I sat watching Brent sleep, knowing what a waste of time it was. I was coddling him, feeding into his delusions, instead of doing the hard thing, the right thing. Telling him that yes, he needed help, but from a therapist or a hospital, not an old girlfriend. That whatever he thought, I wasn’t going to see some kind of strange event or monster that night.
He lay snoring peacefully in the same bed he’d had back when I dated him three years ago. Most of his furniture and decorations were the same actually, and it awoke a disorienting mix of nostalgia and discomfort from seeing familiar things in an unfamiliar apartment across the country from where they had been when I’d seen them last. Reflecting again on the last couple of days of hurried travel preparations, the flight out, the expense of it all, I found myself questioning again what I was doing there.
When Brent had moved out to the west coast for grad school, I was the one that had chosen to end things. I didn’t want to move and I didn’t see us working well long-distance. It was hard, but I had made my peace with the decision a long time ago. And the truth was, while I neither of us was dating anyone at the moment, I didn’t feel any desire to get back together with Brent. We had both grown up and moved on, and while we didn’t talk often, we had developed a comfortable long-distance friendship that had made his phone call two days earlier a bit of a surprise, but a welcome one.
“Hey Cassidy. How’re you doing?”
My initial automatic response of something like “Hey, I’m doing good. How’re you?” died in my throat as I realized how he sounded. I’d known from his voice it was Brent, but I’d never heard him sound like that. He sounded defeated and exhausted, but more than that, he sounded scared. My first thought was that he had been in an accident or gotten arrested for something terrible, though I couldn’t imagine what that would be.
“Umm, I’m okay. Brent, are you okay?”
After a pause, “Not really, Cass. I…I’ve got some kind of problem. It’s going to sound crazy…maybe it is crazy, but I don’t know who else to ask about it. My folks would just freak out and accuse me of being on drugs, which I’m not. And I can’t talk to the people I know out here about it. I…I know I don’t have any right to ask, but you’re the only one I trust with this. Can you come out for a couple of days?”
My mind was racing. My gut instinct was to tell him no—I had work, it was too short-notice, it might be weird, and it would be super-expensive. But…I knew Brent. He was a good guy. A honest guy. And he didn’t like asking for help unless he really needed it.
“Okay, yeah. But first tell me what’s going on.”
“I think someone is invading…is coming into my apartment uninvited at night. I’ve got camera footage of it, but I want you to see it before I try to explain. See what you think. I know this all sounds very mysterious, but I swear, I’m not on anything and I don’t think I’m crazy.” He sighed. “But I also know the old saying about crazy people never thinking they’re crazy, so that’s why I want to talk to you. To show you. If you tell me I’m wrong, that I need help, then I’ll trust that and get treatment. If I’m right, maybe you can help me figure out what to do about it.”
I felt my stomach twist uncertainly. “Brent, do you think your apartment is haunted or something? Because I can already tell you that…”
“No! No. I don’t think it’s haunted. It’s…well, the video shows a person. I really need to show you the video, okay? I won’t be able to explain everything well over the phone or internet—it’ll just make me sound crazy if I try. So will you come?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll come.”
Brent had picked me up from the airport the next morning. He looked pale and tired, and he had a yellowing bruise on one cheek, but other than that he looked like his old self. We hugged and then drove to a restaurant closer to his apartment. He’d said he wanted me to be comfortable, so he was sticking to public places until I had a chance to make sure he wasn’t some kind of lunatic.
“I don’t think that.” I patted his arm. “Look, I know after what happened with your sister, you’re afraid your parents will think you’re some kind of junkie or…well, suicidal or something. But I know you’re not, and they probably would too. You’re not Deidre. She had a lot of problems for a long time. A lot of pain, and a lot of substance abuse trying to stop it. You? You’re like the most normal, stable person I know.” I grinned at him and he smiled back uncertainly.
“Yeah, I know. I think I know. But then this all started happening.” He looked distant for a moment and then pulled himself back to me. “The first thing was when the man punched me.” He gestured to the bruise on his face as he began.
I was coming out of Cutter’s Grocery—it’s a little weird place not far from my apartment—when this dude comes up to me. At first I thought he was going to try to give me a flyer or maybe ask me for directions, but then I saw he looked angry. Not just angry, like, really mad. Before I could really process what was happening, he had gotten into my face and was yelling.
“It’s you, isn’t it? I recognize you.”
I started backing away, but he was right on me, and I wound up just backing into a car’s bumper. “What? I don’t know what you’re talking about. Got the wrong guy.”
This only seemed to make him angrier. “No, you son-of-a-bitch. I know you. You’re him.”
I was starting to get scared and mad myself, but I was trying to avoid a fight. I’ll admit part of that was because the dude was like twice my size, but I still really thought he was just confused or maybe crazy, and I just wanted to get to my car and go.
“I don’t know you, man. Where do you think you know me from?”
He grabbed the front of my t-shirt. “From outside my fucking house. You were standing outside, staring in at my wife, my family, last week. Scared the shit out of them. She called me from work, but by the time I got home, you were gone.” The man pulled me forward and then pushed me back against the car. “But she took a picture of you. It was dark, but not where you were standing. I could see you well-enough.”
I pushed him off me, my bag spilling in the process, but I didn’t care. My heart was hammering and I moved to the side so I wouldn’t be pinned again. “That wasn’t me. I don’t know you or your family, and I wouldn’t do that. It must have been someone that looked like me, man. Honest.” He looked uncertain for a moment, so I added. “I’m sorry that happened though. If that guy comes back, you should call the cops.”
His fist flashed up out of nowhere and my vision went white. Clutching my face, I fell back against the next car over, but kept my feet. I put my arm up to protect myself from another punch, but he didn’t try for one. Instead, he started crying.
“They’re gone, you fuck. My wife, my kids, they’re fucking gone. Police said there were no signs of a struggle, no signs they were taken against their will, but she wouldn’t have left me. We had a good life…a good fucking life…” His eyes burned with hatred through his tears. “It was you, wasn’t it?” I could see he was preparing himself for another attack, and I held up my hand as I pulled out my phone.
“Wait. Fucking wait, okay? I’m calling 911. If I’m the guy, then the police can catch me, right? But I’m telling you, I’m fucking not the guy. I don’t know you or your fucking…” I forced myself to take a breath and calm down as I wiped at my watering eye. “I don’t know your family. But I can tell you’re upset. So let’s get this settled okay?” Blinking, I punched 911 and showed him my phone. “See? Legit calling.”
Fifteen minutes later a police cruiser showed up, though it felt more like an hour. The man was tense the whole time, as though he was ready to tackle me if I tried to run. I guess he was. When the cops arrived, they talked to both of us. I told them I wasn’t wanting to press charges on the guy, but I did want this cleared up, and if I ever saw the guy again after that I’d be calling them back to arrest him. They asked if I’d be willing on going back to the station and answer a few questions, and I agreed.
The interview was a lot more casual and laid back than what you see on t.v. The detective that talked to me said that the guy had been calling them constantly even when they had already told him there was no sign that a crime had occurred. The poor guy just didn’t want to hear that his wife had left him and taken the kids.
“But what about the picture?”
The detective had raised an eyebrow. “Picture?”
I nodded. “Yeah…the guy, the guy that punched me, he said his wife had taken a picture of someone that looked like me standing outside their house, looking in all creepy-like. Just last week.”
The man chuckled and shook his head. “Oh yeah. We heard about that too. Except wouldn’t you know it, the wife took her phone with her when she skidaddled, and the alleged picture was on it.” He smiled at me. “Look, you seem like a nice, normal guy, and I’m sorry this happened to you. And honestly, if anyone had messed with that guy’s family, I’d put my money on him.” He puffed out a breath. “But, the reality is that people “disappear” every day. They have affairs, they steal money, or they just get sick of putting up with some kind of shit. It happens. So unless you’ve got something to confess, I don’t know this interview is going to amount to much.”
I shook my head. “I…no. But I can try and tell you where I was if I know when they left. Or when the guy was supposed to be outside the window.”
The detective nodded. “That was my next question. He last saw them last Thursday morning. And the man was supposedly standing in the yard looking at them late Tuesday night…I think he said around eleven o’clock.”
I thought a moment and then shrugged. “I mean, Tuesday night I think I was at home. I would have went to bed early because I’ve been getting to work early the last two weeks. I’m in grad school, and I work part-time too, but lately I’ve been having to work early shifts because of some of my meetings with professors.”
“Where do you work?”
“Um, the archives section of the university library. I’m working toward becoming one of those people that studies and restores old books and stuff.” I laughed nervously. “Super-nerdy, I know.”
He shook his head. “No, that’s good. My daughter is going for a degree in…I think they call it information technology? I’ll tell you the same thing I tell her. Nerdy is where the money is.” He smiled. “What about Thursday?”
“I spent the morning at the library, then meetings and classes in the afternoon. I played softball that night with some buddies, then went home. Went to bed early again.”
The detective asked me the names of people he could contact if he needed to verify my whereabouts at any of those times, assuring me he wasn’t going to actually call unless something else came up that made it necessary. I gave him the names, he showed me out, and then I went home. For a few days, nothing else strange happened.
But then I noticed I was missing clothes.
I still have a lot of the same clothes and stuff from when we were together. Poor student and all. But even the newer stuff, I know what it is. Where it should be. And I started noticing that I couldn’t find a particular shirt or pair of pants. I’m used to misplacing a sock here or there, but nothing like this. And not with this pattern.
Because it was never underwear or socks or shoes. Just shirts and pants. And, I started to realize, I seemed to be missing an equal number of each. It may sound dumb, but it kind of freaked me out a bit.
Maybe it was just because of the deal with the guy attacking me, or maybe because I’ve been tired and stressed lately, but I started to think someone was coming in and stealing my stuff. Maybe even trying to impersonate me or something, if what that guy said was true. So I borrowed a little security webcam from a friend at school and set it up in my bedroom. I don’t think I really expected to find anything, but I figured it would help ease my mind at least. Get me out of…well, whatever mindset I was slipping into.
“The first three nights there was nothing. Just me coming in and out, sleeping, watching t.v. It kind of freaked me out at first to see the camera watching me, but it was on a new account that I had set up and only I could access, and after the first couple of days, I got used to it. I didn’t even remember to check the fourth night’s footage until I was about to go to sleep the next night.” Brent looked visibly paler as he fiddled with his phone. “I…well, I save a clip of what I’m talking about on my phone. You look at it. Tell me what you see.”
He handed me the phone and I saw it already had a video pulled up. Hitting play, I watched a five-minute night-vision clip of Brent sleeping. He did jerk and twist some early on in the video, and that caused the sheets to pull down and his t-shirt to ride up some. Maybe it looked a bit weird, but I figured it was just him having a nightmare. And aside from that, everything looked normal. I tried to hide my worry as I looked up at him.
“I…I mean, I saw you twisting around some like you were dreaming, but that was it. Was there something else I missed?”
His eyes went wide. “No...wait…” He grabbed the phone back and played the video again, watching it while angling it where I could see it. At various points he would say things like, “Do you see anything there?” or “There! What about that?” Every time, I would just sadly shake my head.
I could tell he was getting more agitated, but his voice was even when he put the phone down. “Okay. Well…that’s not good.” He was lost in thought, pulling at his lip the way he always had when he was nervous or upset. After a moment, he looked back to me. “Look, I’m starting to think maybe I really am just crazy. What I see when I watch that video…it’s a lot different. And that’s just one example.”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
He grimaced as he put the phone back in his pocket. “I mean I’ve been recording myself sleeping for three weeks, and every fourth night…something happens. Or at least I think something happens. When I’ve watched the videos, I see things that, well...” I could see the fear on his face at the memory, imagined or not. “The video I showed you was from the first time, and it’s still the longest and clearest one I’ve got. So if it’s not really there…” He shook his head slightly. “But there’s also the clothes.”
“The clothes you’ve been missing?”
He nodded, his eyes lighting up again, if only a little. “Yeah! I…I started keeping closer track of them. And every fourth day, I seem to be missing a new pair of pants or shorts and a shirt. That matches…well, it matches what I’m seeing on the video.”
I put my hand on his. “Why don’ t you just tell me what you think the videos show?”
His eyes narrowed as he pulled his hand away. “Because I don’t want to be humored or patronized. Not that I think you’d do that to me, but still. I need you to see it on your own or not. I have to know if it’s real or I’m crazy.”
“But how? Other than the video, how?”
He gave a slight laugh. “I need you to watch me sleep. Because tonight is the fourth night.”
Brent had armed me with a baseball bat before going to bed. He apologized again for me going to all this trouble, told me again how much it meant to him. That he realized it was likely he was just having some sort of breakdown—and that was the only reason he was okay with me being in the apartment during the fourth night. Because, he said sadly, it was probably all just in his head.
He had taken something to make himself sleep, but it still took awhile before he finally drifted off. And while I had taken a nap earlier in the evening, I was feeling myself beginning to fade by midnight. It had been a hard, stressful couple of days and…
Brent was moving around again.
Watching from closer up and in person with the bedside lamp on, I could see much more clearly than on the video. Like before, his shirt starting riding up as the sheets drifted down, exposing his bare stomach. But it looked strange and artificial somehow. Like a ghost movie where unseen hands are moving things instead of them just sliding around because of Brent’s own movements. I felt my heart beating faster and chided myself. I was tired and spooked, that was all. There was nothing…
A pair of hands suddenly erupted silently and bloodlessly from Brent’s stomach. His body jerked again, and the hands were followed by arms and the top of a head. I stood up and started backing away, my mouth open to scream. But no scream would come out. In fact, I couldn’t hear any sound at all, not even the scraping of my shoes as I backpedaled into a corner. The head that freed itself from Brent’s stomach was…it was identical to Brent himself. This second head’s eyes glanced around, raking over me without seeming to notice or care.
As the shoulders and elbows cleared the surface of Brent’s rippling skin, the hands braced on the bed for leverage as a man continued to pull himself free from Brent’s shuddering torso. The entire process probably took less than a minute, and in the end, a naked shape that looked just like Brent climbed off the bed and went to the nearby chest of drawers. Staring in horror at the man’s back, I noted dimly that he was perfectly clean and dry. There was no sign of blood or other fluid. Similarly, Brent himself seemed unharmed, with no trace of what had just occurred showing on him or the bed he still slept on.
Looking back to the intruder, I saw he was pulling on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I recognized the shirt as something I’d given Brent the last birthday we’d had together. I wanted to say something, but I was too terrified, and silence still pressed down on the room like the strange gravity of a black hole. I just needed to stay still and hopefully he would just leave without looking at me.
As though hearing my thought, the man turned toward me as he finished pulling on the shirt. He really was indistinguishable from Brent except for his eyes. Where Brent’s eyes were kind and intelligent, this thing’s gaze was hard and terrible, with a yellow glimmer that came and went as it smiled at me. I felt myself shudder.
Raising a finger to its lips briefly, its voice penetrated the unnatural stillness when it spoke. The sound was harsh and guttural, like the first words of someone who survived a hanging, but I could still hear each syllable clearly.
“There is only one of us.”
It stared at me a moment longer and then turned toward the door. I began shaking uncontrollably, and it was several minutes after I heard it leave the apartment before I was able to stand and wake up Brent. He was groggy at first, but he snapped awake when he saw how upset I was. I told him what had happened, and at first he looked oddly relieved. But as I told him about the other thing looking at me, speaking to me, his eyes darkened with concern.
“And that’s all he said? All he did?”
I nodded. “Yes, that’s all it did. Then it left.” I was still shaking, but talking about it had helped. “Do you know what it meant by ‘There is only one of us’? Have you heard it say anything before?”
Shaking his head, he got out of bed and picked up his phone. “No, the camera doesn’t do audio. But we should have the footage of tonight I can pull up. It uploads to the cloud every few seconds.” He sat back down as he pulled up the video feed and began scrubbing through it. He glanced at me. “This was just a few minutes ago, right?”
“Yeah. Should be within the last ten minutes.”
He stopped the video ten minutes back and let it play. On the screen, Brent began to jerk and twist, and I felt my nails digging into my palms as I forced myself to keep watching. I didn’t want to see it again, but I needed to. I had to…
I started trembling. “Wait, this isn’t the right night. Nothing’s happening.”
Brent looked at me, bewildered. “What’re you talking about? I see him coming out of me. Just like I see them coming out of me every fourth night now. You don’t see it?”
I shook my head, a tear rolling down my cheek. “No. I-I know it happened. I remember it. But that’s not what I see on the video. It doesn’t look like anything but you moving around some.” I snatched the phone from him. “This has to be the wrong…” I stopped as I saw myself stand up at the edge of the camera’s frame. Standing up several seconds after I had in my memory, and instead of retreating to the corner, I was turning and looking at the camera.
Looking at the camera as I smiled, holding a single finger to my lips.
I left Brent’s apartment just a few minutes later. He begged me to stay, to try and help him figure it out, but I couldn’t. I was too terrified and I had no idea what was going on. I told him I’d call and check on him in a few days, and that he should go to his family about it. His family or a psychologist, or maybe a priest. I didn’t know. All I knew was I wasn’t able to help him and I had to get away from there.
That was five nights ago.
Since then, I’ve had trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating, trouble doing much of anything other than feel guilty and scared. A part of my mind keeps suggesting I imagined things, or maybe he was into drugs and had slipped me some, but I know that part of me is a liar. I know what I saw, even if I don’t know what it means.
Tonight I finally took a sleeping pill. My thought was I could sort through things, cope with everything better, if I wasn’t teetering on the edge of exhaustion all the time. I just need ten to twelve hours of sleep, and things would be better. I had been out for about four when I suddenly jerked awake.
I had heard something. Or felt something. I looked around in the dark of my bedroom, blood pounding in my ears as I looked into the shadows for any sign of danger or disturbance. I didn’t see anything, but that meant very little. Breath coming in quick gasps, I leaned over and turned on the light on my nightstand. As I did so, I looked around again.
No.
My eyes had fallen on my closet. I always kept the door shut, but it was open now. The light from the lamp didn’t penetrate far into it, but it was enough for me to see a pair of my jeans lying on the floor just inside the closet door.
Nononono.
I started easing up in bed, trying to get into a position where I could try to make it out if something came at me from the closet. It would be a near thing, as I had to go past the open door to make it out of the bedroom. That’s when I heard something. A stealthy, scraping sound. But not from the closet.
It was coming from underneath my bed.
I almost ran then, but that same small voice came back to me. Told me I was driving myself crazy. Running from shadows. Letting whatever delusions Brent had infect me somehow. I needed to be better than that. Stronger and braver than that. Confront what I was afraid of and see that, just like the video, nothing was actually there.
Biting my lip, I grabbed up my phone and turned on the flashlight app. I gripped the bed tightly as I slowly leaned over, my body tense as more of the floor underneath my bed came into view. There were a pair of my shoes, and an old book I was reading, and…
Farther back, I saw twin yellow sparks glittering softly in the dark. Turning my phone, I saw myself, or something that looked like me, staring unblinkingly into the light before shifting its gaze to my own. Naked and grinning, it began slowly inching toward me as I realized that I couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. Couldn’t hear anything as it scrabble-crawled to within a few inches of my downturned face.
Until it spoke.
Its breath was spice and strange, but aside from that and the occasional flicker of light from its eyes, it had been like looking into a strange upside down mirror until I heard its voice. It sounded different than the thing at Brent’s, more feminine, though still very hoarse.
Like a hanging victim. Or someone speaking for the first time.
“There is only one of us.”
Leaning forward, it planted a searing kiss on my forehead before bringing a finger to its lips. I dreaded it touching me again, but it didn’t. Instead, it slid soundlessly past, and I watched under the bed as it headed to the closet to finish getting dressed. Once that was done, it padded silently out of the house and into the moonless night.
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