The Ghost Rider of Rural Appalachia

A short story I was inspired to write while eating dinner last night in downtown Minneapolis. Enjoy.



The Douglas children always looked forward to Christmas time. Johnny and Katie, twins at the age of nine years, loved the presents, family gatherings, and, their personal favorite, the horse and carriage rides.

As the temperatures dropped and the calendar turned to the last month of the year, Jonny and Katie knew all too well what awaited them down on the family farm. They arrived with their parents and quickly joined their smaller cousins in the play room. Finally, after the sun had set low behind the rolling hills, their aunt entered the room, saying the words Johnny and Katie had been waiting for the entire night.

"Time for a horse and carriage ride!"

The smaller children cried with joy and bolted out of the room in front of the twins. As Johnny and Katie stepped out onto the front porch of the farm house, the carriage was already overflowing with a mass of toddlers and their parents.

"Oh no, Johnny and Katie, it looks like the carriage is full. Would you mind waiting for it to go around and return, then take you for a ride?"

The twins, though eagerly anticipating the trip, didn't mind a little wait.

"Yes, that's fine Aunt Leslie," they replied.

Their aunt smiled and, upon entering the carriage herself, turned and said they would be back in half an hour. As the carriage torted down the trail, Johnny and Katie stood alone on the porch.

They had waited for a mere five minutes when, far down the trail returning to the farm house, they spotted a horse and carriage.

"That was really quick," Johnny said wonderingly, his sister concurring.

Their surprised joy turned to utter horror as the carriage approached. For there, guiding his two skeleton horses from atop his carriage of tortured souls, rode none other than the Ghost Rider of Rural Appalachia.

The children screamed and attempted to flee, but their mortal bodies were no match for the personal carriage driver of Satan. Johnny and Katie were sucked into the carriage, and as the horses led them back into the deepest rings of Hell, the Ghost Rider of Rural Appalachia let out a sinister laugh, knowing that two more souls had just been claimed by his horse and carriage ride of doom.