004. Dark

John Winchester and his oldest son Dean, who was 14, were headed out on a hunt - just another Friday night for their family. Ten-year-old Sam was back "home" at the motel they were staying at, most likely pouting for being left out.

John and Dean were carefully stalking through the local cemetery in the Georgian town they were in. All of the bodies residing in the graveyard were in crypts so as to keep them from getting ruined by the water and muck of the swampy land. There were looking for a certain family mausoleum, to burn the bones of a man who was haunting and harassing his daughter for marrying his rival's son.

"You see it?" Dean heard his father whisper. They had to keep it down since the cemetery was off-limits after dusk and it was far, far past nightfall.

They were looking for a crypt marked "Tulloch" and we're pretty deep into the graveyard and hadn't seen it. To be honest, Dean was getting bored and impatient and he just wanted to get the job done. He was eager to prove himself to his father at any chance he got and if he could take out a ghost tonight all on his own, he knew his dad would be proud.

"Hey, look," came John's voice again, snapping Dean from his thoughts. He looked to where his dad was pointing and saw a small crypt with "Tulloch" carved in the stone above the doors, which were chained and padlocked shut.

"Let's make this quick..." John raised his handgun and shot the padlock from the door.

"Someone probably heard that, you know," snarked Dean.

"Yes, I know, that's why we have to go fast. Come on."

Dean followed his dad, flashlight in hand, into the small space where the walls were embedded with sealed coffins, the resting places of all the Tullochs since the turn of the century.

"There it is," Dean had spotted the place where Hugh, the father of their client, was taking his eternal nap.

As John pried open the tomb, he left Dean to shine the flashlight out of the opened doorway and keep watch.

"Can you pass me that light? Barely see a damn thing..."

Dean tossed the flashlight to his dad and watched as his dad salted, poured gasoline on, and burned Hugh Tulloch's bones. Dean didn't even know why he had come on this hunt, he hadn't done a thing. He had hoped the ghost would have at least come back and put up a fight.

"Dad, we done here?" Dean asked with some disappointment as he returned to where his father stood at the back of the crypt.

"Yep..." John let out a breath and clapped his son on the shoulder. "What, you expecting something more exciting?"

Dean just sighed.

"Let's go," said his dad, leading the way from the mausoleum. Dean trudged behind him slowly...

The next events seemed to happen all at once:

John stepped outside the crypt, turning back to see why his son was taking so long.

The crypt's doors slammed shut, between John and his son.

Dean was plunged into complete darkness.

"Dean!" John pounded on the doors, but they wouldn't budge. The lock was gone but the doors were sealed by some force that was beyond his reckoning.

The boy inside the crypt couldn't even see his hand in front of his face. He backed up from the doors when he heard his dad pounding on them and tripped backwards over a shift in the stone floor, landing backwards and hitting his head off the ground. He didn't pass out but Dean felt a deep throbbing pain in the back of his skull. He pulled himself up off the ground slowly and swayed a bit when he got up at last.

"Dad?! Dad- I'm okay!" Dean called, it was a lie but he needed to say something to his father who was losing it outside the mausoleum.

The words did calm John down some, but the situation inside the crypt was about to get worse.

Inside, Dean was starting to get a little panicked in the dark. He was dizzy, hurt, disoriented and surrounded by dead bodies and stale air that reeked of smoke from the burning of the bones his father had performed. He didn't really have control over what was happening but he was undoubtedly slipping into a panic. It was dark. So dark. Too dark. He couldn't freaking see literally, or foresee a way of him ever getting out of this place.

Why wouldn't the doors open? Something must've been keeping them shit. Something... Supernatural...

That's when Dean noticed how very cold it was in the crypt; deathly cold. He tried to catch his breath and calm his nerves enough to turn around, and when he did he cried out in fear of what he saw.

A glowing, bluish green and translucent woman, dressed in her best clothes... Floating a few inches from the ground: a ghost.

She spoke to Dean, who was backing slowly to the door his father was on the other side of.

"My daughter... Betrayed us... Betrayed her father... Unforgivable, unforgivable!" She repeated the word until she was wailing it and approached Dean with her hands out and ready to choke the life out of him.

"DEAN!" John could hear all that was going on inside but if only he was in there, he could be saving his son.

As the cold and clammy hands of the ghost woman closed around Dean's throat, the boy closed his eyes and tried to think quickly and rationally.

How will I get out of this? How will I get out of this? His thoughts raced... And then he went limp. Hanging there, breath gone out of him, with the ghost's impossibly strong hands around his neck.

As the ghost tossed Dean's body aside, she started to retreat back to her tomb.

She screamed out in pain and shock when a heavy iron chain sliced through her midsection.

Dean had found the chain on the floor by the door, the chain that had been holding the doors to the crypt shut before his dad had shot it off.

The doors to the mausoleum burst open at John's hand (or fists) and he rushed inside, gun drawn and ready to fire. He lowered his weapon immediately when he saw his son grinning up at him, a chain wielded in his hands.

"Son, what happened?"

"Mrs. Tulloch's ghost happened. I took care of her though, see? Iron."

"Great job Dean, but she won't be gone long. Let's get out of here, you okay?"

"Yeah," Dean lied again, he was still shaken by his panic in the dark and his head still throbbed with a deep pain.

The two of them ran from the crypt and out the cemetery gates to the car waiting just outside. Once inside the car, John shook his head an turned to his son.

"So what really happened in there?"

Dean just shrugged and yawned.

"I took care of it, I told you..."

"Alright, you keep your secrets."

They were silent the rest of the drive to the motel, where they had adjoining rooms: one for the boys and one for John.

Dean entered his and Sam's room and found Sam fast asleep on top of the far bed, clothes still on and frowning. He must've gone to sleep pouting and waiting for them to return. Dean cracked a smile, and left the lights on when he flopped down to sleep in his own bed at last.

Just in case.