Smokey Mountain Breakdown

...that the clarity of the light from my balcony this morning was simply stunning.

Beginning on Monday, I will begin the SMB horror-grotesque-spooky-ghost story-a-thon. One entire month of me working out four full length, original short stories here on the blog. This is a challenge I have put up for myself...you can follow along if you wish.

I will be posting segments of the stories on Monday through Wednesday and on Saturdays for the entire month of October. Thursday will be optional. Fridays will be FPF as usual and Sunday's will be Happy Sunday as usual.

Here are the stories. They are plotted out, but unwritten so I'll be writing from the seat of my pants as usual. And I sort of like the idea of writing all these at the same time.

1. Carolina Special

An old man finally relives a terrifying night that he worked on the Carolina Special traveling from Spartanburg, S.C. to Knoxville, TN on October 31, 1923. As if scaling Saluda Mountain, one of the most treacherous stretches of rail in the US at the time, were not enough...the veil between the worlds grew dangerously thin...and he sees things from the engine of the Carolina Special that no man is meant to see.

Yep, folks...looks like we got us here a ghost train!

(note...I'm hoping and pretty sure I'll get lots of research tips from rail enthusiasts on this one!)

Rated for: Supernatural, Fantasy, Ghost Stories, trains

2. Sugar and Brimstone

A young mountain girl harbors a crush on a very, very bad man. Luckily, for her, it is entirely unrequited. She witnesses his crimes, his death and has as disturbing vision of his damnation.

Rated for: Violence, Gothic, Horror, Supernatural

3. Stir with a Knife

You've already met my evil quilter. But how did she become an Appalachian version of one of the Fates? How did she get that way?

Rated for: Horror, Supernatural, Grotesque

4. The Dark Hole

The most difficult story I've attempted. Dark, racially charged and dealing with many of the stereotypes of Appalachia that I've wanted to avoid. It's been festering like an open sore since I put it down last. It is the most O'Connor-esque story I've ever attempted. I'm determined to finish it this month.

Rated for: Grotesque, Horror, Violence

Are you excited? I am.

This story is for an assignment from Wordsmith's Unlimited. Read the original assignment HERE.



“What in tarnation?!”

Ennis stepped back out onto the porch to watch the UPS delivery van try to make its way back up the rutted gravel drive that led to his house up in the holler. The driver had just thrown the package up on the porch rather than navigate the sea of blue tick hounds and dead cars in the yard. Its wheels stuck and spun a few times in the mud but it finally made its way back to the main road.

He squatted down on his haunches and turned the red box around in his hands, then spit a stream of tobacco juice out into the bare dirt yard. It barely missed a game hen scratching for bugs in the dirt. He wondered how much he could get for the box at the pawnshop in Newport. He wondered if it were worth anything.

Probably not, he thought, since the damn thing wouldn’t open.

He stood and scuffed his worn boots on the weathered wood of the porch. He’d been expecting a delivery but this sure wasn’t the immersion heater he’s ordered for his still operation. And he sure as hell needed the damn thing since he was almost out of quart jars and needed to do another run.

“Ennis? What were that?”

He turned to see his woman standing there in her tattered housedress. Her hair was mussed from sleep, its brassy blond ends contrasting sharply to the blue-black roots next to her scalp. The left side of her face was creased with sleep lines and she hadn’t put her teeth in yet.

Wordlessly, he handed the red box to her.

“Awwww, this here’s right purty!” she crooned as she caressed the box. “Where’s it come from?”

Ennis let another stream of tobacco juice snake out into the yard.

“Think it h'ain’t s’posed to be here.” He said with his long gaze fixed toward Snowbird Mountain, etched against the Tennessee sky.

Later that day, in Charleston, SC, Mrs. Davies-Smythe, in her elegant home on the Battery, tearfully opened a package to find an odd piece of hardware, an immersion heater, instead of Mr. Davies-Smythe’s cremains.

“What in tarnation?!”