The old car lumbered up the hill, its massive bulk propelled by a an old engine that had seen better days. It was raining gently, soft drops of water hitting the windshield, the squeaking sound of the wiper blades drowning out an old country song on the radio . The GPS on the dashboard counted down the mile markers towards his destination. The car felt cold, which it should have been, the thermometer said it was almost eighty outside, even with the rain.
He let out a long sigh, trying to figure out what the hell he was doing. Lily did this to him, sent him on this fool's errand. They'd shared an office at University of Kansas, in the social sciences department when they were both graduate assistants. They'd been friends, but not a lot more than that. She was getting her doctorate in American folklore, and he was working on finishing up his doctoral program in the American West. His dissertation was on the need for western expansion driving the frontier off the continent.
She'd sent him an e-mail two weeks ago, and he was still reading the e-mail over in his brain.
"Carter, i know it's been a long time, but i found something amazing, and i need you to check this out." She'd sent a series of pictures attached to the e-mail. They were tombstones, from an old boneyard somewhere in the middle of nowhere. "I think this is it, I think i found it." the message had continued. "You remember the story from Knob's Creek in the Civil war? I think i found part of it."
Knob's creek was a little tributary of the Arkansas river that ran through Kansas. During the civil war, a confederate unit was operating near Knob's creek, and was terrorizing runaway slaves and the abolitionists that were helping them move across the Kansas prairie towards a new life. Nearly a hundred confederate soldiers were thought to be raiding along the Arkansas, but their base somewhere in the vicinity of Knob's Creek.
Late one night in 1863, a union patrol found that camp in Knob's Creek. It was a grisly site. The entire confederate patrol had been butchered, by person or persons unknown, their bodies torn asunder and their bones left to bleach in the sun. The horses had been slaughtered, and the only person who'd survived had been a young African American boy named Silas. Silas was owned by the commander of the Confederates, a passionate firebrand named Henry GoodChurch. The story that Silas had told the northern soldiers had become a puzzle that Lily had determined she had to solve.
Silas had been tending Captain Goodchurch's horse when he felt a chill roll across the creek bed. Something spooked the horses, and it had taken all of Silas's ability to calm the horse he was tending when the campfires started to go out. He saw the lights go out one by one across the campsite, but the thing that shook his nerve was the noise. Every single sound had stopped, no birds, no animals in the underbrush, nothing. Even the horses had gone silent.
He told them that he felt the icy grip of death on him, but it had passed him over. He spoke of Death as a person, a real flesh and blood thing that had walked into that camp, and judged everyone. His description of Death was bizarre.
Yes'sir, he was a tall thing, thin like a rail, with a weird catch in his step. He was dressed in black, all black, with a white collar like a preacher and he was cold, like ice in the veins. He didn't have no expression on his face, no smile, no frown, just those angry red eyes. Around his waist was a long, heavy golden chain, and wrapped in that chain was a heavy book, i was sure it was a bible. He stared into me with those angry red eyes, and i knew i wasn't long for the world, that Saint Peter was going to ask me how i'd managed to die as a boy.
"Live in peace, Silas Greene, you will know the love of a wife, children, and many grandchildren." He said with a voice that rumbled like thunder, and he laid his hand across my shoulder. That cold went through me all the way to my soul, and i felt the chill of the grave. "Sleep now, this is not for your eyes, boy." And i slept, the most peaceful sleep i'd ever had, before or since. I slept that night, like a baby attached to his momma. I awoke the next morning to see the hell that had been wrought, but i carried Death's mark, where he'd lain his hand across my shoulder, the skin had scarred over and turned white.
The soldiers had scoured the campsite, and found no one alive, save for Silas and the horse, and when they returned later to examine it again, the campsite was gone, like the creek had swallowed it up again.
"I need your help, Carter, please, I have attached the coordinates for this town, I hope to see you soon, old friend."
And like that, like an idiot, he was off chasing a windmill to slay.
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