The Haunted Traveler December 2017 Edition

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Now he could make out the tune. Not a hymn. It was a lullaby. The one about the cradle
falling, baby and all. He hadn’t recognized it at first because she sang it so leisurely.
Graceful, sad, and slow. For that boy of hers.
The two of them were in the basement. John Paul could hear the child’s whispers, the
woman’s feathery laughter at his words. And her ceaseless humming.
She had never been upstairs at all. John Paul oft times got his directions mixed up,
just ask his wife Dora and she’d chew your ear off how he could get lost in his own
bathtub.
John Paul studied the kitchen, such as it was, looking for the basement door. In
his own house, one entered the basement from the kitchen. And here as well, to his
pleasure, John Paul found a paneled door hanging open like a rotting tooth beside the
Frigidaire. Behind that door, inky darkness.
He thought it odd, the family gathered in an unlit basement. Perhaps they were hiding
from him? It occurred to him: A game! Mother and child had commenced a game of
hide and seek. Such would explain all the running around. They had lapped him like
NASCAR drivers. John Paul began to hum once more, his deep voice filling the kitchen
like the keening of a wild animal.
He descended the first basement step. Just enough light spilled from the kitchen
window to illuminate the stairwell. Beyond that bottom step, it may well have been the
edge of the earth itself.
John Paul descended the steps to the basement, divining his way via the woman’s
lullaby, heedful and wondering how her lips would taste.
At the landing he could not see his hand before his own face. The child whispered in
the darkness. It sounded imploring, like an important question, or a request for a favor
from his mother.
John Paul felt at the wall for a light switch. He preferred stealth and surprise, but
surely they’d heard his footsteps on the stairs. His fingers found a lever. John Paul took
a deep breath and flipped the switch.
A single naked bulb fired up weak light at the floor joists overhead. At the far end of
the room, as if conjured from the darkness, a small boy stood. The boy from the bus
stop. His face was chalky white. Dark crescents lined his eyes. He opened his mouth
to speak, but said nothing. All his whispers he’d apparently spent. He looked tired and
hungry. John Paul smiled at him the way a teacher smiles at a student. There was no
escaping now. The games were concluded.
John Paul approached the boy, palms upraised in a gesture of peace. “I ain’t gonna
hurt you none.” Between them, hewn from the dirt floor, was the stone cairn of an old
well. John Paul paused at the lip of the well and looked inside. Only more darkness.
Darkness seemed what this house hoarded more than old junk.
“Now tell me, son. Where’s your momma at?” The boy was shaking. He looked
terrified, and John Paul was glad for that, because terror would make the child compliant.