“Evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him.” — Psalm 140:11
The moon glinted off the bottles on the bottle tree, washing them in deep cobalt and limning them in silver. Ry remembered his granny’s somber warning after he’d accidentally smashed a bottle on her own tree when he was a boy, not that long ago. “Watch y’self, boy. Ya don’t know what your rearin an pitchin mighta set free.” He shuddered as he glanced at Big Jesse, knowing how trigger happy the older man could be. He hoped, at least, the bottles, and whatever might be trapped within them, would make it through the night intact and not set anything after them.
He studied the older man as he reined his horse to a stop a good thirty feet from the cabin’s front porch. Close enough for trouble. Jesse’s canvas duster, brown with road dust and grime, stretched taut across his broad shoulders. From behind, his head would’ve appeared swallowed up by the black of night if it weren’t for the white tips of the black horns floating above it. But he turned as Ry sidled up alongside him, and the thick white stitching of the mask’s unreadable face stood out bright in the moonlight.
“Where’s your mask?” he asked, his voice gruff and deep.
Ry looked down at the mask clutched in his hand with a grimace. He hated these things. They’d held an appeal for him when he’d been younger, when the Bald Knobbers were seen as heroes and Ry couldn’t wait to be old enough to join up. But now that he was, and he had… well. They weren’t all heroes, he knew now. And he wasn’t too sure about Jesse.
“You sure about this, Big Jesse?”
“Put it on!”
His voice brooked no argument. With a sigh, Ry unfurled the hateful mask and tugged it over his head.
No sooner had he done so than Jesse took a breath and bellowed, “Wiley Harper!” Immediately a hound started baying over by the barn. It must have been sleeping when they rode up. Probably old and hard of hearing. Ry hoped it was tied up good. Not for their safety, but for the dog’s.
“Come on out, Wiley,” Jesse called. “You don’t want us comin’ in.”
Slowly, the wooden door creaked on its rusted hinges. A figure stepped out, outlined against lamplight from inside the house, face obscured by shadow from the porch roof. Enough moonlight crept up the front of the porch for Ry to make out the hem of a skirt. He relaxed a little.
“I knew you boys was comin’,” an old woman rasped. “I dropped my dishrag when I was washing up. What do you want with my grandson?”
“You know what we want,” said Jesse.
“Why don’t you tell me anyway?” She stepped forward, enough for the moon to reflect off the tip of a shotgun barrel. Ry tensed again and moved his hand to the handle of his six-shooter, his eyes going to the Winchester that lay ready across Jesse’s lap.
Loud enough to be heard by anyone cowering inside, Jesse bellowed, “Wiley Harper! You stand accused of gambling, public drunkenness, public indecency and adultery!”
“Accused by who?” asked the old woman, matching him for volume, her voice soaked in smoke and moonshine. “You ain’t the law.”
“We’re as good as,” said Big Jesse. He pointed at the old woman, “And you, Anna Harper, stand accused of aiding and abetting an outlaw. And witchcraft.”
Ry winced. He glanced from the old woman to the bottle tree, to various charms hanging on the porch. Things found at his own granny’s house. Things that offered protection from whatever might be lurking in the woods. Those didn’t make her no witch.
The old woman cackled like that was the funniest joke she’d ever heard. Jesse pressed on, shouting accusations over her laughter. “Your neighbor Pat Everett says his crops failed, his dog took sick and died and his wife turned barren, all after you accused him of putting his fence on your side of the property line.”
She laughed harder and harder while he spoke, but when he finished, so did she. In a sober voice she said, “Pat Everett is as much a fool as he is a thief. And his wife come to me before then ‘cause she had enough of that man’s babies to raise.”
“You admittin’ you made her barren?”
“I’m admittin’ I gave her what she asked for. What she did with it ain’t none o’ my business. As for the dog, I can’t help it if that mangey hound dug up my garden and ate somethin’ didn’t agree with it.”
“And his crops?”
The tip of the shotgun moved as she shrugged. “He ain’t the only one who had a bad turn this year. You think I can stopper up the whole sky?”
“That may be,” said Jesse, “but you’re still hidin’ a wanted man. Wiley!” he raised his voice again as he said the name. “This is your last chance! You come out, or we’re comin’ in!”
A shot rang out. Big Jesse jerked to the right. The flash had come from the darkened window behind the old woman, not from her shotgun. Ry drew and unloaded his revolver at the window. No more shots followed. Still upright, despite the dark stain spreading over the shoulder of his duster, Jesse had trained the Winchester on the old woman. “Drop it, hag.”
She held tight to the shotgun. “Wiley!” she called. “You all right?”
No answer. Broken glass glittered all over the porch. Ry had blown out the window. He’d also struck the bottle tree.
The woman began to shake. “You bastards. You murdered my grandson!”
“It ain’t murder if he shot first,” said Jesse. “Now you put down that gun so we don’t have to shoot you, too.”
Still shaking, she kept the shotgun pointed at Jesse. Ry, his revolver spent, held his breath.
She lowered her gun. Ry let go of his breath.
And then Jesse shot her.
“No!” Ry screamed as she jerked backwards, stumbling against the door of the cabin and sliding to the floor. He looked at Jesse. “She put the gun down. What’d you go and shoot her for?”
“Never trust a witch.”
Ry slid off his horse and went to check on her. A dark, wet stain grew across the front of her dress, and her breath came in ragged gasps. “She’s still alive!”
She still held the shotgun. Ry gently removed it from her grasp. “Hang in there, granny. It’ll be okay.” He didn’t know why he said it. Mostly to comfort himself, he guessed.
Jesse climbed down from his horse, wincing as he did. His spurs jingled as he climbed the porch steps and came to stand over Anna.
Kneeling next to her, Ry looked up at him. “What do we do, Jesse?”
Before he could answer, the old woman raised a clawed hand and extended her finger toward Jesse. “You think you’re out here doin’ justice,” she rasped, and then fell into a coughing fit, mixed with grunts of pain. When the spell passed, she went on. “But there’s other justice in these woods. And it’s gonna find you before morning does.”
Feeling helpless, Ry repeated his question. “What do we do?”
Jesse raised his rifle and pointed it at the woman. “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” He pulled the trigger. The back of Anna Harper’s head exploded all over her front door.
Ry knelt there, staring in shock, imagining his own granny in her place. He felt something wet soaking through his mask and sticking it to his cheek, and realized pieces of her had ended up on him.
“Go check Wiley,” Jesse told him. “Make sure he’s dead.”
Ry tore the mask off and climbed to his feet. “I thought we were just gonna bring ‘em in for the sheriff to handle.”
Jesse didn’t say anything. Ry looked up, and only then noticed the big man staggering as he made his way back to his horse. Blood covered the right side of his duster. He leaned against the horse, but made no attempt to climb up.
Dusting himself off, Ry went to the shattered window, not wanting to have to go around the old woman’s corpse to get through the front door. Sidling up beside it, he reached his mask out and dangled it in front of the window. When nothing happened, he stepped in front of it and peered in. He could make out Wiley, sprawled on the floor, a rifle laying beside him. His eyes were open, staring.
“He’s dead,” he called out. When Jesse didn’t answer, Ry turned and found him slumped to his knees. “Big Jesse?”
Going over to the big man, he pulled the mask off and found him sweating and grimacing in pain. Blood had soaked the entire shoulder and sleeve of his duster. Ry swore. “Better have a look at that,” he said, peeling the coat back as gently as he could, and then unbuttoning the shirt to do the same. The bullet had gone clean through his shoulder, but blood continued pumping out of the wound on both sides.
“I don’t feel so good,” Jesse muttered.
“You hold on. I’ll be right back.”
Ry didn’t want to go in the house. He wanted to hightail it out of there. But Jesse needed something to bandage up that wound. He’d already lost so much blood. Biting down on the apology that wanted to escape his lips, he grabbed Anna Harper by the ankles and dragged her body away from the door. Inside the cabin, by the faint light of a single kerosene lamp that had burned low, he stepped around Wiley, his boots crunching on broken glass, and made his way to a bedroom. He found a towel folded beside a wash basin. He grabbed it and hurried back the way he came. Outside, he used his hunting knife to cut it into strips.
It turned quiet. Eerily so. Ry didn’t realize the dog had been barking this whole time until it stopped.
He rolled up one of the strips and placed it over the entry wound. Moving Jesse’s hand to it, he said, “Hold this. Press it tight.” He did the same with the exit wound, then used the remaining strips to wrap the shoulder and hold the makeshift bandages in place. Once he was done, he pulled Jesse’s shirt and jacket back on. The big man was shivering, though the night wasn’t that chilly.
“Let’s get you on your horse.” He helped Jesse to his feet and guided his left foot into the stirrup. With a heave, Ry managed to get him onto the horse. Jesse swayed and for a minute Ry thought he’d faint and tumble back to the ground.
But Jesse steadied himself. “We have to burn it.”
Ry stared at Jesse, not sure what he was talking about. But then he followed his gaze to the cabin and understood. “Jesse, we got to get you home. You need a doctor.”
Jesse looked down at him, his eyes resolute even as his face blanched with pain. “Burn it down.”
Ry sighed. The big man was stubborner than a mule. They wouldn’t be going anywhere until the cabin was set alight. He dug in his pocket and found a box of matches with his tobacco, but he wasn’t sure they would do for starting a big enough fire.
He’d figure that part out next. First, he climbed back onto the porch and, voicing his apology to Anna this time, took her by the wrists and dragged her into the house. He lay her out next to her grandson, looking real peaceful beside him, and then remembered the lamp that still lit the room. He picked it up and, after saying a quick prayer over the pair, smashed it on the floor between them. The kerosene spread and soaked into their clothes. Ry lit a match and dropped it into the kerosene, which took light, the fire spreading faster than he would’ve thought. He headed for the door, but paused to set light to the window curtains for good measure.
Smoke followed him as he exited the front door and made his way back to Jesse. “It’s done,” he said, climbing onto his horse. “Now let’s get going. No need to stay and watch.”
Apparently satisfied, Jesse turned his horse around and headed back toward the trail. Ry heard the fire roaring to life behind them as he followed, but he didn’t look back. Though he kicked himself for forgetting to untie the hound when he heard it let out a mournful howl.
As they rode into the woods, he thought he heard another, more distant howl, and shuddered.
***
The cabin, or what was left of it, sat on a ridge, high above the main road that ran through the holler and led into town. The trail wound its way down the mountain, meandering around boulders and bluffs and the steepest grades. It was probably less than a mile to the road as the crow flies, but with all the twists and turns, the trail was closer to three or four miles long. The horses took their time so as not to lose their footing, and in spite of his condition, Jesse didn’t rush them. The trail had been cut for mules, not horses.
Ry followed, keeping a close eye on Jesse. The canopy overhead was so thick it made the moonlight sparse, and Ry cursed the lack of a lantern between them. They ducked under low-hanging branches and pushed their way through cedar boughs, weaving to avoid thick tangles of thorny vines. It was only when Big Jesse slowed to a stop that it occurred to Ry that those things shouldn’t be on the trail. With a start, he looked around and realized that the woods had swallowed them up.
“Big Jesse, are we lost?”
Jesse didn’t answer, but something else did. A bone-chilling shriek cut through the silence. At first, Ry thought it was a panther, but the shriek stretched out into an unearthly wail that turned Ry’s insides to water.
“Jesse!”
Big Jesse swayed and then tumbled from his horse, landing with a sickening thud. The horse danced and shimmied, clearly spooked. Ry’s own horse began to follow suit as he scrambled down from it. Only the moans coming from Jesse let him know the man was still alive.
The wailing stopped, plunging them into eerie silence. No crickets, no frogs, no night birds singing their songs. Even the wind fell still so that not a single leaf rustled.
Ry made his way over to Jesse and knelt beside him. “We gotta get you back on your horse. We can’t stay here.”
“Can’t,” Jesse said. “Gotta make camp.”
“Jesse, if we make camp, I don’t think you’re gonna make it to morning.”
“Got to,” he grunted, and then licked his lips. “Water.”
Ry jumped up and went to grab his cantine from where it hung from his saddle. He brought it back and knelt to support Jesse’s head while he trickled water over his lips. Jesse drank it eagerly. He was burning up. Ry had read in the paper about a lady out in California who spontaneously combusted. Thinking of that, as hot as Big Jesse felt, made Ry nervous about being this close to him.
They needed light so Ry could see Jesse’s wounds and change his bandages. Whether it was a good idea to stop for the night or not, he had to build a fire. He got up to retrieve their guns and saddle bags, but just then the shriek sounded again. It froze him in place, but had the opposite effect on the horses, who bolted, their whinnies high and fearful as they crashed through the woods.
Ry wanted to run after them, but he stood paralyzed. The shriek sounded less like an animal this time and more like the deranged wailing of a madwoman. He remembered tales his grannie had told him about where her folks had come from, about banshees and howling black dogs that appeared when someone was about to die. He looked back at Jesse, whose face was illumined by a patch of moonlight that found a way through the forest canopy. He grimaced with pain, and once the wailing died down, Ry could hear his labored breathing. He wasn’t dead.
Yet.
Sweat ran into Ry’s eyes despite the chill he felt. He raised a hand to wipe his brow, and only then realized he was trembling. He shook it off and went back to Jesse.
The patch of moon gave just enough light for Ry to see well enough to use his booted feet to scrape together a mound of dry leaves from the forest floor. He lit a match and ignited the pile. That let him see to gather up fallen twigs and broken cedar branches to use for kindling. He piled those on and then found larger limbs and a half-rotted log.
Once he was satisfied that the fire would last a while, he returned to Jess and did his best to make the big man comfortable where he lay. He took off his own jacket and rolled it up to serve as a pillow, and then took out his hunting knife to cut strips from Jesse’s shirt tail. These he used to replace the makeshift towel bandages, both of which were soaked through with blood.
When he’d finished, he stood up and looked around. He needed to relieve himself. It was a wonder he hadn’t pissed himself when he’d heard that thing’s wail. In all the busywork, he’d almost forgotten about it. But now he didn’t relish the thought of venturing too far from the fire, or of leaving Jesse alone.
He looked down at him. “At first light, I’ll head back up the hill and check the barn, see if they got a horse, or maybe a mule cart. Then we’ll get you home.”
He turned to go find a spot to attend to his business, but something grabbed his ankle. He looked back down to see Jesse’s hand holding onto him like a vice, his grip much stronger than Ry would’ve expected.
“Don’t you leave me,” Jesse rasped.
“I ain’t leavin’. I’m just goin’ right over there. You rest now.” With another look around for good measure he added, hopefully, “Whatever that was we heard, it prob’ly won’t come near the fire.”
Jesse’s hand relaxed and fell limp. Ry proceeded to find a spot between two cedars a respectable distance from Jesse and the fire. Turning his back on both, he unfastened his britches and then closed his eyes, letting out a long sigh of satisfaction along with a steaming stream of piss.
When he opened his eyes, he saw something in the woods, a little ways down the hill. A flash of something bright and red had flitted among the trees. As he watched, he saw it again -- a red light, growing and receding in brightness, weaving its way through the woods. He stood there, mesmerized, remembering his grannie’s warnings about will o’ the wisps and spook lights. For all that she’d ingrained it in him to never follow if he saw one, everything in him wanted to, his curiosity ready to lead him straight to hell if he gave into it.
And something in him must’ve. Before he knew it, he’d taken several steps into the woods before the light blinked out. He stood there, watching for it to appear again and trying to remember moving from his original spot.
From somewhere behind him came a growl, low and guttural. Ry went still. He didn’t move a hair. He daren’t even breathe. The growl rose in volume as it rose in pitch, becoming a shriek that froze Ry’s blood with its proximity as much as with its otherworldliness. Another scream joined it, that of a man, full of terror.
Ry wanted to bolt as the horses had done, running down the hill as fast as he could, away from the terrible sound. But he pulled his knife from its sheath on his belt and made himself turn. He made his way back toward the fire, and the screams seemed to stay ahead of him, growing more distant instead of closer. By the time he reached the fire, both fell silent, and Big Jesse was gone.
“Big Jesse!” Ry shouted. There was no reply. No sound at all to be heard, other than his own heavy breath and his own blood pounding in his ears. The man had been in no condition to run from an attack, or to get up and wander off on his own.
Ry pulled a half-ignited limb from the fire and brought it over to where Jesse had lain. It illuminated drag marks through leaves that glistened with blood. His curiosity pulling him along just as it had done after the spook light, he followed the trail until he found something else that glistened among the leaves. He found a forked branch, which he used to lift the ropey object for closer inspection. He brought it near his face and was struck with the putrid scent of offal, which made him drop both branches as he dropped to his knees and vomited into the leaves.
Entrails. Freshly gutted. But were they Jesse’s?
Before he could think past the question, that same low growl came from the darkness in front of him. Slowly, Ry lifted his head and saw not one red light, but two. Two fiery red lights floating in the darkness, like the eyes of a hell hound.
Ry didn’t think. He just up and ran. That blood-curdling shriek followed on his heels. He didn’t look back. Hands in front, pushing his way through low limbs and cutting his hands on brambles, praying not to trip over a rock or run off a cliff, he ran blindly while something galloped close behind, something that sounded as big as a horse. It shrieked and wailed and Ry’s own screams joined it, a cacophony of terror rending the silence of the night.
He stumbled into a clearing, startling a pair of deer who bolted as he came crashing out of the woods, their white tails flicking as they vanished into the darkness on the other side. He kept going, aiming to follow them, but just before he reached the shelter of the opposite tree line his foot caught on a rock, or maybe a root or a stump, it didn’t matter, and he went down hard, slamming his forehead against the thick root at the base of a large oak.
It didn’t knock him senseless. He wished it had, so he could be oblivious to whatever came next. The wailing had stopped, along with the galloping, but he heard something breathing behind him, with snorts and grunts that only a large animal could make.
His head fuzzy and his vision blurry, Ry rolled onto his back. Those hellish red eyes met his gaze, and in the moonlit clearing he could see what they belonged to. He wished he couldn’t.
It was as big and black as a bear, but it had the face of a wildcat amidst all that shaggy fur, its mouth curled back to reveal gleaming fangs that still dripped with what must’ve been Jesse’s blood. Something resembling buffalo horns protruded from its skull. It stalked toward Ry, who scrambled backwards, scooting up against the trunk of the tree until he could go no further.
The beast reached him and loomed over him, pinning him with those eyes. Eyes of fire that could see right through him. Eyes of judgment. Whether divine or infernal, Ry didn’t know and wasn’t sure it mattered.
He realized he was crying. Sobs racked his chest and without even thinking he cried out, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
A massive claw lifted and hovered above him. Ry closed his eyes and braced himself. But it settled on his chest, pressing him against the tree. Hot, fetid breath that smelled like offal blasted his face like an open furnace. He opened his eyes and found himself looking into those fiery chasms, and it was too much for him. He blacked out.
***
Ry awoke to birdsong. It pulled his consciousness to just beneath the surface of a deep pool of inky, dreamless black. The scents of earth and decaying leaves penetrated that surface and pulled him up the rest of the way. He opened his eyes and found himself lying in the middle of a clearing, surrounded by woods and morning mist saturated with the soft, golden glow of the early morning sun.
Movement caught his eye and something about it made him flinch. But as his eyes came into focus, he recognized a pair of deer grazing nearby, looking ghostly in the mist. The sight of them jogged his memory, and he sat up too quickly, his head swimming as the deer shot off and became swallowed up by the fog. At his movement, searing pain spread out from his chest. He touched a hand to the spot where it felt the most concentrated and sucked air through his teeth. Looking down, he saw that the front of his shirt had been shredded. Beneath it, angry red welts ran the length of his torso. There were four of them, already scabbing over with dried blood, spread across the width of him, wider than the span of his hand.
Ry shuddered, and he continued to shiver as he climbed unsteadily to his feet. The morning was cold, and he’d lost his jacket. His forehead throbbed as well, and when he felt it he found dried blood there, too. He stood there a long while, getting his bearings and deciding which way to go. And deciding not to think about last night.
Down would eventually take him to the road, and a long walk back to town unless he met someone who could give him a ride. Up would take him back to the ridge, where he might find a horse. There might be other animals in the barn, too. And the dog they’d left tied up there.
That settled it. He couldn’t leave them there to starve.
A lonely howl came out of the woods, and Ry resisted the urge to run. He didn’t think he was in any shape to. He stood rigid as something rustled the leaves and a dark shape made its way toward him through the mist. He relaxed as an old bloodhound came into view. The dog stopped at the sight of him and for a moment they both stood there, recognizing each other. “How the devil did you get loose?” Even after all the impossible things he’d seen, the hound’s appearance there mystified him. At last, he lowered himself to one knee and extended a hand. “Come on, now.”
The dog eyed him warily, but then its tail twitched, and it slowly made its way over to sniff Ry’s hand. “I’m sorry about your folks,” he said as the hound submitted to a scratch behind the ears. “Guess the least I could do is take care of you, if you want.”
He got to his feet and headed into the woods, climbing up more or less the way he came. The dog followed. After ten minutes or so, he came across the remains of a fire. A wisp of smoke still rose from the ashes. Ry looked around and found his jacket rolled up on the ground where he’d left it. Next to it was the start of the drag trail, Jesse’s blood now dark and dried, stark proof that Ry hadn’t just gotten conked on the head and had a bad dream.
He unfurled his jacket, shrugged into it and buttoned it up against the morning chill. He shoved his hands in his pockets and found something there. He pulled it out and unfolded the black mask that he had once seen as a symbol of justice and order. It stared back at him with blank eyes rimmed in white, and for a moment he saw instead eyes of fire, burning into his soul.
Ry picked up a stick and used it to stir the fire, awakening the dormant coals. They sparked to life and he fed them the mask. After a moment, it ignited. A minute later, it was reduced to ash. Ry kept staring, his mind far away and replaying nightmarish images from the night before, until he felt something wet nudge his hand. Blinking, he looked down to see the dog nosing him, and gave it a pat on the head.
“Come on if you’re comin’,” he told it, and started back up the hill.
Thanks for reading this entry in Mythmount Press’s Folklore Fiction project. Check out their publication for a list of stories from other participants.
I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Researching Ozark folklore and legends was its own special kind of fun. There was a lot to choose from and it took me a while to narrow it down, but two items in particular stood out to me and quickly began to come together in my imagination.
I think I knew from the beginning that my protagonist had to be a Bald Knobber. If you’ve ever been to Silver Dollar City and rode Fire in the Hole, then you’ve got at least a passing acquaintance with the Bald Knobbers. But for the rest of you, they were a vigilante group who were prominent in southwestern Missouri (around the Branson area) in the late 1800s. They were kown for hiding their faces beneath distinctive black, horned masks with white stitching. They began as a welcome solution to the lawlessness that pervaded the post-Civil War Ozarks, but as tends to happen, power corrupted them and by the end of their run they were seen as just another murderous outlaw gang to put down.
As far as Ozark cryptids, I had a few to choose from. There was, of course, the Skunk Ape, which is the Ozark name for Sasquatch. I very nearly decided on the Blue Man, a gigantic wild man who (possibly along with his gigantic offspring) has apparently been menacing trespassers in his territory since the 1860s, and I may still get a story out of him at some point.
But after some deliberation, I finally settled on the Ozark Howler, a mysterious and terrifying cryptid that has been reported all over the Ozarks, and also down in the Ouachitas and as far south as Texas. Descriptions range from bear-like to cat-like to wolf-like, but they tend to agree on the size, the shaggy black fur, and the devil horns. They also agree on the blood-curdling scream-howl from which the creature gets its name. In all these years that I’ve resided in the Ozarks, I’ve been blessed to not have encountered this creature, and I’ll be happy to keep it that way.
I wove some other bits of Ozark lore into the story. Bottle trees in front of houses are still a familiar site around these parts. I first learned of them during our wedding weekend in Eureka Springs back in 2006, when my newly minted husband and I bought some wine in a blue bottle and the shop clerk asked if we were going to hang it on our bottle tree. “Our what now?” was our uninformed response. I’ve learned a bit more about them since moving here. Most people keep them for decoration these days, but their true purpose is to capture ghosts and spirits before they can make their way into your house.
Anna Harper knew she was about to receive a no-good visitor because she dropped her dirty dishrag on the floor. This omen was lifted straight from Randolph Vance’s seminal work, Ozark Magic & Folklore (formerly Ozark Superstitions), in which he writes:
When a woman drops a dishrag she knows at once that some dirty individual is coming toward the cabin; if the cloth falls in a compact wad the visitor will be a woman, if it spreads out upon the floor a man is to be expected. It is bad luck to drop a dishrag anyhow, and many women take the cuss of by throwing a pinch of salt over the left shoulder immediately.
Of course, I had to get a nod in to the mysterious Ozark spook lights, which in this case turned out to be the hellish red eyes of the Howler stalking through the woods. For more fictional spook light goodness, check out these stories:
Devil's Promenade
On August 14th, 2012, 26 year old Suzanne Gibson and her roommate, 25 year old Debbie DiCandeloro, set out to investigate reports of mysterious lights reported to be seen along a stretch of road known as “The Devil’s Promenade,” located about ten miles northeast of Miami, Oklahoma, near the Missouri border.
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