A tale of two cemeteries

There are cemeteries in every single town on earth, but have you ever thought about the people living next to them?

In this episode we discover what may be lurking in the shadows of all those headstones, and why it’s the worst place to play hide and seek…

Transcript

This is Unnerving…

Ghosts, creatures, monsters, aliens, mother nature, and humans. We all have a story about one of these things that are unnerving. Some might give you goosebumps, while others will leave you with a knot in your stomach.

The stories I tell are real experiences from people across the globe, and some are listener stories.

If you would like to share your story with me, send it to unnerving13@gmail.com. Please remember to like, share, subscribe, and follow for more.

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Welcome to the very first episode of my podcast – Unnerving. I wanted to take a few minutes to introduce myself and to tell you what this podcast is all about.

I’m a mom of two, living in South Africa, hence the accent. Regardless of my home language being Afrikaans, I will do my research and try my very best to pronounce the names of places and people correctly.

I’ve always been a fan of the weird, unexplained, and horrific. No wonder I love Stephen King books so much! I’ve taken time to gather stories from people from all walks of life, and I hope to gather many more. Some of the stories may act as cautionary tales, while you may roll your eyes at others. But I’m not here to judge someone’s lived experience. I’m simply here to share it, and hopefully find a community of people who enjoy listening.

The episodes are short, so it’s perfect for when you don’t have a lot of time to listen to something longer. This will probably be the longest episode out of all of them, but time will tell as my platform grows.

With that, let’s get into the first ever story on this podcast…

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This happened to me many years ago. I still have nightmares about it. I was 12 at the time, the only girl out of 3 kids, and also the youngest. My brothers never bullied me, but we loved pranking and trying to scare each other.

My aunt, uncle, and three cousins lived in a small student town next to Mosselbay in the Western Cape, South Africa. Their house was against the side of a hill, smack bang in the middle of two cemeteries. I remember my uncle saying the house used to belong to the groundskeeper, before he disappeared off the face of the earth. As it happens in every small town on earth, stories started spreading, and a couple of urban legends and ghost stories started making the rounds.

In December of 2001, we drove down to go and visit them. The house wasn’t very big, so with 6 kids there, the adults told us to go play outside until dinner time every day. We had loads of fun. One night we decided to play hide and seek in the cemeteries. We knew the different stories about the place, since my brothers made sure to tell us the scariest ones at night before bedtime. When it was time to go and hide, I was terrified to go into the dark cemetery all by myself. Obviously already on edge, every single little sound made me jump, and I had to bite my tongue not to scream. I didn’t want to be the first one to be found. I came across a gravestone that was an angel sitting on a bench. I sat down at the angel’s feet, hoping I would blend in. As I’m sitting there, I see the black figures of the others running around looking for a place to hide. The countdown ended, and the search began.

I saw a shadow run past me and I gasped. The shadow stopped and turned towards me. Dammit, they found my hiding spot. But… the shadow looked strange. It was too big to belong to either of my brothers or any of my cousins. One of the adults, perhaps? No, even if any of them had come looking for us, they would’ve called out. The shadow was also too big to belong to any of the adults. It was too big to belong to any human. As that realisation struck me, the shadow started moving towards me. My heart was pounding in my chest, my mouth felt dry, and the strangest sensation came over me. It felt like my skin was turning into tissue paper, like every drop of water was being siphoned from my body. As the shadow drew closer, a raspy voice spoke up behind me.

“Get out of my cemetery!”

The shadow recoiled as though it had been slapped. The voice behind me got louder and louder.

“Get out! Get out! Get out!”

Goosebumps sprung up all over my body as an icy hand came to rest on my shoulder. I looked up and saw an old man with an unkempt beard glaring in the direction of the shadow. He squeezed my shoulder and everything went black. I must’ve only been out for a couple of minutes, but when I woke up, everyone was standing around me with worry on their faces. I told them what had happened, but I could see no one believed me. Why would they? I wasn’t even sure what had happened. Why did it feel like the shadow was sucking me dry of water? What was the shadow? Was the old man the groundskeeper? Was he alive? Or did I encounter his ghost? I guess I’ll never know.

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That’s all for today. May the sun warm your face, and the moon light your way. Share your thoughts in the comments, and let’s get a conversation started.