Halloween Night in the Cemetery

I wrote this a couple of years ago, but since it's the best Halloween story I have, so I figured I would post it again.

In the fall of 1984 I was working for a local factory on the night shift. There were maybe four other people working with me, and one of them was a friend of mine I will call "Greg". Greg and I were both in our early twenties, and after work we would often have a couple of beers together before we went home. On Halloween night that year we decided it would be fun to head on over to the nearby cemetery and toss back a few there. The cemetery is the oldest and most populated in town, and in the front it still has the old fashioned, standing tombstones as well as a few crypts.

We drove out to the side of the cemetery in separate cars, and parked across the street. We had planned our little excursion a few days prior, so we had every thing we needed, which was basically just beer and cigarettes. I stowed the beers in the pockets of my down-filled vest, and we scaled the stonewall on the north side of the cemetery. Not far from the wall was a small bench nestled between two gravesites in the oldest section of the cemetery; obviously the perfect spot for drinking with the dead.

There were a few nearby crypts, so after a couple of beers we thought we might check a couple of them out just to see what they were like inside. I thought for sure these things would be locked up to keep people like my friend and I out of them, but we opened the door to the first crypt we came across, and walked right in. It was a bit spooky in there, but nothing out of the ordinary happened. Feeling a bit more emboldened, we fully entered the crypt and spotted a small fountain like structure at the far end where a bottle of holy water was kept. We walked down the narrow passage and took a look at it, and I remember feeling a bit nervous again. I guess it was because we were now so far into this crypt that if any psychopath or evil spirit had the urge to trap us, now would be the perfect opportunity. But of course nothing happened and we were soon out of the crypt moving on to the next one as if they were model homes.

As it turns out, once you have seen one crypt, you have pretty much seen them all. Every one we looked in was made of stone, had plaques on the walls identifying the remains that were entombed, and had nice examples of ironwork and masonry. So we returned to our bench o' beer.

As we engaged in the kind of semi-drunken chitchat you might find in any cemetery on Halloween night, my friend Greg suddenly got up, and ran off into the field of tombstones. Slightly bewildered, I looked around to see what sort of creepy apparition might have scared my companion away. For a moment I thought for sure I would look up to find a headless, see-through ghoulie hovering just over and behind my head, instead what I saw was even more frightening.

What had scared off my friend, and what now had me paralyzed in fear as I sat on the bench, was the horrifying sight of two police cruisers entering through the front gate of the cemetery. Once the reality of this spectacle registered in the feeble, alcohol soaked cells of my brain, I also got up and ran.

I had no idea in which direction Greg had run, and quite frankly I didn't really care. What was on my mind was avoiding the police, and getting the hell out of that cemetery. I ran full speed trying to make it to the south side of the cemetery where I knew there would be no fence or wall to scale, but rather a sizable hedge that I could hide in, and possibly escape through. I turned back to see where the police cruisers were in relation to myself, when I tripped over a small tombstone, and landed right on top of an adjoining grave.

I should note that I wear glasses, and as I lay sprawled on this grave I suddenly realize that the world had gone all fuzzy and blurry. I literally cannot see two feet in front of my face without my glasses, and so it was imperative that I find them if I wished to get out of the graveyard in one piece, and not spend the rest of the night in jail.
I scavenged around on my hands and knees furiously trying to locate my glasses. I looked up at one point and saw what appeared to be three headlights heading in my direction. (Everything beyond two feet is blurry, but believe me I can make out three bright lights coming at me in a dark cemetery.) I finally found my glasses, put them on, and saw to my horror that one of the cruisers was just a few yards away from me, and was coming down the path I was standing next to. They were using their spot light to look into the graveyard and up into the trees, so that explained why I saw three lights instead of two.

I had little time to react, and the option to run had long passed, and so I plastered myself against the far side of the nearest tree, and held my breath as the cruiser passed by. When it did, the spotlight waved through the tombstones as it approached my tree, and when it finally got to my location the light broke on either side of me as the spotlight briefly shone on the tree, and passed harmlessly on by.

After a few moments, I breathed a sigh of relief and looked down the pathway to be sure that the cruiser was a safe distance away. It was, and the other cruiser was on the side of the cemetery I needed to get to, but was well beyond the hedge that would provide me my escape. As I stood there formulating my escape route, I heard a whistle, and turned around already cussing out Greg for just up and leaving me back on the bench. But he wasn't there. I called his name, quietly of course, but got no answer. Figuring he would have the same idea as me, and would be heading for the south side of the cemetery, I quickly, but carefully, made my way towards the safety of the hedge.

I was almost there when I stopped to look for the police. They were all the way in the back of the cemetery by now, and were on foot around the mausoleum. As I stood there, someone grabbed my shoulder.
Being grabbed by the shoulder in a cemetery on Halloween night with the police looking for you is not for the faint of heart. I nearly peed my pants. Of course it was Greg, and indeed he had had the same escape plan as I, so together we made it to the hedge, and subsequently out of the cemetery.
We walked to a local gas station and called a friend to come pick us up. While we waited for our ride we watched the police continue to search the graveyard. When our friend arrived, we quickly drove by where we had initially parked our cars. Noting that there were no other police vehicles present, nor any sign of any cemetery personnel, we got in our cars and left.

From there all three of us drove over to the next town over and snuck into a smaller cemetery there. (We hadn't yet finished our beer.)

We found a good spot with a bench, and sat down to tell our friend about our adventure. I got to the part where I heard Greg whistle, but didn't see Greg. Greg said, "I didn't whistle." I said, "You didn't? I heard someone whistle just as clear as I can hear you guys now." Greg went on to explain that he never saw me from the time he ran from the bench, until he grabbed me by the shoulder over by the hedge.

And then we heard a distant whistle.

Each of us silently finished our beers, and then we quickly left.