START VIDEO..THEN READ.
The graveyard was old, and overgrown. It lay back in the woods on the hill behind the swamp. Most of the graves predated the Civil War. Not the one the lightning struck. That grave belonged to Corp. Billy T. Raybourne, Confederate States of America. Was it the power of the strike? A methane pocket? Whatever the cause, the grave had became a smoking crater, with a splintered empty coffin, a blackened headstone, and the literally smoking man..
I awakened with the memory of an incredibly loud noise echoing in my head. Rain drummed on the tin roof, thunder rumbled, and boomed rattling the windows. Head still fuzzy with interrupted sleep I made my way down the hall to the kitchen, stabbed the power button on the coffee machine, and went out on the porch to watch it rain. My eyes drifted up the grassy hill, as they usually did, past the dotted row of little cedars, past the lone tree near the crest, to the treeline. Was that smoke drifting from the trees? It was, not much, but it was there.
I went in the house, and grabbed my binoculars. Tossing the case on the couch, I ran back outside, and focused on the treeline. The
smoke was gone, I figured if lightning had set anything on fire, the rain must have put it out. I continued to scan the tree line for a few minutes as the rain slacked off to a misty drizzle. The coffee pot was calling.
I carried a hot steaming cup out, and sat down to enjoy the fine gray rainy day. I know I'm weird I love days like this. It seems to me to be a good time to think, create, contemplate ...._ I Saw a tiny glow flair in the shadow of the trees, and a thin wisp of smoke wafted in the breeze, and was gone. I reached for the binoculars. THERE. As I focused in the glow became two, flared, dimmed, and left another wisp of smoke. Was somebody up there? Maybe smoking cigarettes? That's what it reminded me of. But two in unison? I had it! One person giving another a light of his smoke. Yeah that was...There it was again, and in the binoculars it was again, twin orange glows followed by a puff of thin gray smoke. Then it-he? stepped out of the tree line, and my blood turned to ice. I couldn't be seeing this. This only happens in fiction. But there it was. A black shadowy figure in full Confederate gray .complete with black billed gray hat. With orange coals for eyes, that flared in the occasional breeze, then wafted twin streams of smoke. The literally smoking man.
I stood glued to the spot as if my shoes had taken root, the binoculars frozen to my face, I couldn't look away. He-it began a slow shambling, swaying walk down the hill, as if it were semi boneless. Like a walking scarecrow. Stopping occasionally to flare balefully, and smoke from his eyes. I didn't know what to do.Should I call someone? Who? And tell them what? That a burning man in a confederate uniform was walking down the hill towards my house? Sweat stung my eyes.I wiped my cold clammy forehead with the hand that held the binoculars.The empty spilled coffee cup hung from the other forgotten. He stopped again seeming to "look" right where I stood. Could it see? What did he want? WHAT WAS IT?!
As it reached the bottom of the hill it was lost to view behind the houses across the rain wet street. It was almost as if a spell had been broken. I could act! And do what? Run? Barricade myself behind locked doors? Would a locked door stop that thing? My pistol! I had no idea what effect it may have on that shambling, smoking thing, but I wanted that gun in my hand more than anything! Dropping the cup, and binoculars, I ran back into my house.Yanking open my desk drawer, I grabbed my fully loaded .38, and headed back out the door. I had to see where it was...if it was still coming.
And there it stood in the gray morning rain , in the middle of my street. Arms loosely at it's side, head facing directly at me, one "eye" was huge, and misshapen now covering a portion of it's hellish face. The wind gusted, and it flared smoked, and flared again! The whole side of it's head became a glowing fiery coal. I stood frozen in it's spell again. Pistol dangling uselessly from my forgotten hand. Flames flickered from the growing coal now covering the whole top of it's head! It took a staggering step. Raised it's arms, palms up . One fell off in a shower of sparks revealing a flaming stump! It uttered a raspy groan straight from hell, and collapsed into a pile of flaming ashes,,,and was gone. Thunder rumbled menacing. Another storm was coming.
