A ghost story set in West Virginia based on a true event during the Civil War.
This story has been published in Legends of the Mountain State 4, edited by Michael Knost, October 2010.
Publisher: Woodland Press, LLC.
Condemned by Lisa Mannetti
in Legends of The Mountain State, edited by Michael Knost
It took a long time for me to begin remembering things...like the silvery pingof a bullet whistling past me; the solid chunk when it struck the wood of a door jamb, or the meaty sound and delayed sting when another round buried itself right inside my flesh.
There were other sounds, too:sharp voices climbing high and fast. And smells like blood and dirt and November woodsmoke....But, there’s so much I still can’t recall—not completely.
Honest, I didn’t drink that much whisky the day I scuffled with Creigh. I don’t think I had a black out. And I’d seen plenty of casualties, plenty of men—good men—die. But I sure as blazes didn’t think that a half-assed scheme conjured from Dutch courage would mean that death’d follow me out of camp right up the Lewisburg-Ronceverte Road to the big house where old man Creigh lived—and follow him clear across the state line into Virginia and back again to Montescena....
In the end they'll all be dancin'--all them ones that didn't die.... Dance with me in the shadows amidst the lightning and the thunder, and all that nu-cu-lar debris. See the big bang from the other side, and then open that cellar door. Go down into