Long before Lancaster, Ohio spread its limbs into tidy roads and brick storefronts, a rugged path twisted beside a stream called Fetters Run. It cut through the old farms—Foglesong, Spangler, Fetters—and trailed behind the Poor House Farm, finally ending near what is now Rising Park. Its path now roughly follows Stringtown Road, but it was formerly known as Foglesong Road after the family whose farm abutted a large portion of the road.
Along a place called Flat Rocks, a deep and dark ravine split the land like an open wound. Locals called it Still-House Hollow—due to the inconspicuous whiskey shack once nestled in the glen. The still was long gone, but something had soaked into the dirt and never left. Screams echoed from the hollow at night—sickly, high-pitched cries like something halfway between animal and man. Travelers complained of a pressure in their chest, of the air turning to syrup, of a crushing dread they couldn’t name.
And then came Jacob Spangler.
He was known as a steady man. On a cold autumn night in the mid-1800s, he saddled his mare to fetch the doctor for a fevered child. As he descended the forested hill into Still-House Hollow, his horse locked up—quivered so hard the bridle jingled.
She refused to take another step.
Spangler peered ahead. At first, he saw nothing but darkness and the shadows of branches. Then it shifted. A figure in the road.
A calf.
No—a thing like a calf. But it stood wrong. Its eyes glowed green and glassy like rotted marbles. Long, matted hair clung to its sides. The stench of rot filled the air. Spangler raised his reins to wheel around—and that’s when something grabbed his leg.
He looked down.
IT WAS CRAWLING UP HIM.
A creature, half-man, half-calf, slick with gore and black slime, pulled itself onto the horse. Its face was that of a young cow—warped and half-rotted, lips peeled back in a stiff, unnatural grin, as if it had died mid-scream and never stopped grinning. Cloven hooves. Wisps of hair. A slick, pink tongue lolled out and snorted, ending in a ghastly, almost childlike giggle.
Spangler froze. The thing climbed higher until it sat behind him in the saddle—its hooves clasped over his shoulders like a child’s arms. Its breath smelled like blood curdled with bile. The stench hit him like a blow—mungy rot and blood-soaked fur—so thick and vile it curled in his throat, made his eyes burn, and caused him to gag.
They rode together, silent. Horrifyingly, heart-pumping, tingly-fingered, numb-cheeked silence. Not until the horse broke past the edge of the hollow did the thing slide off—silent and slick—and vanish into the trees. It left behind a stench that clung to the air like pus on bone… something long dead and something older than death itself.
Spangler sat frozen in the saddle, his chest heaving, the reins slack in his trembling hands. Sweat rolled down his temples in cold beads. The adrenaline drained from his limbs in a wave, leaving him limp, hollowed out, as if he’d outrun the Devil himself—and only barely.
He didn’t look back. He never would.
But Spangler was not the first.
Years earlier, a man named Ornsdorff rode that same path and never came home. His horse returned without him—saddle slashed, bags torn, and a slick smear of dried brains and hair caked to the leather.
Men gathered. They followed the blood.
Up the hill. Through the trees.
Dragged marks in the grass led to a half-rotted shack beside an old whiskey still. The door was bolted, but they managed to break it.
Inside: silence.
Then—a reek that clawed its way into the throat. One man vomited. Another bolted from the room. In the back room lay a body, gutted and splayed on the floor.
But it wasn’t Ornsdorff.
It was a steer.
Split wide down the belly. Its entrails looped in piles. Its throat gaped open as if something had climbed out, not in.
The owner of the shack, an old recluse named Crowley, was never seen again. Neither was Ornsdorff. All that remained was a trail of blood that led from the body… out the back door… and into the hollow.
Some say Crowley fed the thing in the hollow. Some say he became it. But those were only speculations. Nobody knows what really happened.
And still, on fog-heavy nights like tonight, when headlights sweep past the woods near Keller-Kirn Park’s Flat Rocks trail, some unfortunate souls report the same thing: A sudden pressure—like something sitting on their chest.
A shape twitching between the trees.
And hooves. Not on the ground. Right behind them.
In the black angles of the park’s trails, people have heard screams—thin, shrill, and wet—as if someone is being torn open from the inside out.
Some say it’s the dead men, still caught in their final moment.
Still thrashing. Still bleeding. Still screaming.
Others, well, they believe it is that Half-calf Shade wanting more—waiting, starving, hunting for the next warm body to finish what it started.
You can find this and other ghostly Ohio tales in my book: Haunted Ohio Unearthed Real Ghost Stories from the Shadows of the Buckeye State
Find more scary stories like this in my newest books:
The Big Book of Things that Go Bump in the Night
Ghoulies and Ghosties and Long-Leggedy Beasties
Big Book of American Ghost Stories
Big Book of American Cryptids
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