Spooklight on the Devil's Elbow

by Matthew P. Ankney

The Road - part 1

The metallic blue and white 1974 Plymouth Satellite’s ignition refused to turn over. Gary winced each time he tried to start it, the pink rabbit foot keychain jerking back and forth with every fruitless attempt.

The road beyond was covered in thick Ozark fog. A symphony of crickets, cicadas, and frogs serenaded the stranded moonshiner in pitch blackness. Twenty gallons of pure white lightning lie concealed in the car’s rusty trunk.

Gary shuddered, thinking about what just happened. Finding an old 1928 Ford Model A idling in the middle of the secluded country road, faint headlight beams casting long silhouettes, he drove past peering into the abandoned Tudor Sedan.

Up ahead, something unusual was obstructing the road. Approaching with caution, Gary saw a skinny male figure wearing only dingy denim overalls and a crude paper mache head of a raven, hand painted black with eyes made of amber glass ashtrays.

The moonshiner braked hard, stopping fifty yards from the motionless Birdman hoping it was just a teenage prankster high on drugs.

Slow and methodical, the enigmatic Birdman lifted a bony finger pointing at the car, letting out a muffled, “Kaw!”

Gary looked around nervous. A strange blue glow far down the dark road behind the Birdman caught his attention, he squinted hard at the fuzzy spooklight drifting closer.

The Satellite hit reverse in a cloud of dust at forty-five mph. Gary pulled a one-hundred eighty degree maneuver without slowing down, making his way back where he first passed the antique Ford.

Navigating the remote dirt road bordered by Shortleaf pines, he reached for the radio; a static noise hailstorm was the only sound the tuner could receive. The mahogany blur of a Whitetail deer streaked in front of the speeding muscle car. Swerving into a nearby tree, Gary blacked-out upon impact.

The moonshiner regained consciousness to the sound of liquid pouring out of his smashed Plymouth. White lightning leaked from the trunk bottom, every illicit glass jug shattered in the deafening crash.

Blood trickling from his left ear, Gary struggled to start his wrecked automobile and then left it, stumbling around injured. Behind him, he heard a single “Kaw!” echoing in the quiet midnight.

The Crone - part 2

Gary awoke startled from a deep sleep, finding himself in a strange rocking chair wrapped in a knit blanket, blurry eyes unable to focus on the interior of a modest, single-room log cabin. Homemade stew simmered over a smoky fire as the cabin’s lone occupant, seated across from him, stared at their bewildered guest smiling.

“Hankerin’ for some vittles, deary?” the Crone asked.

Confused, Gary nodded. The elderly hostess rose to her feet, set down her grubby corn cob pipe, and clawed at a wooden ladle near the primitive stove. Eating buttered cornbread and steaming hot stew in silence, he wondered how an over one hundred year-old woman could have carried him back to her isolated residence alone.

Gary glanced over at a tintype portrait of a soldier on the wall next to a framed hanging of the word Moira in needlepoint.

“My husband Seamus went off to war a few years back,” the Crone offered, as she hobbled over to an old trunk, producing a cadet gray wool jacket, draping it over Gary’s shoulders. “You need some good ol’ fashioned corn liquor to keep the cold out,” she croaked.

A bone thin arm held out a ceramic jug. Gary uncorked the stopper, inhaling the aromatic spirits with curiosity and then froze. After a slow sip, he was shocked, recognizing the distilled contents. This was his white lightning, the moonshiner would bet his life on it. Body stiffening, Gary scanned the room. The Crone’s demure smile turned sour. Someone outside knocked hard on the weathered cabin door.

The Ghost Regiment - part 3

“No Ma’am, not certain about your Seamus,” confessed the Confederate soldier standing in the doorway. Disappointed, the Crone hung her head, wringing her sinewy, work-worn hands. “Our regiment is from Arkansas. Never been to Virginia.”

Gary’s stomach backflipped at the sight of the man’s transparency. Outside on the road, stretched a long row of dead Confederates, specters maimed in forgotten war, displaying old wounds, torn bandages, and broken hearts.

“Well now, I see our new recruit is quite rested and comfortable. Prepared for the long march to glory!” the emphatic ghost declared, addressing an intoxicated Gary.

Gobsmacked, the moonshiner looked around shaking his head. Two other Confederates standing at attention outside on the rickety porch floated into the gothic log cabin, grabbed Gary from his blanket and chair, and escorted him outside into an open spot in the serpentine procession making its silent way down the foreboding dirt path.

One luminous private slapped a cadet gray cap on Gary’s head, another shoved a rifle with fixed bayonet in his hands. The moonshiner glanced back over his shoulder horrified to see the cabin disappear.

The phantom parade began to sing:

“This regiment is lost for good.

We’re through with all this brotherhood.

These battle wounds, they do not heal.

A forward march to Hell, we’ll kneel.”

Drums beat in sync with the wraiths’ chilling rendition. Gary glanced up at the night sky, a dark expanse illuminated by swirling constellations, animated cosmic murals frescoed by ancient architects of the universe. Lost in an altered, psychedelic state, his feet became puddles of mercury sliding across frictionless earth, as the gyrating stars above, pulsating and dancing in iridescent waves, wove infinite patterns unfamiliar to the living.

A young ghost boy and his loyal sheep dog drifted along the morbid ensemble of dead Confederates enquiring about his mother. “How ‘bout you, sir?” he asked. The moonshiner shook his head.

Down the road, Gary saw a pristine home with white picket fence and iron front gate. The sullen troops halted their melancholic advance. An officer on horseback gave orders in a low voice.

“Lieutenant, search for the Artifact. Confiscate livestock we need, kill the rest. Set fire to the house and barn. Detain any servants, then move out. Rendezvous at the river,” the Colonel commanded, jagged vertical scar running down his milky left eye.

The line of soldiers once again began their ethereal march, while a small detachment broke away from the main formation. The perimeter picket fencing was torn up, hacked to pieces, and tossed into the house breaking every window. Men with torches entered the quaint cottage soon enveloped in spectral flame.

The apparition of a desperate young woman, dressed only in undergarments, burst from the farmhouse bonfire, running towards a dumbstruck Gary pleading in a French accent.

“Monsieur, you mustn’t let them do this! My petit son, he cannot walk, is inside,” she repeated.

The farm wife beat on the moonshiner’s chest with clenched fists in slow motion, her delicate, incorporeal hands passing through Gary, until falling on the ground drained and helpless, watching her residence burn in a muddied petticoat bawling.

The Artifact - part 4

- May 17, 1863

“Seamus,” whispered a concealed Confederate soldier hidden in the thorny underbrush of a primordial forest. “Did you hear that?”

Another monstrous roar echoed through sun-dappled Kentucky timber.

“I ain’t gonna be killed by no Shawnee Devil. Ya’ll can stay here and die..,” cut-off mid-sentence, the Confederate disappeared high into the dense tree canopy.

A short distance away, another soldier in Seamus’s platoon ran panicked down a shallow stream bed screaming unintelligible warnings before swan diving off a seventy-five foot high waterfall cliff face, crashing onto moss-covered boulders below.

Near a massive opening in the ground, Seamus felt another arrow pierce his abdomen. Coughing and dizzy, the scout ripped away his blood-soaked tunic. He struggled to remove a native projectile in agony, breaking it off out of frustration and fear.

Surrounded by invisible Shawnee warriors from a revered clan of medicine men, a bone-weary Seamus dropped his rifle, fell to his knees, and raised his blood-stained arms in the air, praying with eyes closed tight; his secret mission to salvage a native relic failed.

Dragged out into a clearing near the expansive underground entrance by two Shawnee warriors, a captive Seamus was greeted by an imposing Shaman with an impish smile flanked by two hulking sasquatch standing guard.

“The magic talisman you seek contained within a leather sachem, source of Osage mystic vitality, lies protected to the west across the Great River,” revealed the painted and feathered mystic.

Sweat poured from Seamus’s wrinkled brow. Gulping hard, he stammered in a frantic mumble.

“Sacred Mo’kon’to’ga medicine, what white men call the Artifact, once weaponized, could end the Civil War with your South as victor. We know your plans, warning our Osage brothers and sisters,” the Shaman said in solemn tones.

The Shaman sat down cross-legged holding out the skeleton of a large bat. He crushed it into a powder with a rock-carved mortar and pestle, adding a touch of oil; green smoke burst from the exotic concoction. The sasquatch sentries’ eyes burned crimson. Grabbing catatonic Seamus by both arms, they carried him back into the forest never to be seen again.

The lost Arkansas regiment, Gary’s haunted Southern conscriptors, heard rumors during the war about the search for the Artifact and its coveted abilities. After dying in a futile battle besieging a wilderness fort, the paranormal casualties are caught adrift in an infinite purgatory searching for a myth hidden somewhere in an undiscovered Ozark cave.

Once the Artifact is in their possession, the Confederate ghosts believe they can either return to the world of the living, magically coming back to life, or leave limbo, resting in peace forever, returning home to those waiting.

The Cave - part 5

“Sir, we’re takin’ awful heavy casualties. The Sentinel refuses to relinquish the Artifact. Engineers have lost contact with the men farther in,” the gaunt-faced Lieutenant reported.

Torches illuminated the cave’s one-hundred foot tall entrance. Faint amber light, reflecting off a small freshwater spring trickling out, projected hypnotic geometric patterns dancing and weaving across crumbling limestone.

Glowing skeletal mules hauled carts of blasted stone as detonations deep within shook the ground. Dirt and debris from the high river bluff above showered the tactical conference below.

“My tools to fight this beast are limited,” shrugged the Academic, a professor of anthropology leading the original Artifact expedition. Killed in Kentucky, he wandered this cursed domain until joining the ghost regiment on the phantom road.

An intense, bone-chilling roar was heard from inside the cave followed by more muffled explosions. The Academic twiddled his waxed mustache, piercing eyes gazing into the frigid void beyond.

“How can a monster kill my wraith army?” the Colonel asked. “They died over a century ago. Where could they go?”

“The Sentinel, tricked by a shaman to protect the Artifact contained within a leather sachem, is an ancient demon with the ability to devour the lifeforce of perished souls,” the Academic replied, removing his wire rim glasses, cleaning the lenses. “They are going straight to the fiery pits of Hell, itself.”

“The men are weary of the road, sir,” said the impatient Lieutenant. “They want to face the beast, make a stand and fight.”

The silent regiment stood at attention separated into columns, bayonets fixed, phantom corn cob pipes lit and smoking. Staring at the haunting cave mouth, they longed to leave a never-ending battle ground and its metaphysical war of attrition beyond their control.

“Well, the regiment was killed once in a similar manner,” the Academic replied, shaking his head. “Deus nolens exitus. Some folks never learn.”

“A long march on a cursed road forever is the alternative,” said the Colonel, taking a hard draw from his cigar, grim visage glowing bright. “Never to see your lovely Lorelei again.”

“The mortal has the best chance. He’s the only one of us not a ghost. The Sentinel is most vulnerable to his attack between shapeshifts,” the Academic added.

“We’ve come so far, heartbroke and saddlesore. Now, our fate is in the hands of a moonshiner,” the Colonel laughed to himself and spat.

The Academic paused, gazing up at the clear night sky. “If the mortal cannot defeat the beast, securing the Artifact, none of us, I guarantee you, will ever see our Loreleis again.”

Exhaling blue gray smoke, the Colonel motioned with his cigar, “Lieutenant, have you the weapon?”

Stepping forward, the Lieutenant unfolded a faded red bandana, “Yes, sir. Primed and loaded.”

The ghost-men assembled quiet in a circle, gazing down at a LeMat Confederate carbine pistol glimmering in the faint torchlight.

The Sentinel - part 6

Ears ringing, Gary regained consciousness on the slick, hard floor of the damp cave. His miner’s oil cap lamp, a small teapot looking device, illuminated the alcove off the main passage where he was tossed by an explosive charge. Dazed and unaware of the battle raging around the corner, the moonshiner wiped his dirty face, blackened with the headlamp’s soot, and rose to his shaky feet.

The grotesque Sentinel stood towering in the main passage, now a quarter-mile from the outside entrance, the cave ceiling twenty-five feet high. Blinding, strobe-like prismatic lights emanated from the ancient beast; the terrified company of ghost soldiers took cover behind gleaming wet stalagmites and wavy flowstone walls.

Another hissing stick of dynamite was tossed at the hideous monster, concussive force ripping through the damaged cave. Slabs of rock collapsed from the cracked ceiling above covering the Sentinel, pinning it down, trapping it in a heaping pile of rubble.

The nearest Confederate approached the subdued demon with caution, as the Sentinel changed shape, transforming into vapor seeping through the cracks in the rocks, reforming into a unfettered humanoid raven. The giant birdman, covered head-to-toe in jet black feathers, snatched the soldier, consuming his spectral energy, devouring his very essence.

After witnessing another fallen brother-in-arms disappear, this one sucked into the Sentinel’s menacing bird beak, the remaining soldiers retreated back towards the cave entrance low on both ammunition and courage.

Native drums and wailing began deep in the subterranean labyinth’s farthest reaches, chilling darkness penetrated by a pale glow. The sound of massive hooves thundered down the wide main passage. A blinding white bison, steaming nostrils dripping, charged towards the Sentinel’s malevolent birdman shape.

Upon impact, a shockwave reverberated through the echoing cavern’s endless tunnels, both mythical creatures vanishing in an instant. Silent Osage shaman lingering in far shadows, wondered if the gamble, joining the fight against their sworn enemy at this crucial moment, paid off.

Gary cocked the engraved hammer on the elegant LeMat Confederate carbine pistol provided by the Academic moments before entering the Sentinel’s underground realm. Packed, primed, and loaded with nine pure silver balls and a single 20-gauge grapeshot round in the underslung smoothbore barrel, the professor earlier demonstrated how to use the specialized weapon against a supernatural foe.

The burning oil cap lamp revealed archaic pictographs on the moist cave wall above. Pausing, Gary gazed at a sprawling rock art mural depicting a similar scene; the fate of men and monsters intertwined across the thin-veiled fabric of time.

“KAW!”

He spun around, unloading a charmed projectile into the Sentinel lurking behind him. The vile creature changed shape back into its horrifying original form twelve feet tall. Aiming at its head with elk-like horns, he fired a second round as the Sentinel, roaring in agony, vanished into thin air.

Surging with adrenaline, hands shaking, pouring sweat, the moonshiner did not expect the monster to just evaporate. The miner’s headlamp sputtered out, leaving him stumbling in total darkness.

Gary found himself back inside Crone Moira’s ramshackle cabin resting at the foot of Lost Hill along the ghost road. The wounded Sentinel probed his mind, assuming a young girl’s form with long pigtail hair braids, victim of a tragic accident he once knew during childhood. She sat sobbing by the rustic stone fireplace. Trying to comfort her with a blanket, the girl mocked Gary’s gesture in eerie octaves.

“Your kind did us such a favor, ridding this land of the meddlesome aborigines, exterminating their pathetic way of life,” the disguised Sentinel sneered. “In their absence, I again reached my power’s apex.” The triumphant girl smiled, now capable of manipulating reality, physically occupying multiple dimensions simultaneously.

Gary caught sight of the little leather bag. The Sentinel was wearing the Artifact around its neck.

“I am fear. Conjurer of woe. I am winter in your bones,” the girl rose in the firelight, profile casting the gruesome shape of a sinister creature on the far wall, her teeth growing sharp and long. “I am the one called Kar-kag-ni!” she shrieked, beginning to shapeshift.

The moonshiner pulled the hammer back on the carbine, flicking the firing pin into a forward, secondary position with his thumb, transforming the pistol into a shotgun. He lit a bundle of sage, throwing it smoldering on the floor in front of the Sentinel. The menacing Kar-kag-ni recoiled, then lunged. Gary discharged the silver grapeshot point blank into its gaping maw.

The Deputy - part 7

Gary found himself staggering down the dark road alone. Soft headlight beams approached as coyotes howled and yipped in the distance. The dull sound of steel-belted radials on gravel crashed over him in gut-wrenching anxiety waves, anticipating something far worse than ghouls and goblins.

Angry red and blue lights streaked across the moonshiner’s exhausted, filthy face. Handcuffed, Gary was shoved into the backseat of a brown 1979 Ford. A dim interior dome light peppered inside with small dead insects illuminated the flush-cheeked Deputy squeezed behind the steering wheel, smirking into the grimy rear-view mirror. A moist, splintered matchstick flicked in his featureless mouth from side to side. His foamy, bulging tongue pulsated in metronomic rhythm mimicking a timid burrowing creature playing tennis against itself.

Incredulous, he asked a disoriented Gary, still in Confederate uniform, an honest question, “Y’all know the war’s been over for over a century, now?” Gary nodded, removing his dusty cadet gray cap.

“I know you ain’t as stupid as you look, Gary,” the Deputy turned around, “Big Earl said next time I catch you ridge runnin’ on the Devil’s Elbow,” he paused, “What’s this, some sort of doper paraphernalia?” Grinning wide, the Deputy snatched a small leather pouch hanging from Gary’s neck, stuffing it in his breast pocket.

“KAW!”

The piercing raven call struck both men in a psychic shockwave. Gary stared down the road at a familiar lone figure in the distance, macabre mist swirled around the stoic Birdman.

The Deputy clicked a button on the patrol car’s floorboard activating the high beam headlights with his polished white cowboy boot. The Birdman disappeared, reappearing in the road closer to the patrol car.

Grabbing his shotgun, the Deputy gritted his crooked teeth, spat out the tattered matchstick, grunting as he opened the car door, and stepped out into the brisk night air. Stopping ten feet away from the raven-headed figure, he unloaded two blasts from the hip at a target that once again vanished.

“KAW!”

Materializing out-of-thin-air behind the puzzled Deputy, the Birdman grabbed him by his sweaty neck, lifting the lawman several feet off the ground. The Deputy screamed as they both faded out of existence, the sound of howling laughter reverberating through the moonshiner’s weary mind.

Victorious, the Sentinel once again regained the sacred Artifact, condemning the doomed ghost regiment to forever march a cursed road of despair, never to return home or rest in peace.

Gary found handcuff keys and extra clothes in the trunk of the idling patrol car. Leaving the threadbare Confederate uniform burning in a bright pile by the road, he jerked the gearshift, floored the accelerator, and roared along a desolate, moonlit river, escaping a savage Ozark wilderness of men and monsters.

The End