GHOSTLY LESSONS FROM THE OTHER SIDE 

DECEMBER 8, 2018 

Submitted by: Anonymous

I lived in a smaller city located in the vast flatlands of the Canadian prairies. The neighbourhood in which my family lived was an older area built with no green spaces and very few places for kids to hang out together, especially for poorer kids with limited money to participate in organized sports.  I was one of those kids. 

I had a small group of friends and we were very tight and unfortunately kind of tough. Nothing much scared us and we were known to get into a bit of trouble on occasion.   

As we lived in the older part of town we were not far from the oldest (and creepiest) cemetery in the city.  This cemetery was as old as the city itself and had gravestones that dated back to 1800’s. Many had pictures of the dead on the tombstones: the little boy holding his favorite toy along with his baby brother in a casket together, an older gentleman in quiet repose in a coffin, a weather worn black and white photo behind broken glass of a smiling young couple that died too soon.  It all added up to a very disturbing place to be, even during the day. So of course we chose to meet there at night, proving to ourselves that we could not be frightened.  

We became quite comfortable hanging out there where no one could find us. For the most part we sat around and smoked while talking…well girl talk. I think we felt safer there than in the neighborhood because we believed no one in the right mind would come here at night!

One evening after hanging out with about four of my friends at the cemetery, the time came around when we had to head back home.  We were in a playful mood that night so decided to try to scare someone by taking some debris we found and drape it over a large old tombstone which could be seen along a busy road that passed close by the cemetery.  We fashioned it to look like a person standing in the graveyard and laughed at how creepy it looked, never thinking about how disrespectful the whole thing was.

We started for home giggling excitedly about how we were really going to scare some poor person tonight.  We were moving fairly quickly as we were already past our curfew. I was walking just behind my four friends with my eyes to the ground watching how our shadows moved as we walked under and then past the overhead streetlights. I was last in line so my shadow was also last, moving in a logical manner behind the others. Five shadows walking home, just like us…until…there were six.  We were part way home when I saw it, yes there was my shadow as we passed under another light but there was also something else. Directly behind my shadow loomed a very dark sixth one, it was so close.  It appeared to be a large human form with outstretched arms that looked like they were about to wrap themselves around to grab me. Then I heard the footsteps, close and directly behind me. Footfall sounds that should not be there; I knew what it was and why it was following us. Terrified and screaming I dropped to the ground then incoherently tried to explain to my frightened friends that we needed to go back and uncover the tombstone.  My fear was unmistakable and once we understood how disrespectful our actions were and that we may have disturbed more than just the gravesite, we knew we had to go back and make it right again. 

We could not return fast enough to remove the offending debris.  After it was cleared our journey back home was frightening but thankfully uneventful.  It was a lesson well learned, especially when we considered it was one that was taught to us by someone from the other side. 

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