Cold Feet and a Coffin Ride

The air hung thick and humid over the Louisiana cemetery, even for January. I was sweating bullets in my damn black suit, watching the gravediggers lower Grandpa Earl’s coffin. Earl, bless his cantankerous heart, was finally getting lowered into the red dirt he loved to cuss out.
My grandma, Mabel, dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief, a trembling mountain of grief and Chanel No. 5. I put an arm around her, feeling the tremor run through her. Behind us, the mourners – a motley crew of relatives, poker buddies, and Earl’s favorite waitress from the Waffle House – mumbled condolences.
But the real drama wasn't about Earl's passing, not really. The real drama, the kind that could curdle milk, was about what he and her had brewing for decades.
"He was a damn mule," Mabel whispered, her voice thick with tears. "But he was my mule."
"He was something, Grandma. Something alright." I chuckled, a nervous tick. Because the "something" she was talking about was a decades-long feud with her own mother, my Great-Grandma Elara. And Elara was even more hellacious than Earl.
Elara, bless her even more cantankerous soul, had hated Earl from the moment he’d driven up to the farmhouse in his beat-up pickup truck, ready to steal her baby girl away. Their battles had been legendary. Arguments over everything from Earl's chewing tobacco habit to his questionable politics. But the real kicker, the one that always ended the shouting match, was this:
"I'll outlive you, you overgrown toad!" Elara would screech, punctuating the air with a bony finger. "And when I die, you stay the hell away from my cold feet!"
Earl, never one to back down, would thunder back: "I'll die first, you old witch, and I'll drag you down with me! You hear me? I'll drag you to hell with me!"
Now, Earl had finally cashed in his chips on January 10th after a particularly nasty bout of pneumonia. And now, two days later, we were burying him. My dad, Bobby-Ray, a man whose face usually looked like he was perpetually sucking on a lemon, nudged me.
"You think she'll actually try to dance on his grave, Junior?" he muttered, jerking his head towards a distant figure leaning heavily on a cane.
It was Elara. 98 years old and looked like she could still wrestle a grizzly bear. She was watching us, her eyes like chips of flint.
"Don't you even joke about that, Dad," I said, my stomach twisting. "This whole thing is already a powder keg."
The preacher, a young dude named Reverend Dave who looked like he’d lost a bet, finished his spiel about eternal rest and Earl finding peace. The grave diggers started shoveling the dirt. The air grew heavier.
Suddenly, a gasp ripped through the crowd.
"Grandma!" my cousin, Darla, screamed, pointing at Elara.
Elara had crumpled. The cane lay discarded beside her. My aunt, Brenda, a registered nurse, rushed to her side.
"She’s… she’s not breathing!" Brenda yelled, panic in her voice.
The world went silent. All except for the soft thud of dirt hitting Earl's coffin.
Then, Brenda looked up, her face ashen. "She's gone. Grandma Elara is gone."
A collective murmur swept through the crowd. I swear I saw Reverend Dave’s Adam's apple bob like a ping-pong ball.
My grandma Mabel let out a wail that could shatter glass. "Oh, Mama! She went and done it! She went and…"
She didn't finish the sentence, but we all knew what she meant. Elara had died just as we were burying Earl. Exactly as we were burying Earl. Two days after he’d kicked the bucket, she went and joined him.
The air crackled with something more than just grief. It hummed with an energy that felt…wrong. I glanced at Earl's coffin, half-buried now, and a shiver crawled down my spine.
"This ain't right," I said, more to myself than anyone else.
My dad, Bobby-Ray, ran a hand through his thinning hair. "What do we do, Junior? Do we…bury them together? I mean, legally, she's got a plot right next to…"
"Don't even think about it," Mabel snapped, her eyes blazing. "Earl wouldn't want her near him. And Elara sure as hell wouldn't want Earl breathing the same air as her, even underground!"
The situation was spiraling into a full-blown Southern gothic nightmare. I could practically hear the banjos playing in my head.
Suddenly, Darla let out another shriek. "The…the coffin!"
We all looked towards Earl's grave. The dirt was moving. Not a landslide, but…shifting. Bubbling. Like something was trying to get out.
Reverend Dave started chanting something in Latin, sweat pouring down his face. My aunt Brenda fainted.
Then, a voice, raspy and low, echoed through the cemetery. It was Earl’s voice. And it was coming from the grave.
"Elara? You, old hag! You think you can follow me? Well, come on down! I've got a shovel with your name on it!"
Before anyone could scream, before even the grave diggers could drop their shovels, the ground split open. And sticking out of the newly made crack, you couldn't see anything except… you guess it…
Two pale, blue cold feet clad in pristine white socks.
My grandma let out a howl. "Mama! She's trying to get out!!"
I blinked, and as quickly as it came, it was gone. The dirt calmed down, the hole closed.
But the smell of damp earth, decay, and a faint whiff of lavender hung in the air. And everyone who was there knew one thing: Earl and Elara's feud wasn't over.
It'd just moved six feet under.
Whether they're going to be battling in hell or not, I don't know. But one thing is for certain: if I ever hear sounds coming from the cemetery at night, I'm buying a one-way ticket to Alaska.