Hey Bookworms! What comes to mind when you think of pirates? Rum, Robbery, and eye patches argh a few of their favorite things. They like to kick it with parrots. They often have a peg leg. Whether they’re from Penzance or that really scary episode of Scooby Doo that traumatized me as a child, all pirates have one thing in common. The sea. It’s their life, their love, and their lady. You can’t be a pirate without the ocean, right? Wrong, my darlings!
At least that’s not the case along the Platte River between the towns of Torrington and Alcova, Wyoming. A ghostly ship has been know to appear upon the river from time to time. The water there is not deep and the river is not wide. Tina Turner would not be even a little bit inspired to sing about it. Still, a spectral ship has sailed onto the river several times since 1862. Turns out ghost pirates do whatever they want wherever they want and what they want to do is startle the bejesus out of folks who happen to be standing along the river bank. There are just an insane amount of haunted river banks, guys.
A trapper named Leon was just minding his own beeswax one afternoon when he spotted the ship for the first time. These pirates must love to make an entrance because a wall of roiling fog is the first thing that Leon saw. It was like a dang Metallica show up in there. As the fog got closer a pirate ship drifted out of it. It was covered in a thick frost that bleached the color out of the boat and it’s equally icy crew. The sailors were gathered in a circle, staring at something on the deck. The men moved to the side and Leon saw that it was the body of his fiancee on that ship. Leon was, of course, fully freaked out. The boat disappeared as quickly as it came and when Leon made it back home a month later he discovered that his fiancee had died. The very day that Leon saw the ship. Bum, bum, bum.
The SS Casper made two more appearances after that. Each around 25 years apart and each time they showed the body of a loved one to their unwitting witness. Each time that loved one died on the very day that the ship was spotted. What possessed this pack of precognitive pirates to pop in and warn of the impending deaths and where have they been for the last 116 years?
Have people just been avoiding that part of the river since then? I would. That’s creepy as hell. Maybe the ghosts were just paying off a debt by warning people? Clearing the red off of their ledger Natasha Romanoff style before they could go onto their heavenly reward. Maybe they aren’t gone at all. They’ve just embraced technology.
Picture it. A thick fog slowly floats into your office. The air is filled with a screeching noise. You’re getting a fax. But…the machine isn’t even plugged in. Is that a ship? Is that Aunt Peggy? What the fracking frack? Or maybe one day you’re mindlessly scrolling through Twitter when the screen goes smoky gray. Your phone suddenly feels cold in your hand. You have a DM. It’s from @CaptainGhostyMcSpookypants. Do what now? Whatever you do, don’t open it Bookworms! Maybe it’s an unsolicited nude from a weirdo with a pirate fetish but just maybe it’s a message from beyond. Either way I wouldn’t want to find out. See ya next week, mateys!
Holland + Harper Productions 