Something In The Graveyard

My husband told me this story not too long after we were married. He knows that I'm interested in strange events/occurrences that don't have an obvious explanation. I've experienced several interesting and unexplainable things throughout my life and I like to hear of other's stories.

Just to give a little background on us, I will say that we are both over forty years old, past the age of being tricked or fooled by people who like to tell stories and pull pranks. He is retired from a government job and I work as a medical transcriptionist. Basically, we both have a "good head on our shoulders" as the saying goes.

Anyway, he told me of an odd and scary thing that happened to him and two of his friends when he was around 17 years old. It was probably around the month of November, 1976. He doesn't remember the exact date, but he does know it was deer hunting season. He and two of his friends, Jerry and Brian had gone to Jerry's dad's camp to spend the night. They planned to go deer hunting the next morning. (They were all around 17 years old at the time.)

They got to the camp, which was located in southwest Louisiana, around 6 or 6:30 pm. The camp was just a one room shack with one door, nothing fancy. The area was known as Old River, he doesn't remember for sure, but he thinks it was called that because that's the name of the river that runs nearby. He says that they weren't drinking alcohol or anything like that, they had been sitting around and talking, just killing time basically. They planned to go to bed early so they could get up early and go hunting.

Around 9:00 o'clock that night, they were still awake and they decided that they'd do a little 'headlight' hunting, or spotlighting as it's called around here. They got their guns, my husband had a 30-30, Brian had a 308 and Jerry had a.45 pistol. Their 'lights' were headlamps that fit around their heads and were attached to 6 volt batteries. They don't put off a very bright light but are generally bright enough for hunting because animals eyes reflect so brightly when the light is shined directly at them.

After they had been walking for about 30-45 minutes they came to an old track that they could tell had once been a road. They walked down it for just a short way and they came to a clearing in the trees. They had found an old graveyard.

My husband says that it wasn't really very big, the best he can remember is that it had probably around 100 or 150 tombstones in it. At the far side of the graveyard, about 50 yards or so away, there was a tall monument, about 7 or 8 feet tall, that looked sort of like a man-shaped statue. Being teenagers and bored, (my husband's words) his friend, Jerry told Brian, "I bet you can't shoot that statue over there."

Brian lifted his gun, aimed and fired. Nothing happened. Then Jerry told my husband to try. My husband, (whose name is Peter) didn't want to shoot any statues in a cemetery, but he aimed high and fired anyway. Still nothing happened. So Jerry aimed his. 45 at the statue and shot at it.

Peter says that immediately they heard an unearthly scream that echoed through the trees. Needless to say, they were terrified. Peter looked at Jerry and saw that he had fainted. He and Brian grabbed him by the arms and carried/dragged him back to the camp as fast as they could get there. When they got there, they practically threw Jerry onto one of the cots, then closed and locked the door. They were still very afraid and were talking among themselves about what had happened. One of them noticed that Jerry was still gripping his pistol and they literally had to pry his fingers away from it. They stayed awake the rest of the night with their guns close by, afraid to sleep.

The next morning when the sun was up and it was bright daylight, (around 9am), Peter and Jerry unloaded their dirt bikes from their trucks. Brian rode with Jerry and they headed back to the cemetery. They were feeling braver in the daytime of course and wanted to see for themselves what had happened there the night before.

My husband says that when they got to the graveyard, there was NO statue and no tombstone over 2 or 3 feet tall. It totally freaked him out. He turned his bike around and headed back to the camp, loaded it on his truck and left. He said he never went back and he never will. It still gives him chills to talk about it.

Both of us wonder what the tall statue thing was. It freaked all of them out. He doesn't know if his friends ever went back, he's lost contact with them over the years and they never talked about it afterwards. Probably because, being teen boys, they tried to be 'macho' about it and didn't want to admit how scared they really were.

Could the 'statue' have been something like a guardian spirit maybe?

Whatever it was, if it was warning anyone away, it worked that night!

Thanks for reading.