The Haunted Traveler Vol. 2 Issue 1

cursing it, spitting beer in its face. It started thrashing more
forcibly in my grip now, incensed. I came to the man-high
fence at the end of the patio and paused. I turned around.
Nearly half the mutants from my grade were looking
at me, the expressions on their faces something I had come to
expect my entire life. Indifference. Boredom. Contempt.
Bethany was there, too. Standing near the front of the line,
next to Swino—an eighth-grader who it was rumored had
already gotten to third base with her. She was looking not at
the mump writhing feebly in my straining hands, but at me.
Her eyes sparkling with curiosity.
Curiosity—not contempt.
I looked down at the grubby creature in my hands,
which was whimpering and struggling.
Apologetically, I mouthed a farewell.
Then I bashed its squat body on the flagstone steps.
With all my strength I began stomping on its slippery
torso, trampling it with my steel-toed boots, harder and
harder and harder till the body ruptured completely and there
was nothing left of it but a pulpy, brown mass of blood and
bone and stiffened fur.
***
The rest of the night carouseled in a dreamlike whirl.
The mutants were shocked by my behavior—some
of them acting affronted by what I had done, others feigning
mere indifference. But a few of them came up and congratulated
me afterwards.
After helping Mort shovel up the remains, bag the
body parts and haul it to the trash compactor down the street,
he stopped on the sidewalk and considered me with a new
kind of look in his metal-hooded eyes.
“Art,” he said. “You surprised the hell out of me back
there. I don’t think anyone was expecting you to do that.
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