Dad was walking home from a Saturday night date with his sweetheart. He had passed the old Johnson Cemetery leading up to his house thousands of times, but tonight, a full moon hung like a ghost over the old broken headstones and there was an unexpected chill in the air.
People strongly believed in evil dark spirits and headless ghosts back then and it seemed that when you believe so strongly, you can quickly jump to conclusions when you see something move in dark shadows. As grandma Johnson always said; “Dark has no eyes”, and it was a dark, bewitching time in the old family cemetery as the clock was slowly but surely approaching twelve o’clock midnight, the bewitching hour.
It was common knowledge that daddy’s great aunt was buried here, and die-hard ghost believers had seen her apparition slowly walking among the tombstones, searching for her seven infant children who had died mysteriously by no fault of her own. Some say they have also heard her weeping when the wind stirs among the gravestones.
These thoughts took over daddy’s mind, and held him in a sudden, vice like fear. He looked up the red clay hill and took off in a determined sprint. Half-way up the high hill, he felt a warm, wet tongue embracing and licking his left hand. He broke out in a cold sweat and his heart was beating so fast he felt a burning sensation between his shoulder blades. Would the evil spirit follow him home? When he reached the top of the hill, Mama had left the front porch light on for him. He felt the warm, wet tongue on his hand again. He looked down to see old blue, his hunting dog.
