Burning Ground — Mike Sirota

The Maidu Indians wanted no part of the white devils that came to their sacred land to hunt the shiny metal. But in 1849 Gold Rush miners in the Sierra Nevada foothills slaughter nearly all the inhabitants of the village of Kalkalya, trapping their spirits. Over a century and a half later, a “thief of time” -- a grave robber -- desecrates the Maidu burial ground in search of artifacts. Now the angry spirits, bent on vengeance, unleash a bloodbath that threatens the nearby, picturesque town of Lodestar, just as hordes of unsuspecting tourists arrive for the annual Labor Day weekend festivities celebrating California's Gold Rush. The task of preventing further carnage falls upon an unlikely quartet: a former major league pitcher; the tormented town librarian; an elderly descendant of the Maidu people; and a ten-year-old boy -- the son of the grave robber whose immoral actions first raised the spirits up from the Burning Ground.