Real Horror Stories

34: The Cemetery

"When I was 16, my friend Sean, who was a big goofball, came over to chill in our basement, as he often would during the summer.

I remember he had a Coke bottle in his hand, and I was eating Wendy's when he said we should check out that creepy cemetery across town. It was the worst idea ever, and I even told him that. Still, we had no school the next day, and I knew exactly which cemetery he was talking about. I don't know if one should even call it a regular cemetery.

It was a large plot of land with maybe 1000 tombstones at most. The tombstone was very archaic looking, and any time we pass, there were no signs of anyone having come to visit within the last 2 decade. It was very old.  It had been closed 10 years ago.

The site probably dated back centuries, and it had this super creepy vibe to it because it was closed off by a gothic metal fence, and it was surrounded by woods on two sides and some old abandoned building was at the center of it. Everything about it just gave scary vibes. 

Many people had reported weird sightings and strange sounds coming from the graves. Almost everyone in town had their own personal story of the place. Some of them were obviously exaggerated.

Two of the best stories I've heard from my family were from uncle and grandma. My uncle had once heard someone screaming for help while he was driving near that place.  He stopped, got out of the car and heard the scream again. He said it was coming from inside one the graves near the wire. And he quickly left. My grandma had once seen a lady dressed in white clothes slowly waving her hand at her. 

We'd also heard many rumors about that place. Like some people would go there at 3 am to perform satanic rituals and other weird stuff. Some people had reported seeing smoke rising from deep within the cemetery at mid night.

It took a little persuading, but Sean managed to get me to want to check it out, too. I always wanted to visit that place after hearing so many creepy stories but was too scared to even attempt it. I previously never had any paranormal experiences in my life and always wanted to see something crazy lol.

We woke up the next day at 4 am and left at 4:30 before anyone figured out what we were up to.  

Ironically, it was a very cloudy, foggy kind of day. I guess conveniently adding to the mood.

Sean pulled up his Honda to the side of the road. I told him to pull up more so it wasn't obvious. This was a low traffic road, so. It would look kind of suspicious. He pulled up a few hundred feet down the road, and we got out and cut through the woods so that any potential passing traffic wouldn't see us entering the huge cemetery. 

The forest was full of fog. It looked like a scene from a horror movie. I started having second thoughts but we had already made it this far. 

Hopping the fence in the woods was easy. It was maybe a three or four foot fence. Sean kind of took the lead on this, since it was mainly his venture. We finally reached the cemetery. The place was looking as creepy as ever because of the fog. We couldn't see that far away. He led me through the eerie plot of land, and we looked at the archaic tombstones. 

They all seem to be from the 19th century. The writing on some of them was illegible at that point. I know it sounds super cliché, but I couldn't help but feel like I was being watched constantly. I started looking around the surrounding woods. I kept getting scared by trees. They looked like people in the fog. My mind was playing tricks on me. I was prepared for a jumpscare. 

I told Sean how creepy this was. "I know," he replied, still with the feeling of being watched. 

We kept walking deeper into the cemetery. We hadn't seen anything weird. My fear started to go away. Maybe this was just another quiet depressing place I thought. 

We walked further and we could see an outline of a huge abandoned building. We had reached the center of the cemetery. As soon as I realized this, I started getting a bad feeling. My chest felt heavy. Fear filled my body for no apparent reason but we kept moving. Sean wanted to look inside the building and then leave, he promised me. 

The closer we got to the building, the more sick I felt. I almost felt like passing out. I told him to go alone and make it quick. I sat next to grave to catch my breath and he continued forward leaving me alone.

It'd been a few minutes since he went inside. I was starting to feel better and thought about following him inside. I hadn't even fully gotten up when I saw a person walking just six graves away. I froze for a moment and quickly hid behind a tombstone. I slowly peaked at him. He was definitely not Sean. He was a lot taller, wearing a hooded black cloak. He looked like he was in his 50s. 

He walked towards a grave and stopped at its foot, just few feet away from where I was. He had his back turned towards me.

He was speaking.

It wasn't English.

It was another language.

A weird one.

Like he was speaking in English but backwards.

It sounded extremely creepy.

Who was this guy? Maybe one of the people who was involved in one of the alleged rituals?

What he did next scared the f*ck out of me. He pulled a shovel out of nowhere and started digging into the greave while shouting in his weird language. I got scared and stopped peaking. I didn't know if this person would harm us or not if he knew we were here. Maybe he was armed. 

I got scared for Sean. He didn't know there was a lunatic out here.

I wanted to leave that damn place like a flash but I couldn't leave Sean alone. I stared desperately at the rotting building while the crazy screams got louder and weirder. Like he was trying to summon something or cast a spell. I just thought he was mentally ill. 

Then I saw Sean sneak out of the building. He had heard the screams. He gestured me to come towards him. We carefully met mid way, hiding through the graves and then without saying a word to each other, ran like lunatics. The screams faded into the fog.

We didn't say anything until we hoped the fence and got back into the car. Sean looked more scared than me. He basically put it in drive before the car even had a chance to fully start. After a few seconds, he was finally able to tell me what he had seen.

When Sean was inside that abandoned building he found a sigil of baffle net painted on the wood floor, which is basically the sign of Satan. Around it were a bunch of freaky dolls with buttons for eyes.

He saw rooms full of weird freakish dolls and other Satanic symbols which were practically everywhere. He didn't get to see anything else in the building because he heard the screams.

We told this story to everyone and got scolded by our parents. Many people thought we were lying after a group of adults after hearing our story, went to investigate the building and found it completely empty. They just found some left over pieces of dolls. 

I was shocked.

Sean was never the same after he left the cemetery. He no longer acted goofy and fearless. He was more serious and quite now. 

I think Sean saw something in there. Something more than just dolls, and Satanic symbols.

Something he still hasn't told me."