I am so scared, I don’t know what to do. To start with, let me just say I loved my wife, Serena. I loved her for nearly 12 years but two years ago we grew apart and in that time, I met someone else. Katy walked into my life on a particularly cold February day, with her long dark hair and her beautiful green eyes. She was new at the office where I worked as a computer engineer. I think it was her laugh that really did it for me. That proper throw-your-head-back, really-means-it kind of laugh, you know? We started meeting up in the cafe downstairs for lunch, at first accidentally and then all the time. We had so much in common. We loved the same PC games. We both enjoyed action movies and true crime, and we both came from big families. Katy was a widow and had lost her husband young. There was a vulnerability to her that I wanted to protect. I grew obsessed with spending every spare moment with her.

Truly, I should have felt more guilty. But I didn’t. Serena, my petite blonde, no nonsense wife could not be more different from Katy and she really didn’t feel like the woman I married anymore. She was so distant and cold now. I can’t even remember why she changed and what happened, I just knew that my marriage was over. When Katy and I kissed that time at the office Christmas party and a colleague saw us, I knew that it was time I told my wife everything.

But when I finally worked up the courage to tell her that evening on the walk home, steeling myself for a terrible confrontation, I found Serena sitting at the kitchen table, her face in her hands, weeping over an open letter. I asked her what was wrong and she simply gestured to the letter. I lifted it up to read it and my mouth went dry. Breast cancer. Stage 3. I couldn’t tell my wife I was leaving her now. It would utterly destroy her.

So I did what I had to do. I told Katy about Serena’s diagnosis and she was heartbroken but understanding when I told her that we needed to break up.

I supported Serena through immunotherapy and took over all cooking duties and cleaning duties. We ate the healthiest of meals, and I tried my very best to be the most supportive husband I could be but cancer was rough on Serena. She lost the spark in her eyes and grew gaunt, unable to keep any of the food down. When we returned to the doctor, he told us she was now at stage 4. This meant a course of deeply aggressive chemo. That night, I held Serena as she sobbed and told me she wasn’t sure she would make it through this.

And then she asked me to help her die.

I was stunned, unable to believe I had heard her right.

I’ll never forget how she lifted her now gaunt face, looked me in the eyes and said, “Daniel. I want you to help me die. Please.”

I was horrified. “I…I can’t do that.” I told her, the words barely making sense, I was so gobsmacked.

But she pleaded and pleaded. Finally, we made a pact. That if the cancer became too much for her to handle, I would give her the entire bottle of sleeping pills the doctor had assigned for her crushed up in her favourite ice cream. Even now, I feel numb just thinking about it.

Serena however, knew exactly what she wanted and seemed very sure about it. Two weeks went by without us talking about it again, but honestly, fuck cancer. I have never watched a healthy human being deteriorate so fast. Finally, when the Doctor told us that the cancer had metastasised and moved to her lungs, she asked me to do the deed.

So last night, I bought her favourite ice cream and numbly crushed the pills up. Then I carried it up to her. She ate the ice cream slowly. My brave, clever wife who I had not appreciated in time was the most dignified woman when it came to death. Quietly, she smiled, thanked me and closed her eyes for the last time.

I waited until the rattle in her chest stopped. And her breathing slowed to a halt. She looked peaceful for the first time in a long, long time. I knew she was gone.

I walked downstairs to the living room and sat down on the sofa. Then I bawled my eyes out like a small child.

This morning, I awoke still on the couch, a dull, cold realisation of what had happened the previous night. But then…I smelled coffee and bacon. I heard the sound system in the kitchen blasting with a cheerful pop song.

“What the fuck?”

I was immediately on my feet and I headed into the kitchen, heart racing.

And there, happily humming to herself, was Serena.

Not the Serena I left upstairs. Gaunt and hollowed out by illness. But my Serena. The Serena of before.

She smiled at me in a way she hadn’t for years. “’Morning, my darling. Here we go, bacon and eggs sunny side up.” She pushed a plate on the kitchen island in my direction and placed a cup of coffee before me.

What the ever loving fuck was going on? I watched my dead wife cook up a storm and act like everything was completely fine. Like she hadn’t died last night.

“Serena, what-”

She lifted her cup of coffee and took a big sip, eyes closing as though it was the most delicious thing she had ever tasted. “I know, my love.” She said, “I would be surprised too.”

“You died last night.” I stated the obvious, I know but it was also the truth. She had been dead.

She nodded. “Yes, yes I know. And I was. Very dead. But that had to happen, you see because how else would I come back to life?”

I did not like the sound of her bright voice suddenly. Something in the air felt…off. Something about all of this felt like the kind of decay you cannot see, just under a gleaming surface.

“Don’t you see darling,” she told me casually, taking a bite of her toast. “I fell in love. I had to stay.”

This hit me like a ton of bricks and made me take a step back. “You…you what?”

“Now, now, Daniel.” She said, wagging the piece of toast at me, “You aren’t the only one who is allowed to have fun. I thought this was a marriage of equals?“

My voice was now hoarse, even to my own ears, “I don’t know what you’re-”

“DON’T FUCKING LIE TO ME!” she suddenly shouted, throwing her plate at me. I ducked just in time and flinched as it shattered.

“Serena, please calm down…” I was trying so hard to keep my composure but it was getting harder and harder as I watched her. It struck me then that her movements were very odd. Sudden and strange.

It clicked into place when she reached for her coffee again. It was like…this was the first time she was wearing her body.

I took a step back. “What is going on here.” I could hear the tremors of fear in my voice.

“What’s going on, Daniel, is that I know about your tawdry little affair. In fact,” she smiled, horribly, a bit too wide. “I have known since the beginning. So I prayed to the darkness. I prayed to any terrible thing that was listening, and that was when he came to me. My own God of pain.”

Her voice which had been Serena’s so far began to shift a little. Something about it felt like it was cracking. And then I heard it. A slow inhuman growl escaped her throat. Her eyes bulged. “Don’t you want to meet him, Daniel? The love of my life?”

Her skin looked like it was ripping at the seams. Her mouth split open and a huge tongue and fangs fell out. “He really wants to meet you.”

Before I could scream, shout, run, anything, the thing that was wearing my wifes skin had filled our kitchen.

It was at least seven feet tall, its mouth more like a gash, too many fangs and that too long tongue. It’s body, oh God, its body was that of a rotting old man, buried long enough ago that the vile smell of decay filled the room. Its eyes were voids. Nothing inside them but eternal darkness. And the most terrifying thing of all was that it was looking at me…

…and grinning.

I stumbled backward turning to run but before I could, the thing reached out and grasped my left arm. I tried to snatch my arm back but before I could, I felt a sharp pain, like my arm was on fire and when I looked down, it was…

My arm…my arm looked like it belonged to an old man. It had withered with just a single touch from that thing. I wrenched my arm out of its grip and ran to the door, only to find it locked. I pounded it on it hoping, praying the neighbours, SOMEONE would hear me, it was morning and someone would-

I heard the cold, low chuckle behind me and my blood froze. Without even thinking, I turned and ran past it for the stairs, I could hear its slow shuddering footsteps behind me as I rushed up the stairs to the bedroom, throwing myself inside. Quickly I locked the door behind me and then ran to the window to get out. It didn’t budge so I tried to throw a chair against the window.

It. Wouldn’t. Break.

A soft persistent knocking began on the door. I threw myself against the glass of the window and started banging on it. Downstairs my neighbour Greg was mowing his lawn.

I shouted his name as loudly as I could and for a second he looked up. Relief flooded through me as I screamed “HELP ME!”

But Greg just frowned up as though…he couldn’t see me.

I screamed louder, “GREG!!” as the knocking grew more persistent. “HELP ME!”

But he had already looked away and was back to mowing his lawn. I bashed those windows and yelled until my throat grew hoarse and finally, my knees gave way and I slumped to the floor.

I’ve been here ever since. The day is slowly turning to twilight.

Outside, the thing keeps knocking on the door. I can hear it shuffling softly back and forth.

A voice that was once my wife’s but is now rotting and decayed filters into this slowly darkening bedroom.

“Daniel, won’t you come out and play?”