Disclaimer: Names will be changed for respecting privacy.
Let’s get the background cleared. I am a Psychology student, living in an apartment with my classmate, David and two more from my class in the next flat, Sanders and Andrew. My girlfriend, Andrea, lives in another apartment in the next street. We can wave at each other from the roofs of our buildings.
Two more friends, again from my class, Steve and Diana live together in their apartment around a mile away. David, I, Andrea, Steve and Diana all hang out together. We started our classes back in October ‘22 and were called for offline classes in February. David and I were besties before offline classes started. We had decided that we’d be roommates a long way back but when we moved together, he started smoking up and drinking with Sanders and Andrew. He was not an ass, although. He never talked rudely to me nor forced me into anything. He understood I was an introvert and let me be. He found new friends in Sanders and Andrew and we drifted apart but often hung out with the others. David didn’t hang out with the rest of us as much as before. The four of us are very close. Him, not much so.
This begins in April. A few months after we had started attending lectures in person, Steve and Diana told us that they had gone to a graveyard nearby.
Now I am an atheist. My girlfriend Andrea is an agnostic. I do not believe in anything supernatural but I do get creeped out by stuff now and then. And we’re all huge fans of horror. As for me, I have watched so much that I almost never get scared by horror movies. Written material, although, does like to toy with my imagination.
Getting back to the story. Back in April, after Steve and Diana had told us about their late night visit to the graveyard, Andrea and I were very interested in visiting the place for ourselves once. According to them, it was nearby. And then, in the last week of April, Steve and Diana invited Andrea, David and me over to their place for the night as a few of their friends in their building were throwing a party. Andrea and I decided that it was the perfect opportunity to get to go the graveyard drunk as we wanted to. But that night, Andrea and Diana got wasted bad. David and I helped Steve get them to their room before heading home for the night at 3 am.
The next time Andrea and I were at their place, we had planned for a sleepover and a trip to the graveyard in the night, but it was raining cats and dogs. So the plan had to be scrapped. Although the rains and the cold weather did not stop the four of us from having a horror story telling session. That was the time Steve and Diana told us how paranormal activities had been reported in their building since we’d last been over at their place. Screams had been heard from the last apartment in the hallway so loud that people from a floor upstairs and downstairs had come but the woman who actually lived in that flat had no idea about what had happened. Someone was in the hallway in the middle of the night and felt something standing right behind him. He got so spooked that he swore to never walk in the hallway at night ever again.
The next time we were over at their place, we had planned the same - a sleepover and a trip to the graveyard. This time, Diana had developed a fever so we just shared ghost stories yet again. They told us about more incidents. That night, we made sure that we locked the front door of the apartment well. It was a small one roomed apartment. The next morning, when we woke up, the door was shut but the latch wasn’t on. Andrea and I were somewhat creeped.
A few weeks later, Diana had called Andrea telling her how the door which was shut and locked in their room swung open. Andrea was scared.
Another few days went by, and we went over to their place for a sleepover but this time, Diana had a UTI so it was back to the usual - ghost stories.
I pointed out to the other three about if it was a sign of a bad omen about us visiting the graveyard. Every single time we had planned to visit the graveyard something or the other had come up blocking our plans. And all those incidents in Steve and Diana’s place had only started after they visited the graveyard.
Another month later, after classes, the four of us and David were out having lunch out in the city. I told them that visiting the graveyard at night would be cancelled every time. It was best to visit the place for once atleast when we had the chance. David drove us there and Steve and Diana showed us the way.
There were two small chapels on either end of the tiny street which ran by a lake on the other side of which the graveyard was. On careful observation, we found that there was another graveyard a few yards ahead of the first one. We went through the shrubs amd trees, amidst the bugs and reptiles. We had visited the first graveyard. It wasn’t spooky at all. But we wanted to go to the other graveyard. Steve and Diana had missed the second graveyard when they had come. Getting to the second graveyard was tough. The way was even narrower and the terrain was crude. We went and reached the place somehow. I had only one thought as we reached the second graveyard.
Was there a reason why there were two graveyards? Why the second graveyard was tough to get to? Why the second graveyard was such secluded?
The graveyard wasn’t spooky. The abandoned shed there? Very much the opposite. It was built on the lake. It had it’s boundary in the form of a barely recognisable concrete wall which rose hardly above the water. The shed had a steel roof which was half torn. It looked abandoned. As for the carefree dude David is, he called out a lot of really bad swears at the hut, most of which I’d never heard before to draw someone out. We had thought that it would be the residence of the keeper of the graveyard but it was definitely abandoned.
Inside the walls of the shed, the algae had turned black. And Diana screamed scaring us half to death. She was sure that she had seen a figure move inside. Steve constantly tried explaining her rationally that her mind was playing tricks on her. We decided to leave the place at once. As we crossed the first graveyard and exited the place, the same stray dogs who were playful when we entered the place were barking really loudly at us. Andrea was sure she had heard someone’s voice on our way out before we exited.
On our way to the car as we crossed the tiny street across the lake, Steve explained how chapels on either end of the street were there to protect people from carrying along entities as they passed the place.
The fact which David and I knew without speaking was that Steve only tried to rationalize everything when he was spooked. We were sure that he had experienced something in that place. We still haven’t asked him about it. And the fact that all of this happened during sundown and twilight was all more creepy.
A few nights later, someone in Andrea’s building had reported a black, humanoid figure crouching in the hallway but omce she’d turned the light on, it vanished.
Andrea started having nightmares.
Steve and Diana had more experiences.
David started behaving weirdly. He went up on the roof of our building and was screaming at the top of his lungs on a call with someone. Someone from Andrea’s building had seen this and taken a video of it which went somewhat viral among us college students.
One evening, I came back from the mall, only to find him standing in front of the mirror in our room, without blinking, and keeping his gaze fixed at his reflection. As if he was in a trance. I called Sanders from the next room and he managed to bring him back to his senses after some jerking. I never talked to him about it again. Then next evening, he broke the glass on the door of our balcony.
He started screaming on call with his girlfriend, so loud that I could hear it from the elevator halfway across the hallway.
A week later, he got a tattoo of a pentagram on his spine.
Today, I came home to find his lifeless body drained of blood and hanging from the ceiling fan. Then I woke up and realised it was a nightmare. He was up awake across the dark room, creepily looking at me and grinning wide.
This morning, I found a note over his diary. It read “Bad Boys. Need to… Tamd”
I did not understand then.
I had a flight earlier today, I came back home for my summer break. All this while, I am the only one who hasn’t had any experience other than the nightmare of his hanging body. I still can’t explain the note.
And a few hours back, I receive a text that the manager of my building had quit overnight.
An hour before I started writing this, I had seen three scratches on my forearm and due to a powercut, it’s been pretty dark in my room. It’s much colder than it usually it is such humid area. I constantly feel like I’m being watched and must I remind you, I am not one who’s spooked easily.
And the reason why I wrote this is because I got a text from him which said, “We shouldn’t have gone there. I shouldn’t have done it. That thing’s been after me.”
I do not know what to expect when I get back to my place on the 21st.