Sladin or Bust! Explicit One Shots from the Vault of Sladin –
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Chapter 25: Mostly Ghostly; Part Two - Sharing a Room with a Spook isn't My Cup of Tea
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The flash of white and the sheets in a tumble as Dick awoke to the room that had been haunted…Tim was not here, and the room somehow looked….
Brighter. Alive, even?
The sheets rustled again as he held his head. The dead side of it, was another warm body. Ice cold as Richard shrieked out loud and jolted from this false sense of security.
"WHOA! WHO, WHAT?? ARE YOU…. DOING –
"Keep it down." The figure, tall in physical stature and…
Dick gasped and put a hand to his lips. "Shit…. shit…nononono…. you, you can't be real-
"Can't you tell, mystery writer?"
"PARANORMAL. And now, I'm out of here." Dick scrambled up for a way to any exit in this lofty room, the figure walking over with its head on but tilted, curious. Bothered by the man and his rather familiar look, Dick just called the shot a bust. He was too sane right now to turn his luck onto its head with a real –
"I need your help." The tall, bearded adult with one eye view for his attention, for Dick to have a heart for some reason. And for a dead man's wandering spirit?
"NO." Huffed the other quickly, in a rush to get back to his plane of existence. "Send me back. I'm not dead."
"I'm borrowing you, so you can help me to move on. To be remembered for what I was –
"A slaughter hound? You? Um, and certainly no war –
"You have no right, Mr. GRAY." The winds whipped as the room soon changed, the ghosts angry eye lit up as white as could ever be. Dick tried fidgeting like mad with the shifting knob. "L…let…. let me out!!"
"RICHARD???"
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"Mr. GRAY!" Anna Lynn's shrill voice woke him from what should have been a form of spirit in away, yet he'd been set free. Or, had the shift been because of the daylight shining through an open window…
"Dick!! You're alive! The wind…"
Tim dragged the man into his arms and sniffed with tears leaking. The kid was still not used to these dangerous outcomes in his line of work. Still too naïve.
Will the butler looked at the side and moved to help Anna Lynn up, glaring at Tim and Dick as he did so.
"Madame…. are, are you certain-
"Have him….to the guest room. This madness will be over and done once he's of a clear head again." She said and got from her knees, the door slamming off behind her as Dick blearily looked into the ceiling for a sign.
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"Miss Lynn…. we can't go anywhere. Not yet." Dick held an ice pack to his throbbed skull as he sat in the den to explain what he'd really seen on the other side. "Your husband wants help. He can't get out of limbo, so he's been trying to contact you as a result of…."
"He's not my concern anymore."
"He will be if you let him haunt this house. You said it before." Dick still remembered that look Will had given him. "Your husband was a ruthless man. He won't give up, but neither can I-
"For what??" She stood up and shouted, nearly knocking over her coffee cup in the process. "For a story that won't sell?? For my family to call you and only you, our one-time savior?? You will…. get. Out, by the time it's done. You get the week. And if you give me any trouble…" She sat and rubbed her temples. "I'll have you escorted off the grounds without waiting for your next big story, Mr. Hot shot paranormal investigator."
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"I told you she'd be pretty harsh with those she can't trust."
Dick shut the door and grit his knuckles to the aging wood. "You …you came here? But why can I see you?"
"I already told you, Mr. Gray." The ghost of the man of this manor walked up to the writer, hands behind his ghostly back. "I need to get out of being trapped in my own home, yet I want to be remembered somehow so that I won't end up elsewhere. You can do that; you are capable if such a feat."
"I'm not good enough to send a real ghost off, I only document. I don't get involved with paranormal mumbo. You can find a psychic since you're here now, right? Can't you haunt me so you can leave the house?"
"Hum, yes and no. I think at night I'm bound to this place, but in the daytime, I might be able to shadow or over – shadow." Smiled the sly ghoul.
"I'm not going to let you use me, freaky demon – whatever you aren't. Just wait. I'll get more answers."
"That is, before…Anna Lynn sells my manor and leaves me here to a life of endless wondering? Right, Mr. Gray?"
Dick dropped his hand and huffed, shoulders tense as he rolled them and put up a finger at the ghoul.
"Listen, Sl –
A clamber of two feet shuffled by the shut door, a clang of metal and expensive equipment in hand.
Shit.
" DICK?? Are you in there, dude?? I'm going over the shots from last night. You have to come see! Dick?"
Slade crossed his arms, head motioning for Richard to open the damned door. To see if Tim was worthy of meeting a spook, or if he was the only soul that could see this sassy apparition.
"Go on, writer."
"Step off then, ghoul - faced freak." Dick egged the ghost to reveal itself, but not a peep. He was on his own.
"Nothing really hurts anymore when you're dead, Mr. Gray." Chuckled the man to the tired writer of the paranormal. "Try harder to break the bones I left to the earth, long ago."
" Diick!!"
" Coming, Timbo!!"
Dick flashed a scowl at the ghoul as it didn't bother to hide itself a snicker or two. "If you find a good medium, let me know." He called down the hall, Dick's hair bristling as he gnashed his teeth. "You'll be the first to participate." Sneered the angry author. "THAT'S a promise I'll take to your grave, not mine."
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