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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐄𝐍

𝘨𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘦𝘳𝘴

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Delaney stood in front of the gate that ran around the Morton House that the Winchesters were to check out. When they arrived, other voices could be heard and beams of light from flashlights were visible in the high grass in the area. So now not only did they have to find out what was in the house, but also find who out was in the house and get them out first. To say the three were less than excited about it was an understatement.

"Let's get this over with," Dean huffed, pushing open the gate that had already been broken into by whoever crept into the house before them. He lead the way across the grassy land filled with weeds and other things that Delaney didn't even want to think about, quietly opening the front door when they reached the porch. Voices could be heard on the other side of the house and the Winchesters quietly followed them until they saw two beams of light from the other end of a hallway. "Police! Freeze!"

The two males they caught screamed in a panic as the siblings approached with their own flashlights raised. Delaney's eyes landed on the curly haired male who wore glasses and she tilted her head, feeling as if she saw him from somewhere before. The other male dressed in camouflage cowered closer to the curly haired male, clear fright on his face at the sight of the three siblings who he believed were actual cops. The one in camouflage held a handheld camera to film whatever it was they were doing.

"What - what - are we under arrest?" camouflage cried.

The curly haired one eyed the siblings for a moment as recognition flickered across his face. "I know you three."

Dean rose an eyebrow at the curly haired one, finding it a ploy to get them on his side. "Sure you do. Give me some identification."

It took Delaney another moment before she suddenly realized where she knew the curly haired one from. "Oh, holy shit."

"What?"

"West Texas - the Tulpa we had to take out, those two goofballs that almost got us killed... the HellHounds or something?"

Dean and Sam's gazes both focused solely on the curly haired one that Delaney remembered as Ed and they both groaned in annoyance at the memory of Ed and his partner, Harry, nearly getting the five of them killed. Delaney bit her tongue before it started to spit insults rapid fire at Harry, who should have stopped his stupid ghost hunting website. He wasn't Ghost Busters and he never would be. He and Harry would only get themselves actually killed.

"Fuck me."

"Yeah, we're not HellHounds anymore, okay?" Ed corrected and cocky tone he had only made the three siblings want to strangle him more. "It didn't test that well."

"Ed, what's going on?" Camouflage asked 

Ed turned to Camouflage and shook his head, clearly not even bothered by the sight of the Winchesters. "They're not cops, buddy."

"Ed, you had a partner, too, didn't you - a different guy?" Sam questioned, glancing around the room for Harry. "Is he around somewhere?"

"He's running around chasing ghosts."

"Okay, well, listen, you and Rambo need to get your girlfriends and get out of here," Dean ordered, not wanting Ed in his sight for another second. 

Ed chuckled and bowed his head, stepping closer to the three Winchesters. Honestly, Delaney was curious what cocky remark Ed would have for them this time. It was clear he thought he was a bit shot now that he witnessed what happened in West Texas. Something he and Harry hadn't even done anything to help the siblings besides be a thorn in all their sides. "Listen here, chisel chest, okay? We were here first. We've already set up base camp. We beat you."

Delaney snorted and turned to her brothers with an amused grin. "You hear that, boys? They were here first." She turned back to Ed and narrowed her eyes at him, shoving him up against the wall behind him with her hand balled up into the front of his shirt. "Listen here, Ghost Loser, you're going to tell my brothers and I where your partner is."

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Ed and his new partner - who Ed introduced as Corbett - lead the three Winchesters into what used to be the living room of the old, dusty house where a table was set up with laptops and a two lights, a camcorder set up on the end facing the two laptops. There was still no sign of Ed or the other two - Maggie and Spruce - and Delaney couldn't even begin to imagine where they went.

"What are you doing at the Morton House, Ed, huh? On leap year - what are you thinking?" Dean barked, standing on the other side of the table with Delaney and Sam on either side of him while Corbett stood next to Ed in front of the laptops.

"We're here to spend the night, okay? It's for our TV show."

"What?" Sam balked and slapped a hand to his side, frustrated Ed could be this stupid. Though, the level of stupidity didn't really surprise Delaney all that much. "Great. Perfect."

"Yeah, nobody's ever spent the night before," Corbett chimed in with a grin, proud that he'd be able to say that he was the first to spend the night in Morton House. Little did he know though...

Delaney rolled her eyes and crossed her arms across her chest. "Actually, they have. The ones that have never lived to talk about it."

Ed laughed at Delaney's warning and waved her off. "Eh, I don't believe you."

Dean's eyes darkened as they landed on Ed and he threateningly stepped closer to the table between him and Ed. Sam was quick to pull Dean back and placed the duffle bag on the table, pulling out the multiple reports for Ed and Corbett to look at. "Look - missing persons reports going back almost half a century. John Graham stayed on a dare - gone. Julie Wilkinson - gone. There are tons more. All of them came to just stay the night through, always on a leap year. The only body they ever found was the last owner, Freeman Daggett."

Ed flipped through the multiple reports, but he still looked like he wants to disbelieve everything Sam had just showed him. "These look legit."

"They are legit. Look, Ed, we ain't got much time here, buddy. Starting at midnight, your friends are going to die."

"Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!" a male voice yelled as three people ran down the stairs and into the living room. The male who screamed Delaney recognized as Harry and she figured the other male and female with him were Maggie and Spruce. "Oh my God! We got one! Corbett! Corbett, we saw one! We saw one! It was a full apparition! It was like a Class Four! It was a special illumination! It..." He trailed off when his eyes landed on the three Winchesters and he recognized them quicker than Ed had. "Hey, aren't those the assholes from Texas?"

Delaney let the insult roll off her back because she quite literally did not care what any of these amateurs thought of her. She'd rather they live than die from stupidity because they all thought they were the next Ghost Busters. "Alright, can we have this reunion across the street maybe? We'll even get you ice cream - our treat."

Ed and Harry both refused to leave while Maggie rushed around to the laptops and pulled up the video feed from upstairs just moments ago. She gestured for everyone to gather around so she could show them what happened upstairs. There was no audio to the video, but a man dressed in 1900s clothing was seen just off to the side and he was shot twice before his spirit vanished.

Delaney gaped at the sight, knowing that none of that was good. She saw Dean and Sam move off to the side out of the corner of her eye and she ran over to them just as Sam mentioned something about a death echo.

"Yeah, but what's a death echo doing here? Did anybody get shot here?"

"None that Sam and I could find," Delaney responded, chewing her lower lip. 

"What's a death echo?"

Sam glanced over his shoulder to the guy Spruce who had posed the question and exhaled heavily. "Okay, we got a problem here. That ghost ain't it."

"Echoes are trapped in a loop. They keep replaying how they died over and over, usually in the place they were ganked. It's about as dangerous as a scary movie," Dean added.

"Maybe the echo's not dangerous, but maybe something else is," Delaney suggested.

"You're right, we need to get out of here, guys!" Sam announced to the voices in the room that kept talking over the other excitedly over the sight of the death echo. None of them understood how horrible their situation was. Or if they did, they just didn't care at all.

Sam and Dean began to usher the group out who all complained about all their equipment they had to leave behind, but none of the Winchesters cared at this point. They just wanted to get themselves and this group of idiots out of the house before something happened. Dean still had two months to live and Delaney would rather he live for those two months instead of him dying now, thank you very much.

"Wait!" Ed called, stopping the group from leaving the living room. "Wait. Where's Corbett? No man left behind."

As if on cue, an anguished scream was heard from somewhere in the house and the GhostFacers rushed off in the direction the sound came from, screaming how it was Corbett. As much as Delaney found it admirable that these guys were so close and cared enough about each other to not leave someone behind, that didn't change the fact that Delaney and the boys should have ran up the stairs after Corbett not the GhostFacers. They didn't know the first thing about stopping a spirit, nor did they know what they had to deal with.

The siblings had ran up the stairs after the GhostFacers to stop them from doing anything stupid. Corbett was nowhere to be found upstairs so the GhostFacers were ushered back into the living room much to their distaste. 

Delaney and the boys stood near the front door, trying to get it opened even though it was clearly not budging anytime soon. She checked her watch and huffed when she saw that it was now 12:04 AM and her annoyance with Dean doubled. Before they left, Delaney had tried to stop Dean from coming here, but as usual Dean ignored her. Even Sam had tried to tell him hunting the Morton House was a dumb idea and they should just move on to something else. 

"Well, it's 12:04, Dean. You good? You happy?"

"Yeah, I am happy."

"Let's go hunt the Morton House, you said. It'll be like our Grand Canyon," Delaney snapped at Dean.

"Delaney, I don't want to hear this," Dean complained, still trying to press his shoulder into the door to get it open.

Delaney pulled on Dean's arm and got him to look at her and she didn't miss the way he flinched at her hurt expression. It was the kind of expression she had worn the past few months because of how close Dean's death was. Now, he just had two months left and Delaney was starting to doubt Randy could save Dean at all even more. "You have two months left, Dee. Instead, we're gonna die tonight." She lifted a nearby chair and broke it against the glass of the front door, but it was as if she hadn't even hit it at all.

"Whoa! What the hell is going on?" Harry yelled as he and the rest of the GhostFacers ran over to the siblings.

"I'll tell you what's going on," Delaney hissed, tugging a frustrated hand through her hair. "Every door, every window, every exit out of this damned house - they are all sealed."

"Wh-why are they se-sealed?" Maggie stammered, panic evident in her face.

"It's a supernatural lockdown, okay? Whatever took Corbett doesn't want us to leave, and it's no death echo. This is a bad mother, and it wants us scared," Dean explained, sighing heavily as he glanced around them for something to do.

Maggie shuffled on her feet and her wide eyes bounced to everyone in the room. "Or it just wants us."

"Uh, guys, the camera's fritzing again," Spruce announced, holding his handheld camera in his hand. 

"Whoa, guys, the EMF's starting to spike," Harry added next, fiddling with the whirring device in his hand. "This is a big one!"

"Everybody, stay close. There's something coming," Sam instructed the group, back pressed against Delaney's and Dean's pressed against their sides as they tried to keep eye on every entryway into the foyer where they still stood.

Suddenly, another apparition appeared in the living room in a beige jacket, different to the man from earlier that they saw on the camera footage.

"This is a different echo than the one from earlier," Delaney noted, tilting her head at the apparition. "Multiple echos? That's not normal."

"Okay, alright, alright," Dean mumbled before he rushed towards the apparition and stood in front of him. "Hey. Hey. Wake up. You're dead! Hello!"

"What is he doing?" Ed asked Sam and Delaney.

"Uh, it's rare, but sometimes you can shock an echo out of its loop if you can talk to the past of the ghost that's still human, but usually you have to have some kind of connection to the deceased," Sam informed.

"Come on! Wake up! Be dead!"

The GhostFacers heard a sound from behind them, but Delaney and Sam had no idea what they heard. It took a moment until the sound of a car horn was heard, sounding like it was zooming past the group still stood in the foyer and headlights crashed into the apparition. The apparition flew backwards as if hit by an invisible force and disappeared from sight.

What the hell was going on here?

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"There's no records of any of this here. No one got shot here. Obviously, no one got run over by a freaking train," Dean said, following after Sam down the hallway upstairs with Delaney at his side and the Ghostfacers behind them.

"Stay close."

"Did the echoes take Corbett?" Maggie asked.

"Yes. No. I don't know," Dean rambled, shaking his head and turning to look at the group behind him. "We don't know what's doing what here. That's what we're trying to figure out, okay?"

"Alright, just stay close," Sam instructed again, sounding annoyed with all the Ghostfacers behind him. "Okay, look, death echoes are ghosts. Now, ghosts - they usually haunt places where they lived or where they died."

"Except these people didn't live or die here," Delaney concluded for Sam, shining her flashlight around to see if any more apparitions were around.

"So, what are they doing here?"

Dean smirked and turned to Maggie who seemed to be the only competent one out of the Ghostfacers and Delaney found her the least annoying. If anything, she actually liked the dark haired girl. "Hey, give the lady a cigar. No, seriously, does looking at this nightmare through the camera make you feel better or something? I mean..."

Maggie shuffled awkwardly on her feet and glanced down to the handheld camera in her grip. "Uh... I, well, uh... yeah? I think so."

Delaney stepped into a room with the group to see a deer head on the wall above the fireplace and a variety of other stuffed animal heads on the adjacent walls. File cabinets were scattered about the room and Delaney noticed a broken framed certificate on the ground in the debris. She picked it up and blew the dust away from the cracked glass so she could read the certificate inside. "Freeman Daggett, house's last owner, officially commended for twenty years of fine service at the Gamble General Hospital."

"He's a doctor?" Dean asked.

"Uh... no. He was a janitor," Delaney corrected, placing the certificate back down where she found it.

"This looks like his den," Dean commented, shining his light around the dust filled room. "When'd you say he died - '64?"

"Yeah, heart attack," Sam replied, inspecting the items on top of the filing cabinet in the corner.

"What are these? C-rations?"

Dean walked over to where Maggie stood in front of a pile of food on top of a broken cabinet with its doors broken oof and cobwebs covering the entire thing. "Yeah, army-issued, three squares - like a lifetime supply."

"God, is that all he ate?" Maggie grimaced at the sight of the food while Harry sniffed it, recoiling at the stench at the very expired food rations.

"Hello. Locked!" Dean remarked, standing in front of the safe off to the side of the room. 

"Oh, come on, guys. This is ridiculous. I mean, how the hell is this supposed to find Corbett, huh?" Ed snapped, at his wits end with all of the time he thought the Winchesters wasted. "We should be digging up the friggin' floorboards right now."

"Huh," Sam said, turning a dusty pamphlet around in his hand. "Survival Under Atomic Attack. How optimistic of him."

A loud crash came from Dean's side of the room where he had finally broke open the safe. He removed the file box from inside the safe and turned around to bring it to the table when Ed's EMF meter was in his way. Dean glared at the curly haired male and he quickly scurried out of Dean's way before he could hit him, allowing Dean to place the box on the table so he could leaf through it. "Crap. Crap. Taxidermy. Okay. Della, you said Daggett was a hospital janitor?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Ew..." Dean groaned, pulling out three small tags from the box. "I got three toe tags here - death by gunshots, train accident, and suicide."

Delaney scrunched her nose up at the sight, her mind piecing together why the death echoes were here in the first place. "Ew... that explains why all the death echoes are here. They're here because their bodies are here somewhere in the house."

"Daggett brought the remains home from the morgue to play," Sam added on at the sight of Ed and Harry's confused expressions. However, at Sam's subtle hint to the morbidity that was Daggett, both of their expressions morphed into disgust.

"Wait a minute," Dean said, glancing around the room as he realized they were down one person. "Where's Maggie?"

The group all rushed back down the stairs to find Maggie back in the living room with a handheld in her hand and she jumped when she turned around to find Dean right behind her. He reminded her to stay with the group and not go off by herself. 

"Maggie? Maggie?" Harry yelled, rushing into the room to see that his sister was okay.

"She's fine, Harry."

"Harry, Harry," Ed whacked his partner's arm and showed him the EMF in his hand as its whirring progressively grew by the second. "It's at an 8.6 and climbing fast, look. Something big is coming. It's now past eleven."

Dean's eyes widened as he glanced down to the meter in Ed's hand, the hairs standing up on the back of his neck at the sight. "What? Okay. Nobody move! Hold on. Stay quiet."

Delaney listened for whatever Dean had heard from somewhere in the house before she was suddenly thrust into darkness.

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Delaney groaned as she slowly came to and her eyes blinked open, a throbbing pain came from her right eye and she could smell dried blood. Judging from the fact that it took a second longer to get her right eye open, Delaney had a hunch that the blood was caked over her right eye. She was tied to a chair that sat a long table with the bodies that Delaney figured belonged to the three toe tags Dean had found. All of them had party hats on and dirty plates with old birthday cake bits on it, a full cake still sat in the middle of the table with streamers around it.

At the other end of the table from her was Corbett, the same bloody situation going on by his right eye as well. It's My Party played from a record player on the other side of the room.

"Corbett!" Delaney called to Corbett who had also seemed to just have come to judging from his disoriented state. "Hey, you got to keep listening to my voice, okay? I'm right here. Stay awake."

"Don't listen," a gravely male voice chided, picking up a knife. Delaney couldn't see his face well since his back was to her, but she could see the dirt caked to his janitor's uniform and exposed arms and hands. "It stops hurting, so don't worry."

"Corbett, stay with me, you got it? I'm right here. Hey, stay with me," Delaney said and her eyes widened when she saw Daggett plunge the knife through Corbett's throat. "No! Corbett! Corbett!"

Daggett slowly turned to Delaney and she tried to fight out of her bonds even though it was useless. He slowly walked over to Delaney who tried to get him to stay back. "Oh, don't worry. This won't hurt. It's okay." He placed a party hat over Delaney's head and twirled the knife around on the table. "I've been waiting for some friends. I get lonely, but you're coming to my party, aren't you?"

Delaney growled and struggled more against the ropes, trying to loosen them any way that she could. Corbett's lifeless eyes continued to stare at her, which only made her want to get out more and give this Daggett guy a piece of her mind which ends in his death. 

"You'll stay a good, long time," Daggett said, circling Delaney's chair while he played with the knife in his hand. He stopped behind her chair and went to bring the knife to her neck when Dean and Sam kicked their way into the room.

"Delly!" Sam yelled, shooting Daggett in the face while Dean ran over to Delaney and untied her ropes.

Delaney bolted out of her chair once Dean untied her and she rubbed at the side of her head, groaning at the feeling of the dried blood. She wiped her hand on the back of her jeans and assured both of her brothers she was okay before they even opened their mouths to ask. 

"What's this Daggett guy's problem anyway?" Spruce asked, cowering back slightly with his camera when Delaney glared at him for getting it too close.

"Loneliness."

"What, he's never heard of a RealDoll?" Dean scoffed.

Delaney laughed and rolled her eyes playfully at her eldest brother. "No, no, no, Daggett was the Norman Bates, stuff-your-mother kind of lonely. That's why he lifted these bodies from the morgue, threw himself a birthday party. Except they were the only ones who would come. Anyway, so at midnight, he sealed them in the bomb shelter and went upstairs and O.D'd on horse tranqs."

"Okay, so now that he's dead, what? Same song, different verse, trying to get people to come to his party?" Sam asked, gesturing to the bomb shelter where Delaney and Corbett had been sealed in until the boys broke in to save Delaney. 

"Pretty much, yeah. Stay forever," Delaney said, taking the shotgun from Dean and making sure it had bullets in it.

Spruce aimed the camera at the fallen, used bullets that fell out of Delaney's gun and brought the camera back up to Delaney and the boys. "Are those real bullets?"

"It's rock salt," Dean corrected and made his way back up the steps with Delaney, Sam and Spruce behind him. He reared his shot gun back and banged it on the door that seemed to be sealed since it made no sign of movement no matter how hard Dean banged it against the door.

Delaney glanced over her shoulder to Spruce who still clutched onto his camera like it was his lifeline. "Seriously - why is he still shooting?"

Sam leant against the wall behind him and shook his head. "Don't ask."

"Ah, hell, guys. Get in your ghost-role thing because something's coming," Spruce warned, glancing nervously up from the screen of the camera and over to the three siblings. He swung around and was suddenly on the ground along with his camera.

Delaney hopped down the stairs and saw Daggett stood over Spruce near the bomb shelter and quickly shot him, sending the spirit away again. She ran over to Spruce and helped the man up, dusting him off. "You okay, Spruce?"

Spruce opened his mouth to answer before it quickly shut again, his eyes landing on the screen of his camera again. "Uh, guys..."

The three siblings turned around to see Daggett behind them, each one of them flung into the walls behind them. Delaney grunted as her back collided with the wall and she dropped to the ground, feeling more blood come from the reopened cut on her forehead. She pressed her hand to her head as she got to her feet, helping Sam up with her good hand. 

"Corbett?"

Corbett was stood near the end of the stairs and he rushed forward towards Daggett, tackling him to the ground where they both disappeared into a bright, white light.

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IN MEMORY OF ALAN J CORBETT, 1985-2008 

KING OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

Delaney, Dean and Sam stared at the now blank screen on the monitor in the Ghostfacer's headquarters. It was a few days later and Ed and Harry had invited the three siblings over to watch the put together footage from their very long night at the Morton House. 

"So, guys, what do you think?" Ed asked from behind the trio.

Dean chuckled to himself and ran a hand over his face. "You know, I kind of think it was half awesome."

"Half awesome - that's full on good, right?" Maggie gasped, a bright smile now on her face.

Delaney awkwardly cleared her throat and shared a look with her brothers. "Uh, yeah. I mean, it's bizzare how ya'll are able to - to honor Corbett's memory while grossly exploiting the manner of his death. Well done."

"Yeah, that's a real tight rope you guys are walking," Sam agreed with his sister, glancing over his shoulder at Harry, Ed, Maggie and Spruce.

"Nah, that's reality man," Ed countered, stuffing his hands into his pockets while the siblings stood up from their chairs and stopped near the door that lead to the outside world. "Corbett gave his life searching for the truth, and it is our job over here to share it with the world."

"Right, well, um, our experience - you know what you get when you show the world the truth?" Sam quipped, raising an eyebrow at the group to challenge him.

"A straitjacket, or a punch to the face. Sometimes both," Dean said before any of the Ghostfacers could even open their mouths to respond.

"Oh come on, guys. Don't be 'Facer haters because we happen to have gotten the footage of the century," Harry complained, placing his hands on his hips.

"Oh, yeah."

Dean rose his eyebrows and turned to Sam and Delaney who wore similar looks of amusement to his own. He slapped his hands to his sides and shrugged nonchalantly. "I mea, yeah, dude, you got us there. Well, we'll see you guys around."

Delaney jogged over to the Impala with the boys and stood by her door next to Sam while Dean was on the other side by the driver's door. "Dean, we clean?"

As if on cue, screams of anger and annoyance from inside the headquarters seemed to be Delaney's answer. The Ghostfacers had lost all their footage from a few days ago and couldn't put it up online like they had wanted to. 

"Electromagnet wiped out every tape and hard drive they have," Dean informed with a wide grin on his face, getting into the Impala with his siblings. 

"World just isn't ready for the Ghostfacers," Sam mused, earning laughs from both Delaney and Dean.

"It's too bad. I kind of liked the show."

Delaney barked out a laugh and nodded along sarcastically. "Sure had its moments."

The boys agreed and Dean pulled out of the Ghostfacer's driveway and out onto the road, heading towards their next adventure.

AUTHORS NOTE

Hi hey hello

I forgot how hilarious this episode was until I had to write for it. Man, this episode was a laugh and a half to do and then I got momentarily sad when Corbett died because he was just a precious boy who deserved better honestly. 

JUST THREE (3) CHAPTERS LEFT OF THIS BOOK BEFORE WE MOVE ONTO BOOK/SEASON FOUR, PEEPS! GET READY 'CAUSE IT IS ABOUT TO GET REAL GOOD UP IN HERE WOO WOO