Cherry Pie

Breaking Free

[Rayne]

"Sweetie, just grab my hand and don't look back!" I told the frightened young girl.

Her shaking fingers clamped around mine and she held on for dear life as I dragged her towards the front door of the house. A vibration that I knew now not to ignore ran down my spine; after several weeks of hunting on my own, I had no doubt about what it meant.

When the violent spirit of Farmer Wallis — as the citizens of the town had come to call him over the years — materialized in front of us, I was ready for him. I leaned down to look the girl right in the eyes. "As soon as I distract him, you run as fast as you can outside and find your brother, okay?"

She nodded and peeked around me to stare at the disheveled-looking ghost. He was wearing dirty overalls, a straw hat, and he held a rusty pitchfork in his hand that he was now angrily waving at us.

I'd come across a news article a few days earlier that said several dead bodies were found in an abandoned farmhouse a few towns over from where I was staying. After some digging, I discovered that over the years, numerous people have gone into the house and never came out. The police attributed their deaths to extreme dust and mold inhalation, but that didn't quite make sense and I've hunted long enough to know the signs.

Over eighty years ago, Farmer Wallis's wife was accused of casting a spell that caused the town's small school to burn down, trapping and killing all twenty five students who were inside at the time. Needless to say, the town's citizens immediately got into witch-hunt mode, broke into Wallis's house, arrested his wife for murder and put her in prison where she died several years later.

Till the end of his life, Wallis never allowed anyone into his house, and if anyone was stupid enough to try, he would chase them out with his pitchfork. One fateful night, an out-of-town thief broke in, Wallis attacked him, and they both ended up dead. Apparently Wallis, however, stuck around to protect his house from beyond the grave.

The story of Farmer Wallis became a tale that was told around dinner tables for generations to come. As the year's passed, many had come to believe that it was nothing more than a legend and so bored kids began to visit the hunted house to get some cheap thrills.

Except that the thrills turned out to be not so cheap after all.

When I'd arrived to put the ghost out of commission, it was just in time for a teenage boy to come running out of the house, petrified, screaming that his twelve-year-old sister was still somewhere inside.

I must have spent too much time around Dean because I simply called him an idiot, told him to wait there, and ran into the abandoned house without a second thought.

It didn't take long for me to find the girl, but it also didn't take long for Wallis to find us. If it weren't for my newfound ability, I may have not gone in so quickly; with no coherent plan in place. Staring into the dead eyes of the ghost made me wish I had paused to form one after all.

Grabbing the water gun filled with salted water that I had strapped to my back, I sprayed it at the ghost, smirking with satisfaction when he immediately evaporated. Not having Sam and Dean's salt-filled shotgun shells with me, or any other weapons for that matter, I had to get somewhat creative. I quickly found out that salt water guns worked a lot better than any real gun — even Dean would have been impressed. Swiftly pushing all thoughts of him aside, I backed away, farther into the house, as Wallis appeared right in front of me again, looking madder than last time. 

"Now! Go!" I screamed at the girl who quickly booked it out of there on my command.

I sprayed the water salt at him just as the pitchfork went flying at my face. He seemed to be a feisty one, which meant that I would have no time to look for whatever it was that could have been keeping him there.