Title: The Witch of November
Summary: A small Maine fishing town harbors a dark legend.
Spoilers: None.
Disclaimer: Sam and Dean Winchester belong to Eric Kripke and the CW. They were very nice to let me borrow them for a bit!
Author's Note: My first real casefile with the boys as adults. Think of this prologue as the teaser of an episode. Feedback makes my day!
To say that the three-story Victorian mansion had seen better days would have been putting it mildly. Extremely mildly.
What was left of the paint that in decades past had been a soft and pretty robin's egg blue had dulled and dirtied to a deep thunderstorm gray. The weathered clapboard was warped and dark green with mold from the decades of being out in the elements. All of the windows on the first and second floors sported jagged holes in the panes of glass.
Ten-year-old Allie Sullivan stared up at the menacing structure, her brown eyes wide with apprehension. She pressed her face between two bars of the wrought-iron fence surrounding the property, each of her hands wrapping around the bars at chest level. Why did Charlie have to throw the Frisbee so high? she grumbled silently as the corners of her mouth turned down into a pensive frown.
She felt rather than saw her knuckles turning white and released her death grip on the fence. After a cursory glance at the grounds for the Frisbee, Allie frowned again. The more appropriate question, she supposed, was that if Charlie was the one who had thrown the Frisbee, why was she the one retrieving it?
Probably because Charlie liked watching her squirm. There were plenty of other places to play, after all. Off the top of her head, she could think of at least three empty lots they passed on the way to Lancaster Road! She would have bet her allowance money that the only reason Charlie liked to ride his bike all the way down here to play in the vacant lot across the street was because he knew that the house freaked her the hell out.
She had just worked up the courage to slip her right leg between two of the bars when a harsh voice hissed in her ear, "The Black Widow's going to get you!"
Allie let out an involuntary screech and whirled around before she had time to pull her leg all the way out of the fence. Crying out in pain as her hamstring stretched, she came face-to-face with a grinning Charlie Davis. His bright blue eyes were sparkling in the morning sunshine. "Ugh, I hate you!" she exclaimed, giving his shoulder as hard a shove as she could muster.
Charlie just snickered, completely unmoved by his friend's anger, which caused Allie to pout. Honestly, sometimes she wondered why he was her best friend. "I mean it, Charlie. That wasn't funny."
"Oh, come on, Al. I was just playing." As he slung his arm around her shoulders, her irritation melted and she was reminded of why the two of them were best friends. They'd known each other since they were babies and he was very much like the brother she never had. Older brother, she reminded herself. Charlie was two months older than her--two months to the day--and he lorded it over her every chance he got.
"If you're really that scared, I'll go get the Frisbee." His voice was soft now, serious.
Allie smiled as the warm breeze blew wisps of light brown hair that had fallen out of her loose ponytail in her eyes. Charlie wasn't going to make her go into the witch's yard if she didn't want to. But of course now she had to go; totally a pride thing. "I'm not scared," she lied, pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose with one finger. "Besides, you can't fit through the fence anymore. I have to go."
"Oh, sure you're not scared," Charlie teased as Allie faced forward. Again she gripped the bars of the fence and squeezed in an attempt to muster her courage. "If you weren't scared, we'd be back playing Frisbee already. And I can climb the fence, you know. I've done it before."
Allie just gave her friend a weary scowl. Seriously, Allie, she commanded herself, get a grip. Everyone knew that the Black Widow wasn't real. The Black Widow was just a town legend and her house was just an old, abandoned house that was falling apart. It wasn't scary at all. It was actually rather sad.
She took a deep breath and held it for a moment before exhaling slowly through her nose in a final attempt to gather her nerve. Get in, get the Frisbee, get out. Nothing to it. Without another word to Charlie, she wedged her body between two black bars and squeezed through the fence.
She winced in pain and rubbed her sternum, where she was sure a bruise was already beginning to form. Yeah, she'd definitely grown since the last time she'd had to climb through the fence. No way she'd be able to fit through next summer. Oh well, Charlie would just have to scale the fence then. Since he's done it before, she thought with a slight roll of her eyes.
The Frisbee was brand-new and white and would have been easy to spot if it had landed anywhere in the front yard or among the thin tendrils of the long-dead bushes edging the house. Unfortunately Allie hadn't seen the Frisbee land. She had only watched it sail over the fence before turning an angry and exasperated glare on Charlie.
There was no sign of the Frisbee anywhere out front and Allie groaned aloud. Now she was going to have to trek all the way into the back yard and suddenly she was mad at Charlie all over again. The next time he threw the Frisbee this wild, he was going to be the one who had to venture into the witch's yard to get it back. Whether it made her look like a chicken or not.
Allie's heart pounded in her chest as she raced around the side of the decrepit building and into the back yard. After another swift visual scan, she finally spotted the white disc that Charlie had sent flying. She gave a soft cry of relief as she dashed forward, wrapped her hand around the edge of the plastic, and clutched it tightly against her chest. As she stood up straight, she heard Charlie's voice impatiently calling her name. "I'm coming, I'm coming!" she shouted back, annoyed. "Relax! God."
She had taken all of one step forward when sudden movement in one of the first floor windows caught her eye. She stopped dead in her tracks, her heart skipping a beat as her breath hitched in her throat. But after a moment she rolled her eyes. The source of the mysterious motion was just Charlie, who was making faces at her through the broken glass.
"Come on, Charlie!" she hollered. He did this all the time! She had no freaking idea what his fascination was with sneaking into the witch's house but it probably had something to do with the fact that he could be really, really stupid sometimes. "Get back out here!"
The boy just shook his head, a devilish grin on his face. "Come and get me!" he yelled before disappearing into the darkness of the house.
"Charlie!" Allie whined. When he didn't reappear at the window, she heaved a loud, infuriated groan. Now he was just being mean. He knew that she hated going into the Black Widow's house.
There wasn't a kid growing up in November, Maine who hadn't been in the witch's house at least once. Heck, kids had been sneaking into the old house even way back when Allie's parents were kids! Her mom had only been inside once or twice but her dad's adventures in the house were legendary. He had told her a few times about the Halloween that some of his friends had dared him to spend an entire night in the Widow's house … alone. He assured her that nothing had happened and that the night had been more uncomfortable and cold than scary but just thinking about it gave Allie the creeps.
After standing rooted in fear for a full minute, Allie hesitantly climbed the porch steps and crossed the deck, her hand tightening around the plastic Frisbee. The back door stood ajar but she stopped with her toes on the threshold. There was no way in hell that she was setting foot inside that house. "I swear I'm going to leave you here, Charlie Davis!"
Only silence answered her. She waited another half-minute or so before turning on her heels and angrily scurrying across the deck. She wanted so badly to stomp away loud enough for Charlie to hear her but she didn't dare. Between termites and rot, the old wood was so weak that she would have stamped her feet right through the steps.
As her left foot alit on the dead grass, a loud crash sounded from inside the house. A series of shouts and pained cries--a boy's voice--came a split-second later. The cries continued for what seemed to Allie like forever and then it went quiet. Completely still.
For a moment Allie held her breath and stood motionless, unsure of what to do. She was frightened of the prospect of having to go into the house after her friend but she was also terrified of leaving him there if he was in trouble. "Charlie?" she called, creeping back up the porch stairs. "Charlie, are you okay?"
In the deafening silence Allie could hear her own heart throbbing. Then there was a strangled cry and Charlie's voice, muffled and weak. "Help … me!"
Suddenly Allie felt sick. Charlie never asked for help. If he was asking for help now, he was in trouble.
She was terrified but for once she wasn't afraid of the witch's house. Her concern for Charlie was the only thing running through her mind. The Frisbee dropped from her hand, forgotten, as she dashed over the threshold.
Allie's frantic eyes swept the kitchen. Nothing. No sign of Charlie. Dusty furniture and floor lamps and china hutches and dirty curtains passed by her in a blur as she ran from room to room, trying to find any indication that her best friend had been there.
"Charlie?" she hollered again. Convinced now that the downstairs was empty, Allie rushed up the staircase, taking the steps two at a time, to begin a panicked search of the second floor. "Charlie, where are you?!"
She was crying openly now, her tears streaming down her cheeks and dripping off her chin. Why the hell wasn't Charlie answering her? If he were okay, he'd at least call out to her to let her know. He could be mean to her sometimes but there was no way that he would worry her like this just to play a joke on her. Oh God, what if he--
She shook the thought from her head before it could finish.
As her breath came out in ragged gasps, she opened each door she passed. Nothing in the guest rooms. Nothing in the upstairs den. Nada. No Charlie.
The room at the end of the corridor was the room that usually scared her the most: the Black Widow's bedroom. But without a second thought she reached out with trembling hands and whipped open the door.
At first she couldn't believe what she was seeing. No way in hell that was real. But as her eyes processed the scene in front of her, as it all sank in, she let out a loud, strangled scream.