LATIFA, HIS EX-WIFE'S GHOST

Episode 14 FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN

Chapter 14

LADY JOAN'S POV

I was running.

I didn't know where or why, but every part of me cried out 'faster'

The corridor stretched on… narrow, dim, the walls pounding like lungs not breathing. My heels clicked on the greasy floor, sounding like automatic fire. Sticky stuff clung to my feet. Water? Blood? I didn't know.

"Mother…"

I stood rigidly.

The voice curled around my neck like smoke. Familiar. Unstoppable.

Joyce.

I turned… nothing. Nothing but darkness. But I could sense her. Watching. Tracking.

"Mother…" Closer. A whisper and an accusation.

And I saw her.

Standing at the end of the hall, as still as a statue.

Joyce.

Saturated, her hospital gown stuck to her like a wet shroud. Hair matted. Her skin pale…except for her eyes. Those burned with an empty light, something long past anger. Long past pain.

My heart tightened.

"You imprisoned me there", She said in a hushed voice. Almost sorrowfully. "You injected me, watching me scream…"

"I didn't…", I choked. "I didn't know it would occur like that."

She tilted her head. "But you allowed it"

I sprinted back down the corridor. Doors slammed shut to either side of me. Shutting off from me. The walls groaned, vibrated. Something metallic shrieked along the floor behind me; closer, closer.

Run, Joan. Don't look back.

But the corridor twisted back on itself, doubling up. The lights exploded above, one by one. The floor was unreal beneath your feet. Spongy. Ash-like.

And then. I fell over.

I hit the ground with a thud, palms screeching on shattered tiles. I tried to squirm free, but my fingers, ice-cold and unyielding; wrapped around my ankle.

I screamed.

She pulled me back. I kicked, flailed. but Joyce was now on top of me.

Alive. Fiercely. Undead.

Her fingers around my throat, squeezing. Her body pressing down.

I couldn't breathe.

Her face inches from mine. "You started the fire, Joan. You thought ashes could hide what you'd done"

Tears clouded my vision. "I didn't mean to…"

"But you did" She tightened her grip. "And now it's your turn to strangle"

My vision faded to black.

I awoke.

Gasping. Panting. Clawing at my throat.

The room was black, silent; too silent. My heart throbbed in my ears. I could still feel her hands.

I stumbled out of bed, nearly falling over my robe. I turned on every light in the room.

Then I saw me in the mirror.

My face… white. My eyes… wild.

And behind me…

No.

Nothing.

Just my guilt.

I sat on the end of the bed and talked to the darkness, "She's dead. It's over.".

But even as I said it, I knew that it wasn't.

My tears streaks down my burning cheeks, my phone glowing in my trembling hands. Zack's words haunted like a curse:

"We buried the wrong woman"

I pressed my slik down. Shaking hands.

Joyce.

I breathed the name as if it might summon a ghost. My knuckles were locked white around the corner of my duvet. That face. Latifa's face haunted me. The way Zack had spoken, the quiver in his voice at a truth he was afraid to say.

I pressed a button on my phone.

"Dial Nurse Mary"

The phone rang once. Twice.

Voicemail.

I swore and redialed. No answer once more. I phoned Nurse Sally. Voicemail. I phoned Dr. Handerson. Disconnected.

My perfectly pedicured hand shook as I slammed the phone onto the glass table. "Cowards," I panted. "All of them."

I leapt up and strode, heels clicking with frustration. My reflection in the tall glass cabinet made me catch a glimpse of myself. A woman in silk pajamas, falling apart.

Zack's voice returned, as rough as broken glass.

"She never begged. She was drugged. She was trying to speak, and we didn't listen"

My feet come to a halt.

My mind remembering the last time I saw Joyce; white, still in that hospital bed, her eyes hardly open. The woman who once talked back to boardroom giants with a word, now slurring through sedatives. I had looked at her and thought, 'What a shame'.

Now that girl might have lived. And worst, she might be back.

I dialed my phone again, called Engr Dona… the man who had handled the records, the silence, the sealed doors.

It rang.

Once. Twice. Five times.

Voicemail.

"Bastard", my heart somersaulted, breath clenched.

I did not leave a message. I glared at the screen, my hand slowly dropping. "Don't you dare disappear now," I snarled.

I stood up and walked over to my desk drawer and pulled out a thin folder. Joyce's file. Inside, everything was marked: locked status, fabrication of mental history, the forged DNA result.

All of it paid for.

And now it was all coming apart.

My eyes shut, holding the folder against my chest. My breath caught. For the first time in years, I was afraid.

Not being caught. Not of Zack's anger.

But Joyce. The girl has a mean streak.

Because if Joyce had survived that room… if she had battled her way out of silence… she wouldn't come back to forgive.

She would come back to burn everything to ashes.

Paper files tremble in my hand as I glance at the photo of Zack and Joyce on the mantelpiece. My hand still hovers above my phone.

"I need to call the other nurses", my trembling hand pongs on the phone.

"Hello?"

Finally

My voice was low, curt, "This is Lady Joan Dutchman. You were working in the staff at Brightridge Clinic three years ago. East wing. Do you remember a patient… Joyce Dutchman."

Telephone silence. Then a nervous reply.

"Yes, ma'am… I remember."

"She's dead. I've buried her. But now the DNA altered. Explain that to me". I said, steadying my breathing

"...They informed me she'd never wake up. That she was brain-dead following the last injection. I…. I don't know anything else."

I grip the armrest.

"Who gave the last shot?"

"Dr. Clive. She claimed it was on orders from above."

My gaze blazes. Orders from above. From me.

I hung up. Call another.

The phone rang. And then.

"Ma'am?"

"

"Was there something out of the ordinary in her room that day? Any other bodies found, alive or not?".

No, ma'am. Only one and it was terribly burned. They identified her by a ring and necklace. We were told it was your daughter in-law"

I hung up

My hand trembles now. My nerves, pounding. I whispered softly, to myself, "But what if it wasn't" my instinct overpowers me. "What if she got away…. but how?”

Fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of what Joyce will do. My reflection in the mirror is ten years older.

The nightmare. What's it for?. I haven't had any since she died…

I shouldn't let her catch me.

"If that girl survives. if she's on the street loose. I won't allow her to reverse what I have built. I won't fail now. I'm the main boss"

I grabbed my phone again. I call another person this time. A fixer.

"Find Dr. Clive. Before anyone else."

I scrolled through my contacts a second time, passing by the nurses. My thumb paused over another name; Proff. Thai. He had been the voice in the shadows. He was a master at erasing messes. He had once guaranteed no trace, no trail.

I dialed.

He picked up on the third ring.

"Joan." His deep, guarded voice. No hello. Only tension.

"Proff," I tried to sound normal. "We have a problem."

There was no immediate response. Then "Zack knows, doesn't he?"

I breathed hastily. "He suspects."

"He sounded like it, when he called here. What about the body? You're saying that girl in the fire… wasn't Joyce?"

"I don't know anymore. But my instincts tell me she wasn't", I snarled. "And the nurses I bribed… none of them are answering. I've been ringing all night."

There was silence.

Then Proff. Thai's voice dropped, like a guy dodging a bomb. "Joan… what about Miriam?"

My heart caught. My lips parted.

For a moment, I kept mute.

"Miriam's body was not found," he continued. "You said she didn't survive. We only found one body in the fire… The girl with the ring who we believe is your daughter-in-law."

I sat back down, stiffly. My legs were suddenly weakening. "She was nuts," I grumbled. "She was supposed to have died in that fire."

"She was a smart woman, Joan. A thinker. If she's alive…" His tone turned sinister. "You think Joyce is your issue? Miriam has ten times the brain."

"I know," I snapped.

But the words made my stomach twist.

Joyce had been the heart. The symbol. The woman Zack loved.

But Miriam was the shadow. The mind. The one who waited and watched.

And if both of them were alive?

Then all the things I had built. my reputation, my status, my family's power, even Zack's business with the Prime Minister's granddaughter.

Were at risk.

She will come back for her son. Her position…

Proff. Thai broke the silence again.

"If I were you, I'd stop calling ghosts. And start praying they don't knock first."

The line went dead

I placed the phone down slowly.

This time, my hand shook so hard I couldn't hide it.

Miriam!. My step-sister?.