We went back to the room with the florescent hum and the bugs which kept me company. I turned on the monitor to cycle through the feed.

"There!" Radhika pointed at the hazy figure on the screen as it walked towards the cemetery.

My blood ran cold.

"Are you sure it's her? How can you tell?"

"I don't know. But I know it's her."

"Ok. Stay here." I told her.

I had not not rewound the footage. It was live. The figure she pointed to was heading into the cemetery at that moment.

"Why should I stay?"

"Umm, so the scary ghosts won't bother you. I'll go check your gravestone out. See if it's been tampered with."

"Tampered?"

"To see if she messed around with it."

"Oh, ok. I'll stay." She said, sitting on my chair.

I changed the monitor feed to show footage from three days ago before heading out. She did not need to know her killer was here again. And that I was about to face her.

I opened the door of the dingy office, ignoring the ghosts that had hoped to catch me off guard completely, and headed to the cemetery.

And then had an idea.

I headed back to the ghosts before they wandered away.

"I know someone else you can scare." I said.

They looked at me, quizzically.

I continued, "I know sometimes, when the conditions are right, the living can see you as well. Like how I can see you."

One of them tilted their heads, a jerky motion that would have startled me because of how unnatural it was. But their unnatural tendencies were something I was very used to.

"Will those conditions be right tonight?" I asked.

The continued staring, more expectantly.

"There's a woman. A killer, potentially. She's here in the cemetery tonight." I started, and the ghost that had pointed to me with unhinged jaws earlier pointed at the direction of the woman who was entering the cemetery.

"Yes! Her. Well. I am going to go talk to her. And if things seem to take a turn for the worst, I want you all to come in. Scare her. Terrify her to the point she'll never set foot here again."

They continued staring, their ghostly faces impassive.

"Right. Wish me luck." I said to no one of them in particular before walking towards Radhika's gravestone.

The woman had just arrived, and was standing over the gravestone looking down at it. Her back was to me, and my heart was pounding faster than it had ever done in my life.

This was a bizarre predicament for me to put myself in.

But it was not fair to Radhika that her killer was here. At her final resting place, perversing the place with her presence. Not to mention the effect she being her would have on a child.

I happened to be someone who could do something about it. And I would.

"Excuse me." I called, and she jumped, turning to face me, wide-eyed and gasping.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm the caretaker. Sorry to startle you, but the automatic sprinklers usually go off at this time. Thought you ought to know." I lied.

"Huh? Oh."

"Was she your relative?" I asked, looking down at the gravestone.

"Huh, no. She... No, she wasn't."

"How'd she pass, if you don't mind me asking? I don't recall seeing anyone coming to her grave before."

She stared at me, as if sizing me up. My muscles started tensing.

"She... I... I killed her." She said, and I took a step back. I was expecting lies.

"Wh-what?"

"I was twelve. She was my neighbour. I... I don't know. I keep playing that scene over and over in my head. It's... I can't. I'm sorry." She started walking away, leaving me thoroughly confused.

I saw the shapes in the trees watching her movement. I shook my head at them, before running up to catch up with her.

"Hey, what do you mean?" I asked.

"Where do you get off? Mind your own goddamn business."

"Where do I get off? You just admitted to murder."

"Yeah, and I did my time for that. For more than a decade. I thought coming here would give me... Something. I don't know. This was a mistake. I came here yesterday, but wussed out. I came here today, and you decided to come talk to me. I don't know what I wanted to accomplish. I don't know what I thought this would accomplish."

"Why don't you talk to me about it."

"Why?"

"I don't know. Talking about things helps. And so you won't have to leave feeling like this didn't accomplish anything."

She stared at me, again.

"I'll pass," She said, walking away, "and next time, don't come up behind people like that."

I mentally slapped myself. I was not the best at social situations. There was a reason I worked the night shift and wanted to be with the company of the dead.

"You strangled her to death. Why?" I called.

That stopped her on her tracks.

"How do you know that?"

"I... Read the papers involving her death."

"No. You've been acting weird since the moment I met you. How do you know that and what the fuck do you want from me?" She turned to face me.

"Was it... Were you both playing? Did you take it too far?"

"Seriously, why do you care?"

"I want to understand how it happened."

"Why? Again, why do you care?"

"Because I don't want you to be here. At Radhika's final resting spot, tainting it with your presence. If you want to—"

"Who are you? Are you related to her?"

"No. But... She... It doesn't matter."

[Will continue later]

Death was no stranger to me. I was surrounded by it growing up. As a child my village was ravaged by war that we had no say in, no real part in. When I got out, when I got to a better place, I still chose lines of work that dealt with death. I was emergency medical technician, I was a mortuary assistant, I was a cemetery caretaker.

All my life I surrounded myself with death. It was not on purpose at first, of course. But somehow I was drawn to it. And it to me. The dead liked me, and in some ways I liked them. Because the dead told stories of truth. The dead did not lie. And that was comforting for me.

Maybe I should have gone to therapy earlier in life. So I would deal with things more healthily. But I was fine where I was. Working nights, away from people. It was quiet where I was. And I liked the quiet.

The cemetery was filled with ghosts.

The whole country was, brimming with phantoms and echoes of the past that anyone could see if they chose to look. Young, old, innocent, guilty. People. At the end of the day, that was all they were, all they were used to be. People.

Each with their story to tell, should they remember it.

I sat on the rickety office chair, filling out a building defect checklist to hand in the next day. I could hear the hum of the florescent light above me, a low, uninterrupted noise that provided the backbone of the symphony of buzzing from the autumn insects that flitted around this singular light source.

I put the list away, and looked out the window. I could see them, the shapes that wandered. Some aimlessly, some with purpose, some that just stood, watching. I knew there would be a few outside my door, waiting for me. They liked to stare. They liked to think they were creepy, trying to scare me. Some liked to do that, when they realised they could be seen. They liked to perceived as frightening. As if in their boredom all they had was this.

Most of them usually ignored everything. They stuck close to where they passed, or close to a loved one. They also liked to watch the living, but in a passive, mildly longing way.

But some were talkative. Especially when they found someone who could hear them and talk back.

Radhika was nine years old. She was strangled to death according to her autopsy. No killer was ever found, and her family mourned her deeply.

She was also at the window, looking urgently at me and beckoning.

I put the checklist on the drawer and left the room, being greeted by the scary ones at the door. They were looming, one of the door frame, one hovering a few meters in front of me, pointing at me with jaws opened impossibly wide. One was crawling towards me rapidly, breathing raspily and erratically.

I gave them all an awkward smile, sidestepped the crawling ghost and went to meet up with Radhika.

"They don't like that." She told me, looking at theghosts outside my door.

"Huh?" I asked.

"They're supposed to be the scary ones. But you're not scared of them. They don't like that." She said, worriedly.

"Are you scared of them?" I asked.

"Yeah. They're... They follow you. Not just you. They follow everyone. And even if the person they're following can't see them, they can feel them there. And it's not nice. Why are they like that?"

"I don't know. I can only guess that they're bored."

We both stared at the three ghosts that had tried to scare me. They were slowly dispersing, and I could feel their disappointment.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Oh! I saw her! I saw the woman who killed me yesterday! I wanted to tell you but Jeeva was the one working. And he can't see me."

"Wait, you saw her?"

Radhika nodded, eyes wide.

"Is she going to kill me again? Does she know I'm a ghost? Does she want to kill me when I'm a ghost?" Radhika was trembling.

I wanted to hold her, comfort her. But that was not the prerogative of the living.

"No, Radhi. She can't hurt you anymore."

"Then why did she come here? She was looking for me, right?"

"For your gravestone. Maybe to see where you were buried."

"But why?"

"I'm sorry, Radhika. I don't know."

"But she was here. She was here last night. Maybe she'll come again today."

"Come, let's look at our camera to see what she looked like."