The Haunted Traveler Vol. 2 Issue 1

craned my neck to look for Brady, but he was nowhere to be
found.
“Uh. Me?” I said.
“Art,” he said, in a graver tone now. His arm found
my shoulder again. I hoped he couldn’t feel it shaking. “I
think you can use this opportunity, to maybe prove something
to all the ladies and fellas here. Prove them wrong
about…about you, and your kind. I mean, let’s face it. We all
know humans aren’t exactly esteemed for their, uh. Bravery,
or usefulness, or…” he struggled to complete the sentence,
then waved his arm to dispel the notion as if it were smoke
blown in his face. “You know what I mean. So I’m giving
you a one-time chance, right here and right now, buddy. To
prove yourself once and for all. To show us if you got what it
takes. What do you say?”
I gulped. My throat felt dry as a bucket scarred with
sand. What could I say to that? Glancing away from Mort
and the giant mutant with the mump imprisoned in its fleshand-bone
prison, I caught sight of Bethany Blimp just then,
for the first time that night. She was standing off to the side,
in a mixed group of male and female mutants. She wore a
clinging, sheer frock that exposed her gelatinous white arms,
her barrel-wide torso and mountainous, sturdy legs.
She looked stunning.
Her red hair was done up and her lips glared with
envy-green lipstick. And she was watching me.
I looked back at Mort, then at the mump, which was
whimpering again, its little hands trying to shake the bone
bars futilely.
Mort said, “I’m gonna leave it up to you, Art,” and
bent down so that he was hunched near the abdominal entrance.
“You can do what you want with the thing. Kiss it,
kick it, let it go….It’s your show here.”
Then, he took hold of the leftmost bar in the mutant’s
cage. After getting a good grip on it, he began wrenching
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