Tipping the Scales
By Floralia
SUMMARY: SEQUEL. The brothers deal with a haunting, a series of violent attacks, and learn why it's not a good idea to even half make a promise you didn't really want to keep.
DISCLAIMER: Same as before
Chapter Four
By the time they'd hunted down the town's library and records office it was closing, and the pedestrian traffic was beginning to pick up. Like with the school, there was no safe way of guaranteeing they would be able to break in and conduct their investigation without being discovered. In the library they would not be able to work under the cover of darkness. They would need light to read, access to the computers and online records. It would be hard to do all that and go unnoticed from the street.
Sam offered to do a scan when he was back at the motel, but Dean couldn't help the frustration he was feeling over how slowly the case seemed to be progressing. They had been on their feet collecting information all day, and by the end of it they had come away with a name. They were a name closer to understanding what was going on here than they were in the diner yesterday lunchtime.
The number of people milling about was proving to be both a curse and a blessing. It was hindering how obvious they could be in their enquiries, but Dean had not forgotten what the old man had told him back at the motel. If they didn't want to be seen there would perhaps be no better place to be.
Unfortunately that sentiment worked both ways.
Sam may have been the one who had his senses tingling back at the school, but as they wandered through the milling streets Dean was definitely beginning to feel the prickling sense of unease. He didn't know why or where, but he knew that someone was following them. Had probably been following them for weeks. While it might be harder for this guy to pick them out amidst the crowd, it would also be easier for him to blend in. Remain unseen. If he was a hunter, it was not an advantage Dean was comfortable allowing him. He already had the most important advantage of all. He knew exactly who they were, what they looked like, and what car they drove. While they knew absolutely nothing about him.
Nothing other than that he was here, and that he wanted something.
And Sam didn't even know that much.
He was secretly glad Sam was hinting that he didn't particularly want to leave their room tonight. Watching Sam and every other face in the crowd would no doubt prove to be exhausting. And indoors with the curtains drawn and the door locked they stood even less chance of being seen as they did in the street.
They picked up enough supplies on their way back so they could sit and eat in the motel, and there wouldn't even be the necessity to find dinner to force them to leave it again once they got there.
Dean had been uneasy moving through the crowds of people because of what they potentially concealed, but during the long walk on the more deserted road out of town he was equally as concerned that they were no longer hidden. If Sam picked up on his fluxuating mood he kept it to himself. He probably attributed it to general frustration over the job at hand, and Dean did nothing to make him think other wise. He would not lie to Sam. If he was asked, he would tell the truth. He would just have to be careful not to be asked. The truth involved admitting he had known about the potential threat for some time without breathing a word about it.
Sam might have been talking about heading straight in and hunting down information on McAlister; if the library had been open they would have been well into it by now. But unlike the library the motel came with a bed, and that proved to be too much of a distraction. In fact the first thing he did once they were through the door was to flop straight onto it, giving a laughing moan of complain as he realised it was not quite soft enough to allow him to hit it with that much force comfortably.
Dean sat down slightly more gently on a chair by the window from where he could surreptitiously draw the curtains without arousing too much suspicion. He frowned slightly at Sam's seeming reluctance to move again, then frowned at himself for not having expected it. Yes, they'd been keeping up with Sam's training, but he'd also been sat in a car for the last week. They'd done more walking in the past two days than they probably had in the month leading up to them. It was stupid to think it wouldn't have taken a toll.
Dean sighed wearily and distractedly, resting his head in his hands, running his fingers through his short hair trying to knead out the tension and indecision. He had not expected the transition back to hunting again to be stress free, but he hadn't expected it to kick in this heavily this soon. He couldn't lie, even to himself; being in that hospital had unnerved him. Seeing what that spirit had done to that woman. He wasn't sure he was ever going to be able to wander those white corridors again without remembering all the time he had spent wandering similar halls over the last year.
He was uneasy about the job – an unknown something that enjoyed beating the crap out of people. He'd never say anything, but like he wanted Sam anywhere near this town. Sam hadn't needed the EMF to pick up on the presence in that school, and Dean loved his brother but he'd forgotten how plain freaky that could be. The vague niggling threat of the man who had approached Bobby looking for them was becoming much more real, and if his original story had been true he would have contacted them by now, or at least left a name or way for them to contact him. It was all Dean could do not to pack Sam back in the car and head for the hills.
He hated himself for thinking it, but it didn't matter how much Sam's initial tiredness was perhaps to be expected, it was one thing too much. One worry more than he could easily deal with. And it was the one that would ensure that he kept all of his other concerns private. There was nothing Sam could do with the knowledge other than worry about it too, and Dean could at least protect him from that. For the short term at least.
Sam had said he'd do the research tonight. Was Dean allowed to offer to do it for him? Where did that stupid line now sit? They one between being helpful, and trying to limit Sam's burden and involvement? Was that line even there anymore or was he the only one that saw it? Hovering just out of reach. Stifling his every interaction that he wanted, no needed, to remain clear.
It was a delicate trade off. The fight would come, it was now just a case of balancing the intensity of it against the peace Sam might have in the mean time.
He knew it wasn't his decision to make. His conscience spoke in Sam and Bobby's voice, so rarely his own. He had kept things bottled up in the past, and it had caused them both to come undone. But he hadn't known he was flirting with disaster that time around. Maybe he could fool himself for a little while that if he was aware of the danger he would be better able to guard against it.
Sam was watching him curiously through weary eyes. Dean was a fool if he thought he could keep anything from Sam. Well. He could keep things to himself, but Sam could always read the signs that said there was something wrong even if he couldn't tell what it was.
And when the truth came out Sam never took it well.
It wasn't that he wanted to lie. He took absolutely no pleasure in it. In fact it made him sick to his stomach. Sam's face was lined with only concern and trust. They had both kept their secrets in the past, but he had thought they'd moved beyond that now. Had moved into Bobby's with a new policy of unconditional honesty that Sam had done his part to respect.
"I'm just tired." Sam admitted in keeping with this policy, correctly interpreting where at least part of his brother's unease stemmed from. It was ironic, but if he'd been able to express that while exhibiting a little less guilt then Dean would probably have come clean and told him everything.
"Me too." Well, it was true. It wasn't the whole truth, but he couldn't be accused of lying. "Take it easy for a while. We can find McAlister in the morning. Or maybe I'll give it a go in a bit if you want. Anything to limit library time."
"You don't have to, I'll do it later. Aren't you venturing back out again tonight? I thought that Heather woman offered to show you the benefits of… something to do with bikes, but I'm fairly certain it was a euphemism."
"Which one was Heather?"
"Tall. Blond... The one with the pink bra showing."
"Hmmm. Tempting."
"Well I'm not going to be good company tonight."
"Me neither."
Sam didn't ask him if he was sure, made no indication that he didn't believe him, which led Dean to believe his worry must have been showing on his face. But then, Sam had stopped trying to encourage Dean to leave him and go out, trusting instead that he would when he needed or wanted to without needing an additional push from him.
Dean turned on the TV to distract him from his guilty thoughts, and despite Sam's obvious attempts to stay awake and keep him amused, he soon succumbed to the pull of sleep, and Dean knew that while he would never say anything Sam was annoyed by his own inability to keep with the pace of their lives. It was something he would get better at the more they lived it. He knew Dean was staying in deliberately to be with him, but he didn't question why. Again Dean tried to convince himself that if he had, he would have told Sam exactly why he was nit leaving him alone in their room.
But the evening passed uneventfully, and Dean forgot entirely the search he had been going to do, so by morning they were still no nearer the time when they could pack up and leave, hopefully leaving their stalker in the dust behind them.
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"I swear, I'm buying you a toaster for your birthday."
"Well don't tell me." Sam complained, "You've just spoilt the surprise." He was sat on his bed eating bread and jam in an attempt to be both economical and healthy – jam was made from fruit after all. It also limited the amount of time they were out of the motel room in view of the world, but Dean didn't voice that upside out loud.
"Hey, don't get that all over the keys or you're going to be buying me a darn site more than a toaster." He grouched, watching his brother drop his own breakfast alarmingly close to the laptop he was working on. "It's all over your fingers now too. Seriously. Who taught you to feed yourself or did you just nap through that lesson?"
Dean refused to dignify that with a response, although he was slightly too busy picking bits of fluff out of his jam to pay much attention.
Since things were progressing so slowly and they had no idea how long the spirit would remain dormant before striking again, they had decided to split up for the day to cover more ground. Sam was under the impression Dean did not want to ruin his near 3 month stretch by setting foot in a library now. He wasn't aware of the ulterior motive of keeping Sam indoors and out of the way.
Dean was looking up the articles on the death of the workman outside the local shop, and the old woman that had been killed in her home, searching for addresses to go with the stories. The deaths had occurred years ago but it was possible there was something about those particular locations that had encouraged the spirit to act out.
They both knew that splitting up would allow Dean to do all the leg work and Sam to spend the day mostly sitting down. Dean was glad to see Sam getting so protective of the computer, because he'd been subdues since Dean had suggested the day's plans. But he didn't argue the case to accompany Dean either, which suggested he really was more tired than he was letting on.
"Come on, I'll drop you off at the library on my way." Dean ordered, shutting down the laptop, information acquired, surreptitiously wiping specks of jam away with his sleeve.
"You're taking the car today?" Sam asked in a suspiciously hurt voice.
"Well, I'm the one trekking all over town. They look fairly residential areas, parking shouldn't be a problem."
"Now, call me when you're done and I'll come pick you up." Dean mocked, watching Sam scrambling out of the car and looking up at the large imposing building in front of them. "Don't talk to strangers. And try to keep out of trouble. And…"
The overly loud slamming of the car door caused Dean to break off his spiel of concern and start again on a whole different track. But Sam had already moved out of earshot or else was just ignoring his yells.
"Kids today. No respect for their elders." He muttered, pulling away from the curb only when hr had seen for himself Sam disappear safely inside his destination. Old habits were hard to break, and when they concerned Sam Dean was resigned to the knowledge they were near impossible.
He headed for the house where the woman had been killed in May 1992. Sam had gone in armed with her name to see if there was any obvious reason she should have been a fatality. If it was in fact related to the apparent haunting at all. But that seemed likely as far as her story was concerned.
The house had changed hands numerous times since the attack. If there was a reason people were not keen to stay in it longer than a few years then hopefully Dean would find out what that was.
He parked out of the way at the end of the road and approached the house on foot. It was an old fashioned street in one of the oldest parts of town. The houses were small but detached. It looked perfectly normal, if a little too homely for Dean's tastes. Luckily it was far enough out of the way of the main street and any other motels for the street to be almost deserted. He smiled when he saw the lack of car in the driveway and a large hedge surrounding the property. This really was going to be too easy.
Dean ducked low so he would remain unseen from the road if any nosy neighbours were peering out of the window trying to make the bores of suburbia seem just a little bit more exciting. There was no noise at all from inside the house. After a quick perimeter scan just to be sure, Dean silently and skilfully pried the back door open and slipped inside.
Inside the house was quiet. He was sure there was no-one home but it always paid to err in the side of caution. Luckily the inside was spotlessly tidy. No surface was cluttered which allowed Dean to move silently, but also unnerved him more than he could ascertain why. Made his nerves tingle in a way he assumed Sam's did when his senses were aroused. He and Sam had barely any possessions to their name, nothing more than they could fit in the trunk of their car – the part that wasn't taken up by their vast arsenal. And yet after more than two nights in any one place those meagre possessions always managed to spread. Since the age of five Sam had to rescue at least one sock from under every bed he had ever slept in. It was a mystery to Dean therefore how 'normal' people could have so much stuff in there lives and yet be so freakishly clean. A home that didn't look or feel lived in was as unnatural as things came. Dean had encountered a lot of phenomenon that wierded him out less.
The old woman had been found in her living room. Luckily the house was small enough that he doubted the room designations had changed much over the last 15 years. He figured the largest room downstairs would have been the living room then too. It seemed as good a place as any to start.
Elena Camble had been discovered by her grandson when she failed to turn up for a family gathering. She was lying face down in the living room amidst obvious signs of a struggle. Someone had managed to get into the house leaving no visible traces of entry, beaten the old woman so badly she had been unrecognisable, and yet they had left no trace of their presence behind. Had stolen nothing. Had left electricals and jewellery standing in plain sight. Had left, locking the door behind them, and leaving the only known key hanging on a hook by the kitchen door. A motiveless, impossible crime that had never been solved.
He scanned the area thoroughly using the EMF, picking up the same faint barely registering yet constantly present signal that had been in the school. And it wasn't just the room where the attack had occurred. The entire house gave off the same residual reading.
Not really sure what he had expected to find but feeling he should at least have pursued one of their only few leads anyway, Dean slipped back out into the back yard. The furniture was all relatively new, the house had moved out of the Camble family and into several different hands since Elena's death. If there was anything here it would need to be obvious. He had been hoping for a spike, some kind of hot spot that might explain why the attack here had been so much more violent than any others. He knew that Sam and his books and records could probably answer the question more effectively than any visual search, but he couldn't help but be disappointed that the answer hadn't jumped out and announced itself to him. The inside of the house looked much too neat and orderly to suffer from typical signs of a haunting, even if it did change hands regularly. He could feel no cold spots, smell no ozone, and the EMF was barely tingling. But it was making an effort. There was something here. Something subtly ingrained in the whole building.
He continued the EMF sweep in the yard, keeping it brief but skirting the perimeter of the property. Again there were no spikes, just the same background level. In fact it stayed the same even as he moved away from the house back to the car.
Dean was just beginning to have the sinking annoyed sensation that the meter was in fact broken, and would give off the same faint whining signal wherever he decided to stick it, when it suddenly fell silent. In the middle of the street in broad daylight.
He gave it a shake and a tap and nothing. A step forwards and it remained silent. A step backwards and the faint emission returned. He couldn't explain it but it was there. He could actually trace some kind of invisible line down the middle of the street half way between the Camble's old home and the Impala. A solid fixed line denoting the area where this thing was, and where it wasn't. And there was absolutely no logical explanation the he could see for why that apparent line was there.
He sighed, stuffing the meter back into his pocket and moving on before anyone came out to question what he was doing jaywalking in the middle of the road, staggering forwards and backwards unable to keep to his invisible line like a loitering drunken lunatic.
He could only hope that whatever Sam was looking at right now, it made a darn sight more sense. Because he would be hard pushed to feel more confused than Dean was right about now.
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The town library and records office somehow looked a lot bigger on the outside than the in, and Sam didn't think it had been updated since it had been built. In 1847 according to the plaque by the door. The lights were dim and the ventilation almost none existent, but from the sight of the overflowing shelves and the familiar, always comforting scent of old texts and musty manuscripts, he got the impression that every piece of news or book the area had ever produced had been squirreled away in here for a later date. He just hoped the shelves' organisation was easy enough to work out, because there was a mountain of material to get through.
Not having yet reached the twentieth century, let alone the twenty first, all the items were catalogued in a long imposing wall cabinet of index cards; by author, title, and, with a sigh of relief, keywords. There was not a computer terminal in sight. It was a good job he had decided to bring the laptop. Only there didn't seem to be a plug in sight either. He would see how far he got without it for now and conserve the battery.
Armed with only the keyword McAlister Sam was relieved to find he struck surprisingly lucky. Whoever he was he had three whole index cards given over to his exploits. Unfortunately that was as far as his code breaking skills could take him and he had to wander off in search of someone to tell him what the numbers and abbreviations on the cards meant.
The local history librarian was a middle aged woman with thick glasses, who looked like she had never set foot outside the dark musty room and into the world before. She was also by far the friendliest person Sam had come across in this whole town, and seemed to think by the fact he had chosen to spend the sunny April morning in doors with her and her books rather than take in the fresh air and the closing day of the 'noisy bike thing' he was some kind of kindred spirit, and deserving of her entire life story.
But she was fetching and carrying as she talked, with Sam trotting at her heels, nodding sagely when it seemed required and carrying piles of books back to the table. Ten minutes later and they had acquired everything the place had to offer on McAlister. By the way she pointed to the dust ridden and until then unnoticed microfiche machine and suggested he start with the newspaper of May 24th 1902, Sam got the impression that she knew exactly who McAlister was and what he needed to know, but was determined that he needed to go through the exercise of finding out for himself.
It seemed every newspaper the town had ever produced was available in this format, a roll per year, and it was a filing system that Sam could at least understand unaided.
She left him to it and a few minutes later the machine was up and running scanning for May 24th, and Sam was filled with that tingling sensation of being right on the brink of understanding. Mere seconds away from the pieces of knowledge that could potentially slot everything into place.
DISGRACED PILLAR OF COMMUNITY'S SUICIDE CONFESSION
Or not.
"Prominent local landowner Nigel McAlister was found dead last night hanging from the rafters of the school he had made his own. McAlister, once one of the leading influential figures of the area had been embroiled in treachery and scandal in the months leading up to his death. He provides us with no note or clue, so whether this was the act of a tortured and desperate soul or an action compelled by guilt, a last attempt to escape justice, we shall never know. But many will see the image of a broken man clutching his late daughter's teddy bear to his chest as he plunged to his death the last confession and show of remorse for his sins."
So McAlister had hung himself. They were getting somewhere. But he had committed suicide; he hadn't been beaten to death. But if there was going to be rumours of a local ghost, especially one linked to the school, he was an obvious choice. And he had died a violent and troubled death on the same grounds where the most recent attach had taken place.
Sam spent the next couple of hours glued to his seat, only moving occasionally to change the reel on the microfiche before him. McAlister had been an important local figure and the papers loved gossip. His tale was incredibly well documented. Sam doubted he would have been granted a more comprehensive account of events if he had been alive at the time himself.
It seemed McAlister was descended form a long line of notable local worthies. His family owned a large portion of the town, and not long after his marriage he had become principle of the local school. As far as Sam could tell it was the same building that still stood, although it had been much more extensive back then.
While the town had been smaller, the school's reputation for both scholastic and religious excellence, and the lack of any competition in the surrounding area, had meant children poured in from near and far to board in the surrounding dormitories. It seemed McAlister had been in charge during the peek of the school's success, and was blamed by many for its decline.
While his public life was a blooming success, McAlister's private affairs were a mess. His young wife ran away with one of the teachers at the school, amidst scandal and speculation that suggested she was pregnant with her lover's child. He left the school and a fiancé behind to flee with her, leaving McAlister, his strict puritan values, and their seven year old daughter Alison behind them.
McAlister's public profile took a turn for the worse after that, although it seemed he was more enraged at the scandal that had taken place right under his nose than upset at the loss of his wife. He had been made to look bad, and the fact that was his primary concern only served to make him look worse.
That, and the fact that Alison, normally a quiet indoors sort of girl, began to acquire a lot more bruises after her mother left than she ever had in the past. Rumour mongers were running wild with the story. McAlister's life was spiralling down the drain and it was all his wife's fault, but as he could no longer take his anger out on her, he turned to the nearest available substitute. His pretty little daughter that was the spitting image of his pretty young, treacherous, deceitful, wife. Not only was she a constant reminder of his failures as a husband and a moral upstanding role model, but there must also have been the nagging seeds of doubt in the back of McAlister's mind that, if his wife had been unfaithful after her birth, how did he know she had not been so before.
The whole town was divided, but they were enjoying the speculation like they'd never enjoyed anything before. Many said that such an honest upstanding man as McAlister could never have laid a finger on his own child. He was too god-fearing to do it. He lived, worked, and breathed children. They were his livelihood, the school his pride and joy. It was scandalous rumours that would no doubt die in time.
But there was also the town's other faction, the one that knew his family's strict religious upbringing, the discipline of his school, his hatred of sin, that believed recent events, the loss of the wife that had been the only thing that had prevented turning his strict heart to stone, was quite frankly too much. He had only required a gentle push to go over the edge, and he'd been given a hefty shove. And the poor girl was the one to suffer.
From what Sam could ascertain the matter had been ummmed and ahhhed about for months but no-one had actually raised a finger to interfere. What if they were wrong? The McAlister's' were still important, wealthy beneficiaries. So the authorities did nothing. And six months after her mother had absconded with her teacher, Alison was dead. The bruises that everyone had been so eager to discuss but so willing to turn a blind eye to had been steadily increasing in number and severity, and the town's silence had been her death sentence.
Obviously suspicion fell on McAlister. It was already there. Obviously he dined it. Charges were finally laid but it didn't matter, as far as the town was concerned he was already guilty. Turnout at the school halved overnight and had been decreasing ever since. But it didn't matter what the authorities had planned because within days of her death Nigel McAlister was swinging from the rafters of the school that had been his pride and joy.
So they had both died, and it was the daughter that was beaten. But she had died in their home, found by the housekeeper, not the school. So whose ghost were they dealing with? Sam was inclined to believe it was McAlister senior – the whispered threats that Melissa had heard seemed to point in that direction too. But then, Alison could have been bitter at her mother leaving as well, if it had effectively unleashed the abuse that had led to her death.
Sam ran his hands over his tired stinging eyes. There was something about staring at these bright old-fashioned screens that was draining in a way looking at a computer monitor for hours was not. His eyes were beginning to water and his head hurt, but then, every other part of him hurt too so it really didn't matter.
He shifted slightly on his hard wooden chair trying to get more comfortable, rolling his shoulders to ease out the kinks. Sitting down was supposed to have been restful he thought with a sigh. He doubted Dean was coming across anything vicious on his search of the two other scenes, but he would still have felt more comfortable if he'd been there to back him up. But he had woken this morning feeling stiff beyond the telling of it. His body felt like it had been asked to run a marathon not spend two days leisurely wandering a town that was barely three miles across from far flung suburb to suburb. And things were progressing so slowly. This was them taking it easy.
He'd given his body some abuse in the past, but he'd been kind to it of late, had been taking care of it properly. It would have been nice if it could cut him some slack. He hadn't felt this bad when he went to bed last night; he'd felt drained but there had been no pain. Now every muscle was sore. And it was the first day in two months that he had not kept up with even the most basic physiotherapy schedule, and he didn't know what upset him more – the knowledge that he would not have been able to do it or that Dean hadn't asked. Because that implied that Dean knew he wouldn't have managed it as well.
The room was dingy and stuffy and he felt like he'd been benched, even if he knew he would not physically have been able to keep up with Dean today. Would not have been able to move at all tomorrow if he'd attempted it. But that didn't stop him from being annoyed at himself for not being up to the challenge.
He was determined that if he was going to spend the day in here he was going to come out with so much amazing information that his inactivity would prove a blessing.
He dragged himself wearily out of his chair and over to the filing cabinet where the rolls of film were stored. Dean was not here to watch him so he felt no need to take the grin and bare it approach to walking, hobbling the few steps, hands clinging to the edge of the work surface for support, with all the grace of an arthritic ninety year old man. But that didn't matter right now because while his body may have crapped out on him his mind was still sharp, still eager to please and show the rest of him up.
Alison McAlister had been found dead on 21st May. Elena Camble had died on 22nd May, but the attack had been on the 21st. He wobbled over to the table where his other books and notes were still awaiting his attention, searching until he found it. Holden Taylor had been killed reading the electricity meter on 21st November. What was so...?
There was no tedious thought process to figure it out, the answer just hit out of the blue, actually rocking him slightly with its force. The two deaths were seven and a half years apart. Alison McAlister had been 7 and a half when she'd died. She'd had seven years of peace, six months of steadily escalating violence, then death.
There was only one way to find out if the theory was correct. And he only had a hundred years worth of newspaper coverage to scan through to do it.
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The shop where Holden Taylor had been killed was a block away from the school, so Dean decided to leave the car there and cover the last distance on foot.
The pedestrian traffic had picked up again this side of midday. He'd already picked up a sandwich and eaten it in the car so he did his best to ignore the allure of the air conditioned cafes he passed and continued his battle down the street, marvelling at the fact that no matter what direction he decided to move in it was always the opposite one to the crowd. Sam would have had something smart to say in response to that observation no doubt. But then Sam wasn't as smart as he tried to make out. For instance, Dean couldn't help but wonder if he would have the sense to stop and eat something, or if he'd be too engrossed in whatever he was looking at that it wouldn't occur to him until his blood sugar crashed. It wouldn't be the first time.
The general store was larger than Dean had expected, and seemed to sell a wonderful assortment of everything small town America could conceivably need, and quite a few things that Dean couldn't understand why they would. It opened onto the sidewalk with a friendly exterior and an invitingly cool awning shielding fruit from the blazing sun, but a large high wall encircled the building. Dean didn't think there would be any way to climb it solo in anything resembling a dignified manner, certainly not one that would go unnoticed to passers by. Access to the perimeter and meter where the man had died would only be available from inside. He did take a brief EMF reading from the outside of the shop just for curiosities sake, and was not in the least surprised to find the same subtle reading that seemed to pervade so much of the town.
He wanted to look at the meter and talk to the owners about the shop, so it was time to fall back on the same alias they'd used when interviewing Melissa Harper the day before. He could only be grateful the influx of newcomers to the area this week would make it less obvious that in a town where everyone no-doubt knew everyone else's business, they were changing their identities for everyone they met.
Indoors was cool and fairly quiet, and Dean picked out a basket and had a brief browse on the off change the woman behind the counter would be more willing to talk if he's actually bought something.
"Interesting place." He commented as he approached the counter, noting that the isle he was walking down progressed from confectionaries to hardware without him being able to spot a deliberate change. "How long have you had it?"
"Almost ten years now." she answered proudly, if a little suspiciously.
"Really." This could be less of a waste of time than he had been expecting.
Dean quickly introduced himself as a reported working on Melissa's story, and confessed his real reason for being there. Or the closest thing he could get to the real reason without making her call the police. It took some convincing, and the full extent of his charm, to get her over her initial reluctance to talk about what had happened. It seemed she and her husband had been under suspicion for a while and she was not keen to dredge it all back up again, but after he had done his best to assure her they would be in no way incriminated in the article she relaxed a little, and seemed almost eager to cleat her name. To tell her bizarre story to someone who might actually be willing to print it with a straight face. Dean almost felt bad about the fact no such article would ever appear. Perhaps he and Sam should actually start up their own paper, or at least internet newsletter, to balance out the karma of manipulating emotionally vulnerable people into opening up. But then, banishing the violent spirit that had done this would no doubt balance out the cosmic scales. Or it would as far as Dean was concerned at least.
"From what I understand, the death was blamed on a group of youths that had been seen lurking in the area. Have you ever had trouble with kids in here apart form then?"
"No more than any other shop I dare say. The high school's the next town over so we don't really get that many in. I guess it's commented on when a large group hangs out here because it's so unusual."
"Do you remember seeing a particularly large number on the day of Mr Taylor's death?"
"Not really."
"I'm curious… The wall around the side of the property… it's pretty high. It's not like kids would be able to scale it that easily…"
"Exactly" she was getting animated now. "That's what I kept saying. A gang of youths trampling through the shop, attacking that poor man, and rampaging back out again… they would have to have gone right past me. It just didn't happen. Of course, with that lead out of the way the police turned their suspicions on my husband and me instead."
"You were here when it happened?"
"I'm here pretty much every day. I don't know what they imagined motive could be. We were only having out meter read. Was supposed to save us money. Why would we have wanted to kill the poor fellow?"
"Did the police seriously consider you a suspect?" Dean couldn't remember that in the article he'd read.
"Only for a little while. Brian was out of town that week, visiting a sick aunt. I was here by myself, and I was eight and a half months pregnant at the time. It took me ten minutes to get down off my stool and greet the officers, so they figured out pretty quickly it was insane to think I could have done it. Especially the extent of the injuries. That's one of the reasons they thought it must have been a gang. He was banged up so badly."
"And you heard nothing? Even if you saw no-one go through the shop, wouldn't you have heard something?"
"Well, I did in a way. I heard Taylor's tools clattering about. He cried out once but that was it. I didn't have a clue what was happening, thought maybe he's just dropped a wrench on his toe or something. Like I said, I wasn't exactly moving too quickly at the time. By the time I managed to get out and check on him the whole thing was over. I called an ambulance, but he died at the scene."
"This is going to sound strange, but please… Bear with me. Have you ever heard of any similar incidents happening around here? I know the town seems to have an odd history of attacks; they crop up every few years, but what about here in the shop? You've been here for ten years now. Have you ever seen or heard anything strange? Felt as though you were being watched? Any bizarre occurrences, strange accidents, anything like that?"
"Well…" it was her reluctance that made Dean suspect he was onto something.
"Please. It doesn't matter how crazy you think it might sound, anything at all could help us figure out what's going on here."
"Well… sometimes at night it can feel pretty spooky. Like there's someone in here with you. But it's an old building, you know. This whole town is old. It's rickety and things creek, but like I said… we've been here for ten years. We've never felt the need to leave. I don't feel unsafe."
"So there's never been any odd accidents, anything like that? No-one hurt here, other that Taylor of course?"
"Well, not to that extent, no. We have our fair share of mishaps, it's true. The walls are rickety like I said; tend to shift about a bit in the breeze. Warp in winter that kind of thing. Makes keeping shelving up a chore sometimes. Like to fall down on people, but apparently it's a problem the store's always had. And things have been running smoothly for years now."
"Since Taylor's death?" Dean asked innocently.
"I suppose… although recently we've been having issues with wiring and the like, but other than that, everything's been normal."
"Uh huh. I don't suppose it would be okay to go out back and take a look at the scene would it? It won't take long. Just point me in the right direction." The sound of the tinkling bell over the door announced they were no longer alone.
"Sure. There's a door just to the back of the store there. Takes you out into the yard. Meter's just to your left. That's… that's where it happened."
"Okay, thanks… you've been a real help. Truly."
He would look at the scene while he was here, but honestly, he wasn't sure why. It wasn't as though he expected any evidence to still be hanging around after over seven years. And sure enough there was absolutely nothing to see. But when he turned on the EMF, out of habit rather than any great expectation of answers, he got something he hadn't been expecting.
He got a reading.
That meant either the site of Taylor's death actually was a hot spot of some kind, a focus for the spirit's energy, in which case there was still work to do here, or else…
A loud ear-splitting scream tore out of the open door behind him, followed by the sound of clattering from inside the shop.
"Option number two then." Dean muttered, stuffing the EMF away again and storming back inside the store.
The shop floor was pandemonium. The owner and another customer were taking refuge underneath the counter as some kind of hurricane wind was wiping down the isles, lifting off goods at random and hurling them across the room. Dean barely managed to duck in time as a glass jar came hurtling in his direction, smashing into the wall by his head and showering him with mayonnaise. He dropped to the floor with a curse when he realised the next object being sent his way was a hammer.
He hadn't been expecting this, and he wasn't prepared for it now it was here. The only weapon he had on him wasn't loaded with rock salt, and he didn't think he dared introduce it to the chaos that was already present. He was just thinking that the women had the right idea and was preparing to join them in their hidey hole, when movement at the far end of the store made him freeze. And momentarily curse his conscience.
One of the men Dean vaguely recognised from the festival the other night, the one with the strange fixation for chrome polish, was trapped at the end of the isle, and was under siege from every flying object within paranormal hurling range. He had already sunk to his knees in a daze, and was bleeding freely form a blow to the head, and Dean knew that if someone didn't drag him in from the storm soon they were going to have another fatality on their hands.
With a deep breath he plunged into the tumult, hands flailing to ward off blows, a packet of chips to the side of the head, a Hershey bar to the ankles, a six pack to the ribs that nearly sent him sprawling. He realised with a sinking feeling that he was heading away from the confectionaries end of the store into hardware just as a miniature hacksaw came careening his way. He threw up his arms in time to protect his face, letting out a yell as much of annoyance as pain as the small blade slide into the skin of his forearm.
But eventually he reached the semiconscious man at the centre of the attack, scooping him up and flinging an arm over his shoulders he staggered away with his charge back to the counter, where the two women were beckoning to him from the relative safety it provided.
Dean had time to register the younger woman's shrill scream, see the way her eyes opened wide in fright. But before he could question what was causing her to panic something incredibly hard and fast connected with the back of his head and he saw only blackness.
0000000000000000000000000000
Well, it had been annoying beyond reason trying to test it out, but his theory had been correct. Every 7 and a half years since Alison McAlister's death there was a fatal beating in the town, although there was no rhyme or reason as far as he could tell as to who the victims were or where they happened to be when the incident occurred. He still didn't even know if that meant it was the girl's spirit they were dealing with or her fathers. Whether it was re-living its sins or determining to no-longer be the victim. Either way the cycle was well and truly up and running. Melissa Harper's had not been the first attack this year, just the most noticeable. And nor would she be the last. They would continue to escalate over the next month until a final fling on the 21st would leave someone dead. And then the spirit would fall dormant for the next seven and a half years.
He closed off the microfiche feeling so sluggish now he could barely co-ordinate his fingers enough to detach the last roll of film. The headache that had been threatening all morning had now kicked in in earnest, and for some reason was even more apparent now he was no longer staring at the overly bright screen. His eyes were having some difficulty with readjusting to the dim levels of the library proper.
He sat back down at his table and flicked through the texts the librarian had sought out for him, but the pain in his brain was starting to make him feel vaguely nauseous now too, and as much as he wanted to fix himself firmly in this chair and force his body to darn well do as it was told he knew that probably wasn't really a good idea. Dean would no doubt be concerned if he admitted to giving up mid search because he wanted to lie down, but if he either started throwing up or fell asleep before he got back to their room his worry would probably be a little more extreme.
But he would at least work out what, if anything, would be worth reading after the poor woman had spent so long finding them for him.
They were mostly books on the area as a whole that had a brief line mentioning wither McAlister the landowner or school figure before moving on to harvest statistics. There were a couple of items that looked potentially interesting – a book on the school that had a large section on the McAlister family, charting their chronicles as key to the community's educational decline. There was also a surprisingly thick text on local history through gossip and scandals, which of course ran away with the whole tragedy.
He should in theory not be leaving without a location where the two were buried. He asked the librarian as casually as he could but she couldn't tell him. He just had to hope there was a mention of it in one of the books because that was the only part of the story Dean would be interested in hearing. He could always come back himself later this afternoon and search the records office for it, but Sam was officially spent.
It was technically against policy, but the presence of someone under fifty who was actually interested in borrowing something from the library seemed to momentarily throw her; Sam could tell she was secretly keen to agree, and just went through the motions of looking doubtful for the pleasure of hearing him plea. She went to the extent of gathering his name, number, and motel details to make it look like she was concerned about security. He could hear Dean's recriminations in his head as he answered her in more detail than he usually would, but he was too tired now to think of a suitable reason to be cagey about giving out his room number to a complete stranger. She was a librarian for crying out loud; he doubted she ever left this building, probably moulded into the wooden ornate carvings when the sun went down. Who was she going to tell?
He thanked her, tucked the books under his arm, and headed for the exit.
The fresh air hit him the instant he opened the door, and with the first lungful he could practically feel it blowing years worth of dust out of his system, clearing his mind of its aches so effectively he almost considered going back in.
But then the sunlight hit his eyes and he changed his mind again.
Clutching his stack of books to his chest he descended the steps down to the street, pushing away the strange sense of nostalgia; his body's unbidden reaction to the stance. The deja vu would not be followed through to completion because that time and place, that home, no longer existed.
With a sigh he hit level ground, frustrated at the aches in his body at the transition between stairs and not, the old 'it's going to get better' mantra subconsciously returning in time to match the rhythm of his footsteps.
He spotted a free bench further down the road and headed in that direction. He would sit and ring Dean and wait for his ride, a slightly different wave of déjà vu washing over him this time, one that made him smile. He would have sat and waited on the library steps like old times but he physically didn't think he could get that low to the ground. Not and get back up again gracefully, or in any way that wouldn't cause Dean to frown.
He was idly scanning faces in the crowd as he walked, half aware that maybe if Dean had finished earlier than him he would have made his way over to the library to give him a helping hand.
But it wasn't his brother's face that he spotted. Dean looked rough at times it was true, but the sight of him rarely caused Sam to swear in shock and throw himself down a side street into the shadows, pressing himself so close to the wall he could feel his bones grinding against the rough surface of the brick.
He closed his eyes, momentarily overwhelmed by the quick fire thoughts and emotions crashing into him, the fear he had done so well to keep in check.
He flicked his eyes back open, breathing hard, heart beating painfully in his chest as though he'd fled for his life for miles rather than sidestepped one pedestrian to duck into an alley.
What the hell was Kane doing here?
He was supposed to be territorial. He was supposed to be in a completely different state. What possible reason could he have to turn up here of all places?
As if the answer to that wasn't painfully obvious.
He was attracting a few bemused glances from passers by, and attention like that was the last thing he wanted from the street, so Sam did his best to smile back and relax, to force some sense of control into his shaking limbs. To remember to breathe before the dancing spots in front of his vision got any worse. Before he caused a whole different kind of scene.
Tentatively he pried himself away from the wall and peered into the street, doing his best to remain concealed in the shadows. There were dozens of people milling about in the street, human traffic bustling in both directions, but none of them were the face he was looking for. Praying desperately that he wouldn't see.
Was it possible he had imagined it? He was feeling more physically and emotionally vulnerable right now than he had in a long while. He'd spent the morning embedded in a tale of misery and death. Maybe his mind had latched onto that horror and run away with it. Made the neat connection to his own most real underlying fear.
Could he let himself believe that when on some levels he had been expecting this for weeks now?
He had not stopped to really contemplate Kane's looming presence in his mind for a long while now. It had always been there and lurking, but his emotions had been busy enough without giving in to the pull of that fear too. He had grown so used to it being there, a hovering constant, the companion of all his doubts over his rehabilitation, that he almost didn't feel it any more. Couldn't appreciate it for the threat it really was.
But seeing Kane here… Even thinking of seeing Kane here, so grossly removed from context, brought it all rushing back. The truth of his words. The creeping knowledge that it hadn't been a lie. It wasn't a trick. He was a blight on everything he touched. A curse to those around him. He'd always felt it, and Kane had merely confirmed it to be true.
It was a warm day, but Sam couldn't suppress the shiver of disquiet. The chill that ran through his veins. The memory of that breath on the back of his neck, that cruel condescending voice. He'd heard it so often since that night it wasn't beyond the realms of possibility that he was imagining it now.
He hadn't ignored the impending problem entirely. He wasn't that irresponsible. He'd known it was coming and he'd kept his eyes open for signs of its approach. But none had come. Of all the people Bobby had known that had tried to keep tabs on Kane in the past, of all the times they had been asked, not one of them had ever had anything to report. In the last three months he had not surfaced once. There was not one story, not one unexplained even near any one of his known hideouts, anywhere in the state, that could be attributed to him. All his know lairs were empty. Unused. Had been for a long time. As far as the rest of the world was concerned Kane no longer existed. Had dropped off the face of the earth that night in the cabin when Sam had left him and the vampire to their feud. He didn't even know if anyone was still looking. If anyone was stupid enough to believe they would find him if Kane didn't want to be found.
He knew that Dean and Bobby had bowed to the common consensus that the merchant was no more. Or was at least out of their lives, his operation too badly damaged in the aftermath of that night, his other workshops raided and trashed, that he would no longer pose a major kind of threat. It was beyond Sam how anyone could know what Kane had been capable off and believe themselves to be out of his reach. But then, they were not fully aware of the real reason behind Sam's heightened levels of unease.
He would no doubt have given in and told them by now, but during the first few weeks, when he had effectively clammed up entirely, Dean and Bobby had both been uneasy about the idea of applying too much pressure while he was perceived as being emotionally fragile. And by the time he had been more willing to discuss it Kane had been MIA for almost two months, and the urgency had ceased. And while he may have expressed his doubts over the fact Kane's disappearance was permanent, he had not volunteered a reason behind why.
Behind the knowledge that, as much as he wanted the lack of news and hearty reassurances to be true, he was going to be the thing that proved them wrong.
TBC
