A/N: Like I promised! Here is chapter 4! Also special thanks to Toritacoisawesome for your constant reviews. You're awesome!
Disclaimer: I only own Allie…sadly
Episode: Phantom Traveler
Sam and I snuck out in the morning to grab a couple of coffees and some donuts while Dean was still sleeping soundly with a couple of snores coming from his mouth. It was nice catching up with Sam. It's been a while since we had a long conversation about our lives—our social lives that didn't involve hunting.
"I spent my 21st birthday in Wyoming with Dean and Dad for some salt and burn. I passed out on the couch around 8. Real birthday bash I had," I scoffed, yet I smiled at the memory. I didn't mind spending my birthday that way. Dean bought me a cupcake and stuffed a candle in it in the morning and Dad bought me my own personal case of beers. Despite the alcohol being all for me—Dean would steal them every now and then. I probably had seven out of twenty-four. "What about you? What did you do?" Sam looked away from me, avoiding my gaze. "Sam, it's okay. You can tell me about some big birthday party your friends threw you at some fancy California club. That was your life. I'm not going to be jealous of it or anything."
Sam cracked a grin, "Well that didn't exactly happen. I mean, yes, my friends did take me out to the regular college bars. They bought me a few drinks, but I also went home early. I couldn't stop thinking of you."
"Really?" I asked. The lady with the coffee and donuts handed them over to me while Sam paid her. Sam drove us back to the motel.
"We share a birthday, Allie. It was hard not to think of you." Sam passed a glance over my way. "I should have called—"
"Yeah," I nodded. Sam licked his lips and stared at the road guiltily. "But I should have called you too. I'm sorry I didn't."
"Me too."
"I'm not mad Sammy," I said after reading his mind. Not actually, but figuratively. "I was," I admitted. "But I got over it. We have bigger things to worry about like Dad and the thing that killed Mom and Jess…I don't want to spend that time being grumpy because you made a decision four years ago."
We pulled up to the motel. I looked at the clock and saw that it was only 5:45 in the morning. How Sam managed to wake me up this morning…I'll never know.
We walked in to Sam and Dean's dark room. Dean was still sleeping but the shut of the door behind us woke him up instantly. He looked a little startled.
"Morning, sunshine," Sam smirked.
"What time is it?" Dean grumbled, stretching himself out. I sat on the bed next to his and handed him a coffee.
"Uh, it's about 5:45," Sam answered, passing me a donut.
"In the morning?"
"No. It's dinnertime. You feeling burgers?" I replied sarcastically.
"Smartass," Dean sat up fully and looked at Sam. "Did you get any sleep last night?"
"Yeah, I grabbed a couple hours," Sam lied.
"Liar," Dean called his bluff. "'Cause I was up at three, and you were watching a George Foreman infomercial."
"Hey, what can I say? It's riveting TV."
"When was the last time you got a good night's sleep?"
"I don't know," Sam finally admitted. "A little while, I guess. It's not a big deal."
"Yeah, it is," Dean defended.
"Look, I appreciate your concern—"
Dean shook his head, "Oh, I'm not concerned about you. It's your job to keep my ass alive, so I need you sharp." Sam shrugged. "Seriously, are you still having nightmares about Jess?"
"Yeah. But it's not just her. It's everything. I just forgot, you know? This job. Man, it gets to you."
"You can't let it. You can't bring it home like that."
Sam asked, "So, what? All this it...never keeps you up at night?" Dean shook his head. I narrowed my eyes at Dean. Liar. "Never? You're never afraid."
"No, not really," Dean said again.
Without taking my eyes off of him, I reached under Dean's pillow to pull out a large hunting knife I knew he kept there in case something dangerous were to sneak into our room.
Dean glared at me and swiped the knife back, "That's not fear. That is precaution."
"All right, whatever," Sam said. "I'm too tired to argue."
Dean's phone rang. He stared at the called ID for a moment, casting a glance my way, then answered the phone.
"Hello?" Dean answered…." Oh, right, yeah. Up in Kittanning, Pennsylvania, the poltergeist thing. It's not back, is it?" I narrowed my eyes. I remembered that case. We took it on with my father. "What is it?"
Dean eyed us down before snapping his phone shut after saying a final goodbye to Jerry Panowski, the man we helped on that case.
We met up with Jerry in Pennsylvania in a warehouse filled with evidence from plane crashes.
Jerry walked us through the place and into his office, "Thanks for making the trip so quick. I ought to be doing you guys a favor, not the other way around. Dean, Allie and your dad really helped me out."
"Yeah, he told me. It was a poltergeist?" Sam asked.
"Poltergeist?" Someone from the other side of the warehouse called out. "Man, I loved that movie!"
I smirked.
"Hey, nobody's talking to you. Keep walking." Jerry said back to them. "Damn right it was a poltergeist, practically tore our house apart. Tell you something, if it wasn't for you and your dad, I probably wouldn't be alive. Your dad said you were off at college. Is that right?"
"Yeah, I was. I'm…taking some time off," Sam lied.
"Well, he was real proud of you," Jerry smiled. This caught Sam's attention and his eyebrows perked up in shock. "I could tell. He talked about you all the time."
"He did?" Sam asked.
"Yeah, you bet he did. Oh, hey, you know I tried to get a hold of him, but I couldn't. How's he doing, anyway?"
"He's um, wrapped up in a job right now." Dean said.
"Well, we're missing the old man, but we get Sam. Even trade, huh?"
"No, not by a long shot," Sam said.
"I got something I want you guys to hear," Jerry led us into his office and stood behind his desk. He typed away on his computer. "I listened to this. And, well, it sounded like it was up your alley." He popped in a CD. "Normally I wouldn't have access to this. It's the cockpit voice recorder for United Britannia flight 2485. It was one of ours."
The recording played, "Mayday! Mayday! Repeat! 2485-immediate instruction...may be experiencing some mechanical failure..." From there, there is a loud swooshing and the recording goes dead. Did we just listen to the seconds before a plane crashed?
"Took off from here, crashed about two hundred miles south. Now, they're saying mechanical failure. Cabin depressurized somehow. Nobody knows why. Over a hundred people on board. Only seven got out alive. Pilot was one. His name is Chuck Lambert. He's a good friend of mine. Chuck is, uh...well, he's pretty broken up about it. Like it was his fault."
"You don't think it was?" Sam questioned.
"No, I don't." Jerry nodded.
"Jerry, we're gonna need passenger manifests, um, a list of survivors." Sam said.
"All right."
"And, uh, any way we can take a look at the wreckage?" Dean asked. I peeked over at him. There was no way we were going to get in.
Jerry sighed, "The other stuff is no problem. But the wreckage...fellas, the NTSB has it locked down in an evidence warehouse. No way I've got that kind of clearance."
I smirked and looked between my brothers. Dean squinted his eyes at me and looked confused. "No problem," I told Jerry.
Sam and I waited outside Copy Jack while Dean made him and Sam a Homeland Security badge. I was already told that there was no way I would pass as Homeland Security, even though it was my idea. We were listening to Jerry's tape over and over again and found some EVP on it.
"You've been in there forever," Sam said as Dean walked out with two new IDs.
Dean held the IDs to Sam's face. "You can't rush perfection." He handed Sam's over to him.
"Homeland Security?" Sam shook his head. "That's pretty illegal, even for us."
"Yeah, well, it's something new. You know? People haven't seen it a thousand times." Dean replied. We hopped back in the car and Dean turned back to us. "All right, so, what do you got?"
"Well, there's definitely EVP on the cockpit voice recorder," I said. I bring out the tape and held it between Sam and Dean. "Listen."
"No survivors," The scratchy voice from the EVP creepily spoke.
"No survivors?" Dean repeated with confusion. "What's that supposed to mean? There were seven survivors."
Sam shrugged, "Got me."
"So, what are you thinking? A haunted flight?" Dean asked worriedly.
"There's a long history of spirits and death omens on planes and ships, like phantom travelers."
"Mm-hmm," Dean hummed. I stared at him for a couple of seconds before I understood why he was not liking where this conversation was going. Dean was scared of flying.
"Or remember flight 401?" Sam asked.
"Right. The one that crashed, the airline salvaged some of its parts, put it in other planes, then the spirit of the pilot and copilot haunted those flights."
"So?" I asked.
"Maybe we got a similar deal," Sam suggested.
"All right, so, survivors, which one do you want to talk to first?" Dean asked.
"Third on the list," Sam said. I was surprised how fast he came up with that answer. "Max Jaffey."
"That was quick," I said.
"Why him?" Dean asked.
"Well, for one, he's from around here. And two, if anyone saw anything weird, he did," Sam said like it was that easy.
"What makes you say that?" Dean asked.
"Well, I spoke to his mother," Sam said sheepishly. "And she told me where to find him."
Sam directed Dean to the Riverfront Psychiatric Hospital. Sam and Dean posed for Homeland Security for the first time and since I wanted in on this one, they let me. It was just an interview and there was no way we would get caught.
Max walked out to the front lobby using a cane. He looked exhausted. He had bags under his eyes and his skin was sickly pale. It was obvious he was still dealing with the trauma of the plane crash.
Max led us to a table in the outside courthouse. "I don't understand. I already spoke with Homeland Security."
"Right. Some new information has come up. So if you could just answer a couple questions..." Dean trailed off.
"Just before the plane went down, did you notice anything...unusual?" Sam asked.
"Like what?" He asked.
"Strange lights, weird noises, maybe. Voices," I jumped in.
Max looked at me weirdly, "Who are you again?"
"She's an intern," Dean gave me a warning look to tone it down. When Max looked away I glared and shrugged.
"No. I didn't see any of those things," Max eventually said, looking at Sam and Dean.
"Mr. Joffey—"
"Jaffey," Max corrected him.
Dean smiled politely. "Jaffey. You checked yourself in here, right?" He nodded. "Can I ask why?"
"I was a little stressed. I survived a plane crash."
"Uh huh. And that's what terrified you? That's what you were afraid of?"
Max grew uncomfortable, "I...I don't want to talk about this anymore."
"See, I think maybe you did see something up there. We need to know what."
Max shook his head, "No. No, I was...delusional. Seeing things."
"So you were seeing things," I said. Before he answered no to my question.
Sam kicked me under the table, "It's okay. Then just tell us what you thought you saw, please."
"There was...this-man. And, uh, he had these...eyes-these, uh...black eyes. And I saw him-or I thought I saw him..."
"What?" Dean pressed when he heard Max trailing off.
"He opened the emergency exit. But that's...that's impossible, right? I mean, I looked it up. There's something like two tons of pressure on that door." Max explained nervously.
"This man, uh, did he seem to appear and disappear rapidly? It would look something like a mirage?" Sam asked.
"What are you nuts?" Max looked between the three of us. He sat further in his seat. "He was a passenger. He was sitting right in front of me."
There goes our evil spirit theory.
We looked up the passenger's name that sat in front of Max on the plane. Luckily, he also lived in the area, but unfortunately he didn't survive the crash he supposedly caused.
"So here we are. George Phelps, seat 20C," Sam read from his notebook where he had written the address after finding it in the obituary section of the local newspaper.
Dean hummed, "Man, I don't care how strong you are. Even yoked up on PCP or something, no way you can open up an emergency door during a flight."
"Not if you're human. But maybe this guy George was something else. Some kind of creature, maybe, in human form."
"Yeah a terrifying creature is living in this nice home," I pointed to the quaint two story house in a safe-kid friendly neighborhood.
Mrs. Phelps invited us into our house after we introduced ourselves and pointed to her sofa for us to take a seat. Next to us was a solo picture of George. He was a middle aged man who looked nothing but normal.
"This is your late husband?" I asked, pointing to the picture.
"Yes," Mrs. Phelps looked to be on the verge of tears. "That was my George."
"And you said he was a…dentist." Dean asked.
"Mm-hm. He was headed to a convention in Denver. Do you know that he was petrified to fly? For him to go like that..."
"How long were you married?" Sam asked.
"Thirteen years."
"In all that time, did you ever notice anything...strange about him, anything out of the ordinary?"
She thought about it. "Well...uh, he had acid reflux, if that's what you mean."
I silently sighed. That wasn't what we meant.
"I mean it goes without saying. It just doesn't make any sense," Sam said as we descended Mrs. Phelps's front porch steps and walked back to the impala.
"A middle-aged dentist with an ulcer is not exactly evil personified." Dean agreed. "You know what we need to do is get inside that NTSB warehouse, check out the wreckage."
That's where Homeland Security came in.
Sam nodded, "Okay. But if we're gonna go that route, we'd better look the part."
I smirked, "I know just the place."
They both gave me a confused look as I hopped into the car.
I took my brothers to a rental suit place that I saw right next to Copy Jack. Convenient? I think so. I picked out the suits. All black suits with a white button up and a black tie. Not gonna lie, I had handsome brothers when they tried. Sam didn't seem to mind the suit but Dean was itching to get out of it as soon as he put it on.
"Man, I look like one of the Blues Brothers," Dean complained, stepping out of the store.
I smirked and fixed his collar one more time.
Sam shook his head, "No, you don't. You look more like a...seventh-grader at his first dance."
"I was going to say a limo driver," I added.
Dean looked down at himself one more time, "I hate this thing."
"Hey," Sam said. "You want into that warehouse or not?"
Dean didn't answer and hopped into the driver's seat, knowing this had to be done. I got into the back seat.
"Okay, Al, you're going to stay in the car while we go in there," Sam explained once we were five minutes out. He handed me a walkie-talkie. "If you see anyone go in after us, you have to let us know immediately."
"Yes sir," I sarcastically saluted him and clicked the walkie-talkie on. Sam grinned and turned back around.
"Okay, we're here," Dean said.
I looked out the window and had a clear view of the front desk of the warehouse that Dean and Sam would have to show their badge. If anyone else were to show a badge after them, they were screwed.
"Wait, Dean," I stopped him before he got out. "Leave the keys in here."
"Why?" He asked.
"In case I have to save your ass," I said. "You need a getaway car." Dean hesitated to give me his keys but eventually did. I smiled and snatched the keys from his hand before he could take them away.
Sam and Dean walked inside and showed the front desk man their fake badges. It worked and the guy opened the doors to let them in. When they were out of my sight, I rummaged through Dean's stuff to look for any kind of food. I mentally cheered when I found a lollipop.
I pulled the wrapper off and popped it into my mouth.
I jumped when someone knocked on my window. It was a man about ten years older than me wearing casual clothes. He grinned at me and motioned for me to roll the window down.
"Hey," I said as soon as the window down. "Is there something wrong?"
"I just wanted to let you know that you're parked in a loading zone," He said. "This town is pretty strict with that kind of stuff."
"Oh," I said, although I had no care in the world about a traffic violation. It wasn't like I was going to be here long. "Thanks. I'll move it." He continued to stare at me, as if he was able to see pass my eyes and into my brain and his grin was no longer there. Just a blank face. "Anything else?" This guy was starting to creep me out. "Dude."
He snapped out of his gaze and shook his head, "Have a good day."
He walked away without saying anything else. I watched him stalk off into the distance and disappear behind an alleyway. I wanted to follow him and ask more questions because a strong feeling I had told me something wasn't right about that situation, but when I looked back into the warehouse windows, I saw two men holding up badges to the front desk.
"Shit," I fumbled for the walkie-talkie and clicked it on. "Get out of there now." I shoved the keys into the ignition and stomped on the gas. I swerved around the corner to the back entrance of the warehouse right outside an electric fence. "Sam!"
"We're coming," He huffed into the device. He was running.
Loud alarms blared on around the building.
Sam and Dean rounded around the building and sprinted towards me. Dean threw his jacket over the barbed wire and used it to help hop over the fence without getting injured. Sam followed behind him.
As soon as they stumbled into the car, I skirted out of there. Sam and Dean were breathing hard next to me and behind me. Sam was in the back seat. I decided not to tell them about the man a couple of minutes ago. I shook it off instead and decided not to worry about.
We went straight to Jerry's office again. Dean and Sam found a yellow powdery substance at the warehouse and slid some into a bag before they ran for it. They thought it could help us decide what this thing was.
Jerry looked at the substance through a microscope. An image of what he was looking at peered on his computer screen.
"Huh," Jerry said after a couple of minutes. Sam and Dean, looking very disheveled and tired sat lazily in the chairs in front of his desk. "This stuff is covered in sulfur."
"You sure?" I asked. Sulfur usually meant demons and I hated demons.
"Take a look for yourself," Jerry shrugged, turning his computer around for us to look at the image up close and personal. Outside of Jerry's office was a loud bang followed by some cursing from an employee. Jerry sighed and walked around us, "Excuse me, I have an idiot to fire."
"Hmm. You know, there's not too many things that leave behind a sulfuric residue." Dean said, looking at the image.
"Demonic possession?" Sam asked.
"I hate demons," I echoed my thoughts.
"There's not much you don't hate," Dean commented. I shrugged. He was right. "It would explain how a mortal man would have the strength to open up an emergency hatch."
"If the guy was possessed, it's possible."
"This goes way beyond floating over a bed or barfing pea soup. I mean it's one thing to possess a person, but to use them to take down an entire airplane?"
"You ever heard of something like this before?" Sam asked both Dean and I.
I had the same answer as Dean, "Never."
We went back to the motel and got in full research mode. Sam was on his laptop and Dean was in charge of hard copy books. I was in charge of cleaning the guns and weapons, because apparently I sucked at research, which was true. I tended to get frustrated and grumpy when I couldn't find what I wanted in less than ten minutes.
"So, every religion in every world culture has the concept of demons and demonic possession, right?" Sam said, as if he was on to something. "I mean Christian, Native American, Hindu, you name it."
"Yeah, but none of them describe anything like this," Dean said.
"Well, that's not exactly true. You see according to Japanese beliefs, certain demons are behind certain disasters, both natural and man-made. One causes earthquakes, another causes disease."
"And this one causes plan crashes?" I asked, setting a new polished knife on the edge of the bed.
Dean stood up, "All right, so, what? We have a demon that's evolved with the times and found a way to ratchet up the body count?"
"Yeah. You know, who knows how many planes it's brought down before this one?" Sam said. Dean snorted and turned away. "What?" I looked at Dean confused.
"I don't know, man. This isn't our normal gig. I mean, demons, they don't want anything, just death and destruction for its own sake. This is big. And I wish Dad was here."
"Yeah, me too," Sam said quietly.
I bit my lip and looked down at my shoe. This was a case where we need Dad more than ever. He would know how to approach this without doing any kind of research. My dad may have not been the perfect father but he was the perfect hunter.
I missed my dad a lot more than I let on. My dad and I were close. Although he was always tough on my brothers and I as we grew up, he always had a soft spot for me. I was his little girl—his only girl. I probably wasn't his favorite child—that was spot was respectfully earned by Dean—but I was his most precious. We had a bond…me and my dad and with each day he was gone I felt it breaking.
Dean's phone rang, breaking the silent moment between the three of us. It was Jerry and the conversation didn't sound good. At the end of the conversation, Dean hung up after letting him know we would be right there.
"Another crash?" Sam asked. We were already shrugging on our coats.
"Yeah, let's go."
"Where?" Sam asked.
"Nazareth," Dean answered. I could taste the irony in the name. Nazareth was a biblical town, very popular in the bible and we were dealing with demons. That's irony.
The drive to Nazareth was a couple of hours, but Dean was driving hella fast. As we were getting closer, you could see the black smoke from the crash waft into the air towards the clouds. Dozens of people were already on the scene. I couldn't stand to look at it so I stayed in the car while Sam and Dean ran to the evidence to look for more sulfur.
Back at Jerry's office, he looked at the same yellow substance Sam and Dean found in Nazareth.
"Sulfur?" Dean asked after Jerry looked up from his microscope. Jerry nodded in conformation. "Well, that's great. All right, that's two plane crashes involving Chuck Lambert. This demon sounds like it was after him."
"With all due respect to Chuck, if that's the case, that would be the good news." Sam said. Chuck was the pilot who was at fault for the plane crash in Nazareth. He was also Jerry's friend.
"What's the bad news?"
"Chuck's plane went down exactly forty minutes into flight. And get this, so did flight 2485."
"Forty minutes?" Jerry asked. "What does that mean?"
I sighed, "It's biblical numerology."
Dean added, "You know Noah's ark, it rained for forty days. The number means death."
"I went back, and there have been six plane crashes over the last decade that all went down exactly forty minutes in." Sam explained.
"Any survivors?" I asked.
"No. Or not until now, at least, not until flight 2485, for some reason. On the cockpit voice recorder, remember what the EVP said?"
"'No Survivors'," Dean said. "It's going after all the survivors. It's trying to finish the job."
Sam and I called the three remaining survivors as Dean sped towards the airport that all of these planes took off from.
"Really? Well, thank you for taking our survey, And if you do plan to fly, please don't forget your friends at United Britannia Airlines. Thanks." Sam hung up. I had already finished my call with Blaine Sanderson.
"All right," Sam said. "That takes care of Blaine Sanderson and Dennis Holloway. They're not flying anytime soon."
"So our only wildcard is the flight attendant Amanda Walker." Dean said.
Sam nodded, "Right. Her sister Karen said her flight leaves Indianapolis at eight pm. It's her first night back on the job."
"That sounds like just our luck," Dean sighed.
"Dean, this is a five-hour drive, man, even with you behind the wheel."
"Call Amanda's cellphone again, see if we can't head her off at the pass."
"I already left her three voice messages. She must have turned her cellphone off," Sam sighed defeated.
"I called her twice," I said.
"God, we're never going to make it," Sam's head fell back on his seat.
"We'll make it," Dean said. He pressed harder on the gas and was flying down the empty road.
Dean was right. We did make it. How we didn't get pulled over once—I'll never know. We ran into the airport and stopped in front of the monitor read off every flight departure.
"Right there." Sam pointed. "They're boarding in thirty minutes."
"Okay. We still have some cards to play. We need to find a phone." Dean found a phone on a courtesy pole and dialed Airport Services, who connected him to Amanda. In conclusion, Amanda thought that Dean was her ex-boyfriend's friend, trying to help him win back Amanda's heart. Therefore, that plan didn't go as well and she hung up on us. "Damnit!" He cursed. "So close."
"All right," I turned towards my brothers. "Look, we don't really have another plan, so Sam and I will get on that plane." I purposely left Dean out of the equation because he hated flying.
"Whoa, whoa, now just hold on a second." Dean held up a hand to stop me from speaking. His eyes were wide with fear.
"Dean, that plane is leaving with over a hundred passengers on board, and if we're right, that plane is gonna crash." I explained.
"I know," Dean sighed.
Sam agreed with me, "Okay. So we're getting on the plane, we need to find that demon and exorcise it. I'll get the tickets. You get whatever you can out of the trunk. Whatever that will make it through the security. Meet me back here in five minutes."
"Dean, you don't have to come. Sam and I can handle it," I said softly.
Sam stopped and looked between the two of us, unaware of Dean's fear. "You okay?"
Dean looked at him anxiously, "No, not really."
"What? What's wrong?" Sam looked at me.
Dean continued, "Well, I kind of have this problem with, uh…"
"Dean's afraid of flying," I said.
"It's never really been an issue until now," Dean expressed.
"You're joking right?" Sam looked at him incredulously.
"Do I look like I'm joking? Why do you think I drive everywhere, Sam?"
"Dean," I said…again. "Sam and I will go alone."
"What are you nuts?" Dean looked at me like I was crazy. "Sam said it himself, that plane is going to crash."
I sighed, "Dean, we can do it together, or Sam and I can do it ourselves. I'm not seeing a third option, here."
"Come on! Really? Man…"
"Dean…" I said warily.
"I made you go into the woods," Dean said, referring to the Wendigo hunt. "I can do this." He placed a hand on my back. "Sit next to me, okay?"
"Okay," I smiled. Dean and I always had each other's back no matter how much we bickered. That was all playful banter and it didn't mean anything. We loved each other, and we weren't afraid to show that…for the most part anyway. No one knows me better than Dean…not even my twin brother. I like to think I knew Dean the best out of Sam and I too.
I was squished in the middle of Sam and Dean, which didn't really give me much space to move around at all. Dean was as stiff as a stick next to me, clutching on to both of his arm rests until his knuckles turned white. He sat in the aisle seat and Sam had the window.
"Just try to relax," Sam leaned in to me and spoke to Dean.
"Just try to shut up," Dean replied. Sam smirked.
The plane was taking off, speeding down the runway until we were shaking in the air. Dean jumped after a rumbling sound. I thought he was going to puke. I looked at the time and set a mental alarm in my head for forty minutes.
Dean leaned back into his seat and began humming to himself.
I looked over at him, "You're humming Metallica?"
"Calms me down," He defended himself. I looked over at Sam and shrugged, who was also giving our older brother a weird look.
"Look, man, I get you're nervous, all right? But you got to stay focused." Sam told him.
"Okay."
"I mean, we got thirty-two minutes and counting to track this thing down, or whoever it's possessing, anyway, and perform a full-on exorcism."
"Yeah, on a crowded plane. That's gonna be easy." Dean scoffed.
"Just take it one step at a time, all right? Now, who is it possessing?"
"It's usually gonna be somebody with some sort of weakness, you know, a chink in the armor that the demon can worm through. Somebody with an addiction or some sort of emotional distress."
I looked over at Sam, "Well, this is Amanda's first flight after the crash. If I were her, I'd be pretty messed up."
Dean touched a passing flight attendant on the arm, gaining her attention. "Excuse me. Are you Amanda?" He asked.
"No, I'm not," She shook her head and smiled politely.
"Oh, my mistake," Dean smiled as she walked by us. He looked down the isle behind him and saw another flight attendant. "All right, well, that's got to be Amanda back there, so I'll go talk to her, and, uh, I'll get a read on her mental state."
"What if she's already possessed?" Sam asked.
"There's ways to test that," Dean rummaged through his carry on bag and brought out a water bottle. "I brought holy water."
"No," Sam snatched the water bottle out of Dean's hand and tucked it inside his jacket. "I think we can go more subtle. If she's possessed, she'll flinch at the name of God."
"Oh." Dean nodded. "Nice."
Dean turned to leave when Sam called back to him. "Hey."
"What?"
"Say it in Latin."
"I know," Dean turned to leave again, but Sam stopped him one more time.
"Okay. Hey!"
"What?" Dean was getting annoyed.
"Uh, in Latin, it's Christo."
"Dude, I know. I'm not an idiot." Dean finally turned around and walked to the back.
Sam and I sat back in our seats, unlike Dean, not about to have a full blown panic attack. I let out a breath and glanced at my watch. 25 more minutes.
"I can't believe Dean's afraid of flying," Sam said to himself with a shake of his head. I smiled in his direction which led him to continue his thought process. "When I was younger, I really believed that Dean wasn't afraid of anything."
"Nah, Dean's a little baby at heart," I looked back, but Dean was no longer in my view. He must be behind the curtain with Amanda.
"Are you still afraid of needles?" He asked curiously.
I nodded, "It's why I got the flu two years ago." That was the worst two weeks of my life. "I refused to get my flu shot with Dean and Dad was pretty mad at me when I got sick. It meant they were down a man on their witch hunt."
Dean slumped back into the seat next to me. "All right, well, she's got to be the most well-adjusted person on the planet."
"You said Christo?" Sam asked.
"Yeah."
"And?"
"There's no demon in her. There's no demon getting in her."
I frowned, "So, if it's on the plane, it can be anyone." I glanced at a couple of random faces, "Anywhere."
The plane shook as we flew threw some turbulence. Dean clasped onto my arm, "Come on! That can't be normal!"
"Ow Dean!" I hissed. "You need to cut your nails."
"Hey, hey, it's just a little turbulence." Sam soothed Dean.
"Sam, this plane is going to crash, okay? So quit treating me like I'm friggin' four."
"You need to calm down," Sam said.
"Well, I'm sorry I can't," Dean snapped.
"Yes, you can."
"Dude, stow the touchy-feely, self-help yoga crap, it's not helping."
"Listen, if you're panicked, you're wide open to demonic possession, so you need to calm yourself down. Right now." Sam snapped. Sam never spoke to Dean like that…like ever. Dean didn't mess with it either. He sank deeper into his seat and took long, shaky, slow breaths. "Good. Now, I found an exorcism in here that I think is gonna work. The Rituale Romanum."
"What do we have to do?" Dean asked.
"It's two parts. The first part expels the demon from the victim's body. It makes it manifest, which actually makes it more powerful."
"More powerful?" I said loudly.
"Yeah," Sam said.
"How?"
"Well, it doesn't need to possess someone anymore. It can just wreak havoc on its own."
"Oh. And why is that a good thing?" Dean asked.
"Well, because the second part sends the bastard back to hell once and for all."
"First things first, we got to find it," Dean stood up again and pulled his homemade EMF meter. He walked up and down the aisles, pretending to be listening to the MP3 that the EMF was made out of. He got a couple of weird looks but no one read too deep into it.
"We don't have time for this," Sam slipped past me and walked towards Dean. I stretched my neck and saw them talking towards the front of the plane. I glanced down at my watch and took note that we only had 15 minutes.
Sam and Dean turned around sped walk to the other side of the plane. I quickly undid my seat belt and followed after them into the cockpit. They were talking to Amanda who looked shocked to see another person enter.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"It's the co-pilot," Sam explained.
"Who are you guys?" She looked at us worriedly.
"Now, we've spoken to some of the other survivors. We know something brought down that plane and it wasn't a mechanical failure." Sam said. Looks like I walked in the middle of their explanation.
"We need your help because we need to stop it from happening again. Here. Now." Dean said.
She tried pushing past Dean, "I'm sorry, I-I'm very busy. I have to go back-"
Dean stopped her, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a second. I'm not gonna hurt you, okay? But listen to me, uh...The pilot in 2485, Chuck Lambert. He's dead."
"Wait. What? What, Chuck is dead?" She stuttered. Way to go Dean. She was obviously hurt by that one and he didn't really tell her sincerely.
"He died in a plane crash. Now, that's two plane crashes in two months. That doesn't strike you as strange?"
"I—"
"Look, there was something wrong with 2485. Now maybe you sensed it, maybe you didn't. But there's something wrong with this flight, too." I stepped in, talking more softly than both Sam and Dean to hopefully calm her to the best of my abilities.
Dean spoke softer too, "Amanda, you have to believe us."
Amanda took a deep breath, "On...on 2485, there was this man. He...had these eyes."
"Yes. That's exactly what we're talking about." Sam pointed.
"I don't understand, what are you asking me to do?"
"Okay," Dean glanced at us. "The copilot, we need you to bring him back here."
"Why?" She looked around. "What does he have to do with anything?'
"Don't have time to explain. We just need to talk to him. Okay?"
"How am I supposed to go in the cockpit and get the copilot—"
I glanced at my watch. We were running out of time. "Do whatever it takes. Tell him there's something broken back here, whatever will get him out of that cockpit." I said.
"Do you know that I could lose my job if you—"
"Okay, well you're gonna lose a lot more if you don't help us out." Dean cut her off again.
Amanda hesitated, looking between the three of us as if debating whether to believe us or not. "Okay."
As Amanda left, Sam pulled out the holy water from his jacket and Dean pulled out Dad's journal, flipping to the page that had the exorcism. He handed it over to Sam.
The copilot who seemed to be a couple years older than Dean walked back into the cockpit with us. My breath hitched as the danger of this situation became a reality.
"Yeah, what's the problem?" He asked normally.
Dean punched him in the face, knocking him down. He knelt down next to the fallen pilot and pinned him down. I ripped some duct tape and taped over his mouth.
"Wait. What are you doing? You said you were just gonna talk to him." Amanda was scared and her skin got an extra shade lighter. I thought she was about to puke from so much fear.
"We are gonna talk to him," Dean assured her, struggling to hold down the demon. He splashed some holy water him, causing him to thrash around even more violently. His skin was starting to burn and create holes in his body.
"Oh, my god," Amanda cried. "What's wrong with him?"
"Look. We need you calm. We need you outside the curtain." Sam said.
"Well, I don't underst-I don't know-"
"Don't let anybody in, okay? Can you do that? Can you do that?" Sam repeated and yet, Amanda still didn't answer. She kept staring at the demon. "Amanda?"
She snapped out of it, "Okay. Okay."
"Hurry up, Sam. I don't know how much longer I can hold him." Dean said.
Sam read from Dad's journal, "Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino-"
The demon wrestled out of Dean's grip and managed to get a good punch in with all three of us. This demon's eyes turned black and he was fast as hell…no pun intended, and his blows were freaking hard. The right hook he swung at my face sent me flying into the wall behind me.
Dean was about to come help me up when he saw an opening to restrain to the demon again. Sam started reading some more. It didn't last long because the demon broke free again and pulled the tape off its mouth. He grabbed Sam by the collar after he kicked Dean away.
"I know what happened to your girlfriend! She must have died screaming! Even now, she's burning!" The demon laughed in a demonic voice. This got Sam frozen and stunned. He couldn't take his wide eyes off the demon. Rage boiled in my blood and I ripped Sam away from the demon's grasp, glaring at him. The demon laughed at me. "Your next, baby!"
"Sam!" Dean cried, hitting the demon as hard as he could. I could only stare at the demon as I tried to process what he just threatened me with.
Sam recovered and began reading again. I knelt down next to Dean to help him pin down the demon who kicked the book out of Sam's hand. The demon opened his mouth and black smoke slowly wafted through the vents.
"Where'd it go?" I demanded.
"It's in the plane." Dean said, turning to Sam. "Hurry up. We got to finish it."
The plane took a sudden dip and heaves violently in the air. Dean fell into the corner of the plane and held onto the walls for dear life. If we weren't in a near death situation right now, I would take a picture of his face for you guys because it was comical.
I fell on my side and slid into the wall as the plane turned sideways. Dean called out my name frantically.
"I'm okay," I assured him.
Sam read the rest of the exorcism. As he was close to the end, the electricity on the plane sparked everywhere. People's screams from behind this curtain were all I could hear…well that and Dean's screams too. Then the plane leveled out again, becoming calm.
Sam helped me up and Dean removed himself from the wall. We peeked behind the curtain and saw relief settle amongst the passengers. I stood there and didn't say anything for the rest of the ride. I couldn't believe that we had just done that.
When we landed, we were rushed to talk to some police about the incident. The copilot said he didn't remember even getting on the plane and it scared me how quickly a demon could just take over someone's body like that.
"You okay?" Dean asked after we were able to finally leave.
Sam stopped walking and turned, "Dean, it knew about Jessica."
Dean sighed, "Sam, these things, they, they read minds. They lie. All right? That's all it was." He turned to me. "And what he said to you was just to scare you. I'm sure of it."
"Okay," I shrugged. I didn't have any other argument to counteract his.
"Yeah," Sam said, thinking the same thing.
"Come on," Dean nodded his head towards the direction of his car.
When we reached Dean's car, Jerry was already there to tell us goodbye and thank you.
"Nobody knows what you guys did, but I do. A lot of people could have been killed," He said, glancing between the three of us. He shook all of our hands. "Your dad's gonna be real proud."
If we ever find him, I thought.
"We'll see you around, Jerry," Sam smiled.
Dean and I nodded walking around the opposite side of the car.
"You know, Jerry," Dean said, stopping Jerry in his tracks. He looked up at him with raised eyebrows. "I meant to ask you, how did you get my cellphone number, anyway? I've only had it for like six months."
"Your dad gave it to me," He said simply.
"What?" I asked with big eyes.
"When did you talk to him?" Dean questioned.
"I mean, I didn't exactly talk to him, but I called his number. His voice message said to give you a call." Jerry said, not even realizing what that meant. "Thanks again, guys."
When Jerry was out of view, Dean whipped out his phone, dialing Dad's number.
Sam shook his head, "This doesn't make any sense, man. I've called Dad's number like fifty times. It's been out of service."
Dean held out the phone for us to all listen. The three of us put our heads together. We reached my dad's voicemail, which he had personally recorded. My heart raced at the sound of his voice. I never realized how much I missed it.
"This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son, Dean. 785-555-0179. He can help." After that, the phone cuts out and my father is gone.
My heart sunk—physically sunk as soon as that voicemail ended. This changed everything. My dad wasn't missing—he just didn't want to be found. All this time, I thought he needed our help. That's why Dean and I have been hauling ass—hell that's why Sam was here! Instead, he just wanted space and neither Dean nor I even got the respect of a simple phone call. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I was devastated and had to sniff away my tears before I exploded in front of my brothers. I usually don't cry in front of them. I don't want to be seen as weak. Being a girl already had it's disadvantages, I didn't want to make it even more exaggerated.
I stepped away from my brothers and walked to the back seat of the impala.
"Al…" Dean said slowly. He knew how much my relationship with my dad meant to me. He was aware of the bond I had with my father, which was a lot more family-orientated and loving than his was with Dad. He had to have known that this would kill me inside.
I don't turn around to acknowledge him. One look at Dean and I would be a blubbering mess. Instead, I yanked open the door and crawled in. I refused any kind of conversation with either of them until I feel asleep.