Halloween is right around the corner, so while you’re carving your pumpkins, decorating your house and putting the finishing touches on your costume, go online and purchase your tickets to the 8th Annual Historic Hauntings in downtown Fayetteville.

The hay ride will depart from the Transportation Museum and Annex every Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the third and fourth weeks in Oct.(October 20-22 and 27-29).

“We have a wagon that leaves every half hour starting at 6:30 p.m. all the way up until 9:30 each evening.” says Carrie King, executive director of The Dogwood Festival.

The Historic Hauntings tour consists of an hour hay ride that takes you through downtown Fayetteville to some of the city’s most haunted locations.

“What we do is not only tell you stories and tales of mayhem and murder, but we also represent things that are historically accurate,” explained King. “So not only are you getting the scare factor, but you’re also getting real fi rst-hand accounts of events that have shaped our community and our history.”

“We change the tour every year so the patrons are not going to hear the same ghost stories that they heard on the wagon last year,” she noted.

Some of the stops this year will include Liberty Point, the Cross Creek Cemetery and the Transportation Museum. Each year the tour will take the patrons through the Cross Creek Cemetery and share stories about how some of the residents of the graveyard got there. This year, The Dogwood Festival takes it a step further and will have the patrons get off of the wagon and walk through the cemetery by torchlight.

“We try to bring in those creepy little elements so you can really catch the eeriness,” says King.

The Gilbert Theatre has also provided the Historic Hauntings tour with actors and re-enactors who will assist in bringing some of Fayetteville’s ghosts and spirits to life.

Bruce Daws, the city’s historian, will be an onsite narrator at the Transportation Museum sharing some of his spine-chilling and bizarre stories about railroad accidents.

“Some of our stories are really interesting, stuff that you’re not going to read about in a history book,” says King.

This event is open to the general public and the admission is $15 per person.

King added, “If there’s a hiney on the hay you have to pay.”

This event can be child friendly, but it is up to the parent’s discretion and if the child is easily scared or not.

“The cemetery will be pitch dark and the stories are true, so it depends on your child’s scare-factor level,” says King.

All of the proceeds from the Historic Hauntings tour go to Bruce Daws to help preserve historic Fayetteville and Cumberland County, and to the Cross Creek Cemetery to help repair some of the old headstones that have been there since the early 1800s and those that have been vandalized throughout the years.

“We definitely don’t spare any details as far as making sure everything that we’re talking about is accurate and putting on the best show for the dollar,” says King.

Also, make sure to buy your tickets online ahead of time because they sell out fast, and show up early so that the wagon doesn’t leave you alone in the dark!

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit the website at www.faydogwoodfestival.com/historic-hauntings.

Photo: The Historic Hauntings tour consists of an hour hay ride that takes you through downtown Fayetteville to some of the city’s most haunted locations.