A Long Hunt

The Screams of an Angel

When he finally got their attention Dean uttered one word 'Earthquake' then the ground buckled and shook violently under them. Glass shattered, books fell, building supports cracked. The earthquake was one of the most violent ones he had ever felt in his life. It lasted over five minutes before the ground stilled once again.

None of hunters were hurt but they were all extremely shaken up, in both a literal and metaphorical sense. After some quick research the three found out that last time an earthquake had hit here was in 1974 and it had only been a 3.4. The largest one ever to hit West Virginia was a 4.5 in 1969. The Castiel quake turned out to be a perfect 6.5. It left a trail of death and destruction throughout the state. Even some nearby states felts the tremors ripple by them. Dean then decided to find a huge ass map of West Virginia and spread it out across the mostly dry bed. He quickly began to circle the areas that had been hit by the odd angel mojo.

After, the earthquake most of the things kept getting worse and worse. For example, the previous night, day three, a horrible plague like sickness had broken out. Both Bobby and Sam were passed out and dozing softly. Sam's face was smooshed across on the wooden table, his jaw hung slack as he snored gently on top of all the research papers. Bobby was lying back in a chair, his arms crossed loosely on his chest and his hat dipped down low breathing deeply. Dean had been marking his map when there was an important news flash across the small barely functional motel TV screen. It had been reported that at least half of people in one town had come down with some unknown sickness. Many of the affects were horrific. They ranged everywhere from projectile vomiting and blood oozing from eyes and ears all the way to loss of hearing, the ability to walk, and even death.

Like the rest of the messed up shit happening in West Virginia this week, the sickness had popped up out of nowhere. People started flooding into doctors' offices and hospitals. The staff was utterly baffled. There seemed to be absolutely no root cause behind all the symptoms and no way to treat it.

A stabbing pain shot through Dean's chest. He wondered what Crowley was doing to his angel to put him in enough agony that he would whip up a deadly plague. A single tear and a defeated sigh quietly slipped out of the hunter's chapped lips as he circled the plague ridden town on his map. Currently, there were now over thirty areas marked or circled. Unfortunately, there was still an area of at least 40 miles where Castiel might be locked up.

It was now day four of this crazy search.

Sam came over and pulled a chair up next to his brother. "Hey Dean...." He said carefully. The youngest Winchester knew he was playing with fire right now.

"Hmmm..." Dean mumbled as he continued to search the internet for more signs of Castiel's destruction. Every couple of minutes the hunter would move to consult the map. He would even circle a few things occasionally.

"How it going?"

"Did you know their calling West Virginia the town of the devil now...." Dean said absentmindedly in his foggy state of mind.

"Are they now...." Sam muttered scratching his head.

"Yeah... I mean all the shit Crowley's stirring up here; I see why they would think that. Last week single town of people were going on random murder sprees, this week.... The whole state is falling apart under the weight the unexplained chaos. It's made national news."

"What's the most recent thing you've found?" Sam asked trying to keep the conversation alive. This was the most Dean had spoken since he killed that demon girl.

Dean glanced over to a long list of bad shit that had already happened. He scanned the page until he reached the very last unnatural disaster on his list.