Oh noes! FFN is having iss-ews once more. Reviews are either not working, or patchy at best. And I realise that I am a pathetic addict. Waaaaaah! Dear Regulars Denizens, Casual Visitors and Curious Lurkers of the Jimiverse, if you have reviewed and it didn't show up, I beg you, try to submit it again (tense: potential subjunctive). They make me feel loved and wanted. Like sitting in a bath of warm spaghetti, or getting dropped into the offal bin at the abattoir... However, I'm not going to wait before I post another chapter, because I need to man up. Woman up. And get on with it. Please keep thinking those positive waves at the FFN techs, to help them sort out the glitches. Ommmmmmmmmmmm! It's probably plot bunnies gnawing on the wiring, crapping in the server room. There's even one of the little bastards in here RIGHT NOW, demanding that I interrupt this story and listen to it. Vicious, eebil little mongrels. I'll see how long I can hold out.
PS I have corrected the mistake in Chapter 7. 'I beg you to go fornicate with yourself' is not expressed in the potential subjunctive; it is, of course, in the genitive of purpose. Mea culpa. I am now sitting inside a ring of salt to keep any dead irate Latin teachers at bay. You can't be too careful.
Chapter 8
"I'll, uh, go get food, then, yeah?" suggested Sam late the next morning. Dean appeared to have spent the night face-planted into his pillow, with Jimi on snuggle duty. In the knowing way that animals sometimes have, the pup had joined his Alpha in bed and sniffed suspiciously at Dean's backside, then draped himself across it to provide heat pack therapy and moral support.
Dean gave Sam a brief thumbs up, then his arm slumped back to the bed. "Mmmr." he went. Ow, Sam's brain automatically translated from the Deanese.
"How are you feeling?" he enquired.
"Mrrrr rffffff hrrrrrf." said Dean's pillow. My ass hurts.
"You want me to move Jimi?" asked Sam.
"Nrrrrr, hvvv kdd rrrrrrm." Nah, he's kinda warm. "Jfff dnnn ldddmmm llll mmm, dadad bb wrrrrrd" Just don't let him lick me, that'd be weird.
"Well, you can stay here today and breathe pillow while I go check out books at Fardelhaus Hall," Sam told him, "Then I'll start looking for our next job."
"Crfffrf. Brrrg crfffrg. Mmm prr." Instructed Dean. Coffee. Bring coffee. And pie.
"Got it," answered Sam.
"Nnn ssb ht wrrmm. D rrr mrrr rfffffff." And some hot women. To rub my ass.
"Okaaaay, I'll get myself some mind bleach for that particular mental image," griped Sam, picking up his jacket. "Anything else? Some liniment to soothe your bruises? Bath salts, maybe? A down-filled cushion for your tender little tushie?"
A hand twitched. A middle finger extended. "Bfff."
"Jerk." Sam picked up the keys. "How do you do that without suffocating, can you breathe through your ears?"
Dean's head turned, and he smirked at his brother. "Strangely enough, a number of women have asked me that exact same question before…"
Sam fled before his brother could offer any more details.
There were a lot more people around when he made his way back to the diner with the offending menu board, lots of middle-aged-to-elderly men. A babble of voices rose in animated conversations around him.
"It was him, I tell you, I definitely saw him!"
"Impossible. They're all dead now, except for Doc Hanson."
"I'm telling you, it was Matthew! There was no mistaking that hair."
"It was distinctive, wasn't it? Is there some universal law that gifted physicists all have to look like Albert Einstein?"
"And I'm telling you, he's dead. It was in the alumnus Newsletter. There was a picture of them."
"Do you think Peter did the menu board for them here? It's excruciatingly correct. I'm terribly rusty, I think I ordered eggs on toast, but I may well get poached frogs on tiles…"
"Strangely enough, that was a dish that Romans used to serve up, I read about it in one of Doctor Bartlebead's books."
"You really are a nerd, aren't you? Once a nerd, always a nerd. How did you ever manage to breed?"
"Maybe Doctor Bartlebead drifted on down to help out. He would've, you know."
"Aren't you a bit educated to believe in ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night?"
"I saw him, once, walking around in the quad. I could see right through him."
"Presumably after you'd been into Matron's medicinal brandy."
"That's probably what made you see Matthew McKenzie last night."
"There must be something in the water here – Hugh swears he saw Paul a couple of nights ago."
"Have you seen, they're selling off so many things!"
"I suppose the murder will put a crimp in that, the body was found in the hall."
There were general murmurs of agreement as Sam's ears pricked up.
"Was somebody murdered last night?" Sam asked the woman behind the counter when he collected his order.
"Oh, it's terrible," she told him, "Another member of Council! He was out walking his dog before sun-up, and didn't come home. They found him up at Fardelhaus. Such a dreadful thing, it'll put a dampener on the farewell activities."
"Yeah, I guess so," he mused.
He headed for the old school, to be greeted by the sight of a police cruiser, and crime scene tape. A police officer, wearing an expression suggesting that he'd given the same explanation a few dozen times already, told him politely but firmly that there would be no public access to the school today, and the sale of memorabilia would be postponed.
Realising there wasn't much he could do with the place crawling with police, Sam turned to leave, just as Doc Hanson emerged from the hall.
"Hey, Doc!" Sam called to him as he headed for his car. The old man looked startled.
"Oh, Sam," he replied, "What are you doing here?"
"I came up here for the book sale," Sam replied, "But the police say there's been a murder."
"Yes, yes, terrible business, Councillor Aldersen," Doc said, in a distracted manner, fumbling with his keys.
"Was he a Fardelhaus old boy?" asked Sam. Doc looked affronted.
"What? Aldersen? Dom 'The Rhino' Aldersen? Ha! Could barely read without moving his lips. No, he wasn't."
"Do they have any theories yet?" pressed Sam.
"I'll have to do an examination to find out more," the old man said, "Excuse me, I really must go."
On a hunch, Sam asked him, "Doc, did you know Matthew McKenzie?"
Doc flinched, and dropped his keys.
"Er, yes, yes, I did," he said, peering nervously at Sam, "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, somebody in the diner claimed to have seen him, and his friends were teasing him about alcohol-induced hallucinations," Sam answered carefully, watching Doc.
"Yes, well, alcohol can do terrible things to the frontal lobes. Excuse me." He stalled his car once before driving away.
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
"We're not done here," Sam told Dean, before his big brother could draw breath to complain about the tardiness of the catering. "There's been another murder. This morning."
"What? After we ganked Professor Spanky?" Dean sat up, wincing slightly.
"Yeah. It get's better." He filled Dean in on the conversation he'd overhead, and the jumpiness of Doc Hanson. "I got the distinct impression that Doc didn't have a very high opinion of the late Councillor."
"Maybe we need to go back a step, dig up more on these guys," mused Dean. He sighed heavily. "You wanna go to the library, don't you?" he said wistfully. "The library, the old library, with the old, hard wooden chairs. Figures."
"I'll go," Sam told him, "One of us has to stay with Jimi. He can be the furry hot water bottle to your damaged derriere. Make sure he doesn't chew any furniture, dig any holes, or set fire to anything."
Dean contemplated his phone briefly. "Maybe I'll call Kara, tell her we've been abandoned, it's just me and Jimi here, and ask if she'd like to baby-sit me doggy style." He waggled his eyebrows lewdly.
"Like hell you will," growled Sam. "We need Doc's reports on the victims – how's the ankle now, are you feeling up to a little break and enter, or will I?"
"What I feel up to is a long, hot soak, a steak dinner with all the trimmings and a two-hour ass massage," sighed Dean. "Language lessons are just so, so, so… draining."
Sam pulled a face. "Fine, I'll go snooping later. Here," he pushed the laptop towards Dean, "See what you can find in the way of Fardelhaus newsletters. Don't let Jimi pants anyone."
...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo... ...oooooOOOOOooooo...
Sam returned later that night, with pizza, beer and information.
"Hope it's not cold," he apologised, "But they've got a stretch of the road dug up, and I had to find a detour. Why they'd start road repairs when they're expecting so many out-of-town visitors is beyond me…" He noticed the faint dirty paw prints on the floor, and followed them to where Jimi sprawled on his blanket, looking faintly guilty. "Oh, no," groaned Sam, "Tell me he didn't."
"Yeah, he did get away from me for a couple of minutes, there," explained Dean a bit sheepishly, "But it's okay."
"Okay?" echoed Sam incredulously. "Dean there's several yards of tar been dug up!"
"Don't worry," Dean reassured him, "I dragged a couple of roadworks signs off a council truck, nobody will notice a thing."
"I sometimes wonder which one of you should really be on a leash," grumbled Sam, as they sat down to compare notes. Dean was looking happy. Even happier than he should've been when presented with pizza and beer. Suspiciously happy.
"Why are you grinning like an idiot?" asked Sam suspiciously.
"What, I can't be happy to see my little brother return to the fold?" asked Dean in a hurt voice. "Me and Jimi have had a busy day. Jimi's an awesome people person – he makes people want to stop and talk. And give me their phone numbers," he added smugly. "We went for a walk, did some meeting and greeting, worshipped at the Altar Of Pie, chased some tail, sniffed some butt, ate some chicken wings…"
"God, I hope it was Jimi who was doing the tail-chasing and butt-sniffing," Sam commented.
"So far, yeah," confirmed Dean, "But I called Kara, and…"
"Gah!" Sam really did not want the details of what Dean might be planning to do later that night. "Did you get anything resembling research done?"
"Yeah, actually," grinned Dean, turning the laptop around. "Turns out, the reports of a dead dude walking around we got wind of? Not your B&D Latin teacher." He clicked on the laptop. "These guys." The screen showed a picture of four young men, of high school age. "Fardelhaus Hall alumnus newsletter. Vale Matthew McKenzie. One of the 1958 debating team that won some national competition. 'The Apostles', they were called." Sam peered at the photo. One of the boys had unruly hair reminiscent of a troll doll. "Matthew McKenzie, Paul Ablett, Luke Sorensen and…"
"Peter Hanson," finished Sam. The fourth boy in the picture was recognisably a young Doc.
"Yahtzee," said Dean. "So, right now, this place is crawling with Fardelhaus alumni. It's like the Annual Migration Of The Nerds - you'd love it, you wouldn't know whether to burst into tears, or come in your pants. And the older ones are all arguing about who's dead and who's not. It was kinda funny, watching them all accuse each other of senior moments, bad eyesight and going senile. They moved from the diner to a bar a few blocks away, and the argument got even more earnest. Some of it was conducted in Latin." Dean shuddered involuntarily. "Some of 'em swear they've seen Matthew and Paul around the place in the last week, walking early in the morning. But," he clicked another tab, "They're dead. These three guys have all died in the last couple of years. Doc is the last one. In fact, he delivered the eulogy at each funeral."
"They're buried here?" asked Sam.
"Yep. Cemetery's on the other side of town, but they were all locals. Two lived here, one stayed after he graduated," finished Dean, still smiling. "What did you find?"
"Well, isn't that interesting," mused Sam, pulling out his own notes. "Our three dead Councillors were students at the local high school. In fact, they were all on the football team. I found them in the 1958 year book." He pulled out a photocopy of a team picture. "These three. This one's Dominic Aldersen. 'The Rhino'. Lineman."
"Holy crap," breathed Dean, "That's an insult to rhinoceroses everywhere." There was no polite way to put it; as teenagers, the now-dead Councillors had been hulking brutes. He looked back to the photo of the debating team. "You'd have to squash all the debaters together just to make one of them. I mean, how did these guys walk without tripping over their own knuckles?"
"Two of them were repeating their senior year," Sam added. "I guess their coach wasn't too disappointed to have them hanging around for another season. As to how they died, this is where it gets interesting." He pulled out the notes he'd taken after rifling Doc's files.
"Only you could get info on a dead dude and say 'Ooooh, look at this, this is the really fascinating bit'," grumped Dean.
"I see now why the local paper referred to 'unusual' circumstances. Here, Number One died of 'asphyxiation occasioned by forcible immersion of the head in water'. Gross examination showed small fragments of wet paper in the mouth and nostrils, and, er, traces of, um, faecal matter on the skin of the face." He was the one found on school grounds. There were indications that he'd been dragged out of a bathroom afterwards."
Dean frowned. "Are you suggesting he was… swirlied to death?"
"Looks like it," confirmed Sam. "Now, Number Two…"
"I wish you hadn't said that," muttered Dean.
"Okay, poor choice of words, the second dead Councillor was found outside the grounds. Cause of death was 'acute traumatic rupture of several internal organs, including liver, spleen, stomach, pancreas, left kidney and both testes…" Dean crossed his legs involuntarily, "Apparently caused by blunt trauma inflicted by forceful upwards constriction of the deceased's, er, undergarment."
Dean stared at Sam's notes. "So, basically," he said slowly, "This was a case of… a fatal atomic wedgie."
"About twenty megatons of wedgie," Sam told him, "Although he lived long enough to make it out of the school grounds, presumably trying to escape, go for help. Aaaaaaaand the guy who died this morning, expired from 'asphyxia, caused by occlusion of the bronchi and trachea with foreign matter, to wit printed paper." Sam pulled out another page of notes. "It was pages torn out of a book," he said, "I copied down some of the text, in case that's relevant, but I think it might be from Livy's 'Ab Urbe Condita'. They did a real number, stuffing pages down his throat to get as far as his bronchi, I mean, that's where your airway divides, branches into your lungs. It'd take some serious stuffing to get it in that far."
"That's what she said," Dean smirked at Sam's last sentence, then looked thoughtful. "Would you think it was fair to say that these guys were… pranked to death?"
"Bullied to death might be more accurate," opined Sam. "Swirlies, wedgies, stuffing book pages into the mouth – the sort of things that bullies do to geeks. These guys were in their seventies, but still big guys. You'd have to put some serious strength into wedgieing someone so hard that their insides explode. And holding a guy that big in the toilet until he drowned would take some doing."
"So, three dead ex-footballer Neanderthals, bullied to death, and half a dead debating team of 99-pound nerds walkin' around," mused Dean. "Do we have a couple of old boys deciding to put in one last appearance for the Fardelhaus farewell activities?"
"Could be," agreed Sam, "And I think Doc Hanson might know something about it. He nearly jumped when I asked about Matthew McKenzie." He thought about his first encounter with Dr Bartlebead. "And somebody told Dr Bartlebead about me correcting the Latin on the diner menu. I think that Doc might have been to chat with the old guy, despite saying otherwise."
"He didn't really strike me as the type to dabble in the occult," Dean commented.
"He did seem familiar with Dr Bartlebead's eclectic book collection," Sam pointed out, "Maybe he found something there, decided to give it a try."
"What would prompt an educated man, a doctor, to try talking to ghosts, or making reanimator juju?" wondered Dean.
"Maybe he was lonely," speculated Sam. "If the Apostles were all local, they were probably friends. Fardelhaus was a place to make friends for life, Dr Bartlebead told me. Doc was the last one left. After all, from his point of view, what's the worst that could happen?"
"You succeed in raising the dead, and they start murdering the living who bullied them when they were kids," answered Dean in a resigned tone. "Okay, our next move it to check out the cemetery. If the nerds' graves have been disturbed, we'll go have a little chat with our friend Doc." He checked his watch. "If we get there right on dark, we can scope out the graves, get back here, clean up and change…"
"Change? Change?" asked Sam. "Why do you need to change?"
"Because, grinned Dean, "I am meeting up with Kara tonight."
Sam rolled his eyes and treated Dean to Bitchface #6™ (I Wish You'd Let Your Upstairs Brain Drive More Often). "Dean, we're working a case, here. You'll just have to tell Little Dean to wait."
"This is important, Sammy," said Dean earnestly, "I've made arrangements already. I can't let a lady down."
"What about your ass?" asked Sam, mildly curious. "I thought your ass was broken. I didn't think you had a pain kink, and if you do, I don't want to know."
Sam finally got his explanation for Dean's cheerfulness. "I'm definitely going to enjoy her company," his big brother told him. "She likes mixed drinks, old cars, action movies, and," his grin broadened into a wide smile, "She's studying to be a masseuse!"
Reviews are Arse Massages in the Language Lessons of Life. Did I write that? Sorry. I'm a bit caffeine depleted. How about, Reviews are the Warm Puppy Cuddles on the Bruises of Life? Arse massage, or puppy cuddles? You can make your opinion known in the reviews. Anyone who wants a puppy to massage their arse will be put in therapy. Ignore that excited squeeing in the background, it's just elf. Be quiet, elf, we know whose arse you are volunteering to massage. I think PaulatheCat might argue with you over access. Take it outside, you two.
