Chapter Four

Luckily for Sam and Dean, the Westridge house was right in town. So as Dean headed towards the small electronics shop, basking in the luck that Shilling even had an electronics shop, Sam made his way over to the cozy looking home. There were flowers on the porch encircling a picture of a happy, smiling teenage girl. It had to be Ally Westridge. Sam was further confused by Conroy's statement that the ghost was taking out the scum of the town. How could Ally Westridge be scum? She was still a teenager.

Climbing the stairs, he prepared a story in his head. He was tempted to try a different approach and claim he was with the FBI, but he guessed that in a small town like this, word would spread about more ghost hunters being in town and their cover would be blown. So he decided that while they were in Shilling, he was Sam White, ghost hunter. That's how it would have to be.

Sam gathered himself, wondering how the family would react to him showing up and asking questions about Ally. He figured they wouldn't be too happy, but Mary Reynolds had let them in when they brought up the fact that any information could save their lives whey they were out there, so he thought that perhaps he'd try that technique. It wasn't one Sam and Dean used often, and Dean seemed to be better at it, having the accompanying look down and everything, but Sam was willing to give it a try. He couldn't believe that Dean actually won people over with that look.

Knocking on the door, he took a step back to wait for someone to answer. It took a moment, but finally the door opened to reveal a young man, not who Sam had been expecting. The man was big, Sam could see the muscles through the jacket he wore. He looked almost as though he had just gotten off a bus from boot camp, freshly cut military hair and a stern look to go with it. Sam licked his lips before saying, "Hello. Are Mr. or Mrs. Westridge home?"

"Who wants to know?" the burly man growled, his glare growing fiercer. Sam thought about turning around and going to get Dean as back up, but he knew he'd never hear the end of it from Dean.

He held out his hand. "Sam White." When the man didn't take it, Sam smiled grimly and rubbed his hand on his jeans. "I'm here with my brother and we were going to do a little ghost hunting tonight and I thought that I could talk to…"

"No," the man gruffed and began to close the door.

"Wait!" Sam said desperately. "Please, it will only take a minute."

The man eyed him angrily before stepping out onto the porch and closing the door behind him. He shoved a finger hard into Sam's chest. Sam held his ground, however, keeping his eyes on the man's face. "Look, shit head. This is just a game to all you fucking sci-fi geeks. You're a freak, man, getting hard on's when you find any trace of something out of the ordinary. Well let me tell you something you little fuck, my sister is dead. Dead! Do you even understand what that means? It means she's not coming back. This isn't a fucking game so piss off."

Sam held up his hands, showing him that he didn't mean any harm. "Look, we're not like the others who came through here. We know what you're going through and we know that it's not easy. But my brother and I are here to make sure that it doesn't kill again. This isn't a game to us either." Sam couldn't help the twinge of guilt as he said the last part. Was it all a game to them? They went from town to town, taking out whatever they came across and then moving on. Did they forget that people were dying? Was there any remorse when someone died that could have been saved? Sam wasn't sure that there was a straight answer. Yeah, they felt for and cared for the people they came across, but sometimes, though he didn't like to admit it, it did feel like a game. A game they were playing against their father as he lead them all over the country. He wondered if this whole thing was a game to John Winchester. He didn't want to think about it. He didn't know why his father was sending them off, or why he didn't want to talk to them.

The man was watching him. His face was angry and Sam was sure that pretty soon he'd pop a vessel somewhere in that thick neck of his. He didn't know what else to say to make this kid believe he wasn't here to upset them. But Sam didn't have to think of anything as the door opened and a woman appeared. "Tim? What's going on? I heard shouting." The woman looked over at him.

"Go back inside, Ma," Tim, the burly man, told her. "It's just one of them damn ghost hunters."

Mrs. Westridge looked over at Sam, her eyes widening. She looked as though she was about to tell him off, or break down crying, Sam couldn't tell. But he didn't want either to happen and he could feel this situation slowly getting out of hand. He decided to call an end to the hostilities.

"Mrs. Westridge, I know you've suffered a great loss and talking to a stranger about it is the last thing you want to do." Mrs. Westridge's eyes started watering and Tim took a step forward. Sam hurried to say what he needed to say. "But this thing, it's going to keep killing unless someone goes out there and stops it. My brother and I can do that. But we need some more information to go on."

Tim had had enough. He shoved Sam roughly in the chest, sending him back down the steps. Sam almost tripped, but caught himself on the concrete path leading up to the porch. "Just get out of here before I call the cops," Tim growled, his teeth clenched.

Sam was about to sigh in defeat when Mrs. Westridge put a hand on her son's shoulder. "Timmy, wait." Tim turned to look at his mother, eyes wide with the disbelief that she was actually going to talk to Sam. "Young man," she started, looking hard at Sam. "I don't believe in ghosts. But whatever killed my Ally, it was something monstrous. It's not something you want to be toying with."

"Ma'am," Sam tried to sound as respectful as possible. "No offense, but whether you help us or not, my brother and I are going to go after this thing. It would help us a lot if we knew more about what happened."

Mrs. Westridge seemed to contemplate it for a moment. Sam thought for sure she'd turn him away, she was looking at him with such disgust. Tim had crossed his arms over his chest and it reminded Sam of a few bouncers that had not too gently escorted Dean out of bars when he'd been caught hustling pool. The mental image made him wary.

Finally, Mrs. Westridge turned around and headed into the house. Sam wasn't sure what that meant, but she called back to him, "Do you take sugar in your coffee?"

Sam gave out a long sigh of relief and watched as Tim gave him a snarl before following his mother inside. Sam climbed the stairs on shaky legs and called to Mrs. Westridge, "Black is fine."

Dean was frustrated. He'd been near ecstatic when he'd found that there was an electronics shop in town, but now, as he sat in the backroom with one of the store clerks, he'd found his mood slowly deteriorating. Dean had handed the job of dismantling the video recorder and extracting, hopefully, the tape over to the employee. He'd been leery at first. The clerk didn't look to be older than 18. But he'd told Dean that he knew how to do it.

What seemed like ages later, Dean was still sitting opposite the clerk at the table, watching as the kid took it apart, slowly, precisely, ever so carefully. He wanted to reach across the table and smash the thing open himself, but he managed to hold himself back, reminding himself that they needed this tape. Dean hoped Sammy was having better luck than he was with the family.

Finally, the tape recorder seemed to magically pop open, startling both Dean and the employee, who looked up at him and grinned. "There you go." Dean clucked his tongue in appreciation before reaching over and taking the tape out. "Looks like it's in one piece too. Lucky. How'd this thing get so beat up anyway?"

"Bad fight," Dean gave absently, turning the tape over in his hands. "Things fly around when people fight."

The clerk looked at him suspiciously before saying, "This has something to do with that ghost, doesn't it?"

Dean looked up at him, wondering how the hell he could have gone his entire life trying to convince people ghosts were real only to come to Shilling where not a single person didn't think anything but. He thought loosely of making up a story, but decided he didn't have time to do so. "Yeah," he said and looked around the room. "You got a place I can watch this?"

"Sure!" the kid looked happy to help. He stood quickly and pulled a television on a stand with wheels closer to the table. He quickly took the tape from Dean and put it into the VCR. "Okay, you'll love this," his excitement made Dean quirk an eyebrow. "This is one of those fancy pieces of equipment detectives use to see if tapes have been tampered with. Use this to slow it down and speed it up." He pointed to a knob. "And this can zoom in."

"Thanks, man," Dean nodded, coming around to play the tape.

"So," the clerk sounded nervous. "I have a theory about the killings."

Dean knew he should be watching the tape, but the kid's confession had peeked his interest. He turned and eyed him. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," the kid said, looking suddenly smug. "I think it's a swamp creature." Dean looked at him skeptically. "You know, dragging people off into the swamp and scratching them all up. Blood thirsty." The kid's eyes were so wide and sure that Dean couldn't help himself.

"Swamp creatures don't leave bodies," he said matter-of-factly. "Just bones." Dean watched as the kid's eyes widened. He looked shocked and couldn't say anything. So Dean pointed to the television. "You mind giving us some privacy? I've got a date."

"Oh," the kid nodded, still looking shocked. "Sure, top secret, yeah?" He walked towards the front of the store, looking confused as ever. "Yell if you need something."

Dean shook his head and smiled. Kids these days. He pressed play on the VCR and was instantly greeted with a close up of Blaine Beaumont's face, telling his brother to get the fucking camera away from him. The bothers bickered for a while. Dean reached up and started to speed the tape up. It was pretty boring, just a bunch of trees and mud. He slowed it down once it got to the twenty five minute mark. That's about how far out the Beaumont brothers had been.

Listening to the brothers' quarrel, he watched as Adam lowered the camera and called out for Blaine to come back. For a while, it just pointed towards the ground, getting a crooked view of the trees and mud. But finally, it rose again and Adam let out a few choice cuss words. He heard the older brother sigh and then say to the camera, "Blaine, you weak ass. You owe me for wasting all this film." Then the camera was moving in the direction of where Blaine had stormed off.

After about five minutes of listening to Adam huff and puff and curse his brother, the camera suddenly stopped moving. Adam had frozen. Dean leaned a little closer, trying to see what had made Adam stop so suddenly. He heard the man's breath come quicker, faster. Then he called out quietly for Blaine. Dean tried not to feel sorry for him. He couldn't let his emotions get in the way with this one. And he was almost feeling reluctant to show Blaine what he'd found. His brother had been chasing after him. Dean wasn't sure how that would make the younger man feel.

Suddenly, the camera whirled. Dean didn't see anything other than the trees. It whirled again and this time Dean leaned forward more when he finally saw what he was looking for. To the corner of the screen, a small white orb was bouncing in and out of the shot. "Gotcha, you son of a bitch," Dean whispered. But right when Dean was sure he'd be able to see more of the orb, the camera dropped to Adam's side and all sight of it was gone. "No," Dean said. "Come on Adam, focus on it again." He urged the man.

Adam was swearing again, louder this time. Then, the whole camera shook and fell to the ground. Dean saw that Adam had fallen on his ass. He could only see part of Adam's legs and chest. His arm was held out in front of him. He let out a scream suddenly and Dean leaned back. Adam struggled backwards and soon he was out of the picture. Dean held his breath, hoping beyond hope that something would come into the screen. The screen flashed white and suddenly Adam was screaming again. When the screen returned to normal, there was nothing there. Dean sighed and leaned back. The tape ran out two minutes later, not giving Dean anything.

At least now he knew they were dealing with a ghost. The orb proved that. But the white flash, Dean hadn't a clue what that meant. He'd have to check with his Dad's journal. Maybe he'd find something about ghost and technology there. Though he'd never heard of a ghost overexposing film in a video camera before.

Dean's thoughts were put aside when he suddenly realized that he could see his breath. He frowned. It hadn't been cold in there before… Dean tensed. He tuned his senses to the room, trying not to let whatever was in the room with him know that he knew it was there. His hand slowly made its way to his side, where he had a knife strapped to his belt. He cursed himself for not bringing his gun loaded with rock salt, or at least a bag of table salt. He had nothing to protect himself with against a ghost.

Knowing that he'd have to do something, he grasped the hilt of his knife and took a deep breath before spinning sharply around, knife withdrawn. Nothing was there. He looked from side to side, wondering if he'd scared it off.

Suddenly, a closet door behind him closed and Dean jumped, nearly knocking over the chair. He whirled towards it. The door was rattling a bit. It was inside. He bit his lip. He knew that the smart thing to do would be to run outside and get something to fight it with, something that would work. But Dean Winchester was not one to do the smart things. That was Sam's role. He couldn't ignore the stubborn part of him that knew he should take this opportunity that had been given to him. Just try to get a look at the ghost, to know what they were dealing with. Then run.

Creeping slowly towards the closet, he clenched and unclenched his fist as he reached for the handle. His hand was shaking. Get a hold of yourself, Dean, he told himself. Taking a deep breath, he reached out and grasped the door handle. "Here, ghostie, ghostie, ghostie," Dean cooed and pulled the closet door open. Again, he was greeted with nothing. He let out his breath and felt his shoulders relax. "Christ," he whispered and turned.

Dean was pushed harshly from behind before he could manage to turn around fully. He caught a glimpse of who had pushed him and saw the white glow of the manifestation, but he was unable to make out any distinguishing features before the closet door slammed closed. Dean fell hard against the back wall, crashing into whatever discarded electronics had been stored there, before he fell to the ground. He sat there for a moment, gauging whether or not the attack was over. After a bit, he decided it was. He picked himself up slowly from the ground and sighed. It was pitch black inside the closet. He felt in front of him with his hands and when he felt the door, he tried to find a knob.

There wasn't one.

Pushing back a swell of panic in his chest, he pushed hard on the door. When that didn't work, he slammed his shoulder into it. All that managed to do was make his shoulder hurt. "Fuck," Dean spat. He suddenly felt claustrophobic. He hated the dark. Well, it was more that he hated what dwelled in the dark. "Dean, you're an idiot," he said out loud. He started pounding on the door, hoping the store clerk would hear him.

After a few minutes, Dean was ready to give up. His nerves were on end, panic had begun to swell in his chest. His mind was playing tricks on him, telling him that he'd be locked in there forever. But as he pulled his hand back to pound on the door one more time, it suddenly swung open and Dean, who had been leaning on it, fell out and into the arms of the store clerk.

"Whoa," the clerk said as Dean gathered himself and stood. He squinted against the light and brushed the dust off himself. "How'd you get locked in there?"

Dean shook his head, not ready to explain the ways of ghosts to this kid. He was frazzled. He hated to admit it, but he was. He knew it hadn't been a deadly situation, but still, it had stirred up a fear Dean had thought he'd gotten over when he was a child. "I fucking hate ghosts," he whispered as he pushed past the clerk, who was standing in shock, looking at the door. Dean walked clear out of the store and practically speed walked to his car, gathering his wits again at the sight of his baby, and his weapons.

Sam had been talking with the Westridges for a good half an hour. Mrs. Westridge, Emily, had actually warmed up to him nicely. Tim had settled down and had even thrown a few things into the conversation. Sam had learned a lot about Ally Westridge, probably more than he needed to know, but the family seemed ready to talk about it and he wasn't going to be the one to stop them. She'd been a varsity cheerleader, captain to be exact. She was beautiful and had won a nomination for prom queen. She was in the church choir and had just recently broken up with her boyfriend of three years after he moved across the country. She'd taken it hard. There was nothing about Ally that Sam would consider a reason for a ghost to single her out if it was looking for mean, hurtful people.

"Mrs. Westridge, did Ally have any enemies?" Sam asked at last. "Anyone who just didn't get along with her?"

Emily thought for a minute before shaking her head. "No, no I don't think so. She was a nice girl. She was friends with just about everyone in her school." Emily paused before looking over at Tim, who looked at his mother questioningly. "But you know, now that you mention it, there was one person she didn't particularly get along with."

"Who?" Sam encouraged.

"Carl Hannigan," she answered. Sam found that interesting. He'd been the first victim in all of these killings.

"Do you know why they didn't get along?" Sam asked.

Emily shook her head. "No, Carl just didn't get along with anybody."

Tim cleared his throat and leaned forward. "Mr. Hannigan was a pretty pissy guy." Emily frowned at Tim's words, but he didn't seem to be bothered by it. "His house is on the way home from the high school. Sometimes Ally would walk home and she'd pass his house a lot. You know, I don't really know what happened, but one time she came home and was just pissed off at him for some reason. She wouldn't say why, but after that, every time they saw each other it was like a stand off."

"I scolded her for saying so," Emily began. "But when Carl died, she'd said good riddance. It wasn't like her to say things like that."

Sam nodded. "Do you know where Ally was the night she disappeared?"

The Westridges shook their heads. But Tim said, "Ally liked to jog. But she has a pretty long jogging path."

Sam thought for a moment and then decided to chance a guess. "Did that path go by the woods about four miles up on Forest Grove road?"

Tim nodded. "Yeah." Then he frowned and shook his head. "But she hadn't gone by it recently."

"Why not?" Sam asked.

"That's where they found Carl's body," Emily put in.

"When she left to go jogging that night, did she say where she was going to go?" Sam asked, putting the pieces together.

Tim shook his head. "No, but she did say she would be a little longer than usual." He paused and suddenly looked sad. "That's why we didn't call the police right away. She said she was going to go pay respects to someone." Tim's eyes suddenly widened and he looked hard at Sam. "Do you think she meant Carl?"

Sam nodded. "Adam Beaumont died out near those woods. Carl Hannigan's body was found there. I think that's the spot where these killings are happening." He paused for a moment. "I'm sorry to ask this, but where did you find Ally's body?"

Emily took a breath. "Right in her bed." She put a hand to her eyes. "Looking beautiful as ever." Tim ducked his head.

"Can you tell me anything about the other victims?"

Emily shrugged, gathering herself again. "Pete Flannery was a nice man. He lost his wife a few years ago to cancer. He started shutting himself off to the world recently. He went hunting a lot."

Tim cut in then. "We didn't know that Jensen guy, he was from out of town. But me and Ally saw him out at the diner once. He was loud, a real smart mouth."

"What about Jason Meyers?" Sam asked.

Tim looked at his mother. Emily sighed and smiled sweetly, though her eyes were sad. "We didn't know much about him. You should talk to Sarah. She was his girlfriend. She works up at the gas station."

Sam nodded and stood up. "I think that's about it," he announced. Emily and Tim rose. "Thank you. You've helped a lot."

Tim took Sam's hand. "You'll find the guy that's doing this, right?" Tim asked, shaking Sam's hand.

"We'll try."

"Be careful out there," Emily looked ready to cry and Sam nodded at her before turning and heading out the door. He was halfway down his steps when his phone rang. He was surprised to see it was Dean.

"Yeah?" he said into the phone.

"You get anything useful from the Westridges?" Dean asked. Sam frowned. His voice sounded off, almost out of breath.

"A bit," Sam answered and then said, "Are you okay? You sound winded."

"I'm fine, Mom," Dean joked, but the humor wasn't in his voice. There was silence on the other end for a moment and Sam's worry grew a bit. When Dean answered after a moment, it did nothing to calm Sam's worry over his brother.

"I think I had a run in with our ghost."