The Cemetery
level 1
In my early 20s I worked as a security guard at a local cemetery in my city. After the first two weeks the novelty of working in a cemetery wore off, and whenever there was activity reported in areas of the cemetery after we were closed, I would get pissed instead of spooked. Like what fucking kid is there again, knocking over stones, breaking stuff, vandalizing the dead etc. This shit really pisses me off. So disrespectful and just vile to do to someone.
This cemetery is about 250 years old (east coast) and is in wooded grotto area. Lots of eskers and drumlins, kettles and valleys. Lots of little dark pockets where homeless people would sometimes stay, but mostly just teenagers who have no respect for anything breaking stuff. Honestly, if they were there just like smoking weed I'd say, "Alright. Go on get" and call it a day. But if they broke stuff like mausoleum windows, tombstones, spray painting monuments etc. I'D LOSE MY SHIT and call the cops, chase them with the cart etc. Like wtf graves and grave markers, mausoleums, crypts, columbariums etc. are SO EXPENSIVE, and this is someone's last resting place - you have to be careless, oblivious, or a total sociopath to not care and find joy in destroying this shit.
One night about a year into this gig I was on an overnight. In the overnights we'd pretty much just drive around all the paths, shining out lights into areas we knew were populated by people sometimes, do some light walking, and basically respond to any alarms going off when they sounded. Now again this was an old cemetery on the east coast. This means all the trees and grove were VERY tall and thick and mature. This also means the graves and monuments are not in neat and boring little rows. They are in patches, family plots, on hills, etc on winding paths. Most of the time the alarm would go off and I would go there and it was a deer that had tripped the movement sensor. Sometimes it was a tree branch like, in the way (SO ANNOYING). Other times it was actual people there after dark doing what they do. If people were there after dark it was usually because they were either homeless, or young kids partying.
It's like almost 4 am when the motion sensor alarm goes off in an area of the cemetery near a local university. I'm like, "Yep, it's fucking kids again. Why can't they smoke their weed on campus like everyone else??" My little walkie-talkie thing vibrates, alerts me to the exact area, and I turn the cart around to head there. I remember it was mid-July and the night was HOT. I REALLY wanted to catch these kids, so I parked the cart a few paths away from where the alarm had set off, so they don't hear the cart coming or see the lights.
At this point in time I know this cemetery like the back of my hand - all the little pockets and grottoes, even certain names on mausoleums. I was rounding the corners by a mausoleum of a Johnston family. I knew just past the corner of this mausoleum was a small clearing in the trees, and that the kids would most likely be in this area. I turn the corner and look out into the clearing. Nothing. No person, no movement, no noises, no tell-tail smells. Nothing. Hmm.
I look around a bit more, this time with my flashlight. Still nothing. The Johnston family mausoleum is on my left hand side, and I stop to stand there for a second in the little steps of the portico. I put my hand on the pillar to sort of steady myself, and then I looked out into the clearing again.
This time there WAS something in the clearing. It sounds SO LAME but it was like a black cloud. Like the blackest black I have ever seen, and it was accompanied by this HORRIBLE feeling of terror and dread. Like, "Yes, this is how you die." It all happened so fast, but I remember for a few moments trying to focus on what it was exactly. Was I just seeing a shadow from a tree foreshortened across the distance of the clearing, or was this an erect shadow shape "standing" there in the middle of the clearing etc. I realized that whatever it was, it was MOVING TOWARDS me now, and the feeling of dread and terror was overwhelming. It was a feeling of like, "Oh shit - it's seen me and now it's going to come to me!"
I ran back to the cart immediately and went to drive away back to the admin. building. I remember as I put the key in the ignition the lights coming on and shining directly in front of me toward the clearing up ahead. This was the scariest part to me because in the few seconds before I peeled away, I saw the light fall on the shape. Or rather, the light just did NOT fall on the shape. It was like light shining in front of me on all the trees and grass and stones but where the shape was, the light was not. Like a black hole or something - you don't see the hole you just see things around it. It was like a void in space or like a black blankness because there was "insufficient data" for my brain to make an imagine. It was just a black spot, and it was MOVING.
I drove the cart back to the admin. building and looked behind me. The admin building was on the "new" half of the cemetery which had lampposts and was well-lit. Nothing. No moving black shapes, no feelings of dread approaching - just the aftermath of panic and adrenaline. I parked the cart and plugged it back into the charging port and went inside.
I only had a few more times of the alarm going off for that area of the cemetery (twice at night, once during the day) but I would flat out refuse to go. Let those kids smoke their weed in peace. If they break a tombstone, I'll fix in the daytime.
I told my director this story a few days later when I saw her in person. The other daytime employees were all maintenance men who did chew and listened to country and would also make fun of me for "talking fancy" aka having intellectual conversations - so I didn't bother to turn to them to share this story. When I told my boss she laughed saying, "Oh yeah - people have been saying that for years. They call it 'the shade.'" I was very intrigued at this point, and asked more. She just rolled here eyes, said she had never seen it herself, but that people have reported a black shade moving in that part of the cemetery. Just like it was nothing - oh yeah I've heard that before hahahaha oh well.
I've never been back to that part of the cemetery up close. Sometimes I would drive the cart in daytime on a big ledge that overlooked the clearing, not necessarily hoping to see anything, but expecting to see something. Never saw it again. DON'T WANT TO.
EDIT: spelling
#Person/Job/SecurityGuard #Area/Cemetery