Buck Hill: A Palmetto Haunting

1924, New York City

Emily Harrington graduated from the Art Students League with a portfolio full of soft pastels and oil landscapes, but her heart was weary of the noise and smoke of the city. She yearned for stillness, for a place where the air carried the scent of pine instead of gasoline. Georgia’s red clay roads and moss-draped oaks seemed to call her name. She packed her paints, boarded a southbound train, and stepped off in the quiet town of Palmetto. For years, Emily lived simply in a rented apartment above the general store, painting the surrounding countryside and selling her work to travelers and local patrons. In time she met Robert Wellman — a tall, broad-shouldered man whose family had deep roots in Palmetto. Their courtship was swift, and within a year Emily moved into Robert’s stately home, a columned white house perched on a rise known as Buck Hill overlooking the valley. Happiness seemed to settle over the couple like golden sunlight. Two children followed, laughter echoing in the high-ceilinged halls. But beneath the warmth, something darker festered. Emily’s paintings began to sell for more and more money — not just locally, but in galleries across the country. Robert, a man used to being the provider, grew silent, cold, and resentful. By the autumn of 1929, his jealousy had curdled into something monstrous. It was as if he had been possessed.

The Night on Buck Hill — October 31, 1929

The wind moaned through the trees that Halloween night, stripping the last stubborn leaves from their branches. Inside the Wellman house, the fire in the parlor had burned low, throwing long, flickering shadows across the walls. Emily sat at her easel in the corner, dabbing pale blue into the sky of her latest canvas. Robert sat opposite her in a wingback chair, silent, his pipe unlit, eyes fixed not on her face but on the gold chain around her neck — a chain she had bought with her own earnings. He had been drinking since dusk. His knuckles were raw from where he had gripped the cellar shovel earlier in the day, testing its weight.

“You are working late again,” he said, his voice low.

Emily smiled faintly, keeping her brush steady. “I’ve a commission from Savannah. It’ll pay for—”

“I don’t care what it’ll pay for,” he snapped, the words startling in the quiet. His hand gripped the armrest so hard the leather creaked. “You think this house stands because of your paintings? You think people respect me because you send letters to New York?”

Emily set down her brush, a knot of unease tightening in her chest. She had seen this bitterness in him before, but tonight his eyes looked… emptier. The clock in the hallway chimed midnight. Robert rose from his chair, his shadow stretching across the floor like something separate from him. He moved toward her slowly, almost tenderly, and for a heartbeat she thought he meant to kiss her. Instead, his hands shot out, gripping her throat. The canvas fell. The paint jar shattered on the floor. Emily clawed at his wrists, her heels scraping the rug as he forced her backward toward the cellar door. Her children’s footsteps pounded on the stairs above, their frightened voices calling for their mother.

“Go back to bed!” Robert barked over his shoulder, his voice breaking. But the command only made them cry harder. He wrenched open the cellar door. The air that rose from below was damp and cold, smelling of earth. He pushed her forward; she stumbled down the wooden steps, hitting the packed dirt floor hard enough to knock the breath from her. Before she could rise, the shovel came down. Once. Twice. The sound was dull, wet. Her body went still. Above them, the children screamed. Robert climbed the stairs slowly, shovel in hand, his footsteps measured. Their bedroom door splintered after the second blow. When the house fell silent again, only the wind outside dared move. Hours later, under the dim light of a kerosene lamp, Robert dug in the far corner of the cellar. He laid Emily and the children side by side, tucking Emily’s tin strongbox beneath her folded hands. He covered them with earth, tamping it down until the floor looked untouched. Winter came, and with it, whispers. Robert was seen less and less. Then one night, a new horror surfaced. At the foot of Buck Hill, where no one remembered a building standing before, a desecrated church appeared. The townsfolk avoided it — its blackened timbers, warped steeple, and shattered windows exuding a wrongness too deep to name. Robert’s mutilated body was found inside, torn by something with claws the length of a man’s hand. Afterward, the house was abandoned, left to rot, and the story sank into local legend.

Palmetto Georgia - 2004

Jadis Childers had thought Palmetto would be her fresh start. She left Atlanta with nothing but a suitcase, some secondhand furniture, and a fierce determination never to return to the family she had fled. The land was cheap on Buck Hill, the view was beautiful, and she told herself she didn’t believe in small-town ghost stories Halloween night came, clear and crisp, the moon full and sharp in the sky. Jadis curled up on her couch with a blanket and a novel, the smell of her tea still warm on the air.

Then came the knock.

At first, it was light — almost polite. But when she reached the door, the sound stopped. Instead, she saw crimson handprints smeared across the glass, droplets of blood trailing downward. On the porch steps, bloody footprints — bare, small, like a child’s — led away into the night. They pointed toward the dark woods and, beyond them, the ruins of the church she had never dared to visit. Janis pulled out her phone, Looking to call for help but her phone showed no signal. Not even a flicker. She opened the door and stepped outside, determined to follow the child-like footprints. Just in case there was someone in need of help. As she ventured out she felt the air shifted. From somewhere behind her, a deep growl rose — low, wet, and unnatural. She turned and froze. Shapes emerged from the trees — hulking, skeletal figures covered in patches of matted fur, jaws unhinged, eyes glowing the color of spoiled milk. The smell hit her first: rot, wet soil, and iron. The werewolves — if that word could describe them — encircled her, their bodies twitching with the slow decay of things long dead. She bolted for the house but when she reached the open front door, it slammed shut the lock clicking on its own. The only escape was the old church. She ran, her breath tearing at her lungs, her legs screaming in pain. The beasts followed, padding silently but never falling behind. When the church finally rose before her, its doors sagging from rusted hinges, she threw herself inside. The air was colder, thicker. Shadows swirled across the warped floorboards, and something in the dark whispered her name. The rotting door fell closed, sealing out the moonlight. However as Jadis’s stepped inside her foot found no floor — only emptiness. She fell, and the black swallowed her whole. No one in Palmetto saw her again.

And Buck Hill waited, as it always had, for the next soul to wander home.