The Haunted Traveler December 2017 Edition

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78 Cadie’s Missing Mike Oberly They knocked on the door just as you were getting ready to give it a grab. It was Saturday and Tricia was out running errands, giving you a couple hours at least: long enough for one, maybe two go-rounds before she came back and made you start in on the “honey do” list. This was your only time during the whole week you could rub two uninterrupted minutes together and that’s why you were so cross when you opened the door. In an awkward way you wished you could open the door with your hardon still teepeeing you warm up pants, but 35 years of furtive jerking had conditioned your body to hide the evidence: you are flaccid, jittery, and annoyed when you open the door. The woman knocking on your door has her hair messily pulled back in a ponytail and an aww-shucks grin filled with teeth maybe two sizes too big for her mouth. She is younger than you but has that sexless “I’m a mommy now” vitality that you thank God Trish has never gone through. Behind her, pushing aside the squishy blooms of Tricia’s hydrangeas, is a man maybe ten years younger than you and, squatting down to inspect the gloomy dirt beneath, a boy maybe fifteen younger than him. “Can I help you?” you ask. “Hi!” the woman says brightly. The man has stood up and is waving. The boy is still peering into the base of the bush. “I’m really sorry,” she says, “but Cadie’s missing.” “What?” you ask. Or at least, you would have asked if right at that moment a balding middle-aged man in khakis and a woman who looked enough like him to be his wife hadn’t walked around the corner of the house clapping their hands and whistling. “We’ve been looking for her all over!” the woman on your back step states. You
notice she’s not wearing a bra but also that she doesn’t really need to: you simultaneously become aware that, erection or not, you’re not wearing any underwear beneath the silky warm-up pants. You step out the door and close it firmly behind you. Your back step is not big enough for two people who don’t know each other to share but she doesn’t move. You suspect she was trying to peer behind you into the house. The man and boy have moved on to the next bush, the middle-aged couple is looking behind your central air-conditioning unit. Beyond them, a teenage boy with a bowl-cut and a Three Doors Down shirt is laying down next to your truck. He is searching underneath it. “What the…” you say, stepping around the woman and down the steps. “She’s four,” the woman says to your back. “And usually she doesn’t stay away this long. You haven’t seen her, have you?” she asks. “No,” you say, distracted. “Of course not.” The teenager has stood up and is standing on the back tire of your truck to look into the bed. The middle-aged couple has scooted behind you; the man is on his knees brushing aside the layers of dead leaves that have accumulated beneath your back steps, the woman, absurdly, is lifting up your welcome mat and looking beneath it. “This is private property, you know,” you say. You had wanted it to sound fierce, but your words list fallow as a young woman, blonde and exquisitely in need of a bra, bounces around the other corner of your house. “Nothing yet!” she sparkles to the man and the boy who are now both on their hands and knees looking beneath the patio glider. She is tall and wholesome and even though she is obviously fully engaged in the search for Cadie her wholesomeness makes your bird egg drop half an inch and your breath come humid. Oblivious of you, she bends over one of the chaise-lounges and lifts up the cushion, her full, round haunches ripe beneath her yoga pants. The woman who originally knocked on your door is saying something. You tear your eyes away from the blonde’s ass and, annoyed, listen. “She’s a good girl,” the woman is saying, “but she runs away sometimes. We need to get a stronger gate.” She tilts her head to the side as if she hears something and, without another word, disappears around the side of your house. “We treat her good,” the ten-year-old says, standing up and brushing off his knees. “I don’t know why she’d do this.” “She doesn’t know better,” the man in the North Face pullover says. “Don’t you worry about that.” “Cadie get out again?” The voice belongs to a man strolling down your walk. He is a hail and hearty decade past middle-age with a thick salt-and-pepper beard. He is wearing stiff bib overalls and a tight-striped engineer’s cap that looks consciously distressed. You have never seen him before, but that means nothing because you had never seen any of these people before. You thought you had known your neighborhood and all the people in it. “She got out again,” North Face says. “She’s a rascal that way.” 79
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The Haunted Traveler December2017 E
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Table of Contents Highland Fling Ma
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The Haunted Traveler A Roaming Anth
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8
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10
Page 14 and 15:
12 The Gas Station Jenna Heller “
Page 16 and 17:
14 “It just amazes me that we’r
Page 18 and 19:
16 At the top of the short staircas
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18 up her face and then lowered it
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20 There was a list of prohibited i
Page 24 and 25:
22 “The girls are here, too,” M
Page 26 and 27:
24 THE BONES Stephanie Bucklin “T
Page 28 and 29:
26 “Then?” “Survival.” The
Page 30 and 31: 28 “Lady Mordemag—” Darya sta
Page 32 and 33: 30 could hear Lady Mordemag’s oil
Page 34 and 35: 32 he had to curb his normal method
Page 36 and 37: 34 paused again, listening and wait
Page 38 and 39: 36 complete as it had at the top of
Page 40 and 41: 38 It Is the Ache that Dwells Withi
Page 42 and 43: 40 “Mary? Come on, please open th
Page 44 and 45: 42 Leah Oates A BOLT FROM THE BLUE
Page 46 and 47: 44 there people were always around
Page 48 and 49: 46 before the storm hits. Once you
Page 50 and 51: 48 “Car spell nargelette,” Ben
Page 52 and 53: 50 It’s poison, the witch said. B
Page 54 and 55: 52 “Sir, if you don’t come peac
Page 56 and 57: 54 was all he had seen on the day
Page 58 and 59: 56 “So…Ax, is it?” Scott aske
Page 60 and 61: 58 you came all the way from out of
Page 62 and 63: 60 of thought; a bright flash, foll
Page 64 and 65: 62 It took a few minutes of brisk w
Page 66 and 67: 64 games.” James punched the wall
Page 68 and 69: 66 conjured of kicking it in the fa
Page 70 and 71: 68 mom, but she wouldn’t answer.
Page 72 and 73: 70 with a dull thump-thump-thump. J
Page 74 and 75: 72 Jim Zola The Blind Piano Player
Page 76 and 77: 74 Jim Zola
Page 78 and 79: 76 across their fur and between the
Page 82 and 83: 80 “Rascal is as rascal is,” th
Page 84 and 85: 82 The Flood Anna Kaye-Rogers The r
Page 86 and 87: 84 the girls. “She’s your dog,
Page 88 and 89: 86 Rainy days are the worst. As she
Page 90 and 91: 88 Jubydream turtle: falls in love,
Page 92 and 93: 90 The Moon Alexandria Cope Margare
Page 94 and 95: 92 early. She packed her things in
Page 96 and 97: 94 some ninja turtle action. Noah s
Page 98 and 99: 96 That’s why even though she was
Page 100 and 101: 98 Belinda slipped off the wet coat
Page 102 and 103: 100 “I liked Pretty Pretty Prince
Page 104 and 105: 102 The black-eyed doll approached
Page 106 and 107: 104 STALKED ON A WINTER’S NIGHT B
Page 108 and 109: 106 is, the playground is dangerous
Page 110 and 111: 108 exposed and the floors were lin
Page 112 and 113: 110 Jason and his fling heard the d
Page 114 and 115: 112 was divided into fifteen minute
Page 116 and 117: 114 Essentially, her home in Belle
Page 118 and 119: 116 Samantha had inherited the chai
Page 120 and 121: 118 For Death’s Amusement Rollin
Page 122 and 123: 120 wore white gloves on its enormo
Page 124 and 125: 122 process of extracting another f
Page 126 and 127: 124 Running Amber Cook They were fo
Page 128 and 129: 126 Witchery Kerry E.B. Black Tia i
Page 130 and 131:
128 Scream Megan Whiting It was a s
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130 terrifying ease, then vanished
Page 134 and 135:
132 Send that thought packing, too.
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134 Tyler switched on the radio. An
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136 veins. Then it stopped. She was
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138 “She showed up at that church
Page 142 and 143:
140 Bear Trap Feivel Wolff He saw t
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142 “I made you dinner, did I not
Page 146 and 147:
144 the windshield. A bit longer an
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146 Now he could make out the tune.
Page 150 and 151:
148 “Tell your momma! Tell her I
Page 152 and 153:
150 Black Swan On the Water Side Co
Page 154 and 155:
152 They looked like Latinas, but I
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154 BROTHERLY LOVE Diane Arrelle Na
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156 Terror carrying her beyond hyst
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158 wonder you’re imagining thing
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160 Listening Neal Steichen Oh, Chr
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162 I drop the mostly empty glass o
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164 Brenda, I swear to God, one of
Page 168 and 169:
166 Brbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbrrrr… Yup. M
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168 or two of dust, out of the door
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170 Biographies T. Thomas Abernathy
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172 Brett Grinnell lives and works
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174 Real Art Ways, Tomasulo Gallery
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