Darkness on the Edge of Town
Sam and Lacey were sat on the hood of the Impala when Dean exited the fast food restaurant, carrying their dinner.
"All right, here we go." Lacey smiled at him as he handed her one of the bags before sitting down beside her.
"You know... even though the world is going to crap, there's one thing that I can always count on – these things tasting the same in every drive-through in every state in our great nation." Dean said as he took a bite of his taco. "Mmm." Lacey smirked at him as she dug into her burrito bowl. Dean's phone began to ring and he pulled it out of his pocket.
"Annie." Dean answered. "A nice surprise. How you been?" He listened for a moment before replying. "Yeah. Us too. What's up?" Sam and Lacey listened as they ate. "Yeah. Sure. Where you at?" Another pause. "You working? Near enough. 1 o'clock?" Dean agreed before hanging up. He took another bite of his taco before realising the other two were looking at him expectantly.
"Annie has some of Bobby's old books for us, said we'd meet her for lunch in Bodega Bay tomorrow to get them."
"Who's Annie?" Lacey asked.
"Another hunter acquaintance." Sam told her.
"So, driving through the night?" Lacey asked as she finished up her food.
"Pretty much." Dean nodded as he started to clear the rubbish away.
"I call the back seat then… Oh wait." Lacey gave them both a look. "That's where I always sit." Before climbing into the car. Sam raised an eyebrow at Dean before climbing in too.
The next day they arrived in Bodega Bay early and had a look round the town before heading to the Pier Front Restaurant to meet Annie. They were sat at a table near the window, Dean reading the newspaper as Sam and Lacey studied the menu.
"Hey, get this. Dick Roman is funding another archaeological dig. Guy moves more dirt than 'The Drudge Report.'"
"Well, anything on what he's digging for?" Sam asked.
"Don't you think I would have led with that?" Sam glanced at his watch worriedly.
"Annie's not usually this late, is she?"
"No, never. She's totally compulsive. I'll try her cell." Dean pulled out his phone.
"You know, uh, you know she and Bobby had a thing, right?" Sam mentioned, casually as Dean dialled the number.
"Yeah. Yeah, I knew that. Really?" Dean frowned at him.
"Yeah. Kind of a foxhole thing – very Hemingway."
"Huh. She and I kind of went Hemingway this one time, too." Dean said thoughtfully. Lacey raised an eyebrow at him. "But that was a long time ago."
"All right, well... that happens." Sam looked awkwardly down at the table, fiddling with the cutlery.
"What, you too?"
"Look, it was a while back. We ended up on the same case. She was stressed. I-I-I... I didn't... have a soul." Sam explained, hurriedly.
"That's a lot of foxholes. She's not answering. Well, here's to ghosts that aren't there." Dean changed the subject as he poured some whiskey into his coffee from the flask.
"You sound kind of disappointed." Sam noted.
"Ah, it's better this way. I mean, even though I wish we could see him again doesn't mean that we should." Dean shrugged. The three of them clinked their mugs together.
"Ahh. Are we being stood up?" Dean looked around as if Annie was going to materialise.
"Yeah, let's hope that's all this is."
They had some lunch and Annie still didn't turn up.
"Nothing?" Sam asked as Dean tried her cell again as they walked to the car.
"Straight to voicemail. Something's not right."
"What's she doing on Bodega Bay?"
"She's working some kind of job. She didn't really say." Dean took out the flask but found it was empty when he went to take a sip. "I got to get a refill."
"You know what, man? Why don't you, uh, just pack it away for a while? All it does is remind us of him, you know?" Sam suggested.
"Yeah, I thought about that, but, uh... not yet." The three of them got into the car. "Let's go check out Annie's hotel room."
When they reached the hotel they found out which room Annie was staying in and Sam picked the lock. They began to sort through all of the research she had left behind.
"These go back years – disappearances never solved." Sam commented. "They stop a few decades back, then pick up again just recently. All teenagers."
"Looks like Annie found a spot a lot of them liked to poke around just before they went missing." Dean said as he sorted through some papers on the desk.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Old Van Ness house." He held out the file to Sam. "It's, uh, cheery."
"Well, the police combed the place. They always come up dry."
"Yeah, local law. Always on the ball." Dean replied, sarcastically.
"So, built in 1862 by the Van Ness family who lost it in the early 1900s."
"Is it me or is it cold in here?" Lacey asked, rubbing her arms to try and warm them up.
"A little. I thought you didn't get cold?" Dean asked.
"I don't really. Maybe the thought of that place gave me the shivers." Lacey shrugged.
"Well, it was put up for sale a few years back. No takers." Sam continued.
"Probably 'cause it creeps their queso."
"It's just been sitting there, boarded up, for ages. Oh. Get this. I guess a couple months back, someone put it on one of those, uh, "most haunted houses in America" lists." Lacey shook her head.
"Let me guess – that's when the, uh, teenagers started to go missing."
"Yep."
"Ah, I say we get rolling." Dean got to his feet and the other two followed him back out to the car.
A short while later they arrived at the Van Ness house.
"Honey, I'm home." Dean joked as they made their way through the foyer. Sam and Dean held flashlights while Lacey had a ball of light balanced over her head. "All right, let's go." Dean nodded in the direction of the stairs and the three of them began to climb. "Annie?" Dean called out as they entered on of the upstairs rooms. Dean pulled out his phone and dialled her number.
"There's a whole lot of something going on." Sam said as the EMF meter in his hand began to go crazy. Seconds later a phone began to ring further into the room. They began to search the room and Dean found it by the fire place. They shared a worried look as Dean begins to go through the phone for clues.
"The call to me was the last one she made. So where the hell is she?" He accessed her voicemail and began to play the messages back.
"We're redlining all over the place. Assume the worst?" Sam said as he turned the over active EMF meter off.
"Yeah, I always do."
"I really don't like this place." Lacey said, glancing around. "It feels…. stifling. Like I'm in a crowd, getting crushed, mentally speaking, but there's no one else here."
"Okay. Vengeful spirit, maybe lots of them. Killing kids. Look around. No blood. No anything. Certainly no bodies."
"Well, if evil is partying here, it's got a hell of a clean up crew. Wait, wait, wait." Dean frowned at the phone screen.
"What?"
"Here's something, from earlier this week."
"Okay." Dean pressed play on the final message.
"Free me. Free me." A woman's voice cried out.
"Where'd that come from?" Dean showed them the display. The number it came from was gobbledy gook.
"You ever seen a phone number look like that?" They had walked back downstairs by now, having scoured the second floor. "Well, that is every square inch of this place. No bodies, no pieces of bodies – no Annie. A whole lot of sizzle and no steak." Dean said as they headed back to the foyer.
"Well, maybe no news is good news." Sam suggested.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning maybe she's just not here. Maybe she's still okay."
"Yeah, and what does your gut say?"
"Let's just see if there's anything else in her research."
"Yes, please can we get out of here, this place is giving me a headache." Lacey told them as they headed for the door.
"Where'd Annie get her intel? Do we know?" Dean asked as they three of them got in the car.
"Bodega Bay Heritage Society." Sam read from the booklet.
"Ok. Guess that's our next stop." Dean started the engine.
When they reached the Heritage Society one of the Historians on the desk offered to show them around.
"The house dates back to the mid-19th century. Miles Van Ness made his fortune in the gold rush, eventually settling his family in Bodega Bay."
"Anything...unusual ever happen in the house?" Sam asked, carefully.
"Oh, over the course of a century, things are going to happen in a house." The Historian sounded pleased. "Some locals swear it's haunted. Every village has its idiots."
"We only want the real scoop, of course." Dean told him. The Historian guided them over to a picture of the house with a few people standing in front of it.
"Whitman Van Ness. Son and heir. Handsome, charming, dogged by tragedy all his life. He lost the family fortune, then the house. It became a bordello. He lived in isolation till his death at age 40."
"Who's the, uh, the bruiser there?" Dean asked, pointing to a hulking figure next to Van Ness.
"Dexter O'Connell. A convict. An extremely violent man. Mr. Van Ness was socially progressive and took pity on him. He worked as grounds keeper. Dexter was convicted for murdering Whitman's fiancée on the eve of their wedding. Another calamitous event in the poor man's life."
"Hmm." Sam nodded, examining the picture.
"Well, thank you." Dean smiled at him.
"The house is popular this week." The Historian commented as he prepared to leave them.
"What do you mean?"
"A lady came by the other day asking all sorts of questions."
"Uh, 30s, red hair, good-looking?" Dean described.
"Mm. I gave her the same advice I'll give to you. Stay away from the place. It's extremely unsafe."
"So, besides Whitman's fiancée, Dexter O'Connell was also convicted of killing a bunch of hookers who worked at the brothel." Sam called out through the bathroom door. They were back at the motel, Sam doing research while he waited for the other two. "He escaped before they could hang him. But then he returned to the house, where he was found shot to death. Why would he escape and then go right back to the house where he got arrested?"
"I don't know. Add that to a list of things don't know." Dean called back, followed by giggling from Lacey, Sam rolled his eyes.
"So what's the next move?" Dean grabbed the towels from the hook and handed one to Lacey before they both stepped out of the shower. Lacey began sorting though her wash bag, when she found her brush she turned to the mirror but let out a gasp. Dean turned around and stepped forward to see what she was looking at.
"Sam?"
"What?" Sam poked his head round the door.
"Tell me you wrote that." Sam peered through the mist and squinted at the message written in the condensation on the mirror. "Annie trapped in house".
"Uh... No. No, I didn't."
"Well, then, who's there?" The three of them looked around the small bathroom. Lacey shivered a little despite the heat, wrapping the towel around her more tightly. "I said, who's there?!" The hot water tap on the sink turned itself on and steam began to rise again covering the mirror. The letters B and O slowly began to appear.
"Bobby?" Dean called, the rest of the word slowly materialising. "Bobby? This whole time, we've been trying to talk ourselves out of it, he's been – what's he doing here?" Sam reached out and picked up the flask from the sink.
"Dude."
"We got to get back to that house, stat." Dean said. Sam nodded and left the room, shutting the door behind him so they could dress.
A short while later they arrived back at the Van Ness House.
"We combed the crap out of this place. If Annie's in there and we didn't find her..." Dean said as they grabbed some weapons from the trunk.
"It's 'cause something didn't want us to." Sam finished.
"Awesome. Well, let's walk right into that." Dean grumbled, shutting the trunk. They headed inside, flashlights out as they began to search again.
"All right, I'll check upstairs." Sam said, heading for the staircase.
"Yeah." Dean and Lacey headed further into the ground floor. "Annie?" He called out. "Annie! It's Dean! And Sam." They could hear Sam doing the same in the distance. There was a clunking nose and a camera fell from one of the sideboards and landed at their feet.
"That's not odd." Dean commented as Lacey floated it up into his hand. "Sam, get back down here! Annie?" The floorboards creaked as Sam descended the stairs.
"Slimer?" Dean joked as he looked around for where the camera had come from.
"What?" Sam asked as he joined them.
"Check it out." Dean pressed play on the camera and two teenage boys appeared on the screen.
"The final moments of their love story."
"They've been together since like eighth grade."
"Yeah. They entered this house and texted us."
"Oh, I hate these indie films. Nothing ever happens." Dean muttered.
"They came into the house. They walked through these halls."
"Wait, wait. Pause it. Frame back a little bit. Stop." Sam instructed as Dean rewound the film. Lacey peered at the screen with them as a woman appeared in the top left corner of the screen.
"She's here, and not in a good way." Dean looked around. "Annie?"
"Annie!" Sam joined in.
"Whoa!" A woman they didn't recognise appeared beside them. The two of them raised their guns.
"Please. I'm Victoria – Victoria Dodd." She explained
"Where'd you come from?" Sam asked.
"Here. I was a fancy lady."
"A hooker?" Dean raised an eyebrow.
"Uh, is Annie here?" Sam asked.
"Yes. You can't see her. No, you're not standing on her." She sighed as the three of them shifted uncomfortably. She paused, listening to something. "I will. In my day, we believed in polite conversation. Annie's in terrible danger. We all are."
"From?"
"Whitman Van Ness."
"But he's dead." Dean frowned.
"I thought you said they were good." Victoria complained.
"Hey, I'm just processing, okay, lady? He's dead. You're dead. Define 'terrible danger'".
"Whitman has great power over all of us in the house. He killed Annie. She says you can free us. Please, you must…" Victoria let out a scream and burst into flames.
"Victoria?" They stepped back shielding their eyes from the brightness.
"I'm gonna say she was telling the truth, considering that she just... got ghost-killed."
"So, what? Whitman Van Ness?" Sam concluded.
"Now we know whose bones to salt and burn. Let's go." The three of them left the house and got back in the car.
"All right. Here we go – cemetery, edge of town. The Van Ness family has its own mausoleum." Sam read aloud from his phone.
"All right, we light up the bastard and finish him off." The car began to accelerate.
"Take it easy. We'll get there." Sam told him.
"Uh, that's not me." Dean looked down worriedly at the steering wheel as it began to move of its own accord. Lacey reached forward from the back seat and grabbed the wheel, her strength more than a match for the ghost. They managed to bring the car to a stop and got out.
"Why's he with us?!" Sam asked.
"I don't know. There's got to be something on us!" They began to check their pockets.
"Hey, hey." Sam produced a large old fashioned key from his jacket pocket. A moment later he let out a cry as the ghost attacked him from behind.
"Sam!" Lacey made the key fly out of Sam's hand and onto the ground where Dean promptly shot it. Van Ness disappeared in a cloud of dust. Dean helped Sam back up.
"Did that do it? Did that get rid of him?" Sam gasped.
"I don't know. I got a bad idea we just snapped him back to his favorite house."
"Where Annie's a sitting duck."
"We got to find those bones. Come on." They hurried back to the car.
They made their way across the cemetery, playing the light of their torches across the mausoleums until they found the Van Ness one. Dean opened the doors and they found Whitman's Coffin, Lacey and Sam pulling it from the wall. They opened the coffin and Dean salted the corpse before adding the lighter fluid. He lit a match before tossing it in.
"Here goes nothing."
They drove back to the house as fast as they could. They reached the front door and pushed it open, the silence within was deafening. They walked through to the foyer, looking around for any signs of life… or death.
"Hi, boys." Lacey let out a gasp as they turned to find Bobby standing behind them.
"Bobby?" Dean stared at him, shock evident on his face.
"Wait. You can see me?" Bobby looked surprised. "You're staring, you know. Annie's here, too, by the way."
"Hi, Annie." Dean muttered.
"H-hi, Annie." Sam nodded, while Lacey raised her hand in a half wave. Bobby seemed to be focusing on something they couldn't see
"She says you both look uglier than she remembered."
"Bobby, h-how'd you stay here?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, well, uh..." Bobby walked over to one of the drawers and opened it, pulling out the flask, before tossing it to Dean. "Suck on that, Swayze."
"That's why you never answered me. I tried calling you – the, uh, talking board, the works – but I was always alone. Dean always had that thing in his pocket. That's why the EMF only went off half the time. We thought we were going crazy." Sam said, realisation dawning on him.
"S-so, what happened? Did you get stuck or – or what?" Dean asked.
"I wanted to stay." Dean's expression dropped.
"Bobby."
"I need to help." Bobby told them.
"Not if it means you have to... be this." Sam told him, looking pained.
"Well, life wasn't comfy. Why should death be? Now, come on. Annie and I found all the bodies. Let's put 'em to rest. And keep my damn flask away from the fire... obviously." Bobby told them as he headed for the stairs. "Well, you coming?"
"I'll miss her." Bobby said. The four of them were stood beside the car as Sam and Dean put their weapons in the trunk.
"Me too." Dean nodded
"Yeah."
"Well, you didn't know her like I did." Bobby shrugged. Lacey snorted and rolled her eyes at the three of them as Dean chuckled. Sam just cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable.
"Well, uh… here's to Annie." Dean said as he pulled out the flask. "She got the hunter's funeral she wanted. Kind of like the one we thought we gave you." He said pointedly as he took a sip.
"Dean." Sam warned him.
"What were you thinking, Bobby? You could be in Heaven right now, drinking beer at Harvelle's, not – not stuck…" Dean ranted before Bobby interrupted him.
"Stuck here with you? We still have work to do. I just thought that was kind of important, Dean."
"It's not right, and you know that."
"Sorry. You're right. What was I thinking?" Bobby growled before disappearing. Lacey let out a sigh and hung her head.
"Well, that went well."
They got into the car and had riven down the road before anyone spoke again.
"So, what do you think we should do?" Sam asked.
"We did what we should do. Now I don't know."
"I mean, do you think it's possible we could – I don't know – make it all work somehow?" Sam looked over at Dean, a small spark of hope in his eyes.
"I have no idea. Maybe. I've never heard of it. But you know what I do know? It ain't the natural order of things. Everything is supposed to end. You know, he was supposed… And now... What are the odds this ends well?" Lacey felt a shiver go up her spine and folded her arms across her chest as Bobby stayed invisible in the seat beside her. "What are the odds?"
