Leonard Little is this Week’s Flash Fiction Star

Something pulled Earl from slumber. A ghost now, he haunted the old forest by night, rarely seeing daylight. He seeped from the cracks of an ancient stump, its dark wood stained black with the blood of thieves and murderers, save for one. That innocent blood imprisoned Earl’s spirit to the stump.
Earl wasn’t the executioner. He’d been a highway man who robbed and killed. He was meant for that block.
Earl drifted upward, letting the persistent tug guide him through the blinding sunlight. Fifty paces north of the stump, he heard the sweet timber of a female voice
“Lord. Don’t let them catch me.”
Earl floated beneath a huge oak choked with scrub-brush and weeds. The brush parted and he saw a face he recognized at once even though a hundred years had come and gone since he first laid eyes on it. It was a female version of the young soldier he’d overwhelmed, using his chains to choke him until he fell limp. Earl had unlocked his shackles, traded clothing with the soldier and dragged him to the headsman block to take his place.
The young woman passed right through him, letting him see the reason for her terror.
Two lusty-eyed rogues dogged her trail.
Earl focused his energy into the chains around each wrist and struck down the two men, stopping them dead.
Clawed shadows seeped from the earth claiming the two souls. Light surrounded Earl’s form, lifting him up as his chains fell to the earth.