Well, if you ever go back into Wooley Swamp, well, you better not go at night. There's things out there in the middle of them woods that make a strong man die from fright. Things that crawl and things that fly and things that creep around on the ground. And they say the ghost of Lucius Clay gets up and he walks around.
But I couldn't believe it. I just had to find out for myself. And I couldn't conceive it 'cause I never would have listened to nobody else. And I couldn't believe it. I just had to find out for myself there's somethings in this world you just can't explain.
Spoken: The old man lived in the Wooley Swamp way back in Booger Woods. He never did do a lot of harm in the world, but he never did do no good. People didn't think too much of him. They all thought he acted funny. The old man didn't care about people anyway. All he cared about was his money. He'd stuff it all down in mason jars and he'd bury it all around. And on certain nights if the moon was right he'd dig it up out of the ground. He'd pour it all out on the floor of his shack and run his fingers through it. Yeah, Lucius Clay was a greedy old man and that's all that there was to it.
Cable boys was white trash. They lived over on Carver's Creek. They were mean as a snake and sneaky as a cat and belligerent when they'd speak. One night the oldest brother said, "Y'all meet me at the Wooley Swamp later. We'll take old Lucius's money and we'll feed him to the alligators." They found the old man out in the back with a shovel in his hand, thirteen rusty mason jars was just dug up out of the sand. And they all went crazy and the beat the old man, and the picked him up off of the ground. Threw him in the swamp and stood there and laughed as the black water sucked him down. Then they turned around and went back to the shack and picked up the money and ran. They hadn't gone nowhere when they realized they were running in quicksand. And they struggled and they screamed but they couldn't get away and just before they went under they could hear that old man laughing in a voice as loud as thunder.
And that's been fifty years ago and you can go by there yet. There's a spot in the yard in the back of that shack where the ground is always wet. And on summer nights, if the moon is right down by the that dark footpath, you can hear three young men screaming. You can hear one old man laugh.