The Hanging Tree & Exhumed Bodies

INTRO: This particular story occurred just about a couple of years ago. I was until recently quite reluctant to share my experience as my friends, who also shared it with me have long since chosen to forget the incident(S) for fear of rejection, criticism and humiliation.

The story itself is hard for me to write because remembering it brings back so much fear to me that I try and put to the back of my head, but can't quite throw away!

Firstly, I have chosen NOT to name the exact area where these stories actually occurred. Its primarily because I do not wish to advertise such a horrible, and potentially dangerous place to anyone but instead will just tell you that it takes place in the north east of Scotland, just outside of Aberdeen City.

For the place names I will leave blanks and basic references.

THE STORY
Sitting in the college canteen one morning, my friend hurriedly approached me and told me of a supposedly haunted wood near her house. Immediately we where captivated, if a little skeptical! The story she told was of a young man in the 50s who got sick of life, and took his own by hanging himself from a tree "his ghost can still bee seen!" blah blah blah! So at the weekend we armed ourselves with cameras, warm clothes, hot tea and lots of guts!

NIGHT ONE
The woodland strip is in a strange place. It starts immediately behind a council estate and opens out onto a series of large fields. It has a thin muddy path running through it, and a series of 7 various gates and fences throughout giving its infamous name "THE SEVEN GATES!" well well well!

At first we were rather disappointed as we saw nothing, so we came home and decided to wait for an hour or two till it got to midnight before we returned.

We did return and to this day I wish we had left the horrible place for good.

I decided that it was a lot of rubbish so said my goodbyes and ventured alone down the woodland path. Stopping to relieve myself of a full bladder, I felt a shudder run down my back. I felt aware as if something was watching me. I looked up to see a horrid sight. Running towards me at grace pace was what can only be described as a dead child. It was around 3ft tall skeletal, and had a sallow face. It suddenly jinked right and disappeared into the darkness. Suddenly I heard screams in the distance. It was my friends screaming! I ran like a bat out of hell towards the screams and found them all hugging each other, crying their eyes out. They have never told me what happened to this day, but one recently let it slip that suddenly they where surrounded by dead children who where just standing there staring at them.

We went home shaken and frightened! I thought it was the END of that place but something made us return, some kind of force, like being pulled in by a fishing line. We felt the need to go back so we did!

NIGHT TWO
Again, for the first few hours nothing strange happened! Then suddenly out of nowhere the most intense feeling of evil hit us. It was like a wet blanket being dragged over us. We felt out of breath, scared and felt the most unpleasant feeling of hate inside us. We started yelling at each other and lashing out, saying the most disgusting things to each other. I noticed my friend in the far distance walking of to be alone he was visibly upset. And so we sat, angry and scared at a small opening in the wood. Every so often I would look up at my friend who had gone to be alone. He was around 50 ft away and illuminated by the distant glow of a farm house. Soon I realized I was alone with one other friend. The rest had gone home. Three of us remained. Me, my friend and the other friend 50ft away. I looked up at my friend in the distance, I shouted to him "Lets go I'm bored and wet, and pissed off!" He shouted back "Okay hold on!". He started to move and when he got to within 40ft of us, suddenly a TALL man, maybe 8ft tall appeared from behind a tree BEHIND him and was advancing on him fast! It was a man, it didn't glow or float or appear it was an unnaturally tall man. I looked at my friend by my side and said "What am I looking at?" he replied "The tall f******* behind____!?"?"Yes!" I said. "I don't like him much!"?"Nor do I!" And we ran faster ran we have ever ran in our lives. We didn't feel guilty about ditching our friend till we got home. But we phoned him and discovered he was still alive. It was a terrifying experience but was NOTHING compared to the THIRD night!

NIGHT THREE
I have read MANY ghost stories they ALL end on climax but you will never read anything as terrifying as this!
We returned but only the four of us. Again the usual nothing! We actually assumed that the place was no longer haunted! How wrong we were!

It was closing in on 12.30 am, we were all ready to go home but I decided to stay. I wanted to provoke something by being alone. So my friends told me that they would wait at the bottom of the path for me. I stayed by myself for around 15 minutes and started to head back to meet my friends. I saw them in the distance waving to me frantically, they weren't screaming or yelling so I assumed they where just being idiots and having fun. Then my mobile phone started ringing, so I answered it and was greeted by frantic screams of my friends who where only 100 yards away from me. It struck me as strange how they where screaming down the phone but I couldn't hear them from THAT short distance. All I made out was "Run?run?can't you see them! Just run?please run?!" It was hysterical screaming. I ran down to them and they were all crying and hugging me they dragged me home without saying another word. When we got home they told me what they had seen. Apparently I appeared from the shadows into the light where they could see me and suddenly they saw around 6 or 7 seven skeletal kids come OUT of the trees and run towards me. The kids encircled me forming a "ring" holding hands and dancing round me. They broke the ring and started pointing at me and making gestures towards me, gesticulating as if they were going to hurt me.

ONE YEAR LATER
A year later I took an interest in the local history of the area, and became very interested in the old stories of body snatching for medical research. I was in a book store in the city reading a book on the most famous of cases.

This is what I read: " A certain medical student was found guilty in the late 19th centaury of exhuming literary hundreds of bodies for medical research. He was discovered when rumors of a mass grave came to light, on "___ Farm" in a woodland and area east of the city"
THE "___Farm" where we had stupidly visited to try and see some ghosts a year before. I remember dropping the book on the floor as a chill went up my spine! Then I remembered the skeletal children and sheer dread of that horrible place, and a tear of fear came to my eye!