Maddison Winchester: Journal 1 {Supernatural} (Editing)

17 Hell House: Part 1

June 7th - June 13th, 2006

Dean and I were jamming out to Blue Öyster Cult on our way to our next case while Sam slept with his mouth hanging open. Dean looked over at Sam, and mischief crossed his face. He reached over and opened the glove compartment, pulling out a plastic spoon.

I leaned forward and whispered, "What are you doing?"

Dean smirked and whispered back, "Just watch." He reached over and gently placed the spoon in Sam's mouth. He grinned and flipped open his phone, took a picture, and then turned the music up. "Fire... of unknown origins... took my baby away!" he sang along loudly.

Sam jerked awake, realized there was something in his mouth, thrashed his arms around, and spit out the spoon.

Dean air drummed along to the song and grinned over at Sam, laughing. I laughed along with him.

Sam wiped his mouth and turned down the music. "Ha. Ha. very funny."

Dean laughed. "Sorry, not a lot of scenery here in East Texas, kinda gotta make your own."

Sam sighed. "Man, we're not kids anymore, Dean. We're not going to start that crap up again."

"Start what up?" Dean asked.

"That prank stuff. It's stupid, and it always escalates," Sam snarled.

"Aw, what's the matter, Sammy, scared you're going to get a little Nair in your shampoo again, huh?" Dean chuckled.

Sam shook his head. "All right, just remember you started it."

"Ah-ha, bring it on, baldy." Dean laughed.

"I'm safe, right?" I asked, not wanting to be involved.

Dean laughed. "Yeah, you're safe. Sammy, on the other hand..."

Sam shook his head, "Where are we anyway?"

"A few hours outside of Richardson. Gimme the lowdown again?" Dean asked.

Sam snatched a newspaper off of the dashboard and began reading. "All right, about a month or two ago, this group of kids goes poking around in this local haunted house."

"Haunted by what?" Dean asked.

"Apparently, a pretty misogynistic spirit. Legend goes. It takes girls and strings them up in the rafters. Anyway, this group of kids see this dead girl hanging in the cellar," Sam said.

"Anybody ID the corpse?" Dean asked.

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

Dean shrugged. "Maybe the cops are right."

"Maybe, but I read a couple of the kids' first-hand accounts. They seemed pretty sincere," Sam said.

"Where'd you read these accounts?" Dean asked.

Sam hesitated. "Well, I knew we were going to be passing through Texas. So, um, last night, I surfed some local..." He cleared his throat. "Paranormal websites. And I found one."

Dean glanced over at Sam. "And what's it called."

"HellHoundsLair.com," Sam said.

Dean sighed. "Lemme guess, streaming live out of Mom's basement."

Sam grinned. "Yeah, probably."

"Yeah. Most of those websites wouldn't know a ghost if it bit 'em in the persqueeter," Dean said.

Sam shook his head. "Look. We let Dad take off. Which was a mistake, by the way. And now we don't know where the hell he is, so in the meantime, we gotta find ourselves something to hunt. There's no harm checking this thing out."

"All right. So, where do we find these kids?" Dean asked.

"Same place you always find kids in a small town like this," Sam said.

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We pulled up in front of a fast-food place called Rodeo Drive. Sam and Dean said they were interviewing the kids for a local newspaper.

The first guy we talked to said that the house was the scariest thing he had ever seen and that the walls were painted red, that there were 'pentagons' drawn all over. He also said that the dead girl they found was blonde and still kicking.

The second guy we spoke to said that the walls were painted black, and there were crosses, stars, and "penta... costals" drawn all over. He said that the dead girl had black hair and wasn't moving. He also said, "she was kinda hot, in a dead sort of way." I wasn't too sure what he meant by that, and I wasn't sure he knew either.

The girl we talked to said that the walls were covered in blood, but she had her eyes closed the whole time, so she wasn't too sure. She said the dead girl had red hair and was just hanging there.

Although they didn't agree on much, they all agreed that the girl was definitely real, and they all found the place because of their friend Craig. So, we asked if they knew where Craig might be, and they told us he was working at the music shop down the street.

As we walked in, a teenage boy behind the counter spoke up, "Can I help you with anything?"

"Yeah, are you Craig Thurston?" Sam asked.

"I am." Craig nodded.

"Well, we're reporters with the Dallas Morning News. I'm Dean, this is Sam," Dean said and then pointed to me. "And this is Maddison, an aspiring journalist from the local junior-high."

"No way. Well, I'm a writer too. I write for my school's lit magazine." Craig smiled at me.

"Well, good for you, Morrison," Dean said.

"Um, we're doing an article on local hauntings, and rumor has it you might know of one," Sam said.

"You mean the Hell House?" Craig asked, now sorting through some records.

"That's the one," Dean said.

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

"Why don't you tell us the story?" Sam asked.

Craig sighed. "Well, supposedly back in the '30s, this farmer, Mordechai Murdoch, used to live in this house with his six daughters. It was during the Depression, his crops were failing, he didn't have enough money to feed his own children. So, I guess that's when he went off the deep end." He walked back behind the counter.

"How?" Sam asked as he walked up to Craig.

Dean and I listened while going through some of the records.

Craig continued, "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 'em up, one after the other. And when he was all finished, he just turned around and hung himself. Now they say that his spirit is trapped in the house forever, stringing up any other girl that goes inside."

"Where'd you hear all this?" Dean asked, turning and walking up to Craig.

I followed behind.

"My cousin Dana told me. I don't know where she heard it from. Ya gotta realize, I— I didn't believe this for a second," Craig said.

"But now you do," Sam said.

Craig shook his head and shrugged. "I don't know what the hell to think, man. You guys, I— 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 wanna go anywhere near that house ever again, okay?"

Dean nodded. "Thanks."

With that, we left the music shop and headed off to the Hell House.

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