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The night was dark, quiet. If one were to look long enough, they may be able to make out the shape of a woman trailing through the mist that surrounded a decrepit cemetery. A cold breeze picked up, causing the silence to be interrupted by the rustle of dried leaves.
"Dammit, Earl," Joy growled, holding her arms around herself and suppressing a shiver as she waited in the dark graveyard. "I told you I didn't wanna be no ghost bait." Her earrings swung wildly as she moved her head, waiting for something.
Darnell sighed beside her. "Baby, you know I love you but a man can't dig a grave all by himself." He paused for a moment as he spoke to her, leaning against his shovel. She rounded on him with a snarl and he quickly began shoveling the dirt again.
"You'd be more than halfway done if you didn't stop to complain about it," she snarked, but picked up her own shovel all the same.
The sound of footsteps made its way towards them, and with it the sounds of pants and frantic, "Burn it, burn it!" Randy came barreling towards them, his unbuttoned flannel flapping behind him like a cape. Joy snorted a little at the thought of 'Super Randy' coming to save the day, but quickly schooled her expression as Earl caught up to his brother, a transparent woman shrieking behind him.
"Hey," Joy called, leveling a shotgun towards the apparition. "The only woman who gets to kill my ex-husband is me, dummy!" Bang! Bang! Bang! The woman vanished with an echoing scream as she was shot full of rock salt. "Choke on that," the blonde muttered under her breath.
Earl stopped, panting heavily and leaned forward with his hands on his knees. "Thank - thanks, Joy," he breathed. He patted his left shirt pocket and seemed satisfied to find a folded piece of yellow-lined paper within. "Thought we were gonners."
Joy smiled brightly, and patted him on the arm. "You owe me," she said as Darnelle - and now Randy - finished digging up the grave. She grabbed a canister of gasoline and began dumping it with practised ease on the bones laying in their grave.
The evening ended with a round of beers at the Crab Shack, where Catalina met them, Dodge and Earl Junior having spent the duration of the Hunt with her. She was annoyed that she'd not been able to join them, but her shift at Club Chubby's had run late, due to a co-worker giving birth on stage.
As the group sat around the table, discussing the night's events and highlighting their favorite parts - "You made a face like this!" - Earl removed the list from his pocket and crossed off #299: Made Randy afraid of ghosts.