I Got A Job Working As A Cemetery Night Watchman. I Barely Survived One Night.

In the spring of 2003 I graduated high school and had a scholarship lined up at a nearby community college. I decided to get a summer job in order to make some extra money before I started my freshman year that fall. As it happened, a friend of my dad's worked as a caretaker at a local cemetery but was taking a couple months off in order to recuperate from some back surgery he had scheduled soon.
Duke, my dad's friend, told me his son Bryan, who was about my age, had already volunteered to fill in as the temporary daytime caretaker, but, if I was interested, he had another job I might be interested in. I ask him what it was. He told me.
Night watchman.
Apparently there had been several other cemeteries in the area that had been vandalized recently (probably the work of teenagers) and Duke needed someone to guard the cemetery between 8 P.M., when it closed to the public for the day, and 5 A.M., when his son Bryan would show up for his job. Duke told me it wasn't an "official county position," but he was willing to pay me out of his own pocket to do it.
I was a little hesitant at first to accept the job. I'm not someone who spooks very easily, but the thought of being alone in a deserted cemetery at night for nine hours did kind of give me the creeps. But I didn't really have anything else lined up for me that summer, and it sounded like it would beat flipping burgers at McDonald's anyway, so I shrugged and said sure, why not.
The cemetery where I would be working was on the outskirts of the town where I lived, out in the country, surrounded by wide-open farmland on three sides. The back of the cemetery ended at the edge of a small wooded area. It was pretty big and sprawling, maybe six acres, and was one of the oldest cemeteries in the area, with graves dating back to the early 1800's.
I drove out there one bright, warm late afternoon in early June for my first shift, and was greeted by Duke, who was waiting for me near the entrance. He spent the next hour or so giving me a tour of the grounds and explaining what my job duties would consist of. Basically, I would give the whole cemetery a sweep every hour and write down any "unusual activity" (whatever that was) I encountered. And if I found anyone trespassing I shouldn't confront them, I should call the police instead.
He took me into a small shed off to one side near the front. The placed was crammed with tools and gardening equipment. There was a small desk with a chair and a notebook on it for me to "log my reports" and a big flashlight, the long kind that takes four D-batteries to power.
As soon as Duke finished showing me around, his face suddenly turned serious. He told me he had something he wanted me to see, and took a ring of keys out of his pocket. I watched, intrigued, as he unlocked a tall metal locker against one wall and opened it.
I gasped.
Inside stood a twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun and a box of shells.
Duke held the locker open for a few seconds to show me the shotgun, then closed and re-locked it. He explained to me that the shotgun was only for "extreme emergencies" and that he didn't want me to touch it unless I felt sure that my life was in danger. He went on to say that you never know who might show up at a cemetery after dark. Usually it was harmless stuff -- bored kids looking for a place to drink and screw around. But cemeteries also tended to be hang-out spots for all kinds of weirdos. Satanists, drug-addicts, sometimes even grave-robbers.
Seeing my look of concern, he gave me a reassuring smile and told me it wasn't likely I would run into any of those types of people on the job, but he wanted me to know about the shotgun "just in case." Then he removed the locker key from the keyring and handed it to me.
By then late afternoon had given way to early evening and the sun had begun to set. Duke had pretty much shown me and told me everything I needed to know, so we shook hands and then he left to go home. I watched as he got into his pick-up truck and drove down the driveway and through the cemetery gate and onto the road, disappearing from sight.
I realized suddenly that I was all alone in a deserted cemetery miles from anywhere, and it was starting to get dark. I shuddered in spite of myself. I looked at my watch and saw it was nearly 8 P.M., the start of my first shift. I figured there was maybe an hour of daylight left.
I did my first check of the cemetery grounds, beginning at the front (the newer section) and finishing at the rear (the old section). This part of the cemetery was especially creepy. Many of the gravestones were cracked and leaning and eroded by the elements. Several of the plots had a sunken look. Duke had explained to me earlier when giving me the tour that this was caused by the soil settling on top of the old caskets as they deteriorated and collapsed underground. Again, I shuddered at the thought.
The back of the cemetery ended at an embankment that sloped down to a shallow creek with the woods beginning on the other side. At the bottom of the embankment was a heap of old, rotting flower bouquets and wreaths from the graves. I figured Duke must dump them there after they began to dry out and fall apart.
My whole inspection only took about fifteen minutes so I headed back to the maintenance shed to kill some time before the next one.
I propped my feet up on the desk and pulled out a paperback Stephen King book I had brought along to help pass the time (this was 2003, remember, long before Smartphones came along).
I read, absorbed in the harrowing ordeal of the Torrance family in the creepy Overlook Hotel, and before I knew it, 9 o'clock had rolled around. I put down my book, picked up my flashlight, and headed outside to patrol the grounds.
It was almost fully dark now and I could hear crickets. I strolled through the cemetery, starting again at the front and working my way to the back, causally aiming my flashlight around.
I had just reached the rear of the cemetery when something happened. I stopped, listening, suddenly alert. I had heard something. I cocked my head, listening. I could hear a very faint scraping sound. Soft and slow and steady. I couldn't tell where it was coming from. I shined my flashlight around but could see nothing out of the ordinary. Just as abruptly as the sound had begun, it stopped. I shrugged it off, figuring it was probably some animal -- a raccoon or a possum or something -- scratching at the bark of a nearby tree.
Finished with my inspection, I returned to the shed and picked up my book.
I spent the half-hour or so reading and was just at the part when the little boy Danny encounters the rotting naked old woman in the bathtub when I heard something outside that caused me to jump to my feet, knocking over my chair, startled.
Footsteps.
Slow, labored, shuffling footsteps that sounded like they were moving around just outside the shack.
My heart began to race. I stood there, petrified with sudden fear. It was nighttime and the cemetery was closed. There shouldn't be anyone out there. I remembered what Duke had said about teenaged trespassers. I waited, hardly daring to even breathe, my pulse racing, listening. The footsteps seemed to circle around the shack two or three times, then gradually faded off into the distance. Silence resumed.
I waited there for several minutes, too scared to investigate. I glanced at the locker with the shotgun inside it, but remembered Duke telling me not to touch it unless I was in danger.
It was probably just some local kids who came to have an underaged drinking party, or a teen couple looking for a place to make out...
Except the cemetery was five miles out of town and I hadn't heard any cars pull up outside.
I stood there for the better part of five minutes, scared and undecisive. Finally I told myself I was being chicken**** and needed to man up. Protecting the cemetery from trespassers was, after all, my job. It was probably some harmless old drunk or a drifter looking for a place to crash for the night.
I summoned my courage, picked up the flashlight, then opened the shed door and stepped outside.
It was full dark now, and totally pitch black. Thick dark clouds blotted out the moon and stars and the only illumination came from my flashlight. Cautiously I began a sweep of the cemetery. There was no sign of any intruder and nothing looked out of place...but I could somehow still sense that something was wrong. Different.
It took a couple minutes for me to place it. It was quiet. Too quiet. Dead quiet. The crickets had stopped chirping. An unnatural hush had fallen over the cemetery like a blanket. The only sound was my breathing. Besides that, it was as silent as...well, as silent as a grave.
I felt like I was being watched. I had read that cliched expression in a thousand bad horror stories and never believed it before then, but at that moment, alone in the dark in the middle of the night, in that unnaturally silent cemetery, I did. It seemed like I could sense a dozen sets of predatory eyes boring into me, observing my every move, so strong it was almost a physical sensation. I was scared ****less.
I stopped in my tracks abruptly, tensing, cocking my head. I had heard something. What was it? I listened. Faintly, I could that same soft, persistent scrapping sound from before. I looked around, trying to pinpoint its location and source. It seemed to be coming from directly ahead of me and to my right. I cautiously moved on, tracking the sound, which seemed to get slightly louder the closer I got.
I was in the newer section of the cemetery, the part still in use. I stopped in front of a new grave where the sound seemed to be at its loudest. I trained my flashlight upon the marble headstone. It belonged to an elderly woman who had died only a couple weeks before. The mound of soil in front of the headstone was still brown and bare of grass from her recent burial.
I listened...and realized the sound was coming from below the ground.
Below the grave.
I felt a chill as cold as ice water rise from the pit of my stomach up to my heart. I tried convincing myself it was probably just a gopher or some other subterranean animal burrowing through the earth.
Then something happened.
I felt a tremor and heard the rumble of falling soil. Earthquake, I thought for a split-second, but it only seemed to be coming from the fresh grave before me -- nowhere else. Then the rectangle of bare, mounded earth collapsed inward, almost in slow motion, looking like the roof of an elevator car descending its shaft. It happened in no more than five seconds.
I stood there, transfixed in shock, before a gaping black hole that only seconds before had been a full grave. It took a few moments for my brain to process what I had just witnessed.
My mind was freaking out, screaming at me to run, but my body didn't listen. As scared as I was, some part of me was also curious. Some part of me had to see. Seemingly not of their own accord, my feet stepped to the edge of the sunken grave and I shined my flashlight down.
The beam centered on a casket lying askew at the bottom of a pit -- a pit that was at least fifteen feet deep, much deeper than a grave; more like a mine shaft -- with drifts of dirt all around it. And as I watched, the casket was moving. Scooting along the bottom of the shaft inch by inch, scraping through the dirt.
I moved the beam of my flashlight to the other end of the casket...and what I saw is something that still haunts my dreams to this day.
There was a gaping black hole, the entrance of a tunnel, in the side of the pit...and a pair of thin, gray arms with unnaturally long fingers and long, black, claw-like fingernails were protruding from this hole, clutching the foot of the casket, dragging it into the tunnel a little at a time.
That's when I turned and ran back to the shed, panting in terror. I reached in my pocket for my phone to call the police...but it wasn't there. I must have left it on the desk in the shed.
I reached the shed, went through the door...and froze.
The inside of the shed was in a shambles. Everything had been trashed. Tools were scattered across the floor, the desk and chair had been turned over, my paperback had been torn to shreds...and my cell phone had been smashed to pieces. Someone had been in the shed while I'd been outside...or something.
I stood there, taking in the destruction...then I heard a sound coming from behind me. The same shuffling footsteps I had heard before. I spun around. I seemed to regress in age in the matter of a few seconds, reduced to the surreal, almost wonderous state of terror of a child in the grip of a nightmare.
A figure stood in front of the doorway, only a few feet outside the shed. It was cast in shadow, only a silhouette, but I could see it was tall and thin, with unnaturally long, skinny arms that hung down nearly to its feet. Its eyes were red. I could see them glinting in the dark, like embers. They were staring right at me.
We stood there for what felt like eternity, regarding each other...then the shadowy figure took a step towards the door.
I darted forward, slammed the door and turned the lock. There was an unnaturally high-pitched, chittering screech from outside -- a sound more animal-like than human. The creature began to pound wildly against the shed door.
I jumped as something else slammed against the rear wall of the shed. I could hear claws scratching against the wood as if something was trying to burrow through the wall. Something else slammed into the side of the shed. There were more than one of them...and they were all trying to break into the shed at the same time.
Trying to break in and get me.
That was when I remembered the shotgun.
I looked to the metal locker, still upright but now leaning askew against one corner. I frantically searched the pockets of my jeans until I found the key Duke had given me. With shaking hands I unlocked the locker and grabbed the shotgun, hoping it was loaded -- I had never touched a gun in my life and had no idea how to load one, and there wasn't enough time anyway.
I fumbled with it inexpertly for a few seconds until I figured out how to get the safety off. The banging and screeching was coming from all around me. It sounded like the shed was surrounded on all four sides.
I pumped the shotgun like I'd see it done in the movies, then aimed it in my shaking hands at the door, clenched my teeth, and pulled the trigger.
The explosion was louder than I ever would have imagined, and the kickback was so powerful it almost knocked me backwards. The next morning I would find an ugly bruise on my right shoulder where the stock of the shotgun had struck me.
A ragged hole the size of a fist materialized in the door.
For a split-second after I fired the shotgun I thought I detected a high-pitched shriek of pain outside the shed door. Then I couldn't hear anything but a ringing in my ears. For a few seconds I feared I had gone deaf from the blast. Then slowly my hearing returned. I knew because I could hear my own ragged breathing. Otherwise...there was silence. The screeching and banging had ceased.
I listened intently, my heart pounding, but heard nothing. Then cautiously, still clutching the shotgun, I crept to the battered shed door, unlocked it and threw it open, leveling the shotgun.
There was nothing there but blackness.
I fled the shed, running in an all-out sprint to my car, leaped in, locked the doors, started the engine and took off, slamming down the gas pedal. I sped down the driveway, my tires shrieking and sending gravel flying. I shot through the gate, then turned onto the highway back to town.
But just before I drove through the gate, I saw -- or thought I saw -- one last thing in my rearview mirror.
Several pairs of glowing red eyes in the darkness behind my car.
*****
My phone had been destroyed, so I drove to the Sheriff's office when I reached town and told them I had been attacked by "grave robbers" (I was scared and badly shaken, but still possessed enough sense to know they wouldn't believe me if I told then what I had really encountered in the cemetery). After I gave my statement they called my parents who came and picked me up since I was still pretty rattled. My Mom drove me home in their car while my Dad followed behind us in mine.
I went straight up to my room after we got back and fell into bed, but it was several hours before I managed to fall asleep.
*****
The State Police came by the next day to ask me some questions and I told them the same story I had told the Sheriff and his Deputy: I had been doing my hourly inspection of the grounds and surprised a couple graverobbers who had chased me back to the shed and tried breaking in before I had scared them away with the shotgun Duke had showed me. I hadn't gotten a good look at their faces and couldn't even tell exactly how many there had been. The police didn't seem very satisfied with my answers and looked suspicious -- I think they could sense I was holding something back -- but they didn't press the matter and left soon after.
A couple days later Duke stopped by the house to see how I was doing. I told him I was Okay, but after my experience I probably wouldn't be coming back to work. He seemed to understand and was apologetic about what had happened. He paid me $60 in cash for my single disastrous shift as a cemetery watchman. I noticed that something else seemed to be bothering him. He had a troubled frown on his face and seemed disturbed, maybe even a little scared. I asked him how the police investigation at the cemetery was going (there had been a brief story about in on the local TV news) and if they had found any clues, but he just shrugged and said that so far there wasn't much to go on. Somehow I could sense he was lying. His answer seemed evasive and I got the feeling he knew more than he was letting on. He left, and that was the last time I ever spoke to him.
It took over a week for me to get over my ordeal but then I was pretty much back to normal. I got a job working part-time at Blockbuster Video (back when that was a thing) for the rest of the summer, and started college that fall.
After I graduated in 2007, I got a job in the city, found a decent apartment, married and had two kids. It's been eighteen years since that night, and I had mostly put it behind me and forgotten about it (except for the occasional bad dream).
Then, last month, something happened.
I had taken my family to the rural town where I grew up to visit my parents' for the weekend. Just by chance I ran into Bryan, Duke's son, while in town getting some groceries. He recognized me from when we had been kids (we had never really been close friends but had attended the same schools growing up and belonged to some of the same social circles) and invited me to a bar where we reminisced about old times and caught up on each other's lives over a couple beers. His father, Duke had died peacefully in his sleep eight years before and now Bryan worked in his dad's position as the cemetery groundskeeper.
I asked Bryan if the police ever got any leads on whoever it was who had dug up the grave and attacked me that night back in 2003. His mood instantly changed. His face darkened and became guarded. He was silent for some time and seemed to be debating in his head what he should tell me. Finally he leaned in close to me and made me promise I would never tell anyone what he was about to tell me. I promised.
Bryan explained that the police had inspected the opened grave and discovered the tunnel I had seen at the bottom. They had investigated and discovered a whole network of underground tunnels running below the cemetery that looked to have been dug out by hand. Another tunnel entrance had been found partially concealed by undergrowth in the ditch at the bottom of the embankment in the rear of the cemetery. In the center of this subterranean tunnel system had been a large cavern that had been filled with splintered caskets -- some dating back over a hundred years...and bones, and body parts, some still relatively fresh.
The human remains had all shown signs of having been devoured.
I felt a chill pass through my body.
Bryan finished off his beer with a hard swig and set the bottle down with a trembling hand. He went on to explain that after this gruesome discovery, the police had notified the FBI, who had shown up to investigate, and after the FBI came, another government agency had gotten involved.
I ask him who but he just shook his head and told me they hadn't said. Only that their jurisdiction had superseded both the State Police and the FBI. They had taken over the investigation, shut down the cemetery and had ordered everyone involved, including Duke, to stay silent with the the threat of prosecution and imprisonment if they breathed a word of it to anyone. The cemetery had been closed for over a year while men in HAZMAT suits had collected the bodies in plastic bags and loaded them into unmarked black vans. Then one day they were just gone. They left without a word, seemingly overnight, leaving no trace behind. The underground tunnels had been filled in with dirt. After that, things had pretty much gone back to normal.
Bryan sat there quietly for a while. I thought he was finished, but then he added one final detail. The morning after my night in the cemetery, after the Sheriff had looked around but before the State Police had arrived to do a more thorough investigation, Bryan and his Dad had found something outside the shed the Sheriff had overlooked. A small puddle of black liquid on the ground, outside the door I had fired the shotgun through. Duke had figured it was probably just spilt motor oil from a bottle in the shed and told Bryan to clean it up, but Bryan had noticed something his Dad hadn't: a thin trail of the same black substance in the grass leading away from the shed...toward the embankment in the back of the cemetery. He had been curious and collected a small sample in a jar when his father wasn't looking and mailed it to an older cousin of his who worked as a technician in the Anthropology Department of a university across the state. A couple weeks later, Bryan's cousin called him. They had analyzed the sample. They were able to determine it was blood, but the DNA sequence wasn't like anything they had ever seen before. They couldn't identify what the blood sample had come from...but whatever it was, it wasn't human.


Source.