363 Swingers

This swing set popular in Owensboro, Kentucky—with 5 swings. The playground being busy, there was never an empty seat. Quintets of children re-cycled, the asynchrony of the swing arcs keeping its solid wood feet firmly planted, complementing the prudent anchor bolts rooted into the dirt.

On this day, however, all 5 swings sat uncharacteristically vacant. Moments earlier, all 5 occupants had leapt off of their seats at each swing's apogee, screaming in terror.

"What is it?" I had asked my son. Winn hugged me firmly, still crying. Another mom walked to me.

"What happened on the swings?" she asked. "Something scared the hell out of my daughter."

The children never told what had provoked their self-jettisons. By the 4th grade, Winn was in Special Ed due to behavioral problems, self-injury, and sudden lashing-out outbursts. The other children fared no better.

The girl whose mother had spoken to me moved away from town suddenly, but it was rumored that didn't help her agoraphobia. A third child, a boy, began bullying and fighting all of his classmates and had to be removed from school; he is now home-schooled. A fourth child, another boy, no longer spoke at all. And the fifth child on the swings, a girl, had stopped eating and died of anorexia despite hospitalization.

It was no surprise the swing set had been saddled with a reputation for being haunted.

One morning Winn had had a disastrously violent breakfast, breaking and throwing the dishes. It took his dad placing him in the restraint hold he had learned at a seminar to settle him. I stormed out of the house in a panic, hopeless. I walked to the playground. I wasn't large, so when I saw the swing set, I approached the first swing and fit comfortably on the seat.

Next to me was a full-grown man swinging from a rope around his neck, writhing in epileptic death throes. I leapt off of the swing; all was as before.

How could I've known this was the site of Rainey Bethea's hanging for rape, in 1936, our nation's last public execution? How could I know the wood used for the swing set was actual scrapwood from Bethea's gallows?

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ABOUT THIS GHOST STORY:

Based on a true incident: in 1936, Rainey Bethea was hanged after he was convicted of rape; over 20,000 people came to Owensboro, Kentucky, to witness his execution. Many scholars assert that the coverage the execution caused the United States to end public hangings. Bethea was the last individual hanged publicly.

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The 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge

ONLY 3 MORE DAYS (viz., STORIES) TO GO. UNLESS I GET HIT BY A BUS, IT'S A DONE DEAL!