Thursday, October 22, 2009

Hallowe'en is coming...


Goth Kid
Originally uploaded by paynehollow
Two Sundays ago, after church, I had some alone time and walked home via the Bohemian part of town and, on the way, I decided to stop in one of our urban cemeteries. I had my camera and thought I'd do some bird watching and grave watching. I noticed a few people also in the cemetery (two or three), and so I walked over to an area that was more deserted, so as not to disturb them.

Over near the the old brick wall that lines the cemetery, there are a bunch of trees scattered amongst the graves. In front of me, I noticed someone walking towards the old brick wall. I kept catching snatches of someone maybe 50' in front of me, but they were behind the trees, so I couldn't see clearly. I kept seeing glimpses of black.

Eventually, I saw him, this thin, young man all dressed in black, with wild, inky hair and pale skin. I realized it was a "goth" kid/young man. He didn't look at me, just kept walking straight towards the wall. He wasn't looking around at the cemetery, looking at the graves or anything you might normally do at a cemetery, just walking straight towards the wall. When he reached the wall, he turned to his right and started walking along the wall, back towards the street (although this was back a good ways from the street in a fairly abandoned-feeling part of the graveyard).

I kept sneaking glimpses of him because I didn't want to freak him out or anything/make him think I was watching him. But I WAS watching him because his behavior was so odd, he wasn't looking at the cemetery, but rather walked specifically and directly to the wall, then turned and walked on maybe 30 more feet.

Then, he stopped, bent over, brushed some leaves away and... DUG! into the ground a little bit with his hands. After a few minutes of this digging, he pulled something out of the ground. Something maybe six inches long that fit in his hand, like a cell phone or a knife (by now I was too far away to see clearly). I watched him brush it off a little bit on the stone at the bottom of the brick wall.

I had my camera out already for taking bird photos and so I sneaked a photo of him while he had his back turned to me. I've attached that photo (all right, I did the b/w coloring, and the spooky shadow look, but it's really the photo...).

I wanted to ask him what he was doing, but didn't. Not long after I took the photo, he went beyond the trees you see in the photo and then was gone.

Freaky, yeah? If it had been at dusk, it might have been almost creepy, and it was almost creepy anyway.

What do you think? Some kind of treasure hunt/scavenger hunt game taking place? Some weird drug deal going down? Digging up a cursed Monkey Paw?

My best guess was a scavenger hunt, but what do you think?

As we approach that most "hallowed" time of the year, do have any creepy stories of your own?

3 comments:

Alan said...

Geo-Caching?

Dan Trabue said...

No GPS unit in his black-nailed hands that I could see.

Alan said...

Maybe he's got a GPS brain implant. :)

Or maybe he's a zombie. In the initial stages they look like everyone else, until the putrefaction gives them away.

Or it could have been a LARP (live-action role play) which is sort of like Dungeons and Dragons, but you do it live instead of sitting around a table in Mom's basement.