CHAPTER ONE:
❝ happy haunting ❞

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

HALLOWEEN was never an uneventful time of year for the Winchester brothers.

As hunters, every day was like Friday the 13th. Ghosts, vampires, werewolves, demons, angels—things that made Jason and Freddy Kruger look like child's play—were almost normal to the pair of siblings, all in a day's work. There wasn't a time of day or night where something vaguely threatening wasn't knocking on their door or more importantly, trying to wipe them off the face of the Earth. The brothers could only reminisce if good old days when the occasional shapeshifter or jinn was the least of their worries; now with the threat of Abaddon, Metatron, rogue angels, and the Devil himself, their old life seemed like a cake walk. Anything seemed simpler compared to the war between Heaven and Hell raging on the daily.

October 31st, however, always seemed to promise something extra special.

It had been two weeks to the day since they had retired back to Lebanon, Kansas. The Bunker held its normal musty smell that Dean often found comforting, but Sam did not. The place had been abandoned for years, so who knew what kind of molds were growing. A smell that had been festering in the kitchen suggested something had died in the vents long ago, but where, where was the question. Sam was still questioning the strange stains on the upholstery of the sitting room armchairs, which he couldn't decipher from some sort of food or blood. However, neither brother particularly cared if the place wasn't five star material, so long as they had a place they could rest their heads in the meantime and, more importantly, so long as they had shelter when the world started going to shit. Again.

When they weren't consumed in books, searches on Sam's laptop, or possible leads about the Angel Tablet, life had been almost...normal. Well, as normal as normal could get for a pair of hunters. Dean, specifically, was thriving. Despite having one foot in the grave already and the other on a banana peel, he was taking advantage of having a place he could nearly call "home". He cooked, they drank, they got along—all things that seldom occurred as of late. Sam was apprehensive about the calm, but embraced this rare side of his brother; who knew if they'd live to see it again.

"Supply run, done," Dean called from the loft. Several plastic grocery bags were hooked around his arms and he looked positively giddy about his purchases.

Sam, seated at the main table in the library, couldn't help but chuckle as his brother descended the spiral stairs and walked towards him. His brown hair was plastered to his forehead and his clothes, now drenched, stuck to his skin awkwardly like a wet rag. For an extent of the afternoon, Sam had been able to hear the drumming of rain as it battered the Bunker's metal roof and the way the thunder rumbled occasionally in the distance. It sounded miserable. Dean, however, didn't seem to mind. He made a show of dumping the plastic grocery bags on the table in front of Sam, careful to hide a few of the contents from view. Some of the things that were visible were typical staples: bread, eggs, beer—but the shit-eating grin on Dean's face suggested something different in the other bags. That same face demanded undivided attention. Sam closed his laptop, stifling a sigh.

"Alright, I'll bite. What's in the bag?"

If it was possible, Dean's grin widened. "I am so glad you asked, little brother," he replied.
With a flourish, he unceremoniously turned out the two grocery bags and allowed the contents to spill out onto the table.

Several colorful pouches slid in front of Sam, all containing the same thing: Halloween candy. Dean had snagged just about every kind there was, including several bulk variety packs, the ones that were usually reserved for dumping into a giant bowl for trick-or-treaters. Sam eyed one of the bags closest to him and picked it up. It was bright green and orange and had a cartoon vampire at the bottom. His fanged mouth was open wide and the kinds of candy were visible through the clear plastic behind his evil grin. It didn't look anything like the vampires they hunted, perhaps it why Sam found it so mocking.

"Seriously?" He asked, turning the bag around for Dean to see. His brother's expression soured.

"Come on, man, lighten up. It's Halloween!" He replied. He snatched the bag away from Sam and tossed it on top of the pile, looking very much like a squirrel adding to his stash.

"So?"

"So, let's enjoy it for once. Every year, some freak of nature crawls out from the pits of hell and surprise, surprise, wants to kill us," Dean said, making grotesque faces and gesturing wildly with his hands. "Not this year. I'm staying inside this monster-proofed bunker and eating all the chocolate I can get."

Sam scoffed, humorously. "Yeah, well you forgot the part where there's enough sugar here to tranquilize a small horse. Maybe two."

"Sammy, I sincerely hope that it kills me. Death by candy is a hell of a lot better than the alternative."

Sam made a face in his brother's direction and Dean responded by flinging rain water onto the book he was reading. Sam, rolling his eyes, retreated to the other side of the table for refuge, wiping the damp page off with his sleeve. Recently, he had been reading up on ancient myths from different cultures, which, in their line of work, was never a bad thing to research. The most recent chapter was about world enders. Multiple depictions of the end of the world, each more gruesome than the next. Though, after surviving the Apocalypse itself and several other extinction-level events, Ragnarök seemed like a step down on the ladder. In fact—

"Son of a bitch! Pie's gone."

Sam looked up to see Dean rummaging through all of the grocery bags, muttering to himself as he emptied things onto the table top. Lunch meat, cheese, even those nasty canned beans that his brother was so fond of, were stacked into a grocery castle at Dean's elbow. A carton of eggs fell on its side and a singular egg rolled out, but Sam caught it deftly in one hand before it could fall off the edge. As he set it back into the container, the elder of the two pulled the keys to the Impala out his pocket and started for the staircase.

"Is it really that important?" Sam asked. He already knew the answer.

"Dude. There's nothing more important than pie," Dean replied, in all seriousness. He ascended the stairs to the loft and disappeared from view.

Sam returned to his book. A Norse beast reared it's ugly head on the current page, slicing through stenciled flames at a guy wearing a winged helmet and yielding both a sword and a hammer. The creature's mouth opened into a snarling maw and it's eyes lit with an eerie fire that made Sam want to skip to the next page. He continued reading, resting an elbow on the table. The Bunker was unusually warm that night, a stark contrast to the damp weather. It was comfortable, maybe a little too comfortable, like the feeling of a warm fire on a cold day. It made Sam sleepy. As he leaned his head into his open palm, the words on the page blurred together into a phonetic mess and his eyes couldn't help but drift shut. Soft colors bloomed behind the eyes, taking a hazy shape of a memory he didn't remember. Some of that feel-good, mushy stuff that Dean couldn't stand. It likely wasn't real. Happy memories were hard to come by in a hunter's line of work. Several minutes passed and Dean didn't return to rouse him, so he continued to snooze. The book in his hand closed over his fingers and he was about to rest his head on the table, when a voice broke the silence.

"Sam!"

Dean sounded like he was far away. Perhaps it was because he was far away. Up the stairs and out the hall, the door to the Bunker was wide open. The storm blew sheets of rain into the loft and leaving the hall a soaking mess. Sam discarded his book as he got up from his seat, sleepiness and good dreams forgotten. Dean called out again and Sam was bounding up the stairs to the loft two at a time.
As a Winchester, it wasn't uncommon for one of two things. One, some sort of weapon was never too far from reach, much like the Beretta sitting in his waistband, the hunting knife strapped in his boot, or the sawed off shotgun that he was itching to grab in this scenario. The second was that, on a day to day basis, anything, quite literally anything, could be waiting outside of those doors. Precautions like holy water, salt, and silver were crucial, if not absolutely necessary at all times. Problem was, Sam had forgotten to grab any of those defenses in his haste to get outside. Regardless, he removed the gun from his hip just as he burst through the open door.

A gust of cold wind and even colder rain, greeted him immediately. It nearly swept Sam aside, but he remained upright but wet. Dean was just outside the entrance to the Bunker, pacing back and forth wildly in the rain. He was positively fuming, mumbling obscenities and throwing his hands about angrily. As Sam neared, he lowered his gun. In the grass, he could just barely make out the glint of broken glass and took notice of the jagged teeth that made up what used to be the Impala's window. The passenger's side had been completely smashed through and the door had been left often, leaving the front seat soaked from the torrential rain. A rock the size of Sam's fist rested in the center console, surrounded by more splintered glass.

"What happened?" Sam questioned. Dean stopped raging long enough to reply.

"Someone broke in, that's what fucking happened. And, they stole my pie!"

Dean began to pull his own gun out of his waistband, sliding the magazine out to check for bullets. Sam put a hand out to stop him.

"Dean, there's no one out here. Are you sure it wasn't, I don't know, a raccoon or something?" Sam responded, disbelievingly. "Maybe a bear got in?"

Dean grunted a reply. He clicked the safety off and pulled the hammer back with his thumb, raising the gun to eye level. Then, he reached into the glove compartment at the front of the car, emerging with a short, black flashlight, which he promptly turned on. The beam of light fanned out around Sam's shoes.

"Sammy, the last time I checked, bears and raccoons don't throw rocks to break windows."

"Maybe they're evolving."

"In Kansas? I seriously doubt it," his brother said, sending the youngest a disapproving stare. He half turned away, pointing in the direction of the woods surrounding the Bunker. "Whatever it is, I'm going to kill it. No one messes with my car or my pie!"

Dean then walked off towards the tree line, muttering something about "protecting his Baby". Sam sighed; some doubt still remained. The area around them was quiet and dark, and there lay no trace that any person or animal had been there, with the exception of the broken window and the door. Cold and soaked through from the rain, Sam decided he was better off inside rather than spending the next 20 minutes on a wild goose chase for Dean's pie burglar. He started for the Bunker's entrance and was within arms length of the door, when he noticed something brightly colored in the dirt.
It was a candy wrapper, much like the ones that Dean had brought home earlier, if not exactly the same. It had been torn open, quite viciously he might add, and the contents of which were gone. A few inches further, the same thing: a chocolate wrapped, ripped in half and chocolate-less. Then another, and another after that. Sam realized, quickly, that the wrappers made an intermittent trail from the Impala to the woods on the opposite side.

Slowly, Sam reached into the open car door and withdrew a second flashlight, which he used to illuminate the impromptu path. The wrappers speckled the ground in neon flashes, leading a jagged line further into the trees and away from the Bunker. Sam felt uneasy. He extracted the Beretta once more and used the beam of his flashlight to guide the barrel as it swept back and forth. The rain didn't do much to aid his vision, but he could see well enough to know the area was still empty. Thank God. He turned, and only then did his flashlight catch on something. A silver reflection, glinting beneath some brush a few feet ahead. A pie tin. Half eaten and ravenously so, it appeared that whatever had been feasting on the cherry pie inside, had discarded it quickly. Perhaps startled by Sam's presence. He eased, able to return to his theory about a raccoon thief.

"Hey, Dean. Found your pie!"

If Dean heard, he didn't make any efforts to show it. He was still off a ways, cursing and protesting the injustice.

"...what bastard gets off eating another man's pie. Why I ought to..."

"Dean," Sam called again, louder.

"...just wait until I find...haste la vista, you sick son of a..."

"Dean—!"

Something rustled to Sam's left and he paused.  He fumbled for his flashlight again and scanned the area once more. Nothing. Only bated silence and the howling gale through the canopy. He flinched as twig snapped behind him, his heart jumping into his throat as he whirled around to face the base of a large oak tree. At first, as before, there was nothing. Just a lone tree, branches swaying and groaning beneath the weight of the storm. However, a flash of white captured Sam's attention before it scrambled out of sight.

In that moment, he thought about turning around for good and walking away. He wasn't scared, but he wondered if investigating was worth the risk. He decided, forlornly, that yes, it was. Slowly, the hunter stepped forward, and peered around the base of the tree. There, among the roots, sat a wild-looking girl in a stained, white nightgown. She stared back at him with wide eyes, looking just as panicked as he felt. But even more alarming than her presence, was the red smeared on her arms and clothes and the shard of glass she used to take a wide jab at him.

True to the day, Halloween never failed to
impress.