It was about a week ago when I first dreamed about killing my husband. In the dream, we were sitting in our little breakfast nook eating bagels and drinking coffee, which is something we typically do when we first get up on the weekends. I had gotten up to get the cream cheese out of the refrigerator and was coming back to the table, tub of cream cheese in one hand and butter knife in the other, when I suddenly dropped the tub and leapt onto my husband. My butt banged painfully into the table, shoving it back and sending coffee and bagels everywhere, but I didn’t care. I was intent on driving the butter knife deep into the soft flesh of his abdomen.
It was surprisingly easy given the dullness of the knife, and when I woke up I remember feeling a dim sense of satisfaction at my bloody work. Then it transmogrified into horror and disgust as my waking mind surfaced from the black and murky waters of sleep, and I immediately turned and looked to find Ronald, my sweet husband of nearly 15 years, sleeping peacefully beside me unharmed.
I was initially shaken up by the dream, but out of some combination of guilt and wanting to tell him an interesting story, I told Ronald about the dream at dinner that night. He had listened intently, and I was worried it was going to hurt his feelings or be misconstrued as some subconscious sign of marital problems that weren’t there. But when I got to the part about me waking up and checking on him, he just roared with laughter. Wiping his eyes, he told me not to worry about it. Dreams didn’t mean anything and it was probably just a sign I was stressed or had eaten something that didn’t agree with me. In the moment I had agreed with him, feeling a sense of relief after worrying about it all day. But then that night, it happened again.
This time we were in Ronald’s car, though I was driving, and if I remember right we were on our way to go see a movie. One minute we are talking about reviews we had read about the thing we’re going to see, and the next I’m repeatedly stabbing him in his left side with an icepick I had apparently hid in the driver’s side door pocket at some point earlier. He was screaming in pain and I almost lost control of the car, the wheel jerking this way and that before I managed to get a decent grip with my blood-slick hands. I managed to get the car stopped half a foot from the ditch, and I looked over to see the ice pick still sticking out from under his armpit, blood squirting out around it in time with his dying heart. I started to yell, and then I was awake again.
This time I woke Ronald up, his expression confused and irritated as I asked if he was okay. He said he was, and I could tell he wanted to go back to sleep, but I insisted he stay awake long enough for me to tell him my dream. By this point I was so upset that telling the story felt akin to popping a blister. The pressure inside me had to be let out, and talking to him was the only way I knew how. So he listened groggily as I recounted my second time killing him, his expression becoming more serious toward the end.
“Look, Patricia. I can tell you’re upset about it, but it’s really nothing. People have repetitive or similar dreams all the time. And yeah, it’d be nice if you’d stop dreaming about murdering me,” he chuckled at this part, but went on, “but it’s not the end of the world or a sign that something is wrong. You probably just have it on your mind, that’s all. Try to let it go and I bet the dreams go away.”
That sounded good in theory, and I did try to not dwell on it throughout the day. That night, I took a sleeping pill in the hopes I would get a good night’s rest and have a dreamless sleep. Instead, I dreamed that I shot Ronald in the chest as he was getting out of the shower.
By this point, I was pretty much a wreck. I made an appointment with a therapist for the following week and I kept quizzing Ronald on any strange behaviors he had seen from me. Any signs I was having mental problems or had some kind of brain tumor or something. That night, he finally just slid over and hugged me, holding me as I cried against his shoulder. I felt like I was losing my mind, and I loved him so much for being understanding. Looking back, I realize now I smelled the strange, waxy smell even then, but at the time I was too focused on my worry and guilt to realize it.
That night it was a thin, braided wire held tight against his neck as I kneeled on his back and sawed back and forth with all my strength. This happened in our bed, with him on his stomach and thrashing about for air as blood began to soak the sheets. I woke up in a cold sweat, and after checking on him, I went into the living room, my whole body shaking. I stayed there until he woke up and came down in the morning, and that’s when I told him I was going to sleep in the guest room until this was resolved. I didn’t know if it would help anything, but I had to try something until I could talk to a doctor.
Ronald didn’t like it, but he agreed. He suggested I stay home from work for a couple of days and try to relax, but I couldn’t. Work was the only real distraction I had. Besides, if it kept on like this, I might need any leave time I had accrued. I found myself googling the steps needed to voluntarily commit yourself. I didn’t like the idea, but something was terribly wrong, and I didn’t know if I trusted myself around Ronald with things as they were.
That night Ronald had a work meeting that was going to go late, so I decided to do some cleaning. I had all this nervous energy, and while the house was not that messy, my hope was that if I tired myself out maybe I could go a night without the dreams. I scrubbed down the kitchen and the bathrooms, and then I went to change the sheets. As expected, the mattress showed no signs of the bloodbath from the dream where I had garroted him in bed.
But that wasn’t the only blood that was missing.
Back two years ago, I had a sinus infection that gave me terrible nosebleeds. One night I had bled onto the bed before I woke up, and when I checked the mattress later, there was a dime-sized circle of dried blood stained onto the edge of the mattress near the seam. I never mentioned it to Ronald, but I always noticed it when I changed the sheets.
Now it was gone.
I scoured the surface of the mattress, thinking I was either misremembering the exact spot or just overlooking it. Nothing. Then I flipped the mattress over, but it was clean as well. While it looked just the same, this was not the same mattress.
My stomach began twisting into hard knots as I paced around the house. I didn’t know what to do. I knew something was going on, but I was afraid I didn’t have enough proof to confront Ronald and learn if he knew more about it. When he came home, he seemed normal as always, giving me a sad look when I went to bed in the guest room.
That night I dreamed that I stabbed him in the back with a butcher knife, the handle partially breaking as I hit his ribs and spine. But I kept going, my hands still curled as though they were holding the knife when I woke up in a panic. I lay there sweating and crying for half an hour before I realized I hadn’t checked on Ronald yet. He was sleeping soundly when I looked in on him.
In the last few days he had taken to wearing these high-collar, long-sleeved pajamas I got him for Christmas a few years back. This was different from the normal t-shirt and shorts he normally wore to bed. I hadn’t thought anything about it at first, other than maybe he was trying to make me feel better by wearing an old gift he’d never really liked.
Now though, I wondered. The weather was warm and the pajamas covered more, not less. I started edging toward the bed, having some irrational desire to really check him out and make sure he was okay. As though he could be lying to me about having been shot and stabbed and choked to death. I was less than five feet away when the floor betrayed me with a wooden creak. I looked down at my feet for a moment, and when I looked back up, Ronald was looking at me.
“Another dream?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
He nodded back and began getting up. “I’m sorry, honey. I know it’s hard on you. I think it’ll be over soon, one way or the other, but just try to stay strong for now.” He glanced at the clock, which read 5:32. “I think I’m going to go ahead and get up. I have some stuff I need to get done early at work.” He looked back at me. “You okay?”
I cleared my throat and looked away. “Yeah, I think I’m going to take a mental health day today though. Try to figure some things out.”
Ronald reached out and patted my shoulder. “That sounds like a good idea. Just try and relax.”
An hour later he was gone and I was in the bathroom inspecting the shower.
It had occurred to me after I had woken up from the last dream. When I had shot him in the shower, I remember the bullet going through his arm and chest and hitting the tile wall of the shower, sending a spray of porcelain out at the impact. So I started looking at the tiles around the height the shot would have hit, and it didn’t take long for me to find what I was looking for.
One of the tiles was new. It was a very close match, but you could tell it was slightly brighter than the rest and the grout around it was fresh, despite someone’s efforts to make it look worn and discolored with age. I could barely hear my own thoughts for the static buzz of panic in my ears. I went to the breakfast nook and looked for any signs of that attack, but I found none. I guessed there would likely be something overlooked in his car, given all the nooks and crannies, but even if I could find it, I wasn’t sure when I could get lengthy access to it without risking Ronald finding out.
I almost called him right then to confront him, but decided against it. First, I needed to check the house over for any other signs of what was going on. Really search from top to bottom before he or whoever was doing this to us knew that I had caught on.
I spent the next six hours going over the house, and I was almost ready to give up. Exhausted and smelly, I was doing a final sweep of the attic when I noticed something tucked away in the far corner. It was a small duffel bag I had never seen before. Inside it were some tubes and cases of make-up in brands I had never heard of before and two large jars of something called “restorative wax”.
Carrying the bag downstairs, I got on the internet and looked up the items from the bag. The makeup was commonly used in funeral homes to prepare bodies for viewings. And the restorative wax was something undertakers used to cover up wounds on a corpse.
I ran to the bathroom and began to vomit. That’s likely why I didn’t hear Ronald coming in. He had taken off early to come check on me, and when I saw him standing in the doorway to the bathroom, looking down in concern at me huddled against the toilet, I screamed. Both from surprise and, for the first time since I had met him twenty years earlier, fear. I recoiled against the bathtub at the sight of him, telling him to stay back.
He frowned sadly. “I saw the duffel on the table when I came through. I guess you’ve figured some things out and I have some explaining to do.” His expression was sheepish, as though he had stayed out late drinking with friends or forgotten our anniversary. I was at a loss for words. “See, I’ve been going through…a period of personal and spiritual growth of late.” He raised his hand. “I haven’t been trying to keep it from you, sweetie, but some of it…well, some of it is fairly out there, and I didn’t think you would understand until I could show you results.”
I stood up shakily. “Let me out of the bathroom.” When he started to protest, I glared at him. “Let me out of this fucking bathroom. Then we will talk.”
He nodded and stepped aside with a furrowed brow. I bolted past him, reaching the door of the bedroom before stopping and turning around. “Okay. You stay fucking there and you tell me what’s going on.” I was going to stop there, but then I heard myself blurting out, “Are you dead?”
Ronald let out a short burst of laughter before catching himself. “Shit. Sorry. No. I’m not dead. Not any more, at least. But that’s what I’m trying to tell you about. You see..”
“Did I fucking kill you? Like, several times?”
He sighed. “Yes, technically you did. But it’s okay. With this new thing I’m a part of, I come back. But still, I know how hard this has been on you. I’ve wanted to tell you so bad, and I swear, only a few more times and it will be finished.”
I felt dizzy, like my head had been stuffed with cotton soaked in rum and cocaine. Putting my hand against the bedroom door for support, my teeth gritted from both my anger and the effort to stay in the conversation at all.
“A few more times? You fucking bastard. What are you talking about? How have you been getting me to do it at all?”
He raised his hands to me in a placating gesture, taking a step forward before retreating at my glare. “It’s part of the process. My new friends, they have developed ways to facilitate all of this. You don’t understand, it has to be you. It won’t work nearly as well if I wasn’t being hurt and killed by someone I love, and there’s no one I love as much as you.” When I just stared at him, he pushed on. “Look, they have been controlling you at times during the night. They told me you probably wouldn’t remember, but when you had the dreams about what you did after we’d put you to bed, I figured we could just push through it. But you kept having them and getting more upset…and now I can see you’ve figured some of it out.”
He rubbed his eyes. “Two or three more times. That’s all we need. And you’ll see what I become and you’ll understand. You’ll want me to do it to you, and I will, because you are my best friend and I want to share this with you.”
I pushed down the urge to vomit again. “Just stop. I don’t know what crazy, sick shit this is, but I want no part of it. I don’t know if I even believe any of this at all.”
He smiled sadly. “I understand. Let me show you.” He started unbuttoning his shirt, but then he paused. “Now don’t judge this too harshly. I know it will look bad, and this is largely because we’re only part way done. But just try not to get too scared or judgmental about it. Work in progress and all that.” Ronald continued taking his shirt off, and immediately I could spot a couple of different spots where the restorative wax and makeup were starting to slough off his multitude of wounds. At first I thought it was just due to him moving around and sweating, my brain dealing with this impossible horror in a strangely detached and clinical way. But then I realized it was because something was pushing out the clay and makeup from inside the wounds.
Within a matter of seconds, several mottled brown tendrils ranging from one to three inches long snaked their way out of the wounds on his torso and neck. They glistened in the late afternoon light coming through the window as they whipped back and forth with a shared rhythm and cadence. I felt something start to give in my mind as I took them in. Then I realized Ronald was smiling, his arms extended as he started walking towards me.
“Aren’t they beautiful?”
I ran. I flew through the house, snatching up my purse as I bolted for the door and out to my car. Ronald didn’t immediately follow me outside, but as I was driving away I saw him walk out into the road. His shirt was back on and he was wearing a forlorn look as he watched me go.
That was two days ago. Since then I’ve been staying in a motel room over a hundred miles away, trying to figure out what to do or who to turn to. I’ve still been considering strongly that I’m insane, but when I listen to the voicemails that Ronald leaves, full of “I’m sorry” and “you’ll come to understand”, I’m not sure I’m hallucinating at all. I do know that I haven’t had bad dreams for the last two nights.
But I’m not sure how long that will last. Two hours ago, there was a knock at the door to my room. It was Ronald. I didn’t respond, but he still stood outside and talked to me through the door for over ten minutes. He was telling me how much he loves me, how he regrets not being more open from the beginning, how he will make it up to me. But he was also saying that he had to finish it now or it would go bad for him. Bad for both of us. That the people he was tied up with, they were wonderful souls, but they had a very low tolerance for mistakes and half-measures.
He said he could feel the things inside of him growing restless and unsatisfied. That they needed him to be complete, that they couldn’t understand why there had been two days without any progress. He said he could tell they were unhappy because they had started to bite him a lot more often.
He left the door after that, but when I look out the window I can still see him sitting outside at the edge of the parking lot. He looks so sad and alone, and even from a distance I can tell he’s lost weight. Every few seconds I see him grimace and shift uncomfortably, and I can only imagine what those things are doing to his insides.
If I try to leave, he may try to stop me. I could call the police, of course, but is that what I want? Or do I want to try to help him, despite all that’s happened? I know I love him, and it’s painful looking out there and seeing him waiting for me. And I know that if he comes back scratching at my door again, I’m afraid I might let him in.
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