Disclaimer: The characters of Supernatural do not belong to me.
A/N: This story is the direct prequel to Janie's Got a Gun. John pulls into town on what he thinks is just a hunt and finds out that there's a lot more to the haunting than meets the eye.
I will not give out plot points, but I will say this-this story is rated M for a very good reason. Janie is abused by her father in this story. I will not detail the abuse in my writing, but I do go into detail about the effects of the abuse on Janie. Just like Janie's Got a Gun, this is a dark story. Darker than many of the others that I've written before. This story also deals, in this chapter, with suicidal thoughts. Please proceed with extreme caution if there is a chance that reading any of this could trigger something in you.
As I've said before on my last few stories, I hope everyone is staying safe and staying healthy.
John Winchester had long ago stopped being bothered by silence. He spent his time on long car trips alone going over and over the details of what he was about to do. The job was the most important thing right now.
But John was lying if he tried to convince himself he didn't miss it. The bickering between the boys over what he saw was the stupidest things. The two of them laughing over things they didn't dare share with their father. Sam fighting him over having to move again. Dean asking him question after question after question about the hunt.
Those days were over, and though he wouldn't admit it, it hurt to think about.
Sam was gone. He was enjoying his life at Stanford, and John had accepted that long ago. He had just left from a trip to make sure Sammy was okay, when he'd gotten a call from Bobby about a hunt. People were seeing a woman around town that would appear, stand there for up to a minute, then leave.
The puzzling thing was where the woman was appearing. She would appear at the local school, the local diner, on the hiking trail just outside of town, and various other points around town. John felt certain the woman was a ghost, even though he couldn't put his finger on why he thought that. But if she was a ghost, why was she appearing in multiple places?
Another hour passed, and John was finally pulling into town. The town seemed just like so many of the other little towns he had worked in over the course of his hunting tenure. There was a diner off to the side, which seemed to be one of the main attractions in town. Further down the street was a post office, a couple of houses, the local bank, library, school, doctor's office, and various other shops. It was close to eight in the morning, so there were kids everywhere heading to school. Some were walking, a few were running, and some were being dropped off by their parents.
John parked the truck outside of the diner, glad his drive was finally over. He pulled out his materials that he'd put together on the hunt, then decided at the last minute to hide them in the truck and take a break. Stepping out of the truck and onto the pavement below, John immediately felt as if he was being watched. The feeling made his hair stand up and his hand went straight to his gun. He pulled it back when he saw what gave him what Dean would've called the 'heebie geebies'.
Across the street stood a girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen by John's judgment, taking as close a look at him as she could. The girl looked pitiful. She was dressed in a tattered shirt with rips and holes and jeans that looked too big for her. She was thin and pale. When she noticed John looking back at her, she panicked. John could see her shaking from all the way across the street. He didn't know what made him do it, but John smiled and waved at her before heading inside.
"Hey there, sweetie. Grab a table anywhere, I'll be right with you."
Within thirty seconds, John remembered why he didn't take breaks too often. His mind drifted immediately back to Sam. He tried to distract himself by looking a little deeper into the hunt and questioning his waitress, but that only told him things he already knew. John headed to the library to do some research, where he found the most likely culprit behind the ghost sightings.
Sabrina Foster.
She had died four years earlier when she lost control of her car and skidded off a bridge. The accident was deemed suspicious, but after a long and extensive investigation, no further action was taken. She was survived by a husband, Leon, and a now fifteen-year-old daughter, Janie. John stared at the picture of Sabrina Foster's family for nearly a full minute before he realized why the little girl looked familiar.
She was the one that had been staring at him earlier that morning.
John's mind shifted away from Sam at that moment and to the little girl. The Janie in the photo looked drastically different from the one he'd seen on the road earlier. Sabrina and Leon, in the photo, were dressed immaculately. Leon was in a crisp black suit with a white dress shirt and black tie. Sabrina was in a white dress decorated with small red flowers. Janie looked to be around ten years old, in a sky blue dress with pink polka dots. She had a ridiculously cute lopsided grin and was holding one hand each of her mother and father. The photo had been used for Sabrina's obituary, and John checked to see if he could find the date it had been taken. Almost one year to the day of Sabrina's death.
A story started to form in John's mind. He of course couldn't be sure that the story was correct, but in his experience, it probably was. Sabrina had died in a suspicious accident, and Leon had stopped taking care of Janie the way that he should. The question, for John, was what had happened in the year between the photo being taken and Sabrina's death? John's first thought, the one he hoped was wrong since Janie was still living at home, was that Leon had killed his wife and she was either looking for revenge or looking to protect her child.
With the ghost likely identified, and the likely reason that the ghost was appearing now obvious to him, John felt fully ready to proceed. He left the library, booked a room in town, put his things away, then proceeded to the house of Leon Foster.
As John was interviewing Leon, Janie was on her way home from school. She was walking slowly, trying to avoid getting back to the house that no longer felt like a home. Even when she was there alone, and her father was either at work or out drinking, all she saw were reminders of her mother. The wallpaper her mother had picked out two years before she died still hung in the living room. The pink comforter Janie slept with every night that had been a 'just because' gift when her mother and father fought so much that her father actually left the house for a few days. The pictures that Janie had drawn for her mother that still hung on the refrigerator, that for whatever reason her father had never thrown out. Those and a thousand other things hung all over the house, both comforting Janie in the moments she missed her mother the most and hurting her deeply at the same time.
When her father was at home, Janie had learned to shut herself down. She couldn't feel anything or she was afraid she'd explode. For the first two years after her mother's death, Janie was afraid of her father's every move. He had transformed from a loving, fun dad to a distant, withdrawn father over the course of only a few months. After her mother's death, Leon had transformed again, this time into a full fledged monster.
Her life had become regimented in a way that would have made the most hardened prison warden proud. Set her alarm clock to wake up one hour before her father so she could quickly get dressed and get her school things together. Make her father a hot breakfast before quickly making herself a bowl of cereal and wash out the bowl, then drying it and putting it back in the cabinet so he didn't catch her 'eating without permission'. Doing anything without her father's express permission was a cardinal sin in her house, punishable by anything from a quick slap to the face to him dragging her back up the stairs and to her room for a painful 'reminder of the rules in this house' with his belt. The severity of the punishment depended entirely on her father's mood, and Janie had found that his mood greatly improved if she had breakfast ready and waiting for him.
After breakfast, her father decided if she could go to school or not. He'd learned early on not to keep her out of school too much, or the 'nosy bitch teachers' would call CPS on him and 'put their ugly noses where they didn't belong'. But if he was in an exceptionally foul mood, and had 'really given you what you deserved' to Janie in the morning rather than just waiting for her to come home in the afternoon, Janie didn't go to school. She was locked in her bedroom until her father came home from work and told to 'shut up crying before I give you a real reason to cry'.
Janie didn't know when her father left for work. She knew there were more days than not that he didn't go to work, and she wondered why he hadn't been fired yet. Then she wondered if maybe he had been fired, and maybe that was the reason for his sudden change in attitude towards her. But most afternoons, her father was not home when she got back from school, and it was a blessed break for her. She was supposed to start immediately cleaning the house and working on dinner, but Janie always took a thirty minute nap after school.
It was during this thirty minute nap Janie always dreamed about her mother. Her memories seemed unusually clear, but they always brought a peace to her. Without that peace, Janie decided, she long ago would have jumped off the same bridge from where her mother had died in an attempt to be together with her Mommy again.
Janie shuddered to think what would happen if her father ever caught her taking one of these naps. But so far, he never had.
It was eight hours of hell for Janie, just like it was every other day. The taunts stayed the same. Look at her. Sad little Janie Foster. With her crazy father Leon. And the worst one of all to Janie, he killed her mother. Janie didn't want to believe it, but with the way her father's attitude had turned towards her, she feared it could be true. Janie opened the door and closed it right away. She started to head up to her room when she heard it.
"Janie."
Janie jumped again and turned around. What was her father doing home? He didn't usually get home until after dinner. Would Janie be in trouble for being late? It was 3:45 and she was supposed to be home "not one minute past 3:30 or it'll be hard for you to sit for a month." But all those thoughts were chased from her head when she realized that they weren't alone. There was a man in the living room with her father, one that Janie had seen before but took a few seconds to place.
"Hi."
"Hi there." The man said.
Janie realized where she'd seen him before. "I saw you at the diner this morning."
"That's right." He said with a smile. "I'm John."
"Janie."
"Janie. Don't you have homework?" Leon asked.
Her father's stern tone brought Janie's attempt at normal conversation to a screeching halt. "No sir. I did it all during study period."
"Then get up to your room. You're still grounded."
Janie's heart dropped. She wasn't grounded, at least that he'd told her. He was trying to be nice for the company and not draw suspicion to them.
"Yes, sir."
"Actually, Mr. Foster, you mind if I ask Janie some questions? The same ones I asked you?" John asked.
Janie could tell he wanted to say no, but Leon nodded his consent.
"Okay, thanks. Janie, have you noticed anything weird going on lately?"
"Weird? Like what?" She asked.
"Like lights flickering? Cold spots anywhere? Do you feel like someone's maybe watching you?"
"No." Janie said. "Not that I remember."
"Okay. Well, listen, I'm staying at the Fox Motel, room 337. If you do think of anything, will you call me? You can call me anytime, day or night."
"I'll call." Janie said.
"Alright. I'll get out of your hair now. It was nice to meet you both."
"Nice to meet you too." Janie said.
Janie smiled as John went out the door. He was the first person in a long while to show her any kindness. Even though it was just a smile and a slight conversation, it was enough. When the door closed and the truck drove away, Janie turned and started to head to her room like her father had said. Before she got a few inches, she was knocked to the floor by the back of her father's open hand. Her father may have been a slow, clumsy drunk, but he moved fast when he wanted to hit her.
"You should be ashamed of yourself. Flirting with a man older than me."
"Daddy, please, I didn't." Janie said, hand to her cheek to try and rub away the pain.
"Get up to your room. Now. Do not come out until I tell you you can." Leon said.
"Can I please eat something fir…"
In a flash, Leon had pulled Janie up from the floor, held her around the waist, and was spanking her hard and fast. It didn't take long to get her to the point of crying and begging.
"Daddy, please, I'm sorry…"
"Get to your room. Now." Leon said again, still swatting. "I tell you one more time and you won't leave that room for a week. Understand?"
"Yes, sir! Daddy, please, please stop!"
Leon finally let her go, but Janie knew better than to think it was over.
"Go. I'll be up soon."
"Yes, sir." Janie somehow managed to get out.
Still crying, Janie ran to her room and threw herself on her bed. She knew what it meant when Leon said he'd be up soon. It only meant one of two things, one bad and one worse. She only hoped for a few minutes break before he made his choice. She pulled out from under pillow a photograph she kept there. It was of her, her mother, and her father on her fourth birthday. Her mother was trying to wipe her face with a wet rag, as it was covered in birthday cake. Her father was holding her, and helping her avoid her mother. They were all laughing, even though her mother was pretending to be annoyed.
"Mommy, I need you back. I can't do this anymore. Please help me."
I'm here, Janie. It's almost over. Mommy's here.
The voice was so weak that Janie didn't dare hope it was real. She didn't dare hope that the hand she felt rubbing her back was real either. All too soon, her bedroom door opened. Janie thought about trying to pretend to be asleep, but she doubted it would do any good. Leon stood there, folded belt in his hand.
"Get up."