A Visit to Edom Hollow

By Joe Doyle-Gibson

The following is an excerpt from Journey Through The South by the acclaimed travel writer, Angus Peabody, originally published Dec. 24th, 1966 . This was the last work published by the author before he was admitted to the Centre for Inner Peace and Realignment, under the care of Edward Keene, Doctor of Abnormal Psychology.

I met my driver, a local gentleman by the name of Abernathy—tall, rail-thin, wearing a blue checked shirt and a gray driver’s cap—outside of the hotel with the intention of exploring the battlefields south of the capital. We were to start with Shiloh, the site of the famous battle of Pittsburg Landing.
I asked Mr. Abernathy to avoid the busier, newer roads that cut straight lines through this decidedly un-straight landscape. “While highways and freeways cut down on travel time,” I told Mr. Abernathy, “they also cut down on beauty and adventure.” He nodded his head in agreement.

“Lots of these sleepy little places don’t see much traffic, but Lord—” Mr. Abernathy chuckled before continuing “—they are friendly folk.”

I asked if we could travel along the Tennessee River on the way to our destination. Mr. Abernathy stated that some of the roads follow the river, but the best route would be to head south first, then cut across the state westward until we hit the river. “It’s much more beautiful,” he assured me.

The roads were narrow and winding. Around each bend, we’d find pockets of civilization surrounded by dense wilderness. A farm would pop up, nestled between two hills, like some green oasis, then a few houses would follow, a church or two, then the woods would swallow us up again. We drove through towns with names like Spring Hill, Mt. Pleasant, Summertown, and other cheerily named hamlets that evoked a sunny, simpler, more peaceful pre-Civil War existence of cabin-families and hill-people joyfully plucking on strings. The homesteads we passed were mostly well kept,save for some peeling paint and a few curling shingles on the roofs. From the descriptions I’d heard back in New York, I half expected to see front yard pigsties, mud splashed over the front door, and shoeless children hanging out of unglassed porch windows. Instead, the houses looked almost empty—like some child’s toy, placed, as the French would say, “au hasard.”. Many of these were one-storied houses, A-framed, with wood siding and a simple design. However, about a quarter of the houses we passed were much grander, with columned verandas and stately banks of windows that seemed to recall some of the plantation houses closer to Virginia. My mind wandered into these homes, my imagination filled them with life, with characters of forgotten names and from some forgotten year.

As we continued westward toward the river, the rolling hills gave way to a flatter, though even more densely forested landscape, composed mostly of oak, pine, and hickory. The oak and hickory had already taken on the first tinge of their annual autumnal colors. Had I come two or three weeks later, I’d have been in a sea of orange, yellow, and red. As it was, the area had more of a lemon-lime hue that spoke more of drought than the oncoming winter. The road itself was nothing more than dirt and some crushed rock.

I should also note that when we left our hotel, the sun was out and shining and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but as we got closer to the river, the clouds rolled in. Then the rain started to fall. Pretty soon we were being bombarded by a steady sheet of falling water mixed with hail that seemed to follow us wherever we went.

Though this inclement weather was somewhat exciting at first, it did not offer much in terms of views. I asked Mr. Abernathy if there were any towns nearby where we could stop and find some shelter, perhaps a hot cup of coffee and a piece of bread to gnaw on before we got to the river.

“No, sir,” he said quite matter-of-factly.

I soon found this quite odd, as it wasn’t more than 4 minutes later when we drove past a turn-off with a sign pointing toward a small settlement called Edom Hollow.

“What about there?” I asked. “That sign said—”

“No,” said Mr. Abernathy. There was no joy in his voice anymore. His friendly way of speak-laughing had vanished.

“Well, why not?”

He took a moment to answer. “Sir will make fun.”

I promised him I wouldn’t.

“Well, it sounds funny to say it out loud, but people in these parts don’t go there.”

“Why?” I asked, curiously impatient to get to the bottom of it.

“Well…” Mr. Abernathy shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “They say it’s cursed.”

“Cursed?” I kept my promise and did not allow a smile to cross my face. “What do you mean?” I asked him, trying to sound as genuinely serious as possible. You see, in my travels, I have heard of many supposedly cursed or haunted places, and while many people would dismiss such claims completely, I have learned that it is worth pursuing them, if only to uncover some unrecorded local legend. I am, after all, a storyteller.

“Bad things happened there long ago.”

“Long ago? When would that be?”

“Civil War time.”

“A battle?” I asked, thinking that wasn’t so unique.

Abernathy shook his head as if I still wasn’t getting it. “Lots of bad things happened then. Lots of death, it’s true. But these were different kinds of deeds. Very sad, very dark. Most people avoid it. I’d say it’s wise for us to avoid it all too.”

Surely he meant some kind of massacre. Some murderous band of marauders slaughtering women and children, perhaps? Stories like these come up more often than one would otherwise suspect.

“Mhm… Massacre is one way to put a name to it.” He cleared his throat as if to speak of such things caused him some kind of physical distress. I was completely perplexed. Abernathy continued. “Story is that a group of crazed or sick men came through one night. Killed everyone in sight. But it goes that those men weren’t all right, so to speak. They weren’t normal sick. It was something else. Fact, they may not have been men at all. Black as the night, they were supposed to be. Not like the negroes, but black like brimstone. Black like the devil’s beard.”

I asked him what he meant by that. Abernathy shook his head.

“Don’t know myself. But I heard that it was days, if not weeks later, when a messenger from a nearby town discovered all the dead. But a lot of the bodies were missing by then. People who should have been there. Some think the animals dragged them off—which is probably the case. But some say the dead weren’t so dead after all. They say that they done got up and left. Anyway, the other townsfolk came and buried the dead—what remained of them—and cleaned things up. Some people even decided to hole up in some of the houses left behind. But then they started to hear strange things. Sounds coming from under the ground. When they dug up one of the bodies to see what was happening, they found them rosy-cheeked, mouths filled with blood.”

I allowed Abernathy to finish his story, but the details he was presenting were not unfamiliar to me. They were the kind of folk tales I’d heard in my travels overseas, particularly in the rural places outside of Bucharest.

“Now you can laugh all you want,” said Abernathy. “I know you continental folk don’t put much stock into such things, but I tell you I’ve seen the damn shadows with my own eyes. Follow you, they will. Don’t care to know what’d happen if they caught up with you. No, sir.”

I expected this kind of superstitious attitude in Europe, but in Tennessee? “You really must be joking,” I said, thinking maybe he was pulling my leg after all, trying to see if I’d put his little story in my book.

“No joking, sir. I told you not to laugh.” He shot me a disdainful look.

“You did, didn’t you…Well,” I said, buttoning up my coat, feeling rather unafraid of vampires, or whatever cursed creature supposedly stalked the pine forests of western Tennessee. “I’d like to check it out for myself. You wouldn’t mind, would you? Just stay here until I return.”

His face was a pale, ashen gray. His mouth hung open a moment before he spoke. “I’d advise you not to go, sir.”

“I appreciate that, Mr. Abernathy. Should anything happen to me, I’ll be sure to admit you told me so. Now if you wouldn’t mind, I’ll only be a half-hour at most.”

He shook his head and grumbled something under his breath, then he pulled over to the shoulder before the fork in the road.

The rain had eased up.

I started down the gravel road and had only traveled about 20 feet when there came a great rumble from the sky. I thought about asking Abernathy for an umbrella, but when I turned around, he had already started the car. I went to call for him to wait, but he drove away. I couldn’t believe it. Before the car sped out of view, I caught a quick look at the man’s face. He looked terrified.

I ran after him a ways, calling his name, but it was useless. I could only hope he would be back. Maybe he’s just doing a short loop around the block to pass the time, I reasoned with myself, feeling now just a little bit unnerved.

In fact, I was actually quite upset, and realizing I was miles from nowhere, I decided to walk toward the “cursed” town. Based on the fact that the path was still somewhat maintained, I thought it likely that there were still at least a few old-timers living nearby who looked after the area. If I was lucky, they’d even have a phone.

So, I traveled down the road.

The clouds were passing swiftly. Hues of dark purple seemed to glow between the heavy dark centers of the great nimbus stream. The trees swayed silently. There wasn’t a single bird in the sky.

Then I heard a howl off in the distance. A wolf, perhaps? It howled again. This time closer. Were there wolves in Tennessee? I couldn’t remember ever hearing about them. Bears and foxes surely, but wolves?

Some ways down the road, I came upon a small cemetery. It looked like an old family plot. But upon closer inspection, I realized these were no simple peasant graves. These were impressive stone tombs made smooth by years of weathering. I could make out just the faintest remnants of carved reliefs surrounding the epitaphs, which themselves were obscured by patches of moss and dirt. If I had to guess, I’d say the cemetery predated the civil war, and looked like it hadn’t been touched by living hands since sometime shortly after that.

There was a flash of lightning, and in the brief illumination I could have sworn I saw the shadow cast by some tall woman against the trunks of the nearby trees.

A widow perhaps, mourning some recently lost husband?

However, when my eyes adjusted again to the dark, I saw no one. I called out just to be sure. I searched the cemetery for her, hoping maybe she had a residence nearby. As I raced past the tombstones, something caught my eye. In one of the few covered areas of the cemetery near the back, there stood a stone wall with the following phrase inscribed: “But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.” Biblical no doubt, but so obscure, I couldn’t understand its purpose in a cemetery.

As I pondered this, the wolf howled again. Then a shadow passed by.

Gentle reader, know that yours truly is as brave as they come. But brave though I may be, I am not an idiot. It occurred to me that there were stories (related to me by my editor prior to my leaving New York) about hill-people abducting solo travelers and robbing them blind or, even worse, beating them to a pulp and leaving them naked in the forest. With these thoughts suddenly at the forefront of my mind, I decided I had seen enough, and started immediately (with haste) back to the main road. I could only hope there would be a vehicle passing by toward Savannah. If they were decent folk, I could wave them down and explain my predicament. Or perhaps Mr. Abernathy would have come to his senses by now. Maybe he’d already driven back to the fork and was currently waiting for me to get my fill of such a place. Either way, it was clear I’d find little else in this wretched place called Edom Hollow. The rain had started again, and I could feel the cold water seep through the seams of my jacket. I’d surely catch my death if I stayed out any longer than necessary.

I walked at a good clip, and after five or so minutes, figured I should have already come to the fork. However, when I looked around, the trees seemed different. I was surrounded by great oak trees, whereas the forest around the fork had been mostly pine. Though not as dense as the forests created by the pine, the oak trees were bare and sprawling like the bones of twisted giants and produced a sudden feeling of claustrophobia in me. It was surely my imagination (and I feel quite fanciful writing about it now), but it felt as though they were closing in on me.

There was a howl again.

My frustration reached a boiling point, as I was sure I’d walked more than far enough to reach the road. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say I’d taken a wrong turn. But that was impossible. It was a single road in and a single road out.

The path started up a rather steep pitch. The rain started to fall harder and the trail quickly turned to mud. I lost my footing and slipped onto my hands and knees and slid a few feet down the hill.

Then I heard what sounded like a trot. I looked up and caught sight of a pair of white hind legs dashing behind a tree. A moment later, there came a growl to my right. I dared not turn my head to look, fearing any such movement would only cause the beast to spring out and attack. As the wolf approached me, I could smell its hot, sour, almost metallic breath. I could feel its warmth on the back of my neck. As I lay there, still as the grave, I thought for sure that this would be my end—torn to pieces on some foolish trip in the middle of the world’s richest and, arguably, most advanced country. It was almost laughable. In a brief moment of absurdity, I thought, Couldn’t I have gone in some exotic tiger attack outside of Delhi? Or maybe killed by pirates while reporting from the South Seas? Or perhaps I could have frozen to death climbing Mt. Everest…

But this was all for naught. There came the sound of whistling and then a man’s voice. He yelled out, “Hee-yaw! Hee-yaw! Git!” It was a great, booming voice.

The wolf perked up, yelped once, as if in response to the man, then slowly retreated into the dark woods. I glanced to make sure it was far enough away for me to make a move, then I pulled myself to my feet and ran.

The man was standing at the top of the hill. He was a big bear of a man with dark, unkempt hair, and a small, black goatee.

“Thank you,” I said, offering my hand. “You may have just saved my life.”

“Think nothing of it,” he said. There was a small glint of light in his eyes—they were pale as ice. He cleared his throat and stared at me as if he were sizing me up. For a moment I felt a sharp sense of terror come over me. I wondered if this mysterious man was, as my editor had warned, there to rob me blind—or worse. For a moment, I wondered if I was better off with the wolf. But then his expression softened. A smile crept across his face. “Lost, I take it.” He laughed. “What’s a fellow like you doing out in these woods all alone, anyway?”

I explained the rather ridiculous-sounding events leading up to his rescuing me, stressing my confusion at the notion of being lost in such a way, even though I was sure that the path had not deviated or branched off at any point.

He smiled at this and said, “They don’t call them the witchy woods for nothing. You’re not from around here, are you?”

My continental accent was a dead giveaway. “I’m a writer,” I explained.

A shadow passed over his face, as if this news rather displeased him.

“Writing about Edom Hollow?”

“Not exactly. I’m a travel writer. This was just a detour on the way to Savannah.”

“Tourists… Well, seeing some fresh faces around here wouldn’t be the worst thing. Been kind of quiet these days.”

“Judging by my reception in town, I’d say most people like it that way. Are you from here?”

He seemed to be thinking about something else for a moment, then he turned to me. “Hm? Oh, not really. Was at one time. My family was, at least. But I’m just visiting.”

“I see. What are you doing out in a storm?”

He ignored my question. Again, he looked off into the distance as if something else had caught his attention.

“Let me show you to the road,” he said at last.

The path back was as straight as I remembered. Once again we were surrounded by pine trees. I scratched my head and wondered how I could have felt so lost only minutes before.

When we got to the road, the man helped me flag down a transport truck. The driver rolled down his window and agreed to take me to the next town.

I turned to the man on the road. In the light of the street I could make out his features in greater detail. His face was as pocked and pale as the moon. There was a rusty smear on his chin. I glanced away, trying not to draw attention to it. “I must thank you,” I said. “I don’t know what I would have—”

“Think nothing of it,” he said.

Before opening the door, I realized I hadn’t even asked his name.

“CJ Brown,” he said. “Pleased to meet you.”

Then he smiled. A single fang appeared in the pink of his gums.

I shrieked in terror and opened the truck door.

The truck driver’s eyes were wide, his pupils impossibly big and black. He, too, had a single fang poking out from his mustached lip. My eyes went to the floor of the tuck—a young woman. Her long blonde hair was soaking wet. It fanned out around her head, obscuring her face. She looked like she was having some kind of fit, moaning and writhing as if in some incredible pain—or else in the deepest throes of pleasure.

“It feels so groovy, man,” she said. She extended her arms and tried to pull me in, then collapsed in the process. In the crook of her right arm, I could see a black indent—a puncture wound. The smallest trickle of blood rolled off her elbow.

The truck driver kicked her in the ribs. She laughed uncontrollably.

“I think this one had some shit in her system, CJ,” said the truck driver. “I’m feeling really weird.”

“Freaks,” I exclaimed. “Junkies!”

I felt a hand on my shoulder. “Get in the truck,” said the gravelly voice of my recent savior. “The party’s just starting.”

I moved to run. Mr. CJ Brown blocked my escape. Then the truck driver threw himself from the cab of the truck. He was a hog of a man, all round and soft, his face covered in a short white beard. He came down hard on top of me. I remember the roughness of his face more than I remember the feeling of the fang puncturing my arm.

“Let go!” I shouted. But my words sounded distant. I repeated them again and again, and they sounded further and further away.

Mr. Brown and the young woman laughed hysterically.

The world felt far away. Around the edges of my vision, a rainbow appeared, shimmering and waving in rhythm with the beating of my heart. The last thing I remember seeing were their laughing faces, grotesque, spiny-toothed, laughing, like figures in a dream.

I woke up three days later in a hospital in Savannah.

Apparently, an old couple had found me on the side of the road some two miles from the turn off to Edom Hollow.

The blood loss was significant (so said the doctors), though there wasn’t even a single drop found on my clothes or body. My only injury: a tiny hole in my arm. The blood test revealed that I had a large dose of LSD in my bloodstream as well. I was released a few days later—the entire incident written off as a bad drug trip. But anyone who knows me knows I have never willfully consumed a drug more powerful than aspirin, and I reserve any intoxicant to the occasional mint julep at the Country Downs in Kentucky

I have tried my damnedest to find M.r Abernathy. His understanding of the inexplicable was my only hope for vindication. To my dismay, the agency that had dispatched him claimed ignorance of his whereabouts, and his trail vanished into obscurity. Was it all in my head? Did Abernathy himself drug me?

The only record of a CJ Brown I can find is of some old music producer from a place north of the Cumberland called Pleasant Shade. It must be a coincidence.

My editor has told me to leave this part of my travels out of the final draft of this book. But, gentle readers, I feel I would be remiss to not mention such a thing, should you ever find yourself lost on a stormy day in western Tennessee.