The Sixth Sick Day

My husband, Daniel, and I moved into the old Coldwater place in the autumn of ’88. It was a sprawling, sun-starved house with peeling paint and a porch that sagged like a tired jaw. His boss, Mr. Hargrove, owned it and rented it to us for a pittance, warning us only that it was ‘drafty.’ We were young and desperate for a roof, so we took it.

For the first week, the house was just a house. Drafty, yes, but we stuffed towels under the doors and learned to live with the creaks. Daniel left for his job at the lumber mill at six each morning, and I’d sleep in. That’s when it started—not with a bang, but with a nudge. I’d be drifting in that gray haze between sleep and waking, and I’d feel the mattress dip, the way it did when Daniel came back to kiss me goodbye. I’d mumble, ‘Forget something?’ and I’d half-see a shape at the bedside. But it wasn’t Daniel. It was taller, wrong-shouldered, and it would lean over me, and I’d feel a vibration in my skull—not a laugh, but something that pressed against my brain like a thumb on a bruise.

It touched me. Not cruelly, not gently—just with a terrible familiarity. It traced the line of my collarbone, the curve of my hip, and I would try to scream or move, but my body was a stone. I was sealed in my own flesh, watching myself be touched by that thing, and the whole time I could hear its ‘laugh’ in my head, a wet, choking sound that felt like a question I couldn’t answer. It would stop right before dawn, and I’d awake gasping, drenched in sweat, alone.

The days became a blur of anxiety. I couldn’t stand to be near the house; the very air felt thick and watchful. I’d take long walks into town, but I always felt its attention on my back, like a cold coin pressed between my shoulders. Daniel would come home to find me pacing, biting my nails to the quick, and he’d try to reason with me. Maybe it’s sleep paralysis, he’d say. But I knew better. The thing in that house was real.

We broke the lease after a month, endured Mr. Hargrove’s grumbling, and moved to a tiny apartment in Ralston, thirty miles away. And like flipping a switch, it stopped. I slept like the dead, and the sun felt warm again. For seven years, we lived in that cramped flat, and I almost convinced myself I’d imagined it.

Then the letters started. They were addressed to me, but the postmark was always our old town, Coldwater. The first one read: ‘I remember the shape of your sleep.’ I threw it away, but my hands shook for a week. The second came a month later: ‘You were the first to feel me. Are you sure you want to be the last?’ Daniel saw that one and called the police, but there was no traceable sender. The station said it was probably a prank.

The third letter was worse. It was a single sheet of paper, and on it was a drawing—a crude, stick-like figure bending over a bed, and beneath it, the words: ‘I saw you leave, but I’m already where you live.’ The handwriting was blocky, childish, but the implication was clear. The apartment began to feel wrong. I’d wake up gasping, certain the mattress had dipped, but there was nothing there. Daniel would hold me, but I could see the worry in his eyes. He thought I was coming apart.

Then, on a Tuesday in November, I took a sick day from work. Daniel had already left for the mill. I lay in bed, dozing, and I felt it—the familiar pressure at the edge of the bed. My eyes snapped open, and this time I was awake. A shape was there, a dark, roiling silhouette that seemed to drink the light. It leaned over me, and for the first time, I could hear its ‘laugh’—not as a vibration, but as a real sound, like wet leaves rustling. And it said, in a voice that slid between my ears, ‘You can’t outrun a place. I was in the walls, and now I’m in the floorboards. But I’ve always been in you.’

I screamed, and it faded, but the apartment was no longer ours. The walls seemed to breathe, the air grew cold even with the heat on, and I could feel eyes in every corner. I called Daniel, sobbing, and he came home to find me huddled in the bathroom with all the lights on. He held me and said, ‘We’ll move. We’ll go anywhere.’

But as we sat there, the floorboards creaked in the hallway, and Daniel’s face went pale. He heard it too. A low, rhythmic sound—like something dragging across the wood. And then, from the bedroom, a soft, amused sigh. We grabbed our coats and fled without packing a thing.

We’ve been in motels for a week now, but the letters keep coming. The last one didn’t have a postmark. It was just sitting on the motel pillow when we came back from dinner. It read: ‘I’ve been in you since ’88. You’re not running from me. You’re carrying me. And soon, you’ll be ready to give birth to me.’

We don’t know what to do. Daniel talks about moving to another state, maybe another country, but I know it won’t help. The thing inside me isn’t in any house. It’s in my bones, my blood, my sleep. And every night, when I close my eyes, I feel it stir—not like a laugh, but like a heartbeat. My own heartbeat, but double. A second pulse, patient and waiting. I haven’t told Daniel that. He wouldn’t understand. But the truth is, the sick day didn’t end. It never ended. It’s just been ticking inside me for twenty-one years, and now it’s counting down.