Written by Richard and Judy Dockrey Young

It was the night before the senior prom, and one girl didn’t have a dress to wear. She was poor and lived in a section of town where there were many immigrants from Haiti and other islands in the Caribbean Sea.

She had gone to the neighborhood funeral parlor that same day to pay her respects to the remains of an elderly neighbor. While she was in the funeral home, she had seen a young girl about her age and size lying in state in a casket in one of the many rooms, which she had entered by mistake. As she looked down at the casket, she noticed that the dress was very pretty and brand new. It had been bought just for the burial.

While she was in the room, the funeral director came in and said it was time to close the casket. He sealed it with a big key – kind of like a wrench – and said that the casket would remain closed from then on, and that the burial would take place the next morning.

After the director left, the girl went on down the hall to the room where her dead neighbor was laid out. While she was in the room paying her respects, she heard a lot of crying and wailing down the hall. Someone had collapsed with grief in one of the rooms, and everyone, including the funeral director, ran down the hall to help that family.

As the girl ran by the room with the sealed casket, she had an idea. She went into the room, opened the sealed casket with the huge curved wrench, and quickly slid the white dress off the girl. She put the key back in the socket and the casket lid and sealed the lid again. Stuffing the white dress into her school bag, she slipped out past the room where all the crying was coming from.

The next night, she put on the dead girl’s white dress and went to the dance.

As she danced with several different boys she knew, her joints began to get kind of stiff. As time went by, her muscles began to stiffen, and she began to walk and dance awkwardly. She thought maybe there was something wrong with the dress, so she went into the girl’s restroom and slipped into a stall. She took off the dress and searched all over it, but couldn’t find anything wrong with it. So she put it back on.

As she danced, she became colder and stiffer until she was as stiff as a board. The ambulance was called, and she was rushed to a hospital. The doctors pronounced her dead – but she was alive! She could hear every word everyone said, and see everything that was happening. She just couldn’t move or speak.

Soon, she was lying in state in the same funeral parlor, with her family and friends coming by and crying. She tried to move or cry out, but she couldn’t.

The funeral director came in and closed the lid on her casket. And the next day, the casket was taken to the graveyard. And she could hear the gravediggers working: “Did you hear what happened at the funeral home this morning?” said one of them. “No, what?” said the other as they threw shovel fulls of dirt onto her casket. “A young mortician’s assistant heard a knocking sound in one of the caskets. Well, he opened it up, and a young girl in a slip climbed out. She said she’d been the victim of a voodoo ritual. Someone had given her a dress dusted with that zombie powder, so she seemed dead when she wasn’t.”

“Huh,” said the first gravedigger. “I wonder what happened to that dress.”

And then the girl couldn’t hear anything else….

- THE END -

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Written by Wendy Webb

Shhh…do you hear that? The sound of footsteps. Not human footsteps, but something that only walks at night, and visits you in places where you ought not to be – like graveyards. You can hear them sometimes snuffling when you get too close to the graves of their loved ones, or whining. You especially don’t want to stay when you hear the growling. And if they decide to let you see them, you never want to look into their glowing red eyes. ‘Cause that’s when they get you – the dogs. Graveyard dogs.

Joseph Blakely had been scared by that story all his life, and wondered if it had, in fact, come from Widow Morris. He never forgot it, or her. She lived way on the top of a hill in an old house. Some said it was a haunted house. But as Joseph Blakely grew from a boy into a man of 14, he figured no self-respecting ghost would spend ten seconds in a house with that woman. It didn’t matter if it was a mean ghost, or a vindictive one – Widow Morris was meaner. It didn’t even matter if the ghost made an awful noise by moving furniture in the middle of the night – the widow was louder, stronger, and she rarely slept.

But as bad tempered as she was, she couldn’t compare to her live-in companion, the old goat. For that’s what he was – an old goat. He went by the name of Emerson. They were the kind ones who called him that. Others used names that Joseph Blakely couldn’t repeat, even though the seat of his britches carried many mendings, thanks to Emerson’s difficult disposition.

You see, Joseph Blakely had made it his life’s work to bother the widow and her old goat. He couldn’t explain why he had to do it, and even if he wanted to, he couldn’t stop himself. So whenever an idea popped into his head, he acted on it.

Like the time he smelled the blackberry pie and followed his nose to the windowsill, figuring if the widow had no intentions of sharing that pie, why, she wouldn’t have put it there in the first place. He had barely stuck his finger through the warm crust when Emerson appeared, beard twitching and yellow teeth bared. And then came the widow with a broom she used to swat Joseph all the way back to town.

And he’d never forget the time he dashed up the steps in the dark of night to throw a rock through the widow’s window. But since he forgot the incantation for protection, it was no wonder he didn’t get her goat – but rather, her goat got him. Until her broom sent him running for cover behind a stand of old oaks.

And maybe it was a trick of the moonlight, but with red eyes as big as those of an owl, the widow stared into the night and spoke words that still send a shiver down his spine:

“I’ll get you for this, Joseph Blakely. You know I will.”

And still the bothering kept coming, with plans for even more. But as plans have a way of doing, they went astray two months later, when word came that the widow and the old goat had passed away. So Joseph decided he would just have to see her grave for himself. Only then could he let the plans in his mind rest.

One very dark night, he set out for the graveyard. He paid little mind to the idea of Graveyard Dogs, since it was a story that scared little boys – not a man of 14 like himself. But to be on the safe side, he had practiced the incantation all day. Nothing could get him now.

With lit torch, he peered from one grave to another until he found the one of the widow. Next to her was a stone that said simply: “Emerson.”

“Well I’ll be,” he said, “she’s even buried next to the old goat.”

Suddenly, a snuffling sound came out from behind the headstone. Was that a Graveyard Dog? So following the incantation, he whirled once and whispered, “Be gone.” Then came the whine. “Be gone,” he said, whirling a second time.

And then he heard the growl.

Don’t look into the eyes, because that’s when they get you! So Joseph Blakely did what any young man with a lick of sense would do. He dropped his lit torch and ran screaming from the graveyard.

A hand reached out to pick up the torch. And the voice that made the snuffling and the whine let loose with a girlish giggle. For Widow Morris knew that, one day, she would get Joseph Blakely just as she promised. And just as she planned from the day when she, in fact, first told the story.

“That growl was perfect, Emerson,” she said. “Emerson?”

But the old goat was gone. It seemed he had done what any goat with a lick of sense would do when something was strange, and hightailed it out of the graveyard.

It was then she heard a different kind of growl. And when the Graveyard Dog chose to let her see it, she made the mistake of looking into its glowing red eyes.

In every story, there’s a grain of truth – and the opportunity for a lick of sense. So no matter what you hear in a graveyard on a very dark night…

…Watch out for those eyes.

- THE END -

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Written by Craig Dominey

They say there are places on this planet which have seen such tragedy and sorrow that they are forever cursed. It’s as if the earth itself holds some dark supernatural force beyond our understanding. A few years ago, I found such a cursed place just a few miles west of Atlanta, Georgia – a tiny hamlet called New Hope. And even though many people don’t believe the story I’m about to tell, my visit there haunts my dreams to this day.

At one time, I was a 35-year-old small business owner living in a tiny town in rural Virginia. This town was so tiny and remote that it took us several years to finally discover a brand new invention that was already revolutionizing the world – the Internet. But once I was online, I quickly left my nine to five job and went into business for myself in the new “dot com” economy.

I didn’t have a brilliant business mind, but my father, a rabid Civil War enthusiast, had taught me to do one thing very well – hunt for Civil War artifacts. Bullets, belt buckles, coins, uniform buttons – the Virginia battlefields were full of them. So I quickly opened up my own Web site hawking Civil War memorabilia at high prices.

I’m a bit ashamed to admit it now, but profit was much more important to me in those days than respect for the dead. It didn’t matter to me if a battlefield was located on protected land or not. Under cover of darkness, I would sneak onto the property with my shovel and trusty metal detector, and would steal away as many artifacts as I could find. But it wasn’t long before other relic hunters got in on the act, and competition became fierce. Verbal threats and fistfights became common amongst rival hunters, and I knew it was time to hunt for relics elsewhere.

I remembered studying about Union General William T. Sherman’s devastating “March to the Sea” in Georgia, and figured that somewhere along that long path from Chattanooga, Tennessee, down through Atlanta, and south to Savannah there must be a treasure trove of artifacts. So that spring, I hopped in my truck and drove south to Georgia to see what I could find.

I was especially interested in a small town located near the Pickett’s Mill Battlefield called New Hope. It was here that one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War took place. And to understand my story, you must understand the carnage that took place there.

It was May 1864, and General Sherman had begun his relentless march toward Atlanta. His men were hungry and battle weary, but knew that to destroy Atlanta would mean destroying the heart of the Confederacy and finally bringing an end to this horrible war. Standing in Sherman’s way was a stubborn Confederate Army led by Joe Johnston. Johnston’s men resisted the Union onslaught, forcing Sherman into flanking maneuvers. But like a bloody chess game, Johnston countered each of Sherman’s moves, slamming his army into the Union forces day after day.

It was during one of these flanking maneuvers that Sherman’s men marched into the area of New Hope Church. What they didn’t know was that Confederate forces were lying in wait with sixteen cannons and some 5,000 men. As the Union troops struggled through the thick underbrush into the clearing, they were suddenly hit by a vicious firestorm of artillery. Confederate guns and cannons blasted away at them from behind makeshift log walls. The Union soldiers were sitting ducks.

As the battle raged on, legend has it that a vicious thunderstorm blew into the area – a storm unlike anything the men had ever seen. The skies turned black as night. Lightning flashed and thunder boomed around the battlefield, sometimes drowning out the relentless artillery barrage. Wounded Union soldiers desperately crawled through the torrential rain into a ravine to escape certain death from the Confederate guns. And it was said that, even with the storm and battle raging around them, one could still hear the agonizing moans of the wounded soldiers rising from the ravine.From that day forward, the Union troops gave a new name to the ravine near New Hope Church – “Hell Hole.”

Like other battlefields, New Hope was rumored to be haunted. It had a reputation amongst learned Civil War historians as being a creepy and unsettling place. But I had heard plenty of ghost stories about the battlefields in Virginia, and they had never stopped me before.

I drove into the town of New Hope just before sundown. It wasn’t as much a town as it was a country intersection, with a small auto repair shop, a couple of churches and a cemetery. But the historical markers lining the road betrayed its bloody past. I reasoned that the Confederate battle lines must have been spread out across the area where the cemetery now stood. There was a heavily wooded area beyond the graveyard that I reasoned must have been the location of the “Hell-Hole.” I spotted several homes on the other side of the woods, and decided to wait until nightfall to begin digging.

I parked across the street behind one of the churches and waited. An hour later, I was blessed with a beautiful, clear night sky and a full moon. As I crept through the cemetery with my equipment, I noticed that the tombstones seemed to reflect an eerie white light from the bright moon above. More fainthearted relic hunters might have turned back at that point, but not me.I reached the woods and soon found myself struggling through a thick jungle of thorn bushes, vines and trees. For a brief moment, I thought about what it must have been like to have been a solider back then, already weary and hungry and now having to fight your way through this hellish Georgia forest. But then my thoughts drifted back to the business at hand.

The ground suddenly sloped downward, and I figured I was on the lip of the ravine. Since I was now totally enveloped in the forest, I figured it was safe to use my flashlight. Shining it around the ravine, my heart sank. Some of the residents were now using the ravine as a garbage dump. There was plenty of scrap metal scattered about, including a rusted old car. But I had come this far, so I was going to at least give the place a try.I crept down into the ravine, chose an area that seemed the least polluted, and began clearing away some of the garbage. Once that was done, I swept the area with my metal detector and picked up plenty of readings. Whether or not this was from buried garbage I did not know, but I soon began digging in earnest.

In fact, I was so intent on my digging that I didn’t notice a strange noise – heavy raindrops plopping onto the thick canopy of leaves above. This seemed impossible to me, as the skies were beautifully clear just a few minutes before. But as the raindrops fell harder, I looked up into the sky and saw that a sudden storm front had blackened out the stars and moon, leaving me in total darkness.

A jarring blast of thunder shook the forest, and I quickly moved into the only shelter I could find – the inside of the junked car. I didn’t want to run out of the woods and be caught, and I hoped this was one of those hit and miss thunderstorms so prevalent in Georgia. But the storm grew louder and more intense, the booming thunder shaking the earth, and the torrential rain drenching everything, even through the thick trees.

It was then that I heard it – a low moan drifting out of the bottom of the ravine. At first I thought it must be some wounded animal, or perhaps a dog lost in the storm. But as it grew louder and louder, I realized the voice was definitely human. Soon other agonizing moans could be heard, seemingly feeding off the horrifying thunder crashing around me.Then I smelled a repugnant odor that I can only describe as the smell of rotted flesh. It must be from a dead animal, I thought, desperately trying to rationalize what I was experiencing. But the odor seemed to grow stronger and stronger as the moans grew louder.

A bolt of lightning suddenly illuminated the forest, and in that brief second I swore I saw a shadow darting though the woods – a human shadow. As the storm reached its crescendo, the intense lightning lit the forest like some harsh florescent light, the gnarled trees taking on odd and terrifying shapes. My blood ran cold as I spotted more of these shadows darting amongst the trees, as if fleeing in terror from the storm. And in the bright flashes of lightning, I began to notice details on the shadows – a military cap here, a rifle or bayonet there. They could only be one thing – soldiers.

But the worst was yet to come. The temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees around me, and I was hit with the most sick and agonizing feeling I had ever felt. I can only describe it as a feeling of devastating loss and pain, as if I had learned that my entire family had suddenly died at the same time. I couldn’t take it anymore – I kicked the car door open and hopped out into the storm. Then I was hit with a debilitating feeling of exhaustion that raced through my whole body, as if I had walked a hundred miles. I left all my equipment behind and desperately clawed and sputtered through the rain-drenched forest until the cemetery was finally in sight.

As I burst free of the forest, the storm inexplicably stopped. The clouds blew away, and I found myself standing in the midst of the glowing white tombstones. I had seen enough – I crossed the street and ran back to my car, only to spot the silhouette of a man standing beside it, peering into the windows. I stood frozen in my tracks until he yelled out in a warm, inviting Georgia drawl, “Hello there! I was getting worried about you!”It was the minister of the church. He had come out to check the building after the storm, and had discovered my car. Road maps and Civil War books scattered across the seats had betrayed me as the tourist I was.

I tried to avoid telling him what I was doing in New Hope by commenting on the thunderstorm that had passed, and how I had never experienced such a ferocious storm. The minister chuckled and replied, “Yeah, we seem to get them this time of year, especially on this date. Some folks think this place is haunted, but I don’t believe in such things.”

My blood suddenly ran cold, and I heard myself ask him, “What’s so special about today?”

The minister cocked an eyebrow at me and grinned. “Well, from all them Civil War books in your car, I thought you’d know. Today’s May 26th – the Battle of New Hope was fought 136 years ago today.” And that’s my story of the Hell Hole.

- THE END -

Story Credits | Story Background

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Written by Craig Dominey

It was another crowded Saturday night as Josie Arlington sat wearily on her plush couch, lit a cigarette, and silently observed the crowd gathered in her parlor. Standing around the lavishly decorated room were the most powerful men in New Orleans high society – politicians, judges, lawyers, doctors, even a police commander or two. And she knew the money would be flowing into her coffers once again.

Most club owners would be ecstatic at such a large crowd, but not Josie Arlington. She dragged on her cigarette and bitterly whispered to herself, “What hypocrites.”

For she also knew that not one of these gentlemen would dare acknowledge her presence outside the secretive walls of the club that bared her name: “The Arlington.” For Josie was the most infamous Madam in the most scandalous district in New Orleans: Storyville.

Josie always said that the life of a Madam chose her, she didn’t choose it. She was orphaned at age 4, and the only parents she knew were the nuns at St. Elizabeth’s Home who took her in. But their attempts to scare the fear of God in her over the years eventually drove her away – and straight onto the mean streets of New Orleans.

Now as crazy as New Orleans is these days, back in the nineteenth century it was downright lecherous. There were red light districts all over town, and while the trade was not officially accepted, it was certainly tolerated. Josie knew where the real money was to be made, and became a teenage prostitute under the control of an older lover.

Life as a prostitute destroyed many women in New Orleans, but not Josie Arlington. As the years went by, she gained quite a reputation as a tough, no-nonsense woman of the night. She even got into a legendary fistfight with a rival prostitute, biting off part of her lips and ears!

But Josie knew she couldn’t work as a prostitute forever, and to make a life for herself, she would have to take advantage of the very men who were taking advantage of her. She would have to become a Madam.

So Josie opened a bordello in one of the largest red light districts in New Orleans. The district was located along the Basin Street rail line, just a few blocks from the French Quarter. Despite her rowdy reputation, Josie wanted to clean up her image and open a refined establishment where true gentlemen could pay for the services of, as she put it, “amiable, foreign girls.”

While her brothel became quite successful, the city of New Orleans was about to make her richer that she could have imagined. For in 1897, the city leaders decided upon a bold experiment. Rather than fight vices like prostitution and gambling, they decided to control them by confining them to one supervised area – the exact district where Josie had set up shop.

The area was named Storyville, and it soon became an amusement park of sin. The densely packed neighborhood was filled with saloons and brothels. High class gentlemen and rogues alike staggered through the streets, fueled by exotic drugs and overpriced booze, listening to the sounds of piano jazz in-between trysts with the endless collection of prostitutes.

And of all the bordellos in Storyville, none was larger and more lavish than the Arlington. Beautiful women in exotic European lingerie waited in the grand parlor for the most powerful men in New Orleans to walk through the door.

But while Josie reveled in her upper class status within the walls of Storyville, she soon found out she had a much different reputation within New Orleans high society. When she left the streets of Storyville on any given day, her male customers would suddenly look away when she passed them in the street. Some would grab the hands of their confused wives and dart to the other side of the street to avoid her approach.

Even when she bought a mansion in one of New Orleans’ most affluent neighborhoods, she was still an outcast to the high society women of New Orleans. She could hear them whispering and giggling behind her back when she came home at night. “I wonder how many of these ladies know that their husbands visit me on weekends,” she thought to herself. But she kept silent, her bitterness festering inside her.

In later years, Josie fell into ill health, and the piles of money she made at the Arlington began to seem meaningless. She began to fixate on her approaching death, and knew it would provide her one more opportunity to get back at those who shunned her. So she shocked New Orleans one more time by purchasing a plot in Metairie Cemetery, the most expensive and fashionable graveyard in town.

Now the high society women were truly mortified! They couldn’t imagine a dirty, low-life prostitute being buried within the same cemetery as their loved ones! But there was nothing they could do.

Now, Metairie Cemetery was, and is to this day, one of the most impressive cemeteries you’re ever likely to see. It’s a bewildering maze of giant mausoleums and monuments, with some of the most powerful and well-known names in New Orleans history chiseled onto their stone facades. Josie knew she needed a special monument in such a place, and commissioned an architect to design her a tomb unlike any other.

The monument was made of red granite, topped with two flaming urns. A statue of a young woman bearing a wreath stood on the stairwell, touching the bronze door that led to Josie’s future resting place. The tomb cost Josie a fortune, but the aggravation it caused the high society ladies was well worth the price.

Josie eventually passed away at age 50. A few years later, Storyville itself was shut down by the U.S. Navy, which was concerned about the effect it was having on its young sailors stationed in New Orleans. The brothels and bars were leveled to build a housing project. There is no sign today that Storyville ever existed.

But some believe that Josie Arlington stuck around long after the death of Storyville for one last bid for attention.

In the years after Josie was buried, rumors began to spread about strange goings-on at her grave. Curiosity-seekers who visited the grave ran back to town claiming they saw the urns on top of the tomb burst into flames before their eyes! Others saw an eerie red glow coming from the tomb at night, as if the granite walls were burning like hot coals. Josie’s grave was soon nicknamed the “Flaming Tomb.”

Of course, the symbolism of a red light on Josie’s tomb was not lost on many folks. Another rumor spread that the statue of the young girl would bang on the door of Josie’s tomb, trying to get in. But Josie would never answer, since she had always claimed that no girl had ever lost her virginity at the Arlington.

But the reports didn’t stop there. Two gravediggers swore they saw the female statue walk away from her post and wander aimlessly amongst the graves before vanishing. Was she really the ghost of Josie, still unable to find a home within the high society world she craved?

As the stories spread, the cemetery became overrun with visitors wanting to see the strange events for themselves. The families of those buried in the surrounding graves were horrified at the thought of their loved ones being trampled upon. So the cemetery agreed to remove Josie’s remains and bury them in an unknown location. The “Flaming Tomb” was sold to another owner, strangely enough with the same initials: “J.A.”

But next time you travel to New Orleans, you can still find Josie’s old tomb deep in Metairie Cemetery. And even though Josie may not have found the acceptance she wanted in life, I imagine she’d be pleased to know that folks are still talking about her to this very day. And that her name, like Storyville itself, would pass into the history – and mythology – that is unmistakably New Orleans.

- THE END -

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Adapted from folklore by Craig Dominey

Deep in the hot steamy backwoods of Lost Creek, Louisiana, there once lived two young boys named Tom and Clay. They were the best of friends – so much so that they each made a solemn promise to be the best man at the other’s wedding when they grew up. They cut open the palms of their hands with hunting knives and shook hands on it, sealing their promise in blood.

As they got older, the two friends became very different men. Tom was a soft-spoken and humble fella who was quite content working his family’s small livestock ranch. But Clay was a hothead who frequented the local tavern almost every night. “That temper of yours is gonna get you in trouble one day,” Tom constantly warned his friend. And sure enough, his warning came true. Clay got in a barroom brawl one night over a gambling debt, and was promptly shot dead.

Tom spent many months grieving for Clay, and visited his grave every week at the tiny local cemetery a few miles outside of town. But Tom knew he eventually had to get on with his life, and so he did. A year later, he met a young woman named Isabelle, whose family had just moved into the area. After a six-month courtship, the two decided to get married.

It was then that Tom remembered the promise he’d made to Clay when they were kids. Since Clay was dead, he obviously couldn’t be the best man. But Tom felt he should show respect for their friendship and at least ask him, no matter if he was alive or dead. Besides, Tom was kind of a superstitious fella. And he figured with a temper like Clay had, he might just come back as a ghost and make his life miserable if he didn’t!

So one night, Tom walked down the long dusty road to Lost Creek Cemetery, lantern in hand. He opened the rusted cemetery gate with a loud CREAK and walked past the crumbling tombstones to Clay’s barren grave. He took a deep breath, then told Clay about his wedding plans. “Remember that promise we made when we was kids?” asked Tom. “Well, it’d be great if you could be my best man. But since you’re dead and all…”

Before Tom could finish this sentence, he felt the ground start to shake underneath his feet. It got louder and louder, and lightning crashed across the sky.A giant sinkhole opened up where Clay’s grave used to be. Then Tom’s blood ran cold as he saw Clay’s corpse rise slowly out of the earth, a big grin on his face, looking no different than the day they buried him.

“‘Bout time you came ’round here and asked me!” Clay said. “I thought you’d never make it!”

Tom could barely speak. “But…but you’ve been dead all this time! How come you don’t look any different?”

“They don’t let folks in Heaven who’ve made promises they don’t keep.” Clay answered. “So I’ve been lyin’ here this whole time. And I’d be much obliged if you’d let me keep my promise and be the best man at your wedding!”

Well, Tom figured he had no choice but to help his friend out. So he brought him back to town. Needless to say, the townspeople were quite scared when Clay – who they’d put in the ground not more than a year ago – came back looking no worse for wear. But once they saw he was the same old Clay, they gradually started to accept him again, even if he was dead.

Tom’s wedding day finally came, and there was quite a party at the local dance hall afterwards. Local fiddlers kept the guests dancing until the wee hours of the morning. Much beer and Cajun sausage was consumed by all. And as the party wound down, and Tom enjoyed another slow waltz with his new bride, he felt Clay tap him on the shoulder.

“It’s time for me to go,” said Clay. “Could you walk me back to the graveyard? That way we can say goodbye – for good this time.”

Tom noticed that Clay had a new look on his face – a peaceful, content look he’d never seen before. Tom looked at his bride, who nodded her approval with a smile and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll be right back, I promise,” Tom said to Isabelle.

With that, Tom walked with Clay down the cemetery road. They walked in silence most of the time, Clay looking up at the bright stars with a grin on his face. When they reached the rusted cemetery gate, Clay opened it wide with a loud creak. But this time, there weren’t any old, crumbling tombstones on the other side. Instead, Tom’s jaw dropped as he saw a sparkling gold path leading through a beautiful forest of multicolored fruit trees. Songbirds sang the most beautiful songs Tom had ever heard.

“Is this Heaven?” Tom asked his friend.

“Must be,” Clay answered, “But you can’t go there. It ain’t your time. Besides, you have a new bride waitin’ for you back in town.”

Tom knew he had to get back, but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the beauty on the other side of the gate. “Let me walk with you a bit,” Tom said. “I’ve gotta see what it’s like. I’ll turn back in a few minutes, I swear.”

Well, Clay figured he owed his friend a favor, so he held the gate open for Tom to follow. And as they strolled through the beautiful forests, meadows and beaches of Heaven, Tom thought it was a thousand times more beautiful than the local preacher said it would be. Tears streamed from his eyes at the beauty of the place.

It was then that Tom looked at his watch. He was shocked to see that hours had passed since he left Isabelle back at the dance hall. It had only seemed like a few minutes. He desperately wanted to keep walking, but with every ounce of willpower he had, he tapped Clay on the shoulder and told him it was time for him to go.

“Alright, then,” said Clay with a smile. “Maybe I’ll see you again one day.”

And with those words, the glorious world around them vanished, and Tom found himself back in the dark cemetery. He couldn’t wait to get back to town and tell Isabelle about what awaited them on the other side.

But as he walked through the graveyard, he noticed that something was strange. The tiny old cemetery was now filled with new graves, huge monuments and mausoleums. Tom ran down the long, cemetery road back toward town, but stumbled across a strange city he’d never seen before. Large buildings of glass and steel towered overhead. The townspeople were dressed in odd garments, staring at Tom like he was some sort of strange creature.

Tom figured he was disoriented, and must have taken the wrong road back home. “Where am I?” he asked the passers-by. “You’re in Lost Creek,” they answered with a chuckle. “What’s wrong? You drunk or somethin’?”

Tom was starting to get scared. He asked around for Isabelle, but no one had heard of her. He tried to find the dance hall, but no one had heard of it. He went to every church he could find, banging on the door to find his pastor. But he was nowhere to be found.

Finally, a sympathetic elderly pastor let Tom into his office. Tom frantically told him the story of his wedding, and how he had walked his friend Clay back to the graveyard. Now he couldn’t find Isabelle or the pastor who had married them. The old man laughed and shook his head. “C’mon, son. It isn’t Halloween yet. Besides, I’ve heard that old ghost story a million times.”

“What are you talking about?” said Tom.

The pastor lit his pipe, then told Tom the old tale of the bridegroom who disappeared on his wedding night. It was said that the bridegroom walked back to the cemetery with his dead friend and was never seen again. The bride was so grief stricken that she fell ill and died.

“That’s not possible!” Tom blurted out.

The pastor sighed and grabbed a large, dusty book from the top of his bookshelf. He flipped back the yellowing pages and said, “I’m not saying it’s a true story. But I happen to have the old church records from back then.” He found a wedding ledger and pointed two names out to Tom. “See? Here they are – married 150 years ago this night!”

Tom looked where he was pointing and froze. The names were his and Isabelle’s.

So like Clay before him, poor ol’ Tom had made a promise he didn’t keep. For Tom promised he’d be back for his bride, and never returned. But Tom never believed he’d really been away for 150 years. In fact, they say that Tom’s ghost still haunts the old section of the cemetery in Lost Creek, Louisiana, stranded outside the gates of Heaven.  And if you should go there and hear him ask you to help him find his bride, turn around and walk away. ‘Cause you might never come back.

- THE END -

Story Credits | Story Background

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Adapted from folklore by Craig Dominey

Not so long ago, many families in the eastern Kentucky hills lived in isolation from the outside world. High ridges and poor road conditions kept them miles away from modern conveniences like grocery stores and hospitals. If someone ever got sick, a family member would have to ride for miles through the hills to fetch a doctor, sometimes taking a day or more to return.

The Bishop family lived in a ramshackle farmhouse deep within a remote hollow. The steep, rocky hillsides had long given up what little sustenance they could provide, and Howard Bishop, like many of his neighbors, was forced to work for the lumber companies. A proud man in his late 30s, Howard had no love for the greedy lumber barons who forced him to work brutally long hours. He also hated to see his mountain birthplace ripped apart in the name of industry. But when the bitter winter winds would blow through the flimsy walls of his broken-down home, he knew that he had no choice but to succumb to their will for his family’s sake.

Howard’s only peace came from Elizabeth Bishop, his wife of three years. Although Howard showed a stoic exterior to the world, his heart belonged to her. Five years his junior, Elizabeth was a beautiful woman toughened by years of mountain living. Their relationship wasn’t overly affectionate, but both felt a great deal of comfort knowing that the other was nearby when the black night would fall across the hills. And to them, that was enough.

In the early spring, Elizabeth had just given birth to her first child – a little girl named Anna – when she came down with a bad fever. Howard watched with concern as Elizabeth feverishly tossed and turned in her sweat-soaked bed, her pretty face drawn and pale.

“Is Anna all right?” whispered Elizabeth hoarsely to her husband.

Howard looked over at the child, lying still in a laundry basket that served as her makeshift crib. “She’s fine – don’t worry,” he replied, trying not to betray his concern. “You just get some rest.”

“I know somethin’s wrong. She ain’t moved in her crib for hours. She won’t even let me nurse her.”

Howard tenderly wiped her brow. “Shhh. It’s all right. She’s just sleepin’. When Laura gets here, I’ll run into town and fetch the doctor.”

“Laura” was Laura Shellnut, the wife of Howard’s good friend Walter Shellnut. Since the Shellnuts lived down in the valley where the land wasn’t quite so barren, they were able to eek out a respectable living as farmers. Sometimes they even brought fresh vegetables up to the Bishops when times were really tough. But more importantly, Howard knew he could depend on them in times of crisis.

And though Howard did his best not to let it show, to him this was a time of crisis. An hour later Laura arrived to care for Elizabeth, and Howard roared down the treacherous mountain road toward town. The logging companies had torn the dirt road to pieces, and Howard’s rickety old car pitched and swerved in the furrows and mud holes cut by the lumber trucks. Sometimes the muddy road would plunge straight down the steep mountainsides without guardrails, forcing Howard to proceed at a snail’s pace. But nothing was going to stop him from fetching help.

When Howard finally arrived in town, he learned that the doctor had left for a neighboring town and wouldn’t return until the next day. By now a fierce thunderstorm was lashing the hills, and Howard had no choice but to wait out the storm overnight and find the doctor in the morning.

When the doctor finally returned the next day, Howard pulled him into his car and roared out of town toward home. The evening’s rain had made the slippery roads even more treacherous, and the two men had to occasionally get out and push the car out of deep mud holes. After what seemed like an eternity, they arrived back at the Bishop homestead. Howard leapt out of the car and bolted for the house.

“I’m home!” yelled Howard as he threw open the door. “I brought the doctor…”

He then saw Laura Shellnut sitting on his wife’s bed, tears streaming down her face. As Laura turned to face him, Howard sensed the horrible truth. He staggered over to his wife’s bed and looked at her pale, lifeless body. He was too late.

Howard wailed in anguish, his cries of pain reverberating throughout the house. He then rushed over to the crib, only to encounter a second tragedy – his young daughter lay cold and limp, much in the same position as when he left her. The dreaded “mountain fever” had claimed two more victims.

Two days later, Elizabeth and Anna were buried in the community cemetery high atop a windswept bluff. The mourners sang solemn hymns around the freshly dug grave, believing that mother and daughter were safe in the arms of God’s angels. But Howard Bishop stared angrily at the menacing skies, his fists clenched in the frayed pockets of his old wool suit. After the service, he shrugged off his consoling neighbors and stormed home, bolting the door behind him. Facing the dark and empty house alone, everything in his life taken away from him, Howard stared out the window for hours on end, wondering why the loving God he prayed to every day at church had suddenly betrayed him.

The next day down in the valley, Walter Shellnut rose before dawn to milk his cows. He lit a lantern, grabbed a pail, and shuffled outside into the frosty mountain air. The cows rose to their feet and mooed loudly in the barn, sensing his arrival.

But even as he deftly milked his cows that morning, the reassuring “ping” of the spray hitting the bottom of the metal pail, he sensed that something was different. Usually he did his chores alone, yet this particular morning he sensed that someone was watching him. He knew his wife was still in bed. Who could it be?

He turned around, and what he saw startled him. At the barn door stood a mysterious woman, covered head to toe in a long black dress. Her face was indistinguishable in the dim lantern light, but Walter could see she wore no coat to protect her from the morning chill.

“Mornin’,” muttered Walter, unsure what to say.

The woman did not answer. Instead, she pulled out a shiny tin cup and set it down on a bale of hay. It took a moment for Walter to realize that the woman wanted milk. This wasn’t an unusual request – neighbors in the area frequently borrowed milk from one another. But the nearest farm was miles away, and from what Walter could tell, he had never seen this woman before.

He filled her cup and put it back on the bale. The woman took the cup, nodded gratefully and walked out the door. Walter’s cow suddenly became restless and kicked over the milk bucket, distracting him for a moment. When Walter finally got up and looked out the door, the woman had vanished into the darkness.

When Laura woke up, she and Walter discussed the morning’s strange events. Eventually they came to the conclusion that she must be a lost traveler, and an odd one at that. So Walter didn’t give it much thought until the next morning, when the woman suddenly appeared again in the same black dress, holding an empty tin cup. Like the morning before, she didn’t speak a word, but nodded gratefully when Walter filled her cup, then mysteriously vanished.

Like clockwork, the woman appeared every morning for four days. On the fourth day, Walter’s curiosity got the best of him. As the woman walked out the barn door with her milk, Walter sprung up and followed her. To his surprise, he saw the woman run into the surrounding forest without benefit of a light. Without thinking, he grabbed his lantern and ran after her.

For hours it seemed, Walter chased the woman through the dense forest. Walter was a healthy and strong man, but no matter how fast he ran, he could gain no ground on the swift woman in the distance. As the morning darkness gave way to eerie gray light, Walter felt that his eyes were playing tricks on him. For at times it seemed the woman wasn’t running at all, but was floating above the ground like some giant raven.

Walter emerged from the forest onto one of the logging roads. After the long run through the forest, Walter was surprised to see the woman run straight up into the hills at the same breakneck pace. Out of breath, Walter nevertheless continued after her. Without warning, she veered off onto a side road that cut through a dead forest of brittle, claw-like trees up toward one of the windswept bluffs.

Walter was now truly baffled. Why was she going up to the cemetery?

Walter reached the rusty iron gate of the community cemetery just in time to see the woman standing over one of the headstones, her black dress flapping in the fierce wind. She then knelt before a newly dug grave and, to Walter’s shock, vanished into thin air!

For a brief moment, Walter stood frozen in terror. He had heard the old-timers tell stories about haints and witches in the cemetery ever since he was a little boy, but had always just chuckled at them. Had they been telling the truth all along?

But then something dawned on him. Ignoring his fear and exhaustion, he sprinted all the way back down the mountain. He burst through the front door of his home, scaring his poor Laura to death. She looked at his panicked face and said, “Walter Shellnut, what’s wrong with you?” “Where are the shovels?” gasped Walter, almost out of breath.

“They’re out back by the barn,” answered Laura, still taken aback by his disheveled appearance. “Why?”

“I need your help. Hop in the truck. We gotta go up to the cemetery.”

“What on earth for?” Laura chuckled. “Are we grave diggers now?”

Walter grabbed her arm and yelled, “I ain’t got time to explain. Just do it. Please!”

Minutes later, the Shellnuts roared back up the old cemetery road and climbed to the top of the bluff. As they stopped at the gate, Walter leapt out, grabbed a shovel and ran toward one of the headstones. Laura’s jaw dropped as he saw Walter dig like a madman into one of the fresh graves – Elizabeth Bishop’s grave to be exact, buried only days ago.

“What are you doing – are you crazy?” she screamed.

“Just git over here and help me!” yelled Walter. “Hurry!”

Giving her dear husband the benefit of the doubt, Laura reluctantly grabbed a shovel and did something she never imagined she would do in her wildest dreams: dig up a grave. As the two dug deeper, both heard a strange sound. It started out as a muffled whimper, which Laura thought must have been carried by the howling wind. But as they dug closer to the coffin, the whimper became a high-pitched cry, then a frightened wail. The two looked at each other, their blood running cold.

“There’s a baby in there!” screamed Laura.

They finally struck the wood coffin. Frantically clearing away the dirt, Walter ripped open the lid.

Inside laid the corpse of Elizabeth Bishop, the mysterious woman in the black dress. On her chest laid her precious daughter Anna, very much alive, crying wildly.

And clutched in Elizabeth’s hand was an empty tin cup.

Hours later, Howard Bishop remained boarded up inside his darkened home when he heard a truck roar into his yard. He instinctively grabbed a shotgun and bolted out onto the porch. As the truck skidded to a halt in front of his door, he recognized it as the Shellnut’s. When he heard a baby crying in the truck, his face flushed with anger. What kind of sick joke was this, bringing a baby up here after all he’d been through?

“It’s me, Howard,” said Walter as he hopped out. “Put the gun down.”

As Howard did so, Walter walked over with the baby. Howard’s face softened as they approached, his eyes flashing a joyous and disbelieving spark of recognition.

“This is your baby,” said Walter, handing Howard the young daughter he thought he’d lost for sure. “She woke up from her fever. I don’t know how, but she did.”

Howard gently cradled the infant in his arms, his eyes welling with tears.

“It’s a miracle,” said Walter, smiling at the sight. “You see? Sometimes the Lord does work wonders.”

This story of the mother who returned from the grave to rescue her child is still told in the mountains of eastern Kentucky.

- THE END -

Story Credits | Story Background

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Tom McBride missed his Grandpa terribly. Well, he wasn’t really his Grandpa. You see, Tom was an orphan growing up in the hard scrabble Tennessee hills during the Depression. At age 12, both his parents drank bad milk from a cow and died. He would’ve been in a lot of trouble were it not for Benjamin Franklin Farley, an old farmer across the holler who agreed to take Tom in. “Mr. Ben,” as the townspeople called him, was getting up in years, and really needed a young man to help out around the farm.

As the years went by, Tom and Mr. Ben grew very close. Mr. Ben told Tom to call him “Grandpa,” and Tom always loved him like one. Tom was thankful that he and Grandpa got to share many special moments together before he died – swapping tall tales by a crackling fire, fishing for trout in the cool mountain streams, riding horses across the misty mountain ridges at dawn. But before Tom knew it, a week before his 17th birthday, Grandpa silently and peacefully passed away in his sleep.

One thing that Tom couldn’t get over when Grandpa was alive was how much he loved hazel nuts. As long as Tom could remember, Grandpa carried around a pocket full of nuts everywhere he went. At break time, or when he was just fighting boredom, Grandpa would whip out a large hunting knife from a holder on his belt, reach into the frayed pockets of his jacket for a handful of nuts, and start peeling those nuts with a loud CRACK! Tom remembered that the knife had a real fancy handle that glistened in the sun as his Grandpa went to work on the nuts. But most of all, Tom remembered the clock-like CRACK and munch, CRACK and munch of Grandpa eating those hazel nuts. Sometimes, he’d give Tom some, too.

In fact, Grandpa loved eating hazel nuts so much that he told Tom that he wanted to be buried with a handful in his suit pocket. This may have been a bizarre request to some folks, but Tom knew that there was no better way to honor his Grandpa’s life. As the family sat up with Grandpa’s body the night before the funeral, Tom did as he was told, slipping the hunting knife into the coffin and a handful of nuts into Grandpa’s suit pocket.

After the funeral, Tom went to live with Grandpa’s eldest daughter, Kate. “Aunt Kate,” as Tom always called her, was a bit on the heavy side – so large, in fact, that she could barely walk. After her father died, Aunt Kate was completely devastated. What little energy she had to raise herself out of bed in the morning quickly dissipated, and Tom was left with the task of running errands for her in town.

The road to town was a battered, one lane dirt road that snaked around the steep hills and down into the valley. During the day, it was a beautiful walk – on some days, you could see parts of North Carolina from up top. But most folks stayed away from the road at night, for it passed right by the town cemetery. The cemetery was already a spooky place, with its cold stone slabs surrounded by eerie oak trees, and a rusty iron gate that bent and creaked in the stiff mountain wind. To the already superstitious mountain folk, it was definitely off limits at night.

But to Tom, invincible teenager that he was, fears about the graveyard were silly. He thought nothing of returning home along the town road at sunset. One day, he even stayed at a friend’s house in town until way past supper time, when the skies were already pitch black dark. His friends tried to talk him into staying the night, but Tom shrugged them off with a grin. Lighting his lantern, he started on the long road back home.

Like he had done many times before, Tom strolled past the cemetery that night without a care. Suddenly, from somewhere in the darkness, he heard a rustling sound. He stopped and went over to the gate, more curious than scared. After a brief moment of silence, he heard it again – it sounded like a large animal rummaging around the graves. Maybe a dear eating some of the scrub grass, Tom thought.

Then a gruff, menacing voice cut through the darkness from beyond, causing Tom to jump. “That’s a good ‘un over thar,” it said. “There’s another good ‘un over thar. I think we’re gon’ have to go round us up some more. This ain’t near enough.”

What came next made Tom’s blood run cold. From around the area where his dear Grandpa was buried, he heard the familiar CRACK and munch, CRACK and munch of hazel nuts being eaten.

“Yessir, we’re gon’ have to git us some more.”

Everyone in town knew that, when folks died, the Devil and the Angel of the Lord came down to the cemetery to sort out the souls. Tom had always laughed at those stories, but now he found himself believing them. He just knew that the Devil himself had gotten a hold of the knife and the hazel nuts in Grandpa’s pocket and was having himself a snack. What’s worse, he’d probably gotten a hold of Grandpa’s soul!

Tom ran home faster than he’d ever run before. Out of breath, he barged into Aunt Kate’s bedroom and yelled, “Aunt Kate! Aunt Kate! I heard the Devil ‘n’ the Angel of the Lord up in the cemetery sortin’ out souls! I think th’ Devil’s got Grandpa!”

Now Aunt Kate, as has been said, was a large woman. She was so large that she had to lift herself up out of bed with a rope that was tied to an iron ring up on the ceiling. “Well, we’re gon’ have to go up thar, but I cain’t walk,” she said, pulling herself up until she looked Tom square in the eye. “Yer gon’ have t’ carry me.”

Tom swallowed hard at the thought of carrying her back up the road. “But it’s too cold out there,” he said, thinking of any excuse he could. “You’ll freeze.”

“Well, then wrap this sheet around me,” she replied, ripping a sheet off the bed. After she got dressed, Tom sighed to himself, wrapped the sheet around her and, with a grunt, lifted her up on his shoulders. He lit his lantern and stumbled out the door.

Tom stumbled up the road a bit, his knees buckling from Aunt Kate’s weight. He knew that the road to town would take too long, and he wanted to get this trip over with as soon as possible. So he decided to take a shortcut across the fields. Luckily, most of the fences and gates were down. It took them a bit longer to cross the stream, but Tom had heard that the foot logs they normally took to cross had started to rot, and he wasn’t about to get wet in this cold night.

Finally, huffing and puffing, Tom made it back to the cemetery. He put out the light, crept up to the iron gate and waited, straining to hear the noises from before. Sure enough, after a few agonizingly-long minutes, the same gruff voice boomed out of the darkness.

“Yep, that’s plenty of ‘em now,” it said. “Nearly ‘nough, we got nearly ‘nough. Got ‘em all around here.”

Then came the CRACK of the nuts, and the munching sounds. Aunt Kate gasped and whispered, “We’ve got to get up closer. I’ve got to see.”

So Tom eased through the cemetery gate and crept toward where he thought the voices were coming from. With Aunt Kate on his back, still wrapped in the white sheet, Tom bumped and stumbled against the large headstones until he thought he could see two shadow figures in the moonlight. Crouching down behind a headstone, Tom could see that one of the figures was bigger than the other, and was counting something with its hands. Sure enough, they were sitting right by Grandpa’s grave!

“You take that half an’ I’ll take these,” one of them said.

Suddenly, the larger of the two stood up and pointed in Tom’s direction. With a gruff, bloodcurdling voice, he screamed, “Hey, looky yonder! Look at that biggun right over thar!”

At that moment, Tom’s bravery forsook him. He dropped Aunt Kate on the ground with a thud and ran full tail out of the cemetery. He dashed into the forest, the briars ripping and clawing his clothing. He leapt across the stream, the rotten foot logs he had so deftly avoided before shattering under his feet. Cold and damp, he sprinted across the fields.

From behind, he thought he could hear footsteps running after him. When something splashed in the stream behind him where the rotted foot logs were, his eyes bulged out of his skull – the Devil was after him! He ran faster and faster toward the house, its lights only a distant speck on the horizon. The footsteps behind him moved closer and closer. Tom was too frightened to look back. If only he could make it to the house!

Minutes later, Tom sprinted up the hillside. There stood Aunt Kate’s house, and he had never seen such a welcome site in his life. The footsteps behind him were so close that he could hear the Devil’s breath – deep, labored and spitting fire. Tom lunged at the door, flung himself inside and slammed it shut. He bolted the front door, then every window in the house, and collapsed on the floor.

For a few moments, the house was excruciatingly silent. Then, the back door began to slowly creek open. In his haste, Tom had forgotten to lock it, and now the Devil was inside. He could hear its heavy, cloven hoofs stomping like thunder across the kitchen. In just a few moments, Tom knew that he would be joining his Grandpa in Hell.

Tom frantically searched the room for a weapon. He finally spotted a hot poker in the fireplace, grabbed it and hid behind the wall. He could hear the thunderous hooves coming closer and closer, the heavy, unearthly breathing, and he knew that it was now or never. As Tom heard the Devil walk through the door toward him, he took a deep breath, swallowed hard and leapt out toward it, hot poker raised high, screaming at the top of his lungs:

“Die, Devil!”

The monstrous shadow figure before him screamed in terror. It was not the gruff voice from the cemetery, but a woman’s voice, and strangely familiar. Tom slowly put the poker down and, in the firelight, could see the most torn up, wettest, horrified looking Aunt Kate he had ever seen in his life, her chest heaving.

Tom’s jaw dropped. “Aunt Kate!” he screamed. “I thought you couldn’t walk! I’m sorry I left you back thar, but I thought I heard the Devil and…”

Aunt Kate raised a hand to stop him. Her breath labored, she smiled, pointed at her legs and said, “Son, let me tell ya’. I don’t know if that was the Devil and the Angel of the Lord out thar or not. But between the good grace of the Lord Himself an’ these brand new Sears and Roebuck support hose, I nearly beat you home.”

A few days later, word came up the mountain that two of the most notorious sheep thieves in the county had been caught and were sitting in the county jail. Turns out they had used the cemetery as the place where they rounded up the sheep, and it was their voices that Tom and Aunt Kate had heard that night. What’s more, just like Grandpa, one of the thieves had a particular affinity for hazel nuts.

But for the rest of his life, whenever Tom walked home at night from town, he’d walk by the old cemetery just a little bit quicker. Just so he didn’t ever have to hear the horrible CRACK and munch, CRACK and munch of another Nut Eating Devil.

- THE END -

Story Credits | Story Background

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