"What time did your car break down?" Dean asks that night. They're all hidden several feet off the road waiting for the café couple to drive by. It's almost midnight, and Dean is stiff from crouching.
"A little after midnight," Joe responds.
"Maybe they aren't coming," Dean wonders. "Maybe we scared them off."
"Dean, sit down," Sam frowns.
"I thought you said you've done this before?" Nancy questions with a smirk.
Dean rolls his eyes. "Real funny."
"Shh!" Sam orders. They huddle behind Sam to peak at the car lights approaching. They hear the tell-tale signs of a failing engine and wait for the couple to emerge.
"I thought they fixed it!" the woman cries.
"Well, I guess something else is wrong."
"What are we gonna do?"
"This way," he prods. "Let's see if there's a house on the other side of these trees."
"I don't want to go through there."
"Come on! I don't want to spend all night stranded on this road."
"Alright," she mutters before walking behind him.
Sam and Dean nod at the Joe and Nancy before taking off. Nancy reaches for her shotgun, now filled with rock salt, and slides behind Joe.
A scream erupts, and they take off running. Dean bursts into the field to see the scarecrow charging towards them. He fires a shot, but the scarecrow keeps walking. Two, three but the scarecrow is undaunted. "Go! Go!" Dean shouts.
Sam and Joe reach for the couples' arms and pull them away from the scene as Nancy discharges her gun from the side. Dean and Nancy stumble backwards as the others reach for safety.
"Get out of here!" Dean commands.
"Not without you," Nancy responds and fires another shot.
"You better bet your ass I'm right behind you."
Nancy shoots once more time then takes off running. She hears Dean behind her. As her feet touch pavement, she turns to make sure Dean is safe. To her surprise, the scarecrow is gone, and he rushes to her alone.
"What the hell was that?" the young man cries.
Dean plops against the car exhausted. "Don't even ask."
"Well, it's definitely not a spirit," Dean begins the next morning. The four are sitting around a rest stop table discussing the previous night's events.
"What makes you say that?" Joe inquires. He stands and stretches, stiff from sleeping in the back seat of the Impala.
"It didn't stop at the rock salt," Sam informs. "Spirits can't handle salt. It keeps them trapped or protects you if you're within a circle of it."
Nancy's impressed. "How did you figure that out?"
"Our dad taught us," Dean responds. He looks at Sam then turns away. "It's how I learned just about everything about hunting."
"That's how I learned to be a detective," Nancy smiles.
Dean nods. "Yeah, I wouldn't be here without him."
"In case you were wondering, that's why I became a detective too," Joe announces.
They all laugh, and Nancy presses a kiss on his cheek. "Of course, babe."
"So," Joe starts. "If it's not a ghost or spirit or whatever, what is it?"
"A god. A pagan god anyway," Dean answers.
Nancy looks doubtful. "What makes you say that?"
"The annual cycle of its killings? And the fact that the victims are always a man and a woman. Like some kind of fertility right. And you should see the locals. The way they treated this couple. Fattenin' 'em up like a Christmas turkey," Dean tells them.
Sam picks up. "It's like a last meal. Given to sacrificial victims."
Joe frowns. "So is the scarecrow the god, or does a spirit possess it?"
"My guess is it possesses it," Sam suggests. "It possesses the scarecrow, kills the victims, and for another either, the crops don't wilt. Diseases don't spread."
"So what god?" Joe asks.
"Don't know yet," Dean admits. "But Sam and I have booked an appointment with a local professor to figure out who the god is."
"And once we figure that out," Sam grins. "We know how to kill it."
Joe turns to his wife who's been silent through their discussion. "Hey, Nance, you okay? You haven't said what you think."
"You know I'm a skeptic, Joe, and I don't believe in anything you all just said," Nancy forces a smile. "But you tell me what to do, and I'll be there."
Sam squeezes her hand. "Trust me. It'll save a lot lives."
She nods. "And that I do believe."