Quitting Time
I am digging through the dry, red, Kansas dirt, searching for fossils. The midday sun beats down on my forehead. Beads of sweat are dripping down my face.
"Hey Joe?" I say, "How many hours 'till quitin' time?"
"Bout six." he says back. "Do I see you takin' a break?" I see his meaty hands clenching into fists.
"N…Nnnn…Noo sir." I answer. "Just wonderin'. I'm getting back to work now."
He scowls at me. I turn away and stick the heavy shovel back into the earth with a grunt. Ugghh. How much longer could this take? My shovel buries deeper and deeper. Soon I have dug my self into a hole deeper than I am tall. My arms ache with the effort of lifting the dirt over my head. It collects in piles around the pit. The piles keep collapsing and I have to dig the same dirt out over and over again. A red ant bites my neck. I scream in frustration. Wasn't it time for these work-a-holics to let me go?
I work in blind fury. Soon the air grows cooler and the skies grow dark. I know that it must be nearly time to go. I try to climb out of the pit, but the walls are too steep.
"Joe?" I call out. "Mandy? Tim?" Nobody answers. I sink to my knees. Everyone has left without me. They have forgotten their new recruit, gone off to their bars and dance clubs.
I cannot see a thing. I turn on my dim headlight. A yellowed, slender bone is sticking out of the pit wall opposite me. I pull it out. Four years of archeological school have not failed me. This is definitely not a dinosaur bone. I try to remain calm. It's just a cow or horse bone. At least that's what I tell myself. I know that isn't true, it's too small.
In vain hopes that my fears will be disproved, I dig frantically at the side of the pit. A wave of loose dirt surges over me. Something hard and angular is on top of my stomach. I dig it out. Lifting it into the light I see the empty eye sockets of a human skull. I scream. In the distance, I hear rattling. I look up. Several skeletons are leaning over the pit, their bodies terrifying against the black night. They point at me and laugh. They say that I deserve this. What's been done to them shall be done to me. I shall join the night-walkers.
One picks up a spare shovel and begins shoveling my day's work piles on top of me.
"No! Stop!" I call. It is too late. There is nothing I can do. No amount of squirming will save me. I give into to the mounds of dirt clods building on top of me, crushing my bones. I can't breathe. My organs are crushed. My vision turns yellow, then forms black splotches. I try to move, but I am cemented in the dirt. I hear one last, ghastly chuckle. My lungs are about to explode. My thoughts and feelings cut off. I am gone.