We reached the cemetery about 45 minutes before dusk, to have a little time to take stock of our surroundings. Was the place still as creepy? Yes, though not as creepy as it would become as night fell.
We wandered around taking photos and video, looking for details we might have missed. It was a pleasant enough night, if a bit cloudy. Everything was as usual. As the sun went down the wind began to kick up. The photos I'd taken so far looked ordinary enough when seen through the viewer, and then suddenly they were not.
View of the west corner of the cemetery at twilight:
Pollen? Dust? Insects? The dreaded, ubiquitous orbs? If you look closely, you can see there is one light for every tombstone in that corner, including a small one near the eeriest grave, the one where some have imagined hearing voices.
I immediately turned to the right and saw this in my viewfinder.I moved on toward the southern part of the graveyard to a place where I felt a strangeness, an eddying wind and rustling leaves that sounded almost like voices. I came to the unusual resting place of Lily Linke, buried just outside the family plot, forever separate. It was here that I began to feel a distinct presence.
I felt the presence follow me onto the path, where I began to feel very uneasy. I told it to go in peace and it gradually drifted away.
It was beginning to feel too spooky, though I was prepared for that. I was determined I wouldn't be scared into running this time. But still, the feeling of being watched was unnerving.. It was time to leave.
In the distance beyond the path, I thought I'd photographed a light from a radio tower or a passing plane. But I was wrong. There was no tower nor was there a plane that time of night. That tiny light in the distance hadn't been there at all.
I've been waiting for my brother to watch the videotape he recorded that night, but for some reason he seems reluctant to do so....
