Author's note: I just wanna let you know that I appreciate all the reviews this story has received so far. It means a lot to me, so thank you all so much! *Hugs to you* -Elisa.
Chapter 4.
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"Goodbye Sam." Mr. Cramer said and pulled the trigger.
As soon as the words had left the hotel owner's mouth, Sam had known that he was about to get shot. But he was a Winchester after all and, stubborn as he was, Sam had quickly rolled to the side and prevented the bullet from penetrating his chest and killing him.
But he still hadn't managed to avoid it completely. Sam let out a loud yelp as pain shot through the side of his stomach from where the bullet had went through, and it took his breath away for a moment. Sam quickly composed himself though because he knew that Harvey Cramer wouldn't be satisfied before he was dead, so the younger Winchester brother took advantage of the fact that Mr. Cramer had yet to figure out that the bullet hadn't been fatal - plus the fact that the rain was like a curtain between them - by rolling into safety behind some trees.
Sam bit his lip hard as he pressed a muddy hand to his hurt side, and when he removed the hand again to look at it, it was covered in blood. Another shot rang through the air and hit the three next to Sam's head. Sam ducked but regretted the movement right away, as it made new waves of pain shoot through his already aching body. Sam knew that he wasn't safe behind the trees though, so he started moving away as fast as he could. He didn't know whether or not Mr. Cramer was following him and he sure as hell didn't stop up to find out. Sam just continued his escape through the rain - although being hurt, combined with the slippery ground and the darkness around him, made the simple task pretty difficult for him.
Sam eventually had to stop up as the pain became too much for him. He was shivering badly, his clothes soaked to the skin and caked with a mixture of mud and blood, his hair sticking to his face. Somehow along the way, he'd dropped the shotgun he'd been carrying underneath his jacket, but right now it didn't matter. Right now there wasn't anything that mattered – except one thing.
"Dean." Sam mumbled, closed his eyes and fell to his knees, beside the ledge of mountain by the raging river, while grasping his hurt side.
His big brother was still missing and Sam felt like crying. He was a failure - he'd failed Dean.
"No." Sam thought. "Dean is still out there – alive. I can't let him down. I can't let him down."
Sam opened his eyes back up, tried to shake his wet hair out of his face, and placed a shaking hand on the muddy ground to push himself back up. He didn't succeed the first time since his hand kept slipping, but Sam eventually got back on his feet and took some steps forwards on wobbly legs. The temperature around him suddenly dropped to an even lower degree and Juliette Baxter flickered into sight in front of him.
"Help me!" She hissed before she shot forward.
Sam was certain that the ghost would try to choke him again, so he was surprised when her hands didn't close around his throat but grasped the collar of his jacket instead.
"No, don't!" Sam gasped but his protests were unheard as the ghost sent him flying off the ledge.
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Dean Winchester had always been determined as a kid, which was a quality that hadn't changed one bit throughout the years. That determination was combined with his need to keep his little brother safe and sound, and Dean would beat down anyone and anything that kept him away from his big brother duty – trapdoors included. So the trapdoor wouldn't budge? Well too bad, because it was the one obstacle between Dean and his little brother, and it was so going down!
Dean was pretty sure that the reason why he couldn't push the trapdoor open was because something heavy was blocking it, so he started searching the shelves of old gardening tools for anything that could be useful in his attempt to break out of the basement-looking chamber. He found a rake, a pair of hedge shears and a shovel that he brought with him to the trapdoor along with some bags of seed.
"Hang on, Sammy." Dean muttered before he placed the head of the shovel in the rut of the trapdoor opening.
He pushed the shovel as far into the rut as possible and he then did the same thing with the hedge shears. Dean used his body to push down hard on the shovel and hedge shears at the same time, and kept pushing while the trapdoor opened just a tiny bit. He reached out for the rake and squashed the handle of it into the opening, he'd made between the ceiling and trapdoor, and Dean could then let go of the shovel and hedge shears.
Dean looked at his work while catching his breath. The trapdoor wasn't opened up much – only like an inch or something – but it was a start. The oldest Winchester brother pressed his shoulder to the trapdoor and used all the strength he could master to push against the solid wood. Dean's legs shook and his face turned red in the process, but he managed to open the trapdoor just a little bit more and quickly shoved a bag of seed into the enlarged opening.
"Dean. Where are you?"
The memory of Sam's distressed voice on his voicemail reminded the older brother of the reason why he needed to get out of here as soon as possible, so Dean continued the task until the trapdoor was opened enough for him to at least get a good look at where he was. He then realized that the place where he'd been imprisoned was nothing but a crawl space underneath the floor of what looked like a small cabin. Dean's eyes caught sight of what looked unmistakably much like a table leg and he guessed that the thing blocking his escape had to be the table. Dean picked up the rake, put it through the opening of the trapdoor and angled it so that the teeth of the rake closed around the table leg, before the oldest Winchester brother began to pull the rake back in an attempt to move the table from the trapdoor. Dean put all of his weight into moving the table and in the end it tipped over, releasing the pressure from the trapdoor. Dean let out a short laugh of victory and wiped some sweat off his forehead before he pushed the trapdoor completely open and climbed out of the crawl space.
Dean quickly looked around in the cabin. There was a small anteroom from where you could go outside, and the main room contained a kitchenette, the tipped-over table, a chair and a bed. All of it was old and dusty - probably belonged to a member of the hotel staff once upon a time - but it was obvious that it had been used recently. Most likely by the person who'd trapped him underneath the floor. There were footprints on the dusty floor; some leading to the trapdoor but the majority set of footprints were situated between the entrance and one of the walls. Why the wall? Dean was curious to find out but his worry about his brother was greater than his curiosity, so he let the mystery be a mystery and started walking towards the exit.
However, just as he reached the door and was about to step outside, Dean heard voices outside and he quickly hid behind the door and peeked through the pearly curtains to see who was talking. He had to narrow his eyes a bit to see the shapes through the pouring rain and strained to hear what they were saying.
".. will probably start looking for him soon." Dean heard the hotel owner, Harvey Cramer, say.
"And what do you want me to do?" A female voice asked and, despite the raincoat she was wearing, Dean recognized the woman immediately. It was Catherine Kellerman – No, Catherine Cramer.
"I want you to pack the money down. As soon as the bridge opens up again, we're out of here." Mr. Cramer said.
"And what about the guy you knocked out?" Catherine wanted to know.
Dean absent-mindedly rubbed the back of his head. That blow had really hurt! The young hunter bent down a bit to draw out a knife from his boot, pretty thankful for the fact that Harvey Cramer hadn't thought about searching him for anything before trapping him in the crawl space.
"He's not going anywhere." Harvey Cramer said. "Not as long as you don't let him out, that is!"
Catherine said something Dean couldn't hear, but from the look on Mr. Cramer's face, Dean figured it couldn't have been something nice.
"Yeah, right back at ya." Mr. Cramer said. "Just do your job and I'll go inside and make sure the tall one stays out of the way."
Sam.
Dean clenched his jaw hard to restrain himself from running outside and slicing Harvey Cramer's throat for even thinking about coming anywhere near his brother! But Dean knew he had to be smart about this, so he stayed where he was – even though every big brother instinct inside of him was screaming at him to do otherwise.
Mr. Cramer turned around and started walking away from the cabin, but he stopped up and looked over his shoulder at the woman before saying; "Don't screw this one up, Cat."
He then walked away and Catherine let out a few curse words before she entered the cabin. As soon as she was inside, Dean snuck up behind her and while pushing the door shut with his foot, he snaked an arm around the woman's neck and pressed the knife to her throat.
"Hello sweetheart. How nice of you to drop by." Dean smirked. "Let's have a little chat, shall we?"
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It was pretty impressive how much you could make a person reveal - just by making a threat every now and then and wave a knife in front of the person's face. That was how Dean had found out that Catherine Cramer wasn't Harvey Cramer's former wife after all; she was the hotel owner's sister. More surprisingly, Catherine and Harvey were the old hotel owner's niece and nephew, and the victims that were murdered inside the hotel had all been members of their family that Harvey and Catherine had killed off because of a matter of inheritance. Well all except the first victim at least whom Catherine had claimed they weren't related to and hadn't murdered. But who murdered the first victim then? And how did the ghost fit into this puzzle? Dean didn't know, but he was pretty sure his brilliant little brother would figure it all out.
"If he hasn't already solved the mystery, that nerd." Dean thought as he closed the trapdoor, keeping Catherine imprisoned in the crawl space.
He'd just moved the table in place when he saw movement outside the cabin, so Dean quickly hid in a corner of the room. The door to the cabin opened up, making the sound of the storm outside fill the room and – wait! Was that Sam's voice?
Harvey Cramer stepped inside and grabbed a shotgun that was hanging on a wall in the small anteroom before leaving again. What the hell?
"I told you to stay inside, but did you listen?" Mr. Cramer asked and Dean started moving towards the exit when he heard the man say "Goodbye Sam."
Panic welled up in the young hunter's heart when he heard a shot being fired, and he ran the last of the way outside and into the pouring rain. Dean saw a glimpse of his little brother as he rolled in between some trees while Mr. Cramer took aim at him, and Dean's anger flared. He full-on football tackled Harvey Cramer to the ground – just as the man pulled the trigger of the shotgun, sending a bullet in the direction of where Sam had disappeared – and placed some solid punches to the hotel owner's face.
"I'm gonna rip your heart out if you've hurt my little brother!" Dean growled and pulled the man a bit up from the ground by his collar before punching him again.
"Hold it right there! Hands where I can see them!" A voice suddenly shouted and Dean turned his head to see a very wet sheriff aiming a gun at him.
"He's the killer!" Dean exclaimed, pointed at the barely conscious man and shook him a bit for emphasize.
"Alright alright, just take it easy son." The sheriff said without lowering the gun.
"Take it easy?" Dean said and chuckled humorlessly. "He knocks me out, traps me inside that house and then he tries to kill my brother! And you tell me to take it easy?"
"Where's your brother now?" The sheriff asked.
"I don't know." Dean said as he got off Harvey Cramer and glanced towards the trees where he'd last seen Sam. "But I gotta find him. I think he's hurt."
"Okay." The sheriff said and lowered the gun a little. "We get this thing solved and then I'll help you find your brother."
"No, I don't think you get what I'm saying here." Dean said, running out of patience. "I think Sam is hurt so I don't have time for this. I gotta find him right the frigging now!"
The sheriff put the gun away and found a pair of handcuffs that he put on Mr. Cramer.
"You go find your brother." The sheriff said and handed Dean a flashlight that he gratefully accepted before the young hunter ran in between the trees.
"Sam!" Dean shouted as he turned on the flashlight. "Sammy! Sam, where are you?"
A flash of lightning lit up the area and Dean saw no little brother there, but he did find Sam's shotgun however – abandoned and half-buried in mud. Dean picked it up and his eyes then caught sight of what looked like Sam's gigantic footprints in the mud which had already started to fill with water from the rain that kept coming down. The older brother followed the trail as fast as possible until he reached a place where the footprints had suddenly come to a stop.
"Sam?" He called and strained to listen for an answer he never received. "Sam!"
The temperature around him suddenly dropped and a ghost of a pale young girl appeared in front of him.
"Shit!" Dean exclaimed, elevated the shotgun as the ghost shot forward and quickly pulled the trigger.
The ghost disappeared in a rain of rock salt and Dean let out the breath he'd been holding. Okay, so the ghost was definitely still a problem. But where was Sammy? Dean got a bad feeling while he wondered if Sam had also run into the ghost here and if that would explain the suddenly missing footprints. His big brother senses picked up and Dean carefully moved closer to the ledge to look down.
"Sammy!" Dean shouted when his suspicions were confirmed as his eyes caught sight of the youngest Winchester brother who was sprawled face down in the mud right next to the river.
Dean quickly found a way down that wasn't too steep before he slid down through the muddy hill and closed the last gap between him and Sam.
"Sammy? Oh God." Dean said and frantically turned his brother over.
Sam's face was covered in mud so Dean started removing as much of the black substance as possible with the bottom of his jacket sleeve and with a little help from the rain. The mud was everywhere - even in Sam's mouth and nose, and it was then that Dean noticed the fact that Sam wasn't breathing.
"No. No, no, no, no, no." Dean said while sticking a hand down Sam's throat to remove a big pile of mud. "Don't you dare do this to me, Sammy."
Dean also used his fingers to remove as much mud as possible from Sam's nose, before he tilted the younger brother's head back, pinched Sam's nose and blew into his mouth a couple of times. Sam was cold. Really, really cold.
"Come on, Sammy!" Dean pleaded and blew into Sam's mouth again.
This time Sam started coughing and gasping for air and Dean hurried to turn Sam onto his side while he gagged and spit up mud.
"That's it, that's it. You're okay." Dean soothed his brother and gently rubbed his back through the assault.
"D-D-De-Dean." Sam stuttered out when Dean turned him onto his back again – placing Sam's head in his lap.
"Right here, Sammy." Dean said and smiled a little when Sam blinked his eyes open.
They were glassy and unfocused but Sam was awake at least.
"I f-found y-you." Sam said while Dean tried to rub some warmth into Sam's cold fingers.
"Actually, I think I was the one who found you, little brother." Dean said. "Haven't I told you not to play with ghosts you don't know and to stay away from psycho hotel owners?"
"N-never l-l-listen." Sam said with a little smile.
"Well, you wouldn't be the brother I know if you did." Dean teased. "Come on, let's get you out of here."
When Dean tried to move Sam a little, the younger brother let out a gasp and his face contorted in pain.
"Sammy? You hurt anywhere?" Dean asked with concern. "Sam, talk to me! Sammy?"
He didn't get an answer because Sam's eyes then chose to roll to the back of his head and he went slack in Dean's arms.
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TBC..
Please review! Thank you ;)
-Elisa.