"Help me baby. I ain't no stranger," the words bounced off the wooden walls and the knocked over tables and the smashed bottles of liquor sprawled across the bar. The two tall men that had just entered the ransacked place glanced at each other warily, and, with a subtle nod, got out their guns from the waistband of their jeans. Carefully, they stepped over the threshold, over a line of salt, with narrowed eyes, sliding cautiously across the rubble ridden floor, turning so their backs faced each other.
It looked like a vicious battle had taken place. Table legs lay splintered from their rightful place on unturned table tops. Chairs and barstools lay on their sides, and a strong smell of alcohol filled the air. The two men examined every inch carefully from the salt lining the windows to the dust bunnies chilling in the corners of the room.
After finishing their examination of the first part of the room, they step up the little step that led to second part of the bar. This part also had upturned tables and chairs, but the pool table looked untouched. It looked as if someone was about to start a new game with the balls all set in the triangular rack and a pool stick laid across the green felt, waiting to be used. The jukebox in corner also appeared unscratched, still singing, "Hear me growlin', yeah, I've got flatted feet now, now, now."
The shorter of the two went and pulled the plug out of the wall, sending the deserted place into a still silence. The taller one stood, head tilted, staring straight at the walls. The shorter one noticed and frowned coming to stand next to him.
"Dude, what—"
"Dean, look at the pictures."
Dean looked and saw that even with mostly everything else destroyed, the many pictures decorating the walls hung, undisturbed. Dean just opened his mouth when something moved in his peripheral vision. He shouted, spun around, and shot spastically when a bucket of water was splashed into his eyes. Sputtering, he swore when a knife slashed through his shirt and skin, spilling thick, red blood. He raised his gun again, readying to fire at his attacker when a familiar voice shouted out,
"Hey Sam, Dean, don't attack. It's me Ash."
Looking over the top of his pistol, Dean saw the familiar visage of the stringy mullet wearing, sleeveless band shirt clothed friend holding up a bloody knife in the universal sign of surrender. Dean did not lower his gun though he could see that Sam had.
"What are you getting at attacking us?" Dean growled setting his aim at Ash's head. Ash backed up until he bumped into the pool table.
"Hey, it is just a safety precaution. Have to make sure you are who you are. No one comes here anymore. I'm all by myself, and you can never be too careful," Ash explained with uncharacteristic seriousness.
"Why are you alone? Where are Ellen and Jo?" Sam questioned.
"If you lower the weapon, I would be happy to answer," Ash huffed.
"Prove you are you first," Dean fired back.
Ash sighed but dutifully splashed some holy water on his face, and cut his arm to show them human blood.
"Happy?"
"Immensely," Dean replied, putting away his gun and wiping some of the water droplets off his face.
"What happened here Ash? Where are Ellen and Jo?" Sam questioned.
Ash sighed again and led the way back over to the bar. He disappeared behind the counter and emerged again with three beers. Tossing two at each brother, he made his way back to the pool table, setting up a table chairs for the trio. Flopping down, he popped the bottle and took a long swig before smacking his lips and sighing once again.
"Jo and Ellen went off hunting together," Ash explained.
Dean raised an eyebrow. Last thing he knew Ellen had set down her foot about Jo ever hunting again.
"Jo threatened to run off again. On her own this time. Ellen decided she couldn't stop her, but she sure wasn't gonna let her hunt on her own," Ash said. Good mother, Dean nodded taking a drink from his own beer.
"So you're here on your own? What about your customers?" Sam asked.
"Too busy to sit around playing pool. Only communicate through calls nowadays," Ash shrugged.
"But what about all the damage here?" Sam asked again.
"Well I did that. Make people stay away," Ash chuckled.
"Did a good job except the salt lines are still intact and the pool table, pictures and jukebox are all fine," Dean criticized.
"Hey, I can't destroy those. I need them. What are y'all doin' here anyway? I told ya I would call if I found anything new," Ash frowned.
"We just wanted to check in. See how things are going," Sam said.
"That isn't the Winchester way," Ash narrowed his eyes, looking at the two of them.
"We wanted to know if you had a case lying around, ready to be handled," Dean confessed. "Supernatural activity is on the low. We haven't found anything in a while."
"Really?" Ash raised an eyebrow. "Maybe you haven't looked hard enough."
Dean ground his teeth together, but Sam spoke before he could.
"So that means you have something?"
Ash frowned, looking between them before sighing, slumping in his seat.
"Alright, alright, yeah I have something. I have been holding onto it for some time but I guess I can let y'all have it," Ash took a big gulp of his beer. "But only if I come along too."
Dean raised another eyebrow. As far as he knew Ash never hunted. He wasn't even sure if he knew how to.
"If you don't bring me along, you won't have a hunt," Ash threatened.
Dean pursed his lips and looked at Sam. He shrugged with big puppy eyes and tilted his head. Dean sighed, turned back to Ash, and nodded, feeling as if he was going to regret this decision. He certainly did last time he let an amateur on a hunt. Ash, however, seemed not to share these feelings as he grinned and finished his beer before getting up, announcing, "I will go get the file," before disappearing, presumably going into his room.
"You sure this is a good idea, Sammy?"
"No, but we have no choice really," Sam shrugged while making his Bitch Face at his dreaded nickname. "I wonder why he wants to go."
"That is what I want to know," Dean hummed, finishing up his own drink and setting it down on the table as Ash reappeared with a thick manila folder in his hands.
"So this case takes place in good old Afton, Wyoming," Ash began like a commentator at a sports event. "Over the past ninety-one years there have been ninety deaths. Each of a young pretty little thing," With flourish Ash started slapping down pictures of said young, quite obviously dead girls. Dean and Sam leaned forward, grabbing different pictures.
"All these look like the same cause of death," Dean observed.
"That's right," Ash nodded. "All of these ladies took a nosedive down a flight of stairs. Broke all their necks the same exact way."
"Down the same flight of stairs?" Sam asked, flipping through the pictures quickly.
"Same one. Every single one on these happens in this shed on this three arced piece of land," he placed another picture down, this one of a rundown building surrounded by weeds.
"Pretty big shed," Dean frowned.
"Yeah and here is the thing. All of these deaths," Ash leaned forward, waving his over the mess of pictures, "happens every year. On. The. Same. Exact. Day."
Sam and Dean shared a glance.
"And no one cottoned on to this?"
"Do people still live there?"
"If they do, no one mentions anything," Ash shrugged. "People like to put their heads in the clouds, don't they? From what I gathered," here he set down more pictures, these of different families. "these are the people that have lived at the house over the years. All of them claim to have no connection to the murders. All of them get ostracized by the town. Most of them move after a while. The family living there now," here he pointed to an old elderly couple, "have lived there the longest. And each time they have no idea who the murder victim is."
"What day does this happen?" Dean asked.
"June fifth," Ash answered grimly.
"That's two weeks away," Sam said sharply.
Ash nodded.
"Better get on it then," Dean said pushing back his chair with a loud scraping noise.
Dean packed up the folder again. Ash packed himself a bag. Sam looked up directions. In no time at all, the trio were in the shiny, black Impala, hauling ass down the highway.
They spent the first hour of the almost three hour drive in silence. Dean busied himself with driving and singing loud renditions of what Sam so lovingly called his mullet rock collection while Ash and Sam buried their noses in their computer and books respectively.
"And he's watching us all with the eye of the tiger," Dean screeched, turning the wheel smoothly to get onto the exit ramp and sliding into a beat up looking gas station.
"I don't want to make another stop till we get to Afton so do what needs doing or get anything that needs getting," Dean said to Sam and Ash turning off the engine and walking quickly into the building. Dean took a pit stop in the bathroom, and then grabbed a big bag of M&Ms and a can of Red Bull. He set them on the counter where Ash's and Sam's snacks already lay.
"Twenty on one," Dean said handing over his trusty fake credit card to the dusty old man at the register. He swiped the card and handed it back along with a receipt.
"Have a good day," he said, bowing his head a little.
"You too," Dean grunted, grabbing his bag and heading back out to his baby. Sammy had taken the liberty of filling the tank so Dean just slid into the driver's seat, changed out the cassette tape, and tossed the snacks that weren't his over his shoulder. After that, he turned on the engine and sped off onto the highway again. Once he was comfortably settled, he turned down the volume a little, glancing at the other two.
"Find anything yet?" he asked.
"Well, dad's journal has nothing similar to it. Neither do any of these books," Sam said gesturing to the books now resting at his feet. "Neither is anything on here." He frowned at his normally trusty computer.
"From what I have found, or rather haven't found, the police doesn't investigate any of the recent murders. Little snippets of articles might mention something, but other than that nothing," Ash said typing away at his own computer.
"Maybe they just aren't caught up with technology," Dean said.
"We should stop by the police station when we get there to see if they have anything," Sam said.
"We usually do," Dean snarked. Sam frowned at him. Ash cleared his throat.
"I have also been looking into the victims trying to find some sort of connection other than young, pretty, and female. Nothing has come up yet."
"Can I see the file?" Sam asked. "I can try to help you."
Ash handed over the thick file, and they lapsed into their own worlds again. Occasionally, Sam and Ash would talk, trying to see if they found something, but nothing panned out. When they sailed underneath the sign that read Afton, Wyoming that had a set of plastic moose locked in a battle above it, they weren't anywhere near finding something else that linked the various crimes. So they took a quick stop a small motel, and changed into their monkey suits as Dean liked to call them and headed back out again.
Afton was a smallish, idyllic town filled with small businesses and happy-go-lucky people going about their uneventful lives. The police station was set in the middle of the town. It almost looked like another store set in between a mini mart and the fire station. It was drab and rather unimpressive, and it didn't give Dean a good feeling that it would be really helpful to them. Nevertheless, he walked up the cement steps and walked through the tall, heavy door into a small cramped space. Paper covered desks were close together. Officers in uniform stood together drinking coffee, sat in front of their computers typing away, or else passing in and out of the back presumably where the cells were located.
Dean strode to the nearest policeman; an older, pot-bellied man by the name of Phil is his name tag was correct. He looked up when Dean cleared his throat, and Sam and Dean flashed their badges simultaneously. Ash had gone to the local library to check out if there might be any files hidden there. He didn't own a suit and three agents always seemed like overkill.
"Dylan and Cash from the FBI," Dean stated. "Here to check out the mysterious murders that happen in this town every year."
Phil's eyes widened and his jaw lowered a bit. He jerked a little back and set down the pencil he had been writing with looking around him quickly. Nobody else was paying any attention to the two newcomers.
"FBI?" Phil leaned forward. "Why on earth would the FBI be here, of all places?"
"We are investigating the murders out on Magnolia Hill," Sam stepped in. Phil, if possible, lost all of the color in his face. "We need all your files since the very first one occurred."
"The very first?" Phil asked.
"Yes, in 1922," Sam answered.
Phil looked at them in disbelief almost as if he thought they might start laughing and say, "Just joking." But when they just stared back at him, somewhat impatiently, he got up and meandered toward the back, disappearing through a door. It took a while but eventually he came back with a stack of folders that were a lot thinner than one would have thought given the amount of cases he was carrying. He just kind of shrugged, and they took them with them without another word.
The boys left the station, and Sam immediately started looking through the case files. Dean drove down the street heading to the library. He almost passed right by it, again, except this time Ash was standing outside the nondescript building.
"Did you get them?" he greeted them.
"Yeah," Sam said, picking the stack so Ash could see them.
"That's it?" Ash asked. "Didn't put much effort in it, did they?"
"What did you expect from the police?" Dean snorted. "Them to do their job?"
He pulled back up to their hotel, and they piled into their room. Sam divided the folders into three piles and they set to work going through them. It was silent work for the most part except for the occasional comment ("No one even found out who this girl was." "Same with this one.").
"Who are the people who own the house now?" Sam asked.
"Dayna and Joe Thompson. They have lived there for thirty years. They claim to never go near the shed. The townsfolk are distant but cordial with them." Ash said matter-of-factly, flipping over a paper in the folder he was reading. When no one said anything in response, he looked up to see Sam and Dean staring at him incredulously.
"What? The librarian was a gossip," Ash shrugged closing the folder he held and grabbing another one.
"What else did you find out at the library?" Dean asked.
"Well, people suspected them until their granddaughter visited and left alive," Ash said.
"She fit the profile?" Sam asked.
"Young, female, pretty," Ash nodded.
"Did the librarian say anything else about this girl?" Dean asked. Ash shook his head. Dean and Sam frowned.
"Tomorrow we go visit the owners," Dean decided.
"Let's finish going through these," Sam said. "Look closely, though, I think we might be missing something."
They spent the rest of the night combing through the case files trying to find some other sort of connection between them, but they found nothing else. All of the victims were different from their education to their jobs to their hair color to their ethnicity. The trio went to sleep late completely unsatisfied with what they did and did not find.
The next morning, Dean woke up to the enticing smell of a bacon egg omelet and crappy diner coffee. Even with that waiting for him, he did not stir or attempt to get out of the surprising comfortable hotel mattress. He was forced to, however, not even a minute later when a hot, greasy bag hit him in the face. He got up, scowling at the two sitting, stifling their smiles behind their hands, little snorts slipping out a couple of times.
Sam took down his hand and with some effort, gave a jaunty wave and said, "Good morning, Sunshine!" before collapsing into a fit of laughter. Dean glared at the both of them and got out of bed and hurried into the bathroom.
He took his sweet time getting ready before facing the two babbling buffoons though it was kind of nice to see Sam joking around again. Not at his own expense though.
They seemed to have gotten over whatever had overcome them and were once again going the case files. Dean sat back on his bed and gulped down his breakfast.
"I can't help but think we are missing something here," Sam said comparing the two different files he held in each of hands. Dean burped and crumpled up the now empty bag and threw it at the wastebasket in the corner of the room.
"Well, let's go see if we can find that talking to the Thompsons," he said grabbing his wallet and his keys as he walked out the door. The other two joined him shortly, and then Dean was off past the police station, past the library, past the nearly identical houses sitting side by side by side, past where those houses started spacing out little by little until those houses became farms and the concrete road became a dirt one. The land became wild rising in large hills and the road followed, slopping up and down and around gently before suddenly flowers, flowers everywhere bloomed in a variety of colors. And then a gravel road appeared and Dean automatically turned onto it knowing that the house at the end of the way was the one the one they were looking for.
The house was lopsided and covered with a thin layer of cobwebs. The screen door creaked open slowly and Dean's knocking echoed loudly in the silent air. Dean stepped back and waited. And waited. And waited. Just when Dean was stepping forward to knock again, the door swung open. There stood a woman who reached Dean's waist, wiping her hands on a floral towel that matched the apron stretched around her wide frame.
"Hello, hello. How may I help you?" She looked around at each of them.
"Hello, ma'am, Mrs. Thompson. We are from the National League of Mysteries come to investigate the disturbance that happens on your property every year," Sam said stepping forward. He was the best out of all of them at talking to people. Mrs. Thompson paled. From behind her a gravelly voice shouted, "Who is it Dayna? More lost tourists?"
"No, no dear," she shouted back. "Well, come in then." She stepped back and leading the way through their cluttered living room into their cluttered kitchen. A man was sitting at the little table meant for two using a rolling pin on the ball of dough.
"Who are they?" he asked, looking up.
"They are from the National League of Mysteries," she explained going back to cutting up some apples.
"About the shed?" Mr. Thompson asked.
"Yes. Can you tell us more about it?" Sam asked.
"We moved out here must of been some thirty years ago now. Price was cheap, too cheap now that I look back, but we wanted to move away from the city," he shook his head.
"We wanted some peace, but what we got was accused of murder. Multiple murders as a matter of fact," Mrs. Thompson frowned, picking up the dough that Mr. Thompson had been rolling and placing it in an empty circular pan.
"No one warned us. We had to find out ourselves. The hard way," he sighed, leaning back, watching his wife work. "That year one of the police officers died. We got a lot of flack for it, but the police didn't investigate anymore after they couldn't find any evidence against us."
"They ransacked our house. They pulled us into town for questioning in a back of a police car. And when they stopped the townspeople wouldn't talk to us, wouldn't look at us. The kids egged our house," Mrs. Thompson fumed putting her finished pie in the oven and starting to wash the dirty dishes scattered around.
"They did all this even though the murders happened for years before you came here?" Ash asked.
"What did you expect? Common sense?" Dean asked. Mrs. Thompson let out a little laugh. Dean shot her his winning smile.
"So every year, you don't see anything out of the ordinary?" Sam asked.
"Other than a stranger appearing in our shed every year, you mean?" Mr. Thompson asked.
"You never see them near there before it happens?" Sam asked.
"No on the night of. Sometimes before. Poking around cause they heard stories. Lost tourists. We try to get them away as fast as possible but they always show back up deader than a door nail. I tried to lock up the doors. Put a fence around the property, but it makes no difference," Mr. Thompson said. The lights flickered. Everyone looked up. "They do that in the weeks leading up to that cursed day. More and more frequent. Like a warning."
"We heard that your granddaughter visited you once around this time of the year," Sam said after sharing a glance with Dean and Ash.
"We were fortunate, very fortunate. We warned her away from it. She is very interested in the paranormal, and she heard stories so of course she was interested. But she lived. We don't know why, but we don't question it. We are blessed," Mrs. Thompson answered.
"And where does she live?" Sam asked.
After the Thompson's gave them directions to their granddaughter's house, they thanked them for their time and headed out. Once Dean drove around to where he knew they wouldn't see them, he parked the Impala on the side of the road, and they jumped the fence, sneaking back to the shed. It was tall with boarded up windows and door. The grass around it grew tall with weeds, and dust and cobwebs decorated the place along with a big KEEP OUT sign.
"Why do people think those work?" Ash wondered. "Those signs make me want to go in."
"Lucky you're not dead yet," Dean grunted circling around to the back. Old tires were piled up scattered with litter. A board leaned against the shed up to a window that hadn't been shut almost as if it was a make shift ladder. Dean frowned looking around, and finding no more clues, started ascending the board carefully. It groaned under his weight, but it didn't break. Up top, he saw the opening to the upper part of the shed. Closed up boxes littered the dusty room. It looked like it hadn't been touched in years except for a spot on the windowsill. It was caked in dust except for a couple of fingerprints and a small square.
"Dean? Where are you?" Sam called from the front of the shed. "Dean?"
Dean frowned, and climbed down to join the other two. They put a ring of salt around the building, and then they left.
It took them a lot longer than anticipated to get to Utah where Mrs. and Mr. Thompson's granddaughter lived so they had to rent a hotel and wait for the next day to arrive for them to go over to their house. The next day, they got a quick breakfast and headed over to interview the couple. However, when they got to the house no one was home. So they stayed in the car, Sam and Ash looking at case files while Dean watched the house.
Day turned to night and still, no sight of anyone coming to the house. So they went back to the hotel, and tried again the next day. Again, they had no luck.
"Dude, are you sure we have the right place?" Dean asked.
"This is the place that the Thompson's gave us," Ash said.
"They could have lied," Dean crossed his arms.
"I told you. I checked the local records. They live here," Sam sighed.
"Then where are they?" Dean snapped. They were wasting valuable time.
"Maybe they went on a vacation," Ash suggested.
"Why wouldn't the grandparent's know about it?" Dean asked.
"It could have been a last minute thing? Look, instead of complaining why don't you look over these with us? You haven't since the night we first got them," Sam shoved a pile of folders into Dean's lap.
Dean grumbled, but started looking through them. They spent the rest of the day in silence. When no one showed again, they came back the next day to do the same thing again. It was until about four in the afternoon. At first, none sitting in the Impala noticed, but when the garage door made a loud screeching noise while lowered back to the ground, they looked up.
"Finally," Dean sighed.
He put the folder he was holding down, and got out. It only took one knock on the front door for it to swing open surprising them with the speediness of a response and the appearance of the man that opened it. He was a giant. Almost as tall as Sam and scrawnier than Ash, he was like a tree. A tree that was taking turns glaring at the three of them.
"Why were you parked outside our house?" he asked them.
"Waiting for you to get home?" Dean snarked and then "omphed" as Sam dug his elbow into his ribcage moving him out of his way.
"Mr. and Mrs. Thompson sent us here. We are investigating the mystery surrounding their shed, and have a few questions for you and your wife," he said calmly. The tree's eyes widened and he took a step back, looking behind him at his rather short wife who had appeared at her grandparent's name.
"Well, come in, I guess," she said looking after looking at each of them. "I'm Mina. This is Paul."
"Sam, Dean, and Ash," Sam said pointing at each of them. Mina led them through their cozy home to the kitchen where she got everyone a drink.
"So are guys like Ghostbusters or something?" Mina asked. Dean looked at Sam and then back to Mina and nodded.
"Something like that, yeah," he took a careful sip of water, and wondered if he could ask for something a little stronger.
"You must have lied to my grandparents if they talked to you," she snorted and then frowned "Or, they know more than they let on. How did you know about it?"
"Well, we look into these kinds of things, so the pattern, well, it was easy to see something wasn't right," Ash said.
"What pattern?" Mina frowned. The trio exchanged looks.
"Every year on the same day someone appears in that shed, well, dead," Ash said slowly.
"What?" Mina gasped. "People have died there? And my grandparents –"
"Are no way involved or in any danger," Sam said doing that soothing thing with his voice and eyes that made everyone practically fall in love with him.
"Why wouldn't they say anything though?" she said looking around to her husband. He grabbed her hand gently.
"They probably didn't want to scare you or cause you to worry," Paul said with a gentle rumble to his voice.
Ash nodded. "They were very glad that whatever it is didn't get you."
Mina's eyes widened more which Dean didn't think was possible before it happened.
"It happened while we were there?"
"You left the day before, but usually it takes whoever was close to the house around the time," Dean explained.
"Oh, wow, I didn't know. I thought, well, I don't know what I thought, but I didn't think this. I never thought something bad was going on," she bit her lip and shook her head.
"It is hard to take in," Sam said sympathetically. "By your reaction, I assume we were right, and you did go near the shed without your grandparent's knowledge?"
Mina nodded and looked at Paul. He got up and left the kitchen.
"It made me curious when they didn't want us to go near it," she laughed a little, a gritty not amused type of laughter. "I guess I never outgrew my they-say-not-to-touch-so-I-touch-it phase. It was just, my grandparents were always open and honest about everything, and once they tried to shy away from a subject I knew I needed to check it out."
"And what did you find when you checked it out?" Sam asked.
"A bunch of dust and cobwebs. Old boxes and crates. It looked like it hadn't been visited in years," she said.
"Thirty years my bet," Dean mumbled under his breath. Sam gave him a sharp look and Dean took another sip of water and wondered if now would be a good time to request a beer. Mina sure looked like she needed it, but he didn't need a lecture from Sam so he refrained and hoped she would offer it herself.
Paul walked in with a little box filled with what looked like amateur ghost hunter equipment, and set it down on the table. He retook his seat and grabbed Mina's hand and gestured for her to continue on.
"Well, we looked around. There was a bunch of newspapers and we was reading them and then we heard it, like someone was up in the attic of the shed shuffling around and then they said, clear as day, 'David, is that you?'" she shook her head and took another sip of her water.
"What happened after that?" Ash asked leaning forward a little.
"Got the hell out of there," Paul laughed. "What else would we do?"
"But you went back," Dean stated. Sam and Ash looked startled, but Mina and Paul nodded.
"Yes. We talked it over. What if someone had been living there and my grandparents had no idea since they don't go out there? They could have been dangerous," Mina shook her head, sighed. "At least that is what he thought. I wasn't too sure. So we went back out, this time I brought this." Here she reached into the box and pulled out a little cassette player. Dean noticed it was the same size as the imprint in the dust that he had found.
"I built a make shift ladder I guess you could say, and we climbed up to peek into the attic," Paul took over the story telling. "We found a bunch of dust and untouched items. No one could have been living there or anything. Nothing was knocked over, no music boxes, nothing to make that noise."
"So I pushed record and left this on the sill," Mina said. "I needed to satisfy my curiosity. We didn't listen to it right away. We were already back here. I discovered it didn't fully record. Someone had stopped it halfway through."
"It couldn't have been the batteries dying?" Sam asked.
"I suggested the same thing, but it still worked. The batteries were fine," Paul answered.
Mina picked up the tape and pressed the play button. For a long time there was silence with the occasional creak or rumble of a passing car from the road. Then, the sound of someone breathing could be heard. Short, shallow breathes getting slowly louder as if someone was getting closer to the cassette, but no footsteps or anything else could be heard. As suddenly as the breathing began it stopped, everything stopped. The old structure of the house stopped creaking and groaning, it was absolute silence for about ten seconds, and then an old woman's voice started singing. A faint, unfamiliar song that sounded like it took a lot of the singer to sing getting louder just like the breathing until it stopped as if startled. Then, a loud, crackling laughter erupted, and the cassette stopped.
"What was that song she was singing? Do you know of it?" Ash said after a moment of silence.
"We never figured it out," Mina shook her head. "We showed the tape our friends and none of them could identify it either."
They spent another night at the hotel, and left early the next morning. They didn't talk about the case until they were back in Afton in the hotel they had previously inhabited. There, they spread out all of the information they had on the case in unspoken agreement.
"This woman is the biggest clue that we have had yet," Sam said.
"You think she is the one killing people?" Ash said.
"Who else could it be?" Dean asked.
"The only question is who she is, why is doing it, and how," Sam stated.
"I think that is three questions actually," Ash said, but his comment went ignored.
"So this woman has to be a ghost right?" Dean asked.
"What else could she be?" Sam asked.
"Alright, so ghost," Ash sighed. "Who could she be?"
"How long have these murders been going on?" Dean asked, picking up random folders.
"Ninety years," Ash answered.
"Yeah, but," Dean frowned, shifting through files. "Didn't you say—Ah! Here it is."
He held up the original file that Ash had showed them. Sam and Ash watched as he flipped through the pages, wondering what he was thinking.
"Here it is," Dean repeated, holding up a piece of paper. "You wrote ninety murders in ninety-one years. You even told us that remember?"
Ash nodded his head slowly. Sam frowned, his forehead wrinkling.
"Why did you word it that way?" Sam asked.
"Because the murders started in 1923, the shed was only built a year before that," Ash explained.
"And there were no murders the first year it was there, or before that?" Dean asked.
"None that fit the pattern," Ash said.
"Is there any information here about the building of the house?" Sam asked grabbing the file.
"Or about the very first owners?" Dean asked reading through pages.
"Their names were David and Betty Wallace, an old married couple," Ash said.
"We should look into them," Sam decided.
"I can go back to the library and see what I can find," Ash said, standing up.
"Maybe the police station has something on them as well," Dean said.
"Ok, you guys do that. I will stay here and look over these again," Sam decided.
Once both of them were gone, Sam flipped through the various files until he found the ones that were the most stained, and frayed at the edges. He opened them all, and then picked up the one that had 1923 written on it.
"Mary Raslo. Age twenty," Sam read. He picked up the picture of her, studying her face. She had short, dark hair, and a lot of makeup piled on her round face. He put that one down, and grabbed the 1924 case.
"Gladys Cuttling. Age twenty-three," Sam read. He studied her picture. She had the same cut and type of makeup that Raslo had. He picked up the 1925 case, the 1926 case, and so on and so on until he studied the faces of all of the dead girls' faces. By the time he was done with them all, Dean and Ash arrived back in the hotel room.
"Did you get anything new from the files?" Dean asked.
"Uh, maybe. I noticed that the ladies killed in the 1920s were all what society considered to be flappers. Of course, when after the whole flapper image faded other girls were killed, but it was something I found interesting," Sam explained.
"Huh, that is interesting consider the fact that Betty Wallace's husband ran off with a flapper," Ash said.
"How do you know that?" Dean asked.
"Gossiping librarian," Ash shrugged.
"Well, it fits. The Wallace's had a lot of domestic reports when they lived here. And it turns out there was a death in 1922." Dean said.
"What?" Ash asked. "I missed one?"
"It didn't fit the profile: different day and an old woman, Betty Wallace. It also wasn't a murder, but a suicide." Dean explained.
"So Betty's husband ran off with a young flapper, and Betty goes and kills herself. Then, she comes back as a ghost and kills girls like the one that he ran off with," Sam said slowly.
"Wouldn't it have made more sense for her to kill people like her husband?" Ash wondered.
"Girls don't do that. They blame the other girl not their guy," Dean snorted.
"Yeah, you would know," Sam said. Dean just grinned.
"Anyway, where is this woman buried?" Sam asked.
"She was cremated," Ash said.
"Wasn't that only a wealthy thing in the twenties?" Sam wondered.
"Yeah, but the town was running out of room to bury the dead. So they cremated a bunch of people whose families weren't around anymore." Ash explained.
"That's gross," Dean frowned.
"They don't do that anymore," Ash shrugged. "But before they stopped, Betty Wallace was a victim of it."
"So what is tying her here?" Sam wondered.
"Hard to say. Think if we burned down the shed all of the possibilities would be gone?" Dean speculated.
"Yeah, I think so. It would have to be in the shed. That is the scene of all the crimes. I bet it was where she committed suicide too," Sam said.
"Alright, let's go then," Ash started for the door.
"Wait up, we can't burn down a building in the middle of the day," Sam called.
"Besides that, I am starving. Let's get something to eat first," Dean said, grabbing his keys.
A couple hours later, all three sat in the Impala eyeing the lone light shining in the Thompson's home.
"Aren't old people supposed to go to bed early?" Dean complained. The light went off almost in response to his whining.
"Ok let's go," Sam whispered. "Remember be neat and quick about it."
"We know. We know. You have said it a hundred times already," Dean said.
"And be quiet," Sam whispered.
The trio hurried across the land to the shed. They poured gasoline all around it. Dean even climbed up like he did last time. He broke the window, and tossed an extra amount there before he scaled down the board again. He reached for his matches, but froze when he lit one. In the window, looking down at him, was a wrinkled woman with wacked out hair and a toothless smile. Dean tossed the match and the fire started to spread quickly. He saw the woman shake her head, laughing like in the tape, and started singing that song again. Dean quickly lit a couple more matches, throwing them carefully around the house. He met up with Sam and Ash in the front.
"Let's get out of here," Dean said.
They hurried back to the Impala, and subsequently to the hotel before the Thompsons could wake up and notice. Sam called the fire department from a payphone so the fire wouldn't spread and hurt the old couple, and then all three of them went to sleep for the rest of the night.
The next day, Dayna called them to go over. She told them what happened as she gave them each a slice of pie.
"We didn't even notice anything. The fire trucks woke us up," she explained, sitting down. "Do you. . . do think it won't happen anymore now? The . . . the murders?"
"Well, they always happened in the shed, so probably not," Ash explained.
As they were leaving, Joe shook each of their hands extra hard muttering, "Thanks."
"You think he knew?" Sam asked.
"Seemed like it," Dean sighed, entering the highway. "Wasn't that pie good? Wish she would have given us some to go."
"Hey, Ash, why did you want to do this hunt anyway? I thought you were more of a research guy," Sam wondered.
"I am, but I recently started to research my family history." Dean laughed but Ash ignored him. "Turned out that one of my ancestors got murdered mysterious, and the murderer never caught."
"You mean—" Sam started.
"Yep, the Raslo family has been getting in trouble for their good looks for decades."