Longer chapter here. I realized I'll have to bump up the length of the chapters so there's not a ridiculous amount of chapters. Enjoy!
Amelia woke up a couple hours later after another nightmare that left her heart racing. Bobby, sitting at his desk, glanced up at her when she jerked awake on the couch.
"How're you doing, Amy?" he asked, as soft as his gruff voice could go.
She scrubbed her hand through her greasy hair. No shower in two days. Gross. "Uh," she blinked the sleep from her eyes. "Been a little crowded around here."
Amelia stood, and cracked her back. "How'd the thing with Garth go?"
"Ghost messed up his short term memory," Bobby chuckled at the memory. "He was fine after we ganked the ghost."
She nodded. "I'm going for a run."
"Have fun," he told her.
Amelia ran her ten miles that afternoon. She hadn't lied when she told Bobby the house had been crowded. Jo and Ellen had been nice, but awkward silences had filled the time until Irv called with the case. She had been glad for the excuse to bury her nose in a book and not have to talk. She breathed in the air with a smile. No run for almost two days. Her feet fairly flew over the scuff of dirt that marked her ten mile track. She abandoned all her thoughts, and just ran.
After her shower, she walked downstairs into a full on family fight.
"It's one ghost!" Jo gesticulated wildly.
Ellen shook her head. "You don't know that! Hunting alone is a bad idea! It gets people hurt, or killed!"
"I can't believe you still don't trust me, after all these years."
"It's not that I don't trust you, Jo, I don't trust the job."
Bobby sat at his desk, trucker hat pulled low on his head, concentrating on the book in front of him like the most fascinating mysteries of the world lay hidden within. Everyone looked up at Amelia when she poked her head around the corner.
A second later, Jo pointed at her, still staring at her mother. "She can come along."
"What?" Ellen, Bobby, and Amelia all said at the same exact moment, each with their own unique inflection.
"It's perfect. She needs to go on a hunt sometime, this one is pretty safe. No one's died yet, might not even be a haunting," Jo argued.
"Joanna Beth," Ellen started.
"What's going on?" Amelia demanded, throwing her arms up in the air.
"Three freak accidents at a Minnesota grain elevator," Jo handed her a printed sheet. "Could be a haunting. I want to check it out."
Amelia glanced at the paper, and skimmed the information. When she looked back up, Ellen and Jo were already arguing again. She glanced over at Bobby and shrugged. She would only go if he cleared it. No way would she alienate him, now when she was just starting to realize how much she didn't know. He understood her silent shrug.
"Nothing cocky, alright?" Bobby told her. "Do what Jo says. Research the crap out of it before you do anything. There's a reason there aren't many hunters my age."
"Bobby!" Ellen glared at him. "Back me up here."
"I think the girls can handle it," he shrugged. "Amelia hasn't been sitting here knitting for two months."
"But she's never been on a hunt," Ellen argued. "She could get Jo killed."
Amelia nibbled on her tongue, avoiding Ellen's eyes.
"She killed two strigoi with a dislocated shoulder the day after she found out the supernatural was real," Bobby snapped. "I think that counts as a hunt."
"You bring my daughter back, or I'll kill you myself," Ellen told Amelia, flatly.
"Mom!" Jo groaned, then she looked at Amelia. "Grab your stuff, we'll leave ASAP."
Amelia blinked at each person in turn, then failed to stifle a chuckle. The only one who had taken her opinion into account was Bobby, and technically he hadn't even asked.
"You think this is funny?" Ellen demanded.
"I won't do anything stupid, ma'am," she promised, and she jogged to the panic room to stuff a few changes of clothes into her backpack. A rosary just in case. Her gun, with normal and silver bullets, plenty of matches. She stowed her silver, iron, salt, and holy water on her person. Zippo went into her pocket. Flask of whiskey just in case. A few granola bars.
When she walked upstairs, Ellen still sat at the table, arms crossed and a sour look on her face. Bobby met her at the top of the stairs.
"I made these up for you," he handed her a small stack of laminated cards. "FBI, journalist pass, CDC, a couple driver's licenses and insurance cards. Here's two credit cards, don't be stupid with them."
She took the stack, and stared at the cards. A sudden desire to hug him struck her, but instead she just smiled. "Thanks Bobby." Amelia flipped through them, her face smiling up at her from each. Amelia Carter. Amelia Adams. Amelia Fillmore.
"Presidents," she had to laugh when she figured it out. "Very nice."
She could have sworn his mouth twitched into something like a smile for a millisecond.
Jo poked her head in the door. "Ready to go?"
Amelia nodded, and smiled at Bobby again. "See you in a few days, thanks again for the IDs."
"Be careful. Take some extra salt, just in case," he tossed her a box of Morton. "Gotta shovel and lighter fluid Jo?"
"Of course," she smiled.
Jo didn't drive as fast as Dean, but they still arrived in the small town much faster than the Google Maps estimate. Amelia napped most of the way. After getting a cheap motel room, they headed to a diner for food and gossip.
"I'm thinking newspaper writers," Jo said, before they hopped out of the car. "Article on the strange accidents at the elevator."
Amelia shrugged, and stuffed a small notebook in her jacket pocket. "Sounds good to me."
"Small town people usually love their gossip," Jo said, as they walked to the door.
"Oh I've lived in like twenty small towns," Amelia snorted, "believe me I know."
Three old farmers later, they got the name of a teenage boy who fell to his death from the elevator the year before. A daredevil prank gone bad, a group of boys had climbed the huge cement grain bin to goof around on the catwalks and paint graffiti. One of them had slipped and plummeted to the ground, shattering his skull on the cement below.
The two girls finished their food, and walked out.
"So it could be a haunting then," Amelia said. "It takes a while for spirits to become active, he might just be flexing his muscles, gearing up for something bigger."
"I'd like to talk to some of the people involved in the accidents, see if we can get any word about ghost activity before we have to go dig up a grave. Maybe go to the elevator, try the EMF."
Amelia grabbed the paper with the original article on it. "Says James Sawyer is an elevator employee, he was there for two of the accidents."
"Sounds good to me, just have to find where he lives-"
Amelia took a phone book from inside her jacket and started flipping through it.
"Where did you get that?"
"Slipped it from the diner," Amelia ran her finger down the list of names. "Got it, let's go."
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
"Yea, I was there when the train rolled away and the bin broke."
"Did anything strange happen the day of the accidents?" Jo asked.
"Strange as in what?" he shrugged.
"Anything," she said, "did you see anyone strange around? Get weird feelings like something was out of place, or cold drafts or anything?"
"Now that you mention it," he scratched the stubble on his chin, "I thought I saw ice on the train track after it rolled away, but it didn't make any sense. I'm sure it was a trick of the light."
"Anything else Mr. Sawyer?"
"Nothing that I remember. There's usually quite a few people around when we load a train, it's hard to keep track of everybody. I don't remember anyone strange being there."
"Thank you for your time," the girls both smiled, and left.
"Well, I think that settles it," Jo said as they sat down in the car again. "Not quite cut and dried, but good enough to burn the kid's bones. I'll keep an eye on it, if things don't settle down someone can come back. Not like anyone's been killed yet."
"Violent death right on site, ice and cold air? Seems like a pretty solid case against the kid." Amelia shrugged. "Timing is right, too. Just have to find the grave."
She returned to her phone book.
"We'll probably have to check the hospital," Jo said, thoughtfully, then looked at Amelia. "What are you doing?"
"Two cemeteries in town," Amelia told her. "Catholic and Lutheran. Judging by how the waitress at the diner acted, she knew the parents. Doesn't necessarily mean anything, waitresses know everyone, but she was definitely Catholic. So I'd guess Catholic cemetery."
"How do you know she was Catholic?" Jo raised an eyebrow.
"Medal around her neck," Amelia replied. "The cemeteries can't be that big anyhow, shouldn't take too long to find a year old grave."
"Unless he was cremated," Jo argued.
"Well, then we have bigger problems."
"No kidding," she snorted. "Alright, where's the graveyard?"
After a half hour of searching through the graveyard, Jo found the boy's grave, and shouted to Amelia. They looked down at the grave together. Nice granite headstone, with fresh flowers laid against it, and a span of years much too short.
"Hello Brian," Amelia murmured.
"We'll come back when it's dark out. It'll be a pain to dig," Jo sighed. "Want some supper?"
... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...
That night, they jumped the fence with two shovels, salt and lighter fluid, wearing all black with hoods pulled over their faces.
"This is so weird," Amelia chuckled as they started to roll back the sod. "We're digging up a grave. What's wrong with this picture?"
"You won't be laughing in an hour," Jo grunted.
She wasn't. Sweat dripped off her face, and even through her gloves blisters were starting to form on her hands. "They don't joke about six feet under do they," she panted for breath.
"Usually it's not six feet," Jo answered. "Feels like it, though."
Another half hour of steady digging passed before they finally reached the coffin. Even then, it took almost another hour before the top was finally cleared off enough for them to wrench the lid open. Amelia shone a flashlight down on the bones.
"Gross," she commented. Bits of skin stretched over the dry bones, the clothes hanging limp, and dark stains covered the white lining of the coffin.
Jo pulled out her EMF reader, and scanned the body. The little machine beeped constantly. "Hello ghost!"
She hopped out of the hole, and grabbed the salt. Amelia took the lighter fluid, and they doused the body liberally.
"Want to do the honors, since it is your first salt and burn?"
Amelia shrugged, and took out a book of matches. She lit the whole thing up, and tossed it in. Fire leaped up, and the bones crackled in the heat.
They watched in tired silence until the fire died down.
"Well," Jo sighed, "now we get to put it all back in."
Amelia winced, and gingerly rubbed her hand.
"Goes quicker, though."
Jo shut the lid. "Good night, Brian. At least you never killed someone."
Then they started on the pile of dirt, packing it in so it would all fit.
"No way they don't notice someone's been at the grave," Amelia commented.
Jo worked for a while before replying. "Sometimes they don't, if it's an old grave. This one they probably will. Another random grave desecration. And we're certainly not the Satanic type, or grave robbers, so no way they suspect us."
An hour later, they worked the sod back into place, and did a once over with the flashlight to make sure they hadn't missed anything. Amelia glanced at the headstone one last time, and gave another chuckle.
"Ever dig up the wrong grave?" she asked, as they snuck out of the cemetery and crawled over the fence again.
Jo laughed as they walked slowly, painfully to the car. "I heard that Garth did one time."
They both laughed. Amelia had met the squirrely little hunter once.
"Though, because it's Garth, it actually ended up being the right grave."
"No way!" Amelia knocked some dirt off the shovels, and tossed them into the trunk.
"Yep! He thought it was the wife killing people, but it ended up being the husband. She was a ghost too, but she was just trying to warn people before he killed them. Death omen. Disappeared once his ghost was gone."
They had a good laugh as Jo drove back to the motel. "I think this calls for a six pack, what do you say?"
"Where are you going to find beer at four in the morning?"
"I took the liberty of bringing a couple cases from Bobby's," she gestured to the back seat. "Kind of a tradition."
Amelia laughed. "Sure, since you're so keen on it."
"Great! Showers first, then beer," Jo yawned, and pulled into the motel. "And I call dibs on the shower first."
Yay! Interaction with Jo. :) They seem to be getting along pretty well, huh? As always, let me know what you think, and thanks for reading. :)