The Haunted Traveler December 2017 Edition

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the windshield. A bit longer and you’d never spot her if you didn’t already know where
she was at.
He tapped out a cigarette and lit it. When he got up towards the house, he left the
road and went off into the woods. Among an orange carpet of fallen leaves, he came
across a rusting old van, its tires sagging into the earth. A notion flitted through his head
– someone had been here before him, had beat him to her. But the clutch of weeds
that held the abandoned van aloft on its rims told a different story. This van had driven
into these woods before John Paul was himself old enough to drive, maybe before these
were woods to drive into.
He came up around the back of the house. There was more junk in the back yard.
A rotting wheelbarrow filled with branches, a steel planter buried under ivy, a push
mower abandoned mid-task. He stood there a good fifteen minutes in the cold sunshine
smoking his cigarette, staring up at the house. The back porch was covered in trash too,
knick knacks, an old-timey rocking horse. Holy shit, this woman cleaned less than his
wife did. But he wasn’t here for her cleaning.
He climbed the porch, navigating the boxes and the junk, and tried the screen door.
Open. Now or never, John Paul, he told himself. She don’t know you from Adam. Probably enjoy
it. He pulled the door open, its rusty springs popping, and eased it closed. He found
himself in a kitchen that looked a lot like his own.
He was surprised by how dark it was in the house. Didn’t this woman pay her electric
bill? Seemed like there were windows on the outside, but you couldn’t see much daylight
from here. What if there’s a man home? John Paul wondered in a sudden panic. Heck, he
told himself, a man’d lock his doors, pretty woman like that in the house.
He stepped softly through the kitchen into a dim hallway. Stairs. He looked up at the
ceiling, swallowed. The floorboards above his head groaned under someone’s footsteps.
He weighed his options. There was still time to walk right back out through the back
door. Just up and leave. He found that he couldn’t bear the thought of driving in to
work now. Not now.
He rubbed his chin and, gingerly touching the banister, stepped onto the staircase.
He listened: Humming. She was humming somewhere upstairs. It sounded like one of
those church hymns. John Paul preferred country and western hisself, but she had a
pretty voice nonetheless. He took the stairs slowly.
Up top was darker than downstairs, almost night-time dark. But there she was! He
caught sight of her from behind, just made out her figure as she entered a room at the
end of the hall. A thought bloomed in his head: She’s expecting you, John Paul. She’s gone to
her room to wait for you.
The hallway was filled with old furniture, jammed with it, like she was running
some antique shop. Sepia photos in ovals and rectangles hung from the walls. Heavy
curtains covered a window. A thin shaft of sunlight burned a yellow prism through the
darkness and onto the floor, but lent no light to the space. Dust filled his nostrils, and