The Man Who Knew My Face

The night air in the desert town of Jericho Flats had a way of carrying whispers from the dry arroyos, but it carried a deeper silence that night. Miles and I had spent hours at the old boxing gym, the one that smelled of sweat and leather, run by a man with a face like a crumpled map. We’d pushed each other through a brutal session, and by the time we stumbled back to my tiny adobe house on the edge of town, the stars were already out and the coyotes were tuning up. We collapsed into our respective beds, mine in the front room, his in the spare room off the kitchen, and the weight of exhaustion pulled us under almost immediately.

I woke to a strange sensation, a weight on my chest and a cold dread that pressed down like the desert sun at noon. The clock on the nightstand read 5:13 a.m. My mouth was dry, and my limbs felt heavy, as if I’d been drugged. I needed water. I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Miles, and padded down the hall to the kitchen. The tiles were cool under my bare feet, and the house groaned softly around me, the old wood settling. I drank a glass of water and then, instead of returning to my own room, I made a decision I can’t fully explain: I walked down the hall to the spare room, where Miles slept. I pushed the door open a crack. He was a dark shape under the blanket, breathing evenly. I stepped back, intending to go back to my room, but I felt a sudden urge to lie down on the empty cot in the corner of that room, as if my body had been guided there. I was asleep again in seconds.

I don’t know how much time passed. It could have been minutes, or an eternity. I was jolted awake by the feeling of a hand on my foot, a firm, deliberate tap. I sat up, blinking, and saw Miles standing at the foot of the cot, his face pale and his eyes wild. ‘What are you doing in here?’ I asked, but he wasn’t listening. ‘I was just in the other room, and you were there,’ he said, his voice trembling. ‘You were standing at the foot of my bed, talking to me. Telling me stories about when we were kids, about the time we got lost in the desert and you found that old mine. And then… you started shaking me. You grabbed my feet and shook me, and I couldn’t fight it off. And then you lay down next to me, but your head was twisted the wrong way, facing the wall, and I knew something was wrong. I jumped out of bed and ran.’

I stared at him, a cold sweat breaking out on my back. ‘Miles, I was here the whole time. I came in to sleep here, and I haven’t moved since. I never left this room. I didn’t talk to anyone.’ Miles shook his head violently. ‘No, no, it was you. It was your face, your voice, your skin. But the way it moved… it didn’t move right. When it shook me, its hands were cold, like ice. And its mouth smiled, but the smile was too wide, and it kept talking in your voice, but the words started to slur, like it was forgetting how to speak.’ He grabbed my arm, his grip tight. ‘Something is wrong, J.D. Something was in that room wearing your face.’

I tried to calm him, tried to reason with him. ‘It was a night terror, Miles. You were half-asleep. Your mind played tricks on you.’ But even as I said it, I felt a knot of unease in my stomach. We went back to the room to check, but there was nothing there, just the rumpled bed where Miles had been lying, the imprint of a body still visible. I pointed out that the window was closed and locked, and the door to the house was bolted from the inside. There was no way someone could have gotten in. Miles was still shaking. He didn’t want to sleep in that room again. He asked me to stay with him in his room until morning. I agreed.

As the first gray light of dawn crept through the slats of the shutters, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was watching us from the corner of the room, something that had taken my form and was waiting for the right moment to reveal itself. I looked over at Miles, who was curled up under the blanket, his eyes closed but his brow furrowed, as if he was still fighting off a nightmare. And in that moment, I saw something that made my blood run cold: there, on the pillow next to his head, was a single strand of hair. It wasn’t his chestnut brown. It was black, like mine. But I had never been in this room. I had never lain on this bed. And yet, the strand was long and dark, and it coiled on the white pillowcase like a brand. I reached out to touch it, but as my fingers hovered over it, a voice, my own voice, came from the corner of the room, low and amused. ‘Did you think I’d stop at just a story?’ I whipped around, but there was nothing there. Only the echo of my words hanging in the air. And then, from the other side of the bed, I heard the sound of breathing, slow and deliberate. I looked down at Miles, but he was still asleep. And in the dim light, I saw that his face had changed. There was a slight droop to his jaw, a faint dilation in his pupils, and on his neck, just below the ear, a small patch of skin that was darker than the rest, as if the thing had traced its fingers along his throat, leaving a mark of possession.

I stumbled backward, my heart pounding. The room had become a cage. I knew with a certainty that chilled me to the bone that the thing was not gone. It had taken my form, and it had tasted the fear that Miles had given it. It would not be satisfied with a simple prank. It wanted the rest of him, and it would use my face to get it. I ran to the door, but it wouldn’t open. The knob turned, but the door held fast, as if the walls themselves were pressing against it. And then I heard the voice again, closer this time, right behind me. ‘You can run, but I’m already in him. And I’ll be in you soon enough.’ I spun around, and for a split second, I saw my own reflection in the windowpane, but it was distorted, my mouth stretched into an unnatural grin, my eyes black as pitch. And then it was gone, and the door swung open, and I was free, stumbling out into the blinding desert sun, leaving Miles behind, but knowing that wherever I went, I would be carrying the seed of that thing’s identity within me, and that it would always be a part of my face.