SN Fic: The Shadow out of Time
x-posted on supernaturalfic
Title: The Shadow Out of Time
Rating: same as the show; language
Category: Timeshifter AU (different from Dreamscape)
Characters: Sam, Dean, Jess, a few originals (minor roles) (credits at the end)
Spoilers: HookMan
Notable Credits: as much as I said I wasn’t going there again, I’ve an created an AU. J. Michael Straczynski wrote a line, thanks to H.P. Lovecraft for the title, plot bunny from katcasey, inspiration from the Outer Limits' "A Stitch in Time", and thanks to diamondback158 and acostilow for the beta-reads and ideas!
Summary: Only the traveler remembers all the possibilities...shifting and twisting
warping and winding
the streams we know...
turning and changing
shaping, rearranging
the things we know...
we think we know
the things we know
it’s all an illusion to time
~ “The Things We Know,” Screaming Guitars
By the time Sam Winchester saw the bloody writing on the wall in Lori Sorenson’s room at her sorority house at Eastern Iowa University, he’d forgotten he’d seen it before. In fact, both Winchesters had appeared to have forgotten the entire incident that actually brought Dean to Stanford two years before their dad’s disappearance.
It wasn’t their fault they forgot. In some instances, people believe certain others can travel through dimensions, shifting time, if you will. They say that this traveler remembers all the possibilities they have ever witnessed, while those living the moments are blissfully ignorant of other realities. This was one of those possibilities, of which neither of the Winchesters would ever be able to recall.
This one started with the screaming.
~*~
Sam awoke, his arms wrapped around Jess, to the pounding on their front door. Reaching over Jess, Sam grabbed the clock on his girlfriend’s night table. What the hell? It’s three in the morning! On a Saturday!
Sam rolled out of bed carefully, so as not to wake Jess, and stuffed his legs into his jeans which were on the floor next to his bed. Padding barefoot across the room, he found a t-shirt on a chair, and pulled it on as he went over to the door. The pounding was becoming louder and more frantic.
“Hang on, I’m coming,” Sam called, his voice hoarse with sleep.
Opening the door, he found Kayla, one of Jess’ good friends, standing there, shivering from what Sam recognized as fear.
“Sam!” she breathed in relief. “You and Jess are all right?” she asked suspiciously.
“Uh, yeah. What’s going on? You want to come in? It’s three in the morning,” he pointed out. Instead, Kayla pulled on his arm.
“You gotta come with me!” she pleaded.
He looked down at his feet. “I gotta get on shoes,” he mumbled, even as he reached for a hooded sweatshirt on a chair. He found a pair of old loafers that he just slipped his feet into.
“Wait,” Kayla interrupted, sounding rushed. “Go wake up Jess. She needs to come too.”
“But - ” Sam started to protest.
“Just do it!” she hissed.
Sighing, confused, Sam did as she asked. Jess stirred when he flipped the light switch up, and he gently roused her, saying Kayla had to see her. Jess simply nodded, still waking up. She put on a pair of jeans and sneakers, and pulled on a light sweatshirt over the t-shirt she’d slept in.
“Thank God you’re all right!” Kayla cried at seeing Jess, and hugged her tightly. Without warning, Kayla let out a heart-rending sob, and started babbling about blood, and writing, and Melanie, her roommate.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down, Kayla. Tell us again. From the beginning,” Sam said.
Kayla took a deep, shuddering breath. “You have to come with me to my dorm,” she said raggedly.
Sam and Jess looked at each other and nodded. Sam locked their front door, and the three of them walked as Kayla told her story. As Sam listened, the more he wished he’s have stayed in bed. Deep inside, he was afraid he’d never get away from the monsters and things that went bump in the night. So much for his safe life, he thought.
Kayla spoke quickly, as though to put the whole incident behind her.
“Rob and I were going clubbing tonight,” she began. Rob was her boyfriend for this semester. So far, anyway. “Melanie wasn’t feeling well, so she told me she was going back to the room right after dinner and crashing. Sure, why not?” Kayla asked rhetorically.
“So we’re ready to go, and I want to grab some extra money that I keep in my dresser, right? I went back to the room, and Melanie’s not feeling well, so I just go in, in the dark, and get my money, and we go out.
“And we just got back, and I went in the room and wasn’t thinking and I turned on the light! And there she was! Oh, it’s so awful!” she sobbed. Jess put a comforting arm around her friend as they walked.
They were outside her dorm now, and the door was half-open. Given all of Kayla’s hysterical ramblings, and from everything he’d learned from his father, and his brother Dean, Sam was hesitant to open the door. But he did.
All the lights in the dorm room had been turned on, illuminating the scene. Melanie lay on her bed, arms and legs splayed, her bed sheets a bloody tangle around them. She stared at the ceiling in silent horror. Her throat had been slashed.
On the wall above the bed, in several inch-high letters, was a phrase written in what could only have been Melanie’s blood. Sam read them slowly.
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?”
Both Kayla and Jess screamed.
~*~
Several hours and many questions later, Jess had finally gotten Kayla settled down again. The police had given Kayla clearance to gather her belongings and find somewhere else to stay until they were finished with their investigation. Kayla nodded numbly, and asked Jess if she could stay with her and Sam until University Housing could give her a new room.
Kayla and Jess were supervised by a police officer and Campus Security officer as they packed up Kayla’s belongings. Sam was outside the room, checking the area to see how the killer could have gotten in. Maybe those hunting trips with Dad and Dean had paid off, he reflected somewhat bittersweetly.
After finding nothing obvious, he came back in the room to help load some boxes into Kayla’s car. Although the trip was a short one, it would be easier with all the boxes in one place. Kayla had given Sam her keys for him to drive over to their apartment, and she and Jess would go with the officer from Campus Security.
Kayla looked around her side of the room to make sure she had everything. Sam and Jess stood behind her. There was no way she was going back there if she could help it. Her gaze lingered on the other side of the room for a moment longer, and suddenly she collapsed, sobbing, into Sam and Jess’ arms.
Jess helped Kayla out to the campus police car, and as Sam turned to follow, he felt like something had brushed up against him. But nothing was there. What the hell was that? he shuddered, as if the air had suddenly gone cold.
~*~
Monday after her classes, Kayla stomped into Sam and Jess’ place and dropped her backpack on the floor. Jess looked up from where she sat at the table working on a paper.
“I gotta get out of here,” she cried, and sat down in another seat at the table. She put her head in her hands, elbows propped on the table. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Jess stopped taking notes and put down her pen. She reassuringly put her hand on Kayla’s.
“Maybe you should talk to your professors about taking some time off?” she asked softly.
Kayla lifted her head, dried tears on her cheeks. “You really think they’d be so understanding?” she sniffled. “We’ve already passed midterms.”
“You can always ask them,” Jess said, sympathetic to her friend’s situation.
“You know,” Kayla brushed the welling tears out of her eyes, “I’ve heard it said that if your roommate dies, you get a 4.0 for the semester,” she said hopefully.
“Ah, that’s just an urban legend,” said a new voice. Both girls looked up at the doorway to see someone neither of them knew, leaning against the doorjamb. He came into the apartment without waiting to be invited.
Jess quickly stood up, looking around for something to use as a weapon. The newcomer held up his hands to show that he had no weapons in them.
“Hey, take it easy, ladies, I’m just looking for Sam.”
“Sam? He’s not here. Who are you?”
“Uh, Dean. His brother.”
Kayla nudged Jess. Oh my god, she mouthed. Jess tried to ignore her, and turned her attention to Dean.
“Sam should be back - ”
“ - now,” said Sam, coming inside right behind Dean, who was looking from Jess to Kayla, and then turned around to his brother.
“Sammy!” he said, thumping him on the shoulder.
“Dean, what the hell are you doing here?” Sam asked, swatting him off like a fly, and closing the door with his foot.
“You needed my help.” Dean pulled out a folded up piece of paper from his jacket pocket and undid its layers and showed Sam the article on Melanie’s death.
“I don’t need your help, Dean,” Sam ground his teeth.
“You called me, Sammy.”
“It’s Sam, Sammy was so ten years ago. And I didn’t call you.”
Dean showed the article to Sam again. “You called me,” he explained, showing it to Sam again.
“That’s not me ‘calling’ you.”
“Sure it is,” Dean grinned.
“Uhm, guys?” Jess called from the table where she’d returned to her seat.
“I’m doing work here. I love you, Sam, but can you take it outside, all right?”
Sam and Dean turned to the girls, who were watching them intently, Kayla trying to catch Dean’s attention.
“Yeah, sure. Sorry, Jess. You’ll be ok here? We might be a while...” Sam’s voice trailed off.
“Sure, it’s daylight. We’ll be fine,” she smiled at Sam, and watched him leave with his brother.
“He is so hot,” Kayla said, watching Dean’s butt as Dean closed the door behind him. Kayla and Jess giggled.
“Yeah, Sam is, isn’t he?”
Kayla swatted her friend on the shoulder, grateful for the diversion. In the morning, she would talk to her professors about her courses, and the possibility of taking incompletes, and maybe returning the next semester. At that, she smiled. Everything was right again with her view of the world.
~*~
“Dad send you?” Sam started again once they were outside. They started walking in no particular direction.
“Who’s Jess’ friend?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, Dad didn’t send me. I came myself. Happy?”
“Dad know you’re here?”
“Of course,” Dean lied. Had he told his father he was going to see Sam, John Winchester might have strongly disapproved. And so Dean simply didn't tell him where he was going.
“I’m not leaving school to join you guys, you know that.”
“So what are you gonna do instead? Live some normal, apple pie life?” Dean asked sarcastically.
“Not normal, safe,” Sam sighed. He looked around to see where they were. Their meanderings had brought them - of all places - to Kayla’s dorm room. Dean went over to the door and ducked under the yellow police tape. He turned back to Sam, who was still some distance away.
“You coming?” he asked.
Sam cautiously followed, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching them. He ducked under the tape, followed Dean, and shut the door carefully behind him.
The dorm room was eerily quiet, making Sam’s skin crawl with something he couldn’t name. The room was still a comfortable temperature, despite its disuse for a few days. But that wasn’t what bothered Sam.
Again, Sam looked around at the scene from a few nights ago, while Dean approached the wall and the bed cautiously, studying it from all angles.
“Roommate Legend,” Dean commented, indicating the writing.
“Yeah,” Sam shifted uncomfortably.
Dean examined the entire room, took pictures with a digital camera, took EMF readings, and carefully poked and prodded Melanie’s mattress and other belongings. Sam was quite restless by the time his older brother was finally finished his inspections.
“There’s definitely something here. It’s not a spirit, but...” Dean looked at Sam, and the younger Winchester thought he saw something in Dean’s eyes he hadn’t seen before: frustration.
“...but I have no idea what it is.” Dean finished, annoyed at himself for not knowing.
“Dean?”
“Yeah, Sam?”
“You ready to go?”
Dean sighed. “Yeah. Let’s get back to your place. Check on the girls, you know.”
Sam raised his eyebrows, but agreed. As they turned to leave, Dean suddenly felt a chill in the air. As Sam reached out to turn the doorknob, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned.
As he looked past Dean back in the room, he saw what looked like a ripple move in front of the dressers and the beds, as though some - entity? - was walking through the room. He drew his sweatshirt closer to him and shivered.
“You okay there, Sam?” Dean asked.
“What the hell was that?” Sam whispered.
Dean just shook his head, not knowing either.
“Damned if I know.” He shivered. “When the hell did it get so damned cold?” he asked rhetorically. They left the dorm room, and headed back to Sam and Jess’ to make sure every thing else was as they left it.
~*~
Tuesday afternoon, Kayla gathered her belongings that she had brought with her to Sam and Jess’ place, lugged them down the stairs, and piled them in her car. She’d told all her professors what had happened just the other night, and they were all sympathetic to her feelings. Sam and Jess understood, and were sad to see her go. Dean helped take the boxes out to the car, and would swagger past Kayla whenever he saw her and Jess whispering to each other.
“Dean! Behave yourself,” Sam hissed at his brother.
“Why? She likes it,” he said softly, looking towards Kayla. When she saw him, he waved at her. She turned away, and giggled with Jess, who was never too far away.
“Look, just because she got the spare room, and you got the couch, doesn’t mean you can flirt with her.”
“Oh, Sammy,” Dean sighed. “I flirt with every pretty girl.”
“Grow up.”
“You first, college boy.”
“What do you think I’m trying to do here?” Sam snarled, and returned to loading in the last of the boxes.
Jess hugged her friend tightly before Kayla got into the car.
“I’ll be back home for the rest of the semester, and over the winter break, I’ll see how I’m holding up. I might come back in the spring. Everyone’s gonna give me an incomplete but passing, so I’ll see.”
“You take care of yourself, Kayla,” Jess said, concerned for her friend. “And don’t forget to keep in touch, email, IM, whatever.”
They hugged again, and Kayla climbed into the driver seat, fired up the little hatchback, and headed down the road. Jess hugged Sam, who held her close.
Things like this shouldn’t happen at Stanford, Jess thought.
And so it begins, Sam thought.
I could go for a beer, was Dean’s thought.
~*~
Later that night, as it approached midnight, a coldness seeped into the apartment, starting in Sam and Jess’ room. Sam stirred and woke up enough to drag the comforter from the bottom of the bed up over him and Jess, and snuggle closer to her. But he never woke up fully.
The coldness stretched its fingers out into the living room where Dean was sleeping on the couch. The cold air enveloped the couch and Dean, who had been sleeping lightly since he arrived in Stanford, rolled over on the couch, and woke up.
He looked into the darkness and saw a shape moving in the shadows, rippling over everything it passed in front of. Sam had seen something in that dorm room, Dean knew in that moment. And now I’m seeing it. But what the hell is it? Dean searched his memory for any legend or lore he could remember. He couldn’t find any memory of this. He wished he at least had his father’s notebook, where John recorded every demon and spirit he’d ever encountered. Maybe there was something in there.
Cautiously, Dean slid his hunting knife out from under the couch pillow, and watched as the blurry shape rippled through the room. When it passed in front of Dean, he shivered from the cold, and reached out and slashed the wavy air in front of him.
At that moment, there was a howling wind, as if whatever the thing was had been wounded. A gale whistled through the apartment, screaming as it passed to the other side. It picked up and tossed around papers and books, leaving them scattered on the floor. It knocked lamps over, and even a small table.
Dean held his ground, following the path of destruction with his eyes, hoping to see the shape in the shadows again. The front door flew open, and slammed shut.
All was quiet; the thing had gone. And Dean just knew, somehow, it had left the campus as well.
Gone from here for now, Dean thought, but still out there somewhere. And now it knows I’ll be looking for it, Dean realized. He looked at his watch, which read just after midnight.
Awake now, his mind reeling from his encounter with an unknown entity, he gathered his backpack together. He straightened up the couch pillow as best he could, slung his bag over his right shoulder, and started for the door.
Something - brotherly love, but Dean wouldn’t admit to that - caused Dean to quietly go to the door behind which Sam and Jess lay sleeping. Dean quietly opened the door, and saw his brother and girlfriend sleeping there. He watched for a moment the way a mother watches her children sleep at night, saw their steady breaths rising and falling, and gently closed the door again.
Everything would be all right in the morning, Dean knew. He left the apartment that night, and no one had ever remembered he’d been there.
~*~
Sam woke up the next morning early as he did every day, to get ready for his first class at 9 a.m. Jess was still sleeping, but as soon as Sam got out of bed, she rolled over and sat up.
“Were you cold last night?” she asked, her voice still sounding sleepy.
Sam considered the comforter a moment. He had to have been, which would that explain the comforter which covered both of them. But - why? he pondered.
“Yeah, I must have been,” he said, going out to the kitchen to get a glass of orange juice. After he poured it, and replaced the container in the refrigerator, he looked at the couch. He stopped a moment, and listened to the quiet apartment. Something was - different.
“Dean?” he muttered to himself. Where did that thought come from? “Nah, he’d never come here. Musta been a bad dream.”
He walked over to the kitchen table and put down the orange juice. Suddenly panic seized him, and something flashed in his mind for only the briefest of instants - Jess, her hair splayed out around her head with a look of extreme pain and horror in her eyes.
Sam sank into a chair as Jess came running to him. As he looked at her, he was suddenly assailed by another vision, this time Dean, standing in this very apartment, saying “Dad’s on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a few days...”
“Sam?” Jess asked in concern, watching him carefully.
“I’m - ” he started. He took a swallow of orange juice. “I’m all right.”
Putting the glass back on the table, he hugged Jess then, vowing to never let her go.
~*~
Dean was blasting Megadeth from the speakers of the Impala as he drove towards the motel in Redding, California, where he and his father were staying while investigating a demonic possession there.
He was two hours into his trip when the car suddenly became frigid, causing Dean to confirm his windows were indeed closed tightly. He shook his head to try to stay awake, as he was only halfway though this trip.
Wait, he found himself wondering as he drove, what had he been doing these past few days? He wracked his brain, but couldn’t seem to remember where he’d been.
He turned on the heater as he completed the final two hours of his trip. The damn car was an ice box.
The cold air mass, a Timeshifter as it was known, was quite amused by these new Winchester toys, this one particularly. Neither of them would know what had ever happened, and when John Winchester would go missing in two years, the brothers would meet again, each having no recollection they did this before.
The timeshifter settled in the passenger seat, watching Dean fiddle with the heater, and smiled. This will certainly be fun, it thought. If it had hands, it would have rubbed them together evilly.
~*~
Two years later...
At Lori Sorenson’s sorority house on the Eastern Iowa University Campus, Sam and Dean parked the Impala around the back, climbed onto the roof, and slipped inside through an open window on the side of the house. They walked through a large supply closet, and cracked open the door. Sam peered through and could see the crime scene.
Sam gingerly pushed open the door, and watch the police officer head out of the room and down the stairs. At Dean’s slight nod, they entered Lori’s room. Sam noticed the blood on the bed, and then he looked up and saw the wall. Dean was standing right beside him.
Sam read the letters written in blood, having no recollection of ever having seen them before.
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?” He turned to Dean and gestured to the wall. “That’s right out of the legend.”
“Yeah, that’s classic Hook Man, all right,” Dean agreed. He rubbed his nose at the burnt rubber smell in the room, and added, “Yeah, it’s definitely a spirit.”
“Yeah, I’ve never smelled ozone so strong before,” Sam said, making a face, but kept returning to the wall.
Dean went to the window, and separated the vertical blinds to reveal the ambulance parked in the driveway, and the police officer they’d seen go downstairs was now outside. Sam called him back to the wall.
“Hey, come here,” he said. Dean went back to where Sam stood, his curiosity now piqued.
Sam pointed to a spot on the wall. “Does that look familiar to you?”
Dean saw a symbol beneath the words, also drawn in blood. It was a crude equal-armed cross with serifs, and four smaller crosses in all four corners of the large cross. Sam showed him a copy of the page they’d made from the church registry, with the picture of Jacob Karns’ hook.
“It’s the same symbol,” Sam said, confirming they were, in fact, dealing with the Hook Man.“Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time...”
***
Supernatural Fan Fiction
For entertainment only
© 2005 by Caren Franco
Only Kayla, Rob, and Melanie are original. “The Things We Know,” by Screaming Guitars was created by the author. Plot bunny from Katcasey on LiveJournal; beta-read by Diamondback and Athena. Title from an H. P. Lovecraft short story of the same title, ©1936. Dean, Sam and John Winchester, Jessica Lee Moore, Lori Sorenson and Jacob Karns were created by Eric Kripke, Robert Singer, Kripke Enterprises Scrap Metal and Entertainment; and Warner Brothers. Excerpt from “Pilot,” episode 1.01, written by Erik Kripke ©2005; excerpt from “Hook Man,” episode 1.07, written by John Shiban ©2005. There is no “Eastern Iowa University” per se, in the state of Iowa. Stanford University belongs to reality. “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” from “Nimrod” by Green Day ©1997.
::the voices are quiet again. for now.::
-
Title: The Shadow Out of Time
Rating: same as the show; language
Category: Timeshifter AU (different from Dreamscape)
Characters: Sam, Dean, Jess, a few originals (minor roles) (credits at the end)
Spoilers: HookMan
Notable Credits: as much as I said I wasn’t going there again, I’ve an created an AU. J. Michael Straczynski wrote a line, thanks to H.P. Lovecraft for the title, plot bunny from katcasey, inspiration from the Outer Limits' "A Stitch in Time", and thanks to diamondback158 and acostilow for the beta-reads and ideas!
Summary: Only the traveler remembers all the possibilities...shifting and twisting
warping and winding
the streams we know...
turning and changing
shaping, rearranging
the things we know...
we think we know
the things we know
it’s all an illusion to time
~ “The Things We Know,” Screaming Guitars
By the time Sam Winchester saw the bloody writing on the wall in Lori Sorenson’s room at her sorority house at Eastern Iowa University, he’d forgotten he’d seen it before. In fact, both Winchesters had appeared to have forgotten the entire incident that actually brought Dean to Stanford two years before their dad’s disappearance.
It wasn’t their fault they forgot. In some instances, people believe certain others can travel through dimensions, shifting time, if you will. They say that this traveler remembers all the possibilities they have ever witnessed, while those living the moments are blissfully ignorant of other realities. This was one of those possibilities, of which neither of the Winchesters would ever be able to recall.
This one started with the screaming.
~*~
Sam awoke, his arms wrapped around Jess, to the pounding on their front door. Reaching over Jess, Sam grabbed the clock on his girlfriend’s night table. What the hell? It’s three in the morning! On a Saturday!
Sam rolled out of bed carefully, so as not to wake Jess, and stuffed his legs into his jeans which were on the floor next to his bed. Padding barefoot across the room, he found a t-shirt on a chair, and pulled it on as he went over to the door. The pounding was becoming louder and more frantic.
“Hang on, I’m coming,” Sam called, his voice hoarse with sleep.
Opening the door, he found Kayla, one of Jess’ good friends, standing there, shivering from what Sam recognized as fear.
“Sam!” she breathed in relief. “You and Jess are all right?” she asked suspiciously.
“Uh, yeah. What’s going on? You want to come in? It’s three in the morning,” he pointed out. Instead, Kayla pulled on his arm.
“You gotta come with me!” she pleaded.
He looked down at his feet. “I gotta get on shoes,” he mumbled, even as he reached for a hooded sweatshirt on a chair. He found a pair of old loafers that he just slipped his feet into.
“Wait,” Kayla interrupted, sounding rushed. “Go wake up Jess. She needs to come too.”
“But - ” Sam started to protest.
“Just do it!” she hissed.
Sighing, confused, Sam did as she asked. Jess stirred when he flipped the light switch up, and he gently roused her, saying Kayla had to see her. Jess simply nodded, still waking up. She put on a pair of jeans and sneakers, and pulled on a light sweatshirt over the t-shirt she’d slept in.
“Thank God you’re all right!” Kayla cried at seeing Jess, and hugged her tightly. Without warning, Kayla let out a heart-rending sob, and started babbling about blood, and writing, and Melanie, her roommate.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down, Kayla. Tell us again. From the beginning,” Sam said.
Kayla took a deep, shuddering breath. “You have to come with me to my dorm,” she said raggedly.
Sam and Jess looked at each other and nodded. Sam locked their front door, and the three of them walked as Kayla told her story. As Sam listened, the more he wished he’s have stayed in bed. Deep inside, he was afraid he’d never get away from the monsters and things that went bump in the night. So much for his safe life, he thought.
Kayla spoke quickly, as though to put the whole incident behind her.
“Rob and I were going clubbing tonight,” she began. Rob was her boyfriend for this semester. So far, anyway. “Melanie wasn’t feeling well, so she told me she was going back to the room right after dinner and crashing. Sure, why not?” Kayla asked rhetorically.
“So we’re ready to go, and I want to grab some extra money that I keep in my dresser, right? I went back to the room, and Melanie’s not feeling well, so I just go in, in the dark, and get my money, and we go out.
“And we just got back, and I went in the room and wasn’t thinking and I turned on the light! And there she was! Oh, it’s so awful!” she sobbed. Jess put a comforting arm around her friend as they walked.
They were outside her dorm now, and the door was half-open. Given all of Kayla’s hysterical ramblings, and from everything he’d learned from his father, and his brother Dean, Sam was hesitant to open the door. But he did.
All the lights in the dorm room had been turned on, illuminating the scene. Melanie lay on her bed, arms and legs splayed, her bed sheets a bloody tangle around them. She stared at the ceiling in silent horror. Her throat had been slashed.
On the wall above the bed, in several inch-high letters, was a phrase written in what could only have been Melanie’s blood. Sam read them slowly.
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?”
Both Kayla and Jess screamed.
~*~
Several hours and many questions later, Jess had finally gotten Kayla settled down again. The police had given Kayla clearance to gather her belongings and find somewhere else to stay until they were finished with their investigation. Kayla nodded numbly, and asked Jess if she could stay with her and Sam until University Housing could give her a new room.
Kayla and Jess were supervised by a police officer and Campus Security officer as they packed up Kayla’s belongings. Sam was outside the room, checking the area to see how the killer could have gotten in. Maybe those hunting trips with Dad and Dean had paid off, he reflected somewhat bittersweetly.
After finding nothing obvious, he came back in the room to help load some boxes into Kayla’s car. Although the trip was a short one, it would be easier with all the boxes in one place. Kayla had given Sam her keys for him to drive over to their apartment, and she and Jess would go with the officer from Campus Security.
Kayla looked around her side of the room to make sure she had everything. Sam and Jess stood behind her. There was no way she was going back there if she could help it. Her gaze lingered on the other side of the room for a moment longer, and suddenly she collapsed, sobbing, into Sam and Jess’ arms.
Jess helped Kayla out to the campus police car, and as Sam turned to follow, he felt like something had brushed up against him. But nothing was there. What the hell was that? he shuddered, as if the air had suddenly gone cold.
~*~
Monday after her classes, Kayla stomped into Sam and Jess’ place and dropped her backpack on the floor. Jess looked up from where she sat at the table working on a paper.
“I gotta get out of here,” she cried, and sat down in another seat at the table. She put her head in her hands, elbows propped on the table. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Jess stopped taking notes and put down her pen. She reassuringly put her hand on Kayla’s.
“Maybe you should talk to your professors about taking some time off?” she asked softly.
Kayla lifted her head, dried tears on her cheeks. “You really think they’d be so understanding?” she sniffled. “We’ve already passed midterms.”
“You can always ask them,” Jess said, sympathetic to her friend’s situation.
“You know,” Kayla brushed the welling tears out of her eyes, “I’ve heard it said that if your roommate dies, you get a 4.0 for the semester,” she said hopefully.
“Ah, that’s just an urban legend,” said a new voice. Both girls looked up at the doorway to see someone neither of them knew, leaning against the doorjamb. He came into the apartment without waiting to be invited.
Jess quickly stood up, looking around for something to use as a weapon. The newcomer held up his hands to show that he had no weapons in them.
“Hey, take it easy, ladies, I’m just looking for Sam.”
“Sam? He’s not here. Who are you?”
“Uh, Dean. His brother.”
Kayla nudged Jess. Oh my god, she mouthed. Jess tried to ignore her, and turned her attention to Dean.
“Sam should be back - ”
“ - now,” said Sam, coming inside right behind Dean, who was looking from Jess to Kayla, and then turned around to his brother.
“Sammy!” he said, thumping him on the shoulder.
“Dean, what the hell are you doing here?” Sam asked, swatting him off like a fly, and closing the door with his foot.
“You needed my help.” Dean pulled out a folded up piece of paper from his jacket pocket and undid its layers and showed Sam the article on Melanie’s death.
“I don’t need your help, Dean,” Sam ground his teeth.
“You called me, Sammy.”
“It’s Sam, Sammy was so ten years ago. And I didn’t call you.”
Dean showed the article to Sam again. “You called me,” he explained, showing it to Sam again.
“That’s not me ‘calling’ you.”
“Sure it is,” Dean grinned.
“Uhm, guys?” Jess called from the table where she’d returned to her seat.
“I’m doing work here. I love you, Sam, but can you take it outside, all right?”
Sam and Dean turned to the girls, who were watching them intently, Kayla trying to catch Dean’s attention.
“Yeah, sure. Sorry, Jess. You’ll be ok here? We might be a while...” Sam’s voice trailed off.
“Sure, it’s daylight. We’ll be fine,” she smiled at Sam, and watched him leave with his brother.
“He is so hot,” Kayla said, watching Dean’s butt as Dean closed the door behind him. Kayla and Jess giggled.
“Yeah, Sam is, isn’t he?”
Kayla swatted her friend on the shoulder, grateful for the diversion. In the morning, she would talk to her professors about her courses, and the possibility of taking incompletes, and maybe returning the next semester. At that, she smiled. Everything was right again with her view of the world.
~*~
“Dad send you?” Sam started again once they were outside. They started walking in no particular direction.
“Who’s Jess’ friend?”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No, Dad didn’t send me. I came myself. Happy?”
“Dad know you’re here?”
“Of course,” Dean lied. Had he told his father he was going to see Sam, John Winchester might have strongly disapproved. And so Dean simply didn't tell him where he was going.
“I’m not leaving school to join you guys, you know that.”
“So what are you gonna do instead? Live some normal, apple pie life?” Dean asked sarcastically.
“Not normal, safe,” Sam sighed. He looked around to see where they were. Their meanderings had brought them - of all places - to Kayla’s dorm room. Dean went over to the door and ducked under the yellow police tape. He turned back to Sam, who was still some distance away.
“You coming?” he asked.
Sam cautiously followed, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching them. He ducked under the tape, followed Dean, and shut the door carefully behind him.
The dorm room was eerily quiet, making Sam’s skin crawl with something he couldn’t name. The room was still a comfortable temperature, despite its disuse for a few days. But that wasn’t what bothered Sam.
Again, Sam looked around at the scene from a few nights ago, while Dean approached the wall and the bed cautiously, studying it from all angles.
“Roommate Legend,” Dean commented, indicating the writing.
“Yeah,” Sam shifted uncomfortably.
Dean examined the entire room, took pictures with a digital camera, took EMF readings, and carefully poked and prodded Melanie’s mattress and other belongings. Sam was quite restless by the time his older brother was finally finished his inspections.
“There’s definitely something here. It’s not a spirit, but...” Dean looked at Sam, and the younger Winchester thought he saw something in Dean’s eyes he hadn’t seen before: frustration.
“...but I have no idea what it is.” Dean finished, annoyed at himself for not knowing.
“Dean?”
“Yeah, Sam?”
“You ready to go?”
Dean sighed. “Yeah. Let’s get back to your place. Check on the girls, you know.”
Sam raised his eyebrows, but agreed. As they turned to leave, Dean suddenly felt a chill in the air. As Sam reached out to turn the doorknob, he saw movement out of the corner of his eye, and turned.
As he looked past Dean back in the room, he saw what looked like a ripple move in front of the dressers and the beds, as though some - entity? - was walking through the room. He drew his sweatshirt closer to him and shivered.
“You okay there, Sam?” Dean asked.
“What the hell was that?” Sam whispered.
Dean just shook his head, not knowing either.
“Damned if I know.” He shivered. “When the hell did it get so damned cold?” he asked rhetorically. They left the dorm room, and headed back to Sam and Jess’ to make sure every thing else was as they left it.
~*~
Tuesday afternoon, Kayla gathered her belongings that she had brought with her to Sam and Jess’ place, lugged them down the stairs, and piled them in her car. She’d told all her professors what had happened just the other night, and they were all sympathetic to her feelings. Sam and Jess understood, and were sad to see her go. Dean helped take the boxes out to the car, and would swagger past Kayla whenever he saw her and Jess whispering to each other.
“Dean! Behave yourself,” Sam hissed at his brother.
“Why? She likes it,” he said softly, looking towards Kayla. When she saw him, he waved at her. She turned away, and giggled with Jess, who was never too far away.
“Look, just because she got the spare room, and you got the couch, doesn’t mean you can flirt with her.”
“Oh, Sammy,” Dean sighed. “I flirt with every pretty girl.”
“Grow up.”
“You first, college boy.”
“What do you think I’m trying to do here?” Sam snarled, and returned to loading in the last of the boxes.
Jess hugged her friend tightly before Kayla got into the car.
“I’ll be back home for the rest of the semester, and over the winter break, I’ll see how I’m holding up. I might come back in the spring. Everyone’s gonna give me an incomplete but passing, so I’ll see.”
“You take care of yourself, Kayla,” Jess said, concerned for her friend. “And don’t forget to keep in touch, email, IM, whatever.”
They hugged again, and Kayla climbed into the driver seat, fired up the little hatchback, and headed down the road. Jess hugged Sam, who held her close.
Things like this shouldn’t happen at Stanford, Jess thought.
And so it begins, Sam thought.
I could go for a beer, was Dean’s thought.
~*~
Later that night, as it approached midnight, a coldness seeped into the apartment, starting in Sam and Jess’ room. Sam stirred and woke up enough to drag the comforter from the bottom of the bed up over him and Jess, and snuggle closer to her. But he never woke up fully.
The coldness stretched its fingers out into the living room where Dean was sleeping on the couch. The cold air enveloped the couch and Dean, who had been sleeping lightly since he arrived in Stanford, rolled over on the couch, and woke up.
He looked into the darkness and saw a shape moving in the shadows, rippling over everything it passed in front of. Sam had seen something in that dorm room, Dean knew in that moment. And now I’m seeing it. But what the hell is it? Dean searched his memory for any legend or lore he could remember. He couldn’t find any memory of this. He wished he at least had his father’s notebook, where John recorded every demon and spirit he’d ever encountered. Maybe there was something in there.
Cautiously, Dean slid his hunting knife out from under the couch pillow, and watched as the blurry shape rippled through the room. When it passed in front of Dean, he shivered from the cold, and reached out and slashed the wavy air in front of him.
At that moment, there was a howling wind, as if whatever the thing was had been wounded. A gale whistled through the apartment, screaming as it passed to the other side. It picked up and tossed around papers and books, leaving them scattered on the floor. It knocked lamps over, and even a small table.
Dean held his ground, following the path of destruction with his eyes, hoping to see the shape in the shadows again. The front door flew open, and slammed shut.
All was quiet; the thing had gone. And Dean just knew, somehow, it had left the campus as well.
Gone from here for now, Dean thought, but still out there somewhere. And now it knows I’ll be looking for it, Dean realized. He looked at his watch, which read just after midnight.
Awake now, his mind reeling from his encounter with an unknown entity, he gathered his backpack together. He straightened up the couch pillow as best he could, slung his bag over his right shoulder, and started for the door.
Something - brotherly love, but Dean wouldn’t admit to that - caused Dean to quietly go to the door behind which Sam and Jess lay sleeping. Dean quietly opened the door, and saw his brother and girlfriend sleeping there. He watched for a moment the way a mother watches her children sleep at night, saw their steady breaths rising and falling, and gently closed the door again.
Everything would be all right in the morning, Dean knew. He left the apartment that night, and no one had ever remembered he’d been there.
~*~
Sam woke up the next morning early as he did every day, to get ready for his first class at 9 a.m. Jess was still sleeping, but as soon as Sam got out of bed, she rolled over and sat up.
“Were you cold last night?” she asked, her voice still sounding sleepy.
Sam considered the comforter a moment. He had to have been, which would that explain the comforter which covered both of them. But - why? he pondered.
“Yeah, I must have been,” he said, going out to the kitchen to get a glass of orange juice. After he poured it, and replaced the container in the refrigerator, he looked at the couch. He stopped a moment, and listened to the quiet apartment. Something was - different.
“Dean?” he muttered to himself. Where did that thought come from? “Nah, he’d never come here. Musta been a bad dream.”
He walked over to the kitchen table and put down the orange juice. Suddenly panic seized him, and something flashed in his mind for only the briefest of instants - Jess, her hair splayed out around her head with a look of extreme pain and horror in her eyes.
Sam sank into a chair as Jess came running to him. As he looked at her, he was suddenly assailed by another vision, this time Dean, standing in this very apartment, saying “Dad’s on a hunting trip and he hasn’t been home in a few days...”
“Sam?” Jess asked in concern, watching him carefully.
“I’m - ” he started. He took a swallow of orange juice. “I’m all right.”
Putting the glass back on the table, he hugged Jess then, vowing to never let her go.
~*~
Dean was blasting Megadeth from the speakers of the Impala as he drove towards the motel in Redding, California, where he and his father were staying while investigating a demonic possession there.
He was two hours into his trip when the car suddenly became frigid, causing Dean to confirm his windows were indeed closed tightly. He shook his head to try to stay awake, as he was only halfway though this trip.
Wait, he found himself wondering as he drove, what had he been doing these past few days? He wracked his brain, but couldn’t seem to remember where he’d been.
He turned on the heater as he completed the final two hours of his trip. The damn car was an ice box.
The cold air mass, a Timeshifter as it was known, was quite amused by these new Winchester toys, this one particularly. Neither of them would know what had ever happened, and when John Winchester would go missing in two years, the brothers would meet again, each having no recollection they did this before.
The timeshifter settled in the passenger seat, watching Dean fiddle with the heater, and smiled. This will certainly be fun, it thought. If it had hands, it would have rubbed them together evilly.
~*~
Two years later...
At Lori Sorenson’s sorority house on the Eastern Iowa University Campus, Sam and Dean parked the Impala around the back, climbed onto the roof, and slipped inside through an open window on the side of the house. They walked through a large supply closet, and cracked open the door. Sam peered through and could see the crime scene.
Sam gingerly pushed open the door, and watch the police officer head out of the room and down the stairs. At Dean’s slight nod, they entered Lori’s room. Sam noticed the blood on the bed, and then he looked up and saw the wall. Dean was standing right beside him.
Sam read the letters written in blood, having no recollection of ever having seen them before.
“Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the light?” He turned to Dean and gestured to the wall. “That’s right out of the legend.”
“Yeah, that’s classic Hook Man, all right,” Dean agreed. He rubbed his nose at the burnt rubber smell in the room, and added, “Yeah, it’s definitely a spirit.”
“Yeah, I’ve never smelled ozone so strong before,” Sam said, making a face, but kept returning to the wall.
Dean went to the window, and separated the vertical blinds to reveal the ambulance parked in the driveway, and the police officer they’d seen go downstairs was now outside. Sam called him back to the wall.
“Hey, come here,” he said. Dean went back to where Sam stood, his curiosity now piqued.
Sam pointed to a spot on the wall. “Does that look familiar to you?”
Dean saw a symbol beneath the words, also drawn in blood. It was a crude equal-armed cross with serifs, and four smaller crosses in all four corners of the large cross. Sam showed him a copy of the page they’d made from the church registry, with the picture of Jacob Karns’ hook.
“It’s the same symbol,” Sam said, confirming they were, in fact, dealing with the Hook Man.“Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go
So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in time...”
***
Supernatural Fan Fiction
For entertainment only
© 2005 by Caren Franco
Only Kayla, Rob, and Melanie are original. “The Things We Know,” by Screaming Guitars was created by the author. Plot bunny from Katcasey on LiveJournal; beta-read by Diamondback and Athena. Title from an H. P. Lovecraft short story of the same title, ©1936. Dean, Sam and John Winchester, Jessica Lee Moore, Lori Sorenson and Jacob Karns were created by Eric Kripke, Robert Singer, Kripke Enterprises Scrap Metal and Entertainment; and Warner Brothers. Excerpt from “Pilot,” episode 1.01, written by Erik Kripke ©2005; excerpt from “Hook Man,” episode 1.07, written by John Shiban ©2005. There is no “Eastern Iowa University” per se, in the state of Iowa. Stanford University belongs to reality. “Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)” from “Nimrod” by Green Day ©1997.
::the voices are quiet again. for now.::
-