I’m leaving some details out of this, I can’t risk being found. Not yet. My name is Michael, I’m writing this from the only Motel I could find that accepts cash. The dilapidated old man behind the glass counter didn’t even look up at me when I handed him enough money for a two night stay; he seemed more concerned with trying to break a world record for keeping a cigarette in his mouth without ashing.
I hope I’m safe here for the time being. If by chance, you are someone who is looking for me, I hope you can read my story and see that what I’m saying is true. I hope you can see that I would never do these things.
I had a rough patch in my life after college. My life was going nowhere until I met her. “Hi, my name is Emily”, five insignificant words that changed my life. She supported me through my lowest times, and celebrated with me through my peaks. Two weeks ago, my life was perfect. Emily and I were married for three years, we celebrated our third anniversary on September 17th. We shared a home, which was originally my house alone, she moved in a year before we were married to take care of it while I was in Afghanistan. The hardest part about deployment was being away from her; I decided I couldn’t do it again and declined reenlistment to marry Emily.
I went to work the morning of September 23. My job didn’t give the sense of achievement the Army did, but I like the people there. I barely got situated at my desk before my boss messaged me to come into his office. His face was not wearing the usual cheerful smile.
“What are you doing, Mike?” he groaned, “I thought we agreed you’d take time off after what happened Friday?”
What? I reminded him that I took Friday off to attend funeral services for an old Army buddy. He told me I burst into the office yelling at everyone, him included. He told me that security had to drag me out of the building after I attacked Jim, my coworker who sits across from me. He told me we talked once I calmed down and he asked me to take a week off, and that I spat at him and told him he could fuck himself and replace me. Before I could get a word in, he told me to leave before he calls the police.
I left my job in a daze, I was at that funeral. Emily went to that funeral with me, she held my hand the entire time, she could convince my boss. I called Emily to tell her I’d be coming home early, no answer. I sent her a text asking if she wanted me to bring home lunch, no response. Everything seemed normal when I got home. I picked up yesterday’s paper from the driveway and went inside.
She came running at me, shoved me hard into the wall.
“What the fuck are you doing!?” she yelled, I could see her tears and her bruised temple. I asked her what happened and she gave me a sick look of disbelief. She told me to leave. She cried and screamed at me to leave. She asked if I came back to hit her more and lifted her blouse to reveal a black and blue abdomen.
“I would never,” I started to say before being struck in the face. It was apparent that I wasn't making progress with her. I left my house, our house, in tears with a stinging cheek. I didn’t know what to do, where to go, what the fuck was happening. So I just drove.
I stopped at a gas station about an hour from my house. Mindlessly slipped my credit card and started fueling. “It’s him! The guy on the news!” someone shouted. Before I knew it there was a crowd around me. The shouts around me continued.
“You murdering piece of shit!”
“I’m calling the police!”
“Don’t let him leave!’
There were people half surrounding me, but none of them attempted to come close. I traded shouts with them, trying to explain that I had no idea what they were talking about. The crowd was growing angrier, once I was done filling up I hopped in my car. One of the bigger men tried to run up and grab me but I shoved him off and was able to shut my door. The crowd tried to block me in, I had to slowly push my way through while they pounded on my windows and car.
I didn’t know what was going on, was I losing my mind? There was nothing on the local radio about anything, but I assumed the police were looking for me from what the people at the gas station were yelling. I drove for another hour or so, exhausted from a day I kept wishing I would wake up from. I passed a few well known hotels and motels, but I figured I shouldn't use my credit card; maybe I’ve watched too much Law & Order or CSI. I took a turn down a side road following a dirty sign saying lodging.
I parked my car around the side and made my way up to a broken down hotel which was apparently just a house with a hand written sign that said “HOTEL – CASH ONLY”. Any other time I would have got back in my car and avoided this creep hole altogether, but whatever, a dirty room was the least of my worries.
I was given a key and a room number. The cigarette smell clung to me as I left the old man in the “lobby”. The room door creaked as I entered my room. It was cleaner than I expected, although it had a slight rotten/metallic smell. I sat on the bed and buried my face in my hands for a few minutes. After gaining my composure, I turned on the television.
You know that feeling you get, when you’re half asleep and you dream about falling? The sick feeling like your stomach is being pulled out of your belly button. Take that feeling, multiply it by the biggest number you can think of, and you’ll be nowhere near the feeling that hit me.
“Police are searching for the husband of Emily _____ , found dead in her house this afternoon, if you have any information you can call...”
I ran to the bathroom and threw up the nonexistent food in my stomach while the reporter on TV continued.
“A neighbor called the local police department after hearing screams coming from the house.”
We only had one neighbor close to us, Mr. Clark. He’d been a good friend to us, an older guy, we bonded over war stories. He fought in Desert Storm and had dozens of stories to tell us over occasional dinners. I washed my face and went back to the tv to see Mr. Clarks face, there was a reporter interviewing him and I could see my house in the background marked off with yellow police tape.
“Michael has always been a good neighbor, him and Emily are.. were... good people. I saw them on the porch and didn't think nothing of it until I saw him start hitting her. I ran outside and yelled at him to stop but he didn’t even look at me. He just got on top of that poor girl and beat her until she stopped moving.” I could see tears building in Mr. Clarks eyes.
It’s been a few hours now. I don’t know what I’m going to do, I don’t want to do anything. What’s the point? My Emily.. my whole life has broken in the past 24 hours and I can’t explain how or why. I had to write this down somewhere, somewhere for people to see, people who might believe me.
So please, believe me.
I would stay in this broken down hotel longer, but I have to go. See, I called my mother from the room phone, I needed to talk to someone. She asked me if I’ve calmed down since I left her house last night. She told me she knows I didn’t mean the things I said to her and dad. She said she’s making my favorite dinner for when I said I’d come over tonight.
She lives six hours north of me, in Northern Virginia, I haven’t been up there for almost a year.
Part 2
The past two weeks have turned my life upside down and opened my eyes to the world. I made it to my parents’ house in twice the time it should have taken, a few days of sleeplessness can make any road trip multiply. Pulling up to my parent’s long driveway brought back a lot of childhood memories, I grew up here, and it was the safest place I've known.
The driveway ends at the garage, but the front door is around the right of the house so I parked my car next to my parent’s old jeep and walked around the house. The house has huge bay windows on the side facing most of the land; as a child I would watch the deer and various animals that would venture onto our yard. The light was on, I could see my father sitting at the dinner table. He was laughing, smiling, talking to someone out of view who I assumed was my mother. They were alive, and seemed to be perfectly fine. A weight lifted off of my chest, finally some good news I thought before ringing the doorbell.
He opened the door, his hair, his voice, even his damn posture; I couldn’t break my gaze off of his face, my face. I thought I was delusional, it felt like looking into a distorted mirror.
“If you say one word, I’ll kill them,” he said with a smile, not my smile. He was an exact copy of myself, everything but that smile, crooked with a little teeth. I stood there, stunned, looking into the eyes of the person who killed my Emily. Hundreds of thoughts flying through my head; do I risk attacking him? Can I take him down before he hurts my family? Somehow he’s capable of looking exactly like me, what else is he capable of?
I wanted to ask him what he wanted, why he was doing this, why he killed Emily. All I could pull out of my cloud of thoughts was “Who are you?”
“You had your chance, I’ll do what you couldn’t. Your parents will die eventually, everyone dies, it’s much easier to hasten than it is to postpone.”
He shut the door in my face, and I just stood there. I’ve never felt so weak in my life, I’ve been to war and back, and I’ve made it through gunshots and explosions meant to kill me. Now, I couldn’t even speak, I did nothing while this person was under my parent’s roof.
I’m at another motel now, it seems Emily’s murder never made it out of my state. I haven’t heard anything on the news or read anything on the internet about it. It didn’t even seem like my parents knew about it. I’m on my way to see my friend, I need more information. I need to know what this thing is and what it’s capable of. I need to know if I can kill it.
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