Comfort Crowd Δ SPN [ 1 ]

066. GHOST SICKNESS

It's nighttime and they're in town for a case, having gotten there earlier that day. Dean and the girls are currently sitting in the Impala, waiting for Sam, who gets in.

"Hey. Any luck at the county clerk's office?" Sam asks.

"I'm not sure I'd call it luck. Frank's wife, Jessie, was a manic depressive. She went off her meds back in '88 and vanished. They found her two weeks later, three towns over. Strung up in her motel room, suicide." Dean informs.

"Any chance Frank helped her along to the other side?" Sam asks.

"No, Frank was working the swing shift when she disappeared. Airtight alibi." Dean states, turning the car on and starting to drive. "How was Frank's pad?"

"Clean. Searched it top to bottom. No EMF, no hex bags, no sulfur." Sam says.

"So probably no ghosts, no witches, no demons." Dean says. "Three down and ninety-seven to go."

"Yeah." Sam says, glancing at the speedometer. "Dude, you're going twenty.

"And?" Dean asks.

"That's the speed limit." Sam says.

"What? Safety's a crime now?" Dean asks. He drives through the intersection, passing their hotel.

"Dude, where are you going? That was our hotel." Sam states.

"Sam, I'm not gonna make a left hand turn into oncoming traffic. I'm not suicidal." Dean says and Sam looks at him confused. "Did I just say that? That was kind of weird." The EMF starts going off and Sam takes it out, moving it around, putting it closer to Dean making it spike.

"Am I haunted?" Dean asks. "Am I haunted?!"

+++

Dean and the girls are in the Impala and the girls are sitting in the back while Dean lays across the front seat. He's air drumming to Eye of the Tiger while the girls pay him no mind, Libby completely zoned in on Ophelia reading a Magic Treehouse book to her.

There's a bang on the roof and they all look up to see Sam, Dean seeming scared.

"Dude. Look at this." Dean says, showing Sam scratches on his arm, getting out of the car.

"I just talked to Bobby." Sam states, handing Dean a box of donuts.

"And?" Dean asks. He smells the box of donuts and then throws them in the car. Ophelia reaches over the seat and gets the box. Sam looks at his brother confused, but doesn't comment on anything.

"Um, well, you're not gonna like it." Sam says.

"What?" Dean asks.

"It's ghost sickness." Sam says.

"Ghost sickness?" Dean asks.

"Yeah."

"God, no."

"Yeah."

"I don't even know what that is."

"Okay. Some cultures believe that certain spirits can infect the living with a disease, which is why they stopped displaying bodies in houses and started taking them off to funeral homes."

"Okay, get to the good stuff."

"Symptoms are you get anxious..."

"Yeah."

"Then scared, then really scared, then your heart gives out. Sound familiar?"

"Yeah, but Sam, we haven't seen a ghost in weeks."

"Well, I doubt you caught it from a ghost. Look, once a spirit infects that first person, Ghost sickness can spread like any sickness through a cough, a handshake, whatever. It's like the flu. Now, Frank O'Brien was the first to die, which means he was probably the first infected. Patient zero."