Story number one, this happened years ago when I was a sophomore
in college. I had gone back to my hometown
during fall break, and one night my best friend and I decided to
catch a midnight movie. It was late and we didn't want
to walk the long way around, so we cut through the graveyard
that sat behind the Main Street. The path through it wasn't an
official one, just a beaten track where others had done the
same. It's shaved off about 20
minutes, and since we both done it before in daylight, it didn't
seem like a big deal. At night though, it was a
completely different place. The only light came from the dim
orange St. lamps posted along the perimeter, and inside the
graveyard it was just a massive uneven stones and shadows.
The air felt colder the moment we stepped past the iron gate,
and I remember noticing how the smell of damp earth seemed
heavier, like the place hadn't been touched in weeks.
We were about halfway through when one of the lamps near the
far end began flickering. The sudden flashes of light
stretch the shadows long across the grass, and in one of those
brief bursts I saw something between 2 old leaning
gravestones to the tall silhouette.
It wasn't moving, but it's head was tilted sharply to the side
like it was studying us. By the time the light blinked
again, it was gone. My friend laughed it off, saying
it was probably just shadows or my eyes playing tricks.
I wanted to believe her, but I couldn't shake the way my
stomach had dropped when I saw it.
There had been definition to it, a presence, not just a shadow.
We kept walking, but that's when the noises started.
At first it was faint, like a car crash somewhere in the
distance. Then the sound of windows
slamming, a door creaking, and even the sharp twist of a door
knob being rattled. The weird part?
We were in the middle of a graveyard.
There weren't any houses or roads close enough for those
sounds to make sense. They felt like they were
happening a few feet from us, but there was nothing there.
Just rows of gravestones and empty grass.
I tried to ignore it, but the noises kept coming, changing
every few steps, like walking past invisible houses that
shouldn't exist. My chest felt tight, but I told
myself it could be wind moving through broken stones, maybe
even echoes from the street. Still, I noticed the silence
between each sound was too sharp, too expectant, as if the
place was waiting for our reaction.
About then, I stopped to tie my shoe.
My friend kept walking a few paces ahead.
When I bent down, I felt the strange urge to glance to my
side. That's when I saw it again.
The same tall silhouette, closer now, standing by a small stone
Angel statue. It didn't move.
It just stood there, head still cocked unnaturally, body thin
and rigid against the night. I stood up fast, my heart
pounding. I wanted to call out to my
friend, but when I looked ahead, she was gone.
Not walking ahead, not waiting, just gone.
The path stretched empty all the way to the far gate.
I spun in circles, thinking maybe she'd stepped off the
path, but there was no sign of her.
My voice caught my throat when I tried to call out.
Every instinct screamed at me to get out.
That's when the lamps began going out, one by one, starting
from the farthest edge of the graveyard and coming toward me.
Each bulb flickered before dying, throwing the stones into
deeper shadow, as if something was chasing the light itself.
I couldn't breathe right. The air felt thick, freezing,
and I could swear I heard a faint rhythmic sound behind me,
like breathing that wasn't mine. I didn't look back.
I just ran. The path stretched longer than
it ever had in the daytime. My chest hurt, my vision
blurred, but all I could think was that the light above me was
the last one left, and when it died, I'd be standing in total
darkness. Just as I reached the Main
Street, the lamp above me sputtered.
I stumbled out past the iron gate onto the sidewalk.
The night air outside the graveyard felt different, less
heavy, but still freezing. My heart was racing, and I
thought I'd made it until I felt it.
A light tap on my shoulder, I spun around, ready to see.
I don't even know what, but it was my friend standing right
behind me, calm, as if she'd been walking with me the whole
time. I didn't ask her where she'd
gone, and she didn't offer an explanation.
We walked home in silence, but the entire time, something felt
wrong. Her footsteps sounded 1/2 beat
out of sync with mine. Her breathing didn't quite match
the pace, and when we passed under another street light for
just a second, her shadow on the ground didn't look like her at
all. I never brought it up again.
We stayed friends through college, but after that night I
couldn't shake the feeling that something had followed me out of
that graveyard and maybe it wore her face.
Even now, thinking back, I can explain parts of it if I really
try. The silhouette could have been
shadows, the noises just echoes, and the lamps shutting off could
have been electrical issues. Stress and exhaustion could
explain why my friend seemed off afterward, but I'll never forget
that moment I turned around. I can still feel the tap on my
shoulder and the way my gut dropped when I saw her standing
there like it wasn't her at all. Story number two, I'm not the
kind of person who believes in ghosts.
I'm a software developer. My world revolves around cause
and effect logic, clean code and debugging problems until they
make sense. For the last 10 years I've been
a runner. Same routine, same route, early
mornings before the streets wake up.
It's quiet, predictable. That's how I like it.
My route cuts through Greenwood Memorial Cemetery.
People think it's morbid, but to me it's just a park with better
landscaping. It's peaceful, the paths are
smooth, no traffic, and the trees are beautiful when the sun
filters through them. I never gave much thought to the
fact that I was running among thousands of graves.
There's one landmark I always pass.
A life-size statue of a weeping Angel, white marble wings
folded, face buried in its hands.
It sits on the grave of a family that died in the early 1900s.
I've run past it hundreds of times, never really paid
attention beyond registering it as part of the scenery, until
about a year ago. That's when things started to
feel off. At first it was nothing I could
put my finger on, just this prickling sensation as I ran
past. Like the air around the statue
was heavier, thicker somehow. The first change I noticed was
tiny one morning. It looked like the folds of the
angels robe were carved a little differently.
Deeper maybe. I dismissed it immediately, my
brain filling in details I hadn't noticed before, Nothing
more. But then it kept happening.
The tips of the wings looked a little wider one day.
The angle of the bold head seems slightly different than next
things. No one else would even notice.
But I knew I'd seen that statue so many times it was practically
etched into my brain. And now, piece by piece, it was
wrong. I told myself I was imagining
things. Stress, sleep deprivation, bad
lighting, logical explanations. But around the same time, I
started hearing faint crying at night.
Not loud, more like muffled sobs just on the edge of hearing.
I jolt awake, convinced someone was in my room.
I live alone. Every time I checked, there was
nothing. Still, the crying persisted.
Always at night, always when the house was dead quiet.
I even left my phone recording once thinking I'd catch it.
The playback was silent, except for me turning in bed.
I laughed it off, called myself paranoid, but there's no way to
explain the feeling of waking up to the sound of someone weeping
right beside your bed and finding nothing there.
I decided to prove myself wrong. Next time I ran past the Angel,
I brought my phone and snapped pictures.
When I looked at them, the statue was exactly how it was
supposed to be. Hands covering its face, wings
folded neatly, no differences. I felt ridiculous.
Of course it hadn't moved. Statues don't move.
I chalked everything up to my brain messing with me.
Vindicated, I kept running through Greenwood.
Then came the morning that changed everything.
I was halfway through my route, the cemetery completely still,
just me, my shoes hitting the gravel, my breath puffing in the
cold. I reach the spot where I usually
scratch the path with my shoe before Sprint intervals.
I looked up just casually, not even planning to stop.
And then I froze. The angels hands weren't
covering its face anymore. Both arms rested in its lap,
palms up, as though offering something invisible.
It's face, hidden for more than a century, was exposed, only
there were no features. No eyes, no nose, no mouth.
Just smooth marble shaped vaguely like a human face from
the place where it's eyes should have been. 2 black streaks ran
down its cheeks, staining the whitestone, and it was angled
toward me. I can't describe the terror.
It wasn't just fear, it was the kind of primal, body shaking
panic that bypasses reason altogether.
Something in me screamed that I shouldn't be seeing this, that I
wasn't supposed to. My legs locked for what felt
like forever, but must have been a few seconds.
Then instinct took over. I turned and sprinted.
I didn't stop until I was inside my house, door slammed, chest
heaving like I'd never run before.
I stayed like that for a long time, palms on my knees, sweat
dripping onto the floor. My logical brain tried to
rationalize. Maybe vandals had altered it.
Maybe the shadows had tricked me.
Maybe my mind was breaking from lack of sleep.
But no excuse could erase the image of that blank face with
black tears angled toward me. I avoided Greenwood after that,
added an extra mile to my run just to stay clear.
Problem solved, Or so I thought. But avoiding it didn't make the
unease go away. Some nights I'd wake up to find
the faint sound of wings rustling, like fabric brushing
against itself. Other times, I'd catch a shadow
in the corner of my vision, tall and winged, gone the instant I
turned my head. Once I came home and found fine
white dust on my window sill, like marble shavings.
My windows were locked. The crying continued closer now,
no longer muffled. It sounded as though someone was
sobbing into their hands right next to me.
I'd wake up drenched in cold sweat, staring into the dark,
convinced I'd see that blank face looming over me.
I stopped running all together for a while, stopped sleeping
much too. My Co workers noticed I was
zoning out, red eyed, twitchy. I didn't tell them why.
How do you explain that a statue might be following you home?
Finally, I forced myself to confront it.
I needed closure. I drove to Greenwood one
afternoon, broad daylight, just to prove it was normal.
People were tending graves, walking dogs.
Ordinary, mundane. I approached the Angel, heart
pounding. Its hands were back over its
face, wings folded exactly as it had always been.
Just a statue. I almost laughed out loud in
relief. The black streaks I remembered
weren't there. Maybe they never had been.
Maybe I'd had a breakdown, plain and simple.
I walked away feeling foolish. But as I passed the cemetery
gates, I caught sight of something in my peripheral
vision, like the faint curve of marble fingers peeking between
feathers of folded wings, just enough to suggest the Angel
wasn't covering its face entirely.
I didn't go back again. Now, every time I pass the edge
of Greenwood on my longer route, I speed up without realizing it.
I don't look through the gates. I don't want to know if the
angel's hands are still where they should be.
I tell myself it's all in my head.
Stress, exhaustion, imagination. But last week I woke up with
grit in my bed. White dust streaked faintly with
something dark, like dried stone mixed with ash.
I brushed it off, convinced it was plaster from the ceiling.
Except when I looked up, the ceiling was clean.
I'm logical. I don't believe in impossible
things, but I also don't run through Greenwood anymore, and
sometimes when the house is still, I hear wings shift in the
dark and the quiet sound of someone weeping.
Soft, Patient, waiting story #3 About five years ago, I had one
of the weirdest experiences of my life.
I don't talk about it much because it sounds like something
you'd read in a bad ghost story thread, but it really happened.
Or at least I think it did. I still don't know how much of
it was real and how much was my brain messing with me, but I
can't shake the unease it left behind.
I'd gone to Hopewell Cemetery to leave flowers on my grandma's
grave. It was a cool autumn afternoon,
sun dipping lower but still bright enough that the place
didn't feel too creepy. I parked in the gravel lot,
walked the narrow path between the older stones, and spent a
while at her grave. Nothing unusual there, just
quiet. On the way out, though,
something caught my eye. Off near the tree line, where
the older part of the cemetery sloped down toward the woods, I
saw a chipped headstone leaning sideways, half sunken into the
dirt. It was almost buried, like it
hadn't been tended to in decades.
No name on it, at least not one I could see from where I stood.
I don't know why I felt pulled to it.
Maybe it was curiosity, Maybe guilt for walking past all the
forgotten graves while I was only there for one.
Either way, I left the path and walked over.
The ground was soft there, muddy in spots, and the headstone was
covered in leaves, Moss, and dirt.
I knelt down, brush some of the mess away, trying to see if
there was any engraving. That's all I remember doing,
just brushing dirt off stone. It couldn't have been more than
a minute or two, but when I finally looked up, everything
was different. The sun was gone, not setting,
gone. The cemetery was shadowed, lit
only by that pale bluish glow the sky gets after dusk.
My phone said over 2 hours had passed.
I thought maybe I'd zoned out, lost track of time, but the
panic in my chest told me it was more than that.
My hands were caked in mud, nails packed with it like I'd
been digging. I don't remember digging.
I don't remember doing anything except brushing dirt.
The lot was nearly empty when I sprinted back my car, the last
one there. As I left, I heard something
behind me, Soft, almost like a whisper, a sound more than
words. It reminded me of a lullaby,
faint and rhythmic. My whole body went cold.
I didn't turn around, just ran, unlocked the car with shaking
hands and drove out without looking back.
When I got home, I washed my hands and that's when I saw it.
Tiny scratches on the back of my skin, like letters carved
backward. I couldn't read them clearly.
It looked like nonsense, reversed and faint, but they
were there. An hour later they were gone,
just red smudges left behind. That night I hardly slept.
My sheets were clean when I crawled into bed, but when I
woke up they had streaks of dried mud across them.
Since then, I haven't set foot in Hopewell Cemetery again.
But The thing is, whatever happened didn't stay there.
Sometimes, as I'm drifting off to sleep, I hear the same soft
tune in my head. Not a melody I recognize, just a
faint rocking rhythm, like someone humming close to my ear.
When it happens, I usually jolt awake, heart pounding.
Other times I do fall asleep, but I wake up to muddy sheets,
dirt under my nails, or damp footprints leading from my
bedroom door toward the bed. The first few times I told
myself I must have been sleepwalking.
Maybe I'd gone outside without realizing it.
But the doors are always locked, windows too, and nothing ever
looks disturbed. Still, that's the explanation.
I cling to sleepwalking stress, something normal, but the
details eat at me. Once, I woke up with twigs
tangled in my hair. Another time the sheet smelled
like fresh earth, sharp and metallic, like turned soil after
rain. There was one night where I woke
up gasping, my pillow damp, and found a clump of Moss pressed
flat against it, like it had been set there on purpose.
It doesn't happen every night. Weeks will pass with nothing,
and then suddenly it'll start again.
Always the lullaby, first faint and slow, then the dirt, the
mud, the strange half dreams where I'm kneeling in the dark,
scraping at something in the ground that never fully reveals
itself. I've tried recording myself
while I sleep, setting up my phone on the dresser.
Most of the time it just shows me rolling over, snoring
lightly, but one clip still makes me sick to my stomach.
About an hour into the night, I sit up in bed very slowly and
start humming. The audio is grainy, but the
tune matches the one in my head. After a while I turn toward the
camera, but my eyes don't look open.
The clip ends there, like the phone died even though the
battery was nearly full. Of course I showed it to a
friend and he laughed it off, Said I was sleep humming, maybe
acting out a dream. Phones glitch all the time.
He's probably right. I want him to be right.
But here's the part that keeps me from shaking it off
completely. Every time the humming starts up
again in my sleep, I wake up more tired, more drained.
My nails are dirtier, the sheets messier.
And once, when I woke up in the middle of the night, I swore I
saw a shadow crouched at the foot of my bed.
Not standing. Crouched like someone kneeling,
the way I had by that headstone. It faded the second I blinked.
I've tried not to think about that day at the cemetery too
much, but sometimes the memory pushes in.
That sensation of lost time, the backward scratches on my skin,
the whisper that wasn't quite words but almost was.
If I was just imagining things, then why did the scratches look
like letters? Why do I still wake up with dirt
under my nails years later? The skeptic in me says it's all
sleepwalking stress, subconscious guilt tied to my
grandmother's death, Whatever. Maybe I saw the old stone and my
brain spun it into something bigger, and now it leaks into my
dreams. Maybe the dirt is from me
wandering outside without realizing.
That's the story I tell myself when people ask why I won't
visit Hopewell anymore. But every now and then, late at
night, when the house is quiet and the tune starts humming
faintly in my head, I wonder if it's not me moving toward the
ground, but something from the ground moving closer to me.
Story #4 I work for a flower delivery service that sometimes
handles tributes for graves. Usually it's quiet, uneventful
work. People assume cemeteries are the
scariest part, but most of the time they're just empty.
I never liked the crowd. Either ways, it's routine.
I get the address, drive out, place the flowers, maybe say a
quick mental apology for stepping over someone's resting
spot, and leave. That's it.
This happened on one of those miserable mornings when the rain
doesn't fall hard, but hangs in the air, cold and constant,
soaking everything. The kind of rain that crawls
down your back, no matter how well your jackets zipped.
The request that day was for a new grave.
Nothing unusual about that. Fresh dirt, the smell of wet
earth. The kind of heavy silence you
only get when you're standing in a field of headstones.
I remember my boots sinking a little as I carried the
arrangement over. I set the flowers down, adjusted
the card, and stood up to brush rain from my face.
That's when I saw her. Across the field, near the older
section, a woman stood in front of a blank stone.
Her veil was bright red, but it was so soaked it clung to her
like a second skin. She didn't move, not even when
the wind cut through the trees and sent the rain sideways just
perfectly still facing the stone, I told myself it was none
of my business. People mourn in their own ways,
but the longer I looked, the more wrong it felt.
The grave she stood at wasn't marked, just a stone slab with
nothing carved into it. No flowers, no offerings.
I tried to turn away, but I made the mistake of letting my eyes
slide toward her face, just for a second.
I don't even know how to explain it properly.
Her skin looked torn, like strips had been carved out with
something sharp. Blood was smeared across her
cheeks, soaking into the veil. Her mouth was a mess of jagged
cuts. For a split second, it looked
like her lips had been sewn, then ripped open again.
The eyes were worse. Hollow, sunken, like looking
into the sockets of something that should not still be
standing. And then she looked at me.
I swear I felt heat rush through me, burning from the inside out.
Not panic, not embarrassment. Literal heat.
Like my skin was about to blister.
My chest tightened like I couldn't breathe.
I blinked hard, trying to clear rain from my lashes.
And in that split second, she was gone.
The spot was empty except there were footprints, waterlogged
impressions in the mud leading away from the stone.
They stretched on for maybe 6-7 steps and then stopped dead,
like the earth had swallowed her whole.
The ground everywhere else was untouched.
I tried to shake it off, told myself someone had been there
and left, and my brain had filled in the rest.
When you work alone in graveyards, your imagination can
do weird things. I packed up fast and left.
Later that week I went back to the same cemetery with another
delivery. The sky was clearer, no rain
this time, but the ground was still damp from the storms.
I didn't expect to see her again.
I didn't want to. But the same spot caught my eye.
The same blank grave, only now there were flowers laid on it.
Not from us wildflowers, damp and pressed flat like they've
been torn up in a hurry. Something about the way they sat
on the bare stone made me uneasy, too deliberate, too
careful. I ended up asking the
groundskeeper, an older guy I see around sometimes.
I mentioned the woman in passing, said something like
maybe she was a relative of someone recently buried.
He gave me this strange look and shook his head.
Said that particular grave wasn't occupied yet, Scheduled
for burial the following week, still unmarked.
He added, almost casually, that staff sometimes saw a woman at
dawn, always dressed in red, always at graves that hadn't
been filled yet. No one had ever spoken to her.
No one saw her arrive or leave. Just there and then not.
I tried to laugh it off, but his face didn't shift.
He wasn't joking. After that conversation, I
couldn't get her out of my head. I kept thinking about the
burning sensation, the way her eyes seem to hollow everything
out of me. The next time it rained, I
dreaded going back, but the job doesn't stop for the weather
that day. While walking through the newer
section, I passed by another fresh plot.
The dirt was still raw, dark against the grass.
Out of instinct, I glanced across the field.
She was there again. Same red veil, same stillness.
Only this time, she wasn't at the unmarked stone.
She was standing at the edge of a muddy trench, staring down
into the hole itself. I froze.
The air felt heavier, harder to breathe.
My skin prickled like every hair on my arms was standing up.
I blinked, trying not to, but when I opened my eyes, the hole
was empty. So was the spot beside it, but
the footprints were there again, leading nowhere.
I didn't sleep well that night, couldn't stop thinking about her
face. Over the next month, I delivered
to other cemeteries, different towns, different graves, and
every now and then, out of the corner of my eye I'd see a
splash of red. Always distant, never clear,
always by the newest plots. Once I swear I smelled iron in
the air, metallic and sharp like blood, even though I was
standing in the middle of a well kept lawn with nothing around me
but rain. Another time, while setting
flowers down, I felt that heat again, burning, crawling under
my skin. I looked up and thought I saw
her veil in the reflection of a headstone, but when I turned,
nothing was there. It's been months now, and I've
stopped asking questions. People talk about how grief
makes you see things, how cemeteries are heavy places
where the mind can trick you. Maybe that's true.
Maybe what I saw was just my brain feeding off the silence,
the weather, the loneliness of the job.
But I can't shake the way the footprints always stop, like
whoever or whatever makes them doesn't need to keep walking.
And every time I walk past an unmarked grave, especially when
it's raining, I feel eyes on me, waiting, watching.
I tell myself it's nothing, just a shadow, just the wind, just my
imagination. But I've started leaving flowers
on blank stones, even when no one asked me to.
I don't know why it feel safer that way.
Still, some nights when the rain wakes me up, I swear I can feel
that same burning under my skin again and I wonder if one day
when my time comes, she'll already be standing there
waiting at the empty grave. Story #5 My brother and I had
this weird hobby back in our late teens, exploring old
cemeteries. Most of them were just forgotten
plots behind churches or tucked away in woods, the kind of
places where weed swallowed gravestones and birdsong was the
only sound. People always whispered about
them being haunted, which was probably what made us keep going
back. I used to tell myself it was
just thrill seeking, but deep down I think I wanted proof that
all the ghost stories I'd grown up with had some kind of truth.
Two years ago I got something close enough to proof, though I
still can't explain it. We'd gone to this crumbling
church on the edge of town. It was one of those brick
buildings where the roof had collapsed decades ago and vines
ran up the side like veins. Behind it was a stretch of land
that locals called the Forgotten Patch.
We'd never been there before, so naturally that's where we went.
The ground was uneven and at some point I tripped over a
loose stone, falling face first onto fresh, soft earth.
It shocked me because everything around us looks so neglected,
yet here was soil that had clearly been dug and filled
recently. My hand sank into it like it was
still unsettled. I scrambled up quickly, brushing
it off, but my brother had already wandered away, picking
through broken markers deeper in.
That's when I noticed the tree line. 2 glowing dots.
They weren't eyes exactly too far apart, too steady, but they
pulsed faintly, like embers in the dark.
At first I thought it might have been some animal caught in a
shaft of light, but the way they hovered there, perfectly still,
made me freeze. Suddenly, my chest tightened.
Not like a panic attack, I've had those, and this was
different. This felt like a boulder was
being pressed into me, squeezing the air out.
I staggered, clutching at my shirt, trying to inhale, but the
air just wouldn't go in. And that's when the vines moved.
They uncoiled from the trees, thin tendrils at first snaking
toward me. I told myself it was the wind
tugging them, but then one wrapped around my ankle.
I tried to kick it off, but more followed, wrapping, twisting,
tightening. The glowing dots flickered once,
and I swear I felt the pull. My body started sliding across
the dirt, dragged toward the trees.
I tried to yell for my brother, but nothing came out.
My throat worked, my jaw moved, but my voice was gone.
I wasn't even whispering. I was silent, as if something
had plucked the sound right out of me.
It was the most helpless I've ever felt, like I wasn't even in
control of my own body anymore. The vines dragged me closer,
dirt scraping my palms raw. The last thing I remember is
staring at those dots, feeling like they were waiting for me,
inviting me deeper then nothing. When I opened my eyes again, my
brother was crouched over me, slapping my face lightly, panic
in his eyes. He said I'd fainted, that I
wasn't breathing right. He'd splashed water on me from
his bottle, and somehow I came to.
We left right after, though he kept making jokes to cover how
shaken he was. At first, I convinced myself it
was all in my head. Maybe I passed out, hallucinated
while half conscious. Maybe the glowing dots were
fireflies. Maybe the vines were just me
thrashing against weeds. That's a story I wanted to
believe until I looked at my hands.
My palms were scratched to hell and my fingernails were packed
with dirt. Not the dry, crumbly kind from
around the graves, but wet, black soil that clung to my skin
with a strange chill like it had been pulled from deep
underground. No matter how hard I scrubbed
that night, it wouldn't come off.
It stayed for three whole days, wedged under every nail I see to
the touch, even when the rest of me was sweating.
On the third night I had a dream, or what I hope was a
dream. I was lying in bed when I heard
scraping under the floorboards. Slow, deliberate dragging
sounds. Then the boards warped, like
something was pushing against them from beneath.
A hand, Gray caked in the same sticky soil, broke through the
wood. Reaching upward, the arm
followed, elbow bending the wrong way as the figure clawed
its way out inch by inch. It's face never came into view,
but I knew somehow that it was looking straight at me.
I woke up drenched in sweat, gasping like I'd run a marathon.
The dirt under my nails was gone, vanished overnight.
My sheet smelled faintly of soil, but there wasn't a speck
on them when I checked in the morning.
That should have been the end of it, but it wasn't.
For months after, I'd get flashes of that suffocating
weight on my chest whenever I walk past woods.
Sometimes when I close my eyes at night, I'd see the dots
glowing faintly, always just behind a tree line or fence
post. Once, when I was showering, the
water pressure drops suddenly and I felt something tugging at
my ankle. I nearly slipped, breaking free,
but when I looked down, there was only the drain.
There were smaller things, too. Plants in my room that had
always done fine started to wither, their leaves curling
black no matter how often I watered them.
My phone camera glitched whenever I tried to take
pictures near the church, leaving only static filled
frames. And once, while walking home, I
found my shoes caked in the same sticky dirt, though I hadn't
stepped off the pavement all day.
I never told my brother the full story.
He just thinks I fainted because of heat exhaustion or maybe bad
food. He laughs about it sometimes,
says I was always too eager to believe ghost stories.
Maybe he's right. A skeptic would say I
hallucinated from lack of air, that the dirt under my nails was
just me clawing at the ground in panic.
Dreams are just dreams. Plants die for no reason.
Phones glitch, shoes pick up grime without you noticing.
But even now, two years later, I can't shake the feeling that I
was touched by something real that day.
Something that didn't want me there and made sure I knew it.
Sometimes late at night, I'll catch a faint smell of damp
earth in my room. It's not strong, not enough for
anyone else to notice, but I know it.
The same cloying cold soil from that grave.
And every now and then, when I'm drifting off to sleep, I feel a
pressure on my chest. Not enough to stop my breathing
completely, but enough to remind me it could.
I've stopped visiting cemetery since then.
My brother still goes sometimes, but I make excuses.
It's not fear exactly, it's more like respect, or maybe
avoidance. Because deep down I'm afraid if
I step foot in another forgotten patch, the dirt under my nails
won't come off so easily next time.
And if the glowing dots are waiting for me, I don't think
I'll wake up in the same spot again.
Story number six. I used to work at a cemetery
that was being decommissioned. It wasn't glamorous, mostly
paperwork, filing old records, locking things up.
My last responsibility there was making sure the Mortuary
building was shut down every night.
It was a strange place, a brick structure with arched windows,
chipped plaster, and that massive iron bell bolted to the
roof. People said it used to ring
during burials, like some ritual from the older days, but the
thing had been rusted and out of use for decades.
I laughed about it at first. Cemeteries are already creepy,
so adding a random bell to the mix felt like one of those weird
traditions that made no sense anymore.
Still, every time I locked that building I had to walk under it,
and it gave me this uneasy weight in my stomach, like if I
looked up at the wrong time I'd see something.
Staring down that final night, everything felt heavier.
The air was damp and the smell of wet soil clung to everything.
I was the last one there. Everyone else had clocked out
two hours earlier. I was buried in paperwork, just
trying to finish my shift. The place was silent except for
the occasional rattle of old pipes.
That's when I heard it. A steady dripping sound, faint
at first but rhythmic enough to breakthrough the silence.
It was coming from the washroom. I hadn't used it, nobody had
since the staff left. I told myself it was just a
loose tap, but the thought that it suddenly started on its own
after hours felt wrong. Still, I grabbed my keys and
went to check the washroom door, groaned when I pushed it open
and sure enough, one of the taps was running, cold water
splashing onto the cracked sink. The air was damp, musty like
mildew mixed with something metallic.
I reached to turn it off when from the corner of the room, a
broom that had been propped against the wall suddenly fell.
No draft, no movement, it just clattered onto the tiles right
beside me. The sound was so sharp it made
me jump back. My heart was hammering in my
chest. For a second I just stood there,
staring at the broom on the floor, feeling stupid for being
scared of cleaning equipment. I shut off the tap, picked up
the broom, and walked out, telling myself it was gravity.
Old buildings, lean things slide.
Simple. I closed the washroom door
behind me, and that's when I froze the bell.
It rang not once, not in that long, slow toll you'd expect
from something old and heavy. It rang again and again, like
frantic bursts of sound, urgent, uneven, as if someone was
yanking the rope from above, trying to warn me.
But the bell was broken, and the upper section had always been
locked. My hands were shaking, but
something in me needed to check, needed proof.
I grabbed my flashlight and made for the spiral staircase that
led up toward the bell chamber. That staircase looked like
something ripped out of a horror movie set, narrow, twisting with
woods so warped it wind under every step.
The moment I flicked on the flashlight, the beam caught
something darting across the room above me.
A quick, shadowy movement, like a person bolting from one corner
to another. I froze halfway up the steps, my
pulse roaring in my ears. I told myself it could have been
a rat, just a big rat. But in that silence, I couldn't
hear any scratching or squeaking.
I forced myself upward, each step echoing in the hollow
tower. The air grew staler the higher I
climbed. My chest tightened when I
reached the top. the Hatch was locked, just like I expected.
I stood there, breathing hard, waiting for something, anything.
That's when it happened. I felt a push, not a stumble,
not me losing my balance. It was firm, deliberate, like a
hand pressed against my back. My flashlight flew from my grip
as I tumbled. I crashed down the stairs, my
shoulder slamming into the banister, my legs twisting
painfully. By the time I hit the bottom, my
whole body was screaming with pain.
I don't know how long I lay there gasping, trying to
convince myself I hadn't just been shoved by something
invisible. Somehow, I dragged myself out,
limping to my car. My only thought was to leave, to
put distance between me and that place.
I made it home, swallowed painkillers and collapsed into
bed. My body ached like it had been
through a wreck, but I was alive.
I thought maybe it was done. Maybe my mind had just spiraled
out of control in a creepy building.
But the next morning proved me wrong.
When I opened my eyes, I wasn't in my bedroom.
I was standing, my clothes from last night still on.
The sound of running water filled my ears.
I was in the cemetery washroom. The same tap was on, splashing
water just like before. I nearly collapsed right there.
I couldn't piece together how I had gotten there.
The last memory I had was my bed, yet I was back inside that
locked building, inside the washroom I had sworn off.
I don't remember how I got out. I think I ran.
Maybe I screamed. I can't be sure anymore.
What I do know is that I never went back.
The cemetery was decommissioned a week later, the Mortuary
sealed up for good. I quit the job, didn't even
collect my last paycheck. Money wasn't worth it.
Even now, years later, I still wake up sometimes in the middle
of the night, certain I'll find myself standing in that washroom
again. I still hear phantom creaks,
like footsteps circling my bed. Sometimes, faintly, I think I
hear the sound of a bell. I tell myself it's trauma or
sleepwalking or tricks of the mind.
That's the only way to stay sane.
But in quiet moments, when the house settles and the pipes
groan, I get that same tight feeling in my chest as I did
climbing those stairs, that sense that something is standing
just behind me, waiting. Maybe it was never about the
cemetery. Maybe it followed me home.
And sometimes I wonder if the bell wasn't warning me, but
warning others. Story #7 I spent one summer
working at a cemetery doing preservation work.
It was a bit exhausting, but my parents insisted I do the
community work. My job was mostly to patch up
the small family mausoleums, fix cracks, replace stones, scrape
Moss, that kind of thing. It was quiet work, though
peaceful in a strange way. Except for one crypt, it looked
unremarkable, just a squat stone structure no bigger than a shed,
tucked at the edge of a shaded Grove.
I'd been warned it was empty. The family who built it never
ended up using it, and records showed it had never housed a
body. Still, there was something off
about it. The first time I noticed
anything, I brushed it off. I leaned close to inspect the
stone door, checking for signs of weather damage, and heard
something faint. It was like murmuring.
Not clear words, more like the sound of two people talking
under their breath. Urgent, hurried, constant.
I chalked it up to sound traveling weirdly, maybe traffic
noise, maybe wind through the trees.
But it wasn't just once. Every time I press my ear
against the door, day or night, I'd hear that low mumble like
someone trapped inside, endlessly whispering.
I tried laughing it off, told myself I was spooking myself for
no reason. But it got harder when things
escalated. 1 hot afternoon, while hauling my tools across
the grounds, I spotted something seeping from beneath that crip
door. Dark, thick liquid pooled at the
base. I thought it was rainwater mixed
with dirt at first, but when I got closer it looked red.
Not rust, red, blood red. Before I could even react, a
sound slammed into me, fist pounding from the other side of
the stone door. Violent, desperate, constant
hammering. Each thud shook the ground
slightly, echoing through the still air.
My body locked. I couldn't breathe.
Whoever or whatever was inside wanted out badly.
I remember staring down at my boots and realizing the liquid
had spread under them. It wasn't just pooling anymore.
It was flowing, continuous, like a leak that couldn't be stopped.
My instincts finally screamed at me to run, and I did.
By the time I dragged A colleague back, everything was
gone. No blood, no pounding, no noise.
The crypt looked as undisturbed as it had the first day I saw
it. My colleague cursed me for
wasting time and walked away, shaking his head.
I stood frozen there though, because as soon as he was out of
sight, I saw it. Faint light glowing around the
doors edges. Not bright, not like a Lantern,
more like a pale pulse from inside.
I blinked, and suddenly I wasn't standing there anymore.
I was back at the main hall, near the tool shed, like I'd
skipped a memory. I had no idea how long it
passed, but I was holding the same hammer I've been carrying
before. That was the first time I
admitted to myself something was wrong.
Still, I had to keep working. I couldn't just quit because of
a bad feeling. So I stayed, And I kept noticing
little things. One morning, while scraping Moss
off a different mausoleum, I heard someone say my name clear
as day, whispered right against my ear.
I spun around, expecting to see one of the grounds crew messing
with me. Nobody was there.
Nobody was even within shouting distance.
When I mentioned it to the older groundsman, he smirked and said
it was just an echo from the road.
But here's the thing, that Crip doesn't face the street.
There's a Grove of trees blocking it entirely.
Another time, while polishing a stone slab nearby, I felt a
sudden drop in temperature. I mean sharp.
One second I was sweating in the sun, the next I could see my
breath in the air. The Crip door stood right in
front of me. I swear the stone surface
glistened as if something wet pressed against it from the
inside. I never opened it.
I don't think I could have even if I wanted to.
The door had no handle, only a sealed seam of stone and rusted
iron, but I often caught myself staring at the gap at the bottom
half, expecting something to seep out again.
On my last day, I tried to tell myself I was imagining at all
that it was just the quiet getting to me, but the cemetery
seemed to disagree. Everywhere I turned I heard
those whispers, not just at the crypt anymore, but around the
gravestones, drifting through the air, always low and hurried,
like dozens of people talking at once, just out of earshot.
By the end of my shift, I was practically running for the
gate. When I finally got home, I
thought I'd left it behind. But that night I woke up
drenched in sweat. A nightmare had jolted me awake.
Murmuring voices pressed against my skull, hissing right into my
ears. When I turned toward my bedroom
door, I froze. From the gap beneath the door, I
saw liquid spreading across the floor, the same deep red winding
slowly toward my bed. I blinked hard, rubbed my eyes,
and it was gone. Just the faint yellow glow of
the hallway light seeping through the crack.
That wasn't the only time. For about a month after I quit,
I had those same dreams. Whispering in the dark, blood
leaking into my room, the pounding of fists on stone.
Always the same, always so real. I'd wake up and check my door.
Eventually, the nightmares faded.
I don't see blood anymore, and I don't hear whispers, at least
not every night. Still, every once in a while,
when I'm lying in bed in silence, I swear I catch a faint
sound. Not outside, not upstairs, but
right against my ear. The same urgent low mumble, the
same voices that once came from an empty crypt.
And sometimes I wonder if the crypt was truly empty, who was
whispering? And if it wasn't, what exactly
did I hear trying to get out? I'll never really know, but
whenever I think about it too much, I get this sinking feeling
that maybe I didn't leave that place behind.
Maybe something from it followed me home.