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Dean picked up on the third ring. Sam thanked the gods before speaking.
“Hey, Sammy! How's the hunt? As easy as expected? Sorry I didn't get back in time to come with.”
He let Dean's cheerful manner wash over him for a moment before replying.
“Hey, Dean.”
He tried to make his voice sound as level as possible.
“Sam? What's up? Where are you? You sound far away.”
“Actually, uh, something happened and I need you to come.”
“I'm on my way. Are you still in Belleville? Tell me what happened.”
“The house where the witnesses saw the ghosts, and the two teens went missing…”
“Sam? What happened? Are you ok? Talk to me, Sam.”
Sam winced at the pain. He tried not to let Dean hear it.
“The floor collapsed. I'm… I fell through, and I'm stuck. Half the wall fell too. There's a bunch of shit on top of me and I can't… I can't move.”
He heard the Impala roar to life over the phone, then the squeal of tires as Dean peeled out.
“Sam, I'll be there as soon as I can. It's a straight shot down 36. Sam? Are you there? You gotta talk to me, Sammy. Tell me anything. I gotta know you're still with me.”
“Yea, Dean, I'm here.”
He paused momentarily to catch his breath.
“So, get this,” he started, “there's a new pie place here. They have 17 different flavours.”
The beam lying on his chest made it hard to speak for long. He took several small inhales.
“Oh yea? Did you get a menu?”
“Yeah, I got one for you.”
Another short inhale.
“I spoke with the friends of the disappeared kids there. One of the pies was gooseberry.”
“Gooseberry!? What the hell is a gooseberry?”
Sam laughed at the hint of disgust in Dean's voice and then winced audibly from the pain.
“Sam? You ok? Sorry, no more making you laugh. But in all seriousness, have you ever heard of a gooseberry?”
“Pretty sure I heard Bobby mention Karen making gooseberry jam. They're sour I think. It's only available now. Seasonal”
“Ok, well, we'll go back some time and maybe I'll try it. Do they have cherry? Pecan?”
He huffed a few small breaths before continuing. “Yes, Dean, of course they have two of the most popular pie flavors ever created.” He couldn't help but roll his eyes despite the fact that Dean couldn't see him.
“Don't you roll your eyes at me. Gotta know if they can be taken seriously or not. New fangled pies like gooseberry makes me concerned they're one of those hippy places. Hippy? No. Hipster. With those beards and all that flannel.”
Sam laughed again and made a soft whine as his chest tightened. He gasped for a breath, taking a moment to recover.
“Sam? You ok?”
“You got something against flannel, Dean? Cause I gotta tell ya something then…”
“I love flannel. Those beanie wearing, lumberjacks wearing it ironically are ruining my vibe! What if someone thinks I'm one of them?”
“No chance of that happening, Dean. I think you can mark yourself safe from being mistaken for a hipster.” Another eye roll.
“Good. But don't you think I can't hear your eye rolls.”
There was a lull in the conversation.
“Sam, did you find the ghost or whatever?”
“No. I was clearing the first floor when the floor collapsed. There isn't supposed to be a basement here, so whatever I was here for might be legit.”
“Ok, well, let's hope it leaves you alone until I get there.”
“Uh. Dean? I think you jinxed it.”
Sam was looking at three kids, maybe 8-10 years old, but it was hard to tell from this distance.
Sam could hear Dean's breath quicken over the phone line..
“What do you mean?” He growled. “Sam, what did you see?”
“Three kids, dressed in dirty clothes. They look like… they look scared.”
“Sam? You're breaking up. Say again.”
Sam's voice crackled in and out through the static but Dean couldn't make much sense out of it.
“Sam!” He shouted into the phone. “I'm coming! I'll be there soon! Hang-”
The line went dead and Sam was suddenly aware of how cold it was in the room. It was still light outside, only about 4:30 on a June afternoon, and there was some light filtering through from the windows on the floor above him enabling him to see a bit around him.
The children were in a line against the wall ahead of him. It was a dirt wall, roughly carved and scraped. Whoever owned the house must have dug it out themselves. The children had a strange blueish, blotchy colour to their skin, their fingers seemed black. It was hard to tell, as they were in the shadows. Their clothes were different from each other, seeming to be from different eras, the girl in a brown sackcloth dress that looked homemade, and the boys although similar with short pants and button up shirts, were clearly not the same style. This house had been built in the early 1800s, and had stayed in the same family for almost 100 years before it had been abandoned for a while and eventually in the 1950s someone had bought it and tried to renovate it. The renovation had been abandoned after multiple ghost sightings and the death of a construction worker. It had been empty ever since and attracted ghost hunters and teens. It was a small miracle that the floor had not collapsed sooner.
He looked around as much as his trapped angle would let him. Moving his head made something in his shoulder hurt. One of his arms was trapped at a weird angle beneath him. The other, thankfully, had been free enough to pull his phone from his pocket and dial Dean's number even if he couldn't get it to his face.
He craned his head a bit more despite the pain shooting through his right shoulder. He realized he couldn't feel his fingers, but was hopeful that it was only because he'd been lying on that arm for the better part of an hour. At the edge of his vision he thought he saw a ladder set against the wall to his left, but he couldn't see if it ran to a trap door in the floor. He had no idea how Dean was going to get to him. His duffel of supplies had fallen in with him and he thought he could feel it underneath his legs, which he could still feel, but couldn't move. Something was pressing into his shins and although they'd gone a bit numb, if he moved even slightly, the blood would rush to the area and the burn was blinding.
The children stood against the wall watching him.
“Hey,” he whispered, “Can you help me? Can you move some of this stuff?”
They stared back at him, unblinking. The girl fidgeted with a ripped piece of her dress.
“Why are you here? Who hurt you? Are they still here?”
No response. Small clouds of his breath puffed out in front of him.
Sam tried with his left hand to raise the large, rough hewn, wooden beam holding him down to no avail. He desperately shifted his legs to dislodge the debris there and all he succeeded in doing was to move something else in a way that made the heavy object sit more fully on him. He let out a pained wail. Something further away shifted and fell, creating a dust cloud that made him cough hard. The force of the coughing fit wrenched his shoulder and he felt a crunch and cried out in pain, sobbing gently once the coughing subsided.
He lay perfectly still after that. His eyes were fogged by tears so he blinked a few times, sending them rolling sideways to his temples.
The room was even colder now. He looked at the wall expecting to see the children, but there was nothing now.
This was not good. He thought.
The air around him smelled dank and earthy but now he could smell something else too, something more foul.
Oh God. The kids who went missing. They were probably somewhere down here.
Sam shivered at the cold.
Was it getting colder in here or was it just because he wasn't moving?
It wasn't long before he was shivering violently, his breath coming in short puffs, but his lungs ached on each inhale with the freezing temperatures.
He looked around again, and found the children were back against the wall. The little girl held her hands up to her face and made like she was warming them with her breath.
Sam realized the discoloration on their hands and faces were marks that would come from severe frostbite. These kids had frozen to death, and if Dean didn't get here soon, he would too. His left hand was already stiff and his finger tips were tingling.
The roar of the Impala drifted down to Sam. Was Dean actually here? He had to warn him. He had no idea what else this ghost was capable of.
“Dean?” Sam called out, weakly, barely able to take another breath to call out again. He was starting to shiver less.
He must have drifted off because the next thing he heard was Dean calling his name. He opened his eyes. The air was warm again, but he was exhausted and still cold and tingly.
“Dean, over here.” His voice was hoarse.
“Sammy! I gotcha. Gonna get this stuff off you and we'll get you warm again.”
He began to move small debris away first, clearing a path to Sam. Surveying the situation he grabbed the section of the wall and what looked like a makeshift column out of a large old tree trunk and gingerly lifted them off Sam's legs first.
The blood rushed back to his legs and feet and he hissed at the sensation, still too cold to move. Tossing some other small bits of wall and floor off of Sam he arrived at the main beam lying across Sam's chest.
Giving it a trial lift he realized how heavy it really was.
“Sammy, I dunno how long I can hold this. When I lift, I need you to roll. Can you do that?”
“I'll try.”
“On three, ok?”
Sam nodded.
“One… two… three!” Dean hefted the bean about a foot off of Sam who was able to clumsily roll free with an agonized grunt, making it just beyond the beam. Dean pushed the beam forward as he let go to give Sam extra room.
Sam lay still on his left side, his right arm was on fire but he could tell it wasn't broken, probably just a sprain. His extremities were tingling, all the energy in his body gone. He felt Dean's warm body against him, he was spooning him!
“Ok Sam, we'll get you warmer here for a bit, until you think you're ready to climb the ladder, then we'll find a motel and get you under some warm water. Put your hands in your armpits.”
Dean sat up and helped Sam move his hands until they were tucked in, before settling back behind him and wrapping himself around Sam.
Sam felt warmer already.
“Thank you, Dean.”