Adapted from folklore by Craig Dominey

Henry Jacobs was a happy man. The year was 1935, and at long last, he had finally found a job – mining coal in one of the hundreds of mines that dotted the rugged hills of eastern Kentucky. It was hard, back-breaking work, but Henry didn’t mind. He was a big, burly man from a long line of big, burly men, and now that he had a job to call his own, he felt confident and strong.

The previous years had been rough on Henry and his pretty, loving wife, Laura. It was the Great Depression, and Henry, like many other Americans, had to travel from state to state and beg for work. Henry had worked steadily since he was a child, and didn’t know what to do without a hammer, a shovel or a pick ax in his hand. What’s worse, he felt that he had failed as a provider to his family. Despite his wife’s reassurances that everything would be okay, Henry hit rock bottom.

Henry started drinking to ease his humiliation. He was an angry drunk – and violent, sometimes beating his wife. Many nights he wouldn’t come home at all, chasing after other women in a drunken stupor. But in the morning, he would come back to Laura, last night’s whiskey still throbbing in his head, and beg for forgiveness. Laura was a kind and quiet woman who tried to see the best in people, especially in Henry. Through her tears and battered cheeks, she would try to smile and believe his promises – only to watch the same thing happen again the very next night.

So it was a relief to Laura when Henry finally found a job. The drinking stopped, and Henry swore that he would make life better for the both of them.

But whiskey was a demon that Henry continued to struggle against. Henry’s co-workers offered him drinks each day after work, which Henry, with great effort, refused. But after two months on the job, Henry finally gave in. What harm would be done by having just a couple of drinks, he reasoned. After all, what kind of man doesn’t socialize with his co-workers after a hard day?

But to Henry, there was no such thing as having “just two drinks.” As soon as that first shot of whiskey crept down his throat, the dark side of his being was suddenly reawakened. He started getting drunk again, and could barely make it through the day without craving a glass of whiskey. Soon it got to be much more than he could bear.

One day, Henry decided to leave work early and buy a stash of whiskey from a bootlegger he heard was traveling into town that day. He explained to his co-workers that he needed to leave early on family business, and asked one of them to punch his timecard for him. His co-workers smiled knowingly at one another – they knew good and well why Henry was so desperate to leave. But they all liked and respected him, so they agreed to help him out.

Henry was about to leave when he remembered his friend Walter, who was working in another section of the mine. Walter had bought Henry drinks many times when Henry was short on cash. So Henry thought it was only fair to let Walter know about his bootlegger, and to take any orders he might have. Although Henry had never ventured into Walter’s area of the mine, he felt certain he could find it.

Henry wandered off the main line into the black depths of the mine. He turned down a narrow tunnel, which led to another, which led to another. Before Henry knew it, an hour had passed, and there was still no sign of Walter – or anyone else, for that matter. But Henry was as stubborn as he was strong, and was determined to find his friend. He walked deeper into the mine.

Another hour passed before Henry finally stopped. The dark, jagged tunnels were beginning to look the same, and Henry, disoriented and tired, figured he should save his strength for the walk back. He started to walk back toward the main line, but as the hours passed, he couldn’t find it. He was stuck in a rocky maze miles below the earth, seemingly walking in circles. The black walls seemed to be closing in around him. Now truly afraid, he screamed out, “Hello! Can anybody hear me?” But there was no answer, save the water dripping slowly from the ceiling.

Certainly, Henry thought, somebody must be working in this area. Then he remembered that he had left his timecard with the other workers. Once it was punched, everyone would assume that he had gone home for the day! It was then that his head lamp began to flicker – soon Henry would be left in total darkness deep in the mine, every miner’s worst nightmare. He extinguished the lamp to save some light for later, then huddled against the wall, chills shooting though his body, his blood pounding in his ears.

Another hour or two passed before Henry saw something that startled him. From somewhere in the depths of the mine, he could swear that he saw a fuzzy white light drifting slowly toward him. It wasn’t a miner’s helmet, for the light floated like a feather above the ground, filling the dank tunnel with its warm glow. I must be tired, thought Henry to himself, for this must be a dream.

As the white light moved past Henry, he swore he saw the outline of a woman inside. The woman in the light turned back, smiled at Henry and beckoned him to follow her – it was Laura! Henry smiled back and, without thinking, got up and followed the light. If I’m dreaming, then I might as well go along for the ride, he thought.

For hours it seemed, Henry followed Laura through the twisting labyrinth of mine tunnels. He tried to speak to her several times, but she wouldn’t answer. Suddenly, as they turned the last corner, the white light vanished, and Laura was gone.

As Henry’s eyes readjusted to the darkness, he found that he was standing at the mouth of the mine, the outside sky now dark and filled with stars. This was no dream – he had found his way out!

One of the guards at the mine entrance looked at Henry with surprise. “Henry, what are you doing in there?” he asked. “I thought you’d gone home hours ago.”

“I did, but I left something back in the mine,” stammered Henry, trying to think of an excuse.

“Well, your wife’s been up here looking for you,” said the guard. “I told her you’d gone home for the day.”

Henry thought about the white light he had seen earlier – had that really been his wife, or was his exhaustion playing games with his head?  He then shook it off, thankful to finally be out of the mine, no matter how it happened. He walked quickly home, excited for the first time in weeks to be going home to his lovely wife.

As he reached the door of his home, he noticed that all the lights were out. Laura must have turned in early, he thought, as he quietly opened and shut the front door. He crept into the darkened kitchen, fixed a sandwich, then sat at the table. There he found a hastily written note, which read: “Henry. I thought you’d given up drinking. Now that you’ve started again, I can’t live with you anymore. I can’t live at all.”

Henry dropped his sandwich and ran into the bedroom. What he saw in the light of the pale moon made his blood ran cold. There, hanging by her neck from a ceiling beam, was his dead wife, spinning on the end of a taut rope. Henry cut her down, fell to his knees and wept.  Then he realized what had happened in the mine hours before. The light he had seen was no dream, but the ghost of his forgiving wife, leading him to safety in a final act of unconditional love.

In later years, Henry gave up his drinking and his job, and became a preacher in the mining community. In his fiery Sunday sermons, he regularly condemned the evils of drinking and infidelity. But his religious fervor could not calm the guilt he carried with him from Laura’s death. Henry died of a broken heart.

To this day, they say that, if you walk deep enough into the old mining shafts in eastern Kentucky, you may run into Laura’s ghost, wandering forever through the darkness to lead lost miners to safety.

- THE END -

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Written by Jim McAmis

Back in the 1920s, folks in the South didn’t have big department stores or malls where they could buy the things they needed. At best, they had a general store near by, maybe a town with some larger stores, and, of course, there were always the mail order catalogs.

Another source of goods was the “rolling store.” It was usually a good sized truck loaded down with about everything you could imagine. They’d come rolling into town and set up where folks could come, look and buy. It wasn’t unusual for them to pull right up in somebody’s driveway and open up.

In Kentucky, there were lots of coal mining company towns. If a rolling store passed through there, the company got their cut. You couldn’t compete with the company store and not ante up something.

Earl had a rolling store that he drove through the deep, rural hills of eastern Kentucky. He didn’t make great money, and he missed his family now and again. But on the open road, he was generally happy and free.

One day, as it was getting on towards dark, Earl was out looking for a place to pull over and spend the night. You see, some rolling stores had a little compartment in the back of the truck that the driver would sleep in. Sort of a 1920′s version of an RV.

It was then that he saw something standing still in the road up ahead of him. He wasn’t sure what it was at first. Then it turned and looked at him, its eyes glowing in the headlights. It was a black dog – looked more wolf than dog – blacker than any dog Earl had ever seen. Earl eased to a stop, but the dog showed no sign of moving.

“Hey!” Earl hollered out the window. “Wanna get run over?”

The dog just looked at him. Earl blew his horn, but the dog never budged.

“Well I’ll be…” When Earl stepped out of the truck, the dog suddenly got up and ambled down the road. “Now where’re you going?” Earl called after him.

Earl got back in the truck and started it up. He couldn’t pass the dog, because the dog was walking down the middle of the road. Calling it a road was being benevolent, for it was more like a trail, with ruts and a big ditch on either side. And Earl sure didn’t want to run over this strange dog.

Up ahead, he saw a nice flat place by the crossroads. There was plenty of room for the truck, and a good stream was running right by the road. The dog went over and lay in the grass. Earl pulled over, got out, stretched a bit and gathered some wood for a fire. He cooked a little supper and even offered to share it with the dog. But the dog kept his distance.

Just as the moon came up, the dog stirred. He acted like he wanted Earl to come with him. For some reason, Earl felt compelled to go. He followed the dog down the moonlit road. Not too far away was a sharp right hand curve. Just as they got there the dog suddenly turned, looked at Earl and leaped into the hillside.

Just like that, the dog disappeared.

Dumbfounded, Earl just stood there and stared at the hillside for the longest time. Finally, he went on back to the camp, but he did not sleep well that night.

The next morning, Earl went on his way, pulling into the next coal mining company town. This whole area of eastern Kentucky was company town country. The mining company would come in and build houses for their workers. Every company town looked just like another – rows of cookie-cutter, clapboard houses, with the only distinguishing feature being the color. Some folks used store- bought paint to paint their houses in bright colors, while others used whitewash. Still others would mix a little color in the whitewash and use that, and some just left the house unpainted.

Salesmen never knew how good they’d do in company towns. A lot depended on the company, and how much of a cut they took. Earl did fairly well that day, even with the company cut.

It was getting dusky dark as Earl headed out of town back towards the crossroads. Then, lo and behold, in the road ahead he spotted the mystery dog again, just standing in the road. It would walk ahead a little ways and then turn to look at Earl, wanting him to follow. When the dog got to the same sharp curve in the road that Earl had visited before, it turned, looked at Earl, then leaped into the hillside, vanishing without a trace.

By this point, Earl was thoroughly shaken, but he drove on to the crossroads to spend the night. He determined that he’d hit the next town and then clear out of these parts. Life on the road could be strange enough without disappearing dogs.

The following morning, as he pulled into the next company town, he knew something was wrong. It seemed everybody in town was all dressed up – and it wasn’t even Sunday. They were gathered around the yards and porches of several of the houses.

At the first house, Earl found out there had been a cave-in at one of the coal mines. Shaft #3 had caved in, killing all of the miners inside except for one, who was still missing. The townspeople figured that the lone miner was most likely still buried under tons of coal and rock. Earl figured he wouldn’t be selling anything during the funeral, so he headed out of town, almost relieved to be getting away.

Slowly, he drove by house after house. Sad-faced, black frocked women sat on the porches clutching pictures of loved ones. Other women, relatives, and friends tried to comfort them. The yards were full of men, not saying much, just standing around uneasily, not really knowing what to do.

As Earl was about to turn out of town, he saw something that made the hair on the back of his neck stand straight up. On one of the porches stood a woman holding a picture of a big burly coal miner, hard hat and carbide lamp on his head, covered in coal dust. Only his eyes and toothy grin shone out of the blackness.

Striking though the miner was, it was the other image that had caused Earl to stop – a large, coal black dog, more wolf than dog. THE dog from the road – or at least its twin. Earl started to get out of the truck, but the somber, unfriendly looks from the men in the yard made him figure it was time to go.

As he drove out of town, he tried to think about where he would go next, but he could not shake that picture from his mind. Then, before he knew it, he came upon the dog again. The animal looked straight at Earl, turned and jumped into the hillside, vanishing without a trace.

It was then that Earl changed his mind. In a big cloud of dust, he turned around and headed back down the road toward the last town as fast as he dared. He had to go back and tell the townspeople what he had seen.

Earl pulled up in front of the house where he had seen the woman with the picture. All of the women were still on the front porch and the men, in their Sunday best, filled the front yard. From the porch, he could hear the women humming the old time hymn “Precious Memories,” keeping time by rocking in their rocking chairs and fluttering their funeral home fans. The men were in several clusters, most smoking their cigarettes or pipes. They shifted uneasily as they stood around, tugging at the unfamiliar tightness of a starched collar.

Earl jumped out of his truck and started up the walk to the house. A couple of grim-faced men stepped in front of him. “You best be getting on down the road, Peddler Man, this ain’t got nothing to do with you. Ain’t nobody buying today.”

Ignoring them, Earl leaned around and called out to the woman with the photograph he’d spotted earlier. “Ma’am, I’ve got to talk to you. It’s about the dog. The dog in that picture.”

“What about the dog?” growled the larger of the men.

“I’ve seen the dog.”

The woman on the porch stood up. “You’ve seen Shuck?”

“If that’s the dog’s name, yes, Ma’am”

The yard suddenly fell silent. All of the men within earshot turned and looked. The men blocking his way took a couple of steps back. The large man glared at Earl and said, “Peddler Man, if this is some kind of joke.”

The woman shushed the large man and turned back toward Earl. “What do you mean you saw the dog?” she asked. ”He’s lost in the mine with my husband, Jack. Shuck went down in the mine every day just like a regular miner. Jack said he worked harder than some down there. He always said Shuck was good luck. Now, speak your peace.”

Earl told them the entire story of the black dog he’d seen on the road. The woman clutched the picture ever closer and closed her eyes to hold back the tears.

“Mister,” said one of the men, “I don’t know what you saw, or why you’re here, but I think it’s time you were getting along. You ain’t helping.”

It was then that an ancient, wrinkled man, whose every pore seemed to be filled with coal dust, stepped out of the crowd and said, “You all hear what this feller just told? Don’t you realize where he’s talking about?”

“Wait a minute,” another man said, “that’s right there at the Devil’s Mouth.”

“What do you mean? What’s the Devil’s Mouth?” asked Earl.

The old man spoke. “The company called it Shaft #1. It was the richest coal vein and the biggest, deepest, blackest shaft anybody ever saw. Dug before any type of power drills or any other machinery. Dug by hand. Why, when you started down that shaft, seemed like it went on forever. Seemed like she wouldn’t bottom out this side of Perdition. So all the folks around here took to calling her the Devil’s Mouth. When the vein played out they dynamited her shut and built the road along there.”

“I wonder if it still connects to #3?” someone wondered aloud.

Suddenly, men from the surrounding houses began to fill the yard, hearing what was going on. The old man stepped up on the porch and addressed the crowd. “The burying’s just gonna have to wait. We’ve got work to do. Shuck’s showed the way and Jack may just be in there. Alive or dead, we’ve got to get him out.”

The crowd evaporated, only to reappear moments later in work clothes and carrying picks, shovels, drills, hardhats, and carbide lamps. Everybody piled into trucks and off they went.

When they reached the Devil’s Mouth, everybody piled out and started digging. They moved tons of earth in what seemed like minutes. On into the night they dug. Anxious women waited at the edge of the light. Younguns peeked out from behind their skirt tails. Miners worked in shifts, digging and shoring up the shaft they were making in the hillside – reopening the Devil’s Mouth.

Finally there came a shout: “We’ve broke through!” The crowd surged forward, looking and listening for any sign that they had found the lost miner.

“He’s alive!” The words flew like lightning through the crowd. “He’s alive! Oh thank heaven, he’s alive!”

They found Shuck too, just a little bit away. He was dead – crushed by a fallen timber. When Jack was carried out, he was exhausted and hungry but, aside from a broken leg, he was okay. Jack then told his story: “When the tremblin’ started, me and Shuck lit out. Ran as fast as we could. I was hopin’ the shafts still connected. And I was hopin’ I remembered how to get there. When the back end there fell in, Shuck got caught and my leg got broke. I crawled over to him, but he was gone. I been setting here for three days wonderin’ if I’d ever see the light of day again. Been awful dark since my carbide run out.”

“But, you know,” said Jack, “the strangest thing was that sometimes it felt like Shuck was right here by my side. Nuzzling up to me just like always. Keepin’ me company. He was a good dog. I’ll miss him.”

Jack didn’t know how good a dog he really was. For somehow, even in death, Shuck had come to his master’s rescue.

And that’s the story of the Black Dog.

- THE END -

Story Credits | Story Background

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Written by Craig Dominey

They say that death, like love, is careless in its choosing. Everyone will be visited by death eventually, from the most ruthless tyrant to the kindest soul on Earth. And that’s just what Sam Dylan was – a kindhearted and gentle young farmer who everyone agreed deserved nothing but the best in life.

Back in the olden days, Sam lived with his childhood sweetheart Marie on a hillside farm deep in the hollows of eastern Kentucky. Sam had loved no one but Marie since he was a boy, and when they finally got to marrying age, Sam immediately made her his bride. They could barely eke out a living on their rocky farmland, but they rarely complained. After all, the only thing they felt they really needed in life was each other.

But in those times, the coming of winter brought sickness and death to many folks deep in the hills. And the first winter after their marriage, Marie came down with a bad fever, which grew worse by the day. Sam watched with anguish as his longtime love slowly slipped away from him. And one sad morning, Marie never woke up from her sleep.

Sam’s neighbors buried Marie in a small, windswept cemetery high above the town. But Sam knew he could no longer live in that town without Marie. For it was filled with so many memories of their life together. So Sam sold his farm, stuffed the bare essentials into a tattered canvas bag, mounted his horse and rode far away from his home, never to return.

Sam rode over and through the high, treacherous mountains, his overwhelming grief driving him forward into strange lands he’d never seen. The dirt roads gave way to wild, untamed forests. Strange creatures chattered and shrieked from behind the dark trees. Gentle creeks gave way to raging, dangerous rivers. After a few weeks, Sam finally got tired of being alone, and wanted human companionship again.

One day, Sam fought his way through the thick brush and found himself standing on a ledge overlooking a beautiful valley. And nestled in that valley was a pretty mountain village, with its freshly painted houses, lush fields and gardens, and a clean, sparkling stream flowing through the center of town. A hand-painted sign beside the road read: “Town of Burning Creek. Welcome to All!”

Sam rode into the village and looked around. It had everything a mountain town in those times typically had: a church, a mercantile store, a restaurant and a small hotel. But Sam was surprised to find that Burning Creek was missing one key feature. So he rode up to one of the townspeople and asked out of curiosity: “Excuse me sir, can you tell me where the cemetery is?”

The man, who Sam noticed looked extremely tan, healthy and strong, let out a hearty laugh and answered, “There’s no cemetery here. Ain’t no need for one.”

“Why’s that?” Sam asked, surprised at his answer.

“‘Cause there ain’t no death here in Burning Creek, that’s why. We’re all too happy and healthy to die.”

The man then pointed at the stream. “You see that water there? It’s filled with special minerals that come outta old Indian caves.” He then pointed at the thick forest surrounding them. “You see them woods? They’re filled with wild game – the biggest and healthiest critters you’ve ever seen. No one goes hungry here, and no one gets sick. And no one dies.”

The jolly man then looked over Sam’s thin, malnourished frame and said, “Son, it looks like you could use a good meal. Why don’t you come down to the restaurant tonight for supper? They’ll be plenty for you to eat, I promise.”

Well needless to say, Sam had never heard such a crazy story in all his life. But his rumbling stomach convinced him to look over this minor quibble and accept the man’s offer.

Later that evening, Sam cleaned up and went down to the restaurant. Sure enough, it was just as the jolly man told him it would be. The tables were overflowing with fresh fruits and vegetables, cheeses and bread. And the sweet smell of glazed, cooked meat filled the air. Sam dug ravenously into a huge, steaming plate of cooked game, the juicy meat just falling off the bones and melting in his mouth. He had never tasted meat so delicious in his life. Sam ate so much that night he nearly passed out. So he decided to make Burning Creek his new home, at least for the time being.

The next day, he found a job as a farmhand on a large cattle farm at the edge of the forest. Each night after a hard days work, he’d go back to the restaurant and devour giant helpings of that steaming, delicious game. Then he’d stagger back to this employer’s farm, his belly hanging over his pants, and pass out in the barn loft.

And as time passed, Sam started to believe the story he was told – that there really was no death in Burning Creek. Everyone seemed healthy and fit. No one appeared to be old or sick. He thought maybe in his long travels, he had stumbled across Heaven itself.

But on some nights, a strange thing would happen that would awaken Sam from his deep slumber. He would hear strange sounds drifting from the dark woods surrounding the farm. At first, he only heard the sounds of the night crickets as they called out to one another. Sometimes he would hear the howl of a wolf, or the low hoot of a mountain owl. But then he would hear something else, something that sounded like – whispers. Numerous whispering voices drifting from the blackness, in a hushed conversation Sam could not understand. They would then drift away, and Sam would return to his slumber.

And so each day was just like the last. Sam worked hard on the farm, and then would head to the restaurant for another massive dinner. And as the weeks passed, Sam’s thin physique began to grow more and more plump. He simply couldn’t stop himself from eating that delicious food. But when he would return to the barn at night, he’d awaken to that same strange sound. Eerie, unintelligible whispers drifting from the darkness, growling louder as they surrounded him, then vanishing as quickly as they came. Sam figured something in that food was giving him crazy dreams, but it seemed a small price to pay.

Sam followed this same routine day after day until he turned into quite a chubby man. It took all his strength just to do the simple farm chores he had done so many times before. Rivers of sweat would pour down his shirt, and he constantly had to plop down under a shady tree and rest, his chest heaving with each pained breath.

One night, he was awoken again by whispering, but this time the voices weren’t coming from the woods. He looked out the window and saw a light on in the farmhouse kitchen. Through the curtain, he saw the shadows of three men sitting around the table. It was quite unusual for his boss to be up so late at night – and with company, no less. Curious, Sam crept out of the barn and over to the window, eavesdropping on the hushed conversation inside.

“That boy’s getting sicker every day,” he heard his boss say. “We wait much longer, he’ll be too sickly for us to eat.”

“He’s gotten plenty big by now,” said another. “You seen the size of him lately? We’ll get two, maybe three, good meals out of him.”

“Just lookin’ at him work them fields makes me hungry,” answered another.

Sam’s boss then replied, “Alright then, I’ll kill him tomorrow. But you boys gotta help me out this time. I ain’t stayin’ up all night cookin’ him like I did the last one.”

Sam’s stomach turned, his head spinning so hard he had to lean against the house. Now he knew why there wasn’t a graveyard in Burning Springs. He had been eating the bodies of the dead. And what’s worse, he was next!

Sam felt sickness building in his throat, but knew he had no choice but to run away into the night. He left his belongings behind and charged straight into the forest, staggering blindly in the darkness, the tree limbs scratching and clawing at his face. For what seemed like hours, he huffed and puffed through the woods until he could take no more. He collapsed under a tree, his heart pounding in his ears.

As the forest grew still around him, he began to hear the whispering again. The same voices he had heard each night in the barn. The whispers grew louder and louder, seemingly surrounding him. And as he listened close, he could finally make out what they were saying:

“Dig us a grave. Dig us a grave. Dig us a grave.”

It was then that the bright moon shone though the trees, and in that moonlight Sam saw a sight that chilled his blood. The woods were strewn with human bones, hundreds of them – skulls, rib cages, arms, legs, fingers and toes. Maybe they wayward travelers like Sam, picked clean of their flesh by the human vultures of Burning Creek. And their whispers grew even louder:

“Dig us a grave. Dig us a grave. Dig us a grave.”

Well, like I said, Sam was a kindhearted man. He was terrified, exhausted and sick to his stomach, but he also knew he had a job to do. So he found a large rock and dug a crude grave. For hours he worked, his hands cut and bleeding. He then gingerly lowered every bone he could find into that pit, and shoveled the dirt back on top.

Sure enough, as he kicked the last bit of dirt over that grave, the loud whispering suddenly stopped, and the night was quiet again. Sam then continued running into the woods and vanished into the night.

A few days later, Sam stumbled across a small mining town. He immediately found the sheriff and told him the hideous story. At first the sheriff thought Sam was crazy, but he had heard stories in the past of travelers who had ridden in the direction of Burning Creek, never to return. So he agreed to lead a posse over to Burning Creek to check things out, with Sam leading the way.

When the sheriff’s posse finally arrived in Burning Creek, they found the streets eerily quiet and empty. “Hello!” they called out, but no one answered. They then walked over to the restaurant and opened the door with a loud creak.

What awaited them inside was a ghastly sight. It was a dinner party that had suddenly been frozen in time. The tables were filled with smelly, rotting food, with flies and rodents feasting on the remains. Sitting frozen in the chairs were the dead citizens of Burning Creek, their faces twisted in agonizing pain, the skin on their skeletal corpses marked with hideous purple blotches. The sheriff turned to Sam and said, “Them people got poisoned. Real bad poison.” He then picked up a piece of rotten meat and said, “Maybe it was somethin’ they ate.”

That story was good enough for the sheriff. To stop the spread of disease, they wheeled away the bodies and buried them in a mass grave, giving Burning Springs its first real cemetery.

But Sam knew something else had happened. By giving the poor souls scattered throughout the woods a proper burial, he had freed their spirits from eternal torment. And before those spirits traveled to their final resting place, they got their revenge on the citizens of Burning Creek.

Sam eventually found another town to live in – one with a prominent cemetery on a hillside overlooking the town. A constant reminder for Sam that there really was no escape from death, and that life must be lived to the fullest each day.

- 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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