Graveyard Shift #1

Noise Complaint

Oct 23, 2025

Article voiceover

0:00

-6:02

Graveyard Shift is an episodic supernatural comedy. Join the undead police force on their patrol around their cemetery as they attempt to keep law and order amongst the restless.

Press play to listen to this fully casted audio performance!

Graveyard Shift

Noise Complaint

The mist hung low. Patrol officers Smith and McQueen made their rounds up the winding cemetery road, their boots silently stepping on the gravel. Smith’s uniform followed an older cut and button pattern; McQueen’s was the newer issue with a sharp collar. The white mausoleum, pale like chicken bones littering a parking lot in the moonlight, loomed ahead.

“Warner said there’s a noise complaint from the dorms,” Smith muttered, hands in his pockets.

“What is that?” McQueen groaned. “That’s three times this month.”

Smith shrugged. “Graves are close together. Tensions run high.”

They reached the mausoleum. The triangular Roman arch overhead was chipped with age and half-sunk into shadow. The crypt door was a dark presence in the silence.

“Your turn,” Smith said.

“It was my turn last time.”

“And last time you blew it. So it’s still your turn.”

With a sigh, McQueen raised a fist and thumped the door.

Thump. Thump.

Muffled murmurs followed by frantic hushes could be heard before the heavy stone cracked open a sliver. A gaunt face peeked out, with eyes sunken like dried raisins.

“Yess, officer?”

“Noise complaint,” McQueen said casually.

The resident snorted. “Oh, those snobs in the private quarters. Always blaming us for every creak and whisper. Everyone here’s been resting quietly.”

Smith arched an eyebrow.

The ghost in the doorway pouted. “Please, kind officer. Tell them to mind their own graves.”

McQueen sighed. “Sure. But keep your ‘quiet resting’ down.”

“Of course, officer. Naturally. That’s all we know.”

The door slammed shut with a puff of dust. Smith laughed.

“That was terrible.”

“Then you knock next time,” McQueen snapped. “You think you’re some kind of phantom diplomat?”

“Need me to show you how it’s done?”

Inside the mausoleum, silence reigned for half a beat.

“All clear!” the resident shouted.

Crypt lids scraped open. Spirits emerged, some still in nightgowns or tuxedos, a couple with their jawbones swinging loosely. The hallway pulsed with pale blue light as ghostly feet hit marble tile. A banshee hovered near the ceiling, her veil fluttering over her floating disembodied head as she belted out a soulful wail.

Back outside, Smith and McQueen stood on the steps of the mausoleum listening to the banshee’s haunting serenade. McQueen gave a stone a kick. His boot passed through it.