Haunted | One-Shot Version

Content warnings: Canon-typical violence and gore, mentions of Helen and Stephen's affair.

Set no more than six months before Primeval starts; Season 1 or 2 of SPN

Stephen Hart wasn't a believer.

He'd been raised atheist, and didn't believe in the paranormal and supernatural. Ghosts, demons, vampires, werewolves, witches- those were stories, Halloween nonsense, made for kids- right along with the Easter Bunny and Santa.

So when the rumors of a ghost on the campus started, he had assumed it was a prank.

Until the murders started.

The first victim was thirty-year-old Abigail Bennett, a Cornish woman studying archaeology. She'd been found on her back, sprawled spread-eagle on her professor's desk, eyes wide open with terror and guts ripped out, intestines still attached to her yet strewn through most of the room and crimson splattered everywhere. The professor himself had found her, only to be found dead and skinned from navel to knee in the back of his car the next morning.

The next one was Doctor Joann Buranelli, a psychology teacher. She was found on the bed of one of her students, Francis Castleton, her pelvis partially torn out of her body. Francis himself was discovered shortly thereafter in her office, slumped against her desk chair with his cheeks torn open. Victims five and six were Professor Chester Morris and Diane Corbyn, found intertwined on his office couch- bones broken and tearing through flesh, blood pooling so much it ran out from beneath the door, alerting a janitor that something was wrong.

Stephen was smart. There was a pattern- students and teachers who'd slept together. After what had happened with Helen, he feared he was on the hit list.

He had a pistol from home in his desk drawer, and when he left campus he hid it in the pocket of his jacket. Every day he brought it to work, but the rumors and whispers of the killings being 'paranormal' gave him the tiniest fear that it would be useless.

A week and a half after the first deaths was when it happened.

Stephen had been halfway home when he remembered the stack of papers on Nick's desk he'd promised to grade. With a sigh, he pulled into a petrol station and turned around, heading back to the university.

The papers were barely in his hand when the office door slammed behind him. Stephen whirled on the spot, but found no one and nothing. He went to the door and tried to open it, with no luck.

He sighed. "Alright, you got me. Very funny. Let me out now, or I'm failing every paper in the stack."

Nothing.

Until the light began to flicker. And then went out.

Stephen's heart began to pound in his chest, and a cold feeling washed over him. "Hello? This isn't funny." He called again, voice tinged with fear now. "Just let me out."

Suddenly, there was a harsh pain in his back and he was flying through the air, crashing into his desk, sliding over the top and knocking everything off, before finally smacking into the wall and crumpling to the ground. He just stayed there for a moment, mind reeling and body aching.

But then he sucked in a deep breath, gritting his teeth against the pain, and slowly got to his feet, scanning the room warily. When he found nothing, he headed for the door again, but a loud bang to his right caused him to whip around to see the cause.

Again, there was no one there- just a heavy book on the floor beside Nick's desk. Ordinarily, Stephen would've replaced it, but not tonight.

He'd stood there staring and afraid for a few seconds, and those seconds were plenty of time. He was just barely turning to leave when he found himself being thrown again by an invisible force, slamming against the wall above the window. Painfully he dropped to the ground, this time electing to stay put.