L.D.
Thursday, March 2nd, 2000
When I was 7 or 8 years old, I developed a masochistic obsession with ghost stories. I say masochistic because, though the stories really traumatized me, kept me awake in the middle of the night and made me afraid to walk down the hallway in the dark, I could not stop reading them. It was like looking at an accident or reading “In the Penal Colony.”
Strangely, there was a large number of stories about ghostly dogs. Though these stories didn’t usually frighten me as much as some of the other stories did, there was one story in particular that made me afraid not only of phantom dogs, but of the entire state of Tennessee: the story of “Long Dog.”
Honestly, I don’t even like to write that name (or speak it, for that matter) because it still sends a cold little spike through my heart. So from now on the story will be known as “L.D.".
The abbreviated story of L.D. is as follows:
During the pioneer days, when people still rode around in covered wagons and such, there was a road in Tennessee that was haunted by the ghost of a dog - L.D. As the story went, a family (mother, father and young boy) was moving west in a covered wagon from somewhere to somewhere by way of Tennessee. As they entered the region and stopped at whatever kind of roadside place it is that you stop at when you’re travelling in a covered wagon, they got to talking to one of the natives. They told this man where they were headed, and he warned them to get off of the road before dark or else they might encounter L.D.
As far as I can remember, it was never made clear what L.D. would do to you if you encountered him, or why he was even a ghost, for that matter. Whatever the reasons, they apparently weren’t enough to convince the family that they were in any danger, because they ignored the man’s warning and continued on their way.
The young boy was not so dismissive of the whole thing, however. The young boy wanted to avoid L.D. at all costs, and try as he might to put the idea of the ghostly dog out of his mind, he was plagued with terror. The wheels on the wagon had developed a repetetive squeak, and in his fear, the young boy thought the wheels seemed to be chanting “Long Dog - Long Dog - Long Dog” over and over (that part of the story is still very vivid in my mind, and it still disturbs me).
Well, night fell, and the wagon rolled, and the wheels squeaked, and the young boy stared out the back of the wagon at the dark road that stretched behind them - and lo! What did he see off in the distance but a strange, glowing, moving thing - an apparition. And as the apparition moved closer, gaining on the wagon from behind, its identity became clear: it was L.D.!
The details get fuzzy here. I suppose that the boy told his parents, and that the parents saw the dog and tried to race away from it in their rickety wagon - to no avail. Ghosts can move faster than any covered wagon, and so it was that L.D. caught up with the mother and the father and the young, frightened boy, and…
And I don’t know. I seem to remember the story ending with something about how one still shouldn’t ride down this road in Tennessee at night, but if one does, one should be on the lookout for L.D. - and his ghostly young companion. I took this to mean that the little boy joined the ranks of apparitions and was doomed to wander this road with L.D. for all eternity, striking fear in the hearts of covered wagon-owners everywhere.
It retrospect, it all sounds fairly silly (most things do). But as an 8 year old, I was really terrified by this story. I was mostly terrified because my family took a trip from Indiana to Florida, and since we were driving, we had to drive through - yes - Tennessee. And though we were most definitely not in a covered wagon, I was still scared out of my wits at the prospect of driving through Tennessee at night.
I can’t remember now if we did drive through at night or not. I have a vague recollection of riding in the back of the car and hunching down away from the windows, but I always did that when we drove through thunderstorms as well, so maybe that memory doesn’t have anything to do with Tennessee. But whether it does or not is irrelevant. To me, Tennessee will forever be the home of the strange and terrible L.D.
Comments
1
Wow, that sounds freaky. Where did you hear that story from? Please email me so i can get it and maybe one or two more ghost stories because i absolutly love them
thanks Anja
2
It wasn’t common, of course, for a human body to be found torn to shreds or the clothing badly torn and the body severely lacerated. However, there were some common threads sometimes, when these things did happen, when accounts of some such deaths were compared.
If the local police agencies couldn’t solve the mystery they might offer bear attack or wildcat attack as possibilities. Often the deaths went unexplained, except by those who knew of the horrible creature said to roam the woodlands of East Tennessee. Those who knew had no doubt about the meanings of the common threads in the deaths.
And in those deaths, there were indeed common pieces of evidence:
Always, there were very few signs of a struggle; as if the victim had been immediately overwhelmed and unable to fight the attacker with any prowess.
The scene of the attack indicated that the beast or attacker had slung and dragged and thrown and whipped the victim around over the ground in the killing, in, perhaps a ten-foot circular area, in a violent rage of attack.
Furthermore, the torn body and the attack scene usually reeked of a terrible odor; some say a "sulfur-like", almost acrid stench. Some say the odor was like that of highly concentrated skunk spray.
Also, if any humans had been anywhere in the general area, there were usually reports, after the fact, that low, guttural, moaning sounds had been heard off somewhere in the woods during the night of the killing. Not screams, not loud wails, but powerful as to be easily heard in the quiet nights. Grunting as from a wild hog, but maybe more like the low growl of a huge lion, eerily close but at once somewhere off in the distance. Usually, those who reported hearing the sounds said they had not related the sounds at the time to an attack or anything like that, but having been told later that an attack had occurred, they suspected the legendary creature had been in the area and then they began to think aloud that it had done the killing.
Sometimes, a person would come up missing and never be found except that a smelly, torn-up attack scene would be found. Legend said that some victims were transformed into zombie-like creatures that also roamed the night, although that was probably just local folklore. Yet, many reported sightings of these “things” often matched descriptions of sightings reported in and around the Arch (later named Sensabaugh Tunnel by locals).
The common threads of evidence in these killings always matched tales of a mysterious creature sworn to exist and sworn to have been seen from time to time by most of the people living in the valley, up and down the river along the River Road, now known as “Big Elm Road”. The creature was legendary even before the first white settlers moved into the area.
Cherokee Indians called the creature “Oolonga-dagalla”, roughly translated as “spirit with knife teeth” and knew it as a ghostly, spirit-like creature that roamed the river valley at night, moaning and bellowing and sometimes killing solitary natives at random. Over time, the name was corrupted by the white man into “The Long Dog”.
The name “Long Dog” was fitting, in the minds of the white people, because of the common description of the creature by those who had seen it but escaped attack.
The creature loped when it ran, much like a wolverine moves. That is to say, its leaping movement brought its hind legs up under its front legs and its back arched at each stride, not unlike the movement of an inchworm. The creature moved this way at slow movement or on the run. The scariest, most hideous sight was to see the creature moving along in this way, parallel to your path but gaining on you even as you stepped faster and faster to get home before it caught you.
Also, the creature was quite long; some say as long as seven or eight feet long, fully outstretched. So that seemed to fit the corrupted Cherokee name. It had a dog-like face and a tail like that of a blue tick hound. It had perhaps the length of a very, large panther, but did not look like a panther. This creature was said to have yellowish-red, glowing eyes that were clearly fiery looking in the night. Its breath, and it’s difficult to know how someone smelled its breath and survived, was said to have the acrid smell of burning sulfur. Its hair was not sleek and shiny like a panther; rather it was matted and oily. Tracks found along the riverbank showed great, long, sharp claws.
Yet, even though signs and evidence ascribed to the creature were like those of a living beast, it was known to appear and disappear; to take the form of the “Long Dog” and transform into the form of one of its living dead zombies, or vice versa.
We knew of the Long Dog’s existence when we lived on the River Road in the late 1940s and early 1950s. I had heard the sounds of the creature at night but my father would seek to comfort me and assure me that it was just the pigs rooting out in the hog lot. My older brother was either brave enough or crazy enough to walk home from Kingsport late at night sometimes and often told of having seen, heard or even been confronted by the Long Dog. He swears he barely escaped the creature one night as he ran home (the creature somehow would not come near homes and settlements but would get as close as the nearest woods or underbrush grew and attacks occurred there, not on peoples’ clearings).
One attack is said to have occurred at the mouth of the Arch (now erroneously called Sensabaugh Tunnel by thrill seekers). Present-day ghost story enthusiasts say that you can hear the screams of the man who was killed by the Long Dog there, if you stop late at night in the stillness.
But don’t stay too long; maybe that moan isn’t a farm animal. And, that feeling brushing your cheek - maybe that isn’t the wind. And that faint figure approaching: Is it a mortal?
I return to my childhood home in East Tennessee from my present-day Indiana home, every couple of years. As I have grown older, I have given up the thrill of folklore ghost stories. I don’t believe ghost stories or in the supernatural, or the so-called “paranormal”. Yet, I often wonder as I travel back in time and space; How did the Cherokees know the same creature centuries before we heard sober white men relate its existence? And, should I be alone at night, along the dark, gravel road, along the river, near the Arch?
3
Another story about Long Dog says that he was the pet of a family traveling through the area near what is now Surgoinsville, Tennessee, when they were attacked by bandits led by the infamous John Murrell. The whole family, including their dog—a white dog, fairly low to the ground and with quite a long back—were killed by the bandits, and the dog still haunts the area. This version was collected by Kathryn Tucker Windham in her 1977 book 13 TENNESSEE GHOSTS AND JEFFREY.
4
there are tons of tales on this long dog, as well as other versions giving it a different name changing features a tad bit, there tales in south Pittsburg tn of devil monkeys which i looked up and it fits the long dog tale even as it described them to have elongate bodies like a lion or panther, face of a dog teeth of a crazed beast, and moved like a mix of monkeys and kangaroos and red glowing eyes…it is said to live in a cave at the base of sp mountain near a city park and that if you were to camp out there you risk your own life, for they will tear and rip the tent to shreds. some say it will follow you home…i really don’t know much more than that, i also heard tale of other creatures similar to this appearing in people’s house attacking their pets then vanishing… the world of spirits and unknown is very real, and can be quite frighting.
5
Here is the story from 13 Tennessee Ghosts and Jeffrey, as reprinted in a follow-up book:
http://books.google.com/books?id=IwdNp5htyMIC&pg=PA185&lpg=PA185&dq=long+dog+ghost&source=bl&ots=OLcRkJQuXM&sig=isAh4Pj-tqaYzFL-HyBLTEtf9A&hl=en&sa=X&ei=VsJsVPPtNOHIsQTgoG4Dw&ved=0CEwQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=long%20dog%20ghost&f=false
Some pages are not shown, but you can still get the gist of it. The dog wasn’t really dangerous as described in this version, he was just a ghost. I remember reading that book as a kid, and the author lived near my hometown. I bought my copy when she visited our county library and read stories to kids at a program there. I remembered that story the best from everything in that book, even though the more famous Bell Witch story and one about a ghost in my hometown at the Cherry Mansion were in it as well. Something about that kid in the back of the wagon looking out and seeing the ghost dog following them just got to me, just like it seemed to affect you.
6
Wow, thank you for that, orcus74! I just re-read (most of) the story thanks to your link, and you’re right, the ghost dog isn’t dangerous, it’s actually quite sad. But yes, that image of the kid staring out the back of the wagon is still disturbing to me!
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