The Haunted Traveler December 2017 Edition

The boy raised his arm and pointed to John Paul, and John Paul was about to ask the
question more forcefully when he understood. Momma was behind him.
John Paul turned, and indeed there she was, in her white robe, legs bare, shining black
eyes. John Paul blinked, and she stood close enough to touch, close enough to reach
right into her robe.
She began humming again, and he could feel her breath on his face, and her breath
smelled of earth, and ivy, and decay.
John Paul forgot himself then, it was the smell that did it, stepped back and lost his
footing, and the ground disappeared beneath him. He fell, for a snapshot of time seeing
the woman’s floating hair in silhouette against the yellow light. He fell backwards into
the well, tumbled down the sightless void, until he hit solid bottom with a meaty crack.
Agony in both legs. He screamed. Over his own screams he could hear the woman’s
syrupy voice and he recognized the lullaby, the one about the baby falling, cradle and all.
Then John Paul lost consciousness altogether.
When he awoke, he tried to move, but white hot pain stopped him instantly. He could
tolerate it so long as he didn’t move. He felt in his pocket for the cigarette lighter, drew it
out, and flicked it. Sitting before him on the opposite side of the well was the desiccated
body of a woman, thin as a sprout, cheeks sunken behind strands of black hair. Hungry,
thirsty, even in death. She wore a terry cloth robe. Her sightless eyes stared at John Paul
in pity, her shriveled mouth frozen in a never-ending grin.
John Paul heard the corpse screaming, wondered how a corpse could scream like
that, and realized he was hearing his own voice. He tried again to struggle to his feet, but
pain shot like fire up his spine. His legs were jelly beneath him. In the flickering flame of
his lighter, he saw jagged white bone nudging through a tear in his bloody jeans.
“Help!” he screamed, loud as he could. “Somebody help!” He screamed until his
throat was ripped and raw and shredded, and then he fell silent.
“Dora,” he said, speaking to the wife who forgave him his many failings, though she
certainly couldn’t hear him now. “Dora, I’m sorry.”
A child’s voice came from the circle of dim light overhead.
“I’m sorry too, mister.”
John Paul looked up to the small face floating there like a paper moon in a pale sky.
“Momma made me do it. She made me. She says you’re two of a kind. I gotta go now.
The bus is coming.”
“Tell them, your bus! Please. I’m hurt.” John Paul the Great Bear Trapper heard
himself sobbing. He’d never heard such noise from his own throat, and he didn’t much
care for it. “Tell them.”
“Oh no, mister. I can’t do that. She’d get really mad.”
The face turned to leave.
“Wait!” John Paul screamed. “Don’t leave!”
“Momma says you’re meant for each other. She knew when she first saw you.”
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