Title: Landlord to a ghost
Genre: Gen
Character: Bobby
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up to and including 4.02
Prompt: spn_halloween on LJ number 70. One way or another, most of the cars at Singer Salvage have been the site of violent death. That's not a problem most nights, but on Halloween? And then there's all Bobby's dogs and all the rats they've killed...
Disclaimer: Own nothing, not being paid.
Word Count: approx 1300
Author's notes: Title from a quote by Lloyd C Douglas. Thanks to Cha Oseye Tempest Thrain for the beta, any remaining mistakes are mine.
Summary: What Bobby didn't know about, what he hadn't even thought to research, were the other things that went bump in the night.
It started four months after.
Bobby knew what had taken over his wife, what had forced him to kill her. He knew about demons. He knew how to exorcise them and what hurt them. He was starting to understand that they had a hierarchy, but he knew that there was still a lot more to learn.
What he didn't know about, what he hadn't even thought to research, were the other things that went bump in the night.
They weren't what killed his wife.
The damn radio was acting up, jumping from station to station. Bobby climbed out from under the car, rubbing the muscle that always cramped in his lower back. He shivered slightly, there'd be snow later if he was any judge. Unfortunately cars didn't always pick the best weather to start acting up. He moved the knob on the radio, putting it back on station, and turned around to walk back to the car.
"What the hell?"
Static blared from the radio again, preceding a dance right across the band. Bobby twisted the knob to off and shook his head at the damned stupidity of the machine. Looked like it was time to pull it apart and find out what the hell was going on. But, the car came first.
He was just sliding back under when You ain't nothing but a hound dog filled the room. The song continued on, even though the radio should have been off. Radios couldn't just turn themselves on; there had to be something else going on. It wasn't demonic, at least as far as he knew from what he'd learnt. He knew that things other than demons existed, but they hadn't been important to him -- only the thing that had killed his wife was. He was starting to think that thinking had been a mistake.
Slowly getting up from underneath the car again, he kept his senses as open as possible to anything that might warn him of what was about to happen. He backed up to the work bench, still looking around, and grabbed the bottle of holy water and the shotgun that was sitting there in case of attack. It may not be any use against what was out there, but, it was better than nothing and a hell of a lot more reassuring.
The song finished and there was silence. He stayed standing, tense, beside the bench for a few minutes, waiting for the other shoe to drop. All he could hear was the wind, stirring up dust against the rows of cars. Relaxing, he released his grip on the holy water and the gun and put them back on the shelf. He put his hands down on the bench to support his weight and let his head hang down. His arms and legs felt like jelly and his heart was pounding. The one bottle of whiskey that had survived the last few months was calling his name from the house. Pushing up off the bench, he turned and nearly fell over, trying to scramble backwards.
"Holy..."
There was a man standing right in front of him holding a little boy. Bobby hadn't heard him walk up; he hadn't heard anything at all.
"Christo," Bobby snapped out, but the man didn't flinch.
There was blood on the man's face radiating from a bruised point on his forehead, and his left pant leg was torn. The boy was barely conscious, a large purple mark starting high up on his chest above his shirt.
"Help us, please," the man finally whispered. "Please. We hit a tree, and my son, he's hurt, hurt bad."
"I'll call an ambulance," Bobby said, not taking his eyes off the man.
"Thank you." The man seemed to sag under the weight of his relief and Bobby started to think that maybe this was exactly what it seemed to be.
"Come up to the house, I'll get you comfortable until they arrive."
Bobby took the lead, glancing back once to make sure that they followed, only to find that the man and his boy were gone. He did a full 360 to make sure they hadn't suddenly run off, not likely in the man's condition, but then, disappearing wasn't very likely either. They'd vanished, not even any footprints in the dust to show that they'd ever been there. There was one set of footprints: Bobby's own.
People didn't just disappear, at least not in the 'real' world. It was time that Bobby made a phone call and found out what the hell just happened...and how to protect himself from things other than demons.
That night, trying to sleep surrounded by a circle of salt as invisible rats skittered around outside it, Bobby thought he saw his wife, standing beside the man and his son.
He closed his eyes.
The radio turned on, Hound Dog playing. Bobby looked up from his book, remembering what happened last time he'd heard the song spontaneously being played. It was the first confirmation of his theory; that the evil that had taken his wife had marked the salvage yard, making it easier for spirits to appear in the world of the living. But only for one day, when the veil between the two worlds was said to be the thinnest and people most believed: Halloween.
The song finished and he waited. The man and his boy flickered into existence, inches from the salt line.
"Help us, please," the man whispered, pleading. "Please. We hit a tree, and my son, he's hurt, hurt bad."
Bobby went back to his book and the man stared at him.
"Help us, please," the man whispered, pleading. "Please. We hit a tree, and my son, he's hurt, hurt bad."
Bobby closed his eyes, but when he opened them again he was still surrounded. The ghosts stood as close to the salt as they could, all focused on him, the one living thing in the room. This time he could see the rats, ghostly brown and grey bodies sometimes flickering out to reveal their skulls and spines.
It was much quieter the previous year.
For the next seven years Bobby wasn't home on Halloween.
He woke.
The man and his boy were standing there, looking at him.
"Why won't you help us?"
"Help us-"
"If you want me to help you, then tell me your name," Bobby interrupted.
The man looked startled, his grip tightening on his son. "Matt," he rasped. "Matt Partridge. And this is Luke."
"Where you from, Matt?"
"De Witt, Nebraska. It's a small town near Lincoln."
"Okay, Matt, I'm going to call that ambulance." Bobby turned away, knowing that when he turned back, Matt would be gone, at least, for a while.
"Thank you."
Matt had been a much better houseguest than the new arrival. Bobby really needed to learn to duck faster. The clean up in the morning was going to be a bitch.
Bobby had salted every window and doorway in the house, figuring that should keep the ghosts out. Only, it hadn't. Gaps in the floor boards and tiny holes in the attic roof were all they needed to get in.
Divide and conquer seemed the best strategy, picking the rooms that had carpet and were most likely to be used, but then he ended up with an army of ghosts standing outside his lines, watching him. Even more unnerving was the way the rats ran up and down the lines, looking for a hole that would allow them through.
He needed a better solution than this.
It was peaceful. The fan beat in a steady wump overhead, the shadow of the Devil's Trap oscillating in time. Three hours and no ghosts, the nicest Halloween he'd had in years. Salt covered iron did seem to do the trick.
He'd have to add a bed and a couch for the following year, the chair he was sitting in was comfortable enough, but not for a full twenty-four hours. Maybe a desk, too.
Yep, this was going to work out well.
--FIN--