For those of you who have heard of Goshen, you all've heard about Goshen cemetery and how it's supposedly haunted, I'm sure. If not, and for those who aren't familiar with the local spot, gather 'round and I'll tell you not only the tellings that have been told to me, but of my own story.
I call them 'tellings' because they are not really stories, they're just happenings.
Most people around here know of Goshen cemetery. 'Around here' is Goshen, NC which is on the Person County, Granville County line in North Carolina. So, between Roxboro and Oxford. It's a few miles up the road from my house. You take a left at the crossroads and it's down there a ways. I won't tell you exactly where it's at because there ain't a need to go getting into trouble and disturbing the dead. Anyway, Goshen cemetery is a place where teens used to go (and maybe still do) on Halloween night to get drunk and have a gathering because it's supposedly haunted *rolls eyes*. Now, I'm here to tell you, I do not condone getting drunk in graveyards and trashing the place, which is what a lot of people have done in the past.
Goshen cemetery is just an old cemetery off the main road that is full of sunken graves and deceased folks who just want to rest peacefully. It is not haunted and there is nothing strange about an old cemetery off in the woods. There's plenty of them around here in these woods. What strikes me as odd is the old church across the road from the cemetery. Old, decrepit, and abandoned, it sits back off the road about 2 miles through the thick, dark and knotted woods. It's got an ominous vibe with a tinge of sorrow like a woman who's been badly scorned and taking her unjust reprieve alone how she wants it, and it's best you not disturb her. It's not bodily harm she threatens, but a kind of harm on your soul if you come too close. You look up the path from the road, and you can hear the warning being whispered from behind you "you'd be wise to move on". If you so happen to ignore that warning, you better watch your step, because there are uncovered wells that trail down several hundred feet. You fall in one of those, you'll surely not come out. Older folks that have made it out to the church and want to tell you will tell you it used to be a dare when they were younger. The dare was to spend the night in the church to see if they would make it through the night with all of the weird noises and risk of being chased out by the woman in the woods. She's got a fire in her wide, crazed eyes and a blood-curdling cry that will make the burliest men run home whimpering and snotting all over themselves. Others say it's something inhuman and demonic. There's a lot of older folks who know the story, but they don't go around jaw-flappin' about it. For the ones that do speak up, you can see the fear in their eyes at the word Goshen like they're in a different time, reliving their nightmare all over again. From hearing my step dad talk, back in the day, it was an old church in which the cemetery was apart of. Most of the people who are buried in the cemetery are black as the community back in the day used to include many black Americans, and they used to own most of the land around there, at least from what I was told.
Well, back when I was younger, a friend of mine and I were bored one night and decided to go down that dark and gloomy road out to the cemetery. The main road itself just gave off an eerie vibe that made you pray you didn't break down anywhere close to there, especially at night. I'd hate to lose a hound dog over there and have to go track down some stubborn-assed dog because he won't come out of the woods! My friend had apparently never been out there before, and his eyes lit up when I mentioned going. Well, we went down the main road looking for the path to the cemetery. I knew it was just before the power lines and across the road from the old metal gate where the path to the church lies. For the life of me, I couldn't find it. I had been out there when I was in high school with a group of friends, just taking pictures and such, you know, nothing rowdy, but I couldn't find it now. It was dark. It was the kind of dark that you didn't want to get caught up in even with familiars. No stars. No cars. No house lights. No nothing. Just us, the car, the headlights, the road, and those...woods. So, I pulled off the road and onto the shoulder, and I turned the car off while I called a friend who was with me that night back in high school. I had the windows down as there's no air conditioning in my car and my friend was hanging his head out of the window looking. I was on the phone asking my friend the way and she didn't remember, but I kept hearing branches snapping and twigs popping in the woods and it sounded like it was getting closer. My phone started to break up and I couldn't hear my friend anymore. My phone cut off and the signal went out. Oh great! My friend says he heard something and we both went silent to listen. It's dead quiet. It's a kind of still and quiet that only comes before something bad happens. The kind of quiet when you could have heard a gnat fart. It was eerie and you just know all of the critters in the woods had high tailed it out of there. They knew what was up. Then, as we were listening, a few feet back in those dead silent, dark, and menacing woods we heard the most heart-wrenching cry I had ever heard in my relatively short life, and it was running straight for us. Now, I have heard some crazy noises in my life that will make you pee your pants. I hunt the woods around the area so, I'm used to noises in the woods, and I have a very good ear for those different noises. Ever heard a bobcat? They sound exactly like a baby crying. Rabbit cries are loud, obnoxious, and a little heartbreaking. Fox calls and cries are haunting and the vixen calls sound like a woman screaming. Owl noises are relaxing to me, but not so for everyone. It wasn't an owl, fox, coyote, bobcat, mountain lion, rabbit, etcetera. I had been coon hunting plenty of times and never heard such a terrifying sound as the one I heard while sitting in the car that night on the side of the road. And for those of you who aren't familiar with coon hunting, it's usually done at night, in the woods with just you, a friend or two if you're lucky, your dog(s), and a head lamp (nowadays they have GPS systems they use to track dogs). This was something I've never heard in my life and it was coming toward the car at an alarming rate. Even more so, it didn't sound like it was on the ground. You could hear branches snapping, but no leaves crunching, no foot falls, no treading, nothing like that. I was so struck with a paralyzing fear that it hurt to move my hands and arms to turn the car on. I couldn't start the car fast enough. I was fumbling with the keys. Stupid hands wouldn't work right and whatever it was, it was getting louder and closer. I was in a panic trying to start the car. I finally got the car to start and we flew away from there like a bat out of Hell. I never went back down there at night, and never again have I gone looking for the cemetery or the church. Funny thing is, out of curiosity, I did some researching a few days later and found out that the old bridge right near there is the same old bridge on which a woman died in a car accident. I didn't know of that bit at the time, and I wonder if that was her in the woods that night and if she's the same woman haunting the old church. Sounds kind of fitting to me, but I'm not stopping back down there to find out. I don't advise anyone to go down there looking for trouble either. You just might find what you're looking for...
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The Old Farm House on the Hill
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