One of our Worcester County Crew sent this into us while we were on vacation.
“I grew up in Holden, and when we had half days from school, my friends and I would meet uptown and walk together to get ice cream at Friendly’s or sodas at Apple Drug. Then we’d have to go find a place to hang out.We’d sometimes go to someone’s house, but we liked being away from parents and neighbors so sometimes we went to the playground behind the church. One day we decided that we would dare each other to go into the old cemetery right in the very center of Holden. It’s the one across the street from the Congregational Church. The graves are really old, but we were young and the thought of doing anything in a graveyard, even during the day, seemed spooky to us. We walked around nervously, though we were pretending to be very cool and nonchalant. One friend dared another to touch a gravestone, then step on a grave site, and the dares moved up to someone sitting on a spot in front of a headstone. I wish I could remember which one. I do remember it being towards the back, away from Main Street.
The friend who was dared made us swear to help pull her off of the grave if anything went wrong. After fretting a bit, she sat down and immediately tried to get up screaming that the ground was cold and sinking and that she could feel something pulling her in. None of us helped her up even though we promised because we were all screaming ourselves and running for our lives. We ran across the street to the front steps of the church. The friend who sat was the last one and she was crying and screaming at us that we were jerks and all that.
We ended up going to one of the girls’ houses and telling her mom what happened. After lecturing us about going into the graveyard in the first place, she told us that the ground shifted from having 5 girls on it, it was springtime so the soil hadn’t completely thawed, sticks and branches probably pulled at our clothes. All of this was probably true, but we kept swearing up and down that, no, we all saw something reach out and try to drag our friend in. Our other friend’s mom just shook her head and told us to stay out of cemeteries.
Of course we told everyone at school what had happened . Every time the story was told, it either got scarier or funnier depending on who were talking to and how badly we wanted to impress them. Most people didn’t believe us,. A few people wanted to go back and look. I have no idea if they did. I know now it was all normal and exactly what my friend’s mom said it was. Back then I think I knew too, but telling the story was fun. I do remember trying to look in to see the grave every time I passed that cemetery, but I’ve never gone back in. I had actually forgotten all about that story until a friend and I were talking about your website. We were trying to think of haunted places in Holden, and It made me think of that. I should go back and check that cemetery out.”
*collector’s note: I happened to be in Holden earlier this week. My car was at Village Repair (shout out to Ted, Rick, and the crew that work there; they are amazing!) and I was walking past the cemetery on my way to pick it up. Realizing where I was, and thinking about the story above, I stopped on the sidewalk, took out my phone and snapped a few pictures. As I was looking at them and trying to decide if I needed to take anymore, I noticed a boy on his phone who was also peering in at the cemetery. He was a little further up the sidewalk so he could look right in. Maybe he was looking for ghosts? Graves? Investigating local legends? He looked kind of young to be doing that (he was perhaps 10 or 11?) , but how cool would it be to have something spooky actually be going on here?
He walked slowly down the sidewalk towards me peering intently at his phone. I moved to one side of the sidewalk and said good morning. I opted not to ask him if he was looking for ghosts as he was by himself, and I didn’t want to be the creepy old lady who chats kids up outside of graveyards. He looked up at me as he walked by then stopped. He looked at me, at my phone, then up at the cemetery. “Are you … Pokemoning?” He asked, and I swear there was a bit of derision in that young man’s tone.
Sigh. “Nope. Just taking pictures.” I said, but he was on his way down the sidewalk already. So much for ghosties in that graveyard this week.
