I am writing this from my best friend’s house. I figured I would put the entire story down somewhere, because I’ve had to repeat it so many times out loud. I haven’t slept in many days, so please, bear with me. Before you ask, I do not know what to make of any of this, and believe me, I’ve thought about it. I cannot think of anything else. If anyone has any advice on what I should do, anything at all, I would be so very grateful.
Just two months ago, at the beginning of the summer, I moved in with my boyfriend, who I’ve been with for about a year. We have always had a great relationship, and I was excited to take the next step and get our own place together. I don’t want to give his real name, because I don’t know what will happen. So for the sake of this… I don’t know… record? I guess? I’ll call him James.
I never thought much about it before all of this, but James was always a bit jumpy, or spacy. Oftentimes he would sit on the couch and startle when I came in from the kitchen behind him. If I appeared too quickly or too quietly in our house, he would nearly jump out of his skin. And sometimes, he would seem to get lost in thought doing basic things, like brushing his teeth or shaving. He would have this vacant expression, clearly elsewhere, staring at himself in the mirror.
One time, we went on what I thought would be a very cute, romantic date. It was one of the first times he visited my town, so I wanted to take him somewhere that would impress him. I decided to take him to the lake, which was only about fifteen minutes from my house on a beautiful winding road that led away from town. I took him there for a picnic, we ate, and then decided to walk one of the trails in the woods. It was a beautiful place, a state park, and there were plenty of people around – children, dog walkers, old couples getting their exercise. Not to mention surely plenty of animals, it was a nature reserve, after all.
Everything was going really well, I was sure I’d charmed him with the rural small-town beauty of my area just as I’d hoped. And then, the simplest, silliest thing happened. A twig snapped in the woods. Just that classic, stereotypical cracking sound that indicates something is nearby. Now, mind you, the sun is shining, it’s a warm summer afternoon, we’d just passed a couple with a small boy riding a scooter on the main path. But James’ demeanor instantly shifted. His face paled, his lips parted way for a rapid intake of shaky breaths. I asked him what was wrong and he turned to me, grabbing my wrist.
“We have to go,” James said, white with sudden terror.
I asked him why. I tried to be sympathetic, he was clearly startled badly by the sound in the woods. I told him all of the things it could be, a deer, a squirrel, a rabbit, surely not a bear, no one had never seen one here!
He pleaded with me to leave. Begged, even. I wasn’t trying to be unaccommodating or disagreeable, I just really could not understand why he was suddenly so agitated. After a few minutes of trying to get him to relax and redirect our date back to an enjoyable experience, I could see that I wasn’t going to convince him. He took both my hands and shook them, desperately imploring me to get back on the main path, make our way back to the car, and take off. So we did.
I had rarely if ever seen James quite so scared again, but he was always easy to spook, quick to flinch. I thought it was just his nature. I never asked him to watch horror movies with me or anything like that out of respect for the fact that he was so easily frightened. I didn’t want to embarrass him or make him feel bad. I didn’t think it was a very big deal. It was the only strange thing about him. I really thought that. He was spacy and spookable. That was all I knew.
After we moved in together, things got strange. I started noticing weird behavior from James, but I tried to convince myself that maybe he just had odd habits or idiosyncrasies that I simply hadn’t known about before we lived together.
The first time something weird happened, we were sleeping in bed. Well, actually, I really wasn’t. I’m a very light sleeper and go through phases where I have trouble sleeping at all, or at least have a really hard time staying asleep. This was one of those nights. I was in and out of half-consciousness, floating around nearly dreaming in the dark behind my eyelids, but I kept waking up. The first time I got up to pee, and came back to bed. James was sleeping soundly. The second time, I decided to go to the kitchen and make some hot sleepytime tea, to see if it would help me knock out for real. James was still sleeping, so I was careful to be quiet, so as not to wake him. The tea did the trick for a bit, until I woke up again a few hours later.
This time, as I came out of sleep, I rolled over in bed. When I opened my eyes, James was staring at me. He had kicked the blankets completely off of himself and his entire body was rigid and straight. He lay facing me, with his arms crossed over his chest like a corpse in a casket, his hands in tight fists at his shoulders. His eyes were open so wide it was as if they’d been removed, just immense, bright white circles in his skull, staring. His lips were pulled back to show all of his clenched teeth at once, his mouth stretched open to a scale that I could not comprehend, not in a smile, but in a display like that of a scared or angry dog.
I screamed. Loudly. Immediately. Completely involuntarily. Then, I hit his shoulder with the heel of my hand, angry. Not angry, I guess, but the kind of angry you get when you’re coming down from being scared shitless by somebody.
“Jesus, James,” I whined, “that’s not funny. You scared me so bad.”
James did not move. He didn’t even twitch. His expression did not change. I felt a bloom of fear in the bottom of my stomach. I knew I was being stupid, it was just James, but his face was so frightening like that in the dark, and I just wanted him to stop.
“Fuck you,” I said to him, before I rolled over and ignored him. I fell back asleep eventually, for a little bit, and when I woke up again, irrationally afraid to turn and face him, I could hear James breathing peacefully, dreaming once more. Assured, and feeling silly about before, I then fell asleep without issue until morning.
That same unsettled feeling uncurled in my gut the next day as I was making breakfast and jokingly asked him, “Did you ever get back to sleep after all that?” I laughed as I asked, trying to play it cool, feeling a bit apologetic that I’d hit him and cursed him out. He acted confused. I brought up him scaring me. He swore he’d slept through the night. I got frustrated, and told him to stop it, and said that I was trying to be nice now but he’d really freaked me out, I didn’t want to play about it anymore. Then, a strange look came across his face, something like recognition, or realization. Unexplainably, he said nothing more, and left the house. He didn’t come back for a few hours. I texted him a few times, to which he responded that he was alright and was sorry for scaring me. He said he’d bring home dinner for us.
When he came home, he looked nervous and fidgety. He kept zoning out, his gaze far away, he wrung his hands as he stood next to the couch, staring blankly at the black, silent TV. Every move, every noise I made, he flinched. I tried to ask him what was wrong. I nearly begged him to tell me, I told him he was scaring me. He kissed the top of my head and told me not to worry, he just had something on his mind.
Something? Or did he say someone? Was I hearing things?
The next few days went by quietly. The next time something happened, I had just stepped out of the shower. Our house is one floor, so as I emerged from the bathroom into the bedroom, I could hear James laughing down the hall. I suspected he was on the phone, probably with his brother Scott, who I loved. He always laughed a deep, rich laugh when he spoke to Scott. I put on my bathrobe and wrapped my hair in a towel and made my way to the kitchen, hoping to say hello to Scott.
As I got further down the hall, I started to realize James wasn’t exactly laughing. It was some other noise. My steps slowed until I could barely inch forward. I felt guilt at the rising dread in my throat, I loved James and could not believe how nervous I felt around him since the other night. Just go to the kitchen! Go see your boyfriend! It was a stupid prank! But my limbs were leaden, my heart gagging me with its raging tempo. Eventually, I made it to the end of the hall, and peered reluctantly around the corner into the kitchen.
James was staring as if he expected me. His jaw hung open, nearly grazing his chest, jutting out at an unnatural angle. I could see every tooth in his mouth, all the way to the shining back fillings. His eyes were that same jarring round, wide and fixated on me. The noise I heard was not a laugh at all, but a guttural, spurting inhale. A whining, clicking groan buried in the back of his throat, shaky and low and from deep in his lungs. The electric burners on the stove glowed bright red under his fingers, which curled around them, his knuckles bony and white, gripping tight around the coils. For a split second before screaming in terror, I registered the distinct scent of his flesh burning and melting onto the hissing metal.
The scream bubbled up out of me, primal and involuntary. At that second, James’ groaning stopped and his jaw abruptly shut with a sickening click. And then he lunged at me.
I ran down the hall back toward the bedroom. I stopped in the doorway and between sobs pleaded with him.
“James please! Please stop! You’re scaring me, James.”
He stood at the opposite end of the hall, filling up the kitchen doorway with his frame. His features were almost obscured as the kitchen light illuminated him from behind, making him a grotesque silhouette before me. His arms were lifted slightly at his sides, his elbows bent at a severe angle, his legs posed in a wide, open stance. He looked hulking. His head was cocked sickeningly to the side, and he was smiling, his chest heaving with exertion, just staring at me. Like prey.
I slammed the door shut and locked it, barricading myself in the bedroom with the old wooden chest that stood at the foot of our bed.
I heard running. Fast, frantic, almost childlike running down the hall. It stopped at the door.
Sobbing in silence, I waited. I fell to the ground and pushed myself up against the far wall beneath the window, hugging my knees to my chest. I knew he was out there. I waited.
I waited.
The silence was a decade.
Quietly as I could, I crawled to the door and put my face to the ground. Steeling my nerves, I peeked under the door, using the available inch that the chest left on the right side.
I saw nothing.
I waited longer, and finally, in a desperate state of devastation and defeat, I pushed the chest aside and opened the door.
Nothing.
I inched down the hall, my face contorted and ripe red with tears, certain I’d see James back in the kitchen, hiding in the living room, staring through a window, waiting for me.
I heard a noise to my right. And then James walked through the front door. With two CVS bags and his car keys. Looking harrowingly ordinary.
He looked at me and dropped the bags, their contents and the keys clattering noisily on the wood floor.
“Helena!” he gasped, and raced over to me. He grabbed my shoulders, his face twisted into a picture of alarm and sadness. “Helena, baby, what’s wrong? What happened?” He pulled me into him, pressing his shoulder to my face, and raised his hand to cradle the back of my head. When he pulled back he asked again, “what’s the matter baby? What’s going on?”
I sobbed harder then. Anguished, unintentional screams erupted from my diaphragm.
“Stop it!” I screamed. “Stop it, James! You’re scaring me!”
“Wh…” He trailed off, searching me. “What’s going on Helena? Talk to me,” his voice sweet and sympathetic.
I was angry, I was devastated. In rage and terror, I grabbed his wrists, forcing his palms up to face me. They were fine. No signs of any burns, soft and callused and just James’ hands.
I couldn’t take it. I was inconsolable for the next thirty minutes while I packed an overnight bag with one pair of sweats and some bare essentials. I told James to stay in the kitchen, right at the end of the hall, where I could see him. I told him not to come any closer. James looked genuinely hurt and very worried, but I could not reconcile what had happened with what I was seeing now. I told him I was going to stay at my best friend’s house. Ariel lived several towns over. I told him not to follow me. I told him not to call. I got in the car and left.
I got to Ariel’s house somehow, after driving the forty or so minutes in a complete haze. When I appeared on her doorstep, she looked at me in relative horror. I looked awful, I knew it, my face swollen with tears, bruises on my knees from digging my fingers into them while I waited for James to break into the bedroom. Ariel hurried me inside, made a cup of tea, brought me blankets.
I told her everything. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe me, not really, it’s just that the whole story made no sense. I told her about the night in my bed, James in the kitchen. I told her about the CVS bags and his fine hands.
She made dinner for the two of us, instant mac and cheese and some cornbread from her fridge. It was salty and hearty and warm, but I could barely eat it. She put on a movie, a charming teenage romcom from our high school days past. Somewhere in my cloudy consciousness I recognized and appreciated it.
James called. Facetime.
Ariel told me to hit the End button. I did.
Four minutes later, he called again. I hit the red button once more.
“Okay, maybe he needs something… maybe you could try talking to him,” Ariel offered gently. “You’re in a safe place, he can’t do anything. Maybe he’s having a mental health issue. Maybe… I don’t know. I wonder if you could just hear him out.”
In clear distress, I reminded her of everything that had happened. She nodded understandingly, but still encouraged me.
“I just wonder if maybe he could explain himself. Clearly he’s worried about what’s going on, too,” she said softly.
Incredibly, and through quiet tears, I nodded. I waited for the facetime screen to appear again.
It did.
I picked up.
The screen was black for several seconds. I couldn’t see anything, but could hear scuffling feet, something metal clang loudly to the ground. Floorboards creaking under a person’s weight. A few glitchy lights appeared and disappeared. Breathing sounds. Crying sounds.
James’s face appeared, a dreary blue against the dark background. All the lights must have been off. Why were all the lights off?
James’s wet cheeks glowed in the electronic light on his face. He was sobbing, taking shaky breaths like a scared child.
“Helena, I’m sorry…” he whined, sniffling. “I’m sorry, I can explain…”
And then there was more to the picture.
It stood behind James. It pressed its own face to the back of James’ head, peering out from behind him. Its jaw was completely unhinged, dropping beneath the outline of James’ shoulder, filled with utter black. Its perfectly round, white eye scalded the camera as it peeked at me menacingly from behind James’ left ear. It made the same groaning sound, clicky and wet, drowning out James’ cries in the foreground. Its fingers appeared around James’ neck, denting his skin, digging into his windpipe, tightening, tightening.
And it was him. Identical, uncanny, it, too, was James.
“Please Helena,” James pleaded in despair, looking into the camera with pure, hollow desperation. “Please just come home.”