The Grands' Reopening

Notes: To the best of my knowledge no real places or events are herein described. Image associated is from Ironage.media, specifically their prompt 'The Station"

"Hail my thirsty fellows and gather round!

A tragic twist of cruel fate has plagued our dear town, but will be a-righted in but two days!

For The Grand, finest Saloon this side of the Atlantic will have its reopening night this coming Friday, the 18th of December!"

The posters had appeared all over town, much as the building they referenced had done so twice now. For two years, it had stood, the beating heart of the thriving town of Carndonagh, Colorado Territory, USA. That was until 8 months ago when some crazed drifter came a-preaching against "that den of sin, the equal of Gomorrah." Within the week, The Grand had burned down, an event not one of the town's denizens could forget.

The Preacher stood and watched as the unnatural conflagration seemed to burn from the insides of every possible piece of timber at once. But the roar of that fire could not cover up the screams of those caught unawares within. Nor did it hide the Preacher's words as he cursed the souls trapped inside, "BURN! Burn in the fires of Hell that you have brought here! You that gamble, that whore, drink and glutton yourselves on sin! And fall into an eternity of sorrow!"

Some folk think that Preacher could have cursed that fire till it was cold to the touch were it not for that stray bullet in the midst of it. The damnedest thing it was. Caught him straight through the throat, and he was dead before he hit the ground. Weirder still, Sherriff found one gun, untouched in the ashes of The Grand, with one bullet fired and five more loaded.

No one dared talk of it those eight months. Talking of it would mean it happened. Would suggest we all watched as a madman stood so close to a flame he likely set that his face was half-burned off. A madman caught by a lone bullet from a gun no one had seen before, with 5 more bullets waiting in a blaze that left naught but ash, even of the people caught within it. And not one speck of that adds up in anyone's mind.

This town dwindled to half its size in the month after, many folk swearing up and down that we were cursed, and that the Devil had indeed tread ground here. Whether they meant the Preacher or the Publican, no one could quite tell. Probably some may have meant both and.

And now it's come back, in all its trappings and finery, with not one nail hammered, not one. No logs delivered, no lumber cut. Not one paint brush wet, and no one who can say they put their work into it. And still, people come. The trains disgorge them by the hundred into that building every three hours. Every three, a fresh hundred enter, and not one leaves. That building, that building is cursed. And not one of us who knows are doing anything to stop it. I'm sorry, but I won't stand for it. Even if it claims me as it did the last man, It burns. Tonight.

20th December 1868

Signed,

Jedidiah B. Thomas