Three days have passed since I left my hometown of Camden, Alabama.  I was on my way to my friend’s house in...Sharonville, I think it was, for a surprise visit.  I only had eighty-seven miles to go before I reached her town.  I was just entering Birmingham and decided to bypass the Redmont Hotel because I heard that it was haunted by the ghost of Hank Williams, who has been spotted in the room he stayed in before he died.  I decided to stop at a 7-11 to grab a slushie, and soon I was back on the road. 

Around one in the morning, I started getting this eerie feeling, when all of a sudden thick fog started to cover the road.  It was so hard to see that I had to slow down from my sixty mph to a death-defying slow pace of ten mph.  After about four hours of that, I finally arrived in Sharonville.  Once I entered the town the fog instantly cleared away strangely, on the other side of the fog, in town, it was bright as day, just like there was absolutely no fog whatsoever.  Surprisingly, at five in the morning, the whole town was busy.  There were mothers holding their child’s hand as they crossed the street and soldiers marching down the streets with rifles propped up against their shoulders...wait, soldiers?  Rifles?  That's not creepy at all…maybe they're getting ready for a parade?  I decided to go find my friend Sharon, funny she lives in a town called Sharonville and her name’s Sharon.  I drove up the cobblestone streets until I reached her Victorian-themed house.  I turned my car off and walked up the porch stairs and knocked on her door and waited until it opened. 

“Hi Sharon, its so good to see you!”  I walked forward to hug her and when suddenly she grabbed my arm and roughly pulled me inside.

“Sharon, what’s go-...”  My question was stopped short when Sharon slapped her hand against my mouth and cautiously peeked out the window at a passing soldier.  Once he was out of sight she slowly removed her hand. 

“Okay, Sharon, you better tell me what is going on right now!”  Sharon looked around, made sure the windows were locked, locked all five locks on her door and rushed us upstairs to her room where she locked the door once we were inside.  I looked at her expectantly.

“So, umm, hey April...well...uhh...where to begin…”

“At the beginning.”  I was starting to lose patience and thought about leaving.  She took a breath.

“Well, Sharonville...is a ghost town...literally.”

“Haha, Sharon, don't try and fool me.”

“I'm not April, I swear, the soldiers, the guns, the little kids and their mothers, they’re all ghosts.  The fog that surrounds this town is a barrier, once you clear the fog, you're trapped here forever.  There’s no escape.” 

“Wh-what do you mean?”

Sharon handed me a very, old newspaper clipping, it read: November 6th, 1861, 5;30 a.m., there was a thick fog surrounding Sharonville.  The Confederates used that as an advantage and ambushed the town, which at the time was used as a base camp. 

I looked up at her and she started to explain.   “Everyone was slaughtered, from children to women, soldiers, the wounded cattle, everything.  After the slaughter, they burned Sharonville to the ground.  The ghosts of the town rose from the dead and so did the town, and every day they relive November 6th and 5;00, thirty minutes before Sharonville was slaughtered.  If anyone who is a descendant of a Confederate soldier arrives here, they’ll seek revenge and.  You.  Will.  Die.”

“So, what you're saying is that I’m trapped in this town forever?”

“Yes”

It dawned on me finally what Sharon was saying; Sharonville has completely wiped off the map because of the Confederates, and now they want their revenge.  After running to the library, literally, I found a book on the Sharonville Slaughter:  Sharonville’s slaughter was led by Michael Sullivan, 34, a Confederate General.  At that moment I could only register three things through my mind, the library doors being slammed open, the sound of a gun firing moments later, and that Michael Sullivan was my great, great uncle.