( THE THIRD MAN )
POLICE LOCKER ROOM
[ ☾]
Jerry, wearing a t-shirt, is toweling his face after shaving. He sees a spot of blood on the towel and notices a nick on his left cheek. He rinses it off, but it persists. "Oh, come on." He rubs his right cheek. A patch of skin peels off and lands in the sink. "Ohh. Oh." He exhales sharply. "What the hell?"
A second cop, Ed, has been dressing in the locker behind. "Come on, man. Let's get going." He says. Jerry walks backward from the mirror, breathing rapidly and leaving bloody footprints. Blood seeps through the back of his t-shirt. "Jerry?"
Jerry bleeds from the mouth. "Ed, I think I'm bleeding." He falls forward. Blood splatters at Ed's feet. The camera pulls back to reveal a mash of flesh and blood where Jerry used to be. Ed is horrified.
DEAN'S HOUSE
[ ☼ ]
Birds are chirping as morning light floods into a bedroom window. Dean is sleeping. Lisa wakens next to him. "Hey, you." She says.
"Hey." Dean says. A light peck becomes a long and passionate kiss. Dean is distracted by the sound of a heartbeat.
A horn blares and Dean wakens from his dream. He is alone in the Impala, parked just off a busy highway.
HOTEL ROOM
[ ☼ ]
Sam is inside, shirtless, working through a fitness routine of push-ups and sit-ups. These scenes are intercut with: Dean by the side of the road, fully clothed, stretching to work the kinks out. The Impala pulls out and is back on the road.
Sam is doing chin-ups on a pipe suspended from the ceiling of the room. A Professional Lady emerges from the bathroom. "Don't stop on my account." She says.
Sam laughs. "I'm done." He says.
"Last night was a..." She clears throat. "High point, if you don't mind me saying."
"Good." Sam says.
"All right. Well, I see you need to start your day." The Professional says. "When did you say you were heading out?" Sam exhales, indicating impatience. "You didn't. Right. Damn, you know how to play that mystery card."
As she turns to leave, Sam clears his throat and holds up some cash. "Right. I almost forgot. Next time..." She gives Sam a note. "You can call me on my night off. If you want."
"Okay." Sam says.
"Okay." She leaves. The phone rings. Sam scrunches up the note and tosses it into a wastepaper basket. He picks up his cellphone.
"Hey." Sam says.
BURGER HEAVEN
[ ☼ ]
"Hey. I'm about eight hours out of the Campbell Base." Dean says.
"Uh, change of plans. I need you to meet me. I'm in PA. Town called Easter." Sam says.
"What are you doing in Pennsylvania?"
"Caught a case." Says Sam.
"A case? When? It's been like a day and a half." Dean says.
"I like to work."
"Apparently." Dean says.
"Glad we hashed that out. Call me when you roll into town." Sam hangs up. Dean stares at his phone.
"Who died and made you boss?" Dean asks.
HIGHWAY
[ ☼ ]
A cop, Toby, is parked on the side of a road. A car speeds by, clocking 70 mph. "Well, now, you could do better than that." He settles back to pour some booze into a giant-sized plastic convenience store cup. His cellphone rings. "Why are you calling me? He's dead, right? That's it. Now, I don't want to talk about it. We do what we do—we go to work, we go to the funeral. Calm down. This is nothing to do with you and me. You're just working yourself up. Don't call me." Hangs up. "Idiot."
Something crashes through the branches toward the cop car. Boils break out on the his face and hands. "God! God! Dispatch, this is—Please, I—I need... Please." Toby chokes and stills.
STREET
[ ☼ ]
Sam is in a suit, is leaning against his car and reading some reports. Dean drives up in the Impala and exits it in the midst of a phone conversation. He is also in a suit. "Ben...I know you're lying. Because I lie professionally, that's how. Now tell your mom that you broke the damn thing and take it like a man. Okay? Ok—okay." He hangs up.
"Wow." Sam says.
"What?" Asks Dean.
"You—molding the minds of tomorrow. Who knew?" Sam asks.
"Yeah, tell me about it."
"How'd it go?" Sam asks.
"With?" Dean asks.
"You and Lisa. How'd she take it when you bailed?" Sam asks.
"Shockingly cool, actually."
"Better for everybody." Says Sam.
"Yeah, I suppose. Still driving the plastic piece of crap, huh?" Dean asks.
"What's your mileage, again?" Asks Sam.
"Shut up."
POLICE STATION
[ ☼ ]
Sam briefs Dean as they walk through the station to the morgue. "Officer Gerald Hatch, 17-year veteran, found dead in the ready room three days ago." He says.
Dean reads the file. "Whoa. Somebody was over-hydrated." He says.
Sam laughs. "Basically, yeah. The guy just...liquefied. Most of the meat, bones, dense tissues—they just turned to blood." He says.
"Okay, I don't get it." Dean says.
"Nobody gets it." Sam points out.
"No. I mean, I get that." Dean says. "I'm saying, if the guy was a mop job, then what are we doing in the morgue? What's left of him to look at?"
"Not here to look at him. Here." Sam opens a drawer, revealing the boils-covered cop.
"Ooh. Bad news." Dean says.
"Officer Toby Gray. They just brought him in. Found him dead in his patrol car, sitting at a speed trap on the outside of town."
"Extreme allergic reaction." Dean reads.
"Yeah. Boils. Covered from head to toe." Sam says.
"Yeah, on the inside, too. It says his airways are chock full of them." Dean says. "This startin' to look a little witchy to you?"
"That was my first instinct, but I found zero signs of hexwork anywhere. Far as I can tell, witchcraft was not involved." Sam says.
"There's got to be some sort of link between, uh, skid mark and bubble wrap here."
"No question." Says Sam.
"All right, well, can I get a witness?"
"Yep. Uh... " Sam reads from notes. "Officer Ed Colfax. Saw Hatch go from a solid to a liquid."
"Another cop?" Dean asks.
"Hatch's partner." Sam pushes the body back into its drawer.
STREET
[ ☼ ]
Sam's car swings around a corner. Dean's car pulls out in front of him and is first to park his vehicles at their destination in a leafy neighborhood. "Were you, uh...were you racing me?" Sam asks.
"No. I was kicking your ass." Dean says.
"Very mature." Sam says as he and Dean knock on the door of a suburban house.
"Hello? Officer Colfax?" Dean asks. The door opens to reveal Ed in full dress uniform. "Whoa. Lookin' sharp, Kojak."
"Who the hell are you?" Ed asks.
"We're the Fed, Ed. We're here to ask you a few follow-up questions about your partner's death." Sam says.
"Don't worry about it. It's nobody's business." Says Ed.
"Officer Colfax—"
"Don't worry about it!" Ed slams the door shut. Exasperated, Sam kicks the door in.
"Dude!" Dena yells. Walking toward Ed's office, Sam and Dean pass a wall of family photos with the faces scratched out. They find Ed in his office, using a screwdriver to scratch out the face of his police portrait.
"Officer Colfax?" Sam asks.
"Hey, man, you all right?" Asks Dean.
"Don't worry about it." Ed says.
"Right. Look, Officer Colfax—Ed. We think that your partner died of unnatural causes." Dean says as Ed scratches his hat. "Did he have any enemies that you know of?"
"You might say that." Says Ed.
"Oh, yeah? Who's that?" Sam asks.
"They both had it coming. Me too. I'll be the next to go, and then it'll be over." Ed says. "And God will be satisfied."
"Why does God want you all dead?" Dean asks.
"Cause of Christopher Birch." Ed knocks over a bottle of booze. He watches it spill for some time. "Oh, damn it."
"Who's Christopher Birch?" Sam asks.
"He has no face."
"Ed?" Asks Sam.
"Officer, you all right?" Dean asks. Ed rights the bottle.
"Who is Christopher Birch, Ed?" Sam asks.
"Ed!"
"Christopher Birch is a kid with no face... and a planted gun." Says Ed.
"Uh, you, uh... you got a little something..." Dean starts. Blood is dribbling from under Ed's hat. Ed puts his finger to it. "Yeah."
"Damn. My head's been itching like a dirty jock." Ed falls forward. His face lands on the broken glass of the picture frame.
"Ed?" Sam walks behind the desk and checks Ed's neck for a pulse. "Dead." There's a buzzing sound.
"You hear that?" Dean asks. Sam removes Ed's hat. Locusts crawl out of a hole in Ed's head.
HOTEL ROOM
[ ☼ ]
Dean is seated at a table, looking through papers. Sam is at the other end, working on his laptop. "Sweet. Blood, boils, locusts." Dean says.
"Three of your more popular Egyptian plagues." Sam says.
Dean picks up a jar containing the locusts. "Yeah, but these guys... ate their way out of a cop's melon. I don't quite remember that in the King James." He says.
"Meanwhile, a kid named Christopher Birch was shot in the head last month after a vehicle pursuit." Sam says. "Hatch, Gray, and Colfax were the three officers involved, and they all filed the exact Same police report."
Dean reads a report. "Suspect exited vehicle brandishing a firearm. We were forced to fire." "Just a kid with no face and a planted gun." Bunch of dicks. So they pop the kid, plant the piece." He says.
"Maybe Colfax is right. You know, maybe heaven has a hate-on for bad cops." Sam says.
"So we're listening to the guy with the bug in his custard?" Dean asks. "That's—that's the, uh, the theory you want to go with?"
"Dean, angels got to have something to do, right, now that we're post-Apocalypse?" Sam asks.
Dean opens a beer. "We should call Cas." He says.
"You're kidding, right?" Sam scoffs. "Dean, I tried. It was the first and second and third thing I did, soon as I got topside. Son of a bitch won't answer the phone."
Dean sits on a bed. "Well, let's give it a shot. Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray to Castiel to get his feathery ass down here." He says.
"You're an idiot." Sam says.
"Stay positive." Dean says.
"Oh, I am positive."
"Come on, Cas! Don't be a dick. We got ourselves a... plague-like situation down here, and... do you...do you copy?" Dean asks.
"Like I said...son of a bitch doesn't answer." Sam says as Dean looks behind him. "He's right behind me, isn't he?"
"Hello."