Bless the Broken Road

16. Dead Man's Blood

CAFÉ

Dean was flipping through a newspaper, Sam was on his laptop, and Zach was looking at Sam's laptop.

Dean folded the paper. "Well, dudes. Not a decent lead in all of Nebraska. What have you got?"

Sam chuckled before saying, "Well, I've been scanning Wyoming, Colorado, South Dakota. Here. A woman in Iowa fell 10,000 feet from an airplane and survived."

"Yeah."

"Yeah, I dunno, maybe someday. In the meantime, we got a lot of work to do, Dean, you know that."

"Yeah, all right. What else you got?"

"Ahh, a man in Colorado, a local man named Daniel Elkins was found mauled in his home."

"Elkins?" Zach repeated. "Dean and I know that name."

"Doesn't ring a bell."

Under their breath, Dean and Zach muttered, "Elkins... Elkins... Elkins."

"Sounds like the police don't know what to think. At first they said it was some sort of bear attack and now they've found some signs of robbery."

"Mm-hmm," Dean hummed. "There, check it out."

"You think it's the same Elkins?"

"It's a Colorado area code," Dean and Zach told him.

---

The Impala cruised down the road, snow capped mountains in the background.

They reached Elkins' cabin and Sam picked the lock. As he put it away, Dean flicked on a flashlight.

Zach looked around at the mess. "Guess the maid didn't come today."

"Hey, there's salt over here, right beside the door," Sam noted.

Dean asked, "You mean protection against demon salt or 'whoops I spilled the popcorn' salt?"

"It's clearly a ring. Do you think this guy Elkins was a player?"

"Definitely."

Sam came up behind his brothers. "That looks a hell of a lot like Dad's."

"Yep, except this dates back to the 60s."

---

Outside, a man stood in front of the shadows of a large tree, looking at the cabin.

Sam, Dean and Zach moved into the other room and shined their flashlights around the destruction, including up at the hole in the roof.

"Whatever attacked him, it looks like there was more than one," Sam said.

"Looks like he put up a hell of a fight, too," Dean replied.

"Yeah."

They looked around the room and Zach crouched to get a closer look at the floor.

"You got something?" Sam asked.

"I dunno. Some scratches on the floor," Zach told him.

"Death throes, maybe?"

"Yeah, maybe." He grabbed a page from a notebook, placed it over the marks, and rubbed a pencil over it to get an outline. "Or maybe a message."

He handed the paper to Sam. "Look familiar?"

Sam looked at the message. "Three letters, six digits. The location and combination of a post office box. It's a mail drop."

"Just the way Dad does it," Dean remembered.

They made their way to the post office box. Dean opened it, his brothers on each side. Dean removed a letter, stared, and showed it to Sam and Zach. The three shared a confused look.