The Ghosts Of The Graveyard - Three In One Experiences

Decided after hanging around for a while, to post my own story.

First off let me say - supernatural experiences are not by any means uncommon in my family. Some of us welcome it, some of us ignore it, some of us think such sensitivity little more than a curse. I'll mention a few standouts quickly.

My grandmother is particularly sensitive. Dad thinks she doesn't talk much about her experience / skill because of her family background - her father was very predominant town's man, and an "odd" daughter would do nothing for his favor [also very religious]. She once had a dream, well one she told others of, where she was visited by an old friend in the yard they used to play in. Where after sitting on the old tree swing her friend left after telling her goodbye - we learnt, a few days later, that this woman had been in a coma for a few months and had died peacefully in her sleep the morning of this dream.

My father has had experiences himself - he believes he saw in the mid 50s, early 60s a real witch [or potentially a ghost of a distant era] wandering around the outskirts of an old Indian burial ground [this was a time when people didn't care for such stuff] that had been disturbed for the construction of a subdivision. He can still recount what she looked like, forty years later.

My brother has had experiences - the most interesting been when he was 14 with an entire room full of classmates getting changed for gym. He and many others saw a softly glowing blue humanoid [male] walk through the door, pass them all by, and into the shower area. Some of the brave kids [there were about 12 to 16 boys] chased after this figure but when they turned on the lights no one was there... Apparently during the gym's being built some poor sod was killed in a horrific accident.

I've had a few experiences with the supernatural.

One I will recount is what happened a few years ago while partaking in a War Re-Enactment taking place in the local graveyard. Now for the record, like my grandmother, I do not like graveyards. Her reason is her own, it might be related. However, within 30 minutes of standing in a graveyard, regardless of the weather, I will get pounding migraine headaches - a pressure behind the eyes that sometimes goes away with just leaving, sometimes needs a Tylenol to get rid of. So why am I partaking in a re-enactment in a graveyard - well the history sounded interesting. That and a few Tylenol would curb any headache. So I went.

We were originally doing practice runs to get everyone in sync for the performance, as most of us were volunteers, and as such the actual tour itself wasn't set to start until much later in the month.

Now this graveyard is overrun with dozens of small gravestones that are crammed here, there and everywhere - easy to trip over in the middle of the dark. The re-enactment area itself was lit by a series of small lights along the two main paths and as the darkness crept in, oftentimes only the lights and the lanterns that the guides kept with them were the only means of navigating this graveyard.

To me, this wasn't frightful. I have always been capable of seeing better in the dark than most people [on the reverse I have light sensitive eyes] and having worked in some dangerous locations it takes quite a bit for me to become uncomfortable.

I and a few others were stationed in one corner of the cemetery. Right beside this gravel pathway which, if local legend is to be believed, existed when the War itself was taking place and had been employed by surgeons to "hoof" injured soldiers back for medical care. Behind this graveyard were houses, one of which had a large dog [GSD by its looks] that welcomed us messing around in the cemetery by constantly barking. Given as we would start about 9pm, he was justified in his annoyance.

Two nights of practice went by. Whenever my little group wasn't doing something though I would constantly find myself watching the gravel pathway. Sometimes prowling up and down it, or venturing close by and just looking. Maybe it was just paranoia - we were a group mostly of children and women and this part of the cemetery was readily accessible to the public [some of whom were unsavory in that area] and the pathway would let someone sneak up on the theater group from the "behind" as it were. As mentioned, I worked in some dangerous locations - places where people were threatened with guns, where people stabbed their step-father with broken wine bottles, etc. - and one doesn't survive such places with their heads in the clouds. Or maybe that was what I wanted to think.

On the third night, as the guide was going through the upper areas of the graveyard making sure everyone was getting their lines, I decided to do a bit of exploring. It was getting dark but there was plenty of light for me to see by and the guide wouldn't be in my area for about 45 minutes to an hour at the earliest. So telling the others I was just going to check out one of the larger, more unique gravestones, I took off and did just that. Got a chill when reading his inscription that ran the length of my spine but nothing seriously alarming. I could hear my colleagues talking in the background and the dog was still barking away.

However, it was on my way back, walking alongside the gravel pathway on the grass intent to scare the people in my group, that I realized something was following me. I could hear the gravel crunching underneath what seemed to be more than one set of feet. Now, remember I said this area was easily accessible to the public and given as this was nearing 10:45pm I couldn't see any reason why a "respectable" person would be walking down what was essentially a very dark pathway in the middle of the night. So I turned around expecting to confront someone up to no good - only to find myself facing absolutely nothing.

Or nothing for a few seconds. Even as I decided my mind was playing tricks on me, and it was time to go back to the others, every single hair on my arms and the back of my neck rose on end. Despite the humid temperature, a nice fall night, and the fact I was wearing a long-sleeved jacket typical of that era my skin immediately erupted into goosebumps. My headache, itself a constant dulled ache, intensified. That dog, who was constantly barking at us, uttered one single high pitched whine and fell utterly silent.

Now I know others say when they encounter the supernatural they get a gut wrenching sensation. Or they feel paralyzed or they run for the hills. As I mentioned such encounters are not unusual to my family. I and my family, when I was much younger, lived in a haunted house where a doctor had tended to patients [that died] and where he himself had died. Actually, that isn't the only haunted property known to family.

So I stood still, some 100 yards if that from the others in my group, listening. Did I feel terror, no. Paralyzed, no. The only disconcerting thing was that the fog, which constantly lingered in the graveyard, is more intense down in this lower area. Always had been. So aside from the darkness, the fog was blanketing out anything visible past a few hundred feet. Still those feet I heard were coming closer; however, even with my eyesight, I could see nothing within the gloom. That wasn't the only sound. There was, having been around horses since very young, what I swore was the distant jingle of a harness in the background. It couldn't have been the houses / dog nearby for they were too far away to be heard like that.

Could I see anything? Not a thing. But some subconscious part was aware of the fact something went by me in time with the sound of footsteps. Something that was almost close enough to touch. Though "blind" my head turned to follow it. That something, after all, wasn't interested in me. We were just two (or more) entities that had the fortune of crossing paths. If this something was as aware of me as I was aware of it, well one can only guess. I sensed no malice. So I stood until the sounds of footsteps and jingling disappeared wondering as to whom they had been and why they were still wandering this world.

Only when it was quiet, the footsteps and jingling gone, did the dog start his barking again. He too knew something was out there that night. It might not have been the first time he encountered these souls. But his barking broke whatever spell - one last glance in the direction the noise had gone and I turned back rejoining my group just as the guide was coming our way.

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Now I should say I wasn't the only one to experience things in this graveyard.

A few days later, when prowling among the graves waiting for our turn to prove we had our lines and actions down, I heard one of the younger girls I was working with call out my name. Thinking that something was going on I hustled back only to find that nothing was obviously wrong - outside of the fact they were frightened.

As it turned out they had heard someone - not necessarily an animal for it was noisy - tromping through the graveyard in front of them and between the group ahead of us where the guide and actors / actresses were recounting lines. This was followed by a heavy thud. Now, remember I mentioned that the graveyard was full of small gravestones and that the only real lights were on the pathways. Cutting through the graveyard during the later hours / darkness was pretty much a guarantee for twisting your ankle, badly.

When they asked if I had been in that area, for it was known I wandered about in "down time", that was negative. I had been further down the path talking with the 2nd to last group [likewise close to the gravel trail] asking them about the cemetery's and the church's history seeing as, unlike me, they were born and bred locals.

Now unlike the gravel pathway that is easily accessible to the public to get to this area where the girls had heard noise someone would have to pass by at least three other actor / actress groups. The last time that had happened, the first day of practice, with a couple [walking their dog of all things] passing through one of the assistants had trailed them the entire time as the tour wasn't on then. But there were no assistants in the area and the guide was just above us with the fourth to last group.

The funny thing is, is the next day as we were setting up for practice someone found part of a broken tombstone in that area. The gravestone was already partially cracked [vandals are "lovely" people] to begin with and a nudge would be enough to finish it off, but travel through the graveyard was rare. As mentioned it was quite overrun with small stones you could easily fall over.

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Why am I mentioning this when I didn't experience it myself? Well, during the middle of the tour, nearly a month later I happened to experience that ghost in the graveyard that the girls had heard.

The tour itself is guided and divided into sections, each section having actors or actresses do particular things or say certain lines, all of which is related to the graveyard and local history. It takes about an hour and a half to two hours to complete. As we are one of the last groups - it can get boring as watching paint dry, hence my wandering [as I am by nature curious - and those Tylenol, in my jacket pocket, really did help with the headache issue].

However, given as we now had paying customers, when the guides got closer to our area I stayed in our region. Didn't want to be caught running to play catch up.

So during the fifth tour day - as the guide and his guests came to the group above ours, as like what I mentioned happened with the girls prior, I happened to see movement out of the corner of my eye. I wasn't the only one as one of the girls and the young boy [who knew about the ghosts in this region, his parents' house backed onto another graveyard where he had told me he oftentimes heard musket fire in the early morning hours] happened to see this guy too.

What did we see? Well a gentleman dressed in turn of the century clothing, with a heavy black cloak at his shoulders, striding through the cemetery. Now his getup was remarkably like that of the actor playing the surgeon doctor. So the initial response was John, let's call him John, is going somewhere.

However, as the brain caught up with what the eyes were seeing the brain said - nah that isn't John because been the mid of October, around 10pm in the night, there was barely enough light to some of the areas that marked the path yet alone through that ankle-twisting maze of a graveyard. It might have been John had he had a lantern or moving slowly, however, this gentleman was striding through the graveyard rapidly and with purpose without a lantern. Another reason why it wasn't John - John's spot was above us in the graveyard, he wasn't supposed to be near the gravel trail and yet that was where this chap was heading.

So shaking away that hair raising sensation, realizing that this was a ghost I was looking at, possibly even the surgeon doctor that John had been employed to resemble, I assured the younger volunteers that yes it was just John and asked if they were ready. Don't think the boy fell for it, but as mentioned he knew of ghosts himself.

Sorry if a rather long read, and that isn't the only incident I experienced there, but decided to see what people think.