"I'm telling you, Sammy, we've searched this whole house over twice. Nothing's here. Who's to say those little kids didn't do it to themselves?"
"Who, besides you, would be stupid enough to do that?"
Dean shrugged, "I dunno. I just thought- hey!"
Sam laughed as he took his brother's weapon and pulled the old door open.
"That wasn't very nice," Dean muttered as he stepped toward the open door, the only way out of the house. A sudden wind blew through the room, slamming the door shut before either brother had a chance to exit the old shack. Evil laughter echoed down the stairs from the upper level.
Without even realizing what he was doing, Sam handed the gun back to his brother, who gladly took it. They both turned to the staircase and waited for the ghostly form of the seamstress to appear.
"Come on," Dean urged quietly, "come on."
"Where is she?" Sam wondered aloud as a cold breeze blew through the room, causing the tattered curtains to flutter wildly.
"Looking for someone, dears?" a voice behind them asked sweetly. Turning, the brothers found themselves face-to-face with a pallid woman in her mid-thirties. Her old-fashioned dress was covered in blood and slit open across the stomach. With a swipe of her hands she sent Sam flying across the room to crash into the old stone fireplace.
"Sam!" Dean yelled as his brother's gun clattered to the ground.
"Oh, aren't you something special?" Meredith marveled, circling Dean and grinning, "just like me."
"I'm nothing like you," he announced boldly, raising his weapon and firing twice. The other ghost disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"You all right?" Dean asked, appearing suddenly in front of his brother and holding out a transparent hand to help him up.
"I guess," Sam moaned, tentatively reaching for his older sibling's not-quite-there hand.
"Oh, come on," Dean rolled his eyes and grabbed Sammy's hand suddenly and pulled him up with a strength his brother hadn't thought him capable of, "stop being such a baby. I'm fine."
Sam just blushed, looking at his feet, and bent to pick up his dropped weapon. Slowly, limping slightly on a sore ankle, he headed back to the door, brother in tow.
Sighing, Sammy stepped onto the old front porch, which groaned loudly under his weight. The door slammed suddenly shut behind him.
"Very funny, Dean." No answer. "Dean?" Silence. Sam tried the door. Locked. "Dean!"
Dean stopped in his tracks as the door slammed shut just short of his nose. "Very funny, Sammy," he muttered, closing his eyes and sighing. No matter how many times he did this trick, he'd never quite be able to get used to it.
He walked into the wall, not through it, as he'd meant to, but into it. Confusion apparent on his pale face, he tried again. The wall was solid.
Beginning to panic, and prone to showing it in his little brother's absence, Dean ran to the door and began to pound on it.
"Something wrong, dear?"
Dean turned. Meredith was standing at the top of the rotting staircase, smiling down at him.
"Let me out."
"I'm afraid I can't do that, sweetie. That would ruin everything, oh yes."
"Everything?" Dean asked cautiously, taking a small step forward.
She nodded, suddenly at the foot of the stairs. "Dearie, we think you may be delusional. You're probably not aware of it, but you're dead. Poor dear. So confused. You're one of us now."
"Us?" Dean inquired, taking an involuntary step back towards the door. He leaned up against it, his fear rising as he realized that it was still solid.
Meredith was at his side before he could blink, bringing with her the spirit of every child she'd ever murdered, about thirty in all. They surrounded him, backing him painfully up against the freakishly solid door. Dean could hear pounding on the seemingly flimsy wood, his brother trying desperately to get in.
"One of us," Meredith cooed, her eyes flashing murderously, "it's time for you to move on, dearie. One of us. You certainly can't stay here. One of us. No longer the hunter,. One of us. Now only the hunted. One of us. One of us." The children joined in her horrid chant as she grabbed Dean's wrist and began pulling him toward the fireplace. "One of us. One of us. Hunted now, like one of us."
He screamed as the kids grabbed onto his wrinkled jeans, his favorite jacket, pushing and pulling him ever closer to the fireplace, which had started to glow with an unearthly light. Dean began to struggle.
"It's OK, mister," one of the children said, "you're going to a better place." He swiped a hand across his bloodstained face, his milky eyes never blinking.
"I'm not dead," Dean argued, struggling harder as the mob of ghostly kids overtook him, "and I don't wanna die!" He didn't realize that in order to drag him towards the fabled 'light,' Meredith had released her hold on the door. He didn't hear his brother break into the house. He couldn't see the younger man rushing toward him, couldn't hear his name when his little brother shouted it.
Sammy reached the horde of ghosts as they trekked slowly across the room to the glowing portal. He recognized the danger instantly. Again, he yelled Dean's name, and, again, got no response. So he did the only thing he could do. He aimed his gun and fired.
Sure, it was dangerous, but he was a good shot. He wouldn't hit his brother. The spirits began dissolving left and right, screaming as the rock slat melted them into temporary oblivion.
Finally, he caught sight of his brother, buried beneath a blood-drenched group of dead children. He raced forward, seemingly unnoticed, and reached for Dean, trying to grab his jacket and pull him from danger. Sam's hand went right through him.
"Dean!" he yelled, but the older man couldn't hear him over the repeated chant that echoed through the house.
More shots rang out as Sammy attempted to thin the crowd. He saw Dean's hand shoot up in the air, recognizing it by the two leather bracelets he'd been given years before. Friendship bracelets. One from Sam, one from John. He never took them off.
Ceasing fire, Sam reached out and tried to grab the elder's wildly flailing hand. He went right through it, like there was nothing there.
He called out to his brother again, but Dean hadn't heard, couldn't hear, not matter what. The chanting was too loud.
Sam stumbled back, tripping over his brother's discarded gun, which lay by the door. There was only one way, one hope of escape. Life or death, quite literally, hung in the balance. Dean might hate him for it later, but if his plan worked, it would all be worth it. And it would work. Sammy was a good shot.
He aimed carefully for his brother, barely visible, even through the thinned crowd, and pulled the trigger.
Ooh... I'm evil, huh?
