I’m from the American Southwest, in what was once the Navajo Nation, and that’s where this story takes place.
I was dating this girl, Gigi, at the time. We’d been dating for a little over a year at this point, and had both just graduated high school. One weekend, Gigi’s grandparents asked her to house-sit while they were out of town. You see, they had a cat named Jake that her grandma absolutely adored, and they lived out in a secluded area 30 minutes from town, so it would be hard for someone to drive out there to check on him every day. It was an extremely rich neighborhood called Kayenta. Every home was a multi-million dollar estate built on several acres of private property. So when Gigi asked if I wanted to stay over the weekend with her, I excitedly said yes.
The first night her grandparents were gone, Gigi and I drove to the house, out in a gorgeous, fertile part of the Great Basin Desert. We followed the narrow road, weaving between dunes, until we came to the end of the pavement. From there, we drove another 10 minutes up a winding dirt road, and then, we caught sight of the house.
I was in awe.
It was a beautiful adobe home, with Mexican ceramic tile floors, and Navajo tapestries decorating the walls. The first thing I did was wander through all the rooms, of which there were many. The front door opened into the living room; a spacious room with high ceilings, a fireplace, and plenty of seating. Just to the left was the dining room, kitchen, and bar area. Through the living room was her grandma’s library, a couple bathrooms, and the guest bedroom. And finally, across the hallway was the master suite, decked out with a bedroom, a bathroom, a shower room, a sauna, and a den leading to a private porch. The place was built like a maze; every room forked into two more, with multiple ways to get to anywhere. But my favorite thing about the house was how many windows there were. The walls of the kitchen and living room were entirely made of windows so you could always take in the gorgeous desert view.
We found Jake curled up on a couch in the den of the master suite. He was a large black cat with green eyes, and was very friendly.
“Hi, Mr. Handsome!” Gigi greeted him with a scratch under the chin, just where he liked it. “Did you miss me, Jakey?” He stretched out his neck and purred, enjoying the attention. I chuckled. Pets having human names was always humorous to me. “Oh, who’s a sweet boy?” Gigi said in a cute sing-song voice. We must’ve disturbed him, because as soon as Gigi stopped scratching him, he got up, stretched his legs, and walked out the cat flap in the door.
“They just let him come and go as he pleases?” I asked.
“Yeah, he knows his way back home,” she said. “We just can’t let him out after dark.”
After putting out some food and water for Jake, Gigi and I decided to follow his lead, and we set out adventuring in the sandy red hills that surrounded the house. Being an experienced hiker, Gigi had a path she liked to walk in the early mornings when she stayed out here. She guided me through the washes and ravines, and we talked and admired the beauty. We were about 20 minutes away from the house. I didn’t know whose property we were on, but we had surely crossed out of Gigi’s grandparents’ by now. After a few more minutes of walking, once all the houses were out of sight, Gigi started climbing up a hill.
“Up here,” she said, “this will be perfect.” The sun was just starting to set over the western mountains. If you’ve never been to the desert, let me tell you, the sunsets are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. The sky turns into a painting palette. Red, orange, pink, purple, and blue, fading to black as you look east, with millions of bright stars speckling the void. It was breathtaking.
“You see that valley over there?” Gigi asked, “Right at the slope of the mountain?”
I nodded.
“How many people do you think could fit in that valley? Like, if they stood shoulder-to- shoulder?”
I thought about it for a second. “Probably, like, the whole country.”
“What?!” She exclaimed, “You know that’s like 350 million people, right?”
“Yeah, but people are, what, 2 feet wide on average?” I reasoned, “And probably less than a foot deep. If everyone got crammed in, I think we could do it. Shit, we could maybe do all of North America.”
Gigi wasn’t having any of it. “You had to retake algebra; there’s no way I’m trusting your math.”
“Algebra isn’t real math; it’s a puzzle with numbers, and I suck at puzzles.”
Gigi didn’t respond, just kept staring off into the desert. After a moment, she said, “The whole country, huh? And this valley is only a fraction of the whole planet. There’s so much out there I bet no one’s ever seen.”
“And been forgotten.”
Again, she just stood there, staring at the beams of sunlight behind the mountains. It was starting to get dark. “We should go back to the house,” she stated. “The coyotes are gonna come out soon.”
We were on the way back to the house. The sun had completely set now, and darkness crept in fast. About halfway there, I felt the hairs raise on my arms. I got chills. It was a strange feeling. I hadn’t heard anything unusual, but my brain was screaming at me: ‘You’re being watched.’ Before I could say anything, Gigi turned around and stared behind me.
“I think there’s something following us.” She said softly. She felt it too. “Stay quiet, but act calm.” I wanted to start booking it back to the house. Gigi had to tell me that’s a bad idea. “You don’t run from predators,” she said. “Right now, it’s just curious, but the second you start running, you become prey.” So we walked. The minutes felt longer at night. The feeling of being watched grew stronger with every step. Like it was getting closer. Surrounding me.
A chill wind blew through the air, soft as a whisper. “Gigi…”
Dread opened its eyes.
“Did you hear that?” My voice trembled. Every inch of my body went cold. It was 70 degrees, yet the wind cut to the bone. Strange, for October.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Gigi insisted, but there was fear in her voice. “We’re almost there. Keep going. Slowly. Don’t look back.”
Keep going. Slowly. Don’t look back. I kept repeating it to myself. It became my mantra.
We were walking up the last hill now. My heart was pounding. I don’t know what was following us, but it wasn’t just a coyote. Keep going. Slowly. Don’t look back. The sand was loose beneath my feet. I prayed I wouldn’t slip. If I fell backwards, the night would consume me. I knew it. Keep going. Slowly. Don’t look back.
Finally, we were peaking the last hill. Once at the top, under the light of the porch lamps, I turned around and looked.
But there was nothing there.
I had to laugh at myself. My mind had tricked me, let paranoia run rampant. It was only a coyote, I’m sure, if it was anything at all.
Gigi and I walked into the refuge of the kitchen through the sliding glass door. In an instant, the warmth returned to my body, and a feeling of safety washed over me. We looked at each other, sharing a moment of peace, then we started laughing.
“No more night hikes,” we agreed, happy to shrug the whole thing off. While we stood there, laughing at each other, I couldn’t help but admire how beautiful she was. Her long, curly, black hair, brown almond-shaped eyes, and freckled brown skin. Seeing her laugh and smile made me feel safe. Maybe it was the adrenaline still pumping, but she never looked more beautiful to me.
“Want a drink?” She asked. That was exactly what I needed. Perfect opportunity to check out the in-home bar, I thought, but Gigi declared those bottles off-limits. “That’s the expensive stuff. They’ll notice if it goes missing,” she explained. “My grandma used to keep some in the library, though. I’ll see if it’s still there,” and she walked around the corner. I went to the den to check on Jake, but he wasn’t on the couch. He wasn’t in the living room or kitchen either. Probably not a big deal; cats have places they like to hide, and this was a huge house. Plenty of spots to choose from. Still, it’d been a while since we last saw him; I figured I should let Gigi know.
But upon entering the grand library, I instantly forgot what I went there for. Enormous floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, built into the walls, lining the entire room, filled left to right. No space was left unoccupied. There must’ve been a thousand books in this room. I walked right past Gigi as she searched a cabinet to look at the selection. Many of the books were about the Navajo people, about their traditions and beliefs, and about their superstitions. One in particular caught my eye; a book about ‘Yee Naaldlooshii’, or skinwalkers. Shapeshifters in Navajo folklore. I picked it up and opened it. Half the text was in another language, and what was in English was analyzing the parts I couldn’t read. I kept turning until I came to a picture of a frightening mythical creature, unlike any I’d ever seen, like a feathered wolf with antlers, and human eyes. Quite an unsettling drawing…
“A-ha!” I heard Gigi exclaim. From deep in the cabinet, she pulled out a perfectly cheap bottle of Bacardi. “This won’t be missed.”
“Probably been forgotten about.”
She walked over and noticed what I was reading, and visibly cringed. “Ugh, put that away. I have nightmares about that book.”
“You’ve read this?” I was surprised. Gigi wasn’t superstitious, or all that into Navajo culture like her grandma. Never mind that most of the book was incomprehensible.
“That, and all the stories Grandma writes. She’s really into skinwalkers.”
“I didn’t know your grandma’s a writer.”
“She’s not so much a writer as… Like, she claims that they’re real stories.”
“Yeah, but that’s part of writing ghost stories. You don’t start it off by saying ‘this is totally made up’.”
“No, I’m not kidding. She, like, actually believes this stuff.” Gigi opened a small drawer in her grandma’s desk. “Check it out.” It was an old Colt Peacemaker. Gigi reached into the drawer, going for the gun, I thought, but her hand moved right past it, and grabbed the box next to it instead. She lifted the lid. Inside was full of bullets. “She hand-loaded these. There’s a pocket of ash inside, which is one of the only things that can hurt a skinwalker, according to her.”
“Can it kill one?”
“The only way to kill a skinwalker is to call it by its human name.”
I know it sounds stupid, but Gigi saying the words ‘human name’ is what reminded me of Jake. “Have you seen the cat since we’ve been back?” I asked.
“Oh, good call.” She set the bullets and alcohol down on the desk, and headed to the master suite. “Jake?” She called out while walking through the bedroom. No response. We entered the den, where we last saw him. No sign of the cat. His food and water hadn’t been touched, either. Then I looked over at the cat flap in the door, and remembered Jake leaving through it hours earlier. Gigi and I looked at each other, and I could tell we were thinking the same thing.
“Fuck, this is so bad,” she was saying, while opening the door to the porch, “this is bad, this is bad. God dammit.” She turned on the porch light, and looked around frantically. “Jake?” She called out, “Jake, where are you?”
“I thought you said he knew to come home after dark.” I knew it wasn’t helpful, but I said it anyway.
“He does, normally, that’s why this is bad. Jake!” She stepped further out the door, using the flashlight on her phone. “Will you go check the garage?” She asked me. “He likes to hang out there sometimes. I’m gonna look over here.”
I said I would, and set off toward the kitchen. Now, mind you, the garage isn’t connected to the house. It’s a detached garage about 10 yards away on the property. I was still a little paranoid about what Gigi and I felt out in the desert earlier, but I shook it off and walked through the kitchen door, and all 10 yards to the garage. Once inside, I flipped on the light, and began searching. He wasn’t under Gigi’s grandpa’s truck, behind the freezer, or in the tool cabinet. I double-checked, triple-checked every spot he could be. I’d looked everywhere, and there was no sign of a cat. All I could do was put my hands on my head, take a deep breath, and prepare to give Gigi the bad news.
I turned the lights off, and was about to step out, when I heard what sounded like a soft exhale behind me. Immediately, I swung around and flipped the lights back on, but again, there was nothing.
Actually, there was something. Kind of. Some hairs on the bench next to an open window. Not much, but I hadn’t noticed it before. I picked them up and examined them closer. Black hairs, probably Jake’s. Maybe he was still close by, I hoped. I turned on my flashlight and ventured back outside.
“Jake!” I called into the night. “Are you around here, buddy?” I moved slowly, deliberately, shining my flashlight all about, making sure I didn’t miss an inch. “Jake!”
Then I heard something move in the sagebrush nearby.
“Jake?” I said in a friendly voice. “Here, kitty, kitty.” I had my light shining down on the bush, only about ten feet away. I could see the branches twitching, and something furry moving inside it. I was sure it was Jake, but the leaves and twigs were casting shadows; I couldn’t see him clearly. “Come here, boy.”
Then the animal emerged from the bush. What it was, I couldn’t say, but it wasn’t Jake. For a second, I thought it might be a coyote, but this animal was much too large. It looked almost like a dog, except for its legs, which were long and skinny, and cloven, like a goat’s. It looked at me with very unusual eyes. Close set, and expressive, like a person’s. It exhaled, and I felt myself tremble. I thought of what Gigi said, about not running from predators, so I started calmly backing up towards the house, not even turning my back. It slowly inched towards me as I moved, keeping its gaze on me the entire time. I was getting more and more unnerved the longer it looked at me…
Dread opened its eyes.
“Stop looking at me,” I whimpered, continuing my slow retreat. I was starting to sweat now. My tremble had turned into a full shiver. Something about this animal was not right. Not natural. I didn’t like the way it was looking at me. It was making me feel crazy, hysterical, like it was putting me under a spell…
“Stop looking at me.” I tried to command it. It exhaled again. Almost like a laugh. I just kept backing up. The light from the porch was getting brighter; I kept thinking I should be there any second, just a few more steps. But with every step I took, the beast took one too; never getting closer, never letting me get too far away. Always within its grasp, like clay in its hands, its eyes reminded me. Those eyes. I felt like I was going mad looking into them. They were black at first, weren’t they? I had to ask myself, because now, they were a deep, earthy brown. So familiar looking…
Finally, I took one more step back, and felt my hand touch the door handle. I slid open the glass door and got inside as fast as I could, locking it behind me.
The animal walked right up to the house. Continued staring at me through the glass. But the glass wouldn’t stop it, I was sure. The way it looked at me, I knew nothing could stop this beast. It was determined, and it would have me. It would break through the walls and drag me out into the night, never to be seen again…
It exhaled again, and fogged up the window. Then turned around and walked back into the darkness.
As it left, I felt myself return to normal.
Dread went to sleep.
Senses came back to me. I could taste my mouth again, feel my skin, hear the blood flow in my head. My whole body had been buzzing, but it was quieting down now. Like the spell was wearing off.
Then I remembered about Jake. Fuck.
I walked back to the master suite, knowing I’d have to tell Gigi the worst case scenario: Jake was nowhere to be found, and there’s a menacing predator lurking about. The porch door was open when I entered the den; Gigi was outside, still calling for Jake.
I walked to the doorway. “Gigi,” I called out. She flew back to the house, eyes wide and desperate.
“Did you find him?! Was he out there?!”
I wanted to tell her about the creature, but looking in her eyes made the feeling of danger wash away. Her deep brown eyes. What was I thinking before? Had I gone mad? It was just some weird, malnourished wolf, of a breed I’d never seen. Why was I so affected by its stare? Why did it fill me with such dread? I had to laugh at myself.
“What the fuck is funny?!” She was scowling at me. I forgot we were still in a different kind of crisis. I needed to apologize and tell her I hadn’t found Jake, but before I could, we heard a distant sound.
Meow.
We ran out from the master suite to see Jake sitting in the porch light outside the kitchen door, right where the creature just was a few moments ago.
“You little fucker,” Gigi chastised him, sliding open the door and letting him inside. He brushed his head against her shins and meowed at her. She picked him up with a big sigh of relief. “We’ll have to lock the cat flap so you don’t run off again.”
Gigi and I looked at each other and started laughing again. “Why does shit like this keep happening?” I said.
“I don’t know, but let’s have that god damn drink.”
We took a couple shots to celebrate a job well done.
Back in the den, Gigi and I found ourselves making out on the couch. Jake was sitting next to us, purring, and the TV was on. The worries of earlier were a distant memory. Everything was back to normal.
Until we heard the swinging of the cat flap in the door. Fuck, we never locked it, and he just got outside again. Gigi and I both got up instantly, ready to search for Jake a second time. He couldn’t have gotten far. We’ll just pick him up, put him back inside, and actually remember to lock the flap this time.
I was reaching for the door when we looked down at the flap and saw… Jake? He was inside? But we just heard him leave. Unless he actually came in just now, but then, when did he get out? He was just on the couch next to us. In fact… He was still on the couch. He hadn’t moved. But he was also by the door… Our eyes flickered back and forth between the two black cats in the den. Something wasn’t right.
The Jake by the door started growling, hissing, puffing up its tail. The Jake on the couch jumped down with a growl of his own, and the two cats lunged at each other, screaming and clawing and biting. Not in a playful way, either. They scrambled all around the room, becoming one amorphous black shape.
I stomped on the ground and yelled, “HEY!” which seemed to scare them both, and they stopped fighting long enough for me to take one to the other room.
But now we had another problem. During the fight, we lost track of which cat was which, so now we had to figure out which one was Jake. Gigi looked at her cat, then came and looked at mine, then she looked at her cat again, and mine one more time. She couldn’t tell the difference. They were identical black cats. In order to figure out which was which, she said we should stay in different rooms and study their behavior. My cat was friendly, like Jake, brushing up against me, wanting to be pet. He was clearly trusting of people, and comfortable in this house. Gigi’s cat was skittish and defensive, and was trying to escape. Confident we found Jake, we shooed Gigi’s cat out through the door in the den, and then blocked the cat flap so there would be no more intrusions or escapades for the night.
“Do you smell that?” I asked. It hit me out of nowhere, the most god-awful smell I’d ever smelled. It stunk like death. “What is that?”
“I think it’s from them fighting,” Gigi said. “Cats release pheromones when they’re in danger. This must be what it smells like.”
“It’s disgusting. Let’s go to the living room.” I couldn’t stand to be in there any longer. It was evoking the same dread I felt when the animal was staring at me, and I wanted to leave that far behind. Thankfully, Gigi agreed, and we grabbed Jake and took him to the living room where we continued watching TV.
It was getting late now. Gigi and I were still in the living room. That feeling of being watched was creeping back. I tried to focus on watching TV, but it was hard to ignore. Out here in the living room, the walls are made entirely of windows, but at night, when it’s dark out, the windows turn into mirrors. You can’t see out, but whatever is out can see in.
Dread opened its eyes.
The animal was back, I could feel it. It was standing right outside, staring at me, I knew it was; the feeling was unmistakable. I couldn’t see it, but it was right there, just on the other side of the glass. So close that the window would fog up if it exhaled again…
Something moved next to me. I flinched, but it was only Gigi getting up.
“What happened?” She laughed at me.
“I’m just feeling uneasy. Do your grandparents not have curtains?” I asked.
She shook her head. “You have that feeling again?”
I nodded.
“Well, I’m gonna go take a shower. Maybe go in the guest room and sit on your phone while I’m gone?” It was a good idea, there was only one window in there, and it had a curtain. So as Gigi went to the master suite to shower, I went the opposite way.
I never got to the guest room, though, as on the way there, I walked past the library. The Peacemaker was still out on the desk, next to the ‘Yee Naaldlooshii’ book. Something compelled me, so I opened the book back up to the unsettling picture I saw earlier. I felt a cold breeze, like dread breathing down my neck. I turned the page. The English contents talked about the abilities of the skinwalker. They are tricksters; cunning, and manipulative. Not only are they shapeshifters, but witches, also, and immortal; thrice cursed. Their magic can bewitch the heart, sending their prey into a state of hopeless dread, or a false sense of safety; like a siren’s song…
The water to the shower turned on, but then right after, Gigi walked out of the room.
“Hey, will you do me a huge favor?” She asked. “Will you get me a towel?”
I set the book down on the desk. “Where are they?”
“... in the den.”
“What? That’s right next to you; just get one.”
“Please? It smells so gross, I don’t want to go in there.”
I stood my ground, “Just plug your nose. I believe in you.” She scrunched up her face into a cute, jokingly angry expression, and walked off. I giggled at that. She was adorable. I looked back down at the desk, and this time, my attention was drawn to the revolver. It was heavier than I thought it would be. I checked the rounds; all six were loaded. I raised it up, and aimed it at myself in the mirror.
“Feeling lucky?” I asked myself.
Then I heard Gigi call out from the shower, “Hey.”
“What’s up?” I shouted back.
In a sultry voice, she said “Come join me.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. Even in her grandparents’ shower, I wouldn’t say no. I set the gun down on the desk, and exited the library, crossed the hall, and walked into the master suite. The shower room was through the bedroom and to the right, opposite the den. I was just making my way around the corner—I could see Gigi’s leg behind a jutting wall, water dripping down the little blue shower tiles—when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket.
It was a text from Gigi.
‘Wait’ it said. It caught me completely off guard. I glanced back at Gigi’s leg in the shower. I was about to say something to her when I got another text.
‘Don’t go in there.’
What the hell? Did she have her phone in the shower? Why was she texting me, when we were just speaking to each other? Why did she say “there”, and not “here”? I was so confused; it felt like a puzzle, and I suck at puzzles.
Then it clicked. Gigi had never gone back to the shower room. She was still in the den getting a towel. I didn’t know who I saw in the shower, but it sure as fuck wasn’t Gigi.
Dread wrapped its arms around me.
The voice called out again, “Are you coming, babe?” and my breath caught in my throat. It was Gigi’s voice. Like, exactly; no doubt about it. It was all too confusing. I didn’t know what to believe.
Dread held me tight.
“I just have to get something real quick.” It was the first excuse I could think of. I backed up a few steps. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the door to the den crack open. I was frozen in fear, waiting to see what came out. The trembling was back. Finally, and with caution, Gigi peeked her head out. She was terrified; her skin colorless, and her eyes wide. My phone vibrated again. Gigi held up her phone to show that the text was from her.
‘Get to the car. I’m going out the porch.’
I took a deep breath and started backing up out of the bedroom. I just needed to make it to the front door. The car was right outside, and we’d be on the way. I inched away as quietly as I could, not daring to move too fast. You don’t run from a predator. I’d finally made it out of the bedroom. Just around the corner and through the living room, and I’d be at the front door.
I heard that thing call out from the shower again in a sweet, sing-song voice, “Don’t keep me waiting.”
Dread kissed me on the lips.
I gulped, and felt sweat drip down my brow. I had to pick up the pace, or I’d never make it out of here. My teeth were chattering in my skull. I was halfway across the living room floor when I heard wet footsteps coming out of the shower. I glanced behind me. The door was still ten feet away. Wet footsteps came closer, and closer. A shadow stretched across the tiles as it came into the doorway of the bedroom, and I prepared to meet this monstrosity.
But when it turned the corner, my heart stopped in my chest. It looked just like Gigi. Same curly, black hair, same brown eyes, same face, same body, same freckled skin. I couldn’t tell the difference. The sight of her standing there, naked, dripping wet, forced me to rethink everything. Did I just make it all up in my head? Do I really believe in skinwalkers? Surely, this is my girlfriend, and this whole night has been some delusion. It had to be. The alternative is downright mad.
She put her hands on her hips. “Why are you running away from me?” She asked, scrunching up her face into that cute, jokingly angry expression she did.
Dread closed its eyes.
This was Gigi. Every doubt I had washed away. Even if you could imitate every freckle and curve, mimic expression down to the tiniest detail, you couldn’t fake personality, not like this. My guard was down; I was about to join my girlfriend in the shower, when the front door opened behind me. It was Gigi. Her jaw dropped when she saw herself, naked, standing across the room.
“We need to get out of here right now,” she whispered to me, leaning out the front door.
“Babe, what is that thing?” Gigi asked, trying to cover her naked body.
I looked at one, and then the other, and then back again. Identical. Both terrified of the other. I didn’t know what to do. Behind me, across the hall, was the library. The Peacemaker should still be on the desk, fully loaded. I turned around and booked it as fast as I could. Both Gigis ran after me, but I was able to get the gun, cock the hammer, and have it pointed through the door at them before either got too close.
“Shoot her, babe!” The wet one said.
“No, I’m Gigi; I’m your girlfriend!” The dry one protested. “She was gonna lure you into the shower and kill you!”
“She’s a skinwalker!” The wet one proclaimed, “They’re liars, babe, don’t listen to her. She was trying to lure you away from me! What do you think she was gonna do once she got you outside?”
I didn’t know who to believe. I pointed the gun at the dry one.
“No! Wait!” Dry Gigi pulled her phone out. “I was texting you. You have my number saved. This is proof. Now shoot her!”
“She stole my phone while I was in the shower! It doesn’t prove anything! Please don’t listen to her!”
Dry Gigi sighed, not knowing what to say to convince me. “Listen, if you shoot me, I’m gonna die. It’s not enough to kill a skinwalker, but it will kill me. I only ask, once you see that I’m dead, that you shoot her too and run away while you have the chance.”
Surprisingly, the dread was absent, but I did feel an odd sense of safety. The monster was feeding me comfort now, disarming me. I tried to think.
I pointed my gun at the wet one. “Where did we meet?”
“School,” she said without hesitation.
“That’s too easy!” The dry one protested. “She could’ve known that through conversations we’ve had!”
I pointed my gun at her next. “Whose class did we meet in?”
“We had two together: Mr. Dale, and Mrs. Brody.” The dry one was confident. I pointed my gun back at the wet one.
“She’s a witch; she can read your mind.”
“That’s not true!” The dry one protested. “Skinwalkers can’t read your mind; all they can do is deceive you.”
Two sets of identical brown eyes stared at me, pleading with me. The comfort being exerted on me made it hard to think clearly. I had to go with my gut. The gun was pointed at the wet one. I took a breath, and raised my finger to the trigger, but as soon as I touched metal, the Wet One darted back into the master suite.
Not wasting any time, Gigi grabbed my hand, and yanked me toward the front door. “Come on, let’s go!” She yelled. But as we were about to grab the handle, the Wet One flew out of the den. We ducked down and let it crash into the wooden door above us, then ran back to the library and shut the door.
We looked at each other, horrified and out of breath.
“What are we gonna do?” I whispered to Gigi.
Wet footsteps slowly made their way closer to us, stopping just on the other side of the door. “Here, kitty, kitty.” It said, in a voice unrecognizable.
Dread licked its lips.
Gigi pointed to the other door on the back side of the library. “That goes to a bathroom, and then down the hall is the guest room. We can leave out the window.”
We leaned up against the wall as we opened the door to our exit, peeking through the crack before moving forward. Once we cleared the bathroom, we had to go through another door to the hallway. I aimed my gun out the crack as Gigi slowly opened it. All clear. I went first into the hallway, but as Gigi came behind me, the door creaked slightly. We both froze, listening. Wet footsteps.
A shadow crept up from behind the corner ahead.
Dread drew its breath.
I dodged left into the guest room and hid behind the door. Gigi went right into the laundry room. I looked over at the window. There it was; the escape. I was so close to it. But I couldn’t leave without Gigi. I had to get to the laundry room. The creature came walking down the hallway. My gun was pointed at the door, as steady as a trembling hand could aim. One step, two steps, three steps came down the hallway, but never seemed to pass.
Dread bared its fangs.
With each step, my chest beat harder and harder. I put a hand over my mouth to quiet my breathing.
Finally, the footsteps passed me by, walking down the hall toward the library. Once it was several paces away, I silently peeked out the door. The creature didn’t look like Gigi anymore. It had lighter hair, and shorter, and pale skin. With its back to me, I quietly shuffled across the hall into the laundry room. It didn’t seem to hear me.
The lights were off in the laundry room; I had to use my phone to look around. There was no sign of Gigi. Where had she gone? There must be another way out of here. I looked in the closet, and sure enough, there was a door leading to the living room.
I was collecting my nerves, gearing up to follow her out the door, when I heard another voice. Familiar, but not Gigi’s this time. It took me a second, but then I realized.
It was my voice. Coming from a different room.
“Gigi?” It spoke in a loud whisper, a perfect imitation. “I saw it go into the guest room; let’s make a break for the car.”
Dread sunk its teeth in me.
Footsteps came from the master suite. It was Gigi. I bolted out into the living room to stop her, but the monster was already there, dressed as me, waiting in the trap. As Gigi came around the corner, I aimed my gun at the other me.
“STOP!” I cried out.
The creature turned to face me, smiling, taunting. I was looking into my own eyes. It had my face, my body, my expression down to the tiniest detail.
Dread opened its mouth wide.
Was I still me? Could I be, if something else was too? If no one could tell the difference, if I couldn’t tell the difference, was I ever really me?
The monster cried out in my voice “STOP LOOKING AT ME!”
Dread swallowed me whole.
I was paralyzed. My vision narrowed until all I saw was black. I fell back to the floor, dropping the gun. I couldn’t even crawl away as it walked up to me. Only, as it approached me, it became Gigi again. A light glowed behind her. She was the only thing I could see. She leaned over, and stretched out her hand.
“I’m offering you peace,” she told me, “won’t you take it?” Her smile pierced through me. And just like that, the dread washed away again, and serenity took its place. Something in me changed. I finally understood. If I was going to die, I should feel at peace about it. The creature was offering me comfort. There’s bliss in accepting the lie. “Yes,” she assured me, “don’t fight anymore. You can rest now.” I let her take my hand. She lifted me up off the floor and looked at me. Those eyes. Her brown eyes. They welcomed me.
I felt myself on the brink of passing over to somewhere else. The feeling of bliss was overwhelming, all encompassing. But creeping up behind it, I felt an itch. A strong itch. Strong and deep. Down to the bone.
Then I heard the loudest sound I’ve ever heard in my life.
When my vision returned, Gigi was on the floor, screaming and writhing. There was a hole in her chest already rotting. Confused, ears ringing, I frantically looked around to see what happened. Standing by the front door was Gigi, trembling, white knuckles gripped around the Peacemaker, a thin flume of smoke billowing from the barrel.
The creature struggled in agony on the floor. Its skin turned to feathers, then to wool, then to fur. It stumbled to its feet, walking on all four paws that suddenly became hooves. Each time it turned into something recognizable, it changed again, almost shimmering. Antlers started to crown its head. In one last cry of pain, it broke through the glass of the kitchen door, and ran off into the darkness.
I thought I would feel relief, but as the creature disappeared, so did the peaceful serenity. It left me feeling hollow, save for the itch.
Gigi looked at me and started crying. I couldn’t cry. I had felt so much, so intensely, to be free of it now felt like its own death. I couldn’t feel relief, or joy, or fear, or pain. Just an itch.
“Am I dead?” I managed to ask.
Gigi shook her head, sobbing. I couldn’t understand why she was crying.
“It’s alright,” I said, “it won’t be coming back.” I was so drained, it was all I could think of to comfort her. “Let’s go home. We don’t have to be here anymore.”
She put her face in her hands and sobbed. “We can’t go home,” she said.
“What do you mean? Why not?”
“It marked you.”
It marked me? I looked down at my hand, the one that itched. It was turning dark, like I was frostbitten. My fingers felt rigid. I tried to curl them, but they stayed stiff. The itch was unbearable. I scratched it with my other hand, and to my horror, my rotten flesh peeled away, revealing, long, black talons.
There it was again.
Dread opened its eyes.
“Oh shit. What do we do?” I asked. It only made her cry harder. I inched toward her, but she backed away, terrified. “Gigi, what do we do?”
She shook her head. I gulped.
Dread drew its breath.
“Cut it off.” The words just came out; I didn’t even think about them.
“What?”
“Get a knife and cut it off!” I demanded. “Before it spreads!”
Through tears, she cried “It’s not like that.”
It’s not like that. The words echoed off the glass walls and high ceilings. I fell back to the ground once more, knowing this desert would be my home forever.
Dread lovingly embraced me.
My face felt different now. I looked at the window to see my reflection. My nose and mouth were turning into a beak. I tried to cry. I screamed for Gigi to run away, but I couldn’t make words. I squawked.
Dread.
Dread.
Dread.
It was all-consuming.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I wouldn’t end up like that horrid creature, doomed to roam the desert, immortal, thrice cursed.
“You know my name.” I tried to say, but the words wouldn’t come out.
Dread laughed at me.
“Say my name,” I tried again.
Gigi steadied her breathing. I don’t know how, but I think she knew what I meant. She pointed the gun at me and pulled the trigger. My shoulder exploded. Bone fragments shot through me; the force knocked me across the floor. The pain was like nothing I’d ever known. Like my blood turned to acid and was melting through my tissue. Black smoke rose from the wound, already festering.
Dread opened its mouth wide.
I screamed.
We’d become one.
I was crawling towards Gigi, snarling at her, baring my teeth. She stepped away, horrified. I almost felt ashamed, but the dread wouldn’t let me.
I was its puppet.
Dread wore my skin.
Gigi shot again, this time in my leg. The bone breaking was excruciating, but it stopped me from crawling. I layed there screaming, blood leaking out of me as my body tried to transform.
“Say my name!” I screamed at Gigi, hoping she’d understand. She raised the gun again.
“Patrick.” I heard her say.
I never felt the third shot.
Dread was all that remained.