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Sam was skeptical when the article popped up on his laptop. It was almost Halloween, and pranksters were everywhere. The story was something about a set of evil dolls supposedly "guarding" an old house in Lawrence, his hometown. The dolls had allegedly terrorized at least three people, but there were no deaths, no conclusive sightings, nothing. Not even pictures, except for two; one of the house, which was a stock photo of a stereotypical haunted house, and the same, badly edited so that it looked like a Chucky doll was sitting in one of the windows. So he ignored the article, moving on to find a real case.
Three days later, however, and it was a day until Halloween, and the story popped up again, but this time it was different. This time, it was convincing. He found five articles, and at least three of them were completely credible. Witness sourcing, continuity in the sightings, and pictures of a house that he could vaguely recall when he and Dean had stopped in Lawrence a few years ago.
Sam was still poring over his laptop, in the same position he'd been an hour earlier, when his brother had left on a grocery store run. His neck was starting to ache, but he didn't move, until he heard the door to the motel room open and close. He angled his head upwards, seeing his brother walk into the room, and dropped it right back down to keep reading.
"Hey." Dean called, his voice muffled by the king size candy bar he held in his mouth.
"Hey," Sam responded, shifting in his seat. "I found us a case. So get this: there's apparently a set of spirits haunting some dolls in this old house, that allegedly "guard the house from intruders who might disturb its dark secrets'." He made air quotes as he read from the article.
"Well, that sounds like something from a B-List horror film. What's it gotta do with us?"
Sam frowned, chewing his lip, as his brother finished putting groceries in the mini-fridge and sat down across from him. "Well, I was thinking the same thing as you when I first caught wind of this three days ago. It was on a crappy website with zero credibility, but now... several articles, witnesses, everything. Totally plausible, except that all of the stories and witnesses talk about it as though it's a local legend. But the thing is, no trace of the story exists, anywhere, except for the articles."
Dean frowned. "Tulpa, maybe?"
"I don't know. I mean, it would fit the M.O., I suppose."
"Well, that's good enough for me." Dean shrugged and uncapped the beer he held, taking a swig from it. "I for one would love to beat up some weird-ass Chucky clones for Halloween. Where's the house?"
Sam grimaced again. "That's the thing. Lawrence."
Dean almost choked on his beer, looking at his brother in surprise.
"Are you okay with that?" Sam's voice was laced with worry, which kind of annoyed Dean, even though he knew his little brother was just looking out for him.
"Yeah, that's fine. I'm fine." He replied, and he was, but his voice was a lot less confident than he'd wanted it to be.
Halloween Day
As the two brothers pulled into town, they both did the opposite of the other. Sam gazed around at everything, almost longingly, as though perhaps if he tried hard enough he could remember that street corner, or that house, while Dean kept his eyes trained firmly forwards. He didn't want to remember, if he could.
When the two had checked into their motel, they packed up their gear and headed for the house. Halfway there, the Impala died. Luckily, Dean had been able to pull it over before it stopped completely, but it wasn't going to get them any farther.
"Dammit!" Dean barked, smacking the steering wheel with the palm of his hand.
"Come on, Dean. We need to get going. We can come back for the car later."
Sam was fixed with a glare that would've knocked him dead if looks could kill, but Dean agreed that that was the best course of action. They got out of the car and began to walk.
"So...ever fight crazy, possessed dolls before?" Dean questioned, fingering the strap of his duffel bag self-consciously.
"No." Sam replied with a shrug.
But the word that came out of his mouth wasn't "no". It was "on".
Dean frowned at him. "Yeah, that makes sense. What was that about?"
Sam looked apologetic. "!Wonk t'nod I" He said.
His brother stared at him, and Sam clapped a hand over his mouth. He knew what he was saying, but his mouth wasn't responding properly.
"?!Lleh eht tahw"
The brothers stopped for two reasons. One, was that they were both confused by Sam's predicament, and two, because they had arrived.
"Um, Sammy? I think you're speaking....backwards." Although Dean looked concerned, he also looked as though he were trying not to laugh.
Sam scoffed. ".Thgir, haey"
Dean chuckled at that, and Sam clamped his mouth shut, vowing not to speak again until it was sorted out.
"So, what're you thinking? Mischievous ghost?"
Sam shrugged. With his hands he made a getsure pointing upwards in a cone shape from the top of his head. Dean looked confused, but then his eyes widened in understanding. "Oh! Witch?"
Sam nodded.
"I don't know...is there a hex bag anywhere on you?"
A loud rustling was the only noise that followed as Sam dug through his many pockets, but to no avail. He held up his empty hands for Dean to see: no hex bag.
Dean frowned.
"Okay, not a witch. Whatever. We'll sort it out after we check out the house, okay?"
Sam frowned and made a noise of annoyance, but Dean just raised an eyebrow. "You made me leave Baby." He said, before drawing his gun and creaking open the door of the house, which had a foreclosure sign on it. Sam looked at the porch around him, sad. It wasn't a bad house, aside from the wear and tear of the years, and here it was abandoned, and probably housing an evil ghost.
He followed his brother inside.
Before anything else, Sam noticed the small figure standing at the end of the hallway. It was short, unnaturally so for a human, and was competely still, facing away from them. Sam glanced at Dean, who mouthed the word 'doll' with a wide-eyed glare, before raising his gun and slowly approaching. Sam raised his salt-filled shotgun and checked every other corner of the rooom, covering his brother.
The tension increasing, Dean was almost a foot away from the doll, a two-foot tall china figure of a small girl, when suddenly, with a creak, the doll's head began to turn, until it was backwards, facing them. Its eyes were wide and blank, and its mouth was opened in a creepy grin. So Dean did the logical thing.
He shot it.
And the doll exploded.
Sam jumped in surprise when, with a bang, the doll was ripped apart, and he covered his face as pieces of it flew around the room. Once everything had settled, he opened his eyes, and noticed that the pieces he had felt hitting his srms and chest hadn't been porcelain. The shards from the doll had somehow turned into....candy?
He bent down, picking up a Jolly Rancher from the pile of treats on the floor. "?Tahw" Sam exclaimed in confusion.
He rushed over to his brother to see if he was alright. And he was, besides being royally pissed off and sporting a few small bruises on his face where the airborne candy had hit him.
"What is this?" Barked Dean, who stormed into the other room. Sam caught up with him, grabbing his arm and making a confused gesture.
"I'm seeing if I can find the people behind this, this is a prank or something!" His brother replied angrily.
Sam nodded in a 'that's fine with me' sort of way, and went to the next room over to search.
Five minutes later, Sam had found nothing, but had heard another bang and a string of loud curses coming from Dean, who stumbled into the room Sam was checking, the master bedroom.
He tilted his head in question.
Dean glared. "Yeah, if you don't shoot them, they pin you down while chanting "This is Halloween" before exploding anyways."
Despite the situation, Sam grinned a little bit, earning him the finger from his brother.
Luckily, as they continued searching, they managed to avoid the other dolls, all except a third, who managed to pin Sam before showering him in candy (who knew high-powered pieces of diabetes could hurt so much?) until they found the perpetrators.
In the back room, which had probably been an office of some sort, they heard a light giggling. There were two voices, and, looking at each other in shock, the brothers realized that they recognized both of them.
"What fun! A pity we hadn't met sooner, my dear." A woman's voice, with a heavy Scottish accent, lamented.
"We could've caused SO much more mischeif." Replied a male voice.
Sam rushed to the door, ripping it open in disbelief. Sure enough, sitting at the desk in the room was the witch Rowena, and the archangel Gabriel.
Who was supposed to be dead.
"?Anewor ?Leirbag" He exclaimed angrily.
There was a long pause, before the two supernatural creatures burst into laughter.
Sam looked back and forth between them in shock, and even turning to Dean, who grumbled, "Hey, don't laugh at my brother!"
"Oh, that backwards speech idea was great, he sounds so stupid!" Chuckled Gabriel, grinning wickedly at the younger Winchester.
"Yes, an entertaining feat. I see you boys didn't find the hex bag?" Asked Rowena, smiling, as she rose from her seat.
"Hex bag?" Dean questioned, gun still raised. "We checked, there wasn't one."
"That's where you're wrong."
And the witch walked over to Sam, taking the shotgun from him and, opening the barrels as though she were about to relowd it, reached inside one of the barrels and drew out a single, small hex bag. "Ingenius, is it not?" Rowena looked pleased with herself. Sam just sneered.
"And I'm guessing the dolls were you?" Dean asked Gabriel, who shrugged.
"Yeah. Boy, those things really liked you." He motioned to the bits of candy stuck to Dean's jacket and the bruises on his face.
Gabriel stood and stretched. "Well that was fun, Red, but I really must be going before the Winchesters here decide to make my life more miserable."
He wiggled his figners at the brothers in goodbye. "If we ever see each other again, it'll be too soon, because it'll probably be the end of the world again."
And with that, he disappeared with a bang, and when the brothers looked again, there was nothing but a pile of candy on the chair the angel had recently occupied.
Rowena picked up her tote bag from the floor, walking to the door. "I suppose I should go too." Her voice was strong, but she was eyeing them warily.
"Hold on." Sam growled, who's voice was now back to normal.
"Yeah." Dean blocked the doorway. "We're only letting you go on one condition."
Rowena raised her eyebrows. "Oh? What's that?"
"You help us gather up all this candy. I deserve some kind of payment for this bullshit."