I've been horrible at responding to reviews. I am so, so sorry. I just returned from an extended stay in Los Angeles, and just finally unpacked my suitcase and got everything in order. It's been a hectic week here in KiraLand, but everything's calming down...a little bit. Expect the next chapter and epilogue soon, as I have another fic I'd like to start posting soon.
Chapter Nine
Thomas shimmers with each revolution of light, unable to hold his own in that suffocating darkness. In one moment, he'll stand with his hands in his pockets at the end of the stairs, the next, he's directly across from Dean letting his hands fall at his sides. When Dean doesn't continue, doesn't give any sort of indication he's going to reveal his secret, Thomas flickers to his side and places a hand on Dean's head.
"What, is this some kind of mind meld?" Dean coughs.
There's a prick at the top of his head, then the sensation like an egg's been cracked over it and is dripping -- slowly -- down his head onto his shoulders. The feeling's warm and soft, something he hasn't felt in a long time, and leaks down his arms and surrounds his chest. Instead of increasing the constriction he feels there, the sensation makes it swell four times its size.
Ignoring Thomas for a moment, Dean takes several deep, rattling breaths, and feels the dizziness in his head dissipate.
As soon as it does, he remembers Thomas, remembers his hand sitting on the crown of his head, that this sensation turning him into molded plastic is coming from his touch.
"Get off me," Dean grumbles suddenly. He waves his hands at Thomas, expecting, if this were reality, to push the boy against the wall. His arms grab at air, passing through the shimmering outline he can make out over his left shoulder, which only makes him up his efforts -- both arms are pushing against Thomas, but the boy doesn't move, just keeps his hand there, on Dean's head, keeps the feeling leaking down. Dean knows he'll be a goner if the warmth reaches his leg.
Time to move. Gathering up the strength granted by Thomas and whatever he's doing, Dean pushes himself up into a half crouch and backs against the bulky generator until contact is broken. He feels like a cork's been pulled from somewhere on his body, energy leaking out faster than transmission fluid through a faulty hose. He staggers for a moment, regaining his footing just as the door flies open.
"Thank God," Dean mutters. "Sam, get these ghosts off me, will you?"
"Just a few more minutes, and you won't need to worry anymore."
Dean blanches as she comes through the door, larger than life with her wind-wiped hair and rotted complexion. Her eyes, dark and small, focus on him and she stretches her jaw into what he assumes is a smile -- he can't tell, because the absence of several of her teeth makes it look like she's just opened a gaping hole in the middle of what remains of her face.
"Oh, shit..." Dean breaths. Because when you've come this close to the scarier things of the world, you know when you're in trouble.
Sam's had to turn his wrists so the hair cuts against the tougher skin of the back of his hands instead of that tender, thin skin just under the base of his palms. The storm's stronger than ever, spray from waves managing to cascade over the top of the cliff. Droplets from the ocean are cooler than those from the sky; Sam can taste the salt on his lips each time he presses them together to keep from making any noise to indicate his attempts at escape.
Not that he can see much. Wind and rain cloud what little vision he has past floppy bags plastered to his forehead, and blinking is a poor substitute for using your hands to wipe water out of your eyes.
There's that tingling again, that zap of electricity that tells Sam he doesn't have much time.
He changes tactics; the fence has to be weaker than whatever's holding him to it, so he claws at the rusted metal. Damnit, why did he have to be so stubborn about investigating Thomas's appearance? Why hadn't he just listened when Dean told him they don't help lost ghosts, that there were other things more worthy of their time? Wasn't this...whatever this was he had...supposed to help them?
But he knows why he didn't listen. Because Dean didn't feel what he did, didn't have the constant nightmares, the odd sensations when walking around even the calmest of places. He wasn't plagued by something he didn't understand, and that, at times, made Sam jealous.
At other times, it made him feel superior.
Just a tad. Enough to even out all those years of being the weaker one, the one who backed up the back up, who always seemed the odd man out in the outsider's club. For once, he had a leg up against his bigger, stronger brother, and he liked the sway that brought. He wasn't the one being given orders or told what to hunt; he gave them, he said what was out there, and Dean couldn't argue back to tell him he was wrong.
Hindsight is twenty-twenty, and even if his brother isn't developing signs of psychic ability, his instincts are as sharp as they came.
He's not prone to talking to himself, at least not yet, so he chastises himself mentally. All my fault. Sam picks at the fence, ignoring the blood welding up under his fingernails. Dean's stuck in the lighthouse with some vindictive ghost with little in way of escape.
Why can't he just get free?
Sam steals a glance across the ocean -- he doesn't need his eyes to grab at the fence -- and spots the flickering light of the ship growing closer and closer as it tumbles over turbulent waves. It's being thrown around like a toy boat stuck in the middle of a bathtub, tossed every which way but straight.
A look at the lighthouse confirms his suspicion as to why; the light remains dark, refusing to flash and give the ship some indication of which way was land.
Sam looks down in that worried way he has. Like they need another complication.
First things first. There's a popping sound as a rung comes free, and Sam almost laughs in surprise. Those are his nerves coming through, and despite his situation, he lets a smile crack open across his face.
But before he can get the next, the crackle in the air starts to sizzle, and he can swear there's a flash of lightning that hits the field. He shuts his eyes, tight, before it can blind him, but his skin feels scorched anyway. Rain cools what it can, but Sam's uncomfortably warm, enough to make him want to slip out of his own skin.
It takes the feeling of the string around his wrists falling away for him to notice he's not alone in the field outside the lighthouse anymore.
Ruth is standing there, and instead of a calm, friendly look of warning written on her features, she's wearing one of pure determination.
"I'm going to need your help." And with Jess's voice so fresh in his mind, she steals it, the only thing that could stop him in his tracks.
Latin isn't Dean's strong suit -- he can read it fluently, and knows he should then be able to speak it fluently, but reproducing it has always been harder -- but he starts to mutter what protection chants he knows in hope it'll stop this freaky woman in her tracks.
Because she is freaking the shit out of him.
The chant isn't working, so he tries another one. When he fumbles over an easier word, she laughs at him. "I have no idea what you're saying," she says sweetly. "You'll have to teach me."
"I'm not teaching you anything." Dean keeps both hands on the generator behind him and uses it to guide him farther from the door. He almost knocks his head on the edge of the curling stairs, but ducks just in time and keeps going until he's on one side of the room, she's on the other, and Thomas stands in between.
With that warming feeling gone, it's harder to breathe again, and the effort from putting as much space as possible between himself and the creature that's just entered has him bent slightly at the waist, panting. After a few more seconds, despite keeping as much weight off his left leg as possible, he finds the room spinning again and slouches onto the stairs.
Instead of addressing her, he turns to Thomas. "What the fuck?"
The kid flinches at Dean's language. He turns to the woman as one would turn to a mother, a questioning, hurt look asking what do I do? She just smiles in that odd, open hole way, and motions with an arm covered in shredded material towards Dean. Answer, he doesn't mean it.
"Don't swear." Thomas selects as his answer carefully. It sounds like a parent, though not one Dean's known. He's usually yelled at by strangers in dirt towns, people not used to brash, abrasive language used in everyday conversation, not little ghost children.
"Sorry," Dean retorts sarcastically. "Who is she?"
"My mom."
Dean's mind flashes back to the library and the microfiche with its aged photos in black and yellow. Of the Chillins family standing proud outside the ranch keeper's house; William, Ruth, and their young son, Thomas.
"I hate to tell you this, kid," Dean says, leaning his head against the next step up, "but that's not your mom."
Ruth places a hand on the side of Sam's head, and suddenly, he's not leaning against the perimeter fence anymore, he's leaning up against a support beam for the green swing set. The metal's just as rusted as the fence, if not more, and has the same feel against his back through his shirt.
He scuttles forward, remembering his goal, his brother stuck in the lighthouse with the other woman ghost, and he realizes there are too many ghosts here for this to be a big coincidence. This place is haunted on a grand scale and they bumbled right into it.
Halfway to the lighthouse, he feels something grab the back of his shirt and tug. He slides against his will, shoes flattening slick grass as he digs his heels into the ground to try to stop moving backwards.
His back thunks against the swing set, followed by his head. Still soft from the fall atop the lighthouse, the action sends a shiver of pain through his skull causing his vision to waver for a minute.
But a minute is all Ruth needs.
She pulls him up by the front of his shirt and stares into his eyes. There's a depth there missing in the other ghost's eyes, emotion and feeling fueled by fresh memories of her son's death, of her death, how their lives were stolen by a poltergeist. Who knew this would happen when William Chillins was granted a lighthouse of his own? It was supposed to be a glorious position, one of honor and duty.
"I'm going to get him back. I'm going to get him back from her."
She replaces her hand on the side of Sam's head, resting her thumb in the crook of his neck almost tenderly as if he's her own son. He relaxes for a second, memories of Angela and her kindness coming back. They're blocked out by a scorching red fire that causes him to cry out.
His voice is drown out by the wind. Ruth's hold tightens.
She lets out a scream, a banshee-like howl that echoes so loudly through the circular tower, Dean has to cover his ears to keep from going deaf. He expects her to cross the space between them and attack him, but her attention is turned towards something outside he can't see. Maybe Sam's doing something to get him out of here; without Sam's abilities, he can't tell what, if anything, is going on outside of the dull whitewashed tower room.
He goes off her reaction, and uses the moment to catch Thomas's attention.
"Dude, I saw pictures. That's not your mom. That's a crazy fucking ghost."
"I told you not to swear!" No longer the sweet, innocent child, Thomas runs at Dean, hands held out in front of him. From earlier, Dean's pretty sure the kid will run right through him -- an unpleasant feeling all in itself -- so when Thomas's hands make contact with his stomach, he reels back completely caught off guard into the wall, left leg bending against his will.
One of the sticks holding it straight snaps. The sound is loud enough, she turns from nothingness back to Dean, to Thomas standing next to him, huffing with anger.
Blood's leaking down Dean's chin, he's biting his lip so hard to keep from letting out a sound. The pain running through his leg threatens his consciousness, and there's no way in hell he's letting the lights go out while things are the way they are.
She seems pleased. "Don't fight it," she coos, "the sooner you give in, the sooner everything will be the way it should be."
Black spots dance on the edge of Dean's vision. He blinks rapidly and digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. Light huffs of oxygen aren't enough anymore; he takes a deep breath and instantly regrets it -- the spots grow into blotches.
"Mommy," Thomas says from Dean's side -- if he were any farther, Dean doubts he'd be able to make out a word. "What about me? Didn't you say I was all you needed?"
Please, please fight amongst yourselves, Dean implores, because he knows he's not going to last much longer, and doesn't want to think about what they'll do to him once he's out.
--
First, Sam notices Ruth has her own voice.
It no longer imitates the fractured glass of memories stored in Sam's head. Instead, Ruth speaks with a deep alto voice full of rich variations as she starts to sing. Nothing complicated or earth-shattering, just a simple tune from days gone by, and despite Dean's extensive collection of older music, Sam can't place it.
She starts soft, eyes closed, hand still stuck on the side of the head, then starts to raise her voice as the chorus repeats. There's an odd feeling of watching everything from outside his body; Sam can almost see himself standing there, slack in her grip, as she holds tighter and tighter with each quiver of her voice.
Second, that he's no longer in control.
Despite fighting back seconds ago, there's a deep feeling that he shouldn't, it's no longer required. That nagging feeling he's felt ever since setting foot on the island is finally quiet, the vague terms it shouted at him for a week satisfied. This is where he was supposed to be -- here, on the island, near the lighthouse, but more importantly, in the presence of Ruth Chillins and her odd song.
Whatever it is, there's a lullaby quality to it, and Sam feels himself nodding off on her second repetition.
Until she switches songs, switches from a quiet, soothing tone to a harsher one that sounds like a distant relative of whatever usually blasts from the speakers of the Impala.
Sam's sucked back into his body, slamming into his ribcage to feel the pain in his head again. It's spreading, quickly, and he has no idea how to stop it. Only that it's related to Ruth and her song.
Her song. It clicks into place, how her voice is different -- no longer drawing from his memories, but from him. Like a giant amplifier, the same abilities that lead him here are allowing her to regain her own voice, her own self, and broadcast them across the yard.
The longer she does it, the less transparent she appears.
And the weaker he gets.
Dean decides, with whatever time he's got left before he becomes some doll for this ghost to play with, that speaking with Thomas isn't going to get him anywhere. So he shifts his weight on the stairs with a groan and re-directs his attention.
"So," he starts lamely, "uhh...how are you?"
He needs to find a weapon. Normally, he'd distract whatever needed distracting, slide across the room, grab a gun or shotgun full of rock salt, and waste the sucker. But with nothing but an unreliable flashlight, two cell phones lacking signal, one dead, and a shotgun with that much needed rock salt that had disappeared somewhere between running down the stairs and waking up dazed, Dean felt like a guest character on MacGuiver who had half his talent than an experienced hunter. Whatever could be made from his rag-tag group of everyday items was unknown to Dean, and he figured he would probably need duct tape to complete it, anyway.
With dim lighting, there was little to no hope of finding the lost shotgun unless the light played off the metal finish just right through an act of God. That is, if it were on the ground floor. The stairs spiraling to the light's house atop the tower was tough and thick, and if the gun fell out while he dashed, then fell, to the bottom, it could be on one of any number of stairs, none of which he was in any condition to climb.
She seems to be distracted by something, as does Thomas, their bodies turned towards a curve in the tower that faces the ocean on the other side, eyes wide, arms hanging at their sides as if they're receiving a message and haven't gotten any further instructions. Aliens do it all the time in crappy sci-fi movies cable stations like to play at three am; they always snap out of it, kill all the humans, and return to the mother ship.
Well, that's not going to happen. Dean cranes his neck and tries to get a better view of the stairs above him. He couldn't have fallen that far; his head was still in one piece, and a broken leg wasn't the worst injury someone's suffered from a tumble. Scoots back on the step, tries again, pushing himself up with his left hand on the next step up to gain some leverage.
The light above swings around; spillage flows down into the tower for just a moment. Dean pushes up higher, ignoring the protests in his wrist, and gains view over a few more steps.
Metal captures the light and shines for a second before the light revolves again and the tower grows dark.
"Four steps," he says to himself. "No problem." He's gotten out of worse.
Dean looks over his shoulder, checking if Thomas and her are still distracted. Thomas has taken a few steps forward, but his posture's the same; she is standing near the door and hasn't moved an inch.
Keep talking to the mother ship. Using his hands -- and wincing as the wounds there split back open -- Dean climbs three stairs, then falls back against the wall. Even from this height, he feels a bit dizzy, and focuses on grasping the shotgun with his fingertips instead. They graze the familiar wood of the gun's but; he feels it sliding towards him and allows himself a cocky smile.
Victory is short-lived. The angle of the barrel is to far to the right, and as Dean moves to grasp the end of the gun, the balance is thrown off, and it topples, barrel first, to the ground below, hitting the cement with a clatter.
"Son of a bitch," Dean swears, watching with keen interest as the shotgun flips a few times, then skids to a rest with a thunk against the generator. He shakes his head; nothing has gone right since they arrived, which must have been part of all these spirits' master plan.
Or the sign that his luck has finally run out.
Whatever the case may be, Dean's not one to ponder the metaphysics of such things as luck and destiny. Right now, his only goal is to get his shotgun and shoot the face off the woman keeping him in the lighthouse and, if what he's heard is right, keeping Thomas' spirit hostage.
He shutters at the thought.
But his sympathy for Thomas ends there, because if it weren't for him, Dean could be cruising down the highway headed west with the windows rolled down and some real monster to deal with. Something that is straightforward, exists as it is, and doesn't resort to false fronts and trickery.
Then again, it takes one to know one. Smoke and mirrors have become his normal mode of operation, and if one were to turn off the machine and shatter the mirrors, they'd be left with something no one wants to see. He's okay with that; he saw Sam's face when he let down his façade while getting his leg looked at, saw the awe and disgust. That look alone was enough for Dean to slip back into the maze and lock the door behind him.
Leave the touchy-feely crap to Sam; he seems to be good at it.
She notices the clamber of the gun, the grunts Dean emits without really knowing it as he slides back down the stairs to the bottom -- reaching it this time without injury. Thomas remains in his own little world, which is exactly where Dean prefers him. Easier to deal with one at a time than two coming at him, though if it weren't for his leg, two would be a cakewalk.
Floating-yet-walking, she comes at him, knowing something is amiss, that unlike muttered Latin, this could hurt her. But Dean's quicker, years of training and instinct taking over when the danger becomes immediate. He slides off the bottom step, uses his right leg to pivot across the distance to the generator, and sweeps the shotgun up with his left hand.
"This is much easier to understand," he grins, "trust me."
Balanced on one leg, Dean raises the barrel of the shotgun and allows his grin to grow into a smile as he snaps back the loader and fingers the trigger.
As he squeezes down, Thomas suddenly comes to life, flying across the room and through the door in a matter of seconds -- no, fractions of seconds. Moving with supernatural grace, he's out the door before Dean can fully pull the trigger, dragging with him her. She howls, louder than before, and grabs the back of his sweater, desperate to keep him in the lighthouse.
But their strength is equal at this point, and she disappears out the door just as Dean re-focuses and fires.
Even with his eyes clenched tightly closed and withering in what can only be called physical pain brought on my psychic trauma, the sound of a shotgun blast full of rock salt is unmistakable to Sam. (Fired it up close and personal -- ) It echoes through the storm, wind unable to drown it out completely, and it floats through the air until it dissipates into nothing. If for nothing else, Sam smiles; his brother's still up and holding his own.
Which means he'll probably, like always, have to save Sam's ass.
That small inkling of psychic-related superiority's replaced with anger -- at himself, not Dean -- for not only getting them into this and thinking he knew what he was doing, but for screwing up so badly his big brother would have to rescue him. Like a damsel in distress.
There's another shot, and Ruth cries out. Her hand drops from Sam's neck, and his head instantly fills with relief, enough so that he ventures opening his eyes to see what's going on.
Ruth's shouting, she's yelling, and Dean's hobbled out of the lighthouse to the fence, using it as support as he levels his shotgun at her.
Thomas, he discovers after scanning the area, is nowhere to be seen.
With all the noise combined with the booming thunder of the full-blown storm, Sam can't make out a single thing, even with Ruth standing right next to him, hand on his wrist. He tries to wiggle out of it, using his other hand to pry at her fingers, but her fingers don't budge. Just dig farther into the raw skin encircling his wrists.
There's another shot, and Sam expects to look up from Ruth's hand to find her obliterated by the salt, leaving only Ruth in the way for as long as it takes for Dean to aim and fire.
But when he does look up -- and he blinks a few times to make sure he's not seeing things due to the heavy downpour the sky's releasing -- she is still standing there, inches from Dean. He levels the shotgun again, but catches sight of something near Sam.
"Sam!" Dean shouts, but the wind reduces it to a ghostly whisper. He whips his head around to see Thomas -- the previously treated with salt Thomas -- and realizes their mistake. Thomas' bones have been lost to the sea, as have Ruth's and hers, because now he knows the missing woman died at the lighthouse after all. All three bodies eaten by bacteria and dragged out by the undertow; no way to salt and burn them, even if the sea's helped by saturating the remains in natural salt.
The shotgun of rock salt will slow them down, but won't stop them.
Time stretches in front of Sam, pulls forward for eternity. That is what's up for grabs here if they fail. The life thereafter will be nothing but sitting here, between a lighthouse and a cliff, waiting for someone new to come along and take their place.
Thomas approaches Ruth, a smile drawn upon shimmering features. Where the light's coming from, he doesn't know, but he's open to the idea the lighthouse never went out, that he's just seeing -- or not -- seeing things. A tearful reunion appears imminent, and Sam finally pries himself free of Ruth.
But before Ruth can place her hands on her son, there's a howl from across the field, so loud, the wind cowers in fear, reduced to a whisper on the lips of clouds. Her figure turns towards Ruth and Thomas, then whips back around, a boney hand flying out to strike the shotgun from Dean's hands.
He struggles against her, but her hand's snaked its way around his throat, her hair dancing in the static electricity caused by the storm, and Sam's wrists quiver with the memory.
There's no time; even at his fastest, he won't cross the field in time. So he turns to Ruth and Thomas, standing inches apart, afraid.
"Help!" he begs.
Ruth shakes her head, and lets her hand hover over her son's skin. "I can't. I just can't. She'll take him back and I won't be able to stand it!"
"But if you don't, she'll kill my brother!"
But Ruth's collapsed into a pile of tears, her hands so close to her son, yet so far. She can't touch him until she's found a replacement.
And despite being the one leading them here, putting everything in place for this all to happen, she is after Dean.
Sam breaks out into a run.
Dean watches Sam with distracted interest. Six feet away, and he can keep up with a silent television; reading Sam's lips as he argues with Ruth Chillins isn't even a challenge, and he feels something tighten under his chest when Sam begs for her to help save his life.
But they both know she can't. For years, she's stayed on that swing set, waited for someone else to come along and catch her attention, and now that it's all happened, now that she's so close to getting what she's waited for, there's nothing more she'll do. Sam starts off on a desperate run, but her tangled mess of hair has found its way around his wrists, and she's starting diagonally, away from Sam, towards the cliff.
He can hear Sam shouting, yelling, screaming behind them, but his body's ridged and tired, ready to give out, and it makes him the perfect marionette. She skips and hums on the way to the cliff, and Dean hums to himself as well. Don't think about it. His luck ran out hours ago -- how long had it been since they arrived? -- and he steels himself for the inevitable.
A few feet from the edge, she stops, pulling her puppet along to her side. Even with the storm raging around them, the ocean's beautiful. The steep fall to the beach below is a marvel of nature, and Dean looks down at it almost fondly; his last sight is going to be anything but the creature beside him, eyes ablaze with insanity.
Dean feels a gentle, almost maternal push from behind, and he's free-falling, flying through the cool sea air.