Currents

Chapter 15

I was staring at the water, not really paying attention to whatever conversation my brothers were having. We were meeting up with a hunter, Annie.
I heard Sam say" You know, uh, you know she and Bobby had a thing, right?"
Dean said" Yeah. Yeah, I knew that. Really?"
" Yeah. Kind of a foxhole thing- very hemingway."
" Huh. She and I kind of went hemingway this one time, too." I focused my attention on them,
" All right, well... that happens." Sam made that slightly grossed out face, I stifled my laugh,
" What, you too?"
" Look, it was a while back. We ended up on the same case. She was stressed. I-I-I... I didn't... have a soul."
" That's a lot of foxholes. She's not answering. Well, here's to ghosts that aren't there." He poured some liquor into his coffee,
" You sound kind of disappointed."
" Ah, it's better this way. I mean, even though I wish we could see him again doesn't mean that we should." He took a sip of coffee," Are we being stood up?"
" Yeah, let's hope that's all this is."

We were walking to the car, Sam was dragging me, since I was hypnotized by the water.
I heard Sam say" Keir, car."
I mumbled" One swim."
" Car."
" The energy feels amazing, one tiny swim."
" People, Keir."
" I'll go invisible, I'll swim under the water..."
Dean said" Just push him in." My head was pushed down, I groaned loudly.

Sam said" These go back years- disappearances never solved. They stop a few decades back, then pick up again just recently. All teenagers."
Dean said" Looks like Annie found a spot a lot of them liked to poke around just before they went missing."
" Yeah?"
" Yeah. Old van ness house. It's, uh, cheery."
" Well, the police combed the place. They always come up dry."
" Yeah, local law, always on the ball."
" So, built in 1862 by the Van Ness family... who lost it in the early 1900s. Put up for sale a few years back. No takers."
" Probably 'cause it creeps their queso."
" It's just been sitting there, boarded up, for ages. Oh. Get this. I guess a couple months back, someone put it on one of those, uh, most haunted houses in america lists."
" Let me guess- that's when the teenagers started going missing."
" Yep."
" I say we get rolling." I followed them out the door, Dean went back to get his jacket.

We walked into the house,
Dean and I said" Honey, I'm home." We looked around the room we were in, nothing yet.
Dean said" All right, let's go." We continued moving," Annie?" The EMF reader is going nuts,
Sam said" There's a whole lot of something going on." We heard a cellphone ringing, Dean was calling Annie's cell. We followed the ring and found the phone, Dean picked it up and we headed for upstairs.
" The call to me was the last one she made. So where the hell is she?" We walked upstairs, something was off about this place, I could feel the high energy here.
Sam said" We're Redlining all over the place. Assume the worst?"
Dean said" Yeah, always do."
" Okay. Vengeful spirit. Maybe lots of them. Killing kids. Look around. No blood. No anything. Certainly no bodies."
" Well, if evil is partying here, it's got a hell of a cleanup crew. Wait, wait, wait."
" What?"
" Here's something. From earlier this week."
" Okay." He played the voicemail, it was a woman saying free me, free me. Creepy." Where'd that come from?"
" You ever seen a phone number look like that?" We looked at the weird phone number,
We walked into another room,
Dean said" Well, that's every square inch of this place. No bodies, no pieces of bodies- no Annie. A whole lot of sizzle and no steak."
Sam said" Well, maybe no news is good news."
" Meaning?"
" Meaning maybe she's just not here. Maybe she's still okay."
" Yeah, And what does your gut say?"
" Let's just see if there's anything else in her research."
We walked out of the house and went back to the car, getting in.
Dean said" Where'd Annie get her intel? Do we know?"
Sam said" Bodega Bay heritage society."
——
Once Sam and Dean got back from the heritage society, Sam and I started on looking stuff up, Dean hopped in the shower.
Sam said" So, besides Whitman's fiancée, Dexter O'Connell was also convicted of killing a bunch of hookers who worked at the brothel. He escaped before they could hang him. But then he returned to the house, where he was found shot to death. Why would he escape and then go right back to the house where he got arrested?"
Dean said" I don't know. Add that to a list of things I don't know."
" So what's the next move?" I went back to eating chips, shrugging my shoulders as Sam looked at me.

After a few minutes,
Dean said" Sam? Key?"
Sam said" What?"
" Tell me one of you wrote that." Sam walked to the bathroom,
" Uh... No. No, I didn't."
I said" What is it?" I got up and walked to them, Annie trapped in house." No, I didn't." I looked at them, then to the mirror,
" Well, then, who's there? I said, who's there?!" The faucet turned on, and fogged the mirror," Bobby? Bobby?! This whole time, we've been trying to talk ourselves out of it, he's been- what's he doing here?" Sam grabbed the flask,
Sam said" Dude."
" We got to get back to that house, stat."

We were back at the house,
Dean said" We combed the crap out of this place, if Annie's in there and we didn't find her..."
Sam said" It's 'cause something didn't want us to."
" Awesome. Well, let's walk right into that."
We walked up the stairs into the house,
Sam said" All right, I'll check upstairs."
Dean said" Yeah. Annie?!" I followed Sammy upstairs," It's Dean! And Sam, Keir!"
" Annie?!" I looked around, tempted to go full siren to find anything I can't see with my normal eyes, my normal senses.
" Sam, Key, get back down here!" Sam and I walked back down to Dean, I looked at them." Annie? Slimer?"
" What?"
" Check it out." He was holding a camcorder, I looked around as they looked at the camcorder.
" Wait, frame back a little bit, and stop."
" She's here and not in a good way. Annie?!"
" Annie? Annie?!" We turned around and there was a ghost," Whoa!"
She said" Please. I'm Victoria- Victoria Dodd."
" Where'd you come from?"
" Here. I was a fancy lady."
Dean said" A hooker?"
I said" Uh, is Annie here?"
She said" Yes. You can't see her." Dean looked down," No, you're not standing on her." She looked to the side," I will. In my day, we believed in polite conversation. Annie's in terrible danger. We all are."
" From?"
" Whitman Van Ness."
Dean said" But he's dead."
" I thought you said they were good."
" Hey, I'm just processing, okay, lady? He's dead. You're dead. Define terrible danger."
" Whitman has great power over all of us in the house. He killed Annie. She says you can free us. Please, you must-" Then she burned,
Sam said" Victoria?" I looked at them, confused,
Dean said" I'm gonna say she was telling the truth, considering that she just... got ghost-killed."
" So, what? Whitman Van Ness?"
" Now we now whose bones to salt and burn. Let's go." We walked out, running to the car to go to burn the bones.

Sam said" All right. Here we go- cemetery, edge of town. The Van Ness family has it's own mausoleum."
Dean said" All right, we light up the bastard and finish him off." The car got faster,
" Take it easy. We'll get there."
" Uh, that's not me." Then the car started swerving and the ghost of Whitman appeared.
We got out of the car,
Sam said" Why's he with us?!"
Dean said" I don't know. There's got to be something on us!" We started checking our pockets,
" Hey, hey." Sam pulled out something then the ghost punched his hand through Sam.
" Sam!" Dean grabbed the thing and shot it, the ghost disappeared,
" Did that do it? Did that get rid of him?"
" I don't know. I got a bad idea we just snapped him back to his favorite house."
" Where Annie's a sitting duck."
" We got to find those bones. Come on."
We got to the mausoleum and broke in, Dean started hammering at the box where the bones were.
I groaned" Too slow!" I grabbed Dean with water and pulled him back, I wrapped water around the plate, keeping us from the bones, I added pressure, and it fell off. I caught it, putting it down, I wobbled, grabbing my head, gulping. Sam and Dean pulled the bones out and burned them, I got dizzy then fell, everything went black.

I woke up, a little,
I heard Dean say" What did Keir do in the mausoleum?"
Sam said" Saved our asses again."
" Notice anything different about him?"
" Dean."
" Truth, Sam."
" You already know the truth."
" He's in pain, half the time he's high."
" He's trying to cope. He has something in him that's causing him an amount of pain that we'll probably never feel."
" I don't like him taking those drugs."
" I don't either, but we've seen what happens if he's not taking them."
" His mind's a puddle."
" So if he's functional, and being smart about it... we should just let him continue."
" I still don't like it."
" He's trying to take less, Dean, he is, as hard as he can. He's eating junk to lean off the pills as much as he can handle."
" I know, all right, fine. I won't say anything."
" You know, he mumbles in his sleep."
" Yeah, nightmares. About Michelle."
" I think he blames himself for what happened to her."
" He blames himself for everything, Sam, you know that as well as I do."
" Shouldn't we do something about it?"
" Nope, he won't listen to us."
" Yeah, that's true. Think he's okay? We didn't check him for any wounds."
" Yeah, he's fine. I didn't see any blood." I dozed back off again, the feeling of exhaustion too strong for me to handle.