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    The Black Gash
    The Black Gash
    The Black Gash
    Ebook54 pages51 minutes

    The Black Gash

    By L. Chambers Wright

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Ash volunteers for a courtroom renovation to earn extra college credits over the summer break. While preparing the aged documentation for the transition, he stumbles across a case that is nearly two centuries old.

    He doesn't realize the little town's history was deliberately obscured to hide an ancient evil. He finds out, too late, that the secrets are going to claim him.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBlack House Books
    Release dateJul 11, 2011
    ISBN9781476012193
    The Black Gash
    Author

    L. Chambers Wright

    L. Chambers-Wright also writes as Laura Wright. She grew up surrounded by Appalachian folklore and ghost stories, many of which find their way into her material. She currently lives with her family in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She has had many books published, and continues to prolifically write fiction, as well as non-fiction history. She is the primarily caregiver for a number of relatives, several pets, and an unknown number of wild animals. Her interests include photography, music, and casual gaming. Her personal website is Laurawrites.net [http://laurawrites.net]. She runs the Virginia Creeper Appalachian History and Folklore website [http://vacreeper.com], as well as Appalachia Obscura, an obscure history and folklore website [http://appalachiangothic.com].

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      Book preview

      The Black Gash - L. Chambers Wright

      The Black Gash

      By: L. Chambers-Wright

      *****

      Copyright 2011, L. Chambers-Wright. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions. Published by Black House Books [http://blackhousebooks.com].

      Smashwords Edition:

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      *****

      1.

      He finished the property deed transcriptions by the sixth week. With the more tedious documents out of the way, he triumphantly placed the last record book on the final stack. It was a visual affirmation, even if slight. He'd been virtually enslaved by his work for weeks; at least some progress had been made for it.

      The courthouse work hadn't been what Ash expected when he volunteered. It had been nearly two months and all he'd encountered was brittle mountains of stale papers. Countless musty volumes of antiquated court proceedings still lay out before him. He sighed, despite the stifling air. It was easy to doubt when the records seemed to multiply as he watched. He'd volunteered at the courthouse for extra lab hours, but the only experienced he gained was shuffling stacks from this corner to that. He had naively believed he would be gaining his credits in the nice, air-conditioned courtroom. That was where he wanted to be, not in the company of cobwebs and deterioration.

      The county was transitioning to digital archives, a change which required electronic copies of all documentation. He had to sort the record room before the data entry people could scan them. The rest of his summer would be filled with transcribing thousands of documents, if he ever completed the cataloging. Initially, he'd felt sick to his stomach. Thank God, he'd finished with the land deeds.

      He organized and arranged the decaying file on the town's only brothel before moving on to a double-homicide from the same era, 1945. He couldn't imagine a double-homicide or a brothel in this town. The last murder, as far as he knew, had occurred over five years earlier and even that was a simple domestic dispute. He stacked the files in order as he checked for the necessary paperwork to move to the next. The files which lacked the proper paperwork were to be set aside for clerk inspection. At least life was a little exciting back then, a far different world than the one he experienced now. Death, deception and murder seemed to occur on a routine basis.

      He was tempted to blame it on his instructor. The entire ordeal was Mr. Mann's fault. The well-meaning college advisor wasn't entirely truthful in his suggestion for summer break credit. The project would be far more tolerable if they would put something in to control the humidity. He assumed that he would be performing tasks inside the courtroom, with air-conditioning and without decades-old grime.

      He shuffled a few stacks around as he decided where he wanted to go next. He had his choice of over half the storage room. He scooted a stack of three record boxes from the far left corner. The writing on the bottommost box intrigued him enough to stop. The heavily inked date read 1825. That was the oldest box he'd came across, even including the land records. They shouldn't need an evidence box from that period. Any sort of biological samples or evidences would have rotted decades earlier. The cardboard box seemed thin and wobbly with age, but that wasn't two hundred years old. The tiny, misaligned typed caption beneath the date read, Courthouse Organization 1955. The materials inside must've came from 1825. He pulled the two top boxes off and sat them side.

      He carried

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