That evenin', there was a big celebration, an' more than one trip ta the bunkhouse for several of the women an' companion cowboys. Buford an' I just l...ooked at each other over that, but we didn't say anythin', since it would be the last night of that sort of activity.The next mornin' before sunup, we gathered all of the whores into wagons, an' it was obvious that a few had rather stay where they was. However, they had no choice. They knew that they was leavin' whore heaven on this day, like it. I can't quite think of you as a Dimitri," Kelly said. Her laughter was infectious. I was already thanking Rita in my head for bringing this woman into our lives. I ushered the women to the table and we began eating, carrying on the normal chit-chat of new acquaintances.I learned that Kelly was the lead researcher on a project at Rita's company and that while they had become good friends, they seldom worked directly together. Rita was the research assistant on a parallel project and they often. After what I saw in my dreams, sleep wasn’t what I wanted. Sleep or no sleep, though, I was thinking there’d be more, more ghosts, worse ghosts, and that the ghosts were probably hungry...Lacking sleep left me both alive and dead. I felt like my head was slurry, wet and sloshy with cytoplasm. I lay in bed, supine, awake to the night, reading my phone in the dark, my room black as marble.A story popped up on my phone, a local news story of three people drowning to death in a manure pit. A. Once he raised his rifle for a second shot, there was no bear to be seen.He turned around, seeing nothing, and kept looking around. Abruptly, there was a tap on his shoulder: he turned to find the bear.Hey, man. You know, you shot me, right? And, I gotta tell you, it really, really hurts. Hey, look here! I’m bleeding! Man, I’m bleeding!The guy, he doesn’t know what to do. He stammers out, God, I’m sorry! I, I was hunting deer, and, and, suddenly, like, POW!, there you are! I, I didn’t know what.
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