Seattle, Washington - 2005
Getting out of the car is almost orgasmic after the long ride, Natalie stretching her arms over her head as she looks around. Tech Star Condominiums was supposed to be the future of Seattle, but things had quickly gone downhill in the years since they were constructed. Back in 2001 when prices were still relatively low and spirits were more or less high, the condos were meant to be a bright new beginning. Looking up at the remains of said optimism makes Natalie extremely happy to be a pessimist. Always expect the worst and nothing will ever surprise you.
"That place looks like shit," Darcy says, getting out of the car. The construction crew hasn't touched the place yet, they're probably still trying to untangle the mess of blueprints that the Historical Society dug up out of some dank, dark basement in city hall. It'll take a lot of work to get the old house up to MacMori standards—at least, that's what Ye-jun and Isaac had said over Skype last night.
"And we get to stay there tonight." Darcy makes a face at that, a wrinkling of her nose and a turn to her mouth that makes Natalie huff out a tired laugh. The first night in the rotting carcass of the condos will be spent catching up on sleep, the real work will begin tomorrow morning. Or tomorrow afternoon after a huge cup of coffee, Natalie muses silently as she checks her watch. To say that neither girl is excited to be staying in a haunted house until their parents can make an appearance is an understatement.
"Remind me to check for bed bugs before we bunk down." Natalie nods and sets an alarm on her phone to do just that so she doesn't forget. Ever since starting college prep, she's become more and more forgetful to the point that she'd forget her head if it wasn't attached. "Dude, how many alarms do you have set?"
"Forty-two, why?" She looks up earnestly and doesn't understand at first why her friend would be laughing at her. Alarms are a serious matter, not something to giggle at like a lunatic. "What's so funny?"
"That's just ridiculous. Let me see that." Darcy snatches the phone out of her hand, scrolling through the list that never seems to end. "You have an alarm for eating?"
"I forget sometimes when I'm studying." Natalie takes her phone back and stuffs it in her back pocket with a scowl. As her brown eyes glance at the woods a few yards away, she finds the flickering shadows that she's come to associate with deteriorating souls. "I see dead people."
"We already knew that, genius."
"No," Natalie scowls, pointing towards the dark trees. "I see the dead people right over there." Darcy just rolls her eyes, used to the random ghost sightings by now. "You've gotta be the only kid I know that's not freaked out by haunted houses."
"They're dead, why should I be afraid? Why are you scared of haunted houses when you've been ghost watching since your fifth birthday?" Natalie winces at the reminder, still remembering the dark thing that had taken pleasure in grabbing Natalie's foot when it hung over the side of her bed. "Alright, let's get inside and see what we have to work with."
They don't have very many bags, one each for clothes and two for equipment, but lugging them up the cracked and crumbling driveway is a real pain in the ass. The drive is a fancy thing, circling what had once been a grand fountain with a few smaller roads leading to the parking garage (it's a four-car garage that looks ready to collapse in a stiff wind). Darcy pauses by the fountain and cleans some dead leaves out of the bottom basin of it, letting them drift to her feet on a faint current of air. Settled at the very top of the fountain is a small cherub, holding a stone pitcher and sporting a couple of stumps on its head that might once have been horns.
"Imagine coming home and seeing that dude when you're drunk," Natalie mutters, plucking a vine from the fountain.
"That'd be a bad trip." Darcy shakes her head and shuffles up to the front doors, the originals from the old manor house. The hinges creak loudly in protest as she opens them, sunlight flooding into a parlor that looks like it hasn't seen light in a decade, covered in a thick layer of dust. "Damn, how long has this place been closed up?"
"Four years. Apparently the spirits here were so restless that whole families moved out and left all their things behind. The owner cleared the food out of the place so it wouldn't stink if he ever came back, but nothing since then. He wouldn't even allow a groundskeeper to take care of the gardens. He sold this place to the Historical Society last year."
"Bunch of brave old ladies."
"Braver than the last guy at any rate. Let's find a room for base camp and then we'll see if the stove works so we can have supper." Natalie leads the way past a couple of doors on the left, finding a parlor with enough space to seat at least thirty people comfortably. "Damn, this place makes my grandma's house look tacky."
"To be fair, your grandma's house was pretty tacky." Darcy sets a bag down on a low coffee table, looking around to take everything in. The room should be warm, dark wood-paneled walls and plenty of windows to allow sunlight in, but something just feels wrong to Natalie. Maybe it's because of her history with houses like this one or maybe it's that the sheet-covered furniture makes her think of other spectors. "You okay, Tilly?"
"Huh?" Natalie looks to her friend, fingers tightening convulsively around the strap of her backpack. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm fine."
"You don't look fine. Last time I saw you that freaked out, you'd almost dropped your brother." And hadn't that been a fun occasion? Several adults all yelling in surprise and a pre-teen Natalie doing her best to hold onto the roly-poly that is her baby brother. She's pretty sure she traumatized Jace. "What's up?"
"Nothing, just weird vibes."
"Echoes." Natalie raises a brow in question and Darcy grins. "That's what my mom used to call places like this. When she was younger she said they were loud, but around twelve she started to say they echo."
"Did you hear these echoes?"
"Not always. Some places have quiet echoes, but others…." Darcy's smile fades as she looks around again, some of the color leaving her cheeks. "Other houses scream."
"That's one of the things investigators have been trying to disprove about this place. Some say the house screams and others say it's just underground water echoing loudly through the pipes." Natalie wonders if this place would echo for Mrs. MacBride if she were still alive. "Can you hear any echoes?"
"Mm, I don't know what it is. It's below my radar." Do you ever see your mom, Darcy? Do you still feel that awful cold in the pantry? Natalie has been dying to know the answers to those questions, but she doubts she'll ever work up the nerve to find out. "Let's get these sheets off. They're freaking me out."
"Yeah, I've always hated these things." Darcy and Natalie deposit the rest of their bags on the coffee table and set to work, the sheets sliding easily off the antique furniture and flinging clouds of dust up to dance in the sunlight above their heads. The furniture has all been restored, polished wood gleaming and fabric free of any holes or snags. Natalie's almost afraid to sit on the old-fashioned love seat.
"Our dads will have a field day here."
"Ain't that the truth. A big old house filled with kooky architecture that doesn't fit right."
"Alright, now you're making it sound like this place belongs to the Addams Family. I'm pretty sure Lurch would take one look at this place and decide it was too normal for his standards."
"I don't know, add a bearskin rug and a few man-eating plants and Morticia would probably feel right at home." Darcy snorts and her smile is as infectious as it is heartbreaking; a piece of sunshine in an otherwise gray world. Natalie always forgets how much she's missed that smile until she sees it again and all the world seems brighter. "I'll set up in here if you want to find the kitchen."
"You got it, boss." Darcy salutes and heads out of the room, still grinning. Natalie's smile isn't as bright, but it's not hard to manage anymore. She smiles freely these days and she has her family to thank for that.
Natalie starts setting up the equipment, all sorts of technical doodads that make her head spin if she thinks about them too much. Slotting the things together and booting up the laptops is all muscle memory by this point, one movement slipping into another until all that's left is to change out tapes in a few hours.
"You work fast."
"So will you when you get used to all of this." Natalie turns and furrows her brows when she notices she's alone in the room. "Darcy?" There's no response, but she shrugs it off. Maybe Darcy had made the comment as she was passing by. Or maybe you're losing your mind.
"Found the kitchen," Darcy hollers and Natalie sets out to find her. The parlor is just a weird place, the architecture a little too sharp and mismatched to feel comfortable, so it's almost a relief to find that the kitchen is totally normal. "Did you set up the security cameras?"
"I got a couple set up in the parlor, but not anywhere else. I figure I'll put one at the gates and another at the front door."
"Sounds good." They're just starting to put the perishables away when a ringing crash echoes through the room like a glass hurtled at a door. Natalie and Darcy jerk away from the sound, looking around for whatever had caused it. "What the fuck was that?"
"How should I know," Natalie demands shrilly. Across the room, a panel slowly swings outward to reveal a wine cellar. "We shouldn't go in there." She can see a wisp of a shadow passing the doorway, a train of a white dress sliding over the concrete floor with a quiet whisper. "We should leave, Darcy."
"Don't be such a baby." But Darcy isn't moving either, clinging to Natalie's arm with blunt nails digging in harshly. "We need to make sure there's no one camping out in there." Natalie knows that Darcy is right, but that doesn't make the unease in her chest lessen. They move together in small, shuffling steps that bring them to the doorway. Another shuffle brings them into the cellar, surrounded by rotting shelves of dusty bottles.
No one is around to hear their screams when the door slams shut and the woman in white lunges for them.
Portland, Oregon - 2006
Dean groans as he rolls onto his side, burying his head deeper under the covers. His mental clock tells him it's around 6:30 in the morning and far too early to leave the comfort of his bed. Unfortunately for him, he hears the faint click-clack of laptop keys that signals his brother is already awake which means that he's already brooding away.
Dean raises his head and cracks his eyes open, studying his brother by the dim glow of the screen; dark hair tangled and messy, falling in front of brown eyes, his head supported by his hand, and a mug of steaming coffee close to keep him from drifting off. Another sleepless night, then. Great.
Resigned now, he kicks the blankets off of him and sits up, running calloused hands over his face before lurching to his feet. He needs a shower before he deals with anything and he shuffles right past Sam without a word. He goes through the familiar routine of showering and getting dressed before rejoining Sam in the other room, plopping down on his bed to pull on socks and his boots. Behind him, Elizabeth grunts but doesn't wake.
"You have any cool dreams last night," Dean asks upon straightening, an easy grin in place to hide his worry.
"Oh yeah," Sam replies sarcastically," unicorns and leprechauns dancing under a rainbow." Dean snorts, grabbing the Styrofoam cup off the table and taking a long pull from the coffee.
"Why are you even up so early? I'm pretty sure there's a law against working on Sundays."
"Only for religious people, Dean." He rolls his eyes and takes another drink, slowly waking up and pushing nightmares of reapers out of his mind. "Anyway, I found a case."
"What, seriously? We just finished one, like, two days ago." It's Sam's turn to roll his eyes this time, meeting his brother's gaze with an expression of amusement. Knowing Sam won't push the case away until they find some clue of where Azazel is hiding, Dean nods and gestures for him to spill it.
"Alright, you remember that documentary Bobby made us watch when we were younger?"
"Yeah, it was about some stupid house that we were never supposed to look at again. So what?" The smile that curves Sam's lips upwards is all he needs to confirm the stomach-dropping dread that's welling inside him. "I thought that place was torn down five years ago."
"It was turned into condos, but the Historical Society bought the property and then hired the Amori and MacBride families to restore it to its former glory, stained glass windows and all." Dean pulls a face at the news, running his fingers through his short hair. "Turns out, the ghosts never really left the place and there were still unexplained disappearances from time to time, all women and young girls. Latest victims disappeared three weeks ago."
"And you want to drive all the way to Seattle to check them out."
"Well, yeah," Sam nods, closing his laptop and leaning back in his seat. "There might be a chance to save those kids. The MacMori company owns the property, but no one's willing to search for the girls there."
"Well, what's the worst that can happen?"
"Horrible death aside?"
"Yeah, Sammy, I'd like to avoid that at all costs." Dean sighs and runs his fingers through his hair, not really ready to tackle another case so soon. Dad hasn't been dead for a full week yet, the Impala is still in the shop, but Sam's too wired to slow down. "Who's gonna wake Liza up and tell her?" Sam holds out a fist for the customary game of Rock, Paper, Scissors and Dean gives him a wicked grin. "Oh, you're going down, Sammy."
"You say that a lot for someone that never wins."
"Shut up and play." They end up doing best two out of three games and it ends with Sam in the shower and Dean standing over the bed. Elizabeth has curled up into a ball at some point, one hand resting on Dean's side like she's trying to find him. Ever since she woke up in the hospital, she's been sleeping fitfully and this is the first time in almost a week that she looks peaceful.
"You're staring," she slurs, not opening her eyes.
"I can't help it, Liza," he says with the slow drawl she loves so much. "You're too beautiful not to look at." Her smile lights up her face, hazel eyes opening and fixing in on him. "Sam found us a case in Seattle." Her smile dims as she sits up, the blankets pooling at her waist. She's wearing one of his old shirts, the collar of it loose and ragged as it hangs off one of her shoulders.
"Is it the demon?"
"Nah, vengeful spirits." She nods and then she pauses, her eyes narrowing in concentration. Dean knows the instant she figures it out, her jaw-dropping open in an expression of comical surprise. "Yeah, I figured we wouldn't tell Bobby about this one."
"That's a good idea. I'd rather not be buried under his septic tank." Elizabeth gives a small shake of her head, blonde hair trailing along her shoulders. The early sunlight creeping in past the drapes turns her hair gold, flickering and shining like hungry flames. "Welcome to Seattle, home of the Space Needle and Purgatory." She gives another shake of her head and then she's up and moving, pulling on a pair of jeans and slipping her socked feet into her Converse.
"Did you forget your bra?"
"Oh, yeah…." She tosses the shirt at Dean's head before pulling on her bra and a pink sweater.
They leave as soon as Sam gets out of the shower, piling into Elizabeth's car with only minimal grumbling. None of them are too pleased to be stuck in a car held together by duct tape and hope, but it's better than relying on the heel-toe express. Dean in particular hates this car, it's too small for his long legs, but it is amusing to see Sam's frustration as he sits with his knees shoved against the glovebox.
"So Rose Red was built for John P. Rimbauer back in the early 1900s," Sam reads from a legal pad. "Even before the place was fully built, freaky shit would happen on the property; I'm talkin' murder, accidental deaths, suicide, ritual sacrifice. Apparently the ground was originally a Native American burial ground, so we might have another Oasis Plains situation."
"Fuck, don't remind me," Elizabeth groans from the backseat. "That case was an absolute nightmare."
"It's pretty tame compared to this." Elizabeth shifts and then she's leaning through the gap between the front seats, resting her elbow on the console. "Earliest recorded death was of Rimbauer's foreman, he was shot by a teamster over wages. He was killed pretty much instantly."
"I remember that story. The cops found the teamster coming out of a bar and knocked him out, but that backfired on them. He woke up the next morning in his jail cell with no memory of committing murder."
"Claimed Native American ghosts made him do it," Dean adds, nodding. "Scratched his eyes out before he could be charged." Sam flips through the legal pad, chewing on a pen cap as he looks through his notes. They're pretty extensive, which means he's either been at it all night or he'd taken pretty good notes as a ten year old. "A dude got decapitated after that, right?"
"Like I said, freaky shit," Sam says.
"I wonder if the documentary is online. We could re-watch it, educate ourselves. Speaking of, why don't you tell us about our latest vics?"
"Two girls, one nineteen and one sixteen, sent ahead by their parents to check out the house. According to the police file, they definitely made it to the States from Japan and a witness saw them arrive at the house, but nothing after that."
"The cops didn't find their gear inside?"
"The cops wouldn't go inside. No one's been on the property since the condos failed." Dean hums, drumming his thumbs against the wheel. He really wants to do a little research before they go marching inside, but there might not be time if they want to save those kids.
"Think we should get a motel room once we're in Seattle?"
"Is anyone from the MacMori thing stayin' in the house?"
"No."
"Then we won't bother wasting money when we've got free digs already." Sam's face makes some sort of complicated expression that Dean's too tired to translate, but Sam spares him that a second later.
"The house eats people, Dean. I don't know if you've noticed, but we're people."
"We can handle a few ghosts."
"It's more than a few by this point," Elizabeth says. She's still leaning between the seat and the smell of her body wash reminds Dean of fresh-baked cookies and sunny afternoons. His mom had loved to bake even if she wasn't particularly good at it and she'd play one of her Beatles albums so she had something to dance to while she prepared the cookie dough.
"Natalie Amori and Darcy MacBride are the first people it's taken since a botched investigation back in '01," Sam says, tapping his pen cap against the page he's reading. "I figure that it's so starved for even a trace of psychic mojo that it's willing to eat just about anyone."
"Which isn't great news for us since we've got a bonafide psychic riding shotgun." Dean's already considered this and he won't deny that anxiety curls in his belly, but they don't have much of a choice. Either they spend the night in the house on haunted hill and find those girls or they get a motel room and hope they can find where they left off the night before.
"The house is too big to tackle it in sections," he says. "And I've heard that the rooms flip-flop as they please, so we couldn't even leave a trail of breadcrumbs. We'll stay there and we'll stay together. Got it?"
"Got it," the twins mutter. Sam slouches lower in his seat, flipping the legal pad closed and capping his pen. There are violet smudges under his eyes and his hair isn't as shiny as it usually is, Sam's body trying to break down under the lack of sleep. Dean wants to tell him to get some shut-eye but knows it's a futile gesture. Sam would just straighten up and delve back into the lore in a fit of spite. Winchester men are a spiteful people and sometimes Dean hates that.
Traffic picks up when they make it into Seattle, but it's nothing compared to the lunch rush back in Shawnee. It's still relatively early, this is probably just your typical nine-to-five crowd trying to find cheap breakfast before dragging themselves to their jobs. That's one thing Dean's actually glad to have missed, he doesn't think he could push papers for eight hours a day without getting the urge to shoot something.
"Top of Spring Street," Elizabeth murmurs, pointing at the street sign. Dean guides the old Chevy to the left and up a hill past a residential neighborhood until he's forced to stop in front of a pair of massive iron gates. He thinks of that book Elizabeth loves, the one with a bookbinder and his daughter who go on fantastical adventures. At one point, they go to their aunt's house and it has a gate just like this one, topped with spikes to intimidate would-be intruders.
"Who the fuck sees a gate like that and decides to poke around on the other side," Dean asks.
"Who sends their daughters here by themselves?"
"Morons," Sam says. "I think that answers both questions. Who's getting out to open those gates?" Dean and Elizabeth share a look and then they both glance over at Sam. He's still busy trying to rearrange his legs and he doesn't notice them staring until Dean hits the button to unlock the passenger door. Sam's head snaps up and around, mouth dropping open in offense. "Oh, come on—"
"You're the one that wanted this case, Sammy," Dean says with a shrug. "Put that weirdly muscular torso to good use and open those gates."
"But—"
"Get movin' or I put more itching powder in your briefs."
"You're such a baby." Watching Sam struggle to untangle his legs and get out of the car is the funniest thing Dean's seen in months, the giant nearly tripping over his own feet before regaining his balance on the cracked driveway. Sam stalks over to the gates, shoving and pulling with no luck in either direction. "It won't open!"
"Did they lock it?" Sam turns back to the gates, ducking his head to look for any sign of a chain or even an intercom box. Sam turns to look at the car again, throwing his hands up in defeat when the gates slowly swing outward on their own. They open without a sound and Dean bites back a snort with the right one smacks Sam squarely on the ass.
"This is gonna be an amusing hunt if nothing else," Elizabeth says, grinning. Sam steps to the side so Dean can pull past the gates with their clinging vines and the massive R welded into either side. He taps the brakes once he's officially on the property, letting Sam grab the door handle before he hits the gas just enough to make Sam fall back a step.
"You're such a dick," he hollers. Sam makes for the handle again, but Dean's feeling a little petty and hits the gas again. He doesn't stop this time, just drives along the winding driveway until he's parked between a big ass fountain and a short tunnel that leads to the front doors. Elizabeth slips between the seats to sit next to him, both of them leaning over the dash to take in the massive house.
"I thought this was torn down to make condos."
"Apparently they liked the house's aesthetic," Dean shrugs. Not much has changed from the documentary they'd watched, the building is still far too large to be comfortable; six stories of red brick and glass and wood, a line of buzzers fixed near the front door that would let you talk to the people in the condos. Dean's not a fan.
"I don't like it."
"Ditto, honey." They get out and grab their bags from the trunk, Sam joining them in time for Elizabeth to throw his duffle at his head. "Does anyone know where old lady Rimbauer is buried? Maybe we could salt and burn the bitch."
"She's not buried anywhere," Sam says, still huffing and puffing from the long walk.
"What, was she cremated?"
"No body to cremate." Dean's brows furrows and he stares at Sam like he's grown a second head. Sam raises his brows and gives Dean a look easily translated as you're a fucking idiot. Dean decides to pour that itching powder on Sam's underwear after all. "None of the women who disappeared here were ever found. Hell, some of the men weren't found."
"Hardaway and Kandinsky," Elizabeth says, reading off Sam's legal pad. "Two psychics in the Reardon group." Dean remembers reading about the failed investigation in a Seattle newspaper a few years back. A group of twelve people spent Memorial Day weekend in Rose Red and only five made it out alive after a freak storm destroyed the place. "You guys think we'll disappear, too?"
"Nah," Dean says, though he pauses a little too long for it to be comforting. This place literally eats people, psychics and women in particular. Knowing their luck, Sam and Elizabeth will be sucked into the woodwork and Dean will be found mangled on the south lawn. "Let's get those kids out of here and then we'll decide how to torch Rimbauer."
"What weapons should we take?"
"Salt rounds, iron bars, anything that'll work on a ghost." They gather everything they can think of including the canister of salt Bobby had shoved at them when they walked out the door nearly a week ago.
None of them notice the spectors lurking in the woods as they head inside.
The monsters and I watched Rose Red yesterday and this just sort of happened *shrugs* Anything to avoid writing about clowns, I guess (season 2 will pick up right after this case, Pennywise and all)!