The Old Lockhart House: A Haunted East Tennessee Tale

[Content Warning: Alcohol use, mild adult language and sexuality, blood, supernatural events, death]

(Based upon true events.)

I come from a very rural part of East Tennessee. It ain’t “the sticks,” since there’s a large city twenty minutes away, but a person could still get lost on the winding country roads surrounding our house. It’d take someone familiar with the area to help you get back out to civilization.

Behind our house, a steep incline led to an old sawmill operated by Elmer Nicely. The train tracks ran right alongside Elmer’s mill, and when a train passed through — approximately once an hour — our house windows would tremble for a good ten minutes. Elmer slaughtered hogs there, too, so it was nice when the train passed by, masking the squeals coming from his small wood slaughterhouse.

A one-lane gravel road cut between our house and the sawmill. I had seen cars pass through at all hours, but I had never ventured far down that old road. It seemed intimidating to me. The trees and kudzu had overgrown, and the road was a path into a dark tunnel of leaves, vines, sticks, and dust. I knew people lived down that road, but not personally. They were reclusive country folk who preferred to keep to themselves, and I wasn’t one to go messing with them.

As I grew older, I would occasionally take walks along the gravel road. The road passed by the sawmill and the slaughterhouse, then curved left and crossed the railroad tracks. My first time past the tracks I couldn’t recognize anything. It was as if I had stepped into a secluded, backwood village. There were occupied, rusted trailers tucked away in the brush, and old houses constructed from scrap wood, plastic, and cardboard. A small creek ran behind them, one I’d never seen before. Every other house seemed to have an old, mangy hunting dog tied to a tree or a decaying doghouse. The entire area sent shivers down my spine, making my hair stand on end.

Just past the shacks, an overgrown cornfield stood tall. Perched on a wooden post was a pitiful scarecrow, its only arm raised as if attempting to hitchhike its way out of the desolate landscape. Strangely, someone had dressed the scarecrow in a burlap kilt, complete with a corncob kilt pin.

Nestled beside the cornfield, far from the main road, was a decrepit three-story white house. Every window was shattered, and a machete would be required to cut through the dense brush to reach the front door. Despite its dilapidated state, the house still held an air of grandeur among the shacks. It must have been a magnificent home in its heyday, and I couldn’t help but be curious about its history.

The following day, I shared my discovery with some school friends. One of them remarked, “That’s the old Lockhart house. I’ve heard it’s haunted.” Although neither of us believed in ghosts, we couldn’t deny the eerie atmosphere surrounding the place. I was intrigued by the story but unsure of where to find more about its background. I knew of some Lockharts around school and figured they didn’t live there anymore. Or did they?

Weeks later, I brought up the topic again, and someone behind me burst out laughing. It was Chris Mullins, one of the school football stars — good-looking, a nice guy, one of the few jocks who would ever talk to someone like me.

“That’s an excellent make-out place,” he said. “Take a girl there, make her feel scared, then tell her you’ll protect her. She’ll do almost anything you ask her to.”

I didn’t believe Chris Mullins needed a haunted house to persuade a girl to do anything he wanted, but it was good advice anyway. “I’m taking Jenny Quarles to that house this Friday after the game,” he said. “The only thing she should be afraid of is what’s in my pants!” We all laughed.

That Friday night, on the eve of Halloween, the football game was against one of our fiercest rivals. We won easily, and the celebrations continued into the night. However, I decided to head home early. The wind had picked up, and the full moon was obscured by rapidly moving clouds. I couldn’t shake the thought of Chris’s cryptic remarks about the Lockhart house. Perhaps I should drive by and check on them. I wondered if he had the guts to actually go through with it. I would drive out, circle past, and head home.

I came across the old gravel road just as a distant train horn echoed in the air. By the time I reached the curve and the crossing, the train was barreling towards me, so I waited. Once it passed, I sat for a moment in the deep silence that follows a train’s passage. I drove on past the trailers and shacks, up to the cornfield, and I noticed something peculiar. The scarecrow was gone. Its weathered and splintered post remained, but the figure was nowhere to be found. Perhaps it had toppled over, I thought. Or perhaps Chris had taken it down as part of his plan to frighten Jenny.

Ahead, I noticed a car pulled off the road in front of the house, but there was no one inside. I cautiously passed by, peering through the window. The front and back seats were empty. Surely Chris wasn’t brave enough to take her inside. Or foolish enough.

I pulled over, killed the engine and lights, and rolled down the window. The air was filled with the scent of decaying leaves, motor oil, and damp soil. The moon, now completely obscured by clouds, cast everything into a deep indigo darkness.

If you’ve never heard a hog’s death scream at midnight, it’ll send shivers down your back. It’s worse when you realize the sound you just heard wasn’t a hog at all. It was human. And it was coming right toward you.

Jenny Quarles burst from the brush, tried to open my locked passenger door, then leapt onto the hood, pounding the windshield like she meant to break through. It took me several seconds to realize it was her. I jumped out. She threw herself into me, legs giving out, still screaming. I tried to calm her, asking what had happened. She couldn’t speak, just grabbed my hand and pointed toward the Lockhart house. She could only say “Chris,” over and over, pulling me that direction.

A small path had been trampled through the weeds, and she dragged me along it. It all happened too fast to think, though nowadays I can’t believe I ever followed her in there. We stumbled through the brush until we came to a clearing under some twisted trees. Jenny pointed and screamed again.

On the ground lay a scattering of straw soaked in blood. Hanging from one of the trees was Chris Mullins — his throat cut from ear to ear, and stuck right in the middle was what looked like a corncob kilt pin.

I grabbed Jenny’s arm and ran. When she tripped, I dragged her, both of us crashing through vines and briars until we reached the car. We tore out of there and drove to my house, where we called the police and her parents.

It was months before Jenny could tell what had happened that night. She and Chris had left the game and stopped at a store where his brother worked and sold them beer. Chris joked that he wanted to take her to his house, then drove to the Lockhart place, saying that’s where he lived. They sat on the car hood, drank a couple of beers, and made out under the moonlight.

After a while, Chris suggested they walk up to the house. Jenny didn’t think that was such a good idea, so Chris made a bet with her. Jenny had to agree to go to the house if Chris could hit the old scarecrow with all four of their empty beer bottles. Even in the dark, Chris nailed it. Each bottle landed squarely on target, the last one almost taking off the old scarecrow’s head.

Jenny reluctantly went to the dark old house with Chris, and after they got under the trees, Chris began trying to scare her by running into the old cornfield and then running back out. At one point, he didn’t come back out. Jenny thought he may have snuck back to the car just to spook her. She wandered her way back to the car, through the maze of the thicket, and, not finding Chris, she sat on the hood of the car and drank another beer. When the light of the train cut through the blackness, she once again made her way to the side of the house, and it was there she found Chris Mullins hanging from the tree.

On Halloween night, hardly anyone dared to let their kids trick-or-treat. People stayed home, locking their doors tightly, fearing that a killer was on the loose. It was the first time I had ever seen my parents lock their doors.

Around nine o’clock that night, a friend called to say some of the guys from the football team planned to burn the Lockhart house down at midnight. A little after twelve, I drove down the gravel road. The sky ahead glowed orange. When I crossed the tracks, I could smell smoke and see flames flickering high above the trees. The old Lockhart house was fully engulfed. No cars, no people. Just fire.

And, to my surprise, silhouetted against the bright orange light of the fire, hung that old scarecrow; kilt around its waist, arm stretched out, and head held high.

(COPYRIGHT NOTICE – This story is under the full copyright of the author who gives permission for royalty-free performance/readings of the story for non commercial purposes. This story may not be changed or altered in any way without permission of the author. Any performance of this story must credit the author, Rick Baldwin. This story may not be reprinted without permission of the author.)