Chapter 24. Cramped, Dark Spaces.
John was bouncing his leg up and down as he sat in the passenger seat of Caleb's car. Glancing down at his watch he saw that it was 1.30 in the afternoon. That meant that it had only been two and a half hours since they had left Fergus Falls.
He had tried ringing the camp's phone number, that Sam had given him, a few times but every time all he got was a machine operated voice telling him that the number he had dialed didn't exist.
Caleb glanced over at John and then looked back at the fuel gage and saw that they were nearly in empty. John was not going to be happy but they were going to have to stop at the next gas station to fill up. They had left Fergus Fall's in a hurry and Caleb had not even thought about filling up the car.
He saw a sign up ahead and about five minutes later pulled off the main road and into the gas station.
John's head came up fast when he felt Caleb pull over and he looked sharply at the younger man.
"What the hell are you doing?" he growled.
"Pulling over," Caleb answered, already opening the car door.
John opened his own car door and stood up, looking at Caleb over the top of the car, "What the hell for?"
"Well I hate to tell you this Johnny but we won't get far on an empty tank. We'll be back on the road in a few." Caleb opened the gas lid and proceeded to pump gas, knowing without looking that John had calmed down.
"Fine," John stepped away from the car for a moment and stretched his legs. Sitting down for a long drive when you weren't the one driving could make your muscles stiff.
Caleb closed the gas lid up and turned to John, "I'll just go pay for this. Do you want anything while I'm in there?"
"Nah I'm good."
"Okay, I won't be long," Caleb assured, jogging off towards the glass doors of the gas station.
John was about to sit back down in the car when he heard his cell phone ring. He quickly brought it out of his jacket pocket and pressed the call button, then pressed it to his ear.
"Hello?"
"John, its Jim, how far away are you?" Pastor Jim asked.
"We're about two and a half hours out, give or take. Tell me you have something."
"Well I looked into the place's history and found it was an orphanage in the 1950's for disturbed children. This place housed the real severe cases. In 1959 a group of three boys were playing with some matches and nearly burnt the whole place down," Jim explained.
"Okay so …"
"So … all three boys got out as well as some others but three adults and eight children died. According to the newspaper article written back then, it says that they had gotten trapped upstairs and couldn't get out. The fire department extinguished the fire before it got to them but the group died of smoke inhalation."
John ran a hand through his hair, "That must be why there have been so many possessions fitting the same description."
"I agree."
"This only started happening ten years ago, any idea why?"
"Well the place was dormant for about 30 years until they rebuilt and restored it in … hold on let me see …" John could almost picture the pastor looking through the notes he had made, "Oh yes here it is, in 1985 it was restored by the request of a Mrs. Marilyn Chipshaw."
"Who's she?"
"Marilyn Chipshaw worked in the kitchen at the orphanage and lived with her husband on the property. Umm … it says here that a year after the fire she was committed to a mental institute by her husband. He is quoted saying that she had gone nuts and was talking about bringing the kids back from the dead."
"Great … what happened to her?"
"Umm … let me see …" the phone went silent for a minute and John could hear typing.
"Here we are …"
"Jim, are you actually using that damn computer Sammy suckered you into buying?" John asked with an amused grin that was wasted considering the preacher couldn't see it.
"You should be thankful. I probably wouldn't have gotten this much information this fast if it wasn't for this computer. Your son is a smart kid."
"Yeah too smart for his own good half the time," John muttered as he looked up and saw Caleb returning with a curious look on his face.
"Shall I continue John?" Jim asked patiently.
"Please, "John replied, holding up a finger to Caleb in the universal sign to wait.
"Okay it says here that she was released and deemed mentally fit after her husband died in 1984. She received a sizable amount in life insurance and apparently spent the money buying out and restoring the old Orphanage. She turned it into a venue for school camps and in 1987 had her first school group spend the first month of summer there."
"It all fits."
"Yes it does."
"Did you find out where the spirits are buried?"
"Yes actually. The authorities had allowed the bodies to be buried in the forest, next to the building, since there was no-one to claim the bodies. It's not far from where her cabin is but I don't know exactly where."
"Look thanks Jim. I really appreciate this."
"It's no problem John I just want those boys of yours home safe."
/Home/ John thought. That word seemed strange to him now after the last thirteen years of moving from town to town. But in a way he guessed Jim's place would be the closest thing they all had to a home since the boy's mother had been killed.
"Me too Jim, me too, I'll keep in touch," John told his friend.
"You and Caleb be careful and I'll see you and the boys soon." John lowered the phone when he heard Jim sever the line and turned to Caleb.
"Well?" Caleb questioned.
"Come on lets get out of here. I'll explain it to you on the way." Caleb nodded and jumped into the car as John slid into the passenger seat.
The younger hunter didn't waste any time, putting his foot down and flooring it out of the gas station and onto the open road.
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Stacey had tried a few times to get Miss Northam to let her go upstairs and check on Dean but the teacher had told her that Mr. Taylor had been up to check on him and that he was fine and resting. That hadn't made her feel any better and she could hardly concentrate on the new task they had been assigned.
After lunch despite her tries at getting upstairs to help Dean, Stacey had been made to follow her group outside. They were given a small basket each and Miss Northam had explained that all the teams were going to make their own nature tables so she wanted them all to take their basket's and have a look around the property for anything they could find that they thought would go on a nature table and bring it back when they heard her blow her whistle. The would then go inside the classroom and they would all go through their finds together so they could decide what to put on their table and what not to put on their table.
Stacey had thought that this was the perfect chance to get away and sneak upstairs and had actually made it to the back of the building intending to go through the back door but found as she rounded the corner that Mrs. Collins had her team in that area near the back of building.
Stacey remembered quickly that Mrs. Collins was one of the possessed teachers. The teacher had looked in her direction and called out, asking what she was doing. Stacey quickly assured the woman that she hadn't realized she had walked so far away from her group and headed back to the front of the building where the rest of her group were busy searching the ground and behind tree's for things they thought belonged on a nature table.
She looked down at her watch and groaned when she saw it was about fifteen minutes till two o'clock and she couldn't help wondering whether Dean had woken up by now. After all it had nearly been two hour's since she had seen him being carried upstairs. She was pretty sure that he wasn't going to be possessed or anything just yet since so far whenever someone was possessed it seemed to happen in the forest at Mrs. Chipshaw's cabin.
She glanced over at Sam and thought that maybe it was time to try and convince him again. She couldn't help but think that both their brother's were in a load of trouble right now, not to mention the other people that had been possessed so far, so he had better listen to her.
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The first thing Dean felt was queasiness in the pit of his stomach that made him wonder what he had eaten, that Sammy had probably warned him about, that he probably shouldn't have. He lied there for minute with his eyes closed trying to hold the nausea at bay and found that he was lying on his back on something hard.
Dean rolled over onto his side and grabbed his stomach and squeezed his eyes closed before blinking them open. He almost panicked when all he could see was darkness and briefly thought he had gone blind. He brought his hand up and waved it in front of his face but still couldn't even see his hand despite the fact that he was almost touching his nose with it.
His muddled brain started working again as he suddenly remembered what he had been doing before waking up in darkness feeling like crap. He had been caught in Mr. Graham's office by the man himself and his sidekick Mr. Taylor. /No wait! It's not Mr. Taylor anymore, it's some Dude called Rodney!/ he thought to himself as his memory continued to return to him. He then remembered that Mr. Graham wasn't really Mr. Graham anymore either it was Pierce or something. He felt around him and found that he was still lying on a hard wooden floor and slowly raised himself into a sitting position.
Dean reached out and his hands which connected on both sides of the space he was in and now that he was sitting he could feel some sort of material was hanging from above him. He seemed to be in a closet. /Great/ he thought /I'm locked in a cramped little closet in the dark, exactly the way I wanted to spend my camp time/ he quipped to himself mentally.
He raised himself further up onto his knee's using the wall for support as he found that he was still a little light headed from the damn chloroform. Once Dean was on his knees he raised himself slowly onto his feet and his head bumped into something hard causing him to yelp and grab his head with his hand, bending his knee's slightly so as not to come in contact with the offending object again.
"God damn it!" he cursed rubbing his sore head, glancing up before he remembered that he couldn't actually see anything.
Reaching up cautiously with his right hand he felt around above his head and came into contact with something wooden. It felt like a shelf.
Dean shivered all of a sudden and realized now just how much he really did hate small cramped spaces and he hated them even more in the dark, especially when he had been locked up by some psycho ghosts.
He was still feeling a little nauseous and could feel beads of sweat starting to appear on his forehead, a combination of feeling sick and feeling just a tad claustrophobic, not to mention his worry about Sam and Stacey.
He reached inside his pockets and sighed in relief and then couldn't believe how stupid he was for forgetting that he had had a lighter in his pocket. He held it up and switched it on. The small yellow light from his Zippo didn't do much to lighten up the place, only enough to confirm that he was indeed in a closet. Turning to look to his left he saw and old musty cardigan hanging on a hook and realized that the musty smell from the jacket wasn't helping his stomach either. He turned to the door and held the lighter to where he thought the door handle should be only to find that there was no door handle.
"Of course there wouldn't be a door handle, Dean," he spoke out loud to himself, "Only idiots get themselves locked in closets."
The teenager brought his hand up and felt around the door to see if there were any weaknesses and surprisingly found that the door was pretty solid, "Of course it's solid, story of my day so far," He grumbled.
Dean took a step back and found himself with his back to the wall and with as much strength and power as he could manage in the confined space he kicked out at the door.
"Owe," he hissed when all he had managed to do was jar his leg, "Great!"
He bent down to rub his ankle when he felt something familiar hiding against it.
"Oh you're doing a real great job here Dean," he berated himself some more as he pulled the small hunting knife from its hiding place. He couldn't believe he had forgotten about it. He wasn't sure what exactly he was going to do with it yet or how it was going to help him, but he always felt better with a weapon in his hand.
Holding the light up to the door again and then looking back at the knife he realized that the blade was thin enough to fit in between the door jam and the door. Maybe he could jimmy the door open using his knife. Anything was worth a shot at the moment so he carefully slid the blade into position, sending a slight prayer to Pastor Jim, the only holy man that the boy trusted, and began the job of trying to escape.
TBC ...
Well theres another chapter down ... i hope you enjoyed it and i will be posting again as soon as i can ... i really am trying to get this finished before christmas :-) At least you all know a little bit about what's going on now, courtesy of our favourite Pastor. So i'll see you again soon :-)