Ragdoll
By, december.morning
Disclaimer: Nope, not mine. Sadly. Rhett, Wisconsin, is, to my knowledge, NOT a real town. If it is, the similarity was unintentional. Rose Orlen is mine, the ghost is mine…yeah, anything you don't recognize is mine.
Author's Note: Sorry the update is late, I've been stressing over County Choir…
Summary: Her arms were gone from the elbow down, and her eyes were crazed. She never spoke again, except for a single repeated phrase: 'Such a pretty doll…'
.xxx.
Technically, Dean Winchester had never been on a vacation. Sure, there had been that time in Vermont…but it had turned out to be a lie; while John had said they were going to go skiing, there had really been a Bigfoot lurking, quite conveniently, in the same mountains they had stayed at. And there was Florida, too—they were supposed to go to Disneyworld –God, how had he believed that lie?— but really they were going to bust some poltergeist's ass.
So their childhood had been kind of fucked up, even Dean could admit it.
But still—why had Sammy taken it upon himself to plan a "getaway" to Rhett, Wisconsin?
Taking care to be inconspicuous, Dean sneaked a glance at Sam, who was sitting rigidly in the passenger's seat of the Impala, staring at a map of Wisconsin with slightly glazed eyes. Carefully, Dean tilted his head so he could see Sam's face, and was unpleasantly surprised by how pale and unhealthy Sam looked. There were black circles a zombie would have envied under his eyes, and he was pastier than an Eskimo.
"Hey, Sammy…ever heard of a little thing called sleep? I hear it's real nice," Dean said conversationally, still eyeing Sam, while simultaneously guiding the Impala down the lonely Wisconsin highway. It was getting dark, and it looked like it was going to rain, to boot. He tightened his grip on the wheel subconsciously.
"Not now, Dean," Sam answered distractedly, tracing a route on the crumpled map—Dean wasn't the world's best map folder.
"C'mon, Sammy. I'm offering you a golden opportunity to bitch at me! I know you like that," Dean answered promptly, grinning roguishly. However, his attempt at lightheartedness fell short as Sam fixed him with an irritated glare that would've shut even their Dad up.
"Turn here, there's a motel. Grade-D, full of rats and shit. Our kind of place," Sam said dryly, pointing out a turn that Dean definitely would've missed, had he been on his own.
Dean snuck another glance at Sam, but chose not to say anything. He took the turn, and they drove in silence for a while, until they passed a faded, weather-beaten sign that read 'Welcome to Rhett, Wisconsin!' A flicker of recognition passed through his mind…where had he heard that name before? It sounded so familiar…
Briefly, he considered getting the journal from the backseat, but then he remembered he was still driving. Right, no acrobatics while driving.
"Hey, Sammy? Why Rhett?" He asked cautiously, hoping that Sam wouldn't freak out over the usage of the hated nickname. Thankfully, his little brother didn't, only heaved a huge sigh, and said in an eerily deadpan voice:
"It seemed like our kind of place, Dean."
.xxx.
Sam watched his brother for a few minutes, wondering if he was going to persist, but thankfully he only sighed loudly and put in a Metallica tape. With an effort, Sam was able to keep himself from wincing. Vainly, he tried out to block out 'Highway to Hell', instead focusing on the graphic dreams and 'presents' he'd been receiving for the last few weeks.
It had started on October 29th, when he had opened the door of their shoddy motel, only to step on a human finger, lying like some sort of grotesque gift. He remembered trying (and failing) not to gag as he lifted up his shoe, and scraped the pulpy mess off of the sole of his shoe. Naturally, he hadn't told Dean—he had buried the finger…and the hand…and the arm…
And the dreams, my God, the dreams! He shuddered, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes, hoping he could somehow press the memories out of his brain. Every one had been the same…
A quick flash of a battered calendar—the date was October 29th, but the year had been scribbled out. His vision panned across the floor of the room (presumably, a basement, judging from the dripping walls and lack of windows), which was strewn with body parts, and, interestingly enough, thick, black thread.
He frowned –always frowning!— and took a few cautious steps forward, only to have the toe of his cheap Adidas' collide with something. Sighing, he looked down. It was Dean's leather jacket, just lying there in a heap. He crouched down and lifted the jacket; below it was a large blood stain.
Disturbingly enough, he was remarkably unconcerned about the jacket and blood; he just stood up and ambled away. Now that his eyesight was beginning to adjust to the stifling darkness, he could just make out a door, painted electric blue, and decorated with many scratches, all of them deep and long.
A sort of morbid curiosity permeated Sam's mind at this point, and he tilted his head as he came up to the door. After a moment's hesitation, he twisted the bloody handle and kicked the door in.
For a minute, he merely stood in the doorway, taking in the odd scene in front of him. A metal gurney was positioned in the center of the room, and a tray of surgical instruments, each one covered in dried blood, stood next to the head of the gurney. The floor of the room was also covered in blood, in a telltale pattern; it looked like many bodies had been dragged across the floor over a long amount of time. But the walls were the most grotesque of all; these were covered with shelves, which in turn were groaning with glass jars and boxes.
The containers were quite ordinary; what was extraordinary was the contents. Each jar or box was filled with some sort of body part…eyeballs floated in a greenish liquid; fingers were arrayed in a glass case, with severed hands in another case right beside them. Skeins of human hair hung from the ceiling, and there were jars and jars of teeth everywhere. Legs and feet sat in size-appropriate cases, as did torsos and necks. Each body part had been severed neatly, obviously with great care, and sorted into categories by size in an almost obsessive fashion.
He swung around, and along the back wall ran another shelf. This one, too, was covered in jars, each one the same size, and filled with a clear liquid. With a morbid curiosity, Sam tilted his head and came forward.
Each jar was filled with heads. Human heads. The eye sockets were sunken—naturally, as the eyes had been sorted by color into jars across the room—as were the mouths, and there was no hair on the heads. Sam assumed the hair hanging from the ceiling had come from the severed heads he was now staring at.
Unable to control himself, he reached forward and picked up a jar. Raising it high above his head, he dropped it. The jar shattered, as did the head inside, spraying blood and brain matter all over the floor.
An unearthly shriek filled the room, and Sam whirled around, only to see a dark shadow hurtling towards him. He tried to run, but found himself glued to the spot. Still screaming, the thing flung itself through his chest.
Sam screamed—screamed louder than he'd ever screamed in his whole life.
.xxx.
Dean damn near had a heart attack as Sam began screaming in the passenger seat. Swearing loudly, he took a hand off the steering wheel, but his prodding was unneeded; Sam shot up, nearly hitting his head on the visor, and looked at Dean with a wild look in his eyes.
He opened his mouth, then apparently thought better of it, and turned his attention back to the road, trying to ignore Dean, who was still staring hard at him.
Dean almost said something, but his brother's wild shout distracted him.
"Shit! Look out!" Sam cried, jabbing a finger at the windshield.
For the second time that evening, Dean yelled a string of obscenities that would have made a sailor blush, and jerked the steering wheel. The Impala's tires squealed loudly as it bumped off the road, and Dean quickly killed the ignition and threw himself out of the car, Sam close behind.
Sitting in the middle of the highway was a girl, pale white skin shining in the moonlight—sky's clear, noticed Dean idly—with her arms wrapped tightly around her knees. She was oblivious to the fact that she had been run over, and seemed not to notice Dean's angry shout of "Hey! What the hell's the matter with you?" On the contrary, the girl continued to twitch and mutter.
Sam leaned closer to her, to try and catch what she was saying.
"Such a pretty doll…" she murmured, and continued to repeat the phrase spasmodically, twitching horribly.
"Sam, call the cops," Dean said quickly, hurrying around to the front of the girl.
He had to stop himself from screaming.
Her chest had been sliced neatly open, right over the left side of her chest. It was a neat, tidy incision, almost as if it had been done with a laser. Numbly, Dean realized that he could see her bones, veins, the bloody hole where her heart should be—
The bloody hole where her heart should be?
Suddenly, the girl's eyes rolled up into the back of her head, and she pitched forward; Dean jumped backwards to avoid having her fall on his toes.
Sam slowly put his phone away.
"Look's like we've got a case, Sammy," Dean said thickly, resisting the strong urge to stumble into the sparse vegetation and vomit.
The girl twitched again, then lay still.
.xxx.
Phew…it's probably bad, I wrote this with the most God-awful writer's block. But…it's here! –chews nails-
Review responses:
lunarsun-solarmoon: I hope you're still alive to read this! XD!
Narckisses 2 JTP JRA: Whoa, thanks! I really try to describe things in full, I hope this one lives up to expectations!
fairytalemanipulator: Hope you haven't had any withdrawal symptoms! Here's the newest one. Or, there was. Lol.
Ghostwriter: Yeah, I was going for interesting…like, what the hell! One of those types.
sexybeast: Whoa, great review! That made my day! What's with the doll? Well, you'll just have to find out! I'll tell you one thing though: It's not the type of doll you'd give to a child, that's for damn sure! I'd like to know how you could kill someone with a doll, though…XD.