Viktor Rumyantsev from the village of Melnikovo, Leningrad Region, wrote to the researcher of anomalous phenomena, Alexei Priyma, about a supernatural incident, which in 1987 was discussed for a long time and heatedly by the inhabitants of Melnikovo. The participants in the incident were Victor's wife and her friend.
Once they sat in the evening with another friend of theirs, and when they said goodbye to the hospitable mistress of the house, it was already about twelve o'clock in the morning. With a brisk step, the women who lived at the other end of the village went to their home. Their path ran past the cemetery.
Suddenly, a man stepped towards them from the unfenced territory of the cemetery. He seemed to have risen in front of them from the ground opposite the place where fresh graves were visible on the outskirts of the cemetery, strewn with withered flowers, surrounded by wreaths.
The man took a couple of steps forward and stopped, waiting for the women. A cigarette was smoldering in his hand.
Victor's wife emphasizes that when she saw a man on the night road, she was not scared for some reason. And she did not even moderate her step, coming close to him.
Stopping opposite the man, the women exchanged glances.
- Do you recognize?
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- I will.
A local resident loomed in front of them on a country road, whom they both knew well by sight and who … died and was buried in this cemetery a couple of days ago. An important detail: the women were not at all surprised at that moment that they collided nose to nose with the deceased. As Priyma notes, these are typical signs of psychological contact stupor.
“Good evening,” Victor's wife said cheerfully. - What are you doing here?
- Yes, I'm standing there. I smoke,”the man replied, bringing the smoldering cigarette to his lips and frowning. - They don't let me go there.
- Who are they?
- Yes, these, - the man indistinctly explained and jabbed his left thumb behind his back, pointing to the cemetery.
There was annoyance in his voice.
- Here I stand and wait for the next one to come here.
- AND! Are you waiting for someone, then? - Victor's wife guessed.
Then her friend interrupted the conversation.
- Who's next? she asked curiously.
In response, the man gave the name and surname of one other man living in the village. Victor's wife personally knew the one whose last name was named.
“Listen, young ladies,” the man said then. - Do me a favor. Ask for the new shoes to be sent along with the next one. And those who are now on me are pressing hard.
Victor's wife said cheerfully:
- Okay. We will fulfill your request. But answer this question. Are you dead?
The man silently nodded in agreement.
- In that case, how are you now standing in front of us on the road and even talking out loud? Your place is in the grave, not here. I am very interested in how you managed to get out of the ground?
Victor's wife never found out the answers to her questions. The man suddenly disappeared, as if he had fallen into the ground. Together with him, the glamor disappeared, covering both women with its powerful, apparently, contact field. A veil seemed to have fallen from my eyes. The women realized that they had just had a friendly, even tame talk as if nothing had happened with the dead.
Above the cemetery, two sonorous screams of terror echoed in unison. And shoulder to shoulder, the friends rushed without looking back at full speed away from the terrible place, from the grave crosses, from under which, it turns out, dead bodies crawl out at night.
The next morning, the night incident became public in the village. People unconditionally believed in the story of women who met a ghost. And how could one not believe it, if that very night one man suddenly died in the village, who looked alive and well last night.
You guessed it right - the man's name and surname sounded the night before at midnight on a country road near the cemetery. The dead man who rose from the grave called him "next."
The rumor of a meeting with the dead soon reached the ears of his widow, who was told that your late hubby asks to send him "along with the next new shoes." The widow, without delay, went to the house of the "next" with a bundle under her arm. And in that house, too, everyone was already aware of the midnight date with the ghost and his request.
The meeting of the two widows was washed, of course, by burning tears, but ended as the ghost of the husband of one of them wished. The bundle of new, just bought boots was placed in the "next" coffin.
Together with the boots, the widow of that man sealed ten packs of cigarettes in a bag sent to the next world with a messenger just in case. The deceased was an incorrigible, drunken smoker during his lifetime. Smoked up to two packs a day. On the other hand, the women who met him near the cemetery noticed that during the conversation he smoked all the time. So the widow decided to add tobacco to the boots. Perhaps it will come in handy.
The coffin with the body of the “next” and with a package from this light placed in it was lowered into the grave with a large crowd of people. It was interesting for everyone to see how a messenger bag was sent to the otherworldly. From the new grave in the cemetery to the one in which the incorrigible smoker was buried, it was no more than five or six meters.
In conclusion, a curious, mysterious touch: the smoker was put in a coffin in his old, worn out shoes. His spirit declared that they were pressing on him and that new shoes should certainly be sent so that he could change shoes.
The request, you see, is completely devoid of logic. We can only assume that she was nothing more than a metaphor. Apparently, the ghost wanted to say something else: the deceased must always be put into the coffin in new - with a needle - shoes, and not in those trampled, worn out, with worn-out heels, in which he, while still alive, walked on the ground just before his death.