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| The Skeletons Lantern We were on our way back to Yuma following a futile attempt to find Pegleg's lost gold mine out in the heat and dust of the desert. We stopped to make camp for the night between a rock and a hard place, and soon my friend Eddie was snoring loud enough to wake the dead. I drifted off myself, and started dreaming about the pretty girl I was engaged to marry. Suddenly, I was rudely awakened by a shout in my ear. I looked up into Eddie's ugly mug and almost slugged him. He was pretty panic-stricken about something, so I hauled myself up and looked around. Eddie was clutching his rifle and babbling away about a skeleton. I figured Eddie'd had a bad dream and I had just decided to give him a thrashing for waking me up, when I saw the light. At first I thought it was reflected firelight. But the light was flickering oddly, and seemed to bounce up and down. I grabbed my rifle and walked away from the fire towards the light. It was a lantern. A lantern suspended within the chest cavity of a huge skeleton. From the aimless, stumbling way it was walking, the light from the lantern wasn't doing the skeleton much good. I'd never admit it to Eddie, but the sight of that eight-foot tall skeleton made my flesh creep. I told myself it was just Eddie playing tricks on me. To prove it, I took aim at the ghastly creature and fired off a couple of shots. The shots didn't faze the skeleton at all. In fact, my shots didn't even make the lantern flicker. That scared me. I knew then that this was no trick. It was some kind of terrible phantom, stalking the desert at night. Well, we didn't fancy staying in a desert populated with eight-foot skeletons. We grabbed our packs and hightailed it out of there in the dark. As soon as we reached Yuma, Eddie hopped a stagecoach headed east. He'd had enough of lost gold mines and skeletons, and was going home to work in his Pa's store in New York!
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| The White Riders They were not even close to the main camp when the sandstorm storm hit, blasting hot sand into their eyes, hair, and skin. The wind whirled above, around, and under the hasty shelter the two cowboys had set up, offering no protection at all. They took small sips of water every hour or so to relieve the dryness of their throats and to shift about to keep from being buried completely under the sand. A day passed in these terrible conditions. The two cowboys drank the last of their water and ate the last of their food, while the wind and sand whipped about in an impenetrable curtain and the heat dried out their bodies. One after the other their horses dropped dead and were gradually buried under the sand. Through his increasing misery, one of the men noticed that the sound of the storm was muted, though there was no decrease in the pounding of the wind and the sand. Through the sandstorm rode a man dressed all in white. He was followed by eleven riders, who were also dressed in white. Their spurs, bits, and stirrups gleamed like silver; their belt buckles were gold. They were leading a white horse behind them. He tried to call out to them, but his lips were swollen shut. The procession stopped in front of the half-buried cowboys and two men dismounted. They walked over to the man beside him. Tenderly, they helped the other cowboy over to the riderless horse and set him in the saddle. Then they mounted their horses and the men in white started riding away. The remaining cowboy pried his lips apart with shaking fingers and gave a hoarse cry of protest. But the white riders disappeared back into the storm, leaving him alone in the whipping sand. Just before the last rider vanished, he turned back towards the cowboy and said: ""It is not your time yet. We will come back for you presently." Then he passed out of sight. Stricken, the cowboy buried his face against his arm and gradually lost consciousness. He was awakened by someone shaking his shoulder. He looked up into the eyes of some of his fellow cowpokes who had come to find him and his friend as soon as the storm let up. They forced some water through his dry lips and helped him sit up and told him he was lucky to survive. Something in their grim air made him turn to look at his friend, who lay dead at his side. His heart beat rapidly as he realized suddenly how narrow his own escape had been. And suddenly he understood something else. The riders he had seen had been the white riders of death. By leaving him behind, they had spared his life when they came through the storm to take his friend home. | | DESIGNED BY DazZz | | |
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The Storm Hag She lurks below the surface of the lake near Presque Isle, her lithe form forever swimming through the weeds and the mire. Pale and green of skin, her yellow eyes shine luminously in the dark, and her thin long arms wrap themselves around the unwary, while foul-green pointed teeth sink into soft flesh and sharp nails at the end of long bony fingers stroke you into the deepest sleep there is. She is called by many names, but to sailors of Lake Erie, she is known as the Storm Hag. The creature is a sea witch, an evil Jenny Greenteeth who summoned the storms and pulled shipwrecked sailors down into her evil embrace to live with her forever at the bottom of the lake. Sometimes she waits until the calm right after the storm to attack. When the sailors relax their guard, lulled into thinking that the danger had passed with the storm, the Storm Hag bursts forth from the dark waters of the lake, spewing forth lightening and wind like venom. And the ship will vanish - never to be seen again. There is only one warning before she strikes. If you listen closely, you can hear her singing against the harsh wind and the thrashing waves: Come into the water, love,
Dance beneath the waves,
Where dwell the bones of sailor-lads
Inside my saffron cave."
If you can, flee immediately, for the Storm Hag is right beside you. If you cannot, then pray to your God for mercy, for the Storm Hag will grant you none. Her whirlpool will suck down your ship, and her long green arms will lovingly stroke you into the depths of the lake, where she will feast on your body among the weeds. | Background by DazZz |
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