The Peacock Farm – Chapter 6
A/N: Okay, you remember that detective who was always sticking his head in the lieutenant's office in Law & Order with some piece of crucial information? Little hairy guy, looked like he had a beaver pelt on his head? We always called him Det. Plot Development. And I'm afraid I'm so guilty of resorting to that with Crazy Millie the Exposition Lady last chapter. But, hell, I had to move this baby along somehow, and if it's good enough for Dick Wolf, it's good enough for me.
Special thanks to Tigerdrake for giving me a brilliant idea about how to handle Dean's injuries.
So-o-o-o, where were we? Yes: don't own the boys, the car they drive in, the monsters they hunt. Bad language, various and sundry spoilers exist: read at own risk.
--
Dean was out the car before Sam, was practically out the car before it rolled to a full stop. The girl, Polly, stared at him as though he'd just set his head on fire, the book balanced on her lap, blonde hair hanging in her eyes. She looked just as hot and bored as she had the first time they'd seen her, in exactly the same spot. As Dean rushed up to her, she crossed her legs, anticipating, perhaps, a demand for a refund. Dean had that way about him, sometimes, that sort of energy that put people on the defensive.
Sam approached more slowly, long legs swinging easy, almost at a cowboy pace. He could hear his brother's voice, pitched at PBS announcer again. Sam wondered if Dean knew how annoying that was, and how it put people's backs up, especially barely-teen girls. "Listen, Polly," he tested, and Sam almost winced as he saw Polly's eyes narrow. He now stood at Dean's shoulder, easily peered over it and gave Polly a little nod. Polly's lips pressed together.
"We'd like a second look," Sam inserted, nothing of guile, or persuasion, or intimidation in it, hoping to avert a showdown. He had a five-dollar bill in his hand, where Dean couldn't immediately see it.
"Five bucks doesn't get you much," Polly said, looking at them as though they were mental. What else could you possibly want to see there? her expression suggested. "How'd you know my name?" Not sharply, but confused. Young, Sam thought. So incredibly young. Tried not to think about Rupert, who had fathered her, according to Millie, or how her grandparents had died, not far from here, just across the overgrown garden there, down the path.
"We visited Aurora," Dean replied, and brought an insincere authority to it, a school vice-principal's false chumminess before discipline.
Polly shrugged indifferently. Sam wondered if Dean got it right then, if he suddenly saw the resemblance between this girl in front of them and the 13-year-old that had held him hostage at the Bender farm months ago while her family had burned poker holes in him. Polly's half sister. Saw a flash of it in her opaque disinterest, then it was gone, replaced by a bemused smile. "Grandma owns the place. 'Spect she told you. You see the root cellar?" offering up that like some consolation prize.
"Uh, yeah," Dean was surprised; Sam heard the hitch to his tone.
"Kids play in there. Always spooked me."
Sam smiled at her, holding out the five-dollar bill, hoping Dean wouldn't cause a scene. He was tight with money, for all that he scammed it, never seeing anything remotely ironic about his thrift. "Knock yourselves out," Polly murmured with finality, returning to the book.
Dean was already striding down the path, so he didn't see his brother forking over their ill-gotten money. Sam was still considering Polly, wondering at her removed boredom, and so he missed just how many steps his older brother was able to take before he collapsed. The dried grass was high as his knees, home to colonies of grasshoppers and butterflies that burst cover as Dean's body crashed to the ground.
At Sam's wordless cry – some unholy conglomeration of vowels – Polly came to her feet, her book falling to the plywood flooring of the booth, its landing the only sound in the hollow silence that followed Sam's shout. She took a step out, canvas sneakers grass-stained, lace-less. Stood hovering, unwilling to come closer or retreat.
Sliding to his knees beside Dean, Sam was appalled at how much blood poured from the slashed throat, the chest, the arm. Gory, and bloody, and shocking, especially in the beautiful sunlight with smell of summer-burnt grass suddenly overpowered by the metallic, ferrous tang of blood.
Dean's eyes were wide with shock, one hand held out to Sam, who took it with a shaking grip, hard as death. One long moment of horror, then Sam pulled Dean to his chest and dragged him – knowing how much that must hurt, Dean's savaged arm hanging with all the grace of a cut joint of meat – back to the booth, hoping that Polly wouldn't start screaming.
She didn't. She stood very still and composed, eyes large, and watched. The deep cuts, the exposed tendons and bone, the pulsing blood, were all present in a way that something long dead – a T-bone steak, a pickled fetal pig in a high school biology lab – could never be. Dust curled up as Sam pulled, his throat making a creaking, wheezing noise, some elemental expression of grief. And once through the gate, having left a trail of blood even an aged Llasa Apso could follow, Dean went boneless, and the blood suddenly stopped flowing.
For a rash endless moment, Sam thought the Dean was dead, that all the blood in his body must have run out. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. And Dean jerked awake, bucket of ice-water at midnight quick, coming to a seated position beside the Impala on the roadside, drenched in his own blood, but without a mark on him. Swearing voluminously, not bothering to candy-coat the weird.
"Goddamnit, Sam," he growled, glaring at him as though all this was his fault. Against the backdrop of scarlet, his eyes shone vivid green.
He slapped away Sam's hand, then swayed into it as he came to his feet. Stubborn. Pig-headed. Sam steadied him for a moment, watched him lean against the car. Polly didn't say a word, not for a long moment. Then, "This have something to do with the ghosts?"
Oh great, just great. Dean, gore all over him, sighed furiously, teeth flashing white in a truly frightening facsimile of a smile. "You might have said something sooner, sweetheart."
Convinced that Dean was going to be fine, Sam grimaced, pulling dimples to either side of his clamped lips. He knew what he'd have to do next. At least Dean wouldn't be able to argue this. He wouldn't like it, though. The day was reaching its heat zenith, and trickle of sweat ran down the side of Sam's face. He didn't like his idea either, for one main reason: Polly.
"Gotta go in, Dean," he said quietly, bracing himself.
For a moment, he thought that Dean hadn't heard him, but that wasn't it. His brother was staring straight at him, and all the years of letting Sam get away with stuff because he was younger, or protecting him when he didn't need it, or even letting him walk away from their dangerous, precarious life, all of it was in that stare. There was nothing Dean could do about this, except bleed out in the dirt. Which he just might have done, if he'd thought it would stop Sam from going in. So Sam had to be convincing.
"Someone needs to watch her," he said quietly so she wouldn't hear, sliding his glance to where she stood on the dirt by a drying splatter of Dean's blood.
"I'm not staying here with him," she said. Sharp-eared. "Besides, it's been awhile since I talked to them." Meaning the ghosts, Sam surmised. An asset? She looked Dean up and down, something the cat had coughed up. "They sure don't like you, do they?"
And as they crossed over the line that separated public road from private farm, the line that meant life and death to Dean, Polly turned, walked a few steps backwards before grinning at Dean, who had to see the resemblance now. "Don't forget if anyone comes – five bucks."
If Dean hadn't been covered in blood, it might have been funny.
--
Sam went to the root cellar first, and if Polly was surprised it contained a canvas bag full of weapons, she didn't show it. He pulled out the rifle, loaded it with salt cartridges, and pulled back the action, feeling stupid and fake. Guns always did that to him. Dean handled guns like he handled a tape deck or a knife and fork; Sam envied him that ease, because he always felt like a little kid in a caped costume around them. He had practiced, though, and he could be convincing.
They went in through the summer kitchen, Sam in the lead, though Polly didn't look remotely scared, actually had her arms crossed over her chest, one finger circling a strand of blonde hair and tugging. He eased into the central hallway, saw the dark bloodstain on the wall, leftover from the other day. Flies buzzed around it. Real enough.
"Oh, hi," Polly said suddenly, and her voice brightened, became animated in a way Sam hadn't heard before. He turned sharply, and for a moment saw nothing. Then a small face peeked around the doorjamb by the kitchen, just where it had before. Wavery, whispy, not quite there. Polly bent down. "This one's nice," she whispered to Sam, holding out her hand to the phantom child.
The ghost child emitted a gurgling giggle, full of fun, and disappeared. Sam wondered where the 'not nice' ones might be.
On cue, he felt a cold wash, like standing in front of an open fridge in your boxers, and the specter of Ray Crimson appeared, clicked on like an old TV, wavered once, then snapped into place. More substantial than most ghosts Sam had seen, wearing a suspicious expression, which might have had something to do with the fact that Sam had the rifle pointed right at him.
Crimson held his arms out slightly, black suit muting between green and midnight purple.
"Is he here?" Polly whispered, and she clutched Sam's arm. Not in fear, but so he would lower the gun. "I can't see him, but I can sometimes hear him. He's here, isn't he?"
Sam met Crimson's stare, and the ghost's eyebrows lifted, asking permission. An electric buzz crackled in the room, and suddenly Sam was seeing bone, and mottled flesh, and a skull. Then another snap, and Crimson was back in a more recognizable form. He's stretched thin, Sam thought.
"Why'd you do that to my brother?" he demanded, unsympathetic.
Crimson sighed. "I needed your attention, and he would have shot first." Lifted those brows again, asking if that wasn't true. Sam gave a brief, unsatisfactory nod. "And you needed to know that Aurora was involved." The colours of him swirled briefly, anger given spectral form. "So you'd recognize her work."
Sam glanced at Polly, but she was only staring at Sam. "What's he saying?" she asked, looking as though she actually hadn't wanted to say that out loud.
"Wanted to make sure I didn't shoot him," Sam explained, though it was no explanation.
She pursed her lips. "Are you?" And that was a very good question. Sam lowered the rifle.
"What do you want?" he asked, careful to keep Polly behind him, ready to move at a second's notice.
"Not want," Crimson replied, so softly Sam had to lean forward. "Need." The ghost straightened, started to pace, something Sam was fairly sure had been a telling sign when Crimson had actually walked the earth.
"Burn your bones?" Sam offered. Beside him, Polly stiffened at the suggestion.
"No," Crimson stopped his pacing, came close to Sam, close enough that Sam could see the maggots writhing in the suit creases. "I need my murderer here. And I need my granddaughter to know what happened."
Sam cleared his throat, stalling. "Or what?"
Crimson blinked, and Sam caught something unexpected: pity. "How easy is it for you, being with him?" The ghost gestured out the window to where Sam could see the Impala, and Dean sitting on the hood.
"Easy enough," Sam shot back. One thing could make him defensive, and this ghost apparently knew it.
"Easy," the ghost breathed, but it was still pity Sam heard. "How easy will it be when you have to bury him?"
"Is that a threat?" A thread of poison had wound its way to Sam's voice. And damnit if he still didn't hear anything more than pity. Crimson was shaking his head vehemently, though, and now there was no mistaking how badly the ghost felt for Sam.
"I said it the first time I saw you: he's a hunter. And one day, you won't be there, or you won't be fast enough, and you'll just have to make your peace with that. Trust me. Why do you think I came to this farm in the first place, with all its ghosts, and its past? Why do you think I married someone like Aurora? Let her brother stay with us?"
Sam thought hard, but didn't really want to find the answer, because he knew he wouldn't like it, that it would change how he felt about everything. Still, he cleared his throat again, cleared it of an unexpected thickness. "You wanted to fix it. That's what you did, in life. You fixed things."
Crimson nodded, and a bit of moldy fabric dropped to the floor, disappeared without a trace. "I hunted things," he clarified, when it became apparent that Sam wouldn't. "And it's time for me to rest. You're good at putting things to rest; he's better at killing things." And he had that 'am I not right?' look in his eyes again.
Curtly, Sam acknowledged that truth. He didn't have to consider it, not yet. "I don't think that Aurora will come here."
Polly, who had started to look bored again as Sam spoke with her invisible and inaudible grandfather, perked up at that. "Hell, no. She's said that she'll put a bullet in her brain before she'd do that."
Crimson didn't look alarmed, not at all. He leaned against the wall, all long arms and legs, maggoty clothes and mangy hair. Odd, not even. But resigned. "Aurora technically wasn't the one who murdered me."
"Rupert," Sam breathed and Polly ran to the window.
"He's here," she called over her shoulder, the light from outside limning her gold in the frigid room. "He hardly ever comes here."
A decrepit van pulled to a stop beside the Impala, and in the distance, a door slammed. Would Dean stop him? Sam wondered, then glanced at Crimson, who was barely holding himself together. "What about the children?" he suddenly asked. "What about their ghosts?"
A cold, cold wind suddenly flew through the house, powerful enough to gust up dust, tangle Polly's hair, and fill Sam's T-shirt with air. He shivered. Crimson hadn't moved. "Can't fix everything," Crimson shrugged. "They've been here awhile, longer than me. They might disappear once I'm gone," his mouth turned down, regret colouring his words. "They liked it when Omni was around."
Omni. The bright light, the joyous one. Polly's grandmother. Found under the floorboards, hacked to death.
"Get Rupert to tell you what happened. Polly has to hear it. And then make sure that bastard doesn't go anywhere near her." The ghost wasn't looking at Sam anymore; he was staring at Polly and something like love was in those dark eyes that shifted from blue to red to the empty sockets of a skull.
Leaving the rifle propped against the wall, Sam stood out on the porch for a minute, cupped a hand around his mouth and shouted his brother's name. Dean's splattered form turned – he'd apparently been in conversation with Rupert – and then Sam called Rupert's name and waved him down. Dean held his arms out in a pathetic, 'what about me?' gesture. Sam didn't know how to begin to apologize; he was simply grateful Dean didn't follow the gaunt fatigue-clad figure across the field. Sam had enough on his plate.
Inside, Sam took up the gun again, and as Rupert shuffled in, brought it to his shoulder, the muzzle no more than two feet from Rupert's chest. It was only rock salt, but Sam knew from bitter experience what kind of damage rock salt could do. Besides, for all Rupert knew, it was loaded with gunpowder and shot.
The button man looked confused, but irrationally pleased to see Polly, who had taken up position next to Crimson. She didn't know that, of course, but Crimson looked grimly satisfied. Rupert's pleasure at seeing his daughter, or his granddaughter, or however Aurora had described to Polly his relationship to her – was unfeigned and sickeningly creepy. Sam's hand shook a little, and he was usually rock solid. His mouth was dry.
"You forgot your lunch, dear," Rupert said. Crimson came away from the wall, circled behind Rupert, who seemed to understand that they were not alone in the room. "You shouldn't be in here, Polly. It's not...natural."
"Why don't you tell her about that?" Sam said, finger hugging the trigger, ready. His heart was going double-time, and it almost hurt. "Tell her about her grandfather."
"Ray Crimson?" Polly's brow furrowed slightly, pensive. "I know about Ray Crimson. He tried to kill my grandmother. Took off and abandoned this place, left a whole group of hippies without anything."
"Left a body under the floorboards," Sam whispered, his attention entirely on Rupert, whose army surplus jacket sagged under the weight of multi-hued buttons, a mosaic of cheap advice and clichés. Peace on earth. Life gives you lemons. Smile, be happy. I know I am, but what are you? "And I don't think he ever left this place, do you, Rupert?"
Rupert shifted away, hands scrabbling at the walls, knocking loose chunks of crumbly plaster. His gaze darted around, trying to anticipate something for which there was no preparation, no milk runs. "I never done nothing I wasn't told to."
Sam so didn't want Polly to be in the room. He didn't want her to hear what was coming next. Because Rupert was a fool, and a killer, and he was a coward as well, but he was not a liar.
So he spoke of that night when Aurora had found Omni packing her things, and when Crimson had told her they were leaving. Aurora told him to do it, Rupert whined, his nose running, because he was crying. And he was not looking at Sam; he was looking at Polly, and Sam wanted to shoot him right then.
Rupert had used poison, then slit Crimson's throat and cut him to pieces, parts of him thrown down the well, buried in the memorial garden, under the dirt of the root cellar. Rupert had no idea of how many spots around the farm Ray Crimson's body might be. Did it really matter? he asked, and Crimson's ghost shook his head, but Sam couldn't tell if he agreed or not.
Otherwise, Crimson was like a vaguely flickering statue, still, composed and remote. There was only one moment when he showed any emotion whatsoever; when Rupert admitted to being Polly's father. At that, he reached out to Polly, and his hand passed harmlessly through her. He could hunt, apparently, could inflict wounds. He could not comfort, and Sam tucked away that knowledge for later digestion, knowing it wouldn't be pleasant.
Rupert only stumbled once in his recitation, when he described the baby, how beautiful she'd been, how desirable. Made that observation on the same breath as he described, literally blow-by-blow, how he'd cut apart Omni and stuffed her corpse under the back bedroom's floorboards.
And then, with Crimson standing behind him, Rupert saw how Sam's attention wandered for a minute to Polly, to her sharp intake of breath. How the barrel of the gun dipped infinitesimally, how Sam's grip was not what it should have been. The ghosts were not what Sam ought to have been worrying about after all. The Benders had taught him nothing, apparently; humans were always, always worse.
The air was torn again, not by cold, but by sound: a single shotgun blast, ringing in the small confines of an empty farmhouse, causing eardrums to rattle at this close range. Causing a haunting to suddenly cease, and a brother to run, terrified of what he might find, across a line that ought to have meant death.
TBC