Ghosts In The Machines IV
Part Four of Approximately Six
Crossover Between Insidious and Supernatural
PG 13 for Language
Updates Weekly (Fridays)
Link to the previous chapter
Summary: Ben Winchester has taken his first steps to becoming a hunter. He has more trouble than he expects with a simple spirit until art student Dalton Lambert offers some tips. The amateur leading the amateur may just be worse than the blind leading the blind.
Ben went back to the art studio and questioned a dozen people before even discovering where Dalton lived. It appeared that, despite his open personality, Dalton didn’t have many close friends, maybe not even any at all.
It wasn’t until Ben began to describe the guy he was looking for as “the artist who does the ghost pictures” that he even got others to recognize Dalton’s name.
One harried girl sketching madly with charcoal paused long enough to reveal that Dalton liked to grab lunch at a deli about a block from campus.
Ben left his Camaro in the parking lot and walked down to the restaurant. He glanced at the network of police cars and fire trucks still trying to quench the embers simmering in the ruins of the science building as he passed.
The deli had a neon sign that proudly proclaimed it to be The House of Pan. Ben had no idea what it was referencing, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
He stepped inside the small, but pristine shop and looked around. Dalton was sitting in by the window that looked out on the street. He’d noticed Ben coming in, and now he watched Ben with apprehension.
Ben seated himself across from the art student and looked him in the eye.
“If it’s not a ghost, what exactly do you think is going on here?”
A bright smile spread immediately across Dalton’s features, and his brown eyes sparked with relief.
“You believe me- what made you come around?”
“I was there at the lab explosion, and that was no ghost. I still think it’s something supernatural though, and from what you insinuated, you have a different theory, so spill.”
Ben paused to grab a passing waitress’s sleeve, “Can I have an Italian foot-long and a Coke? Thanks.”
He turned back and found Dalton studying him just as avidly as he had been in class that morning.
“What motivates you?” the art student asked.
“This isn’t twenty questions. I ask things, you answer them.”
“Then what do I get out of it?” Dalton pointed out. “I want a fair trade here.”
“What kind?”
“I give you information; you let me investigate with you.”
“Hell no,” Ben scowled.
“Then I don’t tell you anything,” the Cheshire smile on Dalton’s face as he leaned back in his chair motivated Ben to homicide in a way that rivaled the fury his father could instigate, but the set of his folded arms told Ben he wasn’t going to be moved on this point.
“Fine.”
The waitress brought him his drink and he took great pleasure in stabbing the straw through the lid. After a moment of calming himself, he began to speak in a halting, low voice. Dalton had to lean forward to understand.
“Hunting supernatural things… it’s kind of a family business. My adoptive dad travels the country with his brother. Both of them were trained by their father, and all three are well known for handling ghosts and monsters. Dean, my dad met my mom that way. I came along from a different one night stand but… well, things happen, right? I didn’t even know I had a father for eight years; my mom raised me on her own.”
Ben smiled faintly at the memories, “Then Dean came back, and the things he hunted came with him.”
The smile faded.
“I was abducted by a colony of changelings the day after my eighth birthday. He saved me, and my mother. Then he was off again and I didn’t see him again until I was eleven. He tried to settle down with my mom. I even thought of him as my father… but the supernatural doesn’t let people go so easily.
“After a really dangerous situation, Dean left us again, with a certain kind of protection. It wasn’t enough though.
“This time, he wasn’t around to keep the latest monster from ripping my mother to shreds. He heard what happened and came for me, took me in, tried to raise me like a normal kid.
“But by then, I was fifteen. No matter how hard he tried to steer me away from hunting, I’d made a promise to myself.”
Ben looked up at Dalton, “I don’t want anyone to die like my mother did.”
He shook his head and tried to get control of his emotions. Dalton’s patient listening had pulled out a lot more information than Ben had originally intended to give.
“You and I are a lot more alike than you think,” Dalton said.
Ben laughed, “Oh, right, I suppose you watched your mother die screaming?”
“Yes, in fact, my father killed her,” Dalton said.
If anyone had turned out to be the asshole in this situation, Ben had a feeling it wasn’t the art student sitting across from him.
After a long silence, Ben tried clumsily to mend the rift, “It’s hard to remember sometimes that in my business, everyone has a story to make your blood freeze. Sorry I was such a-”
“Jerk?” Dalton supplied.
Ben acknowledged the jab as a fair one.
“Our suck-ass origin stories aside, what is going on at this college?”
“If I tell you this and you flake out on me, I swear to God, I will-”
“No worries. You seem to understand the situation better than I do anyway.”
“Well, I thought it was a ghost at first too,” Dalton said. “It seemed to fit. But then I noticed a more specific pattern. I just need to confirm something before I share. That fire in the biology lab, was Dr. Gallagher involved with it?”
“Yeah, she sparked the burner that went nuclear,” Ben failed to see how that was relevant. It seemed that small detail was much more significant to Dalton.
“I knew it! It’s a gremlin,” Dalton said.
There was a pause, and the sheer ridiculousness of what Dalton had just said sank in. Ben chose his words with extreme care.
“Are you high?”
Dalton continued, determined to make his case, “It makes sense, if you’ve taken the time to do the research- which I have. Gremlins are creatures that screw with machinery, the first time anyone really took notice of them was in World War I when there were a large number of unexplained mechanical failures. Once they attach themselves to a person, they don’t stop pestering them until they are forcibly removed or their victim is dead.”
“And what exactly made you so sure about it being a gremlin just from the fact that Gallagher sparked her own funeral pyre?” Ben demanded.
“Oh, she was the latest in the chain. See, I’m guessing Owen picked up the gremlin somewhere off-campus, I haven’t been able to trace it to someone else. After his accident, however, a clear trail of transfer comes out. The person who turned off the kiln was Penny Harwell-”
“The girl who died in the copy machine,” Ben caught on.
Dalton nodded encouragingly, “You see? And from there, it moved to Dr. Gallagher, the professor who found Penny and pulled her from the machine. I heard she unplugged the copier before getting near the body.”
“My theory is that whoever turns off the machine effected by the gremlin becomes the latest victim.”
“How much research have you done about gremlins?” Ben found he was impressed in spite of himself.
Dalton smiled in his crooked way, “How much do you want to know?”
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Ben drained the last of his Coke to wash down the sandwich and balled his napkin up thoughtfully.
“Okay, so you think this thing will still be in the lab tonight?”
“They’re most active after midnight. If we confront it by eleven, I think we could even catch it by surprise.”
“And what do you suspect it’s weak against? I’m guessing gremlins aren’t repelled by salt like spirits are.”
“Well, they could be considered a part of fairy lore, I guess iron would work,” Dalton ventured.
Ben arched an eyebrow, “You’re telling me creatures that get their jollies using machines to kill people in stupidly complicated ways have a problem with iron?”
“Superman was weak against a material from his home planet,” Dalton shrugged.
After a moment of thinking, Ben stood up, “I’ll trust you on this one. But we’re bringing extra defenses in anyway. I won’t have a civilian dying because I wasn’t prepared.”
“I hardly count as a civilian,” the art student scoffed and stood as well.
Ben bit back the retort that leaped to his tongue and threw a few crumpled bills onto the table to pay for his meal. He led the way out of the sandwich shop, then fell into step beside Dalton.
“I have some weapons in the trunk of my car. It’s not a fantastic idea to give a novice a gun, but a poker or one of my duller machetes I could live with. At the least, you can wield the flashlight.”
“One of your machetes? Just how many do you have?”
Dalton discovered exactly how many machetes Ben had when Ben threw open the hidden compartment in his trunk.
His mouth dropped open, “Holy shit. Why do you need this many weapons- do you even know how to use half of them?”
“All of them, as a matter of fact. With quite a bit of accuracy too, so don’t piss me off,” Ben bent over the trunk, rummaging through his collection at random.
“Iron… I have quite a bit of it, actually. It works against ghosts as well. I’ll carry a shotgun and some knives. And for you I have a flashlight and… well, you can either borrow my machete or a bowie knife,” he straightened and turned around. Leaned against the bumper of the Camaro, he waited for Dalton’s answer.
Dalton looked from him to the trunk bristling with weapons and back, and the reality of the situation finally hit him.
He laughed and shook his head, “You know, when I woke up this morning, my only problem was getting my painting done for Studio. Gremlins were a hypothetical, and the paranormal was my hobby. Now…”
“It’s too much,” Ben nodded. Though he was no longer violently opposed to Dalton’s presence, he wasn’t surprised about his change of heart. There were a lot of people who found themselves fascinated with the supernatural. It was a rare few who could face the supernatural down and destroy the monsters that waited just out of sight.
“No,” Dalton looked genuinely shocked by Ben’s assumption. “Are you kidding me? This is everything I ever dreamed of, everything I could never… well, it seemed like an unattainable goal.”
Ben didn’t know how to respond to the art student’s outpouring emotions. Feelings in general had never been his forte, and as far as the supernatural was concerned, he’d wished more than a few times that it didn’t exist. Vindication had never entered the picture.
“Bottom line is, I’m glad I finally get to be a part of a world I’ve been kept from for so long,” Dalton smiled, picking up a machete decisively.
“We can’t just go charging in with the fire crew still lurking around the science building,” Ben tossed the machete back into the trunk and shut it.
“Until tonight, we need to find something to do.”
Dalton’s eyes flashed, and he checked his phone, “Dammit!”
“Something wrong?”
“No, just…” the look of reluctance on Dalton’s face was one Ben was all too familiar with. “See, I was supposed to have dinner with my family today, but I think I missed my ride. I need to get to Montecito Heights.”
Ben thought for a moment, “Over toward LA? I could take you.”
“No, I couldn’t ask you to do that for me,” Dalton frowned.
“Oh please, it’s a twenty minute drive, and it’s better than sitting around with my thumb up my ass until it gets dark. I can find some way to amuse myself until you finish with your family time.”
“Or you could have dinner with us,” Dalton ventured.
It was Ben’s turn to balk at a suggestion, “I don’t think I’m exactly dressed for a family dinner.”
He definitely looked better than he had this morning, however. When he’d reached his hotel, Ben had taken a shower to wash some of the ashes and soot from his skin, and he’d pulled on clean jeans and a tee shirt, but he was also wearing his favorite jacket, which was more than a little battered.
“It’s not like we’re high class society,” Dalton was nonplussed. “At least save me from my grandmother’s company, please? Seriously, she won’t get on my case half as much if you’re there.”
“Fine,” Ben was gruff. “Just… get in the car and we’ll see when we get there.”
He walked around to the driver’s side and climbed in; throwing his bag into the backseat so Dalton could settle into the passenger side.
“You know, you’re really toeing the line of becoming more trouble than you’re worth.”
“Oh, but I am worth it,” Dalton shot back. “I’m like the paranormal MacGyver- you can’t do this without me.”
“Don’t test me,” Ben said, but he shook his head more out of amusement than annoyance. If he could say anything for Dalton, it was that the guy had a way of getting under your skin when he wanted to.
Crossover Between Insidious and Supernatural
PG 13 for Language
Updates Weekly (Fridays)
Link to the previous chapter
Summary: Ben Winchester has taken his first steps to becoming a hunter. He has more trouble than he expects with a simple spirit until art student Dalton Lambert offers some tips. The amateur leading the amateur may just be worse than the blind leading the blind.
Ben went back to the art studio and questioned a dozen people before even discovering where Dalton lived. It appeared that, despite his open personality, Dalton didn’t have many close friends, maybe not even any at all.
It wasn’t until Ben began to describe the guy he was looking for as “the artist who does the ghost pictures” that he even got others to recognize Dalton’s name.
One harried girl sketching madly with charcoal paused long enough to reveal that Dalton liked to grab lunch at a deli about a block from campus.
Ben left his Camaro in the parking lot and walked down to the restaurant. He glanced at the network of police cars and fire trucks still trying to quench the embers simmering in the ruins of the science building as he passed.
The deli had a neon sign that proudly proclaimed it to be The House of Pan. Ben had no idea what it was referencing, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to.
He stepped inside the small, but pristine shop and looked around. Dalton was sitting in by the window that looked out on the street. He’d noticed Ben coming in, and now he watched Ben with apprehension.
Ben seated himself across from the art student and looked him in the eye.
“If it’s not a ghost, what exactly do you think is going on here?”
A bright smile spread immediately across Dalton’s features, and his brown eyes sparked with relief.
“You believe me- what made you come around?”
“I was there at the lab explosion, and that was no ghost. I still think it’s something supernatural though, and from what you insinuated, you have a different theory, so spill.”
Ben paused to grab a passing waitress’s sleeve, “Can I have an Italian foot-long and a Coke? Thanks.”
He turned back and found Dalton studying him just as avidly as he had been in class that morning.
“What motivates you?” the art student asked.
“This isn’t twenty questions. I ask things, you answer them.”
“Then what do I get out of it?” Dalton pointed out. “I want a fair trade here.”
“What kind?”
“I give you information; you let me investigate with you.”
“Hell no,” Ben scowled.
“Then I don’t tell you anything,” the Cheshire smile on Dalton’s face as he leaned back in his chair motivated Ben to homicide in a way that rivaled the fury his father could instigate, but the set of his folded arms told Ben he wasn’t going to be moved on this point.
“Fine.”
The waitress brought him his drink and he took great pleasure in stabbing the straw through the lid. After a moment of calming himself, he began to speak in a halting, low voice. Dalton had to lean forward to understand.
“Hunting supernatural things… it’s kind of a family business. My adoptive dad travels the country with his brother. Both of them were trained by their father, and all three are well known for handling ghosts and monsters. Dean, my dad met my mom that way. I came along from a different one night stand but… well, things happen, right? I didn’t even know I had a father for eight years; my mom raised me on her own.”
Ben smiled faintly at the memories, “Then Dean came back, and the things he hunted came with him.”
The smile faded.
“I was abducted by a colony of changelings the day after my eighth birthday. He saved me, and my mother. Then he was off again and I didn’t see him again until I was eleven. He tried to settle down with my mom. I even thought of him as my father… but the supernatural doesn’t let people go so easily.
“After a really dangerous situation, Dean left us again, with a certain kind of protection. It wasn’t enough though.
“This time, he wasn’t around to keep the latest monster from ripping my mother to shreds. He heard what happened and came for me, took me in, tried to raise me like a normal kid.
“But by then, I was fifteen. No matter how hard he tried to steer me away from hunting, I’d made a promise to myself.”
Ben looked up at Dalton, “I don’t want anyone to die like my mother did.”
He shook his head and tried to get control of his emotions. Dalton’s patient listening had pulled out a lot more information than Ben had originally intended to give.
“You and I are a lot more alike than you think,” Dalton said.
Ben laughed, “Oh, right, I suppose you watched your mother die screaming?”
“Yes, in fact, my father killed her,” Dalton said.
If anyone had turned out to be the asshole in this situation, Ben had a feeling it wasn’t the art student sitting across from him.
After a long silence, Ben tried clumsily to mend the rift, “It’s hard to remember sometimes that in my business, everyone has a story to make your blood freeze. Sorry I was such a-”
“Jerk?” Dalton supplied.
Ben acknowledged the jab as a fair one.
“Our suck-ass origin stories aside, what is going on at this college?”
“If I tell you this and you flake out on me, I swear to God, I will-”
“No worries. You seem to understand the situation better than I do anyway.”
“Well, I thought it was a ghost at first too,” Dalton said. “It seemed to fit. But then I noticed a more specific pattern. I just need to confirm something before I share. That fire in the biology lab, was Dr. Gallagher involved with it?”
“Yeah, she sparked the burner that went nuclear,” Ben failed to see how that was relevant. It seemed that small detail was much more significant to Dalton.
“I knew it! It’s a gremlin,” Dalton said.
There was a pause, and the sheer ridiculousness of what Dalton had just said sank in. Ben chose his words with extreme care.
“Are you high?”
Dalton continued, determined to make his case, “It makes sense, if you’ve taken the time to do the research- which I have. Gremlins are creatures that screw with machinery, the first time anyone really took notice of them was in World War I when there were a large number of unexplained mechanical failures. Once they attach themselves to a person, they don’t stop pestering them until they are forcibly removed or their victim is dead.”
“And what exactly made you so sure about it being a gremlin just from the fact that Gallagher sparked her own funeral pyre?” Ben demanded.
“Oh, she was the latest in the chain. See, I’m guessing Owen picked up the gremlin somewhere off-campus, I haven’t been able to trace it to someone else. After his accident, however, a clear trail of transfer comes out. The person who turned off the kiln was Penny Harwell-”
“The girl who died in the copy machine,” Ben caught on.
Dalton nodded encouragingly, “You see? And from there, it moved to Dr. Gallagher, the professor who found Penny and pulled her from the machine. I heard she unplugged the copier before getting near the body.”
“My theory is that whoever turns off the machine effected by the gremlin becomes the latest victim.”
“How much research have you done about gremlins?” Ben found he was impressed in spite of himself.
Dalton smiled in his crooked way, “How much do you want to know?”
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ben drained the last of his Coke to wash down the sandwich and balled his napkin up thoughtfully.
“Okay, so you think this thing will still be in the lab tonight?”
“They’re most active after midnight. If we confront it by eleven, I think we could even catch it by surprise.”
“And what do you suspect it’s weak against? I’m guessing gremlins aren’t repelled by salt like spirits are.”
“Well, they could be considered a part of fairy lore, I guess iron would work,” Dalton ventured.
Ben arched an eyebrow, “You’re telling me creatures that get their jollies using machines to kill people in stupidly complicated ways have a problem with iron?”
“Superman was weak against a material from his home planet,” Dalton shrugged.
After a moment of thinking, Ben stood up, “I’ll trust you on this one. But we’re bringing extra defenses in anyway. I won’t have a civilian dying because I wasn’t prepared.”
“I hardly count as a civilian,” the art student scoffed and stood as well.
Ben bit back the retort that leaped to his tongue and threw a few crumpled bills onto the table to pay for his meal. He led the way out of the sandwich shop, then fell into step beside Dalton.
“I have some weapons in the trunk of my car. It’s not a fantastic idea to give a novice a gun, but a poker or one of my duller machetes I could live with. At the least, you can wield the flashlight.”
“One of your machetes? Just how many do you have?”
Dalton discovered exactly how many machetes Ben had when Ben threw open the hidden compartment in his trunk.
His mouth dropped open, “Holy shit. Why do you need this many weapons- do you even know how to use half of them?”
“All of them, as a matter of fact. With quite a bit of accuracy too, so don’t piss me off,” Ben bent over the trunk, rummaging through his collection at random.
“Iron… I have quite a bit of it, actually. It works against ghosts as well. I’ll carry a shotgun and some knives. And for you I have a flashlight and… well, you can either borrow my machete or a bowie knife,” he straightened and turned around. Leaned against the bumper of the Camaro, he waited for Dalton’s answer.
Dalton looked from him to the trunk bristling with weapons and back, and the reality of the situation finally hit him.
He laughed and shook his head, “You know, when I woke up this morning, my only problem was getting my painting done for Studio. Gremlins were a hypothetical, and the paranormal was my hobby. Now…”
“It’s too much,” Ben nodded. Though he was no longer violently opposed to Dalton’s presence, he wasn’t surprised about his change of heart. There were a lot of people who found themselves fascinated with the supernatural. It was a rare few who could face the supernatural down and destroy the monsters that waited just out of sight.
“No,” Dalton looked genuinely shocked by Ben’s assumption. “Are you kidding me? This is everything I ever dreamed of, everything I could never… well, it seemed like an unattainable goal.”
Ben didn’t know how to respond to the art student’s outpouring emotions. Feelings in general had never been his forte, and as far as the supernatural was concerned, he’d wished more than a few times that it didn’t exist. Vindication had never entered the picture.
“Bottom line is, I’m glad I finally get to be a part of a world I’ve been kept from for so long,” Dalton smiled, picking up a machete decisively.
“We can’t just go charging in with the fire crew still lurking around the science building,” Ben tossed the machete back into the trunk and shut it.
“Until tonight, we need to find something to do.”
Dalton’s eyes flashed, and he checked his phone, “Dammit!”
“Something wrong?”
“No, just…” the look of reluctance on Dalton’s face was one Ben was all too familiar with. “See, I was supposed to have dinner with my family today, but I think I missed my ride. I need to get to Montecito Heights.”
Ben thought for a moment, “Over toward LA? I could take you.”
“No, I couldn’t ask you to do that for me,” Dalton frowned.
“Oh please, it’s a twenty minute drive, and it’s better than sitting around with my thumb up my ass until it gets dark. I can find some way to amuse myself until you finish with your family time.”
“Or you could have dinner with us,” Dalton ventured.
It was Ben’s turn to balk at a suggestion, “I don’t think I’m exactly dressed for a family dinner.”
He definitely looked better than he had this morning, however. When he’d reached his hotel, Ben had taken a shower to wash some of the ashes and soot from his skin, and he’d pulled on clean jeans and a tee shirt, but he was also wearing his favorite jacket, which was more than a little battered.
“It’s not like we’re high class society,” Dalton was nonplussed. “At least save me from my grandmother’s company, please? Seriously, she won’t get on my case half as much if you’re there.”
“Fine,” Ben was gruff. “Just… get in the car and we’ll see when we get there.”
He walked around to the driver’s side and climbed in; throwing his bag into the backseat so Dalton could settle into the passenger side.
“You know, you’re really toeing the line of becoming more trouble than you’re worth.”
“Oh, but I am worth it,” Dalton shot back. “I’m like the paranormal MacGyver- you can’t do this without me.”
“Don’t test me,” Ben said, but he shook his head more out of amusement than annoyance. If he could say anything for Dalton, it was that the guy had a way of getting under your skin when he wanted to.