Once inside the house, Dean looked around the huge room before them. He turned around just in time to see his brother turning back and forth the doorknob at the entrance, looking back at him with disapproval written on his face. Dean smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
"Aww, come on, you can't pass the opportunity for a dramatic entrance. Where's the fun in just turning the knob and walking in?" He said defensively.
"Not alerting the evil spirits of our presence and being able to leave in one piece after finishing our job here is more my idea of fun." Sam answered in a sarcastic tone, and Dean glared at him before continuing to take in his surroundings.
They were standing a few steps inside the front door, at the bottom of a staircase. The room was huge, and every area of the house seemed connected by it. In the middle of the room, the giant staircase led to the second floor. The handrail went on after the stairs ended and framed a corridor that surrounded the room. The doors to the upstairs bedrooms were visible from the first floor, given there was no separation between the first and second floor in this main area.
On the first floor, to their right, was the kitchen entrance, consisting of just the door frame and no actual door. A little to the back of the room, in the same way as the entrance, was the kitchen's exit. To their left, was the living room, same as the kitchen, entrance and exit with no doors. Across the room from where they stood, behind the stairs, two doors were visible (actual doors), leading to the back rooms of the house, probably service rooms. Sam realized after looking around, that the house was freakily symmetrical. If one were to split the house in half and put a mirror to one of the halves, one would end up with the exact image of the original house.
The next thing that came to Sam's mind was how odd it was that the house looked bigger on the inside than it did from the outside. He wondered if it was an architectural trick that made the spaces look wider, or if it was the solemn look of the house that made him feel smaller.
Deciding they had wasted enough time already, and that the ghost probably knew already that they were there, the boys decided to start looking for Baker's body.
They had discussed earlier the most efficient way to search the house would be from the basement up. The newspaper articles and police records said the police had searched the house for any clues of what had happened to the man, and had come out empty handed. Dean said the body was most likely embedded into a wall. There was the possibility that the body was buried out in the yard, but he doubted it because no one had seen anything and at the time Baker had been killed, the plantation was filled with people who lived there. Someone would have noticed a body being buried outside the house. So that meant Baker was hidden somewhere inside the house where the police hadn't been able to find him. Dean looked around the gigantic room they were in and sighed. Why didn't violent murders ever take place in little huts where hiding spaces were limited?
Well, they wouldn't find the body sitting here complaining.
Dean walked into the kitchen, followed closely by Sam. He didn't think they would find anything there, but they had to take the unlikely places out of the list first before looking closely around the more likely ones.
Going through the kitchen to the back of the house, Dean and Sam entered the dinning room. They took opposite sides of the room and began knocking the walls listening for a hallow spot. They didn't find anything there, so they continued to the next room, leaving the dinning room they were once again in the main room looking at the back of the stairs. As they went through the door on their right, Sam noticed Dean picking his right ear.
"What is it?" Sam asked his brother, and thought he heard him mutter something like 'bug' in an annoyed tone before he entered the next room. Sam watched the door frame for a second before following him in.
They were in some sort of storage room now, there were a few new looking boxes on the ground, they probably belonged to the Chadwick's. Sam began moving a pile to make room to move when suddenly Dean shoved another pile harshly with his foot. The box on the top fell down, and something made of glass shattered inside it. Sam bolted to a standing position and stared, confused, at his brother.
"What are you doing, man? I thought we were being quiet to try and not disturb the ghost." Sam said, obviously surprised at Dean's recklessness.
Dean didn't even turn to face Sam, and just started knocking the wall where the pile of boxes had been. "It would take a very stupid ghost to not notice us knocking around the house Sam, " 'Sam?'. "It probably knows we are here since we parked outside. Lets just hurry and torch this bitch." Dean suddenly turned around and without another word left the room. Sam saw him picking his ear again as he left.
Sam caught up to his brothers side, looking carefully at him before asking again. "What's wrong with your ear?"
"Nothing." Dean answered louder than intended, surprising both his brother and himself with his little outburst. He sighed and added in a much calmer voice. "I'm just hearing this buzzing sound, it feels like a mosquito is inside my ear."
"Maybe there really is a bug inside your ear, lets speed up a little and we'll look at it back at the hotel when we are done here" Sam answered. And with a final couple of knocks on the corner of the room, he went out the door into the living room.
"Yeah." Dean responded with a pensive look on his face while still picking his ear. He followed Sam out of the room.
The living room was the only nice looking room in the house. It appeared to have been decorated and cleaned recently. There were a few open boxes lying in a corner of the room. There was a big display cabinet in the center of the wall on the left, the one with the back to the main room, each of the door less frames granting access to the room to each side of the cabinet. It had some fancy china set carefully inside, and a few photos in frames laid at the top.
As Dean entered the room, he saw Sam looking at the photos, a sad smile on his face. He got to his brother's side and looked at them too. There were some pictures of the couple's wedding and a few of them standing in front of a little Christmas tree in a little apartment. They weren't your usual perfect looking couple with the handsome, muscular husband and the hot blond wife. He was short, and seemed he was beginning to loose his hair, and she was kind of chubby. But they looked very happy and obviously in love, like most recently married couples did.
Dean could almost see Sam's mind at work, imagining the Chadwicks moving into the house, talking and laughing while carrying boxes. The wife would glance around imagining what she would do with all the rooms, seeing each space already restored and decorated in her mind. Then turning to look out the window at a couple of imaginary children running behind a football.
Dean knew that was what Sam hoped for one day, and could see that he sympathized with what had happened to the Chadwicks. He suddenly felt angry at Sam for always bringing himself down with regrets of things he couldn't change, but immediately shoved those thoughts to the back of his mind. He nudged his brother's shoulder with his own, and motioned with his head to go upstairs.
The search went pretty much the same in every room. The bedrooms had no furniture, so they were easy to search. Dean had began wondering if maybe Baker's body wasn't in the house. He really wasn't looking forward to digging the endless yard around the house. He heard his brother saying something.
"What?" He asked. Sam looked up and he himself asked. "What?"
"You didn't say anything?" Dean asked in a skeptical tone studying Sam's face to find any sign that he was messing with him. "Just now?" Sam asked, and Dean found no joking there. "Yeah" Dean felt his temper raising, it really wasn't the time for jokes. "No" Sam answered looking concerned. "What did you hear?" Dean licked his lips and looked away. "Nothing" He said and walked into the final room of the house.
The main bedroom was empty except for a big wardrobe in a corner and a very old looking bed. The bed had short legs, and stood about 5 inches over the wooden floor. The sheets were stained with dried blood, and next to the bed, on the floor was a silhouette drawn with white chalk over another blood stain. Sam remembered Chadwick had stabbed his wife and then he had slit his own throat. He felt sorry for them.
The brothers checked the room meticulously as they had searched the other rooms in the house, but found nothing there either.
Dean sighed irritated and smacked his hand hard over his ear . He felt the buzzing stop for a few moments, but soon it started again.
"Well, that was a fucking waste of time" Said Dean turning to look at Sam like it was his fault. He was pissed. Sam felt the accusing glare and shot back. "What? I didn't hide the body. You want to blame someone blame the black widow, not me." Dean scoffed and turned away. He knew his brother was right, but he was still angry. He wondered for a moment what was really making him so mad, but only had a moment to consider it, before seeing a small hole in one of the boards under the bed. It was barely noticeable.
"Sam." he called without looking up. "What?" Sam spat, obviously still offended by Dean's attitude. But then he noticed his brother had found something and approached him curiously. "What did you find?" He asked, trying to glance over his brother's shoulder at his discovery. "This boards aren't original" Dean said, poking inside the hole on the floor with his index finger. "They are a different type of wood than the rest of the room" He said, and motioned with his free hand for Sam to get closer.
Sam crouched next to him and gave an examining look at the boards, confirming Dean's suspicions. "Let's go get something to lift the floor." He said and Dean nodded.
Author's note: Yeah, the search was boring, but the next chapter has more action.