Thanks again to everyone who's been reading. It really does mean a lot to me!
"You named your fake psychic detective agency 'Psych?'" Sam asked as the Echo pulled up outside the office building, "isn't that kind of obvious?"
"Thank you," Gus said as he climbed from the car, "it's good to know that someone agrees with me." It had been a long, silent car ride to the office, where Sam and Gus were to wait for any news from Dean and Shawn, who had gone back to the murder scene to investigate a little more thoroughly.
The two men walked into the office and Gus flipped on the lights. "Nice place," Sam muttered, "cozy. You get a lot of cases?"
"Well," Gus sighed, "we investigated a haunting that was really a form of multiple personality disorder, Shawn's held séances, but mostly we stumble into police cases."
"Sounds cool. So, this murder with the clown doll, does stuff like that happen often around here?"
"First time I've heard of something like it. Why?"
"Well," Sammy explained, "Santa Barbara might be the place where the legend started. My brother and I need something to go on before we can find out how to kill the thing."
Gus shrugged. "Maybe it's just a maniac."
Sam's eyes narrowed. "Or, maybe," he began, digging into the bag at his side for his laptop, "it's something more."
"It's cool how you flash that fake badge and they let you in," Shawn said as he and Dean looked through the master bedroom of the Peterson household. The hunter had pulled out his trusty home-made EMF reader and was walking around the room.
"Something was definitely here," he muttered as he stuffed the instrument back in his jacket pocket, "and it wasn't human, that's for sure."
"The window wasn't forced open," Shawn said, noticing the fact that the latch hadn't been touched, "and it doesn't look like the door's been jimmied, either. Whatever it is, someone let it in."
"Or it went right through the wall," Dean said as his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. He pulled it out and answered it, flipping it open. "Hello? Really? We'll be right there."
"What is it? My office isn't haunted, is it?"
"Sam found something. Come on."
"So," Sam began the moment his brother and Shawn walked through the door, "there was this nut job, Ben James, being held in an asylum not far from here. He was a murderer. His first victim was a girl named Mary, who's eyes had been carved out."
"Like in the Bloody Mary legend?" Shawn asked.
"Exactly. His second victim was a boy named Tim, who was found hanging over his car. There was a hook shoved in the door handle."
"The Hookman."
"His third victim, the last one, was a college student named Mark. He was found with two pencils shoved up his nose, face first on his desk in his bedroom."
"The pencil suicide," Gus noted, "I've heard that one, too."
"So, our guy Ben is an urban legend killer?" Dean asked, "nothing supernatural about it? I'm telling you, man, people are crazy."
Sam sighed. "There wasn't anything supernatural about it until the other night. About an hour before Maggie's murder took place, Ben died in his cell."
Dean nodded. "His ghost decided to finish the job, make a few more legends real, but it's all so random. How's he pick the legends?"
"That's what we were working on when you came back," Gus explained, "Sam thinks it might be a website."
Sam nodded, rubbing at his temples as a massive headache began to form. "Yeah. Something like hellhoundslair, you know." He squinted against the lights in the office, which had seemed to grow suddenly brighter.
"Sam?" Dean asked as his brother's vision came on full force.
The small blue Echo sped down the streets of Santa Barbara, the headlights of the semi shining brightly behind it as the truck gained. Dean shoved his foot to the floor, looking behind him, desperate for a way out.
In the cab of the truck, an eerily pale face smiled maniacally. It looked almost like a clown, red nose and all. There was no doubt about it, Benjamin James had found them, and was ready to exact his revenge.
Dean pushed the Echo, willing it to go faster as Shawn and Gus watched the truck behind them slow. "I think it's giving up," Gus said happily. Slowly, the elder hunter eased his foot off the gas, glancing back at the truck that was falling quickly behind them.
"I think you're right," Dean grinned, turning back to the road just as another pair of headlights bore down upon the tiny car. The hunter threw the Echo in reverse, only to find his escape blocked by the semi Ben had been driving. The two trucks collided, ramming into each other and crushing the small blue car and all of its passengers.