Where I grew up in the foothills of Appalachia, it was common to hear firsthand accounts of encounters with the supernatural. All manner of spirits and cryptids were purported to live in the local hills and hollers of Wilkes County, North Carolina, and any teenager could direct you to a secret spot where the rules of physics became more suggestion than natural law. My hometown’s claim to fame is being the setting of the murder ballad “Tom Dooley.” Popularized by the Kingston Trio in 1958, the song describes a love triangle that ends in a grisly murder. The hanged killer is rumored to haunt the Old Wilkes County Jail still.