I grew up in Upstate South Carolina, which had a lot of moldy old ghost/h'aint yarns.
One of them was about a cemetery in the old mill town where some relatives lived. A very creepy place, even in daylight. Barely legible tombstones dating back to the 18th century, shaded by ancient trees with a lot of hanging moss etc. etc. The graves of the 1% featured stuff like life-sized marble angels or Jesi, often looming over big family crypts.
The story: one resident of the cemetery had been so evil in real life, that shortly after his death a devil's head etched itself into his tombstone. Complete with the outline of 2 horns, etc.
No amount of sand-blasting, chiseling or acid could remove it, so the cemetery finally replaced the headstone.
Naturally, Old Scratch came right back and tagged the new tombstone, so the cemetery gave up and left it.
Nobody knew the name of the dead guy or any other details (naturally). Just that if you walked around the cemetery long enough, you'd find a tombstone with a devil's head etched into it.
And if you touched the outline of the devil's head, Gawd might strike you dead. And the devil might snatch you right out of your Keds, and haul you down to Hell immediately.
My cousins and I wasted many hours looking for that damn thing. And one day we found it!!!
Well, we found a tombstone with a devil's head on it. But the artwork had been scrawled on with a piece of charcoal, apparently by a 4-year-old...or maybe a Post-Modernist Impressionist.
When we touched the stuff - risking being struck dead by Gawd immediately, remember - it rubbed right off.
As I got older, this reminded me a lot of the "Virgin in a taco shell" type of tale.
So I just wondered if anybody else had heard anything similar in their neighborhoods.
= new reply since forum marked as read
