“See you soon.” That’s what my fiancée Mandy said before she left for work that Tuesday morning.
I never saw her alive again.
I didn’t know that it was even possible for a twenty-seven-year-old woman to have a heart attack, but the doctors told me that 1 in 5 cardiac events happen to people under the age of forty.
If only Mandy had been walking down a busier street instead of the shady alley she took to work…if only she’d been able to get her phone out of her pocket to call for help…
If only. The words felt tattooed on my brain.
We’d been planning to open a bakery in November, but I couldn’t manage it without her–and besides, like most things that reminded me of Mandy, our business idea now left a bitter taste in my mouth.
Without really realizing it, I transformed my apartment into a sort of shrine to our relationship. I spent my days working grueling ten-hour shifts as a package handler, and when I returned home, I wallowed in Mandy’s photos, clothing, books, and records. I’d watch her favorite movies with a tall drink in hand, sipping until my mind drifted off far away and granted me a sort of ecstasy through oblivion.
Two years of my life passed by that way, like booze poured into a bottomless pit. It wasn’t until I met Kristina that things began to change.
For starters, she got me out of my apartment…and away from the bottle.
She understood that I had a drinking problem long before I did, and it wasn’t until the fourth or fifth time I saw that I realized our “dates” (for lack of a better word) never involved alcohol. We’d go to a carnival by the beach, a picnic in the hills, an old video game arcade…Kristina was full of ideas.
Of course, even two years later, I felt like I was doing something wrong by faling for someone else…someone who wasn’t Mandy.
It was almost eerie how well Kristina understood me. She knew I needed time, and took things slowly. She didn’t even hold my hand until our second month of going on “excursions” together. One morning, Kristina came over without calling: she’d brought sturdy black trash bags and cleaning supplies. When I saw her standing on my doormat with that determined expression, I knew it was time. My apartment got its first deep-clean in two years, and Kristina helped me to get rid of the remembrances that I just didn’t have the strength to throw away, myself. In the end, I only kept one picture of Mandy: an image of her baking bread with me in the kitchen, her black clothes covered in flour, a wide smile on her face. I felt a little guilty keeping it, and for a time, I forgot about it altogether.
It was like I could breathe again. Like I’d woken up from a nightmare-ridden nap. The first breath of air when I woke up tasted fresher somehow, and I felt blessed that Kristina had seen me for who I could become instead of the depressed alcoholic I’d been when we’d met.
Not long after we moved in together, Kristina took me to a candlelit concert and a romantic dinner. When I asked what we were celebrating, she made a toast to the health of my future business. Even after all I’d been through, she knew I still dreamed of being an entrepreneur–and that night was her way of pledging to support me while I set out on what would probably be a rough and uncertain road.
Without Kristina’s help, I never would have reached out to my old contacts in the business world or attended so many startup conventions. Somehow, other entrepreneurs and investors seemed to take me so much more seriously with Kristina by my side. With two others, I eventually launched a small IT consulting firm. It was a far cry from the bakery I’d once imagined, but I was finally my own boss. Every year brought more success–and I knew I had Kristina to thank for it. Her bright green eyes and warm smile were all I could think about as I stood in front of the jeweler’s stand, trying to decide on an engagement ring. Something with emeralds, I thought. To match her eyes.
My phone rang. The number was “unknown,” but as a consultant, I was used to getting calls from strangers. At first, I heard only the sound of roaring winds, as though the speaker was calling from inside a sandstorm. They kept repeating the same phrase over and over, but I couldn’t understand it, not at first; maybe I didn’t want to understand it.
Because I knew those words…and that voice:
“See you soon.”
Mandy’s voice grew louder and louder until it felt like her lips were less than an inch away, screaming into my ear. “See you soon seeyousoonSEEYOUSOO–” I flung my phone away like it burned me. When I retrieved it from the carpet, the mysterious call had ended.
Throughout the rainy drive home, I wondered who would play such a cruel trick. An old bully from high school? a dissatisfied client? It didn’t make sense.
In the end, I settled on two simple golden bands, purchased from a different jeweler. After that strange call, the other shop seemed tainted somehow; just driving past it gave me shivers.
Kristina said yes, as I knew she would, and everything went fine right up until the moment we got ready to cut the wedding cake.
Words appeared in the white frosting, as though traced by an invisible finger: S-E-E Y-O-U S-O-
Acting on instinct, I grabbed a fistful of the icing-letters and pressed it over Kristina’s mouth, to laughter and applause. Maybe it was a bad move. After all, Kristina’s one request for our wedding experience was that ‘we NOT do the cake thing.’ But I didn’t think that justified the look of pure disgust and hate she gave me in that moment. I’d never seen Kristina so angry. Was Mandy trying to wreck my relationship from beyond the grave? Kristina forced herself to sigh and smile–and give me a taste of my own medicine. The cloying sweetness of cake on my lips forced the insane thought out of my mind, the band began to play, and the night went on without any further…incidents. Kristina and I signed our documents, filled out our life insurance forms, got listed on each others’ bank accounts, and set out for our honeymoon.
Yet Mandy’s messages (if that’s what they were) didn’t stop. They showed up in the shower-steamed mirror. In my alphabet breakfast cereal. Even the magnets on the refrigerator. It was unexplainable: there was no doubt about that. But once I got over the initial shock of seeing those fateful words, I realized that they could be ignored as well. After all, they were just words. I had moved on, and needed to as well–ghost or not.
A few weeks after Kristina and I returned to California from our honeymoon in Italy, I had my first near-death experience. That morning, I was scheduled to meet a client at a restaurant along Highway One: a beautiful but dangerous route that skirts the stormy, cliff-lined coast. Maybe it was a trick of the mist, but as I was turning out of our neighborhood, I’d swear I saw someone standing in the middle of the road. It was only a black shape in the white fog, but it looked familiar–
It looked like Mandy.
I slammed on my brakes–or tried to. No matter how hard I pressed on the pedal, nothing happened. rolled to a stop in a suburban yard and looked nervously out of the window with my emergency flashers blaring–
There was nothing outside but mist.
Later, the mechanics would tell me that my brake line had been set up to fail. The phone calls and inexplicable writing had been one thing; now, however, it seemed that Mandy’s vengeful ghost was actually trying to kill me.
Kristina could tell that something was wrong; there was concern in her eyes when I got home that night. She did her best to cheer me up with red wine, a romantic evening by the fireplace, and a steak dinner, but I was too exhausted to enjoy it.
I supposed it was the accumulated stress of the haunting (for that was what it was; I no longer had any doubts) that caused me to drift off to sleep so quickly after dinner.
When I did, I dreamed about Mandy.
We were back in the rundown hardwood apartment that we’d shared back when I was still working on opening the bakery. It was a beautiful spring morning; golden light shone through the open balcony doors. I turned over in the rumpled sheets, and even in my dream I felt my blood run cold as I recognized Mandy’s naked back beside me: her messy dark brown hair, the rose tattoo on her spine, the scar on her shoulder from a bike accident. At the foot of the bed, the closet door creaked open just a crack. I scrambled backwards in bed; the closet door opened wider, and the morning light seemed to dim. The darkness inside the closet seemed hungry; a pair of green eyes stared hatefully out at me from its depths.
Beside me, Mandy pointed out the balcony window. She held a finger to her lips:
“See you soon.”
The closet door opened wide; something enormous skittered forward.
The hairy black legs of an enormous spider, its hideous bulk hungrily toward me.
The spider had Kristina’s face.
I woke up slumped in the passenger seat of the rental car the mechanic had given me.
I was in the garage with the door shut and the motor running.
My head ached from the fumes; I turned off the ignition, opened the garage door, and staggered into the house. If Mandy could manipulate my dreams…could she also move my body in my sleep?! Kristina slipped an arm under my shoulder and helped me to the kitchen table before disappearing to prepare some tea and call emergency services.
Alone with my thoughts, I realized that I had to tell my wife what I was going through. Kristina placed a warm cup of tea in front of me and I took a small sip, willing my foggy brain to put the words together in a way that wouldn’t sound completely insane.
Suddenly, my arm exploded in pain:
Bloody letters appeared, carved into my skin by an unseen force: SEE YOU SOON.
Where was emergency services? Hadn’t Kristina called them? My brain was too addled by the fumes; I couldn’t think straight. And why was Kristina holding a knife?
As the bloody words had appeared on my arm, my hand had flailed wildly, knocking over the teacup. A faint scent of bitter almonds rose from the spilled liquid, and I finally realized the truth:
It wasn’t Mandy who’d tampered with my brakes.
It wasn’t Mandy who’d fed me sleeping pills with wine before placing me inside a running car in a sealed garage.
It wasn’t Mandy who’d put arsenic in my tea.
Kristina advanced on me, a razor sharp knife in her hand and an insane smile on her lips:
“You’re tired,” she cooed. “Your head hurts. Don’t fight it…it will all be over soon.”
I stood woozily, knocking over the plates and dishes that had been my parents’ wedding gift to Kristina and I. They shattered on the floor as I staggered toward the door.
Mandy’s voice screamed into my left ear with such force that I dropped, clutching my head–
And barely missed the shining edge of Kristina’s knife as it sliced through the air.
My phone began to ring in the pocket of my denim jacket.
Jacket.
Phone.
I had no doubt that it was that unknown number again…or that my only hope was to call emergency services, get out in public, and try to stop my wife’s knife with the thick jacket cloth until help could arrive.
As it turned out, the nightmare was over as soon as I made it out the door with the phone in my hand. My neighbor Taylor was out for a walk with his Labrador and two toddlers; the moment he saw me practically falling off of my porch with terror in his eyes, he knew something was wrong–and Kristina knew that there would be witnesses.
Kristina didn’t resist when the police came for her. She just stared into space with a vacant expression, a hollow look that explained it all: helping me start my career, marrying me, taking out a high-paying life insurance policy that I’d barely looked at before signing–it was all part of her plan to profit from my death.
Mandy had been trying to warn me.
I didn’t hear from Mandy for years after Kristina’s arrest. There were no more dark figures in the fog or gruesome words scrawled on the walls. In a strange way, I almost missed them. They were a reminder that someone was waiting for me on the other side–that somehow, the strongest human emotions carry on, even through the veil of death…
A few days ago, I went to my doctor for a routine check-up. As he came through the door with an armload of paperwork, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket: I’d received a text.
“We’ve got the results of your blood work back,” my doctor began. There was a helpless look on his weathered face that I didn’t understand. “To be honest, it doesn’t look good. You might want to sit down…”
My eyes were already drifting to the message from an unknown number that glowed on the screen of my phone:
see you soon.