1.17 Hell House

Two months ago, three teenagers in Richardson, Texas, lead by a young man Craig, are heading to a reputedly haunted house. All of them eventually enter. The legend goes that it lives in the root cellar, and it only goes after girls by stringing them up. James doesn't believe it, and leads the group to the basement, where he cuts up and jokes. However, they find the body of a girl hanging in the cellar. By the time the police arrive, the body is missing, so the police say the kids are just yanking chains.

Now Sam knew they'd be passing through Texas, so the previous night he found a paranormal website called HellHoundsLair.com and found a case. The site had the kids' testimonies, including the cops thinking they were lying. He's sleeping soundly while Dean in driving. Due to Dean's overwhelming boredom, he sticks a spoon in Sam's mouth and takes a photo. He then wakes Sam, both startled and annoyed, rudely by turning up the radio and singing. Sam doesn't want to start that crap - a prank war - up again, but Dean teases him into it. Sam gives the information to Dean, who teases that the website was streaming live out of Mom's basement, and they wouldn't know a ghost if it bit them in the persqueeter. Sam mentions they let Dad take off - which was a mistake - so no harm in checking out this hunt. Just find the kids in a food place.

The three teens talk about their experience to Sam and Dean, each giving different details and believing it to be true. Sam and Dean ask about how they found the place, and they all say one name: Craig. The boys track down Craig Thursten, in a record store. While Dean flips through some records, Sam listens to Craig's retelling, told to him by his cousin Dana, of the legend of Mordechai Murdoch. He was a farmer who lived in the house during the 1930s, who killed his daughters, hanging them in the cellar to spare them from slow starving to death caused by The Depression. He then hung himself, so he's trapped in the house forever. Craig insists he didn't believe it before, but now he doesn't know what to think, only that the girl was real.

Dean and Sam scout the woods to check things out. EMF's no good, possibly from the overhead power line. They head inside, which has symbols painted from many different origins painted on the walls and floor. Dean notices one of the symbols on the walls but can't identify what exactly it is, while Sam notices that the paint is fresh. While searching the house, the boys run into Ed Zeddmore and Harry Spangler, professional paranormal investigators, who run the website called HellHoundsLair.com. Ed claims the boys are amateurs, and tries to impress them with the EMF (electromagnetic field meter) that Harry explains, which spikes and gets them excited. After Dean determines that no, they hadn't actually seen a ghost, he and Sam leave them to their "work".

Sam has researched about Mordechai, but couldn't find anything. Instead he found another man, Martin Murdoch, who lived in the house in the 30s. He had two sons, none of which died. Dean thinks this is just a bust, because no missing reports even match the dead girl's description. Dean climbs in the car to head for a bar and beers, only to have the radio playing full blast a Latino pop-dance music play. He scrambles to turn it off to Sam's laughter, as Sam pranked Dean. Dean claims it's weak, and they drive off.

That night, on a dare, Jill enters to house to retrieve a jar from the cellar while two friends, a girl and a guy, wait outside. Jill is scared, but makes it down to the cellar. However, Mordechai appears and hangs her, just as the legend says. The next morning, in between the police and coroner with bystanders standing around, Dean and Sam revisit the house. They ask Mr. Goodwin what happened, only to be told the girl committed suicide when she was a straight A student with a full ride to UT. Dean realizes they missed something.

That night they return to the house, but the police are surrounding Hell House to keep others out. When Ed and Harry show up, Dean calls to the police to blow Ed and Harry's cover... and suddenly the brothers have access to Hell House. Walking through the main room, the symbol on the wall bugs Dean, but they head down into the cellar. Dean double dares Sam to drink something, teasing him, but a noise causes them to be alert. It's only rats, which bothers Dean. The ghost appears behind Sam, and they react, turning around and shooting him. However, he's immune to rock salt, which is wrong, and they scramble to get out. Mordechai brings his axe down, bringing the shelf down on top of Dean. Sam uses his shotgun to block the next axe swing, yelling at Dean to get out, before Sam is able to get out from under the axe himself. Out front Ed and Harry had given the cops the slip and came back, only to have Sam and Dean come barreling out of Hell House, racing away as fast as they can. Ed and Harry sees the ghost. Harry grabs Ed to start running, but they crash into the cops, who put them in the holding cell for the rest of the night.

The next day back at their motel Dean is bothered by the symbol on the wall. Sam explains how the Mordechai's ghost didn't make sense because he was carrying around an axe and had slit wrists. Then Sam notices on hellhoundslair.com that someone changed the story, into that he slit his wrists with an axe. Dean suddenly recognizes the symbol, and figures out where it all started. Dean and Sam return to visit Craig in the record store. The symbol is from a Blue Oyster Cult album cover. Craig admits that he and his cousin Dana were bored, so they found an abandoned dump and they made it look haunted by painting the symbols from band logos and signs from Dana's theology textbooks, and made up a story of a ghost named Murdoch as a prank. The story started to spread, and eventually got on the Hell Hounds website. It was funny at first, but now the girl's dead. He didn't mean anything by it. Dean and Sam leave, wondering if it's not real, then how do you explain Mordechai?

Back at the motel, Sam is in the shower while Dean has been out. Dean returns and puts itching powder in Sam's underwear, while Sam postulates that Mordechai is a Tulpa. Sam comes out of the bathroom explaining that it's a Tibetan thought form, causing Dean to step away from Sam's underwear hastily. Dean suggests Sam getting dressed, as he wants something to eat, and jumps into the bathroom.

They grab coffees, and make their way to a table, the itching powder starting to have an effect. Sam is squirming around while he explains Tulpas to Dean. There was one incident when 20 monks visualized a golem and it appeared, so Sam postulates that 10,000 websurfers could do the same, since they are all thinking about Mordechai. Since Craig painted signs from a Theology textbook, and one of the signs was a sigil that has been used for centuries to concentrate meditative thoughts, that could have been enough to bring a Tulpa to life. But, the story on the internet keeps changing, so does the spirit. It's also why the rock salt did not work; Mordechai isn't a traditional spirit. Sam's getting worse, itching and adjusting himself. Dean wonders if they could just take the sigil off the wall, but that won't kill it. The HellHound website uploaded last night's video, so even more people are thinking about Mordechai. Dean thinks of a way to kill it, and stands up to head to a copy store. Sam follows, complaining he's allergic to their soap, but Dean's laughter clues him in that Dean pulled a prank.

In their camper, Harry doesn't want to go back, but Ed points out that Harry's a ghost hunter, and convinces him. There is a pounding on the door, and the Winchester brothers want to talk with them. Dean tells them to shut down their website, but Ed says they have an obligation to their fans and the truth. Sam "slips" about that thing, but convinces Dean to leave, so Harry and Ed chase after the boys agreeing to shut down the website for the information. Finally, Dean and Sam hand over the "death certificate" stating that death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound, that he's terrified of them, and if you shoot him with wrought-iron rounds, you can kill him. They race back to their camper, excited on new information to post to the website.

As Dean and Sam wait for the boys to post it on their website and enough people view it so that it becomes real, they go out to eat. Dean keeps pulling a cord, causing an annoying fisherman to laugh and annoy Sam. Sam is on his laptop checking to see if Ed and Harry posted the information, which they did, changing the legend. Sam figures by nightfall iron rounds will work, killing Mordechai, and they toast with their beers. Dean takes a drink of his beer, only to find he can't put the bottle down because Sam superglued it. Sam pulls the cord to the annoying fisherman laugh, to specifically laugh at Dean.

It's night, and cops are patrolling the house. They hear laughter coming from nearby. When they find it, it's the annoying laughing fisherman from the restaurant the Winchesters were previously in. This gives the Winchesters the distraction they need to get into the Hell House. Alert, they begin to sweep the house with guns, Dean complaining he barely has enough skin on his palm.

Dean and Sam hear a voice, spinning to take aim, but it turns out to be Ed and Harry. The four of them hear a scraping noise, and the brothers take up position once more, with Ed and Harry crowding behind them. Mordechai comes bursting out, so Dean and Sam start firing. Nothing happens, but Mordechai disappears again. Dean and Sam sweep the rest of the rooms, while Harry wants to check if they got Mordechai on film. He reappears to break the camera from Harry's hands. Dean and Sam race back, and question if they'd posted the story, but Ed and Harry tell them the server crashed, so the new legend will not manifest. Harry and Ed try to leave, but Mordechai attacks them. Sam comes to their rescue, allowing them to escape, but Sam gets in trouble himself. Meanwhile Dean's been busy tossing out flammable liquid over the kitchen and the main room. Dean races to Sam's rescue, spraying an aerosol he's ignited. Sam pauses in the main room, but Dean explains he's improvising, tossing the lighter back into the room and catching everything on fire. They race from the burning house, stopping to see Mordechai disappear. Sam questions Dean's logic of burning the house down, but Dean explains no one will go in anymore, and without a house to haunt, Mordechai won't exist.

If the legend changes Dean says they will just come back. Sam wonders how many things they've hunted existed, just because people believed in them.

The next night the brothers go back to see Harry and Ed, who are busy packing up to head to Hollywood. They received a phone call that morning from a producer who wants to option the movie rights to Hell House, maybe let them write it, and create the RPG. The brothers wish them luck, and say goodbye. After they pull out, Sam confesses he's the one who pranked them with the call from the Hollywood producer. They got a laugh, and then Dean confesses he's put a dead fish in their back seat. They both laugh again. Sam asks for a truce in their prank war, which Dean agrees to for the next 100 miles. They climb in the Impala and leave.