner of a scene, fingers curled loosely around a trumpet. His eyes were cast downwards on the earth.
Gabriel, the messenger. If there was any angel willing to pass on a prayer, it had to be him.
Sam stared at the window. Please help, he prayed fervently. Help me be more patient. Help me with the strength I need to get through this. Help me with the wisdom I need to not screw this up. Please. I have no one else to ask. Overcome with his own weakness, the absence of his family suddenly poignant and horrible, Sam bowed his head.
It took him a few seconds to compose himself. Suddenly settled and clear headed for the first time in weeks, he started hammering down a plan of attack. He had to get to the sacristy, he decided. Whether he snuck in or was ordered to appear there, he’d figure that out along the way.
But, more importantly, he had to help Jake and Lily. That meant going to O’Malley, which he loathed, but their well being had to come first. When they were calmer, he’d press them again, nagging them for details so he could figure out what it was-a fear spell, a curse, whatever.
And as soon as he figured out what it was, he had to make sure it never happened to anyone else every again.
And then, he’d have to deal with Ava. And O’Malley. And Ansem, who was shaping up into become one of America’s Next Top Wanted. Sam winced. He could already tell that that was going to be a nightmare.
Sam’s shoulder was suddenly nudged. Startled, Sam looked up, eyes focusing on a short man in custodial clothes.
“Clean up, aisle pew.”
Sam continued to stare. He didn’t recognize him-or his uniform-at all.
The man was older than he was, but not by much. He had brown hair that was a mess of purposeful clutter, like a bird with too many feathers that preened itself constantly. One eyebrow rose over a green-gold eye when Sam didn’t immediately move.
"Legs up, Sasquatch," he said, pointing the handle of his broom at Sam.
Sam’s eyes widened. "Oh, I'm so sorry," he said, jumping out of the pew. He stood in the aisle as the man muttered something like ‘I didn’t ask you to move.’
Sam lingered, not knowing why. He watched the man clean the floor, adjust all the books back into place, and test the hinge of the kneeler. After a while, the man looked up, eyeing Sam with as much curiosity as Sam eyed him.
There was a word etched in string over his name badge-Norse.
Sam felt compelled to talk. "I didn't know the church hired janitors," he stammered stupidly. His cheeks flushed.
The janitor had a nice smile. "There's a lot you don't know, kid." He straightened to his full height, which made Sam realize that, like most people, he was way, way shorter than Sam. "And janitor? Please, I prefer custodian. It justifies the collar."
Sam smiled reflexively, amused by him. Suddenly aware of where he was, he bit down on the expression quickly, glancing up at the cross. Lust was a sin, even if it remained only thought.
And, shit, this guy worked for the church too. Sam’s defenses slammed up, and he caught himself scowling at the crucifix.
The janitor-Norse-followed his gaze, letting out a short, hard bark of a laugh when he put two and two together. “Whatever you’re censoring yourself over, get this.” He leaned in, as if to share an intimate secret. “He doesn't give a shit."
“There’s some debate about that,” Sam said carefully, stepping away from him.
Students couldn’t trust the staff. It was practically an axiom, a rule to live by.
“There shouldn’t be,” Norse insisted, seemingly oblivious to the distance Sam put between them. “He spoke in parables, not puzzles wrapped in riddles wrapped in enigmas and smothered with tacos.”
“What are you trying to do?” Sam demanded, suddenly angry again. Was the guy trying to catch him in blasphemy or something? Wow, that was a whole new low for Hell House.
The janitor suddenly looked sad. “I’m trying to talk to you, Sam. Talking, you know? That thing that normal people do? Wait for it, it’ll come back to you.”
Sam stared at him for a little longer, then looked down at his feet, suddenly feeling ashamed. “Sorry. I… I have to go.”
Norse sighed, his head rolling back. “Yeah, me too,” he said, sounding frustrated.
Sam turned away quickly, walking down the aisle and away from the man. With each step, he felt more and more like a dick. By the time he’d reached the last pew, he was ready to apologize, but, when Sam turned around again, Norse had disappeared. Sam hesitated, noting the disorganized book pockets and the mud scuffs on the floor of the three pews closest to him.
What kind of janitor only cleans up one pew?
Chapter Eight
Author: narukyu
Characters/Pairings: Gabriel/Sam, Sam/Andy (one sided); Jake, Lily, Ansem, Ava, Azazel
Rating: R
Warnings: violence, adult language, death (OCs, minor character), gore (not much worse than 3x15), sex, AU (pre-season 1), high school fic (ish), slash, minor femmeslash.
Word Count: 60K-ish
Summary: A devotedly unreligious man sends his youngest son to a private religious school. If that wasn't suspicious enough, Sam can't get a hold of John or Dean, people are disappearing right and left, and, in the night, something whispers in the silence of the old chapel. Soon enough, Sam discovers that something terrible lingers behind the doors to the sacristy--something that sheds a light on the secret holy mission of the Soldiers of Christ as well what happened to his family so many years ago.
I buried my wife today. Even as I write that down, I don’t believe it. Last week, we were a normal family… eating dinner, going to Dean’s T-ball game, buying toys for baby Sammy. But in an instant, it all changed… when I try to think back, get it straight in my head… I feel like I’m going crazy. Like someone ripped both my arms off, plucked my eyes out… I’m wandering around, alone and lost and I can’t do anything.
John Winchester's journal, November 6, 1983
-----
The next day, Sam stepped out of his room, his vest, his tie, and a Bible tucked under one arm as he one-handedly tried to button up the rest of his shirt. He’d stayed up late reading and re-reading entries from Thompson’s journal. While some entries were straight forward, most of them were a notch above nonsense, written in a jargon he didn’t understand with meanings he couldn’t fathom.
He hurried outside, trying to walk and dress himself at the same time. He stopped mid-step, seeing the profile of a glum Andy, fully dressed and leaning against the wall.
Moodily, Andy stared at Lily’s door under lowered lashes. “They got Jake yesterday,” he said without looking back.
Sam was immediately alarmed. “Why?”
Andy finally tore his gaze away from the door. Lines and shadows stretched on under his eyes, obviously a product of missed sleep. He looked up at Sam under heavy eyelids, clearly hesitating. Then he crossed the distance between the two of them, quick hands doing up the rest of Sam’s buttons.
“Thou shalt not make unsupervised communications,” he muttered. The top of his head was about level with Sam’s throat. “Fitting, isn’t it? How they both get in trouble at the same time, like two peas in a pod.”
Not knowing what to say, Sam swallowed hard, then looked sharply to the left when a picture fell.
It was Jake. His sweat-slick face was turned to the floor. When he looked up, the whites of his eyes flared. He walked with his back to the wall, staring at every person who passed by like he was trying to see into their soul. Kids walked around him carefully, quickly, shooting looks at him behind his back.
Then Jake looked at them. The realization slammed Sam like a blow to the face-he was frightened, like the others. Like Lily the night before. Like Ansem, like Ava.
What the hell happened?
The question hung heavy in Sam’s chest, even after he voiced it-especially after it was ignored.
In the end, Jake never said a word to them. He moved carefully, making his way to his room. He slammed the door behind him. After a moment, they heard the noise of wood scraping over floor, like Jake moved his desk or dresser. Shadows danced under the door.
He was barricading himself inside. Sam let out a low, shaky breath.
Andy turned to him suddenly. “We’re the last sane people in our year!” he burst out. He paused for a moment, and then said quickly, “O’Malley fixed Ansem and Ava, maybe-”
“No,” Sam croaked. His mouth was dry. He dropped the Bible to the floor and, with a quick flick of his wrist, pulled his tie under his collar.
“What?”
Sam shot him a glare as he finished putting on his tie. “Don’t ask him for help.”
Andy disappeared from sight for a moment as Sam pulled the vest over his head, but when he reappeared, Andy looked equal parts pissed and frustrated. “What are we supposed to do then, smart guy?”
“I don’t know,” Sam admitted, picking up the Bible. “Just hold off on talking to him. I don’t… I don’t trust him.”
“Big surprise,” Andy said bitterly, turning away sharply. “You don’t trust anyone, Sam.”
That stung, but it wasn’t a lie, and Sam wasn’t going to lie to make Andy feel better-to make Andy like him more.
He didn’t need Andy to like him. He just needed Andy to shut up and listen, because there was something going on here, something that neither of them understood. And Sam had to be the one to figure it out.
He had to.
-----
Days passed. The mystery of the sacristy didn’t offer up any answers and, with time, Jake and Lily didn’t get any better. They only became more and more exhausted, more and more high strung, and more and more panicky, rather than less.
It didn’t make sense. Ansem and Ava had showed minor signs of getting better before O’Malley stepped in, but Lily and Jake did not. It was getting bad. It was getting so bad that even the school staff was reacting to it. Lily had been excused from class six times in half as many days and Jake hadn’t been seen outside his room in a week.
Sam had ruled out physical assault and was reluctantly looking into a supernatural explanation. Their reactions were too uniform for him to be comfortable with ruling out curses and spells entirely, so he looked into that too.
But he strongly doubted it was magic or witches or anything of the like. Saint Mary’s was a church, after all. Some things, in his mind, just didn’t mix-like black magic and hallowed grounds.
While he was trying to figure all this out, Andy pushed and pushed to have them talk to O’Malley.
“There’s, like, seventy other kids here! He won’t notice unless we tell him.”
“I don’t want him around Lily or Jake,” Sam said stubbornly, leafing through a contraband psychology book. It was the text in his hand that convinced him to look elsewhere for explanations. Some many things overlapped with one another-he didn’t know how psychologists did their work at all.
But the book stressed individual differences too, and talked about how one disorder could present itself in a population in a dozen, unique, personal ways. So it didn’t make sense to Sam how two wildly different people could present the same exact reaction to the same exact stimulus-and for all those reactions to be blithely classed as something as broad as ‘nervous breakdowns’.
This left him with his strong suit, the explanations he was more familiar with-the supernatural. Unfortunately, the best explanation for their reactions with that filter was some kind of fear spell, and he had no idea how to go about hunting for that.
Without warning, the book was snatched from his hand and tossed to the floor. Andy was angry, he realized.
“You want them to suffer?” he demanded, trying to crowd Sam, but it was like a mouse trying to crowd a horse.
It worked, though. Uncomfortable defending his position now that he had to meet Andy’s eyes, Sam said slowly, “I don’t think O’Malley’s helping at all. I mean, look at Ava-”
“You just… God!” Andy shouted. He stomped around in a circle in the grass. “People are suffering and you can’t let go of a little preacher hate!”
“I don’t hate preachers,” Sam protested. He waited for a moment and then said, gently, “Just… give it some time, okay? Let’s see if they snap out of it first.”
Andy was fuming. His jaw worked under his skin as he looked away. Then, finally, he shot Sam a baleful glare under his mop of hair. “Tomorrow.”
That wasn’t enough time. “Andy-”
Andy jabbed his finger in Sam’s direction. “If they’re not doing better by tomorrow, I’m going to O’Malley, with you or without you.” With his words still ringing in the air, he turned around and walked away, leaving Sam to stare at his back.
Well, that was it then. He had less than twenty-four hours to figure out what was wrong with Lily and Jake-and with Ansem and Ava by extension.
Sam covered his face with his hand. Shit.
------
Later that day, Sam could be found in the library, sorting through contraband newspapers. Some of them were old and yellowing, but others were fairly recent. He flipped open one only a month old, scanning over the articles with a hunter’s trained eye, looking for any articles on Saint Mary’s.
He’d thought to look for any outside perspective on the school and its staff, thinking that a different view point would help him figure out how to retackle this issue.
At this point in time, he had nothing. His brain was shot.
All he knew was that, somehow, the church seemed to be causing the reactions, and that it was somehow a part of the ‘punishment’. What the punishment was, he didn’t know. No one would talk. Neither would they talk about who did the punishing or why it was done.
He only knew where it was by fortune alone, and the last time he’d gotten near the sacristy, he’d almost been caught by Bailey.
He was starting to get the sneaking suspicion that the only way he was going to figure out what caused Lily and Jake’s reactions was to piss off the staff to the point where he was punished too. He was hesitant to do that.
It was hard to be a hunter when you were also the hunted, after all.
Frustrated, he turned the page, eyes scanning quickly over the dense text. He paused, lingering over the story of a memorial when a familiar name caught his eye.
Kevin Michaels.
The story talked about a tree that the high school planted in memory of the fallen high school student-when, how>-and included quotes from his friends. The reporter briefly summarized the events that led to Kevin’s death-when?-and referenced to a news story they had weeks ago.
Abandoning that paper, Sam sorted through the other newspapers quickly, searching for the date and that particular issue. Fortune smiled on him, because there it was-November 3rd, 2000.
The story was headline news. Wild Animal Brutally Attacks Family.
Grimly, Sam read through. An animal broke into the Michaels house that night, attacking and murdering Troy, Kevin, Abigail, and Jason Michaels. The animal wasn’t identified or found on the scene, and there was some speculation on if it had rabies. The article went on to discuss the community’s loss, but, by then, Sam had quit reading.
He sat down heavily, staring blankly at the text. It was the exact kind of story that would spark a hunt, he knew. And Kevin Michaels. Wasn’t that Ava’s townie boyfriend?
He thought about it longer and, yes, it was. Ava mentioned it once, making fun of the fact that he had a first name for a last name.
Sam’s heart ached for her. Did she know he was dead? He’d have to tell her if she didn’t.
But… but of course she did. Sam flipped back to the front page, staring at the date. Kevin died a week ago on the day Ava said she was going to visit him.
White noise seemed to trickle into his ears the longer he stared at the newspaper. His heart beat quickened as his body tensed and his mind wrestled with a thought he didn’t want to touch.
She would have known. She had to have known. But she said nothing about it. She didn’t even grieve, which was so out of character for her-Ava, who wept over dead birds.
But he couldn’t trust his previous assessment of her, could he? She was different now-colder, aloof. She looked down her noses at them, like she was examining a mildly amusing but inferior species. She was different.
She acted just like Ansem. He lifted his head, running with that thought. Maybe that wasn’t so bad of an analogy.
Maybe she killed someone too. It wouldn’t be the first time a human murder was mistaken for a brutal animal attack. Humans were animals too, a fact that too many people seemed to forget. Maybe she killed Kevin in some twisted idea of revenge.
Sam rubbed his hand through his hair for a moment, staring blindly at the floor before surging to his feet. He scooped up the whole pile of papers and hastily tucked them back on the top shelf, stepping down from the newly unnecessary stepladder with a heavy plop.
Ava, a murderer.
He rubbed his hands over his eyes. No. His knees were shaky. No, no, no. He didn’t want to think about this again. But it was one of those things you couldn't just unthink. Worse, his gut was screaming at him that there was something to this theory, even when his heart said no.
Not Ava. Ava was his friend, god damn it.
Depressed and guilty for his dark imaginings, Sam staggered into the main chapel for his hour of self-reflection. He needed it, now.
Sam had barely passed the back pew before he was noticed. He tensed at the sight of Bailey standing by the open door of the confessional.
On top of everything else, they were required to do at least one confession a week, and Sam hadn’t done his yet. He hated doing them, but now? This was the worst time to sit through that bullshit. He didn’t have the patience.
But, at the pointed look of the priest, Sam shuffled to the confessional, awkwardly folding himself into the small place.
When Sam was quiet for too long, Bailey cleared his throat meaningfully. The priest was out of sight, but not out of mind.
Sam closed his eyes. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned," he said flatly. There was nothing but stony silence from the other side of the wall. Sam struggled to find something to say. "I engage in pride and wrath... and envy.”
I think one of my classmates killed her boyfriend. And I think you did something provoke it. I think you’re rotten to the core, all of you. I think you give religion a bad name. I think you-and that bastard O’Malley-are the ones who turned Ava into the twisted shell of a human being she is now.
Sam swallowed back the angry words, and tried again. “I try to stop myself from sinning, but it's hard. But I'm getting better."
"What about lust?" Bailey rasped.
Sam cocked his head to the side, trying to see through the partition. "No lust, sir."
"A boy your age..."
An image suddenly popped up in his head: a loose limbed Andy sprawled over Sam’s bed, a sliver of pale skin peeking out over his waistband. He thought about Andy’s hands finishing the rest of his buttons on his shirt. He remembered a daydream in which Sam undid his.
"Thoughts are not actions, Father," Sam said, turning red. Everything was goddamn platonic, no matter what his mind said.
And then Sam waited, breath held in his chest, a glutton for punishment. He waited for the words of absolution, for the forgiveness, for the hint of something positive from the man who sat across from him, face obscured by wood and shadow.
He waited for something he knew would never come.
"Ten Hail Marys." The partition slammed shut between them.
Sam tried to ignore the dark, hurting feeling in his chest, because he wasn’t surprised. His fists tightened over his knees. Same damn thing, every damn time.
He forcefully opened the confessional doors, stalking across the church blindly until his hands caught on the edge of the first pew that would support him and his shaking legs. Swallowing heavily, he followed the wood with his hands, counting pews as he walked down the aisle before finally settling into one.
Sam was so, so angry.
This place. This horrible, stupid place. He clenched his eyes shut, trying to will himself anywhere but Hell House.
Memories trickled in through the buzzing-memories of a different, better church.
Dean broke his arm once on a hunt. Unwilling to risk them both with one hunter down, John had carted them off to Pastor Jim. They’d stayed there in the hunter’s home for two months while John went after the thing that broke his boy’s arm. It was easily the best summer of Sam’s life.
It was because of the pastor that Sam developed such strong respect for religion, Christianity in particular. But, where the pastor’s teachings had brought him peace before, they only brought him pain now. Sam felt betrayed.
Churches were safe havens, he learned, sanctuaries from evil and hate. Churches were supposed to be warm and full of people who cared about you.
But, here? Everything-everyone-was cold and indifferent. Always, there were eyes directed at you, looking for fault. When they found it (and they always did), they would gleefully rip it apart, parading it around for all to see, like it justified their existence to see other humans brought low by sin.
And, really, their so-called righteousness was merely hypocrisy writ large-and you were damned if you dared to point that out, shuffled off to be one of the millions crushed under the heels of angels once the calendar hit Judgment Day.
Sam hated this place so much.
Suddenly exhausted, Sam let his forehead touch the wood in front of him. He was so alone here. He pressed his fingers into the wood of the seat on both sides of him, staring silently at the pocket of hymns and Bibles set into the pocket the pew.
Sam wanted so desperately to talk to somebody and confide his thoughts and feelings and worries. He no longer gained that peace of mind from writing Dean’s letters, now that he knew the church staff read them. He didn’t dare try to send them off on his own-he’d learned from Jake’s mistake too.
And he couldn’t discuss anything important, not with anyone-not with Ansem, who’d laugh. Not with Ava, who didn’t care. Not with Andy, who’d sell him out. And certainly not with Lily and Jake, who were about two seconds away from stressing themselves right into an early grave.
Sam clenched his eyes shut, his shoulders hunching in. He was so goddamn alone, he could hardly stand it.
A door opened from the back, revealing a priest. Not wanting to have to deal with accusing stares, Sam lifted his hands up and clasped them in front of his nose, absently running through the Lord's Prayer. He braced his elbows against the back of the pew in front of him, at once feeling too big and too awkward and too... wrong. His knees nudged the other pew and his back hurt from bending so awkwardly.
He was getting tall. Really tall. His clothes didn’t fit him right anymore, and he’d outgrown even Jake’s old clothes. One of the staff members heavily implied gluttony on his part, though Sam didn’t know what the hell he could have been eating in order for him to make like a tree. He ate no more than the portion grudgingly shoveled out to him and, even then, went to bed hungry sometimes.
Stupid school.
The door swung close again, echoing loudly through the empty church. Sam slowly unfolded himself, glancing around instinctively before shifting into a more comfortable position.
He let his head fall back and his eyes close. God, he was tired.
His eyes slowly opened, letting in light-gold light. He blinked several times until the picture righted itself, and he found himself looking up at the crucifix in the front of the room. Bare, vulnerable flesh made up the sculpted figure of the Christ.
Sam cocked his head, staring at the figure a little longer. Just a man, he thought. A poor, sorry bastard. Even Sam wasn’t as bad off. At least he didn’t have to suffer the indignity of looking quiet and peaceful through a depiction of eternal torture.
Sam looked away, blinking rapidly. He’d always hated the crucifix, even the little tiny ones. When he was younger, he used to pry the Jesus figure off of John’s crosses, some half-baked plan to save the poor little guy running through his head.
When John found out, well, that probably would have been a good time to have a conversation about death and dying and how life needn’t be nearly so frightening. John instead lectured him on bending the metal of the cross-like he’d broken a blade and neglected to fix it or can it. Like the crucifix was just a tool to be used. Like it was no different than a lighter, a switch blade, a tin of salt.
Sam smiled a little bit at the memory, the expression not entirely one of bitterness because, yeah, he missed his dad too. He could admit that now. Sam missed John like he missed Dean, like he missed the Impala, like he missed the back seat and the seedy hotels and the books they’d let him touch.
Sam clenched his eyes shut tightly, because, if he didn’t, he was going to cry. He pinched his nose. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing here. He wasn’t Dean or John or a real hunter, really. All he had was a head decent enough for research and a lexicon of nearly useless apocalyptic religious information. He didn’t have the skills to handle this-Ava, Ansem, the Hell House, any of it. He was just bobbing along here, useless.
He needed help.
Sam opened his eyes. He averted them from the cross, gaze flying over the walls. The left wall was built nearly flush up against the old chapel, and thus had nothing more than a few religious objects on the wall and a table for candles. The right wall was a different story. More than half of the wall was sacrificed to a series of stained glass pictures telling different stories.
Mary was in there, he noted. So were a few other saints and Biblical figures. Abraham, John, Paul, Francis… his eyes moved over each one idly.
Michael. He lingered on the image, frowning a little. Michael was a frightening figure in their stories. He’d always thought of angels as guardians, beings that watched over humanity from above, but Hell House taught him differently. According to the teachers here, angels were not harp wielding cherubs, nor were they kind hearted beings.
They were soldiers of God. They smote entire towns and destroyed huge human populations as easily as they did something vaguely helpful. They were warriors first and foremost. They struck down the wicked in the world with extreme prejudice-which would be a comforting thought, he figured, if one wasn’t always accused of being wicked.
Michael, of all the angels mentioned in the Bible, was the epitome of all that, and he was frightening. Even in the stylized image, in which he was made mostly of triangles and squares, he made for a mean, scary figure. With one foot planted on a man, one arm arched back, ready to thrust a spear through his unfortunate enemy, he was a symbol of every vengeance fantasy made real.
It made Sam feel uncomfortable, so he looked away, eyes moving over the other pictures in the windows.
There was only one other angel depicted in the scenes, and Sam found himself looking at that one instead, preferring it. Michael and the other angel were as different as night and day. Whereas Michael took up an entire panel, his wings spread wide, the other angel was crowded in a corner of a scene, fingers curled loosely around a trumpet. His eyes were cast downwards on the earth.
Gabriel, the messenger. If there was any angel willing to pass on a prayer, it had to be him.
Sam stared at the window. Please help, he prayed fervently. Help me be more patient. Help me with the strength I need to get through this. Help me with the wisdom I need to not screw this up. Please. I have no one else to ask. Overcome with his own weakness, the absence of his family suddenly poignant and horrible, Sam bowed his head.
It took him a few seconds to compose himself. Suddenly settled and clear headed for the first time in weeks, he started hammering down a plan of attack. He had to get to the sacristy, he decided. Whether he snuck in or was ordered to appear there, he’d figure that out along the way.
But, more importantly, he had to help Jake and Lily. That meant going to O’Malley, which he loathed, but their well being had to come first. When they were calmer, he’d press them again, nagging them for details so he could figure out what it was-a fear spell, a curse, whatever.
And as soon as he figured out what it was, he had to make sure it never happened to anyone else every again.
And then, he’d have to deal with Ava. And O’Malley. And Ansem, who was shaping up into become one of America’s Next Top Wanted. Sam winced. He could already tell that that was going to be a nightmare.
Sam’s shoulder was suddenly nudged. Startled, Sam looked up, eyes focusing on a short man in custodial clothes.
“Clean up, aisle pew.”
Sam continued to stare. He didn’t recognize him-or his uniform-at all.
The man was older than he was, but not by much. He had brown hair that was a mess of purposeful clutter, like a bird with too many feathers that preened itself constantly. One eyebrow rose over a green-gold eye when Sam didn’t immediately move.
"Legs up, Sasquatch," he said, pointing the handle of his broom at Sam.
Sam’s eyes widened. "Oh, I'm so sorry," he said, jumping out of the pew. He stood in the aisle as the man muttered something like ‘I didn’t ask you to move.’
Sam lingered, not knowing why. He watched the man clean the floor, adjust all the books back into place, and test the hinge of the kneeler. After a while, the man looked up, eyeing Sam with as much curiosity as Sam eyed him.
There was a word etched in string over his name badge-Norse.
Sam felt compelled to talk. "I didn't know the church hired janitors," he stammered stupidly. His cheeks flushed.
The janitor had a nice smile. "There's a lot you don't know, kid." He straightened to his full height, which made Sam realize that, like most people, he was way, way shorter than Sam. "And janitor? Please, I prefer custodian. It justifies the collar."
Sam smiled reflexively, amused by him. Suddenly aware of where he was, he bit down on the expression quickly, glancing up at the cross. Lust was a sin, even if it remained only thought.
And, shit, this guy worked for the church too. Sam’s defenses slammed up, and he caught himself scowling at the crucifix.
The janitor-Norse-followed his gaze, letting out a short, hard bark of a laugh when he put two and two together. “Whatever you’re censoring yourself over, get this.” He leaned in, as if to share an intimate secret. “He doesn't give a shit."
“There’s some debate about that,” Sam said carefully, stepping away from him.
Students couldn’t trust the staff. It was practically an axiom, a rule to live by.
“There shouldn’t be,” Norse insisted, seemingly oblivious to the distance Sam put between them. “He spoke in parables, not puzzles wrapped in riddles wrapped in enigmas and smothered with tacos.”
“What are you trying to do?” Sam demanded, suddenly angry again. Was the guy trying to catch him in blasphemy or something? Wow, that was a whole new low for Hell House.
The janitor suddenly looked sad. “I’m trying to talk to you, Sam. Talking, you know? That thing that normal people do? Wait for it, it’ll come back to you.”
Sam stared at him for a little longer, then looked down at his feet, suddenly feeling ashamed. “Sorry. I… I have to go.”
Norse sighed, his head rolling back. “Yeah, me too,” he said, sounding frustrated.
Sam turned away quickly, walking down the aisle and away from the man. With each step, he felt more and more like a dick. By the time he’d reached the last pew, he was ready to apologize, but, when Sam turned around again, Norse had disappeared. Sam hesitated, noting the disorganized book pockets and the mud scuffs on the floor of the three pews closest to him.
What kind of janitor only cleans up one pew?
Chapter Eight