Alice: Hey, honey! I hope you enjoyed your first day back at work! I missed you, though, so come back to my house when you get off. Love you <3
I smiled at the message on my phone’s lock screen. After helping me calm down this morning, she made me a wonderful breakfast: a pancake head, two sunny-side-up eyes, and a strip of bacon for a grin. It was delicious, and I was so eager to drown my little breakfast buddy in syrup when I hopped out of the shower, the image of my nightmarish lover pushed to the back of my still-sleepy brain.
The thought of seeing Alice’s beautiful smiling face and receiving another mouthwatering dish for dinner later tonight made it hard to contain my excitement. It took me only a few seconds to decide, screw it, go home and spend time with her while you can. Work can wait until tomorrow. I mean, what if she tried to break up with me again, or another car crash happened that was worse than Jeff and I’s? I logged off my work desktop and headed to my boss’s office. I knocked on the door and waited for a “Come in,” before opening it.
“Whatcha need?” he asked me.
“Is it okay if I head out early for the day?” I asked.
He checked the clock, which read 4:12 p.m., a little over 45 minutes until my normal clock-out time. He stared at the clock for a moment, pondering his answer. “Sure, why not?” he said with a shrug. “As long as you have everything done and you know you’re the one docking your pay.”
“Thanks, boss man,” I said with a salute.
“Hey!” he called out just before I closed the door, so I poked my head back in. “Do you need to take some time off? Maybe get some rest?” he asked.
I shrugged. “I feel fine. A little tired, I guess.”
“Let me know if you need some time off.”
“Oh, for sure,” I said. “While you’re at it, how about a rib-eye, a trip to the Bahamas, and a million dollars?”
“If I ever get a 2-for-1 deal for that combo, I’ll be sure to let you know,” he said. He waved me out, and I heard him laughing as I shut his office door.
The drive to Alice’s wasn’t very long, so I made it there in around 5 minutes. I creaked open the back door, trying to be as quiet as possible so I could surprise her. After shutting it gently behind me, I tip-toed through the kitchen. I heard her shuffling around in her bedroom, so I continued my pursuit in that direction.
I could see her standing in the bathroom, bending over a bit and shuffling around in the drawers before standing back up. I’m not even going to lie, I was admiring her ass at first, but it didn’t last long due to me seeing her reflection in the bathroom mirror. It made me do a double-take, and I quickly placed a hand on my mouth to stop a gasp from escaping my lips. Rather than her normally soft and pale skin, her skin had been replaced with a gray, leathery, and crackling mess. Blue and red veins spiderwebbed across it, as did dry patches that would give psoriasis victims a heart attack from fear. Huge bags occupied the space under her dark and beady eyes, and a wrinkly hand was intertwined in her thin and damaged hair. My eyes went wide at the huge claws protruding from her fingers as they twirled around in the scraggly mess. It took only a few seconds for her to notice my wide-eyed stare in the mirror, causing her to jump and wheel around. I grabbed hold of the doorframe, ready to vault myself for a quick escape.
“Honey, you scared me!” she said. I stood there mystified, unable to register what I had just seen. She seemed unaware to my shock as her completely claw-free hands detangled from her beautiful dirty blond locks, and she wrapped her arms around me. She giggled into my chest as I slowly wrapped my arms around her, still confused. My fingers trailed her skin in disbelief as I compared it to my lying eyes.
What the fuck did I just see?
She pulled away from me with a smile still on her face. “You okay?” she asked, her smile quickly turning to a look of concern as she finally noticed.
It felt like I spent an eternity calculating every inch of her face before responding. “Just tired,” I replied.
She gave me her signature pout as she caressed my face. “I’m sorry, honey. Why don’t you relax on the couch while I make us some dinner?”
I nodded, and she kissed me on the cheek before heading to the kitchen. I moved closer to the mirror and felt it with my hands, tapping on it a few times for good measure.
Did she put something up here to fuck with me?
I scratched it to see if anything came off, but I got zilch.
I really need sleep, I thought as I released a huge yawn.
I turned the light off before exiting the bathroom and making my way to the living room. I plopped down on the couch and snatched up the remote. The Netflix button was mid-press under my finger when I heard a loud bang.
“Faex,” I heard Alice grumble.
“Everything okay, babe?” I called out.
“Non placet,” she replied.
“What?” I asked, wondering how tired I truly was.
“Uh…” she replied. Her head popped into the living room’s doorway before she responded. “I knocked a pot of boiling noodles off the stove.”
“Ah, okay,” I responded. “What did you say before that?
“What?” she asked me. I could see she was staring at the wall behind me, though, lost in her thoughts. I grew worried something more was wrong.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine.” She finally looked at me, giving me a smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “I’m going to finish dinner,” she stated.
Dinner was absolutely mouth-watering, just as it had been for the last several meals Alice had cooked for us. I had started to notice that even though her dishes seemed to double in flavor every time, she seemed to rarely ever eat.
As we piled up on the couch after dinner to watch a movie, my thoughts wandered. I was worried about her. She had seemed happy, but also acting unlike herself in a lot of ways. I thought about how much she had been cooking for me and planning special things for us to do together. It definitely needed to reciprocate, so I hatched up a plan to lure her to my house after work the next day. The first part was a text.
Alex: Hey, babe. How do you feel about dinner at my place tonight? Your surprise finally came in the mail :)
It didn’t take long for her to respond.
Alice: Of course, honey! Let me know if I need to bring anything, and I’ll see you tonight. Love you bunches <3
I left my phone alone after our conversation so that I could try to get as much done as possible to leave early. I still needed to run by the store, get the groceries needed for dinner tonight, and get something that I could pass off as something you could get off Amazon. However, I couldn’t resist the urge to check my phone when it chimed an hour later. My fingers were already cramping from typing so fast, and I recognized it as the familiar tune to my camera app. I had one set up at my front door nestled in a corner of the porch that was a bit hard to see if you didn’t already know about it. Alice had always known about it, though. She also knew what time I got off from work, so I didn’t expect it to be her on my porch.
And I guess, in a way, it really wasn’t her. It was the grotesque figure I saw in her bathroom mirror. Looking at it made me feel detached from reality, like the world as I knew it had completely broken free and been replaced by one with this freak. There was no way that was my Alice, and, thinking back, there had been too many weird occurrences. My brain had been too foggy and exhausted to notice. This had become more than just taste bud changes and friendship spats, and it confirmed my worries of something being off for a while now. I mean, it was clearly more than off. It was absolutely dreadful.
I continued to watch the live feed, still hoping that it is a prank like I thought with the mirror. Maybe she would whip off the mask and say “Gotcha!” to the camera in a few seconds. But she didn’t do that. What she did is pick up her phone and make a call.
“Hey,” she greeted the unknown caller, and I was horrified that this monster had Alice’s voice. “I’m at his house right now…No, no—I tried the whole body takeover thing, but the little brat refused to let me stay in control. I’m having to use my body, and I have her locked up somewhere.” I had flashbacks to the night of the crash when Alice randomly slapped herself. What the hell was happening? “Good news is the boyfriend is getting more and more sickly by the day,” she continued in a hushed whisper, I’m assuming to not alert my neighbors. I had to point my phone’s speaker at my ear so I could just barely make out her speaking. “He should be drained completely soon, and I’m honestly debating draining his idiotic best friend, too. He gets on my nerves.” She begins messing with stuff on my porch, ruffling the leaves on my plant pots, and pacing back and forth as she talks. After going on for several more minutes, responding to this mystery person back and forth, she began lifting up my plant pots, the doormat, and various decorative stones. “Yeah, right now I’m trying to see if maybe he has a spare key out here somewhere. I need to get in to spell block his mirrors. I think he almost caught my reflection the other day.”
She kept talking as she continued her search, and she didn’t stop until my next door neighbor walked up with a concerned look on his face. She turned around and jumped a bit as she saw him approaching, mumbling “faex” repeatedly under her breath as she ended her call and shoved the phone into her back pocket.
He stopped just before my sidewalk connected to the porch and placed his hands on his hips. “Can I help you? Oh—” His look changed to one of recognition, and I realized he didn’t see the horrific figure I saw. “I didn’t realize that was you, Alice.”
“Hi!” She greeted him, but she didn’t say his name. She had met Mr. Toress as soon as we started dating, and she had always greeted him with his name. That was all the confirmation I needed that she most definitely wasn’t my Alice. “Everything okay?”
“I was just coming to scope things out,” he explained, then he looked up at the camera and gave it a wave. “Hi, Alex!”
My heart rate began to rapidly increase as the monster locked eyes with the camera. Her glare was like sharp daggers, and I felt chills when she chirped, “Hi, honey.”
It took no time at all for me to log out of my work computer and lock up my office. I decided to worry about letting my boss know I had an emergency to tend to later. I dialed Jeff’s number on my phone as I headed towards the elevator doors. I decided to take the stairs instead, and I took them two at a time. Jeff answered after two rings, and I didn’t even bother saying hello back. “She isn’t Alice anymore,” I started. “And I don’t think whatever that thing is has good intentions for me.”
“Why do you think that?” he asked. His response was strange, but I didn’t realize it at first.
“You’re going to think I sound crazy, but I saw something…weird on my front door camera,” I started, but, before I could finish, several loud bangs sounded from my phone’s speaker. Jeff’s screams mixed with loud crackling and shuffling erupted from it, and a few moments of silence followed. Those moments felt more like a milisecond before heavy breathing took over on the other end.
“…Alice?” The sound of my heart beat thundered in my ears, yet the silence on the other line continued, besides a strange gurgling noise. My brain struggled not to panic at the possibility that might be Jeff making those noises.
“You just had to keep snooping didn’t you?” It wasn’t her voice. It was another woman’s voice, but I didn’t recognize it.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“A friend,” she responded. “But not of you, of course. Actually, I think your only friend is on his way out currently.” My grip tightened on the phone. “But don’t worry, Alex. You won’t have to wait too long to follow him.”
She unleashed a horrific cackle after her threat, and I didn’t even bother responding. I hung up and threw my phone into the back seat. I heard it bounce once before entering into the oblivion. I began debating whether or not I should stick with my plan to go Jeff’s house, but, before I could make my decision myself, it was made for me.
As I passed through an intersection, a car t-boned me. My body shot to the right before being slingshotted back to my left. My head slammed into the window just as my seatbelt tightened its grip around me, and I blacked out.
-
I woke up on the warm asphalt, the sun beating down on me. I painstakingly raised a hand to block the rays, but a silouhette stepping over me beat me to it. I blinked several times until my eyes focused, and I saw Alice staring down at me with a smug smile on her face. I grew hopeful that it was actually my Alice rather than the monster.
“You know, I’ve never had victims be as much of a handful as you and your girlfriend were,” she said, crushing my hope. “Draining *every* drop of essence from your wretched body will be so fulfilling.” She kneeled down before me and trailed a finger down my cheek. I swear I could feel her ragged claw scraping me, and, no matter how much I urged it to, my body felt too weak to fight back. My limbs felt like they weighed a ton each. “And don’t worry, we won’t be doing it the old fashion way anymore.” She whipped a dagger out from behind her back, trading her claw for it as it glided across my face. “It’ll be quick and easy.”
At that moment, her facade faded away, and the dreadful demon from the mirror and the camera now glared down at me. The veins in her face and neck throbbed excitedly, and her hair floated and wriggled around her head like snakes, knotting themselves around each other and the debris trapped within them. Her teeth were razor sharp, and her breath wreaked of rot and decay. It made my inability to move even more agonizing and made the dagger’s threat more welcoming than fearful. I was ready to give up as her bloodshot eyes bore holes into my soul.
The smile dropped from her face as the sound of an engine revving up filled our ears. Standing up, she peered around to see where the noise was coming from. The road appeared to be empty, our collision having happened on a desolate back road. She glanced behind her just in time to see a car veer off a grown-up dirt road nestled in the woods across from us. She tried to run, but the car increased its speed and slammed into her, catapulting her to the woods behind me. I heard the sound of the impact as her body slammed into a tree. The sound of her bones cracking made me cringe, which made me realize I could finally move again.
I sat up as the driver’s side car door flung open, and the attacker jumped out with a bat in hand. Confusion overcame me as I realized I recognized the back of the assailant’s head. Cries of shock and pain rang out as the assailant continuously beat the monster, but all I could focus on was the attacker’s dirty blonde locks, even as I could see blood shooting everywhere around the gruesome attack from the force of the hits.
“Alice?”
The aggressor turned around to look at me, her victim surely dead. Blood splatter covered her face and neck. She dropped her weapon before giving me a smile.
“Hi, honey.”
Otherworldly wails began to escape from Monster Alice’s corpse, echoing through the dense trees surrounding us. They tore out of her mouth, ripping open her jaw from the force. The real Alice and I watched as thousands of wispy creatures exited the demon’s body. Horrficly realistic faces occupied the retreat, displaying expressions of grief and torment that morphed to relief as they floated upwards. Her victims were finally being set free, and, as sad as it was, the experience was hauntingly beautiful. Pinks and oranges painted the sky as tears fell from my eyes: a blissful departure. A dull light began to shine through the demon’s mouth and eyes, and the spirits raced out of her body more rapidly. The light’s brilliance quickly grew, and I felt the ground begin to shake.
Alice dashed towards me, shouting, “We have to go!” before helping me up from the ground. She wrapped one arm around me and led my stumbling body to the car. While I was capable of movement, my body still felt exhausted, and I was grateful to have the Alice back that could sense that. I slouched into the passenger seat and tried to catch my breath. The light consumed the surrounding area, illuminating it as I heard the wails even through the car’s doors.
Alice hopped in the driver seat and started the car, whipping it into reverse. We swerved around to leave, the car’s engine revving up once more as we gained speed. Within seconds, we heard a strange noise followed by the disappearance of the light. I turned around to look behind us just as something thudded against the windshield, and Alice let out a shriek. I was not expecting a severed leg to be there when I turned back around, but I shouldn’t have been shocked with how things were going.
A few bumps down the road knocked the gnarly, gray monstrosity off, and then we were quickly on our way, leaving the awful mess behind us.
-
Alice wanted to go to a hospital, but I refused, even after she insisted. I know it wasn’t the smartest decision, but I didn’t want to risk the chance of her leaving my side again after what had just happened. (Besides, it’s been a couple of days, and I feel fine.)
After we left, we went to Jacie’s house. She said she wanted both of them to explain everything to me, so they did just that. My first concern was Jeff, and they told me he was safe and resting in Jacie’s guest room. Clearly, I had trust issues, but they let me go in and check on him. I was shocked at the fact that he didn’t have any injuries. I even shook him a bit and got a grumbled response and a few exhausted slaps, so that seemed like a good sign. After that, we gathered around Jacie’s dining room table to discuss everything else.
“The night of the crash when I slapped myself…that was me, but she was trying to possess my body,” began Alice. “After her possession idea didn’t work, she tried to kill me. What she didn’t know and what I’ve been afraid to tell you is…” She sighed and dropped her shoulders as if this was something that had been weighing her down for a while. Jacie patted her on the back for reassurance. “Magic runs in my family,” she continued. “It’s how I was able to prevent her from taking over me and how I was able to survive.”
“So you have…powers?” I asked with a raised brow.
“It’s more like…my family has a knack for seeing things that want to remain unseen. I saw her attack coming before she had even planned it. Apparently, she didn’t know about my family or we wouldn’t have been chosen as targets. It’s also how I was able to stop her from killing you.”
“By ramming her with a truck.”
“Mhm…honestly, the hardest part about that was probably the silencing spell I had to put on that thing,” she explained. “Magic and technology are hard to mix.”
“So you do have powers?”
She shook her head. “No, I really don’t. Spells can be done by anyone. My family’s abilities just make it more likely to be successful.”
“Do you have powers?” I asked Jacie.
“I can heal. When Alice went after you and her demon twin, I went to Jeff’s and helped him.”
“What about the…thing that attacked him?”
“Succubus,” interjected Alice. “We are pretty sure they were succubi. And don’t worry, I took care of her.”
“Oh…okay.”
“You don’t really seem shocked by this,” Jacie said to me
“I don’t think I have any shock left in my body at this point,” I replied. “There’s been so much wild shit happening lately.”
“Well, honestly, there’s a lot more wild shit in the world than you or most of humanity knows about,” said Alice. “I’m just glad you survived your first taste of it.”
“First?” I asked.
“Oh, there will be more,” Jacie said with a laugh, and Alice joined her.
Jeff peeked his head out of the guest room’s doorway a few seconds later. “Can you guys shut up so I can get some sleep? I feel like I got my ass handed to me.”
“You did,” said Jacie.
“What?” asked Jeff as his face scrunched up in confusion.
Jacie ignored him and looked at me. “I can also do memory spells,” she said with a giggle.
And so, the world kept spinning on its axis, as it always does. Things slowly went back to normal, or what our new normal was. I had a lot of nightmares, but they have died down gradually. We created a random safeword phrase that we could use to make sure none of us were spirit-sucking demons, so that helped me trust reality more. Alice and Jacie let us in on the little secret slice of life they had been hiding from us. Alice finally being able to show me this part of her life made us grow closer, and I think it has even created a spark in Jacie and Jeff.
All in all, shit could have been much worse, but I’m so grateful it wasn’t. It doesn’t change the fact that I still have nightmares of the monster I saw in that mirror, but Alice assured me that she’s dead and gone.
But who knows, maybe your girlfriend will be next, so good luck.