Hey, daddy-o
I don't wanna go down to the basement
There's somethin' down there
I don't wanna go
-The Ramones, "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" (1976)
He fell back against a solid chest, one with a big little brother attached to it. "You trying to freak me out further?" Dean asked, glaring at him. "Because I think Mr. Axe-Hard-On up there's doing a fine enough job of that as it is."
"Bethany, I need you to find the salt; it's in the bag somewhere. It banishes ghosts for a little bit and keeps us safe from them," Sam said, completely ignoring Dean. "Did you get a chance to lay down any upstairs?"
"Won't do you any good," Dean said. "I shot it full of rock salt and the damn thing just kept coming."
Sam frowned. Bethany's eyes got even wider. "Wait, what? No! Salt makes them go away; I liked that. I liked that a lot: salt's the answer and the peace-bringer and all that."
"Generally," Dean specified. "Generally, yeah, it works. But not on this sonuvabitch. Which means-"
He broke himself off and glanced at Sam. Sam looked just as unenthusiastic as he did. "Poltergeist?" Sam finally said.
"I think so," Dean admitted.
Before either of them could further say anything Bethany stepped forward. "I think I've been fairly patient thus far," she said, trying to look them both in the eye as firmly as she could. "So, in light of recent events, I feel like I'm entitled to ask a question. What's the difference?"
Sam glanced over at Dean. Dean merely shrugged. She had asked. "A spirit is a run of the mill ghost," Sam said, turning back to Bethany. "You see them as pale humans who can disappear in an instant. A poltergeist is a lot nastier; no human form necessary. They just cause chaos, throw things, generally act pretty violently."
"So...the one in the hotel is a poltergeist?"
"Plus a spirit," Dean said. "That cold feeling upstairs? Poltergeists generally don't do that. That's a spirit. And that voice I heard was definitely a woman. She gave me the warning to get the hell out of there before the guy with the axe showed up."
Sam shook his head, bewildered. "Dean, what the hell is going on here? We've got a spirit and a poltergeist? What really happened here?"
"I don't know," Dean started, then paused, turning towards Bethany. "But I know how we can find out. Bethany, the cops: did they say anything else?"
Sam whipped his head towards her. "The cops...?"
"They talked about what happened. Sort of," Bethany explained, eyes darting nervously towards the door. "Is this seriously a good time for a story?"
Dean set the bag down on the concrete floor and started digging around for the iron rounds. "Perfect time. The faster Sam and I know what's going on, the better." He glanced around the basement. There were a multitude of things scattered around, everything from mattresses to wooden cabinets, ripped-out sinks to rotted sofas. This looked like what the rest of the hotel should look like, and the fact that it was here, where no prying eyes usually could see, just left something cold in Dean's gut. Everything still felt like a secret, like the bad spot of the town that couldn't be talked about.
His eyes finally caught on the furnace in the center of the main room. "See if you can't find something long and iron for her to swing," he told Sam, nodding towards the furnace. Poker, iron bar, tons of things that went with furnaces that were long, sharp, and generally made of ghost repellent. "You checked any of these other rooms?" he added as an afterthought.
Sam shook his head. "Called you as soon as I came to." He stopped, wincing, as if he hadn't wanted to admit that. Dean glared at him but said nothing. He'd figured as much. Sam quickly moved away to the furnace, but if he thought Dean was going to forget about that tidbit, he had another thing coming.
"Bethany, the cops," Dean prompted.
Bethany took a deep breath. "They said it was such a shame, that the people had seemed like such nice couples. All that...that youth and happiness just ended for no reason."
She paused, eyes sweeping the room before landing on the door again. Dean snagged another gun and loaded the iron round magazine with a loud click, making her look back at him. "They used words like 'murder' and 'blood' and 'brutality'." She glanced around but refocused back on Dean a moment later.
"They mentioned that three people had died. The fourth couldn't be found. I think they thought the missing guy was the murderer."
"Someone was dead?" Sam asked, coming back around. He had a bundle of long, iron rods in his arms, more than enough to fortify them.
"Three people," Bethany said. "The cops said that the four people in the fifth floor had left three bloody corpses and one had vanished."
Dean glanced up at his brother, who had the same expression on his face. Violent, bloody ends. Couples of four people meant two women, two men. Their woman ghost was one of the victims, and Dean would've bet money that all four of them, not just three, had died in the hotel that day.
"Great," Dean said, standing with the guns in his hand. He switched out Sam's gun for one with iron rounds, then started packing the bag up again. "We've got a psychotic murderer who got so freakin' violent he managed to turn himself into a poltergeist in the afterlife. And then-"
"And then three possible other spirits," Sam finished with a sigh. "Did they mention any names, Bethany?"
Bethany was gazing around again, looking more uneasy by the minute. She shivered, then shook her head. "Just the blood. They remembered the blood."
Yeah, Dean would've bet that blood like that would be remembered some fifty years later. No wonder there was no record of this in the town. The murder rate for Dennis had to be slim to nothing. To have such a blight on their town, to have such blood shed in their finest establishment... Dean wouldn't have talked about it either. In light of the real story, the journalists in the 60's had actually done the best they could do.
That was the problem with the truth, though. It always came out, and when it did, it generally always bit you in the ass. God knew Dean had learned that lesson the hard way.
"Now what do we do?" Sam asked. "How the hell do we handle this? We have no names, no bodies to burn-"
"Not true," Dean said. "I'm betting that there's still one body left in here."
Bethany, who'd been in the process of gingerly reaching for an iron poker from Sam's pile, stopped, blanching. "Wait, you think the other guy died, too? You think all four of them died?"
"He'd have to be dead," Dean said. "Sure, it could be the one of the three murdered, but if it was one of the murdered, then they can't be the ones swinging an axe at us, can they?" No, their murderer had somehow died and remained hidden in the hotel. Probably what had made him so pissed off all these years later, too. Maybe one of the women had fought back, or the other guy had.
Either way, he hadn't left the hotel. And now two kids were dead because of it, and the three of them were trapped with the maniac.
Sam was in the process of grabbing a few of the iron rods when the emergency lights suddenly went on. Everyone froze, watching the small, red lights that ran the walls of the room and led down the multiple hallways that diverged off from the main room. A few flickered and went out, but for the most part the room was bathed in a red, eerie glow.
"You find the power switch, Sammy?" Dean asked hopefully, closing the bag and slinging it back over his shoulder.
"Not really," Sam said, his voice wary. He moved over towards the stairwell quickly, laying the iron rods down at the base of the door. As crazy and strong as the poltergeist was, Dean highly doubted it'd make it through the iron. You didn't fuck with iron.
Bethany began wrenching her hands again. "Does the elevator work?" she asked. She still looked pretty damn freaked, if her shaking hands and trembling voice were anything to go on. But she wasn't breaking down and screaming, and she wasn't two seconds away from ripping a hole in her skirt anymore, so Dean would take the few good points they had and roll with 'em.
Sam shook his head. "I barely got the doors open; the floor of the elevator car was twisted, so it made pushing the doors open a little bit easier, or else I'd still be locked in there."
Not an image Dean had wanted, thank you. "Time to explore, kids," he said. Making sure the safety was off, Dean checked the flashlight again. Still on; thank you Energizer. "I don't have to tell everyone to stay together, do I?"
Sam rolled his eyes, and it was such a Sam thing to do that Dean breathed a little easier. "Not really, no. But there has to be another way out of here besides the elevator and the kitchen. There had to have been another access point at some time or another. We just have to find it."
Plenty of halls to go wandering through. And with the lights having suddenly turned on, Dean was pretty certain they weren't wandering alone. "Keep your eyes peeled," he said. "You feel anything weird, say something. No point whispering; they know we're here." They being, so far, a woman spirit and a poltergeist. That still left two spirits unaccounted for.
Slowly the small group edged towards the first hall. Dean slid forward along the wall and edged himself forward until he could peek around the edge. The hall was empty, only a few of the emergency lights on. One door was off on the left side, closed. After letting Sam know what he was doing, Dean made his way down the hallway. The handle of the door felt cool to the touch, but the basement itself was colder than the upstairs. With a flick of his wrist he popped it open and swung his gun up.
Empty. A storage closet of some type, complete with brooms and mops. Dean let out the breath he'd been holding and turned to call back, "Nothing," to Sam.
The pale, bloody face of a woman right in front of him sent him flying back to the wall, gun raised. "Dean!" Sam yelled, coming around the corner, his own gun high. The woman quickly winked out of existence.
"Was that her?" Sam asked. "The woman from upstairs?"
Dean shrugged helplessly. "Didn't see her; if she spoke I'd know, but otherwise, no. I don't know."
"We need to go," Bethany said suddenly from the main room. She looked anxious, her eyes darting towards the door they'd come from. "We need to go now. I mean it. I've got a bad feeling."
"Lot of that going around," Dean muttered but pushed himself forward. Nothing was rattling the door, but if there was another way into the basement, Dean had no doubts that their axe lover would find it first. He cursed himself for getting so panicked about one measly little room. God, Bethany had more sense at the moment than he did.
"Next hall," Dean said tersely, stepping back out into the main room. "Where are they?"
"Just these two," Sam said, nodding to the ones in the corners of the room. One was directly ahead, and one was diagonal from the kitchen stairwell. Both were lit with lights, and both had only one door down the hall, from the looks of it.
Bethany was trying to avoid most of the items scattered about the basement, her arms wrapped around herself. "God I just want to go home," she whispered, more to herself than anyone else. "I want to...I have to find the watch. I have to, I...I need to find Thomas' watch, I can't leave without it, I can't do it, but oh god, I have to go, he's going to kill me-"
Well, Dean had to give her kudos for falling apart now as opposed to earlier. Or later. "Bethany, it's gonna be okay," Dean said as reassuringly as he could. When it didn't look like she was listening, he reached out to squeeze her shoulder. "We'll get you out, and then if we don't find his watch, Sam and I'll get it for you, all right? I swear, we'll get you out of-"
The iron-guarded door nearly swung open. Bethany jerked away before Dean could touch her, already halfway across the basement. "Bethany, no!" Sam shouted, hurrying after her. Dean cursed low and hard, gun aimed towards the door. If they split up, then they were screwed.
Then again, if that psycho could get through iron, then they were screwed. The only thing they could do then would be to get their poltergeist kit out, the one with the herbs and the incantation cards.
The one currently at the bottom of the Impala's trunk.
The door thumped again, hard and loud. Again, and again, and again. The handle rattled loud and viciously, twisting this way and that to try and get it to open. Dean swallowed hard and kept his gun trained on the door. The noise was filling up his entire skull, and he was having a hard time separating the pounding on the door from the pounding of his heart. Any minute now, he was going to start using the axe, and Dean was going to find out whether or not his iron rounds were worth a damn.
Suddenly all the noise stopped, and the door stopped bending inwards. Dean froze for half a second, tempted to turn and look to see if the maniac had gotten in through the other stairwell. And considering he couldn't hear Sam or Bethany anymore, the urge to turn and check was getting stronger.
Then, slowly, the hinge pins at the top of the door began to turn. "Oh, you sonuvabitch," Dean said, backing away fast. God, weren't those things supposed to be iron, too?
The presence at his back this time was pure Sam, and he relaxed slightly, knowing he had back-up. "We found the other stairs," Sam said. "We have to go, now."
"Where?" Dean asked, even as he backed away. The first hinge popped, and the pin fell to the ground with a clatter. The middle hinge began turning even faster. Sam was right, they couldn't stay.
"Anywhere but here," Sam said, grabbing Dean's arm and tugging. "Just-"
Suddenly the woman ghost was back, right in front of the door. Dean raised his gun on instinct, but she didn't move towards him. Go, she said, terror permanently etched into her face. Go, he's coming.
The middle hinge popped out, and the last one began spinning. "Dean, now!" Sam yelled, and Dean caught Sam's arm as he turned. They ran practically hand in hand through the basement's maze of forsaken items. The emergency lights began to flicker, faster and faster, until they were was almost like strobe lights.
"Hurry!" Bethany's voice shouted from ahead, and then they were turning the corner and she was there by an open door, gesturing them onward. The emergency lights suddenly began to blow out, shattering glass across the room. Bethany shrieked and ducked as the one above her gave.
And even above the shattering glass, even above Sam's shout and Bethany's fear and Dean's own racing heart, he swore he could still hear the last pin hitting the ground.
They raced through the stairwell door and Bethany spun against it, shutting it hard. "Go!" Sam yelled, and Dean raced ahead, not even bothering to grab his gun out.
"Where?" Bethany yelled back, pausing by the first floor. "Where do we-"
"Just go," Dean said, continuing to race up the stairs, because this had to end. They couldn't keep letting the psychotic dick race and pull them around. If they had any chance of getting out of there alive, they were going to have to really find out what had happened to the four people staying on the fifth floor.
Sam managed to get ahead of him somehow, which didn't surprise Dean: the kid had legs like a racehorse. What did surprise him was that he saw the hole before Sam did. "Sammy!" he yelled, barely managing to grab the back of Sam's coat and hauling him back before he could fall through. They all stared at the gaping hole that had taken out most of the stairs between them and the third floor door. Dean couldn't force himself to move, stunned and panting for air.
It only made the scream that much worse. It reverberated up through the stairwell, echoing in their tower made of metal stairs and narrow spaces. Bethany covered her ears against it as the woman's scream of terror continued on and on.
It cut off suddenly, just as quickly as it had started, and Dean didn't realize he'd been wincing against it until he lowered his shoulders. Sam looked pale beside him, staring down through the center of the stairs towards the basement floor. "God," he whispered, and he looked like he had when Lucifer had begun rising. That was a look Dean could've gone his entire life without ever seeing again.
"How long do your batteries last?" Bethany finally spoke, and it was only then that Dean realized he had the only flashlight between the three of them. Somehow, he'd managed to hang onto it. No wonder he'd seen the stairs before Sam had: his brother had simply been heading up blind. He shuddered, thinking of Sam tumbling through the hole, back down a floor. Probably would've gone through the other stairs and straight back to the basement.
"Long enough; we put new ones in before we came," Dean said, and Bethany nodded, looking faint. She looked better now than she had before; maybe the freak out had done her some good. "We need to keep moving."
"Where?" Sam asked. He nodded towards the stairs. "Getting up to the fifth floor this way isn't going to happen. And the elevator's not working."
Dean glanced over at Bethany. Her eyes widened when she realized what he was getting at. "There's...there's another stairwell," she said softly. "It's on the other side of the hotel, though."
The other side of the big, wide, hotel. The side where the psycho was.
"All we've got," Dean said, just as unhappy about it as they were. "We've gotta get up to that floor. We need to know what we're dealing with, and I'm betting Mr. Axe-a-Lot's trying to keep us from getting up there."
It was just a matter of getting there without getting killed.