“Everything’s good on my part,” Samuel said, “Make sure to lock up the shed when I leave, unless you need something from it.” Samuel was walking towards the gate, struggling to get his keys out of the pockets of his gray jeans. The only thing that illuminated him was the amber light on the porch of the small one-room office building.
“Oh- and try not to fall asleep again,” he said, “I don’t want to get lectured by Mr. Malecky again.” It was nine o’clock at night when Doug’s shift started, all he had to do was monitor the graveyard and stay awake until five in the morning. The latter wasn’t an easy task for Doug before. Doug sighed,
“I won’t fall asleep,”
“Good,” Samuel said without turning around to look at Doug, “Hopefully there’s no grave robbers or whatever that guy’s afraid of.” The reason Doug was out in the graveyard so late was because the graveyard has been under recent attacks of vandalism and grave robbing. On top of that, the graveyard’s security wasn’t too strong, their front gate’s lock has been broken for who knows how long. The graveyard was also on a semi-desolate road a few miles away from town, the only other thing it had was an old church next to the graveyard. Due to the absence of any other businesses or buildings it was easy for people to jump out of their car, steal something, and drive off. That was why Mr. Malecky needed someone at the graveyard at all times and because Doug was the newest employee, he was perfect for the job.
“I’m leaving now, see ya,” Samuel said.
“Bye,” replied Doug. As Doug walked back to the office, he heard the sound of the gate closing behind him and the chirp of Samual’s car unlocking. As he walked to the porch, he noticed the bugs swarming the amber porch light, like how bees swarm a yellow hive. The door to the office was covered with little bugs, making it look like the door has millions of tiny holes in it.
Eugh,” Doug took a step back and thought of a solution to the problem. Not even a moment later, Doug turned his body to the left, perpendicular to the door, lifted up his leg and kicked the door to get all of the bugs off. As to Doug’s surprise, the bugs did not only fly off of the door, but the door’s handle mechanism broke causing the door to swing open and hit the left wall with a thud. Doug quickly rushed past all of the panicked bugs and slammed the door shut, trying to not let any of the bugs in. However, due to Doug’s innovative thinking, the door would no longer close properly and the door opened back up again, allowing all of the bugs to enter and go as they pleased.
“Damn,” Doug muttered to himself, “I’m going to have to pay for this now.” Every time he’d close the door, the door would swing open again and hit the left wall. No matter what he tried whether it be closing the door softly or slamming it back into place, the door would not stay closed. A couple minutes later, Doug figured out that he could prop the door closed with one of the wooden chairs in the office, too bad all of the bugs were already inside and clinging onto the white ceiling. As Doug sat down in the gray cushioned chair at the desk in the corner of the room, he started to realize that this was going to be another boring night and that he would only be entertained by his thoughts once more.
“At least the light isn’t that bright,” Doug thought, ever since Doug tripped and hit his head, his eyes have been overly sensitive to bright lights, they often give him headaches. It wasn’t too long until a source of entertainment in the form of a phone call came to Doug. As the phone on the desk rang, Doug pushed himself into an upright position in his chair and picked up the phone.
“Doug?” Mr. Malecky said, “Can you hear me?”
“Yes, I can hear you, what’s wrong?” Doug replied.
“I need you to dig a grave for me,” Mr. Malecky said, “A friend of mine passed this night, I need you to dig him a grave.”
Okay, where do you want it?” Doug asked.
“Just line it up with the others,” Mr Malecky said, “Thanks.” Soon after that the phone was left with an audible click and a buzz showing that the other end was disconnected from the line. Doug put the phone back into the slot and started for the door. While he was outside, he went to the shed and grabbed a shovel and a big heavy duty bag. Before he started digging, he reflected on the path he took to get here. It's been a month since he fled from New York and found himself in northern Louisiana.
“This will be the change I need in my life,” he thought, “I’ll start off new here, nobody will even know me.” After his quick thoughts, he started to dig the grave. It was a cool night out, it didn’t bother Doug that much. He was wearing black jeans and a plain brown t-shirt. His hair was black and messy, like the waves on a beach before an oncoming storm, he didn’t bother to make it neat or appealing to others. He was often someone who was more focused on himself than others. As he dug, his hands and clothes became more dirty. He was halfway through digging the hole when something peculiar happened, the bell on the church’s tower rang. It didn’t ring for long, it only rang once but it was still rung deep into the night. When it happened Doug was looking down into the hole, the moment it rang, Doug shook a little but then quickly realized that it was the church’s bell. He turned around to look at the bell and to see if anybody was in the church. The lights in the church were off and all he could see was the bell swinging in the dim light caused by the moon. He stood there not making a sound, his heart beat faster every second he stood there looking at the church. He waited for the moment that something would change, the moment where he could see the cause of the sound. He waited and nothing happened, nothing in his vision changed, nobody appeared in the window of the church, there was nothing that could’ve made that sound, at least, nothing that Doug could see. As he stood there the absence of the cause made his heart beat faster. He wondered what could’ve caused that noise and he thought about turning away and running back to the office, but he didn’t. He turned around and started digging the grave faster, for whatever made that sound was less dangerous than Mr. Malecky’s wrath. Some time passed after the sound and Doug was almost finished with the grave when a close sound startled him.
“That’s ironic,” said a voice from somewhere in the graveyard.
“Who’s there!?” Doug shouted, “You aren’t supposed to be in here!” Doug frantically looked around for the source of the voice yet he could not find it.
“I can be wherever I want to be, I’m allowed to,” the voice said. Doug homed in on the voice like a bloodhound looking for an escaped prisoner. He found that it came from behind the old stone crypt in the corner of the graveyard. The crypt was old and made out of gray stone bricks, moss covered the majority of the crypt’s roof while some trickled down to the sides of it.
“I know you’re behind the crypt! Come out and leave the graveyard now or I will call the police!” Doug said.
“You can’t call the police, you’re scared of the police!” the voice mocked, “You wouldn’t ever call the police!”
“This is your final warning! I will call the police!” Doug said. Five seconds later, an unordinary looking hand grabbed the corner of the crypt.
“Okay, I’m coming out, Doug,” the voice laughed.
“How do you know my name?” Doug asked, “Who are you?” To Doug the hand that grabbed onto the crypt started looking nothing like a hand at all. In the glow from the moon Doug could make out that this hand was skinnier than any hand he’s ever seen before. The hand was tan like his but a lot skinnier and rigid. Although the hand was tan, it was inconsistent, the hand was different shades in different areas, like an old bike starting to rust. The hand gripped the side of the crypt and when the final image of the person emerged from behind the crypt, it shocked Doug to his core. Standing in front of Doug stood an illogical being: an undead skeleton.
“You know me Doug,” the skeleton said, its yellow teeth chattering each sentence out. In the moonlight its shadow was littered with spots where the light would get through its body. Its whole figure was yellow and rigid, some of its ribs were missing on the left side of his torso, some broken off halfway and others fully missing. Even some of its teeth were smashed off of its skull. For the most part though, the whole skeleton was intact.
“Ahh!” Doug screamed, “Get away from me!” The skeleton started to approach Doug, it tried to make a grin but all it could do was open its jaw slightly.
“I should’ve known you’d want a job like this,” the skeleton said.
“Who are you!?” Doug said, “How are you able to be alive!?”
“You’re really tough to work with, you know,” the skeleton said, “you can’t just run away to Louisiana and expect all of your actions to be left behind in the dust!”
“Get away from me!” Doug said as the skeleton slowly started to approach, “You don’t know me!”
“How’s your life been treating you after you fell?” the skeleton mocked, “You can’t expect everything to change after you fall– and just because a couple of screws are back in your head doesn’t make things any better.” The skeleton stood there, watching Doug as he stood there in shock. Doug knew this skeleton very well, it was someone from his past he’d like to ignore. But like a lot of other things, sometimes things just come back to haunt you, sometimes figuratively and other times literally.
That's all that I have of this story, there's probably lots of errors, I'm not sure if this is a revised version, probably not considering it's not finished at all.
I'm not going to edit these ones.
If you want to know how this one ends, I'm pretty sure the skeleton keeps antagonizing him and he ends up falling into the grave he already dug.
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