0:13 When I was in high school, my friends and I would often visit the cemetery that was on the outskirts of town. The cemetery grounds were massive, but it wasn't just the cemetery. The grounds were covered with a ton of forested land. We spent the better part of a year visiting that cemetery on the weekends to do what degenerate teenagers do. We would wait until it got late, and then we would enter the cemetery. Most of the time we would just find a quiet spot to post up and then chill there for a while. However, once in a while, we would explore the cemetery and the surrounding woods, but we would never explore too deep into the woods just because it was so dark. That was usually on special occasions, like when we would invite the girls to come with us. There was one specific night when we were in the cemetery that I still think
0:59 about to this day because I can't really explain what happened. It's without a doubt the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. On that night, it was a group of six of us that made the trip to the cemetery. Myself with my two best friends and three girls from our class. I was able to get some stuff for our cemetery hangout session that may be considered illegal for kids that age. And I'll leave it at that. This helped sweeten the deal to get the girls to come hang out with us. There was one of the girls, just in case, I'll call her Jane to protect her privacy. I really liked Jane, but I don't think she ever liked me. At least not in the way I wish she liked me. I was trying super hard that night to change her mind, but it wasn't happening. As the night went on, Jane wanted to explore the woods that surrounded the cemetery.
1:45 We were kind of against it because the woods were so large and it was so dark. It just seemed like a dangerous and bad idea. Well, being the weak-minded individual I've always been, it didn't take much for Jane to convince me to explore the woods with her. When the girl you like wants to go into the dark woods with you, you don't think twice and you agree. My friends tried to be good wingmen and they convinced Jane's two friends to stay behind with them. Jane and I headed into the woods. She was being kind of weird, but I didn't care. She was talking to me about rituals and all sorts of other things. I just kept nodding along with her and enjoying the moment. We were walking slowly because of how dark it was underneath all the trees. We were walking in an area of the cemetery grounds I'd never seen before.
2:30 It was actually kind of sad. There were extremely old graves in this part of the woods that had clearly been forgotten by time and nature. The names were barely readable, the gravestones were falling apart, and the intact ones were completely covered with moss and leaves. I didn't even know there were graves all the way back there. These hidden graves weren't the only thing we found while walking. Even further into the woods was a small abandoned church. At first, I thought it could have been a mausoleum of some kind. But once we got closer and really checked it out, it was for sure a small church. I couldn't believe my eyes. Jane was doing this weird thing where she was talking about all the dead souls and whatnot. I just thought it was super cool that a random church was way out here and completely abandoned.
3:16 I wanted to go inside and check it out. She was apprehensive about it. She thought if we broke in, we might disturb the souls resting there. I was respectful of her comment, but my honest thoughts were that that's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. I spent a few minutes trying to convince her that we wouldn't be disturbing anything and she finally agreed to check it out with me. We walked up the two wooden doors that were on the front of the old church. They had been chained shut and locked. I could tell that Jane was feeling off, but I continued to try to open the door. Instead of caring about her feelings, I was trying to prove to her that I was brave or something. I don't even know what my logic was. After smashing into the door a few times, I broke part of the door hinge and I was able to push it open. I stepped into the old building and it
4:02 was so cool at first. It had maybe seven or eight rows of pews. There was a small altar directly opposite the doors and even a few books lying around. Jane stood in the doorway and kept trying to convince me that we should leave. I was doing the opposite. I was walking around the church trying to convince Jane to come inside. I made my way to the altar and started doing a disrespectful impersonation of a preacher. She wasn't amused with my immature antics. I took another step and I got what I deserved. The floorboards behind the altar must have been weak because they snapped and I fell right through the floor. It was probably a good 10-ft drop and it hurt. It was a hard rocky floor. That was enough to get Jane to finally enter the church.
4:48 She ran to the hole in the floor to make sure I was okay. I shouted up that I was fine even though I was hurting badly. I took out my cell phone which didn't have the best flashlight but at least it was something. I shined the light near the hole and I noticed a ladder had been put there to get back up but it was broken. Jane told me that it looked like it was a crawl space door on the floor. I asked her to run back and grab my friends. Even though we were in the woods, it wouldn't take her that long to run back. She didn't want to leave me but I told her it was fine. I just wanted to get out of the hole. She complained about it but eventually I heard her run through the wooden door. I tried calling my friends cell phones to let them know Jane was running back but neither one of them picked up. While I was waiting, I turned on the
5:33 flashlight again and started to use it to scan the room I was in. Initially, I didn't want to because I was terrified of spiders and this seemed like a hotbed for spiders. At first glance, it just seemed like a small regular room with a couple of wooden beams. I went over to the destroyed ladder to see if there was any way I could make it work, but it was destroyed beyond repair. While I was looking at the ladder, I thought I heard something behind me. Sounded like movement, but not like footsteps. Almost like something was shuffling. I turned around and scanned the other side of the room with my light. I didn't see anything at first. As I whipped the light around, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. I positioned the light on the ground near one of the wooden beams.
6:19 The dirt that was on the rocky grounds looked like it had been disturbed in some way. My heart was beating fast, but I didn't know why. I couldn't say for sure if the dirt had looked like that before. I started to feel the gravity of my situation. I was scared now, and I didn't even know why. I started shouting for my friends to hurry up. While I was staring up at the hole and shouting, I thought I heard another sound. This time, it looked like someone was grunting. Even though every part of my gut was telling me not to look, I shined the light again over in the direction where I thought I heard the grunt. All I could do was scream. Staring right at me was some strange man. The light from my phone flashlight was bouncing off his bald head. He had these angry eyes that felt like they just went right through me.
7:06 He was on the ground, and I kid you not, he was crawling towards me. I started to freak out. I was pleading for my friends to hurry up. I heard the sound of the wooden door shoot open, and one of my friends dropped this huge tree branch down the hole. I climbed up the branch, and with every step, I could feel the branch start to snap under my weight. By some miracle, the branch didn't snap completely, and I made it to the top. My friends were confused when they got there because I was screaming as if my life depended on it. I told them that there was a person down there. I told them not to, but they leaned over the hole and looked down there with their flashlights. They didn't believe me and they wanted to see for themselves. When they looked, they saw him. But instead of crawling toward me, he was crawling back behind the pillar.
7:52 One of my friends insisted that we get help because they suggested that this person could be in trouble. My other friend somehow convinced us that we needed to just leave and that person meant us harm. As we left, I did drop the tree branch back down there. So, if this person did need help, hopefully the tree branch would support them. For 2 days, the guilt was eating me alive. I felt like that man did need help and we left him to rot. That night, I made a trip to the cemetery by myself. I made my way to the church and I couldn't believe it. The large tree branch was not in the hole, but on the floor of the church next to the pews. I started to shout down the hole while looking with a good flashlight that I brought with me. There was no sign of the creepy man anywhere. I felt relief that this man wasn't dead
8:38 down there, but then I felt instantly terrified. I have no idea where that man came from, how he got into that locked church, and perhaps most disturbingly, I have no idea where he went. We never went back to that cemetery again as a group. I don't even live in that town anymore. Next time I visit my parents, I think I'll take a trip to the cemetery and check out the church. Hopefully this time, I'll be alone. 2 years ago, my grandmother passed away. It hit me harder than I could have imagined. She was the most important person in my life. In many ways, she was more of a parent to me than my actual parents.
9:25 When I went through an extremely rough time in my life, she was the only one who stood by me and helped me get my life back on track. I owe all my success in life to her. She had been sick for a while, but she kept that part of her life a secret because she knew I would worry. About a month after she died, I started to visit her grave at the cemetery after work. I would just talk to her. It made me feel better in so many ways. It was almost like my version of meditation. I just felt that peace when I was there. That peace wouldn't last forever. One day, while I was at her grave, I noticed a strange woman at a grave that was maybe two graves away from my grandma. Objectively, she looks normal, I guess. There was just something about her that made her weird.
10:10 Some people just give you that bad feeling. She wasn't that old, maybe mid-40s if I had to guess. She was a tall woman, skinny with this wild curly hair. She was not bad looking by any means. I would even go as far as to say that she had a pretty smile. She would be laughing and talking to the grave in front of her, but something about her mannerisms was not right. She'd say something, then laugh, then look over in my direction. Whenever she would catch me looking, she'd just say something like, "Don't mind me, I'm just chatting with George." I assumed George was the name on the grave. I would always just smile and keep going about my business. People talk to their loved ones in cemeteries all the time. It's not that weird. It was just the way she was talking, the
10:56 volume of her voice, and the way she would audibly laugh, like she just heard the funniest joke of all time. Well, I started to notice this woman daily. I was pretty annoyed. I pulled into the cemetery, and this woman was already at the grave she was visiting. It was like she was waiting for me. I'd pull up to my grandma's grave, and this woman would be waving at me. Somehow, she even knew my name. She would literally greet me by my name as I would get out of the car. This was a special time for me, and I felt like this woman was messing it up. But, it's not like I can stop someone from visiting a loved one at the cemetery. One afternoon, she finally approached me to actually talk. She apologized to me for being so loud and told me that when her loved one passed away, it hit her hard.
11:43 Obviously, I was in the same boat, so I understood, and we talked for a while. She got me talking about my grandma, and that's something I always enjoyed. I told her all about what she did in life and how she was a special person. She asked if my grandma was from the area, and I told her that she lived no more than 2 miles from here, and she lived there almost her entire life. I even told her that my grandma left me the house in her will. I don't know why I told her that. Sometimes, I just feel like we overshare when we don't need to. After a few minutes, we both went our separate ways. Even though I understood what she was going through, I didn't want to talk to her every day. I feared that because we had a real conversation now, she was going to try to talk to me every time, and that seemed like a nightmare
12:28 to me. I decided to change my visiting schedule a bit. I would usually visit after work Monday through Friday. Instead, I decided to wait until the weekend to visit. I pulled into the cemetery a little after noon on Saturday. For the first time in a while, I was alone at her grave. The woman was nowhere in sight. When I was going to leave, I was driving to the far exit of the cemetery, and I noticed that the woman was sitting at a different grave talking to another person. Instead of being freaked out, I felt bad. I came to the conclusion that she must just be a sad person. As twisted and sad as it is, she must use the cemetery as a messed up way to meet and talk to people. That night, I went out with a bunch of my friends who were visiting from out of
13:15 town. It was after 1:00 in the morning when I was heading home. I knew I was going to be drinking, so I had gotten an Uber to drive me back home. I was exhausted, and I I wait to just go to sleep. After the driver dropped me off, I was walking up my driveway and I noticed something weird. I saw that a little bit of light could be seen shining from behind the blinds in my house. That may not seem weird to some people, but I'm notorious for making sure all my lights are turned off. I never leave the lights on. Right after I knew something was wrong. Instead of calling the police, I decided to check it out myself. I remember trying to convince myself that there must be some strange explanation. I walked inside slowly and quietly. I could hear a sound coming from my
14:00 bedroom. It was faint, but it sounded like someone going through something. I hid behind the door. I opened the door enough so I could see through the crack of the door. I also tried the best I could to focus my hearing. I was trying to figure out what to do. It was a little too late, but now I wanted to call the police. I was too scared to bring any attention to myself. Knowing that someone was just in the other room scared me so much that I couldn't even move anymore. I felt trapped behind this door. That's when I saw her. The strange woman from the cemetery emerged from my bedroom. She was holding a picture of me that was in my grandmother's old room. She started to walk in my direction and then eventually passed the door I was hiding behind. I was holding my hand over my mouth trying to mask the sound of my
14:46 breathing. She was just inches from the door I was hiding behind. She went to the living room and sat on the couch. I could just barely see her from where I was standing. She was talking out loud just like I had seen her do a million times before. She even started talking to George just like she would do at the cemetery. This woman was having a full-blown conversation with herself. Then things took a weird and nasty turn. Her normal talking started to change. She would laugh hysterically at nothing, then stop abruptly, and then scream. >> [screaming] >> After the weird screaming fits, she would just stare into the distance and break out crying. I didn't know what to do. I would almost feel bad when she was crying, and then she would start angrily screaming again.
15:31 I just felt so uneasy and helpless. This woman was so unwell, I had no idea if I was in danger. In the middle of a scream, she stopped, stood up, looked at nobody, and said, "It's time to go." Still looking to nobody, she said that she wouldn't want to make him upset. I assume she was talking about me. She looked around the room, and then went out of my sight. I heard a sound of a minor struggle while this woman giggled to herself. A minute or two later, I didn't hear anything. I ended up standing up behind that door for another 30 minutes before I slowly came out. I quietly snuck into the living room where she was sitting. I felt relieved that she was gone. I looked over to the window on the far side of the room. It was wide open.
16:18 This must have been how she got in and out. I figured the struggling sound I heard was her trying to back out of the window. I shut the window and locked it. I now called the police, who showed up quickly. We noticed right away that she didn't take anything except for the photo of me. I told the police everything, and unfortunately, it wasn't enough. They never found this woman, or could even give me an identity for the woman. A few days later, I went to the cemetery to see my grandma, and thankfully, the woman wasn't there. I went over to the grave she would always visit, and the name on the tombstone wasn't even George. That made me feel sick. This woman was pretending to talk to a dead loved one at someone else's grave. After speaking with the police, they think the reason she found my house was
17:04 that I told her I inherited my grandmother's house in the will. That's why you always have to be careful what information you just accidentally spill in a casual conversation. I've never seen that woman again. The one thing that freaks me out and bothers me more than anything is that she took the photo of me for some reason. Out of everything she could have taken, even all my grandmother's jewelry, she took that. It just gives me chills. I will say this though, every single time I drive into that cemetery to visit my grandmother, I'm constantly looking over my shoulder hoping I don't see this woman again. When I was younger, I used to walk
17:50 around the cemetery with my mom. It was our thing, and a way to get me out of the house and walking. We would play this game where we would look at the dates on the graves, determine how old they were, and give that person an entire backstory. It's silly, but it was our thing. My mom and I had a massive falling out a few years ago, and we don't talk anymore. Last year, I bought my first house, and it's funny how sometimes strange coincidences can happen. It's a beautiful secluded home, and still only 15 minutes from town. It's a small house, but perfect for a single man like myself. The price was dropped a few times because the house is practically in a cemetery. It's technically just outside of the cemetery, but if you keep walking in my backyard, you'll just walk right into
18:36 the back of the cemetery. I always find it funny that we spent so much time walking around cemeteries when I was young, and now I have one in my backyard. It's a constant reminder of my mother and our strained relationship. The universe is funny sometimes. A few months after I moved into the house, I started walking around the cemetery at night. Not for any sinister reasons or to cause any issues, but because I still feel a strange sense of relaxation walking around cemeteries. I'm a night owl, and I don't sleep well anyway, so this seemed like the most productive use of my time. Sometimes I would put my headphones in and listen to music or audiobooks. And sometimes I would just walk around and listen to the quiet nothingness of the cemetery.
19:22 Some nights I would spend hours just walking around. I've heard some people call me crazy for walking around by myself in a cemetery after dark. But it wasn't like that. I never felt scared or uneasy until one strange night when my opinion of walking around the cemetery at night started to change. On that night, I decided to walk around with no headphones. I was just enjoying the peaceful quiet night. At first, I thought I heard a voice. But it was so faint, I just assumed the wind was making a weird noise in the trees. I didn't stop and look around because I didn't think there was any reason to. Then I heard something again. This time I heard it clear as day. A voice spoke up behind me. It was a calm voice. They said,
20:08 "Hey Jake, it's me." I don't know what I thought I was going to see when I turned around. I didn't know if it was going to be someone I knew or maybe I was losing my mind and was about to hallucinate a ghost. When I turned around, some random guy was walking toward me with some pep in his step. He wasn't running or even jogging, but he was walking fast in my direction. It was well after 2:00 in the morning and this man was wearing black sunglasses. He had a dirty white T-shirt on and a pair of jeans with some holes in them. I didn't say anything. I didn't recognize this man at all. Instead of responding, I just turned around and started walking fast myself. I turned around several times and saw that this man was still walking after
20:54 me. I didn't want to take any chances that this guy was dangerous. That's why I just started sprinting. And it must have worked because I didn't see the man following me anymore. My My was beating out of my chest from the strange confrontation. It was bad enough that he was chasing me, even if he wasn't running, but it was so much worse that he knew my name somehow. I didn't know very many people in this town since I had moved in. I also never told anyone where I lived. The more I thought about it, the more freaked out I became. I ended up taking a super roundabout way home. I didn't want to just walk back through my backyard and give this guy any idea where I lived. Once I was home, I made sure I checked all my locks just in case. I spent the next few nights paranoid
21:39 that this guy was going to show up in my backyard, but he never did. I would constantly look out my windows expecting to see this man waving at me. A couple of months had passed and I didn't go on any of my night cemetery walks just in case. One night, I guess maybe I was feeling reckless, I decided to take a short walk through the cemetery. I walked for about an hour and didn't see anyone. When I went back home that night, the uneasiness I had felt about the cemetery started to fade away. I was thinking to myself that seeing that guy must have been the strangest coincidence ever, or maybe I just misheard him. Maybe he didn't say my name. I told myself that I had nothing to be afraid of anymore. The next night, I left my house at 1:00 in the morning and started to walk
22:25 around. I had one earbud in listening to music. It didn't take long for me to get lost in my music and I wasn't even thinking about that guy anymore. I found this big tree and decided to sit under it for a while and just vibe out to my music. I wasn't sleeping, but I did have my eyes closed. While they were shut, I heard something pass by me. I immediately opened my eyes and looked around from where I was sitting. I didn't see anything except for a bunch of gravestones. I figured a bat must have flown by my head. I kept my eyes open for another minute and just continued looking around in front of me. Just as I let my guard down and closed my eyes again, I heard someone whisper, "Hey." right behind me, and a cold hand touched my shoulder.
23:11 I jumped up, and I kid you not, this man was peering from behind the tree I was sitting against with his hand outstretched. It was the same man I saw before, except this time he wasn't wearing sunglasses. I started to back away, and he walked out from behind the tree with his hand still outstretched in my direction. His hand was dirty, and I don't know if this was just my imagination, but it didn't look like dirt. His hand looked like it was covered in something red, but it could have been just my eyes playing tricks on me in the darkness. He kept walking toward me, and again he said my name. This time he said, "I haven't seen you in a while, Jake." I knew for sure this time I didn't misunderstand him. He said my name. I heard it clearly. I tried to say something, but I
23:57 couldn't. I was surprised by this interaction, and I was terrified. One thing that I noticed that was really unsettling to me was the way he was walking toward me this time. The way he was walking looked unnatural. It wasn't just a limp or a stagger. He was walking like he was learning how to walk and didn't know how to do it properly yet. I'm not a fighter, so I didn't try to take this guy on. I didn't want to wait and find out what he wanted. I just ran as fast as I could in the opposite direction. This time I didn't look back. Just like last time, I ran a completely different way home, so I didn't give any indication where I lived. That was the last time I ever visited that cemetery. Not long after that night, I started to share this story with some people I
24:43 know. Some of my friends suggested that this guy must have just been some kind of caretaker or security guard, but I have issues with that thought. That wouldn't explain how this guy knew my name. And this is also a very old cemetery. They don't have security, and from what I understand, they haven't had anyone buried there in years. I even looked up the current owner of the cemetery and asked her if anyone works on the grounds at night, and she said no. She's an older woman who's technically the caretaker of the grounds, and she doesn't do much maintenance anymore because of her age. I recently passed my 1-year anniversary of owning this house, and I put up a fence to separate my backyard from the cemetery. From my bedroom window, I can still see beyond the fence.
25:29 Almost every night I look out that window and think about that man. Here's an unexpected and terrifying update to this story. While I was writing the story and deciding if I wanted to submit it, it reminded me of all the good times I had with my mom when I was younger. I decided to reach out to her and attempt to bury the hatchet. Well, I'm happy to say that we're slowly working on repairing our relationship. In one of our conversations on the phone, I mentioned the cemetery behind my house, and I told her about the weird guy I encountered twice. She was quiet. I thought we had gotten disconnected. Finally, she spoke up and asked me if I remembered why we stopped walking in the cemetery. I thought it was because I was just older and our time together started to fizzle out.
26:14 That wasn't the case. She told me that one afternoon while we were walking, a strange man who fits the other man's description approached us and greeted my mom by name. He was even wearing the black sunglasses. My mom was nice, but tried to dismiss the guy. He kept following us and insisted that we check out his new car. I guess my mom subtly implied that she was going to call the police, and the man finally left us alone. I have almost no memory of that. I slightly remember a guy coming up and whispering to my mom while I was looking at the names of the graves, but I never knew what the conversation consisted of. My mom was so terrified that this man was going to harm her and me that she never wanted to go back to that cemetery to walk, and we never did. I never put all those pieces together
27:00 when I was younger. She told me that after that day, she even called the police and reported the incident. And the police told her that they had several other reports about that guy. She never told me because she didn't want to scare me since I was only a kid. This could all be an outrageous coincidence, but I don't think it is. I'll be glad to never see that man again.
