Dean did not see Rune for a couple of days, He drank more later that night, when he had hung out with Rune, than he should have due to fear and confusion. Then he was so sick from the booze for about three days. Three days of semi-sleeping, fever dreams and vomiting. He was probably having withdraws. At least he did not really think much during that time . . . intrusive, obsessive thoughts can tear apart a withered soul . . . He was finally ready for food on the second day . . . able to take a healing hit of weed on the third day . . . ready to find Rune by the fourth.
The night before he met with Rune once again Dean he slept pretty well, except for a disturbing dream dream that he awoke from at ten AM this morning, it started out satisfactorily enough as a hot, sexual dream about a pale blonde woman, who was not so much blonde as platinum, almost silver. He did not recognize her as a ghost until some days after the dream had ended. He was in some room with two beds in it, very much like a standard hotel room, to his left stood a lit blonde, an attractive young woman who simply appeared by the bed on the other side of the room from where he lay. Usually that would be the window side of most hotel rooms where Dean had stayed. But in this case, a deep welled window was in front of him. He really appreciated the view.
Since the curtain was shut, the view in front of his eyes was of that nicely shaped woman devoid of clothing and not a parking lot. I liked the fact that her tits were a small c-cup in size and very beautifully shaped, Dean got hard seeing that she was she was comfortably not flat chested. She spread her legs and showed him her goods, what lie between her legs was pink and sweet, and glistened like it was coated with honey. She made some thrusting moves then was in the bed next to Dean without a warning or any transition. Now clothed in a "wife- beater" white tank top and a white thong. He was not disappointed that she was now semi-clothed, because despite that he could actually feel the softness, size and heft of her decently shaped breasts. He was not even disappointed even though it was obvious there would not be any actual sexual contact.
The pale woman started thrusting her tight bottom up and down, but it became a violent vibrating motion, she started to shake convulsively, until she was a blur, except for her hands that had a death grip on the sheets. Her hands were suddenly a pale blue- grey, and looking corpse- like, then the shuddering and movement stopped, she was wearing a white burial robe with Japanese writing on it. There was a tangled mass of long, stringy black hair, and her head grew out of that mess, like the swelling of a diseased limb. Her facial skin was also bluish and her lips and eye sockets were black, but her eyes almost glowed, red with a jaundiced yellow iris. Her robe and face had a noticeable spattering of blood. "Come to the Ghostworld with me, baby . . . " she trailed of into a guttural growl.
Shizuko! Dean woke with a start, comforted by the simple reality of a clock reading ten AM.
Dean did not know exactly where Rune lived, but she was easy to locate, he knew all of her haunts. He caught her, out on her board, halfway down a hill. So he jumped on his ride and cruised down, coming up behind her as she slowed. Dean scared Rune pantless by coming up on her as she was unaware of him. "Surprise," He said in a unexcited way.
"Shit." She said, "I didn't see you."
"I'm Batman." Dean said, "And a Ninja." then continuing, "But actually, I wanted to talk to you about something."
"You're gonna tell me you love me, which is cool, 'cause I'm not taken."
He stammered a little, "Uh . . . sure, I . . . Well, not in that way." Then to try to sideline the conversation "Wasn't Batman a ninja already?"
"Hit me." She said.
"OK, here goes . . . uh . . . did you know the girl you talked to, at the party, isn't your average girl. She's a ghost."
"Yeah," She said without any enthusiasm, then her eyes lit up, smiling. "Shizuko."
I was enthused, agasp actually.
Rune looked at me, in a kind of maternal way, "I sent her to that house to investigate something unrelated. I didn't realize the hottest guy in town lived there." She giggled, she was being slightly sarcastic.
Rune continued, "Shizuko, who was a ghost of a curse, rejected the evil her dishonored and wandering soul was mandated." She was sounding very professional, "I met her when I was training with my grandfather in Japan, I was twelve and she was about one-fifty, and I wandered onto the site where she was murdered, I almost destroyed her with my sacred katana."
"That's amazing, " I interjected
"Yes it is, the blade was made by Masamune, and blessed by priests, it's hundreds of years old, and . . ."
"No that you are friends with a fucking ghost."
"Oh, that. I am a Ghostkiller, so I speak the language of the Dead. Anyway, I had almost destroyed Shizuko when she became aware of reality. She promised not to battle me, at first, then later denounced evil and started helping me hunt more . . . uh . . . purposeful evil. Shizuko is now bound to me to gain redemption for the lives she destroyed, or strait up took, and she'll probably have to follow me and my progeny."
"Did you know that I knew who you are from a dream?"
"I have some special powers, but knowingly getting into someone's dream is something only the dead, uh, revenants, at least, can do."
"Then it was Shizuko. She tricked me by changing the way she looked."
"What? Shizuko is an earth- bound onryo, she can't change."
"Why not?" Dean was confused.
"Since she died, dishonorably and is Japanese, she is culturally bound by tradition to appear that way. Even in death. What, you don't think that cultural mores are just for the living. Are you prejudiced against the living impaired or something?"
"I didn't know . . ."
"You didn't know?" Rune said loudly, angering slightly. Then softly she repeated, "Oh . . . you really didn't , did you? Tell me about your dream."
Dean was embarrassed, "It's kinda personal . . ."
Rune had a shit eating grin . . . "So! It was a sexy one, was I any good?"
"You weren't in it. There was this blonde . . . "
Rune interrupted.
"That wasn't me then . . ." Rune trailed off faking disappointment, then she giggled, "Oh! I remember, I was wearing a wig."
"Shut up, she wasn't Asian"
Rune, again, "Neither am I"
Dean was getting mad now, "Do you want to help me or not?"
"OK," She put a finger to her lip, "Shhhhh".
"That part doesn't matter anyway, I was with this blonde woman, with short hair . . . then her hair sprouted out black and long and she got all dead looking."
"That part was Shizuko, The other woman was probably just your dream lover." She teased" Me with a haircut and a dye job, ha! Was it good for you too, lover boy."
Dean was slightly less irritated at each sexual comment Rune made, but still ashamed, just a little. He was starting to get used to her mild hazing. He supposed her attitude in general was salty, but she had a beautiful smile, especially when she joked. Dean really liked the way her voice got loud and sarcastic, sometimes it was her anger, which was fleeting. Usually she was just being a smart- ass, but Dean wondered, somewhat correctly, if there was some seriousness to he innuendos. There was some magnetic attraction between them, which would be pushed aside, unrequited as if they were in a sitcom.
"I'll come by in a day or two," Rune said, waving, as she run off.
That night Dean had another dream about the extremely pale woman. For some reason he found himself in a high school gymnasium, where a band concert was about to take place. There was no reason why Dean was at such an event, he had no children or younger siblings. That and he had dropped out of band class after 7th grade, and could not remember if he had actually played at concert. That aside, he was awash with boredom, until he spotted a woman with a head of platinum curls. He hurried down the bleachers to get a better glimpse. Other than wearing a blue denim jacket, she was clad in a white "wife- beater", and white pants. Very similar to the woman in his dream, and then, he caught a glimpse of her face before the metal gym door slammed shut. It was without a doubt the girl he wanted.
After passing through the same door, he found himself in a quite different situation. Dean realized he had stepped onto an aged parking lot, crab grass and other weeds were growing in the cracked pavement. In front of him was what seemed to be a crumbling warehouse, with water running down it in various places. The external wall were plaster, for some unknown reason, and as such, they were pockmarked and blistered to the point that the original white finish was a sickly yellow, and plaster fell off in wet chunks like rotting flesh.
Inside it was not much different. Like every warehouse he had seen in movies, there were cement walls, more like pillars, with decaying drywall and ubiquitous graffiti. Of course, there were also random torrents of water pouring down from what Dean assumed was a broken roof. The weirdest thing was that it was not raining outside in that sequence. When he reached what seemed to be the center of the building, there was a gravestone, all that was engraved in it was the name Autumn Elsewhere.
The tombstone grew and morphed into another cement pillar, and the attractive faded girl from Dean's earlier dream stepped out from behind the same column that used to be a tombstone. She was now only wearing the white tank- top and white panties. Looking extremely sultry, Dean's sexual filter went haywire and broke completely, so seriously aroused was he, it became hard to concentrate. The woman was in front to him without any noticeable movement, and she put her finger to her lips as to "hush" him.
"My name is Autumn, but you can call me GG, for Ghost Girl." She burst into Dean's face an kissed him passionately. He could hear her voice, not from her mouth which was still on his, but from somewhere deep in the back of his head. "I am your spirit guide, now that you are in league with Rune Yung Tan." Then he was sucked away by some sticky, warm vortex. Before exploding in to sudden, complete wakefulness he heard the words "You're gonna need me!"
ns 15.158.61.5da2
