At 11:30 PM, they begin the long, lonely walk down to the eerie graveyard…

A braying wind kicked up dust and grit, spraying exposed ankles. Moments after it blew to the north and grew quiet, the ethereal mist of near-midnight wafted across the peppermint trees, black bark scored and leaves curled in on themselves in sweet, rotting clusters. The fog echoed in wails that crept up behind your back and whispered deep into your ear: “I know.”
Well-seasoned with these nightly treks, Ernie Pope ignored the keening that rang down his skin, as tangible as spider web silk. One couldn’t afford to lose their head over mere phantoms.
Deep, haunting voices drifted through the thickening air. “Whoa ho…whoa ho…bring your shovels and bury your troubles…”
So sang the Gravediggers as they plodded along the well-worn track that winded further up the marshy plains.

At 12:00 PM, they step through the fog-wreathed iron gates and drift their separate ways to conduct the grim, janitorial work of death.

It was the same every night. Each man shouldered their axes and shovels to depart toward their grave shifts. Body after body to unload from the carts, some rotting, others intact but haunting. Always the same, pouring into holes dug deep into the earth that parted into yawning mouths.
No one in the town below could recall when the Gravediggers had become more than a few jobless souls. One could not call their profession respectable, but there was an aura of gravity to those associated with Death, and so the people let the Gravediggers come for their lost ones with nothing more than a quiet prayer
It was such an odd line of work that the Gravediggers remained the same individuals grayed by seasons of shoveling; a unity formed through mutual understanding. Such was the loyalty between them that the Gravediggers rarely saw other denizens of the town.
Until…..

One breezy fall in the deepening dusk of twilight, at precisely 11:29 PM, the order of twenty became twenty-one.

Nicola Stifola, thirty-three with a salt-strewn beard and a weary countenance, was the first to notice the figure across the plain.
“A migrator?” he queried.
“Naw,” acknowledged Old Man Arthur. He dug an undistinguishable chunk of yellow plaque from his teeth and flicked it away. “Few cross the plains to come here. And they’d have to walk around Devil’s Hill.” He cackled, and Nicola turned his eyes toward the straggler, who seemed to be gaining speed. Unconsciously, Nikola’s dirt-crusted fingers curled around his ax.
When the newcomer was about twenty feet away, they stopped and slowly waved a long arm. Nicola warily returned the gesture, and the newcomer continued to come toward the Gravediggers, who watched with uncharacteristic caution.
“Hey, fellas,” spoke the newcomer, a shockingly young lad whose skin had the dewy glow of health. He too wore patchwork clothes, and to Nicola’s surprise, a long-handled, square-bladed shovel was slung over his back. “Mind if I join you?”
“That depends,” answered Wobbly Wyatt, who lurched forward on spindly legs. “Would you be willing to climb that hill?” He pointed a finger at the Graveyard, which loomed high above them.
“I came here for this,” replied the newcomer, unslinging his shovel. “I’m Oliver.” He was handsome in a manner that emphasized the smile that came easily to his easy-going features. Such charm was rare in the Graveyard. “You think I could join?”
An unreadable look flitted across the circle of Gravediggers. The unspoken memory of more bodies to bury won out; Old Man Arthur wrung out his swollen knuckles and grumbled, “You’d best keep up, boy.”

He was quick with his hands, the cart, and the shovel he’d carried across the lonely plain, more dexterous than any of the work-wearied Gravediggers who performed their routines with the dullness of lacking interest. Midnight was barely a memory as Oliver wended his way through the graves, offering assistance so politely that even the most bitter-tongued Gravedigger could not refuse him.
Into his head was drilled the shanty that the Gravediggers chanted and in his hands was placed a steel-enforced spade. Barely a week following his arrival, hastily-completed graves disintegrated, resulting in complaining ankles. When three Gravediggers were caught by the cave-in deep below, it was Oliver who dove down to extract them with barely a moment of hesitation.
Such was his perseverance and allure that drew forth even wheezing Old Man Arthur toward his circle that some Gravediggers began to ask questions. “What happened?” they would ask. “If he’s such a smart young man, how did he come to be here?”
The answers to these questions were never raised.

But on a cold winter night, when the work had been difficult, leaving the gravediggers frozen and exhausted to the bone, the ax was raised by a strong-armed hand.

The deed was done. Red with the tang of iron soaked the darkening soil. A finger dabbled in the red, then swiped it across a waiting tongue in a parched, eager opportunity.
The people of the town were unaware of what occurred that night. Only when the carts became close to overflowing did they send an unwilling messenger toward the hill to investigate.
But there was nothing. No life, only a forlorn wind breaking over hundreds of old graves and twenty new ones.

It only took him ten minutes.

They could never find him. They painted him to be a promising man at first who had been driven insane.
But if only Nicola Stifola, Ernie Pope, and so many more had looked further to see the black heart of the psychotic murderer inside, perhaps they would have been spared from their fate.
While the axe disembodied nineteen, he strangely spared the body of Wobbly Wyatt, who now lay in the grave furthest away from the entrance. So if the messenger had chosen to uncover the earth with a forgotten shovel, he would have seen the Gravedigger’s butchered body – and the expression of complete and absolute betrayal splashed across his face.