Night Shift at the Cemetery

Jim stood up, brushing the leaves and dirt from his blue twill pants, and wiped a smudge from his cheek. The night smelled like rain and pine, the kind of damp, earthy cold that seeped into the bones. Fog clung low to the ground like some lazy old hound that refused to get up. Jim reached into his pocket and pulled out his silver watch. He didn’t need the glow; he knew the weight of 3:00 a.m. by instinct alone, but old habits die hard, or in his case, didn’t die at all.

Another shift had begun.

He set off down the gravel path, boots crunching in a steady rhythm. The cemetery stretched wide and quiet, a sleeping city where every resident lay still, every address carved in stone. Jim liked it that way. Living people were noisy. Dead folks were respectful. Minded their business. Kept things simple. Life never offered him that kind of predictability, but his job here did.

He moved row to row, inspecting each headstone the way a doting landlord checks on aging tenants. Some markers leaned so far they looked like exhausted old men resting their hands on canes. Others had sunk halfway into the soil, as if they were trying to lie down properly. Moss curled around names and dates like green fingers. Jim always tried brushing it off, but it grew back quickly. Nature had time to kill.

Then there were the newer stones, clean, bright, untouched by rot or rain. He paused at his favorite: JAMES PRESCOTT. The letters were sharp enough to read at midnight without a lantern.

“Looking good, JAMES,” he murmured, giving the stone a small pat. “Holding up real well.”

He liked talking to them. Never felt strange. Silence gets heavy if you don’t cut it now and then.

The willow trees ahead swayed slowly in the breeze, their branches trailing like the sleeves of an old ghost. Jim hummed a tune he couldn’t name. Something old-fashioned. Maybe something his mother used to hum in the kitchen when she thought he wasn’t paying attention. He remembered the melody, but the words never came.

A flicker of movement caught his eye. Jillian, his coworker, trudged along the eastern fence line with her lantern swinging by her thigh. Her hair, dyed a deep wine color, looked almost purple beneath the moon.

Jim raised a hand and called out, “Evening, Jill.”

She snorted. “It was evening three hours ago.”

“Fair enough. How are you holding up tonight?”

“I’d be better off not being here,” she called back without breaking stride.

Jim chuckled. Jill complained every night, but she never missed a shift. Probably found a strange comfort in the monotony, the same way he did.

They drifted off in opposite directions, the way they always did. Jill took the outer fence, Jim handled the heart of the place.

Halfway down the center row, he stopped. Something felt… different. Not wrong, just different, like a room after someone leaves. The trees stood still. The crickets held their breath. Even the fog seemed to settle. For a moment, it all looked unreal, like he’d stepped into a photograph of a place he used to know rather than the place itself.

He blinked, and the feeling passed.

He kept walking.

An hour later, he reached the old oak at the center of the cemetery. Roots spread like ancient veins. Kids carved initials into the bark decades ago, and though Jim scrubbed at them once or twice, he gave up. The tree had earned its wrinkles. That’s when he saw them. Three teenagers creeping between rows with their phone flashlights wobbling like drunken fireflies. One boy held a small recorder, whispering like he was afraid to wake someone.

“If there are any spirits here… can you talk to us?”

Jim grinned. Ghost hunters. He saw them about once a week. Kids looking for a thrill. Kids who didn’t understand what they were playing with. He ambled right up behind them. One girl was chewing cherry gum loud enough that he wondered how they’d ever hear a ghost over the popping. Another kid smelled of cheap cologne, like he had bathed in it.

Jim leaned close, amused. “Hello,” he whispered. “It’s Jim.”

The kids froze like their souls crawled halfway out.

“WHAT WAS THAT?” one whispered.

“Play it back, play it back!”

The recorder clicked.

A hiss. A pop.

Then his own voice echoed softly:

Hello… It’s Jim.

The girl shrieked. The others bolted. Their shoes hammered against the wet grass. One kid tripped over a headstone and still didn’t look back. They scrambled out the gates like a handful of chickens escaping a fox.

Jim barked out a deep, honest laugh. It rolled across the stones and faded into the trees. He didn’t get joy too often. But spooking ghost hunters? That was dessert. They never seemed to catch him hiding in the shadows.

The pocket watch in his hand ticked away, though he couldn’t really feel the weight of it. Time here was different. Flexible. Gentle. Like a river sliding around rocks instead of smashing into them. Hours slipped into one another, walking, checking, listening, repeating until the sky started to shift. A faint ribbon of dawn bled across the horizon. That’s when he said it, like he always did:

“Time to go home.”

He walked toward the caretaker’s shack near the north fence. He expected to find his coat hanging on the peg. His old thermos was waiting on the table. Maybe even his folding chair. But when he pushed the door open, it was empty. Dust. Bare boards. A rusty hinge.

“Huh.” He scratched his chin. “Thought I left my stuff in here.”

Maybe he’d moved things. Or they’d moved them for him. His memory wasn’t what it used to be, not with long nights, no coffee, no daylight. Yawning, Jim wandered to the western gate. The wind picked up, cool but not cold. Just enough to make the grass whisper.

As he neared the gate, he spotted a man approaching with a ring of keys. Jim lifted a hand in greeting. “Hello.” The man didn’t so much as glance at him.

Things weren’t the way they used to be, Jim thought.