The story of a haunted road in comes from a resident of the city. He is an Asian, male University sophomore. He told me the story in March at a very late hour. Among friends discussing plans to one day explore some supposedly haunted areas of the state, the storyteller spoke of a “rumor” he had heard from one of his college friends. The “late hour” previously mentioned is noteworthy since it affected the way the urban legend was told. There were four of us in a diner, eating at a time when most restaurants had been closed for hours already. Thus, we were all a bit tired, including the storyteller, who blamed the combination of hunger and the time of day for his lack of presentation skills. For example, he would eat and talk and restate certain parts.
He started by describing that the haunted road was “somewhere in the city, I think it was Marriott Road. Like the hotel, ya know?” He claimed that the road was close by because his friend said so. Later, we looked online and found a nearby street named Marriottsville Road. The storyteller continued by saying that the road is haunted because when you drive there at night, when the sun has completely set, the area seems to be pitch black. Even with headlights, it is supposedly unsafe due to the darkness that shrouds the pavement. He said that the trees there are so tall and the vegetation so thick that they “practically cover the road and form a tunnel around it” to block any light from entering.
Not only is the road a dark one, but there are two more supernatural elements to it. The first is a barn off the side of the road. The storyteller said that noises have been heard from the barn. When people go to investigate the noise, they eventually get close enough to hear whimpering animals. The sounds get louder until, as the storyteller claimed, “They sound more like screaming than whimpering.” At this point, any would-be investigators run away from the site of the barn.
Furthermore, there is an even more terrifying aspect of the road. As already described, it is hard to drive there. The darkness is just part of the difficulty. The road also has many turns and curves along with steep hills. At this point of the story, the teller used lots of hand gestures to help us visualize the severity of the road’s twists. He waved a flat hand like a rollercoaster to show us that driving there would be fun, but in a scary way. However, if one drives too quickly over the seventh hill, a ghost appears. This ghost is actually a monster-truck-like vehicle with extremely bright headlights. The ghost is supposedly that of a victim of a car crash. My friend said, “It was a driver who liked to be reckless, but bit off more than he could chew by racing along the road.” Therefore, he gets jealous of other people speeding and tries to run them off the road.
The urban legend clearly includes many typical elements of scary stories. There is a scary forest, a chilling building, and although the truck is a vehicular paranormal being, it is basically a ghostly figure. I could not find any stories about Marriottsville Road (although oddly enough, there is a “Marriottsville Road 2” off of the main road (“marriottsville road, Ellicott City, MD 21042”)), but there is a more well-known story regarding a road with seven hills. One website states,
“There are seven hills behind Historic Ellicott City, which is said; Supposedly, if you hit the seventh hill at midnight, you will be chased by a demon car that appears out of nowhere. Again this is a myth, and I don't suggest anyone try this! People have lost their lives on this road” (“Historic Ellicott City, MD – Haunted Ellicott City”).
Unfortunately, the above story is not talking about the same road since Marriottsville Road is not that close to Historic Ellicott City. Perhaps the two stories were similar enough to get grouped together. Despite the lack of text regarding Marriottsville Road, when I asked other friends from Ellicott City about a haunted road, they recognized the story. Some say that there is no barn or truck, others say that the truck was driven by two teenage girls, and many purport that it is not a named road that is haunted, but rather an unlabeled road near Marriottsville Road. Even so, they all agree that there is a haunted road north of route 40.
Clearly, the face-value moral of the story is to not be reckless. This rocky road is one that can attract thrill-seekers, but the moral of the story is that if one is careless, then a negative turn of events will occur. In this case, a supernatural automobile ensures one’s doom if he or she decides to have some fun by trying to cheat death. Also, the part of the legend concerning the barn plays upon fears that curiosity is not always a good trait and how one might be punished for it. This is consistent with a theme regarding exploration. There is a facet of the story concerning nosiness and snooping around. In the legend, explorers are penalized for their curiosity by getting scared away.
The summation of so many typical urban legend elements (a dark road, a scary forest, a frightening building, a supernatural being) is also noteworthy. It shows how urban legends can sometimes get more elaborate through word-of-mouth. The story of “Seven Hills Road” is a separate, distinct legend about College Avenue (Lake 180). The addition of the truck suggests that people tend to accept stories surrounding roads as a collective message because they all show society’s fear about driving: getting lost, crashing, losing control, and even aggressive drivers.
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