Second Story
Has it ever been said where the second story took place?
sharesomewhere in Missouri (I THINK in the Southern part of the state)
shareYes, that's what Serling says in the opening narration. Like the third story in the film ('The Girl on the Bridge'), however, this is a variant of an old folk tale rather than a dramatization of a true, documented event. 'Girl', of course, is recognizable as a version of the Vanishing Hitchhiker legend, but the story of the monster in the hole is much more obscure. It's an old Ozark spook tale, and I've read a different version of it in a book of ghost stories and folk tales from that region--"Ozark Tales and Superstitions" by Phillip Steele, I believe. (In the book, this story is entitled 'The Monster of Peter Bottom Cave'.) Not a widely-known story, but a good one.
shareI had a supervisor from Missouri named Billy Joe Payne (How about that for a name?), and he told me that he vaguely remembers the story of the man falling in a hole. It was a camp fire type tale. I loved discussing these old horror films with anyone who would listen.
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