We're sitting in the diner with our plates of pancakes in front of us virtually untouched. Dean is the only one eating, and he's stuffing his face like he can't eat enough. Besides the sounds of Dean's fork scraping against his plate, there's complete silence.
"So did Dean talk to you?" Sam finally says. He still looks groggy, tired, and slightly hung over.
"Yeah," I say, staring at him blankly.
He clears his throat awkwardly. "Okay." He leaves it at that, but I know he's going to ask Dean for more details about it later. There's an awkward silence for a few moments before he says out of the blue, "Should we find a job?"
I let out a huff of exasperation. "In the middle of all this? You mean Bela trying to find a mysterious object of mass destruction and your missing half-brother aren't enough work?" I say sourly.
"No, it's just… we don't have any leads on that, so we might as well keep working in the meantime. If… if you're feeling up to it," Sam says cautiously. I can tell he's trying not to set me off. Yeah, right, like I'm that touchy. Well, maybe I am. I do seem jumpier than usual around Sam.
"Of course I am," I snap. "You got any ideas?" I cross my arms in front of me on the table.
"Yeah, actually," Sam says, pulls out his laptop and clicks a few buttons before spinning it around towards me and Dean. "I came across this on a news site. It happened not too far from here, maybe two or three hours away?"
I look at the title of the short article that's pulled up, the date from yesterday. Woman survives attack and disfigurement by an unknown assailant. I slowly scroll down the page as I read the article.
"Twenty-five-year-old Jane Davis was attacked yesterday near her home on Main Street at 2AM and left in critical condition. A nearby neighbor who was still awake was alerted by a scream and rushed outside to help, but found Davis already unconscious with deep cuts extending from the corners of her mouth to her ears. The neighbor reports that she did not see anyone else nearby. Paramedics were able to arrive quickly, limit blood loss, and stabilize Davis's condition. Davis has not yet regained consciousness but investigation of the assailant is underway."
"I don't see how this is our type of thing," I say doubtfully after reading the article.
"I didn't think so either, but it happened in one of the safest towns in the state, so crime, especially something as violent as this, is an anomaly. And I found this comment."
He scrolls down a little further to the comment section. There's four comments, three of them commenting about how tragic the situation is and speculating about a sudden assault in an otherwise peaceful town. The fourth is different:
abbyotsuka03 commented:
It was Kuchisake Onna, a ghost. I saw her last week. She covers her face and asks you if she's beautiful, and when you say yes, she'll reveal her face and the two gashes at the corners of her mouth and ask you again if she's beautiful. If you say yes, she'll cut your mouth, but if you say no, she'll cut off your head. Be careful. If you stay out after dark, stick with friends.
I'm doubtful that this could mean anything but I ask anyway, "Who's Kuchisake Onna? Has she shown up before?"
"She's a Japanese ghost," Sam says, pulling the computer towards him to type something in. "The Slit-Mouthed Woman. The legend has it that she was a beautiful woman and when her husband thought she was cheating, he cut open her mouth from ear to ear." He finishes typing and turns the computer back towards us, now showing the Wikipedia article on the ghost. "Now she's a ghost. She attacks victims like this commenter explained. There was a big panic about it in Japan back in the seventies."
I skim over the article. Sam pretty much covered it. I can see the similarity between the attack on Jane Lewis and the ghost, but I have the feeling that the commenter had just read about Kuchisake Onna and wanted to bring attention to themselves by pretending she's real.
I look over at Dean and raise my eyebrows to express that I'm still unimpressed, but he shrugs thoughtfully before looking at Sam again.
"I just think it's something worth looking into," Sam says. "I've looked everywhere, this is the best there is right now."
"It's only a couple of hours away," Dean chimes in, taking another bite of his pancakes. "It won't be a big deal if we're wrong about this."
I scowl and sigh. "Fine. Let's go."
"No need to rush," Dean says through a mouthful of food, seeming intent on not moving for a while. I glare at him and slide out of the booth and start walking out.
"Hey, are you at least gonna pay for your food?"
"I don't have any money," I call over my shoulder unapologetically. Perks of crawling out of hell: someone pays for your food for a while, at least.
I hear him sigh and toss money down on the table before he and Sam follow me out.
—
The town where the hunt is is nice, but we still end up in what has to be the cheapest motel in town. I'm pretty sure there are cockroaches living under the sink of my bathroom.
Still, as a reporter or agent of some type, I have to look presentable, even if the living conditions aren't great, so I tidy up and get dressed up in my skirt suit (a little dusty and stiff from months without use, but at least the two of them kept my stuff around) before meeting the brothers outside our two rooms.
"You guys got my IDs?" I ask them as I shut the door to my room.
"Yeah, we saved them after you—" Sam hesitates. "They're right here," he finishes, passing me the box that has all my fake IDs in it. I smile and flip open the lid. Dozens of little mes stare back.
But they don't look like me. Me from now, anyway. Most of these were made in the past year or two, and while my face is serious, my eyes are smiling. I look calm and relaxed. Definitely not how I'm feeling now. Especially in such close proximity to Sam. I feel edgy and uptight, even more than I did before I met the Winchesters, and I'm sure it shows.
I close the box and look up at the two of them. "What are we going as today? Reporters?"
"FBI," Dean says, as if it should be obvious.
I roll my eyes. "You two haven't changed a bit. Fine, let's go with the more conspicuous option if you want it."
Stop one: abbyotsuka03. Or rather, Abigail Otsuka. Sam tracked down the commenter's IP address and traced it back to a twelve-year-old girl living in a house near the center of the town.
We arrive at her house and go up to the door together and ring on the doorbell. People inside start shouting at each other until finally a young girl opens the door. When she sees us in our suits, she closes the door slightly and hides behind it, peeking out around the edge. "Hello?" she says. "Can I help you?"
Sam, Dean, and I simultaneously flash our FBI badges. "We're with the FBI," Sam says for us. "We're looking for Abigail Otsuka?"
Her eyes widen and she closes the door a little more. "Are you going to arrest me?" she whispers just loudly enough for us to hear.
"We're looking for information on the assault of Jane Davis," Dean adds. "We think you might know something."
"It wasn't me," Abigail says quietly. She looks like she's going to cry.
"Abby! Who is it?" a female voice calls from further in the house.
A woman comes up behind Abigail. "Oh, hello," she says, blinking a couple of times in surprise. "You'll have to excuse me, I was busy preparing dinner. How can I help you?"
"We're with the FBI," Sam says again, the three of us flashing our badges in synchronization for the second time. "We have some questions for your daughter about the assault of Jane Davis."
The woman frowns. "I don't see why she would know anything."
"Please, it's important," I say. "It won't take long."
She seems hesitant but finally invites us in and has us sit down with Abigail in the living room. I sit on the couch and Sam sits down next to me, so I stand up and move to the armchair a few feet away. He doesn't acknowledge my move, but he clenches his jaw.
"Do you need anything? Tea? Food?" Abby's mother asks unsurely.
We all shake our heads and she bites her lip before heading back into the kitchen to work on what she was cooking before.
"So, Abby," Dean starts. "I believe you've spoken with the police already about what you know? Could you tell us what you told them?"
"Oh," she says, frowning. "You won't believe me, though. They didn't believe me and neither did Mom."
"Try us," Sam says. "We believe a lot more than you'd think."
Her eyes widen and she leans forward a little bit like she's about to tell a secret. "It was Kuchisake Onna," she tells us. "My grandmother told me about her."
"The Japanese ghost?" Sam clarifies.
"Yeah."
"Did you see her?" he asks.
"Last week. I was coming home from my friend's house at night and this woman stepped out from behind a tree and she had a scarf wrapped over her nose and mouth so I couldn't see half of her face and she asked me if I thought she was beautiful and I said yes, because I didn't know what else to say, and then she unraveled the scarf and I saw her face and she has those cuts…"
Abigail draws a line with her finger from ear to ear over her mouth to show us and shivers. "And she asked, 'Am I beautiful now?' It was so scary. I knew who she was and what she does. If you say yes, then she will cut your mouth the same way her husband did to hers. And if you say no, she will kill you. The only way to get away is to confuse her."
"How do you do that?" I ask.
"You have to say she looks average or so-so. And she will get confused for long enough for you to run away."
Sam and Dean nod thoughtfully. It sounds a little far-fetched to me, but it is a ghost we're dealing with. And ghosts aren't exactly the most reasonable creatures in the world.
"Where did you see her?" Sam asks.
"A couple blocks away," Abigail says. "Near Main Street and, um… Fourth, I think. I was coming back from my friend's house by there."
"Do you have any idea what Kuchisake Onna be doing so far from here, in the middle of Ohio?" Dean adds.
She shrugs. "I don't know."
Sam and Dean glance at each other and Dean nods before turning back to Abby. "Here's our card," he says, pulling out his wallet to hand her a business card. "If you have any more information, don't hesitate to call."
"Okay," she says, taking the card and looking at it as the three of us stand up.
"Thank you for your time," I tell her as we head for the door.
"Yeah." She hops to her feet to walk us to the door and watches as we open the door and head out. She waves from the door as we go to our car.
"Do you still think she's lying?" Dean asks me as I climb into the back of the Impala.
"I don't know. Maybe. She seemed pretty sincere, but maybe she's just good at lying."
"So you want to keep going with this case?"
I frown. "Yeah. I guess so." I am intrigued, I have to admit that, and it'll be good to get my mind off things. There's nothing quite like a hunt for a ghost to help with that.