The Ghost of Ticonderoga : A Spooky Little Tale of Ghosts, Murder, and Consequences
The Ghost of Ticonderoga by Rod Sterling
The Ghost of Ticonderoga
I’m going through a bit of cleaning and stumbled across a short story anthology that I got from a rummage sale years ago. Its volume one of the Twilight Zone. The dusty old book is an odd piece. As I know Rod Sterling was a talented imaginative writer but was not aware he wrote any short stories in the form of pros. And he didn’t. From what I can tell as there’s a generous forward by author Walter B Gibson who explains that these stories are what he adapted from Rod Sterling’s scripted teleplays. But there wasn't anything else to read. So I read the first short called The Ghost of Ticonderoga.
The tale follows Donald Campbell, Laird of Inverawe honest Scottish man in 1755, who finds a man in the road saying the town is out to kill him. The man claims he was in a fight, killed a man fairly, and now the town wants to kill him. Being a good man, Campbell agrees to hide the man, believing he may have in fact be telling the truth. As the towns folk flow in from the possess looking for their killer, he learns he is protecting the man who killed his cousin. Struck by guilt he begins to see his cousin who says he must stop protecting the man, but he can’t bring himself to break the oath he made. After a day, he throws the man out of his shelter telling him to leave and never come back. He sees his cousin shortly after that. The ghost tells him because he didn’t turn the man over to the town, his blood will be spilt in Ticonderoga. The place he never heard of frightens Donald. He fears it and tried to live his life not ever encountering his fate. But that is much harder than it sound.
The good? It’s a creepy little ghost tale. Its very fun read worth checking out. It’s an unpredictable and easy read. Also the writer Gibson adapted the teleplay decently enough. It didn’t feel rushed or slapped together like most TV and book tie ins. There was some dignity to it.
The bad? It could use a little more character depth and detail. It was all a bit shallow to me.
Overall, it’s a fun little spooky read. If you have a chance to read it, there’s no reason not to. But by no means is this a must read. It’s just a decent little story.
2 smoothies out of four.
Overall Rating : A Spooky Little Tale of Ghosts, Murder, and Consequences.
