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SEASON 01, EPISODE 17

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"Della," Dean whispered and she glanced up to see Dean gesturing to Sam who was passed out in the front seat, his mouth hung open slightly as he lightly snored. "You thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?"

Delaney rose an eyebrow and glanced between her two brothers for a second. "I thought we were done pranking him."

"Come on, Della," Dean groaned and threw his head back. "Don't be a bore."

Delaney glared at Dean before she reached forward, grabbing a spoon that was left sitting on the seat between her two brothers. She gingerly placed it in Sam's mouth, letting it hang from his open mouth. She quickly took a picture of it on her phone before raising the radio all the way up so it startled Sam awake.

"Whos boring now, Dean?"

Sam huffed as he spit the spoon out of his mouth and relaxed back in his seat. "Ha ha. Very funny."

Delaney giggled from the back seat and gave Sam an innocent look. "Sorry, Sammy."

"Not a lot of scenery here in East Texas so we had to make our own," Dean added with a chuckle, highly amused by the annoyed look on his younger brother's face.

"We're not kids anymore, guys," Sam chastised the two of his siblings. "We aren't going to start that crap up again?"

Delaney poked her head into the front seat and gave Dean a look. "And you said I'm boring, Dee."

"That prank stuff is stupid, and it always escalates," Sam argued. "The last time we did it Delaney had a broken arm for two months."

Delaney narrowed her eyes at Sam. "Yeah and whose fault was that, Sam?"

Sam gave her a sheepish smile as if to say he was sorry before Dean decided to give his two cents in. "What's the matter, Sammy? Scared Della and I are gonna put Nair in your shampoo again?"

"That's what you get for breaking my arm," Delaney mumbled as Sam looked annoyed yet again at Dean's taunting.

"Fine, but just remember that the two of you started it," Sam pointed at the both of them. "I call dibs on having Delaney on my team though."

"What? No way!" Dean yelled, shaking his head furiously. "She's with me like always, dude. I am her favorite brother after all."

Delaney gaped at Dean and blinked a few times. "I never said I had a favorite."

"Liar," Dean mumbled grumpily that his little sister wasn't defending him outright.

Sam simply rolled his eyes at his brother and scanned the area Dean was driving through. "Where are we, anyway?"

"A few miles outside of Richardson," Dean replied. "Della, give me the low down of this thing again."

Delaney grabbed the information she had printed out the day before on a case she had found while they were staying in a motel. It helped her get her mind off the fact that John was gone... again. "Um... so... about a month ago or two, this group of kids go poking this local haunted house - "

"Haunted by what?" Dean cut her off.

Delaney sighed at the interruption and focused back on the articles. "Apparently, a pretty misogynistic spirit. Legend goes it takes girls and strings them up in the rafters. This group of kids see this dead girl hanging in the cellar."

"Anybody I.D. the corpse?" Sam questioned.

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

"Maybe the cops were right," Dean offered.

Delaney shrugged and tossed the articles to the side again with a small sigh. "Maybe, but I read a couple of the kids' firsthand accounts. They sounded pretty sincere about it."

"Where'd you read these accounts?"

Delaney bit her lip awkwardly as she fiddled with her hands, already knowing her brothers were going to tease her relentlessly about it. "Well... I knew we were gonna be passing through Texas once we left the motel, so last night I was surfing some local... paranormal websites, and I found one."

Dean smirked at her through the rearview mirror. "Oh, and what is it called?"

Delaney hated the teasing tone Dean's voice took on and she immediately regretted bringing it up. "Ha, um... Hellhoundslair.com."

Dean scoffed and tapped his hand against the steering wheel. "Let me guess, streaming live out of mom's basement."

Delaney snorted and leaned her cheek against her palm, her elbow resting on the back of the front seat. "Yeah, probably."

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

"Pursqueeter?" Sam laughed at Dean's odd choice of wording.

"Look, I know you guys probably don't find this whole thing weird or anything," Delaney began once her brothers' laughter died down. "But we let Dad take off, which was a bad idea by the way." She slapped Dean's arm who turned to give her a look not to start with him again on that. It was safe to say that Delaney had complained so much to Dean about it that if he never heard about it again it would be too soon. "Now we don't know where he is. So in the meantime, why not look for something to hunt? There's no harm checking this thing out, right?"

After a moment her brothers agreed to check it out for her and they drove to one of the big hang outs where all the kids hung out at, the local teen diner. They spoke to the three kids that had gone into the supposed haunted building and their accounts were all slightly different to the other. They each gave the dead girl different hair colors, one said she moved while the other one didn't, and they even gave surroundings and experiences differently from each other. It only made Delaney's brothers more suspicious about the whole thing even being real at all.

However, there was one thing that the three all had in common - a kid named Craig Thurston took the three of them to the building.

So now the three Winchesters stood in the middle of a record shop looking for the kid named Craig. They didn't have to look too long because a kid with slicked back brown hair who looked like he stepped out of some 80s movie walked over to them. 

"You three need help with anything?"

"We're looking for a Craig Thurston? Are you him?" Delaney asked from where she stood between her two brothers.

"I am," Craig responded as he fixed up some of the records in the stand they were stood next to before turning back to the siblings. "What's it to you, babe?"

Delaney rose an eyebrow at him and she subtly held back Sam and Dean from attacking the kid before they could even investigate him. "We're reporters with the Dallas Morning News. I'm Delaney. This is Dean and Sam."

"No way! I'm a writer too," Craig chuckled softly as he grabbed some more records from a cart behind him and walked around the stack to the other side to place the records where they belonged. "I write for my school's Lit magazine."

"Well, good for you, Morrison," Dean taunted with a smirk. "Uh, we're doing an article on local hauntings, and rumor has it you might know about one."

Craig stopped in his tracks and furrowed his eyebrows at the three in front of him. "You mean the Hell House?"

"That's the one," Sam agreed with a small smile.

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

Delaney crossed her arms across her chest and shrugged. "Well, why don't you tell us the story then?"

Craig placed the records down and placed his hands on his hips with a heavy sigh. "Okay, well, supposedly back in the 30s, this farmer, Mordechai Murdoch, used to live in the house with his six daughters. During the depression, his crops were failing. Didn't have enough money to even feed his own children. So I guess that's where he went off the deep end."

"How?" Delaney inquired.

"Well, he figured it was best if his girls died quick rather than starve to death... so he attacked them. They screamed. Begged for him to stop, but he just strung them up, one after another. Then when he was finished, he turned and hung himself. Now they say that his spirit is trapped in the house forever, stringing up any other girl who goes inside."

Delaney let out a shaky breath at the thought of this psychotic yet desperate father going after her next if she stepped foot in the house. Any other time it would have probably freaked her out, but part of her wasn't as scared as she probably should about it because she knew that she could handle it and that she needed to get in there to stop whatever it was from happening again.

"How did you hear about this?" Dean questioned, snapping Delaney out of her brief train of thought.

"My cousin Dana told me. I don't know where she heard it from. You got to realize I didn't believe this for a second."

"But now you do," Sam concluded for Craig.

Craig chewed on his lip as he shook his head. "I don't know what to think, man. Guys, I'll tell you exactly what I told the police, okay? 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, okay?"

Delaney felt for Craig because she couldn't blame him for freaking out after seeing a dead body. She had been through that too when she first joined her brothers on this whole family business thing. Any sane person would be freaked out and scared over seeing a dead body, then have it go missing afterwards when there was clearly no one else in the building with you. Delaney could see the gears in both of her brothers' heads turning as they processed what Craig had explained to them. Maybe they would agree with her after all.

Dean politely thanked Craig before the three siblings hopped back into the Impala and sped off towards the Hell House. Dean and Sam quietly discussed the situation in the front seat as Delaney spaced out and stared out the window as Dean sped through the streets to get to the haunted house. She hated the bad feeling that sat in the pit of her stomach and part of her just wished she would get another vision so she knew what would happen when they got there. Unfortunately, the Winchester luck never worked like that and it never happened.

"Can't say I blame the kid," Sam said as the three walked up the dirt path to the Hell House. It was a broken down, wooden house that looked like if a burst of wind blew by that it would just crumble and blow away with it. It definitely looked like something out of a horror film.

"So much for curb appeal," Dean commented as he took in the sight of the house. He took out the EMF from his pocket and turned it on, the tiny machine whirring as it searched for any suspicious activity.

Delaney glanced over Dean's shoulder to glance down at the EMF reader and was confused when the EMF freaked out a bit, the readings all over the place. Something that typically never happened with it. "This thing is no good. There's got to be something in that box up there that is making the readings go haywire." She gestured to the electricity box on a pole above their heads, the wires on top going far beyond the siblings could see sending out electricity so people could have lights and power going through their houses.

"Yeah that would do it," Sam sighed as he followed his sister's finger to the power box. "That's just wonderful."

"Let's just go," Dean huffed as he pulled the two younger Winchesters behind him into the house. 

The old, wooden door creaked as Sam opened and closed the door behind them. The inside of the house looked just as creepy and run down as the outside did. There was broken glass and other items thrown about the floors and candles littered the tops of tables and drawers. The bad feeling in Delaney's stomach only settling heavier. She wasn't sure if it was just her anxiety messing with her because of the thoughts racing through her mind about whatever spirit was here attacking girls once they walked in. She shook her head to rid her mind of the thoughts and focused back on the task at hand.

Dean whistled as he took in the sight around them. "Looks like old man Murdoch was a bit of a tagger during his time."

"After this time too," Sam added as he inspected at an odd looking cross drawn onto the wall behind them in black. "The reverse cross has been used by satanists for centuries, but the sigil of sulfur didn't show up in San Francisco until the 60s."

"Exactly why you never get laid," Dean mused as Sam snapped a picture of the cross on his phone. 

Delaney turned to take a look around the rest of the room when she stopped in front of another drawing on the wall above a fireplace. It was an upside down question mark, three lines drawn on the top and either side of the dot in the middle. She tilted her head as she never saw that symbol before. "What about this one? Either of you seen this one before?"

Dean and Sam stood on either side of her as they both inspected the drawing, Sam taking another picture on his phone. "No."

"I have... somewhere," Dean replied as he stared at the drawing in deep thought as he tried to recall when he had last seen the symbol.

Delaney stepped forward and reached up on the tip of her toes to touch her fingers to the drawing, both of her brothers silently laughing at how short she was. She drew her hand back as some of the residue from the drawing came off. "It's paint. Seems pretty fresh if you ask me."

"I don't know, Della," Dean voiced as he took another good look around the room they stood in. "I hate to agree with the authority figures of any kind, but the cops might be right about this one."

Delaney deflated visibly and ran a hand through her hair. "I guess..." Though the bad feeling didn't lift from her stomach like it typically would when she realized her brothers were right. That only made her anxiety strike again as she tried to figure out why she couldn't just let this thing drop. 

Until a crash from somewhere in the back of the house spooked the three Winchesters, all three looking over their shoulders towards the sound.

Delaney cautiously walked over to the door in the room next to theirs and crept over to it quietly. She and Dean stood to one of the wall next to the door while Sam stood on the other. She gave a nod to both of her brothers before she kicked the door in and gasped as she stumbled back as a flashlight shone in her face.

"Ugh. Cut," one of the males in the room said as his friend lowered his camcorder to his side. "Just a couple of humans."

Delaney whined as she rubbed her now sore eyes and Sam gently removed her hands from in front of them so he could make sure she was okay.

"What the Hell are you guys doing here?" Dean demanded the two guys that just blinded his baby sister.

"Uh, we belong here. We're professionals," the first male's friend replied.

Delaney turned to face the two males across from her with a snort. The one of the left had curly brown hair, glasses and looked like the nerdy kid from the movies and TVs shows. The one on the right had short brown hair, a camera bag hung from his shoulder while the camcorder remained in his hand. "Yeah, professional idiots," she grumbled, earning a laugh from her brothers.

"We're paranormal investigators," the curly haired male clarified with a small glare sent to Delaney for the insult. "She shouldn't be here. She could get snatched next."

"I'll take my chances. Thanks," Delaney crossed her arms and dared either one of the males to doubt her again.

The guy on the right shrugged and handed the siblings a card from his pocket. "Here you go. Take a look that, people."

Dean laughed through his nose and shook his head in amusement. "You have got to be kidding me."

"Ed Zeddmore and Harry Spengler," Sam read from the card that Dean held between his thumb and forefinger. "Hellhoundslair.com - you guys run that website my sister read through the other night."

The guy on the left beamed as he seemed to think the three were fans or something. Yeah, right. "That's us."

"We're huge fans," Delaney remarked.

"We know who you guys are, too," the guy on the left who Delaney thought to be Ed added. 

"Oh, yeah?" Delaney challenged, knowing full well there was no way these bozos knew who they were.

Ed mocked her sarcastic stance and his eyes bounced between the three siblings as he said, "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," Harry concluded.

Dean walked around the room, picking up various items that were left behind. "Yeah, and what do you two got so far?"

"Har, why don't you tell them about EMF?" Ed offered as he looked to his friend next to him.

"EMF?" Sam asked before Harry could even mutter a word. 

"Electromagnetic field," Harry explained in a tone that made it seem like he thought he was superior to the three siblings. It made Delaney want to step forward and punch him right in the mouth, but Sam grabbed the back of her leather jacket before she could do so. She glared at him in frustration. "Special entities can cause energy fluctuations that can be read with an EMF detector like this bad boy right here."

Harry pulled a gray box from the duffle on the counter of the kitchen they stood in and held it up for the Winchesters to see. Delaney tried to suppress her laughter at the sight of the EMF meter that Harry thought was so impressive. It looked like a children's toy and it took everything in Delaney not to show him up right then and there. The thing whirred in his hand and he looked down, his eyes widening.

"Whoa, it's 2.8 mG. It's hot in here."

"My brain cells are literally depleting right now in the mere presence of them," Delaney mumbled as she watched Ed and Harry try to act like they knew what they were doing.

Dean stepped forward as the two looked like two kids in a toy store. "Huh. So, have you guys ever really seen a ghost before?"

"Once," Ed responded over his shoulder to Dean. "We were investigating this old house, and we saw a vase fall right off the table."

"By itself," Harry whispered eerily.

"Well, we didn't actually see it, but we heard it," Ed stammered awkwardly. "And something like that, it - it changes you."

Delaney licked her lips as she glanced at her two brothers who looked just as amused - if not more - as she did right now. "I think I get the picture. We should go, let them get back to work."

"Yeah, you should," Ed and Harry agreed with the youngest Winchester as they inspected their camera and EMF meter.

Delaney rolled her eyes at the two fake-stigators and walked out of the Hell House followed by her brothers. "Did anyone else want to sock either one of those guys in the face?"

"It was quite amusing," Dean snickered as he made his way over to the Impala. "Real accurate website you read there, kiddo."

"Shut up, Dean," Delaney grumbled as she got into the back of the Impala.

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Delaney spent the next two hours in the County Public Library scouring over whatever books she could get her hand on to figure out if there was anything that happened in the house in the 30s like Craig's retelling had said. Just like her luck usually had it, she came up with nothing and it almost made her want to rip her hair out. Her text sound going off brought her out of her heavy research. She pulled her phone out to see it was a text from Dean.

Sammy and I are coming back now. Meet us outside. 

With a heavy sigh, Delaney put the book she was reading back into the bookcase behind her and exited the library just as her brothers got to the bottom of the stairs. "Hey."

"Hey, kid," Dean greeted as she fell into step with her brother back to the Impala. "What did you find?"

"A whole load of nothing," Delaney groaned and flipped open their dad's journal. "Just found some guy named Martin Murdoch who lived in that house in the 30s. He did have children, but only two of them and they were both boys. There was no record he ever killed anyone. Did you guys find anything?"

"Those kids didn't give a clear description of the dead girl, but Sammy and I did hit up the police station," Dean explained as they stopped by the Impala, leaning his arms on the roof as he looked over it at Sam and Delaney who stood on the other side. "No matching missing persons - it's like she never existed. We did our digging, Della, okay? This one is a bust. For all we know, those Hellhound boys made up the whole thing."

Delaney frowned and held her face in her hands. "Yeah, I guess. I just still have this bad feeling in my stomach, you know?"

"I know, Della, but that feeling could be for anything," Dean dismissed as he leaned off the car and fumbled for the keys in his jacket pocket. "I say we find ourselves a bar - even though you aren't allowed to drink, Della, don't give me that look - and leave the legend to the locals."

Delaney begrudgingly got into her usual spot in the car, but Sam stood rooted in his place. She furrowed her eyebrows when she didn't see him move a muscle, but he was visibly fighting off a smirk as he saw Dean turn the key in the ignition. Immediately, Spanish music blasted from the radio and the windshield wipers switched on. She went to move and switch off the music but she fell back in her seat, something sticking her to it. "SAMUEL!"

Sam laughed as he dropped into the front seat and smirked at his siblings. He licked his finger and made a line in the air and pointed himself while mouthing "One. Me." to the two of them.

"YOU PUT GLUE IN MY CAR?!" Dean bellowed as he saw Delaney struggling to wiggle of her jacket and moved over to pull it off the seat, whining when she saw the back of her favorite jacket was now ruined.

"Sam, I will literally murder you," Delaney warned, her eyes flashing dangerously. "This is my favorite jacket!"

Dean looked back at her and they had a silent conversation with each other, promising to help the other get Sam back for ruining their favorite things - Delaney's jacket and Dean's car.

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The next morning, Delaney was woken up by Dean. With a groan she rolled over and buried her face into the pillow, not wanting to get up. 

"Della, come on. We gotta go," Dean said, continuing to shake her.

Delaney slapped his hand away and looked up at him with a pout. "Why? What happened?"

"When Sammy and I went to go get us breakfast, there was a group of people talking about how another girl died in the Hell House," Dean explained and he didn't have to say anymore before Delaney was scrambling out of bed and they rushed over to the house.

When they got to the Hell House, there were police and ambulances parked in front of the broken down house. Paramedics were rolling out the dead body on a gurney and pushing it over to the awaiting ambulance. 

"What happened?" Delaney questioned the officer that had just sent one of the deputies off to continue searching the house.

"Couple of cops say that poor girl hung herself in the house," the officer informed solemnly. "She was a straight-A student with a full ride to U.T., too. It just don't make sense."

Delaney slapped both of her brothers on the chest. "I told you I still had a bad feeling about this whole thing. Now look what happened. Another innocent girl lost her life."

Dean ran a hand over his hair as he watched the paramedics lift the gurney into the back of the ambulance and close the back doors to it, turning to talk to the officers standing nearby. He licked his lips as he analyzed everything and tried to process it all. "Okay, so maybe we did miss something."

The three Winchesters decided to leave the Hell House until night fall when the cops would surely be gone. They took the time to set up whatever weapons they might possibly need for the hunt and do a little bit more research so they were fully prepared for whatever hit them. However, their plan seemed to be a little bit more complicated than they originally planned.

When they got back to the house, two cop cars still sat outside the house with their engines and lights still on. A group of officers walked around the perimeter of the house or stood to the side and spoke to each other quietly.

Delaney huffed as she crouched next to her brothers behind a tall bush. "Why are the cops still here? Shouldn't they have left already?"

"Maybe the cops don't want any more kids screwing around in there," Sam whispered as his eyes scanned the area littered with officers.

"Yeah, but we still got to get in there," Dean reminded as the gears in his head turned at turbo speed trying to figure out the best way to get in the house without any of the officers seeing them.

A twig snapping behind them caused the three siblings to whip around and they groaned together in unison at the sight of Ed and Harry. They wore night-vision goggles and bags that probably held all the equipment they thought actually worked. 

"You have got to be kidding me," Delaney cried and buried her face in Sam's shoulder next to her, not wanting to see either one of those Hellhound guys. "Why are they here?"

"I got an idea," Dean whispered to his siblings and Delaney lifted her head from Sam's shoulder to look at Dean in confusion. He turned and stood up a bit, cupping a hand around his mouth and yelling, "WHO YOU GONNA CALL?"

Delaney pressed her hand to her mouth to hide her laughs as the officers barked an order at Ed and Harry to get back when the two rushed off once they were caught. She high fived her older brother before they took the opportunity to rush into the house and closed the front door behind them quietly.

Sam dropped the duffle to the ground and squatted down in front of it as he opened it up. He passed both of his siblings a flashlight and gun before kicking the now empty duffle by the front door and they slowly made their way into the room they had first looked around when they came the day before.

"Where have I seen that symbol? It's killing me," Dean complained as he stared down the symbol that still sat above the fireplace.

"Come on. We don't have much time," Sam whispered and ushered his siblings down into the basement where the girl had supposedly hung herself. 

Dust littered every surface and there were jars filled with uncertain items across from the stairs. Delaney grimaced at the odd substances in each one and she felt her stomach churn at the thought of what they could possibly be. 

Dean lifted one of the jars filled with an orange liquid and he held it up to Sam. "Hey, I dare you to drink this, dude."

"The Hell would I do that for?" Sam gagged as Dean moved it closer to his face and Delaney merely rolled her eyes, grabbing the jar from Dean's hand and placing it back on the shelf.

"Can you ever be serious?"

"What? Come on, Della! It would be hil - " Dean was cut off by a creaking noise coming from their left. The three narrowed their eyes in that direction and shone their flashlights that way into the dark. "Della, stay between Sammy and I, okay? We don't need this thing getting you too if it's real."

Delaney opened her mouth to defend herself and say that it was real, especially if the boys thought they should come in guns blazing. They definitely believed it now. She decided it against it, though, and just followed her brothers over to the small cabinet on the other side of the shelf they stood in front of. Sam stood to the side of it while Delaney and Dean stood in front and they nodded for Sam to open it.

Sam slowly reached his hand out and wrapped his hand around the metal handle and quickly swung the door open, a group of rats squeaking and scurrying out afterwards. 

Delaney squealed and jumped into Dean's arms while she made a grossed out face at the rats that ran around the floor beneath her. Her arms wrapped tightly around Dean's neck and she hid her face in his chest, shaking it furiously as he tightened his hold on her so he wouldn't drop her. "I hate rats."

"You'd rather it was a ghost?" Sam questioned incredulously.

Delaney peeked out at Sam from Dean's chest and meekly nodded. She noticed Sam's face pale as he looked over Dean's shoulder and she glanced over it as well to see a tall male standing behind Dean. Sam immediately opened fire while Dena spun around to see what must be the guy that had been haunting the house. Now Delaney was even more glad she was already in Dean's arms because she probably would have froze at the sight of him.

No matter how many times Sam shot at it, the ghost just disappeared and reappeared again. "What the Hell kind of ghost is immune to rock salt?!"

Dean slowly backed up with Sam next to him and gently set Delaney back down onto her feet, gripping her hand tightly. "I don't know, but come on!" He yelled as he pulled Delaney behind him, Sam taking up the rear.

As they passed by the shelf with the odd jars, something hit it and knocked right into Dean  and Sam which sent them to the ground. Delaney gasped as something grabbed her from behind and spun her around to see Murdoch stood in front of her. Sam shot another salt bullet at him and he pushed Delaney up the stairs once him and Dean were back on their feet again before Murdoch could reappear and hang their sister next.

Dean burst through the front door and the three stumbled out to see Ed and Harry stood there with their stupid camera and equipment. He pushed past them as they rushed back towards the Impala and sped back to the motel.

Sam sat at the table with his laptop open to the Hellhounds website and dozens of lore books opened around him. Delaney laid curled up next to Dean who drew the symbol over on the pad in his hands. She was still a bit spooked about Murdoch grabbing her and almost hanging her from the rafters. She tried to act like it didn't affect her but when Dean noticed how quiet she was, he had her lay down next to him let her latch onto his arm to help her calm down.

"What is this symbol?" Dean cursed as he stared down at the drawing in his hands. "It's bugging the Hell out of me. This whole damn job is bugging me. I mean the thing almost got and killed my baby sister!"

Delaney played with the material of Dean's button up shirt sleeve that was bunched around his elbows. "I just don't get why he went after you guys, too. Why did he break that shelf and send you guys to the ground like that?"

"Well, the legend did say that he also hung himself, but you see those slit wrists?" Sam asked, his eyes still scanning the book propped open on his laptop. "What's up with that? He had an axe, too, if you guys didn't notice that one. Ghosts are usually pretty strict, right, following the same patterns over and over?"

"His mood keeps changing," Dean voiced in realization as his gaze snapped over to Sam.

Sam nodded and glanced over his shoulder to his siblings. "Exactly. I'm telling you, the way the story goes - wait a minute."

Delaney froze at Sam's tone and glanced over to him as he clicked around on the website. "What is it?"

"Someone added a new posting to the Hellhound site," Sam replied as his eyes scanned the newest entry. "They say Mordechai Murdoch was really a satanist who chopped up his victims with an ax before slitting his own wrists. Now he's imprisoned in the house for eternity."

Delaney made a sound when Dean leaned up on the bed, knocking her off his arm where she was comfortable. "I think I might have just figured out where it all started."

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"Why are we back here?" Delaney asked Dean as she followed after him towards the record shop Craig worked at.

"Just trust me," Dean dismissed and pushed the door open to the shop just as Craig was making his way up the short steps that lead to the next level to the store. "Hey, Craig. Remember us?"

Craig threw his head back as he closed his eyes, not turning to face the siblings. "Guys, look, I'm really not in the mood to answer any more of your questions, okay?"

"Don't worry," Delaney replied, stuffing her hands into her back pockets with an innocent smile. "We're just here to buy an album, that's all.

Dean grabbed a random album and tapped it against his hands as he narrowed his eyes at Craig. "You know, I couldn't figure out what that symbol was, and then I realized it could mean anything. It's a logo for Blue Oyster Cult." He slowly made his way over to Craig who had clearly heard what he said and he waved the exact album in the kid's face. "Tell me, Craig, you into B.O.C. or just scaring the Hell out of people?"

Dean handed Craig the album who flipped it over to the back of the album where the symbol stared up at the four of them. He seemed to become visibly annoyed that he had been caught by Dean that it was him that drew that symbol. "Why don't you tell us about that house - without lying through your ass this time?" 

Craig sighed and nodded, leaning against a small rack of albums behind him. "Okay, okay. My cousin Dana was on break from TCU. I guess we were just bored, looking for something to do, so I showed her this abandoned dump I found. We thought it would be funny if we made it look like it was haunted so we pained symbols on the walls, some from song albums, some from Dana's theology textbooks. Then we found out this guy Murdoch used to live there, so we - we made up some story to go along with that. They told people who told other people and then these two guys put it on their stupid website. Everything just took on a life of its own."

Delaney stared at Craig in disbelief. How could one kid and his cousin spin this whole story about Murdoch and then have kids constantly go in there, just to have the females die after? She wondered if Craig was the reason that Murdoch's soul was now awake and hurting people since he was the one who spun the story and had kids keep disturbing the home.

"I mean, I thought it was funny at first," Craig admitted, hugging his arms around himself as he seemed to deflate a little at the retelling of what happened. "Now that girl's dead. It was just a joke, you know? None of it was real. We made the whole thing up. I swear."

Dean cleared his throat and nudged his head to the side, signaling Sam and Delaney to follow him out of the shop. They left a now distraught Craig behind them as they made their way down the couple of steps that lead to the second level of the store and over to the front door. "If none of it was real, how the Hell do you explain Mordechai?"

◆ ◇◆ ◇

Delaney followed Dean out of the store a few blocks from their motel and grinned at him. "He is going to kill us you know."

"Dude, he ruined my back seat and your favorite jacket," Dean reminded as he gestured to the back of Delaney's now ruined jacket that had glue sticking to it everywhere and the leather ripped in a few tiny places from when she had to rip it off the seat. "I promise I'll buy you another one, by the way."

Delaney smiled softly at Dean's obvious caring of her jacket. "Thanks, Dean, but I still can't believe you listened to me and are actually going through with it."

"It's a good prank!" Dean exclaimed as they walked through the parking lot of the motel and over to their room. "I'm very impressed."

"I learned from the best," Delaney pushed the motel door open and she winked at Dean when she heard the shower running. She held her hand out for the Itching Powder and Dean happily placed it in her hand. 

"Hey, Sammy, we're back!" Dean called to Sam as the water stopped running, which only made Delaney react quick and shake some of the powder into Sam's boxers that he left out on the bed with his clothes.

"Where did you go?"

Delaney exchanged a look with Dean and she glanced behind her to the door. "Oh, you know, out."

"So, I think I might have a theory about what's going on," Sam yelled through the door of the bathroom. "What if Mordechai is a Tulpa?"

"Tulpa?" Delaney asked, never having heard the name before. The door swung open behind her and she shoved the powder packet into the inner pocket of her jacket and spun around to face Sam who had a towel wrapped around his waist and his dripping wet from his shower. "Oh, hi."

"It's a Tibetan thought form," Sam explained to Delaney who nodded in understanding.

Dean cleared his throat, trying to keep the smile off his face. "Get dressed and we'll go get some food, yeah?"

Sam furrowed his eyebrows at his siblings' odd behavior, but he ignored it and quickly got dressed before the three made their way to the diner down the road. Delaney walked up to the order window inside and politely ordered her and her brothers' food, paying the cashier shortly after. 

Delaney lead the way over to the pick up window and she nudged Dean subtly as she noticed Sam squirming and pulling at his pants. "Sammy, you okay?"

"I'm fine," Sam quickly replied, instantly stopping his itching and squirming to make it seem like nothing was wrong.

Delaney had to turn and face the pick up window so Sam wouldn't notice the smirk that was fighting so hard to fall onto her face. That's what he gets for ruining her jacket. Thankfully, as she spun back to the window their food arrived so it wouldn't look as if she was trying to avoid his gaze. The siblings grabbed their respective food and coffee and sat at the high top table by the pick up window.

"So, what about these Tulpas?" Dean questioned once they were situated and eating their food.

Sam slid his laptop out and opened it up. "Okay, so, there was this incident in Tibet during 1915. A group of monks visualize a Golem in their heads. They meditate on it so hard, they bring the thing to life out of thin air."

"So?" Delaney prodded, biting into her breakfast sandwich.

"Delly, that was twenty monks," Sam scoffed and gave her a look that said anyone should find this odd so why wasn't she? "Imagine what ten thousand web servers could do. I mean, Craig starts the story about Mordechai, then it spreads, goes online. Now there are countless people all believing in the bastard."

Dean waved his hand for Sam to stop his story and placed down his coffee cup he was drinking from. "Okay, wait a second - you're trying to tell me that just because people believe in Mordechai, he's real?" 

"I don't know," Sam said as he clicked around on his laptop, still squirming around as the itching powder Delaney had sprinkled into his pants and underwear continued to bother him. She bit her lip to keep herself from laughing and blowing her and Dean's cover. "Maybe."

"People believe in Santa Claus," Dean countered. "How come I'm not getting hooked up every Christmas?"

"You still believe in Santa Claus?" Delaney asked around her sandwich and Dean made a grossed out face as she spoke with her mouth full, something he hated. "Sorry."

Sam drank some of his coffee as he continued to type away at his laptop. "Cause you are a bad person and cause of this," he spun the laptop around to face his siblings. On the screen was a photo of yet another symbol that was posted to the Hellhound website. Delaney tilted her head as she inspected it, never having anything like the swirly symbol before. 

"Craig said they were painting symbols from a theology textbook. I bet you they painted this, not even knowing what it was. This sigil has been used for centuries, concentrating meditative thoughts like a magnifying glass. So people are on the Hellhound's website, staring at the symbol thinking about Mordechai. I mean, I don't know, but it might be enough to bring a Tulpa to life."

Delaney slowly chewed her food as she stared at the symbol and thought about everything that had happened with the spirit so far and why it was new for them when they went to the house from when the first victim died in that house. "It would explain why it keeps changing form."

"Right," Sam agreed and nodded, wiggling his butt on the seat as if to itch wherever was bothering him without his siblings noticing - they noticed. "As the legend changes, people think different things, so Mordechai himself changes. Like a game of telephone. That would also explain why the rock salt didn't work."

"Yeah, cause he's not a traditional spirit per se," Delaney noted. "So why don't we just get this spirit sigil thingy off the wall and off the website?"

Sam made a face and scratched the back of his neck. "Well, um, it's not that easy. You see, once Tulpas are created, they take on a life of their own."

Dean ran a hand over his face as he groaned in frustration. "All right, so if he really is a thought form, how the Hell are we supposed to kill an idea?"

"It's not going to be easy with those guys helping us," Sam replied, meaning the Hellhound boys. "Check out their homepage." He clicked to a video on the first page and it was a video of Harry speaking and investigating outside with his night vision goggles. "Since they posted the video, the number of hits have quadrupled in the past day."

Delaney huffed and glared at the video version of Harry running around while his dumb friend Ed followed after him. "I knew I hated these two for a reason."

"I got an idea. Come on," Dean said and hopped off his stool. "Time to find a copy store!"

Sam shut the laptop and shoved it into his bag. He squirmed around more as he got his stuff together, the itching powder clearly irritating him more so now than earlier as it continued to sit around in it. "Ugh, I think I'm allergic to our soap or something."

Delaney couldn't hold it back anymore and burst out laughing, gripping onto Dean for support who was having a hard time himself with not laughing. It only got worse when Sam turned to them with a death glare, realizing why the two were hysterical.

"YOU DID THIS?"

Delaney mockingly licked her finger and made two lines in the air while mouthing "Two. Us." with a smirk as she backed away from a furious Sam.

"Just because there's two of you does not mean you both get points!" Sam yelled after Delaney and Dean who continued to laugh as they backed out of the diner.

"Next time don't mess with my car or Delaney's clothes, dude," Dean chuckled as he dodged Sam's fist that was coming for his arm. "Gotta be quicker next time."

◆ ◇◆ ◇

"Can I do the honors?" Delaney asked her brothers as they stood in front of the door to Harry and Ed's trailer. Once she got the nod of approval from her brothers she turned and banged obnoxiously on the trailer door to spook the boys. When she heard the boys scream at the sudden noise, she grinned in approval. "Come on out here, bozos. I hear you in there."

The door swung open and Harry and Ed poked their heads out the door, looks of annoyance on their faces at the laughing one of Delaney's. 

"Well, well, well hello there, fellas!" Delaney greeted, throwing her hands into the air in mock excitement. "How ya doin?"

Ed stepped out of the trailer first and folded his arms. "Yeah, um, sorry guys. We're kind of busy at the moment."

"Well, I'll promise to make it quick then," Dean remarked with an eye roll. "We need you to shut down your website."

Ed laughed incredulously as he looked between the three siblings in front of him. "You know, these guys get us busted last night. We spend the whole night in a holding cell."

"I had to pee in front of people and I get stage fright," Harry cut in and Delaney grimaced at his fill in that really did not to be added in. 

"Gross."

"Why should we trust you guys?" Ed questioned, ignoring Delaney's comment.

"Look, we all know what we saw last night, what's in the house," Sam voiced before Delaney or Dean could jump in with a sarcastic remark, which he saw the both of them get ready to do. "Now, thanks to your website, there are thousands of people hearing about Mordechai."

"Which means people are gonna keep showing up and running into him," Dean added. "Somebody could get hurt."

Harry seemed to take their words into consideration as he glanced sideways at his friend. "Ed, maybe he's got a point."

"Nope," Ed immediately shot down. "We have an obligation to our fans, to the truth."

Delaney stepped forward with a growl. "I have an obligation to shove my foot so far up your a- "

"Delaney, hey, just forget it," Sam cut her off and pouted slightly. "These guys - you could probably bitch slap them both.  I could probably even tell them that thing about Mordechai, but they're still not gonna help us. So let's just go."

Delaney suddenly caught on to Sam's obvious lie and faked a sigh before nodding solemnly. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Sorry for bothering you."

"Wait, wait!" Harry and Ed called after the siblings, the three freezing mid-step and looked over their shoulders at the two now invested Harry and Ed. "What thing about Mordechai?"

"Tell them, Sam," Dean urged as the three resumed walking again making Harry and Ed run after them.

"But if they agree to shut their website down - "

Delaney scoffed and gave Sam a look. "They're not going to do it. You said so yourself."

"No, wait!" Harry exclaimed. "Don't listen to him, okay? We'll do it."

The three stopped in front of the Impala and subtly looked at Harry and Ed before back at each other again.

"It's a secret, Sammy," Delaney reminded and leaned against the Impala as she took in the now desperate Harry and Ed. "It wasn't easy to dig up, so only if we have their word that they'll shut their website down, can you say anything."

Harry frantically nodded and quietly promised to take whatever they had up so the siblings would spill their guts.

Dean unfolded the death certificate they copied at the store and held it out for Harry and Ed. "It's a death certificate from the 30s. We got it at the library. According to the coroner, the actual cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound."

"He's right," Delaney smiled at the two boys and stuffed her hands in her jacket pocket. "He didn't cut or hang himself."

"He shot himself?" Harry questioned suspiciously.

"Yep, with a .45 pistol," Sam explained. "To this day, they say he's terrified of them."

Dean nodded his head as if whatever Sam said was true. "They say if you shoot him with a .45 loaded with these special wrought iron rounds, you'd kill the son of a bitch."

Harry and Ed's eyes widened in amazement before the two turned and ran back to their trailer. It was clear they were going to post it to their website and it was hilarious how easy it was to bait and trap those two idiots.

◆ ◇◆ ◇

Delaney, Dean and Sam sat in a random diner with Sam's laptop on the table opened up to the Hellhound website. Delaney pulled on the string next to her, making the doll hung up on a wooden board above their heads make a creepy laughing sound and his arms and legs moved from side to side.

Sam reached out and pulled it, cutting off the creepy laughing and he glared at his sister. "You pull that one more time and I will end you."

Delaney being the annoying little sister she was reached up again and pulled the string, laughing along with the creepy doll. Not even two seconds later, Sam pulled the string again while Dean watched the whole scene in amusement. Visibly proud of his sister that she was bothering Sam so effortlessly. Now he knew where she got it from - him.

"Come on, Sam," Delaney giggled quietly as she relaxed back in her seat. "You need some laughter in your life. You're so tense all the time."

Sam grabbed his beer and took a long sip from it, ignoring his sister and stared at his screen.

Dean rolled his eyes at Sam being a baby over the whole thing and just decided to move on. "They post it yet?"

Sam turned the screen around wordlessly and allowed his siblings to read the newest post from Ed and Harry.

We have learned from reputable sources that Mordechai Murdoch has a fatal fear of firearms.

Delaney was still so amazed at how easily those two believed the three of them. It was almost too easy to fool them. "So how long do we wait to attack then?"

Sam closed his laptop and pulled it back towards him again. "Long enough for the new story to spread and the legend to change. I figure by nightfall, iron wounds will work on the sucker."

"Sweet!" Dean exclaimed as he grabbed his beer and clinked it with Sam's then clinked it with Delaney's glass soda bottle. The two took a sip of their drinks while Sam smirked around his rim at the two.

Delaney slowly brought the bottle away from her mouth as she closed the lid. When she went to set it down, the bottle wouldn't come off her hand. She shook it, but to no avail. It was stuck to her hand, just like she had been stuck to the back seat of the Impala. Her intense gaze immediately landed on Sam, who would have been dead if looks could kill.

"You didn't," Dean calmly spoke, though Delaney could tell he was just as pissed as she was.

Sam continued to laugh as he slowly raised the small bottle of super glue in his hand. "Oh, I did." He pulled the string which made the creepy doll go off again as his laughter only escalated as his two siblings tried to shake their bottles off their hands. 

So much for Sam needing more laughter in his life.

◆ ◇◆ ◇

Later that night, Delaney snuck back into the Hell House with Sam and Dean, flashlights and pistols back in their hands for their second and hopefully final round with this damn Tulpa. The gun in her hand stung slightly still from when Dean had to rip the bottle off her hand at the diner and she had to do the same to his. "Ugh, this stings so bad. I have like no skin left on my palm. Thanks a lot, Sammy."

"I would say I'm sorry, but I'm really not," Sam chuckled softly as they slowly crept around the house, checking every corner and room with their flashlights.

Dean kicked open a door and they stumbled into the room that lead to the door to the basement. The three eyed the door warily, guns loaded and ready. "You think old Mordechai is home?"

"I don't know," Delaney whispered.

"Me neither," came a voice from behind them and the siblings whirled around with their guns cocked, ready to fire. 

However, it wasn't the Tulpa. Just two paranormal idiots with night vision goggles. Delaney huffed and lowered her gun as she glared at the two of them. "I seriously hate you guys more than any person I have ever met in my entire life."

"Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Sam scolded as he and Dean followed in Delaney's steps of lowering their weapons.

"Just trying to get a book and movie deal, okay?" Ed replied, holding his hands up in defense.

Scraping was heard from behind the basement door and Delaney spun back around, her gun raised yet again as Harry and Ed rushed up to hide behind the siblings.

"Uh, guys, you want to open that door for us?" Ed suggested, holding the camcorder up over the siblings' shoulders.

"Why don't you?" Dean countered.

Mordechai burst open the basement door and the siblings immediately opened fire on him with their pistols, a bright light shining through the room as Mordechai screamed and disappeared into black smoke.

Dean motioned for siblings to spread out and the three took opposite directions, Sam and Dean going to the adjacent rooms while Delaney slowly scanned the room around them as Harry and Ed fumbled around with the camera. They cared more about getting Mordechai being on camera than him actually being gone which annoyed Delaney even more.

Mordechai yelling caused Delaney to spin around as he swatted the camera out of Harry's hand and knocking him to the ground. Delaney quickly shot Mordechai sending him into another puff of black smoke.

"Didn't you two post that story we told you?" Dean questioned, rushing back into the room with Sam at the sound of Delaney's gun going off.

"Yeah, but then our servers crashed," Harry answered, looking  freaked out from being pushed to the ground and attacked by Mordechai.

Delaney's eyes widened and she slowly lowered her gun, her mind processing what Harry had just implied. "These guns won't work. The freakin story didn't take." The two boys sheepishly nodded and she turned to Dean frantically. "Any ideas?"

"We are getting out of here," Harry announced and rushed out of the room, pulling Ed after him. 

Delaney heard the two boys from two rooms over and Sam seemed to get an idea as he rushed after the two boys. She watched as Dean got out a bottle of gasoline and drenched the floorboards of the kitchen. Hearing Sam's cries for them the two rushed into the room and Dean used a homemade flame thrower, pointing it at Mordechai. "GO!"

Delaney grabbed onto Sam's arm and pulled him out of the house after her, Dean trailing behind. "Look, if Mordechai can't leave the house and we can't kill him, we improvise."

Dean pushed them out the door as he flicked on the lighter in his hand and tossed it onto the floor, the house immediately beginning to go up in flames. They stood a good distance from the house, behind the same bush they hid behind the night prior.

"Thats your solution?" Sam yelled, gesturing to the now burning house. "Burn the whole damn place to the ground?"

"No one will go in anymore," Delaney defended. "He can't haunt a house if there's no house to haunt."

"It's fast and dirty, but it works," Dean added in as he turned to watch his and Delaney's dirty work.

Sam opened and closed his mouth a few times as he tried to formulate a proper thought about what his siblings did. "What if the legend changes and Mordechai is allowed to leave the house?" 

Delaney chewed her lip as she noticed the flaw in her and Dean's plan while Sam was off distracting him. "Um... well... we just come back?"

"Kind of makes you wonder - of all the things we hunted, how many existed just because people believed in them," Sam commented with a light chuckle.

◆ ◇◆ ◇

A few hours later, Delaney, Dean and Sam waited near Harry and Ed's trailer for them to come strolling back from the store. They heard their conversation and none of them paid much attention to what they were saying because God knows no one would want to nor would anyone understand their odd conversations.

"Should we tell them?" Harry questioned Ed as they walked past the Winchesters.

"You might as well, they'll just read about it in the trades," Ed smirked, adjusting the grocery bag in his arms. "We got a phone call from a very important Hollywood producer."

"Oh yeah? Wrong number?" Dean teased with a smirk of his own.

Ed glared jokingly at Dean. "No, smartass. He read all about the Hell House on our website and wants to option the motion picture rights, maybe even have us write it."

"And create the RPG," Harry concluded as they put their groceries in the car parked outside the trailer and leaned against the open door.

"The what?" Dean asked, not being a gamer and knowing nothing of the world of gaming. Delaney was lucky he knew what Mario and Luigi were.

"Role-playing game," Harry clarified for Dean.

"It's a little lingo for you," Ed winked at the three in front of him. "Anyhoo, excuse us. We're off to La La Land."

Delaney crossed her arms, an amused expression taking over her. "Congratulations, guys. That sounds really great."

"Yeah, that's awesome. Best of luck to you," Dean called as the two got in their car and drove off.

Delaney watched as the two turned the corner and suddenly burst into laughter. "Those two are seriously so dumb."

"What are you talking about?" Sam inquired, looking at Delaney oddly at her sudden burst of laughter.

"I was the one who called them and told them I was a producer!" Delaney informed.

Sam threw his head back and laughed hard, leading the way back to the Impala. "Well, I'm the one who put the dead fish in their backseat." He coughed into his hand as he tried to calm his breathing down after his sister's sudden prank. "Truce, guys?"

"Sure... for the next hundred miles," Dean replied with a suspicious smile before he hopped into the driver's seat.

"This is going to be a long drive."

authors note

Hi hey hello

So in honor of April Fool's Day, here is an episode full of pranks from everyone's favorite sibling trio!! I actually didn't realize this was the episode I was up to until I started the episode (I may or may not have mixed up episode 17 with episode 18 when I was trying to remember the episode order) and once I realized this was the episode where the boys prank each other while taking dealing with the two paranormal idiots, I just knew i had to get this chapter out today for April Fool's Day. It's just the only logical explanation. 

ANYWAYS, DON'T FORGET TO VOTE AND COMMENT YOUR THOUGHTS. I LOVE HEARING WHAT YOU GUYS THINK AS THE STORY GOES ON!