Chapter 13: Oak Ridge Cemetery

“We’re here.”

After driving along a narrow mountain road, I finally saw the gate of Oak Ridge Cemetery. Only an iron frame remained, with several missing letters, making it look truly abandoned. I drove slowly through the gate and saw the whole cemetery built along the hillside. The first two rows looked recently renovated—relatively neat, with tombstones and stone bricks. The back was completely overgrown, the grave mounds crooked and covered in weeds.

The whole place was quiet except for the wind sighing through the pines. An old, sun-bleached American flag, half-torn, flapped on a rusty pole near the entrance. The kind of cemetery that only gets flowers on Memorial Day—if that.

Those cab drivers who refused us said this place was originally a mass grave. The county planned to renovate it into a cemetery, but as soon as construction started, strange incidents kept happening. No matter who they called to investigate, nothing helped, and the project was abandoned halfway. Since then, no one dared come down this mountain road. They say that on foggy days, you’ll always see someone trying to stop cars by the roadside. If you stop, you’ll never drive out again.

Local legend—the kind of story you hear whispered over beers at the VFW. I always figured it was just small-town superstition, but out here, superstition lingers like morning mist.