Every small community has it’s secrets. Vernon Hill is no different. Some that old 360 is the loneliest road in Halifax County. It’s countryside views are beautiful in the daylight, but at night it can also give off a somewhat cold and unsettling presence. Some people say it comes from the emptiness of the highway. Others will tell you that the community is cursed by a witch.

A small old wooden cabin sets off in the distance just where you can see it form the road. The cabin is abandoned now, but was once the home of Aunt Tabby. She was a quiet but strange woman. She always kept to herself. Witnesses say that strange things would go on at her cabin; some say that they would see her late at night lighting fires and blurting out strange incantations and noises.

One dark, cold night Tabby had taken her son and used him as some storytellers say as a sacrifice. She stripped him naked carving demonic symbols onto his body. She decapitated him, strapped him to a horse and ran the animal through Halifax. Just a few weeks later a farmer was working on his tractor one night and heard a faint gallop in the distance. The galloping sound reached closer and closer. He stopped what he was doing to see where the noise was coming from. As he looked into the shadows he saw a figure of a horse. The horse drew closer into his line of vision. Riding the horse was Aunt Tabby’s young son, holding his head in his right hand. The farmer claims, as the boy passed his turned to him and gave him a devilish grin and rode on into the darkness towards his mother’s cabin. Everyone thought the old man was crazy or drunk, but he swore to what he saw.

A few days had passed and no one had seen or heard anything form the old woman. Concerned a neighbor went to the cabin. When she knocked on the door there was no answer. The door was slightly cracked. The woman pushed the door opened and found Aunt Tabby lying in the middle of the floor. She had been dead a few days, about the same time span the farmer had his strange occurrence. The local doctor ruled it as a heart attack, but the old woman’s face was full of fright. You could see it in her lifeless eyes.

Without the old woman having any family some of the neighbors got together and gave her an appropriate burial in her backyard, the headstone still stands there today.

Thirty years had passed and people still talk about the legend of Aunt Tabby’s cabin. One night, after hearing the tale two brothers went to the cabin to explore it for some laughs. Christopher and Daniel pulled into the driveway and walked up to the front door.

They kicked the door open and walked inside. Christopher Walked in first. A cold daft cut through him like a knife. “Damn It’s cold in here; it ain’t this cold outside.” You see Chris’ breath as he spoke.

They looked around the cabin. Everything was covered in dust. You could tell no one had been there in quite some time. They came to an old staircase. As they reached closer to the top the air got even colder. “Man, I’m starting to think this wasn’t such a good idea.” Daniel had very uneasy tone to his voice.

“Aw, come on man. You ain’t getting scared are you? You scared that old Aunt Tabby’s gonna get you?”

The two brother reached the top of the staircase. It led to a door. Chris started to open the door. “Damn, this things locked up tighter than Fort Knox. Daniel help me open this door. Daniel?”

Christopher looked behind him, and Daniel was nowhere to be found.

“Daniel! Quit fooling around! Daniel!?”

As soon as he finished his sentence her heard thrashing an knocking behind the locked door.

“Help Me! Stay the hell away from me! No! No! Noooo!” The voice screaming inside was Daniel. “Hold on Daniel!”

Christopher thrusted at the door with his shoulder as hard as he could. The old door fell to the floor.

“Daniel!? Where are you? Daniel!?”

Chris walked to the back of the attic and found his brother curled in the corner shaking. He cuts and bruises all over himself, as if he were in there fighting for his life.

“Daniel? Daniel are you ok?” As Christopher reached out for his brother, Daniel screamed.

“Ahhh! Yo…. You can’t see it? Th..Th.. The walls. Their bleeding. Sh… She tortured them here. I can hear her laughing. Don’t you hear her?” There was nothing to be seen or heard in the room.

Daniel was locked in the psychiatric ward, and has never been released. As for Chris, he went back to the cabin to find some answers. And to this day he ahs never returned.

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