A/N: Lisa bribed me with letting me have things my way, elsewhere...So I have embarked upon the near-impossible task of trying to get an entire chapter written, yet again, before the day's end. Well, now it's after midnight so I guess I failed. But hey...I... um. Yeah...
Also, quick shout outs to Helen, Bev, Lalo and the Jen-to-my-Daneel—Jamie ;) hahaaa ~ Y'all rock.
Btw, I also accept chocolate as a bribe...and fan art. Make me some fan art. ROFL.
No sex in this chapter... sorry! LOL- I had to get that pesky "story" part in there...
..**..
"Alright, so," Dean said around a mouthful of food, before swallowing it down, "We definitely don't think we missed anything of Sally's; this is definitely another ghost," he verified with Sam, as they ate their lunch in the car, after having seen where the latest victims died.
"Doesn't make sense," Sam agreed. "What happened up there, doesn't fit the profile of what's been happening all these years."
"Right. It's not like we pissed her off and she's upped her kill, or something."
"Well, the bodies still looked like it could've been mistaken for an animal attack," Sam reminded him. Then he got this distant look on his face, as though he were searching for an answer he knew was in his head already, but couldn't figure out where he'd tucked it away at.
"What?" Dean asked, around another mouthful of his lunch, after having taken a large bite and looking over at Sam.
"The stepfather," Sam said.
"The one that skipped town?"
"What if he didn't skip town?" Sam tilted his head, inquisitively, as he looked to Dean.
Dean furrowed his brows, swallowed his mouthful of food, and then caught on, "You think he was killed, too?"
"It would explain how he suddenly disappeared and was never heard from again. He was the Sheriff, at the time. You'd think he would've at least attempted to simply cover it up."
"Yeah, but why change up how many people he's killing, now?" Dean inquired.
"I don't know," Sam shook his head. "Maybe...maybe Sally was...stopping him, somehow."
"And we just took her out, so now he's got nothin' holdin' him back," Dean concluded. "Like the uh...thing at Chuck's book convention."
"Exactly like that, if we're right," Sam said. "I'm gonna go down to the Sheriff's office; see if there's anyone around that was there while Greg Tutner was Sheriff. Chances are, if he was killed out in those woods, and he's killing in threes now, it's likely there was a group of people that ganged up on him."
"You think they were people that worked for him?"
"It was a different time, back then. I think they'd have done it to honor the girl he'd killed, yeah."
"Okay. Well, I'll head to the hotel and go through those papers you brought back from the library; see if the other attacks had any survivors who might remember anything."
"Drop me off on the way. I'll get a cab back."
..**..
As fate would have it, there was a witness to one of the attacks. But Dean hadn't found out about her in any of the papers. He'd actually gotten the notion to talk to the front-desk clerk, where Sam had gotten the information first. And the witness? Mrs. Pilliwee, the desk-clerks wife.
Dean hadn't exactly been prepared to be talking to a little old lady, that day. She didn't seem all that thrilled about it, either. Her husband had sent a few of the convention-goers to talk to her; trying to strum up business, as if it was needed at the time, by having a connection to Sally's ghost.
"Now, Mrs. Pilliwee," Dean started, as they sat in two comfortable chairs in the private back office of the hotel. "I know you've been telling these kids that you saw Sally kill your friend, all those years ago. But my brother and I, we came here to help. And we know it wasn't Sally doin' the killing."
The old woman's eyes widened. "I...I don't know what you..."
"I think Sally saved you. And you were afraid to tell anyone what you really saw. You told the police it was a bear, right? Just like everyone else."
"I told them it was a ghost," she countered, stubbornly. "They didn't want to listen. Threatened me to get it straight, or I'd end up sent away to some loony bin. My father instructed me to go along with the bear story. Was nothing they could do to stop a ghost, anyhow," she turned her head away.
"Mrs. Pilliwee," Dean leaned forward a bit, "My brother and I can do something to stop it." She turned to look at him again. "But we need your help. We need to know exactly what happened, and who we need to be looking for."
She looked at him, as though trying to figure out whether or not he could be trusted. After a few long moments, she spoke, "It was...Sheriff Tutner," she told him, in a quiet voice. "At first, I thought we'd simply...run into one of the park sheriffs. But then I recognized his face; his picture is still up in the town's missing, or was then, anyway. And we'd heard the ghost stories. I'd seen that picture, and I knew it was him, up there."
"What did he do to your friend?" Dean asked.
"I didn't actually see him do anything. He separated us," she told him. "He..made us see things. I don't know how."
"What do you mean?" Dean asked, scrunching his brows together.
"I mean, I was trying to find my friend, because I heard her going absolutely mad...calling out for her sister, like she was hurt, and she needed to help her. But her sister wasn't with us. She hadn't come."
"You think she was seeing her there?"
"I know she was," she told him. "Only because of what I saw, moments after I heard her start to scream."
"What'd you see?"
"My Harold," she told him, her eyes glassy. "I saw him being...torn apart in thin air, as if by invisible dogs." That made Dean's eye twitch. "But I...knew he wasn't there; that for whatever reason, I was seeing him there, just as my friend was seeing her sister. I knew I had to run, and that my friend had died up there because she refused to leave her sister there in harm's way. But I didn't need to run. Because that girl, Sally...she was suddenly there, in front of me; my vision of Harold left me, and then Sally disappeared, too. I think maybe to slow down Tutner, while I got away as fast as I could..." she seemed to take a moment to come out of her reverie. "Does that help?"
"It might," Dean replied. "Thank you." His cell rang in his pocket, right then. "Excuse me," he gave her a small smile as he got up out of his chair and took his phone out. "Hey," he answered, seeing it was Sam calling.
"I'm headed back up to the campsite with one of the deputies," Sam told him on the other line.
"You find something out?"
"His grandfather...just made a confession from his deathbed to the both of us. He and two of his deputies took Tutner out to the woods after his stepdaughter's death, knowing what he'd done. They lured him up there, telling him his wife was up there, in danger. Then they killed him. Buried his body."
"He tell you where?"
"Yeah. That's where we're headed now. It's not far from where Spangler and his groupies were camped out. Meet us there?"
"Heading out the door as we speak. Be careful, Sam."
..**..
"This is the spot," the deputy told Sam as they came up to where his grandfather had spoke of. "I still say he's just got dementia. My grandfather wouldn't kill a fly."
"Guess we'll find out," Sam said. "You got a shovel?"
"In the trunk," he turned and popped the trunk of the SUV they'd driven right up to the spot they'd been told about. "You really think there's a ghost up here killin' people?"
"You really think it's a bear?" Sam rose his brows as he took the shovel from the deputy. The deputy was quiet in response.
Sam started digging. Surprisingly, it didn't take him ten minutes to finally find something. The shovel hit the top of a skull. He got down on his hands and knees and started pulling the dirt away, and the deputy was quick to help, in light of the discovery.
"I can't...believe this," the deputy said. "We actually found Greg Tutner. I'm gonna have to get a team out here. This is all gonna have to be processed-"
"We have to salt and burn this," Sam interjected. "This is the reason for all the killings up here on the campgrounds!"
"But..."
"You know what happened. Your grandfather and his friends avenged a little girl's death. This guy...maybe it's not the way justice should've been served, but that's how it was dealt. Now, you can take these remains back with you, and turn your grandfather in, and the killings will still happen up here. Or he can remain a missing person. Or you can bring the burned remains back..."
"Did you hear that?" the deputy held a hand up, stopping Sam from talking, as he looked off into the woods.
"Hear what?"
"I could've sworn... There! Did you hear?"
"I didn't hear anything."
"Oh god...it's Lucy..."
"Who?"
"My wife. What...why is she up here? Lucy!" he yelled out. "I'm gonna go find her. Sounds like she's hurt. Lucy!" he yelled again as he headed into the woods. Sam got a strange feeling, but then resumed pulling the dirt from the shallow grave.
"Sam!" a distant voice called, and Sam knew right away, it was Dean.
"Dean? Where are you?" he called out. The voice came from somewhere down where they'd driven up. "I'm up here, Dean!"
"Sam, help!"
Sam's blood ran cold, recognizing the panicked sound in his brother's voice. He dropped the shovel and took off running toward Dean's voice. "Dean! Dean, where are you? What's wrong?" And then he saw him...slumped on the ground, amidst the fallen leaves. Blood staining the front of his shirt, and dripping from his mouth.
"Sam...help..."
"Dean!"
..**..
"Sammy, where you at?" Dean called as he approached the Sheriff's SUV. He saw the open grave and discarded shovel, and dropped his duffel bag on the ground to dig out the lighter fluid and salt.
"Lucy, no!" Dean heard a man's voice, not far away, and saw a deputy in uniform, standing, looking at...seemingly nothing. But he looked afraid; terrified.
Dean didn't need to take another moment to see what it might be. He doused the bones in lighter fluid...
..**..
Sam watched in horror, glued to where he stood, as Dean screamed out in agony; wide gashes appearing on his chest and abdomen, much like when he'd been ripped apart by hellhounds... "No! Dean...no! Oh god...please..." suddenly he was able to move, and he scrambled toward his brother, just in time to catch his collapsing body in his arms. "Dean, it's gonna be okay... I found the bones. We'll just burn them...and everything...you're ...you'll be okay," he held him.
"S-Sam..." Dean's eyes closed.
"No...No, Dean...no...not now. Not now, Dean...God, please..." his chin shook as tears poured down his cheeks. He clung to his brother, tightly. Unwilling to go back to the bones. Wanting to join his brother...
..**..
"Hey!" Dean shook the deputy by the shoulders. "You with me?" he asked the frightened, confused man.
"Lucy..."
"It was a hallucination. She's fine. Where's Sam?"
"Lucy's...okay?"
"She's fine!" he repeated. "Where is Sam?"
"He uh...I left him at the grave site..." his sentence drifted off, and then they heard it...
Sam screamed.
As Dean made his way toward the sound, he interpreted the sound of that scream. He'd not heard it from Sam. It was one of anguish, of emotional pain, rather than physical. And when he found him sitting on his knees in the leaves, with a tear-soaked, devastated face, he could only guess that he'd also been a victim of the hallucination...
Moments earlier...
Sam watched as Dean's body suddenly was engulfed in flames, and simply vanished like sand in the wind. He was overwhelmed to the point that he couldn't even think. All he could do was scream out...
"Sam! Sammy, it's okay..." a voice started to register somewhere, but he couldn't bring himself to open his eyes. "C'mon, kiddo. Open your eyes, okay?" He registered strong hands on his shoulders. And that voice...he knew that voice. "Sammy..."
Sam opened his eyes, blinking rapidly in attempt to focus through the blur of tears.
"Whatever you saw, Sam, it wasn't real. It was the ghost, somehow projecting images. Not sure why or...how, but-"
"D...Dean?" Sam's vision finally cleared enough to make out his brother before him.
"Yeah," Dean gave a relieved smile to have finally gotten him to respond.
"Dean..." his voice cracked, and his hands went to his brother, first to his face, then down his neck and shoulder and arms, "You...you're okay. You're not..."
"Whoa, Sammy. We've kinda got an audience," he grabbed onto Sam's hands.
"You're not dead," Sam finished.
"No, Sam. I'm not- is that..." he had wondered what Sam had seen. Now he knew. "Hey, let's get back to the hotel, okay? We'll get you cleaned up and rested." He stood, helping Sam to do the same.
"Dean," Sam pushed forward, wrapping his arms around Dean so tightly, the older brother could barely pull in a breath.
"Okay...okay, Sam...Come on."
"Sorry," Sam pulled away.
"It's okay. I'm sure you're in some kinda shock, or whatever. Let's get out of here, okay?"
"Yeah..."
(to be continued...)