The Mysterious Biker of White Cemetery

An old-fashioned spook tale for you, ATS.



It was the week of the big Homecoming football game/high school dance and my neighbor Jim, coach of the cheerleading squad, was chaperoning during an old high school tradition. The evening of the dance all the girls who didn't have a date, weren't attending the dance, and had no other obligations, were meeting to go explore a haunted house/cornfield maze as a way of enjoying their weekend after the big game.

Packed into Jim's wife's minivan, a handful of the girls had decided to call it a night. It was a Saturday evening just after 9 PM, about the middle of October, and the group was making their way home east along Cuba Rd. Passing the infamous White Cemetery, Jim happened to glance out his window, just to see if he could catch a glimpse of the purported shadow-figures that are said to loom at the wrought-iron gate. Instead of laying eyes upon a spectral phantom, Jim saw a young girl in a long white dress, with a gray hooded sweater pulled around her, walking her old bike along the roadside.

Thinking that it may have been one of the dance attendees making her way home, and acknowledging that, as a teacher, it was his duty to make sure the young girl was OK, Jim decided to pull over and ask the girl if she needed any help getting home. Turning the van around, much to the surprise of his other passengers who had not seen the young girl on the roadside, Jim pulled to a stop just in front of the biker. Reaching across the front seats, Jim opened the passenger door as the girl ambled along. She stopped, her head down, the hood obscuring her face, and Jim asked her if she was hurt. Messy black hair protruded from beneath the hood, but the girl didn't say anything, instead she stood silent and still, her head turned down.

Seeing for the first time that she was, in fact, wearing a long white dress beneath her dark-gray hooded sweater, Jim concluded that she must have been riding home from the Homecoming dance. He asked if she had had a problem at the dance, and if she needed to get in contact with anyone. Again, there was silence as the girl begin to fidget back and forth on her feet, leaning noncommittally against her bike. Starting to worry now, Jim told the girl that he could fit her bike in the back of his van, and drive her to wherever she needed to go if that would make her feel any better. He explained that he was the cheerleading squad's coach, that several members of the squad were in the back, and then he asked her if she knew any of them.

At this point the young girl finally looked up to acknowledge Jim. In Jim's own words:

What I was looking at wasn't human. At least, not completely human. It looked like a young woman, maybe 17 or 18, about the same age as the girls that I had in the back of the van. It was wearing clothing that would have seemed appropriate for the night: a white dress and gray hoodie to keep warm. But the face. The face was not human. Her skin was a pale white, almost luminescent, and looked to be hugging her skull a little too tightly. There were no features to her complexion—no lips or nose or ears—just the eyes. Or, what might have been eyes. I don't know, maybe it was because it was late and dark, but when she looked at me, I swear that I was looking into two harshly dug-out holes. I'm not talking about some kind of botched surgery either [my name removed], it looked like her skin had just cracked and peeled away, and there was an empty nothing beneath. Holes where her eyes should have been.

Confronted with a fight-or-flight response the likes of which he'd never encountered before, Jim pulled the passenger-side door closed, ran the pedal to the floor, and flew away from White Cemetery and the eyeless girl-thing as quickly as his minivan would allow. He didn't stop, and never looked back, terrified that he might see the girl-thing in his mirror.

After settling down some, and taking the other girls home (who hadn't seen what Jim had, but acknowledged that he was visibly shaken), Jim returned to the road and took a slow drive down it, hoping to put his fears to rest and prove to himself that there had been nothing there. Stopping near where he believed the encounter to have happened, Jim got out of his car (he'd exchanged his wife's minivan for his own car after dropping the cheerleaders off), and cast his flashlight's beam at the ground. He saw nothing. No bike tracks, no shoe prints, nothing to suggest that the girl-thing had ever been there. Despite the lack-of-evidence, Jim didn't feel the kind of emotional-comfort he expected to at this revelation.



The "lore" of Cuba Rd. is pretty extensive, everything from ghostly hitchhikers and phantom animals, to disappearing houses, and White Cemetery is considered by many to be the "heart" of the activity. Amorphous vapors, acrobatic orbs, disembodied whispers, and spectral shades at the gates, White Cemetery has long been a staple of Illinois' ghostly lore. I thought that I had heard all the tales there were, until my neighbor confided the one I just recounted for you above.

Well, ATS, what do you think; what did my neighbor Jim encounter?


~ Wandering Scribe




* A special acknowledgement and apology to Diyanahnadzree, whose lovely sketch, "Hoodie Girl", I took and destroyed in an attempt to recreate what Jim saw that night.

a reply to: Wandering Scribe

This is the kind of story legends are made of!! A tale told to frighten children. A perpetual memory passed from one generation to the next ... until it becomes real.

a reply to: Snarl

Thanks for the reply, Snarl!

White Cemetery, and especially Cuba Rd., are certainly the stuff legends are made of. Having lived near it most of my life, I'd heard just about all the tales concerning it, so you can imagine my surprise when this little gem was brought to my attention.

Whether or not its "real" isn't really for me to decide though. Jim certainly believed it enough to want to unburden himself of it onto me. The girls who were with him, while not having seen the girl-thing themselves, did acknowledge that Jim was shaken up.

Who knows what was really stalking the cemetery road that evening though?


~ Wandering Scribe

Really, is the van that large that the girls would not have noticed Jim pull up and start taking to no-one? I know you keep on making references to them not seeing anything but at that close quarters, they are going to notice that he was talking to someone. He even opened the door on the passenger side, so a blast of air would have come in. I have to say that my questioning should be your questioning when you heard this story from Jim. Are you sure this should not be in the short story forum?

a reply to: qmantoo

It's not that the girls didn't know something was happening, because they did. What it was, is that they couldn't see who he was talking to from their position in the back of the minivan. Jim hadn't opened the sliding side door, he reached across and opened the normal front-seat passenger door. From the back, with tinted windows, and darkness outside, the girls would have, at best, seen the silhouette of someone standing by the minivan, but could not have made anything else out. Since the "girl" didn't speak, there would have been no way for them to know that there was anything unnatural about her until after Jim had seen it, and taken off.

I understand the questioning though. In my reply to Snarl I even said that I couldn't say whether it was actually "something" that Jim saw, and could only go on his word and the girls' who said that he was visibly shaken up, although they didn't know by what. I created this thread under the Paranormal forum though, because it is an encounter with something unnatural that was passed on to me, not an original piece that I wrote myself.

Thanks for the reply though.


~ Wandering Scribe

originally posted by: Snarl
a reply to: Wandering Scribe

This is the kind of story legends are made of!! A tale told to frighten children. A perpetual memory passed from one generation to the next ... until it becomes real.

Only they never become real.

It's just that,a legend. An old wives tale so to speak. One that's been changed so many times( different names,locations etc) that they almost seem to be true.

Certainly not something that should be shared on here. Star and Flags for the gullible. Woo hoo!

a reply to: nightstalker78

Only they never become real.

It was real enough to Jim.

Nothing wrong with skepticism though. If you weren't interested in the experience as an example of the unnatural in our world, I hope you at least enjoyed my rendition of the experience while you read through it.

It's just that,a legend. An old wives tale so to speak.

Does a single individual's recounting of a personal experience qualify as a legend?

I think you confused "old wive's tale" with "folktale" as well. Unless Jim is an old woman trying to pass down some knowledge about women's issues through this experience, I wouldn't call it an old wive's tale.

Certainly not something that should be shared on here.

The Paranormal Studies forum is no longer the place for paranormal experiences or supernatural encounters? That's news to me.

If you're aware of another experience with this kind of phantom on Cuba Rd., or at White Cemetery, I'd like to know. I created this thread because, having lived near the Cuba and White Cemetery my entire life, this was the first time that I'd heard of this type of encounter associated with the road or the graveyard.


~ Wandering Scribe

what year did this occur? if you don't mind me asking.. just curious..

a reply to: Wandering Scribe

hahaha, seriously, how is this something that shouldn't be shared here. with all the # that's in the paranormal forum, this was a pretty good story/experience. so thanks for sharing!

at first when i saw the drawing it really reminded me of a black eyed kids sighting but, seeing as how the entity said nothing, did nothing except walk, that wouldn't be the case.

it sounds almost like a residual thing. like perhaps sometime in the past there was a girl who got hit by a car or something similar on her way home from the dance. so again on the night of the dance she's walking down the side of the road re-living a previous event.

it's bizarre that the only facial features were those creepily hallowed out eyes and nothing else on the face.

i would see if you or he could do some research and find any historical deaths of a young woman/student who attended the same dance in the past that might match up.

a reply to: amraks

what year did this occur? if you don't mind me asking.. just curious..

2005, about 9 years ago. If you're looking for the exact day I'd have to ask Jim to see if he remembers.


~ Wandering Scribe

a reply to: CallmeRaskolnikov

hahaha, seriously, how is this something that shouldn't be shared here. with all the # that's in the paranormal forum, this was a pretty good story/experience. so thanks for sharing!

Thank you! I could understand maybe posting this under the Gray Area, but, it wasn't my own personal experience, so I thought that it was better suited here, where, as you've pointed out, dozens of other people post their alien encounter, or cryptid sighting, or ghost experience. I felt Jim's experience fit in nicely alongside all of those.

at first when i saw the drawing it really reminded me of a black eyed kids sighting but, seeing as how the entity said nothing, did nothing except walk, that wouldn't be the case.

Ha ha, any compliments for the drawing really ought to go to the artist (I linked to her page at the bottom of my post). I can write, I'm really not so good at drawing/sketching, so I borrowed the sketch from somebody else and did some minor edits to it in Photoshop to help illustrate Jim's account.

I've read about the Black Eyed Kids before, but, sadly, haven't heard of too many accounts of them roaming around Illinois. Last I heard, they were stalking the Badlands, where a friend of mine just spent a week. Sadly, no encounters reported from him right now.

it sounds almost like a residual thing. like perhaps sometime in the past there was a girl who got hit by a car or something similar on her way home from the dance. so again on the night of the dance she's walking down the side of the road re-living a previous event.

My initial thought was residual as well, similar to Resurrection Mary from the Chicago area, and other such roadside ghostly hitchhikers. The element that caught my attention was the seeming modernity of this specter. I haven't heard of too many residual haunting cases where the specter is dressed in a hoodie, ha ha.

it's bizarre that the only facial features were those creepily hallowed out eyes and nothing else on the face.

I agree with this. Thinking about them creeps me out too.

i would see if you or he could do some research and find any historical deaths of a young woman/student who attended the same dance in the past that might match up.

The towns Cuba passes through have, sadly, experienced a handful of child-deaths the last 15 years. Mostly due to hit-and-run. There's a number of roadside memorials dotting the tri-county area. None that I've looked up happened in October though, and I'm not familiar with any related to the Homecoming dance. My resources are limited though, so its possible that there's one I've overlooked.

Thanks for the comment!


~ Wandering Scribe

originally posted by: Wandering Scribe
a reply to: amraks

what year did this occur? if you don't mind me asking.. just curious..

2005, about 9 years ago. If you're looking for the exact day I'd have to ask Jim to see if he remembers.


~ Wandering Scribe

just asking you made it sorter sound like in the early 70's and I was about to blow the whole tinted windows.

may I ask why you have made it sound so old and like you have written a novel?

a reply to: amraks

just asking you made it sorter sound like in the early 70's and I was about to blow the whole tinted windows.

Nope, this was a recent account.

may I ask why you have made it sound so old and like you have written a novel?

I wrote the account to try and include as much information as I could, without breaking any of the ATS terms/conditions, or revealing personal information.

Since I had notes from the interview, and happen to live 2 houses down from the witness, maybe it seems more thorough because I'm reporting the event almost directly, rather than it having been siphoned through several generations? Maybe I was using too formal of language?

I do write as a hobby (note my username, ha ha), usually articles and essay, but, maybe that also has something to do with why it seems more composed than the average thread started on ATS?


~ Wandering Scribe

Quite similar to the second story in the first episode of Paranormal Witness on SyFy.

Lost Girl
Subject Names: Stephanie and Misty Tasker, Moni, a Pakistani exchange student in the Tasker house
Sighting: Live Oak, Florida
Paranormal Experience: Roadside ghost

One Sunday, as Stephanie Tasker was driving back from church with Misty and their resident exchange student Moni, Misty noticed a little girl by the roadside. Misty was overcome by the feeling that something was not right. When Stephanie turned the car around to check on what they thought was a little girl, the group discovered that it was in fact a teenager sitting with her knees curled up, rocking. They drive a short distance past her and turn around again, only to find the girl has disappeared.

Stephanie dismisses it as the girl walking into the woods, but Misty is still unsettled. They drive on for another couple of miles, when Misty suddenly sees the girl again in the headlights. Misty begins freaking out, as she became convinced that it’s not humanly possible to move that far without being seen. She becomes sick to her stomach, insisting they just go, but Stephanie insists that they check to make sure the girl doesn’t need help.

Fearing the worst, Misty begins to curl into a fetal position on the floor of the car. She’s convinced that the situation is very wrong. Stephanie leans over and rolls down the window to see if the girl needs any help. Misty is overcome with dread. Finally, the girl turns to face them, but she doesn’t have a face. Her face is hollow and there’s nothing there.

Stephanie, usually a very cautious driver, speeds off and has them home in ten minutes. She calls 911, but reports a girl by the side of the road possibly in need of assistance instead of a girl with a hollow face.

The police searched, but found nothing. Misty later discovered that a girl from her school had died in a car crash in the same spot they saw the girl without a face.

a reply to: rigormortis

I haven't seen Paranormal Witness before, is the episode available online somewhere?

I was turned off of SyFy's ghost-hunting shows a while back. When they were still called Sci-Fi I had a discussion with a tour guide at a haunted Virginia jailhouse. She told me that the TAPS (Ghost Hunters) investigation of the jailhouse had been a nightmare for the tour-guide who had worked with them. Their set-up had been rushed, the actual documentation and investigation poorly carried out, and the group themselves had been rude and offensive to the host, who was working overtime so they could have their fun.

Since learning about that I've steered clear of SyFy's ghost-hunting programs.

Most of Jim's details are par for the course on Chicago-area ghosts. We've got a fair amount of roadside ghosts, most witnessed outside of a cemetery, and a lot of them dressed in white (which seems to be a motif in ghost-lore). What made Jim's account interesting to me, personally, was the presence of a bike, and the girl wearing a hoodie. The fashion was much more modern than our other famous ghosts, and I'm not aware of many ghosts that carry objects with them.

Thanks for the comment!


~ Wandering Scribe

rigormortis

first off, your avatar is awesome. James O'Barr is the sh*t! But, that's a good call in regards to the paranormal witness episode, i knew the OP's story sounded familiar to something i've seen on television but couldn't place it. the episode of paranormal witness in question really is close to what the OP's friend described.

wanderingscribe

as for paranormal witness, it's honestly one of the best recent paranormal shows on TV. i essentially had the same stance as you concerning SciFi station or however the hell they spell it now, but Paranormal Witness is an exception. And a good exception at that. They actually go out of their way to pick stories that are high quality, backed up with photographic/video evidence and multiple witness testimony. Even the reenactments are spot on. They pick actors that can actually act and that actually look like the people who are telling the story. There's a few episodes with police, security guards, pilots, firemen that give testimony as well so they really run the gamete. Not to mention they will cover any paranormal subject like UFO's, abductions, Cryptids etc Also as a side note the makers of the show do actually investigate each case before they decide to make an episode out of it. Some of the families involved in episodes also post online in forums to discuss the cases openly and they've even done episodes on more famous and well known cases.

Check your inbox, i'm going to send you a link for a stream of the first episode rigor brought up....

a reply to: CallmeRaskolnikov

Check your inbox, i'm going to send you a link for a stream of the first episode rigor brought up

I've never watched the show before, but I'll keep my eyes peeled for your link. It would be a breath of fresh air to finally have found a paranormal TV show that's worth watching.


~ Wandering Scribe

a reply to: Wandering Scribe

you should already have the link in your inbox, sent it yesterday. one of my favorite episodes was the one they did on the Dybbuk Box which they based the movie "the possession" on. the episode was 100x better than the movie and another of my favs was a priest who detailed his experiences when he was appointed to fill the role of exorcist after his predessor passed away. He was given the job "because he didnt' want it" and he was sent to train with the best. A professional vatican exorcist in italy who was doing exorcisms on a daily basis. After he was done training and arrived back in the US he received his first case and it was one hell of a whopper.

here's a direct link to that episode because it's still up on sci-fys website. full episode too. there are even a couple of other ones up there as well, but give this one a watch for sure. his story is insane.

Paranormal Witness - The Exorcist Full Episode