Kinfolk

Dogs! The barking and snapping and growling was unmistakable. Even at a distance. Blood thirsty meat eaters trained to hunt men. But how far off were they? By the echo, sounded like at least a mile up river. Had they caught his scent? His sweat. If so he was a deadman for sure. He hoped one of the dogs would have mercy on him and rip out his throat. Leave him to bleed out in the swamp. Gatorbait. Anything would be better than that goddamn cell.

Captivity made him want to die. Then want to kill. Everyday that odd, loner guard found a new way to humiliate him. To make him hurt. He waited four years for the opportunity to take that guard's dinner knife from his metal lunch box and press it through his throat. And tonight he had done just that. At just the right time, on just the right day, at the end of the night shift. He had taken the guards keys and uniform and walked out with the rest of the shift. Then started running. He was still running. But he had a destination. Relatives...in the swamp. Kinfolk.

A gunshot rang out behind him and he felt hot lead fly by his left cheek. Run! Runner, run for your life. He broke into a heated sprint. His heartbeat beat like a tribal drum. Fear rushed through his veins and his eyes opened wide.

He was looking for an old broken and rotting barn. It had been used for generations by runaway slaves. To hide and to find a sort of sanctuary. A resting place. The legend had been passed down from generation to generation. From slave to slave then slave to freedman. As slaves were arrested migrating north, it was passed down from convict to convict, from runner to runner. Of a safe place built at the entrance to the swamp by the ghosts of runaway slaves to hide any runaway who made it to the ancestral swamps. He had made it. But where was...

The barn had not been there a moment ago, unless the moonlight had played tricks on his eyes. But there it was, lit by a fire inside, it sat just off the path, in front of him, clear as day. He slid in the mud to a stop. Trembling now with fear. Not from his pursuing mob but from what he saw before him.

Inside of the old brown barn, gathered a group of half transparent people, from ages spread apart by centuries, visions, illumined by the moon, dancing and laughing. Were these his ancestors drinking imaginary wine from non existent glasses and smoking from ghostly pipes? Old black and brown men and women, some with kinky hair and some curly and straight, all hues of dark to light, brown to black-- all runners and all dead. The barking was now loud. The torches about to break through the night. He looked to the apparitions in front of the barn. Gunshot!

The apparitions all turned and in spooky unison, looked at him. And like an accented cultural chorus they chimed " "Get yo' black ass on the porch!"He stepped onto the porch. And immediately was greeted by the dead kin. Warm hugs and ghost like kisses. He stared out as the dogs tore down from the hills above. Torches followed...directly past the Big Brown Barn and disappeared, still in full pursuit, into the dirty geechy swamps.

He turned to his kin and thanked them. " You saved my life" They began to laugh and a young runner, no more than ten and by the clothing, dead 300 years, turned to him to say " Don't thank us, kin, You're Dead".