The Witching Hour

“God,” Dean complained, peering through his windshield as they rolled through the small Colorado town. “Alamosa really is a wasteland.”

Sam gave a humored snort as he studied the scenery, his mind still reeling from his dream. He’d scribbled the details he remembered into a small pocket journal, attempting to piece the confusion together, but nothing had come to light. The silver-eyed girl still haunted him, and the painful, despairing fear that had overtaken him in the dream set him on edge. So far, nothing he saw sparked a memory, and he had already begun to worry that his dream hadn’t meant a thing.

Alamosa truly was small; they had driven in on the main highway, and now that they’d rounded the curve of the road, they could already see the other edge of town. To their left sat dozens of older houses and businesses lined by a disused train, and to their right, the more recent businesses sat in almost haunting silence. A few people walked the streets, but it was nowhere close to booming.

Dean swung a right about halfway down the main road, and the college they were headed to came into view. There was a series of three large brick buildings lining the road, all looking tired and worn. But unlike the rest of the town, the college was bustling. Dozens of students wove through the buildings, laughing and talking. Sam let out a heavy sigh; what would he be doing now, if he was back at his school?

Dean swung around the block and then turned down another side street, pulling off into a dirt parking lot. He and Sam climbed out, and instantly they found their group of desperate ‘customers’. Two girls came hurrying across the road, eyes fixed on the brothers.

The first was tall, just a few inches below Dean, with long, straight brunette hair and sharp clear eyes. She was very slender, all her features accentuated by her thin stature. The girl beside her was several inches below her friend, with thick, ringlet curls down to her chest and warm brown eyes. The taller of the two came up to Dean and stuck out her hand.

“I’m Lisa,” she said, shaking his hand swiftly. “And this is my roommate Rachel. We’re glad you came as quickly as you could.”

“It’s no trouble,” Dean assured. “I’m Dean, and this is my brother Sam. Where’s your third roommate?”

The girls exchanged uneasy glances, and Lisa glanced in the direction of the three withering buildings.

“She’s in Richardson Hall. We’ll meet her later.”

With that, Lisa turned swiftly and immediately went back the direction she’d come from. Rachel followed a little slower, looking extremely uneasy. Sam went to catch up with them, but Dean grabbed his arm and tugged him back just a bit. Rachel pressed her shoulder to Lisa’s arm, and hissed urgently,

“She doesn’t know why they’re here, does she?”

“I didn’t tell her. If she knows she’ll just avoid us even more.”

“She’s going to be really pissed off-“

“We don’t have a choice!” Lisa insisted, opening up a door and letting Rachel in. Sam took the door from her and let her in as well, then followed the group up. He studied the scene intently, looking for anything to link to his dream. So far, Lisa was the only link. He’d thought maybe Rachel would have been the silver-eyed girl, but so far he was still in the dark about that.

The girls led them up a flight of stairs and then peeled off into a side hallway, stopping at the first door on the left. Lisa shoved the door open, and the boys stepped into their dorm. It was a double suite, with two bedrooms beside each other and a small entryway leading to a bathroom. The door on the right was shut, and Lisa opened it quickly, shutting it instantaneously.

“She’s still gone,” Lisa assured Rachel as they went into the left hand room. They’d been expecting beds, but the boys were surprised to find an almost living-room type set up.

“There’s only three of us, not four,” Rachel explained in a softer voice. “We’ve got our three beds in the other room, and this is more of a gathering room. It’s a little like home.”

“Its nice,” Sam told her, looking around. Three desks sat against three walls, and the fourth bed sat against the last one. A TV perched precariously on top of a mini-fridge, and the walls were plastered in different movie posters. It was easy to guess which desk belonged to who, even without the pictures acting as a guide.

Lisa’s desk was so tidy it neared perfection. A sleek, black laptop sat on top of a desk calendar, and the picture frames and pencil cups were lined up exactly so against the wall. A lamp sat in one corner, and a textbook was lying idle beside the computer.

Rachel’s desk was parked beside the mini-fridge. It was less neat, but disorderly in an organized fashion. Her computer sat open to the school’s homepage, and a few books were piled on the corner, with a few papers tossed about. She had dozens of sporting event tickets tacked up, and she had close to a collage of pictures plastered up as well.

The last desk was the desk that pulled the Winchester boys further into the room. It was comfortably messy, with books and papers making a good first layer on the wood. On top, a space had been cleared for a laptop that was currently missing, and several binders labeled ‘PDC’ were stacked up high. But it was the small drawing tucked hastily under a few papers that caught Sam’s attention.

It was nothing special, a quick pencil sketch on the back of a paper, but he knew it looked familiar. Whether from his dream, or another facet of his life, he didn’t know, but he couldn’t shake it from his mind. Sam’s fingers brushed over it, and a chill ran down his spine.

Lisa pulled up a couple of chairs as he studied the desk, and she and Rachel hopped onto the bed-couch. Dean took a seat and patted the other chair, pulling Sam from the drawing down next to him.

“Alright, now I’ve got a feeling your third roommate is the possessed-in-question,” he mused, and by the look on Rachel’s face, he figured he was right. “I’m assuming she doesn’t know we’re here, so if she comes in-“

“She left her room key here this morning,” Lisa assured, nodding to the forgotten card tucked under the table lamp. “She’ll knock when she’s back from class“.

“Excellent,” Dean sighed, still not completely at ease. “Well, let’s hear it. Start from the beginning.”

To the boys’ surprise, it was soft-spoken Rachel that started the story.

“Reagan was my first friend here. She and I were roommates in a suite like this. The other two girls moved out early on, so it was just the two of us. She’s like my other half. My best friend-“

“Well she was,” Lisa interjected, her clear eyes glancing away as she hid the hint of distaste in her expression. Dean leaned back in the chair and folded his hands over his stomach; Sam could tell he was waiting for the good parts to come up.

“How did the three of you meet?”

“Reagan and I worked at the same workstudy. She’s an English major, and we spent a lot of time in the offices together,” Lisa explained. “We had a lot in common, and after a few months we started hanging out after work, and she introduced me to Rachel. By the end of the year, we were all really close, so we got a room together.”

“Like I said, it’s just the three of us. We spent all our time together,” Rachel picked up. “I mean, it was Reagan’s idea to move the beds into one room. It was going great. Things were the best they’d been. And then she met Becca.”

“Who’s Becca?” Sam asked, noting the disgust that laced Lisa’s words.

“Reagan met her at the end of last year also,” Rachel said quietly. “We didn’t think they were that great of friends, and then all of a sudden she was constantly with her. It didn’t really matter, I mean, she can be friends with who she wants, and that’s how it was. She and Becca hung out with us for a long time.”

“And then at the end of last month, things started changing,” Lisa spat. “She just completely switched who she was.”

“She and Becca volunteered to do this haunted house in one of the buildings here, and she never came back the next morning. She finally turned up later that night, but you could tell she was just different.”

“Was she violent? Secluded?”

“I mean, she didn’t attack us, she never has, and I don’t think she would,” Rachel said quickly. “But she just retreated from us. She was always laughing and joking, she was always a warm person and she was a little shy, but never with us. And now, she just retreats. She won’t talk, she’s hostile for no reason, and-“

“She and Becca are just downright creepy together,” Lisa grimaced. “They, like, talk without even saying a word. Reagan looks at her, they stare for like five minutes, and then look away and go off to do something. And they do this thing…”

Lisa cut off, and for the first time the girls both fell silent. Dean glanced at his brother before leaning forward and urging them on.

“What thing?”

“Reagan will just be sitting there, reading, or doing her homework, or eating, and she suddenly rolls her shoulders back and turns her head. It’s like someone runs their finger down her spine and she’s trying to brush off the tickle. And then things happen. She’ll look over our shoulders, or off to the side, and things move.”

“What do you mean?” Dean asked quietly; the cheeky attitude he’d had was slowly fading away. The symptoms were beginning to piece together, and he’d seen this before. Every word they spoke began to confirm what they’d told him.

“Like last night. Why we called you,” Lisa said intently, folding her arms protectively over her chest. “We were doing our homework. Reagan was up on her bed, and we were on the floor. We were kind of doing homework, but she wasn’t talking to us. Just sitting there. She did that shoulder roll thing, and then she snapped her head around to stare into the hallway-“

“She like, double-checked we were still there, and then she looked back up and shook her head and did this weird little smile. And I swear, I can’t even think of how to make this up, but this shadowy figure just peeled itself off the wall and disappeared into the other room.”

“We were freaking out. We were yelling and crying, it was terrifying,” Lisa hissed, the girls refusing to speak above a whisper now. The four of them had leaned forward so much there was hardly space between their heads. “We asked her what that was, and she just blinked and didn’t say anything. And I asked her specifically, ‘what was that in the hall’, and she said nothing. So I started getting mad, and she just rolled her shoulders again, smiled, and then told us, ‘you’re not asking the right questions’.”

“The figure, was it pure black, or was it almost a brownish color?” Sam breathed, and Rachel took a hitched breath.

“Brownish-“

“And was it a human shape?” Dean exhaled. “Or more-“

“More what?” came a voice from behind Sam and Dean. Rachel and Lisa screamed as they jumped back against the wall; the brothers whirled around in a wild panic.

“Who are you?” Sam breathed, clutching his chest as he stared at the girl.

“Reagan,” she said, staring at the boys in guarded curiosity, and Dean’s jaw dropped. Her room key was still sitting on the bedside table; it hadn’t moved.