This is Stanford road. It starts out as any other road in a heavily wooded northeastern Ohio town. As you continue on your journey down the famed street, you will find yourself approaching the legendary and bone chilling "highway to hell" via the "end of the world". This area is really nothing more than a steep incline with a sudden drop-off, which continues into a "road closed" sign that indicates the end of the road per the city. The road however, continues and becomes the same road, in another city (through a few barriers). Upon arrival on the top of that road, and before the last "road closed" sign, there appears to be what some would consider an "abandoned house" to the right and in the woods a bit.

Legend has it, an old school bus used to sit in front of the house on a concrete slab, and they towed it away due to excessive amounts of teenage tomfoolery. It is rumored that if you travel to the location late at night, you can still see the shadow of the bus that sat there for so many years.

In it's heyday, burnouts and dropouts alike would spend many a night traveling great distances to be a part of the folklore and get a taste of Helltown for themselves. They would drive as quickly as possible over the "end of the world" to create a tense atmosphere for the unavailing of the local urban legend. By this point, the other people in the car have since smoked their joints and downed their beer, so getting a little nervous was likely, and expected. At the point where it's time to get out of the car and pursue the "house in the woods" there is an extra tension due to the rumor that there are viscous cults in the woods who will attack anyone who "dares to enter". While peering at trees and pointing in the air, the cult members of this town follow paths in the woods and dress like everyday people on a normal hike through any Metroparks system. The fear of being savagely torn apart by bloodthirsty cult members really stemmed from the original inception of the bus onto that property. The legend was that one day a school bus full of kids were on their way to a ski resort and an old woman flagged them down. The woman's husband was badly hurt. The bus driver pulled over and offered his assistance, but a cult ran from the woods and slaughtered them all, and the kids were all slaughtered on the bus. Most tour guides have seen kids on the bus already, and they're eager to tell you all about it. The real story of the school bus is better than the legend, as I'm sure you'll all agree. While renovating their home, the family that lived in "the house in the woods" was living in a gutted school bus, then the government came along and picked them off their property. It is said that you can still hear the sounds of the people's rights being torn away. The bus is gone now, they towed it away.

What most contemporary versions of the legend leave out, is the car that sits to the side of the house, nestled in the woods. This run-down looking vehicle is rumored to be broken, and in non-working condition. While this is just speculation, and has not been proven, some say that if you try to hot-wire it, nothing happens. Others say they can hear the hum of the engine as they walk back to down the hill to their cars. Modern day skeptics think this phenomena nothing more than that of the ghost of the school bus forever in idle. Be weary of attempting to sit in the "devils car", it is said that you shall surely be swept away into creation, whereby you will spend all of eternity staring blankly back at the man on the bench.

The "bench" in question actually passed away 12 years ago of natural causes. The alleged man continues to roam the cemetery searching eternally for a place to "have a seat". It is said that if you bring a lawn chair and sit atop the hill in the middle of the night, the spirit will become so angered that in a jealous rage he will notify the police through psycho telepathy. The old slaughterhouse that sits at the bottom of the hill, has been cleverly disguised as someone's tool shed, to dissuade on-lookers from what would appear to neighbors as trespassing.

The cemetery itself sits at the end of a street called "Main", an ordinary road by all accounts, unless that is, you have been "getting wasted". To those who dare to enter "Helltown" after dark in search of the cemetery, I give you two words of advice: "don't die". It's important not to let yourself be overcome by the cult, and die on one of their archaic sacrificing slabs of death. The cult is always in the woods, walking labyrinths with innocent trail markers to throw off the untrained eye. They do not wear robes! Make no mistake, the modern day "cult of the new millennia" is taking steps to adapt to our civilized and humane way of life. They are attempting to integrate with our culture by smiling, and wearing everyday clothes. They can sometimes be seen with walking sticks and cameras. In recent years, they have been killing only two or three poor, drunk teenagers per season, although the signs clearly read "no hunting or trapping".

please e-mail me with any thoughts @ endIofItheIworld@aol.com