Screaming Bloody Murder

“Billy Bob Cramer is a name that lives in Kentuckian urban legend history, often ranked among the scariest and strange,” began Harry Terror, urban legend extraordinaire, the fire casting an eerie glow on his face, “but it must be told,” said Harry as his friends eyes’ widened and they gripped the logs they were sitting on harder. They were in the middle of the woods on Halloween night, everything dark around them, a full moon in the sky. It couldn’t get much scarier than this, but it was about to.

Harry wet his lips before he entranced his audience. “Billy Bob was your average Kentuckian; he came from Warrensville, the town right next to us. Billy Bob came from a strange family. They lived in that old house up on Sherman Hill; they hardly ever left it. Every time someone came near their property, three shots would be fired by Old Willy Cramer, the craziest drunk in trunk and Billy Bob’s daddy. He would always be heard screamin’, “Git out o’ here spirits! Don’t be hautin’ Old Willy no’ more.” It was said Old Willy would often be tortured and converse with them spirits that plagued him. Anyway, Old Willy eventually died in a mental institution. He was suffocated by a pillow. No one knows how it happened since he was in solitary confinement and everything was locked. The police only knew that he didn’t do it. One can only guess it was the spirits. But it’s not Old Willy’s tale we’re tellin’, its Billy Bob’s.”

Harry’s Kentucky accent was coming out now. He tried to hide it whenever he told a story, but that twang eventually came out its own. He hated to admit it, but he kind of liked his accent, even though he tried to hide it. It had a nice rhythmic flow to it. “Billy Bob was Old Willy’s son. He was the only normal one in the family, except for his mamma, Mrs. Vanessa Mae Kramer, a true Southern Belle who always had other men knockin’ on her door. When Billy Bob was older, he plum refused to cut his hair, but not because he was making a political statement. No Suree! Billy Bob was one of them pacifists. He refused to cut his hair on the grounds that he thought it made him more attractive and manlier. It’s like that saying, “It takes a real man to wear pink”, but to Billy Bob, “It took a real man to have hair like Rapunzel.” Besides, he liked the way it flowed, like a golden brown river, when it was long.

Harry had to stop for a few seconds when his friends began to laugh hysterically at what he said. When they were composed he went on. “When Billy Bob married his wife, Thelma Louise Dupree, his hair was down to his shoulders. Thirty years later it was almost as long as he was tall. Though Billy Bob kept his hair long, he did shave his facial hair; he wasn’t as attached to it and didn’t want to look like Rip Van Winkle. Thelma Louise loved her husband dearly and was just lookin’ out for his hygiene when she constantly nagged him to cut his hair sayin’ she always found it everywhere, in food, on the couch, in bed, in clumps on the floor. He shed more than their cat, Mr. Whiskers. One day, Billy Bob decided to have it cut. Truth was, it was annoying him. Having to wash it took him an hour, drying, combing, and braiding it took even longer. The part he hated the most was when people, especially little kids, thought he was a woman.”

Harry leaned forward a bit and looked at his audience’s expression. They were anxiously looking at him to continue. Harry shook his hair out of his face, took a breath, and spoke. “Billy Bob went to Uncle Sammy’s Barber Shop on the main street in town. The barber shop looked inviting with its moving red and white pole and the sound of classical music coming from inside, Billy Bob sensed that new discoveries were made here daily. Billy Bob slowly walked in, looking around him constantly, signed his name in a book on the counter, and sat in a chair waiting, his leg twitching in apprehension. He picked up a magazine, Weird KY, and was flipping through it, the sound of scissors cutting filling the room. The barber, Sam the Magic Scissor Man Walker, strolled over to the counter with the appointment book on it, checked off his last customer’s name and called the next name listed, “Billy Bob Kramer!” Sam was a middle-aged man, he had owned Uncle Sammy’s for close to thirty years now, and loved his job. To him, there was nothing sweeter than the sound of scissors cutting and the satisfaction of his customers after he gave them haircuts. Sam looked at his next customer’s hair very closely as he was sitting in the barber chair. He believed there was a lot you could tell about a person by their hair and Billy Bob sure did have a story to tell.”

Harry was now peering into the fire, his hands clasped, and his eyes flickering in the glow of the light. He moved out of the fire, letting the darkness shadow him. “Sam whipped out a black smock and fastened it around Billy Bob’s torso; his fingers brushed Billy Bob’s hair as he did so, feeling the softness. “What can I do for you?” Sam asked Billy Bob. “Just cut it off” Billy Bob said. Sam looked at Billy Bob’s reflection in the mirror; he saw fear in his eyes. Sam tied Billy Bob’s hair in a ponytail, it reached the floor, and he began to cut. He couldn’t do it all at once because of the length, but slow and steady was a better pace for someone like Billy Bob. Billy Bob sat there, silent, his face flinching when he heard the scissors cut. His hair was on the floor now in long clumps, though they were in clumps, they seemed to curl perfectly on the floor. Sam had just cut the last of the ponytail off, the part at the neck, when Sam hit something. He felt the blade of the scissors go in the man’s neck and twist. They came out just as quick as they went in, except now they were blood-stained. Sam didn’t want Billy Bob to know that he just hit something, so he just kept trimming off the remainder of the ponytail and was randomly whistling.”

Harry’s audience now gasped because of the shock of what just happened. Everyone was closer to each other now. Harry proceeded to tell his tale, “Billy Bob felt a surge of unbearable pain when Sam had just hit his neck when he was cutting his ponytail. Billy Bob began to scream, his face contorted in pain. He got out of his chair, threw off the smock, and ran out the door screaming down the street. Sam stood there in horror the only remnants of him ever having Billy Bob as a customer was the drops of blood on the floor and his locks of hair. Billy Bob ran home. There was no one there; Thelma had gone out food shopping. Billy Bob was in so much pain, he didn’t know what to do. He felt the spot where Sam had cut; he distinctly remembered the unmerciful twisting of the scissors. He looked at the hand which he had just touched the spot with, there was blood on it as well as a large red spider crawling on his face. Billy Bob freaked out. He had arachnophobia and his pain kept intensifying. He felt as if he was being shot at a thousand with a combination of one hundred Rottweilers biting him. The pain was so terrible that Billy Bob closed his eyes to block out the pain; he was still screaming.”

Harry now saw terror in his audience’s eyes. He felt now was the time to captivate them. “Billy Bob’s wife came home later from shopping. “Billy”, she called, “let me see your hair-” She stopped in her tracks. Her husband lay dead on the floor, his face frozen in a scream of pain, blood everywhere and Mr. Whiskers was right next to him his chin dripping with blood. Thelma immediately called the cops, hysterical, “My husband’s lying dead…I think he was murdered…There’s blood everywhere, the cat was drinking it.” The cops came immediately. Sure enough, it was just as Thelma described. The cops called the coroner, minutes after arriving at the Kramer’s’. The coroner came and asked Thelma where Billy Bob was before he came home. “The barber’s for a haircut,” she stammered and sobbed. The coroner carefully turned Billy over, he looked at his neck. There was a 2 inch deep hole in a nest of red backed spiders that had taken residence inside Billy. The coroner told Thelma of what caused her husband’s death and explained that in the part of Kentucky where they lived, red-backed spiders were indigenous. After the police bagged Billy’s body, Thelma distraught and drunk with sadness couldn’t think straight and did the unthinkable, she killed herself and lay dead in a pool of blood just like her husband until the police came. She couldn’t live without him. Years later people say that if you go inside Uncle Sammy’s Barber Shop, you can still see Billy Bob’s dried blood on the floor and his hair on display in a case. If you’re anywhere near the Kramer’s place, you can hear screaming that sounds inhuman. There house has been nicknamed “The Blood House” by the locals. And that, my friends, is Billy Bob’s story.” Harry finished had finished his story, his job done by casting his magic spell on his audience.