"She Just Wanted to be Heard Days 12-13," PG-13, The Ring/Supernatural
She Just Wanted to Be Heard
Day 12: Streams That Often Converge
Part of Story Arc 1: Counterclockwise
A "The Ring/Ringu" Fanfic
by Laurel (Sailorhathor)
Chapters: 12 of 100
Rating: Overall Rating PG-13 (some elements might be too intense or scary for those under 13; includes bad language)
Dates: Begun September 2006. Some material is based on previously written stories from 2003-2005.
Word Count: 3,945
Summary: Samara and her sisters try to discourage the Winchester family from becoming involved in the ring by going after Sam.
Warning: Contains spoilers for the entire Ringu and The Ring series.
Beta Thanks: Beta'ed by Meredevachon.
Fanfic Challenges: Fits 50_darkfics prompt #12 Bound and coclaim100 prompt #12 Scream.
Author's Notes: Sam Winchester is a character from the tv show Supernatural. This part of the fic takes place pre-series.
Thanks to Rekka for her help with the Japanese.
I created the concept of Heptamera and his brides and daughters to combine the Japanese and American versions of this story. The idea is based on the fact that Sadako's real father was supposed to be a sea demon. (An idea that was apparently carried over to the American movies, judging by Sister Elizabeth's story about Evelyn.) Heptamera means "seven days" in Greek. I believe that the concept of Heptamera may contradict the Japanese manga, but I don't remember Sadako's demon father ever being named in the movies, on which this fanfic is based.
Lisa held out her hand and said commandingly, "Hand it over, Danielle."
Flinching a little, Danielle rolled her eyes and reached into her pocket. She produced the rosary and put it into Lisa's hand. "Why do you even want it? I was just going to throw it away."
"Quinn is coming back at the end of the week. I'm going to give it to him then."
"Quinn?"
"That's his name."
"Why is he coming back?" Danielle thought that was a pretty bad idea, after what had happened. "Did he think of something else to choke on?"
Lisa, making an I am not amused face, explained it as little as possible. The less people heard about Quinn's nutty story, the better. "Just trust me, him coughing up that necklace has nothing to do with anything he ate. He's coming back... so we can share a good laugh."
Danielle didn't get it, of course, but she thought maybe it was better that way. "Whatever. Only you would make friends with the guy who coughed up an object while eating here. Just don't give him anymore chicken wings."
Lisa made that face again before turning her attention to the rosary. "You did clean the spit off this, didn't you?"
"I wiped it a little with a napkin..."
Holding the rosary by one bead, Lisa carried it at arm's length toward the kitchen with a small, "Ew."
*****
Quinn and Gunnar were uncomfortably silent on the ride home, at first. Gunnar wasn't sure what to say. He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel and breathed in deeply, then just said what he was thinking. "That was a really weird story you told that waitress."
Quinn didn't reply for so long that Gunnar thought maybe he hadn't heard him. He had opened his mouth to repeat his comment when Quinn said simply, "I know."
"Do you really believe all that shit?"
Quinn stared out the window at the rain hitting the street, the droplets rolling down the glass in streams that often converged. "I don't know, man. I haven't gotten a lot of sleep the last few days."
"You believe it, don't you? You really think some dead girl is after you. Making you throw up stuff." Gunnar laughed lightly. He reached over and ruffled Quinn's curly hair.
Quinn jumped in his seat. "God! Don't do that."
"It's made you jumpy." Gunnar laughed again.
His reaction made Quinn suddenly mad. "Didn't you hear anything I said in there, man? The fact that we're all experiencing this thing doesn't make any kind of impression on you?"
"I dunno," Gunnar said with a shrug. "Maybe you all took the same acid."
Quinn tried to think of something to say to wipe that cocky grin off his friend's face. "There's something real going on here, Gunnar. Just ask Jodie. She's the smart one, right? She thinks there's something to all this, just like I do."
"Oh sure, that's why she asked me to take you out to get your mind off what you'd gotten into. Even Jodie thinks you're losing it."
His hand to his brow, Quinn stared out the window, momentarily giving Gunnar the silent treatment.
"Quinn, really, what's this all about? Did you guys party a little too hard and take something you really shouldn't have?" He paused and waited for Quinn to throw something in. "I know how Jolene can be sometimes. She was never the greatest mother figure. Right? Did she bring you guys something? Promise a great high?"
"I wish it was that simple." Massaging his eyes with his thumb and first finger, Quinn added, "When we get back to my apartment, you can ask Jodie about what's been going on. She'll tell you how real it is."
"What, did Jodie watch this 'videotape' too?"
"Yes."
"How long ago?" Gunnar asked.
"Uhhh... less than twenty-four hours after I did," replied Quinn.
"Okay, so what's she experienced so far?" Gunnar's eyebrows creased in growing confusion. "When she called me, she seemed fine. You're freaking out and Jodie's fine. Is that supposed to make sense?"
Quinn gave it some serious thought. "Well... she... I asked her if she had any nightmares and she said no..."
"Does Jodes have any welts on her arm?"
Quinn considered that too. "No. Not yet."
"Is she having hallucinations?"
"Not that I know of."
"The dead girl comes after you, Svet, Jolene... but not Jodie?" Gunnar hoped this would make the point that he was going for, and get Quinn to tell him what really happened.
Instead, Quinn thought about it harder than he ever had, searching his memory for any sign, any sign at all, that Samara had touched Jodie. "You're right. The dead girl hasn't come after Jodie. Not at all."
"So? What does that mean?"
His fingertips to his lips, Quinn again fell silent long enough for Gunnar to think he wasn't going to answer. He didn't want to believe it. After how bad this had gotten - the intense nightmares, the physical effects, the fear - Quinn didn't want to fall back on his original conclusion. He finally said, "What does that mean?"
*****
None of the people involved in Quinn Kirkland's crisis had met the real Dean Winchester yet. They had only dreamed of him, so they were unaware that he had a younger brother whom he loved probably more than his own life.
Sammy.
Sam was currently in Palo Alto, California, attending Stanford College and studying to be a lawyer. Practicing law was a far cry from hunting demons in many ways, but in others, it was exactly the same. But Sam didn't want to hunt anymore. He had never felt completely comfortable in his father and brother's world. There was more call for brute strength than book learning there. They needed someone to do research, look things up in magickal texts and the like, but there was no room for spending copious amounts of time flipping through art history books and reading classic novels. Those things were wastes of time to John Winchester. They were also some of Sam's favorite things to do.
He had been a good son as long as he could stand it. He had learned how to shoot weapons and ward off evil spirits and everything else that went along with exacting his father's revenge against every evil thing that ever existed to make up for Mary Winchester's death. Sam was done with all that. He wanted his own life.
Sam Winchester was done with hunting.
If that meant he had to leave Dean behind too, then so be it. It was unavoidable.
Left a hole in his gut, a burn in his heart, but unavoidable.
What Sam did not realize at the time was that he couldn't leave it all behind. It would always find him.
His roommate had left him alone in their dorm room to attend a party. Sam, now almost 21, had fallen asleep in front of the TV in his favorite beanbag chair, an Advanced Calculus book open on his lap. His long giraffe-like legs sprawled across the floor between the chair and the rickety TV stand. The room was dark except for the light coming from the television. It broadcast only snow. Static.
But Sam had left the light on, hadn't he?
Chhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Static had its own sound. Hissing. The sound of nothing. Sometimes, if you listened hard enough
"sam"
He stirred just a little in his sleep with a snort.
"Sam"
Sam grunted softly, then smacked his lips and lifted his head off the beanbag chair. He opened his eyes slightly, squinting at the TV.
"Sammy. That's your name?"
Sam just squinted at the static on the screen. He wiped some drool from the side of his mouth. "Yeah, I'm Sam," he replied sleepily.
"What's your mommy's name?"
He tried to sit up a little. Someone was talking to him, but he didn't know where the voice was coming from. "Who's talking to me?" Sam asked, peering around the dim room.
"Is your mommy named Mary?"
Sam looked right at the television. The voice was coming from the television. "Uhh... yeah. That was her name."
"But she died."
His brow furrowed suspiciously. "Yeah." He paused, trying to figure this one out. "Who's speaking?" The voice sounded like a child, a girl.
"That's sad," the voice said quietly, regretfully. "My mommy's dead too. One of them, anyway." She stopped talking for a few moments, the sound of her voice melting into the hissing of the static. "You seem nice," the child finally said.
"Thanks..." Sam pushed himself up a bit further, as far as a person could sit up in such a mushy chair. "What's your name?"
"Samara," came the answer.
When she didn't offer any more information, Sam asked, "Why are you talking to me through the TV?"
Her voice drifted from the static once more. "Because you can hear me."
Sam wanted to say, "Well, duh," but it didn't seem like the best idea. "I know that, but... is there something you want?"
"Most people can't."
It took him a second to understand what the child meant. "Most people can't hear you?"
"No, they can't."
"Oh." He was dreaming. He had to be dreaming. "Well, maybe you should try calling them on the phone instead of talking to them through televisions..."
"I only call people when they've watched my tape."
Sam blinked in confused silence. "What?"
"That's what I've come to you about. You need to tell them not to come. They shouldn't... they shouldn't... it's such a big word..."
Sam understood he was talking to a child. "Take your time," he said.
"Tell them they shouldn't interfere," Samara instructed, saying the last word with pride at having said it correctly.
"Who?"
Samara paused. She then replied, "Your father and brother."
This made him blink again in stunned confusion. Sam hadn't even talked to Dad or Dean for months. "Huh?"
"Tell Dad and Dean not to interfere. They shouldn't get involved in this." Samara giggled. "They can't stop us."
"What do you mean? What are you talking about?" Sam asked. Were his father and brother in danger?
The child giggled again. "It's nice having a brother, isn't it? I never had a brother, but I've got sisters. So very many sisterssssss..." Samara's voice faded into the sound of the static.
"Hey! Samara? What do you mean? What shouldn't they get involved in?"
A new voice came from the television, one a little older and full of malice. "Tell your father and brother not to come to Boston. They can't stop the ring. No one can ever, ever stop it."
Frustrated, Sam said, "I don't know what you mean. Is this a case they're involved in?"
"Just do as I say!" An image flashed on the screen for a second, cutting through the static with a jarring crackling sound. It was a woman reflected in a mirror, a dark-haired woman, brushing her hair. "When we're finished talking, call them up and tell them not to go to Boston this weekend. They'll regret it."
Sam had seen that woman in the mirror before. The entire image rang bells he couldn't even place at the moment. "I'm not doing anything until you tell me what this is all about."
"Call your brother and tell him what's going on in Boston is none of his business. Your family has interfered enough already."
"I'm not going to be threatened, especially not through a television by some faceless entity."
"This cycle has been going on since long before you were born. You do not want to fuck with us, Sammy."
Another image flashed on the screen, that of a teenage girl with short blonde hair riding a horse across a beach. It was gone as quickly as it came.
"Oh, I see. Whatever you are, you're trying to get to my dad and brother through me. They're about to take you on. And you find them intimidating," Sam said with a satisfied grin. "They scare you."
A long pause. Just the sound of the static. Then the screen jumped violently, crackling. Another voice came out of the hiss, a new one. "Shikata ga nai ne," that voice said with a sigh.
Sam did not know what that meant, or how many different people were on the other end of this strange communication. He felt warm liquid running from one nostril, and put his finger to his nose. Blood.
Sam felt himself being shaken by the shoulder. He came awake with a gasp.
"Sam. Hey, Sam!" his roommate, Gerald, called. "Wake up!"
Looking around, Sam saw that the light was still on. So it had been a dream, just a dream, after all. "Uh... oh, hey, Gerry. You back from the party?"
"Yeah. It wasn't so great. Hardly any cute girls."
The television was on, tuned to a channel that had gone off the air.
Nothing but static.
Sam's fingers went to his nose just as Gerald said, "You better take care of that. Your nose is bleeding." He handed Sam a tissue.
Sam took it, put it to his nose, and leaned back to stop the flow of blood. Okay, that was strange. "I had a dream that I had a nosebleed."
"Oh, yeah... that's like those dreams where you need to go to the bathroom, and you search frantically for a toilet, then you wake up and realize that you've really gotta take a piss," Gerald said while getting undressed and ready for bed.
"I guess." Sam stared at the staticky television. "These girls were talking to me through the TV."
Gerald laughed. "Was there snow on it, like the TV is now?"
"Yeah."
He laughed again. Once he had his pajamas on, Gerald walked over and put his hand on the TV screen. "They're here."
"Huh? Oh..." Sam laughed too, just now seeing the similarities. "Like that movie, Poltergeist."
"Yeah. Carolanne, talking to the 'TV people.' You remember what they said about channels not receiving a broadcast?" Leaning down, Gerald put his face very close to the screen, making a spooky face. "They can receive communications from the dead."
****
Long after Gerald had fallen asleep, Sam was still staring at his phone, Dean's number already highlighted. They hadn't spoken in months, not even to say hi.
"It was just a dream," he told himself. Didn't mean a thing.
Except, it did. Sam knew he recognized those two images from somewhere. A woman brushing her hair in an off-center mirror. A girl riding a horse across a beach. The fact that he had seen those scenes somewhere before is what gave him pause. They had significance.
"You probably just saw them in a movie and put them in your dream," a cynical voice said inside him. "Stop looking for an excuse to call Dean and just call him because you want to."
Cynical Voice had a point there. Sam looked at the clock. Even Dean would be in bed by this time. He vowed to give him a call in the morning. Hopefully, that would satisfy the weird impulse in his head that caused him to have such an elaborate, strange dream just to tell him he missed his brother. Sam lay down and soon fell asleep.
He could smell the sea. An archway open onto a balcony revealed the Mediterranean beyond. The sound of the waves lapping at the shore was so rhythmic that Sam thought he could listen to it all day.
This was the kind of dream Sam could go for. At the time, he didn't know he was dreaming, so it made perfect sense that he could be lying in his bed in the dorm room he shared with Gerald and also in this room in Greece. He wasn't sure how he knew it was Greece; the Mediterranean touched so many other nations... something just told him. It also made no impression on Sam that half his room had blended into this other house. The walls changed halfway across, a subtle metamorphosis.
A noise, like heavy canvas stirred by the wind, drew Sam's attention away from the balcony view. A very tall canvas, an artist's canvas, leaned on an easel that almost touched the floor. Sam estimated that it stood about eight feet tall and five feet wide. As he pivoted his body, sitting up slightly, he noticed that a woman was seated in a chair at one corner of his bed. It startled him.
The woman was very beautiful. Her seductive face and ice blue eyes were framed with black hair so long it touched the small of her back. She wore white lace, down to a hood draped over her head. Staring at Sam, the woman said something to him in Greek.
"Sit still. You are my model," she said. Sam didn't know how he could understand her, since he didn't speak a word of conversational Greek, not a single dialect. A voice in his head translated for him.
"You... you want to paint me?" Sam asked.
The woman put a finger to her lips. "Shhhhh." Apparently, that meant the same thing in Greek as it did in English.
While Sam watched, she closed her eyes and lowered her head to her chest. The woman seemed to be concentrating on something. After a short time, she raised her head and opened her eyes. Her irises had gone milky white. All that was left were black, black pupils.
"Are you alright?"
Her head lolled back on her neck, and she made strange noises in the back of her throat. Moans. Choking sounds. Clickings. She writhed in the chair. The woman raised her head again, looking through him instead of at him, and he could see her pupils now swam with deep sea green light. Luminous, hypnotizing. Sam wondered if she was possessed.
A sound coming from the canvas drew Sam's attention. Lines of fire sketched their way across its surface. They quickly extinguished, leaving behind a pattern in the burns. Sam was amazed when he realized that he could see the image of his own face, in profile, in the scorched pattern.
"Is that... is that how you paint?" he asked the woman.
Once the "portrait" was done, she blinked several times and shook her head. Her eyes cleared. Then she looked at Sam with some anger in her eyes and put her hands on the corner of his bed. In a matter of seconds, her long hair became soaked with water, though he saw no source, and crawled over her face like a willful thing. She climbed up onto his bed with him.
"Wait!" Sam tried to roll off the bed, but she moved with supernatural speed, catching him off guard and straddling his body with her hands. "What are you doing? Get - " Sam gasped as the woman's hair, with a mind of its own, wrapped around his wrists and bound him to the bed. He started to scream. "Let me go!"
The woman spoke to Sam in Greek, with the voice translating in his head again. "You didn't want to listen when the sisters tried to tell you. Maybe you'll listen to me. The ring has been in operation for more than two hundred years. It has changed with the times, but it still functions. It will not be stopped. My daughter must be avenged. All of his daughters must be avenged. You do not understand, but someday, you will. Tell your father and brother to stay away. They must not become involved. If they go any deeper into this, we will have no choice but to make all of you very, very sorry."
Sam could hear whispering voices all around his bed. People crying out for help. Victims of a curse. Hundreds of them.
"You have no idea the power Heptamera has. He doesn't claim anyone who keeps their end of the deal. All he wanted was to have a family. But they took that away from him. Took it all away! My little girl!"
She leaned down, her face only inches from his. Sam could smell sea water and rotting flesh now. He whimpered loudly and struggled with his bonds. Some strands crackled and broke, but the hair held fast, and pulled itself tighter, sliding along his skin like a wet rope, like a live thing. This made him shudder.
"You will not stop his curse on the world. Not you, not your father, not your brother! Tell them! Heed my warning! I am not Heptamera's only bride, but I was his first!"
Sam came awake with a jerk that shook his entire little twin bed, on which he barely fit. He had to resist the urge to turn on the light. Even though the moonlight coming in through the window on Gerald's side of the room was faint, Sam could still see that his tiny dorm room was back to its normal size, with no archway and balcony extension. No smell of the sea. No canvas with his image burned into it. No woman sitting at the foot of his bed. None of it was real.
Even so, Sam knew that Dad and Dean must be tracking something big. Big and bad. Whatever they had done, it had caused the beast to try to get at them through him.
Whatever it was, they had royally pissed it off.
But Sam Winchester did not hunt anymore. So he turned over on his side, cuddling his pillow in both hands, and tried to forget it. Tried to go back to sleep.
Sam's eyes widened in the dark when he saw the strands of black hair shining in the moonlight, wrapped loosely around his wrists.
it won't stop
She Just Wanted to Be Heard
Day 13: Dispelling of Shadows
Part of Story Arc 1: Counterclockwise
A "The Ring/Ringu" Fanfic
by Laurel (Sailorhathor)
Chapters: 13 of 100
Rating: Overall Rating PG-13 (some elements might be too intense or scary for those under 13; includes bad language)
Dates: Begun September 2006. Some material is based on previously written stories from 2003-2005.
Word Count: 4,337
Summary: Quinn and Svetlana make their first attempt to communicate with Samara directly.
Warning: Contains spoilers for the entire Ringu and The Ring series.
Fanfic Challenges: Fits 50_darkfics prompt #13 Nails and coclaim100 prompt #13 Not Enough.
Author's Notes: Not beta'ed. If anyone wants to look over it, even if it's just this chapter, I'd really appreciate it.
Rappings are a form of communication with ghosts where the spirit is invited to knock on a solid surface to answer questions.
Yes, this is how I learned to spell Mississippi. ;)
Quinn did have some good-looking friends, but that didn't mean Jodie wouldn't give any of them a run for their money when it was time to argue a point. "Okay, Gunns, if you don't believe in any of this stuff involving the tape, then explain where the rosary came from." Even as she said it, she could hardly believe it herself. Quinn had coughed up a necklace out of nowhere. Samara's birthmother's necklace. Jodie couldn't help but be a little excited at this bizarre horror movie come to life. She only wished she was experiencing more of it firsthand.
Shrugging, Gunnar scratched the back of his neck and said, "I dunno. Maybe you guys tied one on the other night and someone dared him to swallow it. People do dumb things when they're drunk."
Quinn had been sitting on the arm of the couch, not adding much to the conversation, until this moment. Now he said, "I already told you, I haven't gotten drunk in weeks. That's a stupid explanation anyway. Stop grasping at straws and just admit that something unexplainable is going on here."
"I think you guys are playing a joke on me." Gunnar looked at Jodie. "I know about you and your horror pranks, you know."
Jodie and Quinn rolled their eyes in unison. "Fine, smarty pants. If you're so sure, then you'll have no problem watching the tape," Quinn dared.
"Oh hell no. You're not getting me with that shit."
Pointing at him and waving her hand wildly, Jodie cried, "Ah! Ah HA ha! See, you won't watch the tape. You believe it has power."
Gunnar smirked. "I'm just not going to take the chance. Just in case."
With a sigh, Quinn lowered his head sharply and shook it back and forth.
Jodie, crossing her arms, said, "I can't believe your stubborn, skeptical attitude, Gunnar. With the brother you have! I'd think you'd have a more open mind."
At the mention of Beckett, Gunnar ducked his head sheepishly. He didn't like talking about this. When your kid brother regularly worked with the police on cases as a psychic, you grew to believe in a lot of strange things. But not everything. "Yeah, my brother does work for the cops from time to time as a psychometrist. But why does that mean I'm supposed to believe in any crackpot thing that comes along? Suddenly I'm some kind of expert on paranormal shit? You think I like complete strangers who find out about this coming up to me on the street with their photographs of white blobs, badgering me to tell them whether they're ghosts? 'Look, look, I've got pictures of orbs. These are real ghost orbs, aren't they? Never mind that I took my photographs in a cemetery on a night that it was raining; I know they're real. I just want the brother of the psychic weirdo to confirm it for me. Screw lens flare. Stop giving me rational explanations! I want my pictures to be real!' Why are people so damn obsessed with the ghost orbs anyway? They're not so great."
Jodie couldn't help but giggle at his rant; Gunnar's tone and sarcastic delivery made it funny. "I'm sorry, Gunns. I guess I shouldn't expect you to believe in just anything."
"You bet your sweet bippy you shouldn't. You know, I believe in what my brother can do because I've seen it in action. But this? This is some unbelievable bullshit you guys are spouting. I mean, really. A cursed videotape? Can't you do better than that?" Gunnar scoffed.
Quinn frustratedly bounced on the arm of the couch. "I show you a burn on my arm in the shape of a girl's hand, and not even that makes a dent in that hard head of yours? I give up."
"How hard did Jodie have to rub to give you that Indian burn anyway?"
Quinn shook his head in defeat. He was getting used to making that gesture lately.
With a desire to lighten the mood a little, Gunnar added, "You know what ghost orbs remind me of? The bouncing ball from those musical cartoons. You know, the ones where a song plays and a white ball bounces along the lyrics just so you don't fuck 'em up."
Jodie giggled again.
Quinn grinned slightly. "Yeah, I remember those."
Gunnar continued, "Early karaoke. You know what one was my favorite? The one that taught you how to spell Mississippi. I'll never forget how to spell it because of that cartoon." He looked around, found Jodie's dusty volleyball forgotten in a corner, and held it out. "'M-I-S, S-I-S, S-I-P-P-I.'" As he sang, Gunnar bounced the ball on the imaginary lyrics. Jodie started to laugh, then sang along as the song came back to her too. "'That used to be so hard to spell, it used to make me cry.'"
Although part of him wanted to continue sulking over the fact that Gunnar didn't believe him, an involuntary smile broke out across Quinn's face. He softly joined in, where they could barely hear him. "'But since I have learned spelling, it's just like pumpkin pie.'"
"'M-I-S, S-I-S, S-I-P-P-I!'" As Gunnar finished, he spiked the volleyball. It sailed across the room, bounced off the wall, and skidded across the kitchen table, scattering napkins, coupon circulars, and condiments everywhere. Everyone busted out laughing. Quinn fell over on the couch and had a good chuckle; he needed it.
"Even though our evening went to bizarro world, I hope you had a good time anyway, buddy," Gunnar told his friend, and picked up his jacket to leave.
Quinn did not sit up; he merely spoke to Gunnar from his teetered position on the couch. "I know you think I'm yankin' your chain, but can you do me a favor? Will you ask Beckett to come over here as soon as he can manage it? You gave me an idea."
"What?" Gunnar asked, squinting with suspicion.
"Well, he's a psychometrist, right? He holds things and gets psychic impressions off them?"
"That's how it works..."
"I want him to hold the videotape," said Quinn. "Maybe he'll get some useful impressions from it. Like, he might see who gave it to me. Or, I don't know, something else." Quinn hoped Beckett would see whatever it was he was supposed to do to make the curse stop.
Gunnar gave him an exaggerated eye roll. "I'll see what I can do. But why you want my brother to touch that tape and then describe how you and Jodie plotted your little trick, I'll never know." He turned to go with another smirk.
Jodie threw a couch pillow at the back of his head. "You'll see!"
*****
That night, Quinn was more than a little sorry to be sleeping alone. The darkness of his room took on a whole new eerie quality now that he was on Samara's ride, the roller coaster that lasted seven days. Although he'd never want to admit it, he was afraid. All the shadows formed arms reaching for him.
Shortly after midnight, he tried Svetlana's cell phone. Quinn got her voicemail. "Lucky you. You must be snoozing," he mumbled to himself.
He couldn't have said when he fell asleep. All Quinn was aware of was waking up to the sounds. It was an eerie scratching, all around him in the dark. He looked at the clock. 3:26 AM. It sounded like an animal in the walls, then like someone standing in the corner running their fingernails over the wallpaper. Repetitively. Randomly.
In reaction, Quinn turned on the lamp for the first time. The noise stopped as soon as the light touched the room. Nothing out of the ordinary.
A small, childish part of him wanted to leave the light on, but the adult part vetoed that idea as silly, pure cowardice. Quinn switched the lamp back off and tried to go back to sleep.
Within a minute, there came a faint scratching sound from the corner behind the door. It grew louder, but it seemed to stay in the same place this time. Quinn squinted in the blackness and tried to make out whatever could be causing that noise.
There was something there.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
It was just indistinct blobs at this point, black and white, but the longer Quinn looked, the more he could make out.
It was Samara.
Stop it, he scolded himself. But it did look very much like a little girl in a white dress facing the corner, her hand touching the wall. Quinn stared for over a minute, waiting for any movement. There. That scratching sound again. At the same time, the hand on the wall moved. Quinn was sure of it. Samara's little fingers scraped down the wall, the nails going scritch, scritch, scritch.
With a small whimper, Quinn quickly reached over and turned the light back on. The corner was, again, empty. He stared at it, just feeling his heart beat fast and his arms shake with the anxiety of knowing something had been in his room.
Samara was playing games with his mind. Whatever she was trying to do, it was working.
That was it. Quinn could not turn the light back off, nor could he just fall asleep alone in his bed. He was prepared to beg Jodie to let him sleep with her. Whatever it would take to slow his panicked heart down. The adult side of him chided his behavior again. How could he even think of sleeping in Jodie's bed like some four-year-old who'd just had a nightmare? What would Svetlana think when she found out?
Shortly after, Quinn found himself standing in the living room several feet from Jodie's closed door, too embarrassed to go into her room, too freaked out to go back into his alone. He fidgeted and paced and chewed on his fingernails with indecision. Lucky for him, he didn't have to torture himself for more than a few minutes, because a key turned in the lock of the front door and Svetlana walked in with Darcy in tow.
"Hey... what are you doing here so late, babe?"
Both were dressed in their pajamas. They'd thrown on their coats and shoes and were carrying pillows and blankets from their dorm room. "We, um... we couldn't sleep in our room anymore."
"You could have called before you came over. I know I gave you an extra key, but you still nearly scared me out of my wits."
Svetlana gave him a tired, annoyed scowl. "Don't start, Quinn. Let's just go to bed, okay?"
"Where am I supposed to sleep?" Darcy asked. She had a shell-shocked expression on her face, like she had a million things she needed to say, or she'd completely lose it.
Quinn instantly knew from that look, and the veiled panic in Darcy's voice, that something had happened. Samara had messed with Svet tonight too. "On the couch, I guess."
"Alone?!"
Jodie's door opened and she peered out with a sleepy, irritated squint. She also had a colossal case of bed hair. "What are you guys doing out here?" Noticing Svetlana and Darcy, her eyes widened in surprise. "Uh, hi?"
Svetlana asked, "Can Darcy sleep with you?"
Darcy looked at her like a lost puppy, hopeful and practically begging.
"What happened?" Something had to of occurred. Svetlana wouldn't have come over in the middle of the night with Darcy right behind her otherwise.
"Let's talk about it in the morning, okay? Be a pal?"
Jodie didn't want to be a bitch to Svetlana just because of who she was, and she didn't dislike Darcy or anything. Besides, she knew something had happened, and wanted Darcy to spill the details. "Okay, sure. But don't hog the covers. My bed's not as big as Quinn's."
As soon as Quinn and Svet had gone in his room, and Jodie had closed her door, the two girls nearly pounced on each other.
"What happened?" Jodie asked.
"Oh my God, Jodie!" Darcy said at the same time.
Jodie added, "You go first."
Darcy, keeping her voice to hushed tones, began, "What the hell have Quinn and Svet gotten into over here? Devil worship?!"
Taken aback, Jodie replied, "What? Devil worship?"
"There was something in our room tonight! I swear to God, Jodie, there was some kind of thing there." She hugged her blanket to her chest. "Did you lie to me when you said they were acting weird because of stress?"
Jodie sighed and sat on the edge of her bed. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you what was really going on, Darce. Trust me." She paused before saying, "What kind of thing?"
Darcy nervously described how something began scratching at the walls in the dark. Unlike Quinn and Svetlana, she hadn't actually seen anything, just heard it. "Svetlana reacted to it like she could see something. She addressed the corner like someone was there. Every time we turned on the light, the noise would stop. But when the lights were off... it was like some sort of... of beast was in the room. Svet called it 'Samara.' Said Samara was going to get 'er."
Wow, this was awkward. "Darcy..."
"I read a book on this, you know. For church. You can't blow smoke up my ass anymore. I know what's going on."
Jodie had to hear this. "What do you think's going on?"
With conviction, Darcy hugged her blanket and replied, "Svetlana's possessed, isn't she?"
Jodie put a hand over her face and just started to laugh.
*****
Quinn wasn't at all surprised by Svetlana's familiar story. "Samara's playing a game with us, Svet."
"You know, I told myself that, but it just wasn't enough." Sitting on the bed, Svetlana looked up at him with fear in her eyes. "I'm really scared of her. In fact, you could say I'm terrified. Quinn, I have horrible feeling that this evil little girl means to do us harm." Her voice broke with threatening tears.
Quinn sat next to her on the bed and hugged her to him. "That's exactly what she wants you to think. But, Svet, remember all those people on the message board? They're fine."
"I keep telling myself that too," Svetlana said with a teary laugh, "but it do not help. I keep thinking that in reality, no one die from a curse put on a videotape. But then I remember what D guy told us in the dream. That if we didn't do some special task, we would die, Quinn. What does it all mean?"
Reaching over to the bedside table, he picked up his digital camera. "This is how we find out. We bargain for information."
She looked at him, perplexed.
"That girl Vanessa thinks we don't know what she's up to, but I know a thing or two about what she wants. She gets a high off all this horror stuff, just like Jodie. Her seven days are through, and I don't think you can repeat this experience by watching the tape again. One ticket equals one ride. If Samara's trying to spread a message, what good does it do her to tell the story to the same person over and over?"
Svetlana sniffled. "I guess none."
"Exactly. So, the only way Vanessa can experience her high repeatedly is to live vicariously through new victims of the curse. That's why she wants us to scan our pictures and upload them to her message board." Quinn absently kissed the side of his girlfriend's head. "The more cool shit we upload for her, the more she tells us what she knows."
"You think she know more than she's letting on?"
"Shit yeah."
With trepidation, Svetlana lightly touched the camera. "What we going to take picture of?"
He knew she wasn't going to like this. "You know all the pictures on the message board, where people photographed the hallucinations caused by Samara? We're going to try to get some pictures like that." Quinn gestured toward the empty corner behind the door. "If we turn the lights off, Samara will come."
Just the thought of that instantly set off a fresh crying jag for Svetlana. "No, no, Quinn! You can't mean that."
"Do you have any other hot ideas?" he asked. Quinn added another kiss to her temple. "Don't worry. I'm here to protect you. You can just hide under the covers and I'll do the rest."
That is exactly what she did while they waited in the dark for Samara to come. They were both under the sheets, listening for any sound. "I gather that bed covers are monster shields in Holland as well?" he whispered.
She rolled her eyes and giggled.
Scritch, scritch.
Svetlana jumped at the sound. "Quinn!"
"Shh!" He waited a few more seconds before peeking out from under the sheet and steadying the camera in front of his eyes. On the little preview screen, he could faintly see the outline of Samara standing in the corner. Quinn briefly wondered if he was really seeing anything there at all, or if it was just his sleep-deprived mind making reality of phantoms.
Her hand moved. Scritch, scritch.
Quinn took a picture, using the flash. Then he dove back under the covers with Svetlana and waited for the photo to reload.
It only took two seconds. They both gasped at the small, illuminated screen.
The picture was very dark and fuzzy. It did seem, though, that a little girl stood with her face to the wall, head down, one hand on the wall. But she didn't appear to be in Quinn's room. Samara was flanked by black blobs of furniture that he had never seen before; it wasn't even clear whether she was standing in a corner or against a flat wall in this photo.
"Your walls aren't that light," Svetlana whispered. "Your wallpaper dark blue."
"This isn't my room," Quinn said of the photo.
Svet, trying to find the right words, looked for small details on the screen, anything of which she could make sense. "It's like... it's like you took picture of some other place... in the past. Samara sent us one of her memories."
"Only, this can't be one of her memories, because she couldn't stand here and look at herself from the back. This is something that came from her imagination, or - "
Scritch, scritch.
The sound came from the wall next to the left side of Quinn's bed, not that far from his head.
Svetlana let out a squeal and scooted frantically across the bed, squishing herself into the wall that the right side of the bed was up against. Quinn moved toward her. The sheets looked like they were covering a tumultuous volcano. "Svet, shh, shhh, calm down," he said in a hushed voice.
"She going to get in the bed with us!" Svetlana replied, terrified and panicked.
Quinn managed to get a handle on her flailing arms and hugged her to his chest. "I don't think so. Samara's just trying to scare us. Calm down, calm down, shhhh."
Svetlana tried to take deep breaths, but she couldn't stop crying, not after the thought got into her head that the scary little bitch might actually crawl into bed with her. She buried herself into Quinn's chest and hid her face against him.
The scratching noise moved to the footboard of the bed. The child's nails sounded different moving over the dark cherry wood. Scratch, scratch.
The cry Svet let out this time was even more shrill and frightened. She jumped against Quinn's body, but she didn't move away this time.
Quinn remembered something his sister Danica had told him one time. She read a lot of books on the paranormal as a hobby - the interest is what sparked her first conversation with Jodie, in the library of their junior high. Danica had once told him how ghosts would sometimes communicate with the living by knocking on a solid surface. Maybe...
"Is that you, Samara?" It didn't matter if the covers muffled Quinn's voice. She would hear him.
Scratch, scratch.
"Don't talk to her," Svetlana wept so quietly that Quinn almost didn't hear her.
"If I asked you some questions, would you answer them? Indicate that you understand me by scratching once."
Scratch.
"Okay. Scratch once for 'no,' twice for 'yes,' and three times for 'it depends.' Do you understand?"
Scratch, scratch.
"Who gave me that tape?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Quinn rolled his eyes at his silly mistake. Only 'yes' or 'no' questions. "I mean... did Jodie engineer it so I would get your tape?"
Scratch.
Once for no. That was a surprise. "They why - shit, this is hard."
"Just tell her to go away," Svetlana sobbed in fear.
"Calm down, baby. We've got to find some stuff out. I won't let her do anything to you." Quinn continued, "Jolene brought the tape in. Is she the one who did this to us?"
Scratch.
"She was just an innocent bystander?"
Scratch, scratch.
"Did, um... did Gunnar give us the tape?"
Scratch.
"Why am I even asking that; whoever gave it to us knew what the tape could do."
"They wanted to hurt us," Svet added.
"Yeah." Quinn searched his memory for enemies from the past. He couldn't think of a single person who'd want to hurt him now, but there were a couple of ex-girlfriends who were probably still a little mad at him. Jodie was the only ex he'd ever been able to stay friends with. "Did Marianne give us the tape?"
Scratch.
"Did Tanya give us the tape?"
Scratch.
Quinn shot a brief sidelong glance at Svetlana. "Did Ashly give us the tape?"
"Quinn!" she said angrily.
Scratch.
No. Another surprise. "Sorry."
Svetlana smacked his chest. "Like it even be possible."
With a sigh, Quinn tried to just move on with the questioning. "The person who gave us the tape is someone we'd never expect?"
Scratch, scratch.
"Great. I wanted to know so I could thank them," he said bitterly.
Svetlana made an "mm-hm" sound of agreement.
"So, there's something we have to do to make you stop bothering us, right?"
Scratch, scratch.
"We've got seven days to do it?"
Scratch, scratch.
"What happens - I mean... if we don't..."
Svetlana knew exactly how to phrase the question. "Are you going to hurt us?"
Scratch, scratch... scratch.
"Man, you're a wicked little brat for pausing, you know that?" Quinn said, suddenly lashing out at the child.
Scratch, scratch.
"I wish I could find that funny. Okay, it depends. Depends on what? Does it... uh..."
Again, Svetlana knew how to ask the most difficult question of all. "If we don't complete task before end of seven days, are you going to kill us?"
It was torture, how long Samara waited. But she finally answered.
Scratch, scratch.
Her face falling, Svet began to cry harder against Quinn's chest.
"Bullshit," he spat.
"Just tell her to go away," sobbed Svetlana again. "Please, please go away."
"Will you leave and let us sleep for the night, Samara? Please?" Quinn asked.
The child paused once more before replying. Scratch, scratch.
"Good. Good," Svet chanted to herself, rocking against his chest.
Angered by how much Samara had scared his girlfriend, Quinn growled, "Good riddance, you evil little brat."
He felt the two small hands dig into the sheets on either side of his right leg and knew what Samara was about to do a split second before the covers were yanked off the bed. Svet jerked violently in his arms and let out a hysterical shriek so jagged with fear that Quinn thought he might never get her calmed down again.
He turned on the light as quickly as he could, but not even the dispelling of shadows could make her stop crying.
The scream had roused Jodie and Darcy, who listened to the story with uneasy attention. Jodie wished she had been there; communicating with the dead by a form of rappings? Badass. Darcy just wished she could get rid of the horrible feeling that chilled her insides every time she thought of being alone with Svetlana again.
No one slept any more that night.
it won't stop
The Ringu series is (c) 1998 The Ring/The Spiral Production Group. It is based on the novels by Koji Suzuki.
The motion picture The Ring is (c) 2002 DreamWorks Pictures. The title "She Just Wanted to Be Heard" comes from a line of dialogue spoken by Rachel Keller in this movie. The motion picture The Ring Two is (c) 2005 DreamWorks Pictures.
I do not know if the prequel, The Ring 3, will have any bearing on this story or not until I see it.
Supernatural is (c) 2005 Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland, & Warner Brothers/The CW Television.
Everything else is (c) Demented Stuff.
Day 12: Streams That Often Converge
Part of Story Arc 1: Counterclockwise
A "The Ring/Ringu" Fanfic
by Laurel (Sailorhathor)
Chapters: 12 of 100
Rating: Overall Rating PG-13 (some elements might be too intense or scary for those under 13; includes bad language)
Dates: Begun September 2006. Some material is based on previously written stories from 2003-2005.
Word Count: 3,945
Summary: Samara and her sisters try to discourage the Winchester family from becoming involved in the ring by going after Sam.
Warning: Contains spoilers for the entire Ringu and The Ring series.
Beta Thanks: Beta'ed by Meredevachon.
Fanfic Challenges: Fits 50_darkfics prompt #12 Bound and coclaim100 prompt #12 Scream.
Author's Notes: Sam Winchester is a character from the tv show Supernatural. This part of the fic takes place pre-series.
Thanks to Rekka for her help with the Japanese.
I created the concept of Heptamera and his brides and daughters to combine the Japanese and American versions of this story. The idea is based on the fact that Sadako's real father was supposed to be a sea demon. (An idea that was apparently carried over to the American movies, judging by Sister Elizabeth's story about Evelyn.) Heptamera means "seven days" in Greek. I believe that the concept of Heptamera may contradict the Japanese manga, but I don't remember Sadako's demon father ever being named in the movies, on which this fanfic is based.
Lisa held out her hand and said commandingly, "Hand it over, Danielle."
Flinching a little, Danielle rolled her eyes and reached into her pocket. She produced the rosary and put it into Lisa's hand. "Why do you even want it? I was just going to throw it away."
"Quinn is coming back at the end of the week. I'm going to give it to him then."
"Quinn?"
"That's his name."
"Why is he coming back?" Danielle thought that was a pretty bad idea, after what had happened. "Did he think of something else to choke on?"
Lisa, making an I am not amused face, explained it as little as possible. The less people heard about Quinn's nutty story, the better. "Just trust me, him coughing up that necklace has nothing to do with anything he ate. He's coming back... so we can share a good laugh."
Danielle didn't get it, of course, but she thought maybe it was better that way. "Whatever. Only you would make friends with the guy who coughed up an object while eating here. Just don't give him anymore chicken wings."
Lisa made that face again before turning her attention to the rosary. "You did clean the spit off this, didn't you?"
"I wiped it a little with a napkin..."
Holding the rosary by one bead, Lisa carried it at arm's length toward the kitchen with a small, "Ew."
*****
Quinn and Gunnar were uncomfortably silent on the ride home, at first. Gunnar wasn't sure what to say. He flexed his fingers on the steering wheel and breathed in deeply, then just said what he was thinking. "That was a really weird story you told that waitress."
Quinn didn't reply for so long that Gunnar thought maybe he hadn't heard him. He had opened his mouth to repeat his comment when Quinn said simply, "I know."
"Do you really believe all that shit?"
Quinn stared out the window at the rain hitting the street, the droplets rolling down the glass in streams that often converged. "I don't know, man. I haven't gotten a lot of sleep the last few days."
"You believe it, don't you? You really think some dead girl is after you. Making you throw up stuff." Gunnar laughed lightly. He reached over and ruffled Quinn's curly hair.
Quinn jumped in his seat. "God! Don't do that."
"It's made you jumpy." Gunnar laughed again.
His reaction made Quinn suddenly mad. "Didn't you hear anything I said in there, man? The fact that we're all experiencing this thing doesn't make any kind of impression on you?"
"I dunno," Gunnar said with a shrug. "Maybe you all took the same acid."
Quinn tried to think of something to say to wipe that cocky grin off his friend's face. "There's something real going on here, Gunnar. Just ask Jodie. She's the smart one, right? She thinks there's something to all this, just like I do."
"Oh sure, that's why she asked me to take you out to get your mind off what you'd gotten into. Even Jodie thinks you're losing it."
His hand to his brow, Quinn stared out the window, momentarily giving Gunnar the silent treatment.
"Quinn, really, what's this all about? Did you guys party a little too hard and take something you really shouldn't have?" He paused and waited for Quinn to throw something in. "I know how Jolene can be sometimes. She was never the greatest mother figure. Right? Did she bring you guys something? Promise a great high?"
"I wish it was that simple." Massaging his eyes with his thumb and first finger, Quinn added, "When we get back to my apartment, you can ask Jodie about what's been going on. She'll tell you how real it is."
"What, did Jodie watch this 'videotape' too?"
"Yes."
"How long ago?" Gunnar asked.
"Uhhh... less than twenty-four hours after I did," replied Quinn.
"Okay, so what's she experienced so far?" Gunnar's eyebrows creased in growing confusion. "When she called me, she seemed fine. You're freaking out and Jodie's fine. Is that supposed to make sense?"
Quinn gave it some serious thought. "Well... she... I asked her if she had any nightmares and she said no..."
"Does Jodes have any welts on her arm?"
Quinn considered that too. "No. Not yet."
"Is she having hallucinations?"
"Not that I know of."
"The dead girl comes after you, Svet, Jolene... but not Jodie?" Gunnar hoped this would make the point that he was going for, and get Quinn to tell him what really happened.
Instead, Quinn thought about it harder than he ever had, searching his memory for any sign, any sign at all, that Samara had touched Jodie. "You're right. The dead girl hasn't come after Jodie. Not at all."
"So? What does that mean?"
His fingertips to his lips, Quinn again fell silent long enough for Gunnar to think he wasn't going to answer. He didn't want to believe it. After how bad this had gotten - the intense nightmares, the physical effects, the fear - Quinn didn't want to fall back on his original conclusion. He finally said, "What does that mean?"
*****
None of the people involved in Quinn Kirkland's crisis had met the real Dean Winchester yet. They had only dreamed of him, so they were unaware that he had a younger brother whom he loved probably more than his own life.
Sammy.
Sam was currently in Palo Alto, California, attending Stanford College and studying to be a lawyer. Practicing law was a far cry from hunting demons in many ways, but in others, it was exactly the same. But Sam didn't want to hunt anymore. He had never felt completely comfortable in his father and brother's world. There was more call for brute strength than book learning there. They needed someone to do research, look things up in magickal texts and the like, but there was no room for spending copious amounts of time flipping through art history books and reading classic novels. Those things were wastes of time to John Winchester. They were also some of Sam's favorite things to do.
He had been a good son as long as he could stand it. He had learned how to shoot weapons and ward off evil spirits and everything else that went along with exacting his father's revenge against every evil thing that ever existed to make up for Mary Winchester's death. Sam was done with all that. He wanted his own life.
Sam Winchester was done with hunting.
If that meant he had to leave Dean behind too, then so be it. It was unavoidable.
Left a hole in his gut, a burn in his heart, but unavoidable.
What Sam did not realize at the time was that he couldn't leave it all behind. It would always find him.
His roommate had left him alone in their dorm room to attend a party. Sam, now almost 21, had fallen asleep in front of the TV in his favorite beanbag chair, an Advanced Calculus book open on his lap. His long giraffe-like legs sprawled across the floor between the chair and the rickety TV stand. The room was dark except for the light coming from the television. It broadcast only snow. Static.
But Sam had left the light on, hadn't he?
Chhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Static had its own sound. Hissing. The sound of nothing. Sometimes, if you listened hard enough
"sam"
He stirred just a little in his sleep with a snort.
"Sam"
Sam grunted softly, then smacked his lips and lifted his head off the beanbag chair. He opened his eyes slightly, squinting at the TV.
"Sammy. That's your name?"
Sam just squinted at the static on the screen. He wiped some drool from the side of his mouth. "Yeah, I'm Sam," he replied sleepily.
"What's your mommy's name?"
He tried to sit up a little. Someone was talking to him, but he didn't know where the voice was coming from. "Who's talking to me?" Sam asked, peering around the dim room.
"Is your mommy named Mary?"
Sam looked right at the television. The voice was coming from the television. "Uhh... yeah. That was her name."
"But she died."
His brow furrowed suspiciously. "Yeah." He paused, trying to figure this one out. "Who's speaking?" The voice sounded like a child, a girl.
"That's sad," the voice said quietly, regretfully. "My mommy's dead too. One of them, anyway." She stopped talking for a few moments, the sound of her voice melting into the hissing of the static. "You seem nice," the child finally said.
"Thanks..." Sam pushed himself up a bit further, as far as a person could sit up in such a mushy chair. "What's your name?"
"Samara," came the answer.
When she didn't offer any more information, Sam asked, "Why are you talking to me through the TV?"
Her voice drifted from the static once more. "Because you can hear me."
Sam wanted to say, "Well, duh," but it didn't seem like the best idea. "I know that, but... is there something you want?"
"Most people can't."
It took him a second to understand what the child meant. "Most people can't hear you?"
"No, they can't."
"Oh." He was dreaming. He had to be dreaming. "Well, maybe you should try calling them on the phone instead of talking to them through televisions..."
"I only call people when they've watched my tape."
Sam blinked in confused silence. "What?"
"That's what I've come to you about. You need to tell them not to come. They shouldn't... they shouldn't... it's such a big word..."
Sam understood he was talking to a child. "Take your time," he said.
"Tell them they shouldn't interfere," Samara instructed, saying the last word with pride at having said it correctly.
"Who?"
Samara paused. She then replied, "Your father and brother."
This made him blink again in stunned confusion. Sam hadn't even talked to Dad or Dean for months. "Huh?"
"Tell Dad and Dean not to interfere. They shouldn't get involved in this." Samara giggled. "They can't stop us."
"What do you mean? What are you talking about?" Sam asked. Were his father and brother in danger?
The child giggled again. "It's nice having a brother, isn't it? I never had a brother, but I've got sisters. So very many sisterssssss..." Samara's voice faded into the sound of the static.
"Hey! Samara? What do you mean? What shouldn't they get involved in?"
A new voice came from the television, one a little older and full of malice. "Tell your father and brother not to come to Boston. They can't stop the ring. No one can ever, ever stop it."
Frustrated, Sam said, "I don't know what you mean. Is this a case they're involved in?"
"Just do as I say!" An image flashed on the screen for a second, cutting through the static with a jarring crackling sound. It was a woman reflected in a mirror, a dark-haired woman, brushing her hair. "When we're finished talking, call them up and tell them not to go to Boston this weekend. They'll regret it."
Sam had seen that woman in the mirror before. The entire image rang bells he couldn't even place at the moment. "I'm not doing anything until you tell me what this is all about."
"Call your brother and tell him what's going on in Boston is none of his business. Your family has interfered enough already."
"I'm not going to be threatened, especially not through a television by some faceless entity."
"This cycle has been going on since long before you were born. You do not want to fuck with us, Sammy."
Another image flashed on the screen, that of a teenage girl with short blonde hair riding a horse across a beach. It was gone as quickly as it came.
"Oh, I see. Whatever you are, you're trying to get to my dad and brother through me. They're about to take you on. And you find them intimidating," Sam said with a satisfied grin. "They scare you."
A long pause. Just the sound of the static. Then the screen jumped violently, crackling. Another voice came out of the hiss, a new one. "Shikata ga nai ne," that voice said with a sigh.
Sam did not know what that meant, or how many different people were on the other end of this strange communication. He felt warm liquid running from one nostril, and put his finger to his nose. Blood.
Sam felt himself being shaken by the shoulder. He came awake with a gasp.
"Sam. Hey, Sam!" his roommate, Gerald, called. "Wake up!"
Looking around, Sam saw that the light was still on. So it had been a dream, just a dream, after all. "Uh... oh, hey, Gerry. You back from the party?"
"Yeah. It wasn't so great. Hardly any cute girls."
The television was on, tuned to a channel that had gone off the air.
Nothing but static.
Sam's fingers went to his nose just as Gerald said, "You better take care of that. Your nose is bleeding." He handed Sam a tissue.
Sam took it, put it to his nose, and leaned back to stop the flow of blood. Okay, that was strange. "I had a dream that I had a nosebleed."
"Oh, yeah... that's like those dreams where you need to go to the bathroom, and you search frantically for a toilet, then you wake up and realize that you've really gotta take a piss," Gerald said while getting undressed and ready for bed.
"I guess." Sam stared at the staticky television. "These girls were talking to me through the TV."
Gerald laughed. "Was there snow on it, like the TV is now?"
"Yeah."
He laughed again. Once he had his pajamas on, Gerald walked over and put his hand on the TV screen. "They're here."
"Huh? Oh..." Sam laughed too, just now seeing the similarities. "Like that movie, Poltergeist."
"Yeah. Carolanne, talking to the 'TV people.' You remember what they said about channels not receiving a broadcast?" Leaning down, Gerald put his face very close to the screen, making a spooky face. "They can receive communications from the dead."
****
Long after Gerald had fallen asleep, Sam was still staring at his phone, Dean's number already highlighted. They hadn't spoken in months, not even to say hi.
"It was just a dream," he told himself. Didn't mean a thing.
Except, it did. Sam knew he recognized those two images from somewhere. A woman brushing her hair in an off-center mirror. A girl riding a horse across a beach. The fact that he had seen those scenes somewhere before is what gave him pause. They had significance.
"You probably just saw them in a movie and put them in your dream," a cynical voice said inside him. "Stop looking for an excuse to call Dean and just call him because you want to."
Cynical Voice had a point there. Sam looked at the clock. Even Dean would be in bed by this time. He vowed to give him a call in the morning. Hopefully, that would satisfy the weird impulse in his head that caused him to have such an elaborate, strange dream just to tell him he missed his brother. Sam lay down and soon fell asleep.
He could smell the sea. An archway open onto a balcony revealed the Mediterranean beyond. The sound of the waves lapping at the shore was so rhythmic that Sam thought he could listen to it all day.
This was the kind of dream Sam could go for. At the time, he didn't know he was dreaming, so it made perfect sense that he could be lying in his bed in the dorm room he shared with Gerald and also in this room in Greece. He wasn't sure how he knew it was Greece; the Mediterranean touched so many other nations... something just told him. It also made no impression on Sam that half his room had blended into this other house. The walls changed halfway across, a subtle metamorphosis.
A noise, like heavy canvas stirred by the wind, drew Sam's attention away from the balcony view. A very tall canvas, an artist's canvas, leaned on an easel that almost touched the floor. Sam estimated that it stood about eight feet tall and five feet wide. As he pivoted his body, sitting up slightly, he noticed that a woman was seated in a chair at one corner of his bed. It startled him.
The woman was very beautiful. Her seductive face and ice blue eyes were framed with black hair so long it touched the small of her back. She wore white lace, down to a hood draped over her head. Staring at Sam, the woman said something to him in Greek.
"Sit still. You are my model," she said. Sam didn't know how he could understand her, since he didn't speak a word of conversational Greek, not a single dialect. A voice in his head translated for him.
"You... you want to paint me?" Sam asked.
The woman put a finger to her lips. "Shhhhh." Apparently, that meant the same thing in Greek as it did in English.
While Sam watched, she closed her eyes and lowered her head to her chest. The woman seemed to be concentrating on something. After a short time, she raised her head and opened her eyes. Her irises had gone milky white. All that was left were black, black pupils.
"Are you alright?"
Her head lolled back on her neck, and she made strange noises in the back of her throat. Moans. Choking sounds. Clickings. She writhed in the chair. The woman raised her head again, looking through him instead of at him, and he could see her pupils now swam with deep sea green light. Luminous, hypnotizing. Sam wondered if she was possessed.
A sound coming from the canvas drew Sam's attention. Lines of fire sketched their way across its surface. They quickly extinguished, leaving behind a pattern in the burns. Sam was amazed when he realized that he could see the image of his own face, in profile, in the scorched pattern.
"Is that... is that how you paint?" he asked the woman.
Once the "portrait" was done, she blinked several times and shook her head. Her eyes cleared. Then she looked at Sam with some anger in her eyes and put her hands on the corner of his bed. In a matter of seconds, her long hair became soaked with water, though he saw no source, and crawled over her face like a willful thing. She climbed up onto his bed with him.
"Wait!" Sam tried to roll off the bed, but she moved with supernatural speed, catching him off guard and straddling his body with her hands. "What are you doing? Get - " Sam gasped as the woman's hair, with a mind of its own, wrapped around his wrists and bound him to the bed. He started to scream. "Let me go!"
The woman spoke to Sam in Greek, with the voice translating in his head again. "You didn't want to listen when the sisters tried to tell you. Maybe you'll listen to me. The ring has been in operation for more than two hundred years. It has changed with the times, but it still functions. It will not be stopped. My daughter must be avenged. All of his daughters must be avenged. You do not understand, but someday, you will. Tell your father and brother to stay away. They must not become involved. If they go any deeper into this, we will have no choice but to make all of you very, very sorry."
Sam could hear whispering voices all around his bed. People crying out for help. Victims of a curse. Hundreds of them.
"You have no idea the power Heptamera has. He doesn't claim anyone who keeps their end of the deal. All he wanted was to have a family. But they took that away from him. Took it all away! My little girl!"
She leaned down, her face only inches from his. Sam could smell sea water and rotting flesh now. He whimpered loudly and struggled with his bonds. Some strands crackled and broke, but the hair held fast, and pulled itself tighter, sliding along his skin like a wet rope, like a live thing. This made him shudder.
"You will not stop his curse on the world. Not you, not your father, not your brother! Tell them! Heed my warning! I am not Heptamera's only bride, but I was his first!"
Sam came awake with a jerk that shook his entire little twin bed, on which he barely fit. He had to resist the urge to turn on the light. Even though the moonlight coming in through the window on Gerald's side of the room was faint, Sam could still see that his tiny dorm room was back to its normal size, with no archway and balcony extension. No smell of the sea. No canvas with his image burned into it. No woman sitting at the foot of his bed. None of it was real.
Even so, Sam knew that Dad and Dean must be tracking something big. Big and bad. Whatever they had done, it had caused the beast to try to get at them through him.
Whatever it was, they had royally pissed it off.
But Sam Winchester did not hunt anymore. So he turned over on his side, cuddling his pillow in both hands, and tried to forget it. Tried to go back to sleep.
Sam's eyes widened in the dark when he saw the strands of black hair shining in the moonlight, wrapped loosely around his wrists.
it won't stop
She Just Wanted to Be Heard
Day 13: Dispelling of Shadows
Part of Story Arc 1: Counterclockwise
A "The Ring/Ringu" Fanfic
by Laurel (Sailorhathor)
Chapters: 13 of 100
Rating: Overall Rating PG-13 (some elements might be too intense or scary for those under 13; includes bad language)
Dates: Begun September 2006. Some material is based on previously written stories from 2003-2005.
Word Count: 4,337
Summary: Quinn and Svetlana make their first attempt to communicate with Samara directly.
Warning: Contains spoilers for the entire Ringu and The Ring series.
Fanfic Challenges: Fits 50_darkfics prompt #13 Nails and coclaim100 prompt #13 Not Enough.
Author's Notes: Not beta'ed. If anyone wants to look over it, even if it's just this chapter, I'd really appreciate it.
Rappings are a form of communication with ghosts where the spirit is invited to knock on a solid surface to answer questions.
Yes, this is how I learned to spell Mississippi. ;)
Quinn did have some good-looking friends, but that didn't mean Jodie wouldn't give any of them a run for their money when it was time to argue a point. "Okay, Gunns, if you don't believe in any of this stuff involving the tape, then explain where the rosary came from." Even as she said it, she could hardly believe it herself. Quinn had coughed up a necklace out of nowhere. Samara's birthmother's necklace. Jodie couldn't help but be a little excited at this bizarre horror movie come to life. She only wished she was experiencing more of it firsthand.
Shrugging, Gunnar scratched the back of his neck and said, "I dunno. Maybe you guys tied one on the other night and someone dared him to swallow it. People do dumb things when they're drunk."
Quinn had been sitting on the arm of the couch, not adding much to the conversation, until this moment. Now he said, "I already told you, I haven't gotten drunk in weeks. That's a stupid explanation anyway. Stop grasping at straws and just admit that something unexplainable is going on here."
"I think you guys are playing a joke on me." Gunnar looked at Jodie. "I know about you and your horror pranks, you know."
Jodie and Quinn rolled their eyes in unison. "Fine, smarty pants. If you're so sure, then you'll have no problem watching the tape," Quinn dared.
"Oh hell no. You're not getting me with that shit."
Pointing at him and waving her hand wildly, Jodie cried, "Ah! Ah HA ha! See, you won't watch the tape. You believe it has power."
Gunnar smirked. "I'm just not going to take the chance. Just in case."
With a sigh, Quinn lowered his head sharply and shook it back and forth.
Jodie, crossing her arms, said, "I can't believe your stubborn, skeptical attitude, Gunnar. With the brother you have! I'd think you'd have a more open mind."
At the mention of Beckett, Gunnar ducked his head sheepishly. He didn't like talking about this. When your kid brother regularly worked with the police on cases as a psychic, you grew to believe in a lot of strange things. But not everything. "Yeah, my brother does work for the cops from time to time as a psychometrist. But why does that mean I'm supposed to believe in any crackpot thing that comes along? Suddenly I'm some kind of expert on paranormal shit? You think I like complete strangers who find out about this coming up to me on the street with their photographs of white blobs, badgering me to tell them whether they're ghosts? 'Look, look, I've got pictures of orbs. These are real ghost orbs, aren't they? Never mind that I took my photographs in a cemetery on a night that it was raining; I know they're real. I just want the brother of the psychic weirdo to confirm it for me. Screw lens flare. Stop giving me rational explanations! I want my pictures to be real!' Why are people so damn obsessed with the ghost orbs anyway? They're not so great."
Jodie couldn't help but giggle at his rant; Gunnar's tone and sarcastic delivery made it funny. "I'm sorry, Gunns. I guess I shouldn't expect you to believe in just anything."
"You bet your sweet bippy you shouldn't. You know, I believe in what my brother can do because I've seen it in action. But this? This is some unbelievable bullshit you guys are spouting. I mean, really. A cursed videotape? Can't you do better than that?" Gunnar scoffed.
Quinn frustratedly bounced on the arm of the couch. "I show you a burn on my arm in the shape of a girl's hand, and not even that makes a dent in that hard head of yours? I give up."
"How hard did Jodie have to rub to give you that Indian burn anyway?"
Quinn shook his head in defeat. He was getting used to making that gesture lately.
With a desire to lighten the mood a little, Gunnar added, "You know what ghost orbs remind me of? The bouncing ball from those musical cartoons. You know, the ones where a song plays and a white ball bounces along the lyrics just so you don't fuck 'em up."
Jodie giggled again.
Quinn grinned slightly. "Yeah, I remember those."
Gunnar continued, "Early karaoke. You know what one was my favorite? The one that taught you how to spell Mississippi. I'll never forget how to spell it because of that cartoon." He looked around, found Jodie's dusty volleyball forgotten in a corner, and held it out. "'M-I-S, S-I-S, S-I-P-P-I.'" As he sang, Gunnar bounced the ball on the imaginary lyrics. Jodie started to laugh, then sang along as the song came back to her too. "'That used to be so hard to spell, it used to make me cry.'"
Although part of him wanted to continue sulking over the fact that Gunnar didn't believe him, an involuntary smile broke out across Quinn's face. He softly joined in, where they could barely hear him. "'But since I have learned spelling, it's just like pumpkin pie.'"
"'M-I-S, S-I-S, S-I-P-P-I!'" As Gunnar finished, he spiked the volleyball. It sailed across the room, bounced off the wall, and skidded across the kitchen table, scattering napkins, coupon circulars, and condiments everywhere. Everyone busted out laughing. Quinn fell over on the couch and had a good chuckle; he needed it.
"Even though our evening went to bizarro world, I hope you had a good time anyway, buddy," Gunnar told his friend, and picked up his jacket to leave.
Quinn did not sit up; he merely spoke to Gunnar from his teetered position on the couch. "I know you think I'm yankin' your chain, but can you do me a favor? Will you ask Beckett to come over here as soon as he can manage it? You gave me an idea."
"What?" Gunnar asked, squinting with suspicion.
"Well, he's a psychometrist, right? He holds things and gets psychic impressions off them?"
"That's how it works..."
"I want him to hold the videotape," said Quinn. "Maybe he'll get some useful impressions from it. Like, he might see who gave it to me. Or, I don't know, something else." Quinn hoped Beckett would see whatever it was he was supposed to do to make the curse stop.
Gunnar gave him an exaggerated eye roll. "I'll see what I can do. But why you want my brother to touch that tape and then describe how you and Jodie plotted your little trick, I'll never know." He turned to go with another smirk.
Jodie threw a couch pillow at the back of his head. "You'll see!"
*****
That night, Quinn was more than a little sorry to be sleeping alone. The darkness of his room took on a whole new eerie quality now that he was on Samara's ride, the roller coaster that lasted seven days. Although he'd never want to admit it, he was afraid. All the shadows formed arms reaching for him.
Shortly after midnight, he tried Svetlana's cell phone. Quinn got her voicemail. "Lucky you. You must be snoozing," he mumbled to himself.
He couldn't have said when he fell asleep. All Quinn was aware of was waking up to the sounds. It was an eerie scratching, all around him in the dark. He looked at the clock. 3:26 AM. It sounded like an animal in the walls, then like someone standing in the corner running their fingernails over the wallpaper. Repetitively. Randomly.
In reaction, Quinn turned on the lamp for the first time. The noise stopped as soon as the light touched the room. Nothing out of the ordinary.
A small, childish part of him wanted to leave the light on, but the adult part vetoed that idea as silly, pure cowardice. Quinn switched the lamp back off and tried to go back to sleep.
Within a minute, there came a faint scratching sound from the corner behind the door. It grew louder, but it seemed to stay in the same place this time. Quinn squinted in the blackness and tried to make out whatever could be causing that noise.
There was something there.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
It was just indistinct blobs at this point, black and white, but the longer Quinn looked, the more he could make out.
It was Samara.
Stop it, he scolded himself. But it did look very much like a little girl in a white dress facing the corner, her hand touching the wall. Quinn stared for over a minute, waiting for any movement. There. That scratching sound again. At the same time, the hand on the wall moved. Quinn was sure of it. Samara's little fingers scraped down the wall, the nails going scritch, scritch, scritch.
With a small whimper, Quinn quickly reached over and turned the light back on. The corner was, again, empty. He stared at it, just feeling his heart beat fast and his arms shake with the anxiety of knowing something had been in his room.
Samara was playing games with his mind. Whatever she was trying to do, it was working.
That was it. Quinn could not turn the light back off, nor could he just fall asleep alone in his bed. He was prepared to beg Jodie to let him sleep with her. Whatever it would take to slow his panicked heart down. The adult side of him chided his behavior again. How could he even think of sleeping in Jodie's bed like some four-year-old who'd just had a nightmare? What would Svetlana think when she found out?
Shortly after, Quinn found himself standing in the living room several feet from Jodie's closed door, too embarrassed to go into her room, too freaked out to go back into his alone. He fidgeted and paced and chewed on his fingernails with indecision. Lucky for him, he didn't have to torture himself for more than a few minutes, because a key turned in the lock of the front door and Svetlana walked in with Darcy in tow.
"Hey... what are you doing here so late, babe?"
Both were dressed in their pajamas. They'd thrown on their coats and shoes and were carrying pillows and blankets from their dorm room. "We, um... we couldn't sleep in our room anymore."
"You could have called before you came over. I know I gave you an extra key, but you still nearly scared me out of my wits."
Svetlana gave him a tired, annoyed scowl. "Don't start, Quinn. Let's just go to bed, okay?"
"Where am I supposed to sleep?" Darcy asked. She had a shell-shocked expression on her face, like she had a million things she needed to say, or she'd completely lose it.
Quinn instantly knew from that look, and the veiled panic in Darcy's voice, that something had happened. Samara had messed with Svet tonight too. "On the couch, I guess."
"Alone?!"
Jodie's door opened and she peered out with a sleepy, irritated squint. She also had a colossal case of bed hair. "What are you guys doing out here?" Noticing Svetlana and Darcy, her eyes widened in surprise. "Uh, hi?"
Svetlana asked, "Can Darcy sleep with you?"
Darcy looked at her like a lost puppy, hopeful and practically begging.
"What happened?" Something had to of occurred. Svetlana wouldn't have come over in the middle of the night with Darcy right behind her otherwise.
"Let's talk about it in the morning, okay? Be a pal?"
Jodie didn't want to be a bitch to Svetlana just because of who she was, and she didn't dislike Darcy or anything. Besides, she knew something had happened, and wanted Darcy to spill the details. "Okay, sure. But don't hog the covers. My bed's not as big as Quinn's."
As soon as Quinn and Svet had gone in his room, and Jodie had closed her door, the two girls nearly pounced on each other.
"What happened?" Jodie asked.
"Oh my God, Jodie!" Darcy said at the same time.
Jodie added, "You go first."
Darcy, keeping her voice to hushed tones, began, "What the hell have Quinn and Svet gotten into over here? Devil worship?!"
Taken aback, Jodie replied, "What? Devil worship?"
"There was something in our room tonight! I swear to God, Jodie, there was some kind of thing there." She hugged her blanket to her chest. "Did you lie to me when you said they were acting weird because of stress?"
Jodie sighed and sat on the edge of her bed. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you what was really going on, Darce. Trust me." She paused before saying, "What kind of thing?"
Darcy nervously described how something began scratching at the walls in the dark. Unlike Quinn and Svetlana, she hadn't actually seen anything, just heard it. "Svetlana reacted to it like she could see something. She addressed the corner like someone was there. Every time we turned on the light, the noise would stop. But when the lights were off... it was like some sort of... of beast was in the room. Svet called it 'Samara.' Said Samara was going to get 'er."
Wow, this was awkward. "Darcy..."
"I read a book on this, you know. For church. You can't blow smoke up my ass anymore. I know what's going on."
Jodie had to hear this. "What do you think's going on?"
With conviction, Darcy hugged her blanket and replied, "Svetlana's possessed, isn't she?"
Jodie put a hand over her face and just started to laugh.
*****
Quinn wasn't at all surprised by Svetlana's familiar story. "Samara's playing a game with us, Svet."
"You know, I told myself that, but it just wasn't enough." Sitting on the bed, Svetlana looked up at him with fear in her eyes. "I'm really scared of her. In fact, you could say I'm terrified. Quinn, I have horrible feeling that this evil little girl means to do us harm." Her voice broke with threatening tears.
Quinn sat next to her on the bed and hugged her to him. "That's exactly what she wants you to think. But, Svet, remember all those people on the message board? They're fine."
"I keep telling myself that too," Svetlana said with a teary laugh, "but it do not help. I keep thinking that in reality, no one die from a curse put on a videotape. But then I remember what D guy told us in the dream. That if we didn't do some special task, we would die, Quinn. What does it all mean?"
Reaching over to the bedside table, he picked up his digital camera. "This is how we find out. We bargain for information."
She looked at him, perplexed.
"That girl Vanessa thinks we don't know what she's up to, but I know a thing or two about what she wants. She gets a high off all this horror stuff, just like Jodie. Her seven days are through, and I don't think you can repeat this experience by watching the tape again. One ticket equals one ride. If Samara's trying to spread a message, what good does it do her to tell the story to the same person over and over?"
Svetlana sniffled. "I guess none."
"Exactly. So, the only way Vanessa can experience her high repeatedly is to live vicariously through new victims of the curse. That's why she wants us to scan our pictures and upload them to her message board." Quinn absently kissed the side of his girlfriend's head. "The more cool shit we upload for her, the more she tells us what she knows."
"You think she know more than she's letting on?"
"Shit yeah."
With trepidation, Svetlana lightly touched the camera. "What we going to take picture of?"
He knew she wasn't going to like this. "You know all the pictures on the message board, where people photographed the hallucinations caused by Samara? We're going to try to get some pictures like that." Quinn gestured toward the empty corner behind the door. "If we turn the lights off, Samara will come."
Just the thought of that instantly set off a fresh crying jag for Svetlana. "No, no, Quinn! You can't mean that."
"Do you have any other hot ideas?" he asked. Quinn added another kiss to her temple. "Don't worry. I'm here to protect you. You can just hide under the covers and I'll do the rest."
That is exactly what she did while they waited in the dark for Samara to come. They were both under the sheets, listening for any sound. "I gather that bed covers are monster shields in Holland as well?" he whispered.
She rolled her eyes and giggled.
Scritch, scritch.
Svetlana jumped at the sound. "Quinn!"
"Shh!" He waited a few more seconds before peeking out from under the sheet and steadying the camera in front of his eyes. On the little preview screen, he could faintly see the outline of Samara standing in the corner. Quinn briefly wondered if he was really seeing anything there at all, or if it was just his sleep-deprived mind making reality of phantoms.
Her hand moved. Scritch, scritch.
Quinn took a picture, using the flash. Then he dove back under the covers with Svetlana and waited for the photo to reload.
It only took two seconds. They both gasped at the small, illuminated screen.
The picture was very dark and fuzzy. It did seem, though, that a little girl stood with her face to the wall, head down, one hand on the wall. But she didn't appear to be in Quinn's room. Samara was flanked by black blobs of furniture that he had never seen before; it wasn't even clear whether she was standing in a corner or against a flat wall in this photo.
"Your walls aren't that light," Svetlana whispered. "Your wallpaper dark blue."
"This isn't my room," Quinn said of the photo.
Svet, trying to find the right words, looked for small details on the screen, anything of which she could make sense. "It's like... it's like you took picture of some other place... in the past. Samara sent us one of her memories."
"Only, this can't be one of her memories, because she couldn't stand here and look at herself from the back. This is something that came from her imagination, or - "
Scritch, scritch.
The sound came from the wall next to the left side of Quinn's bed, not that far from his head.
Svetlana let out a squeal and scooted frantically across the bed, squishing herself into the wall that the right side of the bed was up against. Quinn moved toward her. The sheets looked like they were covering a tumultuous volcano. "Svet, shh, shhh, calm down," he said in a hushed voice.
"She going to get in the bed with us!" Svetlana replied, terrified and panicked.
Quinn managed to get a handle on her flailing arms and hugged her to his chest. "I don't think so. Samara's just trying to scare us. Calm down, calm down, shhhh."
Svetlana tried to take deep breaths, but she couldn't stop crying, not after the thought got into her head that the scary little bitch might actually crawl into bed with her. She buried herself into Quinn's chest and hid her face against him.
The scratching noise moved to the footboard of the bed. The child's nails sounded different moving over the dark cherry wood. Scratch, scratch.
The cry Svet let out this time was even more shrill and frightened. She jumped against Quinn's body, but she didn't move away this time.
Quinn remembered something his sister Danica had told him one time. She read a lot of books on the paranormal as a hobby - the interest is what sparked her first conversation with Jodie, in the library of their junior high. Danica had once told him how ghosts would sometimes communicate with the living by knocking on a solid surface. Maybe...
"Is that you, Samara?" It didn't matter if the covers muffled Quinn's voice. She would hear him.
Scratch, scratch.
"Don't talk to her," Svetlana wept so quietly that Quinn almost didn't hear her.
"If I asked you some questions, would you answer them? Indicate that you understand me by scratching once."
Scratch.
"Okay. Scratch once for 'no,' twice for 'yes,' and three times for 'it depends.' Do you understand?"
Scratch, scratch.
"Who gave me that tape?" As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Quinn rolled his eyes at his silly mistake. Only 'yes' or 'no' questions. "I mean... did Jodie engineer it so I would get your tape?"
Scratch.
Once for no. That was a surprise. "They why - shit, this is hard."
"Just tell her to go away," Svetlana sobbed in fear.
"Calm down, baby. We've got to find some stuff out. I won't let her do anything to you." Quinn continued, "Jolene brought the tape in. Is she the one who did this to us?"
Scratch.
"She was just an innocent bystander?"
Scratch, scratch.
"Did, um... did Gunnar give us the tape?"
Scratch.
"Why am I even asking that; whoever gave it to us knew what the tape could do."
"They wanted to hurt us," Svet added.
"Yeah." Quinn searched his memory for enemies from the past. He couldn't think of a single person who'd want to hurt him now, but there were a couple of ex-girlfriends who were probably still a little mad at him. Jodie was the only ex he'd ever been able to stay friends with. "Did Marianne give us the tape?"
Scratch.
"Did Tanya give us the tape?"
Scratch.
Quinn shot a brief sidelong glance at Svetlana. "Did Ashly give us the tape?"
"Quinn!" she said angrily.
Scratch.
No. Another surprise. "Sorry."
Svetlana smacked his chest. "Like it even be possible."
With a sigh, Quinn tried to just move on with the questioning. "The person who gave us the tape is someone we'd never expect?"
Scratch, scratch.
"Great. I wanted to know so I could thank them," he said bitterly.
Svetlana made an "mm-hm" sound of agreement.
"So, there's something we have to do to make you stop bothering us, right?"
Scratch, scratch.
"We've got seven days to do it?"
Scratch, scratch.
"What happens - I mean... if we don't..."
Svetlana knew exactly how to phrase the question. "Are you going to hurt us?"
Scratch, scratch... scratch.
"Man, you're a wicked little brat for pausing, you know that?" Quinn said, suddenly lashing out at the child.
Scratch, scratch.
"I wish I could find that funny. Okay, it depends. Depends on what? Does it... uh..."
Again, Svetlana knew how to ask the most difficult question of all. "If we don't complete task before end of seven days, are you going to kill us?"
It was torture, how long Samara waited. But she finally answered.
Scratch, scratch.
Her face falling, Svet began to cry harder against Quinn's chest.
"Bullshit," he spat.
"Just tell her to go away," sobbed Svetlana again. "Please, please go away."
"Will you leave and let us sleep for the night, Samara? Please?" Quinn asked.
The child paused once more before replying. Scratch, scratch.
"Good. Good," Svet chanted to herself, rocking against his chest.
Angered by how much Samara had scared his girlfriend, Quinn growled, "Good riddance, you evil little brat."
He felt the two small hands dig into the sheets on either side of his right leg and knew what Samara was about to do a split second before the covers were yanked off the bed. Svet jerked violently in his arms and let out a hysterical shriek so jagged with fear that Quinn thought he might never get her calmed down again.
He turned on the light as quickly as he could, but not even the dispelling of shadows could make her stop crying.
The scream had roused Jodie and Darcy, who listened to the story with uneasy attention. Jodie wished she had been there; communicating with the dead by a form of rappings? Badass. Darcy just wished she could get rid of the horrible feeling that chilled her insides every time she thought of being alone with Svetlana again.
No one slept any more that night.
it won't stop
The Ringu series is (c) 1998 The Ring/The Spiral Production Group. It is based on the novels by Koji Suzuki.
The motion picture The Ring is (c) 2002 DreamWorks Pictures. The title "She Just Wanted to Be Heard" comes from a line of dialogue spoken by Rachel Keller in this movie. The motion picture The Ring Two is (c) 2005 DreamWorks Pictures.
I do not know if the prequel, The Ring 3, will have any bearing on this story or not until I see it.
Supernatural is (c) 2005 Kripke Enterprises, Wonderland, & Warner Brothers/The CW Television.
Everything else is (c) Demented Stuff.