Night Shift: A Comprehensive Guide to Losing Your Paycheck to the Undead
Inspired by a single staged image, this toy photography horror short story explores what happens when a routine night shift turns into a supernatural audit—complete with skeletons, stolen pumpkins, and one very fed-up werewolf.
Marcus had always known his lycanthropy would complicate his career prospects, but he hadn’t expected “Seasonal Pumpkin Patch Maintenance – Night Shift Required” to be his best option at thirty-four. Still, the Craigslist ad had been specific: midnight to four AM, cash paid weekly, no questions asked about “alternative schedules or conditions.” The kind of job posting that understood some applicants had fur problems.
A Night Shift No One Warned Him About
The first night had gone smoothly. The patch sprawled across five acres of formerly rural land now squeezed between a storage facility and a dead shopping plaza, and his job was simple: harvest the remaining good pumpkins left scattered after the Halloween festival, document the inventory, and prep the field for winter cover crop. Easy work. Honest work. The kind of thing that wouldn’t look bad on a resume when he finally saved enough to finish his certification.
He’d cleared maybe a third of the patch that first night, collecting the still-viable pumpkins and stacking them in neat piles for the pickup truck. The work kept him focused, kept the wolf quiet. Opposable thumbs were useful for this kind of detail work—another reason to stay human, stay professional. By the time the moon started its descent, he’d felt that rare satisfaction of a job going well.
Night two, he’d arrived to find his carefully organized piles… diminished. Noticeably diminished. He’d walked the perimeter, checked for truck tracks, found nothing. Maybe the truck had come early? Maybe he’d miscounted in the dark? Confused, he’d shrugged it off and cleared another section, added to the remaining piles. Made a mental note of exactly how many pumpkins he’d processed.
Night three, the piles were smaller again. Definitely smaller.
When the Inventory Doesn’t Add Up
And this time, his boss—a perpetually annoyed man named Dale who ran the property management company—had been waiting for him with a clipboard and a scowl.
“The pickup driver’s been complaining,” Dale had said, not looking up from his paperwork. “Says your piles keep shrinking between when you document them and when he arrives at dawn. First night, no big deal. Second night, he mentions it. This morning? He’s asking if we’ve got a theft problem. You documented forty-seven pumpkins total. He’s loaded maybe thirty.“
“I am documenting them correctly—”
“Then where are they, Marcus?” Dale had finally looked at him, and Marcus had recognized that expression.
The same one the landlord wore when rent was late. The same one the DMV clerk wore when his license photo came out blurry. The universal look of someone assuming incompetence. “You’ve documented… forty-seven in three nights?”
“I’ve collected way more than that—”
“Well, they’re not in the piles, Marcus, so either you can’t count or you’re not doing your job. Either way, it’s coming out of your paycheck.”
Dale had climbed back into his truck, window rolling down for one final addendum: “And Marcus? I’ve got three other guys who applied for this gig. Figure it out, or I’ll find someone who actually can.”
The Pattern Continues
Marcus had spent the third night working with paranoid intensity, ears pricked for any sound, nose testing every breeze. Nothing. Just the usual decay-and-earth smell of a dying pumpkin patch, the distant hum of the interstate, the scuttle of rats in the storage facility’s walls. By dawn, he’d collected another forty pumpkins, stacked them meticulously, even taken photos with his phone as evidence.
He’d stood there for a solid five minutes, phone in hand, staring at photographic proof that someone—something—was stealing from piles he’d literally documented seven hours ago. His paycheck, already modest, was hemorrhaging. Dale would probably fire him anyway. And Marcus would be back to scrolling through job listings at 3 AM, looking for anything that didn’t require “daytime availability” or “professional references.”
The moon hung fat and amber over the patch, and Marcus felt that familiar heat in his blood, the wolf rising closer to the surface than he usually allowed on the job. His teeth ached. His fingernails felt too tight in their beds. Every sound came sharper—the rustle of dying vines, the distant traffic, his own heartbeat thundering in his ears. Professional. Stay professional. He’d forced himself to breathe, to think, to push the wolf back down where it belonged.
Night four, the stacks were smaller again.
If something was stealing the pumpkins during his brief absences—when he moved his truck, when he walked to the far end of the property—then maybe he needed to be less predictable.
The Pumpkin Thieves Reveal Themselves
He’d parked in a different spot, near the road instead of by the storage facility. He’d worked the eastern section first instead of his usual western approach. And around two AM, he’d made a show of loading tools into his truck bed, of checking his phone, of walking toward the property line as if taking a break.
Then he’d circled back, quietly, keeping to the shadows along the fence line.
That’s when he saw them.
Skeletons.
Actual, honest-to-god, animated skeletons rising from the soil between the pumpkins like the world’s worst surprise crop. Four of them, all bone and determination, converging on his neatly stacked piles with the focused intensity of seasoned thieves.
Marcus had frozen, his brain struggling to process the scene. The cemetery. The patch must be built over an old cemetery. Of course it was. Of course the one decent night job he’d landed in six months was on top of an actual graveyard.
Four nights.
Four nights of missing pumpkins.
Four nights of Dale’s accusations and docked pay.
Four nights of Marcus questioning his own competence, his attention to detail, his ability to do this one simple job.
And the whole time, it had been these bony freeloaders. These cemetery-dwelling, pumpkin-pilfering, paycheck-destroying thieves. And one skeleton was pointing its finger and laughing at him, like they’d pulled off the best pumpkin heist ever.
Professional Courtesy Ends Here
Something in Marcus’s chest went hot and tight. The wolf, already close to the surface, surged forward with a rage that was entirely human in origin. For once, Marcus didn’t push back. His hands shifted without conscious thought, fingers curling as bones cracked and reformed, claws sliding free where fingernails had been. His jaw began to ache with the pressure of changing teeth, canines lengthening, pushing past his lips. He didn’t fight it. Didn’t want to. Four nights of this. Four nights of being blamed, docked, doubted. Let the wolf handle it.
His truck sat twenty yards away. His chainsaw lay in the bed where he’d loaded it for show.
Marcus moved.
He cleared the distance in seconds, seized the chainsaw’s handle with hands that were rapidly becoming paws, and yanked the starter cord. The engine caught with a roar that shattered the autumn silence, and Marcus felt a savage satisfaction at the way the skeletons’ heads all snapped toward the sound.
He stalked toward the entrance of the patch proper—the gap in the low fence where he drove the truck through every night—and planted himself there. His lips pulled back from fangs that had nothing to do with professional courtesy. The chainsaw revved again, loud and promising, and in the back of his mind—half-human, half-wolf now—Marcus registered the fabric ripping across his shoulders, his boots splitting at the seams as his feet reshaped, his jeans straining against thickening legs. Fur rippled across his arms, his chest, his face. He probably looked absolutely deranged. He didn’t care. The wolf was in control now, and the wolf had a job to finish.
When the Wolf Takes Over
The first skeleton saw Marcus—dropped its pumpkin with a hollow thunk and bolted, its leg bones churning in a frantic scramble. As it burst past the skeleton that had been pointing and laughing, it shrieked in a voice like wind through a crypt:
“You said the night guy was harmless, Gary! That’s a WEREWOLF! Run!”
Gary stood near the center of the patch, pointing directly at Marcus with one bony finger extended, its jaw hanging open in skeletal laughter—until the finger slowly lowered as the reality of werewolf sank in. The third was caught in the act of hoisting a medium-sized pumpkin, frozen in Marcus’s direction, its empty sockets fixed on Marcus’s advancing form. The last struggled with a pumpkin easily twice its skeletal mass, clumsy finger bones scrabbling for purchase on the orange surface, repeatedly lifting and dropping it with the stubborn persistence of someone who refused to admit they’d bitten off more than they could chew.
Marcus stood at the entrance, blocking the obvious escape route, and revved the chainsaw several times, each rev louder and longer than the last. The moon painted everything in shades of orange and silver—the scattered pumpkins, the pale bones, his own fur catching the light. Four nights of missing inventory. Four nights of losses and blame.
Not tonight.
The skeletons were caught.
One last rational thought flickered: They stole my paycheck and mocked me for it. Bad choice… Gary.
Frothing, breathing heavy, the wolf was ready to pounce.
Then the chainsaw roared.
– Copyright © 2026
About These Toy Figures
This toy photography horror short story scene was photographed indoors.
- Veteran William(FuRay Planet) – A heavily detailed werewolf warrior figure with realistic proportions and articulation, making it ideal for dynamic horror and dark fantasy scenes.
- Graveyard Skeletons (Four Horsemen Studios) – The skeletal menaces featured in this story come from the Graveyard Skeletons line —These figures offer exceptional sculpting, articulation, and eerie presence—perfect for scenes of dark fantasy, Halloween horror, and supernatural storytelling.
- Pumpkins – 3D printed and painted with air brush and hand paint
