Reprisals chpt 5
Dean pressed the end button on his phone and dropped it onto the bed, chewing on his thumb nail.
"The mom's not home yet and apparently this isn't the dad that was around when Carol was still Karen, he said he'd give her the message though."
"Does he know how to contact the dad that was?" Sam asked shuffling the printed pages Dean had acquired yesterday around on the bed then stuck his finger into the cast that went halfway up his forearm, "Why my right hand!" he asked frustrated and gritted his teeth trying to get at the itch, though for obvious reasons, reluctant to use a pencil to do so. He shook his head looking at the diagonal tear that went from his elbow and disappeared down under the fiberglass. He knew he'd felt his skin burn and feel like it was tearing beneath his jackets but he didn't really think it had. Oddly enough his clothes weren't torn this time, it was a lot like skinning the knee without ripping the jeans, it happened but not often.
"Dude from what I heard you're lucky you came away with just a cast… that thing could've slit a nerve or something then you'd be walking around like little hand guy from Scary Movie…ah aah… and you'd never be able to have the same kind of relationship with your left…"
Sam huffed grinning and shook his head, "Ahhh the voice of experience…"
"Yeah right," Dean snickered, "… anyway this one doesn't even know if the guy's alive or dead… doesn't care…" Dean shook his head and went to the desk where the laptop was set up. "There's something that doesn't match up here Sammy… I'm telling you that spirit… whoever it is… it's personal with her… it's vengeful man…"
"You think it just took after us because we got in the way?" Sam asked.
"That's exactly what I think… I think it's going to do whatever it takes, go through whoever it has to in order to get to her, but it doesn't like an audience y'know? It separated us, it's left her alone each time she's been in the hospital. It leaves her be until she's recovered enough to go home… it likes to…" he stopped, shook his head and took a deep draught on his bottle of water, "It likes to… do what it does in private…" he finished and nodded flicking his steely gaze to Sam's curious puppy look.
"How would you know that?" Sam asked.
"Websites mostly…a few books here and there…" Dean kept his eyes glued to the monitor, "There's not much difference between a pissed off vengeful spirit and the mental processes of a psychopath… believe it or not…"
Sam shook his head dumbfounded, "Who the hell are you?"
"I do read once in a while…"
"Yeah but something that isn't an…"
"Aahhup!" Dean warned holding up his finger and looking at Sam sternly.
"I was going to say obituary,"
"Oh…" Dean nodded and returned to business for a moment before turning and catching Sam's eyes again, "And for the record… I'm kind of on a Jean Auel kick right now."
Sam shook his head completely stunned. He hadn't seen Dean read a book with any deliberate intent in years.
"Dean we're together almost twenty four seven… when do you read? When I'm asleep?" Sam asked wondering if there was a punch line coming.
Dean half shrugged and nodded, "Yeah… well Grandma crashes early y'know, and late night tv ain't all it's cracked up to be so…"
"You are so lying…" Sam felt his mouth hanging open and couldn't seem to close it.
Dean shrugged and went back to focusing on the screen as Sam grabbed his bag and stuck his good arm into it feeling around until to his dismay he felt the unmistakable outline of a paperback. He pulled it from the depths of the bag and looked in astonishment from the dog eared cover to his brother. He fanned the pages and found that many of them had been dog eared and that the most recent one was just over halfway through the book.
"You're reading The Plains of Passage?" he asked.
"Mmm hmm."
"Did you read the others?"
"Clan of the Cave Bear, Valley of Horses, The Mammoth Hunters… yep, you can get me the next one for my Birthday," Dean muttered and waved Sam over to him, "Well, well, well, look what I found…"
"What?" Sam asked dropping the book as if it burned his hands. He was eager to set his world right and joined Dean at the computer, looking for clues to the identity of the bad guy, and what Carol Guinardi/Karen Adams was hiding.
"Oklahoma City Court document concerning one Plaintiff Karen Louise Adams, Vee the State of Oklahoma and The Camp Chipwanee Board of Directors…" Dean's voice dropped low and though Sam was hard pressed to believe it possible, it seemed Dean's concentration sharpened as he scrolled through the first pages of the document.
"This isn't gonna be good…" Dean muttered as Sam pulled up a chair and scanned through the document while his brothers' eyes flicked between Sam's face and the screen. Sam didn't notice that a few paragraphs into it, Dean pushed back from his chair and angled the screen so his trusty sidekick "Geek Boy" could put his three and a half years at Stanford to good use. Besides, the clenching in his guts told Dean all he really needed to know. When a child's guardian sued a state and a Summer Camp… it didn't take a college graduate to figure out what went down.
Sammy didn't notice right away that Dean had left him to peruse the documents on his own. He didn't notice either, that as he waited for Sam's summation he'd propped himself up in his bed and actually seemed to be reading his book instead of flipping through tv channels like he usually did even though Sam had told him on countless occasions that it was distracting. He also didn't notice Dean's eyes flit from the dog eared page to Sam's changing expression as if he was watching tv. And despite it all, Sam didn't notice almost an hour later, as he was approaching the one third point in the documentation of the trial that Dean had fallen asleep.
--
The pages of testimony engulfed Sam's attention and spun a story that made his belly crawl and his bowels tighten.
In the Summer of 1982, at the age of 9, Karen Louise Adams was dropped off at the Camp Chipwanee premises where after checking in and obtaining her bunk assignment, she kissed her parents goodbye with a happy smile and watched them pull off down the driveway, knowing she'd see them in just a few weeks on parent visiting day and figuring she'd talk to them on the phone in just a few days. Once she got her activities schedule confirmed.
The orientation tour wasn't for a couple hours yet and Karen had decided to refresh her memory and see what had been added to the grounds since last summer, so tossing her suitcase into the footlocker figuring to unpack it tonight after the 'Welcome Campers' s'mores fest; and while the girls were trading tales of events of the previous school year, who kissed who, who liked who, who got to first base and just what exactly they thought first base was, was the perfect time to unpack.
Karen Adams never made it to the 'Welcome Campers' S'mores fest. For nineteen days no one saw her and somehow her arrival, check in, and belongings seemed to fall from the face of the Earth until she emerged one day near the hitching posts, bruised, battered, bloodied and barely alive.
The first time she awoke was in the infirmary where one of the Nurses Aids from the previous year recognized her, and her 'reservation' at the camp was confirmed by another adult, and her arrival by yet another.
Her parents were called and she was transferred to a nearby hospital for proper care. She was given i.v.'s and examined in ways and places that were almost as humiliating as what had been done to her. When the adults asked her what happened some of them had seemed to care and even to listen to what she had to say, until her parents came. That was when the listening stopped and the accusations started, and that was when she'd shut down and stopped talking. Fortunately she'd told the police everything she could remember about where she'd been and as she said they would, they found the body of her kidnapper – abuser in the basement of a nearby farm house where they'd also dug up several children's skeletons. Fortune had smiled a twisted grin on Karen Adams that summer, she'd managed to get away from her abductor simply by sticking her foot out at the right time but the price she would pay down the line was one she'd never thought possible.
If she'd known as a child what she'd endure as a teen and adult, how this evil would fill her life and infest her being, she would have thrown herself onto the chef's knife rather than tripping Edward Jacob Simons.
--
Sam sat back from the screen and scrubbed his face with his hand then wiped his misty eyes. The child's testimony was heartbreaking and he wondered if he could have put a child through all those horrific questions and cross examinations, asking for details that made him want to retch when he read them. He shook his head and caught sight of his brother on his back, arm across his chest with his book pressed beneath it, his breathing light but his brow was furrowed and his mouth twitched as if he wanted to say something.
He smiled easily and shook his head, every time he thought he had Dean pretty well pegged he turned up another surprise, he liked to read… Don't worry, I won't tell anyone…sleep easy, I've got a feeling we're heading to Oklahoma in the morning. He nodded and rose stiffly from the chair, trying to stretch out the kinks as he went to his bed and pulled the comforter off then draped it over Dean. He pulled the edge of it back as Dean shook his head and his brows squeezed tight, a sharp grunt came from the back of his throat and Sam slid his fingers under his arm to remove the book from his grip.
Dean felt something flutter over him and shook his head, there were voices in his mind, whispered questions and comments and a sick slimy feeling over his chest. No…stop this, stop this NOW! his mind shouted and his eyes ripped open as a gasp tore from his throat. His hand reached up, his fingers twining into Sam's shirt as his eyes bulged and he looked around the room reminding himself of where he was.
"Hey! Dean! Whoa… you alright?" Sam asked peeling his brothers' fingers from the front of his shirt.
He blinked hard a few times, disoriented and breathing hard until he saw the concern in Sam's face and quickly shook off the weird feeling that had woken him up.
"Yeah… what? When? What time is it?" he asked.
"About 2:30…" Sam answered softly looking curiously at his older brother. He hadn't had a nightmare in months unless you counted that time they were on the road back to Nebraska to see their dad at Bobby's. "Bad dream?" he asked.
"In the morning?" Dean asked noting Sam's nod, "Not really just… weird…What is it? You have a vision?"
"No. I was just covering you up man… you looked cold."
"Uh…thanks," Dean grunted and scratched his head, his fingers catching on a couple of the staples and making him wince.
"What was it?" Sam asked.
"Huh?"
"The dream… what was it?" Sam asked.
Dean shook his head and his face crumpled trying to remember, something had made him uneasy, a sound like rushing water in his ears, like too many voices saying the same thing all at once then each one splitting off into a different question, each only one of dozens and then that sick pressure in his chest, "I don't remember…it was just weird…" he shook his head again and noted the computer was closed. "What about the transcription?"
Sam shook his head, "Evil stuff… the things people do to each other…I'll fill you in while we're en route to Oklahoma…"
Dean nodded, "Yeah, Oklahoma… okay…" his breathing was normal and his expression beneath the daily one he wore, was still a little confused, but then again it'd been a really hard day for them both. Dean pulled the comforter up to his neck and rolled onto his side, his back toward Sam who pat him on the shoulder and started to get ready for bed himself.
--
In the periphery of her awareness Carol Guinardi heard the curtain next to her bed slide on its runner and turned her head to the side, Damned hospitals! Can't ever leave you alone, wake you up at three in the morning to give you a freakin' sleeping pill… A rolling sound that reminded her of a Big Wheel on cement threatened to pull her consciousness up all the way from her healing sleep. Just ignore it, it'll go away, she heard her inner voice admonish…
Her eyes snapped open as the bed curtain closed her off from the view of any passerby down the corridor and the electrical cord from her monitor slithered around her neck crushing her larynx, sawing through her anterior neck as it wound itself around and around like the coils of a sadistic slinky. She felt pressed into the bed, in the same way as one of those medieval devices and try though she might, she couldn't budge the force holding her down. She felt a sickening hot slicing in her throat and then hot fluid running out of her, arterial spray streaked across the curtain making it wave faintly in the night, and another jet across the wall on her other side as the cut was completed and she knew her struggles were finally over. She knew her body was finally following the spirit-death Edward Jacob Simons had caused a total of twenty six years ago, when he'd first grabbed her in the woods by the stable.
"Guess what?" she felt that voice that haunted her existence whisper into her ear as life-light drifted out of the depths of her eyes, "I've got a new playmate… I don't need you anymore…"
TBC
Guys seriously... I'm begging... Please… really need to know if it's going right...
Thanks
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