Liz was 16 years old and sitting right in the middle of what she called “Nowheresville, USA” – Adams, Tennessee. Why her parents thought she’d be happy spending the weekend here with her “country cousins” while they were gallivanting about in New York City on vacation was beyond human reason. “It’s a peaceful place to visit,” her parents had said. “It has beautiful, scenic farmland – very bucolic.”
More like bubonic, Liz thought, with a terminal disease of the drop dead dull.
Her country cousin Jimmy, also 16, was no help. He seemed to think dodging cowchips was an athletic event. Nashville was Liz’s home; Nashville was where things were happening. All her friends were off to Halloween parties and spooky movie marathons. “Child’s play,” her father had said. “Halloween was meant for the young ones to trick and treat – older, mature folks had more serious business.” Yeah, Liz thought, like seeing Broadway shows and dancing in Manhattan nightclubs.
Liz walked out on the porch and watched the sun set over the peaceful fields. Oh well, she thought, at least I brought my music. She put on her earbuds, pressed “play” – and the battery died. Liz ripped the earbuds out and sighed – wasn’t anything going to go right?
“Country cousin” Jimmy walked out and joined her on the porch. I might as well hang out with him, Liz thought. It’s better than talking to the plants – but not by much.
Liz turned to him and said, “So Jimmy, what do you do around here besides milk cows and bring in the crops?”
Jimmy shrugged, gazed out at the fields and answered with his lazy rural drawl – “Oh, I don’t know. Fishing, ball games. I like to read, watch TV…”
“Oh, come on. There must be something to do around here. What’s the coolest thing about Adams, Tennessee?”
Jimmy thought about that question a bit and said, “Well, we got the Bell Witch Cave.”
Now that sounds somewhat interesting, Liz thought. “Why’s it called the Bell Witch Cave?”
Jimmy seemed real reluctant to talk about it. “Cause they say it’s haunted,” he said.
Liz rolled her eyes – sometimes getting Jimmy to talk about things was like pulling eyeteeth. “Whoa, don’t stop there – come on, what’s the story? You ever been there? Did you ever see any ghosts?”
“Well, I’ve only been there once with some friends. It was kinda icky and muddy, and full of spiders and all.”
Liz was now really getting impatient. “Tell me about it, Jimmy! Come on!”
Jimmy sighed, sat down and told her the story:
“Well, a long time ago, there used to be this old farm out there. That’s where the Bell family used to live back in the 1800s. They were pretty successful farmers – had a nice house, slave quarters and all. They went to church every Sunday and all that, so everybody in town liked ’em.
But one day, they started getting haunted by this weird spirit. It started out looking like an old buzzard sitting out on the fence. Then it turned into this dog-like creature. Then they saw this mysterious old woman walking around in the orchard. One day, she just vanished into thin air.
But then she came back as a ghost. At night, they could hear her flyin’ ’round the house making these horrible sounds. She’d keep ’em up all night, knocking on doors and windows, making these sounds like wings flapping against the roof and animals fighting and scratching. Then she started getting physical – pulling the blankets off their beds, punching ’em, pinching ’em and pulling their hair.
One day, she started talking to ’em. She’d make fun of ’em, argue with ’em about the Bible, sing these nasty drinkin’ songs. They asked her over and over again why she was bothering ’em. She told ’em lots of things, like she was the ghost of an Indian whose grave had been disturbed, or a dead settler who’d come back looking for buried treasure.
But most folks believe she was a witch conjured up by this crazy old woman named Kate Batts. Kate Batts lived next door to the Bells. And she hated the father, John Bell, ’cause he ripped her off in a slave deal one time. In fact, the witch said several times that she was gonna kill John Bell one day.
Not long after that, John Bell got real sick and was taken to bed. The next morning, they found him dead. The witch started laughing and said she’d poisoned him. Sure ‘nough, when they looked in the medicine cabinet, they saw that his medicine had been switched with a vial of poison.
The witch laughed and carried on all during John Bell’s funeral. Then she told everybody she was leaving, but would come back one day. No one heard from her again for a long time.
But some folks in town believe that the Bell Witch has come back. They say if you make fun of her, or tell folks you don’t believe in her, that bad things will happen to you. And some say you can hear her laughin’ in that cave on the old Bell property, just waiting to put a fright into anybody who dares to go in there.”
When Jimmy finished his story, he was certain that Liz would be scared to death. To his surprise, she was more excited than ever. Her eyes bulging, she squealed, “Let’s go!”
“What? Are you crazy?” said Jimmy. “Come on, it’d be fun!”
“I ain’t goin’ in there,” protested Jimmy. “It ain’t safe. It’s muddy and dark and full of spiders…”
“Oh, come on,” interrupted Liz. “I’m not supposed to go out after dark without permission. And it’s on private property.”
“We’ll sneak the car out.” Jimmy was running out of excuses.
“It’s too far to go,” he said.
Liz gave him a teasing smirk. “Oh, I see,” she said, “you’re chicken, aren’t you? Squawk! Squawk! The country boy’s a chicken! The country boy’s a scaredy cat!”
Well, that did it – Jimmy wasn’t about to be called a chicken by no girl, especially his holier-than-thou, citified cousin. Later that night, when his parents fell asleep, Jimmy grabbed the flashlight and the car keys, and Liz taught him how to sneak a car out in the middle of the night. They quietly pushed the car out of the drive, then down the road a bit and – VAROOM! – started the engine away from the house.
When they got near the cave property, Jimmy pulled over, killed the engine and headlights, and quietly got out of the car. As they crept down the road, Jimmy was relieved to see that the current landowners’ farmhouse was dark and quiet. Jimmy and Liz hid themselves in the shadows away from the bright moonlight and snuck around the house.
They slowly made their way across the overgrown field until they finally saw it – a gaping, black hole yawning ominously out of the side of a steep rocky bluff. As they climbed up the slope toward it, Jimmy held back a bit, a twinge of fear shooting through his body. But Liz grabbed the flashlight and barreled inside more excited than ever. Jimmy sighed, took a deep breath, and entered slowly behind her.
Liz and Jimmy squeezed their way down the tight, dark, winding tunnel. In the dim flashlight beam, they could see eerie rock formations hanging from the ceiling and jutting out of the floor. Water was dripping everywhere, and their feet made squishing sounds as they moved through the muddy floor. Somewhere in the dark depths, they could hear rocks plopping, along with strange sucking sounds – but no witches laughing or moaning.
Liz kept moving rapidly forward with Jimmy tailing behind until they reached a tiny crack between two massive, fallen boulders. She squeezed her skinny body through, but Jimmy, who had a few pounds on her, couldn’t fit. Liz shined her flashlight around and mockingly called out into the darkness, “Here we are, you ol’ Bell Witch! Come on out and show yourself! Oooooooooo.”
Hearing no reply, Liz turned back toward her cousin and grinned. “Oh, well. Guess she’s out painting the town, Jimmy.”
“I can’t get through those rocks,” he said. “C’mon, let’s get outta here. There’s nothin’ back there worth seein’.”
“I want to keep going,” answered Liz from the other side. “Just wait for me here.”
“You can’t go back there by yourself. You ain’t ever been in a cave before. It could be dangerous.”
“I didn’t come all the way out here to stay for five minutes,” said Liz. “Just wait for me. I’ll be back in a little while.”
“No,” barked Jimmy. “I’m responsible for you!”
Liz hesitated a moment, then said in a mocking tone, “Well, if you can’t get through these rocks, I guess you can’t stop me now, can you?”
Now Jimmy was really getting tired of this cocky cousin of his. He had risked his neck sneaking out, going on private property, and all just to prove he wasn’t scared for some stupid reason. But what he didn’t want Liz to know was that he really was getting scared.
“I’ll wait for you outside,” Jimmy said gruffly as he turned and walked back in a huff.
Liz laughed after him and continued into the cave. As she crept further down the dark tunnel, she saw more strange rock formations in beautiful colors and shapes. To her, the cave was hypnotizing and otherworldly, unlike anything she had ever seen before. She wandered further and further down the tunnel in a trance, losing track of direction and time, always wondering what was beyond the next turn.
As she continued on, the ceiling pressed down lower and lower, forcing her to crawl on her knees. Suddenly, the passage ended in a tiny crawl space, leading on to who-knows-what. Now totally hypnotized by the cave, Liz couldn’t stop herself from continuing on. She wiggled into the tiny crawl space head first, pushing herself a little more and a little more until…
She got stuck.
As she tried to wiggle herself free, rocks and gravel fell around her, wedging her in even tighter. She called out for Jimmy, certain he was still somewhere near by, but he didn’t answer. Stupid boy, she thought. Then, of all the darn things, the flashlight went out, plunging her into total darkness.
Liz’s could hear her heart pounding in her chest. “Be calm,” she said to herself, “just be calm and try to move real slow.” But she was totally stuck in the crawl space, with escape all but impossible. She was really getting scared now.
Then, from somewhere deep in the cave, she heard eerie sounds moving toward her. At first, they sounded like scratching noises, then like someone gasping for air. As the sounds got louder, she thought she heard a scraping sound, like feet dragging on the cave floor.
Liz called out in the direction of the noises: “Jimmy, I’m stuck. Pull me out of here, come on.”
There was no answer except for the scraping, gasping sounds moving closer and closer.
“Jimmy come on, quit playing games. Fun’s over.”
There was still no answer.
Liz’s blood was running cold. “Jimmy, I said, get me out of here!”
The eerie sounds kept getting louder and louder as they got closer and closer until Liz could swear they were right on top of her.
Then they suddenly stopped, filling the room with horrifying silence. “Jimmy?” whispered Liz.
AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! Liz screamed as she felt two massive, cold, scaly, nonhuman hands grab her legs. They yanked her out of the passage like a cork out of a bottle and dragged her deep into the bowels of the cave. She could see nothing in the darkness as she was dragged away.
AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! she screamed.
A few minutes later, the hands suddenly let her go. Liz lifted her head, cleared the mud from her eyes and found herself lying at the mouth of the cave, the bright moon filling the entrance with its blessed light. Cousin Jimmy was there, staring down at her.
As Jimmy lifted Liz to her feet, she teetered unsteadily, trying to catch her breath. “It was you!” Liz gasped. “I knew it. You really had me there. I was sure a ghost had me.” She then smiled and patted Jimmy on the shoulder. “Thanks for pulling me out. That was a good one. You know, you’re not so bad after all.”
Jimmy just stared at her in disbelief, his face white as a sheet. “I…I didn’t pull you out,” he finally replied.
They stared at each other for a moment. Then, from deep in the cave, they heard it – the horrible, cackling laughter of the Bell Witch as she floated back into the darkness. Liz and Jimmy ran back to the car as fast as two human beings could run. Jimmy gunned the engine, and they drove away like lightning, never looking back.
And even though the Bell Witch may return to that cave every now and then, Liz and Jimmy never did.
And that’s the story of The Bell Witch Cave of Adams, Tennessee.
-THE END –
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