Hey everyone! Thanks for all the wonderful reviews! Sam's still not really in the picture yet - it's something I'm hoping to rectify soon, but things are going slowly. :(
Anyway, I really hope you enjoy this chapter.
Chapter Six.
"Dean!" she yelled, eyes wide in exasperation and hair sticking out every which way. "Just get in the fucking backseat already!"
Dean made a move to protest, but was cut off.
"You've got about a foot and sixty pounds on me. There's no way you'll wake up tomorrow and be able to move let alone drive. And we both know you won't even let me touch the wheel. Plus, I'm already here, so unless you want the backseat to go to waste…"
He growled, but kicked the door open anyway. "You're really irritating, you know that?"
"You'll thank me in the morning," she replied, leaning back against the seat as she put her feet up on the dashboard. She smiled to herself as she heard him try and get comfortable in the back. "Goodnight."
They'd driven their way through Wyoming, Nebraska, Missouri, and part of Illinois with no ghosts standing in their way – though they did take a detour to Laramie, Wyoming, for Abraham Lincoln's gigantic bronze head. At her insistence, of course. It was part of their job to drive all across the continental United States to kill things that should've stayed dead, but they were allowed to have fun between hunts, right? That was her theory, at least.
Dean seemed to agree, but his definition of "fun" was entirely different from her own. Having fun, according to him, meant girls, girls, and more girls, with an occasional side of alcohol and a smattering of roadside dives. Fun for her pretty much just meant travelling and sight-seeing. And, as of recently, it meant thwarting his womanizing ways.
She crossed her ankles on the dashboard and leaned her head against the door, plumping up the sweatshirt underneath her head as she shifted in her seat.
"Lock the doors," Dean said after a few minutes.
"They're locked."
"Check 'em."
"They're locked" she repeated. "Go to sleep. Or else I'm going to start asking questions about nothing."
"Jesus, woman, I'm asleep," Dean responded with a fake snore.
His breathing evened out only minutes later. She glanced at her watch, squinting in the darkness trying to make out the moon's reflection on the face. It was either just past eleven, or almost one. Need to get myself a glow in the dark watch, she thought, pushing back against the seat. Or a digital one. That'd be nice.
She ran a hand through her hair and grimaced at its stringiness. As much as she loved travelling, she didn't enjoy the havoc it wreaked on her hair. Maybe it was karma. Yeah. When it was just her and her Volkswagen, she could look as shitty as she wanted to, and it wouldn't matter. But now she felt like she had to maintain a sense of decorum. Why, she didn't know, but it just felt wrong to sit in this car, with Dean, stewing in body odor.
After tossing and turning – as well she could in the passenger seat, at least – she gave up and set her pillow between the driver and passenger seat, and splayed out across the front.
I need my infomercials, she thought, turning so that she could see the flat prairie of Central Illinois through the windshield, as if pretending it was a large, widescreen – albeit curved – television. As a source of entertainment, the windshield – and all that lurked behind it – sucked.
Even though she was excited about Niagara Falls, she knew they shouldn't have gone east. With everything that had happened to her mom – and with John disappearing and leaving her to fend for herself, she knew that while being independent was extremely important, keeping whatever family members one did have was equally – if not more – important. And though there was some apparent communication problem between the three Winchester men, she knew it had to be fixed. Being the one to take on challenges, she decided she had to make a trip to Stanford. Not to meddle, of course, because meddling is right on par with nagging, but to satisfy her curiosity.
The two oldest Winchester men were very, very impressive, she'd deduced several weeks ago. The third must be of similar caliber – unless, of course, he wasn't. And maybe he really wasn't. Taking the easy way out. Going to school, replacing guns with books, poltergeists with professors. Maybe he chose college because he couldn't handle the business? Nah, she shook her head, she was about 95% sure that any son raised by John Winchester would be equally impressive.
But she'd have to wait and see. And she would. Even if she had to knock Dean out and drive all the way to Palo Alto. She really wanted to slap him upside the head and tell him that family is family, no matter what, and to suck it up and go see Sam.
A combination of stubborn and nosy never fared well for anyone, but she couldn't help it. Okay, yeah, it'd probably take her a while to get around to knocking Dean out, not because she was scared of him, but because she wanted to spend as much time sightseeing as possible. Yep. Right. And, of course, saving the world, salting and burning one thing at a time.
Sighing, she sat up, draped her arms over the back of the seat, and peered at Dean. Actually, it was more of a full on stare than a mere peer. But he was clearly asleep, so it wouldn't pose any potential awkwardness.
Even in his sleep, he looked a mixture of 'playful' in the Dean kind of way and something akin to a if-you-mess-with-me-I'll-kill-you severeness. Dangerous, yet safe. Just like John. As long as you're not on his bad side. That was what was making her press the pause button on her plan to unite the two brothers – because no matter how curious and stubborn she was, she knew when to put a lid on it. Most of the time. I don't know him, she thought, and he doesn't even know I exist. Hell, he'd probably do what Dean did and flip out. And maybe he's a jerk and doesn't deserve having people worry about him. But that didn't matter, because people were worrying about him.
Dean turned in his sleep, his jacket making a crackling noise as it rubbed against the seat.
Well, she thought with a hint of a grin, whatever he's like, I hope he's as good-looking as the rest of his family. Before Dean, the only men she'd met were the ones who wore ratty trucker caps and flannel, had spotty facial hair, dirty clothes, and pretty much exemplified what people would call "white trash" or any other derogative version of it.
She shook out her sweatshirt-pillow and slipped it over her head, pulling it down hard to get her head through the neck hole. It wasn't like she had a big head or anything – at least, she hoped – but her head always got stuck in sweatshirts. And it always messed up her hair.
Annabel woke the next day to a knock on the window. Startled, she sat up abruptly and missed hitting the top of the car by a hair. "What the fuck…" she yelped, staring at Dean's amused mug. "What are you doing?"
Dean leaned in to peer into the window before pulling the door open, gesturing for her to scoot aside. He stuffed his cell phone into his pocket before getting comfortable. "Looks like we won't be heading to New York just yet," he said, pulling a bottle of water out of his other jacket pocket.
She took it gratefully and downed half the bottle in one gulp before replying. "What do you mean?"
He tapped the pocket he'd placed his phone in just seconds ago. "Coordinates. Maryland."
"Coordinates?" she asked with a frown. "Who sent them to you?"
"Unknown number, but it's Dad. And don't ask me how I know. It's too early for your questions," he said, cutting her off before she could even start.
She slide the hood off her head, disappointed that she'd become so predictable after only a month. "So what's in Maryland?"
"Besides government types and seafood?" he snorted as he started the car. "I don't know. Guess we'll find out soon enough. Hungry?"
She shook her head. "Sleepy."
He cast her a sidelong glance. "I don't see why. You slept longer last night than ever before."
"Sleep overload maybe?" she responded, rubbing her eyes. She dug through the glove compartment and pulled out a small eye drop bottle seconds later, which she handed to Dean with a sheepish grin. "Open it for me, yeah?"
"Can't wait for that thing to come off."
"Thanks," she replied, squeezing a few drops into each eye before she passed it back to Dean to re-cap. "I can't wait either. Y'know, it's really irritating having to walk around with a huge 'squirt' on my arm."
"Should you be sleeping with contacts in?" Dean asked absently as he floored it down the interstate. "Won't your eyes get infected or something?"
Annabel held up her papier-mâchéd hand. "Unless you're going to take them out for me, I don't see how they'll come out."
"Point taken."
They went south when they originally planned on heading north, and ended up in a small-town bar in central West Virginia full of burly men in trucker caps. And judging from the tractor trailers and trucks in the weedy lot, they weren't just wearing those caps for kicks. It was one of those places that Annabel wouldn't have set foot in without her trusty 9mm. And a sharpened knife or two in her boot.
But still, it was quaint enough to have booths and dinner. Though really, quaint wasn't the right word.
She took a bite out of her burger and washed it down with the beer Dean had left on the table. She had never been much of a drinker, since there was something inherently dangerous about getting drunk when you're on the road by yourself, no matter how many knives you had on your body. Because honestly, if it's a six-foot, 200-plus pound guy on a mission, he could just sit on you and you'd be dead. Especially if you're five foot three and 115 pounds…give or take a few, depending on the time of the month…and whether or not she was wearing her hiking boots. But then they'd just become a huge liability, preventing her from running the fastest she could go, which wasn't extremely fast to begin with.
"You know," Dean started, settling back into the booth with an unceremonious thump, "I've never been to West Virginia before."
"Is it all you expected and more?" she replied, quirking her eyebrow.
"No, smartass, it's not."
"That's too bad."
He ignored her comment, and continued. "Never expected it to be full of hicks."
"That's a hell of a generalization."
Dean shrugged. "Anyway," he started, reaching for a French fry, "Glenn Dale. Abandoned hospital."
"How'd you figure that out?"
"I have my ways," he said conspiratorially.
"Yeah, yeah. What's so special about the place to warrant a text?" Annabel asked, stuffing the last couple of fries in her mouth before Dean could reach them.
"Well, we're gonna have to wait and see, won't we," Dean said, taking on her smartass tone. "If you hurry up, we'll probably be able to get to Maryland by nightfall."
"I'm sorry I can't shovel food into my mouth like you do," she responded, glaring at him as she wiped her mouth.
"Could've fooled me."
"So that's all you've got? Abandoned hospital?"
"It was a tuberculosis sanitarium for DC in the 30s, and after TB died down, it was used to treat the chronically ill," Dean started, throwing a few bills onto the table. "The two main buildings had their own morgues, and the facility was closed in the early 80s. So basically, idiot kids decide to have some pre-Halloween fun and one of them was found hanging by some pipes in the basement."
"I hate kids," she sighed, following him out to the car.
They had arrived just outside Baltimore hours before nightfall – thanks to Dean's driving and the empty stretches of highway. So instead of setting up shop in a motel room, they decided to first figure out what was going on at Glenn Dale.
Though Glenn Dale was miles down the interstate, the locals in Jessup knew quite a bit about its history – and current events. And they were eager to share this bit of information to a pair of up-and-coming ghost-researching bloggers.
Turned out one of the waitresses at a small mom and pop seafood place knew someone who was friends with the kid that wasn't the one hanging from the ceiling. And as luck would have it, the idiot lived right on the outskirts of town.
Dean tapped his pen against the pad of paper he'd taken from the motel in Idaho. "Your friend – Hannah – it was deemed a suicide?"
Tom, the subject in question nodded, albeit defiantly. He glared at Dean like Dean was the police rather than a lame blogger. "They're wrong. Hannah wasn't suicidal at all. Something killed her."
"Something?" Dean asked skeptically, pen pausing above the pad. "Don't you mean someone?"
Tom shrugged and kept quiet.
Annabel cut in. "Why Glenn Dale?"
"It's almost Halloween, and I guess we thought it'd be cool to check it out. Hannah loved ghost stories."
"Can you tell us a little about the place?"
"Well," he started, fiddling with his sleeves. "They say there was a massive TB outbreak in the 70s, and the only thing they could do to contain it was to lock and board all the doors and windows and let the patients die," said the harried teenager as he stared into his drink. "We thought it was just a rumor, all the terrible things in there, but there was definitely something in that hospital."
"So you two went there at night, and you found Hannah swing—" Dean broke off as Annabel's elbow connected against his side.
"What he meant was, what happened when you were there?"
He swallowed, his stringy hair falling into his face. "I was exploring the morgue, and she was still in one of the rooms upstairs. We figured it'd be okay, because we both had flashlights, but the hospital was larger than we thought. But we couldn't rely too much on the flashlights, because the police are always there looking to arrest trespassers. Anyway, I heard a weird shuffling from the corridor, and by the time I found her, she was dead."
Annabel shifted in her seat, staring at Dean in attempt to get him to say something. Comforting people was definitely not her forte. She was more of a pat-you-awkwardly-on-the-shoulder-and-walk-away-as-fast-as-possible type of person when it came to these situations.
Dean coughed. "No suicidal tendencies at all?"
Clearly it wasn't Dean's strong point either.
Tom frowned. "No. She was looking forward to going trick-or-treating on Halloween. It's her favorite day of the year. There's no way she'd kill herself before it, even if she was…suicidal. Which she wasn't."
"So how did she –"
"I don't know, okay? Probably some ghosts that died from TB or something."
"Did you feel any cold spots, smell anything weird?" Dean pressed on.
"It's almost November, 'course it's cold. And the place is abandoned. It's rank."
"So, um, the police?" Annabel interrupted, recognizing when a conversation was going bad.
"They're always there. You just can't see them. I had to pay a four hundred dollar fine and serve hours of community service."
"Really. Well, thank you for your time. Enjoy the coffee," Dean said, rising.
Annabel quickly followed suit. "I'm sorry about Hannah," she said, patting Tom on the shoulder as she brushed past.
"It's getting late," Dean started as he started the car. "Motel?"
"Yeah. Think I saw one down the street. So what do you think?"
"Sounds good," he replied.
"No, I mean the kid."
"Think he's telling the truth. Don't see a reason for him not to. This place look good?" Dean asked, even though he pulled into the lot before she could answer.
"Looks like a truck stop to me, but yeah. I'm tired," she said, glancing at the half-lit sign that read Knights Inn. "Actually," she added as she cast a wary look across the street, "Bring the stash of guns, just in case."
"You are way too paranoid," Dean said with a shake of his head. But, he went out back and unlocked the trunk.
She grabbed their bags from the backseat and slammed the door. "It's called being cautious. Being safe."
He snorted. "There is no safe in this life."
"Yeah well, there's no harm in looking for it."
"You know," Annabel started as they left the Impala hidden quite a stretch from the hospital, "That motel has got to be the worst I've seen. I swear, I've counted fourteen bug bites already."
Dean slung the duffel over his shoulder, scratching his chin with his other hand. "Trust me, there are worse. Which building was it?"
"The big one. The local haunted buildings website said it'll be the lone building on the left-hand side. Pretty hard to miss," she replied, shuffling close behind. "God," she sighed, catching herself before she fell onto a maze of exposed roots, "with all the supposed security around this place, you'd think they'd have enough time on their hands to clean up the place a bit."
"You sure you're up for this?" Dean asked, pausing to let her catch up.
"I'll be fine. Plus, it's just a preliminary scope-out, isn't it?"
"It's not you I'm worried about," he muttered under his breath, scanning the bushes for pesky policemen.
"Thanks," she replied sarcastically. "I may not be a lefty, but working with just a left hand is better than working with none at all."
"Except when the person working with that left hand would be better off in the motel room."
"Yeah, well, when a crazy TB-ghost is trying to string you up, this left hand will sit idly by and do nothing. And I'm not staying in that room by myself."
Dean laughed, trudging ahead through the damp ground. Twigs cracked underneath his boots, but no one else was around to notice. "We might be here for a while – a few days, if we're lucky."
"I would just sleep in the car, except for the fact that there's a maximum security prison right across the street."
Dean motioned for her to be quiet. "You hear that?"
Annabel strained her ears to listen, but heard nothing out of the ordinary.
"Over there," he whispered, stepping cautiously towards the supposed noise.
She followed him even though she hadn't heard a thing, all the while keeping an eye out for anything that might decide to come at them from other directions. It was doubtful it was a ghost or anything of the sort, because for one thing, they weren't even close to a building. Unless the entire 200-something acre grounds was one big burial ground posing as an abandoned hospital.
Dean emerged with a shrug, looking a mixture of sheepish and irritated. "Just a deer."
Nature. She hated it. And to think, AP Environmental Science was her favorite class – back when she actually went to school. But when you're busy dealing with nightmarish entities – without receiving any compensation, taking on fake identities, and staying off the radar, you just don't have time to seek out local recycling centers. Nor do you have time to swerve on dark winding roads just to save deer or squirrels.
They continued the walk down the road, sticking close by the fallen trees and bushes, just in case some cops were having their mid-shift donuts in the area.
"So what do you think's in there?"
"Who knows. Could be any or all of the patients that've died in there."
"That's it right there. The adult hospital," she pointed out, staring at the brick building with slight trepidation. She'd often thought she wasn't at all cut out for the career that she'd taken on, but these thoughts only came before – and not during – particular jobs. So her performance wasn't affected – just her nerves. It was probably a good thing that she always worked well under pressure. But god, the nerves.
At least it was daytime.
"All right," Dean said in his normal commanding voice. "Six floors plus the basement, right? I'll take the top four, and you take the two and the basement. Got your flashlight?" he asked as they made their way through the tall weeds. "Phones should work – we're not too far from town. But if not, we'll meet out here. Got it?"
She nodded, holding her industrial-sized flashlight in her left hand. "I brought some duct tape. You know, so I could use both hands instead of just one."
Dean let out a half-smile as he took the roll of tape from her pocket. She held out her plastered hand and the flashlight, and waited for him to tape the two together. He rolled the tape around the flashlight and her hand a few times, making sure that it was secure.
"You look funny."
Grinning, she took the small EMF contraption from her other pocket, and flipped it on. She couldn't hold anything with her right hand, but hell if she was going to stand by and just have it hang loosely by her side. And now, with the added weight of the flashlight, if anything corporeal came at her, she could always smash the flashlight against their jugular. It'd be like having full use of both hands. Or something. Maybe I should wedge a blade in there too. It could be very useful, she thought as she crossed the threshold and entered the building.
"See you in a bit," Dean said, taking off for the stairs. They were at the end of the hall – an almost never-ending hall, the way it looked – if the blueprints in the library were correct. "Be careful."
"Yeah, you too," she echoed, stepping into the doorway on her right. She almost wanted to suggest that they go through the place together, but what was the point of having a partner if you're both going to do the same thing?
The place made her uncomfortable.
Understatement.
Annabel made her way through the first and second floors having noticed nothing out of the ordinary – except for a pair of dentures suspended in some congealed liquid, some children's drawings, and some leftover beer and chips, no doubt gifts left behind by local teenagers.
The basement, however, was a different matter. Not only was it much darker, but it smelled like a mixture of skunk and embalming fluid, with a dash of fecal matter. And the water that lined the ground didn't help much. Every step she took, no matter how carefully, water splashed up her jeans. It probably wasn't just water either, but she willed herself to stop thinking about it.
She pointed her flashlight down the hall, and was unhappily surprised to see that there was no end in sight. The basement was definitely much, much larger than the upper floors. Maybe the tunnels are real, she thought, pushing her way through the doorway shabbily labeled as the morgue.
She stiffened as she felt a cool breeze brush past her, bracing herself for an encounter with the not-so-dead variety. But there was nothing there, and the EMF was quiet.
It was too quiet.
She turned and ended up facing rows and rows of cabinets. Some were left open, revealing the rusty slabs inside. Apparently some rats had taken up shop in several of them, as evidenced by the rat droppings littered about. They actual pests were nowhere to be seen, however.
It was all very creepy, what with the graffitied skulls on the walls and the mysterious breeze, but all in all, things were as normal as they could be for an abandoned building. Then she remembered the girl died on the upper floors.
After a quick run-through of the basement – the tunnel was boarded off – she decided to head upstairs to check on Dean…after she made sure he wasn't already waiting for her outside. He wasn't.
The stairs caved a little under her weight, so she pressed her cast against the wall to spread the weight around.
"Dean?" she whispered, poking her head into room after room. "Why am I whispering?" she wondered out loud, frowning as she panned her flashlight around the room. "Dean?"
"Well fuck," she half-growled half-groaned, as her light blinked a few times before giving out completely. The windows were small and had been boarded – though many had rotted and fallen apart, so they offered little light, but she had to make do. It was just her luck. Typical. These types of things only happened in badly-written horror films – and in her opinion, they were all badly written – but apparently someone had it out for her.
She left sopping wet footsteps in her wake as she made her way into what looked like a bathroom. There was a large ceramic tub in middle of the room, filled with muddy water that looked like it was home to all things unsanitary. The toilets weren't much better. In fact, even in the dim light, she could have sworn there was unflushed fecal matter in three of the five toilets. Probably the locals, she thought, resisting the urge to gag as she noticed the flies. Holy jesus.
She tried to imagine the room as it had been when the building was first constructed, but couldn't see past the current state of decay and rust. But no matter how luxurious it may have been, having a row of toilets with nothing separating the user from others was simply unimaginable. The luxuries of modern life.
It took her about fifteen minutes to go through the different rooms on the third floor, and as she ascended the steps, she called out Dean's name yet again.
He was just headed towards the stairwell as her head popped into view. "What're you doing up here?" he asked, irritated, after he ascertained that she was in fact still in one piece.
"Got nothing. Just checking to make sure everything's okay up here," she replied. "Everything good?"
"Everything's clean. No EMF spikes, no bones, nothing. You sure the kid said it was this building?"
Annabel nodded. "Maybe whatever it is rests during the day? I mean, things do that, right?"
"Or maybe we'll have to check the other buildings too. We'll have to wait it out though. Make sure the cops are gone."
She uttered a sound of agreement. "Oh," she began, "I found the tunnel – it's in the basement. It's supposed to lead to the children's building, and I'm pretty sure there won't be any cops down there."
"What're we waiting for then?" Dean asked, clicking on his flashlight as he continued down the stairs.