The Switch House: A Short Novel

by Tim Meyer

  “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.”

  “Yes, you can. I've seen it. In my dreams.”

  “Terry, we had sex three nights ago. It's too early to tell.”

  “It came to me in a dream,” he spoke, his jaw clenched. “I saw it. You're pregnant.”

  She recalled what Rosalyn had said and the warning label on the prescription. In truth, she felt pregnant, very pregnant, and, if she stayed still long enough, she swore she felt something swimming inside her, an unnatural flutter of some ungodly new life growing exponentially.

  “Okay, Terry. Suppose I am. What then?”

  “You carry it to term. You hand it over to Ester Moore. She retrieves our precious child from the Everywhere and gives him back. It's a switch. Straight up.” His eyes leaked, slowly emitting tears. “This is the switch we need, baby. This is the switch we need.”

  Her lips trembled. “I'm not pregnant, Terry. Please get that through your head. Right fucking now.”

  He offered a phony smile; the one Terry usually displayed when he was pissed and not doing a great job of hiding it. “You're right. Maybe I'm getting a little carried away.” He stood up and reached under the sink, grabbing the small box of home pregnancy tests. Turning to her, he held out the box, offering her the pick of the lot as if they were something desirable like lollipops. “Pee on one of these bad boys. Prove me right.”

  “Terry, it's too early, it won't—”

  He dropped the box on the floor, marched over to the tub, and gripped her by her hair. With one tug, he lifted her from her seat. Mindful that he could rip out a huge patch of her hair with little effort, she went with the momentum and hurled herself over the side, landing with her back on the tile. He yanked her to her knees, and, on all fours, she faced the scattered box of tests.

  “You will piss on one of these,” he said, spittle spraying from his lips. His shadow sprawled over her and his breath brushed against her ear. “Or I swear to God, I will carve his name into your chest, setting a daily reminder of all that pain, all that guilt you can so easily throw away. Got it?”

  “You're insane,” she said in a tone barely above a breath.

  “Say his name,” he demanded. “You vowed to never speak it again, but I want to hear you say it.”

  “No.” Teardrops puddled on the tile before her, three at a time. “No, I will not.”

  Her head suddenly jerked back. She felt hot pain on her neck, above her larynx. Scarlet droplets materialized before her, mixing with the fallen tears.

  “You will say his name or I will open your throat right here and now.” Terry growled in her ear. She couldn't believe how unhinged he'd become. Was he always like this? Capable of such psychotic actions? Or was this a slow-building end? Had Terry been slowly falling apart? Did she miss the warning signs because she was too wrapped up in her own shit? No, she didn't think so. The man she married, the man she'd spent the last few days trying to help right the ship steering their marriage was very different from the man standing over her, threatening to end her life.

  These creatures usually enjoy influencing someone close to you, the old woman had said.

  “You're not my husband,” she said, pinching her eyes shut. “You're not Terry.”

  “No?” He bit her ear, hard enough to leave behind deep, toothy pockets, but lacking the power to break the skin. “Who am I?”

  “You're the dream goblin.”

  With this, Terry reared his head back and laughed. “You are something else, Angie. That woman got you all mixed up, didn't she? Rosalyn. She turned us against each other, baby. She's convinced you I'm evil. Well, I'm not evil. She was. I'm glad I killed her. Ester told me I had to, had to get her out of our way so we can proceed with the plan. The switch.” A soft, demonic giggle rose in Terry's throat. “Rosalyn tried to interfere and she got what she deserved. Lesson learned. DO NOT INTERFERE.”

  “You're fucking nuts!”

  A sharp pain shot through her neck, and, in that moment, she thought he'd begun sawing his way through her esophagus, working the blade deep into her vertebrae. She expected to see geysers of blood spurt forth, slicking the tile floor with scarlet, but no such image came forth. The pain was either a product of faulty nerves or her imagination conspiring against her. Seconds later, the pain ebbed and eventually faded. The red droplets had slowed to a stop.

  “Dream goblins,” Terry said, chuckling. “We'll teach 'em. Ester will show us the way.”

  “Who... is... Ester?”

  Terry squealed with delight. In a whisper, he told her, “Do not ask questions to which you already know the answer.”

  Too tired to hold her position, Angela felt her arms give. She lowered herself onto the floor, laying flat, pressing her cheek against the cool tile. “Terry... don't hurt me.”

  “I am your husband. Your dearest, forgiving husband who has been patient with you, who has waited a long time for you to right all the wrong you caused our family. Who has been patiently waiting for you to snap out of it. God... you don't know how hard it's been on me. Every day I think about leaving you, Angela. Every goddamn day.” She was surprised to hear him sounding like her husband again, nothing manic about his voice whatsoever. Surprised... and terrified of what was coming out of his mouth. The truth, she thought. “I always thought that wo
uld be an easy way out. Just leave and I'll never have to see him in your stupid fucking face again. My little [we do not speak his name], here and present, living through the image of his psychotic fucking mother.”

  She said something, but the words barely made it past her lips.

  “What was that?” He relieved some of the pressure his knee applied to her back.

  “I said...” She coughed, a deep honking noise, goose-like. She lifted her head a few inches from the floor. “I said... we promised to never speak his name. The both of us.”

  She felt something pound her in the back of the head. Her face smashed against the tile. It took her several seconds to realize he had driven his fist into the back of her skull. A second after, her head launched backward, her neck stretching to its peak flexibility. Cold metal pressed against her neck again, and she wondered if her bones would break before he seized the opportunity to split open her jugular.

  “I want you to say it for me, baby,” he rasped in her ear, the demonic version of her husband returning. “I want you to speak his goddamn name. It's been so long since you've said it. It'll feel good, I promise. Like a weight lifting off your shoulders. Or, in this case, a knife leaving the most vulnerable part of your body.”

  “No,” she croaked.

  “Yes.” He snarled in her ear, a cruel noise that sent shivers slithering down her spine. “Yes, you goddamn will.”

  “NO.”

  “YES.” He pulled her head back farther, cracking something in her throat.

  “NO!” she screamed as loud as her strained voice permitted.

  He slammed her head forward, crunching her nose against the tiled floor. A Rorschach pattern of blood appeared under her face. He pulled back her head again, slowly, allowing her to take in the scarlet sights before her. Crimson flowed down her face, steadily as a mountain brook.

  “Say it, you bitch, or I swear to God I'm slitting your shit open right here and now!”

  She opened her mouth, fully expecting to comply with her husband's demands, but the only thing that came out was an inarticulate fragment of a word followed by a bout of heaving sobs. She tried again but ended up howling for help, screaming the neighbor's name. This earned her another meet-and-greet with the floor, and she heard the violence of her nose shattering over the impact.

  “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.”

  X.

  POSITIVE AND NEGATIVES

  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.”

  Crying, she shook her head. “No.”

  “Do it.” He bared his teeth like some savage beast born in the wild and raised on a steady diet of violence. “Goddammit, do it, or I swear to Christ I will rip our unborn son from your womb and make you fucking eat him.”