Wicked Mother-in-Law Burned Daughter-in-Law, But I See Ghosts!

I was born with the eyes that see both worlds, and it's brought me twenty-odd years of nothing but trouble.

In school, I mistook the gentle woman ghost at the lectern for the teacher and spent years listening to gossip from the land of the dead.

Come final exams, I scored a zero in every subject, and a doctor nearly treated me for brain damage.

After I started working, a woman ghost who threw herself off the rooftop over and over latched onto me and forced me to expose the animal of a boss who'd killed her.

The boss went to prison. I got blacklisted across the entire industry.

So I hid myself away in a newly built residential complex where no one had ever died, took a job monitoring the fire-control room, and drifted along.

But the night the hurricane made landfall, two people burst into the control room.

"My daughter-in-law's going into early labor! The ambulance can't get through. You have to drive her to the hospital, now!"

I was about to say, isn't your daughter-in-law standing right behind you, perfectly fine?

Then I saw the woman's face, gray-white, her tongue hanging out the corner of her mouth, her whole body burned to black ash.

I turned toward the control console on instinct, and only then remembered that the fire monitoring for Building Six, where she lived, was down for emergency repairs.

Something felt wrong. I pulled out my phone at once to call 911.

Willow James's face changed in a flash, and she smashed both my phone and the pager in my hand.

The woman ghost behind her suddenly cried out.

"She stole the backup batteries from the fire alarm system downstairs, and the batteries caught fire out of nowhere and burned the apartment down!"

"The whole building's about to go up in flames! She and that animal son of hers want you off your post so they can pin every death in the fire on you!"

...

Seeing me stand frozen in the control room, Willow's droopy, hard-cornered eyes went wide, and she clamped onto my hand.

"What are you standing there for?"

"My daughter-in-law's waiting at the south gate, her water already broke! Get the maintenance vehicle and drive her to the hospital, hurry!"

Before I could get a word out, the woman behind her shook her head, weeping.

Her charred finger pointed toward Building Six.

"Don't listen to her garbage. By the time they dragged me out of the apartment I was already choked dead by the smoke. Those two animals, mother and son, saw how big the fire was, and since it was their own battery theft that killed the fire alarm, they don't dare call it in."

"Get people to put out the fire, hurry, the wind's too strong out there, and if you don't go the whole building's going to burn!"

"If you go with them, they'll say you abandoned your post when the fire started, and then they'll try to shake your property company down for money!"

Hearing her out, my chest went cold. I turned again, going for the backup cabinet in the fire-control room to grab the landline.

Willow rushed over and yanked the phone cord clean out of the wall.

Watching her cut my last link to the outside world, I felt my scalp crawl with fury. I spun around, jerked the drawer open, grabbed the emergency flashlight and the smoke hood, shoved the door open, and started for Building Six.

Willow saw what was in my hands, and her face changed.

"What are you taking those for? Can't you understand a word I'm saying? My daughter-in-law's about to give birth, the ambulance can't come in the hurricane, and if you don't drive us to the hospital someone's going to die!"

I looked at the phone and pager she'd smashed on the floor, and a hot surge of anger shot up in me. I shoved her aside.

"Get out of my way! I'm going to Building Six right now!"

The second she heard I was headed to Building Six, she grabbed at my hand in a panic.

"No! You can't go!"

"Why can't I? The fire alarm and the fire monitoring in Building Six are both dead. I'm the fire-control operator. I'm doing my job, going to inspect. Why shouldn't I go?"

I lifted my head and looked at her, my eyes locking straight onto hers, and she dropped her gaze at once, guilty.

I had no patience left for her. The thought of my coworker who'd gone to Building Six minutes ago to fix the backup generator, still no word from him, kept swelling the unease in me.

But I'd taken barely two steps when Willow, like she'd gone mad, dropped to the floor and clawed at my legs for all she was worth.

"My daughter-in-law's at the south gate! What are you going to Building Six for?"

"I... you... it's completely normal to lose power and monitoring in a hurricane. My daughter-in-law's about to die of a bad birth right at the complex gate. Why does your property company have to be so rigid about this!"

Lives were on the line. Frantic, I kicked her off me to break free of her grip.

"If she's giving birth, why doesn't your son drive her himself? Get out of the way!"

My kick knocked Willow sprawling to the floor, and in the dim light I saw the venom on her face, plain as day, not hidden at all.

"The hurricane's this bad, he can't drive! Your property company takes our management fees. Helping us out on a hurricane night is the most normal thing in the world!"

Willow stuck to me like a burr, clinging behind me, shoving me toward the opposite direction.

I couldn't hold the anger down any longer. I raised the flashlight, ready to knock her out cold.

And in that instant, the control room door was pushed open again.

Anthony Whitney walked in soaked to the skin, took one look at the scene, and rounded on me.

"Clara Swanson! Have you lost your mind? You dared to hit a resident?"

The second Willow James heard him, she threw herself at him, sobbing, and actually knocked her forehead against the floor a few times.

"Supervisor Whitney, you're a good man, good things come to good people, I'm begging you, just have this Clara girl drive my daughter-in-law to the hospital. She's in early labor, if she doesn't get there soon she could hemorrhage!

"In a hurricane, the ambulance can't even get out! Otherwise I'd never have swallowed my pride and come begging her!

"She says she has work and can't leave, refuses to help me no matter what. Please, just let her take me to the hospital first, I promise I'll send her right back, it won't hold up her job at all!"

Willow's tearful accusation only stoked the fire in Anthony.

"Clara Swanson! Are you really this thick-headed? A life is on the line. The hurricane already knocked out the power and the phones, and don't think I don't know you park yourself in the fire-control room slacking off. Why can't you drive a resident to the hospital?"

The more Anthony said, the angrier he got. He yanked the car keys off his belt and shoved them into my arms.

"Go take them, now! I'll watch the fire-control room, nothing's going to happen!"

I didn't take the keys.

"Building Six is at the very back of the complex. The backup power for the cameras and the fire alarms has been offline for half an hour."

"A minute ago I smelled burnt plastic on Willow James, and she has burns on her hands."

"The electrician who went to Building Six for repairs hasn't answered either. I have to get to the scene right now."

Anthony scoffed.

"I just came back from Building Six. Not a damn thing wrong!"

"No smoke in the basement, no fire in the lobby. The backup power's dead, so what?"

He held up his phone and his pager as he spoke.

"I even talked to the maintenance electrician just now."

"He's down in the Building Six basement fixing it and says everything's fine!"

At that, the tension visibly drained from Willow's shoulders.

She jabbed a finger at me at once.

"You hear that? Supervisor Whitney says there's nothing wrong, and you're still standing here scaring people!"

But my eyes were locked on the devices in Anthony's hands.

My phone, my pager, and the landline were all destroyed.

If I could just grab one of them, I could call for help.

I lunged, but before my fingers even touched the phone, a figure came charging out of the dark beyond the door.

"Supervisor Whitney, look out!"

Willow's son, Dominic Chavez, slammed hard into Anthony.

The phone and the pager both flew out of his hands.

Two sharp cracks.

The phone hit the floor, the screen shattering instantly.

The pager rolled straight into the standing water outside the door, and a harsh burst of static came from it.

I faintly heard someone shouting.

"Fifth floor, Building Six... smoke, something's wrong..."

Before I could make it out, the sound cut off completely.

Dominic put on a face full of panicked apology.

"I'm sorry! I was in such a hurry! My wife's still waiting at the south gate, and the second I thought she might have complications, I couldn't think about anything else!"

Then he dropped to his knees in front of me.

"Miss Swanson, I'm begging you! Supervisor Whitney has to hold down the rear, keep every resident in this complex safe through the hurricane. We wouldn't dare pull him away."

"You're the only one here who can do it, just drive my wife to the hospital! I don't have a license, I don't have a car, I've got nowhere else to turn."

His words dripped with helplessness, but his body just happened to block my path to the pager.

I was already frantic, my head splitting, and I was about to explode.

Then the female ghost beside me let out a cold laugh.

"This animal knew all along that Anthony Whitney has no fire-control certification. He can't operate the alarm equipment at all."

"They kept that useless man behind on purpose. They're dead set on tricking you away!"

"If you leave, this complex is going to have plenty of vengeful spirits clinging to you by tonight. It's one in the morning, after all, the hour everyone's sleeping deepest."

I looked at Dominic kneeling on the floor. His clothes were soaked, and the same layer of black ash coated his arms as it did Willow's.

Melted plastic clung to the bottoms of his shoes.

This mother and son really had just run out of a fire.

The thought of the hundreds of residents in Building Six still fast asleep, the thought that if a fire killed people I might spend the rest of my life haunted by hundreds of vengeful ghosts, set my head buzzing with rage.

Anthony, meanwhile, thrust his belly out, smug, and kept trying to press the car keys into my hand.

"Quit dragging your feet! Can you answer for it if someone dies?"

"Even the residents know I'm the most important person in this complex's property management. Are you too stupid to get that, you idiot? Get moving!"

I grabbed the keys and hurled them straight into his face.

"You're the idiot. In a minute these two animals are going to sell you out and you won't even know what hit you!"

Anthony clutched his nose and howled.

The second he saw I meant it, that I was really leaving, Dominic lunged at me.

"How dare you hit people!"

"Things are this urgent and your boss already signed off on you driving us to the hospital, out of basic human decency, because lives are on the line! Now come with us!"

I looked at those upturned, slitted eyes, the exact copy of Willow's, and something in my stomach turned over. I stopped holding back and drove my foot straight into his gut.

Dominic went down, knocking a chair over with him.

I spun, grabbed Anthony by the collar, and slammed him down hard against the desk.

"You just said you talked to the electrician on the phone. So tell me. What's his name?"

His eyes flicked away.

"How am I supposed to remember exactly!"

"There was only one electrician on the maintenance call at Building Six tonight, and his name is Grant Finch!"

I punched him in the face.

"Except Grant Finch's pager ID went offline half an hour ago!"

"So who were you actually talking to?"

Blood filled his mouth. Cornered and furious, he screamed.

"Clara Swanson! You're fired!"

I wasn't wasting another word on someone this stupid. I turned and ran for the door.

Behind me, Willow's voice came, thick with venom.

"You're not leaving here today!"

The next second, a chair crashed into my back.

The pain exploded all at once.

I stumbled into the doorframe, and something hot and metallic surged up my throat.

The ghost caught me, alarmed.

"Aren't you afraid they'll come after you?"

"This family are experts at flipping the blame!"

I gritted my teeth, steadied myself, and ran hard for Building Six, throwing the words back over my shoulder.

"This whole complex could lose power for a month and the fire-control room feeds would still keep running."

"It's wired to an independent diesel backup. Everything that just happened in there is on tape."

"And the local feeds in the Building Six underground equipment room, from before the power cut, can be recovered too. They'd better pray the fire hasn't spread, because if it has, those two animals are the first thing I put in the ground."

Behind me, Willow was still shrieking, hysterical.

"Bitch! You're all bitches!"

Through the downpour, I half caught it, and I couldn't believe it, Willow was already turning back to her idiot son.

"Sweetheart, let's hurry and have Supervisor Whitney take us to the hospital. We really can't afford the delay, we have to move fast."

The wind hurled rain into my face, and every time my back shifted, the pain was like a bone snapping.

But I didn't dare stop. Building Six sat at the deepest end of the complex.

I'd barely rounded Building Five when I saw the smoke rising thick out of the dark.

Above the fifth floor, the outer wall already glowed red with firelight.

Wind poured in through the broken windows, and flames climbed the exterior in long tongues, higher and higher.

My heart dropped. I ran straight for the door of Building Six.

The first-floor corridor was solid smoke, and the manual alarm button on the wall showed no light at all.

I found the mechanical button from memory and pressed it hard.

Even the building-wide mechanical fire bell was dead.

Beside me the ghost was frantic too, cursing through tears.

"My mother-in-law used to prop the fire door open with a brick all year so she could haul her plastic bottles through easier. After you people warned her about it a few times, she held a grudge. I only found out after I died, she went behind your backs this very morning and wrecked every mechanical fire alarm bell on every floor!"

No time to think. I turned and ran into Building Five next door and hit the fire alarm for the whole building.

Sirens tore through the air all at once.

A ground-floor resident heard the noise and opened his door, and I grabbed the phone right out of his hand.

"Let me borrow this!"

Before he could react I'd already dialed 911.

"Building Six at Brookhaven Residences is on fire!"

"The fire alarm system and the backup power are both dead, and the upper-floor residents are still asleep! This is extremely urgent!"

The dispatcher answered fast.

"Trucks are already rolling."

"Do not enter the smoke on your own. Get the people around you evacuated now!"

I hung up and ran for the emergency equipment box at the door of Building Five.

Inside was the bullhorn property kept for flood emergencies. I grabbed it and ran back into the rain, and with everything I had I shouted toward Building Six.

"Building Six is on fire! Everyone wake up, now!"

"Floors one through four, once you've confirmed the corridor is clear of smoke, take the safety stairs out. Do not, under any circumstances, use the elevator!"

"Fifth floor and above, do not open your doors yet!"

"Feel the door handle first. If there's smoke outside or the door is hot, keep it shut tight! Stuff the gaps with wet towels and clothing, and shut off your gas and power!"

Then, one after another, the screams started up in the Building Six corridors.

Somewhere above, a window shoved open and a woman was sobbing.

"Help! The stairwell's full of smoke! I've got a kid in here!"

"There's an old man passed out on the eighth floor! The fire hose is dumped all over the stairwell, we can't get ourselves out!"

I answered every one of them through the bullhorn.

"Keep your doors shut! Do not open your door and run downstairs!"

"The fire trucks are already here. Go to your balcony and wave something bright so the firefighters can see where you are!"

Residents from Building Five started coming out to help, one after another.

Someone brought more flashlights. Someone else turned on their car headlights to light up the fire lane.

Others went down the list, calling relatives and neighbors in Building Six, waking up the people still asleep inside.

In under ten minutes the fire trucks finally roared into the complex, and I met them with Building Six's resident registry in hand.

The firefighters split into teams and went in at once.

An hour later, the blaze was finally under control.

The residents trapped on balconies and in bathrooms were brought down one by one.

Some had passed out from the smoke. Some had panicked, bolted into the stairwell, and come out burned head to foot.

But by some mercy, aside from the daughter-in-law Willow claimed was "in obstructed labor by the south gate," no fatalities had turned up yet.

When the firefighters checked unit 501, though, they found the place empty.

There were clear burn marks in the bedroom, and a smear of blood dragged across the floor from the room to the door.

I stared at that drag mark, and the cold in my chest kept spreading.

Right then, the power company crew that had been out repairing storm-damaged lines got the complex's electricity restored, and the lights in Building Six, dark for so long, finally came on window by window.

Everyone was so wrung out they just sank to the ground where they stood.

I thought we could finally breathe. Then a scream cut through the crowd.

"Clara Swanson! You're the killer they're talking about on the news! Did you start this fire tonight too?!"

A Building Six resident shoved a phone in my face.

On the screen was a live broadcast from the early-morning emergency news.

In a hospital corridor, Willow was crying so hard she looked ready to faint.

"My daughter-in-law was only twenty-six! Eight months pregnant, and her water broke all of a sudden. I begged the property company to get her to a hospital!"

"But that fire-control operator wouldn't help. She beat up our whole family instead!"

"She held us up a whole hour. By the time my daughter-in-law reached the hospital, she was already gone!"

Dominic knelt outside the emergency room, slapping himself across the face.

"It's all my fault, I'm useless! I can't even drive. Otherwise I'd never have begged her to save my wife in a storm like that, and she told us worthless owners like us deserved to die!"

The camera cut, and there was Anthony, of all people, sitting on a hospital bench.

His face was bruised and swollen, his eyes blank.

A reporter held a microphone up to him.

"Supervisor Whitney, did Clara Swanson refuse to help the pregnant woman?"

Anthony went quiet for a few seconds, then said in a low voice.

"I did tell her to get the person to a hospital first. But she refused, and she kept stalling while we tried to bring the mother in for treatment."

"She hit us too, then walked off the fire-control room on her own."

The comments under the broadcast scrolled by like wildfire.

Lets people die and beats them up on top of it. How does someone like that get a fire-control job?

No wonder the fire got that big before anyone noticed. The operator was definitely hiding somewhere playing games!

Not one alarm in the whole building went off. Maybe she just switched them off because they annoyed her!

A pregnant woman and a baby, two lives. She has to go to prison!

The residents who'd just been rescued closed in around me too.

"The fire was already up to the eighth floor before you noticed. What were you even doing all night?"

"We pay all those property fees every month just to feed someone like you?"

"If you hadn't shut off the alarms, we wouldn't have nearly died in our own homes!"

Someone chucked a water bottle at me. Someone else aimed a phone at my face, livestreaming.

"Everyone look! The woman killer from the news is right here!"

"She's the one who slacked off and nearly burned Building Six to the ground!"

I didn't have the strength to explain anymore. I pulled up the local footage from Building Six's underground equipment room and exported both surveillance clips.

I sent them first to the police station beside the complex, then handed them to the fire investigators still on scene.

"This is the footage from before the backup batteries for Building Six's fire alarms and fire monitoring were stolen."

"And here's the whole thing, them stopping me from calling 911 and forcing me off my post."

The fire investigator's face darkened.

"Good. We'll seal it and open a joint investigation with the police right away."

I'd just finished handing off the video when Willow's shrill wailing came from outside the complex.

"Clara Swanson! Get out here!"

She and Dominic had actually come charging back from the hospital.

Trailing behind them were several reporters livestreaming on their phones.

The second she saw me, Willow lunged and started tearing at my clothes.

"You killer! It wasn't enough to get my daughter-in-law killed, now you've burned down our home too!"

Dominic jabbed a finger at Building Six and roared.

"Everything we own is gone! Our savings book, our gold, our furniture, all of it, gone!"

"This fire was caused by your property company's negligence! You'll pay for my wife's life, and you'll pay every last one of us for our losses!"

The residents, whipped up by them, packed in around me again.

Willow hung back in the crowd, and something like triumph flickered in her eyes.

She probably figured the news was already out and public opinion had swung to her side.

With a fire that big in Building Six, everyone would pin the blame on the fire-control operator who hadn't caught it in time.

Then sirens cut through from a distance, and several tactical vehicles pulled up outside the fire-control room.

The moment Willow saw the officers, her sobbing turned even more pitiful.

"Officers!"

"Hurry, arrest this killer!"

Two officers moved into the crowd, and just as everyone expected me to be the one hauled off in cuffs,

the lead officer held up an arrest warrant and sent the detectives behind him straight toward Willow and her son!