I stormed in right after Sam but unlike him I stopped dead when I saw what was happening inside the cabin.
Anne was back and somehow I had adjusted to the thought of her being a ghost haunting us. What I wasn't prepared for was a chair sliding over the floor and cutting through the thick line of salt. The second that line was broken Anne was inside. Dean fired at the ghost but she flickered away and appeared in front of Andrea who was staring at her with big eyes.
"Anne, please." Andrea backed off but Anne followed her and reached for her throat.
"Get away from her, bitch." Dean snarled and threw a hand full of salt at her. With that Anne was gone. For the moment.
"Everybody alright?" Sam asked and knelt down to repair the circle while Dean reloaded his gun. They weren't quick enough.
"You don't belong here!" This time it wasn't a chair that moved on its own. This time it was Dean. Anne waved her hand and Dean was airborne. He grunted when his feet lost contact with the floor but curled in to himself to prevent farther damage when his back connected with the rack of DVDs. It looked practiced.
"Dean!" Another blast from a shotgun and Anne was gone once again and Sam was at his brother's side in a heartbeat but over his shoulder he yelled: "Eric, Brenda. Fix that salt."
After a second they hurried to do as they were told while Andrea and I just stood there holding our breath.
"Is he okay?" Andrea finally asked but by that time Sam had his brother in a sitting position and seemed satisfied with what he saw so I hoped Dean wasn't in immediate danger of dying right now. He would feel sore for at least a week and I didn't even want to think about the bruises he would sport tomorrow.
I stopped mid-thought. Dean would pretty much look like Sam tomorrow. Battered with black bruises and a cut in his leg he could easily be mistaken for a victim of abuse.
I've experience with this kind of situation, Sam had said earlier but only now I realized what he'd meant. I wasn't sure what this was but it was obvious that this was his life. Or at least a big part of his life which he'd never let us see.
"I get that your friends don't like me, Sammy." Dean muttered and rested his head with closed eyes at the wall. "But this is extreme."
We all froze at that observation because he was right. I hadn't liked Dean from the beginning, hell I hadn't liked him even before we'd met. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed Brenda and Eric finishing their work and they did a pretty good job at pretending they hadn't heard Dean's words. Andrea and I shared a quick glance before we looked elsewhere.
What made it worse was that Sam for one let his brother call him Sammy, I'd never get used to that, and that he chuckled at those words.
"It's your charm, man." Sam grinned but sobered when he realized they weren't alone. "Nothing outside. You found anything in here?"
Dean let his brother pull him up to his feet and took his shotgun back.
"Meter went wild over there." He nodded towards the stairs. "Best guess? She's under the floorboards."
Sam followed his brother's line of sight. "That's why she went after Vincent first and is now after Andrea." He looked like he felt stupid for not making the connection sooner. Whatever that connection was.
"Me?" Andrea whispered, eyes fixed on that spot as if she could see Anne under the floor. If she really was there but Sam seemed confident. When he turned to Andrea his face softened.
"You were dancing on her grave. Literally." He paused. "Dean, that's why she's so strong after such a short time. Her friends having fun right over her body, with her murderer no less, of course she's pissed."
"We didn't know." Andrea whispered with brimming eyes. "Anne, please. We didn't know." The last part was directed at empty space and if Anne heard her she didn't let us know.
Eric and Brenda had fixed the circle and now we were standing once again inside and had no idea what to do next. My experience with ghosts was limited to horror movies but there was one basic theme in all of them.
"We can apologize to her." I suggested. "We'll go to the police and tell them what Cole did. She'll get a real funeral and her parents will finally know. That's what she wants, right? Justice. Coming home."
Dean shook his head in a pitiful manner. "Sorry, man. In most cases it doesn't work like that. She wants you dead, all of you. And me for crashing her party." He turned towards Sam. "C'mon, Sammy. Time to finish this."
Sam didn't look happy about that but he didn't object.
"What are you going to do about her?" Brenda shifted from one foot to the other eyes rooming around but for now Anne left us alone.
Sam and Dean shared one of those looks and Dean shrugged as if he wanted to say "They're your friends."
"First we have to find her body." Sam said and swallowed thickly. Whatever would come next wasn't pretty, I saw that on his face. "Then we have to dose her with salt and burn her."
He chewed his bottom lip and blinked a few times. Anne had been his friend, too.
"Burn her?" I parroted. We couldn't burn her, not in here, not ever. And especially not somebody we knew. That was just wrong.
"There is no other way." Dean spoke up a close eye on his brother as if he wanted to make sure that Sam was okay with the situation.
"What …" Eric begun but stopped to clear his throat. "What will she look like?"
That brought Sam back from his thoughts. "She's dead for a year now. Dry environment. A bit like a mummy, more juicy if Cole wrapped her up in plastic."
"And you know that how?" Brenda asked but hold her hand up in a stop sign a second later. "I don't wanna know."
"Okay, ladies." Dean rubbed his hands. Nobody pointed out to him that he was swaying just a little bit but Sam kept a concerned eye on his brother. "Let's do this."