markgrago
Many years ago, when I was about 7or8 years of age, I was coming back from a fishing trip at Raccoon Lake with my mother. For some reason that I cannot even fathom to this day, my mother decided it would be OK with her if we would stop at Service Church Cemetery (that’s what we called the John Anderson Cemetery) and have a look around. It was a crystal blue summer day, the weather was perfect, and the wind did not move. As we began to walk through the cemetery, I was filled with a disturbing presence I couldn’t shake off. The place felt strange and ghostly. I told my mother about this, and she just looked at me with her icy stare and said, “Mark, there is nothing to fear here. I just want to look around a bit more and then we’ll leave.” I was also possessed by the terrifying feeling that someone was watching us.
As my mother grew more fascinated with the names of the deceased on the old tombstones she was reading, I grew swollen with fear; my instincts were right! Someone was watching! At the top of the hill, there was a man staring at us. He looked to be old, and he was wearing what appeared to be a type of overall like old men wear to keep their pants up. I was pretty sure he was old because I could make out his white hair. He just stood there, watching us like a shepherd watching his flock. He never moved, but his eyes always followed in our footsteps around the cemetery.
By this point, I had had it! I grabbed my mother’s arm and screamed, “Mom, look at the man on top of the hill staring at us!” Finally, I broke my mother’s fascination spell and got her attention. She said, “Where, Mark?” “Right up there on top of the hill! Look! He has been staring at us since we got here, I think! He is scaring me! Let’s go, please!”
When we both looked up at the hill, the man was gone! Out of sight! Where did he go? At first, I thought he got into his car and left. He couldn’t have done that, though. We didn’t hear any cars leave. If you have been to this cemetery, you know that if someone pulls into the cemetery or leaves from the top, you can hear it perfectly. There was no sound of any cars leaving. To my astonishment, my mother suggested we walk to the top to see if anyone was there! That’s exactly what we did! I was never so scared in my life; my thoughts terrified me to the point of tears gushing down my face. My mother desperately attempted to convince me that we were safe. But I wasn’t buying that! I saw him as plain as day! He was staring at us and watching everything!
When we finally arrived at the top where it got level, there was no one around! No car! No old man! No one! We were the only ones in that cemetery! I never was able to convince my mother we were being watched. She looked down at me, while wiping the tears away, and said, “See, Mark, I told you we were safe. You were just seeing things, that’s all. Let’s go home.”
As we made the walk down to the car, I began to think that, perhaps, I was imagining things. But I couldn’t be satisfied with that. I stayed silent and got back into the car. As my mother drove up the hill, she looked at me with a strange face. She then asked me a question. “Mark, where was the man standing?” I told her he was right at the top where we were when we got up there. We were standing almost right where he was! She was strangely quiet for a few moments and then said this to me, “I wonder what he wanted with us. Maybe you saw a ghost!”
© 2025, markgrago. All rights reserved.
