About 10 miles south of The Herald’s three-story Victorian
office building in downtown Claiborne, there’s a place that the old-timers
called Kill Devil Hill. Odd thing is, most folks around here have never heard
of this mysterious landmark – and for good reason. Those who had first-hand
knowledge of this strange place either have died or have sense enough to keep
their mouths shut.
Those who have been to Kill Devil Hill know that it’s about
50 feet high and made mostly of large chunks of cyclopean iron rock. The hill
pokes up in the middle of a flat, wild tract of timber that’s been leased up
for years for hunting and logging. Some say the hill even looks like the famous
Devil’s Tower out in Wyoming, just not so big.
I’ve got my long-dead grandfather to thank for most of what
I know about Kill Devil Hill. He even took me there once, but only once. It was
a hot, snaky day in the summer after I finished the sixth grade.
He knew the spot well. It was less than two miles from his
house and not far from where he’d been born in the back of a wagon one stormy
night. His mother was in hard labor, and his father was driving the horses hard
to get her to the town doctor. They never made it to town and blamed the early
birth on being too close to that old, haunted hill.
On the summer day that my grandfather took me to Kill Devil
Hill, he drove his old pickup as close as we could get to the hill before we
had to stop and continue on foot. This was back in the days before game cameras, and since turkey season was over, we weren’t too worried about
being spotted by a hunter. My grandfather was a country church deacon and a
Mason, but I’ve often wondered what he would have said if someone questioned why
we were trespassing on private property.
I’d been in the woods with my grandfather many times, and I
knew he could move through the woods as quiet as an Indian. Keep in mind that he was well into his seventies and as white-headed as an open cotton
bur, but he could move through the thick undergrowth and over the uneven ground
like a probing Rebel skirmisher. He’d lived all of his life in this part of the
world, and his red heart beat with the frequency of all that was around him.
On this day, however, he seemed to be on edge, nervous, nigh
anxious. Several times, he stopped, head tilted as if listening. Once, I
started to question him about this, but he put out a hand to silence me. “Just
trying to get my bearings,” he said.
Our route eventually took us splashing across a shallow
branch and a short distance later, we emerged into a clearcut. Ahead, looming
like some type of out-of-place mesa was an upshoot of rock that I knew without
asking to be Kill Devil Hill. My grandfather didn’t say a word as we picked our
way towards the base of the hill.
When we arrived, he said something that I will never forget.
“Boy, I want you to take a good look around. You’ve seen this place with your
own eyes now, and you know what it looks like. Soak it all in because I don’t
want you to ever come back. This place is evil.”
Without another word, he turned and began climbing the dim
trail towards the top.
I followed.
(All rights reserved. This story is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or
locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.)
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