Ghost stories, tales of goblins, witches, Big Foot-like creatures, floating lights and a maniac hunter are some of the mysterious stories about the Uwharrie Mountains in central North Carolina, one of North America’s oldest mountain ranges. They are a landscape that is brilliantly gorgeous and colorful during the day but changes dramatically as the sun goes down, becoming dark and foreboding.
This story is about an area known as Purgatory Mountain near the North Carolina Zoo.
Darkness and foreboding brought a nightmare to Ranger Mike Yates as he worked the graveyard shift many years ago in the “Interim Zoo”, the site where the North Carolina Zoo originated in the early 1970s.
Looking out of the Security Office windows Mike could see ground fog floating in like a ghost. His truck, parked beside the pond, was almost swallowed by the heavy fog.
He started the truck and put it in reverse when, to his startled amazement, he saw an elderly woman in the rearview mirror. Illuminated by his backing lights, she was immediately behind the truck. “Where did she come from?” He jumped out of the truck getting a better look at the serene old lady who was dressed formally. In the darkness, he reminded himself that it was nearly three o’clock a.m. (In lore and legend, three o’clock a.m. is the witching hour.)
“I’m here to meet someone,” she said calmly, speaking just above a whisper. She turned in the fog and began to walk away. Toward the pond in the fog and in the dark. Yates immediately saw the potential for the lady to fall into the pond. He called after her. “Perhaps whoever you are here to meet is waiting for you at the gate. Get in the truck and I will take you there.” She quietly complied.
At the gate an ancient car was parked beside the road. The kind of car that would take a little old lady to church and the grocery store once a week long ago and far away. Silently the old woman got into the car as Mike watch in astonishment.
The old car started and began to drive away when Yates made the snap decision to follow her. To get her license plate number. Something. Anything in the fog that would make sense.
He sped behind her and when he rounded a curve in the road…the impossible. The old car was gone. Vanished.
Should you find yourself in the vicinity of Purgatory Mountain on Halloween, don’t speak to the serene little old woman in a formal gown or follow her ancient car on the curving roads. She is here to “meet someone” and this time, that “someone” may be you…