Rivers Deep | Sam Winchester

5. Despite The Fear

"And one has to understand that braveness is not the absence of fear, but rather the strength to keep on going forward despite the fear."- Paulo Coelho

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"Theresa Ellis, Apartment 2-F, her boyfriend reported her missing around Dawn," Dean reported the infromation he had gathered as he entered the room. Jo and Sam were reviewing some things on the table, while Noah was feeding Delta for the moment before he joined the pair.

"And her apartment?" Jo questioned. If this was the spirit, it was going off pattern, they had to be sure it wasn't a random crime that happened to strike a little too close for comfort.

"Cracks all over the plaster, walls, ceiling, there's ectoplasm, too," Dean responded. "Between that and that tuft of hair, I'd say the sucker's coming from the walls," Sam deduced.

"But who is it? The building's history is totally clean," Dean retorted. "What if... Okay, can't spirits attach to people like they can objects? Well what if a girl who looks a lot like our victims had one attached to her and brought it here, and it decided to stick around," Noah suggested.

"Or maybe we're looking in the wrong place," Jo suggested, picking up a picture, and handing it to the brothers as Noah walked next to the table to join them. "An empty field?" Sam inquired.

"It's where this building was built, take a look at the one next door," Jo stated. Noah came to stand next to the youngest Winchester, looking at the picture, "The windows," Jo clarified. "Bars," Sam noticed.

"We're next door to a prison?" Dean rhetorically asked. Jo pulled her phone out, calling someone by the name of 'Ash' and having him research it. "Alright, thanks, Ash, and if you breathe a word of this to Mom... that's right, I will, with pliers," she threatened before hanging up and picking the photo back up.

"Okay, Moyamensing Prison, built in 1835, torn down in 1963, and get this, they used to execute people by hanging them in the empty field next door," Jo explained Ash's findings.

"Well, then we need a list of all the people executed there," Sam stated. "Ash is already on it," Jo replied with a smile.

It was meer minutes before Sam's laptop received an email, including the list. They scrolled through, "157 names?" Sam questioned in disbelief. "We gotta narrow that down somehow," Noah stated the obvious with his arms crossed as he leaned against the wall, Delta nosing at his thigh as she begged for attention.

"Or else we're gonna be digging up a hell of a lot of stiffs," Dean added. Sam continued to scroll but he stopped and highlighted a name that seemed to catch his eye," Herman Webster Mudgett?"

"Yeah?" Jo asked, as if to inquire him to elaborate. Sam scrunched his eyebrows in thought before he looked to his brother, "Wasn't that H. H. Holmes' real name?"

Dean and Noah's eyes widened, staring in shock. "You gotta be kidding me," Dean said. Sam stood from the laptop as Dean ushered him, sitting in his place and opened a tab to research. Moments later, he spoke up, "Yep, Holmes was executed at Moyamensing, May 7th, 1896, " Dean read from the newspaper articel he found. Noah laughed shortly in shock, shaking his head," H. H. Holmes himself, come on, I mean, what are the odds?"

"Who is this guy?" Jo asked, being left in the dark.

"The term 'multi-murderer,' they coined it to describe Holmes, he was America's first serial killer before anyone knew what a serial killer was," Dean responded. "He confessed to 27 murders, but some put the death toll at over 100," Sam added.

"And his victim flavor of choice, pretty, petite blondes," Noah stated," He used chlororform to kill them."

"Which is what I smelled in the hallway last night," Dean realized, it was all making sense now. "At his place, cops found human remains, bone fragments, and long locks of bloody hair," Dean concluded," Boy, you sure knew how to pick 'em."