So I was thinking of having an OC created to have as Chris' love interest come in next 'episode'. There's a rumor I keep hearing about Cas dying at the end of season ten. And I really don't wanna do a Cas/OC if he ends up dead, as in completely no coming back dead this time. Plus, I'm really impatient to go three or so seasons with no relationship love. So any suggestions for the possible OC? Possible names or looks, personality traits? Any horrible details about his past he tries to hide?
End of the Hook Man:O
Chris found herself climbing out of the impala in front of the church. To end the hook man, they had to destroy the silver hook that had been reforged into something completely else. Sounds easy...she wished. Dean rounded the car to the side Sam and Chris stood on. "Alright, we can't take any chances. Anything silver goes into the fire." Dean said, taking charge.
"Great, I always enjoyed a good bonfire." Chris said, putting her hands together and popping her knuckles. Silver made a good bonfire, right?
"Well Lori's still at the hospital. We'll have to break in." Sam said like it was the most natural thing in the world. And since this was the lives of the Winchester's it kinda was. Chris didn't blink an eye or flinch at breaking laws or the threat of being caught by the officers of the law. Surely wouldn't be the first time she'd been arrested.
"Alright, so whose doing what?" Dean asked, leaving the choice up to his little siblings. It didn't matter to him anyway, All he wanted was to gank this hook man and go to a bar somewhere in town, pick up a girl...that sounded fun.
"I'll take the house." Sam said, already turning to leave to the house next door. He wasn't comfortable with something tying down a spirit to the place where Lori slept at night.
"Wait for me, I'll go with him." She told Dean, jabbing a finger over her shoulder at Sam's retreating back. She couldn't help herself and grinned teasingly. "Someone has to make sure Lori's modesty is saved and he doesn't go through her underwear drawer." It wasn't a secret Lori clearly liked him and maybe given time, Sam would enjoy her company as well.
It took several long minutes, nearly an hour long, to gather everything. Chris had swiped a pillow case and tossed in everything she thought could possibly be silver. Sam had done the upstairs while she'd done the downstairs. Now the bag was tossed over her shoulder like Santa's sack of gifts. Sam and her met back up and hurried over to the church where Dean was throwing silver into a roaring fire. "I got everything that even looked silver." Sam said, tossing his bag into the fire.
"Well I guess that makes two of us." Chris said, her bag joining his. The fire flickered, turning what it touched to ash.
"Better safe than sorry." Dean said, tossing an old silver goblet into the fire. Chris stood between her brothers, watching the flickering fire burn all the silver in a church and house they could find. Chris' ears that were sensitive from years of hunting caused her to freeze to make sure she was hearing the footsteps creaking she was hearing on the floor above them. Dean pulled the gun from the back of his pants, "Move, move," he hissed.
Although really, there wasn't any need to do such. He hadn't even gotten the words out and Chris already had her gun in hand with rock salt bullets. Chris followed Sam up the stairs while she was followed by Dean. As they reached the top stair, Chris quickly slid her gun behind her back. It wasn't anything that needed a gun for, it was Lori crying alone beside the pew across the room. "Let's go," Chris muttered awkwardly. Lori didn't even seem to notice they had been there at all.
Chris and Dean must have sat in silence for several long minutes, watching the fire burn. It was silent but the atmosphere was comforting, they were family after all, that had completed yet another job and saved who knows how many lives this monster would have killed had they not stepped in. Chris was wondering if she should eat her last candy but was unable to make a decision. At that moment, there was the all to familiar screaming of Sam coming from upstairs. Damn, they didn't finish the job after all, did they? Nobody was sure who was faster or who got up first, but both Dean and Chris were flying through the door at the same time, guns up and ready. The Hook Man was standing over Lori and Sam was behind him, prepared to fight.
"Sam, drop!" Dean screamed strong and loud. In this family, an order like that wasn't met with resistant, questions, or wondering 'what the hell?' Sam didn't stop to ask, he dropped like a hot sack of potatoes. Chris started shooting without thought or hesitation, her rock salt bullets mixing with Dean's into the hook man spirits back. The hook man vanished in a swirl of dust, but that didn't mean it was the end of it.
Sam climbed to his feet nearly stumbling, "I thought we got all the silver?" He exclaimed. Chris bit her lip as she walked over with Dean, hand not loosening around her pistol.
"So did I!" Dean shouted back, waving his arms a little. Chris didn't see where they could have missed something.
"Maybe we're just missing something." Chris suggested, fingers twitching subconsciously around her gun. Chris and her brothers looked around desperately, as if what they missed would just pop out at them. It was surprising when it actually did.
Chris had forgotten all about Lori who was freaking out on the floor, until Sam noticed something. "Lori, where did you get that chain?" He demanded. Chris realized what he was talking about, Lori had a silver chain with a cross necklace clipped around her neck.
Lori looked up startled with a deer in headlights expression. "My father gave it to me." Lori responded shakily. They had to move this along if they didn't want to be hooked by the hook man.
"Where'd your dad get it?" Dean demanded. Chris looked around, panicking that the hook man could arrive any second while they were interrogating the girl.
Lori's breathing became rapid as she said, "He said it was a church heirloom, he gave it to me when I started school?" Poor girl never asked for this, now it looked like she was about to have a seizure with her flushed expression.
Chris' heart was starting to pound in her ribcage and she was all tensed, in her flight or fight reflex that all humans seemed to have. "Is it silver?" She snapped.
"Yes!" Lori screamed. Sam wasted no time reaching up and literally yanking the chain off her neck, popping the lock. Chris felt a chill go up her spine, a sound like nails on a chalk board, then there was a long scratch appearing by itself on the wall.
"Sam!" Dean shouted. Dean tossed him the shotgun and Sam tossed him the necklace. Chris was already shooting where the mark had appeared. Dean raced as fast as he could, throwing the necklace into the fire.
Chris cried out as her gun was suddenly yanked from her hands. Chris was flung into the wall, crying out as she practically felt the bruises forming. Sam was trying to reload his gun but her floating gun held by a now visible hook man knocked it out his hands. Chris rolled onto her knees and crawled over to where Sam and Lori had fallen to the ground in the corner. Chris froze as the shadow of the hook man fell over her form. Lori was half hidden by Sam and Sam grabbed Chris by her arm, tugging her over to him, what was taking Dean so long? The hook man raised his hook but froze there for several pain stricken seconds. The hook suddenly melted and the hook man gave this awful screeching, burning into flames as Dean came running back in.
Chris felt her body relax, at least this time they knew they were done.
The next morning, "And that's exactly what happened." Chris told the police officer. The church was crowded with police and ambulances, making sure everyone was okay. She may had changed the story a little, nobody would believe it was an actual ghost.
"And you saw him too? The man with the hook?" The officer asked Dean as he walked up behind Chris, swinging an arm onto her shoulders. Chris winced and he eased up, knowing about the fresh bruises across her shoulders.
Dean went with the story they rehearsed before calling the police. "Yes, we all saw him. We fought him off and then he ran."
"And that's all?" The officer asked, making sure he had all the facts. The two siblings nodded. The sheriff glanced around trying not to be obvious. "Listen, the two of you and your brother..."
"Oh, don't worry, we're leaving town." Dean interrupted. Just like every hunt aftermath, it was time for them to leave for the next thing.
"And we're probably never coming back. This town...it's to much." Chris said with a secretive smile. A ghost was the most common supernatural threat, nothing that couldn't be handled. Chris let herself be led to the car. In the back seat, Chris groaned as she put a root beer flavored sucker into her mouth. "You think he'd be okay?" Her voice nearly not being clear enough. Dean was watching Sam say goodbye to Lori.
Dean was silent until Sam silently slid into his seat, closing the door behind him. "We could stay." Dean suggested. Like always, his brother and sisters' happiness came first, he would stay if it would help Sam move on. Sam silently shook his head and so they left. It was complete silence for several miles.
Lori was just as sad. She had a feeling she would never see that family again.
At Oasis Plains, Oklahoma: construction workers were hard at work building a new street of luxury homes. Two long time work partners, Travis Weaver and Dustin Burwash, were chatting away during they're work. "Man," Travis started, looking at the houses already built. "These are some phat houses, huh? I'd like to live here." To bad his salary would never get a house like this, he was just the gas man after all.
Dustin snorted at the thought of being able to afford such a large house. "Yeah, too bad you can't afford it." Not like his salary was much better.
"Yeah, you're right." Travis signed disappointed. Hard working folk like himself didn't get such a luxury compared to the people who hired them by sitting behind a desk all day. "This neighborhood'll be damn expensive when it's done." Just the cost of materials was a fortune. Only the richest of the rich would be in this district. Travis grunted as he slapped his neck, killing a mosquito in annoyance. Why someone wanted to build a luxury street of homes where there was so many bugs was behind him. Travis jumped surprised when Dustin behind him suddenly started screaming for help, sounding panicked. Travis hurried over after Dustin had fallen into a hole taller then his body but a tight fit.
"Help me! I'm trapped!" Dustin called up, crying out as he tried to move. "I broke my ankle!"
"Alright!" Travis called down. "I'll get a rope!" He left as fast as he could after that.
In the hole, Dustin was struggling not to move his ankle. He could feel the blood leaking out the wound. He'd broken enough bones in his lifetime to know that's what had happened. He started to breathe heavily. Dustin didn't like to admit the one weakness he had: claustrophobia. It was starting to hit him, he struggled not to have a panic attack. That went out the window as he realized there was beetles in the dirt surrounding him. Not a few, but thousands among thousands of little beetles surrounded him crawling. Dustin panicky brushed them off when they dropped onto him. But it just seemed the more he tried getting them off, twice as more would drop on. Travis had just reached the truck when the beetles started to swarm to Dustin like bees to honey. All Dustin could do while trapped in that small hole was scream for mercy.
By the time Travis ran back, he would be too late. All he would find was Dustin, gushing blood from his ears, nose, and eyes. Dustin was dead long before Travis and multiple workers who ran over to help manage to pull him out.
At a local Oklahoma bar, "Thanks for the game boys." Chris smirked, innocently putting the hundred bucks she earned into the front of her shirt. She put it into her bra beside her pocket knife. She had used the excuse of going to the bathroom before getting drawn into a game of darts. Acting like she sucked the first few times, she giggling like a ditz before claiming 'beginner's luck' when she started winning the game.
Chris found Sam at a nearby table, "A hundred bucks well earned." She said proudly, dropping into her seat across from it.
"Ha! That's it!" Dean laughed as he came up behind her, waving two hundred bucks in cash around. He'd just won it from doing nearly the same trick she did, the main difference was he had been playing the pool table. Then Dean seemed to realize what she'd said. "Wait, were you hustling?" He demanded over protectively. He knew girls usually flirted to get money they wanted out of guys and he didn't want any guy thinking he had a chance with his sister.
"Uh..." Chris glanced around. "Oh lookie, this must be mine." She quickly grabbed what was clearly Sam's half drunk beer and started drinking it.
Sam gave her his standard bitch face but let her keep his beer. He couldn't help but comment, "We could get day jobs once in a while."
Chris looked at him confused, why would they do that? "Hunting's our day job and the pay is crap." Dean shot back. Meaning they didn't get paid at all. Heck, they were lucky if they even got a thank you for saving they're lives.
"Besides, normal jobs are horrible and you don't get paid except for every few weeks." Chris committed. "And normal jobs payments suck."
"But this isn't the most honest living in the world." Sam said, trying to make them see reason. It wasn't working out. "Hustling at darts and pool? Credit card scams?"
"Well let's see, honest." Dean held up a single hand. "Fun and easy." He smirked holding up the money he won. "It's no contest." Of course there wasn't, Chris thought, feeling the weight of the money on her skin. "Besides, we're good at it." Chris had practiced with teenagers far older than she was until she could trick the best of them. "It's what we were raised to do." Dean finished. Chris may not had been raised the same way but she'd still gotten drawn into it.
"Yeah, well how we were raised was jacked." Sam scoffed. At least he hadn't been abandoned.
"At least you stayed with the same family." Chris said instead. She'd been to so many different families, she'd lost count by the time she was seven.
Chris wasn't surprised at all when Dean quickly changed the subject. He always did when the way she grew up came into conversation. "We got a new gig or what?"
"Maybe." Sam said, turning the computer around to them to reveal an obituary. There was a picture of some guy. "A gas company employee, Dustin Burwash, supposedly died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob." Dean and Chris gave him an identical 'what the hell' look. "Human mad cow disease?" He declared.
Chris let out her low whistle. "Don't think I've ever came across a case that dealt with a mad cow disease."
Dean looked curios as he remembered hearing about the disease before. "Mad cow, wasn't that on Oprah?" All Chris could only stare at him with a slightly dropped jaw. Since when did he watch Oprah? She only watched it the few times she couldn't get a believable excuse to Brooke fast enough. There was only so many times you could fake chicken pocks and have to be quarantined before it became unbelievable. Dean had said it a way that clearly said he didn't watch it just because it was on, but more like he'd actively searched for it.
"You watch Oprah?" Sam looked like he was trying not to laugh. Chris started to bite her lip, trying not to giggle but failing.
Dean clearly looked embarrassed, stuttering because he couldn't find a way out of this one. So he went with the only thing he could do: he quickly changed the subject, coughing slightly. "So this guy eats a bad burger, why is it our kind of thing?"
Chris straightened up, listening closely as Sam explained. "Mad cow disease causes massive brain degeneration. It takes months, even years, for the damage to appear." Chris looked confused, this guy was a gas man. You couldn't work with gas and have a disease, could you? "But this guy, Dustin?" Sam shook his head. "Sounds like his brain disintegrated in about an hour, maybe less."
Chris choked on the beer she's just drunk. "What the hell?" She asked. That couldn't be possible, so it probably was supernaturally after.
"Yeah, that's weird." Dean said, one hands fights tapping around his beer bottle. He didn't look up from the obituary online when he patted Chris' back till she quickly got her breathing under control.
"It may be a disease." Sam said, which would be the weirdest quick acting disease Chris had ever heard of. "Or it could be something nastier."
Chris placed her beer on the table, wiping off her hands on the legs of her jeans. "Well only one way to find out." She announced. They weren't going to find any information
"Oklahoma it is." Dean sighed, paying for they're meal with his newly required two hundred bucks. Chris thought she was home free as she climbed into the back seat. "We are still going to talk about you chatting up guys to get money." Dean said as he started up the car. Chris groaned, flopping back into her seat. The overprotective bit was going to get annoying very quick. After all, she'd been independent all her life. Chris guessed that was just the price of having brothers. Dean started grumbling as he started up the car. "Man. Work, work, work, and keeping guys away from you. No time to spend my money." Sam grabbed a smile as Chris groaned again as she realized she had no more candy. This was going to be a long car ride.
Hours later, Chris was relieved to stretch her legs as they stopped at the Gas and Power company building. They had already decided their cover story for Dustin's partner would be relatives that never saw each other. Chris followed half a step behind Dean and Sam who as always, were in perfect sync together although she was unconsciously steadily making her way between them, as they walked up to the man life version of the picture they'd found of Travis, Dustin's partner. "Travis Weaver?" Sam asked although they already knew, he did look just like his picture after all.
Travis stood and straightened up from whatever he'd been doing on the ground, wiping the sweat off his brow under his hat. "Yeah, that's right." He said, looking at them curiously.
"Are you the Travis who worked with Uncle Dusty?" Dean asked, easily bringing up they're lie.
If possible, Travis looked even more confused. "Dustin never mentioned any family." It was a statement more than a question.
"Are you sure?" Chris faked eyes widening in surprise. "He would always say how great you were." She smiled innocently, hands tucked into the back pants of her pockets.
That put Travis at ease, smiling as he remembered his old friend. "Oh, he did." As if he'd never considered the possibility of his long time work partner having told people outside of work about him.
Dean as if on cue got into the harder stuff. "Listen, we wanted to ask you...what exactly happened out there." Chris pushed a stubborn piece of loose hair behind her ear, listening to every word Travis said for anything that could help.
Travis looked ill as he remembered what happened. "I'm not sure." How could you not know how your partner died when you were there, Chris tilted her head innocently to the side. "He fell in a sink hole." Ok, made slightly more sense he wouldn't be sure how. "I went to the trunk to get some rope and uh...by the time I got back," he trailed off, shaking his head. Travis took off his hat, probably in a sign of respect like how people would take off they're hats and glasses during a funeral.
"And could you tell us what you saw?" Chris asked, pushing despite Travis' wounded sorrowful expression.
Travis shook his head with a weak little shrug of his shoulders. "Nothing, just Dustin." How could no one had seen a man being brutally killed just feet from them.
"No wounds or anything?" Sam asked. The obituary didn't say much on that.
"Well he was bleeding," Travis said awkwardly. "From his eyes and his ears, his nose." Chris would have winched at the thoughts of it should she be any other girl. But she took it in stride. "But that's it."
"So you think it could be this whole mad cow thing?" Dean asked, which was impossible considering the short amount of time. The signs would have been clear for all to see, not just randomly popping up in the span of two seconds.
"I don't know." Travis said, choosing to believe in authority figures like everyone else did just because they were in a position of authority. "That's what the doctors are saying." So he choose not to believe in another possibility.
"So you didn't notice anything before it happened?" Chris asked, playing with her fingers. "Mad cow would usually give symptoms beforehand, like loss of motor control."
Travis shook his head without the slightest of hesitation. "No way. But then again, if it wasn't some disease, what the hell was it?" And just like that, the Winchester's ended up placing a seed of doubt.
"That's a good question." Dean muttered. Chris couldn't think of something off the top of her head what it could be. A little more investigation would be necessary.
It was like pulling teeth but they eventually got everything Travis could tell them about what exactly went down. "Seriously, where'd you find that one?" Sam asked as Chris tucked a new candy into the inside of her jacket for safe eating later when they weren't about to get in the dirt.
Chris shrugged, "That's for me to know and you never to find out." She'd swiped it from some guys open lunchbox. Now why some guy in his forties had a power ranger lunchbox was beyond her, but it at least got her attention. Chris ducked under the police tape followed by Sam and Dean that poorly blocked the sinkhole.
"What do you think?" Dean asked. Chris stared down at the sink hole, tapping the edge of it with the toe of her foot. Some dirt crumbled and fell inside.
"I don't know." Sam said quietly, staring hard at the sink hole as if it would answer all his questions with a look. "But if that guy, Travis, was right, it happened pretty damn fast." He pulled a flashlight from his large pocket and shined it down into the hole. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, it looked like every other sinkhole in the ground would.
"So what we thinking?" Chris glanced up away from the sinkhole. "A creature got in there and decided to make his brain they're lunch?" It would be a tight squeeze but she suppose in they're line of work, anything was possible.
Sam shook his head, ever the logical one. "No, there'd be an entry would. Sounds like this thing worked from the inside." Chris shivered in disgust, imagining something inside her eating her away till death and unable to get it out. This guy must have went through something traumatic only to die seconds later. Damn.
Dean glanced in and shook his head. "Looks like there's only room for one. Anyone want to play for it?" Rock, paper, and scissors was how they decided anything in this family. Chris knew by now that Dean had a habit of always picking only scissors out of the three so he always lost. Dean still hadn't realized that was why.
Chris scoffed, "I am so not going down there." Maybe she would drink a beer or two to calm her nerves before going if she'd been on this case alone but she did have two brothers nowadays. She didn't do small enclosed places, like Dean didn't do airplanes and Sam didn't do clowns.
"Why, you scared?" Dean teased which he felt was his right as the eldest brother.
"No, she's right." Sam said, taking a step back from the hole, turning off his flashlight in the process. It wasn't needed as much since they were in broad daylight, luckily no one was around to discover they're snooping. "We have no idea what's down there."
Dean was never willing to stop until it was clearly, like a smack in the face, too dangerous. So he picked up a long coil of rope left behind by Travis when it was clear it would no longer be needed as the one who needed it to get out was dead. "I guess I'll just have to go while you two stay up here being scared together." Dean mocked.
Sam scowled and like any hot blooded American would, he rose to the bait. That was how Sam found himself with a rope tied around his waist, carefully being lowered into the hole. Chris pulled out her leather fingerless biking gloves from one of her many pockets and pulled them on. At least this way she could go without a rope burn. "Don't drop me." Sam said, hiding his nerves as they lowered him down. Chris grunted when Sam gave the all clear to pull him up.
In the impala, Dean was driving again. He claimed Chris was lucky to sit in the backseat with her awful driving considering how horrible she was the first and last time he entrusted his car to her driving skills. Chris was sitting on the edge of her seat, looking bored with her cheek leaning against the bare palm of her hand. "Big whoop, so you found a beetle." Sam was prodding at a dead beetle he found like it held some big secret.
Dean shared her view as he glanced over. "What's the big deal, you found some beetles in the hole in the ground." As if nobody had done that before.
But Sam was insistent on making something out of what seemed like nothing. "There were no tunnels, no tracks." Chris made excuses, dirt probably fell and covered the holes. "No evidence of any kind of creature down there." Of course not, that'd make it to easy and Winchester's never had it easy. "You know, some beetles do eat meat." She'd never seen a beetle eat living human meat. "Now it's usually dead meat but," Sam trailed off.
"A beetle wouldn't be able to eat a guys organs." Chris muttered, especially not in the timeframe they had.
"Alright, then here's a question." Dean cut in. "How many did you find down there?"
Sam hesitated for a moment before sullenly answering, "Ten."
"Ten." Chris repeated, sitting up straighter. No way in hell was it possibly for ten beetles to kill a grown man in the two minutes he was in that hole.
Dean seemed to agree with her. "It'd take a whole lot more than that to eat some dude's brain." Like hundreds of more.
"Well maybe there was more." Sam exclaimed, not willing to give up on the fact that his idea might be wrong."
"They're bugs, dozens of them couldn't show up and vanish without a trace." Chris protested. Unless they were ghost bugs but that seemed a little to odd for they're line of work.
"It does sound like a stretch to me." Dean said, taking his eyes off the road for but a moment.
"Well we need more information on the area, the neighborhood." Sam suggested. After all, someone probably died bloody around here. "Weather something like this ever happened before."
"What's up with you?" Chris asked when Dean suddenly got excited.
"I know a good place to start." Dean said. He slowed down so they could read the sign that said 'models open, new buyers, BBQ today.' Chris felt her mouth water, she could go for a bite. "I'm kinda hungry for a little barbecue, how about you?" She was getting hungrier by the minute. Sam gave a look that said he knew they were more interested in the food then the actual case work. "What, we can't talk to the locals?" Chris would have burst into childlike giggles had she been ten years younger and a little girl instead of the woman she was today.
Sam smirked already knowing where they're minds really were. "And the free food's got nothing to do with it?"
"What would ever make you suggest such a thing." Chris said with a sarcastic grin.
"We are professionals." Dean said head held high with a grin plastered on his face. Sam laughed clearly not believing it as Dean parked outside the house having a barbecue in the backyard.
Chris groaned, "I'll be there in a second." She said, yanking on the jacket she always wore. It took her a few minutes to fix one of her knives so it wasn't digging into her side uncomfortably through the fabric. Then she had a rare klutz attack and almost fell out the car in her hurry for barbecue.
Chris jogged up the walkway to hear the guy in the doorway talking to her brothers finish his speech. "Or sexual orientation." Say what?
"We're brothers." Dean said quickly. Wait, did the guy think Dean and Sam were a gay couple searching for they're first home together. The man, Larry, seemed horribly embarrassed by the misunderstanding.
Chris bit her lip hard enough to bruise to prevent laughing. She pushed herself between the two brothers, her tone body looking petite between the two giants. "So what'd I miss boys?" She asked with a cheeky grin. Larry's face lit up at the sight of her and her smile dropped in disgust. He clearly thought she was the girlfriend or wife of one of the two. "I'm they're sister." She said as quick as possible before he could open his mouth.
Sam quickly made up some lie on the spot. "Our father is getting on in years and we're just looking for a place for him." Like John Winchester would ever settle down long enough to have a house.
Larry brightened up at the prospect of them possible buying. "Seniors are welcome as well." He said cheerfully, leading them around back. It seemed like the whole neighborhood and then some were milling around having a good old time, completely unaware that something sinister could be happening. Chris glanced around, the three Winchester's feeling out of place. It seemed like everyone had dressed in they're Sunday best and here they were here in scuffed up biker boots and leather jackets.
"You said you were the developer?" Sam asked, fishing for any information they could get. Chris nearly followed after some guy walking by with a plate of food, the smell was getting to her.
Larry jutted out his chest, looking as proud as a peacock. "Eighteen months ago, I was walking this valley with my survey team." Dean pulled her back before she could swipe some off the man's plate. "There was nothing here but scrub brush and squirrels." Dean grabbed two prepared barbecue plates siting on the nearby table. "And you know what, we built such a nice place to live that I actually bought into it myself." Chris got excited as she grabbed one of the plates from Dean. "This is our house." Chris almost moaned when she tasted what was more expensive then she'd ever been willing to buy. "We're the first family in Oasis Plains." He walked them on over to a woman with dark hair saying her goodbyes to an older couple. "This is my wife, Joanie."
Joanie turned to them with a greet all smile as Larry wondered off, Chris trailed behind to busy eating to notice both boys practically shielded her body from view. Joanie's friend Linda interrupted as she came over, "Well let me just say that we accept homeowners of any race, religion, color, or sexual orientation."
Chris had finished her small plate only to see Dean slapping Sam's behind, who jumped startled, as he walked away to talk to Larry. "...I don't even want to know." Chris said, disposing her plate and running after Dean. He had to be doing something more interesting then Sam trying to make friends with the locals.
Inside, Chris had just found Larry showing Dean a tour of the house. "You've got three choices-carpet, hardwood, and tile." Larry said as if this was something to be super excited about.
"..Awesome." Chris said uncertain, what did she care about flooring?
"Whoa." Dean sudden said, drawing Chris' attention to a jar of bugs on the table by the door. "Someone likes bugs."
"So cool." Chris said fascinated. It was just a jar full of dead insects, someone must be dedicated to do that.
Larry's smile now seemed more forced, worried that the jar would cause a lost sale. He told Matthew to put those away but that kid never listened. "My son, he's into insects." Sounded like a pretty cool kid to Chris considering most people would probably kill them. "He's very...inquisitive." Chris narrowed her eyes at the tone of voice he'd used.
Led outside, Larry quickly walked them over to a small thin boy with black hair about sixteen talking to Sam. He was holding a large hairy spider in his hand that was slowly crawling up his arm. Larry quickly apologized assuming the boy had been a problem. "I am so sorry about my son and his...pet."
"It's no bother." Sam said.
"Excuse us." Larry said with a forced smile, forcibly steering his son Matt away.
"Remind you of somebody?" Sam asked. Chris scowled, remembering the exact same thing happening to many times in her childhood. They couldn't hear but it was clear Larry was yelling at Matt from what they could see.
"Dad never treated us like that." Dean protested, seeing where Sam was going with this.
"I so don't want to get into that." Chris muttered, awkwardly crossing her arms.
"Dad never treated you like that because you were never there." Sam said. Chris scoffed, like that was her fault. "And you were perfect." Sam turned to Dean. Nobody had or would ever till Chris that she'd done something perfect, not even that time in third grade she managed to get straight A's for the first and last time. "He was all over my case." Join the club. "You don't remember?"
Dean made what sounded like an excuse, "Well maybe he had to raise his voice but sometimes, you were out of line."
"Kids are supposed to be out of line." Chris said, kicking the ground with the toe of her boot.
"But this is worse then ordinary kid stuff." Sam insisted. "Like the time I wanted to play soccer instead of bow hunting." Chris looked at him in disbelief, what a stupid reason to get in trouble. John Winchester apparently never got the memo that not everyone wanted to be a hunter.
"Bow hunting's an important skill." Dean defended his dad.
"Not that important." Chris said. Sure, she could shoot with the best of them but even she knew you couldn't force someone into being what they didn't want to be.
Sam quickly changed the subject before he could get too pissed at the memories of dad. "How was the tour?"
Dean gave a cocky grin, "Oh, it was excellent. I'm ready to buy." It made Chris grin and Sammy laugh. "So you might be onto something." Chris made sure to pay attention since she'd only just showed up as the tour was ending. "Looks like Dustin Burwash wasn't the first strange death around here."
"There never is just one death, is there." Chris sighed.
"What happened?" Sam asked.
Dean explained, "About a year ago, before they broke ground, one of Larry's surveyors dropped dead while on the job." Chris may not know much about construction but even she knew that workers weren't allowed to work so much to cause injury, let along working long enough to drop. "Get this, severe allergic reaction to bee stings."
Chris blew a tuff of hair out her eyes. "I have a feeling this case is going to suck." Chris grabbed a last plate of food before following her brothers to the car.
"Dude! I better not find barbecue on my seat back there!" Dean shouted after they climbed into the impala and noticed her.
"Take a chill pill, big brother." Chris said, purposely sticking a large piece into her mouth, smiling at the taste.
Sam started to drive slowly through the neighborhood, glancing at the houses as they passed. Chris started chowing down. Dean started flipping through dad's journal looking for anything helpful. "You know, I've heard of killer bees but killer beetles?" That was a new one for Chris. "What is it that could make different bugs attack?" Really bad bug spray?
"Well hauntings sometimes include bug manifestations." Sam suggested.
"But I don't see any evidence of ghost activity." Dean said. "Maybe they're being controlled somehow." A witch maybe but she didn't know any witches this strong. "You know, by something or someone."
"Mind controlling a bunch of bugs, great." Chris tossed her empty plate aside to throw out later.
"So like a Willard thing." Sam guessed. Chris remembered helping Brooke with a psychology project on him, some guy in a nineteen seventy one movie who went nutso trying to gain control over rats.
"Only bugs instead of rats." Dean said.
"Not seeing much of a difference." Chris said, picking at her nails.
"There are cases of psychic connections between people and animals: elementals, telepaths." Sam said. Chris had met an elemental once. Funny story, he had actually been her boyfriend for a time a couple years back. Even funnier...he was dead now. Yeah, she was the one to kill him. Let's just say he wasn't that great a boyfriend and leave it at that.
"It's the whole Timmy-Lassie thing." Dean said. Lassie had been a dog on tv from the seventies whose owner was named Timmy. Chris only knew this because a foster home she had as a young child made her sit there and do nothing all day but watch reruns of it. Then Dean seemed to come to a realization. "Larry's kid, he's got bugs for pets."
Chris leaned forward, "So are we really thinking a kid is doing all this bug stuff to his neighbors?"
Sam thought on it, "He did try to scare the realtor with a tarantula."
"You think he's our Willard?" Dean asked with a raised eyebrow.
"Only one way to find out." Chris decided. But would they have to kill the kid to get the killings to stop? She didn't like the tough choices hunters had to make daily.
"Anything is possible, I guess." Sam muttered. Dean suddenly got super excited, making Sam pull over. They ended up in the driveway of one of the empty yet to be sold houses in the neighborhood. "What are we doing here?"
Dean nearly tripped climbing out of the car in his excitement. Chris quickly climbed out after him, just as confused as Sam who followed. "It's to late to talk to anybody else." He said, leading them up the drive.
"Are we really going to do what I think you're doing?" Chris guessed, raising an eyebrow.
"We're gonna squat in an empty house." Sam asked. They'd never done that before but Chris was willing to try anything once. Besides, she was dying to use that steam shower people at the party had been talking about. Sam pulled the car into the garage, Dean closed the door, and Chris picked the lock into the house.
A few houses down, a woman named Linda Bloome had just entered her bedroom, flickering on the lights as she did so. Although she wasn't going to watch it, Linda turned on the tv just to hear the noise, slowly freeing her dark hair from the over tight bun she'd had it in. Linda didn't notice a large spider crawling out of her hair until it climbed onto her face. Linda shrieked, knocking it off in disgusted panic. She quickly turned off the tv to think but when she turned, she couldn't find the spider.
Hoping that somehow it had been her imagination, Linda climbed into the shower, still feeling the phantom crawling sensation of it on her forehead. Trying to ignore it, she started washing her hair, her back to the black spider climbing out of the shower head. Within seconds, hundreds of spiders had crawled out spreading across the shower tiles. Several seconds passed before Linda noticed and she screamed, falling through the glass of the shower door. Linda died from the glass piercing her organs, spiders crawled over her prone body.
The next morning, "He is still in there?" Chris asked, towel drying her wet hair from the downstairs steam shower. Sam was knocking on the bathroom door upstairs that Dean had taken over.
"We gotta go, a police call came in on the scanner." Sam said loud enough for Dean to hear. Dean shouted something unheard from the running water of the shower. "Someone was found dead three blocks from here."
Dean opened the bathroom door, sticking his head out. He had a towel on his head and steam drifted out of the room. "This shower is awesome." Was all he could say.
After Chris pinned up her slightly damped hair and Dean got dressed, the Winchester's drove on over to Linda's house. It was only assumed Linda was the covered body being carried out on the stretcher. Larry turned around startled as he noticed they're arrival. "Hello. You're uh, back early." He said as if thinking the crime scene would be gone before they're arrival.
"We had nowhere else to be." Chris said, hands deep in her pockets.
"We just figured we'd have a look around the neighborhood." Dean said.
"What's going on?" Sam asked, getting down to business.
"You guys met, uh" Larry stuttered. "Linda Bloome at the barbecue?"
"The realtor." Sam said. Chris remembered the woman that thought her brothers were dating.
Larry looked awkward as he said, "Well uh, she passed away last night." Chris' eyes widened startled, looks like Linda had become the third victim, or was it forth?
"What happened?" Dean asked urgently, looking just as surprised.
"I'm still trying to find out." Larry explained. "Identify the body for the police." Chris could understand that this was a traumatic event for the guy who probably never seen a dead body before. "Look, I-I'm sorry, this isn't a good time now."
"It's alright." Chris said and Larry quickly walked away.
The three Winchester's regrouped to go over the problem at hand. "You know what we have to do, right?" Dean made sure.
"Yeah, get in that house." Sam said, glancing around at the multiple officers still milling around.
"Let's go see exactly what creepy crawlers did Miss Linda in." Chris muttered. Chris, being the more innocent looking Winchester with her petite frame and blonde hair, was the first to climb over the fence in the backyard several minutes later. After making sure it was clear of anyone unwanted, she sharply whistled. That was the cue for her two brothers to climb on over. Then came the task of climbing through Linda's bedroom window undetected. It was definitely a crime scene, with a white tape outline of where Linda Bloome had laid.
"This looks like the place." Dean said as they walked around the white tape. Dean bent over to pick up an abandon towel only to drop it in surprise. Chris wrinkled her nose in disgust as it was covered in dead spiders...possibly because of Matt.
They're next step would be to find Matt. Sitting in the impala, they found Matt as he was climbing off the school bus. Matt started walking down the street. "Nobody lives in those houses yet," Chris muttered, seeing the direction he was going.
"And doesn't he live that way anyway." Dean jabbed his thumb in the opposite direction Matt was going.
"Yup." Was all Sam's said.
"So where's he going?" Dean asked.
"Only one way to find out." Chris said. So they climbed out the car and followed behind Matt at a safe enough distance as to not yet be detected. They followed him into the woods where they found Matt kneeling down looking at a grasshopper.
"Hey Matt, remember me?" Sam started as they arrived behind him. Chris noticed Matt jumping, quickly turning around to face them.
"What are you doing out here?" Matt demanded, awkwardly adjusting the school bag hanging off one shoulder.
"Well we want talk to you." Dean said. Chris looked the boy up and down trying to find anything out of the ordinary.
"You're not here to buy a house, are you?" Matt guessed. He seemed like every other teenage boy in the world to Chris. Dean shook his head. Matt suddenly turned panicked looking like he was about to run, "W-wait, you're not serial killers?"
Chris burst into laughter with her brothers. "I don't think we look like serial killers." Chris smirked. Although she if the cops ever found their arsenal or searched them...they'd be some kind of lying explaining to do.
"No, I think you're safe." Sam grinned.
Dean started the conversation. "So Matt, you sure know a lot about insects."
"So?" Matt said defensively, like any teenager.
"Did you hear what happened to Linda, the realtor?" Dean asked. Chris glanced at Dean before her eyes slid back to Matt.
"I heard she died this morning." Matt said looking helplessly confused.
"You wanna know how?" Chris stepped into the conversation. "Spider bites." Chris had heard of people dying from a spider bite before but damn, there has to be over fifty dead spiders on the floor but the bites indicated there had been a hell of a lot more.
"Matt," Sam started cautiously, bending down a little. "You tried to scare her with a spider."
Chris watched as shock and realization spread across Matt's face as he realized what they were getting to. "Wait, you think I had something to do with that?" That was real cold shock on his face, not acting hoping he hadn't been found out.
"You tell us." Dean said.
"The tarantula was a joke." Matt insisted. Teenagers were known to pull pranks and honesty, Matt's wasn't the cruelest prank she'd seen or been apart of. "Anyway, that wouldn't explain the bee attack or the gas company guy."
Chris raised an eyebrow. "You know about those?" So he knew more than she thought.
"There is something going on here." Matt said. He glanced around, looking fearful that someone would overhear. "I don't know what...but something's happening with the insects." "Let me show you something."
And so he led them deeper into the woods. Chris wasn't to worried, he was a skinny little teenager against the three of them. But then again, she'd learned long ago not to judge a book by its cover. Then again, she also learned to trust her instincts. And her instincts were telling her this was just a kid with an unhealthy obsession with bugs, but just a kid nonetheless.
"So if you know about all this bug stuff, why not tell your dad?" Sam asked. As much as you like to think it, not everyone can go to they're parents and be heard. "Maybe he could clear everybody out."
Matt scoffed, still looking forward. "Believe me, I've tried. But uh, Larry doesn't listen to me."
"Ouch," Chris winced. "Never a good thing when dad's being called by name."
"So what, you don't get along?" Sam guessed.
"Mostly," Matt said. "He's to disappointed in his freak son."
Sam nodded, "I hear you." Chris had been called a freak more than a few times in her life; sometimes from school, other times from whichever home she was staying at that month.
"You do?" Dean asked startled. Sam gave him a look that said shut up. Chris almost smirked but bit her lip at the last moment.
"Matt, how old are you?" Sam asked.
"Sixteen."
Chris laughed, "I remember being sixteen. Those were good times." She had gotten into so much trouble, only able to talk or fight herself out of it three fourths of a time.
"Well guess what, two years from now, something's great is going to happen." Sam told Matt.
"What?" Matt asked, like what could be so different in two years then now.
Chris grinned, "The big one eight, can't hold you back once you're eighteen." Hell, she didn't even wait, she'd runaway by the time she struck seventeen.
"After that you can go to collage. Be able to get out of that house and away from dad." Sam said. Half the people she knew went to collage only for the sole reason of getting away from mom and dad.
Dean scowled, "What kind of advice is that?" Of course Dean would argue, he was dad's little soldier after all. "Kid should stick with his family." Just because someone was blood didn't make them family.
Chris huffed, "Must we go through this argument again?" This whole family had pent up frustration against each other.
Sam settled for glaring at the eldest brother. "How much further, Matt?"
"We're close." Matt said. Sam glared at Dean again over Chris' head and moved on. Chris rolled her eyes, sometimes these boys just really needed a good smack to the head. Several moments of silence passed before they reached a large clearing in the woods. Due to they're silence, Chris could hear many sounds most people only hear during camping and such. The forest seemed so alive in this area. "I've been keeping track of insect populations." Matt explained, turning embarrassed. "It's um, part of an AP science class." Chris smirked, she could have been in a class like that. She just didn't like any attention on herself during those awkward high school years. She knew the material, she just never bothered doing the work.
"You two are like peas in a pod." Dean said to Sam and Max. It would have been funny had it not been in the tone he'd used.
Like always, Sam ignored him. He turned his attention to Matt and they're case, "What's been happening?" It seems only a sixteen year old boy was noticing anything.
"A lot." Matt said, going into an explanation. "I mean, from bees to earthworms, beetles...you name it. It's like they're congregating here."
"That's never a good sign." Chris muttered, looking at a newly formed bee hive in a nearby tree buzzing with more bees than she'd seen in one place.
"Do you know why?" Dean asked. Matt simply shook his head. Sam seemed to notice something and had them follow to a darker part of grass. Chris swallowed, that was just wrong. There was a pile of hundreds squiggly pink but brown dirt covered worms wiggling in one big heap. Dean gave a light kick to it and the ground cave a little, dropping the worms into the ground. Dean leaned over poking at the hole in the ground with a stick. "There's something down there." Chris loomed over his shoulder curiously as he stuck his hand down into the ground. Chris noticed Dean's expression of disgust as he felt something. Chris reeled back, all four sharing a horrid expression as Dean pulled out a worn aged human skull.
There was really only one place they could go after that that wouldn't end with the skull being locked in an evidence locker: the department of anthropology at the collage in the next town. They had an average sized cardboard box to carry the skull and a few more bones of a body they fished out the hole. Chris was using a sweater she snagged from Sam's bag to cover the bones, wouldn't look good to be practically carrying a body on campus. "We're going to be arrested again, I just know it." Chris grumbled, they were trying to transport a humans remains after all.
"At least we found a bunch of skeletons in an unmarked grave." Sam said.
"It could be a haunting, pissed off spirits?" Dean suggested. "Some unfinished business?" Hopefully one they could stop without more people dying.
"Question is, why bugs?" Sam asked as they headed up the stairs.
Chris shrugged, "Maybe the guy had an obsession with them."
Sam thought hard, "So the next question would be, why now?"
"I have a better question." Dean said, stopping them at the top of the stairs. "What was with the whole, telling the kid to ditch his family."
"I did not say that." Chris protested. "I just think he should be able to do whatever he wants, not what someone else tells him to." She'd had to many people all her life trying to tell her what to do, now she just said screw them.
"How's about this advice, telling him to respect his old man."
"This isn't about his old man!" Sam butted into the conversation. "You think I didn't respect, dad?" People passing watched the argument with rapt attention as they hurried past as to not get caught in the middle of a family argument. "That's what this is about." Just an ordinary day in the Winchester family.