StuG meet the KKK

The ride down was very unnerving; the highway was filled with emergency vehicles and reckless drivers. Not necessarily uncommon on a Friday night, but enough to keep my attention at all times. My chosen route took me right past the Franklin County dump, methane torches were spewing flames into the sky against a pinkish-red sunset. After driving through the backroads of Darbydale and passing by the location twice without seeing a proper entrance, I parked my car on the other side of a bridge in a small gravel driveway behind some trees and made my way on foot along the road towards the cemetery. It wasn’t a long walk, maybe ten to fifteen minutes, but the darkness only allowed me to see maybe a dozen feet ahead. The threat of speeding cars mere feet to my right were imminent. At the very least I was mostly dry and warm, my coat had kept out most of the wind and the mud had not found its way into my boots yet.
The road up to the cemetery (if you could call it that, it was in a state of disrepair) was blocked by a metal safety gate, and a few no trespassing signs with bullet holes in them were on the gate as well as on stakes nearby. This would have phased most people, but not me. I continued on, up the hill, the soft clop of boots on mud transitioning to the crunch of gravel, thinking about the supposed stories associated with this place. Stories of a mad butcher who murdered his family and then took his own life, ape like creatures throwing stones at people walking on the paths, KKK and cult meetings with human sacrifice… it was certainly interesting. How could one place have stories about three very different urban legends? In my eyes it made the stories less credible; perhaps the blogs and people I’d spoken to had simply made these stories up, or heard them from others who came up with them. On the other hand it could point to something bigger taking place, perhaps there was a reason for such wild inconsistencies.
I reached the end of the path to find a rather large clearing. It was mostly open ground, I couldn’t see any headstones at first. What immediately caught my eye was an orange light coming from the trees at the far end of the clearing. I couldn’t quite make out what it was coming from, it seemed to be behind the trees. Immediately my heart sank a little, it was probably a local property owner or law enforcement looking to catch trespassers. Considering that I only had a small notebook and pencil, I doubt my story of coming for a school trip would hold up. I figured it would be in my best interest to turn away now and try to make it back to my car, or dive into the woods and hope they did not see me. I chose the latter, and quickly sat myself behind a tree, hoping that the ambient light from the sky had not given my position away. I was still behind the tree for maybe thirty seconds, but it felt like minutes. I didn’t want to look at the light right away, the person emitting it might see me… at least, I assumed it was a person. The thought that it could be something else entirely didn’t cross my mind until I looked out from behind the tree. There was a group of people, maybe ten… I believe they were people, walking out from behind the trees at the far end of the clearing. Five of them were carrying long sticks with torch things on the end. They were clothed in what I can only describe as thick robes, with lots of padding on. A few had pointy hoods, similar to those worn by the Ku Klux Klan. As they crossed the field towards me, the light illuminated a few gravestones to their right. This at least confirmed that I hadn’t stumbled upon someone’s private property. Somehow I wasn’t entirely frightened... I even considered coming out of my hiding spot and crossing the field to meet them. They might be willing to answer some questions and give me a decent interview... maybe some insight into the varied stories surrounding the area. To say the least, common sense got the better of me and I decided not to reveal myself, but instead walk down the hill through the woods toward the road. If they had bad intentions they wouldn’t follow me all the way to the road, even with traffic being infrequent. I laid myself prone and began to inch backwards down the hill, keeping an eye on the figures as they turned towards the gravestones and formed a circle around a few of them. Then, one of them looked up from one of the gravestones and looked right at me. One by one, they all turned to face me. I stayed still for a moment, hoping that they had heard something else and wouldn’t investigate. This was not the case, and they started to walk towards me. It was at this point all of my courage and ignorance was drained from me, and I pushed myself up onto my feet and made a b-line for the road. I didn’t turn around to look behind me, fearing that it might cost me precious speed. I made it back to the road, and continued to sprint across the bridge. When I came within sight of my car, I yanked my keys out of my pocket and hit the remote starter to make sure i could get away as quickly as possible. Upon reaching my car, I looked back at the road and saw multiple torches moving through the trees. I opened the door to my car, slammed it behind me and put the car in gear. My foot was flat on the gas the whole time, save for the moment when I shifted gears. Before I knew it I was going maybe 100 or so miles per hour before I came to my senses and slowed down a little… I drove for another 15 minutes before pulling into a gas station in London. I’m still not sure what to make of the whole ordeal.