03.12.2017 Views

The Haunted Traveler December 2017 Edition

This roaming anthology seeks the underground shocking tales of emerging and established authors. The Haunted Traveler is an online magazine that features terrifying tales that will keep you up for days.

This roaming anthology seeks the underground shocking tales of emerging and established authors. The Haunted Traveler is an online magazine that features terrifying tales that will keep you up for days.

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104<br />

STALKED ON A WINTER’S NIGHT<br />

Bitter wind,<br />

killing frost –<br />

just weather.<br />

Cracked lips,<br />

shivering hands,<br />

cheeks stone blue –<br />

merely the result<br />

of being out in the worst of it.<br />

Self-delusion doesn’t come into it.<br />

I know what I’m getting into<br />

when I step outside.<br />

Sure it’s cold<br />

but not the cold of corpses.<br />

<strong>The</strong> iciness jabs<br />

but in a brumal way, not brutally.<br />

It’s freezing<br />

but the temperature stops at my skin.<br />

Believe me,<br />

January is no saint<br />

but it’s not one of your creatures.<br />

It’s just a circumstance of the calendar.<br />

It doesn’t prey.<br />

It can kill but that isn’t its intention.<br />

Your beasts are of a viler kind<br />

than lowly Fahrenheit.<br />

<strong>The</strong>y do not thaw before the fire.<br />

You cannot wrap them into submission.<br />

And time of the year is immaterial.<br />

Your body nurtures them.<br />

<strong>The</strong>y pay you back in kind with chill.<br />

So it is mere coincidence<br />

that we are both out here on this<br />

stark subzero night.<br />

We go about our business<br />

despite the raging elements.<br />

I cower before the monstrous cold.<br />

You show the weather how<br />

it’s really done.<br />

—John Grey

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