The Family Business (Season 1)

1x8: Bugs

I sit on the hood of the car with Sam while Dean is inside hustling money.

I hear Dean laugh as he comes up to the car, and I look up to see him holding some money.

"You know, we could get day jobs once in a while" Sam says as he looks over at Dean.

"Hunting's our day job and the pay is crap" Dean retorts.

"Yeah, but hustling pool, credit card scams? It's not the most honest thing in the world Dean."

"Let's see. Honest... fun and easy... it's no contest" Dean says as he flips his hands over and gestures them up and down like he's weighing the options.

"Whatever" he scoffs weakly.

"We got a new gig or what?" I ask Sam.

"Maybe" he slides off the hood of the car. "Oasis Plains, Oklahoma. Not far from here." he places the newspaper on the hood and me and Dean walk to his sides and view the article. "Gas company employee, Dustin Burwash supposedly died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob."

"Huh?" Dean looks at Sam funny.

"Human mad cow disease" I answer.

"Mad cow? Wasn't that on Oprah?" Dean asks.

"You watch Oprah?" Sam looks at him with the 'wtf' face.

Dean hesitates answering the question. "So this guy eats a bad burger. Why is it our kind of thing?"

"Mad cow disease causes massive brain degeneration. It takes months, even years for the damage to appear, but this guy Dustin, sounds like his brain disintegrated in about an hour, maybe less" Sam explains.

"Okay. That's weird" Dean responds.

"Yeah" Sam nods. "Now, it could be a disease, or it could be something much nastier."

"Alright" Dean smacks his hands together. "Oklahoma it is."

"Man. Work, work, work. No time to spend my money" Dean chuckles as he gets into the car.

We all pile in and head off to another job.

—

We pull into a building parking lot and get out. We see a man and walk up to him.

"Travis Weaver?" Sam asks as we walk up.

The man looks over at us. "Yeah that's right" he says as he looks at all of us.

"Are you the Travis who worked with Uncle Dusty?" Dean asks.

"Dustin never mentioned a niece or nephews."

"Really? Well he sure mentioned you. He said you were the greatest" Dean continues.

"Oh he did? Huh."

"Listen, we wanted to ask you, uh what exactly happened out there?"

"I'm not sure" he shook his head. "He fell in the sinkhole. I went to the truck to get some rope and uh, by the time I got back..."

"What'd you see?" Dean asked.

"Nuthin'. Just Dustin."

"No wounds? Or anything?" Sam asks.

"Well, he was bleeding from his eyes and his ears, his nose. That's it."

"So do you think it could be this whole mad cow thing?" Dean asks.

"I don't know. That's what the doctors are saying."

"But if it was, he would have acted strange beforehand like dementia, loss of motor control. You ever notice anything like that?" I ask.