Hams Prairie resident Janet O'Neal and her family look forward to Halloween every year because they live next to the Hams Prairie Cemetery and on Country Road 409, better known to locals as Dark Hollow Road.
"We have so much traffic this time of year," Hams Prairie resident Janet O'Neal said. "This road almost never has traffic but you can always tell the week before Halloween, people are coming though. We have a lot of people that come to the cemetery trying to get themselves scared, and they usually do a pretty good job."'
She said she saw some people with flashlights walking through the cemetery Wednesday night and she expects to see people there all day on Halloween. O'Neal said she doesn't mind the visitors as long as they're respectful of the burial grounds.
"Every once in a while, you'll hear someone scream. Now my husband used to have a good time. When we knew quite a lot of the kids here, he might've walked over there a time or two with the dog to the back part of the cemetery and all he'd have to do was say "Hi!' They would literally pee themselves," O'Neal said, laughing. "But that's how much legend and folklore build up in their minds."
Although curious locals may stop to explore the cemetery that has tombstones dating back to the late 1700s, those seeking a supernatural experience will venture down the legendary Dark Hollow Road.
"Dark Hollow has been famous since I was a little girl," O'Neal said. "People talked about it. It was somewhere they went just to see if they were brave enough ... There have been people talking about tomb stones glowing at night; there have been lots of people that swear by the legends. I've had people tell me that their car died and it wouldn't restart. There were noises in the woods down there. There's old caverns and stuff like that."
Turning onto the gravel Dark Hollow Road and passing through the small town, the Hams Prairie Cemetery is on the right side. Heading further down the road passed a few residences on the outskirts of town, the sunlight slowly begins to fade as country homes and farms become distant in the rear-view mirror. A small downward hill marks the unofficial entrance to a spooky drive into nature, surrounded by overhangs and cliffs with no guard rails off to the side as the road narrows and sharply turns without knowing who - or what - may be lingering on the other side. A steep, narrow hill with an abrupt turn leads to the heart of the mystery of the road - a concrete bridge over a rather dry creek. There may be the occasional private drive hidden deeper in the forest, but out here, people expect the unexpected as they navigate their way through the ominous road.
"I know a lot of people love to frighten themselves," O'Neal said. "They say that the headlights go off on their cars when they cross the little bridge down there. There's even been people saying that they see handprints across their windshield on a foggy night."
Those who live on the road and travel it frequently say the name is befitting, as the road remains dark even in the middle of the day and its reclusive location between two steep hills.
"You get down there by the creek and it's just bluffs all up on the side, and I think that tends to help freak people out," O'Neal said.
The small-town resident has heard wild tales about past rumored activity near the bridge and the creek.
When locals see a vehicle they're not familiar with parked on the side of the road, they will stop and ask if the car is running okay because rumor has it that if a car is turned off on the bridge, it will not restart.
"People think there were sacrifices down there and I'm like, "By who or what?' And they don't know. Everybody carries these tales on and we just shake our heads and laugh honestly," O'Neal said.
Those weird, cryptic tales are based on locals' beliefs that a cult used live down there in tents in the early 1900s, but she doesn't know where that idea came from.
O'Neal believes the various accounts of supposed hauntings on the road don't stem from one specific legend. She wonders if there may be a connection with a story she heard about the state hospital and nuns several years ago, but she is unsure how it originated.
Despite all the haunted hype, O'Neal said she cannot substantiate any claim and remains skeptical about the ghosts and spirits, but she agrees that the road emits an eerie vibe, especially at night if travelers don't know the curves of the road.
"I have to say it (the road) is kind of freaky," O'Neal said. "You get a weird feeling about it, even in the daytime. We travel this road all the time and we have heard what we thought was a panther or a mountain line possibly, but as far as anything really spooky happening, I haven't seen it, and we're the type of family that takes walks in the cemetery after dark."
If there truly is an otherworldly force or paranormal activity spooking drivers on the road, O'Neal said she is "fine with it."
She added: "There's nothing that I haven't been able to explain. I think people are just scaring themselves ... There may have been something that happened down there years and years and years ago, but it amazes me the tales they have and I ask them where they got them from and they say their grandparents told them because their parents told them."
O'Neal said people often ask her how she can live next to a cemetery, especially one that's supposedly haunted.
"To be quite honest, I've lived here for 30 years next to the cemetery and they are the best neighbors ever!" O'Neal said while laughing. "They really are! They're quiet; they don't borrow anything. A lot of them in the older part of the cemetery actually used to live in this house and attended church next door."
She added that her daughters used to have tea parties in the cemetery when they were younger and they had imaginary friends.
"At least I'm hoping they were imaginary," she said, laughing. "We live next to a cemetery, so if we don't see something every once in a while, you begin to wonder."
When the O'Neal family moved into their house, there was an old rocking chair left behind from the previous owners that they started calling "Mable.'
"She used to rock on her own now and then and we don't know why - she just did," O'Neal laughed. "Every once in a while we would assume we were having earth tremors or if someone was rocking, they were peaceful about it, and left us alone, so we were good with it. We always say, "The more the merrier.'"
O'Neal donated the chair to the Kingdom of Callaway Historical Society, as the date on the bottom was from the 1740s.
Despite living out in the country next to a cemetery along a creepy road, O'Neal said that doesn't scare any trick-or-treaters.
"That's why I always say that we love all of our neighbors, both "passed' and present," O'Neal said.