Woodson Myths. Legends and Stories

"The Rash" - Brian Wolters

We were recording NecroWoodson XII: The Return To Woodson and we found an old, abandoned barn on Case Road near Pennington Road. Martin and Sean took the talking device (see Woodson Dictionary) in with them and they proceeded to investigate it. The barn looked like it no one had been in it for years. Sean discovered a box full of jars and decided to take it with him. We left the barn after no finding anything paranormal. We went to the acoustic foundation to look at the box of jars. One jar said colts foot / lobelia and Sean freaked and threw it against the foundation and we left. A few days later, Brian developed a mysterious and rather intense rash all over his body. He had it for a few weeks and the doctors couldn't tell how or why he got it. The box of "witches brew" could be the culprit.

 

"Mary Smith" - Reported by Robbie Moreland-Adams

One such legend that has endured to become "gospel" for many residents of Central Arkansas involves a woman hitchhiker. The drama unfolds on Woodson Lateral Road, a rural stretch near the small Pulaski Country community of Woodson. As the story goes, two students from a local university are returning home from spring break. Just past 6 p.m. on a dark, foggy Wednesday, they drive south on U.S. 65-167. As they drive through a heavy rain and fog, they see a beautiful woman in a white dress standing on the roadside, holding a newspaper over her head with one hand and signaling for a ride with the other. They stop the car, she approaches, jumps in the back seat and thanks them for stopping. As they talk, she tells them her name, Mary Smith, and where she lives. Concerned that she is cold, one of the men hands her his jacket as they continue toward her street. She tells them to stop at the next corner with a stop light, she gets out near a large house and thanks them again. They drive away and, as they approach the highway, realize they've left without the jacket and return to the home. They knock on the door, an elderly woman answers and they explain to her they've given Mary a ride and returned for the jacket. Disturbed, the woman explains that her daughter, Mary, was killed in a car accident. As they express disbelief, she gives them the date of Mary's death and the name of the cemetery where she is buried. They are still skeptical, but return to the car, where they find the newspaper on the backseat. After discovering that the date on the paper is the same date as Mary's death, they go to the gravesite. There, neatly folded on the grave is the young man's jacket.

"The Owl"

Woodson's Lateral in Little Rock, Arkansas is a truly spooky road.The road is established along a baseline and is perfectly straight and very long. Trees hang low from both sides, obscuring the sky. Many of the trees are marked with crosses, especially near the cemetery, as nearby residents attempt to drive away the nightly inhabitants of the lateral. One apparition I have witnessed is a large owl that sits in the center of the road.  As your vehicle approaches, the owl leaps at your windshield, then fades into nothingness.

"Another Story"

The night was April 11, 1998, a little past 11:50 PM. Slowly moving down the winding streets we neared our destination, a long, old highway rarely used and the occupants known for not having much in life. Not exactly the place 5 females needed to be at midnight. Rounding the last corner of Arch Street, Heather turned on her Brights. Illuminated against a backdrop of dense forest and ivy trails stood the shiny new sign, the previous probably 'borrowed' by a group of devious teenagers, reading Woodson Lateral. The normal bout of urban legends resided on the lonely stretch: vanishing hitchhiker, children on the tracks, floating rail lantern and following motorcycle light. Yes, who can forget these lovelies. Most of us had never heard the legends much less set foot on the road. I though, by accident, found that my mother owned land on the road and I had walked it as a child. First I should note who we are. Heather, the driver, had graduated the previous year and was a long time aquatint of mine; Sarah was the link between me and Heather, she was a classmate and a close friend at the time; her little sister, Sam; their mother Ms. Patty who was more child at heart; and I, Stormy, a person very interested in the idea of seeing some different ghosts. After a day of fun and sports we had come to see some spooks. Thinking we would just scare ourselves we were in light spirits as Heather told us the stories and legends. I, sitting in the back corner, knew some stories my mom had told me of her experiences on the road. I knew this was going to be a damn good night. The road was normal at first but the darkness, coupled with our goosebumps, got the best of us. Awing as we got closer to the other side of the road Heather heightened our fears by telling us we would have to turn off the car. This idea scared us beyond belief. Turn off that engine that some how protected us from that nasty beings? No chance! Suddenly our protests were cut short as we entered a tunnel of greenery. This was something only seen in movies, it wasn't real. The even blacker darkness engulfed the car; we came upon the place we would stop. In order we honked 3 times and flashed our lights 3 times. Nothing. We continued forward to a spot where it seemed the trees was alive, we did the sequence leaving the lights off. Behind us appeared a single light, thinking it was a car about to hit us we turned on the lights and started down the road. This light came closer at a high speed, when we came around a bend you could see it following us through the trees, it was gaining. Screaming buzzed in my ear as a car came towards us on the other side, the light was gone. Not letting the moment pass heather turned around, in a cemetery, and raced back. Again we performed the horn and lights code. Behind us was the light too. Heather was going to sit and let it pass through the car, Patty would not hear of that! She shoved her foot down on the pedal and the cramped mustang screeched forward. Close behind was the light until another car came towards us and it vanished. Not having the nerve to go back we continued onward. Before us was a set of train tracks, deserted of life. We attempted to honk but nothing. Maybe it was over, there would be no more scares, the light was enough. To the bridge we went. A new concrete one had replaced the old, old bridge. Off to the right set the rusted Iron Bridge. Like a dark shadow, invisible to our eyes because of the trees that had grown around it, it glared at us. Soon it would frolic in our fear and hysterical screams. Soon the fun would start. We had gone up and down the road once, on our trip back the last time we stopped at out spot in the trees and honked. Before our eyes appeared a single red light for about 5 seconds then disappeared. Sarah thought that maybe it had been a light on a tower but after 15 minutes the light never showed up again. Confused and pumped we turned back to the bridge. As we were crossing the train tracks towards the bridge I began getting up set and started to complain. "I don't….OH MY GAWD!" A large blue bright light seemed to come down the tracks towards us and was practically against the car, me and Patty saw it. I would describe it as a UFO of some sort. Heather turned around about 10 feet from the tracks, she thought a train was coming and yet there was nothing. When we crossed back there was nothing on the tracks at all. In the far far distance was a small blue dot but no train. We were stunned by what had happened there so we drove on thinking about the light and I tried to describe it to the others. After all the talk we ended up about to cross the tracks from the bridge when heather started to say nothing has happened except the lights when out of no where a pure white dog, wolf looking, came straight Heather's door. All she managed to stutter out was 'w-w-w-wolf!' The dog never barked or made any noise but it ran faster than anything. Heather floored it and we were screaming as we came around a corner; everyone took a deep breath and there, before us, was a woman in a gray silk looking skirt to her calf, a brown fur coat and a round white/gray hat that looked like it had a decorative knot off center. She looked straight at us and our headlights in here face but she didn't have a face. It looked as if an eraser had rubbed it all off. Once again we screamed bloody murder and drove from Woodson to a gas station on Arch Street. I was too scared to get out of the car because I thought some how she might have hung onto us. Inside we spoke of the things that happened while we drank a coke. To ease our nerves we joked around and I told how I thought of the bum in creep show that said 'thanks for the ride lady.' That set me up for nightmares for the next month. When our hearts had stopped beating spastically we agreed we were going back. At the beginning of the road I got Heather's tape recorder and turned it on. We took turns telling about what had happened so far. When we went to the bridge and all and nothing happened. On the way to the beginning of the road a car came up behind us, it looked like a truck, going very very fast as we were speeding. Heather slowed down to allow the car to pass, she slowed to 20 mph and still the car wouldn't pass us. Finally after forever it started around us, as far as I could tell it was a hunter green Camaro. We stopped completely and watched the car go in front of us; it braked 3 times then went about a foot braked again and then poof. Sam thought maybe they turned off their lights waiting for us to come by, so we went forward slowly. There was no car in sight, no turn off it could have taken, the car vanished. It was late and this was too much so we went home. When we came in me and Sarah checked every room to make sure we were safe. After we all had gotten settle down and relaxed Heather started playing the tape. What I heard scares me more than what we saw that night. As we were crossing the railroad tracks a far away screaming could be heard…that sent chills down my spine and I held my breath. Still playing, the tape told of us coming onto the bridge and a scream of pain filled the room. It was so loud on the tape that our voices could barely be heard. I turned white and got dizzy. Again and again we played this trying to make sure it wasn't one of us, it couldn't have been since we were carrying on a conversation. Later on the tape a loud noise could be heard, still no one even noticed. Also when the car passed us a loud swoosh sound was recorded. I know for certain that none of us heard this and it couldn't have been air since the windows were up. All the other cars that had passed made no noise at all. This night was the beginning of the screams and is forever etched in my memory.

"Susan Johnson" (Storyteller Unknown)

You are supposed to stop on the bridge and call out for Susan Johnson (at least that's what a ouija bord said her name was and a movie we found at the library after that said her first name was susan) and she'll appear. well we were making fun of her and we saw the no face lady and i think that was her. she was dressed in old fashion rich clothes. in screaming i forgot to turn around and see if she was still there.

"A First Visit" (by Stormy)

I'd never been there before that so i didn't know where it was. On the way heather told us stories about the road. 'There was this man on a motorcycle late one night. He was on his way home down highway 65 (woodson) late one night. He saw a semi coming down the road towards him but he thought nothing of it. Unfortunately the trucker had fallen asleep and his rig ran over the motorcyclist w/o him ever knowing. Story is if you go to the exact spot the accident occurred; honk 3 times and turn the lights on and off 3 times, leaving them off, a light will appear and go through your car.' By the time we heard the story we were close to lost, so we got off the exit and turned down this long, long road. We thought we were totally lost so we turned around. By complete luck we found the road, as we looked down the road it was like a tunnel we were driving into. We stopped and tried the honk thing, didn't work...we drove a little ways and tried again, still nothing. So we continued down the road. On the way heather told us another story about the ridge on woodson. 'Once there was this young, rich girl who fell in love with a poor boy. They were in love but her father objected to them seeing each other, he said he'd rather see her dead than with the boy. During a party her and the boy ran off to be married, as they were crossing the bridge somehow he lost control and the car went off the side. If you go to the bridge at night a girl will be standing there asking you to take her to 8802 Cavenaugh. When you go to help her out or to the door she disappears.'

The Lady - (by Big Latex Ernie)

Once i knew a country girl that lived in Woodson.  She was the kind of person that the city didn't leave much of a mark on.  She was happiest roaming in the woods, taking home orphaned baby deer to raise, planting her garden and harvesting the bounty of it.  Occasionally she would go into town to go to the grocery store or to the Salvation Army to get a new dress, but most of the time the woods provided her most of what she needed.  Indeed it was hard for me to see her get so excited over running over a rabbit on the road, stopping to pick up the still warm carcass, and exclaiming, "Rabbit stew for dinner tonight!".   The scary thing was that she was serious.  I never ate dinner at her house...

But she was also young and full of life, with an appetite for sex.  One night, she decided she was going to go "out on the town".  She got all dressed up in some lingerie she had stolen from a friend, put her most revealing Salvation Army red dress on, got in her pickup truck, and started to drive thru the woods to get to the freeway.

It was a full moon, and she knew her way thru the woods perfectly.  She had made this same trip before, and her headlights were illuminating the dirt road.  Suddenly in front of her, she saw a small figure of a woman laying on the rutted tracks.  She jammed on the brakes and jumped out.  She ran over to the woman and reached out to her, but she couldn't make herself touch her.  She said there was a coldness around the woman as if she had been in a freezer..

What happened next only God knows for sure.  She said that she felt a large presence behind her, and heard footsteps.  Something cold grabbed her and lifted her up.  Even though the moon was full, it's light was blocked by something, and she couldn't see clearly.  She had the impression of trees passing her, as if she was being carried thru the woods.  She saw the rough boards and heard the squeaking of old stairs, and then she was flung thru the air to land against the wall of what she thought was an old, abandoned shack.  There was a window, the glass long since broken out, thru which the moon showed her several large shadows of perhaps 4 different beings.  They approached her, and tore off her red dress.  One by one they attacked her, and while she never told me what they actually did, the bruises and cuts on her body spoke volumes.  She said after a while she passed out, with her last memory of this terrible night being that of a low, gutteral laugh...

She woke in the morning to the sun coming thru the trees, she was curled up in the front seat of her truck, her dress was gone.  She went home and doctored herself up the best she could, and in a few days when she was sufficiently healed to go back to the woods, she took her shotgun and her dogs and went in search of that abandoned cabin.  She looked and looked, and was unable to find any trace of it, or any sign of footprints on the road where she had stopped.  She refused to call the police or to discuss it, and stopped going into town for anything at all, preferring to spend her days in the woods, hunting for that shack.

That happened in 1998, and in 1999 she died in childbirth at home, her common law husband by her side.  He said she wouldn't let him call a doctor, she kept saying it was a monster inside her, not a baby and she didn't want anyone to see it.  I went back for the funeral, and her hair was stark white in the casket.  We buried her out in the woods she had loved and become obsessed by, and on the way to my car, I could have sworn out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of her red Salvation army dress, and a dark shape beckoning to me to come closer....