by Matthew M.
(Decatur, Illinois. USA)
I could never truly believe in ghosts until one day in June of 2012. That day I decided to visit my favorite cemetery for the first time by myself. While riding my bike over some rubble left in the cemetery I accidentally uncovered an old tattered American flag. I decided that it wasn't right to leave it there so I placed it on a monument for unknown Civil War soldiers. After that I heard footsteps trailing behind me. I kept telling myself I was just being paranoid. I mean, it's all just hocus pocus right? Wrong. I proceeded to the northeast corner of the cemetary where many small family mausoleums are. While looking into one, I felt a sudden chill roll down my spine. I got out of there quite quickly. While riding away further northeast in the cemetary, I saw a woman in a long flowing white dress. I swiftly looked again and saw only a tombstone. Once again I was quite scared and rode away from that part of the cemetery repeatedly telling myself, "You do not believe in ghosts." After this I had a strange urge to travel southwest through the cemetary to the small ravine or valley where "Hell's Hallow" is. It is believed to be a haunted area with the ghosts of robbers, bootleggers, and a party of criminals who were hung there in the 1800s being its main residents, not that I believed any of this. Perhaps I wanted to go to there to prove to myself I didn't believe in ghosts, although to this day I cannot definitively know for sure why I felt I must go. I rode around Hell's Hallow hearing strange noises I could not explain, though I believed none of them were actually occurring. I received a phone call and stopped riding to answer it. Throughout the duration of the phone call I stared straight down out of fear I would see something frightening I didn't believe in. At the end of the phone call I heard a noise in the bush directly ahead of me. As I slowly looked up, I saw the same woman, white as the grave, in the same long and flowing wedding dress. For what was most likely five seconds but what felt like an eternity, I starred into her cold and unblinking eyes. Suddenly, a single tear rolled down her cheek. Just as suddenly as she appeared she disapperated into a small, ball of white and floated through the woods toward the cemetary. The world as I knew it was changed forever. What had been a small possibility to me was now as solid a fact as the world being round.