CHAPTER TEN

"Are you sure you're okay with helping me find my brother?" Damon asks. He and Nycole are on the phone.

"I have to know where they are in order to stay away from them. I might as well tell you what I find out." Nyx says, seemingly indifferent.

"Where are you guys?"

"Driving down Interstate 35 in Texas." She tells him. "Nowhere near Klaus."

"Alright. Well, I guess I'll keep you updated on what I find." He says.

"I'll talk to you later." She then hangs up the phone.

Dean looks at his brother — who's passed out in the front seat with his mouth partly open — and he picks up a plastic spoon from last night. He then proceeds to carefully put the spoon in his younger brother's​ mouth.

"Are you two?" Nyx asks as he takes a picture of Sam on his phone.

"Twelve, actually." He laughs and then turns the music up. He starts singing loudly to wake up his brother, playing the drums on the steering wheel, and Nyx shakes her head with a small smile on her face as she looks at her boyfriend.

Sam wakes up and throws the spoon before turning down the music. "Ha ha, very funny." He says sarcastically.

"Sorry. Not a lot of scenery here in East Texas. You kinda have to make your own." Dean tells him.

"We're not kids anymore, Dean. We're not gonna start that crap up again."

"Start what up?" Nyx asks as she looks between the two of them.

"Pranks." He tells her and then looks at his brother. "It's stupid, and it always escalates."

"What's the matter, Sammy? You afraid you're gonna get a little Nair in your shampoo again, huh?" Dean asks, and she shakes her head.

"Alright. Just remember, you started it."

"Oh, bring it on, baldy."

"This ought to be interesting." Nyx says, and Dean laughs as he looks at her in the rearview.

"Where are we anyway?" The younger boy asks.

"A few hours out of Richardson. Give me the lowdown again." Dean says.

"Alright. About a month or two ago, this group of kids goes poking around this local haunted house—"

"Haunted by what?"

"Apparently, a pretty misogynistic spirit." Sam says.

"Oh, great." Nyx mutters.

"Legend goes it takes girls and strings them up in the rafters." He tells them and then turns to look at Nycole.

"Oh, don't you worry your pretty little head about me, I can take care of myself." She says with a smile.

"Says the girl who got kidnapped by the Benders." Dean argues.

"I was caught off guard by the two sons who were both twice my size. You, on the other hand, were tied up and being guarded by a thirteen-year-old girl with a rats nest for hair." Nyx raises her eyebrows as she looks at him, and Sam starts laughing.

"So, this misogynistic spirit?" Dean asks his brother.

"This group of kids see this dead girl hanging in the cellar." He continues.

"Anybody ID the corpse?"

"Well, that's the thing. By the time the cops got there, the body was gone. So, the cops were saying the kids were yanking their chains."

"Maybe the cops are right." Dean says.

"Maybe, but I read a couple of the kids' firsthand accounts. They seem pretty sincere."

"Where'd you read these accounts?" Nyx asks him.

"Well, I knew we were gonna be passing through Texas, so last night I was surfing some local..." He hesitates before continuing. "Paranormal websites, and I found one."

"And what's it called?" Dean questions.

"Hellhoundslair.com" He says, and his brother scoffs.

"Let me guess, streaming live out of Mom's basement." He says, and Sam laughs.

"Yeah, probably."

"Most of those websites wouldn't know a ghost if it bit 'em in the persqueeter."

"Look, we let Dad take off, which was a mistake, by the way, and now we don't know where the hell he is. So, meantime, we got to find ourselves something to hunt. There's no harm checking this thing out." Sam argues.

"Alright. So, where do we find these kids?" Dean asks.

"Same place you always find kids in a place like this."

"I take offense to that." Nyx says, and Sam laughs as he glances back at her.

"I just meant it's a small town." He says, and she just looks at him. "Sorry."

They go to the local diner and talk to three kids. None of them can even agree on any of the details. About the only thing that they said that was the same was that there was a dead girl hanging in the basement. They had three completely​ different descriptions of the house and the girl.

"Okay." Dean says, and Nyx glances at him.

"And how'd you find out about this place?" She asks the three kids.

They all have the same response, "Craig."

—

The three hunters walk into the music store where Craig works, and a male employee starts in their direction. "Gentlemen, miss, can I help you with anything?" He asks.

"Yeah. Are you Craig Thurston?" Sam asks him.

"I am."

"Oh. Well, we're reporters with the Dallas Morning News. I'm Dean, this is Sam and Nycole." He introduces them.

"No way. Yeah, I'm a writer too. I write for my school's lit magazine." He says.

"Well, good for you, Morrison." Dean says, and Nyx smacks his arm.

"Um, we're doing an article on local hauntings, and rumor has it you might know about one." Sam says.

"You mean the Hell​ House?" Craig asks.

"That's the one." Dean nods.

"I didn't think there was anything to the story."

"Why don't you tell us the story?" Nyx asks.

He sighs. "Well, supposedly​ back in the thirties, this Farmer, Mordechai Murdoch, used to live in the house with his six daughters." Craig tells them as he walks back behind the register. "During the depression, his crops were failing. He didn't have enough money to feed his own children. So, I guess that's when he went off the deep end."

"How?" Sam asks; he and Nyx are listening while Dean looks at records.

"Well, he figured it was best if his girls died quick rather than starve to death..." He says as Dean walks up beside his girlfriend. "So, he attacked them. They screamed, begged for him to stop, but he just strung them up, one after another. And then when he was all finished, he turned around and hung himself. Now, they say that his spirit is trapped in the house forever, stringing up any other girl who goes inside."

"Where'd you hear all this?" Dean asks.

"My cousin, Dana, told me. I don't know where she heard it." He says. "You gotta realize I didn't believe this for a second."

"But now you do?" Sam asks.

He pauses for a second. "I don't know what the hell to think, man. Guys, I'll tell you exactly what I told the police, okay?" He looks between the three of them. "That girl was real. And she was dead. This was not a prank. I swear to God, I don't want to go anywhere near that house ever again."

"Thanks." Dean says, and they turn to leave.

"Nycole​." Craig calls, and she turns back to face him. "It is Nycole, right?"

"Yeah." The brunette nods.

"If you guys go there, be careful." He says, and she nods.

"Yeah, of course. Thanks​." She offers him a reassuring smile and then walks over to the guys who stopped at the door to wait for her.

The next morning, the trio head to the Hell House to get a look at it in the light of day when most spirits aren't as active.

"Can't say I blame the kid." Sam says. The place is rundown, creepy, and definitely looks abandoned.

"Yeah. So much for curb appeal." Dean says as they start looking around outside first.

"You got something?"

"Yeah. The EMF's no good." He says as the younger two make their way over to where he's standing.

"Why?" Nyx asks.

"I think that thing's still got a little juice in it." He motions toward the power line behind the house, and she nods. "It's screwing with all the readings."

"Yeah, that'd do it." Sam agrees.

"Yeah." He nods. "Come on, let's go."

They head inside next, and it looks just as bad in here as it does out there. The only difference is that there's satanic symbols on the walls, and red and white candles scattered around.

"Looks like old man Murdoch was a bit of a tagger during his time." Dean says, referring to the symbols that are painted all over the walls.

"And after his time too." Sam says, earning their attention. "The reverse cross has been used by Satanists for centuries, but the sigil of sulfur didn't show up in San Francisco until the sixties."

"Exactly why you never get laid."

"I don't even want to know how you store all of this information in that strange head of yours." The brunette says as she walks away from him.

"What about this one? You​ seen this before?" Dean points to another symbol on the wall.

"No." Sam says as he walks over to him.

"I have. Somewhere."

"It's paint." Sam says as he touches the black marking on the wall. "Seems pretty fresh too."

"I don't know, Sam. I hate to agree with authority figures of any kind, but the cops might be right about this one." His brother says.

"Yeah. Maybe."

They hear a crash in another room and it immediately gets all of their attention. Nyx starts toward the door to the room it came from, and the boys follow behind her. They go into the room — a kitchen — and they're all immediately blinded by flashlights.

Someone groans. "Cut. Just some humans." A guy says as they move their lights, and the hunters look at them. "What are you doing here?" He asks.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Nyx asks as they both look at them.

"Uh, we belong here. We're professionals." The one with the camera says, and his sidekick nods.

"Professional what?" Dean questions.

"Paranormal investigators." He pulls a card out of his pocket before handing it to Nycole. "Here you go, take a look at that."

She reads the card and then gives it directly to Sam. "It's for you." She tells him, and he reads it.

"You gotta be kidding me." Dean says as he looks at the card in his brother's hand.

"Ed Zeddmore and Harry Spengler, Hellhoundslair.com — you guys run that website." Sam says.

"Yeah." The cameraman says.

"Yeah, we're huge fans." Dean says sarcastically as he walks past them.

"And we know who you guys are too."

"Oh, yeah?" Sam asks.

"Yeah." Cameraman says. "Amateurs looking for ghosts and cheap thrills."

"Yeah, so, if you guys don't mind, we're trying to conduct a serious scientific investigation here." Sidekick says.

"Yeah? What do you got so far?" Nyx asks as she walks over to Dean to see what he's looking at.

"Har, why don't you tell them about EMF?" Cameraman says.

"Can I hit him?" She whispers to Dean.

"No." He says, his voice just as low.

"EMF?" Sam plays dumb.

"Is that like M&M?" Nyx asks, feigning ignorance. "Is it candy?"

"Come on, babe, let the pros talk." Dean says, and she lightly hits her forehead with the palm of her hand.

"Silly me, what was I thinking?" She says sarcastically. "Please, do educate us poor amateurs."

"EMF — electromagnetic field." Sidekick says, not amused with Nycole and Dean, but Sam smirks as he looks at her and his brother. "Spectral entities can cause energy fluctuations that can be read on an EMF detector like this bad boy right here." He says as he gets one out of a bag.

"Whoa. Whoa. It's two-point-eight mg. It's hot in here." Cameraman says.

"Wow." Sam says as Dean drapes his arm over his girlfriend's shoulders, and they watch them think that they're telling them something that they don't already know.

"Huh. So, have you guys ever really seen a ghost before?" Dean asks.

"Once." Cameraman says as he looks at him. "We were investigating this old house, and we saw a vase fall right off the table."

"By itself." Sidekick adds.

"Well, we didn't actually— We didn't actually see it, but we heard it. And something like that... It changes​ you."

"Now can I hit him?" Nyx asks Dean, and he puts his hand over her mouth.

"What?" Cameraman asks as he looks back at them.

"Nothing." Dean shakes​ his head. "I think I get the picture. We should go, let them get back to work."

He lets go of Nycole and then takes her hand in his, it's only so he can pull her past them without the risk of her actually trying to hit one of them.

"Yeah, you should." Sidekick says.

"Come on. Let's let the professionals get back to work." She looks up at Sam, and he shakes his head as he tries not to laugh as her clear annoyance.

"Thank you." Cameraman says.

"Oh, hey, brainiacs." Nyx turns and looks back at them, making Dean stop as well because he still has her hand in his. "You know what else causes energy fluctuations?" She asks, and they both just look at her. "The power line outside." She then leaves with her boyfriend, who's laughing.