The Shadows of Bowman Cemetery EP #0010

Near Elkton, Ohio, the air stays cold even in July. Fog settles into the hollows like it never learned how to leave, clinging to the gravel roads long after sunset. Locals don’t talk much about Bowman Cemetery unless they have to. And when they do, they don’t call it by name. They just call it The Haunting.

Lusk Lock Road curves through the woods like a scar. On that night, a silver SUV cut through the fog, its headlights swallowed by skeletal trees that leaned inward as if listening. Somewhere beyond the road’s edge, stone markers leaned and sank, swallowed slowly by moss and time. The cemetery gate waited—cracked, rusted, and slightly open—like it had been expecting company.

Marcus parked just outside the ironwork. He was a college student, shaved head, denim jacket pulled tight against the cold. He didn’t come for legends. He came for proof. EVP recordings. Audio waveforms. Something measurable. Something that could be explained away in a dorm room later. He raised his recorder, the screen glowing blue against his face, and asked the darkness a simple question. “Is there anyone here who wishes to speak?”

The answer came faster than belief. The EMF meter screamed red before the words finished leaving his mouth. Tombstones hummed with static. The woods behind him shifted. When Marcus turned, he saw her—blurred and pale between the trees—a woman in a tattered 1800s dress, standing near a hanging rope that swayed without wind. From the recorder, a whisper bled through the static. Run.

The legends say she was a witch. That children had vanished. That Elkton repaid the debt in hemp and wood. The Hanging Tree still stands, thick and twisted, silhouetted against the moon. Some swear she never touched the ground again. Others say she never stopped hunting. Marcus didn’t wait to decide which version was true. Pain tore through his arm as something unseen raked across his skin, three fresh scratches blooming red against pale flesh.

He ran.

Fog chased him to the car, curling and snapping like it had teeth. He slammed the door, twisted the key, and floored the gas. The engine screamed—but the car didn’t move. Metal groaned. From beneath the bumper, long grey hands rose and wrapped around the chrome, fingers digging in deep. The Witch wasn’t the only thing buried at Bowman Cemetery.

They call him the Bumper Man. A shadow in an oil-stained jumpsuit. A hulking shape dragged from roadside accidents and forgotten wrecks. Marcus saw one milky white eye staring back at him from the cracked rearview mirror. The car fishtailed as the figure held fast, boots carving trenches into the gravel. The engine redlined. The road refused to give him back.

With a final roar, the SUV tore free. Metal snapped. Fog exploded backward as the car surged forward down Lusk Lock Road. In the haze behind him, two figures stood side by side—the Witch beneath the Hanging Tree and the Bumper Man in the road—watching him flee like they always do.

Some stories are just legends. Others leave marks.

The next morning, Marcus’s car sat safely in a well-lit driveway miles away. But on the rear bumper, pressed deep into the chrome, were four unmistakable fingerprints—human in shape, impossible in force. Bowman Cemetery doesn’t chase everyone. But if it touches you… it remembers.

Visit at your own risk.