"Hey, Sam, Jen. Miss me?"
"Dean. Found a friend, I see." Sam raised his eyebrows.
"Yeah, George here didn't like my shotgun. Strangest thing, he tried to set a moose spirit on me." Dean made a tut-tut sound and watched George as he shuffled his feet nervously.
Sam turned to George as well. "Raising a spirit from the dead, getting it to do your bidding – kill for you. That's playing with fire. Care to explain, George, or should we just take that pretty talisman of your, smash it into little pieces and then throw you out of this shack?"
"No nonononono! Please don't do that. I never really thought it would work, ye know? I was just so angry. Do you know how long I campaigned for that moose? It was a white moose, the first of its kind, never seen before and so beautiful. And I made them see. I made them declare it off limits to the hunters. They made it law. No one could harm him. He was saved!"
The little man's voice was getting higher as he became more worked up. He'd brought his hands down from his head and was gesturing wildly, pointing out the various campaign brochures and posters about the shack, all declaring 'save the white moose.'
"Then the stupid animal walked out in front of a car. Just as they declared him safe and off limits to those bastards, it just walked out in front of a car. It made a fool of me."
"So you resurrected it?" Sam's expression was one of pained disbelief.
George nodded vigorously. "Well, like I said, I didn't think it'd really work."
"You are fucking kidding me?! You resurrected a moose because you saved its life and then it walked out onto the road and…" Dean couldn't finish the sentence, as he practically doubled over with laughter, only just managing to keep the shotgun trained on George. "…and then you…"
"It's not funny!" The little man stamped his foot and scowled, causing Dean to laugh even harder. Jen let out a giggle that she tried to stifle and Sam huffed a laugh, before covering it with a cough.
"It really isn't funny and I didn't kill anyone. Really! I swear!"
"What do you mean? You sent it running out into the road, sent it chasing me around the forest. If these guys hadn't shown up…" Jen let the sentence dangle and settled for glaring at George, as Sam placed a calming hand on her shoulder.
"No, I can't control it. I can make it come to me," George shook the talisman to emphasise his point, "but I can't make it do anything. It just keeps wandering out onto the road like the big, stupid moose it obviously is. I can't believe I wasted so much time protecting it!"
George huffed out a breath and slouched over to one of the nearby couches where he promptly slumped down onto the armrest and studied the floor. Sam, Dean and Jen stared at him in stunned silence.
"So, out in the woods, with the summoning and the threatening, that was just for show?" Dean had long since lowered the shotgun, realizing George didn't pose any real threat.
George nodded.
"So, what were you planning on making it do, exactly… if you'd been able to get it to do something?" Jen seemed to have surprised herself by speaking and shuffled a little in place. She kept staring at George, even as his own eyes were still cast down at the floor.
"I… I was just going to use it to scare off the local hunters. You know legendary spooky moose... or something." He shrugged again.
"You know, I don't think he summoned the moose." Sam seemed as though his mind was rapidly processing something as he spoke. Dean swiped a tired hand over his face and stared at his brother.
"I mean, the moose seems to be stuck in a loop, perhaps even reenacting his death. That's the sort of stupid thing human ghosts do all the time. Maybe the moose's spirit never left. If that was the case, then when George here tried to summon it, the ritual would have bound the spirit to his talisman and so the moose has to come to him. But, since he didn't use the correct summoning ritual for a spirit already on this plane, it wouldn't give him control of the spirit."
"That's great geek-boy, but it doesn't really matter what the moose is doing here or who brought it, we just have to send it on its way. Either way, it's a simple salt and burn, right?"
"Yeah. I guess so." Sam tilted his head in agreement with his brother. "George, where'd you bury the moose?"
***
It turned out George had held a small funeral for the moose and buried him six feet under, with a grave marker and everything. Dean had huffed about all the digging that a crazy PETA-card-carrying member was causing them, but Sam pointed out that at least other animals hadn't dragged away the bones like they would for any other road-kill. And, with that lovely thought in mind, they'd set about digging.
George stood to one side, several meters away. It seemed the moose wasn't all that interested in any of them as long as George and his talisman were around. The moose just paced around, watching George as if mesmerized, but they all felt easier with the ghost moose and its big red eyes standing well away from them. Jen nervously eyed off the moose while she held the flashlight for Sam to see what he was doing and Dean stood guard with the shotgun, just in case Moosey changed its mind.
"Hey, Sam?"
"Yeah, Dean?"
"What has four legs and flies?"
"I don't know, Dean." Sam grunted and another shovel-load of dirt was tossed from the moose grave. "Insects have six legs."
"A Moose-quito!"
A resigned groan came from the hole, as Jen snorted a surprised laugh.
"Don't encourage him, he'll only keep going," Sam huffed, but he couldn't completely hide the amusement that crept into his voice. "Tell me again why I have to dig?"
"Because I'm older."
"That doesn't work anymore, Dean."
"And yet you're still digging." Dean smirked, turning to Jen. "Knock! Knock!"
"Who's there?" chimed Jen.
"Moose."
"Moose who?"
"Moose be time for another joke."
This time both Sam and Jen groaned, but this didn't deter Dean at all.
"What do you call a sleeping male moose?"
Jen stared at Dean and Sam snickered. "Told you not to encourage him."
"Aww, come on. Hey, George? What do you call a sleeping male moose?"
George thought for a moment and then turned to face them, yelling back over to Dean, "A bull-dozer!"
"Damn."
"Never ask a moose-activist a moose joke. We've heard them all," George said.
Jen laughed out loud when she saw Dean's pout.
***
By the time Sam dropped the match down into the grave, setting the fuel-soaked bones alight, both he and Dean were covered in dirt from digging (Sam having forced his brother to do some of the work after his wisecracks about it) and everyone was tired.
Everyone was tired but the moose, and he obviously wasn't quite ready to trot into the light. As the bones burned bright with accelerant, a cold flame licked over the large white body, making it appear a more blinding white and more transparent at the same time. But when the flame died down, the moose was still there. It snorted, shook its antler-laden head about and literally pranced back into the forest.
"What the hell, dude?" Dean threw an accusing glare at Sam.
Sam raised his eyebrows and glared back at Dean. "Well, obviously there's still something keeping it here, Dean."
"Like?" Dean looked at Sam.
Sam looked at George. George clutched his talisman, eyes wide as Dean's gaze turned to George too.
"His talisman. You said it had blood in it and tied the moose to our plane, right?" It was Jen who spoke.
All eyes turned to Jen, obviously having forgotten that she was there.
"What?" Jen stood her ground, hands on hips.
"No, you're right." Sam spoke as everyone's attention moved back to George and George started edging backward away from his audience.
Dean noted Sam had that thoughtful, almost constipated look that usually came before a geek moment and sure enough… "You know, in many Native Indian traditions, moose are considered to be gentle and wise spirit guides. Some even say that the moose is the animal that guides people safely between the spiritual and living worlds during a dream quest."
"What are you getting at, Sam?" Dean asked.
"Well, maybe the moose is here not because of George, but for George. It might have come back to help him somehow. Maybe the talisman and the spells had nothing to do with it. He did spend several years protecting it after all."
"That's a hell of a lot of maybe, dude. It's a ghost; they aren't usually all that friendly."
"Yeah, but it hasn't really acted unfriendly. Except for that little act it had going on the highway, it doesn't seem to be trying very hard to hurt anyone. Maybe it was all a sort of cry for help. And George did go and try to bind its spirit."
"A cry for help?" Dean looked at Sam again, confusion on his face, before turning back to George. "Can't hurt to try. Hand over the talisman, George."
"No way. The guide says that if I take this off, the spirit will kill me." George backed up further again, only to find his back up against a tree trunk.
"We'll put you in a salt circle then," Sam said as he started walking toward George.
"Don't worry, we've got you covered." Dean cocked the shotgun and gave a sly grin, following his brother's lead. George started edging around the tree.
As Jen watched from the sidelines, she wondered where this was all going and when her life would return to some semblance of reality.
There was a scuffle, Sam and Dean gaining the upper hand so easily that you had to feel kind of sorry for George. Pretty soon, the man was sulking dejectedly inside a salt circle, his beloved talisman crushed and burned in the same manner as the moose bones had been earlier.
And the moose reappeared, casually trotting toward George and his salt circle. The squat little man looked terrified for a moment and then his expression slowly changed. The suddenly very calm man smiled and stepped toward the moose, hand out-stretched before him and, before Sam and Dean could move to pull him back, George was touching the spirit's nose, gently patting as if the beast was truly solid and alive.
There was a blinding bright light, growing ever brighter as it enveloped moose and man and forced the others to look away. And when the light receded, three sets of eyes blinking into the first rays of sunlight creeping into the forest, George was laid out on the forest floor and the moose was gone.
Sam, Jen and Dean were quickly by the fallen man's side, shaking him gently. George moaned and opened his eyes, before smiling up at them.
"I know what I have to do," he mumbled, a goofy, punch-drunk grin spreading across his face.
"Uh-huh, and that would be…?" Dean dead-panned.
"Save the normal brown moose. He told me to protect the rest of the moose, like I tried to protect him."
"Uh-huh. Great idea, George. Protect the freaking brown moose, man." Dean leaned a hand down and pulled the little man to his feet, slapping him on the back once he was up. "Just do me a favour and don't resurrect any more dead ones, okay?"
They watched George make his way back to the cottage, weaving like a drunk man and mumbling possible moose-saving slogans as he went, quietly ranting to the sky.
Finally Sam picked up the shovel and placed a hand on Jen's shoulder. "Come on, we could all use a good night's sleep, let's head into town."
Jen nodded, shaking her head in utter disbelief as they walked back to the Impala. "One hell of a night," she muttered.
***
THE END!!
