Ghost Rider

Author's Note: Thanks to everyone who's read, reviewed, favorited and/or followed this story! I hope you continue to enjoy reading it. I'm having fun with this one. :) It reminds me of playing Roller Coaster Tycoon. Anyone ever play that? I love that game. Any time I'm playing and one of my coasters wipes out and kills a bunch of people, I re-name it the Death Trap and then all the little Guests go around saying, "I'm not riding the Death Trap! It's dangerous!" and I say, "duh!" *g* As I'm posting this, I'm also going to update Chapter One, simply to replace my scene breaks, which ffnet ate. Again. :-/

Disclaimer: No clowns were harmed in the making of this story. Even though I tend to agree with Sam (as do many of you, it seems) that they're seriously creepy.

Ghost Rider

by

Elfinblue

Chapter Two: Everybody Loves A Clown. Or not.

Skeleton Cove Amusement Park had five coasters. Dean started with the Timber Rattler, a wooden coaster that was the park's smallest and oldest and also the deadliest. The Rattler alone was responsible for six of the eleven deaths on the park's coasters over the years, though technically only five had actually fallen off. The sixth was crushed to death when the brakes on a returning train failed and it crashed into a train that had yet to leave the station. That accident had also injured over two dozen, some of them being permanently crippled. The ride had been closed for almost a year and completely rebuilt.

The crash had been almost a quarter of a century ago and the last death on the ride was more than a decade in the past. Apparently no one but Dean Winchester had that long a memory. Cattle rails and heavy chains delineated a long queue up the the station, which was garishly painted to look like a giant rattlesnake. To enter, it was necessary to walk through the snake's fanged mouth. The line ran to about halfway between the entrance to the queue and the entrance to the building.

Dean paused, took several deep breaths, stiffened his spine and dried his hands on his jeans. What no one needed to know, especially not Cas and especially not Sam, was that Dean felt about roller coasters much the same way he felt about airplanes, and for pretty much the same reason. It was a matter of control, a question of trusting the competency of complete strangers in a situation where he was powerless. If they'd let him take the damn thing apart, plane or coaster, and put it back together again to his satisfaction, and then hand him the keys and let him drive, he'd be perfectly happy on either one.

He could have admitted his fears. He liked to think he was a big enough man to do just that (if he absolutely had to). But then Sam and Cas would have insisted on riding the coasters in his place. Riding the things himself was terror-inducing enough. Trusting his brother or his best friend to one was completely out of the question. And that wasn't even taking into consideration the fact that they were the most probable hunting grounds of something really nasty.

Taking one last deep breath, Dean entered the queue and proceeded to the end of the line, just past a sign that informed him the wait at that point was approximately twenty minutes. The person in front of him turned as he came to a stop behind them. It was a kid, a boy of about twelve wearing a grunge band tee shirt and a cocky attitude. He looked Dean up and down critically.

"Scared?"

Dean sneered at him. "No."

"Y'are too. I can tell. I'm not scared, though. I come here all the time. I bet I've ridden every ride in this park a thousand times. It must be pretty pathetic, bein' as old as you and bein' scared of a roller coaster."

"I'm not scared! And shouldn't you be in school right now, you little punk?"

"It's a teachers' work day."

"Yeah, right. Teachers' work day my ass."

"You don't believe me?"

"Kid, this is a little town. There is nothing else to do in a fifty mile radius but come to this park. If it was a teachers' work day this place would be crawling with little punks like you. You told your mom it was a teachers' work day and the school probably thinks you're at the dentist, right?"

The kid looked around nervously. "Shut up," he said. "You don't know anything."

"Listen, I was playing hooky - and being more clever about it - when I was half your age."

"Well . . . at least I'm not scared to go on a stupid roller coaster!"

"Shaddup!"

**SPN**SPN**SPN**

"Excuse me? Miss?"

Mildred Morgan, forty years past being a "miss" and suspicious of flattery, turned with a sharp retort on her lips. She let it die unspoken when she'd taken in the man standing outside her booth. He stood above average height, but on him it wasn't intimidating. He had dark, rumpled hair and deep blue eyes and an almost military air that made his casual clothing seem out of place.

He tilted his head to the side, giving himself the appearance of a curious bird. "May I ask you a few questions?"

Mildred leaned forward, resting beefy forearms on the rough wooden counter. "Shoot."

The man paused, blinked. "I do not require to shoot anything right now. I only need to ask you some questions."

Mildred paused, blinked. ". . . okay . . . ?"

He took a press pass from his pocket, checking it carefully before offering it for her inspection. "I am a reporter," he said earnestly. His voice was very deep. "I am doing a story on haunted amusement parks for Halloween. Have you experienced anything here that could be construed as . . . " He broke off, his gaze drifting past her to take in the spinning machine and the plastic bags of pastel clouds that hung from the walls of the booth behind her. "What is that substance?"

She glanced back herself, brow furrowed in bemusement. "Cotton candy?"

He paused, blinked. "Cotton is not edible."

She paused, blinked. " . . . it's not really cotton . . ."

"Oh. Good. What is it?"

"Sugar, mostly. Flavoring. Food color."

"How is it made?"

She explained the process to him and he stood for a long time watching the threads of melted sugar spin out into the bowl.

"May I try it?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Sure, if you buy a bag."

"How much is it?"

She told him and he extracted a wallet and carefully removed a five dollar bill. He seemed unfamiliar with money and she wondered if he'd escaped from a home somewhere or if maybe he was Canadian. She gave him his change and a fresh cloud of candy, still warm from the machine.

He tasted it, frowned thoughtfully and nodded. "This is very pleasant. The taste is appealing and the sensation of the candy melting on your tongue makes for an interesting tactile experience."

"I'm glad you approve," she said dryly.

"I wonder if Dean and Sam have tasted this?"

Probably, she thought, but she was never one to pass up an opportunity to make a sale. "You could always take them some."

"Yes, perhaps that is what I should do."

"So, two bags then? What flavors would you like?"

"Sam would probably like vanilla," he decided.

"And the other one? Dean, was it?"

The stranger considered, did the bird-like head tilt again. "Does it come in beer flavor?"

**SPN**SPN**SPN**

When Sam was small, maybe six or seven, they'd spent a few weeks one summer squatting in an abandoned farm house in the middle of nowhere. The property included an old barn, paint long since weathered away. The loft was big and light and open, but there were gaps in the walls and holes in the splintered wooden flooring and Dean had forbidden him from going up there. Instead, he played in the shadowy warren of odd-shaped little rooms and narrow stalls below.

One of the rooms had a manger built against the wall and filled with rubbish - random pieces of harness, a flat bicycle tire on a bent and rusted rim, the broiler door from a stove and all manner of odd detritus. Sam had been exploring the contents of the manger by himself one day (Dean was trying to resurrect an ancient lawn mower in the next room) when a scarlet strip of late sunlight, coming in through a crack in the siding, illuminated a small hole in the back of the manger and Sam saw that something was moving inside the hole. Curious, he tried to poke his finger in the hole to see what it was, but the manger was too deep and too filled with junk and his little arm wasn't long enough. He found a long splinter of old wood and poked that in the hole instead, then crouched there and watched in horrified fascination as what seemed like millions of tiny spiders came pouring out - far more than the hole should have been able to contain. They covered the wall and swarmed over the junk in the manger and ran up the stick Sam had poked into the hole, as if seeking vengeance. He'd dropped the stick and run to Dean and he'd never gone back in that room again.

Months later the school he and Dean were attending had taken his grade to the circus one day. He had watched as what seemed like millions of clowns crawled out of a car that was much too small to hold them. That night he dreamed of the barn again, and the hole in the manger wall, but this time when he poked the stick in, it was not tiny spiders that swarmed out, but tiny clowns. His screams woke not only Dean and their dad, but every person staying in the same motel that night, including a drunk who'd been passed out for four days and whom the manager was considering reporting to the police as having died.

The Fun House at Skeleton Cove was in a building that had been a late nineteenth century fish cannery. It stood four stories high, perched on a cliff above the ocean, and the weathered-wood exterior was heavily painted with balloons and flowers and dozens upon dozens of maniacally-grinning clown faces. The entrance was a circular opening in the left side of the landward wall, in the mouth of the largest clown face. The outside shone red. The inside was dark and shadowy and Sam could just make out movement within.

He expected the clowns to start swarming any second.

**SPN**SPN**SPN**

Nineteen-year-old Chad Hardwick would have loved to be a bully, had he any platform at all from which to bully anyone. He wasn't handsome or wealthy or popular. He had no charisma. He couldn't lord over anyone with his superior intellect - the last time he'd tried that he'd been smacked down badly by an intelligent nine-year-old - and his physique was less Incredible Hulk and more Incredible Shrinking Biceps. The only power of any kind he could lay claim to came from his job as an announcer and ride operator at Skeleton Cove Amusement Park.

He milked it for all he was worth.

He'd been working at the park in one capacity or another since he was fifteen and he'd gotten to be an expert at picking out the nervous riders. He took great delight in messing with them, making it his personal mission to intimidate and humiliate them. Especially if it was a guy who had the things he'd never had, like good looks or charm or a girl on his arm.

He noticed the guy in the plaid flannel over shirt as soon as he entered the boarding shed. Plaid flannel! Seriously! Who wore a flannel shirt to an amusement park? The guy was big, with the broad shoulders and narrow hips of an athlete and movie-star good looks. He moved with an innate grace and confidence, but the signs were there if you knew what to look for. His back was ramrod straight, his jaw set, and he kept wiping his palms on his jeans.

Probably trying to work up the courage to ask a girl out and doesn't want her to know he's chicken shit. What a loser!

Chad ducked his head and grinned and promised himself a sno cone if he could make the guy cry or wet himself. Ice cream if he completely humiliates himself by fighting his way back off before the ride starts.

**SPN**SPN**SPN**

"So, first you roast them to bring out the flavor," Castiel clarified, "and then you sell them either with or without salt?"

"Right," the vendor nodded. "See, personally, I don't see the point to unsalted peanuts, but some people are all into that whole, low-salt diet crap so we sell nuts that they can eat, too."

Cas nodded. "I will take a large bag, with salt." He juggled his burdens to get to his wallet. He was carrying two sacks of cotton candy, a bag of salt-water taffy, and a large teddy bear he'd won by choosing a numbered rubber duck from a trough full of water. The game operator had claimed he was incredibly lucky. Cas didn't really understand the point of that game and he suspected he'd feel less than lucky if Dean saw him walking around with a children's toy, but the man insisted it was his and he didn't know what else to do with it for the time being.

As he was replacing his wallet his fingers touched his notebook and he recalled, with a guilty start, that he was actually supposed to be researching the recent deaths.

"One more thing," he said, taking the bag of peanuts from the man. "Have you noticed anything lately that you would describe as 'weird', 'odd', or 'supernatural'?"

The guy stared at him. "Weirder than a grown man who's never eaten roasted peanuts?"

Cas considered the parameters of his research. "Yes," he decided.

"Then no."

"Thank you. I'll just write that down."

**SPN**SPN**SPN**

Sam put off the Fun House as long as he could. After all, it was really unlikely the deaths were related to the Fun House, right? There was no evidence any of the victims had even visited the Fun House, right? And, hey, a Fun House haunted by a vengeful killer clown, that would just be too cliche, right? Right?

Yeah, he didn't believe it either.

He'd covered the rest of his half of the park without ever completely turning his back on the door in the giant clown mouth. Going with the newspaper reporter cover, he'd questioned the vendors at the souvenir stands, talked to parents waiting outside the Flying Teacups and Tilt-A-Whirl, and even ridden the Bumper Cars. He'd known he looked as ridiculous as he felt, stuffed into the little vehicle with his six-four frame bent double and his knees up by his ears, but that was his job. Anything for the cause. No stone unturned. He was even considering going on it again, just to be thorough, when he remembered that Dean was taking all the dangerous rides himself and the sooner he got through the Fun House the sooner he could go watch his brother's back.

There was no line to enter the Fun House. You just walked in and made your way through it at your own pace. (In Sam's case, this was likely to be an Olympic trials qualifying time.) Resolutely, he faced the giant clown face. Step by step he approached the dark cavern that was its mouth.

You can do this, he told himself. You're a grown man. And a hunter. And a Man of Letters. You jumped into a cage in the pit of Hell, for crying out loud!

Yes, a treacherous little voice in his head whispered back. But that was only Lucifer. This is clowns!

**SPN**SPN**SPN**

Chad waited until Flannel Shirt Guy was taking his place in the front car of the train before he launched into the special version of his spiel that he saved for nervous Nellies.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Timber Rattler - the park's only wooden coaster and the oldest wooden coaster still in operation on the Eastern Seaboard. We call her the Timber Rattler because she's made of wood and she rattles like an old woman with loose dentures on a vibrating bed. The track is just over eight tenths of a mile long and your train will reach speeds of up to 43 miles per hour, unless she gives out on that nasty curve over the ocean again, in which case you will be accelerating at an initial rate of 32 feet per second, per second until you come into contact with the surface, 95 feet below. Don't worry about getting wet, though, there are plenty of rocks to break your fall and, in the unlikely event that you survive colliding with them, there's a very good chance that fire department rescue crews will be able to cut you free before you're drowned by the incoming tide. The Timber Rattler was built in 1873 with old barn wood and rusty nails and has been poorly-maintained ever sin-"

Chad glanced at his prey to check his progress and found himself staring into a gaze that could fuse sand into glass. He choked mid-sentence, clutched the microphone in a stranglehold and tried desperately to think of words with which to fill the dead air.

"Kidding!" he gasped finally. "Kidding. Just kidding. Good. Coaster! Coaster good! Good coaster!" He patted his podium reassuringly. "Safe! Not made . . . old. Nineteen . . . uh . . . nineteen . . . uh . . . nineteen-something. I've got it written down somewhere. Good ride! Have a . . . have a . . . everybody, um, everybody have a good ride."

Flannel Shirt Guy held up two fingers. He pointed them at his eyes. Then he pointed them at Chad. Chad spontaneously developed a case of the hiccups. Praying that he could somehow be gone before the ride ended, he closed his eyes and hit the button that let the computer take over and start the train up the long, steep hill at the beginning of the track.

He was still standing there with his eyes closed when the next train came to a stop and a soft, amused voice spoke at his elbow. "Chad? Yoohoo! Earth to Chad? Not sleeping on the job, are you?"

Chad's eyes popped open and he forced a grin for Jennie Chambers, the lovely, 26-year-old grad student that he liked to think of as his cougar girlfriend. They were perfect soul mates and easily the happiest couple in the park, but they were taking things slow and keeping their relationship on the down-low. In other words, they'd never really gone out, or even spoken to each other outside of work, and Jennie didn't even know they were dating.

"Just, uh, thinking. Yeah! That's it! Thinking is all."

"Well, take your deep thoughts over to the Dizzie Lizzie. Bossman wants you to give Tim a fifteen and then take over on the Bone Shaker so Wally can go to lunch."

The train with Plaid Flannel Shirt Guy finished its circuit and was waiting at the top of the hill for the second train to leave the station so it could come down and unload.

"Right! Great! Dizzie Lizzie! I'm on it!" Released from his post, Chad made a dash for the employee door. As he reached the exit, though, he paused and looked back, hoping to see that the ride had taken some of the starch out of Plaid Flannel Shirt Guy. What he saw was Jennie. Instead of going straight to her podium, she was helping the other attendants open the restraints and let the riders out. Specifically, she was helping Plaid Flannel Shirt Guy out of the lead car. He grinned down at her, giving her a megawatt smile and saying something that had her blushing to the tips of her ears. She smiled back, took a pen from her pocket and wrote something on his hand. He kissed that hand and gave her a wink.

Chad whined and kicked the door frame. When he looked back, he met that gaze again, hot and hard. Chad whimpered and turned and ran.

**SPN**SPN**SPN**

Perhaps some residue of Cas' grace still clung to him, perhaps it was just a coincidence, but the fact was that he won every carnival game he attempted. By the time he'd worked his way through the concessions and attractions on "Funnybone Lane" he was nearly staggering under the weight of the stuffed animals he'd won and the foodstuffs he'd succumbed to the temptation to try.

He emerged from the lane into a small courtyard, dropped his burden onto a nearby bench and took out his phone to check in with Dean. The elder Winchester answered on the second ring.

"Yeah?"

"Hello, Dean? Are you there?"

"I'm here. What's up, Cas? You okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine. I was just checking in with you. Have you learned anything?"

"Nah. I've been through the Timber Rattler. It's a creepy old ride but I didn't see anything and there's no EMF. I'm in line for the Dizzie Lizzie now and then I figure I'll head for the Bone Shaker. What about you? Any luck?"

"I have not found anything to do with our case," Cas admitted. "Most people seem to feel the strangest thing they've encountered at the park is me. I've discovered so many things with which I was not familiar, and I'm afraid I've been less than circumspect in my curiosity."

"Huh. Well, shouldn't be a problem. You didn't go up to anyone and say, 'Hi, I'm Castiel and I'm a former angel of the Lord', did you?"

"No, of course not. I've been telling people I'm from Canada. Someone asked me if I was and most people seem to accept it as a reasonable explanation for my questions."

"Okay, well . . . good then." Cas could hear the suppressed amusement in his friend's voice.

"Dean . . . can I ask you a hypothetical question?"

"Shoot."

Cas took the phone from his ear and looked at it, perplexed. "I do not need to shoot anything, I simply have a question."

"I know that, Cas," Dean said patiently. "'Shoot' is an expression. It means go ahead and ask your question."

"Oh. Of course. My question is, what if I won something that I neither need nor want, but I didn't want to litter and it seemed wasteful to throw it away?"

"Something like a stuffed animal?"

Cas looked at the small mountain of synthetic fur and feathers beside him. "Something like that, yes." He listened to Dean's response and his brow furrowed. "And that would be all right? It would not make me appear 'creepy' or 'stalkerish'?" This was something the brothers Winchester frequently cautioned him about. He listened some more and nodded, even though he knew Dean couldn't see him.

"Is Sam there?" Dean asked, when he'd finished with his advice.

"No, we split up to cover the park more quickly. I'm canvassing the south half and he took the north."

"He took the half with the Fun House? Huh. That should be entertaining. I wonder how many times he rode the Bumper Cars. Listen, let me ride this coaster and the next one and then I'll meet up with you somewhere. We can go rescue Sam from the big, scary clowns and get some lunch, all right?"

"That sounds okay. How long will you be?"

"I dunno. Forty-five minutes to an hour, maybe?"

Cas once more examined the pile of stuffed animals and calculated how long it would take to get rid of them. "That should be fine. I'll wait for your call, then."

Dean hung up and Cas clicked his phone off and tucked it away, then studied the other people resting in the courtyard. He picked up one of the stuffed toys at random - a rainbow-colored unicorn - and approached a young woman sitting next to a fountain.

"Excuse me, miss?"

She glanced up. "Yes?"

"I've never been to an amusement park before. I was trying the games, to see if I could beat them, and I've inadvertently collected a number of prizes that I have no use for. My friend suggested that I give them to pretty girls so, may I?"

The woman's smile warmed. "Of course."

Cas knelt, putting himself on a level with the big-eyed, dark-haired toddler that was standing beside her, clinging to her knee. "Hello. My name is Cas. This unicorn needs a little girl to take care of him. Would you like to take him home with you?"

**SPN**SPN**SPN**

Once inside the clown-mouth doorway, Sam had three options. He could take a short hallway to his left that ended in a blind corner, go down a long, revolving cylindrical hallway to the right, or climb a crooked staircase flanked by distorted mirrors straight ahead of him.

Sam cursed under his breath. The Fun House was a maze. Wasn't that just perfect? He needed to search the whole thing - go down every corridor and slide and up every flight of stairs. It was going to be a serious pain in the ass, trying to make sure he didn't miss anything, and that was without having to worry about being lost and trapped alone in a hive full of feral clowns.

He needed Dean, he thought, and then brightened as he realized he really did need Dean. This attraction was just too big and convoluted for one person to search by himself. The three of them together could cover it much more efficiently, and that had nothing to do with his coulrophobia so Dean couldn't even give him grief about it.

With a happy, relieved sigh, he turned back to retrace his steps out the entrance and found himself face to face with his worst nightmare.

It was a clown.

It was a white-face clown with a dark red wig, a bright scarlet mouth and purple stars for eyes. It grinned its maniacal grin and giggled a silly little, barely-human sounding giggle as it bounced towards him, waving a jester's wand with a rattle on the end.

With a cry of horror, Sam flung himself back towards the crooked stairs.

The clown froze for a long second, then minced forward again with a hopeful laugh. "Tee hee hee hee hee hee!"

"Stay back!" Sam commanded, voice deep and authoritative even as he pressed himself against the Fun House wall in an attempt to get away from the performer.

The clown took a cautious step forward and tittered uncertainly.

"I mean it!" Sam backed up the first two steps. "Don't come any closer!"

The clown stopped and drooped suddenly. Its jester's wand dragged the floor. It raised its other hand and tore at the dark red wig, tipped back its head and let out a burbling, sobbing wail. As Sam watched in horror, its face began to melt.

Second Author's Note: Well, that's chapter two finished now. I think I'll take the rest of the year off. See you in January! Y'all like cliffhangers, right?

(Kidding! Just kidding! I'll have the next chapter up as soon as I can. Hope you're all enjoying my story. {: 0D [look! I made a clown face emoticon!])