Teenagers living near Boston, Ohio, known locally by its spooky alias as Helltown, used to indoctrinate younger students in their school by taking them on a 2 a.m. drive thru this abandoned village. The tour guide was usually an older ghost story narrator. Helltown, also known as Mutane or Mutant Town was reportedly a Government cover up, the story-teller explains, because of a toxic waste spill that maimed, disfigured, and killed scores of children. Their bodies repose in the town’s cemetery and some nights their ghosts can be seen sitting on cemetery benches causing the trees to move.

Approaching a house off to the side of the road in the woods, can be seen an old school bus parked next to it. In that bus which has no seats, it’s said, a load of children was slaughtered by either a serial killer, a band of serial killers, an escaped mental patient, or a group of Satanic cult members (depending on the storyteller.) Sometimes, late at night, the children’s screams can be heard coming from inside the empty bus.

Driving past the “Road Closed” sign is a house in which a creepy man lives. There’s always a light burning in an upstairs window. The storyteller relates how the man drives a hearse with a single headlight. If seeing outsiders in the wee hours, he gives chase in his hearse. Observers report that at the end of the road the hearse suddenly disappears by falling off the “end of the world.” With that, the driver of the ghost story car suddenly accelerates, racing over a crest in the road. The road falls away so quickly on the other side it is not visible. All four wheels of the speeding auto leave the ground and the car seems to sail off the edge of the world. Yeow-eee!

Other elements of the Helltown legend include a haunted funeral home, crybaby bridge (of which there are several throughout the U.S.), ghostly faces peering out of the windows of the old slaughterhouse, and candles burning in a vacated church.

So what’s the truth about Boston, Ohio? In 1974 hundreds of acres of land, some of it within the township of Boston became part of Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Homes were purchased without negotiation by eminent domain. Residents began leaving the area in droves. Some homes were burned by the fire department for training purposes. There is no record of a toxic waste spill.

The slaughtered-children-bus was finally removed because of the curiosity of sightseers. One individual in Boston owned a truck with one headlight. There are no benches in the Boston Cemetery. Other elements of the Helltown mysteries are difficult to verify.

So, there you go. Now would anyone care to take a walk through Helltown tonight at O-dark-Thirty? Not me.