Ghost Rider

by

Elfinblue

Summary: Dean, Sam, and a human Cas investigate a series of gruesome deaths in a small coastal town. The only common denominator is that the victims had all recently visited a local, reputedly haunted, amusement park. This is set in season nine, but I have no idea how they intend to treat the whole fallen angels/ Abbadon thing so I'm not going to deal with that angle. This is just an ordinary hunt. Based on the spoilers they've fed us so far, Cas is human, Sam got better, and Bobby is back (don't know how) and holed up in the Batcave library with a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue and a salt-loaded shotgun for any idjit that bothers him unnecessarily.

Spoilers: All seasons plus what I've been able to follow from what's come out of Comic Con 2013.

Pairings: None. No slash.

Warnings: Clowns.

Rated T because Dean and Sam and, you know, clowns . . .

Disclaimer: Even if I have acquired a Jeremy Carver voodoo doll, which I am not admitting, I will not use it unless he makes me.

**SPN** **SPN** **SPN**

Ghost Rider

Chapter One: Die Laughing

"In the Middle Ages," Cas said, "entire towns and villages would be wiped out by the plague. By the time anyone came to bury the bodies, nothing would be left but skeletons. Of course, the same has often been true of battlefields, where the survivors were either too few to deal with the casualties or too busy pursuing their conflict. Since the dawn of time, the human skeleton has been a symbol of fear and loss and death. So I don't understand why a dancing skeleton should make a suitable adornment for the gateway to a place of amusement."

Dean and Sam Winchester stood beside him, the three of them staring up at the entrance to the "Skeleton Cove Amusement Park - Family FUN! FUN! FUN! for children of ALL ages!" A dancing skeleton atop the sign grinned at them and waggled a top hat and, improbably, thick, black eyebrows.

"People are whacked," Dean said simply.

"That is the same thing you said when I asked why the sign on an establishment that sold barbecued pork sandwiches featured a smiling pig in a barbecue apron waving a string of sausages."

"And it still holds just as true." He switched his attention to his younger brother. "You good?"

Sam, staring with thinly-veiled horror at the giant clown face they were going to have to walk through, took a deep breath and gave a manly whimper and a resolute nod.

"All right, then." Dean cracked his knuckles determinedly. "Let's do this!"

**SPN**SPN**SPN**

The day before . . .

"According to his wife, he was having a nightmare and fell out of bed."

"FBI agents" Hughes, Dewey, and Lewis ("Huey, Dewey and Louie, Dean? Really?") stared down with solemn dismay at the earthly remains of one Egbert Fitzwaller. Lewis reached out a finger to poke at the shattered corpse and Dewey quickly smacked it down. Lewis looked contrite and stuck his hands in his pockets.

Hughes, a giant of a man with a boyish face and a flop of unprofessional brown hair, frowned at the body. "Fell out of bed?"

"What was he sleeping on," Dewey asked, "the Empire State Building?"

"Waterbed," the coroner said laconically. "Eighteen inch drop onto a carpeted floor. Shag carpeting. Very retro. With a thick pad. Soaked up the blood like you wouldn't believe."

"The sheriff said there were other odd deaths recently?" Hughes asked.

The coroner nodded, slid Fitzwaller's drawer back into its slot and pulled out another, exposing a second mangled corpse.

"Deedee McCulloch. She was alone at the time of her death, so we have no eyewitness account to go on." He pulled off the sheet. "From her appearance, she seems to have been trampled to death."

"By horses?" Dewey asked.

"Among other things. There are numerous hoof marks on the body. I had to consult a zoologist to identify them all. If my source is to be believed, she was run down by a mixed herd of horses, zebras, antelope, and elephants."

"Elephants?" Hughes exclaimed.

The coroner pulled the sheet back further and indicated a place on the victim's left hip where the body had been crushed flat in a large circle.

Hughes and Dewey pulled back, mouths drawn down in matching expressions of disgust. Lewis, who was watching them closely, quickly imitated them.

"Where was she when they found her?" Dewey asked. "Zoo? Open field somewhere? City street?"

"Elevator."

"Elevator?!"

"Seven-story building in the business district downtown. Security cameras in the lobby and outside the elevators on every floor. I'm just the coroner, you know. I don't really have anything to do with the actual investigation. But a buddy of mine on the force told me they have video of her getting on in the lobby and then, two minutes and fourteen seconds later, they have video of the doors opening on the fifth floor to," he gestured towards the corpse, "that."

"And the third death?" Dewey asked.

"Already released the body to the family. Cremation. Not that they had much choice, though it is a bit ironic."

"Ironic how?"

"Well, he drowned."

Hughes and Dewey exchanged a look. "Drowned in what?" Hughes asked.

"Water cooler. Granted it was a pretty big water cooler. He was still pretty squished, though. Of course, the real question is how he got inside."

"A water cooler," Dewey said. "Let me just see if I've got this straight. You're talking about one of those big plastic bottles that sit in a refrigerated holder and empty into a spigot at the bottom?"

"Yup. Twenty-gallon bottle. The only opening's a hole the size of a fifty-cent piece."

**SPN**SPN**SPN**

"The park opened in 1853 as Wilburton's Picnic and Exposition Park," Sam said, stopping on the path to study the outside of the park. They had already gone over this the night before, but Dean had seen the clown face too and decided to cut his brother some slack.

"And there've been how many deaths here since it opened?"

"Dozens." Sam sighed. "I went over the research again this morning while you guys were out picking up breakfast. Found a few more incidents, including seventeen people who died from food poisoning after a church picnic in 1876, a six-year-old who died in the hospital from a head injury she got falling off the Merry-Go-Round in the fifties and a would-be prankster who drowned in the Tunnel of Love in 1972."

"Geez!" Dean said. "All that in addition to the eleven people who've fallen off roller coasters, the twenty-six who were killed when the Ferris Wheel blew over in 1914, the six who died in the 1981 Sky Train crash, at least twenty swimmers who've drowned off the coast here and the entire crew of the Jezebel?" The Jezebel was a triple-masted schooner that went down in a storm in the seventeen hundreds. The bodies had washed ashore on what was now the Skeleton Cove Park swimming beach. "They ought to call this place Death Valley. Their motto could be 'you'll die laughing'!"

"Don't forget the murder victims," Cas said in his deep voice.

Sam flinched and Dean bit back a grin, amused in spite of himself.

"There's no reason to think they're connected to this," Sam objected. "They were all killed elsewhere. There's not even any reason to believe they all visited here during their lives."

"Yes," Cas persisted. "But their bodies were buried just outside the fence and their killer did work here."

"Yeah," Dean agreed. "But, you know, Sam," he put in helpfully (or at least, if asked, he would have claimed he was being helpful), "there's no reason to think he was wearing his clown costume during the actual murders."

"I hate you both so much," Sam said.

"Yeah, we know," Dean grinned.

"I can't believe, after having to deal with the negative publicity of one of their clowns being a serial killer, that they'd keep the clown motif! Paired with skeletons, no less!"

"It happened eighty years ago," Dean pointed out reasonably. "I'm pretty sure they figure most people have forgotten it by now."

"Look on the bright side," Cas offered. "In the aftermath of the Killer Clown fiasco, they probably take care to screen the clowns they employ for mental instability."

"Not much point to that," Dean countered. "Who in their right mind would want to be a clown?"

Sam and Cas considered his point and then, reluctantly, they both nodded. It was just the kind of logic you couldn't argue with.

"So," Dean said, "are we going to go through the big, scary clown gate so we can get inside the park and work this case or what?"

Sam huffed and bitchfaced him and strode off determinedly towards the gate, leaving his brother and the former angel behind.

"You think he'll make it through the gate all right?" Cas asked as they stood and watched him go.

"Probably not."

"Oh? Why not?"

Dean held up three small card stock rectangles. "Because I've got our tickets."

**SPN**SPN**SPN**

Immediately inside the gate there was a landscaped area, like a large patio, with a mermaid fountain surrounded by trees and benches. Souvenir stands around the perimeter sold hats, shirts, maps of the park, umbrellas and all sorts of stuffed animals and knickknacks emblazoned with the park logo. There was a place to rent strollers and wheelchairs and an old-fashioned ice cream parlor.

Dean bought a map of the park and they headed for their first stop: the Merry-Go-Round. It was late summer. School had started and they'd come on a weekday morning. There was no line for the ride, with only a few toddlers on board, mostly accompanied by parents or babysitters. Business was slow enough that the ride attendants were letting people ride for as long as they wanted, only stopping now and again so that people could board or dismount.

The three hunters stood beside the whirling platform and observed.

"Horses, zebra, antelope and an elephant," Sam nodded.

They boarded when the ride stopped again and Dean took his homemade EMF meter out of his pocket. He had the sound turned down low enough that they couldn't hear it over the bright calliope melody, but they didn't need to hear the beeping. Every light on the meter was lit. Sam knelt under cover of tying his shoes and examined the hooves on the nearest wooden horse.

"Does this look like bloodstains to you?"

His brother bent down and studied the dark spatters marring the shiny wood. "Yeah, that ain't weird at all."

They got off when the ride stopped again and paused to regroup.

"So what?" Sam asked. "The little girl who fell off in the fifties, you think?"

"That would explain the woman in the elevator," Cas said, "but what of the other deaths?"

"Water cooler guy could be connected to one of the water rides," Dean suggested. "Fitzwaller looked to me like he fell off a roller coaster."

Sam frowned. "So, what? You're thinking multiple vengeful spirits? And why now? I mean, yeah, this park has a long, dark history. But the weird deaths only started up a couple of weeks ago."

"Something's changed. We need to find out what."

Cas nodded off to his left. The park was expanding towards the north and a new giant roller coaster was under construction, the skeletal framework visible above a sturdy board fence.

"It could be connected," Sam agreed. "But that whole area is off limits to park visitors. Whatever our victims encountered, they encountered it here."

"We should split up," Dean suggested. "Talk to people, look around, ride a few rides and see what happens. I'll take the roller coasters and the water rides and you two can have the kiddie rides and the concessions."

"You just want an excuse to ride rides all day while we do all the legwork," Sam accused.

Dean grinned. "You guys can ride rides too, you know. Why, I'll bet with the both of you turning the wheel, you can make those teacups spin like crazy." He turned away and disappeared quickly in the light, midday crowd, his blue flannel overshirt quickly lost among the moving mosaic of colors.

Cas stepped closer to Sam. "You realize he's taken all the rides that we have reason to believe are connected with the deaths himself?"

Sam sighed. "Yeah, pretty sure that was the idea. Listen, we can cover the rest of the park faster if we split up. The coasters are the most popular attractions, so, with luck, maybe Dean'll get stuck in a long line and we can catch up with him before he's had too much chance to dangle himself as bait. You can take the south half of the park and I'll take the north half. Are you okay with that? You know what to do?"

Cas nodded. "I have a notebook," he said, reaching into his pocket and producing a small, red notebook and an ink pen. "I will examine the park and talk to people and take note of anything odd or inexplicable that I encounter."

"All right, then. Let's do this."

It was only after Cas had moved away and disappeared in the crowd that Sam realized he had assigned himself the half of the park that contained the Fun House, with its traditional giant clowns motif.

Author's Note 2: Hope you've enjoyed. This isn't going to be terribly long - three or four chapters maybe? I'll get the next chapter up as soon as I can. A week at the absolute outside. Most of you probably already know this, but for those who don't, there was a real-life "Killer Clown" in Chicago in the 1970's. If you're not familiar with the story and you're interested (be warned - like much true crime, it's pretty gruesome) Google "John Wayne Gacy".