A Hurtville Horror Story by Scott Farmer

Highway DD cuts through the Ozarks like a scar—winding, narrow, and flanked by trees that seem to lean just a little too close. Locals call it Deadman’s Drift, but you won’t find that name on any map.

If you ask the highway patrol, they’ll say the accidents are just bad luck—tight curves, loose gravel, tired and drunk drivers. But folks who live near Hurtville’s old border know the truth.

They’ve seen the Figure.

It always happens the same way.

You’re driving late at night, maybe headed back from the lake or dinner, maybe chasing a cell signal.
​
The moon is high, the fog starts low, and you come around that last hard curve past mile marker 17.

That’s when the air changes.

Cooler.
Heavier.
Like the road is holding its breath.

And then you see it—a figure in the center of the lane.
Not walking.
Just standing.

Tall.
Thin.
Wrapped in what looks like rotted burlap, soaked to the knees. The face is wrong—blurry, pulsing, like your headlights can’t quite touch it. But the eyes? Two white orbs that blink out of sync.

Some say it’s a man who drowned when Table Rock flooded the valley. Others say it’s a remnant of something older—a watcher from when the Osage warned not to build or bury on this land.

Whoever—or whatever—it is, the result is always the same:
You swerve. You crash. Or worse… you stop.

Those who survive say the Figure doesn’t move until your engine dies.
Then it glides—glides—to your window.
And if you look into those blinking white eyes…
you remember everything you’ve ever done wrong.

Every lie. Every theft. Every cruelty.
The Figure whispers your own voice back to you.
Then it’s gone.

But many don’t survive.

They find their cars twisted into trees, tires still spinning, no sign of the driver.
Just a streak of wet footprints across the windshield
and burlap fibers caught in the seatbelt.

The town tried to fix it once.
Put up reflectors. Warning signs. A guard rail.
None of it stayed up more than a week.
The signs rot. The metal warps.
And one night, a road crew truck went missing entirely.
They found it upside down in a dry creek bed, cab full of muddy water, keys still in the ignition.

If you must drive Highway DD at night:
Don’t go alone.
Don’t answer the radio if it cuts to static and your name comes through.
And whatever you do—don’t stop for the Figure.

Because it’s not asking for help.
It’s not a ghost.

It’s a warning that you’ve already gone too far.

Some roads are dangerous.
This one doesn’t want you to leave.
Deadman’s Drift.

A Hurtville Horror Story by Scott Farmer

The carnival came to Hurtville in the summer of 1949.
The river was low, the air was thick with locusts, and folks were hungry for distraction. The big top rose fast—red and yellow stripes flapping beside the White River like a wound trying to heal. Jugglers, fire breathers, snake women. But the one everyone remembers was the clown.

His name was Buttons.

Big red smile painted too wide. One blue shoe, one yellow. A laugh that started high and ended in a rasp, like someone choking on a secret.
He wasn’t the main act, but kids loved him.
Until the night he snapped.

Nobody knows what set him off. Some say it was the heat. Others swear they saw Buttons staring too long into the water down by the old ferry post, whispering to something beneath the surface. But that night, during the final show, Buttons walked into the center ring, holding a red balloon and a meat cleaver.

He didn’t tell a joke.
He didn’t juggle.
He just stood there and said, “The river wants to laugh tonight.”
Then he started screaming.
They pulled eleven children out of the tent that night—some were trampled, some cut. One little girl vanished completely, her red shoe found floating in the river two days later. Buttons disappeared too. Some said he drowned. Others said the river took him as payment.
But Hurtville never forgot.

Ten years passed.
And then, in 1959, a traveling preacher arrived in town.
He called himself Brother Felix, and he brought a revival with him—tent sermons, hymns, fiery speeches about sin and salvation. He wore a white suit. He spoke in tongues. And when he smiled…
Folks got chills.

It wasn’t until a child pointed out the blue and yellow shoes beneath the pulpit that someone remembered.
The eyes. The voice. The laugh.

Brother Felix was Buttons.

He swore he was saved. Claimed the river had washed his soul clean. That he’d wandered for years in the wilderness, finding God in the shadows.

People believed him. At first.
Until the dreams started.

The kids in town began waking up screaming about a clown in the trees.
One boy was found with a balloon animal twisted so tight around his throat he couldn’t speak for a week.

A girl saw a clown face staring up at her from the lake surface--paint running like blood.

Then the revival tent burned to the ground.
They never found Brother Felix.

But he’s still out there. They say he walks the banks of Table Rock Lake on stormy nights, wearing a white suit stained with river mud, makeup smeared like war paint. Some nights he preaches to the water. Other nights, he whispers to children through cracks in their bedroom walls.

And if you ever hear a balloon pop with no one around,
or a laugh that starts like a hymn and ends like a scream,
run.
​
Because Buttons doesn’t want to make you laugh anymore.
He wants to baptize you in something much, much darker.

Some clowns paint on a smile.
Others never take it off.
Painted Hollow.

A Hurtville Horror Story by Scott Farmer
Long before Hurtville.
Long before the settlers carved trails into the Ozark hills or built cabins on the White River’s edge…
There was the Heron.
The Osage knew it.
Not as a bird, but as a spirit—a guardian, yes, but also a judge.
The Great Blue Heron walked between water and sky, shadow and light.
Its wings could lift a soul to the afterlife—or drag it down into the mud forever.
They called it Ni-Ka-Wa—the Watcher of Still Waters.
And when white men came and laughed at the old stories,
Ni-Ka-Wa went quiet.

For a time.
Then they built Hurtville.
And they broke the land.
They say the first settler to vanish was Josiah Treece, a logger who shot a heron out of boredom. He strung it up on the front porch like a trophy, bragged it would keep “the Injuns scared.” That night, the river rose twenty feet without rain. They found Josiah hanging upside-down in the tree line, neck twisted like a bird’s, lungs full of silt.
Others followed.
They saw it standing still at dusk--
A Great Blue Heron, taller than a man, with furious eyes and shadows clinging to its legs.
Sometimes it screeched like a bird.
Sometimes it spoke like a man.
Always near the water.
Then came the dam.
The flood.
The drowning of old Hurtville under Table Rock Lake.
But Ni-Ka-Wa did not die.
Now it’s seen gliding low over the lake on foggy nights, silent and watching.
It moves against the wind.
It casts no reflection.
Fishermen report catching heron feathers on their lines—blackened and soaked in blood.

Campers hear flapping in the trees overhead, followed by footsteps.

And sometimes, just before someone goes missing, there’s a stillness--
A hush where the frogs stop croaking.

The water stops rippling.

And something tall moves through the shallows on legs like knotted willow roots.
They say Ni-Ka-Wa returns not to punish, but to remind.
That what was taken—land, lives, respect—will be repaid.

And if you walk the edge of Table Rock Lake and see a tall heron standing still,
neck curled,
eyes fixed,
don’t look away.
Because if you do,
you’ll hear wings above you.
And you’ll feel your feet sink deeper into the mud…
until you can’t move.
Until your mouth fills with water.
Until you, too, become a shadow in the shallows.
Some spirits fly.
Others haunt the line between man and memory.
Heronshade.

A Hurtville Horror Story by Scott Farmer

Every summer, the lake shines.
Glass-still mornings. Cool coves. A perfect place for fishing and forgetting. But there’s one spot near the center of Table Rock—above where old Hurtville lies drowned—that locals avoid. It’s deeper than the sonar says. The water's always colder. And sometimes, the air tastes like metal.

That’s where the storm boat went down.
And where the cave breathes.

It was July, 1972. A heavy old fishing vessel—steel-hulled, war-surplus—called the Maggie Belle was hauling a birthday party across the lake. Nineteen passengers: fishermen, families, kids with streamers tied to their rods. A harmless afternoon. No weather warnings. Barely a cloud.

Then came the wind.

Out of nowhere, the sky collapsed. Black clouds twisted down like claws. The wind howled so loud you couldn’t hear yourself scream. People on nearby docks saw the Maggie Belle spin in place—its anchor line snapping mid-roar—then lurch backward, like something yanked it from beneath.

Witnesses say the waves didn't make sense.
They came from inside the lake, not across it.
Churning up from below.

In under three minutes, the boat was gone. No distress call. No flares.
Just nineteen names added to the lake.
And nothing left but a few scraps of party ribbon found miles downshore.

Search teams dove for weeks. They found the boat—twisted, rusted, split down the center like it had been crushed inward. But stranger still was what they found beneath it: an opening. A tunnel, far deeper than the maps showed. A limestone throat carved under old Hurtville. Some say it was part of a cave system, maybe an old mine shaft. Others say it was a natural formation that had never been dry, even before the dam.

But the divers wouldn’t go near it.

They reported hearing voices through their masks. Feeling fingers brush their necks. One diver, Mitch Satterfield, surfaced screaming and quit the force that day. He claimed the cave was “breathing”—pulling water in, then exhaling it in pulses that moved like heartbeats.

They sealed the report. Called it inconclusive.
But they never retrieved the bodies.

Ever since, the lake has moods.
Boaters tell stories. Clear skies turn to chaos.
A storm shrieks up from nowhere, always in the same place.
Radar can’t track it. Radios go dead.
And if you’re above the cave when it comes, your boat doesn’t just rock—it shudders, as though something below is reaching up.

Some who’ve survived say they saw something just before the waves came.
A shape below the surface. Not a fish. Not a rock. Something wide.
Something with holes where its eyes should be.
​
Waiting.

The lake took Hurtville.
Now the cave takes what’s left.
Not out of rage. Not hunger.

It feeds on moments.
On breath.
On celebrations.

Like it remembers that party on the Maggie Belle, and now it wants another.

If you find yourself on Table Rock when the wind stops too suddenly--
When the air goes still
And the water turns to glass
And your compass spins without moving--

Don’t look down.
Don’t call out.
And for the love of God… don’t celebrate.

Beneath the old town lies the cave.
And the cave is never empty.
Undertow.

A Hurtville Horror Story by Scott Farmer
They built the bridge long after the flood drowned old Hurtville—when Table Rock Lake swallowed the valley and made way for boaters and weekend cabins. The bridge was supposed to connect the past to the future, a scenic overlook above deep water and quiet history.
But some histories don’t stay buried.
And some souls don’t let go.
The first tale came from a boy scout troop in the 1980s. They were crossing the bridge just before dawn when one of the boys stopped and looked down. He saw a girl standing on the surface of the lake, pale dress fluttering, arms raised as if she was reaching for something lost long ago.
He blinked—and she was gone.
But the boy? He never spoke again.
Locals whisper that the bridge was built over the exact spot where the old Hurtville ferry capsized in 1907. It carried nineteen people across the swollen White River that night. None survived. They say the boat was overloaded, but the truth is stranger—survivors claimed the ferry simply stopped moving, like something below had grabbed it. Tethered it.
Now, the curse clings to the bridge above like mist.
Some say you feel it first in your hands—an itch. Then your chest tightens, and your breath clouds even in summer. You feel heavy. Like you’re being pulled backward, not just by wind or fear—but by grief. By memory. By something still tied to the lake below.
Every few years, someone disappears on the bridge.
A biker. A jogger. A fisherman walking home.
They leave their phone, their tackle box, their shoes.
But no footprints off the bridge. No splash.
Just an echo—like rope snapping tight.
If you walk the bridge at night, especially under a full moon, you'll see them:
Faint figures on the far side.
Some weeping. Some whispering. Some pointing down.
And always one--
the girl with no eyes, holding a severed rope in both hands.
They say she was the ferry captain’s daughter, and she dove in after him when he was pulled under. They say she tethers new souls to her grief with strands of memory and water. And if you stop walking--
even for a second—she’ll bind your ankles, your ribs, your thoughts.
You won’t scream. You won’t run.
You’ll just slip quietly through the rail and vanish.
Tethered forever beneath the still black water of Table Rock Lake.
So if you find yourself on the bridge after dark--
Don’t slow down.
Don’t stop.
And if you hear someone call your name behind you…
Keep walking.
Some places cross water.
This one crosses into something else.
Tethered.

A Hurtville Horror Story by Scott Farmer

Long before the White River was tamed by concrete and turned into Table Rock Lake, it ran wild and mean through the Missouri Ozarks—cutting through limestone, sweeping away entire hillsides when it swelled. In those days, settlers didn’t just battle the wilderness—they tried to command it.

One of the first was Elijah Wren.

He was tall, solemn, and obsessive. The kind of man who could carve a homestead from bedrock and make fire with wet bark. He founded Hurtville with two dozen families and a dream of building a clean, God-fearing town on the river’s edge. Folks respected him. Some feared him. All followed him.

Until the flood.

It happened in spring, when the river ran thick with rain fall and ghosts. Elijah had gone out alone to check on the ferry post upriver. The next morning, only his horse came back—wild-eyed and soaked in blood.

It took days to find him.

He was lodged in a sycamore root wad, half-drowned, caught like a snared animal beneath the tangled arms of the old tree. The flood had pinned him there, and in the madness of rising waters, something else found him—a nest of water moccasins.

The venom took its time.
​
They say Elijah was bitten seven times, and by the time rescuers pulled him out, he was whispering in a language no one recognized. Eyes milk-white. Skin cold, but still alive.

He came back changed.

He wouldn’t speak during the day, but at night, he’d walk barefoot through town with a lantern, muttering and twitching. Said the river had shown him something “underneath.” That it was alive. Watching. Waiting. He nailed shut the windows of his house and painted symbols on the doors in river mud. Then, one night, he vanished.

The townspeople thought he’d finally walked into the river to die. They held a service. Said prayers. Moved on.

But the light came back.

People began seeing it: a single lantern bobbing along the riverbank at night. No footsteps. No sound. Just a flickering orange glow, moving too fast, too smoothly—darting through the trees, across water, even over rock.

They called it The Running Light.

Some say it's Elijah’s spirit, still cursed and mad from the snake venom, dragging his shattered soul across the land he tried to tame. Others say it’s not him at all anymore—that the venom, the flood, and the river itself changed him, made him into something else. Something not dead, but not human.

The light is always seen just ahead of you. If you try to follow it, you’ll never catch it—but you’ll hear breathing. Splashing. Whispering. Your lantern might go out. Your compass might spin. And if you chase it long enough, you’ll find yourself right back at the root wad where Elijah went mad. Only now, it’s dry… and something is waiting inside.

Some believe The Running Light doesn’t lead you astray by accident—it calls to you. Especially if your blood’s running hot, if your heart’s thumping. That’s when it draws near, flickering just out of reach, leading you deeper into the woods, or worse… to the water’s edge.

And if you get too close,
they say you’ll see him at last--
his skin still rotting, eyes white and blood shot, and dozens of black snakes slithering in and out of his mouth, carrying pieces of your name between their fangs.

So if you’re camping near Table Rock and you see a lantern moving too fast down by the trees--
Don’t follow.
Don’t look back.
And whatever you do…

Don’t listen when it says your name.

Some lights guide you home.
Others drag you back to where the madness began.

A Hurtville Horror Story by Scott Farmer

There’s a lakehouse on the edge of Table Rock.
Pretty from the outside—cedar shake siding, big windows, and a perfect view of the water where the White River used to run. It gets rented out to tourists every summer. They never ask about the foundation. They never wonder why it’s always just a little too cold downstairs.

But locals know. They remember what stood there before the water came.

Hurtville's last house. The one with the basement that shouldn't have survived.

It belonged to the Larsons, a family that refused to leave when the dam went up. They lived in the shadow of Hurtville, close to the banks. Their youngest son, Caleb, had been acting strange. Drawing circles in the dirt. Talking to corners. Screaming when it rained. They said he was “touched,” but the Larsons didn’t believe in asylums. Not even the one just upriver.

Then came the flood.

The Larsons vanished with it—every one of them. But the basement? It stayed. Somehow untouched, preserved beneath the water and time. When the new lakehouse was built on the site in the 1990s, the contractors were puzzled to find concrete walls and rusted stairs already sunk into the earth. But rather than tear it out, they built around it. Poured fresh slab. Framed it up. Said it’d make a great wine cellar.

It didn’t.

Every owner since has said the same thing: “The basement is wrong.”

It’s always cold, no matter the season. The lightbulbs pop if you stay down there too long. One renter claimed the walls were breathing. Another swore he heard a child whispering from the drain in the floor. A couple from Kansas said they found wet footprints on the ceiling when they woke up after a storm.

And always… the smell. Like wet stone and old blood.

Local lore says Caleb never drowned. That when the flood came, he went down instead—down into the basement where he’d carved symbols no one could read, whispered to things no one else could hear. The river came, but Caleb was already claimed by something deeper.

Now, they say, the lakehouse is his.

Guests report waking up with muddy water in their shoes. One boy said he saw a handprint pressed against the inside of the basement door—from the other side.

And sometimes, late at night, those who dare to step into the basement hear it: a voice from beneath the floorboards, raspy and thin--
​
“You found me…”

But that’s not the worst part.

The worst part is what they see when they try to leave:
The basement stairs are suddenly wet.
The walls are covered in handprints.
And at the top of the stairs, standing in the doorway, is Caleb—but not as a boy.

A long-limbed thing with empty eyes. Stretching toward the light. Whispering your name.

Because if you’ve gone down there once…
He’ll always know where to find you.

The lake buried a town.
But the basement stayed dry.
And what's down there... never stopped waiting.

A Hurtville Horror Story by Scott Farmer

Long after the fires of Hurtville were smothered and the White River was dammed into Table Rock Lake, folks still came to fish the waters. Bass, bluegill, crappie—some of the best fishing in the Ozarks. Quiet coves. Early morning fog. Peaceful… until it isn’t.

Ask any seasoned angler and they’ll tell you:
“It ain’t the cold that gives you chills out there. It’s Fishy.”

That’s what they call it—Fishy.

A joke name, sure. But there’s nothing funny about the black mass that waits below the boat, just out of view. It’s not a fish. Not a shadow. And it’s not the water playing tricks on your eyes. Fishy is real. And the first time you feel it or smell it you’ll wish it wasn’t.

It begins when you’re alone on the lake. Just you, your rod, the slow lapping of water. Then you start to feel it and smell it—a presence, right behind you. Like someone’s standing at your back on the boat deck. Breathing. Watching. Maybe you even glance over your shoulder. Of course, there’s no one there. Just fog. Just trees.

Then you lean forward to check your line… or worse, to look into the water.

That’s when you see it.

Not a face. Not a fish. Just a mass—a shape darker than the deep. No eyes, no limbs, just a coiling black smear that stretches and flickers like oil on the move. It doesn’t ripple. It doesn’t swim. It hovers, waiting beneath the surface, pulsing like it’s breathing.

And if you look too long, you’ll see your reflection disappear.

Gone. Swallowed by the black. Replaced by… something else. A second version of you. Twisted. Smiling. Mouthing things under the water. Things only you should know.

That’s how Fishy gets you.

The first to report it was a man from Reeds Spring back in 1977. He came back ashore barefoot, shivering in the sun, and wouldn’t touch water again for the rest of his life. Claimed something grabbed his ankle when he reached over to net a bass. Something cold and soft and too smooth to be human.

Others followed anglers who vanished completely, their boats found drifting in circles. Lines snapped. Motors running. Coolers full. No one inside.

Then came the dreams. The ones where you’re sinking, lungs full, and a black shape with your face is rising to the surface instead.

Folks started saying Fishy wasn’t a spirit, but a memory—a leftover piece of Hurtville that shouldn’t have survived the flood. Something that drowned angry, hungry, and nameless. Maybe it was a child thrown into the river. Maybe it was the sins of the asylum. Maybe it was never human at all.

Now, it waits for those who cast their lines too deep. Who stay on the water too long. Who let their minds drift just a little too far.

So, if you’re fishing on Table Rock Lake and you feel something behind you…
Don’t turn around.
Don’t lean forward.
And whatever you do, don’t look into the water.

Because Fishy’s waiting.
And it wants to wear your reflection next.

Some things glide.
Some things rot.
And some things haunt without eyes.

A Hurtville Horror Story by Scott Farmer

There are hills in the Ozarks that feel older than time—steep, silent, and thick with oaks that whisper even when there's no wind. Ask any local hiker, and they’ll warn you about the switchbacks above old Hurtville. They'll say: “Don’t stop too long. Don’t breathe too hard. And if you see red—don’t look.”

They're talking about the child in the red coat.

The story started after the dam was built and the White River turned into Table Rock Lake. A handful of hikers vanished along the ridgelines above where Hurtville used to be. Most were written off—got lost, fell, wandered off the trail. But a few were found, curled into balls, their eyes open and mouths frozen in a scream. No sign of trauma. No sign of attack. Just fear.
One of the search-and-rescue boys found something else, too: a tiny red button, shiny and clean, lying in the dirt at eye level.

That’s when people started talking.

They say if you hike alone in those hills and start to feel winded—heart pounding, breath heavy—the child finds you. You won’t hear her coming. No rustle of leaves. No footsteps. Just a sudden drop in temperature and a sense that something is very, very wrong.

Then, when you stop to catch your breath—she’s there.

Two inches from your face.

You won’t see her walk up. You won’t hear her breathe. You’ll just blink, and suddenly, there she is:
​
A child, no taller than your chest, standing stock-still in a bright red coat that doesn’t move in the wind.

But her face?
There isn’t one.
Just a black, endless hollow where her features should be. No nose. No eyes. No mouth. Just a chasm of nothingness, like you’re staring into a deep, bottomless well.

And the worst part?

You’ll feel her breathe in.

Like she’s pulling your breath from your lungs. Like she’s tasting your exhaustion. Feeding on it.

Some say she was a child who got lost during the Hurtville fire, separated from her family as the flames closed in. Others believe she never had a face to begin with—that she was born from the fear of those last moments, from the screams of the dying, from the smoke that rose above the White River like a veil.

Now, she lingers in the hills.

Only shows herself to those who can’t breathe right—those who are weak.
They say she only gets closer the more tired you are. That she inches forward every time you exhale hard. And if you collapse from exhaustion… well, that’s when she takes your face.

No one knows what she does with them. But a few hikers have returned with missing eyes. No wounds. Just empty sockets. One man lost his voice entirely—mouth intact, but not a sound would come out. And he refuses to go near the hills again.

So if you’re hiking near where Hurtville once stood, pace yourself.
Breathe shallow. Keep moving. And if you hear something small walking behind you—don’t look.

And if you see red…

Close your eyes.

She’s not lost.
She’s looking for a face.
And she’s already closer than you think.

A Hurtville Horror Story by Scott Farmer

Long before Table Rock Lake swallowed the valley, before Hurtville was reduced to a ghost on the map, there stood a building on the southern bend of the White River. Locals called it the Walls, though its true name was never spoken. It was an asylum. A place meant to heal minds—but built on rot, sorrow, and screams.

No records remain of when it was constructed. No photographs. Just stories passed down in hushed voices, especially when the mist rolls in thick off the lake and the cicadas go silent all at once.

They say the asylum was three stories tall, with barred windows and stone walls that sweated in the summer. The river ran behind it, quiet and constant, like it was listening. Patients came from across Missouri and Arkansas—those deemed too broken, too wild, or too inconvenient to keep in the towns above. Some had voices in their heads. Others just had secrets that others wanted buried.

That’s what the Walls were good at: burying.

People who worked there didn’t stay long. The ones who did, changed. They became pale, jumpy. Stared at nothing. Spoke in short sentences, or not at all. One nurse wrote in her journal, “The third floor hums at night. Not from electricity—from memory. And sometimes the locks undo themselves.”

Then came the Incident.

No one’s certain what happened. Some say a patient lit a fire in the basement that spread too quickly. Others insist it was an uprising—a riot of the forgotten, led by a man who never blinked and whispered in tongues. Whatever the cause, the asylum burned. Screams echoed across the river that night, and the air smelled of boiling blood.

When the smoke cleared, the building still stood—but blackened, hollow. Thirty-seven patients were never found. The asylum was sealed, abandoned. Forgotten.

Then came the dam. And the water rose.

Now, Table Rock Lake sits quiet over where the asylum once stood. But when the fog drifts low and the moon hangs yellow, boats near that stretch sometimes stall without reason. Campers hear moans rising from the water, and sometimes—God help them—they see windows just beneath the surface, glowing faintly.

They say the asylum still exists, just shifted. Trapped beneath the lake, yes—but not dormant.

Divers who go too deep in that part of the lake report seeing stone structures, black iron bars, even faces pressed to glass that shouldn't be there. One man came up screaming, claimed he saw his own mother—dead ten years—banging on a cell door below.

Some believe the asylum feeds off memory now, pulling the pain and madness of the living into itself.
Others say it waits for the water to lower.
That one day, the asylum will rise again.

They say if you camp near the southern edge of Table Rock, and you hear footsteps squishing just beyond the shoreline—don’t investigate.
If you see the faint lights of a three-story building where no building stands—don’t blink.
And if you hear your name whispered from beneath the lake, spoken in your own voice--

Run.

Because the Walls remember you.

Some places are forgotten by history.
Others are remembered by Hell.