“Earl, quiet yourself!” The old preacher stood, arms outstretched over the casket. “Earl now! God is talking!”

Earl shook his head and kept his head down, shoveling another heap of dirt into the hole.

The preacher, Joe, shook his head and hissed, quietly dissolving into the air. Earl could still hear him grumble as he sauntered past him, the air growing cold.

“Joe, care to do that again? I’m sweating through my shorts,” Earl sighed. He kept shoveling.

“Think he’ll ever catch on?” a voice rang out.

“Nah,” Earl said. “It’s been, what? 200 years?”

“Yeah,” Billy said, materializing beside Earl and nodding. “Fought in the war and all, I think. Old coot.” 

“A preacher fighting in the war,” Earl said. “Ain’t that contradictory.” 

“You know why they killed him, right?” Billy asked, his voice rising in excitement.

Earl stopped and leaned on his shovel. 

“No, sir. Kid diddlin’ I would guess.”

“A little bit of that, no doubt. But also the General’s wife.” Billy smiled, waiting for Earl to react.

“General, huh? Not…Lee?”

Billy nodded, laughing.

“That’s what they say anyway.”

Earl thought for a moment, then picked up his shovel and began throwing more dirt into the six-foot hole.

“Who’s the new fella?” Billy asked, motioning to the casket.

“Not sure,” Earl said. “Haven’t seen him though.”

“Pearly gates claim another.”

“Or the other gates.”

“If Joe managed to escape, I’m thinking everyone does,” Billy laughed.

“You reckon?” Earl asked, grinning. “She made the cut for heaven, Bill. You made sure of that. Martyrs usually don’t hang around boneyards.”

“She ain’t in heaven!” Bill grabbed for the shovel, but Earl moved it away with ease. “She forced my hand, you know that.”

“She forced more than that,” Earl said, hearing the anger burst forth from Billy in a hot, electric pop. When Earl looked, he was gone.

He saw a black ripple over Billy’s wife’s headstone, and Earl sat the shovel down. 

“Ah—why do I have to open my mouth?” Earl sat on the pile of dirt, taking his old hat in his hand and wiping his brow. 

“Know why they all talk to you?”

“Why’s that Griff,” Earl said plainly. “Oh, right, because I’m the only living person for thirty miles?”

“That’s a factor,” Griff said, nodding. Earl looked at the man beside him. A revolutionary war hero, dressed in clothes that were older than anything else in the entire graveyard. Only problem was: they were red.

His old English accent had mostly faded after all this time, but Earl could still hear it.

“You’re like them. Just like them,” Griff said. 

“I ain’t dead,” Earl chuffed.

“Look at you,” Griff said. “Ain’t much alive, living like this.”

“I got time,” Earl said. Griff had gone, and the cold patch was all that was left of him. “I got time to live.”

Earl kept talking anyway.

“Joe preaches at every funeral. Billy cries at his wife’s grave every Sunday, then screams as they electrocute him, Wednesday 1 o’clock. Even you Griff. Your neck snaps on the Fourth of July.”

Griff spoke, faintly and out of sight.

“You dig holes.”

Earl shook his head, grabbing the shovel. 

“Yeah, but I get paid!” he shouted.

He began shoveling furiously, filling the hole in just a matter of thirty minutes. He stood on top of the fresh dirt, panting. He threw the shovel down.

He grabbed it, digging into the earth. In just a few minutes he hit the casket with the tip of the shovel.

He shoveled harder, until it was quickly uncovered.

He threw open the lid of the casket and looked at the body of the man inside.

He sucked air through his teeth, pausing for a long period.

He slammed the casket shut.

“Pay cut.”