Ben was ten when he found the journal.
His mother had told him to fetch something from her room, explaining to him that if he couldn't carry out one simple task, she was confiscating his PSP and so help her God, she was throwing it into the oven with the roast. Dean, carrying a load of laundry into the basement, cast him a sympathetic eye roll and mouthed, "it's that time of the month."
Dejectedly, he laid aside the gaming device and trudged up the narrow stairway.
Years later, long after he had forgotten what it was his mother had wanted in the first place, he'd remember uncovering the leather bound organizer in a drawer, and the strange sensation that flooded him as his fingers first brushed over its smooth surface.
The journal had been kept, not hidden, in the nightstand on the left side of the bed, so it wasn't as if he were prying, or so he told himself as he lifted it out of the drawer.
Downstairs, he could hear the television being switched on, hear his mother speaking to Dean as they settled into the couch. Whatever it was she wanted, it couldn't have been that important because clearly, she had already forgotten about it.
Not quite understanding the sensation of reverence he was experiencing, Ben began to read as he slid down onto the ground, back against the bed.
For almost two hours, Ben studied and memorized what he could understand from the messy handwriting.
For almost anybody else, it would have been too convenient to come to a few uneasy conclusions as one pored through the words and hand drawn pictures scribbled into the journal. Or at least, the simplest conclusion – Dean was trying to write a horror novel, or come up with some sad, lame screenplay about the supernatural.
Not Ben.
No matter that his mother liked to pretend that it hadn't happened, he could still remember the creature that had stolen him only two years ago. He could clearly recall the razor teeth in a wide mouth, and the rancid stench that surrounded him, as he was forcefully transported into that dark basement. Inhuman eyes had stared coldly at him, never once leaving his small countenance as it locked him in his tiny cage.
Later, when he tried to talk to the kids who had been trapped in there with him, they'd stare at him like he was a freak, before turning away from him in a strangely adult silence. It was the almost the exact same way his mother had avoided his curious questions about the double that had taken his place for those few hours.
In her case though, it was as if she were almost ashamed that she had mistaken that thing for her son, even if it were only for a few confused moments.
Turning another page in the journal, something fell out. Curious, he reached for the small square of cardboard that was already yellowing at the edges, and stared in some surprise at the snapshot in his hand.
There were two boys in the faded photograph. One had dark hair and earnest eyes, and while the other caused Ben to suck in his breath in shock. Quickly, he scrambled to his feet and turn towards the large mirror against the wall.
Before he had time to really study his own reflection against the photograph in his hand, the bedroom door opened.
"Ben what's taking you…" Dean started, but trailed off as he looked at what the boy was holding. Instinctively, Ben set the book down on the bed, although without knowing it, he kept a hold of the photograph between in his right hand.
"What do you got there?" Dean asked, his voice low and strange.
"I didn't mean to…I found it while I was searching for…" he had already forgotten what it was his mom had sent him for. Realizing he had no actual excuse ready, Ben blurted out, "I'm sorry, sir."
As he uttered that last word, something like pain creased Dean's expression. Sighing, the man closed the door behind him and walked in closer, towering over the boy. Without asking, he gently took the photograph from Ben, picked up the journal and tucked it back inside.
"Go downstairs and wash up. Dinner's almost ready." Dean seemed unable to meet Ben's eyes.
"What is that book?" the boy asked, already knowing he wouldn't get an answer. Dean considered his question anyway.
"It's just a…a horrible story my father was trying to write before he died."
"But…"
"Ben, go downstairs." Dean's tone brooked no argument, and now, now he was looking down at Ben with annoyance, like the time he'd accidentally smashed the Impala's windshield with a stray baseball.
That night, Ben did not sleep the sleep of the innocent.
Perhaps he had been startled awake by a strange dream of flesh eating creatures, or women in white waiting forever by the side of abandoned roads. Perhaps he had heard a nighttime animal scrabbling outside his window instead, trying to get out of the night and into his home.
The first thing Ben noticed when his heavy lids opened, was that he was not alone in his room.
He'd been warned about strange men who might try to snatch him away, both at school and by his mother. About individuals who wanted unspeakable things from beautiful boys like himself.
But this man aroused no fear in him. He looked sad and tired, staring down at Ben from beside the bed. His beard was peppered with silver, although he didn't seem old.
"I would have liked to have met you," The stranger said.
"You're meeting me now," Ben replied, as if this were a normal conversation, not one taking place in the middle of the night in his small bedroom between two people who did not know each other.
"I suppose I am," the other smiled, and Ben realized that he was looking right through the stranger, into the open window that stared out into the nighttime street.
"Who are you?" Ben asked, wondering that he still wasn't frightened.
Instead of answering, his kind smile gave way to that maddening grin that Dean sometimes had, when he knew something Ben didn't, and flickered out of existence.
Ben was sixteen when Leona Reid moved into his 'new' neighbourhood, into the old house on the corner that some of the kids in school had claimed was haunted, with its stained walls and overgrown yard.
"Some guy murdered his wife there in the 80s. They say her body's buried under the house, but no one ever found it." His friend told him one day as they strolled by.
"If they never found the body, how do they know he killed her?" Ben asked, thinking he was very reasonable and very wise to ask this.
"I don't know, it's just a story." And then, like most teenagers, they forgot about that story, or at least Ben thought he did.
After the house was renovated, with its new coat of paint and its now carefully trimmed lawn, it looked nothing like a haunted house, and everything like a normal place where happy families like the Reids could live.
Ah, Leona, with her short shorts, and her tank tops, Ben sometimes thought with longing. Lying under the hot summer sun in her yard, as every passing male pretended not to stare and drool as they sauntered past.
It was a good thing his mother had forced him into a summer job after all, against his lazy protests. As he performed his landscaping duties for the neighbours, Ben found himself usually within sight of the girl, stripped down to his white shirt or less as he worked everyone's yard. Sometimes, he was even near enough to speak with her. He couldn't help but notice the way she peered interestedly over at him, how she flushed enticingly when he graced her with a quick grin, or flirtatious wink. Especially, Ben loved how she smiled at him in that slow, sweet way, laden with all the teenage sensuality she unconsciously mustered.
Sometimes, when he glanced at himself in the mirror, he could see another familiar face staring back at him, also handsome and charming, but nothing more than a bad memory.
Ben never did like looking too long at his own reflection since he had been eleven, but he knew what girls, and sometimes older women, saw when they looked at him, and it wasn't the worst damn thing.
One day, as summer drew to a close and when school was starting to beckon, Leona did not come outside to sun herself. Neither did she come out the next day, and Ben realized how much he missed staring at her.
As he worked in the yard next door to hers, her father emerged from the house. Summoning all his courage, Ben asked where she was. The man stared coldly at him out of his wire rimmed glasses, and said, curtly,
"Mind your own business."
Slightly taken aback, Ben thought to himself that it was probably the best advice anyway.
Until it was time to take out the trash later that evening, and Leona stumbled out of her own house, struggling with a bag of garbage bigger than she was.
Ben resisted for all of a second on the curb in front of his home, before deciding that she needed a hand. He was about two feet away when he realized that she was sobbing, or trying to hold back her sobs very unsuccessfully. Hurrying his steps, he closed in on her and realized, to his horror, that one side of her face was more bruise than skin.
"What the fuck." He started angrily, snatching the garbage away from her and tossing it to the side. "Who did this to you."
"No one." Leona sniffed, trying to move out of the light, struggling to move her beautiful blonde hair over her face. "No one did this."
"No one smashed your face into a wall?" Ben demanded, reaching out to still her frantic hands. He'd often thought of holding those hands in the past, imagined those hands doing other…things.
"Please don't yell ok?" Leona gasped through her tears. "He'll hear you."
"Did you Dad do this?" Ben felt a fury begin to rise up in him, such as he had never known.
Her startled glance through tear-swollen eyes was all the answer he needed, but they were interrupted by something very odd.
The streetlights by Leona's house started to flicker madly, as her brightly lit house abruptly went completely dark. Everything fell deathly silent, and Ben could hear her parents within the house questioning loudly, wondering what had just happened.
Then it came, the first scream. The sound of a heavy body flying against a wall, slamming over and over again into a hard and unforgiving surface. Things were smashing and being smashed within.
Leona shook herself free from Ben's grasp, and started running towards her front door, not knowing or caring that Ben himself was right behind her. Their footsteps sounded thunderous in the night.
"Mom! Dad?" she screamed, flinging open the door. She gasped at the tableau before her – her mother huddled in a corner, shrieking as her father appeared pinned to the wall, midway between floor and ceiling. Every last breakable thing in the living room appeared to have been shattered, shards crunching beneath Ben's shoes.
Something flickered eerily in front of Mr. Reid, as wraithlike fingers wrapped around his throat. A woman with skin that was ripped apart at her forehead, opening a wound that refused to stop bleeding, was standing before the middle-aged man, although she was so pale, Ben was fairly sure he was looking right through her body.
"Makes you feel like a man right? Beating on your wife and daughter?" she whispered thinly in the night, rasping like broken glass. "Does this feel good baby? With the shoe on the other fucking foot?"
"Please…" Mr. Reid choked. Like a rag doll, he was pulled from the wall and then flung back into it, soft flesh smashing into concrete wall once again. The blood streaming from his scalp wound looked black.
Ben's mind worked overtime amidst the sounds of panic emanating from the women around him. Passages scribbled into an old journal flashed in his mind, and he recalled instructions about iron, and the use of it. His eyes searched frantically, finding fireplace pokers strewn out across the floor, tossed aside in the frenzy.
Lunging forwards, he grabbed one of them and rushed towards the translucent creature, swinging wildly.
It was like swinging into a very cold, very thick cloud.
Even as he shivered involuntarily, he could see that he had succeeded in forcing that thing (ghost, he admitted silently to himself) to disappear. Behind him, Mr. Reid slid boneless to the floor, stunned. His glasses were mangled by his side.
Something else flickered to his right.
He raised his weapon at the ready, only to find himself staring at the bearded stranger who had once appeared in his bedroom in the dead of night.
"Son, get them out of here. It's not over." The man said urgently.
"What?" Ben asked, still in shock.
"Get them out of here!" the stranger thundered, looking more solid and more than a little red faced.
"Ok fine," Ben shook his head as if trying to clear it. When he looked again, the stranger was gone.
"Who are you talking to?" Leona asked from her mother's side, tears still streaming down her ruined face. The lights overhead began to flicker on, then off.
"Get your parents out of here. Go!" Ben lowered one arm and hoisted Mr. Reid roughly to his feet, not caring that the man was injured. He hadn't forgotten what he had done, not when Leona's face still bore witness to her father's rage.
"Get out," Ben growled, pushing the man forward.
As the family poured out onto the yard, Ben tried to follow, only to be yanked back into the house by cold and unseen hands.
"Leave him alone," a now familiar voice said threateningly.
"He should have let me finish that monster off." The female ghost's voice complained bitterly. "It was none of his business."
Ben grasped the poker tightly in his hands and swung again at the female ghost, watching as its form disintegrated once again.
"Go. Find the salt in the kitchen and find her bones under the house." The stranger said urgently, fading away again. "I'll try to keep her busy."
Briefly, he considered arguing with thin air, but already his feet was headed for the kitchen. He didn't want to dwell on the fact that he could hear an unearthly, angry howl echoing throughout the house.
Grabbing the full salt shaker from the counter, he looked around him and wondered how he could possibly get under the house, until he realized he was looking at the answer head on.
Hunting for a dead body underneath piles of boxes and shelves of tools didn't make him like basements anymore than usual, and Ben already hated dark basements as a rule. He hadn't liked them since he was eight years old, and he doubted very much that he was going to start anytime soon.
"Floorboards." The stranger's voice whispered beside him. "Hurry up. She's somewhere under there."
"You want me to pry apart every floorboard?" Ben asked in disbelief. "Do we have sixteen hours?"
"God, you've got a smart mouth just like..." His ghostly partner shook his head. "Find it, salt it and burn it."
If he were a murderer trying to disguise where he had hidden a body, but for practicality's sake needed to make sure he could dig a grave to begin with…
He didn't have time for stupid games like this. He'd just have to do something drastic.
"I'm burning the place down." Ben announced, feeling a little foolish and a lot insane.
"Fine but do it fast. I can feel her…"
Everything he needed was in that basement, stored on the numerous, dusty shelves – matches, a can of kerosene…and a whole lot more fuel in the form of cardboard boxes filled with flammable material.
"Hold her off just a little more." The sixteen year old moved quickly, emptying the salt from the container in his pocket over as many surfaces as he could cover, before reaching for the can of fuel and box of matches.
"You men, all you men and all your sick, twisted needs to beat down on those weaker than you," the raspy female voice said, flickering into sight a few feet in front of him.
"Look lady." Ben said, splashing the kerosene about, trying to make sure none of it got on his clothes. Already, he was backing towards the stairs leading back up into the kitchen. "I'm sure you have your reasons for hating men. Personally, I don't like that bastard upstairs anymore than you do."
"Shut up." The thing howled and appeared by his side.
"Get away from him." The bearded apparition said, blinking into existence once again and wrestling her back. "Ben, do it! Now!"
With shaking fingers, the teen dropped the kerosene and pulled a match out of the box. Striking hard, he sucked in a nervous breath.
"Now goddamit!"
Ben did as he was told, dropping the match before he turned and sprinted up the stairs. As he burst out the backdoor, he heard one last ghostly cry as the basement below exploded, rocking the ground a little as it went. The sharp, acidic smell of smoke crawled into his nostrils as he stumbled upwards, and made it to the front lawn where police and ambulances had gathered.
Leona, upon spotting him, ran and threw herself into his arms, saying loudly,
"This is him officers, he saved us from the intruder."
"Sir, can you tell me what happened?" a cop said, peering into the front door of the house in concern, as smoke seeped out. An orange glow was starting to make its way up from the bowels of the house.
"He grabbed me into the house with him and dragged me into the basement." Ben said, feeling the lie springing from his lips as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He wondered that he could come up with a story like that so easily as he stepped carefully out of Leona's arms. "We struggled…I got away but…I don't know what happened to him, if he's still down there. I don't know why everything's burning…"
The cop shook his head, and yelled towards his men as he strode towards them. "Has anyone called the fire department?"
"Are you going to tell the police about the other thing?" Ben demanded tiredly, looking at Leona's battered face.
"What other thing?" she asked, and in her eyes was a plea.
"Leona…" he started.
"That's still my Daddy," she said, sounding like a wounded child.
"He hit you." Ben persisted.
"Look please just…don't say anything ok?" Leona begged. "It was an accident. I made him mad earlier and sometimes, he gets so angry. But he didn't mean it, I promise…just forget about it…ok?"
Even under the flashing lights of the police cars and ambulances, Ben still thought of her as utterly beautiful. That didn't stop him from stepping farther away from her.
"Please don't tell anyone." She continued.
"I have to go." He said, wishing he didn't sound so stiff. He could hear his mother in the background, demanding to be allowed past the police tape.
"That's my son! Let me through you pigs!" she sounded furious, like an angry, hissing feline ready to scratch out the eyes of the men standing between her and her son.
"Ben, when school starts, maybe you and I could…" she sounded hopeful.
"Listen, I'm really tired." He interrupted. "And my mom's pretty freaked out so…"
She looked sad as she nodded unhappily.
The next few days passed quickly. Police dropped by his house, questioning him a few times, and when they were finally satisfied, they disappeared from their street, driving by occasionally to ensure that everything was fine, to watch out for the 'intruder' who never did get found.
Leona's house lay in burnt ruins, empty now and forevermore – at least until the next property developer showed an interest. Whatever Ben had done had worked, as the suburban house had burnt all night until morning, despite the steps the fire department had taken to quell the flames.
On the fifth night, Ben could no longer take his mother staring reproachfully at him over the salad as they tried to eat their dinner.
"What?" he demanded.
"I should be asking you that." She replied sullenly, pushing her food around with her fork.
"I already told you, someone was attacking Leona's Dad and I tried to…"
"I heard that story." She interrupted.
"So what else do you want to know?" Ben asked in frustration, dropping his utensils with a clatter.
"I want to know what really happened. That's all." His mother said sharply.
"There was an…" he started for what felt like the thousandth time.
"Oh Ben." She suddenly looked so old and tired as she closed her eyes and leaned her forehead into her free hand, elbow propped up against the table. "I heard that Reid woman screaming. Something about ghosts and poltergeists or some stupid supernatural shit. Stop treating me like I'm stupid and tell me the truth."
He'd never really heard his mother swear, and it surprised him.
"I don't know what to say Mom." He told her, honestly. Pushing his chair back with a loud screech, he shrugged apologetically, and trudged upstairs.
When he got home the next day, he froze in the living room.
A voice he hadn't heard in five years was coming from the kitchen, arguing with his mother.
"…I asked you, and you said no, he wasn't." Dean's voice was angry. "You said 'no' Lisa, why the hell would you lie about something like that?"
"I was afraid ok? I might not know everything about you, but I know enough. I didn't want him getting mixed up in your life." His mother replied, still sounding tired and worn out.
Listening to her defeated voice, Ben wanted to run into the kitchen, to hold his mother the way she used to comfort him when he was a child, but he stayed still and continued to listen.
"So why are you telling me now?" Dean asked after a while, sounding exhausted himself.
"I think…I think Ben got mixed up in something. Your kind of something, maybe, and I don't know what to do." His mother said.
"And what am I supposed to do about it?" Dean demanded.
"I don't know ok? Your son takes after you in so many ways…"
Ben sat heavily down on the coffee table, knocking a few things over as he did so.
All his suspicions had just been proven in one sentence. Even if he had speculated, even if he perhaps knew in his heart this one key fact, it still felt like a shock to hear it being said out loud.
From the kitchen, a new kind of silence grew, one filled with surprise and even some embarrassment.
Eventually, the two adults crept out, looking at his wide, staring eyes. Dean looked a little taken aback as he stared at Ben.
"He's growing up to look exactly…" he wiped a hand down the front of his face, turning to his mother who nodded miserably. "How did I let myself believe you?"
"You wanted to believe it." His mother sounded sharp, defensive, and even then she could not keep the guilt out.
"You kept it from both of us." Ben said. It wasn't a question.
"I'm sorry honey," his mother stepped forward, arms outstretched as if wishing to grasp his forgiveness in her arms.
"And you. You left." he looked up at Dean, feeling so young all of a sudden.
"I wouldn't have, if I had known." He looked shamefaced.
Ben considered that answer, before shaking his head.
"No, you would have left anyway." Ben stated with certainty.
"Only to protect you from…" Dean began.
"I know, you explained it to me when I was eleven." Ben held up his hand, warding off the older man's words.
"And it's still true."
Silence hung heavily between them. Ben sighed.
"I saved a family from a ghost the other day." He said at last, not sure how else to end the awkward quiet.
His mother looked up in surprise at his admission.
"I knew it." She sounded vindicated, yet not pleased, exactly, that she had been proven right.
Dean stared at him for a long time, eyes narrowed. Finally, he started to smile, slowly and almost warily, although it never quite touched his eyes.
"If I stayed for dinner, will you tell me about it?" He asked, almost hesitantly. Somewhere behind his parents, Ben could see a flickering image of his ghostly helper, looking at the family in the room with all the love in the world. The spirit's lips were locked in a grim, tight line of regret as he gazed at Dean.
Dean's body language seemed to war between a mixture of wonder, pride, and more than a little of something that looked like paternalistic worry, all of which Ben had only ever experienced for a year of his young life. That was before the illusion had been ripped away from him, by the sound of a car pulling away in the middle of the night.
Watching his father's smile already beginning to fade, he wondered if the emptiness caving into his chest would ever find bottom.
The End