The Last Stop

This is not an encounter that I have had but more a story that has been passed through the years. I’m sure every body has heard the mysterious tale of Mamie Thurman, her brutal death, and the man who was paid to take the blame for it. As we all know she is said to walk about 22 HOLDEN every night in search of her true killer, and more importantly justice.

This little tale revolves around that. The small town of Logan, WV was booming with business, the coal mines were at their peek, so of course almost everyone worked in the mines in one form or another. With this booming business came transportation, thus there was a bus-stop at every corner on every road and every holler. There was one bus in particular, the bus that ran for the hoot owl shift on 22 Holden. This bus was like any other, until the night of the death of Mamie Thurman.

Weird events started to happen after that. The two men who had gotten off the bus at the last stop had went to another shift, the bus would still have to go that far through to be able to turn because of it’s size. Well one night the bus driver looked up as he was just minutes from his turning point and saw a lovely young woman in the far back of the bus. He scratched his head thinking to himself “how could I have missed her, I need a vacation”. He looked up at the young woman once more and smiled, which she politely smiled back.

When he reached his turning point at the end of this narrow road she pulled the cord to signal her stop. The driver was curious about this beautiful lady who was out so late at night. So with a smile he opened the door and raised his head as if to inquire on her situation, but to his surprise there was no beautiful woman leaving the bus. She had disappeared, just as queerly as she had came. By this time the driver had convinced himself that he was mad, but he had to check the bus one final time. With his knees quaking beneath him he slowly made his way to the back of the bus where he did find evidence of the mysterious creature, the seat was soaking wet just as the young lady was who had sat in the seat.

The same reenactment went on for weeks and the driver had become accustomed to her presence. His friend’s made awful fun at him when he told the story of his last stop, he was even threatened to be fired if the obscured lies did not stop, and he was, and so was the next man who ran that run. The men managed to convince their former boss to give them one more chance, they could prove it to him, which they did that also and were given their jobs back on one condition, that they would never speak of this strange happening again as long as the bus still ran. The men kept their secret for a long time, but business got bad in little old Logan, it wasn’t booming any more, it was barely alive, the buses stopped running and the stories kind of died for a while.

My grandmother “rest her soul” had told me this and other legends when I was a child. 22 Holden is connected to a 4 lane now, and I will tell you something odd that I would swear my own life against. You can pull your car off the road, like your going to enter 22 Holden, and it will pull your car up the hill, not far, but it is up hill, and you can actually watch your car being pulled up the hill, rolling right up it on its own. I don’t know if it’s an odd coincidence or if it’s Mamie Thurman telling you that if she can’t leave, neither can you.