“So there I was - hanging from a cliff, armed only with a hairbrush, and surrounded by demons hellbent on converting me to the cause of postmodern literary criticism,” the vampire calmly observed, eating another handful of popcorn.

I sighed, and planted another fence pole, determined to ignore the undead regaling me with tales of his glory days. Such endeavours were, alackaday, unsuccessful; on the job as I was, I could not leave, and so had to listen as the vampire began to explain exactly what he’d done with the chandelier. 

But perhaps I should turn about and turn again, retrace our steps a little, and tell you precisely how I ended up trapped listening to the epics of an exanimate anecdotist.

And so I take us far, far into the past, to a time long ago - about two weeks back - a time when I was not yet burdened with a knowledge of the existence of the supernatural, and indeed was living my life in blissful ignorance of both it and the inanities it contained.

It had all started, as most things do, when the economy collapsed. No one could say precisely why it had happened. Perhaps it was the civil war in the Captaincy of the Corduroy Coast, and its rippling effect on trade; or perhaps it was the sudden disintegration of Democratic Vespuccia, our great southern neighbour. Or then again, perhaps it was merely the serial incompetence of my own country’s leaders. In any event, the economy was gone; and I too was gone, from my old place of employment.

Now, to be fair to the poor economy (lying dead upon the ground as it was), it ought to be admitted that it was none of the usual features of a failing economy - the stock market crash, the bottoming-out of the fried bread industry, the prime minister driving an artillery wagon drunk into the garage of the chief opposition leader - that resulted in me losing my job. 

Indeed, I was holding onto my job just fine, until our main offices were incinerated in a fiery explosion. This took out the entirety of our upper crust, and left the company wandering about headless and, you may imagine, mightily confused.

Even then we might have made it, had not the families of the Board of Directors argued that, as they had been expelled from the company (at exciting speeds of two hundred and four miles per hour, over a distance of half a mile), they ought to be entitled to severance.

The company, naturally enough, argued that as they had been expelled by means of an incendiary explosion they were not terminated but fired, and therefore no severance was permitted; to which the families replied that while they may have been fired from the building, this resulted in their termination, thereby entitling them to severance. 

Eventually they agreed to settle the matter in court, with the resulting legal fees bankrupting both parties. 

You can imagine my trouble. Unemployed - divested, shall we say, of the means by which I might act in the world of my fellows - I was as one dead; and I flitted like a ghost from one place of work to another, seeking in vain to come to life again.

Perhaps fittingly enough, after a matter of time I had exhausted all avenues in the realm of the living, and arrived at one of the city’s cemeteries, there to try my luck with the realm of the dead.

It was deep beyond the outskirts of town, set high on a hill hidden by trees that had been ancient before I was born, and it showed its great age in every mouldering headstone and rusting, half-fallen fence post. Half the posts had fallen down about the ornate, wrought-iron gate, and the small structure in which they took care of business was in desperate need of refurbishing.

As it happened, the owners of the graveyard were looking for someone to work nights. They were a perfectly normal pair of old gentlemen who had been watching over the silent stones for the better part of thirty years - ever since they were out of high school - and, feeling they were getting on in years, wanted someone to take over nights so they could spend the time with their wives and kids.

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An undesirable shift, maybe, but one has little choice when starvation looms, and it was with alacrity that I accepted the job offer. The graveyard keepers heaved a great sigh of relief, then-

“And you’ll make sure to keep the gates locked at night?” Asked the one.

“Oh yes, yes, the gates must stay locked. It is essential, don’t you know,” snivelled the other, rubbing his hands nervously.

I must confess I raised an eyebrow at this. “Oh? Do you have a problem with thieves?”

“No, no,” snivelled the other, “rather, thieves have a problem with us - so you can’t let them in.”

“Precisely. They mustn’t come in,” concurred the one.

“The thieves have a problem with you?” I repeated, to make sure I’d heard correctly.

“You’ll understand tonight,” said the one. The other snivelled in agreement. “Yes, yes, tonight - and remember it’s not ‘you,’ but ‘us,’ for now you are one of us.”

“Indeed. Make sure not to leave till the morning - and we hope you come back tomorrow,” the one said, and after giving me some further instructions the pair left.

I was rather surprised to have my first shift so early - especially since we hadn’t even discussed, nevermind agreed upon, a start date - but as I have said, times were tight and money was tighter, and in such circumstances it would be foolish to complain about windfalls.

My duties, as had been explained to me, were simple: lock the gates, patrol the yard, and maybe do a bit of light cleaning in their office if’n I had the time. I was not to go into the graveyard proper - there were graves, they said, that had yet to be filled, and in the night it would be difficult to avoid falling into them by mistake.

I had been given a lantern, one of the older models with trim around the dome, and a truncheon — and these, I had been told, were to be sufficient; I had been warned, repeatedly, to avoid touching any of the shovels, and not to lay hands on the spirit level.

They were easy enough instructions, and would - I hoped - prove easy to follow. And indeed, it was not until the second hour of my shift that I thought it anything other than a normal if slightly eerie job, for the graveyard was some distance from the city, and I had yet to see a soul.

It was on my second circumnavigation of the graveyard, as I rounded one of the lower hills, that I heard it - a rhythmic thwack, thwack, thwack, the heavy sound of iron slamming into the earth.

I froze, and swallowed nervously, then ascended the hill in search of the noise. The wind howled down from the mountains of the north, stirring the snowflakes in his wrath, and the trees - the last of whose leaves clung tightly to the branches - tapped in time with his maddened tune. The frost on the grass crunched softly as I ascended the hill, barely audible - for over and above the crunch of the grass and the roar of the wind and the rustling of trees could be heard that rhythmic thwack, thwack, thwack.

It continued quite heedless of me, growing ever louder - thwack, thwack, thwack - until there was an almighty CLANG, followed by a gravelly voice cursing. After this the owner of the voice evidently shifted to a stiffer tool, for when the sound resumed it was stronger and yet more pronounced.

It was joined by caterwauling - some sort of old mining song, sung raucously and out of tune - only for both noises to cease as I crested the hill.

Nobody was there. All that could be seen in the clearing below was a lantern, swinging from the end of a tree branch, and a silent, open grave.

Wary, fearful, curious, I descended the hill into the trees. Finding no one in the clearing itself - and having checked behind the trees - I decided to look down into the grave, to see if the interloper had chosen to hide in its depths.

There, lying at the base of the grave, was a dead man. He was flat on his back, black plaid overcoat spread out about him, tools scattered to either side. He had evidently been dead for some time - his fingernails had grown out into claws, his lengthened canines were visible, and his face had deteriorated into a grey and indistinguishable mass.

I choked back the urge to vomit. Who was he? The graveyard keepers would never have left a body lying in the grave, not without a casket - but then, what if they-? And what if that was why I was not to go into the graveyard proper? And if that was so, or even if it wasn’t, who was digging just a minute prior? No - who was singing just a minute prior? Of all the things to do next to a mouldering corpse-

And then the man’s eyes stirred to life. 

His eyeballs had rotted away, but burning pinpricks appeared all the same, staring at me from out of a head half gone - mottled grey and blue, and so desiccated as to be part and parcel of the very skull. The man smiled, revealing that his canines were far more than unusually long.

“‘Allo,” he said amicably, “how can I help you?”