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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/lets-split-up on 2024-10-04 01:33:41+00:00.
I’m sitting here trying not to feel foolish, too scared to leave my bedroom. I don’t know what to do… I’m at my wit’s end. Please help.
My husband is just outside the door and I’m afraid what he’ll do if I… Oh God, that sounds like he’s… no, no let me explain.
Ricky and I were on a hiking trip earlier this week. We were winding along a trail deep in a gorge, and it was just after sunset, so the gorge was dark with shadows. I never saw anything myself, but Ricky swore he spotted a lost child. He went off the path with our dog Gordie. I couldn’t keep up. Eventually he came back, looking anguished. Gordie had apparently run off snarling into the darkness, and he worried our pit bull was going to maul some lost kid out there.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” he said.
Gordie is a good dog most of the time, but he can be aggressive with strangers coming to our home. It wasn’t completely outside the realm of possibility for him to bite if he thought we were threatened. Though it seemed odd a child would trigger that response. I pressed my husband for a description of this child, and he admitted he “didn’t get a good look” but said he thought the kid was “naked” and that he mostly thought it was a child because he heard talking. I suggested he may have heard a baby deer or other animal, and wouldn’t that be something Gordie would be more likely to chase? And wouldn’t a kid, a talking kid, answer our shouts?
He agreed. Even so, we searched awhile longer before the twilight became too dark and we returned to the cabin where we were staying.
The next morning, Gordie was back, scratching at the cabin door. We’d lost the spark for hiking so cut our trip short and drove back home.
That’s when it all got strange.
I have insomnia sometimes, so I stay downstairs watching TV while Ricky sleeps upstairs. I was on the sofa, glazed over watching some late night show, when I heard talking. I assumed it was Ricky. But I couldn’t make out any distinct words. I called out and there was no reply. I went back to watching my show, but a while later heard it start again, so I got up and went into the kitchen.
There was a child in our kitchen. Or at least that was my first impression in the dim lighting. But it wasn’t a child. It was Gordie. Our dog was standing on his hind legs, just standing in the middle of the room, shoelaces of drool dribbling from his jaws, and he was making these grunting sounds. He stopped the moment I came in, and he was back on all fours again, looking at me.
When I told Ricky, he said I must’ve been seeing things.
But I’m telling you, the dog was on his hind legs, trying to talk.
Next morning, Ricky kept teasing me about Gordie and saying stuff to our dog like, “Hey Gordie, grab me a cup of coffee, would ya?” Or “Hey can you answer the phone for me?” Gordie would just stare at him. Honestly he was still acting a little strange but after Ricky’s teasing I was done worrying about the dog, so I left for work.
I was on lunch break when I got the texts from Ricky:
RICKY: Heard talking. Thought it was you but just found Gordie downstairs.
RICKY: Something wrong, he’s making weird noises and think he’s got mange? He’s losing some skin.
RICKY: OMW to vet
I called, but Ricky never talks on the phone while driving so it didn’t surprise me it went to voicemail. I texted him to call me after he got to the vet.
After work, I checked my phone. Ricky hadn’t texted.
On my drive home I tried calling multiple times to no answer.
Ricky was not home. Most vets close by 6pm, so where was my husband? I checked his location on my phone, and to my surprise he wasn’t far at all, maybe ten minutes away.
So I drove out there. It was on a country road, the route we take to the emergency vet. And at first, I didn’t see his car anywhere. I finally found it when I noticed some of the grass flattened beside the road and that his car had veered off into a ditch. By now, the sun was setting. I noticed the driver door open and muddy footprints. Ricky’s phone was in the passenger seat. I followed the tracks but they vanished in the grass and I walked around, calling for Ricky, and stopped when I found Gordie.
Or rather, what was left of Gordie. I should have taken a picture but I was so distressed… it was our Gordie, but it was like something had split him in half like those pig carcasses you see hanging from meat hooks at slaughterhouses. I could count his ribs…
I called the cops. They came out and examined the scene of the accident but after looking at the footprints concluded it was only Ricky who’d been out here. They seemed to suspect my husband must have done this to Gordie, even though I told them Ricky had been on the way to the vet. I started to tell them about Gordie’s weird behavior the night before, but that really made them skeptical. I wanted them to go full crime scene and tape off the area and take photos, but apparently that kind of investigation is not done for dead dogs.
When I came home, I was exhausted and upset. I saw lights on in the house. Relief washed over me because that meant Ricky was home!
But when I opened the front door the first thing I noticed was the dirt tracked inside. Ricky and I always remove our shoes when entering. Also, I could hear him talking, but it was just like Gordie the other night. Talking but not talking. These odd syllables, like someone mimicking the act of talking.
All of this chilled me to the bone as I crept around the corner so I could see him in the den, standing there, unnaturally stiff and straight, sort of swaying. I called, “Honey?”
His gibberish immediately ceased. His head turned, and—I swear, it was like he reached up, and folded his skin over his face. Like a sticker that has started to peel at the corner and that he smoothed back into place. I heard him say, very clearly this time, “Honey?”
I ran. I ran upstairs to our bedroom and slammed the door and locked it. I could hear him roaming around outside. Occasionally he called for me, “Honey?”
I’d dropped my phone in the hallway. I was too scared to go and grab it. Instead I stayed hidden up here, listening to the sound of the TV downstairs. At one point, the news anchor said, “Reports of sunny weather coming up!”
And I heard Ricky’s voice, clear and distinct: “Sunny weather coming up!” Then he cleared his throat and called loudly, “Honey, reports of sunny weather coming up!”
Every so often he came up to try a new phrase on me. The last time he came upstairs, I was sobbing and yelled through the door, “What about Gordie? What the fuck happened to Gordie?”
He laughed—laughed! A weird, high-pitched laugh that sounded just like a laugh from a woman on TV. Not at all like his normal laugh. And he said, “Gordie’s fine, honey. Gordie’s fine.”
“My name’s not ‘honey’!” I shouted back. “Call me by name! You know my name. It’s Judy!”
“Open the door, Judy, honey,” he said. “Judy! Open the door!”
But my name’s not Judy, either. It’s Claire. Judy is his mother’s name. Whatever is down there wearing my husband’s face—it’s far, far too clever, the way it tried to quickly reassure me. And I know I have to call the police and tell them something’s wrong and that if they interview him, they’ll see, he won’t be able to answer correctly. They’ll realize something’s not right.
I finally managed to creep out and grab my phone and sneak back in while he was still watching television.
But now I’m terrified because right after I scurried back in and locked the door, he came up—he must have heard me—and he knocked.
And I am so chilled. I’m not sure if I can convince police of the danger now. Because this last time, after he so very politely knocked, he said, “Honey?”
He said it smugly, confidently. “Honey, open up. Everything’s fine. Claire, honey, open the door, Claire."