The Hollow

     The hollow I grew up in is located three miles from Ironton. It is, at once, one of the most beautiful places in Lawrence County, and the most eerie, evil place you could care to visit. How these two things could co-exist has always baffled me, but there is no denying that they do.

     The beauty of the place is apparent as soon as you turn up the graveled road that leads to the family property. Large oaks overhang the road, creating a leafy bower. The grass grows between the tire tracks telling you this is a little-traveled road.  A clear, cold stream runs along the right side of the road, rippling over stones as it winds its way to the Ohio River. Farther up a meadow opens at the edge of the forest, lush and fertile even in the winter months. Boulders, some as big as cars, are strewn along the feet of giant rocks, tumbled there, no doubt, by some prehistoric earthquake.

     It is breath taking in any season, but especially in spring, when the hills are covered in white dogwood with bursts of purple redbud. And underneath all this the wildflowers flourish. There is wild azalea, something I've never seen anywhere else in Lawrence County, their pink blooms smothering the small shrubs they grow on. Cinnamon fern, as tall as a man, the fronds 18 inches wide, grow farther up, behind the family home.  Other, smaller ferns grow thick on the shady banks of the stream, some so rare that they are never seen outside a book. It is like a land that time forgot and must have looked just the same hundreds of years ago when the Shawnee Indians hunted here.

     But, beneath all this beauty, there is a feeling of disquiet. That, also, is apparent as soon as you turn up the road leading to the family property. It gives one the feeling that someone, or something, is watching, just from the edge of the forest there. It makes you look over your shoulder, but you won't see anything if you do; if you're lucky, that is. Because this perfect, lovely land is haunted. 

     The stories go back for seventy years and beyond. Stories of strange happenings, like a phantom woman dancing in the road, a couple, dressed in the style of the early 1800's, out for a stroll, a ghostly man fetching water endlessly from a spring that no longer exists, a headless ghost sitting on a well box, taking his ease after a hard day's work. I can tell you nothing more of these, because they are legend and I've never seen any of them.  But I can tell you of the nameless horror that descends on this hollow after nightfall. I can tell you this because I was raised there, was a witness to mind-numbing terror that I hope never to experience again.

     My parents bought the property in 1987, when I was six years old.    My father, a reserved man of few words, knew the stories connected with the land, but my mother was blissfully unaware, having been born and raised 30 miles north of Ironton in Waterloo. They payed $4000 for six acres of land and a livable house, which they built onto over time. My mother thought the price was so low because it was owned by my father's cousin. In fact, the price was so low because anyone who had tried to live there never lasted over a few weeks. But my parents had put everything they owned into this purchase and we were stuck there.

     There is no rhyme or reason to the pattern of horror that happens in this hollow.  Life can go on uneventfully for weeks, months, even a few years.  And then, for no reason that I could ever see, the nightmare descends and you are caught in its web like a thrashing fly, with no escape.   And so, when we first moved there, everything was calm and peaceful.  My mother was in awe by the beauty of the land and we were happy and secure. My siblings and I played up and down the road in the bright spring sunshine, totally unaware of the evil that slithered over this enchanted paradise.

     The first few things to happen were small and insignificant. They gave no warning of the terror that lay just a few weeks away and would torment us as long as we lived there. My mother was alone in the house all day while we were in school and my father worked. She heard footfalls through the hallway, doors opened and squeaked shut, but when she investigated she found herself alone. Things disappeared, never to be seen again, her favorite kitchen knife, a hairbrush, and her lipstick. These she didn't find strange at the time, having eight children, though we knew better than to bother Mom's things. She heard cars pull into the driveway, heard the car doors open and close, heard people talking, but when she went to see who had come to visit, the driveway was empty. These things didn't alarm her, but they were beginning to unnerve her. She questioned my father about the land, but he would never tell her anything.

     Then my father had some of their land bulldozed to build another house. That night we looked out the window to see thousands of tiny green lights over the leveled land. It was foxfire, and my mother was completely fascinated by it. She picked up a piece and brought it into the house, laying it in her bedroom window. That same night, all hell broke loose in the hollow.

     My siblings and I went to bed at our usual time, and my parents were in their room. When we were sure they were sleeping, we got up to play, since we didn't feel sleepy. I was the first to see it. I shut my eyes tightly, not able to believe what I was seeing. When I opened them, it was still there. A large, black shadow with glowing green eyes. It had a head and arms, but the rest of it tapered off into nothingness. My heart stopped beating for a minute, and then I let out a scream that was loud enough to wake the dead. My brothers and sisters gawked, open mouthed, as the shadow drifted toward us. Then we all ran, the shadow in hot pursuit, and locked ourselves in the bathroom, screaming bloody murder. We watched the lock on the door slowly turn, then the knob, and we put our combined weight and muscle against the door as the shadow pushed on it from the other side. It was no use. The door was slowly, but surely, opening, and we could not stop it. Then, when it seemed all was lost, it was gone and my mother was yelling from her bedroom to ask what in the world was the matter. We all slept that night, and many nights after, huddled together on a pallet by our parent's bed.

     Things went from bad to worse. The kitchen faucet turned on and off by itself. So did the gas stove. At night it sounded like someone was ripping the siding from the house with a crowbar. The TV and VCR turned on by themselves, flipping through channels and movie scenes at an alarming speed. And through it all, the demon made appearances when we least expected it. It shoved my brother all the way up the hollow one night when he had walked to the bar to play pool, on leave from the navy. It grabbed my sister by the throat and, while we all watched in horror, squeezed until her face turned blue, leaving the indents of its fingers on her neck in purple bruises. It played havoc with our emotions until we were ready to come apart at the seams. And it whistled. It would start up the hollow, a tuneless whistle that came closer and closer until it was right in your ear.

     Then all would be calm for a few nights, a few weeks, a few years.  But it always returned and still does. I know this because my sister and brother still live there. They have become inured to the demon and think that living there when it's peaceful is worth the price of the encounters when they happen. I don't. I would not live there for all the money in the world.

     And so I know that rare beauty can, and does, co-exist beside pure evil. People dare each other to take the walk up that hollow after dark. If ever you are dared, don't take the bait. It will be a lovely walk, no doubt, until you hear that tuneless whistle...

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