Shane Black reflects on the Haunt Walk
Oct. 29—"Well, I'm not gonna tell you what it was, but I'll tell you what I saw or I'll tell you what I heard, or what I smelled, but I'm not gonna tell you what it was, you may judge that," Shane Black said of people who tell ghost stories.
He went on to say, "when you hear enough people tell you that when you know they're good, god-fearing, nice, wonderful people, and you hear that enough times when they tell you the tales of what they've seen or experienced, you have to stop and think 'okay, either these people are just fibbing, or they're all wrong, or something weirds going on.'"
Black came to the conclusion that something weird is going on, but he leaves guests to make their own judgements about what exactly that might be after he relays the stories as they were told to him.
Black has been taking guests on Haunt Walks in Athens since the mid-2000s, telling the tales of the city and county he has grown up living and working in.
"We were trying to think of things that the community could enjoy during the Halloween season, and back in those days, there wasn't a Storytelling Festival. There were a few haunted houses around, but other than that there really weren't a lot of community activities," Black said. "We're just sort of bouncing around some ideas about what what we could do."
Black and others had participated in Haunt Walks and Ghost Tours in historic cities such as Savannah and Charleston and wondered if that was something Athens could do.
"Do we have ghost stories here in Athens where we could do that? and none of us really at the table had a lot of knowledge about local ghost stories," he said. "So we put an ad in The News Courier, did some word of mouth asking around about local ghost stories, and man we were overwhelmed with what we got back."
The community responded with an incredible amount of local stories, many with details about the background of the different houses and their former occupants.
"We were just really pleased to see how many that we had and they were all in the downtown area within walking distance and so it became pretty apparent that if we could pull all these together that we could do a Haunt Walk," Black explained.
Over the years the Haunt Walk has continued to grow.
"We've grown quite a bit. We've got several tellers, you know, several folks that are our tour guides, and I think people just enjoy going out on the night stroll on an ice cold autumn night, hearing some ghost stories, even if there's some that they've heard before," Black said.
The tours are about more than just ghosts and lore but about telling the history of Athens and Limestone County in a community setting.
"It's local folklore, right? I mean, it's stories about our town and county. Some of the events and things that have happened in our town and county you really can't tell the spooky stuff without telling a little bit about information about the town, too, and I think people enjoy that," Black explained.
The Haunt Walk is a tradition that will continuing bringing families out for years to come to learn about the lore and history of Athens and Limestone County. For more information about the walks or to get involved, reach out to Athens-Limestone County Tourism.
