I Grew Up Across from an Old Graveyard

Growing up in the Philippines, the Howes stood directly across an old school, rumored to have once been a graveyard. But one night, something from that story may have followed all the way to Canada. My name is Edwin, and here is Donna's True Scary Story. Back home in the Philippines, my first encounter with supernatural activities. During my elementary days. Our house is like right across from our school. So like you can see students playing outside and hear the noise coming from each classroom. I heard from people in our barangay that the school used to be a sanitarium. which is why strange and supernatural things happen there, especially at night. Some people claim to hear. A child crying or see a white lady walking around after dark. So when I was younger, I didn't believe those kind of stories because I hadn't. Seen or experienced anything myself. But that one night, everything changed. One night, when I was about to go to sleep, I decided to change the position the way I sleep. My head is at the bottom part of the bed. My feet is towards the headboard. Suddenly, I saw a white figure getting out of my bed, sitting on my feet. I thought that it's just my imagination or just I'm hallucinating because I'm sleepy. All of a sudden, my bed is shaking and I thought it was an earthquake at first. But the way the bed shakes doesn't feel like an earthquake. Rather, it's someone is jumping right on top of me. It's like it's bouncing around. for at least like two to three minutes. I was so scared and that my body tensed up and I was afraid to move. My eyes were shut closed and then I was just really, really scared. And then I just prayed and asked. God for some help. God, please help me. to make it stop, to make it go away. I prayed over and over until it stopped. I ran out of my room and then went to my grandmother's room. And I slept there until morning. My grandmother didn't ask me anything about what happened that night. She just let me sleep in her bedroom. I never told my parents or my grandmother about that happened, like the experiences, because maybe they don't believe in this kind of supernatural, because my grandmother is a very religious person. They're not going to believe in me. One afternoon, probably around 5 p.m. I was alone in our living room. My grandmother was in the garden and then the others were at the house next door. I was watching cartoons and mimicking the actions on the screen, imagining I had a power stool. I was jumping, kicking, something like that. The layout is a living room On my right side, it's a dining area. And if you're going to go straight, you will see the kitchen. And in the dining area, there's a two-bedroom, master bedroom, dining area, and then another bedroom. It's like our dining area is in the middle. And then there's a huge cabinet, like where we put all the silverware and stuff like that. There's a divider between the dining area and the kitchen. And suddenly I saw a tall black human-like shadow standing between the dining area. And the kitchen. So it was just standing there. It seems like it had been watching me the whole time. So I stopped what I was doing, terrified because I was. The only one inside the house. So I squished my eyes shut and when I opened them, It was still standing there. Overcome with the fear, I ran outside and leaving the TV on. I was so scared that time too. I thought I was only going to experience one, but I never thought that I was going to experience another one of them. One night, I dreamed of my grandfather. It is a dream that I will never forget. Mostly if I have a dream, I can't forget them easily. But this dream, it's really sticking in my mind. It was a dream where I experienced sleep paralysis. In that dream, I was again in a living room. It's a white living room. It was bright. It was so bright because each corner of that room, there's a candle. And then on my left side, the door was open wide and outside it was really dark. Super dark, like you can't really see anything outside. I saw a casket. positioned near the wall, right in the middle. And then that's when I saw a tall man facing the casket. I was 20 feet away from the casket and the man. So I took a few steps toward to see who he was when suddenly he turned and slowly looked at me. Really slowly. And then I was so shocked to realize that the tall man was my grandfather. He was wearing a white baron and a black trousers and his expression was incredibly serious. And his hands were pressed flat against his legs. He began to hop towards with an incredible speed. Like, it wasn't a series of large strides, but rather rapid, tiny hops, a movement that was deeply and subtly. So I tried to move, but my body wouldn't budge. My heart was pounding wildly, and to make matters worse, my grandfather was closing the distance between us. So I was really scared. I just squeezed my eyes shut, and then the sound of his hopping stopped. I was terrified because what if he was. Right in front of me when I opened my eyes? Summoning all my courage, I slowly opened my eyes. I slowly opened them. When I did, my grandfather's face was inches from mine. And his eyes were so wide and staring at me. And then suddenly he screamed at the top of his lungs. He says, Get up! So I woke up, but the thing was, I couldn't open my eyes. I tried to move, but I couldn't. So I was absolutely terrified, like, I didn't know what to do because I have not experienced anything like this before. I was panicking. And then I tried everything. Even though I moved my fingers, it doesn't move. So I just prayed to God and asked for help. Just to help me calm down myself. A short while later, Like, everything went back to normal. When I checked the time, it was like 3 o'clock in the morning. I was so scared to go back to sleep. So, I turned on the lights in my room and I grabbed my bagel and I get close and lay down again. Since then, whenever I sense something strange, I reach for my bubble and start praying, like, every time. Like, even I sleep, if I, like, feel I'm scared or something like that, I always bring my bubble and hug it and then. Sleep, and that's it. I sleep very well. There's no nightmare. There's no supernatural or anything after that. In year 2014, I moved and began here in Canada with my father. I only lived with him for only three years, and then I lived by myself. Before, I was still working. My first job. Was in McDonald's. I never experienced anything supernatural, like until I moved to the other job, where is now the warehouse. It was located near the airport. So it's like a really big warehouse. And my first time working at a warehouse too. I was assigned to the distribution section. This job involves distributing hats into boxes for each store location. Once a box was full, I had to lift it, fit it, and place it on the rack. That was the task. The stopping level was adjusted based on how busy we were. One day, around 8 a.m., I was working that day and there were only like five employees on the distribution section. In a distribution section, it was divided. There's a front and back. You can put all the boxes in there. This is where we stock all the boxes. Each corner, there's a First row, second row, and third row. So we stacked all boxes in there and we put all the hats in there. I was putting the hat in the box. In front of me, there's an empty, like I can see the receiving area if I'm looking at it straight. So there's no box in there, so it's like empty. So when I was about to put the hat, when I looked straight to it, I see a shadow, a black shadow, but it's like a human. It's resembled my, my. Guy friend, like I'm working with right now. I was so shocked. Because it was just like staring at me. There's no face. It's just like a shadow, but The way it resembles the hair, the heart, the body, it really resembles my friend. And when I look on my right side, I saw my friend was standing in the middle. And when I went back to look at it, it was gone. I was so scared because I thought, The supernatural can experience only afternoon or evening or midnight, something like that. I've never experienced it in the morning. So it was me to me and I was shocked. But I'm afraid, but not that kind of thing. And then it happened again. Same situation, same time, but different day or week. But this time, it's not. My guy friend, but the other employee. It's a girl. Same location where I put all the hats before. I don't know why I can't see them all day. They're trying to show themselves at me. After, like, the second time it happened, like, I stepped back, and then I looked on the other side, and I saw that girl, the employee, the girl is on the other side. She's doing something. I asked her. I went there and asked her, like, did you go to the other side, take a look at what I'm working at? And she said, she's not there. It's like she's here the whole time. No one saw it. It's just... In ladies' fashion, there's like four cubicles. I always use the first and third cubicle all the time. So that day, it's like I was rushing to go get the ladies' fashion because I didn't need it. It's so bad. Then it's the first cubicle. It's in the morning at 8 or 7 a.m., something like that. And then I. Didn't check if. There's someone, like, someone inside or, like, beside me. I was sitting there doing my own thing. And then suddenly, I heard the roller, like, that tissue machine. Like, someone is using it. And I thought that maybe someone, it's just not me on the washroom. When I go straight and wash my hand and when I look in the mirror, I was so surprised and scared because no one's in there. It's just me. I was really scared. Every time I used the ladies' washroom, It's always happening in a different situation. And then when I asked my other co-worker if they have experienced something like that, and they said they experienced it too. Most of them have experienced this in the warehouse. I asked them what they experienced. Some of them said that they see a broad shadow in the washroom. And then they will hear. Some in the distribution section. They will hear someone like pulling the card. And then my supervisor also told me that he was by himself like 6 a.m. Or 5 a.m. In the receiving area. He heard like loud noises or something like that. And then he heard sometimes a card that someone is calling me. I don't know. I don't know if it's something that happened in that way. I was on a vacation. I don't know if there's something or if there's something. We went on vacation, me and my wife, like, year 2023. We stayed. At her house in her province in. My experience there, one night, 12 AM, I woke up because my stomach is hurting. I really need to use the washroom. So I wake her up. And then suddenly, we heard on the top of the roof, someone's walking. this um this footstep it's like we have this like a person someone like walking on top of the rooftop. Our bedroom is on. The other side so it's like separated on the main house my wife went to her um mother's room and then asked her to open the door because because there's no washroom or outside or beside us so we have to use on the other house to use it and i was by myself outside and it's really dark and the light it's like only on the bedroom. When I heard that footsteps, it's like closing towards me. And then you need stuff in front of you. The rooftop, it's really high. Maybe like, let's say, six to seven feet. Something like that. My wife was just on the other side. I wasn't scared because it's stuck in front of me and I was, my head, I'm looking at the floor. I grab my phone and then I want to see what's on the top of it, like if it's someone in there or something like that. But when I'm about to use my phone and open the flashlight, then my wife called me so I didn't see or I didn't heard anything after that. But like every time. I sleep, I can still hear some footsteps. In the Philippines, Capri is like half human. Like the bottom is human and the top is a horse. I can sense them, like, in our working warehouse. Like, I can still sense them. But I just don't. I'm not paying attention to them anymore. Because the more you pay attention to them, the more they want to grab your attention. You know? Donna, thank you so much for sharing your experiences here at True Scary Story. There were a few things that I wrote out while we were having our phone call. Actually, we talked about this a little bit. The sensation of your bed moving. I don't know if you listen or out there, you've experienced this where your heart's beating and it feels like something's moving to the rhythm of that. Like it's kind of rocking. It's very different when you feel an earthquake level movement, right? And an even creepier thing to feel blankets being pulled, that sensation of something's happening, something's here. I really think that we've developed this, I don't know, like a sense for us to be able to feel or like protect ourselves when we're sleeping because we're very vulnerable when we're sleeping. So we might sometimes wake up or feel like someone's there. And it's something inside of us that is warning us, hey, watch out, danger is around here. I really don't think this is like a made up thing. I really think it's a thing that humans have developed over thousands of years. Now, I've recently started looking into the stories of cemeteries and graveyards, mainly because it was around the time of Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead in Mexico. And cemeteries are a very important part of it, right? Because people go and they sit around and they build ofrendas, like offerings, altars, to try to remember and hang out with the dead that are coming back. Well, in this study of cemeteries and why we're so afraid of them, when some people argue, hey, these people are at rest at a cemetery, this is like the worst spot to go ghost hunting or worst spot to actually experience anything. But I would argue otherwise. Like I feel that there, actually there are stories out there that I've heard about cemeteries that are way too difficult to just dismiss as coincidence. For example, I recently heard about an HR person that works at a cemetery and they have a really tough time hiring landscapers. This is actually my sister happened to tell me about somebody that she knows that does that. And I found that interesting because these stories are so common that we kind of just dismiss them. Like, oh, of course. Well, I mean, it's a cemetery. What do you expect? Right. Or funeral homes or hospitals. So, yeah. The question here is like, can they actually attach to you? Can they follow you? Or is it something else? They followed Donna all the way to Canada. It's a very interesting story. If you have something similar, please send it in. Again, you can find the submission form over at truescarystory.com. It's always linked in the description of the episode as well. You can also email us in case you have any questions. The email is also in there. And feel free to also follow my podcast, Paranormal Club, over on YouTube. Paranormal Club is We talked about creepy events, folklore, dark history, just in general, all kind of creepy stuff. If you're into that kind of thing and you want to get more. So follow over on Paranormal Club. You can also find it in audio format. So wherever you're listening now, you should be able to find it. Anyway, this episode was edited and sound designed by Sarah Voorhees Wendell of VW Sound. Additional production by me, Edwin Covarrubias and the Scary FM team. You can find me on social media as Edwin Cove. That's E-D-W-I-N-C-O-V. I'm over on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Anyway, thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary, everyone. See you soon.