It was not my wife

A short horror story by Skylar Dates

I am convinced whatever has started sleeping next to me is not my wife.

It is difficult to say exactly when I came to this conclusion. An irrational conclusion, I know, but something in my mind is made up. Where do our fears come from, anyway? What yawning black pit in the depths of our fragile, human souls vomits forth the monsters haunting our footsteps? Death. Enclosed spaces. Public speaking. From what fetid womb are those little dreads born?

Wherever fear comes from, irrational or no, my newfound terror (this at a, shall we say, wizened age) seemed ridiculous at first. Still. I cannot shake the feeling something else is sleeping next to me at night. Something that has none of her delicate beauty or comforting warmth. I don’t know what it wants, but I know it is there.

Certain things she does when we sleep together, once wells of peace and assurance, are now accompanied by anticipatory dread. I have come to expect the arrival of the monster, even though every morning I wake and find her radiant face lying on the pillow next to me. Still. When she puts her arm over me, or rubs her feet against mine, I brace for… other things.

One night, my wife got up in the pitch black to excuse herself to our bathroom. Lying there, awaiting her return, I was overcome with the kind of harrowing, nerve-shattering fear that starts in the pit of your stomach and forces its way into your chest. I could feel my belly curdle and my heart thunder. As I heard her footsteps returning in the hall, no part of me was not certain whatever was coming back was not my wife but something altogether more horrifying.

I could see the beast’s arm just as plainly as though it were there. When she slipped her hand over my chest, I did not expect her five dainty fingers to come to rest on me. I imagined a heavier, leathery limb with only two fingers, each as long as my forearm, would grab me. It would be cold and dry, with the suffocating weight of packed sand against my chest. Those fingers would tighten around my body and it would draw me in.

I started when her hand came to rest. She shushed me in her gentle, soft voice and asked if I was okay. She reassured me everything was fine, even before I could answer, and said to me, ‘Goodnight, baby.’ She always said ‘goodnight, baby’ when we fell asleep. That was how I knew it was her. Only she can say ‘goodnight, baby’ in that way.

Another night, she went wandering for a glass of water. The feeling of terror seized me. Footsteps returned. Paused. I knew with absolute certitude the horrible monster was watching me and drooling from ravenous fangs. The covers shifted and a weight settled into the bed next to me. The contents of my stomach clawed up my throat. I curled my knees to my chest and I squeezed my eyes shut not wanting to see what horror lay next to me.

The weight in the bed rustled about as it got comfortable.

Something moved beneath the covers and I realized it was a foot reaching out for me. Instead of the tender, smooth soles of my wife grazing against me, I tensed for a heavy, cloven stump of gnarled flesh and twisted membrane. It inched closer and closer, and I imagined what it would feel like when that cloven limb finally found me beneath the sheets. And, dear god, what would come next?

And then. It was my wife’s little toes that planted themselves on my leg. I nearly vomited in relief as the dread reached an apex and whipsawed away leaving me feeling seasick. She sighed, in a lovely, musical way that should have calmed all my nerves. But doubt lingered.

‘Goodnight, baby,’ came the words. I wanted to be comforted. I wanted to share in her relaxed sigh as she drifted to a realm of relaxation and off to sleep. Sleep never returned for me. I lay awake, still frozen for fear of disturbing whatever was laying next to me, and continued to wonder if it was really her.

Sunlight peaked through the windows as morning came, and I finally mustered the courage to look. It was her face. Just as it always was. Just as it had always been.

On another night, I made the mistake of enjoying a bedside cocktail before we turned in. An hour or two past midnight, I awoke with a pressure on my bladder that could not be ignored. I would have to leave the sanctuary of my protective blankets and brave the night halls to go to the bathroom. The trek there did not feel half so dangerous as the trek back.

In the dark, as I returned to our bedroom, her shape on the bed was amorphous. Indistinct. I could not tell where one part of her began or another ended. There was nothing in the black and the haze of night to indicate what was her delicate hands or tender feet or elegant hair or lithe back. Under the covers, she was alien and unrecognizable.

I did not want to climb into that bed. It was not her laying there in the dark. It was that creature waiting for me. This was its chance. Rather than taking her place when she left the bed, it had been patient and waited for me to leave the bed. And then it disposed with the version of her shape it was wearing (if it was ever her to begin with). It was ready to spring its trap, like a spider about to leap out from its hiding place and take its prey down to a shadowy lair for the agonizing final act of devouring.

I stood at the edge of the mattress and shivered. I should have run away. Bolted down the hall and out of the house to start a new life and hope that the creature could not find me. But I could not move. Rooted in dread. The feeling came again in my stomach, and my heart doubled its cadence.

The mass under the blankets rolled. The monster would stand up now and take me. Then, her voice. ‘Are you okay, baby?’ A hand reached out. It was not long and leathery, with two gigantic fingers grasping for a terrified quarry. It was slender and manicured, extended in love and comfort. The blankets slipped a bit, and a foot was revealed. Not gnarled and cloven and twisted. Gentle curves and delicate toes.

I allowed myself to feel reassured and climbed between the sheets. Her hand fell across my chest. ‘Goodnight, baby.’ My breath slowed and my heart, acrid with worry and terror, eased its thundering march.

Even as her warm body pressed up against mine and I felt her wrap herself around me for safety, I could not help but wonder. Was that really her? Why was I so certain it was not my wife lying next to me?

The terror worsened. I slept further from her on the bed. I hugged the edge of the mattress. The horror cinema in my mind showed me the heavy, leathery arm with its two grotesquely long fingers on a repeating reel. I could feel its cold, dry weight against me every time my wife put her hand on me.

Daylight brought little respite. Sometimes, as we went through our morning routines, I would expect to turn and see not her standing at the bathroom sink brushing her teeth, but the beast from my nightmares. I became so certain it was going to be there I abandonned elements of my grooming. Breakfast was skipped more often. I was a shadow of myself. My wife’s worry grew.

If that even was my wife.

We had red wine one night. I was getting more taken with the bottle. It helped to numb some of the gnawing horror that had become my constant companion. That burning anxiety that gurgled deep in my belly.

The wine was good. I brought a well-poured glass to bed. Even after my wife turned off the light on her nightstand, I continued to sip. I did not want to turn off the lights. I wanted it to be morning. My wife, a slender thing, was heavy in the bed next to me. It felt unnatural.

Just after midnight, like clockwork, my bladder protested. It was a long walk down that dark hallway to the bathroom. When I turned on the light, the garish glow burned my eyes. There was no relief even after I flushed the toilet. A sense of urgency remained.

Walking back to the bedroom was an exercise in palpable dread. Every step towards that accursed chamber where the monster was waiting— I was sure— was a leaden plod towards my own demise. Now is the time I should turn and run, I thought to myself. Now is the time I leave this nightmare forever.

But that rational part of your brain that tells you there is no monster in the closet or under the bed and that you are a grown adult that should not be afraid of the dark won out. There was nothing to fear. My wife was a warm, lovely person to whom I had committed my life. And she was what was waiting for me in bed.

In the dark, I saw only her shapeless form under the blankets. They were rumpled and mounded in funny ways that made her body look larger than it was, in the same way that anyone looks bloated under a heavy comforter. She shifted slightly as I entered. The covers scratched against her skin.

I climbed into bed with my back towards her and tried to ignore my racing heart and burning belly. There was nothing to be afraid of. There was nothing to be afraid of.

‘Hello, sweetie,’ came the voice. My heart stopped. That was not what my wife said to me. I asked her quietly what she said. There was a long pause. Perhaps she had fallen back asleep. I felt her turn over as the weight on the mattress shifted.

It spoke again. ‘Hello, sweetie.’ This time I heard its real voice. Not the lilting sigh of my loving wife. This was a voice deep, and guttural, and… wet. It sounded like it spoke from the bowels of hell through a wall of mucus. Its breath, fetid and hot, washed over me.

I rolled over. What was staring back at me was not my wife. It’s eyes were the size of platters, round and pale yellow with little glowing red centers, staring at me with ravenous hunger. The mouth looked like something a child might have drawn recounting their night terrors. It was warped and yawning, large enough to swallow half of me all at once, rimmed with dozens of jagged, broken teeth.

The long, heavy arm with the two leathery fingers reached out for me as the maw grinned wider. The eyes opened larger. How could they be so horrifyingly large? The better to see in the dark as it stalked its prey. The fingers neared.

I threw myself out of bed and stumbled down the hall. When I turned at the top of the stairs, I saw it coming. It ran on stumpy, boarish legs that ended in twisted, cloven feet. With its arms, twice as long as its body, raised above its head and its slobbering mouth open wide, it was the very vision of madness. It made noises that were rage and hunger.

When I got to the bottom of the stairs, I dashed through the kitchen to grab my car keys hanging on the wall. I could hear it stomping down the stairs after me. Every beat of its feet landed with the thunder of creeping doom. Barefoot and nearly naked, I raced to the garage, climbed into my car and crashed through the garage door without opening it.

The last I saw of my home was the shadow of something in the front window looking out at me. Maybe it was the headlights of my car flashing on the glass. And maybe it was two gigantic eyes gazing longingly at the meal that had been lost.

I never returned. I never tried to call the house, or my wife. She was gone, I was certain of it. Perhaps the creature was some kind of changeling that had taken her place unbeknownst to me some quiet, dark night long ago. Perhaps she never was her in the first place. Of neither can I be sure. All I know is that to return to that home and to return to that life would mean shortening my own.

All I can hope now is that wherever it is, it does not find me here.