Creepypastas

NCN's

NOTE: This story involves the racism encountered by African Americans in the rural United States, particularly during the 19th and early 20th centuries. As such, this story may be offensive to some. Please proceed with discretion.

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My family could be pretty racist. I grew up in more modern times, and always considered everyone an equal. However, it was an attitude that I had to hide from my parents. I could never bring friends home who weren't white. Through my childhood, this attitude gave way to a lot of stories about where my parents came from; Rural, isolated Southern Ohio in the 1950's. I was born there, in a small town outside of St. Clairsville, but was quickly moved to Cleveland when my dad got a decent job offer. They always regretted leaving their small town roots, but I was happy. I could have ended up like them.

Eventually, my dad softened his views, and started to see that good people could be good people, no matter what their skin was or where they came from. One night, we sat by our wood burning stove in the basement of our nice house in a suburb outside of Cleveland. He poured each of us a shot of bourbon. He said he needed to tell me something that he'd never told anyone, a story from when he was growing up. He seemed concerned, which was rare, because he was always very stern and composed. A look of fear was in his eyes that I'd only seen a few times. We sat down, he poked the fire a bit, nervously. He had always told me a seemingly-comical racist story about a fake restaurant near his hometown called Nigger Chicken Necks. The "joke" was that they served bad food and hated white people. Before he started the story, he looked at me, right in the eyes, which he never did, and said, "I need to tell you the truth about Nigger Chicken Necks." He started the story.

The year was around 1971, and my dad and his friend Cal were driving around late at night, listening to Led Zeppelin 8 tracks in Cal's big old drop-top Cadillac. They drove through Cambridge, through the small, low income town the locals called Dogtown, and made their way east. They were a little drunk, but no drugs or anything like that. They lost track of time, and ended up hitting the end of the line at the Ohio River. They weren't sure how to get back, as they hadn't really been paying attention, so they figured they'd head south until they found I-70 and hop on there to get home. The area they were driving in along the river became more and more wooded, and side roads began to dwindle until they hadn't seen one for 25 or so miles.

Eventually, panicked, they pulled over for a few minutes to get their bearings, as they were both 18 and weren't familiar with the area, as well as filled with the typical teenage paranoia. Cal saw a sign with some moss over it a few yards up ahead, so they drove up to see if they had finally found a town. They took the moss off of the sign. It was an old wooden sign that read, "Coon Holler, Ohio." Neither of them had ever heard of it, and they'd never seen it on a map, but they figured they could call Cal's dad and he could tell them how to get home from there. They continued on past the sign, and ended up in a tiny, seemingly abandoned town. All of the buildings and homes were extremely small by 1970's standards, and many of them were grown over with brush. There were maybe 9 or 10 homes, a small church, a tiny wooden school building, and what may have been a tavern. No lights on in any of the buildings. They figured one of the buildings may still have a phone, since there were a few electric poles running into the town. They decided on the tavern.

They approached the shack of a place, and on the door was a sign that said, "nigger comes in, he don't leave" handwritten on a wooden plank. They figured it was just a sign of the times from when this was a town way back when. They entered the place after a fight with the aging door, and found nothing of use. It was apparently a tavern at some point, but everything was covered with a thick layer of dust. Spider webs connected the chairs and tables like twine, and the back of the bar held several ancient liquor bottles. Cal, being funny, went and opened one of the old bottles. "This shit smells like paint thinner!" he yelled to my dad, who was still looking around, hoping for any sign of life at this point. Cal took a drink from the old bottle, and instantly jumped back with his hand over his mouth, dropping the bottle, which shattered on the floor. He removed his hand, and blood trickled from his tongue, which appeared to have been burnt by the old booze. He went to the sink behind the bar, hoping for water. No such luck. He turned the faucet, and reddish—yellow muck blasted from the tap. My dad motioned for them to get out of there, and Cal, panting like an overheated animal, followed suit.