Real Ghost Stories

A Shadow Near The Playground

This is the most recent brush with the paranormal which I had had about 3 months back in early August. I remember the date 11th as it was my friend Shivanis birthday and we had gone out to celebrate. The restaurant we chose was out of the city limits so we had taken my car. There were two of my guy friends (can't reveal their names), Shivani and me. When you are with friends you never know how the time passes by (sigh, relativity) and soon it was 10-30pm. It was getting pretty late so we decided to get going. One of the guys was driving the car as I was feeling quite sleepy, everyone was full and feeling sleepy so none of us talked much. I just want to state that none of us was in the least bit drunk so that what we experienced later cannot be blamed on alcohol.

Now when you get back to the city, you need to take the highway leading to it. While going back there is a large ground (there is a residential area and a college as well) where the guys play football, cricket and all kinds of games. We were getting closer to it when one of the guys insisted that they should have a smoke, I didn't like it at all. I don't smoke and Shivani hated smoking too, so I said let's just get home and get some sleep, to which they said that the next day being a Sunday it was okay if we had some fun and stayed out late. Reluctantly, I agreed and they backed the car in the parking lot, they have parking as there is a big swimming pool maintained by the municipal corporation and an indoor games gym as well.

The ground is huge, it was the rainy season and it was covered with grass, there was a nice cool breeze blowing my hair gently in my face and the air had a crisp chill to it, it felt really good. There are some cement steps encircling the ground where people can sit and watch the others play or just take a break from whatever you had been doing. At night however you find couples making out and wanting some solitude, or some teens who come to have a beer and hang out. But after 11:00pm it's pretty much deserted save for a couple stray dogs or 1-2 people lounging around.

Getting back to my narrative, the guys headed to the steps to sit around and have their smoke while Shivani and I took a walk. Both of us don't like the poisonous fumes, so we maintained a bit of a distance between them and us. She and I didn't talk much as both of us were enjoying the night air and the calmness of the nature. I was remembering about how I used to be there at the ground during the vacations with my friends for a game of badminton or just checking the boys out. I remembered a really hot guy in our college and was telling her about it when all of a sudden I got this feeling you get when you know that there is someone behind you, abruptly I shut up and whipped around to find no one back there, that was weird as I definitely felt someone behind me. I asked her if she felt the way I did, she replied that she felt that someone was following us and we should probably get going. I looked back at the guys who were silently smoking their cigarettes, I thought maybe they were taking a stroll as well and had sneaked behind us to scare us or something like that. We started walking back to the parking lot, both of us were walking without speaking of a word, there seemed to be someone walking behind us as there was the soft squishing sound made by the grass as someone walks on it. It seemed to be getting closer, we broke into a run and made it to the steps where the guys were sitting and both of them laughed and said that we looked like we had seen a ghost.

I admitted I was scared and I wanted to leave, they agreed. Shivani and I continued to look behind us, now there was concrete below our feet and still there was the sound of someone following us. The person seemed to be barefoot judging from the sound of the footsteps, there is a row of sodium lights at the boundary of the ground and when we got there, all of us saw a shadow of a person directly behind us.

One of the guys was the first to see it and he swore and pointed it out to us. All of us stared at it open mouthed, it wasn't like the shadows cast on the ground but seemed like the person itself was made up of shadow, we made a dash for the car. We got in, the person/shadow was nowhere to be seen. We decided to get out of there and tried to start the car. I was in the driver's seat now, and no matter how hard I turned the key in the ignition it simply didn't start. The guy who was driving it before me said that I should let him try, I slid in the back seat without opening the door and he too tired to start the car in vain. It is a brand new Linea, so the car having any problems is out of the question. We gave up trying and just sat there in the car.

Each of us started checking their respective cell phones for service; none of us had any network coverage. So we just decided to wait. Waiting was quite uncomfortable as my car has power windows and we couldn't roll them down without starting the car. It was pretty suffocating in there and we were afraid to open the doors in case Mr. Shadow come in. One of us had an idea that we could see a ghost through the camera of a cell phone; we decided to try and switched on the camera. Nothing unusual showed up on the screen at first, there was only the orange light of the sodium lights on the ground and the wall fencing, the buildings, but as he moved it around, there was the image of a person on the screen, it seemed to be standing at a spot about 6-7 feet from our car. It looked like a man, for the image didn't show any signs of it being a woman like a bosom or the delicate feminine figure. It just showed a grey man, just a shadow of his former self, whatever he might have been, the parking lot, and the walls. He was just standing, dangerously close to where we were. Maybe it became aware of us watching him or maybe it just thought of doing it, but the person started walking toward us. I screamed, (we were glued to the screen, scared yet mesmerized) the screen went blank, the batteries were dead, we had been using it for just maybe 5 or 6 minutes. Now we couldn't see him and he was on the move, which was scary. I was sweating and I was confused as though how the fully charged cell phone suddenly lost its charge. Something knocked on the driver's side window of the car. All of us jumped in our seats, he (the guy who was driving) frantically started trying the ignition again. It just whined once and died.

There were two or three more knocks on the door and no more. My heart beat so fast I thought it would come out of my chest, suddenly the engine fired up. Whatever it was seemed to have gone, just like that. My head was pounding and I felt the leathered upholstery spin around and everything blacked out. I guess I just passed out from the fear, when I woke up, my head was in Shivanis lap and everyone was looking anxiously at me. I brushed hair out of my mouth and assured that I was okay and it was nothing, I looked around to see where we were and was relieved to see that we had left the ground behind and were on our way now, even now my head was throbbing, I had a sip of water and sat quietly for the ride back home. I was angry with the guys for coming up with that stupid idea and didn't do anything to hide it. We reached the building where the guys stayed, said goodnight to each other and headed to Shivanis home after assuring them a lot of times that I was now okay (I made them say sorry to me as well ha-ha) and I could drive, I was staying at Shivanis home that night as we had planned and we stayed up until dawn discussing what would have happened that moment if our car had not started and we would have opened the door.

We do discuss the episode amongst us sometimes but it has been kept secret from everyone else. We visit the ground even now but have not experienced anything like that again and still do not know who or what it was that we had encountered that night. Maybe a restless soul seeking help, who knows.