Tim Meyer - The Switch House

“Last chance,” he said. “Last chance to make this right, Angela. I’m a forgiving husband. Very loving. I can forgive a lot. I can forgive you for all your mistakes, your transgressions against our family. I can forgive you for losing our son, our only-fucking-child, the one thing in life that mattered above all else.” The man applying intense pressure to her throat wept. Maybe, she thought, maybe he’s still a man after all. “I’m a loving and forgiving husband, Angela,” he repeated, his voice cracking through the sobs. “I want you to make this right. I’m not asking for much.”

She had no idea what to say. Anything, she thought, was apt to get her killed.

Keeping quiet, she listened to one last demand.

“Say. His. Fucking. Name.”

He wasn’t crying anymore, and his voice had a ring of finality to it, like there wouldn’t be another request, and certainly no more opportunities to resolve this mess.

Speak his name or die.

Those were her choices.

She opened her mouth, and something like a breath fell out.

Terry sobbed again. Loud, as if something in his chest had suddenly fractured.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered into her ear.

She felt the blade split her flesh, sink in. A warm splash coated her throat.

“WILLIAM!” The name exploded from her mouth, with it, a gob of saliva and blood. “His name was William.” As her husband removed the weapon from her throat, she wailed with relief, frustration, and crushing sadness. She laid her forehead in the small pool of blood and saliva. Body violently trembling, she crawled away from her attacker, toward the door.

“Nuh-uh, Angela,” Terry said from behind her. He gripped her ankle. She was too weak to resist. “We’re not done yet.” As he bent down to retrieve a test, he wiped the glistening tears off his cheeks. “I hope you still have some urine left in that body of yours.”

Sure enough, Terry was right—she was pregnant. Or so the stick she pissed on told her. It wasn’t one of those cheap sticks either—it was one of those early detection pieces. And even so, she still believed her eyes were unveiling lies; no at-home pregnancy kit on the planet would test positive this early, not three days after the deal was sealed. Quick math told her it should be at least another week and a half before the test would display positive results—alas, here it was. The plus sign glared up at her like the eye of some dead cartoon character. The realization kicked her brain into the endless possibilities of how this was possible, each stray thought reverting back to notions of dream goblins and dream worlds and things that just didn’t exist. Still, she stared down at a bona fide miracle.

In other words, an immaculate conception.

This has to be a dream, she thought, another hallucination.

Terry paced the room. “I knew it. I fucking knew it!”

Slowly, Angela shook her head. “This isn’t possible.”

“Yes,” he said, getting down on his knees before her. She wasn’t sure if he was re-proposing or getting in prime position to wedge the blade between her ribs. “Yes, it is.”

Just looking at him made the small, shallow furrow on her throat burn. “How? How am I pregnant? Besides the other night, we haven’t fucked in over nine months. I haven’t slept with anyone…”

“…since William?” he asked.

She nodded.

“You still won’t say his name?” The disappointment in his voice was disconcerting.

She swallowed her own spit and that hurt, too. “Not unless you’re going to threaten me again.”

He shook his head like a wet pup. “I’m sorry, babe. I’m so goddamn sorry.” He placed a hand on her knee. It felt cold, impossibly frigid, like an icicle come summertime. There was something wild in his eye, something telling her the stress of everything was too much and Terry had finally snapped. Maybe this Ester Moore, whoever she was, knew how to push his buttons, knew how to make him cross the line of no turning back. Every psychologist on the planet would rule him utterly insane on his appearance alone, one look in those feral eyes. “But you had to say it. You had to let it out. You had to speak his name. William. William likes when you speak his name.” He glanced down at her stomach.

She followed his peculiar gaze. “What are you talking about?”

He pointed at her stomach with the knife. She recoiled.

“That’s our Will in there,” he said confidently, the words bringing an endearing smile to his face.

“What the fucking shit are you talking about?” Angela asked, and something behind her eyes began to burn. She thought it might be her brain melting from the insanity. He actually believes this. She hadn’t forgotten how he’d admitted to killing Rosalyn Jeffries and came very close to opening her throat like a sandwich bag, spilling its contents across the bathroom floor.

“Not our Will, not exactly. But a copy. The dream goblin wants the real William, but it’ll settle for a copy, an imitation. Ester says so. She can make a trade. The switch.”

As if she hadn’t known ten minutes ago, she now understood this was no longer the man she’d married, the man she had fallen in love with once upon a time ago, the man she’d wanted to have babies with, lots and lots of babies. Nor was he the man she wanted to grow old with, have their ashes combined and scattered across their favorite Jersey Shore beaches. This was another man. A man who had, like a fine piece of fruit, grown rotten and sick, decayed from the inside out. She knew it was partially her fault—if she had been more responsible and been watching their son a little more closely that day, then none of this would be happening. In fact, if the tragic event hadn’t transpired, the three of them would probably be on the couch right about now, eating bowls of homemade ice cream sundaes and watching LEGO BATMAN on Blu-ray.

This is all your fault, she thought. You deserve this.

“Terry…” she said, tears streaming out of her eyes. “…you’re sick.”

He only smiled at this. “No, baby. I’ve never felt better. This is how we get on. This is how we get through. Fuck therapy, fuck house-swaps, fuck moving and selling. This—” he placed his hand on her bloated stomach, “This is how we heal.”

“Terry, I love you. I really do. But this is so wrong. Everything about this feels so wrong.”

He placed his hands between her thighs, knife included, resting all three on the edge of the toilet bowl. She looked down at the tip of the blade. If he wanted, one upward motion would plunge the knife into the softest flesh under her chin.

“I dreamt this,” he said. “I dreamt you were pregnant again, with our Will. That we were able to reincarnate him. Give him new life so we can gain back the old one.”

A blurry smear filled her vision. “Terry, I don’t care what this test shows, I’m not pregnant. This is a trick. Whatever it is, it’s a trick. Your dreams, Terry, they lied to you.”

He scowled. “Dreams don’t lie. Not in this house. Don’t you see that?”

Blanching, she glared at him. “You’ve seen the hallucinations, too?”

Terry’s face twisted into wrinkles, lines creasing his face like a brown paper bag. In a brief fit of rage, he buried the knife in the plasterboard over Angela’s wild, knotted hair. White dust sprinkled the top of her cowering head.

“I am not hallucinating!” he yelled as he stomped his foot on the tile, making the entire room vibrate. He marched over to the far wall where Angela had put a piece of duct tape over the hole that had once shown her things existing in faraway worlds. “Look through there,” he demanded, ripping the tape away. A small beam of light filtered through. “Look in there and tell me what you see.”