41.5 F
Beckley
Friday, March 29, 2024
Home Blog

Silver Gap Ghost near Oak Hill

Silver Gap Ghost near Oak Hill
Misty twilight forest with ghostly, smoky figure by railway / AI Generated

I was walking with friends at night along the tracks that lead west out of Oak Hill toward Dothan. This gap is where the railroad crosses between the valleys of Loup and Paint Creek. On the Oak Hill side of the gap, a lot of people live, but on the far side, there’s no one for miles. We didn’t mean to be out that long, but there we were. There was enough light to be able to see the rocks along the tracks, so it was scary, but we could still make our way back to our houses near Collins school.

When we got to where the Silver Gap is, we saw a gray form about the height of a person in the woods overlooking the track. It was really hard to make out, but it was there. It could have been a wisp of smoke or fog, but it stayed in the same place for a few minutes while we stood there and freaked out.

Finally, we got our courage up and began to move past it. Once we got past, it suddenly began to move and came down the bank to the tracks. We ran on ahead a little way and looked back. It was still there, standing on the track. It felt like it was watching us. Then it slowly started moving away from us along the track until it disappeared into the dark. A second later, we heard what sounded like a man cry in horror. At that point, we ran all the way back to where we could see the lights over near Round Hill Road.

I’ll never forget how it looked or how scared we were. I’ve never heard of anything about Silver Gap or why it’s named that or if someone was killed near there. But I know what we saw and heard.

The Spirit that Stayed Around

The Spirit that Stayed Around
The Spirit that Stayed Around / Ken Tucker

This is a true short story from my newest book, Stories of the Fire House. Enjoy!

No collection of firehouse stories would be complete without at least a good ghost story. Ghost stories seem to be almost a tradition. Any station will have at least one they talk about. I can’t say that ghosts exist, but at the same time, I can’t say they don’t.

Over the years I have seen things that defy definition. Really, I think we all have. If you spend enough time dealing with death and tragedy more than likely you will see things that don’t seem to look right.

This account takes place early in my career. The beginning of the entire story begins early one Sunday morning. This was early spring, in March. The call came in around two or three in the morning. The temperature was in the mid-fifties, the road was dry. This call came in as a two-car motor vehicle accident with entrapment. There was a very seasoned police officer on the scene, he had discovered the accident.

During his normal patrol, he had come upon the accident. The scene revealed two cars from an apparent head-on type collision. A large amount of debris, and one car was on fire. In the car that was on fire was a young female. The other car was an older male. Both cars were sitting in awkward angles across the roadway. This was the main thoroughfare coming into town, however, at this time of the morning, there was no traffic.

The police officer called for rescue and EMS. He then began trying to extinguish the fire coming from the engine department. His radio transmissions showed that he was truly stressed. This officer was a Vietnam veteran having served two tours, he was not a stranger to trauma and death. This night he was pushed to his limit.

The accident scene was close to the station, so our response time was incredibly good. We arrived on the scene with one car on fire, the patient was still inside. The other car a gold-colored car was sitting a few feet from the blue car, the blue car was on fire. We usually rolled two medics on most calls, so we had enough ambulances. The beauty of our department was the fact that we had paramedics and EMTs on the fire truck. This was long before it became the normal protocol.

We were the leaders of a lot of the practices that are common today. We were also one of the first if not the first to be trained and carry the JAWS of Life on our engines, making them rescue trucks as well. We were also one of the first in the state to have these tools.

As the fire truck pulled up to the scene, the driver (engineer) set the engine up to pump. I was assigned the pump detail; the team was able to quickly extinguish the flames so that extrication could begin. After shutting down the pump detail I was able to assist in the extrication.

As I walked around the rear of the vehicle the crew had extricated the patient and placed her on the backboard. I picked up the head restraints and placed them on the backboard in place to stabilize her head. The Lieutenant removed them and continued to strap the patient down. I replaced the head’s immobilization once again.

The Lieutenant turned to me, grabbed the front of my gear. “She is gone, Ken! “He shouted at me. I then realized that she was deceased, it had never occurred to me that she was deceased. I did not realize that would be the start of chain events that would become a legend.

I was suddenly aware that the temperature had dropped, and it was snowing, yes in a matter of minutes the weather changed from a warm spring morning to a cold snowy morning. Meanwhile, the other medic and crews were working with the other patient, in the gold car.

They located that patient in the rear passenger seat, he had broken the seat on impact and was thrown to the rear seat. He still had a pulse, however, it quickly disappeared. This occurred in the presence of the medics, so CPR was started. But due to his injuries, his chest would not expand after each compression. They worked valiantly, with one person compressing down and another pushing his chest together to try and get his chest to rise.

The EMS crew transported the patient, taking the crew from the second EMS unit with them. A request was sent for the response of a third unit to transport the female patient that was pronounced dead on the scene. When the third unit arrived, the driver was in the unit by herself. I assisted with loading the body into the ambulance. The driver needed a partner to go to the Medical Examiner’s office.

I volunteered to drive the unit with the body to Medical Examiners Morgue. The rule is that all accident fatalities be transported to the Medical Examiner for an autopsy. The ride to the office was quiet and reserved, body transports were always solemn. We arrived without incident.

We backed into the loading dock, a small non-descript building with a small loading dock in the rear. Located in a mostly residential neighborhood. The front resembled any other state office. Next door was a state police troop headquarters. We rang the doorbell and waited for the nighttime attendant to come to the door.

We unloaded the body and rolled her inside to begin the check-in procedure. We moved the deceased from our cot onto the stainless-steel table. These tables were designed to hold a body with a slight angle and a drain at the end of the table to clear any fluids that may need to be evacuated. There is a lip around the entire table to keep everything on the table. There is a shelf underneath to store any documents or belongings These tables or trays as they are sometimes referred to, allow the body to be moved throughout the facility without moving the body from the tray. The doctor can perform an autopsy on the table without moving the body over.

The cold storage at this facility is a large walk-in cooler. The night clerk itemized her belongings writing the items on his form as he cataloged each item. My partner completed our run form, to give him a copy. I finished placing the items in the bag and placed the bag underneath the tray.

I rolled the tray with the girl into the cooler. While my partner and the clerk finished with the paperwork. I positioned the tray in the cooler, Locking the wheels I glanced at the body as I locked the wheels on the tray. Now, this is where this tale starts to get a little strange you could say unbelievable. I understand if you don’t believe what I am about to tell you next.

As I locked the wheels on the tray, I glanced at the body lying on the tray. Her head was turned towards me, and there was a smile on her face. Her eyes were open, there was no life there, her eyes were open however they lacked any luster. The cold of the room seemed to increase. I stood quietly for a moment. Bowed my head and silently asked for her to find peace.

Sometimes people who experience severe trauma and die will have involuntary muscle contractions after death. The body is a strange piece of work. A lot of things can happen after the moment of death. I told myself that this was probably what had happened. However, the incident stayed on my mind.

I went back out to the entrance room. My partner looked at me and asked what was wrong with me. She had quite a concerned look on her face as she asked if I felt ok. I was apparently a little pale. I told her that I was ok. I asked if we were done. She said all we needed to do was make the cot up for the next patient. I told her we could do it at the station out of the cold.

We loaded up and began the drive back to the station. We decided a cup of coffee and maybe a sandwich was in order. We found a drive-thru on the way. We placed our order and pulled forward. She asked again what’s up? I told her she wouldn’t believe me, that it was just too crazy.

We took our order from the friendly girl at the window and ate as we drove. Remember this was back in the good ole days, we could do all sorts of things in the front of an ambulance that would send people screaming into the night if we did some of those things today. At one time you could even smoke in the front of the unit.

As we ate our sandwiches, I maneuvered through the light morning traffic. I told her the entire story, her eyes getting wide as I recanted the tale. I explained about the involuntary muscle contractions. I thought that might have been what it was. We both decided to keep the incident to ourselves until years later the story got out.

When we arrived back at the station most of the volunteers were still at the station. It was not uncommon for everyone to hang out after a fatality call. Unbeknown to us it was one of the earliest call debriefing mechanisms. We were a tight nit group, and we could always talk to each other.

As daylight broke, we were still talking and discussing the call, I received my fair share of ribbing over the head immobilization incident. We all were laughing about that when the officer that discovered the call came into the day room. His face was ashen, and he was concerned.

At first, he wanted to speak to the fire officers that had been on the scene, then asked if anyone had found a purse and forgotten to turn it in., we had identified the wrong person as the fatality. When the officer had gone to make death notifications, the person we had identified answered the door. His concern was that we had not turned the second purse in, maybe one of us had put the purse aside and forgotten to give it to the police on the scene.

No one remembered seeing a second purse, so just to be sure we made a second trip to the accident scene and searched for the purse. We were unable to locate the second purse, turned out the older sister had loaned the younger sister her Identification because she wasn’t old enough to get into bars. The two sisters looked remarkably similar.

This was a terrible accident, two people were killed, and unfortunately, both had alcohol in their system. The family was devastated, the other driver had been involved with the fire department years earlier. The accident left scars on a lot of people. The family of the girl buried their daughter in the town cemetery, they created a beautiful tribute to her at her gravesite. This gravesite overlooks the town below.

Little did we know that this one accident would begin a legend, that is still probably talked about today. There were many aftereffects from this incident. These strange and unusual occurrences lasted for many years. I am not sure they may still happen today. I haven’t been there for quite a while.

One of the strangest occurrences involves the ambulance that the young lady was transported to the medical examiner’s office. The crews reported strange things that would happen in this ambulance. I, myself experienced one of these incidents.

The ambulances provided emergency services and non-emergency services. During one of these non-emergency transports, my partner and I both experienced a strange incident. While transporting a patient my partner, who was in the back with the patient, came to the craw space, an opening between the rear of the ambulance and the front seat. Most van-type ambulances had these opening.

He was shivering, asked me if I could turn the air conditioner off. Not an unusual request, the back can get cold. I asked if he turned the air off in the rear, to which he replied that it was completely off. It was at this point I looked at his reflection in the rear-view mirror. I could see his breath, small clouds of vapor as he spoke. I double-checked the air conditioner; however, it was not turned on. He looked at me again, as he looked at the air conditioner control.

I offered to roll the windows down to warm up the rear of the unit. The weather was warm outside. Before I could do anything the rear of the unit began to warm up. The rest of the transport was uneventful.

This unit was written up several times air conditioning malfunction, getting too cold in the rear. There were also reports of seeing a woman in the back of the unit. No one was ever found. Eventually, the unit was sidelined, parked over to the side for parts for the other units. The last time I was around this unit, it was parked beside the station, I believe it was being sold, it was a hot summer day. The windows were cold to the touch from the outside sitting in the sun. I can’t say this unit was haunted but I can say there some weird things that happened with this unit. Of course, the strange occurrences weren’t confined to the ambulance.

Another strange string of events involved the medic station itself. The medics were moved to an old apartment building that was set next to the station. This was a three-unit apartment building with business space and an old garage downstairs. In the hallway upstairs the medics were housed in an apartment. This apartment was closest to the stairs.

This station became known as the haunted station. Crews would report noises and shadows inside the station. On one occasion I had a new partner, I was working as a medic in that station. My new partner had his own room which was next door to my room. I was awakened by my partner standing over me, with his sleeping bag in his hand. He was glaring at me.

I sat up in the bed, looking bewildered. I asked if I had missed a call, thinking I had slept through the pager. He looked at me in disbelief. “You didn’t come in my room and pull my sleeping bag off of me?” He asked suddenly looking around as if he was looking for someone else to blame. I told him no, I was asleep. I asked him what happened.

He sat on the edge of the bed; his head bent down. “I heard this station was haunted, I didn’t believe in ghosts.” He said as he surveyed the floor. “I was sleeping in my bed; my sleeping bag was over the top of me. I felt my sleeping bag pulled away from me, I mean hard. It was on the floor when I woke up.” He said looking at me suspiciously. “I thought you were messing with me, but I can see you were asleep as well.” He said getting up from the bed.

I got up and asked if he would like something to drink. Neither of us could really sleep anymore that night. I fixed some coffee and we walked out to the landing at the top of metal stairs on the side of the building. I told him the story, explained what happened that night. He knew the family they were from the same area. He was still unnerved, but the rest of the night was peaceful.

On another occasion at this station, my same partner and I along with a couple of other firemen experienced an encounter. The building had three apartments at the end of the hallway, there were two doors. The doors formed narrow points, each opening into a different apartment. Construction was still underway in both apartments. The two apartments one on the left and one on the right. The apartment on the right was currently undergoing active construction, workers had tools and other supplies.

This night we had the medics door open, we began to hear noises coming from the apartment under construction. With everyone being a manly man, we decided to investigate the noises. These apartments were older, the doors still had the old-fashioned keyhole locks. These are the keyholes that a person can look through. There was a light on in the foyer area, looking through the keyhole we could see movement beyond the room. The light was bright and was the only light on in the apartment. We knocked on the door and yelled. There was no answer, only silence. We could still see movement beyond the foyer.

We pulled back, called for police backup. The officer arrived, who we all knew well. One of the benefits of working in a small town and a small department is the fact that you have relationships with just about everyone.

We explained the situation, the officer attempted to make contact as well. There was no answer, yet movement was still detected. The police backup arrived and monitored the side windows. We breached the door; the officer had his gun drawn. As we opened the door, the light went dark. Everyone instinctively hunkered down moving forward with the officer.

A thorough search of the apartment came up empty. The rooms were all empty. We were able to turn the rest of the lights on in the apartment. We couldn’t turn the light on in the foyer, however. There was no lightbulb in the socket. The very light, the only light that had been on, had no bulb in it.

This incident caused a memo to come down the line. It was strongly discouraged that any talk of ghosts was to be avoided. The memo blamed the fear the rumors were causing about the station. In short, be quiet, don’t talk about it.

With that memo out about the incident, it was only talked about in hushed tones, and never where someone may overhear the conversation. However, these incidents weren’t the only things going on there. Other incidents weren’t reported.

One such incident involved seeing the ghost in a window. Under the station had been an old garage. This business had a large window in the door. If we were dispatched for a car crash or a house fire that had a fatality involved, it was said she could be seen in this window. I must admit I saw her, or something a couple of times.

I experienced seeing her a few times. I was going through a divorce, a lot of stress. I am not sure how much the stress played into what I was experiencing. I would awaken in the middle of the night and the apparition of the young lady would be sitting Indian style beside the bed.

I confided in my friend. I told him about my issue. He had an out-of-the-ordinary suggestion. On the night of the call, there were two medics, one medic checked on the young lady in the car and pronounced her dead. She figured that the patient with a pulse took priority. This is classic triage and she was following protocol. However, she left the young girl and went to what she felt was a more viable patient. Again, this is perfectly ok. Sometimes with situations such as this, you must make split-second, life and death decisions. That comes with the job and you must follow through. It’s not pleasant, however, it is necessary.

My friend simply told me: “Next time you see her, just tell her that *Deleted Name* pronounced her. Tell her you didn’t have anything to with it.”

I followed his advice. I told the apparition this very sentence. The medic I named had moved on to another career. This was some time after the initial incident. That medic suddenly and unexpectedly checked into a mental health program. She admitted herself to the program.

I don’t know if anything I experienced was related in any way to this medic checking herself into a psychiatric facility. I do know that after I uttered those words, I was never awakened again by this apparition. However, she did keep in touch.

I worked in that station when I wrote my first book, The Crew. I initially wanted to dedicate that book to her. I felt like she had earned some recognition. I wrote that book on an older computer. We had a 3.5-inch disk drive. I would save it to the computer and the disk drive. The funny part is sometimes the disk would be scrambled, sometimes it was the copy on the computer. After I finally changed my dedication to my dad, the problems seemed to disappear. No longer did I have those issues when saving or retrieving the files.

I have since heard of rumors of things going on at that station. Over the years, the ambulances were bought out by the county. That station was used for a while, however, the station was closed and returned to the fire department. It is rumored that they had trouble staffing the station due to strange occurrences there.

Years later I returned to that town, I lived a few blocks from the station. I volunteered with the fire department. My new wife and I had an apartment a couple of blocks from the fire station. We had strange experiences while we lived there. My new wife was poked and shoved; I received a bite mark on my shoulder. We would feel someone sitting on the end of the bed. I am not sure she had anything to do with these things, however, they ceased after we moved away.

This story is one that will make you wonder. Are there ghosts, spirits, or demons? I will leave that to the reader to decide. I am still not convinced of exactly what I have experienced. One day we may be able to find out. In the meantime, we have a great story to tell around the campfire.

Buried Secrets

The Devil House
The Devil House / John Collins

This story took place at my parent’s home in Brooke County in a town called Wellsburg, WV. My parents purchased this home back in 1995 and it was built back in 1910. They had it completely remodeled due to it being in very bad shape and they moved into it around the second week of January 1996.

All was quiet until March of 2007, I had purchased a wrecked GEO Tracker from our local junkyard and I put it in my parent’s garage and restored it over the winter months of 2006 and finished it in March 2007. While I was in the garage all the lights started to flash like a Morse Code SOS sequence, then all the lights went out. I checked the fuse box and everything looked fine to me so I called my brother-in-law, he’s an electrician and he came over and checked it out and said everything was fine. It made no sense to him, he left.

We had recently put up a new section of fence to keep our dogs in the yard and I told my mother that one of the fence posts may have hit an underground wire that runs from the house to the garage and it was possible that it finally short out.

I went into the house and turned off the main breaker then went back out to the garage and started to dig in the area where I thought the power wire was. I dug down approx 3 to 5 inches and hit what I thought was just a big rock or possibly part of an old foundation. The more I dug the bigger it got. I grabbed a large prybar out of the garage and worked at it and it finally came loose, then up and out, and flipped over.

As I stood there looking at it, I saw a date written on it. It was dated 1880, the rest of the writing below the date fell off. It didn’t dawn on me at that moment what I had just dug up so I yelled for my mother to come to look at it. She came out and said, “oh my god that’s a headstone.”

Approximately 3 feet to the right of the headstone I found a small nameplate with “Lucy” written on it backward and also what looks like an Indian arrowhead. The power wire turned out to be fine and my mother contacted someone in charge of the cemeteries in our county and the guy told her they have no records of a cemetery being in our area and if there was one it must have been an unlisted private one.

Three to five days later we noticed caution tape was put around our neighbor’s business which is 40 feet from our backyard. A few cop cars were parked by his business but we didn’t know what had happened. A few days later my mother took our dogs over to his shop, which is a dog grooming business. My mother asked the owner, who at the time was also the mayor of Wellsburg, about what had happened. He told her a backhoe was working on his parking lot and it sunk down into a big hole and when they got it out they found human remains in the hole and that’s why law enforcement was there. The officers told them to cover it back up which they did.

My mother told him about the headstone and what the guy in charge of the cemeteries said. The mayor told her that back when our part of town was called Lazearville, our block was the cemetery. Supposedly, the bodies were moved to another cemetery but, as you can see, they didn’t move all the graves. He said they found a headstone underneath the floor in his business when they tore it up to replace the floor.

A few days later, our nightmare began. I was in my room reading a book around 2 am and I heard footsteps that traveled from the kitchen to the laundry room. My daughter’s bedroom door opened and in came a blue glowing ball of light about the size of a soccer ball. It hovered for a few seconds and then zipped into my bedroom and vanished at the foot of my bed. I rubbed my eyes and thought to myself am I half asleep or what?

The next day I told my mother about it and she said you only imagined it.

The next night around the same time I heard a noise in my daughter’s bedroom then a crashing sound. I jumped up and ran to her room. My daughter wasn’t in there she was in her grandmother’s bed because she was afraid of the dark. I noticed all of her toys, which were in a large cloth sack, on the floor at the foot of her bed and scattered all over her bed and floor. I put all of her toys back in the sack and put the sack back where it belonged. I tried to make sense of it and tried to recreate it but couldn’t come close.

The next day I told my mother again and she said, “John finding that headstone is messing with your head,” which I thought was neat finding that.

The next day it was my mother’s turn to experience something. She was in the restroom and we heard her yelling so I went and checked on her. She said to whoever is trying to get in the restroom that she would be done in a minute. I said, “mother nobody was back there trying to get in” and she said, “haha, quit playing jokes.”

The next morning I heard her yelling again and this time she was in the kitchen. When I walked in, her eyes were as big as saucers and she was shaking. I asked what’s wrong and she said something came from the living room and it walked right behind her and she said it sounded like it had heavy boots on and there was an ice-cold gust of wind with it.

“It” then decided to pick on my 9-year-old daughter the next day. She was in my mother’s bedroom watching TV and after my mother left the room to go to the restroom, we heard my daughter screaming. We ran in to see what happened and she said an old bald-headed guy wearing a suit walked along the bed then stopped, turned and looked at her, then turned back around, and walked through the wall.

We ended up calling for an ambulance because my daughter was so shaken up that she had an asthma attack and her inhaler wasn’t working. My daughter moved out and moved in with her mother and hasn’t been back here since.

I have a nephew named Adam, he was 11 years old back when all this stuff started to happen, he’s now 26 years old and now works for the Sheriff’s department. Adam said he will never come back to this house. He came to visit us and while he was here, he claimed that he saw an old man in the laundry room watching us while we were watching TV in the living room. My mother, dad, and I all looked and saw nothing. This happened three times, so I told him that I was gonna get my digital camera, and the next time he saw him to nudge me and I would start snapping photos, which he did.

I snapped several photos in a row as I walked from the living room to the laundry room. I did not look straight ahead as I walked, I was focusing on the small screen on the camera. It’s a good thing that I did because if I would have seen with my own eyes what was captured on the camera I would have probably crapped myself.

In the photos, there is what looks like a human skull and it was wearing an old-fashioned flat-top hat and as I approached the laundry room it turned its head and went out the backdoor.

On another day when my nephew was visiting, I was in the garage working on my vehicle. My nephew came into the garage and said uncle Johnny there is a little girl inside the house watching me out the backdoor. I looked and saw nothing. I had a digital camera in the glove box in my vehicle so I gave him the camera and told him to take a picture of her the next time he saw her. He came back into the garage and said here’s your camera back, I took photos of her. I went into the house and put the memory card into the computer and there was a little girl standing at the backdoor wearing a dress that others told us was from back during the 1800s.

One morning I got up and went to the kitchen to get something to drink and two dogs that we used to have, they’re both deceased now, ran past me and stopped in the kitchen where the kitchen meets the living room and both growled and barked toward the livingroom. I stepped into the living room to look and saw a small dark mass moving along the wall so I left and went back to my bedroom and grabbed the digital camera and as soon as I turned the corner I started snapping photos. I captured a bald-headed man wearing a suit, he was seen in my mother’s China Cabinet glass window, and as I walked into the living room I saw his face in a mirror. He said something to me in a deep voice and I felt threatened so I left the living room. As I turned around to yell for the dogs I saw a picture frame lift up off the living room wall and thrown, glass shattered everywhere. I left the house along with the dogs and didn’t return for a while.

We decided it was time to get help, my mother asked our church and they didn’t want to be involved for whatever reason so we wrote to paranormal groups and a group came from Ohio called the Ohio Researchers of Banded Spirits (ORBS). They brought a priest with them. They captured EVPs and EMF hits in the garage and said they heard footsteps. They went into the house and captured more EVPs, EMF hits, and said they saw a 7-foot tall shadow person in the basement, which they captured on a thermal camera. They said it attacked the priest by trying to hit him.

The priest blessed the house, property, and us. He said it was gone and we shouldn’t have any more problems, which it seemed like it did work for the first couple of months before it started back up again with knocking at the front and back door and when my mother went to look, nobody was there.

The group that came here contacted a TV show called “My Ghost Story Caught on Camera”, then those people contacted us, and they picked us to be on that show, which aired on December 28, 2012, and was titled “Beyond the Grave”. We were also picked to be on “Paranormal Survivor”, which aired on October 20, 2018, and was titled “Buried Secrets”. The priest that came here wrote a book called “The Ekballist“, which is based on actual demonic encounters, and put this house in his book. The Ohio group said they investigated hundreds of haunted locations and this house ranks in their top 5.

The most recent harmful thing that has happened here was last year, my elderly mother was pulled out of her bed and it was captured on a nanny cam, a camera was put in her room because she said something kept touching her, which was also captured on camera. I was partially pulled out of my bed after I saw a shadow person in my bedroom. I have been scratched and a few others as well, that have visited us. My mother had bruises on her arm that looked like fingerprints and a few others said it looked like a bite mark. We saw small flashing white lights all of the time and it’s been captured on security cameras multiple times. An apparition has been captured a few times on the cameras and voices talking and objects being moved and thrown.

The last paranormal investigator that visited was back around June 2018. He wrote a book called “Real West Virginia Hauntings: Volume 1“, which also had a story about this house titled the “Wellsburg Devil House.” When he was here he stood in an area inside our garage that is sinking and asked if he was standing on anyone’s grave. A female’s voice responded saying, “yes.”

We’ve been trying to get someone to come out here since the last investigator was here, we have reached out to most of the paranormal TV shows, and we have had no response from anybody. We would like to find a group that could possibly bring ground-penetrating radar equipment or even cadaver dogs so that we can find out where all the graves are. The house also needs to be blessed again, it has been blessed 3 times now and it’s still very much here!

The Shadow People

The Shadow People
Shadow People / Stock Photo

I have lived in the small town of Burlington my whole life. Burlington is rich in history that is extremely hard to find. One thing I do know is that not even a mile from my house, Indians brutally murdered a group of settlers.

With some background information in place it is time to tell my stories about the shadow people. I lived in the backwoods, meaning my nearest neighbor is more than one hundred yards away from my land. As a small child I would play outside by myself, and there is one day that I remember vividly. I was playing outside when I saw a “person”, as I called it back then, watching me from the tree line. I ran inside and told my dad, but when he came out the “person” was gone. I remember it was a silhouette of a man and everything was black. He had no face or anything. I now refer to it as the shadow person.

Years later, I was in my driveway playing basketball. Directly behind my basketball hoop is the woods. I was playing and I just happened to look over and saw what looked like the same shadow person from years ago. I ran inside to tell my mom and she came outside and ran into the woods chasing it. To this day she will not tell me what she saw, but she definitely saw something.

About two years ago, I was in my kitchen making popcorn in the microwave. Now the way my house is set up you can see the living room and back hallway from the microwave. At the time, my dad was outside and my mom was inside and we were the only ones home. So, I was standing by the microwave and out of the corner of my eye I saw someone walk the back hallway. I yelled for my mom, thinking it was her, and she didn’t answer. I went back the hallway and into the bathroom and no one was in there, and about that time my mom yelled from the laundry room (which is on the other end of the house). I went to talk to her and then came back into the kitchen and once again I saw the shadow person go back down the hallway. For some reason it wanted me to go down that hallway, and to this day I have no idea why.

These are just a few of the stories from my home, which I still live in.

One Night On Poca River

One Night On Poca River
Weird Night / Stock Photo

When I was about 16 years old, I had a good friend of mine named John Mitchell Burdette or “Mitch” for short. We both lived in the town of Sissonville which is situated along the Pocatalico River about 17 miles from Charleston.

There were several of us from Sissonville that hung around together and were close friends, but the story I want to tell now is something that happened to Mitch and I. I have told this story to some people that I have known in my adult life, but I am very selective in who I tell it to, mostly because it is so unbelievable, and it is usually met by the normal reply “what were you drinking” or “what kind of drugs were you on” or “your full of it or crazy”, so it is rare that I ever speak of it. I don’t think about it all the time, but there are times when the memory comes back to me and it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck and has brought tears to my eyes on some occasions when I’ve told it because of the emotions of how terrifying that night was is being relived by just talking about it. And it has even caused me, a grown man, to walk out of the woods before dark with a loaded gun in my hand while hunting when I have let the memory of that night flood back in and spook me.

I have come to the conclusion that not all things in life can be explained, and what happened on the night I am referring to will, I believe, forever remain a mystery to me. I don’t see Mitch very often anymore, not because we have parted friends, but because our life paths and careers sent us in different directions and have taken most of our spare time. Mitch and I both married later on in life and I moved to my current location which is the city of St. Marys, WV and Mitch moved to Goldtown, WV. We have occasionally seen each other through the years and usually we always seem to end up talking about the thing that happened to us that night and it amazes me at the details we both have retained as if it somehow was branded into our memories. The only differences we have when telling our story is to what conclusions we have come to as to what exactly happened and why, I have my theories and Mitch his, but we both still agree it is a great mystery and it terrified us both. I am 51 years old now and I wanted to record this for my children and my grandchildren to come, before, god forbid, I would die or my mind would fade away.

I first wish to offer something about my character. I pride myself on the fact that if I tell you something, you can take it to the bank as being a fact. Secondly, I have not a thing to gain by fabricating a story such as this, I want no money or notoriety and I fear that it may make some people doubt anything further that I would state as fact. The reason for me to do this in written form is not for publication but for the benefit of my family, that it may be passed on to other generations. If preserved in written form and passed down, maybe my great-grandchildren will have the same reply as many, but at least they will have the true version of what happened that was written by my hand, and not just a passed down as a “ghost story”. I will tell my story and I am then going to send a copy of it to Mitch and ask him to write his account or verify that this did truly happen and then I am going to place all the paperwork on this in my family history folder and let the matter be placed to rest. Anyway, here is my story:

I don’t remember the exact month this happened. I know it was summertime and it was a hot day. Mitch and I were together on this occasion because we both dated a couple of young ladies that lived in the vicinity of the town of Frame. I dated a girl by the name of Brenda Gibson and Mitch was dating a young lady named Bonita Miller. Brenda lived with her parents just across the street from Bonita in a small brick home and Bonita’s parents had a white wooden house with a large front porch. Mitch had decided he was going to his lady’s house that evening and I believed I asked him if I could ride along with him to see mine. Mitch owned his own car at that time, it was a Pontiac Lemans convertible, goldish tan in color with a black ragtop, I didn’t own a vehicle and always hitched rides with friends, thumbed or walked to where I needed to go. I would like to say at this time that I have walked many a country road and have been walking isolated country roads from the time I was 10 or 11, so I was no stranger to lonely spooky country roads and I didn’t scare easily. When I was only 9 or 10 I had a friend Randy Reed that lived on Second Creek Rd and I would walk all the way from my mom’s to Randy’s house through pasture fields and then a long stretch thru a pine forest, about a 5-mile hike, and there were several times I got my hide tanned for not being back home before it got dark. I always liked the woods and there was nothing in them to fear, though a deer sidled me through the woods one night and it spooked me, I was never terrified. Anyway, those are other stories, I just wanted to make a point that I am used to the woods and the creatures in it and certainly was no coward that feared the boogieman.

Frame was a very small community about 20 miles from Sissonville. There were 2 ways you could get there from Sissonville, you could get on I-77 and go to Charleston then go up I-79 to Frametown Rd exit and where the girls lived was probably 5 or 6 miles from the exit, in all, it was about a 30 or 35-mile trip one way. But most people from Sissonville would just travel through Poca river road out through what was called Leatherwood and it would bring you over to Frame road. It was an old single-lane blacktop road, lots of potholes and twists and turns. You couldn’t drive 65mph but it was shorter than the alternative by probably 12 to 15 miles, so Mitch and I always traveled “Ole Pokey” road as we called it. I don’t recall the time of day that we got there, we all met at the Millers house and then Brenda and I went over to hers. I recall I spent a good deal of time spooning with Brenda, and as it was nearing dusk there came a heck of a thunderstorm.

Mitch called over to Brenda’s and said we were going to have to get home before it got really bad, so Brenda and I ran over through the pouring rain and sat down on the porch with everyone else and got into a conversation. Now I will be upfront and say I didn’t in particular care much for Mitch’s girl and I don’t believe there was any love lost on her part over it, my opinion was she was kinda uppity, liked thinking she was a little smarter and better than everyone else. Somehow the conversation got shifted to religion and Bonita sure spoke her opinion of how we were all living wrong and she knew the only path to salvation, which maybe she did, but it ticked me off the way she put it and I told her I was an atheist just to make her mad, and it did. I remember her saying something to the effect of “I better watch what I say” and seeing as I had gotten under her skin I laid it on pretty hot and heavy as to how there was no god (remember I am 16 years old and hot-headed) and I sure wasn’t going to be outdone by some bible-thumping girl that I didn’t care much for.

After our little disagreement, the conversation ended and the weather took a turn for the worse. The wind started picking up and lightning was hitting close and the rain got harder. Mitch said we needed to leave (which I am sure Bonita didn’t mind seeing me go at all) so I ran Brenda back across the street, gave her a goodnight kiss, and headed back towards the Millers.

I was on a dead run when I felt the hair stand up all over me and I saw the flash and felt the concussion, then the explosion. It literally almost knocked me down, and to this day that is the closest, I have ever come to being hit by lightning. I managed to keep my footing and made it back to Bonita’s porch all wide-eyed and out of breath. The only thing I could think to say was “did you all see that” and they had. Bonita reminded me at that time as to how I should watch what I say about god and if she would have given a good sermon at that point, she might have gotten a convert. But the lightning came crashing again and Mitch said we needed to hit the road, and I agreed. He got his kiss in and I was already soaked, but by the time we walked the few feet to his car and got in, he was just as drenched as me.

I guess it was probably about 9:30 or a little less at this time. It seemed that just in a few moments time it had gone from sunset to total black and it was pitch dark as we pulled out of her driveway and onto Frame road.

It was one of those storms where the rain was pouring and the wind was blowing it straight into us and you could literally see it coming in sheets. Mitch had the wipers going full blast but they couldn’t even phase the amount of water that came onto the windshield, the wipers probably would have done as much good being on the inside as the outside. We could only see a few feet ahead of the front of the car, you couldn’t even see the road, it was a guessing game as to if we were in the middle of the road or about to run off either edge. We were only driving about 10 or 15 mph and each lightning flash only blinded us, it didn’t illuminate the road, and there was plenty of it and hitting all around. Through the lightning flashes, you could get glimpses of the surroundings and we were navigating from memory, “there’s a turn coming up after this next house” or “at the bottom of this little hill is a left turn”. Frame road was not very populated then, but there were a few houses and you could see porch lights burning or lights shining faintly through the sheets of rain.

We finally came to a long straight stretch we both knew but the rain just got harder. This stretch was one we were familiar with but the rain was coming down so hard the only way to tell if you were on the road was to wait till you run off it so you could feel it. When we entered the stretch, we were completely blind and we knew that at the end of it was a sharp right turn we would somehow have to navigate. Luckily, at the end of the straight stretch marking our right-hand turn was a street light at someone’s driveway and we knew if we just drove towards the streetlight we could make it, it was kind of like a lighthouse beacon to a fog-bound ship.

The lightning was starting to let up at this point but the rain sure hadn’t. We were about halfway down this stretch when for no reason the light just went out and we both said “Oh Crap” at the same time. No lightning had flashed and there were still lights on in houses, but we lost our beacon. It was as if someone knew we needed it on and turned it off for spite. I mention this for a reason as you will find out deeper into the story.

We slowed down a little more and I honestly could have outwalked the pace we were driving at. It seemed like it took us forever to drive the 5 miles or so where we turned off Frame road and onto Poca river road.

When we started up Poca river, the rain eased up a bit and Mitch sped up a little and it was at this time we noticed the car starting to shake. We commented on it to each other and were listening for those familiar sounds of rubber flapping or a bearing starting to squeal but heard nothing. We were still only going maybe 25 mph or so and the shaking was getting worse.

About a mile or so into this there was a church parking lot on the left and we pulled into it and got out into the rain to see if we had a wheel that was flat or about to fall off. We both walked around the car and checked the tires and we even pulled on them to see if we could get them to shake, but could find nothing wrong. We got back in and both of us had gotten drenched again.

We discussed what could be going on and what we needed to look, listen, and feel for to diagnose our problem. The rain was coming in spurts now, it would pour for a minute then let up to drizzle then pour again, but the lightning had stopped. We started the car back up and pulled back onto the road and as soon as we got to about 25mph, the shaking started again.

The section of road we were on now was a little straight stretch, maybe a 1/2 mile in length, and there were probably about 6 houses along this stretch to the right with the last house being at the bottom of a little rise on the right. As we went past it there were no lights on in the house, but they had an outside streetlamp beside their home just off the side of the front porch. I really didn’t notice all that as we drove by but knew about and remembered it later. We got about 150 yards past the house and almost to the top of the rise and by this time the car felt like it was going to fall apart. There was a wide gravel spot on the shoulder to the left and Mitch pulled off into it and said we have to find out what was wrong with his car.

We got out and this time we both found it immediately, we had a flat on the front. Now both of us were amazed as to how we could have missed this the first time we stopped, we both had walked around and checked for just that very thing on the first stop, but somehow we both had missed it. Mitch said something to the effect of “OH, no” and I said, well this isn’t a problem, we just change it and get on our way. That’s when he told me he didn’t have a jack and worse yet, he didn’t have a spare, so this was a big problem.

We stood there a few minutes and discussed our options, and Mitch said maybe we could walk back down the hill to the house with the streetlight and use their phone to call his brother Bud; there were no cell phones in those days. It was still raining somewhat, not a downpour like before, but it was steady. Now this was the 1970’s, fine people like Charlie Manson had been running around with long hair and murdering people in the middle of the night, and since Mitch and I were like all the other youth of the nation we had long hair as well and we sure didn’t have on tuxedoes, just old flannel shirts and worn-out blue jeans, soaking wet and looking like a couple of bums, which was how we all wanted to look like back then.

I remember we walked up to the sidewalk and the steps onto the front porch of that house; it had to be going on 10:00 pm by this time and Mitch about fell going up the steps because his glasses had fogged up completely and he commented he couldn’t see a thing. He knocked on the front door and we noticed all the lights were out. We commented about hating to get someone out of bed but this was a true emergency. No one came the first knocking so Mitch knocked again and this time we heard footsteps coming and the curtain draws back a little and someone asked: ” Who is it”. Mitch answered and said, “Our car has a flat and we need to come in and use your phone” which in hindsight was probably not the best way to greet someone in the middle of the night and have them to let you into their house.

The man behind the door replied “Just a minute” and the curtain closed. We heard him walk back through the house and Mitch and I were discussing how to talk his brother Bud into bringing us a jack and a spare. I think I said something to the effect that Buds going to be mad when the front door of the house jerked open and there stood an older man with a shotgun pointed at us and said: “NO YOU CAN’T USE THE PHONE” and get off of his porch. I jumped back about 2 feet and was going down the steps in a hurry when I heard Mitch say “Why Can’t we use your phone”. I just remember the guy cursing something and threatening to shoot us. I looked back at that point and Mitch was standing right where he had been and that’s when I remembered he couldn’t see out of his glasses. I shouted back up for him to come on and he said something like, “well I just want to know why he won’t let us use his phone” and this old man has the gun leveled at Mitch’s head and I said Mitch, he has a shotgun pointed right at you. That sunk in real quick and Mitch came down off the porch and we heard the guy mutter something and slam the door. We walked back out his sidewalk to the road and then walked the 150 yards or so back to the car. Now it was time to come up with a plan B which we hadn’t figured on before.

We discussed maybe going back to some of the other houses we had passed but decided that after the warm reception we received at the first that maybe the next might just shoot first and ask questions later, so that was out. We were standing outside the car at this point and trying to come up with a plan. Mitch was supposed to be home by 11 and we were already near or past that, neither of us had a watch. We decided we would try to hitch a ride, as walking the 15 to 18 miles the rest of the way to Sissonville was not an option.

As we stood there at the side of the road we began to take note of our surroundings. To the left of the road which was the side we had pulled off on, there was a barbwire fence a few feet over the hill and then as near as we could tell a little bottomland between us and the river. To the right of the road was another barbwire fence and the hillside was fairly steep and grown up in briars and weeds for a couple of hundred feet then turned into woods. We could see the street light and the guy with the gun’s house down at the bottom of the hill. We walked on to the top of the rise, which was only about 50 feet or so and there was nothing else as far as we could see going down the other side of the hill but darkness.

We walked back to the car and leaned against the hood and just stood there and talked and waited for a car to come by. I know at least an hour passed before the only car we saw came through, and he sure wasn’t slowing down to pick up a couple of stranded hippies.

We began to discuss our options again and about this time is when things got really weird. It began with hearing what sounded like someone hammering nails to the right of the road up on the ridge, it sounded to be a good distance off. More hammering noises joined the first and it sounded as though several people were hammering nails and then it sounded like someone started running a circular saw. This went on for a full 2 or 3 minutes and Mitch and I both commented on who in the world would be building a house or a barn at this hour of the night and we could see no lights at all in the direction the noise was coming from and it was in the middle of the woods.

This was very strange indeed, and then just as suddenly as it had started and at the pitch of what seemed to be a whole lot of activity, it suddenly stopped, not slowly as it started, it just stopped and you could hear crickets chirping.

We had our attention focused on that side of the hill and would look back at each other, then stare until our eyes hurt trying to see something. I remember hearing brush cracking and weeds rustling as something came down off the hill, then quiet again. We must have stood there another five minutes after that and were trying to figure out what it was that we had heard; we were still focused on the right-hand side of the road. It was at this time that something gave out a cross between a scream and a deep guttural groan in the bottom to our left between the river and us.

Mitch looked at me and said “was that a bear?” and I remember saying I never heard a bear sound like that. Now I am not going to lie, we were both getting a little spooked at this point and we now had our attention focused back down the hill towards the guy with the gun’s house to the bottomland on the left of the road. We were both very focused at this point as neither of us had ever heard a noise like this, and haven’t to this day since that night.

We stood there for what seemed like 20 minutes, but honestly, I don’t know how long it was and were trying to figure out what we heard. Then the streetlight went out at the house, the guy with the gun had turned on an inside light and had never turned it back off, and we could see that burning through his curtains so it wasn’t a power failure.

We both stood there for a few seconds longer and then we heard whatever it was scream out again, whatever it was screaming sounded mad and big. We both wasted no time getting in the car, Mitch in the driver side and me in the passenger seat. Now we were scared, I won’t cut any bones about it, I know I was shaking and I could hear shaking in Mitch’s voice. We started trying to convince each other that whatever it was we just heard, there had to be an explanation.

We started once again in discussing new options as here we were with some wild beast somewhere in our vicinity and it sounded mad, and here we sat in a ragtop convertible with a flat tire that wasn’t going anywhere. We were talking about what to do when Mitch said: “listen”. The best way I know how to describe what we heard next was it sounded like something walking in a huge set of rubber gumboots full of water, kind of sucking, squishing, heavy sound, and it was coming up the road right behind the car.

We both set there totally still listening to that thing walking up behind us and then it let out another scream or howl, whatever sound you would call it, and it was right at the back of the car and it was huge. I say it was huge because the sound was not coming from a low level near the road, but sounded instead like it was above the top of the car from the rear. I have thought many a time since that day, and have had people ask me, “why didn’t you look back to see what it was”, quite simply, I couldn’t and neither could Mitch, it was so terrifying I didn’t want to see what it was I just wanted to getaway.

Have you ever seen kids scare each other and watch the one that got scared, he will run 4 or 5 feet before turning around to see what scared him, it is basic instinct I think when you are truly terrified this is how you react to it. What I did do was to reach over and start the car, Mitch was in an attempt to do this but I beat him to it. He floored the gas and yanked it into gear. Now, this was a fairly powerful car as Mitch had hopped up the motor somewhat, and those big old tires on the rear started chucking gravel. If you ever have had a flat on a front tire and pulled into gravel and stopped, the flat tire is the equivalent of putting a chalk block in front of your tires and trying to take off.

My thought in those first few split seconds is that we were stuck and our butts are eaten, then the car slowly started easing forward and whatever was behind us was getting the rock stoning of its life. The car kind of lurched forward a couple of times and we finally got up enough momentum to get the flat tire up onto the blacktop and when the rear tires came onto the blacktop we had gravel flying and tires squealing. I don’t know if you have ever tried to drive a car with a flat front tire, but what we immediately found out was that it is possible but you aren’t going to go very fast.

Both of us were almost hysterical, and we kept shouting “what was that” but neither of us had an answer and I am convinced we were both fairly happy we hadn’t found out. The car was kind of hopping down the road and we couldn’t do more than 20 or 25 mph but at least that was putting distance between us and whatever we had encountered.

We had driven about 1/2 or 3/4 mile when we came around a turn and there was a house to the left, no lights on in the house but they had a streetlight in the drive so we pulled in under the light in the drive and both of us jumped out of the car and ran up to the door and were knocking frantically and shouting at the top of our voices for someone to help us.

After a good minute or two of knocking, we were coming to the conclusion that nobody was home, so we stopped knocking and shouting and just stood there for a minute. We were in a place where it was bright and we could see in all directions and it was obvious that nothing was going to grab us, so we started to calm down. We began talking about what had happened and were questioning whether it was real or not.

We walked back to the car and got in and we actually began to convince ourselves that we had just panicked and there had to be a reasonable explanation as to what had occurred. Just about then, the streetlight went out. It didn’t flicker or dim, it just went off, and it was now pitch black. This got both our attention real quick and we sat silent for a few moments, then Mitch said: “listen”.

Faintly you could hear that squishing sucking sound coming up the road. I remember thinking, this is impossible, but it was unmistakable and getting louder, this thing, whatever it was, was following us. It didn’t get right behind us as previously and scream, but it was close when it did scream. I didn’t have to start the car as before, Mitch beat me to it this time, and he yanked the car into gear and we pulled back onto the road squealing rubber again.

Now we were both scared at this point, but not in a panic as the first encounter, and we started hopping down the road again on our flat tire. We talked going down the road and we were still trying to come up with an explanation as to what was happening, but there was no sane explanation for it. Mitch was driving the car as fast as he could and still be able to maintain control of it, it was difficult and I know he hated abusing his vehicle in this manner, but there was no other choice. We didn’t have to say it between us, but we both knew walking was not even an option to consider.

That old ragtop convertible sure wouldn’t have kept something from tearing thru it and grabbing us out, but at this time it was moving faster than we could run and it was putting distance between us and whatever it was behind us, and it was our fort for the moment and I was sure thankful for it.

We drove this time for what seemed about 4 or 5 miles and we had passed a few homes, but none showed any signs of activity, all were dark. The tire was starting to come apart at this time and you could hear the rim cutting the blacktop. We finally came to a place where another road intersected with Poca River road on the left, the name of it was Whiteman’s Fork. There was a street light there and almost directly across from this intersection across the road on the right, was a house with lights on inside and you could see the flicker of a TV playing.

Mitch kind of just slid his car into the intersection and we both jumped out and ran towards the house. I remember it set down a steep embankment from the road and as soon as we came to the top of the embankment we could hear and see they had a rather large dog on the front porch. Now, most of the time both Mitch and I had respect for large snarling dogs, but on this night it seemed to be the least of our concerns. The dog didn’t bite us when we came up to the front door, but he sure wasn’t happy to see us. We knocked on the door and when it opened I don’t think we even waited to be invited in, we just kind of stepped inside. I remember an older man and woman sitting in a chair watching TV and it was a younger boy that had let us in. We asked to use the phone and briefly explained our situation. I believe you could see in our faces that we had been through an ordeal and they had mercy on us.

They directed Mitch to the phone and as he called his house I tried as calmly as I could to explain what had happened to us. These poor people must have thought us to be completely insane as I explained to them what had occurred and you could see by the looks on their faces they were filled with doubt and suspicion.

Mitch got in touch with his parents and explained where we were and they got in touch with Bud on the CB radio as he was already out looking for us. Mitch’s parents told him to set tight at the car and Bud would bring us a spare and a jack. When Mitch got off the phone, we tried to rationally explain to this family what had happened and we briefly discussed it with them, and then thanked them for letting us use their phone. Mitch told them that his brother was going to bring us a spare and that we would wait in the car for him to come.

We both had calmed down at this point as help was on its way, and we realized how insane we must have appeared to these people with the story we told and the wide-eyed look we had when we had entered their home. We thanked them very gratefully and walked back out into the night. The dog wasn’t barking at us now, as I guess he figured if his masters had let us in, then we must be all right.

We walked up to the embankment and back across the road to our car setting under the streetlight. We looked over the tire and it was in bad shape and we commented that we were glad it had held up as good as it had for the abuse we had put it thru. We both had settled down and we started making jokes about what had happened and how we must both be insane and kind of embarrassed as well in how we had panicked as we had. We both talked about if we had seen what it was and we both agreed that we hadn’t wanted to, we were just glad to be able to get away from it.

We sat in the car and talked for what must have been 5 minutes or so and we were both calm at this point, still mystified and maybe a little jumpy, but we felt safe. Just then, the dog at the house we were just at started barking, it wasn’t just a casual bark, it was an “if you come near me I will bite you” bark.

Mitch and I both looked behind us down the road we had just traveled on and tried to see into the dark, but you couldn’t see anything past the glow of the streetlamp we were under. We were back on alert again, the dog was mad at something and we were trying to see what it was that had him so upset.

Just then, the streetlight went out, just like all the other times before, no flickering or dimming just turned off. It was pitch black again and we could see the house we just left and the lights were still on in the inside, could still see the TV flickering. I think I must have said something like “you have got to be kidding me” and Mitch said, “be still”. That’s when we heard it coming again; that same old sucking squishing noise we were now starting to become familiar with.

We didn’t sit there and wait for it to get closer this time; we started the car and started driving. We didn’t give it a chance to let out another of those terrible screams.

We decided we would drive until we met Bud on the road and then we would ride with him the rest of the way home. I don’t know how many miles we drove that time, there was a little conversation between us, just silent prayers that our ride would hold together till we met Bud. I remember we passed a vehicle and as it was going past we both recognized it as Buds El Camino. We could see him hit the brakes and Mitch just drove his car into the ditch on the right and pulled it onto the embankment on the other side of the ditch, it was kind of a controlled wreck. We saw Bud turning around and when he was headed back in our direction we jumped out as he pulled beside us. We both just jumped into his vehicle and he kind of looked at us funny and said: “your tire and jack are in the back, aren’t you going to fix it?” I think we both answered in unison “NO, just get us out of here.”

Bud made a lame attempt at telling us it would only take a few minutes to fix it and that Mitch shouldn’t leave his car abandoned beside the road. Mitch said he didn’t care about his car, we just wanted to get out of here and we could come back when it was daylight and get it then. I think Bud could tell how scared we were, so he didn’t try real hard to convince us otherwise, he made one more attempt at telling us we shouldn’t leave the car sitting, and I think we told him if he wanted to fix it we would sit in the car with it running and watch. That must have convinced him that nothing was going to happen, and we drove off, leaving the ole Lemans sitting in the ditch.

We told our story to Bud going down the road and he, like many others since then that we told our story to, tried to convince us that there had to be a reasonable explanation for what had occurred and we had just let our imaginations run wild, but we knew different.

I lived up a little hollow called Sisson lane and Bud dropped me off at the mouth of it, I remember I ran as hard as I could all the way to Moms, and was very relieved when I got inside and closed the door. It took a long time to settle down and go to sleep that night, but sleep finally did come.

The next day, me, Mitch, and Mike Huffman or Ralph Miller drove out Poca River to change the tire and bring it home. I remember us telling Mike or Ralph about what happened and Mitch and I fully expected when we would get to the car, the top would be all shredded and the car practically destroyed when whatever it was that pursued us found it abandoned and its prey gone.

When we got to it, it was just as we had left it, no huge claw marks through the cloth top or down the sides. The hood and windshield were not all smashed in. Not a thing to confirm we had escaped the creature that pursued us the night before that was so intent on catching us and doing us harm, all we were left with was a story and a memory that I will never forget.

Well, that is my version of the story as I remember it, I will be glad to get Mitch’s version and compare it, just to see if he remembers things differently or if there are details that I have forgotten over the years and he can remind me. We talked about this for years and I know both of us have questioned our sanity over the event of that night. We discussed explanations for it such as aliens, Bigfoot, or just a practical joke someone played on 2 young men that night. But we always came to the same conclusion, it didn’t make any sense. What could shut off streetlights, scream as that thing did and make the footstep sounds it had, I don’t know, but I will never forget. It is just one of those things that you had to be there to believe it. I am convinced it is just a mystery that I will take to my grave.

John T. Jewell 11/1/2009

Log Cabin 1766

Log Cabin 1766
Shadow Person in Doorway / Stock Photo

We bought a house which was also a log cabin that was built in 1766. It was located on WV 9, 3 miles west of Hedgesville, beside Tillman creek. The first night we spent there, I was sleeping on the floor when I felt something pushing up against me. It was a large dog laying beside me and he/she had stretched out thus touching me and waking me up. We did not own a dog at that time. I was so tired and exhausted from moving that I said the heck with it, I’m going back to sleep.

That same night I was woken again by a tall black figure standing in the doorway. I figured it was my husband (he had fallen asleep on the couch). I asked him several times what he wanted, but didn’t get an answer. There again, I said the heck with it and went back to sleep. The next morning he said it wasn’t him and that he had not gotten up at all that night.

Through the month we would hear loud footsteps pounding up the stairs, but no one was there. Doors would slam shut.

Another time a young man stood beside me. He was watching me clean the cobwebs. I saw him clear as can be, but he was a ghost. The space around us was bone cold and it scared me. So I went outside to warm up and get away from him. It was 90 degrees out that day. Other things like that have happened to me, but I won’t get into that. The house/cabin burned down. No more ghosts. We’ve rebuilt.

Followed

Followed
Woods at Night / Stock Photo

My family and I were staying at Twin Falls State Park one year and decided to hike one of the trails. This trail was one where the state parks boundary meets someone’s private land. We saw a barrel hanging from a tree approximately 200 feet off the trail and even a treehouse. After passing both the treehouse and the hanging barrel we stopped to get something to drink and heard a huge crack of a tree branch behind us like someone or something stepped on it. We continued on while whatever it was kept following us and stepping on tree branches and twigs along the way. Finally whatever it was stopped and we didn’t hear anything after that.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. No human being would make that much noise if they were following us. A lot of people may say it was a bear but I’m not so sure.

Grocery Store Ghost

Grocery Store Ghost
Grocery Store Aisle / TJ

I refuse to mention the grocery stores by name but 7 years ago I was a manager at one in Southern West Virginia. It was getting close to closing time and I had heard ghost stories but I experienced it first hand. I was in the back doing my checks for the night. I came through to the bakery where I saw two little girls. I kind of did a double-take and they disappeared. I started looking for them when I heard a chilling voice say my name. Nobody was around. I checked the aisles and headed up front where my cashier girl and the stock guy stood, it wasn’t them. I did ask them if they heard or saw anyone. They didn’t.

Another night, I had come face to face with this thing in black. I did at first think it was a joke but it wasn’t.

Two months later this black figure returned, locking me out on the dock. The night cleaner heard me and let me back in.

There have been a few times where food would just fall off the shelves. It was mostly bread.
One day early around eight in the morning a customer swore she hit a person with her buggy and he disappeared.

In the 7 years that I have worked there, I didn’t know what to expect. Stuff happened frequently and we couldn’t keep night employees. If I didn’t have a family of six to feed I would have left too.

The White Wolf of Whitlock Farm

The White Wolf of Whitlock Farm
The historic Whitlock Farm on Wolf Creek Road / Brenda Calfee

I guess a lot of people know about Wolf Creek near Fayetteville because it drops into the New River Gorge in a series of spectacular cascades. But I don’t suppose many know that the creek heads up in the plateau near Oak Hill and that it was named because of wolves. Wolves haven’t been seen in the state since the 1800s, except for one case I know about firsthand—the White Wolf that haunts the Whitlock Farm on Wolf Creek Road.

I suppose it’s a ghost wolf, not a white wolf, though that’s what they call it. Legend has it that the wolf prowls the fields around the old farm pond in the evening but that its favorite haunt is in the bend in front of the old Whitlock farmhouse. The farmhouse isn’t that spooky itself, though most everyone knows it because of its red-and-yellow brick. It’s as much a part of the landscape as the big oaks that shade the yard around it. They say that late, late at night people driving past the house catch a flicker of white in their headlights. That’s the wolf.

One night about 25 years ago we were driving back from a party in town and we saw the White Wolf for ourselves. We were coming through the bend in front of the farmhouse when my boyfriend decided he wanted to pull over in front of the farm and get romantic. Everything seemed normal, though a little spooky as there was no one living in the farmhouse then. I’d completely forgotten about the legend of the White Wolf because I was more worried about seeing a ghost looking out the farmhouse window at me, which is another story I’ve heard about that place.

At any rate, we were sitting there, talking, and the headlights were off, so you couldn’t see much in the darkness, but still, I seemed to see a kind of white form moving around outside the car. I thought it was a trick of the eyes at first, the way things look in the near-dark. But then I kept seeing it move, I thought, through the tall grass near the car. I told my boyfriend to be quiet a minute. He didn’t seem to notice anything and started laughing. But then all of a sudden it was standing there outside my car door and let out a howl so loud it was unbelievable. I could see its eyes looking at us, but I was paralyzed with fear and couldn’t turn my head. Jon fumbled with the keys and got the car started and back up right into Wolf Creek Road without stopping. Not that there was any traffic on the road at that hour anyway. We didn’t stop until we were a mile down the road and then just pulled over and cried, we were so scared.

I pass the farmhouse all the time now and haven’t seen anything since, but then I’m not wanting to see anything again, so I don’t look hard. Why the ghost wolf might haunt the farm, who can say? Maybe a hunter killed it, the last of its kind, there in the little levels along the creek. Maybe it’s guarding the house. Maybe people still see it from time to time. Every once in a while I’ll hear an old’ timer from Garten or Gatewood talk about it, but, for the most part, the legend seems to have slipped away.

The Unrestful Spirits of Institute, West Virginia

The Unrestful Spirits of Institute, West Virginia
Ghost / Stock Photo

The festivities of Halloween bring about tales of ghosts, goblins, witches, and of course the Devil himself. Year after year, we engage in the transmitting of horror stories, done solely to entertain ourselves and others. However, Halloween season 2015, I had an encounter with the undead; one I will never forget.

I’ve long believed there is more out there than we can see. It is said, Sam Hein was celebrated by Celtics with the belief a realm existed between the living and the dead, and during this time of year, that realm was at its thinnest. If you would have told me this before, I wouldn’t have believed it. I do now.

Institute, West Virginia, once called “Piney Grove,” is a tiny town with a hidden history. Its origin was born out of the ashes of a love story between slaveholder Samuel I. Cabell and his slave wife Mary Barnes. The land on which WVSU rests was once home to a plantation. Slaves worked local salt mines for Cabell, and many died in captivity. Samuel did write wills setting said slaves free upon his death, though he later recanted those wishes. Taking this into consideration, I believe those spirits I encountered there to be of dead slaves.

For reasons I cannot explain, I felt their presence at night. In fact, I once awoke to a tall, pudgy man standing on the side of my bed. As I shifted my position, he walked to the bed’s foot and disappeared. I was in shock. A second encounter occurred when I took the trash out one evening. As I made my way back to my front door, I felt the presence of several men around me. I could feel their eyes watching me, though I was the only person outside. I could feel their anger as they watched me make my way back into my house. I assume, because I am black and light-skinned, they mistook me for a house slave. I’ve felt the slaves inside my home, strolling the hallway at night. I’ve felt them in my kitchen. I’ve also seen the spirits of a small, Caucasian girl wandering my home. She took to my son, following his birth, visiting him in his room time and again. She skipped to and fro, splitting her time between his room and mine. There is also the spirit of an old man. I’ve smelled his cigarettes early in the morning, and his whiskey late at night. I have no clue who these people were, minus the angry slaves I’ve encountered. I can honestly say for sure I believe spirits are real, and the dead don’t always rest peacefully.

Ghost Solider

Ghost Solider
Ghost Solider / Wayne Girl

My three friends and I were headed home from the Wayne Pioneers football game Friday night around 10 pm. We were talking and listening to the radio when I rolled up on fog. I then saw him, he was hitchhiking. He was wearing a green soldier uniform and packing a duffle bag. I looked through the mirror and he disappeared. At the next wide spot I turned around and drove back, but he was gone. There were no houses around. Where did he go?

A year later my mom and I saw him walking at night.

Yellow Boots

Yellow Boots
Yellow Boots / Stock Photo

I live in Mingo County. I was 18 when this happened to me. Since this was our Senior year in 1999, my friends and I decided while off on Christmas break we would go sledding since we had 7 inches of snow.

We bundled up and walked to the end of our holler. We all lived in the same holler. I always loved snow and having fun.

Kim, Sarah, Mary, John, Lee and I went up the hill. Kim and I got on my new red sled. We took off first with Mary and John behind us and Sarah and Lee behind them. We hit a stump and sailed into the air and landed almost in the creek. I was shaken up, the sled was on me, and I had to push it off. I didn’t see Kim anywhere. I started calling her name. I saw that she was hurt and laying next to the creek. She grunted and I noticed her leg was bleeding. I started shouting for the rest of my friends. I tried picking her up and I saw yellow boots next to her body. I looked up to see a red-headed girl wearing a yellow snowsuit.

“I’ll get help,” she said.

The next thing I knew, she was gone. My friends came over all worried. John scooped her up.

“Did you see her? I asked.

“See who?” Sarah asked.

“That girl”, I said.

We all started walking toward the road when John’s dad in his 4 wheel drive Ford truck pulled up.

“Dad she’s hurt.” John said packing his little sister.

“That girl came and told me.” Mr. Messer said.

“What girl?” I asked.

“Your friend with the red hair wearing the yellow boots.” He replied.

We never did see that girl again. We didn’t know who she was until I attended Southern College and my new friend Emilee Watts was at her house working on a project and I used the bathroom and low and behold I saw a picture of that red headed girl wearing those yellow boots!

I immediately asked her about the girl.

Here is what she said, “That’s my sister, I was 5 when she went missing. We never found her body. She might be alive. Her name was Rachel. I like to believe she’s alive.”

“How old would she be?” I asked.

“30,” she replied.

I knew that she had to been a ghost cause she was our age.

I was spooked out. I didn’t tell her the story. I figured I’d let her believe Rachel ran away with some boy.

Follow West Virginia Ghosts

18,626FansLike
131FollowersFollow
4,054FollowersFollow

Latest Stories

Silver Gap Ghost near Oak Hill

Silver Gap Ghost near Oak Hill

I was walking with friends at night along the tracks that lead west out of Oak Hill toward Dothan. This gap is where the...
The Spirit that Stayed Around

The Spirit that Stayed Around

This is a true short story from my newest book, Stories of the Fire House. Enjoy! No collection of firehouse stories would be complete without...
The Devil House

Buried Secrets

This story took place at my parent's home in Brooke County in a town called Wellsburg, WV. My parents purchased this home back in...
The Shadow People

The Shadow People

I have lived in the small town of Burlington my whole life. Burlington is rich in history that is extremely hard to find. One...
One Night On Poca River

One Night On Poca River

When I was about 16 years old, I had a good friend of mine named John Mitchell Burdette or “Mitch” for short. We both...