My Guiding Light

Chapter 16

Season: 4

Episode(s): Yellow Fever

Setting(s): Rock Ridge, Colorado

***

I refused to go into the motel last night, as did Dean. So, without speaking so much as a word to each other, we took one half of the car each and slept. That was until morning comes and dean starts blaring music, namely, eye of the tiger. I try my best to stay asleep or at least look it to try and shut him up. That's when Sam walks over and scares the crap out of us.
Okay, so he only tapped on the roof of the car but the sound was pretty loud, it could have been a monster.

Unlike Dean, I ignore it, still sensing the tension between Sam and I so instead I just sit in the back seat, rubbing my wrists raw against the coarse fabric of my jeans.

"I just talked to Bobby." Sam says from outside the car. It's muffled but I can just hear it.

"And?" Dean asks before throwing me a box of doughnuts which I assume he got from Sam. I refuse to eat them. They could be poisoned. Sam does seem to hate me at the moment so it's possible.

"It's ghost sickness."

"Ghost sickness? Oh no, I don't even know what that is." Dean says, panic in his voice.

"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." Sam explains which has me starting to hyperventilate as I rub my wrists harder.

"Symptoms are; you get anxious...then scared, then really scared, then your heart gives out. Sound familiar?" He goes on which doesn't really help me.

"We haven't seen a ghost in weeks." Dean says in attempts to disprove the theory.

"Doubt you got it from a ghost." Sam shrugs. "Ghost sickness spreads like the flu, a handshake, a cough... and Frank O'Brien was the first to die so... he was patient zero. And get this, Frank was in Maumee over the weekend."

"So ghost gave it to Frank, he gave it to the other guys and I got it from his corpse?"

"Not just you." Sam says but doesn't verbally elaborate so I can only assume the guys are now looking at my curled up position in the backseat.

"I haven't seen her this anxious since high school finals." Sam comments in such a way it makes it sound like he's simply displaying a piece of evidence.

"So what? We have forty-eight hours before we go insane and our hearts stop?"

"More like twenty four."

"Why us? I mean, why not you? You got hit with the spleen juice like Mia did. Shouldn't you be going crazy with her and not me?"

"Bobby and I have a theory on that, actually. See, all the vics had a certain...personality type. Frank was a bully, one was a vice-principal and the other a bouncer. Basically all dicks."

"You calling me a dick?"

"No, all three people used fear as a weapon. The disease is uh...returning the favour."

"I don't scare people. And what about Mia? She's pint-sized. She couldn't scare anyone if she tried."

"Really dean? Cause she scared the hell out of me when she burnt that rugaru. And she used to cut girl's braids off with a knife if they pissed her off. Pretty sure that's fear."

"Anyway." Dean tries to dismiss. "If I'm a dick, you're a dick. We always scare people."

"Apparently not."

"Whatever. How do we stop it?"

"Seems like a simple ghost case. Find out who the ghost is, starting with Frank's wife and go from there."

"You think it's Frank's wife?"

"Who knows why she killed herself. Hey, why are you two down here anyway?"

"Our room is on the fourth floor... it's high...." Dean trails off, leaving nothing but Sam's annoyed sigh as he walks off to change to the first floor.

First floors are just as dangerous though, if the roof isn't as strong and up to regulations as it should be it could fall with the weight of the whole building and crush you. Honestly I think it's safer outside.