“And now we bring you to our final destination on tonight’s ghost tour. Up ahead is a place so sinister, so terrifying, that we no longer bring groups in to see it.” Sighs and groans broke out among the group of tourists, eager to experience a real ghost before the end of the night.

“Trust me,” said the guide, “You do NOT want to go back there. You WILL see things so horrifying; you will never be the same. Our final stop on tonight’s tour is the Dreary Cemetery.”
I felt relieved when the guide said this was the final stop. Ghosts and the supernatural really freak me out. My older brother, Jesse had insisted on us taking the tour since we were in town. He didn’t even believe in ghosts, he thought it was all just for fun. The town was named Dreary, Nevada. I had wondered why it was called Dreary until I got to see for myself how desolate the place really was. The town’s population totaled to just over five hundred people. My high school has three times as many people!
At least the tour was interesting. Throughout the night we traveled the town on foot as the guide pointed out supposedly haunted locations, telling about their history. There was an old barn, a rundown movie theater, a library, and many haunted houses. For all the thrill seekers hoping to see a real ghost, they were out of luck tonight because so far nothing supernatural had happed at all. I was perfectly okay with that.
“This is the Dreary Cemetery; notice the barbed wire gate surrounding the entire place. They lock it every night after it gets dark. Be aware now people, weird things always happen at this part of the tour. The street lights around here often flicker on and off, and sometimes weird lights appear. But that’s not the worst thing. Sometimes people feel a poke on the back of the neck, sometimes they hear whispers. A few people have even been pushed over or tripped over nothing just walking around outside of it.” The hair on the back of my neck began to stand up, and a feeling of dread swept over me. I kept praying to myself that this would soon be over.
“If you look out into the middle, way past the gate you’ll see that many of the tombstones are shaped with pointy tops. That section is the burial ground of many Native Americans who lived in the mountains around here. They were all brutally slain by settlers hundreds of years ago. They say this place is cursed; cursed by the Natives driven from their mountain homes. The women were raped, the men murdered, and the children forced to work as slaves.”
“Now that you know a little about the cemetery itself, I’ll tell you a story about a friend of mine. This was about ten years ago. One night he was leaving work at the old factory down the street, when he saw a little girl walking alone down the side walk. She was looking down and he couldn’t even see her face. It was well past midnight, so he asked the girl if she was okay.”
“Little girl,” said my friend, “are you okay, why are you out this late?” She simply laughed and ran off into the cemetery. This was way before they started locking the gate at night. He yelled after her, and got no response. He started to just walk away, but then thought of his own kids and decided he better go in after her. He chased her all the way past the tombs at the entrance, all the way to the center where the pointy tombstones are. She stood right in the center of them, her back still turned to him. When he finally caught up to her, he grabbed her gently on the shoulder. She turned around very, very slowly and he could see… that she had… NO EYES!!!” I literally jumped about ten feet in the air when he said this. My heart was racing so fast, I thought I was having a panic attack.
Ten minutes later, after the tour group had left I stood there with Jesse, outside the cemetery.
“Jesse come on! Can we please just go, I can’t take this!” It was just me and Jesse now, standing all alone outside the Dreary cemetery. He insisted on taking a thousand pictures of the place, with my camera.
“Quit being a little baby Jackson, this is awesome! Ghosts aren’t real anyhow. Hey, I have an idea!” I swallowed ten marbles down my throat, I knew what he was thinking.
“Jesse, please don’t do it! Let’s go back to Grandma’s!” It was no use; he had already begun climbing the great tree outside the fence. The branches hung over the barbed wire gate.
“I just want to get a couple pictures without this d*mn gate in the way.” Jesse said.I kneeled down and closed my eyes, helpless and unable to stop him. When I opened them again, there he was, up in the tree clinging to a strong branch. One slip and he’d fall straight into the cemetery. He’d be stuck there, the gate and barbed wire made getting back up to the tree from the inside impossible. Suddenly he lost his footing, and for a split second I thought he was a gone, but somehow he caught himself. He swore loudly, that’s when I saw it.
My camera. Laying in the grass on the other side of the fence. He had dropped it! I started screaming at him.
“What are you doing? I need my camera!” I was so upset that I began balling like a baby right there on the spot. He climbed back down the tree and met me on the street.
“Hey look bro, I’m sorry okay? It was an accident, I almost fell in! I’ll buy you a new one.”
“That’s not the point! That camera had all my pictures on it! My pictures from the farm! We’re leaving tomorrow morning at five, there’s no way we can get it now.” I was so angry I charged at him, throwing fists angrily. He easily slung me to the ground, being four years older than me he’s a lot stronger. He just didn’t understand. Grandma and Grandpa were selling the farm. The place I’d practically grew up at. The only reason I came all the way out here was to spend some final time there, before they moved to a smaller town house. He didn’t understand how important to me those pictures were.
“Jackson calm down, you’re being a little baby. It’s just a stupid camera and they’re just stupid pictures. You’ll live without them.”
“Get off me!” I screamed, throwing fists, doing everything I could do to get his heavy weight off of me. “I’m going in to get it!” As soon as I broke free, I sprinted to the tree, not even thinking about how I was going to get back out. Before he could stop me I was already up the tree and dropping into the cemetery. I found my camera laying right there in the grass.
“You know what,” yelled Jesse to me from the other side of the fence, “screw you then. I’m going back to the van.” He just turned and started to walk away, leaving me there by myself.
“Jesse please! Help me! I made a big mistake!” He just ignored my pleas and kept walking. “Well fine, screw you too!” I yelled after him out of anger.
In a few minutes the adrenaline rush began to wear off. The fear of being stuck all alone in the cemetery swept over me like nothing I’d ever experienced before. A cold, icy chill in the air surrounded me. I began to shake out of fear and coldness. I was crying even harder now. All I could think about was that little dead girl, the one with no eyes. In my mind I could just picture her coming up out of the graves, coming to get me. I curled up in a ball against the fence. The only light came from the street lamps on the other side of the fence. With my head in my hands, I began to pray. I cried out for God, to save me, and to give me the strength to get out. I was shaking so bad it was hard to even catch my breathe.
The realization that Jesse wasn’t coming back to save me swept over me. I got the urge to look up. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t resist. What I saw almost gave me a heart attack! There was a light shining right over the center of the pointy tombstones, growing bigger and bigger and bigger! I started to cry out.
“No! Please! No! Help me, someone! Anyone!” The light was moving all throughout the cemetery. This was truly the most horrifying thing I’d ever experienced. I turned away from it, looking out at the street on the other side. What I saw made me cry out with joy. There was the van; Jesse was coming back for me! The light I was seeing was just the headlights from the van coming down the street.
As soon as Jesse got there he used his coat to help push down the barbed wire so I could climb back over. It was really sketchy, but somehow I got over safely. I gave him a big hug. I had never felt so happy and relieved in my whole life. I truly thought I was going to spend the night in that horrible cemetery. I thought his headlights were evil spirits. He was really apologetic about everything. I didn’t even care what he had done. I had my camera and I just wanted to go back to the farm to sleep. I was still alive. Maybe
From the safety of the van, I rolled down the window to take one last picture of the cemetery. The gate was in the way but I didn’t care. All of a sudden a piercing screech rang out in the air from inside the cemetery. Jesse floored it, driving away as fast as he could. We had no way of knowing what it was, but even the non believing Jesse agreed it was something from out of this world. Later when we got back, we looked through my camera. In the final picture, the one I took from outside the van right before we heard the screech, there was a girl standing on the other side of the fence…and she had… NO EYES!