They say the Devil's house still stands, though
the road to it's almost forgotten. Hidden deep
in the woods off Highway 89 in Estill County,
there's a place where even the bravest won't
linger past sundown. Folks claim it ain't just
haunted, it's cursed. The kind of place where
your skin crawls and the silence watches you.
And tonight, we're taking y 'all there. Welcome
to Kentucky Melody, where every whisper has a
past, and every path leads somewhere you shouldn't
be. Just off Highway 89, down a gravel path called
Drowning Creek Road, there's a rusted gate that
blocks off what remains of a narrow trail through
thick brush and shadow. If you hike far enough
in, past where the trees seem to lean in a little
too close. You'll find it. A decaying two -story
farmhouse, barely holding itself up. The boards
are sun -bleached and split, the windows are
black as pitch, and even the birds go quiet when
you step near the porch. It's about 10 miles
south of Irvine, out where cell phones quit working
and the only sound is the wind. And maybe something
else. The house that locals now call the Devil's
House wasn't always shrouded in whispers and
rot. Back in the early 1900s, it was a modest
homestead on the edge of civilization, nestled
deep in the hills off what's now Drowning Creek
Road. Folks said the family that built it, the
Wade's, were quiet, God -fearing people, kept
to themselves, didn't cause trouble, didn't seek
it either. But sometimes trouble finds its own
way in. After a suspicious fire claimed the family's
barn, and with it the lives of Thomas and Mary
Wade, the land passed down to their two sons,
Eli and Nathaniel. That's when the dark started
settling in. Neighbors, few and far between out
that way, said the brothers were never quite
right after the fire. Something changed in Eli.
He quit church, started muttering to himself,
kept to the woods at night. His eyes took on
a hollow, mean look, like a man seeing something
the rest of us couldn't. Nathaniel tried to hold
the place together, but you could tell the house
had turned sour. Even the animals were restless.
Dogs howled at nothing. Crows perched on the
roof and just stared. Then came the screams.
One cold autumn night, two sharp cracks echoed
through the valley like thunder that didn't belong
to no storm. When a neighbor hiked out the next
morning to check on the Wade place, what he found
was a nightmare burned into county memory. Nathaniel
Wade was laying in the parlor. shot clean through
the head. Blood had pooled under his chair and
soaked into the floorboards. Eli was sitting
across from him, eyes wide open and glazed over,
his own shotgun resting limp in his lap, like
he'd just handed himself over to whatever horror
lived in that house. But it wasn't just the bodies
that chilled folks, it was the walls, symbols.
Carvings. Strange spiral -like sigils etched
deep into the wooden beams. Some were crude,
others intricate, like notches from a language
long dead. No one could say what they meant.
One preacher said it looked like a gate that
had been opened and never shut. The sheriff called
it suicide and moved on fast. Too fast, some
said. An old woman from nearby Spout Springs
claimed Eli had been reading from a book bound
in deer hide, filled with rites older than Christianity,
some kind of Appalachian occultism passed down
in secret. She said she warned him, said she
saw him walking barefoot through the woods at
night, drawing circles in the dirt, chanting
under his breath. After that night, no one wanted
the land. No one touched the house. The vines
took over, the roof started to sag, but the carvans,
they never faded. And the smell? Folks who get
too close say they catch it, sulfur and rot,
like something that's been left to fester underground.
They started calling it the Devil's House, and
if you ever do manage to find your way down that
twisted trail and stand on that warped porch,
Listen close. You might still hear them. The
screams, the shots, or the scratching of something
carving from the inside. Over the years, the
Devil's House has drawn all kinds. Ghost hunters,
skeptics, thrill seekers, and the occasional
brave hiker with more guts than good sense. Most
don't make it past sunset. Some never even make
it to the porch. Those that do... They come back
shaking, some come back crying, and some, they
just don't talk about it at all. Here's what's
been whispered around town, passed from porch
to porch, each story colder than the last. Shadow
figures have been seen shifting behind the busted
windows upstairs, moving smooth and slow, despite
there being no floor left for anything to stand
on. just rotted beams and black emptiness. There's
a voice, deep, gravelly, not human. Folks say
it calls them by a name, even if they ain't never
been there before. It don't shout, it whispers
like it's already inside their ear. One woman
said it sounded like her daddy, but he'd been
dead 20 years. One fella A local from over in
Furness swore on a stack of Bibles he heard a
gunshot ring out inside the house. Said he felt
something warm hit his face, a mist like blood
spray. He turned on his light, heart pounding,
but his skin was dry, only to look down and see
the floor slick and glistening beneath him. He
ran out screaming, didn't even stop to grab his
boots. Others report eyes, glowing, red -orange,
burning from the tree line. Not animal eyes either,
higher up than a man, blinking slow, watching,
waiting. And while they stand there frozen, they
feel the pressure, like the air's thick, like
their chest is being crushed, like something's
trying to drag their soul out through their skin
and pull it inside that house. And always. Always
there's that smell, sulfur, smoke, and rot. Some
say it's the memory of the fire that took the
Wade parents. Others say it's the thing that
stayed behind. But if you ever go looking for
it and you catch that scent in the wind, don't
breathe too deep and don't answer when it calls.
So what do y 'all think? Was it madness that
overtook the Wade brothers or something much
darker? Would you spend a night at the devil's
house? Have you been there if you've heard a
version of this story or have your own experience
down in Estill County? We'd love to hear it Leave
a comment. Tell us what you think's really going
on and if you've got a ghost story of your own
head over to KentuckyMelody .com and submit it
through our website. You just might hear it on
the next episode. Before we wrap up, I just want
to take a moment and say thank y 'all to every
one of you who's taken the time to leave a story,
a memory, a strange encounter from your past.
Thank you. To those who drop kind words, compliments,
or just a Keep it up. You don't know how much
that means to me? You really don't. And even
if you're the quiet kind who don't comment, but
keep coming back to listen to these tales, well,
I see you too. And I'm mighty grateful. Your
support is what keeps this whole thing going.
I love digging into these stories, researching
them, telling them, and sharing them with y 'all.
truth be told one day I'd love to do this full
-time that's the dream now I know I've been a
bit hit or miss lately and I'm sorry for that
working a full -time job while trying to keep
up with this channel ain't always easy but I've
got a few days off now and I've been busy behind
the scenes getting some real good stories ready
Just haven't had the time to get them into video
format yet. If you've got a story of your own,
something strange, eerie, or downright unexplainable,
I'd be honored to share it with the rest of our
Backwoods family. You can send it in by following
the link to our submission page at KentuckyMelody
.com or just click that little card up yonder
in the corner. Just a quick note, try to keep
the language clean. If a curse word slips in
because you were scared out of your mind, I get
it. I'll just swap it for something clean that
still keeps the feeling of the moment. Alright,
that's it from me for now. Thank y 'all again.
I truly appreciate every one of ya. More tales
are on the way, and I can't wait to share them
with y 'all.