The Devil's Tramping Ground

Evening. I grew up in Chatham County, been here my whole life. Sixty-three years my family's lived in these parts. I'll tell you what, strange things happen out near Harper's Crossroads, and I've seen enough to know the stories are true. There's a spot in the pine woods about ten miles south of Siler City. Perfect circle, forty feet across, and nothing grows on it. Not a weed, not a blade of grass, nothing. They call it the Devil's Tramping Ground. Legend says Satan himself walks that circle every night, pacing and plotting evil against mankind. His hoofprints scorch the earth so nothing can take root. I'd heard about it since I was a kid, everybody around here has, but I didn't go see it for myself until high school. I remember we'd just gotten our grades back that week, and my buddy's parents were out of town. Four of us snuck out around midnight to test the legend. You know the one, about how anything you leave in the circle gets thrown out by morning. We drove out to Devil's Tramping Ground Road and parked at the pulloff. That's when it hit us.

The path to the circle was pitch black. No moon that night. And standing there at the edge of that trail, every single one of us felt it at the exact same time. This overwhelming sense of dread. Like something was telling us to leave. My buddy Marcus, he's a big guy, football player, and he was shaking. None of us could make ourselves step onto that path. We got back in the truck and drove away without saying a word to each other. I'll tell you what, that feeling stayed with me. But I couldn't let it go. Over the years I got into paranormal investigation, started a channel for it, and I kept going back to that circle. The family that owns the land, the Olivers, they've had it for over a hundred years. Tanya Oliver told me soil tests showed the ground is salty, sterile, but no copper or anything that would explain why plants won't grow. Scientists can't figure it out. And the phenomena people report, that's real too. Dogs won't go near it. I've seen it myself. dog acts strange near certain places too - Paula' You try to bring a dog up that path and they dig their heels in, whimpering, tail between their legs. And inside the circle, there's never any wind. I mean never. The trees around it are swaying, leaves rustling, but inside that forty-foot ring the air is dead still. Makes everything echo in this weird way.

Last spring I went out there with my crew to film an investigation. Kyle Sanders, another investigator, he'd captured something on video a few years back, what looked like human-shaped fog walking through the trees near the circle. So we set up our equipment, EMF meters, a REM pod, spirit box, the works. After sunset, the activity picked up. I was standing maybe twenty feet from the circle when I saw her. A girl in white, running into the woods at the edge of my vision. I turned and she was gone. Just gone. No sound of footsteps, no rustling leaves. Then the spirit box, which scans radio frequencies, it picked up a voice clear as day. One word. Run. I'll tell you what, we listened. Packed up and got out of there. My EMF meter had been spiking all night, especially near this little metal cross someone had tied to the gate. My mama saw water running uphill at that place when she was a teenager. I've been dealing with this stuff my whole life, but that circle is different. Something's there.