02 // Graveyard Shift

The storm was heavy. Driving was impossible. Others waited for the storm to calm down, but others just wanted to drive home and get it over with as water flowed through the streets like a river. Most people feared for their lives remembering the flood that had occurred earlier in the year, taking people and cars with it. 

MAITLAND, Woltemade Cemetery in Cape Town looked like one of those graveyards in horror movies because of the storm, but it was not that bad when you looked closer. The only thing that made it bad was that in those graves laid people’s loved ones who passed away from different causes. But maybe it was also good because some people found healing where their loved ones lay, that is where they preferred pouring their hearts out, and some found pleasure and joy in cleaning the graves now and then. 

The water from the heavy rain flowed recklessly through the ground, some flowing into the few graves that were yet to be used. Despite the intensity of the storm, the graveyard caretaker decided to patrol the place. Something had urged him to look around.  

He stood at a distance with his umbrella and watched her as she stared into the hole galloping with water. She was in nothing but a drenched maroon cocktail dress that clung to her body due to the heavy rain, and yet, she stood there unmoving, not even a single muscle on her body flinching. 

She looked like a statue. Unblinking. Lifeless and still. It was as if she was frozen in time. Time of life, horrors, and death. 

"I didn't expect you to come back here!" He shouted over the noise of the flowing water and rainfall, but MJ did not move. He walked over to her and held the umbrella over her head, the sound of the rainfall on the umbrella drowning the silence. 

The man did not understand what she was doing there. Why would she come back after everything she's been through? Why would she come to the cemetery after midnight? Weren't normal people scared of the songs of the dead – the dread that came after midnight? 

"I had to see it." MJ muttered hollowly, her gaze locked on the hole a few steps away from her. She wanted to know the truth. She knew she had enemies, many of those who would do anything to see her six feet under. Ironically, that's what one of them had achieved, but with no intention to kill her at all. 

It was a warning, a message to remind her that she was mortal and that soon, she would be buried for good. 

MJ had not built and expanded her business on sweet and friendly gestures. She did everything it took to get whatever she wanted, and she achieved that by treading on enemy lines. She had many enemies and less friends, and over the years, as far as revenge went, they came after her businesses. 

Billings Corporations had gone through attacks after attacks; bank robberies, money theft from the company, client poaching, property vandalism, leaking of designs and new brands, but it had never gotten this far.  

Billings Corporations was a multipurpose company that entailed fashion, banking, construction, real estate, restaurants, hotels, and transportation; which made it easier for people to attack her because she was competing with almost everyone on the market. 

People hated her, but it had never escalated to murder attempts. She should have paid more attention when that black car drove past her opposite Parker's Enterprises, but she was blinded by her anger and resentment when she left Parker's Enterprises after her feud with both Logan and her brother. 

Perhaps that was the first warning, but she did not pay attention to it. And then there was the text from an unknown number informing her that Meryl Anderson was a fraud, but that turned out to be a bluff. 

But it did not make sense. Nothing made sense. Why did they wait until she was in Cape Town? Was she destructible when she was this side? Did she do something to make her enemies to believe that she was not all that? 

She needed answers, but most of all, she needed to know who did this to her. All her life she had messed with people around the world; in Mexico, England, Australia, New York, and now in Cape Town. The faces of Logan, David, Carmen, Kyle, Snegugu, Sonya, Anita, and Jorge floated in front of her eyes as she tried to put a face to her murderer. 

But it didn't matter, because whoever it was, she was going to put an end to them. She would finish off what they started and this time, they were the ones going six feet under. 

"You said you knew the people who brought me here." 

The man sighed and shook his head in disapproval. "Yes, I do."  

Silence stretched as they stood there and stared at the empty hole. After some time, MJ stepped a bit forward so that she was standing at the edge of the pit which was filled with water.  

"Can this get any deeper?" She asked, and the man gave her a perplexed look. 

"W–what?" 

"Can you go beyond six feet?" 

"Y–yes." 

"Great, then make it 12 feet, but make sure that nobody finds out about it." She turned around and walked over to him, and then she reached for her leather purse and took out a cheque. "This should be more than enough to get you what you need to reach that 12 feet." She handed him the cheque, and he stared at it wide-eyed. "Do this one thing for me, and I'll set you for life."  

The graveyard keeper stood there and stared at her silhouette as if trying to figure out if she was human. He did not need to ask why she wanted the hole dug deeper; he knew what she was planning, and after witnessing her being dumped into the grave and left there to die, he did not blame her. 

"They say the dead don't speak, but by looking into your lifeless eyes only and listening to the coldness in your voice...I'm starting to think otherwise. I don't know you, but I believe you died long before they buried you," He said as he stuffed the cheque into his raincoat pocket. 

MJ's gaze shifted back to the grave with contempt. "I died long before I was even born." 

"MJ!" A voice called from farther behind, somewhere around the gate. 

MJ sighed and turned to the graveyard keeper. "I have one more job for you, my numbers are on here." She handed him her business card. "Call me as soon as possible," She said before she walked away and out into the night.