Dear Readers,
All credit for the amazing title goes to my beta, Crystal. She's QueenofCrystallopia here on fan fiction net. She's been slaying the game and I am so lucky to have her reading my fic when she's working on so many of her own. Show her some love when you get a chance!
this is a supernatural story about Sam and Dean, but it is set at Hill House from the Netflix show The Haunting of Hill House and the book of the same title by Shirley Jackson. While I hope to reflect the brotherly relationship and the humor between the Winchester brothers as you see on the show, this is primarily in the horror genre. I do hope to make it utterly terrifying, so a bit of forewarning if you scare easily.
Shivers and hugs,
Pip
...
Chapter One - Lay Steadily
...
Hill House - Then
Hill House watched the shadows of twilight lengthen, and a sigh escaped from the front door. Heavy and built with an iron latch, more befitting a castle than a mansion even as large as this; it was not so easily opened. The wood must scrape the unkept stone entry. The latch must be cleaned, because it had rusted so long ago. The door could not be opened from the outside, unless one had the key.
From the inside, the hand of a corpse took up the latch. Fingers shriveled like worms, the palm bloated. Skin pale, flecks of gray.
The metal ground against metal, and the bolt lifted, a tentative squeak of movement. Up, and over. The door crept open, the wood groaning with a laborious pain of stiff, ancient memories. Memories whisked away by a faint breeze, blowing a bit of dust into the house.
A tendril of dust flew deeper within, and the breeze rattled some of the dead vines climbing the forgotten stairs. Someone hummed in the atrium behind the stairs, the room filled floor to ceiling with stone figures in tormented, arrested movement, and jungle plants - long dead.
Hill House was calling now, but with only the wind to answer. The old carpet at each stair apex let loose a puff of dust, as if invisible footsteps walked up.
Turning at the bannister, a handprint was left on the railing.
The upstairs hallway stretched forward, long and neat. Dark green wallpaper bordered by old wood, grains blood red in the falling evening light. Some of the doors were sensibly shut. Some open, yawning dark.
Only one was cracked with a sliver of gold light peering through, thin as a knife. The room on the west side of the house, the last to see the sun before it dropped heavily, a casket lid dropping over a hot summer night.
The crack went a bit wider, and the air throbbed. The walls grumbled, even a picture hung long ago tapped too violently and fell to the floor with a ear-splitting crash, a twinkle of glass spraying across a rug.
Stomachs growl - and dragons roar - but Hill House waits.
Waits, watches. Anticipates beating hearts with saliva dripping down fowl mouths, like beasts, predators.
The house felt the clock turn to ten p.m., the clock wound each evening by a dead man with a mustache, hands that smelled of oil and rot winding at the cogs.
Tick, tock.
Time to play.
Sam & Dean - Now
A reflection of scrubby, thick woodlands reflected in the shining black of the Impala, door opening wide before the car had even fully parked. Dean Winchester killed the engine as his brother was already slamming the passenger door.
Sam Winchester stood at attention, mouth agape, eyes up. Up, and up, till he could see the topmost turret.
A mansion. With a turret. His eyes followed the cornerstones of the roofline, to each window visible from this side, by a low garden wall, parked on the gravel between fenced woodlands and an overhanging carriage entrance.
A luminous white face, framed with hair drenched in darkness, stared through the third story window.
"Hey," Sam said softly, not tearing his eyes from it, but giving his chin a swift jerk to point Dean in the right direction. "Look at that."
Dean wasn't looking; Dean was grumbling. Dean was struggling with a jacket and a wrapper falling off of his lap, and he slammed the driver's door. "What?" he asked, irritably. "Look at what?"
"Third story, second from the right."
Dean hmphed. "I got nuthin."
"There's a woman standing there," Sam said. "I guess the only question is which ghost is it? There's supposed to be dozens in there."
"Let's hope it's one of the hot ones," Dean smirked. "Did that guy call you at all?"
Sam blinked, and the face was gone. "What?"
"Did that guy call you again?"
He shrugged and checked his phone again. "No."
"He's late, then," Dean glared at the trees, briefly. "He said noon, right?"
"Yup," Sam stuck his hands absently into his jacket pockets. "Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within; it had stood for eighty years and might stand for eighty more."
"Doubt it," Dean mumbled.
"Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House, and whatever walked there, walked alone." Sam recited, and looked at Dean's incredulous expression. "What?"
"What the hell are you saying?"
"It's from the book."
"What book?"
"Steven Crain's book. The Haunting of Hill House. One of the five children raised here?" Sam blinked. "You didn't listen to me at all, before, did you?"
"You said that it was the site of a famous haunting tabloid fiasco."
"And the eldest haunted sibling wrote a book."
"You read the whole effing book?"
Sam jolted one shoulder. "I guess?"
"You're such a nerd."
"Hang on," Sam exclaimed, "You said you were going to research. I assumed you looked at the book."
"Even better," Dean smirked. "I used the internet. Found pictures of those tabloid covers, too. Didn't paint a flatterin' picture of Mister Crain, that's for sure."
"But that's not the full story."
"Sam, let me put it to you this way," Dean popped the trunk, withdrew a lever-action rifle with salt bullets, and cranked the lever with a satisfying ker-chuk. "We don't need the whole story. We're just here to make sure it ends."
...
Please consider leaving a review with your thoughts! This is my first fic for Supernatural, AND for the Haunting of Hill House. I am a huge fan of the book and I read it over and over. While I hope to remain faithful to Shirley Jackson's vision and style, this is set in Hill House, crossed over with the Supernatural verse. Let me know what you think!