Feels like Midnight

Thanks so much for the kind reviews. Throw the monkey a peanut and this monkey will play that piano like there's no tomorrow.

Chapter Five

"Ok, Sam. We're going to go back into that cornfield, but I swear… If you shoot me again…"

Sam just shook his head, already throwing the door open and heading for the trunk.

"Dude, if you're not going to promise, then you don't get a gun," Dean barked. "You can just take your own freaking chances. If she shoots you, she shoots you. You're not going to remember it anyway."

"How about we try not to get shot, huh?" Sam suggested.

"Yeah, it's worked out great for us so far." Dean groaned and hauled himself up and out of the car with some effort, hissing as his damaged ankle yet again let him know how much it did not like carrying his sorry carcass around. "Hand me, M… my shotgun," he ordered.

Sam handed it over without comment as well as a flashlight. "You sure you're up to this?" he frowned.

"Ready as I'll ever be," Dean said honestly. "Another round or two and I'm not sure I'll be any help to you at all. We've got to end this. Soon." It killed him to admit it, but there was no getting around it. Sam needed backup and he was perilously close to not being able to provide it. His chest still felt like it was being squeezed from the inside out, sapping what little energy he had left.

Sam nodded and headed into the field. Dean followed, though his stride was not nearly as smooth. Almost as soon as they stepped into the corn, they were surrounded by the hush that Dean had grown to expect, but he saw Sam shiver like something crawled over his skin. Before the feeling even had a chance to pass, they heard the shots, one and then two more close together.

"I think Harold may have just got his wish," Dean whispered.

Sam actually looked back and glared at him, his expression just visible in the moonlight.

"What?" Dean just stared back at him. "It's not like it's permanent! He'll be fine in an hour or two."

"You think," Sam still glared. "Unless we figure this out and he stays dead."

"Well that's what he wanted!"

"Dean!"

"Oh, stop looking at me like I just killed your puppy," Dean waved his shotgun in the direction of the noise. "Work to do… Remember? Daddy's about to get himself wasted. Move it."

Sam gave him one last scathing glance and turned to head back in the right direction. They pushed through the corn, the leaves slapping at their faces until finally, almost without warning, they walked out into the clearing.

Dean pulled Sam back, seeing the woman on the porch step down, her shotgun in hand. But she was not looking at them. An older man was standing in the yard over the remains of poor Harold. The man still had his gun in hand as he looked down at his victim, whispering the words Dean had heard on his last visit. Dean was quite certain he preferred this vantage point to his last.

The ghost's image flickered as she walked down the porch steps. The movement seemed to catch her father's attention and he turned to look at her. As soon as he turned, the woman raised the heavy shotgun and fired point blank into her father's chest.

The man was thrown backwards, crumpling to the ground beside his own victim. His daughter came to stand over him and as Dean had thought, it was indeed a scream that came from her lips and not the whispered words his failing hearing had caught. "It's all your fault! It's your fault he's dead!" The woman dropped to her knees beside her father.

Dean raised his gun to fire. If the sister managed to kill herself too then the whole thing would repeat and they would be right back where they had started. They had to stop the cycle. He made a mental note, however, that if they did have to do this again, he should tell poor Harold to stay at the diner.

Just as he pulled the trigger, Flo appeared in front of him and knocked the gun to one side making the shot go wide.

"Don't you dare shoot my sister!" the woman screamed.

"She's going to do it herself in a minute!" Dean shouted back.

Flo's face crumbled. "You have to stop her," she begged. "Night after night… she won't listen to me… She doesn't understand."

Sam and Dean both spared a look toward the woman still kneeling on the ground, completely oblivious to them, her wrenching sobs carrying in the night air.

"What doesn't she understand?" Sam asked.

The woman in her waitress uniform flickered and for just a second they saw a young girl, a child really, in a nightgown. The image flickered again and Flo reappeared. "Please… I don't want to be alone anymore… I can't… If she leaves…"

"What happens after this?" Dean demanded, once again glancing at the other sister. They were almost out of time and he opened the shotgun to reload. "You said you went to the diner."

Flo shook her head and once again the long-dead girl momentarily took her place. "I tried so hard… but the corn… it was so tall… I got lost in the fields… I couldn't find the road. I couldn't get to the diner. I knew if I could just get there everything would be all right. I would be safe. Daddy said if anything ever went wrong I should go there for help."

"But you didn't make it," Dean stated flatly. "Not until three days later." Not until you died, he added silently. A child who got lost in the fields, who could find no way out of the never-ending labyrinth; they probably hadn't found the body until harvest time, or it might have taken a hunter coming across the body during the winter or the following spring.

"I only knew I had to get to the diner." Fat tears streamed down her face.

And there she had stayed, Dean thought. But she'd kept everyone else there too. And she'd forced her family to replay the night of the murders over and over, hoping that she could somehow change the outcome and somehow save herself from a slow, lonely death in the fields.

"You have to stop her," Flo said again. "I know you understand. That's why I picked you. Make her stay with me," she pleaded.

Dean fought not to swear. What was it with ghosts reading his mind? His apparently very needy mind. He so had to have a good talk with himself about that. So he liked having a buddy. And Sam had left him. Then Dad had ditched him and he'd gone to get Sam back. Was it a crime to not like being alone? Was it unreasonable to want someone you could trust at your back? For crying out loud, you harbor a teeny tiny bit of co-dependence and the ghosts latched on to you like you were a freaking life raft.

"Dean!" Sam said and his urgent tone drew Dean's attention back. The sister was raising the shotgun and placing the barrel under her chin.

"Make her understand she can't leave me," Flo begged and then disappeared, reappearing kneeling in front of her homicidal/suicidal sister.

Oh, he'd make her understand all right. Dean raised his shotgun again and took aim. Instantly he felt invisible fingers wrap around his ankles. He was jerked off of his feet and hit the ground hard, the pain in his chest screaming back to life as his breath left in a whoosh. He ordered himself to hold on to Marigold as he was dragged feet first toward the two women.

He was seeing stars. He couldn't breathe, couldn't get his lungs to inflate. Sam yelled something, but it was too far away. Couldn't breathe. Chest hurt too bad. Note to self,next time he should really shoot Flo before he left the diner.

More tomorrow. Dean's night isn't nearly over…