Chapter Six – Hell House
Interstate 35. East Texas
Harry sat in the back seat, watching quietly as Dean glanced at a sleeping Sam and smirked. Harry watched as Dean then picked up a plastic spoon from their last dinner and stuck it into Sam's mouth. Harry started snickering quietly, watching the two brothers, impressed that Dean managed it without waking Sam up.
Dean watched the road, then grabbed his phone and took a photo of Sam. He laughed, making Harry chuckle again and sit back to watch the fireworks. Dean then, still laughing quietly, turned up the volume in the car, blasting the music.
"A fire of unknown origin took my baby away!" Dean warbled, Sam jumped awake and sat up, spitting out the spoon. Harry laughed quietly, whilst Dean drummed his hands on the steering wheel, smirking to himself.
Sam scowled at his brother, and turned the music down. "Haha, very funny."
"Your little Reaper in the back thought so. Sorry though. Not a lt of scenery here in east Texas you kind of gotta make your own." Dean said, laughing and not sounding very sorry.
"Man, we're not kids anymore, Dean. We're not gonna start that crap up again." Sam stated with a sigh.
"Er... Start what up?" Harry asked, leaning forward in his seat.
"Prank stuff – it's stupid, and it always escalates." Sam explained, not noting the evil grin that bloomed across Harry's face.
"Did I ever tell you about my father and his friends?" Harry said, seemingly out of nowhere.
"Nope, and we never asked. Know why? 'Cause we don't particularly care." Dean said with a wide grin, Harry glared at him and sulked in the backseat.
"Leave him alone Dean. Anyway, like I said, it always escalates." Sam said, turning slightly in his seat to look at Harry.
"Let me guess? Someone always ends up in tears."
"Oh what's the matter? You afraid you're gonna get a little Nair in your shampoo again, huh?" Dean asked with an almost innocent smile. Harry looked between the two slightly confused.
"What's Nair?"
"All right, but just remember, you started it." Sam said, ignoring Harry's questionaing.
"Ooh! I can't wait! This should be fun."
"Oh bring it on, Baldy." Dean said, turning his attention back to the road briefly.
"Where are we, anyway?" Sam asked suddenly. Harry shrugged whilst Dean looked at him quickly.
"Few hours outside of Richardson. Give me the lowdown again." Dean told him. Sam picked up a piece of paper from the dashboard and read from it, ignoring Harry who was reading over his shoulder.
"All right, about a month or two ago, this group of kids goes pokin' around this local haunted house." Sam told them, making Harry frown.
"Haunted by what?" Harry and Dean asked at the same time. Both then turned to glare at the other before turning that glare onto a chuckling Sam.
"Apparently, a pretty misogynistic spirit. Legend goes, it takes girls and strings 'em up in rafters. Anyway, this group of kids see this dead girl hangin' in the cellar."
"Anybody ID the corpse?" Dean asked with a frown.
"Well, that's the thing. By the time the cops got there, the body was gone. So, cops are sayin' the kids were just yankin' chains." Sam told them both.
"Maybe the police were right." Harry said lightly with a shrug.
"Maybe, but I read a couple of the kids' firsthand accounts. They seem pretty sincere." Sam stated, looking at the paper in front of him.
"Where'd you read these accounts?" Dean asked.
Sam looked at him shiftily and then hesitantly told him. "Well, I knew we were gonna be passing through Texas. So, uh, last night I searched some local... paranormal websites." Dean rolled his eyes and Harry chuckled lightly. "And I found one."
"And what's it called?" Dean asked. Sam shifted in his seat uncomfortably, making Harry giggle in the back and receiving a glare from Sam for his efforts.
"Hell Hound's Lair dot com." Sam mumbled, frowning when Harry's giggle turned into almost hysterical laughter.
"I've met a Hell Hound or two in my life, my Godfather was a Grim, they generally don't have lairs." Harry said between giggles.
"You're Godfather was a Grim?"
"Yeah well he could turn into one anyway."
"Back on track. You researched from a website streamed direct out of Mom's basement?" Dean asked, making Sam laugh.
"Yeah, probably."
"Yeah, most of those websites wouldn't know a ghost if it bit 'em in the persqueeter."
"Look, we let Dad take off, which was a mistake, by the way. And now, we don't know where the hell he is, so, in the meantime, we've got to find ourselves something to hunt. There's no harm in checking this thing out." Sam explained patiently.
"All right. So, where do we find these kids?"
"Same place you always find kids in a town like this."
"Er..." Harry said slowly when it seemed both brothers knew the answer to this from the cryptic answer Sam gave.
--
Sam, Dean and Harry walked back to the Impala after having had a thoroughly disappointing afternoon talking to completely off their head teenagers.
Dean sighed and climbed into the car before turning to his two companions. "So we have found out that the walls in the house were black."
"Or red. Or maybe it was blood." Harry interrupted, making Dean glare at him
"Yes, well and there were symbols on the walls, crosses and stars."
"Pentacostals." Harry again pointed out
"And the girl they saw had black or red hair."
"Or blonde."
"Okay, stop interrupting me." Dean said, turning in his seat to give Harry the full benefit of his glare, ignoring Sam's chuckling.
"Sorry."
"So anyway, the only conclusive thing we found out was the guy that took them to the house. Er... Craig. Works in the record store." Sam said, interrupting the glaring match that was going on between the other two.
"Well let's go talk to Craig then." Dean said, turning back around and then pulling the car out of the car park.
"So what else do we know about Craig?" Harry asked once it seemed Dean had forgotten that he wanted to kill the Reaper.
"Nothing. He's called Craig, he works in the record store. That's it." Dean said, Harry swore he could still hear the Winchester grinding his teeth.
"Well let's go check out the record store then? Let's talk to this Craig, see what he has to say." Harry said chirpily, practically bouncing in the back seat of the car.
"Fine. Whatever."
Record Store, East Texas.
"Gentlemen, can I help you with anything?" A young man asked as soon as they walked in the door.
"Yeah, are you Craig Thurston?" Sam asked, watching Harry out of the corner of his eyes.
"Wow, they've got some weird LP's here. And yes, I did indeed say LP." Harry said, flicking through
"I am." Craig said, wearily.
"Well, we're reporters with the Dallas Morning News. I'm Dean, this is Sam." Dean said, indicating to each other with his hand.
"No way. Yeah, I'm a writer too. I write for my school's lit magazine." Craig exclaimed excitedly.
"No way? Woo! Great for him. He's a geek!" Harry muttered, flipping through the LP's. Dean smirked then managed to keep his face straight when Craig looked at him suspiciously.
"Oh, good for you Morrison."
"We're doing an article on local hauntings, and rumour as it, you might know about one."
"Smooth." Harry whispered in Sam's ear, making the hunter shudder then scowl over his shoulder.
"You mean the Hell House?" Craig asked, not hearing the scoff from Harry.
"Oh well that's original."
"That's the one."
"I didn't think there was anything to the story." Craig admitted as he sorted through some more LPs.
"Why don't you tell us the story?" Sam asked, inching nearer to Harry who was beginning to look shifty.
"Well, supposedly, back in the thirties, this farmer, Mordechai Murdoch, used to live in the house with his six daughters. It was during the Depression. His crops were failing. He didn't have enough money to even feed his own children. So, I guess that's when he went off the deep end."
"How?" Sam asked, then neatly took the LP back from Harry and placed it back in the rack.
"Well, he figured it was best if his girls died quick rather than starve to death. So he attacked them. They screamed, begged for him to stop. But he just strung them up, one after another. And then, when he was all finished, he turned around and hung himself. Now, they say that his spirit is trapped in the house forever, stringin' up any other girl who goes inside."
"But where'd you hear all this?"
"My cousin, Dana, told me. I don't know where she heard it from. You've gotta realise I didn't believe this for a second." Craig told them.
"But now you do?" Sam asked, standing in front of the LPs that Harry was trying to get to.
"Look, he'll never know it's gone!"
"I don't know what the hell to think, man. Guys, I'll tell you exactly what I told the police, okay? That girl was real, and she was dead. This was not a prank. I swear to God, I don't wanna go anywhere near that house ever again, okay?" Craig told them earnestly.
Sam and Dean exchanged a look, which Harry took advantage off and grabbed an LP. "Thanks." Dean told him and the three left the store.
--
It was later on that they finally decided it would be prudent to actually go and visit the house in question. It was Harry's suggestion and poor attempt at getting Lawyer Boy off his case about the stolen (borrowed) LP.
"Can't say I blame the kid." Sam said as they made their way up to the house.
"Yeah, so much for curb appeal." Dean muttered, getting a laugh from Sam and Harry.
As soon as they got to the house, Dean took the EMF meter out and looked up when it started beeping.
"You got somethin'?" Sam asked, as Harry looked at the house suspiciously.
"Yeah. The EMF's no good." Dean said turning it off and putting it back in his pocket.
"Why?" Sam asked before looking to where Dean was pointing to a telephone pole.
"I think that things still got a little juice in it. It's screwin' with all the readings." Dean told him.
"Yeah, that'd do it." Sam nodded, looking at Harry who was still glaring suspiciously at the house.
"Yep. Come on, let's go." Dean said, not noticing the way Harry was looking at the house.
"I don't know. There's something weird about this house." Harry said quietly, but followed the two brothers into the house anyway.
The entered the house and saw strange symbols on the walls in what Harry hoped was red paint.
"Wow, painting and decorating really went all out with this house." Harry muttered picking up random objects.
"Looks like Old Man Murdoch was a bit of a tagger during his time." Dean said as he noticed what Harry was talking about.
"And after his time, too. The reversed cross has been used by Satanists for centuries, but this sigil of sulphur didn't show up in San Francisco until the sixties." Sam pointed out. Dean and Harry looked at him strangely then at each other.
"You know, this is exactly why you never get laid." Dean pointed out bluntly, making Harry choke on a cough. "Hey, what about this one? You seen this one before?" Dean asked as he looked at another symbol on the wall.
"No." Sam stated bluntly.
"I have. Dunno where, but I recognise it. Maybe Hank would know." Harry stated, looking at the symbol over Dean's shoulder.
"Same here. Somewhere." Sam ran his finger over the symbol and then shrugged and moved away.
"It's paint. Seems pretty fresh too."
"I don't know Sam. I mean, I hate to agree with authority figures of any kind, but the cops might be right about this one." Dean admitted, looking around the house sceptically.
"Yeah, maybe." Sam said. A sound of crashing came form the next room, making all three turn to the sound before looking at each other.
"Since when can ghosts crash?" Harry asked before they all went to investigate the noise.
To their surprise, they saw two computer geeks standing in the kitchen, carrying torches and several pieces of video equipment.
"Cut! Just a couple of humans. What are you guys doing here?" The one with glasses asked, looking at them with disgust.
"What the hell are you doin' here?" Dean asked incredulously.
"Uh, we belong here. We're professionals.
"Professional what?" Dean and Harry asked at the same time, though only Dean was heard.
"Paranormal investigators." The bespectacled geek told him, handing out business cards to Sam and Dean. "There ya go. Take a look at that boys." Both brothers looked at the cards before looking back up at the geek.
"Oh, you've gotta be kiddin' me." Dean muttered, before discreetly handing it to Harry, who read it and burst into hysterical giggles.
"Ed Zeddmore and Harry Spangler. Hell Hounds Lair dot com, you guys run that website?" Sam asked, ignoring Harry's giggles.
"Surely that's not their real names."
"Yeah."
"Oh, yeah. Yeah we're huge fans." Dean said sarcastically, moving to look around the room.
"And uh, we know who you guys are, too." The first geek said, making Sam and Dean look up at him nervously.
"Oh, yeah?" Sam asked, trying to sound casual and failing miserably.
"Amateurs." Sam and Dean relaxed and Harry sniggered behind Sam. "Lookin' for ghosts and cheap thrills."
"I wonder what he would say if he could see me. You're being stalking by you very own Reaper."
"Yeah. So, if you guys don't mind, we're trying to conduct a serious scientific investigation here." The other geek said, making Ed nod and hum in agreement.
"Yeah? What do you got so far?"
"Was that even English? Seriously, what did he say?" Harry asked Sam, whose lips twitched with suppressed humour.
"Uh, Harry, why don't you tell 'em about EMF?" The first geek, Ed, said to his friend.
"Huh, two Harry's. Now this won't be confusing." Harry the Reaper said.
"EMF?" Sam asked, moving away from Harry the Reaper.
"Electromagnet field." Harry the geek told his matter of factly before walking over to his bag and removing a EMF meter. "Spectral entities can cause energy fluctuations that can be read with an EMF detector, like this bad boy right here." Harry stopped in his explanation when the meter began to buzz. "Whoa, whoa. That's 2.8 MG."
"2.8." Ed said with a nod.
"It's hot in here."
"No it's not." Harry the Reaper said in confusion.
"Wow."
"Huh. So, have you guys ever really seen a ghost before, or-? Dean asked them.
"Once. We were, uh, we were investigating this old house, and we saw a vase fall right off the table."
"By itself."
"Well, we didn't actually see it, but we heard it." Ed told them, Dean shook his head in shame. "And something like that, it – uh, it changes you." Sam looked at them, almost convincing Harry the Reaper that he was in awe of the two geeks.
"Yeah, I think I get the picture. We should go – let them get back to work." Dean said, walking over to Sam and grinning.
"Yeah, you should." Harry the geek told them.
"Sam?"
"Yeah, work." Ed said, laughing at Sam and Dean left with an invisible Harry behind him. "I'm sorry. That pot we smoked gave me the giggles. Woo!"
--
Dean and Harry waited outside of the public library for information on the house and Mordechai. They both sat up straight when they noticed Sam walking over to them holding the research on his hands.
"Hey." Sam greeted them, making Harry beam at him.
"Hey, what do you got?" Dean asked as he and Harry stood up and all three of them walked back to the Impala.
"Seriously, can you speak English or do I need to send you back to school?" Harry asked, getting a glare form Dean and a chuckle from Sam.
"Well, I couldn't find Mordechai, but I did turn up a Martin Murdoch who lived in the house in the thirties." Sam told them, interrupting any bickering before it could break out. "He did have children, but only two of them – both boys. And there was no record he ever killed anybody."
"Huh."
"What about you?"
"See, that question made sense."
"Well, those kids didn't really give us a clear description of that dead girl, but I did hit up the police station." Dean said, ignoring Harry, much to the Reaper's disgruntlement. "No matching missing persons – it's like she never existed." Dean told them as they reached the Impala and got in. "Dude, come on, man. We did our digging, this one's a bust, all right? For all we know, those Hell Hound boys made the whole ting up."
"Yeah, all right."
"So, I say we find ourselves a bar and some beers, and leave the legend to the locals." Dean said as Harry climbed into the car behind him. Sam stayed outside, a small smirk on his face when Dean started the car. Both Dean and Harry jumped when the windshield wipers and some fast-paced music played at full blast. Dean tuggled to turn everything off quickly, whilst Sam was in hysterics and Harry was rubbing his ears gently and sulking. "What the-?" Dean cursed when he finally managed to turn the car off. Sam licked his finger, not noticing that Harry had zoned out whilst watching him somewhat and drew a number one in the air with it. He then pointed to it and them to himself and mouthed "me." "That's all you got? That's weak. That is Bush-League." Dean told him, as Sam started to laugh and got in the car.
--
The next day, in the early morning, the three of them decided to head back to the Hell House and see if they could find anything out without the two geeks being there. They were surprised to find several onlookers and ambulances surrounding the house. A body bag was being wheeled out of the house on a stretcher.
"What happened?" Dean asked no one in particular, though he did get an answer, much to the awe of Harry.
"Couple of cops say that poor girl hung herself in the house."
"Hanged. She hanged herself. God! No one can speak proper English here can they?" Harry grumbled.
"Suicide?" Sam asked, ignoring Harry's ramblings.
"Yeah. But she was straight-A student, with a full ride to UT, too. It just don't make sense." The man said, walking away.
"He was useful. So what do you think?" Harry asked, turning to look at the two brothers.
"I think maybe we missed something." Dean told them.
--
They all decided to go back to the Hell House later in the night to check it out, however there were a couple of Sheriffs on guard around the house.
"I guess the cops don't want anymore kids screwin' around in there."
"Yeah, but we still gotta get in there." Dean said as Harry turned and looked whee he could hear whispering.
"I don't believe it." Harry muttered, making Dean and Sam turn and look at where he was looking. Ed and Harry were walking towards the house with all their equipment.
"I got an idea." Dean whispered, then stood up behind the trees and began to shout, "Who ya gonna call?"
The sheriff turned to where Ed and Harry were creeping into the house. "Hey! You!" Two of the sheriffs chased after Ed and Harry allowing the other three to sneak into the house whilst Ed and Harry were running.
Once inside the house, Dean and Harry seemed to gravitate towards the symbols on the walls of the house.
"Man, where have I seen that symbol before? It's killin' me!"
"Totally agree with you there, I've seen it too somewhere. Maybe I could go to my deposit box and see if it's in any of the books I've got in there." Harry said musingly.
"You have a deposit box?"
"Yeah, I hired one out in Britain and shoved a load of stuff in it before I died. Then when I moved to America, I moved it with me. It's in New York at the moment."
"Look, you two can gossip later. We don't have much time at the moment though, so come on." Sam said, walking to the stairs that lead to the cellar. Dean and Harry looked at each other, then shrugged and followed Sam.
In the cellar there were several shelves full of jars with random things in them, which strangely made Harry reminisce about Snape's potions cupboard. Dean walked over to one such shelf and picked up a random jar, turning to look at Sam with a grin.
"Hey, Sam, I dare you to take a swig of this." Dean said with a grin.
"Oh god, please don't. I'm rather liking the not having to Reap souls gig. I also don't want to reap Sam's soul." Harry groaned.
"What the hell would I do that for anyway?" Sam asked, looking at the two in front of him as though they were insane.
"I double-dare you." Dean said. Harry made a strange choking sound and Sam shake his head. A noise came from a different area of the basement making all three of them stand up straight. Dean put the jar back on the shelf and then grabbed his gun ready for whatever was making the noise, then all three of them walked over to a cabinet. Dean motion for Sam or Harry to open the door whilst he stood in front of it with his gun aimed. Sam opened it and several rats came scurrying out and onto the floor, making Harry jump and make a strange whimpering noise.
Both brothers looked at the Reaper in bemusement, making him blush deeply and look at his feet. "I really hate rats."
"I agree with you for once" Dean admitted, before sniggering and making Harry scowl at him.
"You'd rather it was a ghost?"
"Yes." Both Harry and Dean said quickly. Then all three turned in time for Mordechai to try and take Harry's head off with an axe. Sam shot at Mordechai a few times and the ghost dissolved into a cloud of smoke.
"What the hell kind of spirit is immune to rock salt?" Sam asked incredulously.
"Nothing I've ever seen and well... I'm nearing being one of those supernatural oogedy boogedies for ten years! That was just wrong!"
"Glad we all agree. Come on, come on, come on!" Dean said, nervously looking around him. Mordechai suddenly reappeared and took a swing at Sam but Sam held up with rifle to stop the axe from hitting him.
"Go! Get out of here!" Sam shouted. All three then rushed for the staircase and managed to get back upstairs without getting hurt by Mordechai. They all ran through the house and burst out of the front door at full speed, coming to a stop in front of Ed and Harry holding cameras and looking a bit shocked.
"Get that damned thing out of my face!" Dean at them as all three ran past them and Mordechai appeare din the doorway.
"Sweet Lord of the Rings – run!" Harry the geek yelled and started to run awat, but the sheriff stopped them, "But there's a – with an axe - where'd he go?" Harry asked as Mordechai disappeared from the doorway.
--
Back at the motel room, Sam was doing more research on Mordechai, whilst Dean was sitting on the bed, drawing the symbol from the house on a notepad.
"What the hell is this symbol? It's buggin' the hell outta me. This whole damn job is buggin' me. I thought the legend said that Mordechai only goes after chicks." Dean said, looking at the notebook.
"He does." Sam said absently.
"Right. Well, then that explains why he went after you, but why me?" Dean asked with a completely straight face, ignoring the giggles coming from Harry.
"Hialrious, and you can stop laughing too, he went after you first!" Sam told Harry with a glare. "The legend also says he hung himself, but you see those slit wrists"
"Yeah."
"What's up with that?" Harry asked, leaning on the back of the chair he was sitting on.
"And the axe too. I mean, ghosts are usually pretty strict, right? Following the same patterns over and over?"
"But his mood keeps changin'"
"Exactly." Sam said as he logged onto the Hell Hounds' website. "I'm tellin' you, the way the story goes – wait a minute."
"What?"
"Someone added a new post into the Hell Hounds' site. Listen to this. They say Mordechai Murdoch was really a Satanist who chopped up his victims with an axe before slitting his own wrists. Now he's imprisoned in the house for all eternity. Where the hell is this going?"
"Not a clue. What the hell is this symbol?" Dean asked and then tossed the notebook to the end of his bed in frustration. Harry walked over to it and picked it up. He looked at the symbol and the straightened up, grinning widely.
"I know where you would have seen it!" Harry crowed, a large grin on his face.
"Oh yeah? Where?"
"On the album cover for the Blue Oyster Cult! God I love their song!" Harry said with a happy grin on his face. Dean look at him in shock and then looked over to Sam who was shaking his head with a soft smile on his face.
"So, what does that mean?"
"It means that the person who started this either works in a record store or has great taste in music." Harry said with a shrug."
--
They all walked into the record store later that day and headed straight for where Craig was sitting behind the cash register, looking frustrated and upset.
"Hey, Craig. Remember us?" Dean asked, making Craig look up at them.
"He would be pretty dim if he didn't." Harry muttered, once again by the LPs, which made Sam stick to him like a bur.
"Guys, I'm not really in the mood to answer anymore of your questions, okay?"
"Oh don't worry, we're just here to buy and album, that's all." Dean told him. Craig turned away and Dean looked through some of the albums, before finally choosing one. He then walked back over to where Craig was standing, ignoring the minor tiff Harry and Sam were in over Harry's sticky fingers. "You know, I couldn't figure out what that symbol was, then a little voice happened to tell me. It doesn't mean anything. It's a logo for Blue Oyster Cult." Craig looked at him guiltily then looked past his shoulder where Harry and Sam were still fighting.
"You are not stealing it!" Sam suddenly burst out, making Dean turn to face him, looking amused and rolling his eyes.
"Your brother's talking to himself." Craig pointed out, making Dean chuckle and shake his head.
"Yeah he does that sometimes. I find it best to just agree with him sometimes. So tell me, Craig – are you into BOC? Or just scarin' the hell outta people?" Dean asked, changing the subject and handing the album over to Craig, who turned it over and saw the symbol. "So why don't you tell us about that house without lyin' through your ass this time."
"All right, um – my cousin, Dana, was on break from TCU, and I guess we were just bored, lookin' for something to do, so I showed her this abandoned dump I found.
"We thought it's be funny if we made it look like it was haunted. So, we painted symbols on the walls – some from some albums, and some from som of Dana's theology textbooks. And then we found out this guy Murdoch used to live there, so we made up some story to go along with that. So they told people, who told people, and then there two guys put it on their stupid website. Everything just took on a life of its own I mean, I thought it was funny as first, but... now that girl's dead." Craig started to cry at this, making Dean shift uncomfortably and Harry skip over and giggle maliciously.
"Aw, Dean! You big meany! You made him cry." Harry practically cooed, standing behind Craig who was managing to get a hold of himself. Dean glared at him, then quickly looked at Craig sympathetically, which made Harry snicker.
"It was just a joke, you know, I mean – none of it was real, we made the whole thing up, I swear." Craig told him, wiping his tears away and then moving back to pricing albums, making Harry jump away form the pile as though shocked.
"All right." Dean told him, moving to walk out of the shop with Harry and Sam following closely behind. He held the door open for Sam (and Harry) and then turned back to face Craig. "If none of it was real, then how do you explain Mordechai?" With that, Dean turned and left the shop.
--
Back at the motel room, Dean entered and closed the door behind him, raising a questioning eyebrow at an agitated Harry sitting on the table.
"What's up with you?" Dean finally asked, sitting on one of the beds and taking his shoes off.
"Sam's in the shower."
"So?"
"So! He's naked in the shower!!" Harry hissed at him, before nibbling the tips on his fingers.
"Well I'm back to stop you from molesting my baby brother." Dean said with a grin, shaking a packet of itching powder into Sam's clothes.
"He's hardly a baby. He's what, twenty-three?" Harry asked before going completely white before turning bright red in a matter of seconds, which somewhat impressed both Winchesters as Sam had walked out of the bathroom in just a towel. Harry squeaked and fell over the back of the table.
"What's wrong with him, and where were you?" Sam asked, walking into the room.
"Oh, I went out. And him? Not a clue."
"So, I think I might have a theory about what's goin' on." Sam said after shrugging away Harry's behaviour.
Harry managed to get himself back onto the table and gain control of himself in time to hear Sam. "Really?"
"Yeah, what if Mordechai is a tulpa." Sam said, going back into the bathroom and Dean quickly sprinkled the remaining ihcing powder into the rest of Sam's clothes.
"A what-pa? Never come across one of those before."
"A tulpa?" Dean asked when Sam came back out of the bathroom, making Dean jump up and hiding the itching powder packet quickly, much to Harry's amusement.
"Yeah, a Tibetan thought form." Sam added for Harry's sake.
"Yeah, I know what a tulpa is, it's the faulty Reaper that doesn't. Hey, why don't you get dressed? We'll go grab somethin' to eat." Dean smiled and walked into bathroom.
Harry once again collapsed over the back of the table when Sam just dropped the towel and started to get dressed.
--
Later, when they had got to a restaurant, Sam and Dean got their food and then went to sit down, Harry following behind, being unusually quiet, and still blushing a bright red whenever he saw Sam. Which was often. Sam began to shift uncomfortably, making Dena smirk and Harry to cough and then blush once again when Sam looked at him questioningly.
"Hey what's your problem?"
"Nothing. I'm fine." Sam said, sitting down at the table.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." Sam said through gritted teeth.
"All right, so, keep goin', what about these tulpas?"
"Okay, uh, so there was this incident in Tibet in nineteen-fifteen. A group of monks visualized a golem in their heads. They meditate on it so hard, they bring the thing to life – out of thin air."
"So?"
"That was twenty monks. Imagine what ten thousand web surfers could do. I mean, Craig starts a story about Mordechai, and it spreads, goes online. Now there are countless people all believing in the bastard." Sam told them, shifting uncomfortably in his seat, much to Dean and Harry's amusement.
"Okay, wait a second. You're trying to tell me that just because people believe in Mordechai, he's real?"
"I don't know, maybe." Sam admitted, looking uncomfortable.
"People believe in Santa Claus. How come I'm not gettin' hooked up every Christmas."
"Because you're a bad person." Harry deadpanned, smirking slightly at the glare Dean sent his way.
"It's because of this." Sam turned the computer so that Dean and Harry could see it. On the monitor there was a picture of another symbol they had found on the wall of the house. "That's a Tibetan spirit sigil on the wall of the house. Craig said they were painting symbols from a theology texbook. I bet you they painted this not even knowing what it was. Now, that sigil has been used for centuries – concentrating meditative thoughts like a magnifying glass. So, people are on the Hell Hounds; website, staring' at the symbol, thinkin' about Mordechai – I mean, I don't know. But it might be enough to bring a tulpa to life."
"It would explain why he keeps changin'."
"Right. As the legend changes, people think different things, so Mordechai himself changes, like a game of telephone. That would also explain why the rock salt didn't work."
"Yeah, ;cause he's not a traditional spirit, per se."
"He doesn't have a soul, or didn't have a soul." Harry said suddenly, making both the brother jump having forgotten about their little silent Reaper.
"What? What do you mean?" Dean asked, looking at the Reaper and smirking when he blushed at the attention he was receiving from Sam.
"Oh, well when we first met old Mordechai, I got this strange feeling around him, but I didn't know what it was. I know now, he didn't have a soul to begin with. With most ghosts, they are memories of their former self, so they have a tiny bit of their soul left in them. Lets them have memories and so on. I can Reap ghosts and not lose a notch on my Reaping tally. They're already dead you see?" Harry explained, making both brothers look at him gone out."
"So you can't help us? You mean you really are completely useless?" Dean asked, making both Sam and Harry glare at him, though for different reasons.
"Don't be mean!"
"Yeah, and no, I'm never useless." Harry said, standing up and walking out of the restaurant with a smirk.
"What?" Dean asked when Sam suddenly burst into laughter.
"He's turned your hair green." Sam told him, once again starting to laugh when Dean looked at his reflection in a spoon.
"I'm going to kill him!"
"You can't, he's already dead. Now listen, we can't take the sigil off the wall because once tulpa's are created, they take on a life of their own."
"Great. All right, so , it he really is a thought form, how the hell are we supposed to kill an idea?"
"Well, it's not gonna be easy with these helping us. Check out their homepage." Sam said, showing Dean the video of the events of the previous night at the house. "Since they posted the video, the number of hits have quadrupled in the last day alone."
"Huh. I got an idea. Come on." Dean said, Sam grabbed his laptop and gathered his things, following Dean.
"Where are we going?"
"I gotta find a copy store and you have to talk to a moody Reaper. I'll kill him if I do. Is my hair still green?"
"Yep and for some reason it's got little silver highlights in it." Sam said with a grin before scratching his back. "Man, I think I'm allergic to our soap or somethin'" Dean burst into laughter and started to walk away. "You did this?" "Dean laughed again. "You're a friggin' jerk!"
"Oh yeah!" Dean said, Sam took his bag and coffee and left the restaurant, finding Harry waiting for him outside.
"You waited out here?"
"Yep, Dean won't stop glaring at me. Want to make him even angrier?" Harry asked with a smirk, still having a light blush across his cheeks.
"Sure, how?"
"Well for one, I can stop the itching and two, I have an idea how to get him back." Harry said, grinning widely. This was his area of expertise. Well, this and battle magic... But that wasn't necessary.
"Really? Do tell."
--
They eventually managed to find where Ed and Harry the geek were staying and knocked on the door.
"Come on out here, guys, we hear you in there."
"Yeah and I told you they were there." Harry grumbled, getting glared at by a green-haired Dean. The door opened and Sam and Dean looked inside.
"Oh, look at that. Action figures in their original packaging. What a shocker." Dean deadpanned, making Harry snigger and Sam scowl at the two of them.
"Guys, we need to talk."
"Yeah, um, sorry, guys. We're uh – we're a little bit busy right now."
"Why is your hair green?" Harry suddenly asked from behind Ed, making Harry the Reaper burst into giggles and Dean to scowl.
"A prank gone horribly, horribly wrong. Well anyway, we'll make it quick. We need you to shut down you're website." Dean stated bluntly. Ed laughed at them, making Harry the Reaper stare at him suspiciously.
"Man, you know, these guys get us busted last night, we spend the night in a holding cell."
"I had to pee in that cell urinal in front of people And I get stage fright."
"Tell him to do maths. It helps. Makes you pee in front of others when needed." Harry whispered to Sam and making Sam try not to look behind him at the strange Reaper.
"Why should we trust you guys?"
"Look, guys, we all know what we saw last night, what's in the house. But now, thanks to your website, there are thousands of people hearin' about Mordechai." Sam tried to reason. Harry by this point had gotten bored and had carefully made his way into the trailer, to look at the action figures.
"How much do you think these are worth? Maybe we should take one." Harry said, looking at the figures.
"Sam's right, which means people are gonna keep showin' up at the Hell House, runnin' inot him in person – somebody could get hurt." Dean said, ignoring Harry the Reaper.
"Yeah." Ed agreed, much to the amusement of Reaper Harry.
"Ed, maybe he's got a point."
"No, no."
"Nope."
"Okay, we have an obligation to our fans, to the truth." Ed explained, making Dean practically growl at them. Harry carefully left the trailer and went back to standing behind Sam. He liked to keep at least one person between himself and Dean at the moment.
"Well, I have an obligation to kick both your little asses right now-"
"Dean, Dean, hey, hey." Sam said, interrupting Dean and grabbing his arm. "Forget it, all right? These guys – I could probably bitch-slap them both. I could probably even tell 'em that thing about Mordechai-" Sam said, noting how interested Ed and Harry suddenly looked. "But, they're still not gonna help us. So, let's just go."
"Yeah, you're right." As they walked away, Ed and Harry started to follow them, making all three of them smirk.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. What did you say about-? Hold on a second here." Ed exclaimed as he hurried to catch up with them.
"Wait, wait. Yeah, what thing about Mordechai, you guys?"
"Don't tell 'em Sam."
"But if they agree to shut down their website, Dean..." Sam trailed off, allowing Ed and Harry a chance to agree with him.
"No, wait, wait. Don't listen to him, okay? We'll do it." The three of them stopped walking and turned to face them. "We'll do it."
"It's a secret, Sam."
"Look, it is a pretty big deal, all right? And it wasn't easy to dig up. So, only if we have your word that you'll shut everything down."
"Totally."
"All right." Sam agreed as Dean took a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to them. "It's a death certificate from the thirties. We got it at the library. Now, according to the coroner, the actually cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound."
"That's right, he didn't hang or cut himself."
"He shot himself?" Harry the geek asked.
"Yup. With a .45 pistol. To this day, they say he's terrified of 'em."
"You know, yours and your brothers grammatical skills are truly lacking. Even I can tell and I only had a typical education up to age ten. That's really quite bad you know." Harry pointed out, getting fed up of being ignored.
"Yeah, as a matter of fact, they say if you shoot him with a .45, loaded with these special wrought-iron rounds, you could kill the son of a bitch." Dean added, ignoring Reaper Harry completely. Ed and Geek Harry smiled at one another and Harry ran back to the trailer which Ed walked behind him, leaving the three behind.
--
Later that day in the restaurant once more, Harry having turned Dean's hair back to normal after much threatening and sulking on Dean's behalf, they were sitting at a table, discussing Ed and Harry.
On the wall next to them next to them, mounted on a piece of wood, was a painted wooden fisherman holding a fish in his hands. Dean pulled the string under the piece of wood, and the fisherman began to laugh. Sam pulled the string to stop the sound.
"If you pull that string one more time, I'm gonna kill you."
'And I'll have someone to Reap. I've got dibs on your soul. I asked Hank personally." Harry added cheerfully, getting a strange look from both brothers. Dean then grinned and pulled the string again, but Sam stopped the laughing again, causing Dean to laugh.
"Come on, man. You need more laughter in your life, you know, you're way too tense." Sam took a sip of his beer, choosing to say nothing. "They post it yet?" Dean asked eventually, when the silence got too much. Sam turned his computer to face Dean, who began to read, "'We have learned form a reputable sources that Mordechai Murdoch has a near fatal fear of firearms.' All right. How long do we wait?" Dean asked, ignoring the sniggering Harry. Sam closed the laptop and looked at his brother.
"Long enough for the new story to spread and the legend to change. I figure by nightfall, iron rounds will work on the sucker." Sam told him, holding uo his beer in a mock alute.
"Sweet." Dean tapped his bottle against Sam's and then took a drink, not noticing the attneiton Harry and Sam were paying to him. When he went to put the bottle down, the bottle was glued to his hand making both Sam and Harry laugh. "You didn't." Sam held up a bottle of superglue.
"Oh I did. With a little help from our friendly neighbourhood Reaper." Dean looked at them in shock, though Harry was undecided if it was because Sam pranked him, or because Sam made a pop culture reference. Sam then pulled the string and the wooden fisherman began to laugh, Sam laughing along with it. Which just plain creeped Harry out.
--
That night, they made their way to the Hell House, entering with guns and flashlights and looked around.
"I barely have any skin left on my palm." Dean whined, making Harry chuckle as he looked inside of a cabinet in the kitchen.
"I could help you with that, but I fear you'll try to strangle me if I come anywhere near you."
"I thought your magic mojo stuff wasn't listening to you." Dean bitched at him, making Harry look like a kicked puppy at Sam.
"Dean! Stop being mean to him. He's trying to help." Sam scolded, Harry smirked at Dean behind Sam's back, which made Dean glower at him and carry on looking around.
"So, you think old Mordechai's home?" Dean asked, choosing to stick with safer ground, seeing as Harry had managed to set Sam against him.
"I don't know."
"Me neither." Ed said, making Harry the Reaper, Dean and Sam all jump around to face him, pointing their guns at them, which caused the two geeks to scream. "Whoa, whoa! Hey!"
"What are you trying to do? Get yourself killed?" Sam asked, facing his gun down, Harry let go of the bright light of ... something, he had managed to gather, remembering to try that one again sometime soon.
"We're jus' tryin' to get a book and movie deal, okay?" Ed told them. Harry turned as he heard the sound of knives sharpening coming from behind the doors. The looks on the faces of the others told him that they too, had heard the noise. "Oh, crap. Uh, guys, you wanna go open that door for us?"
"Why don't you?" Dean whined. A moment later, Mordechai burst through the door and Sam and Dean shot at him several times until he dissolved into a cloud of smoke. Sam, Dean and Harry all left the room to look around.
"Oh, he's gone. He's gone." Ed said, dumbfounded.
"Did you get him?"
"Oh, yeah, they got him."
"No, on camera, did you get him on camera?"
"Uh I..." Harry grabbed the camera from him, watching the footage. Suddenly Mordechai appeared and destroyed the camera with his axe. Harry fell to the floor, and Mordechai disappeared again. Sam, Dean and Harry ran back into the room.
"Hey. Didn't you guys post that BS story we gave you?"
"Of course we did!"
"Yeah, but then our server crashed."
"Yeah."
"So, it didn't take?"
"Uh.."
"So these guns don't work?"
"Yeah."
"Great. Sam, any ideas?" Dean asked looking at an annoyed Sam.
"We are getting out of here and you are going to tell us about the third part of your party."
"Yeah – wait? What?" Ed asked, looking at his friend, who was looking at the Winchesters in part fear, part determination.
"Better tell them the truth. Who else can they tell? I clearly come up on camera though. Something to take note of in the future." Reaper Harry said with a sigh.
"Ah, well we have a Reaper following us around. He's annoying as all hell and won't leave us alone. Besides that, he's completely harmless."
"Well that answers that. Come on Ed." Harry grabbed Ed and as they started to leave. When they reached the front door, Mordechai appeared, causing them to, once more, scream and run away. They stop at another locked door where Mordechai finds them and they leant against the wall. "Mary and Joseph."
"The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!" Ed yelled just as Sam entered.
"Hey!" Mordechai turned to face him, leaving Ed and Harry to run once more. "Come and get it, you ugly son of a bitch." Mordechai took a swing at him, but Sam ducked and the axe hits the wall. Again, Mordechai swung, this time managing to pin Sam against the wall with his axe and begins to choke him.
Harry watched this and then jumped to grab Mordechai, but only going through the spirit. Which shocked both Harry and Mordechai.
"Dean!" Sam yelled, making Dean run into the room.
"Hey!" Mordechai looked at him and Dean held an aerosol can over a lighter, and it burst into flames. "Go, go, go! Come on!" Dean and Harry both helped Sam up. "Look, if Mordechai can't leave the house, and we can't kill him, we improvise." Dean told them, he lit the lighter and threw it on the floor. The whole room burst into flame as Sam, Dean and Harry ran out of the house. Mordechai tried to follow them, but only got to the front door before he was forced to stop, watching as the three ran behind the nearby trees.
"That's the solution? Burn the whole damn place to the ground?" Sam asked incredulously.
"Well, no one will go in anymore I mean, look, Mordecahi can't haunt a house if there's no house to haunt. It's fast and dirty, but it works." Dean explained, defending himself.
"But, what if the legend changes again, and Mordechai is allowed to leave the house?"
"Well then, we'll just have to come back."
"Kind of makes you wonder – of all the things we've hunted, how many existed just 'cause people believed in 'em?" Dean looked thoughtfully at the house slowly burning to the ground.
"If it makes you feel any better, I'm completely real. No one thought me up."
"Unfortunately." Dean muttered, making Harry sulk next to Sam.
--
The next day, they went to speak to Ed and Harry, to make sure that they didn't post anything else about Mordechai.
"Gentlemen."
"Hey, guys." Sam greeted them.
"Should we tell 'em?"
"Oh, you might as well, you know they're just gonna read about it in the trades." Ed told him with a sigh.
"So, this morning, we got a phone call from a very important Hollywood producer." Harry the Geek told them.
"Oh yeah? Wrong number?" Dean asked with a smirk.
"No, smartass. He read all about the Hell House on our website and wants to option the motion picture rights – maybe even have us write it." Ed told them excitedly.
"And create the RPG." Harry added importantly.
"The what?" Dean asked, looking at them in confusion.
"Role-Playing game."
"Right."
"It's a little lingo for ya. Any who, uh, excuse us, we're off to La-La-Land."
"Well congratulations, guys, that sounds really great." Sam told them warmly.
"Yeah, that's awesome. Best of luck to ya."
"Oh yeah, luck – it's got nothin' to do with it. It's about talent, you know? Sheer, unabashed, talent." Ed told them, giving them the peace sign. "Later" He and Harry got into their car, which has their trailer attached to it. "See you around." They drove away. Sam and Dean laughed and started to walk back to their car, followed by a very smug Harry.
"Wow."
"I have a confession to make." Sam admitted.
"What's that?"
"I was the one who called them and told 'em I was a producer." Sam admitted as they reached the car and laughed.
"Well, I'm the one who put the dead fish in their backseat." Dean told him, making them laugh again.
Harry coughed to get their attention and then pulled something from inside his long coat. "I stole their mint condition Darth Vader." Harry told them, throwing the boxed to to Dean, who burst into laughter.
"Truce?" Sam asked them with a grin.
"Yeah, truce. At least for the next hundred miles." Dean told him with a grin. Sam sighed and got in the car, quickly followed by a small smiling Harry.
A/N – So then, we now get to know Klepto!Harry. He's changed a lot since he left Hogwarts and died, hasn't he? If anyone wants or needs to know, Harry is three years older than Sam and one year younger than Dean. He is dead though and died when he was eighteen, so he will forever look eighteen unless something happens to change that.... This chapter, being set in June, 2006 makes the ages thus (for those who have asked)
Dean – twenty-seven (24/01/79)
Harry – twenty-five (31/07/80)
Sam – twenty-three, as Harry so kindly pointed out for me! Lol! (02/05/83)
Sam really is the baby of the group! Lol! So please tell me what you think!
Also, thank you to everyone who has contacted me during my loss. It truly is welcome and you have my deepest thanks.