“I HAVE ALWAYS considered myself to be a realistic and down to earth person,” says Meera M. In the last few months of 2008, however, Meera had an experience that profoundly shook her sense of what was logical and what was possible. It happened in an old graveyard where a cryptic, unsettling gravestone is said to exert unnatural forces.

Meera grew up and still lives in Concord, Massachusetts, an old town rich in colonial history.

As you’d expect, the town has many ghost stories and legends of spooky goings-on. In the heart of town at Monument Square, amid the beautiful 18th century homes and buildings, is the Colonial Inn, which is said to be haunted. Just up the street there is a white Catholic church with an adjacent graveyard, where one can easily find headstones dating back to the Revolutionary War. And up on the hill in this cemetery is a gravestone like no other. “Apparently, paranormal investigators came to Concord and found this stone to be haunted,” Meera says. She had gone up to look at it a few times, but only during the day.

It’s an unusual stone alright. At its top is carved an eerie skull over a banner that reads:

All must submit to the King of Terror

“I don't know why, but something drew me to visit more,” says Meera, “and the last time I visited during the daytime – before anything happened – I recall the sky being intensely purple and pink. I am one for sunsets, but this wasn't so peaceful.”

Meera noticed that the gravestone’s skull had hollowed out eye sockets, yet there appeared to be shadows of eyelids...

as if it were awaking. This made Meera even more curious about the stone and its alleged haunting.

FEELING OF DREAD

One night Meera was driving around town with a friend looking for something to do. She wanted to show him the weird stone, which he had never seen. It was around 9 o'clock when they started up the graveyard hill. “Right before approaching it, I felt a little timid,” Meera admits, “but shrugged it off once we got up there. It's just a stone, right? Once we got up there, I shined my light against the stone. Neither of us spoke. We thought we were alright, and there was nothing new to see. I turned off the light and was about to show my friend another gravestone with a bullet hole going through it from the Revolutionary War.”

When they were done, they began to make their way out of the cemetery and had to pass the skull stone a second time. “All of a sudden, I felt an overwhelming urge to run,” says Meera. At the same time, her seemingly brave friend pronounced desperately, “Let’s get out of here. I have a bad feeling.”

A spooky graveyard in the dark of night. Yes, perhaps they were letting their imaginations get the best of them. Suddenly, a great gust of wind disturbed the otherwise still night air as Meera and her friend quickly wound their way around the gravestones to the street. When they got to the car, their hearts were racing. They couldn’t shake the fright that gripped them. “I felt we awoke a spirit and it was reaching out its hand,” Meera remembers. “It scared me even more when my friend said he thought the same thing – that the man awoke and wanted to grab us with his hands.”

Imaginary or not, their terror was quite real. They drove away into the night.

THE BADASS

Meera told some friends of her experience at the gravestone, but they didn’t seem to understand. “Why would they?” she asks. “They weren't there, and my friend and I probably sounded crazy.”

Despite the trauma of her last visit, Meera felt compelled to see the gravestone again. Just days later, she brought another friend who considered himself a “badass.” He even licked the skull and shouted, “Possess me, motherf-- !”

No spirit took up the challenge, and as Meera began to walk down the hill, she realized she hadn’t felt that sense of presence or dread like she did the last time – that is, until she reached the bottom. Suddenly the feeling ran through her again. She turned and looked up the hill toward her friend as he let out an audible gasp. He was reviewing some photos he had tried to take with his digital camera, but they were all blank or, inexplicably, upside-down! As he ran down the hill toward Meera, that unexplained gust of wind swept around them, even stronger than the last time. “We got into the car and drove away for a few minutes,” says Meera, “then drove back around the rotary, passing the stone. As we did, suddenly my back window opened. No one was touching the button.”

Meera visited the skull gravestone a few more times after that night with friends, all without incident. It was pointless to go back, she thought. She struggled to rationalize everything that had happened. It was just their imaginations in a creepy environment. The camera, the wind, the window – all just coincidences or plain bad luck. Meera succeeded in convincing herself that there was nothing paranormal about that stone.

But that was to change one Thursday night.

Next page:The eyes and the dream