Supernatural Forum Challenge

Trick-or-Treat Challenge

House 7 prompt 3-glass bottle

Freakin' Halloween

The ghostly light of a full moon basted the countryside in its glow as the neighborhoods filled with ghosts, goblins, super heros, witches and all manners of other creatures. Screams echoed down the street from kids as they raced to each house anxious to see what sort of goodies they were going to get from the owner of the house. Carved pumpkins decorated porches, along with skeletons, spider webs, tombstones and orange lights outlining windows and doors. Halloween was in full swing in the small Missouri town. What they didn't know was an evil was visiting this night and would be preying on their children. But there was a chance their children could be saved because hunters were near and would be hunting this evil to stop it.

The black Impala pulled over to the curb and stopped at the end of a cul-de-sac. The two hunters sat in the car and started out into the blackness, trying to use the light of the full moon to see. Trees grew on either side of the driveway and its limbs were bowed over driveway making a dark tunnel up toward the house that couldn't be seen from the street. It looked like a gapping mouth just waiting to swallow you whole. The ebony blackness was so much darker than the night around them. The tunnel seemed to beckon to you to enter at your own risk for you never knew what lured in the shadowy darkness ready to take you down and devour your very soul.

"Great, can't even see the house and my skin is already crawling." Dean complained as he started at the driveway of the house they came to check out. "So give me this theory of yours again." he growled to his brother. He hated Halloween and the only good thing about it was the candy.

"I ran across this article about strange illnesses in children right after Halloween and started digging deeper because it bugged me. I did a wider search radius and found two more cities with the similar articles. I decided to do a nationwide search and turned up a total of six towns in different states where children became sick after Halloween. There were never any connections made because the doctors chalked it up to overdosing on sugar from all the Halloween candy. The towns were all small like this one, so there wasn't any further man power devoted to the case and they were closed."

"And how does this make it something we investigate?"

"It started out with two kids getting sick. They were reported missing by their parents to the police when they were late getting home from a party. The kids were thirteen to fourteen and found like six hours later a few streets over from where they lived with no memory of what had happened or where they had been. They were kept overnight at local hospitals for observation. The doctors couldn't find anything physically wrong with them, but the kids were never the same. I pulled some medical records on some of the victims and found out they were sickly from then on, prone to illnesses, weak, like something was taken from them. Last year it was four kids missing, seems like she needs more to do the spell now. There's no telling how old she really is and she's smart, has to be to stay under the radar this long." Sam responded, reading over his notes.

"What? Like they were drained of some of their essence or something?"

"I'm thinking it was their soul, part of their soul was taken." Sam concluded. "A witch, a powerful one is my best guess. I think she's taking part of the kid's soul to use in a spell to remain young. This is ancient, dark magic that's not been seen in centuries. These houses, all belong to the witch, but under different corporate names. I found the link back to one company after extensive research. She has a pattern of which town to hit and I finally figured it out. The cops didn't link the cases of the missing kids since they were returned and the cities were so far apart. This is where she's at this year and we need to stop her."

"Damn! You know how I hate freakin' witches." Dean grumbled "We got plenty of witch killing bullets?"

"In back, two guns loaded and two boxes of ammo." Sam said trying to keep the guilt off his face so Dean wouldn't learn the secret he had been keeping from him. He tried not dwell on his brother's statement that made his cringe inside and his heart fill with sadness. He knew his brother wouldn't understand the extra curricular activities he had been doing.

"Well let's get this party started."

"One more thing, we won't be able to kill her unless we first destroy a glass bottle that contains her life's blood and soul. We have to find that and destroy it and then take her out. She'll have it with her since she needs it to drain the kids. Any other time it's probably stored in somewhere in a safe location. This is the one day of the year she can be killed."

"Great, any more fun facts you wanna share with the class there geek boy?" Dean said as sarcastically as possible.

"No, that's 'bout it. You ready, we'll wanna get in there and set up before she brings the kids there." Sam said ignoring the jab from his brother.

The two hunters got out of the Impala and went to the trunk to gear up. They each took a handgun and stuffed extra clips in their jacket pockets. Dean pulled out two Mag flashlights, checking both before passing one to his brother. They crossed the street, pausing at the beginning of the driveway and looking up it into the throat of the beast.

"You ready to do this?" Sam asked seeing the hesitation in his brother.

"Yes." he said squaring his shoulders and pulling in a deep breath before stalking up the driveway, using the light to help guide him.

Sam shook his head and let the breath he was holding out as he fingered the amulet under his shirt before following him. The house was not in any better shape than the driveway and yard. It was one story with a small front porch. What windows that weren't broken out were boarded up and strips of pain hung from the walls like broken ribs. Shingles were missing from all over the roof and spots had rotted enough to cave in.

"There's a way to the basement inside the kitchen." Sam whispered to his brother.

Dean dodged the broken steps leading up to the porch and carefully tested each step he took. He tried to door handle to find it locked and pulled out his lock pick kit quickly getting the door open. It squeaked a loud, high pitched whine as he pushed it open. They went inside and locked it back behind them. Being careful of the flooring, Dean led the way toward the back of the house to the kitchen seeing a door off to the left. Knowing that was the way down, the brothers carefully made their way down the steps quickly surveying the room and deciding where to best place to hide would be. They both got into place with weapons ready settling down to wait for the witch to come. Dean was going to be bait to distract the witch and Sam was going after the glass bottle to destroy it.

They didn't have to wait long before footsteps could be heard above them and mummers of voices. Shoes clunked on the steps as the unknown people came down the stairs. Both brothers tensed and made ready to play their part as they listened to a female voice talking to the children.

"Come now children let's get you all set up over here while I make the preparations. Don't worry it won't hurt a bit and you really won't miss it. I'm only taking a small amount of your soul for my spell." she cooed to the four kids as she led them to chairs. The kids seemed to be in some kind of trance and didn't respond to her only looked vacantly ahead of them.

The witch turned from the kids and sat a bag on the table so she could remove the items she needed. She pulled out a sturdy metal box and sat it beside the bag. With a key from around her neck, she opened it and pulled out a clear glass bottle. It was filled with a black-red liquid that seem to have a life of its own as it swirled and weaved inside the bottle.

"Hey bitch!" Dean yelled as he stepped from his hiding spot and putting two rounds into her. He knew it wouldn't kill her yet, but he hoped it would slow her down and keep her attention on him.

"Stupid man, mere bullets won't kill me. I've been alive for centuries and have killed any that stood in my way." she spouted tossing her hand and flinging Dean back against the wall hard. His body slammed with a bone jarring crash almost knocking him out. He fought to stay conscious because he knew Sam needed his help.

spn

Sam saw his chance and rushed from his hiding spot to grab the bottle and toss it to the floor. He raised his gun to shoot it but was suddenly propelled backward tumbling over his own feet and he fell to the floor in a hard jolt knocking the wind from him but he kept a firm hold on his gun. He chanted something in an ancient language, clutching the amulet in one hand and the gun in the other. He could feel the power of the witch as she tried to control him. He pretended to be paralyzed as he made ready to make his move hoping Dean could do what he couldn't.

"You don't ever learn do you? I can't be stopped, don't you know it by now?" she screamed at him. "I am invincible!" she said picking up the glass bottle by the neck to show it was still intact. Two shots rang out shattering the bottle and dumping the contents to the floor. "No! No!" she wailed in dismay looking down at the liquid seeping through the floor boards and into the soil below it. She screamed as her powers dissipated leaving her vulnerable to the hunter's bullets.

"Now Sammy!" Dean yelled at his brother who already had his gun up and pumped three shots into the witch, one to the head and two to the heart. He wasn't taking any chances she could get away from them.

The witch slowly slumped to the floor a look of surprise and shock on her face as she died before hitting the floor. Dean pulled himself from the floor and stumbled toward his brother who was picking himself up from the floor himself.

"You alright?" Dean asked him giving him a good once over.

"Yeah, just winded." he gasp, trying to pull deeper breaths into his lungs. He was glad Dean had not heard him use the spell to ward the witch's magic.

"We need to get these kids out of here." he said looking at the kids to be sure they were ok.

"Right." Sam agreed. "Hey I'm Sam, c'mon let's get out of here." Sam said taking the hands of two kids as Dean grabbed the hands of the other two and they lead them out of the basement.

Once they were out by the Impala, the kids started to come out of their trances, looking around confused and frightened. They stared up at Sam and Dean not sure how they got there or what was going on.

"It's ok, we're FBI, we'll take you back home." Sam said trying to assure them everything was ok.

They clung to each other, shivering and trying not to cry.

"Where are we?" one kid asked in a trembling voice.

"Not far from your neighborhood. C'mon climb in back and if you tell us where you live, we get everyone home." Dean told them opening up the back door of the Impala.

The kids hesitated for a moment, looking up at both the hunter's faces before climbing into the car.

"We all live on Walnut Street, we're neighbors." one of the boys finally said from the back seat.

"Alright, let's get you guys home to your parents." Dean said cranking the Impala and pulling around the cul-de-sac to head back into the housing development and to deliver the kids to their parents. Thirty minutes later all the kids were back home with their parents.

Dean pointed the Impala toward Sioux Falls and drove off into the night. Both brothers were sore and bruised up but nothing serious this time. They were out on the open road cruising alone when Dean spoke to his brother.

"Something you wanna tell me Sammy?" he asked his brother glancing sideways at him to see him staring back like a deer caught in headlights.

Sam swallowed hard several times realizing he wasn't as conspicuous as he thought and this was going to be a long ride back to Sioux Falls.

A/N: Hope you enjoy this Halloween story, reviews are welcome. NC