Night Watch at the Cemetery (Junko's True Story)

I work security at a cemetery. It’s not exactly a dream job, but it pays the bills. Two years ago, the cemetery expanded, moving newer burials to a state-of-the-art section with modern facilities, while the old cemetery—dating back to the 1930s—was left mostly untouched. The older graves, mausoleums, and the caretaker’s office were still there, but at night, the place had a weight to it. A feeling like you weren’t quite alone.
One night, around 9:30 PM, I was making my rounds near the West side when I noticed a small group of caretakers and groundskeepers standing near the old maintenance shed. They looked rattled. I walked over, asking if everything was alright.
They hesitated before one of them finally spoke.
Earlier that night, they had decided to take one last walk through the East section for nostalgia’s sake. It had been years since they worked that side, and with the move, they wanted to say goodbye. As they walked past the caretaker’s old office, a phone inside started ringing.
Here’s the thing—the office had been abandoned for weeks. The power had been cut. There shouldn’t have been any working electronics in there.
Not knowing what else to do, one of them stepped inside and picked up the receiver. A woman’s voice came through the line, soft but confused.
“Hello? Who is this?”
The caretaker swallowed hard. “This is __, I work here. Can I help you?”
A pause. Then:
“Where am I?”
The caretaker’s blood ran cold. “This is (cemetery name). Are you… visiting someone?”
Another pause. Then, in an almost resigned whisper:
“Oh. Okay.”
And the line went dead.
That’s when they noticed the number on the old desk phone’s caller ID.
The call had come from the mausoleum directly across from the office.
By this point, all the mausoleums had been sealed. There was no one inside. No one alive, anyway.
That was all it took. The group bolted out of the East section, right as I was finishing my patrol. After that, I avoided that side of the cemetery for the rest of my shift.
My mother worked at the cemetery’s office right out of college. It was the only job she had ever known. On the day the transition was finalized, she decided to take a final walk through the old grounds, camera in hand, wanting to capture what was left before it was forgotten.
At one point, she stopped near a row of old, above-ground tombs and prepared to take a picture. But just as she raised the camera—
One of the tomb doors slammed shut.
Not a slow creak, not a gust of wind nudging it—slammed, as if someone inside had thrown it shut with all their strength.
That was the last picture she ever took in that cemetery.
Then, just last Friday, something happened to me.
It was close to 10 PM, and I was making my final patrol near a row of older graves. There was an elderly woman who frequently visited her late husband’s grave, and I had walked her back to the gate earlier that evening. She moved slowly, needing a cane, and I always made sure she got back to her car safely. 
I was walking past the spot where she’d been sitting when I saw someone move.

The older section had two main paths: East and West. The East section was the first to be shut down, closed to visitors about two weeks before the transition.