Hey Bookworms! Have y’all ever heard that old saying “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry and create a haunted lake?” Probably not. I just made it up but it certainly applies to Lake Lanier in Georgia. A bunch of government guys were hanging out one day in the early 50’s looking at the trees and grass and what not when one of them, we’ll call him Chad, was like “This is fine but it would be way cooler if it was a lake. We could do all sorts of things with hydroelectricity and also swimming.” Bada boom, bada bing. They decided to make a lake.
It did not go smoothly. It was almost like the universe itself was telling them that they should forget the whole thing but Chad would not be swayed. Nay, he would not. There were arguments about where the dam should be, what the lake would be used for and what they should call it. When they finally got the damnnible dam built they realized that they were terrible at math and the lake was going to be much, much bigger than they expected. Blame Chad. So, they went from town to town slinging bags full of money at people to buy their land. Whole towns were left deserted. The bodies interred at 20 different cemeteries had to be moved and buried again on dry land. Then water rushed in and flooded everything. Yay, progress!
Now if Poltergeist taught me one thing it’s that you don’t mess with a cemetery. Bad stuff happens.
Consequently, Lake Lanier is cursed as hell. A mind blowing amount of folks die there every year. They drown in calm, shallow water. Boat accidents that nobody can explain happen constantly. Cars swerve off the road and go plunging into the depths. The lake claims more casualties than the creatures of Sunnydale and Derry combined. Of course, that means there’s a lot of folklore too.
There’s the Lady of the Lake. She’s thought to be the restless spirit of a young woman named Delia who died in a car accident. Her body, her friend, and their car all ended up in the lake. When they found Delia’s body a year and a half later she was missing both hands and two toes. Folks say they see her walking along the bridge late at night in the pretty blue dress she was wearing when she died. She’ll never stop searching for her missing hands.
There’s also a story about a ghostly raft. It just appears with a shadowy figure steering the raft with a pole and a single lantern lighting the way. One night two weirdos were out on the lake at 1 a.m. fishing from their boat which seems like a terrible idea for so many reasons. Anyway, the raft suddenly shows up about 100 feet away from them. A shadow person Huck Finning it along with a pole. The foolish fishermen freaked. Then, the figure shouted something that was unintelligible but I’m certain was “We all float down here.”, dove into the water and started swimming towards them. They screamed and flailed their fishing rods and generally wigged out because they were obviously about to be murdered. Then the raft disappeared. Shadow Huck was gone and the water was still.
Locals also swear that there are massive, carnivorous catfish in the lake just waiting for a lone swimmer to happen by so that they can gobble them up. Do they start a relationship with the swimmer over social media first and then lure them there? Will MTV give the callous Catfish their own show? Mayhaps. All I know is that if y’all head out to the lake this weekend make sure the water wasn’t cursed by a Chad or a douchebag named Bartlett before you go in. You don’t need that energy in your life. Peace out, Bookworms!
Holland + Harper Productions 