All Nightmare Long Chapter Seven
Chapter Seven
"Thanks, Mr Harper. We'll make sure Jason doesn't step a foot outside. See you at seven thirty in the morning!" Alison waved to the boy's father as he got back into his car.
Jason stepped inside and gave Alison a strange look when he saw Sam salt the doorway as soon as they closed the heavy wooden door.
"You guys….you really think this will work?"
"We better hope it will" The dark girl, Amanda, commented. "I don't wanna die in my sleep. I don't wanna die. Period"
Jason swung his sleeping back onto the pile and sat in a bright red bean bag. "I heard Penny wasn't asleep. She woke up. And that wasn't enough to stop her dying. I'm telling you I don't think I can sleep, lines of sugar or whatever."
"Salt" Sam said as he checked the lines on the window sills. "It's salt. And, yeah. I heard that, too. Her mom said that they couldn't stop her once she started to drown." He looked at the four frightened faces all turned up to watch him. "So, me and my brother, here, we're gonna make sure no one starts to drown. Agreed?"
The kids nodded back at him.
Dean was setting up the large but rather old television with the game console as Alison helped, tuning the station and setting the color.
Sam placed the salt can on the large wooden dining table and looked at the kids. "Um, guys? Where's, ah, Shelly?"
"Sherry. Her name is Sherryanne, I'm Shell, short for Michelle. And he's right, where is she?"
The kids looked at each other, shrugging, no clues.
"Can someone ring her?' Alison asked. "See if she's on her way?"
"You've got her number, don't you, Amanda?" Jason asked.
Mark, the green eyed boy, grabbed his cell phone from his jacket pocket. "I got it, too. Hang on, I'll call her"
Everyone watched as he rang, and waited for an answer.
He hung up the phone. "Voice mail"
Amanda scrolled through her contact list on her phone. "I got her home number, I think"
She pressed a button and placed the phone to her ear.
"Yeah, hi, this is Amanda, Sherry's friend? She was supposed to…..oh" she fell silent as she listened to the voice on the phone.
A tear slipped down the young girl's cheek as she listened.
Dean leaned on the dining table, his expression grim. He looked over at Sam and knew they both were thinking the same thing.
Amanda hung up the call and looked around the small circle of teens, then up at the adults, aware all eyes were upon her. "She's dead. She fell asleep in the bath and she drowned"
Sam stood. "I'll go. You stay with the kids" He hooked his coat from the stand near the door and checked for his fake I.D.
Dean nodded. "Okay. Keep in contact"
Amanda was sobbing, her head in her hands, as the other kids hugged her and tried to comfort her.
"Are you sure this is my brother? I mean, he wouldn't hurt a fly. He wouldn't. Even if he was a spirit…"
Dean ran a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, Alison. I am. But, you see, once a soul dies, I dunno, in an accident? Well, sometimes they get stuck here, and they're angry, and confused, and they can do all sorts of terrible things. Things they would never have done, alive, in any circumstance"
Alison's lip trembled. "But, he's my brother. My baby brother. I know him. He couldn't….He wouldn't!"
"No. He wouldn't. That's why he needs to rest, Alison. When he's cremated tomorrow, he'll be at rest, and all of this will stop. Trust me"
Her lip trembled harder and tears started to run down her cheeks. "Okay" she nodded and swiped angrily at her wet face with her sleeve. "Okay. I trust you. I believe you. I guess, all spirits started somewhere, right?" She offered him a fragile smile. "Let's work at keeping these kids alive, then"
Sam returned over four hours later. The kids had eaten, played video games, chatted and cried, though not in that order, and were now circled in on the large shag pile rug on the floor, all in their sleeping bags, talking in hushed tones, all too frightened to go to sleep.
Surrounding them was a ring circle of salt and several sigils chalked in a protective barrier.
Standing at the door, he nodded to Dean to indicate he wanted him to join him outside.
"Go" Alison whispered. "I'll keep an eye on them"
Dean climbed out of the huge, over stuffed arm chair he'd been sitting in and ran his hand over Alison's shoulder as he walked her to the door. Sam didn't miss the gesture.
"Um, how's she doing?"
Dean pulled the door quietly closed behind him. "Surprisingly well, considering we've convinced her that her much loved baby brother is now a murderous, vengeful spirit"
Sam nodded and looked down at his notebook, though it was closed. "Yeah. About that. The girl? Sherry?"
Dean nodded.
"Her bath was full of lake water. Hell, her bath, the bathroom, the hallway and half the downstairs rooms. There was so much water, it was literally everywhere."
"And she drowned. In her bath. In her dirty, cold, lake water"
"Yep. Looks like" He gestured towards the door. "And the other kids? How are they holding up?"
"They're holding" Dean sighed and leaned against the door, arms folded. "I got them in a salt ring, protective sigils, the whole ball of wax. Should hold"
"Well, we just keep a close eye on them. Anyone dreams, we wake them up. Sound right?"
"For now. If this don't work, we may have to go that whole dream root theory. But, last resort"
Sam pulled a paper bag out of his pocket and threw it at Dean who caught it without effort.
"Dream root?"
"Yeah. There's a Wicca supply place on Main. Thought it wouldn't hurt, you know. Just in case"
"Just in case" Dean sighed and turned to the door, grasping the handle. "Maybe brew up a cup, if one of these kids gets into trouble, we may need to jump in pretty quickly"
Sam nodded and followed his brother inside.
Alison murmured softly in her sleep, and moved a little as she lay curled up in the huge sofa chair.
Dean looked up but she stilled and her breathing evened out again.
The four teens were all sound asleep, safe within their circle, sleeping bags zipped tight.
Sam had his laptop open and Dean had a book in front of him, a table lamp providing ample light for him to read.
"Hey" Sam whispered. "The lake, um, Lake Deamonn?"
"Yes. Lake Deamonn. I am enjoying its mind numbingly boring history even as we speak" Dean looked up and rubbed his eyes.
"Well, skip ahead a hundred years. Says here a kid near drowned there, mucking around with his mates, one night while on a school adventure camp"
"When did that happen?"
Sam tapped the screen. "Hundred years to the day that Daniel drowned. Looks like, same time, even"
"Yeah? What happened?"
Sam spun the computer back. "Seems he was dragged from the lake, not breathing, heart stopped. They managed to revive him, but he died a week later, never having regained consciousness. And then, um, one by one, his friends all died. By drowning. In their sleep"
"Oh crap" Dean leaned back.
"Yeah. Crap"
"So, this may not be coma kid after all? It could be history boy?"
Sam shrugged. "Yeah. Could be. Or maybe Daniel's spirit got tangled up with the older spirit. Or something. Anyway, he's buried here, in the local cemetery. I think we need a salt and burn, just to be sure"
Dean looked at his watch. "I don't want to leave these kids. I don't wanna wake Alison, either. We'll have to do a daylight run at him tomorrow. What's his name, the history kid?"
Sam leaned forward and rested his chin on his hands. "Bradmere. Simon Bradmere. Looks like he was a distant relative of our coma boy"
Dean frowned. "Weird. See, Alison said they only shifted here a year ago. They inherited the house from a great aunt who passed away. Looks like it was all a rather strange coincidence"
"Dean. We don't believe in coincidences"
"No we don't, Sammy. No we don't"
A murmur from the carpet caught the boys' attention. They looked over, but all was quiet.
"Well…." Started Dean, but a yell from the carpet brought the boys to their feet.
The boy Mark was struggling with his sleeping bag, his eyes wide open, his hands clawing in terror at his throat. As the kids around him awoke he started to vomit cold, dark, lake water.
"His hair. Grab his hair and the tea" Dean commanded and ran to the boy as the other kids moved away in terror.
Alison leapt up from her seat and grabbed the boy's shoulders, tipping him onto his side. "What do we do? What do we do?" She screamed.
"We can't do anything" Dean growled. "Sammy is going to try, but all we can do is hold him"
Sam drank the dream root tea he had prepared earlier after he dropped the pre cut hair into it and sat back down.
Within seconds he passed out.
Dean looked behind himself at his brother a she struggled to hold the bucking, choking teen.
"Come on, Sammy" he whispered.
Sam gasped as he plunged deep into the frigid lake water. He ducked under after gulping a breath and scanned around.
There, just ahead, he could see the boy, Mark, struggling as he was held down, a white hand firmly clasping his ankle.
Sam swam over to the struggling boy and dived to the hand, pulling a knife from his boot as he did so.
Getting closer he could see the arm that joined to the hand, and Mark's face, panicked, dying, hands struggling to swim to the surface.
He saw Sam, and his eyes turned to pleading.
Sam kicked down further and grabbed the hand, but couldn't free the boy.
He pulled his knife around and stabbed the hand, cutting off a finger and starting to saw another when the hand let go of the drowning boy.
Mark kicked his way to the surface, not looking back, his desperate battle for air nearly lost.
Sam saw another hand reach up to hold the injured one then the face of the boy who owned them came into view.
It was Daniel.
He looked at Sam and smiled, and shook his head.
He reached out to grab the hunter but Sam lunged again, his knife striking Daniel in the face removing an eye and much of the boy's cheek. He slashed again, this time catching the boy's throat, slicing deep.
Daniel's mouth opened in pain and shock and he pushed away, back into the murky depths below.
Sam watched him sink away for a moment then turned and swam to the surface, kicking his way through the frigid water easily.
He broke the surface and gasped in a mountain of air, his burning lungs glad for the sweet release.
Looking around, he couldn't locate the boy. He turned, treading water, trying to find him.
And woke up at the table.
Dean had Mark upright, half out of his sleeping bag. They were sitting in a large puddle of dark lake water, but the boy was alive.
"Oh God. I thought I was dead." He exclaimed. "I mean, I was asleep, and I was awake, and I was drowning"
Dean hauled him up and sat him on the closest chair. "What can you remember?"
Mark wiped a hand over his wet face, his eyes as wide as saucers.
Alison and the teens gathered around as he tried to form his thoughts into words.
"I was asleep. Dreaming. We were at the lake. Me, and you, and you, and you" he pointed to the other kids "And I slipped. I fell in. No one came to help me, and I started to go under, my coat was too heavy when it was wet. But, you know, I pulled it off, and tried to swim to the surface. But I couldn't. Something was holding me. Holding my leg. I was drowning. I couldn't get free, and I was drowning"
"But you woke up, Mark. You woke up" Amanda said.
The boy shrugged and shook his head. "Yeah, but no, not really. I was still there, at the lake. I kinda knew it was a dream, that I wasn't really there, but I couldn't wake up, I couldn't stop what was happening. Until he came" he turned and pointed at Sam. "He saved my life"
Everyone looked at Sam and he ducked his head a little. "Um, thanks?"
"Anyway, I swam to the surface, and that's when I woke up. For real. I mean, I knew where I was, and I wasn't drowning anymore"
Shell bent down to make eye contact with Mark. "What had you, Mark? Did you see? What held you down?"
Mark shook his head. "No. Well, it was a hand, but I couldn't see whose hand it was. It was just a hand"
Alison stepped forward. "And you, Sam? Did you see whose hand it was?"
Sam tried to give her a smile but failed. He nodded. "I'm sorry, Alison"
Alison's hand reached up to cover her mouth and she nodded, her eyes filling with tears.
She turned and stepped away.
"How did they get us through the salt?" Asked Jason. "I thought you said that would protect us?"
Dean ran a hand across his beard. "Yeah. That. See, your dreams, they can go just about anywhere. And we can't put a salt circle in your custard. Salt and the other stuff protected you while you were here, but once your dreams took off, well…"
"Great" Jason pulled his wet sleeping bag off his legs. "I am NEVER sleeping again. Never"
"This should all be over tomorrow night. You should be fine after then. One more night"
Mark coughed.
"Are you sure? I mean, how can you know it will stop?" Amanda asked.
"Trust me. We know"
Mark coughed again, and his hand went up to his mouth.
"Mark?" Sam stood and leaned over the boy. "Mark, you okay? You need to yark?"
Mark looked up at him, eyes wide, hand over his mouth.
He coughed again, and this time he started to vomit.
Water.
He vomited cold, dark, lake water, all over the table, the floor, and himself.
Dean grabbed him and pulled him to his feet, but the boy was drowning. He clawed at his throat, his eyes wide with panic, as the water flowed in a stream from his mouth.
"Stop it! Help him! Can't you help him?" screamed Shell as the boy vomited up gallons and gallons of dark water.
Sam grabbed the salt container and threw a massive hand full of salt at the boy.
It seemed to work, so he up ended the container of salt over the boy's head.
Dean picked him up and rushed him back into the salt circle as Sam followed them, reinforcing the ring and repairing it where the water had washed parts away.
Mark coughed and coughed, but the water had stopped.
Dean looked at Sam. "That was close"
"Yeah. Too close"
[ Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | Epilogue]
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