I’m the caretaker in a very small rural cemetery. This job is passed down through my family but I’m afraid if I don’t have a child soon there will be no one left to keep watch. To put the dead back to rest.
This is a tough job for one person. They won’t stay dead. They won’t stay in their graves. For some reason the land here is strange, and anyone buried here wont stay resting for long. The cemetery doesn’t see many new burials anymore, but that’s a good thing. Only members of certain very old families maintain plots here. They don’t visit much.
The dead don’t all come out every night, thank goodness, because I would never be able to keep up. Some nights none of them come out. I haven’t been able to figure out a rhyme or reason or pattern. It’s not the full moon. It’s not the temperature, the season, the date. I think it’s random but I’m just not sure.
I try to rest during the day because my nights generally start about an hour after sunset and continue until the first light is peeking over the horizon. They all need to be in their graves by then, or if I’m desperate, just buried by then. Anywhere will do. I have even had to double them up a few times when things have been busy and the night short.
We are close to the sea, so I can smell the salt on the wind and a kiss of moisture, thankfully warm most nights. Those that rise don’t smell much, unless they are fresh. Some only get partway out, I think because they have been here a while and are tired and getting broken down into their parts. Others manage to get all the way out and need to be chased down. I’m thankful for the very tall bricked wall here. It keeps them in, and I keep up on the repairs of that too. A breach would mean some strange stories, or worse.
This place is the stuff of local legend and we do see a few brave or foolish teenagers each year who come by to try and see the dead rise or try to scare each other. They try this mostly on Halloween. Halloween holds no special significance for the dead here but seems to for the living. Again, I’m thankful for the high bricks and thick chains with locks. I make sure they stay out and don’t see much. There are no lights in or around the cemetery at night, just my torch and the glint of the shovel I am always carrying.
The dead won’t stay dead, that’s why I’m here to make sure they go back into the ground before morning light. On the shorter nights, during the heat of summer, it’s more of a race. You don’t want to see what they become if they are still walking around when the sun rises. I have only seen that once, and once is enough. I’m missing a good chunk of meat from my upper back because I was too slow and I didn’t believe the stories. It’s a wound that took a long time to heal and still doesn’t look right. I don’t want to see again what they become in the daylight, and neither do you.