Thanks for all your wonderful comments and support. RL has been crazy but I finally have time to continue this story. Sorry for the unexpected hiatus. Enjoy! Oh slight ick factor at the end... Thanks Alaina for the awesome beta!

Snap

Chapter 7

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Sam groaned as he and his entourage reached the dark foyer where he'd left Arnold, George and Sid. The men were gone. "Where the hell did they go?"

Dean glanced around. Sam's flashlight beam cut through the darkness but gave no indication of where the missing guys were.

"Don't look at me," Gracie piped up as she moved closer to Dean, pressing herself against the hunter. She looped one arm around his waist, the other still holding the cat. "I was busy getting to know the incredible hunk here," she cooed. Gus jumped out of her arms and strode towards Sam as Dean just stared at Gracie. He didn't seem to know what to do with her. The head injury had to be messing with him.

Sam rolled his eyes as he shone the light on the floor looking for any sign of which way the men had gone. "I don't believe this," he muttered, rubbed his eyes, then crouched down to get a better look.

"What?" Beth demanded. She stood a bit behind Dean and Gracie, her arms wrapped tightly around her body in a self-hug. Sam heard the tremble in her voice as she continued. "What's wrong?"

"Dean?" The younger Winchester didn't have to ask twice as the older man separated himself from his groupie and carefully knelt down next to Sam and confirmed what Sam was seeing. Or rather what he wasn't…

"Well. Damn," Dean sighed out, reaching up to rub his eyes tiredly. Sam frowned with concern, knowing his brother was hurting.

"Damn?" Beth's voice went up a notch, "That doesn't sound good." She and Gracie moved towards each other as Gus rubbed up against Sam's leg and purred loudly. "What's wrong?" she repeated.

"Oh nothing much," Dean said blithely as he slowly straightened back up. "I'm sure lots of old houses have sparkling clean floors."

"Sparkling?" Gracie huffed haughtily, "You call this clean? I wouldn't wanna eat off them."

"Do you normally eat of floors?" Sam heard himself asking as he reached up to touch his own aching head.

"Stop that," Dean growled swatting at the arm.

Sam glared but dropped his hand anyways.

"No," Gracie snorted. "Not normally."

Deciding he really did not want to know, Sam stood beside his brother and considered what to do. They could just leave and trust Arnold, Sid and George to find their own way out but –

But that is not what a Winchester did. Like it or not, Sam felt responsible for the bumbling idiots and he knew his brother would be feeling the same way. It was how their father raised them.

"So," Beth's voice broke the pause, "someone-"

"Or something," Dean put in grimly.

"Or something," the brunette conceded, "wrote us a welcome note and tidied up for us?" Her eyes reflected in the dark as the hunters turned towards her. "Is anyone else as freaked out about this as I am?"

"I think it's kind of romantic," Gracie purred as she sidled up against Dean, wrapped her arms around his waist and snuggled in. "Don't you?"

Dean pushed her off, his face a mixture of anger and disbelief. "Are you completely nuts?"

"No," she smiled brightly. "I have meds."

"Oh wonderful," Dean rolled his eyes and winced as he moved away from the blond. He tipped his head towards the stairs. "You think they went up?"

"I dunno," Sam shrugged. "They were supposed to stay here." He glanced down at his flashlight. "I didn't leave them a light… Figured it'd keep them here."

"Yeah well, I think that'd require some sense of self-preservation and obviously these yahoos don't even have a lick of it," Dean muttered as he scrubbed a hand through his hair in agitation.

"Hey," Gracie protested, "Sid and George are-" she stopped mid complaint and pursed her face in a frown. "Where's Gus?"

Sam looked down, noticing for the first time that the cat wasn't rubbing up against him anymore.

"Oh freakin' wonderful. Now the damn cat is gone," Dean complained then scowled as, wordlessly, Sam plucked the swear jar out of his pocket and held it out. The older man sighed loudly and got his wallet. "You know… when we get back to Bobby's, I am going to make you eat his damn hat."

It cost him two dollars.

------

"I don't know if this is such a good thing," Arnold whined as he followed George and Sid down the hall and away from the stairs. "Sam said to stay here."

"A minute ago you were ready to go off after your cat," Sid reminded the birdwatcher as he led the way.

"Well, yeah, but that was when I thought something might happen to Gus. He's my only family, you know," the older man dignified.

"And now I gotta take a piss," Sid supplied. "And that is much more important then your cat."

"Says you," Arnold huffed as he hurried to keep up.

"Guys," George tried to intercede. "Can we just find a john and get back to the stairs before Sam finds out we're gone and shoots us?"

"He won't really shoot us," Sid scoffed, then grinned at Arnold as the man trailed behind. "Well not all of us anyways… What's the old saying? You don't have to outrun the shooter? You just have to outrun your friends!"

"I'm not your friend," Arnold whined.

"No kidding," Sid agreed then stopped at the entrance to a long corridor. With no windows to offer even a meager sliver of light, it was forebodingly dark.

"Uh, Sid?" George shifted to stand next to his friend. "I don't know if this is such a good idea any more. Maybe we should go back and wait for Sam."

"You go back," Sid started down the hallway. There were rows of doors on either side, one of them had to be a bathroom. "I'm taking a piss first."

Giving each other an uneasy look, George and Arnold followed the other man anyway.

------

"Okay, here's the plan," Dean started after he and Sam had quietly conferred for a few moments. He was itching to get out of this creepy house. They had wasted way too much time here as it was. The bloody welcome on the wall was not a good sign but it was more than that. There was something about all this that was screaming a familiarity that shivered along his spine but he couldn't place his finger on it yet. Damn possible concussion. "You girls are going to wait outside while Sam and I look for the guys. Once we find them… and after we've pounded them into pulp, we're going to all get the-" he glanced at Sam, "heck out of here."

Sam smirked and Dean wished he had more time to start the pounding with his younger brother and that dang swear jar first.

"And Gussy?" Gracie pouted.

"And Gus," Sam flashed her a brief smile which had Gracie beaming, batting her eyelashes and starting to saunter towards him. Beth grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

"Okay," the brunette easily agreed and Dean was thankful, a bit worried that she might insist on them helping out when things would go a lot more smoothly if it was only him and Sam. "C'mon, Bambi, let's get out of this hole."

"Gracie, not Bambi!" the blond protested as Beth started to drag her towards the front door.

Dean glanced at his brother ready to share in the tiny victory as Beth reached the handle on the door and gave it a tug. She made a surprised sounding grunt

"Beth?" Sam's tone was guarded.

"The door," the girl pulled on it again, "it won't open."

"Oh for pete's sake," Dean grumbled as he quickly moved towards the door, grabbed the handle and yanked. She was right. It wouldn't open. He turned back towards his brother, "Uh, Sam, we might have a small problem here."

Sam immediately joined him but even with the combined strength of two Winchesters, the door refused to open.

"What's going on?" Beth demanded nervously. "Why won't the door open?"

Dean glanced at his brother. Sam shrugged, "We came in easily enough."

"Okay so whoever is behind all this doesn't want us to leave yet…" Dean surmised grimly.

"Maybe he just doesn't want us to leave without the boys," Gracie offered unhelpfully.

The hunters ignored her, wordlessly moving away from the front and starting back the way they came.

"Dean?" Beth asked as she and Gracie started to follow, "Where are we going?"

"The windows are broken," Sam called back to her as he led the way, "it sucks but that's going to be our way out."

Gracie put on the brakes, grabbing Dean's arm to stop him. "Whoa, wait a second here," she indicated her short skirt and high heeled shoes. "Do I look like I'm dressed to climb out a window?"

"I'm sorry, sweetie," Dean's tone was dark as he shook his grip off her arm, "why don't you just wait here in this dark hallway all by yourself then." He shrugged and started to move again, the throbbing headache in the back of his skull making him cranky. "Try not to get eaten."

"Eaten?" The girl actually squeaked and hurried to catch up, pushing past Dean and Beth to latch onto Sam. "Do you think there's something here that wants to eat me?"

Sam didn't bother to dignify that with a remark. He just moved in single purpose of getting the girls, at least, out of here.

------

"Sid, you done in there yet?" Arnold paced nervously outside the small bathroom they'd found. The hallway was dark and he could barely see the hand in front of his own face. He almost bumped into George who was standing on the other side of the door. "This is stupid," he muttered to himself when Sid didn't answer, "what are we doing here?"

"Sid needed to piss," George stated bluntly.

"Yeah, well, abandoned old house?" Arnold scoffed, "I think he should have just peed in the hallway. I mean who would have cared?" If George shrugged, the birdwatcher couldn't see the movement. He continued on, "I know it. I just know it. We shouldn't have left the stairs. Sam is going to kill us." Then something rubbed up against the man's leg and he screamed.

A second later, Sid screamed from the bathroom.

------

"What the hell?" Dean started to run in the direction of the screams.

"That was Sid!" Gracie cried out as she ran after him.

Sam quickly took the lead, his flashlight bobbing the path along the dark floors. "Arnold?!" he bellowed, "Sid?"

"Sam! Sam! We're here! Here!"

Pounding towards Arnold, the Winchesters heard George yelling for Sid and finally heard him banging on a closed door.

Instantly George grabbed Sam, his normally blandness replaced by fear as he shoved the larger man towards the door. "Sid's in there! Something's happened to him-"

Before he could finish, Dean was kicking in the door.

Sam shoved both Arnold and George towards the girls then followed his brother into the small room –

The smell hit them first. Pungent, coppery. Blood.

"Oh shit…" Sam whispered as his light flickered around the room. He swallowed back bile at the color that bathed the walls, the floor and the ceiling. It was like a can of dark red paint had exploded. But the hunters knew better. It was blood.

Creepy Sid's blood.

"Sammy." Dean's quiet voice drew his attention to the toilet. The older man looked sick.

Sam didn't want to look but he had to.

Moving to stand by his brother, Sam shone the light into the toilet. All the color drained from his face.

Floating in the toilet bowl water was a human hand.

TBC