Supernatural: Family Remains Recap
January 16th 2009 21:56
In a farmhouse in Nebraska, a scruffy man tosses his fork to his empty plate in front of the TV. Suddenly the lights flicker and the electricity goes out. “Ah come on.” He gets up to try the lights.
*creeeaaaaak* He stares at the darkened closet door as it slowly swings open. Slowly a young pale girl with messy hair steps forth.
The man stares at her with a mixture of shock and disgust. “You? That’s impossible.” He goes for the door. “You stay away from me!”
She gives him an evil smile and takes a step forward.
“Stay away from me!”
He struggles with the locked door, but it’s too late. His bloody had hits the “Home Sweet Home” picture on the wall, smearing blood all over it.
~*~*~
Night. The Impala is parked by the side of the road, surrounded by trees. Sam’s trying to sleep in the backseat, but Dean’s flashlight wakes him up.
“What are you doin?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing?”
“Like you’re lookin’ for a job,” Sam says tiredly.
“Yahtzee!” Dean continues to run his flashlight over the newspaper.
Sam sighs and sits up, squinting at the paper in his brother’s hand. “We just finished a job like two hours ago.”
“Adrenaline’s still pumpin’ I guess,” Dean answers, not even looking up. He picks up some more files sitting next to him. “So what do you think? Cedar Rapids? Tulsa? Or Chi Town?”
Brushing the sleep out of his eyes, Sam answers, “I’m all for working, I really am, but you got us chasing cases non-stop for like a month now. We need sleep.”
“Ah, we can sleep when we’re dead.”
“You’re exhausted—”
“I’m good.”
“No, you’re not,” Sam argues. “You’re running on fumes, and you can’t run forever.”
Dean lowers his flashlight, frowning at his brother. “And what am I running from?”
Sam rolls his eyes, hesitates, then answers, “From what you told me.” Dean doesn’t say anything, and Sam adds, “No way of pretending that never happened.”
Dean thinks about this for a moment then, of course, completely ignores it. He tells Sam about a farm town in Nebraska where a man was hacked to death in a locked room inside of a locked house. “No signs of forced entry.”
Sam sighs. Okay then. “Sounds like a ghost.”
“Yes it does.”
Sam groans and flops back on the seat.
~*~*~
In the morning, Sam and Dean drive up to the same house from the beginning. The ‘For Sale’ sale sign down the road has so many weeds growing up around it that the “Sold” sign has fallen off. They don’t see it.
The boys get out of the car and head up to the big blue farmhouse. Birds chirp happily in the background as Dean picks the lock on the door.
They enter the house, walking around the big empty rooms. Dean glances at the brown, yellow, and orange flowered wallpaper and says, “Wow, three bedrooms, two baths, and one homicide. This place is gonna sell like hotcakes.”
Someone watches them through a vent in the wall…
They enter the yellow kitchen and begin opening cupboards. There’s a crack in the floor, but other than that—“Hey check this out,” Dean says, running his hand over a section of the wall that was clearly plastered over.
Sam walks over to look. “It’s probably the dumbwaiter. All these old houses had ‘em.” He walks off.
“Know-it-all.”
The person in the wall watches Sam turn around. “What?”
“What?”
“You said…”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
Sam walks off and Dean grins to himself.
They walk into one of the bedrooms. Dean notices the lack of blood stains, fresh coat of paint. Sam’s EMF detector’s needle is “all over the place.” Dean glances out the window and notices the power lines. Well, that’s just great.
Sam and Dean walk over to a closet and open it.
“Ugh.” They both stare down at a nearly bald, dirty doll’s head, and Dean is the first to say, “Well that’s super disturbing.”
“Think it got left behind?” Sam asks.
“By who? Unless Bill Gibson likes to play with doll heads,” Dean adds sarcastically.
Suddenly they hear a car driving up and turn to the window. A white van and a moving truck are coming down the muddy road.
“Uh-oh.”
“I thought you said this place was still for sale.”
“Apparently it’s not.”
Outside, a family of four, with their dog Buster and Uncle Ted, step out to get a look at their new house. The young boy, Danny, runs off with his dog as the teenage daughter pulls out her cell phone and asks if anyone bothered to check if they get a signal out there.
“Actually I did, Kate,” her father answers. “But we decided to move anyway just to ruin your life.”
Kate smiles ruefully and asks her uncle to back her up.
“Kid’s right,” he answers. “You’re ruinin’ her life.”
Kate turns to give her father a victorious look. “See?”
“Thanks for the help Uncle Ted.”
“I call it like I see it, buddy.” Ted starts pulling out some of the luggage.
“Hey,” Kate’s mother walks up.
“What?” her father asks.
“Be nice.”
“I am nice.” He wraps his arms around her, and they both look up at the house. “What’d you think? We do okay?”
She sighs. “I don’t know.”
They all start to unload the car, and Kate stops short, noticing Sam and Dean walking down the stairs.
“Who are they?”
Her father turns around, surprised to see them as well. “Can I help you?”
Sam and Dean walk over and pull out their fake badges, introducing themselves as County Code Enforcement. Mr. Carter is confused. “We had the building inspected last week. Is there a problem?”
“Asbestos in the walls, got a gas leak, yeah I’d say we have a problem,” Sam answers.
“Asbestos?” Mrs. Carter asks. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning until this house is up to code, it’s uninhabitable.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you’re saying we can’t stay here?”
“It’s a health hazard,” Dean answers. “You don’t want to.”
“Hold on,” Uncle Ted speaks up. “We just drove 400 miles.”
“There’s a motel down the road,” Dean interrupts. “Until this gets cleaned up, I suggest you stay there.”
“Alright, and what if we don’t?” Mr. Carter asks.
“You get a fine, you could go to jail,” Dean answers. “Pick your poison.”
Mr. Carter glances from Sam and Dean to his family, then back. Sam and Dean just look at him. Well, looks like he doesn’t have much choice.
“One night,” he tells his family. “One night and I’ll take care of everything ASAP. I promise.’
“Yeah you do that,” Dean mutters as the family begrudgingly heads back to the car.
“Another motel?” Kate complains. “Awesome, Dad. I hope this one has hooker sheets like the last one.”
“Come on Danny!”
The little boy and dog rejoin their family as they start to reload the car.
~*~*~
Now in their suits, Sam and Dean go to visit the cleaning lady of the man who died.
“What did the room look like when you found it, Mrs. Carry?” Sam asks as he and Dean stand on the porch, interviewing the woman through her screen door.
“I already told the local boys. There was blood. Everywhere.”
“And Mr. Gibson? Where was he?” Dean asks.
“Everywhere.”
They ask her how long she’s been cleaning his house. About five years. She didn’t know Mr. Gibson very well though. He kept to himself mostly, was bitter. But she doesn’t blame him. Why? “His wife died in childbirth, his daughter hangs herself in the attic 20 years later. I’d be bitter too.”
“I think I have some pictures.” Mrs. Carry goes to get them, then comes back. Dean asks if they can keep them, and she answers, “Suit yourself.”
They glance at the picture of the pretty young brunette and the other one of her parents in front of the house, then Dean asks if Mrs. Carry ever noticed anything odd when she was cleaning the house.
“Like what?”
“Like lights going on and off, things not being where you left them?”
No, none of that. Except maybe there was one thing.
“What’s that?”
“Well sometimes I heard like a…rustling in the walls.”
“Like a rat?”
“Yeah.”
“Must have been some big sons a’ guns out there, huh?” Dean asks.
“Wouldn’t no, never saw any.”
Okay then.
Sam asks if she knows where Mrs. Gibson and her daughter were buried, and Mrs. Carry tells them that they were both cremated.
Walking back to the car, Sam points out that it probably wasn’t the mom or the daughter then. “Who’s ghost was it?”
“I don’t know,” Dean answers. “I say we give that place a real once-over and see.”
In a nearby field, someone watches them get into The Impala…
~*~*~
Back at the house, the family is unloading again. Uncle Ted comes out to announce that there is no asbestos. He’s built enough houses to know that. “No gas leak either.”
“Who were those guys?”
“Not from the county, I can tell you that.”
They open the moving truck. Everyone starts to haul out stuff, and Kate suddenly notices a pale girl standing at one of the upstairs windows in the house.
“Hey—”
Kate jumps at the sound of her mother’s voice.
“You okay?”
She glances back at the window. It’s empty. “Yeah. I just thought I saw something, that’s all.”
“It…it’s gonna be great here Kate, it really is.”
“Yeah mom, I’m sure. Everything’s gonna change.”
Kate heads for the house.
~*~*~
That night, Danny sits in his dark room, surrounded by boxes, and playing video games.
“Danny?” his mother calls up. “Are you unpacking?”
“Uh yeah,” he answers, distractedly, engrossed in his game. “I’m almost finished.”
Suddenly, the closet door creaks slowly open. Danny looks up from his game. In the light of the few lamps sitting on boxes or the floor, he watches a baseball roll out of the closet and into the room. He grabs it and stands up.
“Hello?” When the girl in the closet hides, he smiles. “It’s okay.”
She slowly peeks back out.
“I’m Danny.” He rolls the ball back into the dark closet. After a moment, it tosses back out to him. He grins. “Hi!”
~*~*~
Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Carter are in the kitchen. She’s reading at the table. “Zucchini’ll grow, but too acidic for beets…Do you understand any of this?”
Her husband isn’t paying attention. “Can you smell that?” He opens one of the cupboards and cringes. “Smells like a rat died up there or something.”
“That’s pleasant, thank you.” his wife answers dryly. “Can I continue having a conversation with myself?”
“What I’m listening! A…vegetable garden.”
She finally sighs. What are they doing there? “Us? On a farm? Talking about zucchini.”
He sighs. “It’s gonna be different, I promise you. We’re gonna be happy.”
“And if we’re not?” she asks, unconvinced.
“We will be,” he assures. “We have to be.”
“I can’t put the kids through another year like the last…”
~*~*~
Outside, Sam and Dean pull up to the lit house.
“Crap.” Dean stares at the house. “So what now?”
“We could tell them the truth.”
“Really?”
“No not really.”
~*~*~
Uncle Ted sets a box down, starts to go back for another, then stops short, staring at the wall.
From the kitchen, Mr. and Mrs. Carter hear him call, “Hey guys, you’re gonna want to come see this.”
They join him in the other room to find a giant “GO” scrawled in red on the wall. Mr. Carter walks up and runs his finger over the scratchy red lines. “Crayon.” He sighs and calls for his son.
“Tell you what,” Ted tells his sister. “If my kid did this?”
“He’s not your kid, Ted, just butt out,” She tells him, then turns to her husband as Ted leaves. “Hey, go easy on him. His teacher said he might act out.”
Danny comes running down the stairs.
“Hey buddy,” his father says, nodding towards the wall. “Something you want to tell me and your mom?”
Danny turns around and sees the “GO” for the first time. “I didn’t do that.”
“Okay, look, just tell me the truth. And all you gotta do is clean it up,” his dad tells him. “No punishment.”
“But I didn’t!” Danny says truthfully. “The girl in the walls did it!”
“The girl in the walls?” his mother asks, confused.
“She wants you to go and me to stay.”
“Alright, one last time. The truth, buddy.”
“That is the truth! I can stay, but she hates grownups, and if you don’t leave, she’s gonna get really really mad!” Danny says, desperately trying to get his parents to believe him.
“Alright, go to your room.”
“Mom!” Danny looks to her for help, but she just gives him The Look. Furious, Danny stomps for the stairs, turning around just long enough to shout, “If Andy were here, he’d believe me!”
“Upstairs!” His dad points. “Now.”
Danny stomps upstairs, frustrated and hurt that his parents won’t believe him.
~*~*~
Kate’s lying in bed staring up at the ceiling. She hears heavy breathing and leans her hand over the side of the bed.
“It’s okay Buster. It’s okay,” she comforts the dog. “I hate it here too.”
There’s sloppy licking noises, and Kate makes a face. “Eeww Buster, gross!” She lifts her hand to shake it off. “What’s the matter with you?”
Her door starts to creak and she sits up to watch Buster nose his way into the room. Eye’s wide with horrified realization, Kate glances over at her closet just in time to see it slam shut.
“Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !”
~*~*~
Downstairs, Danny walks in sleepily to find his sister freaking out and his parents trying to comfort her. Uncle Ted stands back, confused.
“Ew!” Kate’s still trying to shake it off.
“What happened?”
“I just got molested by Casper the Pervey Ghost, that’s what happened!”
“Ghost?”
“Yes, Dad! A ghost!”
“It’s the girl in the walls,” Danny cuts in, and his sister turns to stare at him, even more frightened.
“Who?”
“Both of you knock it off,” their dad tells them.
Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door. Uncle Ted goes to open it.
“We heard screams,” Dean says as he and Sam rush inside. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, you two!” Mr. Carter points at Dean. “Did you touch my daughter?”
Dean is totally confused. “What? No.”
Buster trots outside through the still open door, staring intently at something. He whimpers.
“Who are you guys?”
“Please,” Sam tries to explain. “You have a ghost.”
“I told you!” Instantly both kids start talking, and their dad tells them both to relax. He turns back to Sam and Dean. “What are you guys playing?”
“You’re family is in danger,” Dean says urgently. “You need to get out of the house now.”
Suddenly, all the lights go out.
“Nobody move!” Dean shouts, and they all nervously look around as rustling and banging noises are heard from outside. The noises are joined with the worst noise ever—that’s right, a dog being attacked.
“Buster!”
The guys all rush outside to try and help the dog, but stop short when they find a bloody note scrawled onto the siding. “too LAte"
Dean shoots Sam a frustrated angry look, and Sam agrees.
“Buster!” Danny and his sister come outside on the upstairs deck, followed by their mother. They dad tells them to get back inside, and their mom, seeing the bloody note, quickly ushers her kids back into the house.
“We are not the bad guys,” Dean insists. “But you’re in danger.”
“First things first,” Sam adds. “You gotta get your family out of here.”
Mr. Carter and Uncle Ted exchange a look then glance at the blood on the wall. Okay.
~*~*~
The whole family rushes out, still in their pajamas. Dean tells them to head to the motel he was talking about. “You’ll be safe there.”
“Where are you two gonna do?”
Suddenly Dean stops short. “Oh no.” He walks over to The Impala’s completely slashed tires. “Oh come on! “ Sam opens the trunk. It’s empty. Dean’s still appalled at his baby’s tires. “OH COME ON!”
Mr. Carter checks the van. Yep, it’s tires are still slashed too.
“Dude, the guns are gone!” Sam calls out to his brother, looking at the empty trunk. “So’s the—” he lets out a frustrated noise. “Basically, everything is gone!”
Uncle Ted and his brother-in-law come back to announce that their tires are slashed too.
“What kind of ghost messes with a man’s WHEELS?!” Dean shouts angrily, and Kate suddenly spots the girl standing in the field.
“Aaaaah! She’s there! She’s there!” Kate screams, clinging to her mother, who wants to know where. “She was right there in the woods!”
Sam and Dean turn their flashlights to the woods. They’re empty.
Dean: What’s a ghost doin’ outside?
Sam: You wanna stay and find out?
Dean tells everybody to get back inside, but Ted think’s he’s crazy. They need to leave!
“In what?” Dean counters, swinging around to face him. “This ghost is hunting us!” Uncle Ted has nothing to say to that, so Dean orders, “Everybody back inside now, move!”
Everybody moves.
~*~*~
Inside, Sam is pouring the salt line as Dean explains that as long as the circle isn’t broken it’s the safest place to be.
“Safe from ghosts,” Mr. Carter says skeptically.
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Dean answers, getting tired of their attitude.
“Okay, I’m not listening to this anymore.” Mr. Carter steps out of the salt ring. “Come on. I’m getting my family out of here.”
Dean stands up. “Nobody’s going anywhere until we kill this thing.”
“Sir, please,” Sam tries, blocking his way. “This is what we do, just, trust us.”
“You hunt ghosts?” Danny asks, impressed.
“That’s right,” Dean answers.
Danny grins. “Like Scooby-Doo?”
Sam can’t help but smile, and Dean answers, “Better.”
Sam turns to Kate. “You saw her outside, right?” Kate nods and he pulls out the photos. “Does she look like either one of these girls?”
Kate looks at the picture, then points to the daughter. “Her. She was paler and a LOT dirtier, but that was her.”
Danny glances at the picture and adds, “That’s the girl in the walls.”
Sam turns to Dean, confused. “So it was the daughter?”
“That girl in the picture,” Mrs. Carter asks, even more confused. “She’s…dead?”
Sam sees no way around it, so answers, “She killed herself inside this house.”
The family is sobered by this, and while they’re taking it all in, Sam and Dean step to the side.
“So what?” Dean asks. “The maid got her story wrong? Rebecca wasn’t cremated?”
“Unless her spirit’s just attached to something inside the house.”
“She hung herself in the attic, right?”
“You want to babysit, I’ll check it out?”
Uncle Ted is eavesdropping behind them, and finally interrupts, “Look, I don’t care who hung themselves where, maybe something is going on here but—”
“It’s a spirit, man,” Dean interrupts.
Uncle Ted’s not taking it. And he’s also not waiting around for some “backwoods hillbilly” to “go all Deliverance”.
“Yeah, well, nobody’s leaving the house,” Dean tells him.
“Stop me.”
Uncle Ted starts to leave, and Dean does just that—grabs him and stops him. Mr. Carter tries to step in before a fight can break out, and Dean just tells Ted, “Listen man. I’ve got a gun. You don’t get your ass back in that circle you’re gonna have yourself a third hole.”
Ted shoves out of Dean’s grasp and gets back in the circle. Sam walks over to his brother. “Dude, you don’t have a gun.”
“And?” Dean reminds his brother that he’s not letting anyone else die tonight. He glances at the attic. “Go.”
Sam goes to check out the attic.
~*~*~
Later on, Ted looks up from where he’s frustratedly playing with the salt line. “Fonzi,” he calls to Dean. “Got a question for you.” Dean just ignores him. “This indestructible force field made out of salt? Does it have to be kosher stuff or what?”
His sister glares at him. “Knock it off, Ted.”
“Shhh!” Kate suddenly interrupts. “What was that?”
Everyone glances nervously around as the house creaks and bumps. Slowly, the closet door starts to swing open. The family cowers behind Dean as the creepy girl steps slowly towards them.
“Mom?” Kate asks, and Dean tells them all to just stay calm. “It’s just a ghost. She can’t come into the circle.”
The girl smirks at him and continues forward. Her eerie smile is soon replaced by total hatred, and a knife slides down in her dirty hand. She steps one foot over the salt line and the entire family gasps. Dean stares at her feet.
“I thought you said ghosts couldn’t cross the circle!” Kate says, horrified.
“They can’t, she’s not a ghost.”
“Shoot her!” Uncle Ted shouts. “Shoot her!”
“Yeah about that—”
The girl lets out a crazy shriek and Dean shouts at the family to go as she begins slashing at him. Dean stays behind to fight her off as the family escapes outside. For a skinny pale little thing, the girl sure has a lot of strength from her pent-up rage. She slashes and shrieks at Dean until she finally knocks him to the floor. Dean raises a crowbar as she gets her knife ready to stab him and—
“Hey!” Sam shows up, shining his flashlight right in her eyes.
The girl’s shrieks take on a different tone, and she holds up her hands against the light, shouting and clambering back into the dark closet.
Sam walks over to the closet and bangs back the doors. It’s empty. He and Dean exchange a look.
~*~*~
Sam and Dean rush out of the house and Mr. Carter comes running around to see if they’re okay. Dean asks where everybody else is, and, as if it’s obvious, Carter answers, “Hiding.”
Okay good. “Go get them.”
Carter rushes off and Sam looks at his brother. “So it’s not a ghost, it’s just a girl?”
“Not just any girl, it’s Psycho Nell. I’m tellin’ you man—” Dean shakes his head. “Humans.”
“So who is she then?” Sam asks.
“I don’t know, maybe it’s the daughter Rebecca, maybe she didn’t hang herself.”
“Dude, no, she’d have to be like 50 years old by now.”
“Well I don’t know. What’d you find in the attic?”
“Some old junk. I found Rebecca’s diary, that’s about it.”
“I wish you would have found howitzer.”
Dean points out that it’s “just a human”, so they can hold her off why the family runs for it. Most of the family comes running around the house, Uncle Ted smugly pointing out that he was right, and Mrs. Carter calling Danny to come out because they have to go. Dean hastily placates Uncle Ted by admitting that he was right, and Sam tells them they’ll take it from there.
“Danny, we’re leaving!”
“Danny we gotta go!”
There’s no answer. Everyone stares out into the dark empty fields. “Where is he?”
“DANNY!”
~*~*~
Kate’s mom immediately starts to panic. She’s not leaving without her son. Her husband tires to calm his wife down, tries to tell her to go with Kate, but she’s having none of it.
“I’m not going out there with mom alone!” Kate argues, and finally Dean interrupts.
“She’s right.” Mrs. Carter stops struggling to listen to him. “Until we find your son, the safest place for you right now is in the shed.”
Kate stares at the shed Dean’s pointing at, eyes wide. “I am not going in there either.”
“Yes you are, it is the best defense,” Dean argues. “The window’s are boarded up, it’s got one door. It’s our best shot right now, trust me.”
Mr. Carter tells his wife to take Kate and go. They do.
“Alright,” Sam points to Mr. Carter. “You and me, we’ll take the outside.” He nods to Dean and Ted. “You two take the house. Let’s go.” Sam and Mr. Carter head off and Dean and Ted stare at each other a second. Clearly neither of them are happy to be stuck with the other. Dean holds his tongue and heads for the house.
Inside the house, Dean starts checking out the walls.
“What are you doing?” Ted asks, shining his flashlight on him.
“She’s human, she had to come from somewhere.” Dean continues to press his hand along the wall until he finds a loose board. He pulls it open. The back is bloody.
Ted grimaces. “You smell that?”
“Every day.” Dean grabs a knife and leans into the space behind the wall. Cobwebs and dust line the space between walls, and Dean shines his flashlight around as tells Ted to follow him. They creep through the hallow wall, passing pipes and wooden studs, until they come to a small, crudely cut hole in the floor.
Ted stares at the hole, then at Dean. “You’re not going down there.”
“Well, do you want to?” Dean asks, swinging his flashlight from the hole to the man. Ted doesn’t answer. Clearly that’s a no.
Dean gets ready to enter the hole. “Please nobody grab my leg, please nobody grab my leg,” he mutters to himself as he lowers himself into the hole.
It’s a tight squeeze, but luckily nobody grab his legs. Once down, Dean turns and comes face to face with the bloody remains of the poor dog. He whispers for Danny, and Ted calls down, “Find anything?”
“Yeah, her kitchen,” Dean answers.
“Her what?”
As Dean continues to investigate the bloody “kitchen”, he finds a stick drawing of a person, maybe two on the wall. Meanwhile, Ted’s thought he heard something and starts creeping through the dark trying to figure out what it is. His flashlight plays over more dirt…bricks…wood…a dead end.
Finding nothing, Ted turns around and—
“Eeeaaaaahhhh!” The crazy girl shrieks at him and stabs him in the throat. Uncle Ted barely had chance to gasp before he was killed.
Hearing the screaming, Dean whirls around, trying to find Ted in the dark. He gets back to the hole just in time to watch dead Uncle Ted’s bloody head fall through. Dean pulls back his flashlight, quickly covering the light and bracing himself against the wall. He glances at Ted, then closes his eyes, clearly angry with himself for leaving the man.
~*~*~
In the shed, Mr. Carter’s had enough waiting. “Look, why are we standing here? Let’s go in, let’s check the house.”
“We have to wait for those guys to get back, okay?” Sam says.
There’s a knock at the door.
“Sam it’s me. Open up.”
Sam and Mr. Carter move the table blocking the door and unlock the door to let Dean in.
“Do you have Danny?” Mrs. Carter asks.
Dean glances at his brother, then answers, “No…”
“No?” Mrs. Carter asks. “Well, then where’s Ted?”
“He’s outside,” Dean answers, unable to look at her.
“Why doesn’t he come inside?”
Dean exchanges a look with Sam, then answers, “Because I had to carry him out.” He lowers his gaze again. “I’m sorry.”
“What, what does that mean that you’re sorry?” Mrs. Carter asks, and her husband adds, “Are you saying that he’s dead?”
“No, he’s not saying that he’s dead—” she turns to Dean “—You’re not saying that he’s dead, are you?”
“We were in the walls and she attacked,” Dean answers solemnly. “And I couldn’t’ get to him in time.”
Mrs. Carter starts to cry. Her husband comforts her, and Sam gives his brother a sympathetic look. As if Dean didn’t already have enough guilt!
“Uncle Ted is dead?” Kate asks, and Dean mentally kicks himself again.
“I shouldn’t have left him alone…” He grabs the door, then turns back to the family. “I’m very sorry.”
Dean goes back outside.
~*~*~
Later on, Sam sits reading Rebecca’s diary as Mr. Carter tries to convince his wife that Danny is still alive. She’s already accepted that he’s dead. He reminds her what the girl in the wall said, that Danny could stay. She’s still not believing it. She also doesn’t understand why this keeps happening to them. “We’re good people.”
Her husband tries to comfort her by reminding her that “what happened to Andy happened, I can’t change that, but I will find Danny, I promise you. And when I do, we are gonna be fine. You and me and the kids? We’re gonna be fine.”
Mrs. Carter looks at her daughter, then her husband, and whispers, “Okay…”
Sam continues to read.
~*~*~
Dean joins Mr. Carter as he stands outside looking up at the house.
“Andy your son?”
After a moment, Mr. Carter answers, “Oldest. He got himself killed in a car accident last year.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It nearly tore Susan and I apart…Still could I imagine.” He pauses, then adds, “That’s why we moved here. Fresh air, fresh start. Not even my line.” At Dean’s look, he explains, “Marriage counselor.” Dean just nods. “Or she might be right,” Mr. Carter adds. “After all, what could possibly go wrong in the country?”
“I’m getting your son back,” Dean says determinedly. “If it’s the last God forsaken thing I do.”
Carter stares at him. “Why do you care so much?”
Dean hesitates, and thankfully Sam saves him by walking up. “Dean?” He holds up the diary. “We gotta talk.”
~*~*~
Inside the house, Dean asks what the book is as he goes to close the closet.
“Rebecca’s diary. I just finished reading it.”
“And?”
“And that girl back there?” Sam says. “I’m pretty sure that she was Rebecca’s daughter.
“Rebecca had a kid?” Dean asks, shoving a cobwebby box under the door handle.
“That’s all she talks about,” Sam answers. “Being pregnant, being ashamed of being pregnant.”
“Geez, rent Juno, get over it,” Dean answers, joining his brother in the salt ring that sill covers most of the floor. “Wait, why kill herself after the baby?”
“Maybe because her dad called her a dirty little whore and said that he was going to lock the baby up where nobody could ever see it.”
“Why would he say that?”
Sam just tilts his head, as if it’s obvious, and Dean just stares at him. After a second, Dean finally gets it. “Oh gross.”
“Yeah.”
“So the daddy was the baby-daddy too.”
“Dude was a monster Dean.”
“Wow. Story ripped from an Austrian headline,” Dean says, disgusted. He shakes his head again. “Humans, man.”
Sam understands.
“So she’s been locked up in this house her whole life?” Dean asks.
“You saw her eyes. Has she ever seen light? She’s barely human.”
“Okay, so what then, she’s been caged up like an animal and then she busts out and ganks dear old dad…slash, granddad?”
“I guess.”
“Well I can’t say that I blame her,” Dean answers.
“I’m sure her life was hell Dean, that doesn’t mean she gets a free pass for a murder spree,” Sam says.
“Like you know what Hell is like.”
“I didn’t…”
Dean interrupts with a shake of his head, and Sam finally asks, “So where do we find her?”
Dean suddenly gets an idea. “Kid’s gotta eat, right?”
Sam is confused. “What?”
“He kept her hidden. Locked up. But he had to feed her, didn’t he?”
“I guess.”
“I think I know where.”
~*~*~
Tied up and gagged, laying on the dirt floor, Danny wakes up and tries to figure out where he is. The room is completely dark, empty. Suddenly he spots a hole in the wall. Out of the wall crawls the girl. Danny can only stare at her as she crawls over, smiling maniacally.
The girl holds up a rat for Danny, and he begins to shout through his gag. He watches the girl kill the rat with her bare hands and then begin eating it. He screams.
~*~*~
Dean uses the crowbar to bust open the wall where the dumbwaiter used to be as Sam explains to Mr. Carter what’s going on. Once the opening is clear, Dean tells them he’s going down, but Mr. Carter stops him.
“No, that’s my son.”
“I know it is,” Dean interrupts. “But I said that I would get him. I will. Let me.”
Determined, Dean hands his flashlight to Sam and climbs in. Sam hands him back his flashlight, and as his brother starts climbing down the shaft, asks Mr. Carter if he has curtains. At the man’s confused expression, Sam explains, “We need rope.”
~*~*~
Kate and her mother are hovering in the shed, waiting. Suddenly the window crashes open behind them and Kate screams. They whip around to look at the window. There’s no one there.
~*~*~
Dean finds a familiar cross, then a familiar gun on the dusty floor. He picks it up and checks the bullets. “She’s a klepto.” He finds more of his and Sam’s guns and picks them up, shining his flashlight around.
“Danny?” he whispers until suddenly he ears the boy’s muffled scrams.
Dean finds the whole in the wall and uses his knife to quickly untie Danny. The kid rips off his gag and climbs through the hole as Dean tells him that his dad’s upstairs.
“Hurry!” Danny says, clambering to his feet. “Hurry, he’s coming back!”
“He?”
Danny stops to look at Dean. “Her brother.”
Right on cue, said brother busts from the walls and attacks Dean, knocking the flashlight and weapons out of his hands.
~*~*~
Kate and her mother are still standing staring at the window. Waiting.
And more waiting…
Mrs. Carter has a rake in her hands, expecting the worst.
Still nothing…
Suddenly, and knife jabs through the wood at their back and both girls scream, flinging around.
~*~*~
Inside, Dean and the brother are still fighting—
Upstairs, Sam throws down the sheet rope. Danny runs in to look up at them.
“Danny!”
The brother knocks the gun from Dean’s hand.
Danny climbs into the loop at the bottom of the makeshift rope and his father and Sam start to pull him up.
Dean sidesteps his opponent a second, then slams into him for another round of fighting.
Outside in the shed, Kate and her mother are like trapped animals. Suddenly a part of the wall begins to move in.
“Aaah! Mom!” Kate clings to her mother.
Danny makes it up, and Sam tells him and his father to get out. They rush out as Sam turns back to look into the chute. Where’s Dean?
Still fighting with the crazy guy, Dean manages to grab hold of his flashlight and shines it in the man’s eyes. He lets out a shout and jumps away, grabbing a knife. Dean reaches his gun just as the man brings the knife down and—
*Bam! Bam! Bam!*
The guy falls down, dead, just as Sam jumps out of the chute.
~*~*~
The scary girl finally busts through the walls, trapping Mrs. Carter under the wood and crawling towards her. Kate screams frantically as she watches the knife head for her mother. Suddenly the girl goes shooting back outside, and Kate rushes over to help her mom.
They both back up and cringe in horror as they hear the girl being attacked.
A loud knock on the door makes them both jump, and Kate’s father calls for them to open the door. When they do, he’s standing there with the knife in his hand, jacket bloody.
~*~*~
Sam and Dean exit the house to find Mrs. Carter sitting on the steps trying to comfort her shocked children. They join Mr. Carter over by the shed and see the girl lying in the mud. Dead.
~*~*~
Dean finishes changing his tires as Sam finishes loading the trunk up.
“Thanks for the head-start,” Dean says, standing up as Mr. and Mrs. Carter join them.
“Why doesn’t it surprise me that you guys don’t like the police?”
“It’s sort of a mutual appreciation thing really,” Sam answers.
The couple thank them and shake the boys’ hands. Dean turns to Mrs. Carter. “You okay?”
She hesitates, glances at her husband, then finally answers, “No. We’re the opposite of okay, but…we’re together.” Her husband takes her hand and she adds another, “Thanks.”
~*~*~
Sam and Dean stop under an overpass to eat lunch. Sam hand his brother his food, and notices something is wrong when Dean opens it, looks at in, and then wraps it back up again. Uh-oh.
“You okay?”
Dean admits that he actually felt for the crazy brother and sister living in the walls. “Life-long torture like that?”
Sam feels for his brother. “You were in Hell, Dean…Look, maybe you—did what you did there, but you’re not them. They were barely human.”
“No you know, you’re right,” Dean answers, staring at the ground. “I wasn’t like them…I was worse.”
Sam starts to sigh, not knowing what to say, and Dean continues, “They were animals, Sam, defending territory. Me?” He hesitates, troubled. “I did it for the sheer pleasure.”
This was the last thing Sam expected his brother to say. “What?”
“I enjoyed it Sam,” Dean says, hating himself. “They took me off the rack and I tortured souls, and I liked it…All those years? All that pain? Finally gettin’ to deal some out yourself? I didn’t care who they put in front of me…Because that—That pain I felt? It just slipped away…” Drowning in guilt, Dean adds, “No matter how many people I save, I can’t change that…I can’t fill this hole…Not ever…”
The brothers continue to stand there in silence, thinking.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Oooooh the angst! It’s killing me! Poor Dean! Poor Sam! I feel the need to crawl into my TV screen and give them both a hug.
But as always, great episode. I love that they finally worked in the classic ‘that’s not the dog licking your hand’ urban legend. But why oh why does the poor dog always have to die? Poor Buster. I really like that it wasn’t a ghost but two poor tortured people. Makes it that much more disturbing. 
Favorite lines of the night? “What kind of ghost messes with a man’s WHEELS?!” and “Please nobody grab my leg, please nobody grab my leg…” 
*creeeaaaaak* He stares at the darkened closet door as it slowly swings open. Slowly a young pale girl with messy hair steps forth.
The man stares at her with a mixture of shock and disgust. “You? That’s impossible.” He goes for the door. “You stay away from me!”
She gives him an evil smile and takes a step forward.
“Stay away from me!”
He struggles with the locked door, but it’s too late. His bloody had hits the “Home Sweet Home” picture on the wall, smearing blood all over it.
~*~*~
Night. The Impala is parked by the side of the road, surrounded by trees. Sam’s trying to sleep in the backseat, but Dean’s flashlight wakes him up.
“What are you doin?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing?”
“Like you’re lookin’ for a job,” Sam says tiredly.
“Yahtzee!” Dean continues to run his flashlight over the newspaper.
Sam sighs and sits up, squinting at the paper in his brother’s hand. “We just finished a job like two hours ago.”
“Adrenaline’s still pumpin’ I guess,” Dean answers, not even looking up. He picks up some more files sitting next to him. “So what do you think? Cedar Rapids? Tulsa? Or Chi Town?”
Brushing the sleep out of his eyes, Sam answers, “I’m all for working, I really am, but you got us chasing cases non-stop for like a month now. We need sleep.”
“Ah, we can sleep when we’re dead.”
“You’re exhausted—”
“I’m good.”
“No, you’re not,” Sam argues. “You’re running on fumes, and you can’t run forever.”
Dean lowers his flashlight, frowning at his brother. “And what am I running from?”
Sam rolls his eyes, hesitates, then answers, “From what you told me.” Dean doesn’t say anything, and Sam adds, “No way of pretending that never happened.”
Dean thinks about this for a moment then, of course, completely ignores it. He tells Sam about a farm town in Nebraska where a man was hacked to death in a locked room inside of a locked house. “No signs of forced entry.”
Sam sighs. Okay then. “Sounds like a ghost.”
“Yes it does.”
Sam groans and flops back on the seat.
~*~*~
In the morning, Sam and Dean drive up to the same house from the beginning. The ‘For Sale’ sale sign down the road has so many weeds growing up around it that the “Sold” sign has fallen off. They don’t see it.
The boys get out of the car and head up to the big blue farmhouse. Birds chirp happily in the background as Dean picks the lock on the door.
They enter the house, walking around the big empty rooms. Dean glances at the brown, yellow, and orange flowered wallpaper and says, “Wow, three bedrooms, two baths, and one homicide. This place is gonna sell like hotcakes.”
Someone watches them through a vent in the wall…
They enter the yellow kitchen and begin opening cupboards. There’s a crack in the floor, but other than that—“Hey check this out,” Dean says, running his hand over a section of the wall that was clearly plastered over.
Sam walks over to look. “It’s probably the dumbwaiter. All these old houses had ‘em.” He walks off.
“Know-it-all.”
The person in the wall watches Sam turn around. “What?”
“What?”
“You said…”
“What?”
“Never mind.”
Sam walks off and Dean grins to himself.
They walk into one of the bedrooms. Dean notices the lack of blood stains, fresh coat of paint. Sam’s EMF detector’s needle is “all over the place.” Dean glances out the window and notices the power lines. Well, that’s just great.
Sam and Dean walk over to a closet and open it.
“Ugh.” They both stare down at a nearly bald, dirty doll’s head, and Dean is the first to say, “Well that’s super disturbing.”
“Think it got left behind?” Sam asks.
“By who? Unless Bill Gibson likes to play with doll heads,” Dean adds sarcastically.
Suddenly they hear a car driving up and turn to the window. A white van and a moving truck are coming down the muddy road.
“Uh-oh.”
“I thought you said this place was still for sale.”
“Apparently it’s not.”
Outside, a family of four, with their dog Buster and Uncle Ted, step out to get a look at their new house. The young boy, Danny, runs off with his dog as the teenage daughter pulls out her cell phone and asks if anyone bothered to check if they get a signal out there.
“Actually I did, Kate,” her father answers. “But we decided to move anyway just to ruin your life.”
Kate smiles ruefully and asks her uncle to back her up.
“Kid’s right,” he answers. “You’re ruinin’ her life.”
Kate turns to give her father a victorious look. “See?”
“Thanks for the help Uncle Ted.”
“I call it like I see it, buddy.” Ted starts pulling out some of the luggage.
“Hey,” Kate’s mother walks up.
“What?” her father asks.
“Be nice.”
“I am nice.” He wraps his arms around her, and they both look up at the house. “What’d you think? We do okay?”
She sighs. “I don’t know.”
They all start to unload the car, and Kate stops short, noticing Sam and Dean walking down the stairs.
“Who are they?”
Her father turns around, surprised to see them as well. “Can I help you?”
Sam and Dean walk over and pull out their fake badges, introducing themselves as County Code Enforcement. Mr. Carter is confused. “We had the building inspected last week. Is there a problem?”
“Asbestos in the walls, got a gas leak, yeah I’d say we have a problem,” Sam answers.
“Asbestos?” Mrs. Carter asks. “Meaning what?”
“Meaning until this house is up to code, it’s uninhabitable.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you’re saying we can’t stay here?”
“It’s a health hazard,” Dean answers. “You don’t want to.”
“Hold on,” Uncle Ted speaks up. “We just drove 400 miles.”
“There’s a motel down the road,” Dean interrupts. “Until this gets cleaned up, I suggest you stay there.”
“Alright, and what if we don’t?” Mr. Carter asks.
“You get a fine, you could go to jail,” Dean answers. “Pick your poison.”
Mr. Carter glances from Sam and Dean to his family, then back. Sam and Dean just look at him. Well, looks like he doesn’t have much choice.
“One night,” he tells his family. “One night and I’ll take care of everything ASAP. I promise.’
“Yeah you do that,” Dean mutters as the family begrudgingly heads back to the car.
“Another motel?” Kate complains. “Awesome, Dad. I hope this one has hooker sheets like the last one.”
“Come on Danny!”
The little boy and dog rejoin their family as they start to reload the car.
~*~*~
Now in their suits, Sam and Dean go to visit the cleaning lady of the man who died.
“What did the room look like when you found it, Mrs. Carry?” Sam asks as he and Dean stand on the porch, interviewing the woman through her screen door.
“I already told the local boys. There was blood. Everywhere.”
“And Mr. Gibson? Where was he?” Dean asks.
“Everywhere.”
They ask her how long she’s been cleaning his house. About five years. She didn’t know Mr. Gibson very well though. He kept to himself mostly, was bitter. But she doesn’t blame him. Why? “His wife died in childbirth, his daughter hangs herself in the attic 20 years later. I’d be bitter too.”
“I think I have some pictures.” Mrs. Carry goes to get them, then comes back. Dean asks if they can keep them, and she answers, “Suit yourself.”
They glance at the picture of the pretty young brunette and the other one of her parents in front of the house, then Dean asks if Mrs. Carry ever noticed anything odd when she was cleaning the house.
“Like what?”
“Like lights going on and off, things not being where you left them?”
No, none of that. Except maybe there was one thing.
“What’s that?”
“Well sometimes I heard like a…rustling in the walls.”
“Like a rat?”
“Yeah.”
“Must have been some big sons a’ guns out there, huh?” Dean asks.
“Wouldn’t no, never saw any.”
Okay then.
Sam asks if she knows where Mrs. Gibson and her daughter were buried, and Mrs. Carry tells them that they were both cremated.
Walking back to the car, Sam points out that it probably wasn’t the mom or the daughter then. “Who’s ghost was it?”
“I don’t know,” Dean answers. “I say we give that place a real once-over and see.”
In a nearby field, someone watches them get into The Impala…
~*~*~
Back at the house, the family is unloading again. Uncle Ted comes out to announce that there is no asbestos. He’s built enough houses to know that. “No gas leak either.”
“Who were those guys?”
“Not from the county, I can tell you that.”
They open the moving truck. Everyone starts to haul out stuff, and Kate suddenly notices a pale girl standing at one of the upstairs windows in the house.
“Hey—”
Kate jumps at the sound of her mother’s voice.
“You okay?”
She glances back at the window. It’s empty. “Yeah. I just thought I saw something, that’s all.”
“It…it’s gonna be great here Kate, it really is.”
“Yeah mom, I’m sure. Everything’s gonna change.”
Kate heads for the house.
~*~*~
That night, Danny sits in his dark room, surrounded by boxes, and playing video games.
“Danny?” his mother calls up. “Are you unpacking?”
“Uh yeah,” he answers, distractedly, engrossed in his game. “I’m almost finished.”
Suddenly, the closet door creaks slowly open. Danny looks up from his game. In the light of the few lamps sitting on boxes or the floor, he watches a baseball roll out of the closet and into the room. He grabs it and stands up.
“Hello?” When the girl in the closet hides, he smiles. “It’s okay.”
She slowly peeks back out.
“I’m Danny.” He rolls the ball back into the dark closet. After a moment, it tosses back out to him. He grins. “Hi!”
~*~*~
Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Carter are in the kitchen. She’s reading at the table. “Zucchini’ll grow, but too acidic for beets…Do you understand any of this?”
Her husband isn’t paying attention. “Can you smell that?” He opens one of the cupboards and cringes. “Smells like a rat died up there or something.”
“That’s pleasant, thank you.” his wife answers dryly. “Can I continue having a conversation with myself?”
“What I’m listening! A…vegetable garden.”
She finally sighs. What are they doing there? “Us? On a farm? Talking about zucchini.”
He sighs. “It’s gonna be different, I promise you. We’re gonna be happy.”
“And if we’re not?” she asks, unconvinced.
“We will be,” he assures. “We have to be.”
“I can’t put the kids through another year like the last…”
~*~*~
Outside, Sam and Dean pull up to the lit house.
“Crap.” Dean stares at the house. “So what now?”
“We could tell them the truth.”
“Really?”
“No not really.”
~*~*~
Uncle Ted sets a box down, starts to go back for another, then stops short, staring at the wall.
From the kitchen, Mr. and Mrs. Carter hear him call, “Hey guys, you’re gonna want to come see this.”
They join him in the other room to find a giant “GO” scrawled in red on the wall. Mr. Carter walks up and runs his finger over the scratchy red lines. “Crayon.” He sighs and calls for his son.
“Tell you what,” Ted tells his sister. “If my kid did this?”
“He’s not your kid, Ted, just butt out,” She tells him, then turns to her husband as Ted leaves. “Hey, go easy on him. His teacher said he might act out.”
Danny comes running down the stairs.
“Hey buddy,” his father says, nodding towards the wall. “Something you want to tell me and your mom?”
Danny turns around and sees the “GO” for the first time. “I didn’t do that.”
“Okay, look, just tell me the truth. And all you gotta do is clean it up,” his dad tells him. “No punishment.”
“But I didn’t!” Danny says truthfully. “The girl in the walls did it!”
“The girl in the walls?” his mother asks, confused.
“She wants you to go and me to stay.”
“Alright, one last time. The truth, buddy.”
“That is the truth! I can stay, but she hates grownups, and if you don’t leave, she’s gonna get really really mad!” Danny says, desperately trying to get his parents to believe him.
“Alright, go to your room.”
“Mom!” Danny looks to her for help, but she just gives him The Look. Furious, Danny stomps for the stairs, turning around just long enough to shout, “If Andy were here, he’d believe me!”
“Upstairs!” His dad points. “Now.”
Danny stomps upstairs, frustrated and hurt that his parents won’t believe him.
~*~*~
Kate’s lying in bed staring up at the ceiling. She hears heavy breathing and leans her hand over the side of the bed.
“It’s okay Buster. It’s okay,” she comforts the dog. “I hate it here too.”
There’s sloppy licking noises, and Kate makes a face. “Eeww Buster, gross!” She lifts her hand to shake it off. “What’s the matter with you?”
Her door starts to creak and she sits up to watch Buster nose his way into the room. Eye’s wide with horrified realization, Kate glances over at her closet just in time to see it slam shut.
“Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh !”
~*~*~
Downstairs, Danny walks in sleepily to find his sister freaking out and his parents trying to comfort her. Uncle Ted stands back, confused.
“Ew!” Kate’s still trying to shake it off.
“What happened?”
“I just got molested by Casper the Pervey Ghost, that’s what happened!”
“Ghost?”
“Yes, Dad! A ghost!”
“It’s the girl in the walls,” Danny cuts in, and his sister turns to stare at him, even more frightened.
“Who?”
“Both of you knock it off,” their dad tells them.
Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door. Uncle Ted goes to open it.
“We heard screams,” Dean says as he and Sam rush inside. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, you two!” Mr. Carter points at Dean. “Did you touch my daughter?”
Dean is totally confused. “What? No.”
Buster trots outside through the still open door, staring intently at something. He whimpers.
“Who are you guys?”
“Please,” Sam tries to explain. “You have a ghost.”
“I told you!” Instantly both kids start talking, and their dad tells them both to relax. He turns back to Sam and Dean. “What are you guys playing?”
“You’re family is in danger,” Dean says urgently. “You need to get out of the house now.”
Suddenly, all the lights go out.
“Nobody move!” Dean shouts, and they all nervously look around as rustling and banging noises are heard from outside. The noises are joined with the worst noise ever—that’s right, a dog being attacked.
“Buster!”
The guys all rush outside to try and help the dog, but stop short when they find a bloody note scrawled onto the siding. “too LAte"
Dean shoots Sam a frustrated angry look, and Sam agrees.
“Buster!” Danny and his sister come outside on the upstairs deck, followed by their mother. They dad tells them to get back inside, and their mom, seeing the bloody note, quickly ushers her kids back into the house.
“We are not the bad guys,” Dean insists. “But you’re in danger.”
“First things first,” Sam adds. “You gotta get your family out of here.”
Mr. Carter and Uncle Ted exchange a look then glance at the blood on the wall. Okay.
~*~*~
The whole family rushes out, still in their pajamas. Dean tells them to head to the motel he was talking about. “You’ll be safe there.”
“Where are you two gonna do?”
Suddenly Dean stops short. “Oh no.” He walks over to The Impala’s completely slashed tires. “Oh come on! “ Sam opens the trunk. It’s empty. Dean’s still appalled at his baby’s tires. “OH COME ON!”
Mr. Carter checks the van. Yep, it’s tires are still slashed too.
“Dude, the guns are gone!” Sam calls out to his brother, looking at the empty trunk. “So’s the—” he lets out a frustrated noise. “Basically, everything is gone!”
Uncle Ted and his brother-in-law come back to announce that their tires are slashed too.
“What kind of ghost messes with a man’s WHEELS?!” Dean shouts angrily, and Kate suddenly spots the girl standing in the field.
“Aaaaah! She’s there! She’s there!” Kate screams, clinging to her mother, who wants to know where. “She was right there in the woods!”
Sam and Dean turn their flashlights to the woods. They’re empty.
Dean: What’s a ghost doin’ outside?
Sam: You wanna stay and find out?
Dean tells everybody to get back inside, but Ted think’s he’s crazy. They need to leave!
“In what?” Dean counters, swinging around to face him. “This ghost is hunting us!” Uncle Ted has nothing to say to that, so Dean orders, “Everybody back inside now, move!”
Everybody moves.
~*~*~
Inside, Sam is pouring the salt line as Dean explains that as long as the circle isn’t broken it’s the safest place to be.
“Safe from ghosts,” Mr. Carter says skeptically.
“Yes, as a matter of fact,” Dean answers, getting tired of their attitude.
“Okay, I’m not listening to this anymore.” Mr. Carter steps out of the salt ring. “Come on. I’m getting my family out of here.”
Dean stands up. “Nobody’s going anywhere until we kill this thing.”
“Sir, please,” Sam tries, blocking his way. “This is what we do, just, trust us.”
“You hunt ghosts?” Danny asks, impressed.
“That’s right,” Dean answers.
Danny grins. “Like Scooby-Doo?”
Sam can’t help but smile, and Dean answers, “Better.”
Sam turns to Kate. “You saw her outside, right?” Kate nods and he pulls out the photos. “Does she look like either one of these girls?”
Kate looks at the picture, then points to the daughter. “Her. She was paler and a LOT dirtier, but that was her.”
Danny glances at the picture and adds, “That’s the girl in the walls.”
Sam turns to Dean, confused. “So it was the daughter?”
“That girl in the picture,” Mrs. Carter asks, even more confused. “She’s…dead?”
Sam sees no way around it, so answers, “She killed herself inside this house.”
The family is sobered by this, and while they’re taking it all in, Sam and Dean step to the side.
“So what?” Dean asks. “The maid got her story wrong? Rebecca wasn’t cremated?”
“Unless her spirit’s just attached to something inside the house.”
“She hung herself in the attic, right?”
“You want to babysit, I’ll check it out?”
Uncle Ted is eavesdropping behind them, and finally interrupts, “Look, I don’t care who hung themselves where, maybe something is going on here but—”
“It’s a spirit, man,” Dean interrupts.
Uncle Ted’s not taking it. And he’s also not waiting around for some “backwoods hillbilly” to “go all Deliverance”.
“Yeah, well, nobody’s leaving the house,” Dean tells him.
“Stop me.”
Uncle Ted starts to leave, and Dean does just that—grabs him and stops him. Mr. Carter tries to step in before a fight can break out, and Dean just tells Ted, “Listen man. I’ve got a gun. You don’t get your ass back in that circle you’re gonna have yourself a third hole.”
Ted shoves out of Dean’s grasp and gets back in the circle. Sam walks over to his brother. “Dude, you don’t have a gun.”
“And?” Dean reminds his brother that he’s not letting anyone else die tonight. He glances at the attic. “Go.”
Sam goes to check out the attic.
~*~*~
Later on, Ted looks up from where he’s frustratedly playing with the salt line. “Fonzi,” he calls to Dean. “Got a question for you.” Dean just ignores him. “This indestructible force field made out of salt? Does it have to be kosher stuff or what?”
His sister glares at him. “Knock it off, Ted.”
“Shhh!” Kate suddenly interrupts. “What was that?”
Everyone glances nervously around as the house creaks and bumps. Slowly, the closet door starts to swing open. The family cowers behind Dean as the creepy girl steps slowly towards them.
“Mom?” Kate asks, and Dean tells them all to just stay calm. “It’s just a ghost. She can’t come into the circle.”
The girl smirks at him and continues forward. Her eerie smile is soon replaced by total hatred, and a knife slides down in her dirty hand. She steps one foot over the salt line and the entire family gasps. Dean stares at her feet.
“I thought you said ghosts couldn’t cross the circle!” Kate says, horrified.
“They can’t, she’s not a ghost.”
“Shoot her!” Uncle Ted shouts. “Shoot her!”
“Yeah about that—”
The girl lets out a crazy shriek and Dean shouts at the family to go as she begins slashing at him. Dean stays behind to fight her off as the family escapes outside. For a skinny pale little thing, the girl sure has a lot of strength from her pent-up rage. She slashes and shrieks at Dean until she finally knocks him to the floor. Dean raises a crowbar as she gets her knife ready to stab him and—
“Hey!” Sam shows up, shining his flashlight right in her eyes.
The girl’s shrieks take on a different tone, and she holds up her hands against the light, shouting and clambering back into the dark closet.
Sam walks over to the closet and bangs back the doors. It’s empty. He and Dean exchange a look.
~*~*~
Sam and Dean rush out of the house and Mr. Carter comes running around to see if they’re okay. Dean asks where everybody else is, and, as if it’s obvious, Carter answers, “Hiding.”
Okay good. “Go get them.”
Carter rushes off and Sam looks at his brother. “So it’s not a ghost, it’s just a girl?”
“Not just any girl, it’s Psycho Nell. I’m tellin’ you man—” Dean shakes his head. “Humans.”
“So who is she then?” Sam asks.
“I don’t know, maybe it’s the daughter Rebecca, maybe she didn’t hang herself.”
“Dude, no, she’d have to be like 50 years old by now.”
“Well I don’t know. What’d you find in the attic?”
“Some old junk. I found Rebecca’s diary, that’s about it.”
“I wish you would have found howitzer.”
Dean points out that it’s “just a human”, so they can hold her off why the family runs for it. Most of the family comes running around the house, Uncle Ted smugly pointing out that he was right, and Mrs. Carter calling Danny to come out because they have to go. Dean hastily placates Uncle Ted by admitting that he was right, and Sam tells them they’ll take it from there.
“Danny, we’re leaving!”
“Danny we gotta go!”
There’s no answer. Everyone stares out into the dark empty fields. “Where is he?”
“DANNY!”
~*~*~
Kate’s mom immediately starts to panic. She’s not leaving without her son. Her husband tires to calm his wife down, tries to tell her to go with Kate, but she’s having none of it.
“I’m not going out there with mom alone!” Kate argues, and finally Dean interrupts.
“She’s right.” Mrs. Carter stops struggling to listen to him. “Until we find your son, the safest place for you right now is in the shed.”
Kate stares at the shed Dean’s pointing at, eyes wide. “I am not going in there either.”
“Yes you are, it is the best defense,” Dean argues. “The window’s are boarded up, it’s got one door. It’s our best shot right now, trust me.”
Mr. Carter tells his wife to take Kate and go. They do.
“Alright,” Sam points to Mr. Carter. “You and me, we’ll take the outside.” He nods to Dean and Ted. “You two take the house. Let’s go.” Sam and Mr. Carter head off and Dean and Ted stare at each other a second. Clearly neither of them are happy to be stuck with the other. Dean holds his tongue and heads for the house.
Inside the house, Dean starts checking out the walls.
“What are you doing?” Ted asks, shining his flashlight on him.
“She’s human, she had to come from somewhere.” Dean continues to press his hand along the wall until he finds a loose board. He pulls it open. The back is bloody.
Ted grimaces. “You smell that?”
“Every day.” Dean grabs a knife and leans into the space behind the wall. Cobwebs and dust line the space between walls, and Dean shines his flashlight around as tells Ted to follow him. They creep through the hallow wall, passing pipes and wooden studs, until they come to a small, crudely cut hole in the floor.
Ted stares at the hole, then at Dean. “You’re not going down there.”
“Well, do you want to?” Dean asks, swinging his flashlight from the hole to the man. Ted doesn’t answer. Clearly that’s a no.
Dean gets ready to enter the hole. “Please nobody grab my leg, please nobody grab my leg,” he mutters to himself as he lowers himself into the hole.
It’s a tight squeeze, but luckily nobody grab his legs. Once down, Dean turns and comes face to face with the bloody remains of the poor dog. He whispers for Danny, and Ted calls down, “Find anything?”
“Yeah, her kitchen,” Dean answers.
“Her what?”
As Dean continues to investigate the bloody “kitchen”, he finds a stick drawing of a person, maybe two on the wall. Meanwhile, Ted’s thought he heard something and starts creeping through the dark trying to figure out what it is. His flashlight plays over more dirt…bricks…wood…a dead end.
Finding nothing, Ted turns around and—
“Eeeaaaaahhhh!” The crazy girl shrieks at him and stabs him in the throat. Uncle Ted barely had chance to gasp before he was killed.
Hearing the screaming, Dean whirls around, trying to find Ted in the dark. He gets back to the hole just in time to watch dead Uncle Ted’s bloody head fall through. Dean pulls back his flashlight, quickly covering the light and bracing himself against the wall. He glances at Ted, then closes his eyes, clearly angry with himself for leaving the man.
~*~*~
In the shed, Mr. Carter’s had enough waiting. “Look, why are we standing here? Let’s go in, let’s check the house.”
“We have to wait for those guys to get back, okay?” Sam says.
There’s a knock at the door.
“Sam it’s me. Open up.”
Sam and Mr. Carter move the table blocking the door and unlock the door to let Dean in.
“Do you have Danny?” Mrs. Carter asks.
Dean glances at his brother, then answers, “No…”
“No?” Mrs. Carter asks. “Well, then where’s Ted?”
“He’s outside,” Dean answers, unable to look at her.
“Why doesn’t he come inside?”
Dean exchanges a look with Sam, then answers, “Because I had to carry him out.” He lowers his gaze again. “I’m sorry.”
“What, what does that mean that you’re sorry?” Mrs. Carter asks, and her husband adds, “Are you saying that he’s dead?”
“No, he’s not saying that he’s dead—” she turns to Dean “—You’re not saying that he’s dead, are you?”
“We were in the walls and she attacked,” Dean answers solemnly. “And I couldn’t’ get to him in time.”
Mrs. Carter starts to cry. Her husband comforts her, and Sam gives his brother a sympathetic look. As if Dean didn’t already have enough guilt!
“Uncle Ted is dead?” Kate asks, and Dean mentally kicks himself again.
“I shouldn’t have left him alone…” He grabs the door, then turns back to the family. “I’m very sorry.”
Dean goes back outside.
~*~*~
Later on, Sam sits reading Rebecca’s diary as Mr. Carter tries to convince his wife that Danny is still alive. She’s already accepted that he’s dead. He reminds her what the girl in the wall said, that Danny could stay. She’s still not believing it. She also doesn’t understand why this keeps happening to them. “We’re good people.”
Her husband tries to comfort her by reminding her that “what happened to Andy happened, I can’t change that, but I will find Danny, I promise you. And when I do, we are gonna be fine. You and me and the kids? We’re gonna be fine.”
Mrs. Carter looks at her daughter, then her husband, and whispers, “Okay…”
Sam continues to read.
~*~*~
Dean joins Mr. Carter as he stands outside looking up at the house.
“Andy your son?”
After a moment, Mr. Carter answers, “Oldest. He got himself killed in a car accident last year.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It nearly tore Susan and I apart…Still could I imagine.” He pauses, then adds, “That’s why we moved here. Fresh air, fresh start. Not even my line.” At Dean’s look, he explains, “Marriage counselor.” Dean just nods. “Or she might be right,” Mr. Carter adds. “After all, what could possibly go wrong in the country?”
“I’m getting your son back,” Dean says determinedly. “If it’s the last God forsaken thing I do.”
Carter stares at him. “Why do you care so much?”
Dean hesitates, and thankfully Sam saves him by walking up. “Dean?” He holds up the diary. “We gotta talk.”
~*~*~
Inside the house, Dean asks what the book is as he goes to close the closet.
“Rebecca’s diary. I just finished reading it.”
“And?”
“And that girl back there?” Sam says. “I’m pretty sure that she was Rebecca’s daughter.
“Rebecca had a kid?” Dean asks, shoving a cobwebby box under the door handle.
“That’s all she talks about,” Sam answers. “Being pregnant, being ashamed of being pregnant.”
“Geez, rent Juno, get over it,” Dean answers, joining his brother in the salt ring that sill covers most of the floor. “Wait, why kill herself after the baby?”
“Maybe because her dad called her a dirty little whore and said that he was going to lock the baby up where nobody could ever see it.”
“Why would he say that?”
Sam just tilts his head, as if it’s obvious, and Dean just stares at him. After a second, Dean finally gets it. “Oh gross.”
“Yeah.”
“So the daddy was the baby-daddy too.”
“Dude was a monster Dean.”
“Wow. Story ripped from an Austrian headline,” Dean says, disgusted. He shakes his head again. “Humans, man.”
Sam understands.
“So she’s been locked up in this house her whole life?” Dean asks.
“You saw her eyes. Has she ever seen light? She’s barely human.”
“Okay, so what then, she’s been caged up like an animal and then she busts out and ganks dear old dad…slash, granddad?”
“I guess.”
“Well I can’t say that I blame her,” Dean answers.
“I’m sure her life was hell Dean, that doesn’t mean she gets a free pass for a murder spree,” Sam says.
“Like you know what Hell is like.”
“I didn’t…”
Dean interrupts with a shake of his head, and Sam finally asks, “So where do we find her?”
Dean suddenly gets an idea. “Kid’s gotta eat, right?”
Sam is confused. “What?”
“He kept her hidden. Locked up. But he had to feed her, didn’t he?”
“I guess.”
“I think I know where.”
~*~*~
Tied up and gagged, laying on the dirt floor, Danny wakes up and tries to figure out where he is. The room is completely dark, empty. Suddenly he spots a hole in the wall. Out of the wall crawls the girl. Danny can only stare at her as she crawls over, smiling maniacally.
The girl holds up a rat for Danny, and he begins to shout through his gag. He watches the girl kill the rat with her bare hands and then begin eating it. He screams.
~*~*~
Dean uses the crowbar to bust open the wall where the dumbwaiter used to be as Sam explains to Mr. Carter what’s going on. Once the opening is clear, Dean tells them he’s going down, but Mr. Carter stops him.
“No, that’s my son.”
“I know it is,” Dean interrupts. “But I said that I would get him. I will. Let me.”
Determined, Dean hands his flashlight to Sam and climbs in. Sam hands him back his flashlight, and as his brother starts climbing down the shaft, asks Mr. Carter if he has curtains. At the man’s confused expression, Sam explains, “We need rope.”
~*~*~
Kate and her mother are hovering in the shed, waiting. Suddenly the window crashes open behind them and Kate screams. They whip around to look at the window. There’s no one there.
~*~*~
Dean finds a familiar cross, then a familiar gun on the dusty floor. He picks it up and checks the bullets. “She’s a klepto.” He finds more of his and Sam’s guns and picks them up, shining his flashlight around.
“Danny?” he whispers until suddenly he ears the boy’s muffled scrams.
Dean finds the whole in the wall and uses his knife to quickly untie Danny. The kid rips off his gag and climbs through the hole as Dean tells him that his dad’s upstairs.
“Hurry!” Danny says, clambering to his feet. “Hurry, he’s coming back!”
“He?”
Danny stops to look at Dean. “Her brother.”
Right on cue, said brother busts from the walls and attacks Dean, knocking the flashlight and weapons out of his hands.
~*~*~
Kate and her mother are still standing staring at the window. Waiting.
And more waiting…
Mrs. Carter has a rake in her hands, expecting the worst.
Still nothing…
Suddenly, and knife jabs through the wood at their back and both girls scream, flinging around.
~*~*~
Inside, Dean and the brother are still fighting—
Upstairs, Sam throws down the sheet rope. Danny runs in to look up at them.
“Danny!”
The brother knocks the gun from Dean’s hand.
Danny climbs into the loop at the bottom of the makeshift rope and his father and Sam start to pull him up.
Dean sidesteps his opponent a second, then slams into him for another round of fighting.
Outside in the shed, Kate and her mother are like trapped animals. Suddenly a part of the wall begins to move in.
“Aaah! Mom!” Kate clings to her mother.
Danny makes it up, and Sam tells him and his father to get out. They rush out as Sam turns back to look into the chute. Where’s Dean?
Still fighting with the crazy guy, Dean manages to grab hold of his flashlight and shines it in the man’s eyes. He lets out a shout and jumps away, grabbing a knife. Dean reaches his gun just as the man brings the knife down and—
*Bam! Bam! Bam!*
The guy falls down, dead, just as Sam jumps out of the chute.
~*~*~
The scary girl finally busts through the walls, trapping Mrs. Carter under the wood and crawling towards her. Kate screams frantically as she watches the knife head for her mother. Suddenly the girl goes shooting back outside, and Kate rushes over to help her mom.
They both back up and cringe in horror as they hear the girl being attacked.
A loud knock on the door makes them both jump, and Kate’s father calls for them to open the door. When they do, he’s standing there with the knife in his hand, jacket bloody.
~*~*~
Sam and Dean exit the house to find Mrs. Carter sitting on the steps trying to comfort her shocked children. They join Mr. Carter over by the shed and see the girl lying in the mud. Dead.
~*~*~
Dean finishes changing his tires as Sam finishes loading the trunk up.
“Thanks for the head-start,” Dean says, standing up as Mr. and Mrs. Carter join them.
“Why doesn’t it surprise me that you guys don’t like the police?”
“It’s sort of a mutual appreciation thing really,” Sam answers.
The couple thank them and shake the boys’ hands. Dean turns to Mrs. Carter. “You okay?”
She hesitates, glances at her husband, then finally answers, “No. We’re the opposite of okay, but…we’re together.” Her husband takes her hand and she adds another, “Thanks.”
~*~*~
Sam and Dean stop under an overpass to eat lunch. Sam hand his brother his food, and notices something is wrong when Dean opens it, looks at in, and then wraps it back up again. Uh-oh.
“You okay?”
Dean admits that he actually felt for the crazy brother and sister living in the walls. “Life-long torture like that?”
Sam feels for his brother. “You were in Hell, Dean…Look, maybe you—did what you did there, but you’re not them. They were barely human.”
“No you know, you’re right,” Dean answers, staring at the ground. “I wasn’t like them…I was worse.”
Sam starts to sigh, not knowing what to say, and Dean continues, “They were animals, Sam, defending territory. Me?” He hesitates, troubled. “I did it for the sheer pleasure.”
This was the last thing Sam expected his brother to say. “What?”
“I enjoyed it Sam,” Dean says, hating himself. “They took me off the rack and I tortured souls, and I liked it…All those years? All that pain? Finally gettin’ to deal some out yourself? I didn’t care who they put in front of me…Because that—That pain I felt? It just slipped away…” Drowning in guilt, Dean adds, “No matter how many people I save, I can’t change that…I can’t fill this hole…Not ever…”
The brothers continue to stand there in silence, thinking.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Oooooh the angst! It’s killing me! Poor Dean! Poor Sam! I feel the need to crawl into my TV screen and give them both a hug.
But as always, great episode. I love that they finally worked in the classic ‘that’s not the dog licking your hand’ urban legend. But why oh why does the poor dog always have to die? Poor Buster. I really like that it wasn’t a ghost but two poor tortured people. Makes it that much more disturbing. Favorite lines of the night? “What kind of ghost messes with a man’s WHEELS?!” and “Please nobody grab my leg, please nobody grab my leg…” | 55 |
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