Graveyard Dates

Okay! Picture the scene! We were seven college-aged, amateur ghost hunters trespassing in a huge graveyard late at night. Besides my infrared cameras, Lou's digital recorders, and Judy's thermal change thermometer we also had John and Charles who were psychic sensitives, and Mark's perpetually chattering, air-headed girlfriend, Beverly!

As John and Charles grew more excited, sensing a strong ghostly presence in a secluded, somewhat tree-filled plot, Beverly got more excited and chatty and a voice snapped out at us from the deep shadows behind a line of large head stones.

"Quieten down people! You're making enough noise to wake the dead! You'll have the grounds keeper on us all!"

Well, we jumped, we screamed, and Mark had to grab Beverly to keep her from springing away into the darkness! I'll confess, I was about to join her flight when a girl stepped out into the full moon light and waved over to us! "Follow me this way. We need to get further away from the gate." Blame it on the adrenaline cause we took off after her without a thought!

Fortunately our trip had been planned so we would have the Full Moon to light our way and had dressed darkly to boot so taking heed of the warning, we streamed through the low tree line out of the plot, down a short sloping lawn, and around the edge of a small duck pond. Just past the last bench was a stand of taller trees that threw a heavy shade on the ground that our guide waved us into as she stopped and turned around.

"Hello, everybody! My name's Cinnamon, how do you do?" and she stretched out her hand in greeting.

Despite John being President of our Ghost Hunting Club on campus, he was a bit shy around strangers and didn't mind that I took over the conversation from there! "Nice to meet you, Cinnamon. Thanks for warning us about the noise. I'm Brad, Brad Stewart," and I happily took her hand and shook it. Then by way of explanation, I held up my Flir i3 thermal-imaging camera and smiled. "We're ghost hunting! You wouldn't happen to know where any are hiding out, would you?" Turning, I introduced the rest of our group. This is Lou and Judy Short. They do EVP's with their recorders while I try to get an infrared picture of any spirits or orbs floating around. John and his boyfriend, Charles, are psychics and are a great team feeling out for spirit energy. Mark is our driver and listens to all the tapes the twins make. Beverly is his new girlfriend. She's the one that was making all that ruckus earlier!" Mark threw me a sour look for that remark but he's the one with the noisy girlfriend! "So what brings you out into St. Winston's graveyard, if I may ask? Do you live around here?" I realized I was asking way too many questions of a stranger but it just felt natural to talk to her.

To describe Cinnamon as cute would have been an understatement! Her dark hair was cut in a bob and her cheeks dimpled when she smiled. Under the moonlight, the furry pull-over sweater she wore was an indiscriminate grey with a darker scarf around her throat and a pleated, knee-length skirt over leggings that vanished into calf-high boots. No, I am not usually that quickly smitten by a pretty girl but this was my Junior year in college and I had a very busy work load so I hadn't gotten around to doing much socializing, much less dating, this whole year.

Cinnamon seemed to not mind the questions. "I stay around here close by and really enjoy the peace and quiet this place has at night. And I'm quiet so it's not hard to hide from the grounds keeper!" She tilted her head and looked up at me with that charming half-smile and I melted. "So you hunt ghosts, do you? I know a few places around here you might find one! Come on!" and it felt so right I didn't even feel surprised when she took my hand again and started to lead me down the path toward another section of the graveyard.

Cinnamon stopped us in front of a small mausoleum nestled between squat holly bushes. "Your friends with the recorders should enjoy this!"

I had not even noticed the rest of the group trailing behind us until Lou nudged me lightly in the ribs as he came up beside me! "Hubba, hubba, dude!" he muttered and gave me an amused smile. I wondered for a moment what that was all about when he glanced down and I realized that I was still holding hands with our impromptu tour guide! "So you know about EVP's, Cinnamon? About how you can sometimes hear the spirits talking on audio recordings?" I smiled. Get Lou talking about electronic voice phenomena and he could go on for hours!