| A young girl, Lori, and her boyfriend park their car at a deserted spot. When they hear a strange noise outside the car, Rich gets out to investigate, but when he doesn't return, Lori gets out to look for him, only to find his body hanging upside down from a tree.Dean and Sam read about the death and head to Rich's fraternity dorm to get some more information. They find out that Lori is the daughter of the local reverend and visit the church to try and get to know her. When they learn a bit more about the death, they both realise that it sounds like the Hook Man legend and wonder if this is the place that the legend started. Doing some digging at the library, they find records of a preacher, Jacob Karns, who was arrested for killing 13 prostitutes in 1862. His hand had been replaced with a silver hook and the murders all happened in the same place Lori and Rich had been parked.
The head out at night to look for the spirit, but get caught by the local sheriff, who is told that Sam is a new pledge hunting for ghosts! The next morning Lori wakes up to find her roommate dead in her bed and a message scrawled on the wall in blood. When Sam and Dean sneak into the room, the recognise the message as typical of the Hook Man legend and can smell strong ozone in the room - a sure sign that a spirit has been there. They start to suspect that perhaps Lori's father, the reverend, is involved with the spirit and Sam goes to talk to Lori while Dean salts and burns the bones of Karns. Sam and Lori get on extremely well, even sharing a kiss, which scares Sam a little, as it's not been long since Jessica died. The Hook Man suddenly appears but Sam manages to temporarily stop him.
They realise that Lori is the one that the spirit is latching onto and wonder why burning the bones doesn't seem to have worked. There must be something missing and they suspect it could be his silver hook. Some more reading up and they find that the hook was donated to the church after Karns died - Lori's fathers church. The hook was melted down into something else. The boys melt everything made of silver that they can find, but when the Hook Man reappears, the wonder what they have missed. Then they notice that Lori is wearing a silver cross on a chain. Struggling to survive an attack by the Hook Man, they manage to throw the cross into the fire and he is finally defeated. |
