Real Ghost Stories

Possession Of A Friend

In our town there is local lore about a cemetery that is supposedly haunted and people avoid visiting it at night, I didn't know if it was real or not but my mom who was a skeptic believed that the place was a little weird because when she was returning home from work, she was walking that day as the weather was pleasant and the area is neither desolate nor dangerous, she thought she encountered a ghost. She heard someone call her name in a voice barely above a whisper behind her, there were people on the road but no one whom she knew, the voice repeated and she believed it was a spirit.

My mom is an immensely practical woman who doesn't believe in anything unscientific (she's a doctor) and she was quite shook up after the incident. After I spoke of it to my friends we decided to do a ghost hunt and see if we could see anything. I asked Aakanksha, a close friend of mine if she wanted to accompany me, she is very much interested in the occult and readily agreed. So it was decided that we visit the graveyard at an hour close to midnight, we had asked other friends in our group but no one was interested so it was just us two girls. Looking back it was a rather foolish decision but we didn't figure it at that time.

It was in July of '11 that we visited the cemetery at night. It had been raining the whole day and the sudden bursts of showers had completely de-peopled the streets. It wasn't raining at that time but we still carried a single umbrella as a precaution against getting caught in the downpour. It was 11:30 and it was pretty dark, there is no security guard or anything at the gates and the lock was pretty rusty. We hit it with a brick that was lying nearby and it came off, although it made a racket. The ground was muddy because of the rain and there was a danger of slipping so we tread carefully, I had never been in a cemetery before so I thought it was quite beautiful.

There were rows of tombstones all over the place, it was silent and the air was really cool. There were a few statuettes of angels, some weeping; carved out of stone yet their expressions hauntingly real. Aakanksha said that she felt that there was something wrong, she could feel eyes staring at her. I ignored her and walked around, looking at the gravestones, some were really old. She said she felt safer with her back against the wall, I had crouched to take a look at a statue when I felt the first indication that something was odd.

My hair was waist-length at that time and I clearly felt someone tugging at it lightly. I whipped around to see who it was, but I didn't see anyone behind me and Aakanksha was at a considerable distance from me. I thought it might have been the wind and carried on looking when she came towards me and insisted that we leave right away, the look on her face was one of a person being terrified and it scared me too. We went out of the place as fast as we could, both of us are sure that we heard someone walking behind us. When we reached the gates, I glanced behind one last time as the place really is beautiful when I saw a shadow leap behind a tombstone.

I stared at the spot for some more time until my friend called for me, she pointed to some footsteps exiting the gates of the cemetery, there were three sets, two were ours and the third belonged to a different person. When we came to the place there were no footprints, the place was a little wet and there were only our prints as we entered, the third one clearly was inexplicable and we hurried away to our home, constantly looking behind our shoulders as if we had a twitch.

Aakanksha stayed at my place for the night and when we reached home she immediately went to sleep, complaining of a headache. I was surprised as both of us are really talkative and usually talk until we fall asleep. I decided to sleep as well, I had been tired and I dozed off in a few minutes. I don't know how long I slept, but someone was shaking me and I woke up startled. Aakanksha was shaking me roughly and staring at me with a look of utter hatred. I still remember it and it gives me the creeps, her bottle-green eyes looked directly into my brown ones as if she wanted to seriously harm me, her hair disheveled and her hand painfully wrenching mine. I screamed and tired pulling my arm away, I repeatedly kept on asking her why was she doing that without any answer. She just stared at me with that hateful look, my screams woke my sister up and she came in to my room. With her help I succeeded in pulling my arm away from Aakanksha's grasp and yelled "What is wrong with you?" She got up and pushed me, I fell down which was surprising as she is merely 5'2 while I'm nearly 5'9.

My sister and I were very much afraid by now and tried to pin her. She was stronger than both of us it seemed, there was nobody else at home. I thought she was possessed, a result of our nocturnal wanderings, my sister's a doctor as well and she thought Aakanksha was ill not possessed and wanted to call mom. I don't know what happened, I had started to cry by then but as suddenly as it had started it stopped. Aakanksha sat down and held her head in her arms, she asked why had she woken up at such an ungodly hour and why was I crying. We told her what happened and she said she didn't remember doing anything, my sister wanted an explanation of it all and we recounted the visit to her. She was appalled and called us "crazy" and went to bed after advising us to say a prayer before sleeping. I didn't know who or what possessed her that time, but whatever it was, it scared the hell out of us.

We pass by the cemetery but haven't heard any voice or anything. Nearly two years passed after the incident but I still can't forget Aakanksha's look.