“Well… Sam, let’s go to sleep. I don’t have the strength for another episode,” I told my twin brother.
We were both sitting on the sofa in the living room, our mom and dad had went to sleep, and from the big window in our living room you could no longer see the moon because it was above our building - which means it was already very late.
“Drew, you have to see what happens next. Emily is barely dressed in a room with this Parisian guy and they sure will do it, I’m telling you!” Sam told me, trying to convince me to stay and watch another episode of Emily in Paris with him on Netflix. Now realize, this was after six episodes in a row. The series doesn’t interest me anyway and I start school bright and early tomorrow.
But to be honest? You can see that my brother is not that interested in watching the series either, after all he has already finished it and is watching it over with me. This is the only series on Netflix with episodes so short that you don’t feel like it’s over. That’s why he introduced the show to me, because he wanted me to stay up with him as late as possible. Because, again, he is too afraid to fall asleep, but why?
Well.. it all happened in our early childhood, and I mean really early - at birth. My twin brother and I were born in 2005, a long 17 years ago. Our mother always says that it was the happiest day of her life… but also the hardest. I came out first, a healthy baby was born within a good weight range. But.. Sam, Sam had birth complications.
After I was born, the doctors tried to deliver Sam, but they weren’t succeeding. Our mother’s birth canal had closed for some reason. As if her body did not want birth the child into the world. In any case… it took many hours before they managed to get him out… and even then, when he was finally delivered, he didn’t cry like other babies do. At first they thought he had suffocated from amniotic fluid, or had suffered a brain injury, but the tests came back and nothing was wrong. He just didn’t cry, like something had happened to him before being born. I once heard our Dad say that he was sure Sam would’ve been paralyzed, but that was not the case… Nobody could explain it.
As you probably realized, Sam survived and reached adulthood. But the strange things didn’t stop happening from within him. When we were toddlers, Sam developed… faster than expected. While I was still crawling on the floor and playing with my toys, Sam had already learned to walk on two feet. Even when we first started learning to read, he was able to finish a paragraph of a story while I could barely pronounce the first word. So, not only was he not brain damaged, his brain… was progressing in an unusual way…
The doctors assumed it was rapid cognitive development or something… but I always knew it was something to do with his strange birth. Something happened there. And it’s true, Sam did develop quickly, but it also came with problems. Since he was little he suffered from sleep problems, and not just the “it’s hard for me to fall asleep” type, but serious issues. Sam walks in his sleep. It’s a natural thing for him and has happened consistently from childhood to this day. However, throughout the past year, Sam’s sleep walking has rapidly progressed and his episodes are more prolonged.
A few months ago, our friend Shawn from class had a birthday party, we all came to his house to party into the night. After everyone fell asleep drunk, Sam got up in the middle of the night and he sleepwalked towards the couch where none other than Shawn’s girlfriend was sleeping. He then proceed to pull down his pants and pee on the girlfriend sleeping there. It was humiliating. Everyone was laughing at him, not to mention that Sean would have surely beat him up a second later if I hadn’t defended him.
(sigh) Anyway, I guess you get the idea… Sam can’t sleep, and lately, it makes me suffer too. The last few nights he also started talking in his sleep… at first I couldn’t understand what he was saying… but now it’s at the level of fluent speech. And not only that, he started showing facial expressions when he is sleepwalking, which shouldn’t happen because the brain doesn’t make any facial expressions in such a state. Oh.. and the most distressing thing.. he started to open his eyes, and I’m not talking about my glassy eyes staring into the empty space, his eyes are really focusing on certain things.
(sigh) But, regardless of all the trouble, this is my twin brother and I love him more than anything.
Thus, when we were both sitting in front of Netflix that night, Sam wanted me to stay with him for the seventh episode because he was afraid to sleep.
“Sam.. I have an idea” I told him. “I’ll go get blankets from our room and we’ll fall asl…. ahhh I mean we’ll watch until the end of the season. Okay?”
(tiredly) “Good”. He said, I could notice he was tired, that’s why decided to bring the blankets, so we could fall asleep in front of the TV, which is one of the best ways to make him fall asleep without fear.
I brought the blankets and we laid down on different ends of the couch and he played the next episode… After a few minutes I noticed he was starting to close his eyes.. then I started to close my eyes too, and, after a few minutes, we both fell asleep.
(Quiet)
After only a few minutes,I woke up in a panic from a loud noise coming from the TV. I openned my eyes and catch Sam, standing in front of the TV with his back to me and hiseyes immersed in the screen. “S..Sam? What happened?” I ask him… but he doesn’t turn around. he just stands there, leaning slightly to the right, arms limp like a zombie and head tilted forward towards the screen. “Sam!” I call him, louder this time, but he doesn’t answer.
He’s probably sleepwalking… but here’s the weird thing, he’s never acted like this while doing it. How the hell did he turn on the TV and tune it to another channel?! There was a news broadcast on the screen, but it looked like an old recording, as if it had been broadcast a long time ago. The font was more square and the video quality looked like if was from an 80’s retro camera. Upon looking further, I see it’s a news archive clip from YouTube, but how the hell did he find this, and in his sleep.
I got up from the couch and gently and quietly approached him… he was still in the same position. Once I got close to Sam, I noticed that his pupils were dilated and his eyes were not looking into space, but they were focusing on what was happening on the screen. It was as if he was awake, but you could see that he wasn’t. His mouth was slightly open in a surprised expression, as if he was really watching this broadcast in his sleep.
In the broadcast there was an old video recording of a large private house with many police sirens blasting, the broadcasters were talking but it was masked by static interference.. They said something about a famous killer that the police found in his hiding place and had killed him on the spot… but I didn’t exactly listen to it, I was more worried about my brother who was behaving in a very unusual way.
I placed both hands on his shoulders gently and held on to him so he wouldn’t fall if he woke up, “Sam… come. Get up.” He slowly turned his head towards me, he stared at me with the same facial expression he had in front of the screen, then slowly his pupils returned to normal and he stumbled suddenly. I caught him and he woke up, opening his eyes again.
“Drew.. what.. what happened.. where am I?” He asked.
“You were sleepwalking again Sam…” I replied.
“But… what… why do I have a remote in my hand?” he countered, and then I noticed that he was holding the TV remote in his hand… and he did change the channel and put the segment on YouTube, in his sleep.
This was certainly a first. Sam’s sleepwalking had developed into something else entirely.
I put a hand on his shoulder, “You were sleepwalking Sam” I told him.
He put his left hand on his forehead and let out a sigh… “But how did I get here and then further play some video… this has never happened to me Drew….”
He sounded desperate and broken. I hugged him and said to him “I don’t know Sam… Tomorrow we’ll tell mom and dad and go to Dr. Harris to check you out. Oh and after that we can continue watching ‘Emily in Paris’ until the end of the season. Okay?”
He let out a small laugh… “But you hate this series”, “True… but you’re tired of it too” I told him, we both laughed.
“Take the blankets and go to our room Sam, I’ll tidy up here and come” I told him, he took the blankets and left. I put the remote in its place, cleaned the leftover popcorn left on the table from the night before and went to turn off the screen. The video was still playing.. same old weird news flash. How did he know what to look for in the YouTube search? How the hell did he type in his sleep? And who is this killer?.. (sigh) I had a lot of questions about this… but I would die of exhaustion trying to find the answers. So I turned off the TV and went to Sam and I’s room, and then we both fell asleep.
The next day I needed to get up early to catch the 6:30am bus, what fun. As I got up from my bed, on the other side of the room Sam was sleeping in his bed. The rest of the night seemed to have passed peacefully and he slept well. I quickly got organized and left the house before my parents got up. I caught the bus at the last minute and was on the way to my busy school day.
I finished school at 2:30, just as I was leaving school I got a call from my mom, she asked me come straight to the clinic of Dr. Harris, Sam’s psychiatrist. I took a bus there and when I arrived, my mom was sitting in the waiting room while Sam was in his appointment with Dr. Harris in the next room. “Come Drew, sit” my mother said as she made room for me beside her.
“Hey mom, what’s up? Is everything okay with Sam?” I asked.
“He’s fine, I just wanted you to be here with me… I’m having a hard time with this… He’s talking about it with Dr. Harris” she said.
“What?”
“Sam told me about what happened last night… you saw him right?”
“Yes… I didn’t have time to tell you in the morning… he was acting really strange mom…” I responded.
“I know… it’s.. very unusual.” she said, putting a hand on my shoulder and clinging to me.
“But he will be fine.. he always gets better” I told her, and hugged her.
“I know Drew.. but… I feel so bad for him.. these things just keep getting worse.”
I could feel her chin on my shoulder shaking, she was crying. I tightened my hug and we stayed like that for a few moments.
After fifteen minutes, Sam came out of the room and he looked a little pale. “Mom.. Dr. Harris wants to talk to you about it” he said.
“Sure honey.. wait for me outside for a few minutes” she approached Sam, hugged and kissed him, and then entered the room to sit with Dr. Harris.
Sam and I went outside, to the park nearby the clinic. We sat down on a bench and stared into the air.
“So… how are you feeling?” I asked.
“Dr. Harris said I’ll probably have to increase the dosage on my meds,” he replied.
“Ooof.. what a shame.. Because of what happened last night?!”
“Yes… she was very surprised to hear about the episode and said that it’ s quite unusual and that I will have to take stronger sleeping pills”
I put a hand on his shoulder, “Hey listen, after mom’s finished talking to her, the three of us should go eat at this delicious Italian pizzeria I know of. What do you think?”
He smiled, “I’m definitely in the mood for pizza… you always know how to cheer me up Drew”
I smiled. “That’s what brothers are for, Sammy.”
Suddenly, we noticed an old woman walking towards us at a fast pace, she looked a bit confused but continued to come towards us. She reached us and then suddenly approached Sam.
“Ro.. Robert?!?” she stammered while looking at Sam. We both looked confused.. “Umm ma’am? Is everything alright?” Sam asked her. The confusion was really putting me on edge.
“Robert.. what who.. what are you doing here?” she asked.
“Ma’am, my name isn’t Robert” Sam said.
I joined in “Is everything alright ma’am? Do you need help?”. But she ignored it.
She reached out to Sam, coming to caress his cheek. “Rob… Robert. My love, you’re here…”
Sam immediately pulled back and moved her hand gently. “Ma’am, you’re getting confused.. I’m not Robert. I’m Sam.”
“Maybe he looks like this Robert?” I asked her.
She immediately turned her head to me (in a frenzy) “What are you talking about??? Look, it’s my husband Robert! He’s here!” Then she looked at Sam: “Robert! It’s me! Celia, your wife!” She grabbed Sam’s cheeks and bent her head in his direction.
“Okay. That’s it” I raised my voice. I grabbed Sam and pulled him with force, he shook himself off her and we both ran away from her, she stayed on the bench and as we ran away we heard her yelling “Robert…. come back!!!”
(gasp) “What the hell did this woman want from me?!” Sam said after we ran away.
“I have no idea bro…she probably has dementia and is confused” I said.
“She.. she thought I was her husband… Robert” Sam said.
“She probably doesn’t recognize people anymore… maybe you looked like him” I tried to explain…
“How strange she is…” Sam gasped…
“Hey… do you want us to check in with dad about this?” I asked him. Our father works in the information department at the local police station and he has laptop software with all the data of everyone with a case in the system. When we were little, me and Sam used to sneak up quietly and take his laptop and find all sorts of criminals.. it was funny and entertaining.
Sam asked “What.. about this woman?”
“Yes.. we will find out who she is and who her husband Robert is and if you look a lot like him” I said, half joking, half serious.
“Yes… I’m really interested to know” he said.
Later that evening.. we came home after our pizza trip. We were starving, Sam and I each ate a whole tray, mom settled for a triangle and a half. Around 9 o’clock, my father came back from work. And we’ve all seen some kind of comedy show on TV. After that, the parents went to the room to do… well you know…
It was the perfect time to peek at dad’s laptop, they usually take time there. Sam quietly crept into his study and took the laptop from Dad’s bag. I supervised. We entered our room and locked the door. I opened the laptop and typed in the password for his user, luckily for us, our father is quite predictable in these things, his password for almost everything is “smodero123 “ yes, even for this classified police system.
I logged in and clicked on the search bar.
“Okay, so we’re looking for someone named Robert who looks like you,” I said to Sam.
Sam nodded, I searched for Robert in the system and several hundred results popped up. God… it’s a shame we don’t have a last name for him.
We searched for hours… we went from picture to picture, lots of random men with police files, one worked as a clown and harassed children at birthday parties, one was a drunk driver who ran over a pregnant woman, one a long dead serial killer and even one who stole a whole case of Coca-Cola from a grocery store…
(sigh) “It doesn’t work…none of them look like me at all” Sam said.
“Yeah..huh.. Apparently the woman was just confused” I said.
Sam suddenly looked at me, “Wait a minute.. the.. the woman! We have the woman’s name! Maybe we will find her and there will be details about her husband” he said excitedly.
“Right!” I was excited too “What’s her name? She told you…”
“Wow.. um… well…. she said she was his wife… uh! Celia! Her name is Celia” Sam said.
I searched for Celia in the system, about 40 results popped up, not surprising, it’s not a common name here.
We searched and this time we found her. Celia Bundy. That’s her name. It turns out that she was in prison until 2018.
We checked her file, (sad music) she is 89 years old, childless and a widow. Her late husband Robert Bundy, died in 1986. We clicked on the link in his name, which that led us back to one of the Roberts we looked over earlier.
His picture was nothing like Sam, he looked old, at least 60 years old, with a black beard and wild black hair. It was written that he was killed in 1986. I came to read the details about him… but a second before that…
(Moving of a door handle) “Sam! Drew! Why is the door locked??” It was mom!
“Shit” I whispered to Sam “they finished fast.”
Sam immediately closed the laptop and hid it behind his back. I opened the door. Our mom came in and asked if everything was okay. I told her that Sam andd I were just talking about things. She understood.. Our privacy is always important to her. Our dad showered and it was time to sneak the laptop back into his bag without him noticing we touched it. Sam quietly went to his room, I looked after, returned the laptop and left quickly.
“Phew… what luck we found the husband” he said
“Yes…” I said. But really I was dying to know who Robert Bundy was, his crimes, and could he possibly had to do with my fucking brother?
That night we slept in our room and surprisingly Sam fell asleep quickly. As I said we each devoured a full tray of pizza, which was 1600 calories of fatty cheese and tomato sauce. Anyway, he fell asleep pretty quickly… and so did I.
In the middle of the night… I woke up from feeling a touch on my neck… that something caressed my neck gently, At first I thought it was a mosquito so I gave in and put my hand on my neck…. but then… I felt fingertips touching my hand, trying to touch my neck again. (in a panic) I immediately got up and turned in a panic towards the room.
It would look like Sam, but something… stood in front of my bed, the blanket covering the whole thing, he was standing in front of me and the head covered by the blanket was pointing straight. (Sigh of relief) Phew… But then I realized it was Sam, I saw the tips of his fingers sticking out from below… I immediately sighed… “Sam what the hell, why are you touching me like that with your fingers” and then I remembered that he was probably walking in his sleep again… I came to get up and take the the blanket and put him back in bed but then: (in a heavy male voice)
“1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12” A heavy and unfamiliar voice emanated from the blanket, and began to count.
“S.. Sam?” I was so scared… this had never happened… I didn’t know what was under the blanket… but it wasn’t Sam, it doesn’t sound like him at least.
And then, he’s at number 12, he just stuck up and went back up, over and over again, like a broken record. He came closer and closer to me
“Sam! Please stop! Enough!” I pushed him and he fell suddenly. The strange voice stopped and I heard Sam again. “Ahhhhhhh” he uttered from under the blanket, he pulled the blanket off of him, and there he was, Sam, my twin brother.
“Sam! What.. what the hell?? What just happened to you?” I asked him, screaming for another second.
“What.. what are you talking about..” he asked as he tried to get up from the floor.
I immediately jump to help him, “You were sleepwalking… you touched my neck and this voice came out of you… a voice that was not yours”
He stared at me and I could tell he felt bad, “Drew.. I.. I don’t know what to tell you… I didn’t do it.”
Sam started crying: “I would never do anything to hurt you Drew.. I am sorry that I’m a terrible brother, I am sorry you have to endure this strange phenomenon that I have… um.. I feel like I am not in control of my body sometimes.”
I bent down to him: “Hey no no, whoa, calm down bro..” I hugged him, “Everything is fine… I’m not angry… I just don’t understand what’s going on with you..” He pulled away from me and whispered “Neither do I… but you know I’ll never do anything to hurt you.”
“Me neither” I patted him on the back, and helped him get up. “Listen, tomorrow we’ll try to make an appointment for you again with Dr. Harris and we will tell her everything, I’m sure she’ll know how to explain or she’ll know someone who can help you.” I reassured him and he nodded.
For an hour we sat next to each other and talked about all these things.. I love my brother and I refuse let this strange phenomenon hurt him. I was determined to look into the matter for myself. After another half hour, Sam went back to bed. I decided that I have to read more about this Robert, maybe it will give me a clue as to what he is going through, and if it has anything to do with this voice that came from him.
I snuck into dad’s study, closed the door behind me and opened dad’s bag, and pulled out the laptop and hid under the table in case my dad came in for some reason, I’m already an expert at these things. I logged back into the system and searched for Robert Bundy’s file again.
I started to read his file: “Robert Bundy was a dangerous serial killer. He married Celia Bundy in 1955. He was killed in 1986 when police located him in his hideout. He was charged with 12 felony counts of first degree murder between 1963 to 1986. His MO for his kills was to strangle his relatives around their necks and because he was a broad-boned man, his hands was large enough to strangle the victim’s neck and then break it. After his death, his wife Celia received a life sentence for conspiracy to murder, but was released in 2018 because of her old age on compassionate release”.
What the hell…. this… this really reminds me Sam’s unconscious actions… the TV show he was watching… the hand on my neck.. the number 12… and that woman.. she was not mentally ill… I.. I have to tell …
-a knock on the door-
A sudden knock on the door of the study interrupted mey train of thought.. fuck… my father woke up.. I closed the laptop and came to open the door… but then…
“12, 12, 12,12”
(in horror) I heard it again… his voice… Robert Bundy’s….
“SAM???!!!” I screamed “Stop it!”
But I remembered that most likely he wouldn’t hear me.
“Mom, Dad!!!!” I read aloud.
Suddenly the voice behind the door said “Don’t bother calling them, they are no longer with us”
Suddenly the door opened, it was Sam… but something about him was not right.
He leaned to the side and walked crookedly, his eyes were squinting and staring into space and his mouth was smiling… and blood was dripping from his hands.
“Sssssssssssssssssam?!!!”
Suddenly, Sam’s mouth started to move and out came the same deep voice:
“There is no Sam… there never was a Sam… Sam died at birth… and in his place I returned. Robert.”
“Sam…stop…it’s not funny” I told him. I sank into to the corner of the room, Sam, or whomever it was, came closer to me, his eyes suddenly focused on me, he ran towards me with a limp and smiled:
“The body may be Sam’s… but the soul… the soul has always been mine”
Suddenly he jumped on me, grabbing me tightly by the throat and began choking me..
It didn’t feel like Sam’s hand… this hand was much bigger and stronger…
I can’t move and can feel myself being suffocated to death. In my last moments on this earth, I hear his muffled voice:
“14,14,14,14….. 15!”
End.