The Haunted Traveler Vol 1 Issue 2

49
and a large knife. She began heating the blade in the
gas ring flames, humming some lullaby to herself.
‘Rhonda, did it -’
‘If you want to know if you can go now then
the answer’s yes. I’ll finish up here.’ She sighed. ‘You
never had the stomach for anything deep.’
‘I guess not.’ He knew better than to argue
with his sister. ‘I just need to know if -’
‘You’ll see when you get there.’ She was
standing with one hand on her hip, the glowing orange
blade pointing at his eyes. ‘Go and get your suit on.
Have you seen the time? The service will be over if
you don’t get a move on.’
That was fine with Jeff. He had every intention
of missing the service; funerals were bad enough without
hymns and preachers. It was only the internment
that interested him, and if Rhonda’s spell had worked,
then -
- then Rhonda was approaching the hapless
dog, and he hurried upstairs to get dressed before
she plunged the blade into its shallow beating chest,
pounding his feet on the risers to mask the crack of its
ribcage. Did she really expect him to eat the heart? Or
would she eat it herself? He couldn’t remember the
details, but he trusted his sister to work it all out.
A niggling anxiety refused to stop biting as he
did up his tie and polished his shoes with the bathroom
towel: what if the dog wasn’t enough? What if
they needed something bigger…what if they needed a
person?
He drove the thought from his mind as he hurried
downstairs and out the front door, grateful he