Fake Identity - Part 2
Fanfic: Fake Identity
Author: borgmama1of5
Summary: When the show started, Sam hadn't hunted since he was 18, but he and Dean slipped into their routine use of aliases like it was old hat. But when did Sam learn how to do that?
Spoilers: None. Set preseries , Sam is 16
Wordcount: 9540 - One shot
Genre: Gen, preseries
Characters: Sam, Dean, John
Rating: PG-13 for language
A/N: Much love to sandymg as my beta but more importantly, as my nag. She knew there was more than a drabble here and insisted I flesh it out.
Part One here: http://borgmama1of5.livejournal.com/36049.html#cutid1
***
Sam stopped in front of the screened-in porch and went over what he was going to say again. Mrs. Melanie Grossman. Sam was sure she wasn’t going to be wanting to rehash a horror from over thirty years ago, but he needed more information. He could do this, he told himself, it wouldn’t require nearly as much acting as being a state trooper.
The door opened as far as the inside chain allowed. “Yes?”
“Mrs. Grossman, my name is Sam Simmons. I’m a reporter with the Williamsburg Tribune, and I’m doing an article about a series of crimes that happened in the past. I’d like to talk to you about what happened in 1962.” He made his voice soft, striving for an empathetic connection. He kept his eyes on her face, watched as it tightened.
“I really don’t have anything to talk about to you.” She started to shut the door.
“Please, Mrs. Grossman.” Sam put all the intensity of what Dean called his ‘puppy-dog eyes’ into the look he gave her. The closing of the door stopped. “Are you aware of what happened here four days ago? To Dylan Gardner?”
Wrong thing to say. Mrs. Grossman flinched, shut the door, and Sam heard the deadbolt thud.
Shit. Too direct. But he had to get her to tell him about the dog. Sam bit his lip, then rang the door bell again.
“Go away, I don’t want to talk to you!” came through the door.
Sam put every bit of earnestness into his voice that he had. “Please, Mrs. Grossman. I know this is hard for you but it could save someone else. You want to help, I know you don’t want anyone else to have to go through what you did.” He held his breath. The door cracked open ever so slightly.
“How can something that happened to me over thirty years ago make a difference now?”
“It’s hard to explain, but if you’d just let me ask you a few questions?”
Score one for sincerity, Sam thought as the woman undid the chain. Wonder if Dean could have charmed his way in? And Dad? Dad would have just glowered until she was intimidated …
The middle-aged woman sat uneasily on the edge of the navy blue couch, plainly finding his presence disturbing. Sam eased his conscience over her distress by reiterating to both of them that she was helping to prevent another attack.
“I just need you to tell me exactly what happened the night Edwin Jenkins attacked you.”
Ninety minutes later Sam left the distraught woman shredding tissues in her living room having just relived the most horrifying night of her life. Because he needed her to do it.
He stopped at the end of the block, mulling his choices. Easiest - smartest - thing to do would be to go back to the motel, give the intel to Dad and let him decide what to do next. Except Sam wasn’t sure his dad would get past his annoyance with Sam to see the facts and what they led to.
So he could go back to the Gardners’ neighborhood right now and look around for remains …heck, he had, always had, salt in his backpack, he’d grabbed the EMF meter when he’d left Dean, maybe he could just take care of the thing right away on his own. Then his Dad would have to acknowledge Sam could pull his own weight on their team …
Yeah, to the Gardners. He could have walked the distance if necessary, but as long as there was a bus coming anyway, he might as well hop on.
Sitting in the back of the wheezing city bus Sam considered what Mrs. Grossman had told him about the attack. More specifically, he focused on what she had said about Candy, the family’s Doberman, who she’d brought with on the babysitting job because of the other murders.
There’d been several creepy phone calls, the phone went dead, and then the dog had gone crazy, barking and tearing through the house and there’d been a man yelling and cursing and Melanie had run out of the house to the neighbor’s. The police had found a man hiding in the hall closet, the Doberman keeping him there.
And Mrs. Grossman confirmed that yes, Candy had bitten the intruder repeatedly - had bitten off the man’s index and middle fingers on one hand - and had been stabbed in return. The family’s beloved dog had died two days later from her injuries, a hero for saving the lives of Melanie and the little girl she was watching that night. And Candy had been buried in the family’s backyard which was now part of the housing development where the Gardners lived.
It all fit, Sam thought. The construction must have disturbed the dog’s grave. A basic salt-and-burn should take care of it. And he was going to do it right now.
Only a handful of the houses were occupied, most of them at the east end of the development. The Gardner’s house had one light on in the kitchen. Based on what he’d researched and what Mrs. Grossman had told him, her old house would have been about three doors west of the Gardners, on the opposite side of the street, where the buildings were still mostly unfinished. Sam started searching through the backyards with the EMF meter.
He hit pay dirt in the second yard, the buzzing pulse of the EMF guiding him to an unremarkable patch of churned up dirt and construction debris. He didn’t have a shovel in his backpack but it was a moment’s work to liberate one from the equipment shed and begin to excavate the dog’s bones.
Unfortunately, it was not going to be as easy as he’d hoped. He’d dug a couple feet down when it dawned on Sam that there was not going to be a coffin to find, instead the bones were scattered loosely throughout the dirt.
Shit.
The growl was his only warning, and it was barely enough that he could swing the shovel around reflexively. Slashing the Doberman shape with the steel slowed it only an instant but Sam was using the momentum to reach the bag of rock salt near his feet. He screamed as teeth punctured his thigh but kept moving even as he fell, spilling salt from the open sack onto the ghost. The release of the death grip on his leg hurt as bad as being bitten, and Sam fought the wave of red haze that threatened to overcome him as the dog started to dissipate - and then it was reforming as the corrupt form of a man wielding a knife, plunging it toward Sam’s face.
Sam threw up one arm and the blade bit like fire into his forearm but he still had the salt in his other hand and flung it out again. The man vanished with sick laughter and Sam knew when it reappeared he was a goner. Shudders of pain shook his body, made his breath catch.
Mist was solidifying again. Man or dog this time didn’t matter. Sam was gonna die here alone.
From the weight of the bag there was enough salt left to repulse the spirit a final time and Sam held it ready. It was coming back in the man shape again, but hanging back, cackling and wordlessly trying to taunt Sam into wasting his last bit of protection. He wanted to curl into a ball from the agony but forced himself to keep his eyes on the predator as it started to circle around.
One second’s thought, and Sam saw a chance. If there was enough left … He tipped the bag toward the ground and awkwardly but quickly began to trail the salt in a circle around himself. The ghost reacted slowly enough that Sam had three-fourths of the circle done before it realized what he was doing. Transferring the bag to his wounded arm to finish it, Sam bit his lip, drawing blood, fighting to stay conscious. The salt completed the circle - just barely - as the creature morphed back to hound, but for all its ferocity it could not reach him.
The ghost-dog circled, furious at being thwarted. Sam, shuddering with pain and fear, pulled himself into as small a target as he could. Everything he could think of to defend himself was in his backpack outside the circle. As was his cell phone. He pressed the heel of his palm against the rip in his thigh, knowing that if he passed out he would collapse out of his protection. The frenzied barking felt like a physical attack, spittle flying across the salt line, maddened eyes level with his…
“Is someone out here?”
No!
“Go back! Don’t come here!” Sam’s warning cry was drowned out by the deafening noise of the Doberman as it pivoted and charged at the new voice. Even as the dog was turning, Sam struggled to his feet and lunged over the salt, his world narrowed to the front pocket on his pack that held his phone. He thumbed the speed dial as a terrified “Oh my god!” came from across the yard.
“Sa…”
“Across the street three houses down from the Gardners! Shotgun! Hurry!”
Dropping the phone Sam reached in another pocket and pulled out a six-inch iron blade. The barking stopped abruptly but instead of silence Sam could hear “No! Stop! Nooo!” the last cry cutting off in a horrible gurgle.
He stumbled across the yard and past the corner of the house to see the ghost back in man-form stabbing over and over into the body lying before it.
“Stop!”
Its knife lifted for another thrust, and Sam hurled himself at the shape. His blade pierced the shape and it vanished.
There was a moan at his feet. Daring a quick look Sam felt sick at the mangled body of Mr. Gardner. Blood was pooling from bites and cuts over his whole body but Sam could only stand over the injured man waiting for the ghost man or dog to reappear.
It took longer to reapparate from the touch of iron but only by moments - as a man this time - and Sam lashed out to dissolve it. The dog shape appeared again, but this time just out of reach and Sam almost fell as he swung at it. More growling and Sam started cursing back just to keep himself standing. Sam knew he couldn’t fight it off much longer. And Mr. Gardner was no longer making any noise.
The Doberman leaped, knocked Sam to the ground, and locked its jaws around his left wrist.
“Unh!”
Sam stabbed blindly and it vanished only to rematerialize over Mr. Gardner.
“No!” He started to roll but fire raced up his arm when he tried to push off from it.
“Sam! Down!”
He dropped and the shotgun report echoed as the ghost vanished again.
Dad was there … and Dean? Sam choked back a sob of pain and relief.
“Cover us, Dean!” Dad was kneeling over him. “Where are you hurt? Can you stand?”
“Arm ’n leg. I … think.” Sam answered the questions lasered at him. “Mr. Gardner …”
His dad turned away to check the body.
“He’s gone. Grab the backpack, Dean. We have to get out of here.”
With John’s arm around his back Sam got to his feet just as Dean let loose with another blast from the sawed-off. Then they were all in the Impala as the wail of police sirens filled the night.
***
“That’s the last of the Vicodin, Dean.”
“I know, Sam needs it, I’m fine.” Pills were put on his tongue, water held up to his mouth so he could swallow.
Sam wavered in and out of consciousness as his dad cleaned and stitched the dog bites and knife wound. Sam was aware of Dean sitting on the edge of the bed, one hand on Sam’s shoulder, the other handing Dad the supplies. With half-open eyes Sam saw the unbruised side of Dean’s face looked almost gray and Sam didn’t think it was from the crappy motel lighting. Dean shouldn’t have been out there. Guilt for making Dean come look for him collided with the burn of antiseptic in the punctures and Sam bit his lip to avoid whimpering. Each time Sam flinched or grimaced his brother murmured softly, “ ‘S okay, Sammy.”
Bandaging finished, Dean pulled a blanket over Sam. Now that it was over, he couldn’t control the shaking.
“What the hell were you trying to do, Sam?”
Sam couldn’t meet his father’s eyes. Mr. Gardner was dead. Because of him. Because he thought he could handle the job on his own. His silence went unheard by his dad
”You’re damn lucky Dean figured you’d be near the Gardners and we were almost there when you called! Dammit, Sam, you think this is just a game? You could have been killed strutting in there alone! Every lesson I’ve taught you, and you tear off to prove you don’t need to listen?”
Sam took the blistering rebuke without attempting to defend or explain himself. He was wondering how Mrs. Gardner was going survive her husband’s death. Would she erase all trace of him from her own personal haunted house, too? Maybe she’d abandon it completely, or burn it down? Sam couldn’t erase the image of the mutilated man from his brain.
“Dad.” Dean hadn’t moved from his side, only addressed Dad with the one sharply quiet word
Their dad went silent.
“I’ll stay with him, make sure he doesn’t run a fever.” Dean didn’t quite say ‘you go to bed’ but John must have gotten the message, for he said huskily, “Okay, Dean. But I’ll take over in a couple hours, I don’t want you relapsing. Probably better for you to sit with him first.” From the sound of the sigh Sam knew without opening his eyes that his dad was wiping his hand across his jaw. “You did good knowing where he went. You gotta take care of yourself, too, Dean. We’re gonna have a nasty job getting rid of this thing and I need you in as good a shape as possible.”
“Sam was right about it being the dog, and the old babysitter’s house.”
“Yeah, he was. But that doesn’t excuse stupidity.”
“Dad …”
“Yeah, okay, I’ll take over in a couple hours.”
Once John was in the other room, Dean shifted to lean back against the wall at the head of the bed, carefully putting his legs on the mattress alongside Sam. His hand never left Sam’s shoulder during the entire maneuver.
“Dean?”
“Whatcha need, Sammy?”
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“It’s my fault Mr. Gardner got killed. And my fault you got hurt the other day ’cause I wasn’t there. I’m sorry …"
“Sam.” There was a command in Dean’s voice that ordered Sam to believe him. “A fucking ghost killed that dude. Not you. And you being there wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference to the poltergeist when it threw the dresser at me.” Dean smirked, “Sucker turned me into Wile E. Coyote.” Dean turned serious again. “Not your fault. None of it. So quit thinking it is.”
Sam couldn’t say anything.
“You hearing me, Sammy?”
“Yeah, Dean, but…”
“Not sayin’ it was brilliant to go off and try the salt ’n’ burn on your own. Takes a lotta practice to do ’em alone. But don’t you blame yourself for what happened, you hear me?”
“Yeah, Dean.”
A salivating Doberman featured prominently in Sam’s narcotic-influenced nightmare. Chunks of flesh were wedged in its needle-pointed teeth. Blood spattered Sam as the dog lunged past him to sink its jaws into the neck of the helpless man on the ground. Sam moaned, tried to push the dog from Gardner’s throat, a red-hot poker circling his wrist. The man changed, became little Evie being brutalized by the ghost-man thrusting his knife into her tiny body even as she shielded the little boy in her arms. She screamed, “Help me!” Pain sliced Sam’s arm and thigh as he tried to fight it off, but the ghost was stronger, faster.
“Shh. ‘S all right, Sammy. I’m here.”
“Is he running a fever?”
“Nah, don’t think so, just bad dreams.”
“I’ll take over, you get some rest.”
“ ‘S okay, Dad, I got ’im.”
“I’ll sit with him, Dean. You go to bed, I mean it.”
It was too hard to open his eyes, but Sam could feel Dean gingerly shifting his legs off the bed. Sam’s shoulder felt exposed when Dean took his hand away. He heard his brother’s muffled groan as he stood - Dean jarred the mattress as he staggered. Dad’s swift step.
“Easy.” Two sets of footsteps shuffled to the other bed, springs creaked, another stifled “Unh.”
A kitchen chair softly scraped the floor, a solid body settled on it. A rough palm brushed aside Sam’s bangs to rest on his forehead. “Good,” was breathed into the silence. As the hand withdrew, Sam weakly groped to connect with it.
“I’m here, son.” Calloused warmth covered his hand. Sam fell back into restless sleep.
***
The salt-and-burn was a real bitch.
John had them wait two days, telling them he was coming up with a plan and neither Dean nor Sam was physically able to help him yet, anyway.
Sam watched the news, sick to his stomach, as the reporters talked about the tragedy of the wild dog attacks on Mrs. Gardner’s son and husband. He stared at the T.V., hands clenched, dreading to hear of another incident. Dad figured the ghost would lay low for a couple days as long as nothing provoked or enticed it, but there was no guarantee of that, Sam knew. However forty-eight hours passed and then another half-day and nothing more on the news. Still, it was a little easier to breathe when Dad said it was time to finish the job.
No fast way to do it - they were going to have to collect all the scattered bones before burning them. First step was making a salt circle that encompassed the entire yard where the family had buried their heroic pet all those years ago. Then, because neither Dean nor Sam was fit to wield a shovel, John did the digging. Dean circled the perimeter waiting for the ghost to show up, armed with a five foot iron spike. Quieter than using the shotgun, and because it was likely going to take all night, better to not alarm the neighborhood and get the cops called.
Sam was stationed with his dad, shifting through the dirt and piling the bones.
“It’ll show when we start disturbing the grave,” John said, “Every time we get a decent collection we’ll salt and burn it and when the mother doesn’t come back we’ll know we got it all.” He didn’t go into the odds of them finding all the pieces in one night. Or of them getting all the bones ever. It was going to work because it had to. Because John Winchester said so, Sam thought. And it was funny that his dad’s certainty wasn’t pissing him off, like it did the rest of the time. Sam wanted him to be right this time.
It was quiet for the first thirty minutes or so, then the frenzied barking started. Dean and John had decided that Dean shouldn’t worry about taking the ghost out unless it looked like it was going to breach the salt line or a civilian got involved. Still, listening to the dog’s fury sent shivers down Sam’s spine, and he could swear his gashes from the animal’s teeth throbbed in time with its ferocious agitation.
“Hold the light still!” John ordered. He had taken a break from shoveling to help Sam pick out bones. If you took the supernatural out of the picture, Sam thought, this could be an archeologist’s adventure, reconstructing history from bones. Yeah, an archeologist could concoct an interesting story finding human finger bones inside the animal.
“Aw, shut up, Lassie!” The barking abruptly stopped. Dean had obviously decided enough with the noise.
John resumed digging, Sam kept sifting, the barking started up again, stopped short after a few minutes.
The night dragged on. Twice Dean signaled that a police car was coming through, and they all ducked into the closest unfinished house. Sam set the first batch of bones on fire. They all watched as the ghost dog rippled, but it didn’t vanish, so after wiping his forehead with a bandana from his pocket, John resumed digging.
After two more fires still hadn’t kept the ghost from coming back, Sam asked, “What if we just pour gasoline in the hole you’ve made and say, in a big circle around it and see what happens?”
“Worth a try, we’re not getting anywhere. Tell your brother to be ready to go, the cops are bound to check out a big fire. If it doesn’t work we’ll have to come back tomorrow night.”
The gasoline ignited with a ‘whoosh’ and the still-barking dog flamed out.
“I think we got it, Dad!” Dean yelled, waited a few minutes to be sure and then stepped across the salt line to go to the Impala, Sam three steps behind him, John still further away.
“Dean!”
Still blazing, the spirit, now a man, plunged his knife into Dean before either brother could react.
“No!”
Dean fell like a stone. Sam ripped the iron blade from his belt, flung himself over his brother and thrust the knife through the ghost which dissolved, reappeared, and suddenly imploded in a last fiery burst.
“Dean!” John swiftly checked the wound on Dean’s upper back. The dark stain on his shirt was already bigger than Sam’s palm.
“Nuh …”
“Help me get him to the car.”
Sam eased his arm around Dean, grabbed the duffle, and with John on Dean’s other side they supported him to the backseat.
“Keep pressure on it.” John handed Sam a towel.
Dean’s steady mantra of “Sonuvabitch” during the ride back to the motel was weirdly reassuring, even though the towel was saturated with blood by the time John pulled the Impala into its space. Sam felt guilty that he had taken the last of the good pain meds but then became too busy as Dad’s assistant to fret further. Thankfully, it was a clean puncture, the knife had not been twisted.
As John irrigated and stitched Dean’s wound, Sam asked, “What happened, Dad? We thought it was gone.”
“Was a fragment still unburned. Didn’t see it until Dean was out of the circle.”
“Do you think we got all of it?”
“Pretty sure from that last flame-out. I’ll check tomorrow, though.”
Halfway through the patch-up Dean sunk into stoic mode. John finished the last suture, and Sam helped him ease Dean into bed. Sam frowned at the little grunts of pain as his brother tried, not very successfully, to find a way to lay that didn’t hurt either his back or his ribs, which had surely been abused as Dean swung the iron staff all night.
Sam thought about Mrs. Gardner. He wanted to ask his dad if he thought she’d be all right, but knew his dad wouldn’t offer meaningless reassurances. Because how could she be? She would think that her son and her husband were victims of a bizarre animal attack. Would it make any difference if she knew what had really killed them? How would he survive if something happened to Dean? Or to Dad?
His stomach knotted as he deliberated. Dean had gotten hurt again … This time he had been there and it had mattered. But did he want to spend the rest of his life watching his brother’s back? What about what he wanted to do - go to school, have a girlfriend, live in one place for more than a month … If only his brother could see that they could have a different life, a better life, leave Dad to hunt alone …
Sam finally fell into fitful sleep. He was walking through the Gardners’ house, looking for Dean, but all the rooms were empty … someone was crying, and he went back through the rooms, checking all the closets … he opened the closet in the little boy’s empty room and there was a … puppy, a little black and brown puppy, whimpering. Sam picked it up and it looked at him with jewel green eyes … and suddenly it was the Doberman twisting violently in his arms, snapping at his face … he dropped it and ran from the room, slamming the door behind him, about to race down the stairs and out into the yard when from behind the door he heard Evie screaming for help and he hesitated just a moment, then went back in the room … Evie cowered, cornered by the beast, Sam pulled it away from her but the door rippled and vanished and there were only walls, no way out, the dog tore at his arms, aiming for his throat … he shoved it off with all his strength, seized Evie’s arms, and threw himself out the second-floor window, Evie cradled to his chest … he was falling …
Sam sat up with a gasp. Immediately his eyes went to the shape in Dean’s bed. His heart was pounding so hard it took him a minute to hear the rise and fall of his brother’s breathing, the normal smooth rhythm interrupted with tiny catches of pain.
Slowly Sam laid down on his side, facing Dean. Why did they do this?
His cell phone alarm startled him awake. It was morning - Sam didn’t think he’d fall asleep again but obviously he had. Without more dreams, thankfully. Recalling the … nightmare … made him think of Evie. He wondered if she was back home, and okay? Or as okay as she could ever be now.
He’d skipped two days of school recovering from the ghost attack, but he was determined to go back today. Two days’ work wouldn’t be too hard to catch up on. Sam dressed quietly, not wanting to disturb Dean. When he came out of the bathroom he heard water filling the pot in the kitchenette and knew his Dad was making coffee.
“G’morning.”
“Heading to school today?”
“Yessir.”
“Mmm. Just keep in mind the authorities will be poking around the Gardners’ area. I’m not sure how clean we left it last night with Dean … I’m gonna check it this morning, but any clever cop connects it with us, we might have to haul out in a hurry. Understand?”
What was there to say? “Yessir.”
Sam nearly tripped over Dean’s duffle as he was getting his backpack set for school, then stood motionless at the idea that came to him. John couldn’t see him, so Sam knelt and pulled what he needed from Dean’s bag. A quick flip through his wallet confirmed he still had the I.D. There would be enough time after school, even if they did pull out today.
***
Mrs. Caldwell answered the door. Sam had his identification out in case the mother didn’t remember him, but she did. Not specifically his name, but him.
“Yes, officer?”
For a moment it felt like play-acting, but he firmly pushed his sixteen-year-old self down and addressed the woman as the authority she saw him to be.
“May I see your daughter for a moment, Mrs. Caldwell?”
“She doesn’t … I really don’t want her to have to talk about this anymore, it’s very upsetting.”
“She doesn’t have to … I won’t ask her any questions, I just wanted to see how she’s doing.”
Hesitation, but she opened the door. “She’s in the kitchen.”
Sam shook his head as the mother made to follow him. “Do you think I could see her alone, for just a moment? Please.”
Reluctantly she stopped and waved him on. Evie was doodling on a piece of notebook paper.
“Evie?” She looked up uncertainly. “I’m Officer McMaster, I saw you in the hospital?”
“Oh.” She began to twist her pencil nervously.
“I just wanted to see how you were.”
The beads in her braids clinked as she turned her head away from him. Sam lightly pulled out the chair next to her and sat.
“I just wanted to tell you … I thought you should know …” Oh god, had this been a dumb idea! But he was here, he would finish. “Look, Evie, I know what happened in the Gardners’ house was awful, something you shouldn’t have ever had to have happen. Terrible things … happen sometimes, and it’s not right, but … what I wanted you to know is that it’s gone, taken care of. I can’t explain how but I want you to know that … thing … isn’t going to hurt anybody else, ever again. Not you, not anyone. Okay?”
The pencil stilled. Sam held his breath, wondering if this visit had done any good.
Without looking at him, the girl whispered, “Okay.” He waited but there was no other acknowledgement, so he got up to leave. He rested a hand on the slender shoulder. “There was nothing you could have done, don’t blame yourself, Evie.”
He walked past the anxious mother, stopped. “Evie’s safe now. At least from that … animal. I hope she’ll be all right.”
Mrs. Caldwell’s eyes went to the kitchen when Sam said her daughter’s name, and she barely nodded at Sam’s somewhat cryptic words, but she didn’t move and Sam let himself out.
A few blocks’ walk, a quick change to shed the uniform, and one more thing. He dialed Mrs. Grossman.
“Mrs. Grossman? This is Sam Simmons, you talked to me a few days ago … yes … I just wanted to tell you that, um, that because of what you told me, some … authorities … fixed … the problem, and I just wanted you to know that, because of your help, no one else will ever get hurt like that again. No, I really can’t explain… no, but I thought you should know that what you did made a difference … No, I won’t be contacting you again. Thank you.”
He held the phone open after Mrs. Grossman hung up. He’d had a thought to talk to Mrs. Gardner, too, but he knew now he wasn’t going to do it. There was nothing he could say to her.
Wanting to believe, yet not sure he’d made any difference, Sam headed back to this month’s ‘home’ for however much longer that would last.