With his eyes
The first thing I noticed in the morning was my husband's side of the bed. It was cold, pillow unruffled, and something else I couldn't put my finger on. Stretching in bed I had beaten my alarm by a few minutes, and spent that time wondering if he even made it to bed last night. I knew he'd been having trouble sleeping so I didn't stress over it. When my alarm went off I got out of bed and started my day.
When in the bathroom I was certain I heard David downstairs making my breakfast and lunch for work. I went into the kitchen, asking David if he made it to bed last night but found a Stranger waiting for me instead.
“I think we have ants.” he said. The stranger looked like my husband, and wore my husbands clothes, and had my husbands voice. This person was leaned over our counter, looking at there the window meets but now turned to face me. I had nearly screamed when I first stepped into the kitchen and saw it and now the stranger was feigning concern.
“Are you alright?” he asked, still using my husband's voice.
“Who are you?” I stammered out finally.
“What?” he asked, pretending to be stupid.
“Where's David?” I demanded, and the stranger just acted bewildered
“What are you talking about?”
I stared at him. This man who looked like my husband and sounded like him but was most certainly not my husband. I could feel a panic welling inside me, accentuated by their similarities. In truth looking at this moment there was not one detail the impersonator left out. He had David's dimples, his mannerisms, there was not a single hair that was off. But I had loved my husband and slept beside him every night for almost eight years and there was no doubt in my mind that this person was an impostor.
The Stranger tried to turn the conversation on me, asking if I was feeling alright or if I had taken my lunesta the night previous. I rebuffed his accusations and decided that wherever David was hiding, he had to be involved in this. An awful and cruel prank of some kind. Humoring the stranger I asked why he never came to bed last night, who only answered in a confused silence.
Fine. Have your laugh.
The impostor had prepared my coffee and lunch for work same as my husband always had. I played along in silence, finding I had no appetite for breakfast. I took my lunch, my coffee thermos, and left without another word to the stranger, though he called out to me on my way out:
“Have a nice day!”
At work I was furious. Several years ago my husband had played a similar prank on me. He had been working on our shingles and, with the aid of a sandbag, pretended to fall off our roof. I had nearly had a panic attack and was already dialing 911 when I heard his laughter. There had been absolutely nothing funny about his prank and it lead to one of the biggest fights in our entire relationship.
That he could do something like that again was infuriating. I sat at my desk at work fuming and began texting him
Me: where are you?
Him: home y?
Me: that was really fucking funny this morning
Him: ?
Me: keep it up
Work kept me busy the rest of the day. By the time I was on my way home I was still angry but exhausted too. When I pulled into our driveway and got out of the car I could hear music from inside. Loud music, some sort of angry rock music. No doubt David and his look alike friend were having a party because apparently I wasn't angry enough already.
The music was coming from David's office and could be heard throughout the house. Making my way up the stairs though my anger was turning into apprehension. It was unlike David to be this loud, and I'd never heard him listening to this kind of music. His office door was ajar.
Inside, sitting in my husband's seat was the stranger. He was wearing David's clothes and on the computer screen I saw images of alligators.
I shouted but I could hardly hear my own voice. The person in the seat turned to look at me with my husband's blue eyes and turned the music off.
“Oh sorry about that.”
“Where is David?!” I shouted.
“I'm right here... why are you yelling?”
I slammed the door shut and felt tears welling. “David?!” I called throughout the house and then locked myself in my room. On my cell phone I dialed my husband. The phone rang and he picked up
“David where the hell are you?”
The voice that answered was not David's. While the stranger in the office looked like my husband and sounded like my husband, the thing on the other end sounded nothing like him.
“I'm right here where you left me.”
I threw my phone across the room and wept.
The next morning I woke alone again.
I called out into the house but neither David nor the impostor answered. The office was empty, but my lunch and coffee were waiting for me in the kitchen. I refused to drink the coffee.
This had gone far beyond a prank now. I hadn't seen my husband for a day now, and my anger was long gone, replaced by dread and worry. If this wasn't a cruel joke, where was David? Who was this person that was just like him, down to the dimples and tone of voice? He even followed David's routine by the letter.
I decided not to bring my lunch to work that day.
My coworkers were concerned about me. I told them I hadn't been sleeping well, that I was fine. I kept looking to my phone wanting to reach out to David. But it was clear that whatever was happening, he didn't have his phone with him. I was considering whether or not to get the police involved when my Mother in Law called.
She was calling about her plans to come by the day after tomorrow. She must have heard the relief in my voice and asked me if everything was alright.
“Yes, I don't know...” I told her, “I think something's wrong with David.”
“David? What is wrong with him?” She asked.
“Have you spoken to him at all?”
“Just now, about Thursday, he told me to call you?”
A small relief, the impostor wouldn't be able to fool David's mother.
“Are you okay?” She asked.
I assured her I was and told her I was busy at work and had to go. Hanging up I dialed David again but when I heard the stranger's voice on the other line I almost screamed and dropped the phone.
That night I came home to the loud music again. It masked my footsteps as I made my way to his office. Peeking inside I saw the man pretending to be my husband sitting at the desk. On the computer he was watching a surgery video. My eyes glanced over the screen and it nauseated me, so I stepped away and called the police.
I told them over the phone that there was a stranger pretending to be my husband in my home and repeated the story to the officers that arrived. I explained to them that I known my husband for eight years, and while this stranger looks and sounds like him it was most definitely not him. I mentioned the strange phone calls and the music but the officers seemed incredulous. They were so focused on poking holes in my story they ignored my real problem.
“My husband is missing! Please I haven't seen him for two days now and I cant reach his phone.”
“But you just told us that you were speaking to him on the phone earlier today?” The officer pressed. I could tell them all the ways they were the same. But what made him different I couldn't explain, not even to the police. It was as if an actor had been cast to play my husband, knew all the lines, had the right wardrobe. But beneath the it all there was someone else in hiding, pretending, putting on a show. When he spoke the words just ran together wrong, his walk was a different pace... he just.... was not David.
I was getting emotional, unable to explain what was happening when I saw the impostor speaking to the officers at our front door. I watched him show them ID and eventually they walked him over to me.
By then I was a wreck. They explained the symptoms of a nervous breakdown, and the officers tried their hardest to convince me that this man was in fact my husband. They strongly recommended I go with them for an evaluation, for help, but I refused.
I was numb, I was tired, and I didn't understand. Maybe they were right. Sitting on the curb, with a blanket around me I stared at the stranger still speaking with police. Every hair, every wrinkle was the same as David's. I felt a lock in my throat, I couldn't make sense of this, I didn't understand what was happening to me, what had happened to my husband. Was I wrong? Was there something wrong with me?
I decided I needed help. Though I refused the police's insistence to seek care, I was willing to give this stranger an oppurtunity to explain himself. Maybe there was a completely reasonable explanation for all of this. Maybe I was crazy.
But when the police left the man calling himself my husband said not a word to me. He went inside, to his office, and turned the music back on. This time he locked the door.
I tried to sleep that night but couldn't. Filled with uncertainty and distrust I tossed and turned and worried that my real husband might be out there and in trouble.
Late in the night, I must of dozed off because I was startled awake by a sound. I was alone in bed, as I had been each night previous. It was a scratching sound coming from... outside maybe? Making my way to the window I saw a figure in the backyard.
It took time for my eyes to adjust, but I could soon see the stranger in the dark, still wearing my husbands clothes. He had a shovel in his hands and was digging in our backyard. I watched him, feeling a cold terror creep into my chest, making it difficult to breathe.
I watched him digging, shoveling the dirt away from a hole too small for a person. In the moonlight he stopped, as if he was listening to something, then craned his neck like a lizard to look up at me.
The next morning the impostor was in the kitchen, having made my lunch and coffee same as my husband ever did. I sat down at the table and studied him. He prattled on in my husbands voice about his plans for the day, doing his best David impression as he set down my coffee. I had my hands around the coffee he made me, feeling it's warmth. Not once did he mention the police from the night before; not once did he mention the late night digging.
“Do you remember our first date?” I asked him at last. The stranger looked up from the dishes at me and smiled.
“Of course I do.”
“Where was it?” I asked. When we first met, David and I were both seeing other people. Before dating, we had gotten together “as friends” to go to a book signing of our favorite author. Even though we didn't have our first official date till much later (dinner, a movie), in the quiet intimate hours of the evening we would both look back on that book signing as our first moment.
“I don't get understand?” He said with my husbands smile on his face. “How's your coffee?”
Not taking my eyes off him I had a drink from my mug. “Don't you remember?” I pushed him.
The stranger only looked at me. There was a smile on the face but it lacked any warmth, as if the kindness was just as much a part of the act. I felt something itching in my throat, climbing upwards.
“You don't remember our first date?” I pressed, “Can you tell me how we first met? How I got the scar on my knee?” I felt myself growing hysterical “What was in the valentines card last year? Where is David?!”
He only looked at me and asked again “How's your coffee?”
I was saying it was fine when I looked down and saw little specs floating in the drink. A layer of something on my drink. Making them out I saw tiny legs kicking and squirming and dying. The coffee was full of ants.
I hacked and coughed and spit. I could feel the itching in my throat as the ants I had swallowed tried to find their way back up.
The person pretending to be my husband said “I told you we had ants.”
I didn't go to work that day.
In the backyard the hole had been filled in. A four foot patch of dirt stood out against the green yard. I searched for the shovel but it was missing. Even the snow shovels were gone. I went to the garden we started and poorly maintained on the right side of our house. David and I had begun to do something with it the spring before but neither of us were that committed. There in the corner, half buried with the small gardening shovel we had neglected and turned our eyes from. I brushed off the dirt and spider web's and set to digging.
With one hand I scraped away at the hole, starting at the edge and working my way in. I didn't know how deep that.... person had dug or what I would find underneath. It was still loose from the night before, and my work wasn't too hard, but the shovel was small and I had to change hands or my wrist would grow sore and weak.
While digging I could feel eyes on me so I made sure to not have my back to the house as I dug.
Three feet in I heard something. I strained to hear it, coming from the house? No, it was...
I leaned into the hole.The dirt had turned my nails and arms black, but I heard something, rising from the earth. It was a voice, and it was saying something.
Thunder erupted from the house. It was the music, coming from the office. I caught my breath and stuck my head back into the hole. But the sounds from inside drowned out anything I could make out. At that moment A car rolled passed our drive way, my mother in law.
I ran out to the front yard to catch her. I saw the terror in her eyes as I reached for her.
“Whats wrong?!” She begged.
With my filthy arms I grabbed her and wept. I told her everything, through tears and sobs I spilled all onto her. I told her, I told her that thing in the house was not her son. I pointed at the window where the music was still blaring from and begged her. I begged her to go in and see and tell me that that is not my husband.
She told me to stay here as I collapsed on the lawn. I watched her enter the house, engulfed in the noise that was no longer music, but a cacophony. I wept on the grass and waited for her to return, growing increasingly fearful that she wouldn't return.
But she did.
She burst out the front door, not even bothering to close it behind her. She was paled, distrubed, eyes reddened.
I called to her but she wouldn't look at me, she walked right past. I screamed at her but she slammed the car door shut and sped away and didn't look back.
Crushed and alone I stood on the street. Behind me the clamor seemed to escalate from the house, a crescendo of noise. Then suddenly it went silent.
Silence returned to the streets, my heaving the loudest sound now.
The lights were on inside. The door was wide open. I saw myself walking in, stepping into the kitchen. They were still crawling all over the table, my lunch forgotten and moldy.
The thing pretending to be my husband was in living room, creeping around the walls with my husband's smile on it's face. When the thing saw me it came down and took me by the hand.
It led me out to the backyard and put me in the hole. As I was buried I was looking up into my husband's eyes.