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DELILAH

C uriosity gets the better of me after finishing my call with Asher and attempting to soothe the ache in my muscles with a steaming shower. Each step I take is slow for more reason than the ache settling back into my body. I expect the freak, the ghost, to be waiting for me as I walk through the house.

The top floor is empty and there’s no other evidence of him being here. My shoulders sag and I have to force my dragging feet to move down the stairs. Everything’s the same; there’s not a single thing out of place since he turned up in my bedroom.

Pausing on the second-to-last step, I turn my head, looking around the open space. If I see him, I’ll lie and say I’m checking for my safety. The real reason is something worse, something terrifying and wrong. I can barely admit it to myself, but he intrigues me. It’s not due to the masks, or the fact he’s fixated on me. It’s deeper and I’m drawn to him.

My excuse will be my clearly fragile mental state because around him I’m normal. For the first time since I woke up in this strange world, married to a man I mourned, I am normal. My memories aren’t being questioned. Ghost is altering them, but he’s slipping himself between what I know instead of rewriting them entirely.

The phrase my father loved is called forward as I stand in an empty house and hold the banister for support.

“ There are three versions of the truth. Your version, the other person’s, and what actually happened.”

My mother’s voice decides to add her two cents.

“ But an intelligent person knows how to meld all three together to get what they want. They know the importance of preserving just enough information that it wins over the fickle mind of what’s standing in her way.”

Even when they’re out of my life and in my head, they both manage to find a way to be manipulative cunts and she always has to have her voice heard.

A slip of card is sticking out under the door, the edges framed in red, and I slowly walk towards it. My inner thighs burn, and it feels like I’ve been torn in two. A pained whimper leaves me as I bend in half to pick it up. The soreness between my thighs is mentally painful as well as physical. The physical ache is good, I enjoy it, but the mental anguish is fucking hell.

Turning the card over, I smile and hate the curve on my face as I read the typed note.

Good morning, koukla mou.

There’s ice and a heating pad waiting for you.

I can’t wait to test out the new chairs when we play next.

Mine.

I can’t stop staring at tangible proof that he’s real. I haven’t had some freak accident or a vivid dream, he was here and I’m not imagining things. I keep staring at the thick card as I inelegantly shuffle into the kitchen. The table I picked is set up in the corner and there are no boxes or packaging laying on the floor.

The thick oak slab adds warmth to the space and Asher won’t be able to topple it with the wide base, but the chairs are new. High-backed with long bars breaking up the sleek wood that runs the length of the back of the chair and reaches the floor. I know I’m fucked up when I smile wider at the thought of what Ghost will do.

A heating pad sits in the middle of the wood beside a bucket of ice, condensation pooling on the outside of the stainless steel, and near the rim is the normal reflective silver, but the bottom is duller with the droplets slowly dripping down to the towel he’s rested it on.

He’s left things to comfort me and made sure not to fuck up the table with any rings on the wood. This weird freak, who only wears black and a mask, had the forethought to lay down a towel to collect the condensation on the table after he built it.

Realization hits me. If he built it, he collected the delivery after cutting off my air. He couldn’t have done that in a mask, and I have to hold the wall for extra support as I walk as fast as I’m able to Asher’s office. The door slams against the wall in my urgency to check the cameras and I fall into his office chair as soon as I round the desk. I wince as the springs catch me and grab the edge of his desk to pull myself closer with my middle finger tapping against the keyboard.

The monitor in the middle of the desk doesn’t light up, but the ones attached to the wall come to life. It asks for the password, and I enter the same one that Asher showed me in the exact sequence to unlock it. Scrubbing the footage back to the previous day, I watch on tenterhooks for the moment the ghost is revealed.

My boredom before him is visceral. I’m the ghost haunting an empty house as I walk through it, and it shows me pausing in the kitchen. It must have been when he was standing in the tree line watching me, but the other vantages didn't pick him up. Speeding up the playback, I lean forward, ignoring the soreness of more pressure applied to my ass and thighs.

The footage doesn’t glitch. Instead, there’s a smooth transition of something that never fucking happened as I leave the bedroom.

Alone.

I walk down the stairs.

Alone.

And cook.

Alone.

There’s no one there.

It’s the same for the delivery that was left on the driveway. There’s nothing to show he was here, and the footage doesn’t have the kitchen torture session. Instead, it has me sitting at the piano, lost in the melody. The time stamp matches the delivery like I missed it due to the sound.

But I didn’t.

Did I?

No. I have the note.

I look down to my hand. But it’s not there and I don’t remember putting it down. Taking a deep breath, I tightly blink as though that’ll recalibrate my brain. The ache is there. It’s real. It has to be fucking real.

My body temperature fluctuates as I stand. I’m torn between frustration that urges me to crawl in a ball and sob, and anger that begs me to burn everything.

I keep walking to push the latter impulse away and search the hallway for the note. It’s not on the floor, and my eyes tighten in pain with my pace speeding up. I pause in the threshold of the kitchen and grip the wall as my legs shake. They’re like jelly and my shoulders have cement blocks inside of them. Everything is stiff, but I need that note. I need it to prove that it happened, even if it’s only to myself.

My eyes snap open and I frantically scan the surrounding floor. Relief courses through me at the sight of a red edge near the base of the table and I don’t attempt to pick it up. All my energy is conserved to pick up the heating pad and carry it to the microwave. The hum of it turning is hypnotic as I try to determine where the freak could be. Or who.

He knows me well enough to have details I have never told anyone else. Not only that, but he also has my things in his possession and he said I stabbed Asher.

If I stabbed him, why is he still married to me?

The shrill beep signals the end of the microwave’s rotations and I pull the door open as it continues. There’s no steam rising from the heating pad and the smell is strange. I slowly move my head forward to take in a nose full of the scent. Stale rice, oatmeal, and lavender perfume the air. The lavender is the most potent smell, but it doesn’t fully overpower the others. Fuck it, the freak is breaking in and suffocating me, what else could he possibly do?

I groan as I push it into my sweatpants. The warmth eases the ache. If anyone sees me, they’ll think I’m a pervert with my hand pressed against my crotch, but I don’t give a single fuck because it stops me from walking bowlegged.

Not bothering with my shoes, I leave the house and pick up the large ring of keys. He has to be staying in the other building. There’s nowhere else close by and he had the mask. It’s stupid to confront the freak, but I need to know everything he knows about me.

My selfish carelessness is solely rooted in reclaiming my sanity. Parts of my memories may be due to the hallucinations, the psychosis, but they can’t all be when there’s proof of them.

My socked feet sink into the gravel, and the small stones crunch until I reach the door of the other building. None of the windows allow me to see into it, and I push the key I saw the police officers use into the slot. It clicks and a chill works up my spine as my phone buzzes in my pocket.

I take it out, expecting it to be Asher, but it’s the man who has my answers.

UNKNOWN:

Who’s there?

He is here, and he’s watching me again.

I turn the key and brace for something sinister grabbing me. But the locking mechanism slides easily, and the dust kicks up as I forcefully push the door open. My feet turn to lead as I look at the freshly cleaned space. The table that had old paint on it is gone, the mask isn’t there, and there’s no dust on the floor. It still coats the windowsills and blinds, but the floor was gray and covered in the police officers’ booted footprints. Now the black tile is shiny and reflects my silhouette with the beaming sun back at me.

The large open-plan space is a rectangular box that doesn’t provide any corners for him to hide, but I slowly step forward and turn my head, searching for him. He has to be here, and I notice the alcove against the back wall as I crane my neck. The walls run parallel to each other, and the paint shades differ slightly to give the illusion of one continuous wall to hide the staircase between them.

There’s no dust on the steps, and the light from the door doesn’t reach this portion of the building with the darkened windows reducing the visibility. I make it five steps when I’m fully engulfed in the shadows. My throat constricts and I walk slower, unsure of what’s going to be waiting for me at the top of the stairs.