Ghosts of Holy Hill
by Scott Hughes, August 18, 2017
When the winds began blowing cooler and the leaves changed color, jackets and flannels were once again donned and thoughts of Halloween and especially ghosts, began to form in our minds. We’d sit in class discussing previous trips to Holy Hill in search of the monster that was rumored to live in the woods on the grounds of the church. I am sure each tale was embellished just a touch for dramatic effect and scariness…but no real monster had ever been seen. In fact, no one ever had a real clear idea of what we were looking for…other than it was said to have red glowing eyes. I guess we just figured we’d know it when we saw it…AND THEN WE’D RUN!
Most of our trips out there ended with us just wandering around the roads and paths until security came along and found us and sent us on our way. They seemed to do this a lot. I feel sorry for the poor guy who had to shoo us away weekend after weekend! No one really believed we’d find anything, we all just thought it was fun scaring ourselves silly out in the woods, and it was…until that last time. Now, I’m not saying I know what it is that we saw that night…but we saw something.
Wait a minute, just let me start at the beginning:
Earlier that day in school during 7th hour we were discussing what to do that night when the idea of looking for the Holy Hill Monster came up. Most of us had done this many times before, but two members of the group that day had never gone and were really excited at the idea. with a little coaxing from them it was monster hunting we would go! We spent the rest of that class regaling the two newbies with stories of past trips and close calls we’d had. Just trying to put a bit of a scare into them!
We met as per our plan and we headed out to Holy Hill with the music and our spirits as high as we were. The winding country roads twist and turn and there are no streetlights, so we were being guided solely by our own lights until suddenly everything had a ghostly glow making it hard to see…an odd ground fog had suddenly developed. With all the low areas it’s not surprising to find fog out there, but no one had seemed to notice it coming in. One minute the road was clear…the next we were driving in a fog bank. This pushed the “creepiness” meter up a notch for sure!
The car was parked on a deserted side road, out of sight so as not to arouse the suspicions of any passing cop. As we piled out of the car and looked around…the scene before us was straight out of a horror movie! A long deserted road flanked by tall skeletal trees that looked very menacing in the dim light. Unlike most of our expeditions to Holy Hill this one had a different feel to it. Less fun…more creepy. Even the sound of our voices was odd, almost flat with no echoes. We began our march into the wilds surrounding Holy Hill as a light drizzle began, but once we were under the trees the rain wasn’t a problem. Just a big fat drop every now and again.
As we hiked in on the path we started hearing noises in the underbrush. They seemed to always be just off to the side of us, almost as if it were pacing alongside us as we hiked in. Several times we stopped and threw rocks into the bushes hoping to scare something into moving and revealing itself to us. But each time we tossed a rock, the forest just went silent…deadly silent.
Once we started moving forward we’d hear the sound again, but this time in front of us or off to the other side! Our imaginations were in full overdrive…turning every noise into a red eyed monster waiting to attack! When the rabbit we’d been scaring through the brush finally appeared every one of us nearly pooped ourselves. All this crashing…and a little rabbit rolls out of the bushes and bounds across the path.
Suddenly the tension was broken and we all laughed until tears came to our eyes. Much relieved we decided to call it a night and headed back to the car. Mysteriously, the fog was now gone and the moon shown down on a clear fall evening for our ride back home to our normal everyday lives where things like ghosts just didn’t exist.