Your
True Tales
November 2005 – Page
20
Screaming
Banshee
by Carey
About three years ago, my mother and I went to visit my uncle and stay with him for a week. We drove for hours to get to his house which was in a small, isolated country village. I can remember disliking the place as soon as we arrived, there was a creepy atmosphere in the village and the house which my uncle lived in, although large and old, seemed to have an unnerving, almost gothic aura about it. It is difficult to explain really. We had only been there a few days when I can remember going for a walk. Just a few kilometers beyond my uncle's back yard was a small, dismal-looking cemetery with an old country parish church at the far end of it. I explored this place thoroughly as I was quite bored and wanted to look around.
As I perused the grounds an old man with a shock of thick, white hair popped out from behind a bush with a pitchfork in his hand. He introduced himself as the cemetery caretaker and asked why I was there. Being slightly annoyed by the interrogating tone of the question, I replied that I was simply out for a walk and wanted to explore the grounds. He stood there waffling about the grounds being sacred and the only visitors to the graveyard should be grieving relatives not curious, trouble-making kids. I smiled politely and walked on ahead ignoring the old man's ranting and raving about "youth of today have no respect..." BLAA BLAA BLAA.
I soon decided after looking around the cemetery and the old church that the place was very dull and miserable and having nothing more to explore, headed back to my uncle's house. As I approached the the cemetery entrance, the old man was there again. Oh God. What DID he want? He approached and then he moved in close to me and muffled in a confiding tone something about the graveyard being a spooky place to be after dark. "Yeah, right!" I snapped, and stomped off rudely in no mood to make any further pleasantries with this ancient old codger. That night I was in bed and I was about to drift off to sleep, when I heard a sound in the backyard. It sounded like a twig snapping or something. I got out of bed and drew back the curtains. Looking out of the bedroom window I hoped to see a fox or a badger perhaps, as we were in the country and my uncle had told me that foxes and badgers often came into his garden during the night. Looking out of the window I strained to see anything at all in the darkness.
Then I got the shock of my life when I saw a ghostly figure in a white, hooded shawl drift across the garden. Being insatiably curious as well as quite afraid, I opened the window gently and called out, "Hey!" The white figure stopped dead in its tracks and turned around and looked up at me. The face was long and very pale and the eyes were like large, black slits. I had no idea what this creature was and I was terrified. As I looked on in horror, frozen with fear, the figure raised a long, white, bony hand with long fingernails and pointed its finger at me threateningly.
It then let out the most awful high-pitched scream I had ever heard. It was so dreadful a scream that I could feel my blood curdle and the hairs stood up on the back of my neck. As I stood there shivering, the phantasm then turned around and drifted out of the back yard and on into the cemetery where it disappeared from view.
The whole garden was deathly quiet, I could not even hear the owls hooting or the wind blow. The moon was shining brightly in the dark, starless sky. But there was nothing, no life, no atmosphere. Everything was still, frozen. I knew that I had seen something, but whether it was a ghost or some sort of spirit I did not know at all. Needless to say, I did not mention this the next morning to my mother or uncle, they do not believe in spirits and psychic matters and would probably have laughed at me or accused me of making it up. I certainly never used to believe in ghosts or the paranormal, but now I find myself very open-minded on the matter in light of my spooky experience.
I never did go near that cemetery again for the remainder of my stay. I did not want to bump into that creepy old man again, but I was also worried about what else might be lurking in there?
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