Way back they had no funeral home and had to lay the dead out themselves. This lady died and was buried in the Hanging Dog graveyard. They buried her with her pearl necklace on and rings on her fingers. That night some boys dug her up for the jewels and when the air hit the body she was just in a coma and she came to. She spoke to the boys and they ran. She called to them to come back she was not dead to take her home that they could have the jewels. They conquered their fears and got her out and took her home and mother said she lived 25 years after that. This was a true story. When they moved some of the dead to build the dam and lake near Murphy. Some of the relatives wanted the graves opened and some saw clawed marks inside their coffins where they had been buried alive. One girl got her mother’s wedding ring off her mother’s finger.
Mary Lou McKillip
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I like the story of the will-of-the-wisp being an mean old man who, upon dying, arrived at the gates of Hell. The devil opened the gates a crack and threw out a ball of fire and said, “here, go start your own place” and he is still searching till this day. Heard it at church camp.
Sue Crane
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I happened to recall a somewhat spooky, somewhat comic and rather serious family story about things in the dark.
My Mom was born in a coal camp down under the cliffs in the river holler and lived there until she was three. One night a neighbor woman sent someone to ask her mother, my grandma, to come to her house. Part of footpath she took passed underneath the cliff. It was late when she started back home and she had the thought, “Now underneath this cliff would be the perfect place if someone was to jump out at me.” So she got out her pocket knife and carried it open in her hand. And when a big black something did leap out at her she slashed across it only to hear a voice she knew well say, “Lord, Jane you’ve killed me!” Shaking and weak they tottered on to the lights to discover that the blade had just reached through the clothes, leaving a dashed line of a very shallow cut across another neighbor’s body. I don’t think either one ever knew who was scared the worse.
Ron Stephens
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Mommy! Where is Daddy?
Have you ever slipped out on a moonless night just to feel the breeze in your face and to listen to the sounds of the night? You follow the path up into the holler far enough that the lights from the house are gone. But you can still hear noises from home, so you go on a little farther. You’ve been here many times. You know every rock and root. On your right you hear the gurgling of the little branch that has been beside you since the path began. The only other sounds you hear are your footsteps in the leaves that have blown onto the path. Now you stop and listen for sounds from back at the house. You don’t hear anything. You don’t hear anything! Where is the little branch? Maybe the leaves have blown across it too and muffled the sound. Be real still and listen.
Now you hear the wind in the trees along the ridgeline. Nothing else. It’s time to go home. You turn to follow the path back the way you came but something reaches out and stops you. It feels like a laurel bush. You are confused. You’ve turned too far or maybe not far enough. Alright now, turn all the way around until you feel an opening. There is none! You’ve been in a laurel thicket before but never after dark without a light. There is only one way out. Get down and crawl under the tangle of limbs. But which way?
The wind is beginning to howl through the trees up on the ridge and is picking up down here too. You start to feel a little chill. It’s going to get cold tonight! The laurels are blocking much of the wind but you can’t stay here. You get down on your belly and start to crawl. You are in a deep carpet of leaves but it’s damp and your clothes are already getting wet. And now you can’t stand up. The laurels have you pinned to the ground. Your only choice now is to keep crawling. Crawl until you’re out of this hell or crawl until you can’t crawl any more. Pray you find the little branch and the path that leads home. If not you can try to pack leaves under yourself to block the cold dampness of the ground and cover yourself with more to keep away the cold air. You will wait here until the light returns.
Ed Ammons
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A true story: I grew up in a hand-hewn, 240-year-old farm house in rural Cross River, Westchester County, New York. One morning in 1962, when my younger brother Tony was seven, he came to breakfast asking about the old man dressed all in black who had stood at the top of the stairs, shrouded in a mist. In 1971, my twin brother John and his girlfriend were week-ending at “The Double R”, named for my mother Ruth and step-father Reggy Townsend. At midnight, the house echoed to a piercing shriek. John’s guest flew to his room on the third floor, dove into his bed, and burrowed under the blankets. Reggy rushed upstairs to confront the crisis. Maryann had felt her room grow cold and awoke to see a small, silvery old man at the foot of her bed. The figure glided towards her– but it had no lower body.
Brian P. Blake
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Tipper
What to hear something really scary? Monday the 9th there was tornadoes over across Mineral Springs Mountain and in Granite Falls. I live smack dab in between. This past Monday there was 7 tornadoes confirmed in a line from Spartanburg up into Ashe County. One was spotted in Icard (just a couple of miles away from here). It made a mess of parts Hildebran and Longview. It ripped up a hanger at Hickory Airport and flipped over planes and cars. One car was on its side on top of another one. It crossed over and hit parts of Granite Falls again. Lots of trees were blown down, some on houses and power lines. Siding and shingles were blown off. Thousands of folks were without power for days. But the main thing, nobody was seriously hurt. The one on the 9th trapped a man in his house. He had his cell phone with him and called family members who dug him out. Paramedics took him to the hospital as a precaution but he was released the same night.
Both of these storms passed over or around my house but caused no significant damage. I’m luck I guess. They say God looks after children and fools. I qualify as one of the two.
Boogers and haints can’t hold a candle to one of those wicked beasts!
These are some great scary stories (hope they ARE stories). Thanks everyone
Tipper,
I enjoyed all the spooky stories, especially Mary Lou’s. Maybe the reason I liked this story is because I know about the Hanging Dog Graveyard somewhat. And they’ve been talking about Hanging Dog on our Christian Radio Station lately. They even told how Hanging Dog got it’s name. Some man had lost his dog and it had come up a terrible storm the night before and they found the dog lodged in some brush in the river that fed the lake. …Ken
Another true story: The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, Norfolk, England. Her transparent spectre has been photographed on the grand staircase of this historic mansion.
According to legend, the “Brown Lady of Raynham Hall,” named for her brown velvet gown, is the ghost of Lady Dorothy Walpole (1686-1726), the sister of Robert Walpole, generally regarded as the first Prime Minister of Great Britain. She was the second wife of Charles Townshend, notorious for his violent temper. The story goes that when Townshend discovered that his wife had committed adultery with Lord Wharton, he punished her by locking her in her rooms in the family home, Raynham Hall, the Townshends’ rambling estate in Norfolk at the edge of East Anglia’s marshy fens. According to Mary Wortley Montagu, the Countess of Wharton entrapped Dorothy by inviting her to stay for a few days, knowing that her husband would never allow her to leave, even to see her children. Lady Townshend remained at Raynham Hall until her death from smallpox in 1726.
After she died, a ghostly presence was seen from time to time wandering the mansion; bewildered house guests encountered it and terrified servants are known to have given notice. In 1836, Captain Frederick Marryat, author of popular sea stories and a friend of novelist Charles Dickens, asked to spend the night in Lady Walpole’s closed-off room at Raynham Hall, to prove his theory that the haunting was a hoax by local smugglers to keep people away from the area. He armed himself, and late on the third night he and two companions saw a strange, defuse white light suddenly glimmer at the end of the guest-wing corridor. A spectral form materialized, floated towards them, and halted before the door behind which Marryat stood, peering out.
Holding up a lamp, the wispy figure fixed him with a malicious, diabolical grin. Marryat reported that “the eye-sockets lay empty and black in its luminous head.”
The Captain sprang boldly into the corridor and fired his pistol straight at the shimmering face. Instantly the apparition vanished — the animated vision that all three men had been watching together for several minutes. Next morning, Captain Marryat’s bullet was found to have passed through the outer door of the room on the opposite side of the corridor and lodged in a panel of the inner one.
Tipper,
Sometimes there’s an element of truth to ghost, apparition, haint, spook and booger stories. Growing up beside a cemetery filled with my ancestors, I had no fear of harm or fright coming to me day or night. From childhood through adulthood that cemetery, where I will be buried too, has been a perfect stage for some great practical jokes. Several of my ‘events’ were inspired by my Uncle Bud.
Before stock laws were enacted, livestock wandered around the community without being fenced. To protect graves from being trampled and damaged by wandering farm animals, families built boxes made of stone or wood to cover graves.
Uncle Bud and his teenage friends knew Uriah Moss frequently visited the local bootlegger, drank to excess and rode his mule, Lightnin’, back past the graveyard after dark. One evening they spotted Uriah’s mule tied up outside the bootleggers. They hurried on down to the graveyard, found a suitable wooden grave cover and lay in waiting for ole Uriah.
Before long Uriah came sauntering down the road, talking up a storm to himself and sitting astraddle of his mule. Uncle Bud and one of his co-conspirators had hauled the gave box near the road and were underneath waiting until Uriah was right beside them. Once the moment arrived they began crawling at first alongside Uriah with the box on their backs, then a sort of low crawling walk, moaning and groaning the whole time.
Hearing the noise and noticing the grave was chasing him down the road, Uriah yelled, “Ligntnin’ giddy up. Giddy up boy! Lightnin’ Giddy UP!” Lightnin’ failed to understand the impending doom Uriah faced, so he maintained his slow gait. After a few more panicked commands yelled at his mule, ole Uriah jumped off his ride, began to run as best he could and yelled back, “Oh hell, Lightnin’, If you won’t run I will!”
Uncle Bud didn’t believe their prank brought Uriah Moss to any extended term of sobriety; however, he did recall that Uriah found a longer route home that didn’t involve passing a graveyard.
My Dad and my two aunts walked about two miles to elementary school. One evening as they were going home they saw a lady standing in the road far up ahead. She was nicely dressed in a long dark skirt and a white shirtwaist. Before they reached her location, she disappeared. She had not passed them. She was not on down the road. There had not been time enough for her to get out of sight. She was not in the woods on either side of the road. She just was not.
The next day a bloody dark skirt and white shirtwaist were found in a brushpile close to where they had seen the woman in the road. No more was ever learned about the mysterious lady at the Cliff Spring.
Those are all spooky stories! The very first one, where they dug up the bodies and found scratch marks in the coffin is THE worst! It sure would be bad to be buried alive! I guess it’s stories like that created the requirement for a medical person to pronounce a person dead….no more mistakes!