Creeptober Horror Spree: Volume One

Graves

Lenny's job was simple, generally thankless, and peaceful. He grew accustomed to the strange looks people threw his way when he said, sincerely, being a cemetery groundskeeper was his dream job.

"Isn't it creepy?" they would ask.

"Not really," Lenny would reply with a smile. "I never work there at night. I just mow, water the memorial plants, and keep the headstones tidy." Every winter was a free vacation supplemented by unemployment, and when spring rolled around, he was back at work by the first thaw.

Lenny didn't believe in ghosts, anyway. He attributed the common fear of cemetery nights to the oh-so-human uneasiness of darkness in general. Doubting that spirits would care to wait until sundown, Lenny knew in his gut that if there was an afterlife, nobody was visiting. Why would they, anyway? They were either in paradise, trapped in limbo, or Hell if the stories were true.

Still, he found himself talking to the dead to pass the time. "How's it going, Spence?" Lenny asked the marble headstone as he swept the grass clippings away. Spencer Smith's stone was a ground-level model, simple and clean. It was a pain in the ass to mow around, and Lenny always had to break out his weedwhacker to trim close to it. If he tried to use the riding mower, he would chip the stone at best and break a blade at worst. "Hope all's well. I'm havin' a good week, myself. The wife's taken to baking pies as practice for some contest."

Lenny treated Spencer and many others like old friends, having one-sided conversations throughout his shift. The thing they all had in common was that nobody left flowers on their graves anymore. All of them had died so long ago; there likely was no family left to visit. Although Lenny didn't necessarily believe in hauntings, he did wonder if the long-dead got lonely. He would tell Spencer and the others about his day, weekend plans, and how his kids were doing as he worked.

One afternoon, Lenny bent down to pull a stubborn weed and felt pain shoot from his chest and down his arm. His vision darkened, the air left his lungs, and the world went dark.

His next memory was waking in the hospital, his concerned wife at his side. "What happened?" Lenny asked.

"You had a heart attack," His wife sobbed. "A passerby found you and rushed to the security office to tell Robert to call 911."

When Lenny was feeling well enough, he called Robert and asked him if he had the good samaritan's information so he could thank them for saving his life. "I'm sorry to say I never got it. I only got his first name. I was too preoccupied with getting you an ambulance," Robert confessed.

"I appreciate that, honestly," Lenny said with a smile in his voice. "What was his name, though? Maybe he will visit again."

"Spencer," Robert said.