The Second Shift

I’ve never been one to believe in ghosts, not really. I’ve always been the practical type, the one who checks the carbon monoxide detector and locks the doors twice. But what happened in my apartment, in my own bed, has left me questioning everything.

It was a Tuesday night, a week after I’d started the night shift at the crematorium. I was still adjusting to the strange hours, my body clock completely inverted. I’d toss and turn during the day, and lie awake at night, my mind replaying the hum of the furnaces and the smell of ash. My girlfriend, Sarah, was a light sleeper, and she’d taken to sleeping on the couch to get away from my restlessness.

I woke up at 2:00 a.m., my heart pounding so hard I could feel it in my temples. My chest was tight, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath. I tried to move, to reach for my phone on the nightstand, but my limbs felt like lead. I thought it was sleep paralysis, that unsettling state where your mind is awake but your body is frozen. But then I felt it.

The mattress dipped behind me, a slow, deliberate press. I could feel the weight shift, the springs compressing, as if someone had lain down at my back. My breath hitched, and I tried to turn my head, but I couldn’t. Then, an arm slid over my left side, wrapping around my chest in a gesture that was both intimate and unnerving. It was cold, but not the cold of the room—a deeper chill that seeped through my shirt and made my skin prickle.

I closed my eyes, trying to regulate my breathing. I told myself it was a dream, a hypnagogic hallucination brought on by my new job. But the pressure was too real. I could feel the weight of the arm, the gentle rise and fall of a chest against my back, the faint scent of something burnt and floral, like the air after a cremation.

As soon as I caught my breath, I sat up. The arm retreated instantly, and the dip in the mattress slowly returned to normal. I swung my legs over the side of the bed, my head heavy, a dull ache behind my eyes. I was not afraid—that was the strange thing. I felt a sense of calm, of comfort, as if someone had just been watching over me. It reminded me of the way Sarah would spoon me in her sleep, her warmth and presence anchoring me. But this was different. This was a cold embrace, and there was a distinct feeling of wrongness beneath the comfort.

I looked around the room. The curtains billowed slightly, though the window was closed. The closet door was ajar, but I knew I’d left it shut. In the corner, near the dresser, there was a shadow that seemed darker than it should have been, but I chalked it up to the moonlight casting odd shapes. I sat there for a long time, my mind racing. I eventually lay back down, staring at the ceiling, feeling the presence linger like a static charge in the air.

I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. When the sun rose, I got up and went to work, the events of the night feeling like a half-remembered dream. But the next night, it happened again. And the night after that.

Each time, I woke at exactly 2:00 a.m., my heart pounding, the weight pressing beside me, the arm sliding over my body. The presence began to feel familiar, almost welcome. I would lie there, holding my breath, waiting for something more. Sometimes I would whisper, ‘Who are you?’ but there was never a reply. Only the feeling of a head resting near mine, as if it were trying to turn my head, to make me look at it.

I started to dread the nights, not because I was scared, but because I felt a pull, an attraction to this cold presence. It was misguided, I knew. I began to resent Sarah for not being there, and I found myself longing for the 2:00 a.m. encounters. I even tried to stay awake, to catch it in the act, but I always drifted off, and my alarm would ring at 7:00 with no memory of the night.

One night, I decided to fight it. I forced my eyes open at 1:59, my heart already racing. The digital clock on the nightstand ticked to 2:00, and I felt the familiar dip. But this time, I didn’t let it settle. I snapped on the bedside lamp.

The light flooded the room, and I saw nothing. The bed was empty, the mattress flat. But I felt a cold spot next to my leg, and I could swear I heard a sigh. The lamp flickered, and for a split second, I saw a shape—a woman, pale, with dark hair covering her face, wearing a hospital gown. She was lying beside me, one arm reaching out, and then she was gone.

I didn’t move. I stared at the spot where she had been, my mind screaming at me to run. But I couldn’t. I felt her presence still, hovering just behind me. A deep, resonant voice filled the room, a voice I didn’t recognize but knew somehow, ‘I’m not done with you.’

I jumped out of bed and ran to the living room, collapsing on the couch where Sarah was sleeping. She stirred, mumbling, ‘What’s wrong?’ I couldn’t find the words. I just lay there, shivering, until morning.

The next night, I took a leave of absence from work. I told Sarah I was sick. I lay in bed, the lights on, determined to stay awake. But at 2:00 a.m., I was in that half-sleep state, and the presence returned. This time, I felt a cold hand on my cheek, tilting my head to the side. I opened my eyes, and there she was—the woman, her face inches from mine. Her skin was gray, her eyes hollow, and I could smell the burnt floral scent again. She whispered, ‘You shouldn’t have left me behind.’

And then I remembered. A week before the first incident, at the crematorium, there had been a mix-up. A body had been misplaced, a young woman who was supposed to be cremated that morning. But the paperwork had been lost, and we’d cremated the wrong person. The woman’s body had been left in the cold storage room overnight, and she’d been buried the next day, but not before I had been the one to unload the body from the furnace.

I hadn’t thought about her since. I hadn’t even known her name. But now, in my bed, she was telling me something else. ‘You left me,’ she said, her voice like the rustling of dry leaves. ‘I was the one who was supposed to go through the fire, not him. But you chose him.’

The weight shifted, and the arm wrapped around me once more, but this time it was cold and unyielding, like a vice. ‘You took his place. Now you’ll take mine.’

I tried to scream, but no sound came out. I felt the presence pressing down, suffocating me, and the room seemed to grow dark, the light from the lamps dimming to a dull amber. I struggled, but I couldn’t move. The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was the woman’s face, a smile forming on her pale lips.

When I woke, the sun was streaming through the windows. Sarah was standing over me, her face etched with worry. ‘You had a fever,’ she said. ‘You’ve been out for three days.’

I tried to sit up, but my body felt foreign, heavy. I raised my hand to my face, and something was different. My skin was pale, almost translucent. I looked in the mirror that hung on the wall across from the bed, and I saw the woman’s face staring back at me.

I am still here, in this body, but I am not who I was. Every night at 2:00 a.m., I feel the presence of the person whose life I stole, and I know that I’ll never be alone again. The second shift has begun.