Tim Meyer - The Switch House

“Weird how?”

She closed her eyes, trying to find a way to describe her emotions without coming off clinically insane. “Weird in a lot of ways, I guess. Dr. Wilson was the last person I expected to come home and see. Plus, I’ve had a strange night.”

“Hallucinations?”

[Rosalyn’s head on a pike, blood pouring down the brass stake in thin runnels.]

Not a hallucination.

“No, they’ve been quiet.”

“Good. Glad to hear. How have you been feeling otherwise?”

“Good. I guess. I’m not sure. Exactly how do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Just asking. Being a concerned husband, that’s all,” he said, almost defensively.

In truth, he sounded concerned. Overly concerned now, the opposite of how he had acted when she’d first come home. Angela didn’t think much of it, but there was a small part of her that thought he knew where she had been. It was like he could smell the great outdoors on her flesh, Rosalyn Jeffries’s blood in her hair. She pushed those thoughts far, far away, burying them in the back of her mind. Right now, all she wanted was her pillow and eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

“Okay, I’m going to shower and hit the hay. That okay?”

“Yeah, sure. There’s leftover turkey and gravy in the fridge if you want some.”

[Rosalyn’s calm gaze. Her close-lipped expression. The bloody saw on the bed. Bits of her shredded flesh wedged between the metal teeth.]

“No, I don’t have much of an appetite.”

“Okay,” he said, smooching her forehead. “Let me finish up down here and I’ll meet you in bed.”

As she soaked in the tub, she wondered who had killed Rosalyn Jeffries, and more importantly—why. It didn’t add up. The woman had done nothing, absolutely nothing that warranted her execution, and now there she was, her head topping the headboard like the last loser of some violent Viking siege. Who would want her dead? Who could do this?

She kept waiting for a phone call from the police or a knock on the front door from two detectives wanting to question her on the woman’s brutal demise. Or Barry. Fuck, she thought, closing her eyes, holding her breath, and slipping under the water. She recalled telling Barry that the old woman was following her. If the police did question anyone, surely they’d talk to Barry. He would tell them what Angela had said over the phone. She couldn’t remember if she had told him her intentions, that she was on the way to the woman’s house as they spoke. If she had, that’d make her an easy target. Suspect number one, without a doubt. Hell, it might even be enough to arrest her. She didn’t know how much evidence it would take to incriminate her, but with her recent struggles—all of them well documented on Let’s Switch Houses!— bringing her in and pinning the murder on her would be a no-brainer, especially if they could verify she was in the house that afternoon. And she figured they could. All it would take was one fingerprint or a nosey neighbor to identify her car. Hell, they could check her E-Z Pass and see her path of travel.

Yep, she was fucked on all counts.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

It was after midnight and she couldn’t believe they hadn’t come for her yet.

She figured she’d enjoy one last bath before being hauled off to jail and earning a life sentence.

When she came up for air and opened her eyes, she was startled by the figure sitting on the toilet, staring directly at her.

She screamed.

The figure didn’t budge.

“Holy shit,” she said, leaning her head gently against the tiled shower enclosure. “You nearly made me pee.”

“Sorry,” Terry said, leaning against the reservoir tank. He didn’t sound like he was all-too sorry. Much like earlier, he didn’t seem concerned at all.

“Terry,” she said, closing her eyes. “I was hoping to have a little privacy.”

“Sorry, babe. But I think we need to talk.”

Oh shit! They’re here! The cops!

“Christ, Terry, what is it? What’s so important you can’t wait ten minutes?”

“I know where you went today,” he said calmly.

Her heart slammed to a stop. “W-what?”

“I know exactly where you went today,” he said, a grin halving his face. Before she could find the words, her husband removed a sharp, serrated blade speckled with brown stains. “And I know you saw what I did.”

“Honey,” she said, the two syllables coming out in very different pitches. “Terry, you’re scaring me.”

His grin didn’t falter. As he began to respond, his eyes fell to the knife in his hand. “You know, I was really hoping the cops would get there quicker,” he said, his smile diminishing. “What is it with those pricks? Don’t they understand what a goddamn emergency is?”

“Terry…”

He pressed a finger against his lips, hushing her. “Don’t make this harder, babe. Please don’t. God, this would have been so much easier if they had just hauled you off to jail. You would have been safe there.”

She felt her teeth clacking together, chattering from the chill running over her bones. “Safe from what?”

He looked at her with crooked eyes, as if she should already know. “Well, from yourself, of course. You’re not well, Angie. Hallucinations. Crazy ideas. Imagining things taking place between our walls. An old woman dancing naked in our living room. That’s crazy stuff, babe. Just plain crazy.” He swallowed. “You have to take care of yourself now that you’re going to be a mother again.”

The words came out like a shotgun blast from point-blank range. “How… how the hell do you know that?”

“She told me.”

Her jaw dropped, hung open while she tried to fit the pieces together. “Rosalyn? Rosalyn told you?”

His brow arched. “No, the other woman.”

“What other woman?” Tears streamed down her face. “Terry, you’re not making sense.”

“Ester Moore,” Terry said. “The woman Barry told you about. The one who was part of the coven with Rosalyn Jeffries back in the 60s.”

Pure confusion trapped her face. “How…”

Terry waved his hand in the air nonchalantly. “Barry called me earlier. Said he thought he’d worked you into a panic by telling you about Rosalyn’s past. But there’s no need to panic, babe. I’m here to help you. Here to help see you through these next difficult steps.”

“Don’t call me, babe.”

Terry reacted as if she’d backhanded him across the face. “Please, don’t act like—”

“You killed her. You killed Rosalyn Jeffries.”

“I had to. Don’t you understand? She was feeding you lies. She was trying to tear apart our family. Don’t you get it? She set us up! She was responsible for us going on Switch! Ester Moore wants to help us. She wants to help us get our son back. Isn’t that great?” The excitement in his voice brought shivers down her spine, perpetual coldness to her muscles. Her husband sounded manic, a prime candidate for the psychiatric hospital where Dr. Wilson had mentioned she should voluntarily commit herself. “Ester wants to help us get our son back from the Everywhere, where the dream goblin is keeping him. It’s a nasty thing that dream goblin, so Ester says. The damned thing attached itself to this house. It wants you, Angela. It wants to become you.”

“Terry…”

“But Ester says she can stop it. Give it what it wants.” His face turned still as stone. “A replacement.” His eyes drifted to her belly. “The… child growing inside you.”

“Terry, I can’t be pregnant.”