Ragdoll
By, BROXA
Disclaimer: You know the drill, peeps.
Authors Note: I'm SO sorry this is so late…I don't have a reason, really, except for a lack of time. What with track, Middlemasters (select choir), Mastersingers auditions (high school select choir), school and such…I just didn't have the time to sit down at the computer for four or five hours and type. Oh, by the way…about the 911 stuff. I've never called 911, nor have I had a call traced, so I know this is inaccurate. I actually considered calling 911 to figure out how it happened, can you believe that?
Summary: It should've been a run of the mill hunt: pissed off, revenge seeking spirit. But when the tables are turned, and Sam finds himself the target of a deranged ghost, things take a far more sinister turn...
.xxx.
December 1st, 2004
Trying not to look at Sam's corpse, Dean pulled out his cell phone and dialed the three numbers his father had told him to never call.
"911, is this an emergency?" The voice of the operator came through, sinfully calm and smooth.
"Yes! I need an ambulance at…oh, fuck, no address…can you trace the call?" Dean asked frantically. The operator purred an affirmative, and a series of three quick beeps sounded loud and clear in Dean's ear. He jumped against his will.
"An ambulance will arrive shortly. Have a nice day, sir," drawled the operator, before a precise click signified her hanging up.
He put the phone back in his pocket, not knowing what to do. John had drilled them in every possible situation that was supernatural, but he'd never said "If one of you dies, here's what to do…" Probably because John knew what he expected his boys to do: fight on with more fervor, then move on, leaving the body for the cops to find. For the first time in his adult life, Dean found himself doubting his father…did he even care? Did John Winchester give a shit about his boys, or were they just pawns in his crusade?
An involuntary shudder tore through his body as he forced himself to leave the thoughts of John behind. Instead, Dean went over to where Sam still leaned against the gurney, eyes wide open and eerily glassy.
His throat constricted as he knelt down next to his baby brother. Unable to find words (Sam'd have a field day, he thought affectionately), he reached out and gripped Sam's hand in his own, flinching as the stark coldness of Sam's flesh shocked him.
"Sammy…it's gonna be alright…" he whispered, but even as he said it, it felt like a lie. Sam's body was cold as ice, and already remarkably pale.
It was silent in the sewing room. Dean didn't have anything to say, and Sam sure as hell wasn't talking; when the front door of the house banged open, and numerous footsteps pounded over the floorboards above. After laying Sam's hand on the concrete floor, Dean stood up and ran out of the room, back into the ill-lit "waiting room".
"Down here!" He hollered, and the crashes and footsteps redirected almost immediately. Soon after, a door he hadn't noticed banged open, and four EMT's burst through, the last two dragging a portable gurney after them. "He's in here…hurry!"
With the EMT's following him, he hurried back into where Sam was. Behind him, he could hear their (three men, and a woman) reactions to the room; vaguely, he heard the sound of vomiting as the contents of the room proved too much for one of them.
"Dude…that's disgusting," muttered a youngish man, tall and tan with surfer hair.
"Man, you aren't here to admire the scenery! My brother hasn't got a pulse!" Dean barked, outraged, and the EMT's jumped back into action. While the woman (pale faced and wiping her mouth) set up the gurney, the men carefully picked up Sam's body. They held him awkwardly for a minute, then set him on the assembled gurney, and together the five of them hurried out of the house.
An ambulance waited on the road, lights flashing, and siren already wailing. A young man in blue scrubs opened the door, and they all piled into the ambulance. The woman collapsed the legs of the gurney and slid it onto a more stable surface, while one of the men heated up the defibrillators. Dean hovered nervously in the corner for a minute; then he hurried up and grabbed his brother's hand in a rare display of brotherly affection.
"And…clear!" Barked 'Surfer Boy'; the woman slapped the defibrillators onto Sam's exposed chest. Surfer Boy slipped two fingers onto Sam's pulse point, then shook his head. "Nothing."
"Clear!" Another jolt; Sam's chest jumped upwards, and for a second, Dean thought he saw a heartbeat. "Still nothing."
"Come on…come on…" Dean murmured without even knowing he was talking.
"One more try…clear!" Again, Sam's pulse was checked; again, Surfer Boy drew back, shaking his shaggy head. "Nothing. I'm sorry. There's nothing we can do."
The woman, whose nametag read Susan, sighed. "Such a handsome young man…" she commented, slipping the defibrillators back into their allotted places as the EMT's murmured silent agreements.
"No! Don't you just give up on my brother!" Dean asserted, looking from one EMT to another.
"Son, there's nothing we can do. He's gone," said an elderly man soothingly, reaching out as if to pat his shoulder. Dean dodged him, lunging under his arm for the defibrillators.
"Hey! You can't—" protested Susan, trying to twist around Surfer Boy to get to Dean.
"Yeah, shut up!" Dean barked, rubbing the defibrillators together awkwardly, and much faster than was usual.
"Oh, my…" Susan whispered, her hand over her mouth.
Dean ignored her, and for a final time, pressed the defibrillators down on Sam's chest. "C'mon, Sammy…come back, I need you…"
Sam's chest jolted up, and the electricity in the defibrillators was obvious as Dean drew them away, breath hitching in his throat.
Breathless waiting. Utter silence. Then…
By itself, Sam's chest rose. And fell. And rose again—Sam was breathing. It was all Dean could do to not drop to his knees and thank God as Sam's eyes lost their glassy quality, and he sat up.
"Dean? Man, what's going on?" He asked, voice weak and shaky.
However, before Dean could answer, Sam's eyes rolled up into the back of his head, and he collapsed.
"Sam! Shit!" Dean hissed, for a second fearing that Sam had died again. But the reassuring bleep of the heart monitor immediately assuaged his fears; as the EMT's worked, Dean relaxed and held Sam's hand, his other hand over his eyes. He didn't want to admit it, but this gig had thoroughly terrified him. And it wasn't over yet.
.xxx.
The ambulance ride had been quiet; Sam was in a natural, deep sleep, and there was really nothing for Dean or the EMT's to do or say, so the ride was made in silence, except for the constant murmur of the heart monitor.
Now as Dean sat by Sam's bed, listening to the hospital equipment, the quiet was stifling. He was glad that Sam was alright, of course, but a nagging voice in his head continuously reminded him that the job wasn't done yet. There were still two psychotic, mutilating ghosts out there, and they had damn near–hell, they had killed his brother! Point was, they needed to die. Again.
After giving Sam's limp but warm hand a squeeze, Dean stood. "You'd better still be there when I get back, Houdini," he quipped, then slipped out of the door.
In the car, Dean pulled out his cell phone and dialed Sara's number. After three or four rings, the girl answered with a lazy hello.
"Sara? It's Dean—remember, we talked about the murders? Anyway, I need to know where Talon's body is buried," he said, as cordially as he could manage.
"Oh, um, he's buried in some cemetery…" she intoned hesitantly; he could practically hear her biting her nails.
"That so?" Dean replied through gritted teeth; Sara seemed to pick up on his hostility, and hurried to add to her sentence.
"I think it has the word Mary in the name. Or maybe it's Christ? I dunno, I don't exactly go grave hopping for fun!" She said defensively, then hung up.
"Fuck her…completely useless…" he grumbled, and in his distraction, he didn't see Audrey's ghost standing in the middle of the road until the Impala blazed through her.
It was like Constance Welch all over again, except this time, she didn't show up in the backseat; instead, Audrey stood by the side of the road, waiting. Swearing viciously under his breath, Dean pulled over and cut the engine. He stalked across the road to where Audrey waited, cool as punch.
"Man, you have got to stop just popping up like that!" He said in frustration, scowling at the ghost.
"Every time I 'pop up'—" here she manipulated her remaining fingers into quotation marks; Dean flinched in disgust "—I help. Don't you want help finding Talon's grave?"
"I'd shove a gun up my ass before I accepted a ghost's help!" He answered defensively, crossing his arms subconsciously.
"There are at least ten cemeteries within a twenty mile radius with the words Mary and or Christ in the title," she answered coolly, raising a dark eyebrow. "I could come with you and show you the correct cemetery, if you can bring yourself to accept my help."
"Hell, I'd pull the trigger. Bitch, you are not getting in my car," Dean asserted, sending the ghost his most malicious death stare.
Audrey said nothing; she merely pinned him with a dark, powerful gaze that had him fidgeting eventually. Finally, just as Dean was about to stalk back to the Impala, she spoke quietly, almost as if she were talking to herself. "I'd think you'd want to kill him. After all, he did almost kill your brother, your only family in the world…"
He almost disagreed with her, almost told her that he had his dad too, but decided not to. Sammy was more important.
"Alright, fine. Just don't pull anything, and don't you dare leave any stray body parts in my car," he answered eventually, huffing in irritation. Audrey smiled winningly, and darted across the road in that eerie, too fast movement that he knew and hated. Before he could blink, Audrey was sitting primly in the passenger's seat.
He half ran across the street and slid into the driver's seat; with a thrill of some strange feeling, he realized that he could see the door through her transparent form. Biting back a cruel remark –he needed her help; he couldn't afford to offend her–, he put the car in gear and followed her directions sullenly.
After ten minutes of extremely awkward driving, the Impala purred to a halt in front of a shabby, horror movie cliché graveyard. The name of the cemetery (Mother Mary Cemetery of Rhett) was inscribed over the gate in cast iron lettering that would have been beautiful, had it not been so rusted. With Audrey hovering beside him, he pushed open the gate amid raucous creaking and strode into the cemetery, shovel over his shoulder, salt, oil and lighter clutched in his hand.
"This is it," Audrey said suddenly; Dean had to catch himself as he stumbled over an overgrown, almost invisible grave. Kicking some debris off of the stone, he read the writing.
Talon Strong
March 3rd, 1972 – December 6th, 1991
Beloved son, brother and friend
Gone too young
"Fucking menace to society—gone too young, my ass," grumbled Dean, digging the shovel into the rain moistened dirt. Audrey grinned.
"You should talk, Mr. Fake ID," she commented, in a rare display of lightness.
"How'd you know…you stole my wallet!" He cried, outraged, as Audrey drew his wallet out of one of her ragged pockets.
"Well, while you were unconscious in the waiting room, I got bored, so I took your wallet," she replied innocently, flipping it back to him. "Since when does F.B.I stand for 'fine body inspector'?"
He chose not to dignify that with a response; instead, he caught the wallet and tucked it back into his pocket. No one spoke as Dean dug; he was sweating and swearing under his breath; she was back in her "Airy Fairy" mode, drifting around distractedly.
Finally, a heavy bang echoed through the air: the shovel had struck wood. "Hey, Audrey! Ready to be reunited with your boyfriend?" He asked ironically, breaking in the top of the rotting coffin. It broke easily, being almost a decade old; the wood showered on top of Talon's skeleton noisily.
With morbid curiosity, Audrey bent over the coffin, wrinkling her nose as she looked over the yellowed corpse of her dead boyfriend. Scoffing, she stepped away. "Burn it."
"My pleasure," Dean answered happily, spreading salt then oil over the skeleton. "This time, stay in hell," he commented by means of farewell. He flipped open the lighter, and held it in front of his eyes for a long moment, then dropped it into the grave. Immediately, the skeleton burst into dramatic flames that almost rose out of the grave.
Behind him, there was a loud pop; Dean assumed that Audrey had vanished, so when he turned around, he was shocked: he was face to face with one of the most stunning young woman he had ever met.
She had pale, immaculate skin, and expressive brown doe eyes, accented with long, naturally curled eyelashes. Her dark hair tumbled over her slim shoulders, and a simple, but exquisite, crimson silk dress hugged every one of her curves. For a moment, she only gazed at him; then she smiled radiantly.
"Thank you. He was the only thing keeping me here…now, I may rest in peace," Audrey murmured, her voice as sleek and elegant as her dress. She leaned forward, and for a moment, Dean felt her ice cold lips brush against his cheek. Then, she shimmered out of view, leaving Dean alone in the cemetery, next to a flaming grave.
"Damn…if she wasn't dead…" he muttered, partly to relieve the tension, partly to break the awful silence that settled over the darkening graveyard.
He sighed and slung the shovel over his shoulder, then tucked the salt, oil and lighter into his pocket. As the flames of the burning grave spat and roared behind him, he walked away from the toughest gig he'd worked to date.
.xxx.
All right! That's chapter six…only one chapter left! A sort of epilogue, and it'll be regrettably short. However, it does set the stage for the next story!
Review responses (Nine! Niiiiiice!):
A-blackwinged-bird: Uh-oh, I hope you mean the good kind of bad!
JEM515: Hell yeah, more! It might take me a while (-blushes-), but I'd never leave a story hanging.
Kylie: Thanks! So glad you like it!
rozzy07: Double express speed, huh? I'm afraid I failed at that one…sorry! And yes…I'm going for MI's! ;)
Anamalia-fear: Yup! Sammy visited hell…buaha. I think I'll explore that concept in a future one-shot. Maybe the next one…
Xdaisy chainX: Ooh, good! I like that effect! And the creepier the better, eh?
Ghostwriter: Hey, nice to see you again! Thanks for the compliment!
Dawn N: Yeah, I love stories like that too…that's why I wrote it! Sorry this isn't soon enough!
sexybeast: No problem, thanks for reviewing chapter five! Ragdoll up my nose? Creative…painful…XD! And thanks so much for the compliment!
Love and kisses to all of you! See you MUCH sooner…again, sorry this one was almost a week late. I really do feel bad.