The Haunted Traveler May 2017 Edition

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94 “LED,” Raven giggles, thrusting a pair of tattooed hands into the pockets of her black Pea Coat. I drop my arms and spin around, my patience at an end. “Jesus Christ, will the two of you shut the fuck up for half-a-second.” Rating = 3 “See Raven, see what you did?” Shaytan whispers. “You’ve gone and made Nigel upset.” Nigel sits cross-legged on a pallet of wallpaper paste. He straightens his red bowtie, throws me a wink and places a thin finger to his lips. Raven and Shaytan disappear down the aisle. Dr. Sawyer’s in-lobby-pre-session check list: #5 – Please Rate from 0 to 10 (10 being the best) ABILITY TO MANAGE ANGER Seven boxes of bulbs fill my basket, and my breath is fiery mist escaping the lungs and charring my lips. I throw Nigel a look that cracks glass, our gazes’ static and my left hand a clenched fist. His finger remains stuck to his lips, a slow and deliberate exhale. “By the way, next time I light one up, I’m burning a hole through that fucking plaid shirt you insist on torturing us with. And a bowtie, really?” I tell myself to breath and not allow those blinking red buttons to be pushed flush against my skin. Nigel combs his fingers through his hair, pushing the dirty blonde from his baby blues. Rating = 2 Store front. Cattle through turnstiles. Twenty-one checkout lanes with square, plastic cubes stretching high and
luminous. The shopping hordes with hands wrapped around steel framed carts and arms cradling blue baskets with black handles (painting supplies, sections of fencing, various tools and nuts and bolts being gathered for weekend DIY projects). Heads turn, smooth and without age—mannequin faces boring through me with lidless eyes and gaping mouths, and mindfulness is a fevered poker tearing up my spine and slicing across the shoulders, unforgiving and demanding to leave this place, my quickest exit, the Express Lane escape and it’s there, miles away, check-out lane #17 and The Green Line, but that poker is white hot purpose pushing me forward. Run. Like. Hell. Raven’s screams snatch me by the throat and haul me back to the now; music pounds through the store’s speakers. I drop my basket and rush to the rear of the store. A large, reflective sign with blue lettering hangs from the warehouse ceiling: LAWN AND GARDEN. There is a roar, bellows of blue smoke, aroma of gasoline and oil. Dr. Sawyer’s in-lobby-pre-session check list: #3 – Please Rate from 0 to 10 (10 being the most intense) OLAFACTORY HALLUCINATIONS. Around the corner and a wall of choking smells— blood and copper, steel and singed hair and flesh. Raven pinwheels. A chainsaw bounces at her feet and scrapes against the floor, sparking the air. The left side of her Pea Coat is soaked through with blood. Her screams, laughing, spinning and the brilliant red spray from the hollow of her shoulder. 95
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The Haunted Traveler
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The Haunted Traveler May 2017 Editi
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7 Beloved Leigh Fisher The chambers
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9 empty, she was resting on her kne
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ed by wrapping both of his arms aro
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Regardless, she just couldn’t mak
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her. She couldn’t quite tell if h
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17 Kristine Brown
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ment was the home of Alvin and Marl
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claim, build her realm, take a fami
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23 portunities to experiment with s
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Every day or so, I dismantled half
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27 at overgrown claws in the absenc
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anished child, though my lack of co
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31 Good Help These Days Gordon Brow
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his business.” “Oh…” I murm
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cate thing. I believe they had come
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Over and over and over whispering,
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39 Kristine Brown
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mind herself that she needed to rem
Page 45 and 46: 43 “Don’t you see the bruising
Page 47 and 48: The Commander and Tou came into the
Page 49 and 50: tape had been taken that they were
Page 51 and 52: 49 one of the pods and someone woul
Page 53 and 54: 51 chopathic part of their personal
Page 55 and 56: 53 Hands & Moons Ryan Dodge Khalis
Page 57 and 58: “An S-class? Those things are gig
Page 59 and 60: My eyes widened as I saw the enormi
Page 61 and 62: some lining the walls and others fo
Page 63 and 64: 61 to rid my mind of what I had jus
Page 65 and 66: his blaster and aimed it into the d
Page 67 and 68: from the Inner Systems. Ships get l
Page 69 and 70: handle it and I ran, I ran until I
Page 71 and 72: grabbed him, pulling him straight i
Page 73 and 74: 71 The Nascent Horror Bryce Simmons
Page 75 and 76: I reached the entrance, she had alr
Page 77 and 78: 75 portending some dreadful, inhuma
Page 79 and 80: throughout my spirit. “From Earth
Page 81 and 82: even butchers of the foulest abatto
Page 83 and 84: ut the wills of my cognition were n
Page 85 and 86: droplets, drenching my over coat in
Page 87 and 88: aspy panic, causing spittle to dang
Page 89 and 90: “Six.” Silence. The old man loo
Page 91 and 92: mound of dirt far over my shoulder.
Page 93 and 94: gasoline and had set it aflame. The
Page 95: 125 watts per bulb. Rectangular box
Page 99 and 100: 97 ing his missing limb. Raven kick
Page 101 and 102: “What do I say this time?” Dr.
Page 103 and 104: 101 Kristine Brown
Page 105 and 106: mark beneath her left eye: pink, in
Page 107 and 108: 105 thuds on the pavement. Then I s
Page 109: eye sockets beheld nothing ahead of
Page 112 and 113: in the Winter’s Grasp anthology b
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