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Author's Note: If you enjoyed this story and its take on an urban legend, please check out @jrhughes Urban Legend Flash Fiction Contest, where you could win $30 SBD prize! Update an old urban legend, mash it up with a new genre, or create an all new creepypasta! The contest lasts for 3 days, so get over and find out how to get your piece entered or critiqued on the fiction-workshop discord channel. The piece below was originally published as part of the "Sharing Nightmares" Halloween Anthology on Wattpad and is NOT an entry into the contest.
A Fair for Psychopomps
The people at the center stand around the ofrendas, makeshift altars built to memorialize their ancestors. They are colorfully adorned with the intricate sugar skulls, displaying the offerings of tequila, bread, candles, and flowers. Little old ladies bow their heads in prayer, their deceased loved ones close by, listening to their invocations. Superstitions born to life for three days, sanctioned by the Holy Church itself.
The woman's face is pressed to the backseat window. "No, no, no. I don't see them. They're not here. My children are not here."
"How do you know?" Sharon asks. "You haven't even gotten out to check." She swallows hard, sending up her own prayer that the woman will leave the cab and move on to being someone else's problem. The second she steps from the vehicle, Sharon is poised to burn rubber and never look back. Her foot twitches nervously against the brake pedal. "There's lots of children out there."
"Not mine!" The woman spits. She turns to face Sharon, fire and hatred burning in her eyes. "Do you think I would not know my own children?"
The air in the taxi is stifling. Sharon clears her throat, unsure of whether she could take the woman, should it come down to that. Psychopomps are guides, occasionally Reapers. Push comes to shove, they could kill a person, but hold limited power over the dead. On Dia de los Muertos, that power is even more tenuous; freedom temporarily granted to spirits by canon on Earth as well as beyond. Sharon moves a hand to her belt, positioning to draw a small blade, more sickle than scythe.
"Of course not. I'm sure you would recognize them. I thought maybe they were hiding... behind some of the other children."
The woman smashes her fists against the dividing glass of the cab, spider-web cracks pooling from the blow. She shrieks, "My children would not hide from me! What kind of mother do you take me for?"
"Hey!" Sharon shouts back, holding her hands up. "Calm yourself. That's company property, alright? Now, I'll take you to Santa Ana Cemetery. There's loads of altars there. Chances are that's where your kids went. Just... just calm down. Okay?"
"How far is it? I have to find them. I don't have long."
"It's not far." Sharon half-lies. It wasn't a great distance, but she planned on taking the scenic route. Anything she could do to inch closer to midnight. The odds were good the woman would not attack in a crowded place, but if she got too desperate... Sharon didn't want to dwell on that thought.
"Very well, the cemetery then." The woman consents, her anger subsiding. Sharon checks the rearview mirror as she pulls back onto the road. The woman appears to have aged ten years since entering the cab. Still beautiful, but not the youthful stunning she had been when she flagged Sharon down. Her cheeks have begun to draw in, and her eyelids droop. She looks like she hasn't eaten in days. Within moments, the woman has resumed crying. Sharon wonders whether the snail's pace or the incessant weeping will drive her mad first.
"You're very beautiful. Those kids, I bet they take after their mother, huh?" Sharon says. Anything to stop the sobbing.
"No. They look like their father. So handsome, but they remind me so much of him." Her mouth turns downward at the last word. A bad memory making its way through her conscious. "He is not with us anymore. Left for another woman. I don't think he was ready for a life that included children. Perhaps he was not ready for a life that included me, either. At least not a life until death do us part."
Sharon checks the rearview again, anger lining the brow of her unwanted passenger. She wished the conversation hadn't steered toward the father. The woman needs to stay calm. And away from the river. There was power near the river, an unnatural tether from the woman's past. Trying to navigate the conversation like the Santa Ana streets, Sharon says, "You don't need him. All a mother needs is her children. I'll help you find them, even if it takes all night."
"I don't have all night. You know this, Ferrier of Souls." Anger livens her eyes, contrasting the death pallor that has crept its way across her sunken face. What was a subtle aging is turning to decay. Her time is running out, she knows this. She also knows Sharon's identity.
"Look, we're almost to the cemetery. I'm sure your kids are there. You can be together again, let me help you." Sharon turns the car onto Fairhaven, trying to hide the tremble in her voice. The cemetery is only one more left turn away. She glances at the glowing clock on the console. It reads half past eleven. Thirty more minutes until the end of Dia de los Muertos.
To Be Continued....
good use of suspense - you've got that Stephen King vibe going