They say the dead don’t speak.
But they lie.
The dead speak—if you listen in the right places. In the silence between your heartbeats. In the gaps between thunder and lightning. In the dirt beneath your fingernails when you claw your way out of a nightmare.
Jeff heard it all now.
Every word.
Every whisper.
Every scream.
He didn’t remember how he got home. Or if it even was home.
When he awoke, he was in his bedroom. The familiar ceiling fan was spinning overhead. His uniform hung neatly on the closet door. The morning sun filtered through the curtains. A dream? Maybe.
He tried to laugh.
But the laughter died in his throat.
Because his feet were caked in dried mud.
His fingernails were packed with soil.
His shirtless chest was scratched with fingermarks.
Not his own.
He went to the bathroom and washed his hands until the skin peeled and the blood ran pink in the sink. He scrubbed his face raw. And still, in the foggy mirror, he saw Nadim’s face behind him.
Not his face exactly.
But his presence.
Watching.
Waiting.
That day, Jeff didn’t go to the station. He called in sick. Stayed home. Locked the doors. Drew the blinds. He poured half a bottle of whiskey into his coffee.
Ziniya’s face burned in his mind—how she screamed, how she burned. But the part that truly haunted him was the silence that followed. A silence that didn’t feel peaceful. It felt... hungry.
He needed air.
He needed to leave that apartment.
So he did.
But the world outside had changed.
The trees leaned closer.
The street dogs didn’t bark. They watched him. Their eyes were wide, and they knew.
The shopkeeper on the corner refused to take his money. Just stared at Jeff with a trembling lip.
“You... you’re the one who buried the foreigner,” the man whispered, backing away.
“I didn’t bury anyone,” Jeff snapped.
But he wasn’t so sure anymore.
That night, back in the apartment, he found something that hadn’t been there before.
A small, leather-bound book.
On his pillow.
No dust. No wear.
Just one word etched across the cover in gold:
"Ziniya."
His hands shook as he opened it.
Inside, pages of handwritten thoughts, confessions, drawings... and names.
Lots of names.
Men.
Dozens of them.
Crossed out.
Except one.
The last entry.
"Nadim. Married. Weak. Easy to poison. Disposal complete. Jeff next."
Jeff dropped the book.
It thudded to the floor like a falling body.
He ran to the kitchen.
Opened drawers. Checked every cabinet. Every bottle. Every grain of rice.
Everything she ever touched felt poisoned now.
He poured it all down the sink. Everything.
Then he sat on the floor, knees to his chest, and waited for sunrise.
But the sun never came.
Instead, the lights in the apartment began to flicker.
One by one.
Until only the hallway remained lit.
And in that hallway stood a shadow.
Tall.
Still.
Wearing a hat.
Jeff blinked.
It didn’t move.
So he whispered, “Nadim?”
And the shadow smiled.
Not a wide smile. Not human.
More like the slow curling of burnt parchment.
Then it moved.
The hallway light exploded as the shadow rushed forward.
Jeff screamed. Fell backward. Kicked at the door.
The shadow didn’t touch him.
But it whispered.
Three words.
“Come with me.”
Then it was gone.
Silence returned.
But it didn’t feel like a relief.
It felt like a warning.
He didn’t sleep that night.
And when the clock hit 3:17 AM—exactly one week after Nadim's death—Jeff's phone lit up.
Unknown Number.
He answered it, hands trembling.
Static.
Then a voice.
Low.
Choked with dirt.
“Do you miss her... or me?”
Jeff threw the phone across the room.
But it didn’t break.
It began ringing again.
Same number.
Same silence.
Same dirt-choked voice.
Same question.
All night.
The next morning, Jeff drove to the edge of Sana’a. Past the farms. Past the fields. Past the last gas station and into the wilderness.
To the graveyard.
The same one from his dream.
Only this time, it was real.
He walked through the rusted gate, boots crunching dead grass.
Gravestones everywhere.
But only one is fresh.
Only one with charred soil.
No marker.
No name.
Just the faint burn mark of a sentence, fading now.
"You never deserve better than me."
He knelt by it.
Put his hand on the earth.
It was warm.
And it pulsed.
Like a heartbeat.
Suddenly, something cold touched his shoulder.
He turned.
Nobody there.
But the air behind him shimmered—like heat above a fire.
And the trees began to groan.
He ran.
Again.
Always running.
But as he reached his car, something caught his eye in the rearview mirror.
His reflection was smiling.
But he wasn’t.
And the eyes?
They weren’t his.
They were Nadim’s.
There are two kinds of fear in this world. The first kind screams at you — slams the doors, flickers the lights, moans in the corners of the room. You know it when it comes.
The second kind is quieter. It follows you, invisible and polite, sits in your passenger seat, and eats from your plate. You don’t even know it’s there until it puts a hand on your shoulder and whispers, “You were never alone.”
That’s what Jeff Nasser was living now.
The quieter fear.
He tried to reclaim normal. That fragile mask of routine. Wake up. Brush teeth. Coffee. Try to forget the whispers on the phone. Try to pretend the mirror wasn’t smiling when he wasn’t.
But the apartment wouldn’t let him forget.
The shadows grew longer, even at noon. The reflection in his hallway mirror blinked at odd times — not when he blinked, but just after. The kitchen clock spun counterclockwise between 3:12 and 3:17 every single night.
And every night, at exactly 3:17 AM, his phone rang.
He never picked up again.
He didn’t need to.
Because the voice still came.
“I forgave her. But not you.”
By the fourth day, Jeff stopped sleeping.
His eyes sank into purple pits. His uniform hung loose on his frame. His colleagues muttered behind his back, wondering if the pressure had finally cracked him.
They didn’t know about the grave.
They didn’t know about the book.
They didn’t know about the dream that wasn’t a dream.
But Jeff knew.
And now, something new had begun.
The hauntings were no longer just visions.
Now… they touched.
It started with the bruises.
Small, blackish marks across his back. Thumbprints. Finger pressure. He woke up screaming the first night it happened, the air thick with the scent of burnt earth.
On the second night, something carved a word into his bathroom mirror.
“TRAITOR.”
On the third night, the window above his bed shattered — inward — and a single crow flew in, landed on his chest, stared into his eyes, and spoke.
Not a caw. Not a squawk.
It spoke.
“He’s waiting.”
Jeff couldn’t scream. Couldn’t breathe.
When he blinked, the crow was gone. But its claws had left four perfect red marks on his skin. He didn’t bandage them. What was the point?
He needed answers.
He returned to the leather-bound journal. Ziniya’s. He read every page.
And in the back, tucked behind the final entry, was something he hadn’t seen before.
A photo.
Nadim.
Standing beside Ziniya on their wedding night.
But the man next to her… wasn’t smiling.
His eyes were sunken. His mouth downturned. The whites of his eyes were slightly grey like something had already been taken from him.
Behind him, barely visible, stood a figure in black — a shadow, faint, but very real.
Jeff turned the photo over.
Written in faded ink:
“One must bury the body. But the soul chooses its own grave.”
He didn’t sleep again.
Not because of fear.
But because Nadim had started knocking.
At his door.
At 3:17 AM.
Every night.
Three soft knocks.
Then silence.
Then footsteps that never faded — just moved, room to room, slow and deliberate.
Then whispering behind the walls.
Then breathing beneath the bed.
Then… dragging sounds.
And finally… a voice from inside the closet:
“We’re not done yet.”
On the sixth day, Jeff drove to Riyad’s house — the lawyer friend who helped dismiss the case.
He found the front door open.
The inside was wrecked.
Furniture torn apart. Glass in pieces. Blood on the tiles.
And in the center of the living room, Riyad sat in a rocking chair — naked from the waist up, head tilted to the side, dead eyes open.
And carved into his chest, letter by letter:
“Buried truth bleeds last.”
Jeff vomited. Screamed. Called no one.
He didn’t leave the house.
Instead, he sat across from Riyad’s corpse and stared at it for hours.
Until dusk fell.
And he heard footsteps upstairs.
Slow.
Heavy.
Dragging something.
He rose, climbed the stairs like a man walking into his own execution.
The master bedroom door was ajar.
The dragging sound was louder now.
And then… he saw it.
Ziniya.
But not as he remembered her.
Her skin was blackened, charred, peeling like overcooked meat.
Her mouth was stretched unnaturally wide.
Her eyes — still beautiful — were filled with agony.
She was crawling toward him.
Fingers digging into the wooden floor, pulling herself inch by inch.
Behind her… fire.
Not flames, but light that burned.
Like hell was leaking through a crack in reality.
“Nadim…” she rasped. “Forgive me…”
Then she turned her head.
Saw Jeff.
And screamed.
“NO! YOU! YOU LET HIM DIE!”
The fire surged.
She lunged at Jeff.
But something yanked her backward.
A hand.
Pale. Bloody.
It pulled her into the fire.
And this time, she didn’t burn silently.
She wailed.
Like a mother losing her child. Like an animal caught in a trap.
Like a soul dragged into somewhere it knew it belonged.
Then…
Silence.
Smoke.
And a message, scratched into the wall above the bed:
“She was mine to judge.”
Jeff collapsed.
The house shook.
The lights went dark.
And from somewhere in the walls, Nadim’s voice whispered:
“Now it’s your turn.”
When Jeff awoke, he was back in his apartment.
Again.
But now… it was different.
The walls bled.
The floor groaned.
And every mirror showed a different room.
Not his.
Someone else’s.
Dark rooms. Rotten windows. Graves. Fires.
He was seeing every place Nadim had been buried.
Every dimension his soul had wandered.
Every hell Ziniya had fed him to.
And in the final mirror… Jeff saw himself.
Lying in a coffin.
Eyes open.
Smiling.
And behind him, Nadim — in the undertaker’s coat — closing the lid.
Then darkness.
Complete.
The End.
©️ Abrar Nayeem Chowdhury
Comments
Post a Comment