Free The South Will Rise Again by Jeffrey Kosh Page B

of that cannibal fiend, he screamed. Yet, only a mournful and cold moan escaped from his harsh lungs.
    What’s was that? Me?
    That auditory effect was more akin to howling hounds than the speech of a child of God. Maybe his throat had been seared by the scorching fires of battle. Perhaps his vocal chords had been damaged beyond repair, turning him into a mute witness of man’s cruelty.
    His dire thoughts were scattered away by an unexpected hailing.
    “ As you were, soldier,” uttered the munching demon.
    The monster was able to talk.
    The survivor staggered backward, surprised by that chilling hiss, followed by those awful gulping sounds.
    The milky-eyed creature raised its bloody muzzle toward him. “Aye, mate, do not expect speech to return so quickly. It takes time. And patience. And practice.”
    Then returned its interest to the gory entrails.
    The brave soldier left out another moan, then looked down at his uniform; that shredded rag punctured by hollows and desiccated body fluids. There was a large gaping hole where his heart used to be.
    Forgotten memories flooded his misty brain at once, and he finally left hold of the weapon and fell on his knees.
    How had he been so foolish? How had he deluded himself believing he had survived the onslaught? He had not felt the thumping rhythm of his beating heart inside the chest from the very moment he had opened his eyes on that cursed battlefield.
    As he reached down, into his mangy uniform, to touch with living (unliving?) hand what now he knew to be forever gone, he heard the raspy voice of the cannibal fiend speaking again.
    “ Welcome back to the living, soldier.”
    He raised his own milky-white irises toward what was once General Arthur Ernest Mitchell of the 113th cavalry regiment of the Confederate army.
    His own general.
    In Life.
    And Death.
    Again, the ghoulish monster spoke.
    “ We won!”

Excerpts
    From
    SPIRITS AND THOUGHT FORMS
    Tales from Prosperity Glades
    by
    Jeffrey Kosh

INTRODUCTION
     
    Masks.
    This book is about masks.
    Hey, wait a minute, that’s not what’s on the cover! I’m sure you’re yelling that, right now. No, I didn’t cheat; I promise. This collection of short stories are all set in that creepy town of Prosperity Glades, and all of them are about spirits … and thought forms.
    Yet, it is also about masks. The masks we wear each day, those that other employ to hide their true feelings, and most of all, those that spirits wear to lure us into their clutches.
    Spirits, by their nature, are formless beings; in a way they are just memes. Each spirit represents something about human nature and human wishes. By the way, spirits are wishes made into flesh - or almost flesh. The term ‘spirit’ itself, refers to an entity that is incorporeal, not a being made of matter, although, in almost all cultural traditions and folklore, they are tied to the physical world and many are able to assume a material form.
    Spirits appear in different forms and types, and all human culture has a belief system incorporating them. In a way they are already … thought forms.
    In animistic cultures, spirits are present everywhere; in living and unliving matter. Items, constructions, even raw rock, are infused with spiritual or lifelike properties. Some Native American belief assign spirits only to living things; other believed that all of creation has a spiritual counterpart. As such, they can often inhabit totems, fetishes, and mostly charms and magical items. These kinds of spirits - also present in Shinto, Japan’s main religion - are thought as an ‘animating force’, akin to the human soul. Where Frankenstein’s creation life force did came from? Who is the individual settling in the mortal shell? It's the sum of all his parts; a mosaic of souls melting into an imperfect whole, like the Echo character in ‘Dollhouse’? Or it's the animating force of the brain; the mind of one of the deceased, in this case, like in Kenneth Branagh’s rendition,