The Haunted Traveler Vol. 2 Issue 1

such a trite comment.
Rob grins. “It is beautiful,” he says. “Not as beautiful as you.”
Of course, he says that. He’s the Rob I like tonight.
In the backseat, we kiss like horny school kids out past curfew.
Again and again, we kiss, and I almost believe I enjoy it. Maybe I do
enjoy it. Or maybe I don’t enjoy anything anymore, and this is just one
more thing to work through, one more thing to survive.
He doesn’t take it any further than kissing, and he drops me
back at the porch before dawn.
“I’ll see you later,” he says, and I know he’s right.
The sun rises, and I stare right into it for as long as my eyes can
take it. Then I go to work. I run numbers. Attend meetings. Go to lunch.
Come home. I look so normal. I feel so normal. At least until the sun sets,
and the clock creeps toward twelve.
He’s the Rob I don’t like tonight. The passenger door’s already
open and I’m halfway in, but he yanks me the rest of the way, and his
grip around my wrist doesn’t relax until the car hits sixty, and we’re going
too fast for me to jump. Not that I would jump. I have nowhere else
to be.
“You think you’re so smart,” he says, flashing me grimaces in
the dark. “You act like you’ve got the whole world figured out. But you
don’t understand anything, do you, Darla?”
“I understand more than you,” I say.
He jerks the wheel, and the car stops short of a cliff. I reach
for the door, but he’s on top of me, his gnarled hands buried against my
throat.
I flail. It does no good, but I flail anyways. I don’t beg. I never
beg. It won’t help if I do, and I won’t let him enjoy it, I won’t let him
relish my desperation. My fingers fumble for his eyes. Maybe this time
I can blind him. But before I can dig my nails into the soft white flesh,
everything goes gray, a smoky gray just like the fog that brings the car to
me night after night.
***
The first time I wake up after dying, I’m sure it’s purgatory. Or
one of those weird time loops. It’s the same day, I think, and I’ll have to
live it again and again. But the world pushes on around me, and I can’t
decide whether that’s comforting or maddening.
I try to tell someone. I do tell someone. I tell my mother. My
sister. My best friend.
“He was there,” I say. “Him and his car.”
They laugh and advise I get more sleep. Or better sleep anyhow.
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