After 30 years of waiting, Victoria was getting really annoyed at how boring being dead could be. The graveyard was quietest at night. Quiet and boring. Hell, it is even quiet and boring during the day. Occasionally a mourner would walk through in a sombre manner, lay some flowers down on a grave, take a moment and then walk away. Or someone would use the graveyard as a short cut. Those people never hung around, they get out as quickly as their feet will carry them.

But at night, hardly anything ever happened. Once a bunch of drunken teenagers broke in. That made Victoria's night! She was about to join their game of hide and seek when the police came and took them away. Since then the grounds-keeper locks the gates before going home at 5:30 sharp. Now no one comes into the graveyard at night.

Victoria hadn't meant to hang around for so long. She was hoping just one person would visit her, mourn her, miss her: Tom Hartley. In life, Victoria had been hopelessly in unrequited love with Tom. Victoria was finally going to tell Tom how she felt. She was on her way to meet him when the bright red car came screeching down the street. Victoria doesn't remember much after that point.

She remembers her funeral. She had received a good turnout. Her parents, her sister, her best friends, her work colleagues, even a few people from high school had all turned up. But Tom wasn't there. Maybe he was too broken up by her death to attend. Maybe he had another crisis to deal with. Maybe he'll come and visit her when he was ready. Maybe.

30 years later and Victoria was still waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Tom hadn't ever shown up to pay his respects, no matter how much Victoria wanted him to. Now she was stuck here, waiting. She was bored of waiting. She was bored of this graveyard. If she thought about it too much, she could feel herself getting angry. She knew that getting angry wouldn't solve anything but she couldn't help herself. She had seen what can happen to spirits who let the anger take over. Something had to happen and quickly.

"I can't believe you let her walk away with those tickets! Thousands of dollars lost dude!"

"I let her walk away? You were there too, you could've done something about it: like keep the tickets in your pocket."

"They were in my pocket."

"Of your jacket, which you left on a gravestone, which gave her the opportunity to take the tickets."

"Shut up Sam."

She couldn't believe her luck. It was approaching midnight when Victoria heard the 2 men's voices. Finally something of interest was happening, at night no less! She stayed near her grave as she listened to the voices get closer. She was weighing up the pros and cons of jumping out and screaming boo at the men when a ghastly noise came from about 3 graves over to her left. She could see another spirit emerge from the ground, moaning and groaning as it did so. It's eyes were fixed on the men, who were walking straight for it, seemingly unaware of its presence.

As the other spirit began to take a more solid looking form, Victoria felt a rage flare up through her being. She had heard the men first. They were here for her to play with. If the spirit wanted company, it would have to wait for another night. She had waited too long already. Focussing all of her rage towards the spirit, Victoria made her move.

"Give me the shovel."

"Please."

"What? Sam, just give me the shovel."

"You didn't say please."

"You are just dying to have my fist land in your face tonight, aren't ya?"

"It's not my fault you're being all pissy about those lottery tickets."

"Dude! I... You could've... Please can you hand me the shovel?"

"See how easy that was Dean?"

"Whatever."

The 2 men were stood over the grave the spirit had come out of. The slightly shorter one was now digging the earth out of the grave while the taller one stood over him, shining a torch light over the grave. Behind them, the angry spirit was gathering it's energy, getting ready to attack the grave desiccators. Victoria was trying her best to move as quickly as possible across the graves. As she did, she could feel the remains of the graves' occupiers, buried deep in the ground. She was getting flashes from the deaths of the occupiers.

The flashes nearly overwhelmed her. One was on a beach in glorious sunshine. She could see the grave occupier's family surrounding her. The children were playing in the sand, laughing. Victoria was flooded with an intense feeling of joy before a sharp pain tore across her chest.

The next was in a dark, empty kitchen. Victoria felt as if she was sat at the kitchen table, looking through the eyes of the grave occupier as they emptied out a bottle of painkillers and arranged the small white pills into a line. Victoria felt the occupier's misery right down into her core.

The last one before she could get the men and the spirit gave her a shock. She felt as if she was covered with blood, from head to toe. She felt as if someone had cut out her insides. The pain nearly knocked her off of her feet. The graveyard swam around her as a wave of nausea washed over her.

Victoria mentally shook off the last death flash. She told herself she was being ridiculous for feeling nauseous. She was dead, how could she feel nauseous. She looked up and saw that the spirit was rearing itself up over the men. Both of them were stood next to the dug up grave, looking into it.

"You would think they could do something about the smell."

"What? The dead?"

"No, not the dead. They can't do anything about it; they're dead. I'm talking about the undertakers. They could put little air fresheners in the coffins, you know? So when people like us -"

"-come along and dug up the bodies to burn and salt the remains to stop ghosts terrifying and killing the living, they smell like roses? Come on Dean, get real."

"I mean it. There's a gap in the market. I think I'm onto something here. Pass me the rock salt."

As the spirit reached up to hit the taller man over the head, Victoria dug her heels into the ground and pushed with all of her might. She charged through the air towards the spirit. She let out a cry as she hit it with full force. She gripped it tightly in her arms as they fell to the ground. The spirit fought her, trying to squirm its way out of her embrace. The more it squirmed, the tighter Victoria held on it. The pair of them were screaming as they tumbled across the graves. Victoria was bombarded with more death flashes. But she didn't stop holding on.

"Whoa, did you hear that?"

"Yeah. Come on let's light up this sucker up and get out of here."

"It sounds like people fighting."

"Don't know about you but I ain't in the mood for a fight right now. Matches?"

A lit match was dropped in the open grave. Suddenly Victoria felt the hot flames envelop the angry spirit. It cried out in horror and pain. Victoria released her grip and tried to crawl away from the fire that was now consuming the other spirit. It was reaching out to her, asking for her help. Before she could respond the flames took over and reduce the spirit to ash. She watched the ashes blow away slowly, leaving little evidence of the spirit's existence.

She slowly got up off of the ground and walked back to her own grave. She avoided the other graves. She didn't have the energy to face anyone else's demise. She just wanted to get back to her own space. She didn't even care that the 2 men were now walking behind her, almost like they were following her home.

Once she got back to her grave, she leant against her gravestone, her head hanging down. She had wished for so long for something to happen here. Now that it had, Victoria was all to aware of the saying: be careful of what you wish for. Victoria was brought back into the here and now when she noticed that one of the men was looking at her grave. She felt elated as he reached forward to brush away the dead leaves and dirt from her gravestone.

"This woman was the same age as Jessica when she died."

"Come on Sam, no use hanging onto that kind of stuff."

"I miss her."

"I know you do. Hey, let's go get some purple nurples. I'm buying!"

"Ugh, Dean, how can you drink those things?"

"It's easy: you grab a glass, open your mouth, pour in the drink, swallow, enjoy!"

"That's not what I meant, dude."

Victoria watched the 2 men walk away. She watched the sky slowly lighten as the sun rose over the horizon. She watched another grave being filled with another coffin, surrounded by another group of tearful mourners. She watched a bird fly from tree to tree. After the events of the previous night, the return of the usually boring routine was welcome.

Victoria's routine was about to be interrupted again when one of the men from last night approached her grave. It was the taller one, the one who had brushed away the debris from the stone. The one who had seemed so sad as he did so.

He placed a bunch of flowers next to her gravestone. He crouched by the grave for a moment. Victoria stood next to him, trying to resist the temptation to reach out and touch him. He was her first visitor in nearly 30 years. Knowing that she might never get the opportunity again, she reached out. However he stood up before she could touch him. She drew back her hand as he brushed his hair out of his eyes, turned and walked away, head hung low, hands in his pockets.

She looked down at the flowers he had left for her. She knew that the flowers were for Jessica, the girl he missed. She knew he was mourning Jessica, not her. But he had visited her grave; laid down the flowers next to her gravestone. She had had a visitor: someone had tended to her grave and had given her existence an second thought. He was unaware of it but she was grateful he had made the effort.

So grateful that even if the next 30 years passed without anything else ever happening again, she wouldn't care.