WEBVTT

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Ain't nothing quite like a summer night down

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at Lake Lanier. The water's smooth like glass,

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the moon rippling across the surface, cicadas

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humming in the trees. Folks laugh and splash,

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boats drift easy, and the air's thick with the

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smell of fish and gasoline from them jet skis

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tearing across the lake. But when the sun dips

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behind them, Georgia pines, when the water turns

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black, Something in the air shifts. A boy once

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told a tale, swore up and down it was true, about

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how he was swimming out near the old Lunier Bridge

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when he felt fingers wrap around his ankle. Cold,

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strong, pulling him down. He kicked, thrashed,

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screamed, but something beneath the water wouldn't

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let go. They found him gasping on the shore,

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eyes wild, hands shaking. said when he looked

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down into that murky water, just before he blacked

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out, he saw her. A woman in a blue dress, floating

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just below the surface, her face pale, her eyes

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dark pits, her arms stretched out like she was

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reaching for him. Ain't nobody dared to tell

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him he was lying, because plenty of folks around

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these parts got stories about Lake Lanier, and

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not one of them ends well. Welcome to Kentucky

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Melodies America's Scariest Stories, where we

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bring you ghostly legends, spooky haints, and

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bone -chilling tales from all over this great

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land. These stories will have you looking over

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your shoulder all night. So pull up a chair,

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dim them lights, and let's dive into the eerie

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and unexplained. Tucked up in North Georgia,

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Sprawled out like a black bottomless hole, Lake

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Lanier don't just sit, it looms. It stretches

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near 38 ,000 acres. Its water's hungry and deep,

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swallowing up everything that once stood beneath

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it. By daylight, it might seem still, just a

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big old basin of water, but when the wind dies

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down and the surface smooths out like glass,

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it starts feeling less like a lake. and more

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like a looking glass that ain't reflecting the

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world above, but something else entirely. Ain't

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nothing natural about what lingers under them

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murky depths. Back in the 1950s, the government

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come in talking big about progress, saying how

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they needed to build a hydroelectric dam. Claimed

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it'd be good for Atlanta, good for power, good

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for flood control. What they didn't say, what

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they didn't care much to talk about was what'd

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be swallowed up in the process. Whole towns,

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whole lives. They come through with their surveyor

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stakes and eviction notices, telling folks they

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had to clear out that their homes, their churches,

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their schools, their histories, all of it was

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gonna be wiped off the map. Some packed up and

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left, but plenty didn't wanna go. Weren't long

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before the bulldozers come, tearing up the land,

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knocking down buildings, leaving whole communities

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to rot before the water even got to them. And

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then there was the graveyards. Now they claim

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they did the best they could, say they went through

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digging up graves, moving markers, trying to

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make sure them that had been laid to rest weren't

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disturbed too much. But let me ask you something.

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How you reckon they found them all? Some of them

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bones had been down in that dirt since the Civil

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War, since before the ink dried on the declaration,

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since long before any surveyor's pen ever scratched

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out a map of Georgia. Whole family plots where

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time had worn the stones clean, where names had

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been forgotten, where roots had tangled up with

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ribs and femurs and old wooden coffins. So, when

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the dam finally shut, when the water started

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crawling up over the hills and filling the valleys,

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when it rose up slow and patient, swallowing

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roads and forests, pulling whole towns into the

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deep, you really think they got every last body?

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Or did some of them stay put, trapped under the

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silt, settling under the weight of that dark,

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drowning water? That's right. The bodies. And

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a lake that big, holding that much history, that

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much death. It don't stay quiet. Ain't never

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stayed quiet. Ain't just one ghost in Lake Lanier.

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No, sir. This place don't hold just one restless

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soul. It holds hundreds, maybe more. Folks around

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here say the whole place got a curse on it. Something

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woven deep into the water, into the land beneath.

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It ain't just the drownings. Ain't just the wrecks

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or the vanishing folks. It's the feel of the

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place. The way the air changes when the sun dips

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low. The way the water don't never feel quite

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right when you step into it. Some say it started

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back in 1912. long before a single drop of this

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lake existed when the town of Oscarville was

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wiped clean off the map. Wasn't no natural disaster

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that took it. No sickness or famine. It was people.

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A thriving black community. Folks with homes,

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with farms, with businesses, was run out by violence.

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Mob come through, set fire to houses, took what

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they wanted, killed who they pleased. The ones

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that got away? They left with nothing. Their

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land stolen, their history erased. And decades

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later, when the government come deciding this

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was the perfect spot for a lake, the water rose

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up and took what was left of that town. But the

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past? It don't drown easy. Fishermen been out

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there before dawn, sitting quiet in their boats,

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waiting on a bite, only to see figures standing

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on the water. Not in it, but on it. Dark shapes,

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motionless in the mist, just watching. More than

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one man has cast his line, thought he hooked

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something big, only to feel the weight shift,

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like something tugging from below, harder than

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any fish should pull. And when they look over

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the side, sometimes the water don't just show

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them their own reflection. Sometimes it shows

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them someone else. Dark eyes, empty faces, people

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that ain't supposed to be there. And them graveyards,

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they say they moved? Well, plenty of folks reckon

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they didn't get every last body. They talk about

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cold hands brushing past their legs when they're

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swimming. Feeling like something grabs at their

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ankles, pulling them under, holding them down

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just long enough to taste panic. But even them

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spirits from Oscarville, even them nameless dead

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beneath the water, they don't send the biggest

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shiver down folks' spines. No sir, that'd be

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her. The Lady of the Lake. Been stories about

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her since 1958, when two women, Susie Roberts

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and Delia May Parker Young went driving down

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that old Lanier bridge, laughing and carrying

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on till something went wrong. Their car veered

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off the road, flew into the black water below.

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For a whole year, there weren't no sign of them.

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Then one day, a fisherman found a body, bloated,

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twisted, hands gone. Couldn't tell who she was,

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where she come from. Then in 1990 something else

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come up from them depths a rusted out Ford sedan

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sitting at the bottom of the lake all them years

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holding the skeleton of Suzy Roberts which means

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that first body that was Delia and some say she

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never left people driving across Lanier Bridge

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late at night say they seen her a woman in a

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blue dress walking the roadside, her hair dripping

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wet, her face pale as the moon. Sometimes she

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steps right out in front of their cars, eyes

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black as the deep. The ones that try to stop,

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try to help, say she vanishes before their very

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eyes. And the ones that don't see her in time?

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They say she just stares as the car passes through

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her, like she knows who's next. Them that live

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to tell it don't never take that road alone again.

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Now, I reckon you might sit there and say, ah,

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that's just old ghost stories, just folks spinning

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yarns. But let me tell you something, numbers

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don't lie. Since 1994, over 200 people done drowned

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in Lake Lanier. That's 200 souls lost. and that's

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just the ones they counted. Some of them bodies

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turned up, some never did. Ain't like it's a

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stormy sea, neither. Ain't like these folks was

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caught in hurricanes fighting against raging

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waters. No, sir. Some of them was just swimming.

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Some of them was sitting in boats on waters,

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so calm and still you could see the trees reflecting

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back at ya. Then, gone. Boats capsize for no

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reason, flipping in water that shouldn't be churning.

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Lifeguards tell tales about strong, invisible

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currents, pulling swimmers straight down, like

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something beneath the surface got a grip on them.

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But it's the divers that got the worst stories.

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Them that go down in the deep talk about seeing

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whole forests still standing beneath that water.

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Trees with branches stretched out, like they

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reaching for the surface like they trying to

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climb their way back to the world of the living.

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Ain't just trees, neither. They seen roads down

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there, bridges, whole buildings sitting silent

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in the dark, swallowed up and forgotten. The

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past don't die. It just waits. And sometimes

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them divers say it ain't just trees that reach

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for them. People that been in that water before

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talk about feeling something brush past their

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legs, something cold, solid, like flesh where

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flesh shouldn't be. They kick and twist, but

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there ain't nothing there. Least not that they

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can see, but some don't get the chance to tell

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the tale. Some get pulled down and never come

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back up. Others say, If you stop paddling, just

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tread water real still. Let the silence settle

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around you. You might hear something. Not the

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lapping of water, not the sound of boats in the

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distance, but screaming. Ain't no echoes on a

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lake. No reason a voice should come from below.

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But there it is, muffled, twisting up through

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the deep. A sound that ain't got nowhere to carry

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it. No lungs to make it. And if you stay out

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too long, if you listen too close, real late

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at night, you might hear something even worse.

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Not screaming, not crying, but laughing. A woman's

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laugh, light and sweet, floating just over the

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water, right before something cold wraps around

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your ankle. Ain't hard to find folks who got

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their own tale to tell. Maybe they saw the lady

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in blue on the bridge. Maybe they felt them fingers

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in the deep. Maybe they know something they ain't

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never gonna speak out loud. But what about you?

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If you ever found yourself standing at the edge

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of Lake Lanier, feeling that warm Georgia breeze

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on your skin, watching the water stretch out

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dark and still, would you go in? Would you step

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into them waters? Feel the cold creep up your

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legs, let the dark close over your head, even

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knowing what might be lurking just beneath you?

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Or would you stay put on the shore, heart hammering,

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listening close, watching the tree line for shadows

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that ain't supposed to be there? Would you keep

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your ears open for a whisper, for a splash that

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don't belong, for the sound of laughter drifting

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low across the lake? Maybe you got a tale of

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your own. Maybe you heard something from kinfolk,

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or you've been out there and felt something cold

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grip your ankle when there weren't nothing there

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to grab ya. Tell me, have you ever had a run

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-in with something you can't explain? Ever seen

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something in the water that shouldn't be there?

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Drop it in the comments, share your story, or

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just let me know. Would you take a swim in Lake

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Lanier? Now, if you made it this far, reckon

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you got a taste for the eerie and the unexplained.

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The kind of stories that keep you up at night,

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listening for sounds that ain't supposed to be

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there. But don't stop now, there's plenty more

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haints and horrors waiting for you right here

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at Kentucky Melody. Ghosts that don't rest, curses

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that don't break. Towns that vanished but left

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something behind So go on if you dare click the

00:14:48.639 --> 00:14:53.039
next episode But be warned once you start down

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this trail you might not find your way back And

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if you hear something whispering from the dark

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while you listen Don't answer back