Bless the Broken Road

04. Phantom Traveler

"Yeah, I was. I'm-taking some time off," Sam said.

"Well, he was real proud of you. I could tell. He talked about you all the time."

"He did?"

"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 replied.

"Well, we're missing the old man, but we get Sam. Even trade, right?"

Dean laughed as Sam said, "No, not by a long shot."

"I got something I want you guys to hear."

Jerry led them to his office and gestured to the black box. "I listened to this. And, well, it sounded like it was up your alley." He put a CD in a drive. "Normally, I wouldn't have access to this. It's the cockpit voce recorder for United Britannia Flight 2485. It was one of ours."

"Mayday! Mayday! Repeat! 2485-immediate instruction... may be experiencing some mechanical failure..." There was a loud whooshing sound.

"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 asked.

"No, I don't."

Zach looked up. "Jerry, we're going to need passenger manifests, uh, a list of survivors."

Jerry nodded. "All right."

"And, uh, any way we can take a look at the wreckage?"

"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."

Dean frowned. "No problem."

---

The brothers made their way to a Copy Jack. Dean went inside, leaving Zach and Sam by the Impala.

Sam glanced at his brother. "What do you think he's doing in there?"

Zach shrugged. "Being Dean."

Soon, Dean exited and a pretty woman entered.

"Hey," the woman greeted.

"Hi," Dean replied.

Sam frowned. "You've been in there forever."

Dean held up three IDs. "You can't rush perfection."

Sam and Zach looked at the IDs. "Homeland Security?" Sam took one ID and Zach took another. "That's pretty illegal, even for us."

"Yeah, well, it's something new. You know? People haven't seen it a thousand times."

They got in the car and Dean asked, "All right, so, what do you two got?"

"Well, there's definitely EVP on the cockpit voice recorder," Sam answered.

"Yeah?"

"Listen." Sam played the tape.

A scratchy voice said, "No survivors!"

""No survivors"?" Dean repeated. "What's that supposed to mean? There were seven survivors."

Zach shrugged. "I don't know."

"So, what are you two thinking? A haunted flight?"

"There's a long history of spirits and death omens on planes and ships, like phantom travelers," Sam replied.