The Haunted Traveler May 2017 Edition

eye sockets beheld nothing ahead of them, but the sodium-lit
sidewalks, the vacant buildings, the garment
makers’ signs.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t escape.
“Look what you’ve done,” Kelly said, as his meaty
arms crushed my chest, but I insisted that the fire in
our factory was an accident.
I was enjoying my last cigarette before the end of the
twelve-hour work day. Smoking was against policy
on the floor, but many of the foremen did it frequently;
we blew smoke through our lapels so we were less
obvious. We were charmed into complacency by the
fireproof status of our building, confident in the metal
cistern beneath the Greene Street window.
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