Well, this is it for this little story. I hope you enjoy it! If you don't I'm going to blame it on my lack of sleep. I've officially reached the stage of exhaustion where you feel like you're on drugs. So yeah, there is my excuse! Lol Thanks to all of you that gave this little story a shot. It was pretty fun to write but I'm happy about marking another one complete!

Chapter Four

Carol wasn't angry because the men were going to wreck the house. Not anymore. There had been a body in the closet! A dead body, right above her head! The first time she had ever been kissed by a boy it was in front of a... a corpse.

She felt her body shaking but she couldn't stop it. Her mind felt almost numb and when it didn't feel numb she felt terrified. Like that feeling you get on a roller coaster when you've convinced yourself that the tracks were off balance and you were about to plummet to your death screaming and watching the pavement flying at your face.

It was that kind of fear, but the numb feeling was almost worse. Why on earth had she ever thought this would be a good idea? In what universe did a kid come to place to actually experience the supernatural? She was an idiot. She was a morbid, sentimental, brainless idiot!

"Hey," Daryl said sharply, gripping her hand.

She became aware of a strangled mewling sound and then was horrified all over again to realize that she was the one making the sounds.

He was watching her with wide eyes and she could feel that is hand was shaking in hers but at least he wasn't completely freaking out. She took a deep breath and tried to steady her heart. They needed to get out of here but she wasn't sure exactly sure if the house would let them leave. The thought made her groan out loud. "I want out of here," she whispered.

He nodded. "You and me both."

She screamed when something behind them crashed. They both spun, backing towards the door as the door to the closet slammed into the wall over and over, the noise echoing in her head painfully. She reached behind her in search of the doorknob, willing to fight off the guys that were in the house rather than deal with this insanity. She expected the door to not budge but the knob twisted in her hands. Right before she was able to turn to the door a small figure darted out of the closet and slid under the bed.

It was a little girl that looked to be about five years old. Daryl was suddenly pushing her out of the way, catching her hand again before she could topple over, and nearly tore the door off the hinges. As he dragged her into the hall they heard the little girl giggling. Carol couldn't help it. She turned around and the thing stuck it's head out from under the bed, grinning wickedly and it's eyes glowing white. Carol screamed and then the door slammed shut just as the little thing darted out from under the bed, seeming to run at them on all fours like some animal.

"Jesus fuck. What the fuck was that?" Daryl choked, backing them up until they hit the wall behind them.

She shook her head, her heart pounding and her palms sweating. From a room not far away the sound of a man screaming had them both jumping. "Oh my God," she whispered.

"That little fucker was comin' right at us," Daryl hissed, his hand tightening around hers.

"Don't call it names!" Was this boy insane?

He blew out a breath and started heading down the hall, this time going in the right direction. The main stairs were just a few turns away and then they could get the hell out of this place. "I am never ever volunteering again. Not for anything. Not for as long as I live. If I live," she breathed as they turned down the hallway that would lead them to the stairs.

"You're gonna live. Don't say shit like that," he said sharply, giving her a narrow eyed look. "But you're right. I'm gonna keep my ass out of trouble from here on out. I won't fight in school no more. Lesson learned."

She nodded in agreement. "That's a good idea. You can just hang out with me and I can ditch those girls and we can spend the rest of the year trying to figure out what happened here."

He snorted. "Fuck that. I don't ever wanna mention this place again." He glanced at her quickly, picking up his pace as they made it closer to the stairs. "But hangin' out with you probably wouldn't be so bad."

She wanted to smile at him, or knew that it would be a good time to smile at him but she couldn't bring herself to smile at the moment. Suddenly, when they were just a few feet away from the top of the staircase, two guys stepped off of the top step. They stopped in their tracks and Carol and Daryl did the same. Out of nowhere Carol was seized by a chill that seemed to radiate out from her very bones and she watched her breath escape her lips, frosting in the air.

The men, who had been grinning, suddenly frowned, their eyes shifting to something behind Daryl and Carol. Carol didn't want to look back so she stayed very still, her hand shaking in Daryl's grip.

"What the fuck is that?" One man asked, taking a step back.

Carol felt like every hair on her head was standing on end. She could feel something behind them but she was too afraid to look. She just kept watching the men, that were now backing away. Something cold brushed against her and she stiffened, not moving her head but following the shape with her eyes. A tall woman, skin pale as alabaster and a dress so black that it seemed to absorb the color around her walked past her and Daryl and towards the men.

"You better back the fuck up you ugly bitch or..." The older guy said, but his voice shook.

The woman stopped, turned her head slowly until she was staring right into Carol's eyes, even though the woman's eyes were only dark holes in her face, and then she opened her mouth. "Run if you must, child."

The voice was wicked, icy, unfriendly. Carol took a step back and then another and watched in horror as the woman, with only a jerk of her head, sent the man closest to the stairs toppling down. The other man, ghost white now, tried to turn and run but the woman's hands gripped him by the back of the neck.

She didn't see what happened to him because Daryl turned and bolted down the hallway, back the way they had came, dragging her with him. This time she didn't let him pull her in the wrong direction. She knew where the back stairs were. She almost didn't want to go to them because they would have to cross the room where that... thing had hidden under the bed. But she wasn't about to walk right past that woman either.

When they turned down that particular hallway they stopped. Daryl cursed and she wanted to cry. The guys that she was sure they had escaped from earlier when they had gone into the bedroom, were standing in the hall, facing them. They looked pale and their expressions seemed blank.

"What the hell happened to them?" Daryl whispered.

She shook her head. "I don't know." She kept her voice as quiet as his.

They stood there for a few more seconds and then the men turned, facing the wall, and then walked right through it. She made a strange whimpering sound because she couldn't walk past the spot where the men had been standing. There was no way.

"We ain't got a choice," he said as though he could read her mind, his voice strained. "They didn't come after us. Not like that thing in the room did." He was trying to sound encouraging but his voice cracked. He led her down the hall, neither of them looking in either direction and not daring to glance behind them. She pressed further into his side when they passed the room the thing was in but nothing happened. One more turn had them at the top of the stairs.

They both looked down into the darkness below. These stairs hadn't been used in a long time. The only reason Carol knew about them at all was because she had checked out books about the house at the library and inside of a few of them were blueprints of the place. Finally, they both took a step. She cried out when she ran right into a large spider web. It felt like small ghostly hands running over her face and through her hair but Daryl steadied her and then brushed them away because she was too panicked to do anything but flail wildly. The last thing either of them needed was for one of them to plummet to the bottom of the steep flight of stairs.

They hurried through the door and into the kitchen. The atmosphere didn't feel as dense down here and the back door was only a few feet away. Without a backwards glance Daryl took the lead and yanked the door open, shoving her onto the back porch in front of him, which she found extremely gallant of him considering she knew he was scared witless.

On the porch they both braced their hands on their knees for a few long seconds, catching their breath. When she looked up he was composing himself, taking a deep breath and looking out over the back yard. The rain had slowed to a drizzle and she had left everything in the house. "What do we do now?" she asked.

He glanced at her and then shrugged out of his leather jacket. He handed it to her. "We get the fuck outta here, that's what."

"Should we call the police?" She asked, too cold to turn down the jacket he was holding out for her. She slipped it on and breathed his scent in deeply.

He shook his head. "And tell'em what? That we saw a ghost fuck up a group of thugs? That we found our principle stuffed in a closet?"

She followed him down the steps. It was getting dark fast and the slate colored clouds still held the promise of more rain. The thought of going home to an empty house and staying alone all weekend had chills running down her spine. She didn't think that she would ever be able to sleep again. Especially not in that empty house. She wished her parents were going to be back sooner than Monday but they did this often. She couldn't call them now and ask them to come back just because she was scared. Besides, he was right. No one would ever believe them.

Once they made it to the street without being dragged away by something from the woods she finally sighed in relief, but it was short lived. He turned to her then. "I gotta go this way. Just bring the jacket to school and I'll pick it up there."

She nodded. He was going to be walking in the other direction. She didn't think before she spoke. "Hey Daryl?"

He turned, shaking rain from his hair and looking at her expectantly.

She shifted on her feet. "This is probably going to sound really bad but is there any way you could come home with me? My parents are gonna be gone until Monday and after all of that..."

He seemed to mull it over for a few seconds and then he nodded. "Yeah. My brothers not around much anymore and my old man will most likely end up in jail by the time the weekend is over. You think those things could follow us home?"

She felt the blood drain from her face. "God, I hope not."

~H~

Her house was a lot nicer than his. She had loaned him a pair of her dads old sweats and a tee shirt so he wasn't stuck wearing wet clothes. The storm raged on outside. Her folks had left her cash so she ordered them a pizza. She talked non stop and he realized that it was a nervous habit.

"Do you think the cops will fingerprint the place and think we're a couple of teenage Bonny and Clyde types?" She asked. She was sitting cross legged on the couch, the pizza box between them. There was a movie on but neither felt like watching a horror movie, even though it was Halloween, so they agreed on a mindless comedy that was actually pretty good.

He shook his head. "They can't think we'd do all that. We don't even know if they're all dead. All I know is, if I ever hear of you volunteering to do anything else at school, I'm gonna get arrested for lockin' your ass in your own locker."

She smiled thinly. "I think I'm over being so morbid. I've been overdosed on the supernatural. If I never see or hear another spooky thing for the rest of my life, I'll die happy."

He nodded in agreement and changed the subject to a topic that didn't give him goosebumps. They talked well into the night and when they ran out of things to say he somehow found himself making with her. They both ended up falling asleep on the couch.

Neither one of them were the same after that terrifying night at the Winchester Mansion. Daryl stayed true to his word and didn't get in anymore trouble at school. Carol ditched the crowd that she had pretended to be friends with. The two of them were inseparable, but they never talked about what had happened. There were plenty of other things to do than talk about ghosts.

Mr. Daniels was replaced by another asshole principal but Daryl never got sent to his office. There was never any mention, on the news or in the papers, about bodies being found on the property and Daryl didn't spend much time thinking about it.

That next year the two of them stayed inside at Carol's, watching Step Brothers and eating pizza and not mentioning the fact that it was Halloween at all. Her parents were gone for the weekend but she didn't have to worry about being stuck at home alone when they decided to bail on her. He was always around.