Shovels in the Cemetery

My name is TC Shoal, and I died back in 1987. Oh, and I’m a ghost.

The cemetery I’m in has looked kinda bad for years. If I had a corporeal body, I would definitely be wading through some tall grass and tripping over some old tree roots. The caretaker hadn’t come out there in years. Well, no one really had, at least to my grave. There were no flowers on my grave now.

On this particular night, a fog filled the graveyard, and with the old, gnarled trees mostly bare of leaves, it looked spooky even by ghost standards.

I had been enjoying solitude for a long time, playing with the little animals that came exploring in the cemetery and writing stories in my head. Now I heard dirt scraping from the direction of my grave, and I was astonished.

Two guys were standing in front of my headstone with a couple of brand-new shovels, intending to dig me up. From their conversation, I gathered the tall blonde one was Bill, and the short, dark-haired one was Jared.

“I swear, my Grandpa was at the funeral and heard them talking about the ring afterwards.” That ring was what tied me to my grave. My mom had me buried with it because she knew how much I loved it. And after all these years, someone had come to steal it.

When I saw the shovels leaning against my headstone, I’ll admit I yelled, “Damn it!” as if they’d hear me. It seemed they did, though, because the one named Bill turned in the direction where I was standing and said, “Did you hear that whisper?”

And you know, that’s the best summary of being a ghost. A yell is a whisper. A scream is registered as a slight change in EMF on some ghost hunter’s equipment. A punch ends up being nothing more than a rush of air, at least for me. My ability to interact with humans was limited, to say the least.

Well, both of these guys were frozen like deer in headlights.

“I didn’t hear anything. Did you hear something?” Jared replied. They peered around while Bill grabbed a shovel and hefted it like a weapon. Swinging at me with that shovel wouldn’t have done anything.

“Maybe TC Shoal doesn’t want us here,” said Bill, nervously peering into the darkness. “I mean, this is kinda wrong. We’re digging up a damn body to steal his ring.”

The conversation continued. “It doesn’t matter if Silar doesn’t want us here; we need the money to get your mom’s medicine this month, and this is the least illegal way to do it,” was Jared’s reply. Damn, I thought. I wondered if grave robbing was their first or their last solution. I kinda wished I could help them with the money, and I would have if I’d been alive. But this -- this was going too far. How desperate were these guys?

I wanted them to go away, so to add to the spooky atmosphere, I manifested an intense cold spot. Jared dropped the shovel and started to rub his arms. “It got cold all of a sudden, didn’t it?” he asked Bill.

Bill replied as he closely examined his goosebumps. “Yeah, it got really cold. Do you think it’s the ghost of Shoal? Like, he’s not happy for us to be here? Well, I mean, it was a little nice having some company, but not when they’re gonna dig up my final resting place to steal my ring.

They laughed nervously as Jared picked up the other shovel. It quickly became apparent they hadn’t used shovels much at all. I had no worries that they’d succeed in digging me up, but I still didn’t appreciate this invasion of my personal space. I never really understood that concept until now. And even though they fumbled with the shovels, they were still managing to scrape up a little pile of dirt next to my grave.

Since my voice and my chills didn’t seem to be deterring them, I realized I needed to step up the pace. I started making their flashlights randomly flicker, creating quite the disturbing atmosphere, or so I thought. The two flashlights they had pointing at my grave looked like an interesting light show.

“My flashlight is broke!” said Bill. “It won’t stay on. Let’s go.”

While they were arguing, a noise came from Jared’s phone. It still blew my mind that people could carry phones around in their pockets and do all kinds of stuff. I might not know how to use a phone or be able to utilize it directly, but I sure can drain its power. I had done this at some funerals in the past when I felt like someone was being disrespectful to the recently dead.

Jared whining about their phones being drained suddenly and got just a little more scared. “Damn, I need this thing to stay charged in case Mom needs to reach me.” That was something else I could understand. My own mother would have been on that phone all the time checking on me, and I’d face hell at home if I didn’t answer -- I just knew it. And at that moment I missed her and again wished I could help these crazy guys out.

“My phone is at just 6% now,” said Jared, with a hint of fear in his voice. “I’ve seen those ghost shows, and I know this means a spirit is around. Do you think it’s trying to talk to us?”

“Go away,” I screamed in my spookiest voice.

They froze. That wasn’t my goal. I needed them to leave.

“Did you hear that?” whispered Jared, as if whispering meant ghosts like me couldn’t hear them.

“Yes,” replied Bill, but in a stage whisper. “I think it wants us to leave! We should leave!” They looked at each other and dropped their shovels.

“Get out!” I screamed.

They still froze. What would it take to get these two guys away from my damn grave?

“I’m gonna take a picture. My phone is at 5% but I think it will still work. I want to see it. And let’s face it -- we gotta do this scared or not.”

I was a little excited. This should be gnarly. I put myself in front of the camera and tried to look menacing. They took a picture. I was curious about what they would see. They screamed and almost dropped the phone. It was mostly a picture of a damn moth. A damn moth had photobombed me.

But there was something else in the picture. Even though the damn moth took front and center, we all see something else: a face. My face. And my menacing look seemed more like a crazy man. I was disappointed. Apparently, they weren’t.

“Damn, Bill! We got a genuine ghost pic!” he whispered excitedly.

“I see that, Jared. He looks like he escaped from an asylum or something! Maybe we oughta leave before he does something really crazy. We can get the money some other way that doesn’t involve robbing an insane ghost!” The fear in his voice was evident.

“I’d be upset if someone was robbing my grave,” Bill pointed out, his voice back to normal. “He doesn’t really look that crazy. I mean, I’d be looking like that if I were him.”

I started to understand how desperately they needed my ring. I didn’t really need it anymore. But they shouldn’t be robbing my grave. But at the same time, it’s not really like that body meant anything to me anymore.

Their phones were almost dead, their flashlights were still flickering on and off, and both shovels were on the ground by this time. They were beginning to regret visiting my grave with less than honorable intentions. But I still felt bad. I decided to let them do whatever they wanted, and if they managed to clumsily reach my body, then the ring was theirs. And moms are important. I wish my mom still came to my grave with flowers and kind words, but she didn’t.

Bill stood there, leaning against my headstone, counting off on his fingers. “I tell ya, we can pawn my dad’s shotgun he left behind when they divorced and Mom will never know. And you said your Mom wouldn’t notice if you pawned your keyboard. We can do this without disturbing a dead body.” Jared nodded his head and picked up the shovels while Bill grabbed the flashlights, which weren’t flickering anymore.

They left the cemetery. I was left in silence.

I thought back to my best friend Silas. At my funeral, he was comforting my girlfriend, Bess, before I barely had time to get cold. I knew his intentions that day, and was so disappointed in our friendship. All the time we spent together, and it seemed to mean nothing. He didn’t seem to care about me being dead. All he seemed to focus on was a chance with Bess. I wish I had a good friend like Jared. Bill was lucky, but I suspected he already knew that.

In the morning, I saw Jared entering the cemetery with flowers instead of a shovel. Bill came up behind him. “Listen, dude,” Jared said, apparently to me, “I’m sorry we messed with your grave last night. That was really sick, and not in a good way. We aren’t really like that. I hope you’ll forgive us.” He bent down and leaned the pretty flowers against my headstone.

Those were the first flowers on my grave in 30 years. I might have cried a few ghost tears.

I felt remembered and valued. And they were most certainly forgiven.