Imposter

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. Inside, Dantae and Sophia were busy getting the place ready for habitation, as it had grown dusty and fallen into disrepair over the years that it had been empty. They would have to stay in the cabin for at least a week, maybe two, while they waited for the lower floor of their house to be remodelled. The cozy little cabin was owned by Dantae's uncle for years before he died but for some reason he never used it, even though it was in a prime location for hunting and camping.

It was while we were preparing dinner that first night that I started to feel that something was a little off with the way Sophia was acting. It wasn't anything major, just a couple of little things, here and there, that - try as I might - I just couldn't quite get off my mind. Earlier in the day, for example, she'd gone out to the car briefly, ostensibly to get some vegetables out of the boot to use in cooking dinner, but she had somehow ended up being gone more than ten minutes even though the car was just 200 metres away from the cabin. Then, a little later when we brought my recently adopted dog inside to eat, he had had a fit barking at Sophia, something he'd never done before. What was even weirder was the fact that she didn't seem frightened by him at all, even though he seemed really aggressive - she just kept looking at both him and me disdainfully, as if she blamed me somehow for his behaviour.

Then there was the dinner - it tasted funny. I don't know if that was just because the ingredients had been in our car for a full day in the hot sun before we used them, but I do know that there was something oddly suspicious about the way the soup tasted that first night. Once we were done eating she suggested rather frostily that I do the dishes, even though she's usually pretty relaxed about when they get done, letting me get to them after I've had a chance to let my food settle. I felt a little unsettled, but I shook it off, telling myself that I was just reading too much into it, and that she was probably just feeling tired after our long trip to the cabin. In the middle of the night, I woke up suddenly to see that she was awake and staring directly at me. I rolled over and pretended not to have noticed, but it creeped the hell out of me and it took a long time for me to get back to sleep again.

When I wake up the next morning, I see her looking at herself in the mirror. She seems caught up in her reflection, and I take care not to move so that I can watch her. After a few moments, she glances over and sees me, and suddenly bustles off as if I've caught her red-handed doing something about which she should feel guilty. The entire rest of the day, there is a very eerie feeling in the air, perhaps partly fuelled by the fact that, as far as I can remember, she has always hated looking at herself in the mirror - it makes her feel self-conscious, she says. And yet, when I awoke she seemed to be... admiring herself, almost, and there was this greedy glint in her eyes that I've never seen before.

I go to take Hunter for a walk in the afternoon, and he seems very interested in sniffing Sophia, to the point where he seems borderline suspicious of her, and it takes a lot of effort from me to pry him away in order to take him for the walk. While I'm out with Hunter I keep going over it in my mind, all the weird things that have been happening with Sophia, when suddenly it occurs to me - what if it isn't Sophia after all? As soon as the thought comes to me, it seems ridiculous, but at the same time something stops me from completely dismissing it. As I let the idea gently simmer while we walk, I start thinking that something must be affecting my ability to think clearly, because thinking that she's been replaced with an identical imposter or something seems a bit far-fetched, even for me. It seems far more likely that the same old person I've always known is just acting a little strange, than to think that they have been replaced by some kind of imposter! This thought, which should by rights relieve me, just makes me feel more anxious.

By the time I get back, Sophia is already preparing dinner and although I am doing my best to suppress my doubts about her, she keeps glancing at me quizzically and it's getting on my nerves. After a few minutes I ask her what she's staring at and she says nothing, immediately looking down and getting back to the cooking, but by now she's really starting to unnerve me. Hunter's acting funny as well, he keeps looking at me and looking at her as if he's trying to send me some kind of message. When we sit down to start eating, I've only taken one bite of my food before I can taste that something is off. The steak tastes funny, and in a flash I am by Sophia's side with my knife pressed against her neck. She begs me to stop and tells me she doesn't know what's going on, but I know that this is exactly what an imposter would say, so I pay her words no mind.

She's pleading for her life now, and I tell her that I'll give her one chance to prove to me that she's the same woman I've been getting to know these past three months. I ask her to tell me something I feel certain that I told her on our first or second date, which is the reason that Hunter has the name that he has. She tells me it's because when he was a puppy he always used to try to catch the pigeons, and in a fit of righteous anger I draw the serrated edge of the knife callously across her throat. As her vital fluids are pouring down her neck she asks me, sobbing and gurgling, why I would do that when she got the answer right? Infuriated, I retort loudly that she lied, and fighting back suddenly, she demands to know why I called him Hunter then, insisting that this is what I told her. Hearing her blatant attempts to manipulate me elicited an even more intense wave of rage from me, and I grabbed the knife up and plunged it again and again into her neck as a way of avoiding the question she's asking me, for which I oddly had no answer.

Once her body has gone limp and cold I roll it up in the rug and drag it outside. I am suddenly disgusted by her, and I feel certain that this is not the woman I was falling in love with. Someone, or something, has taken her, and replaced her with this... this thing. Suddenly, my disgust deepens and is joined by a feeling of shame; my desire to be done with this mounts until I find myself tossing her body into the fire pit out the back and pouring petrol all over it. I was repulsed by myself, and ashamed, because I hadn't realized sooner what Hunter had known all along - that whatever this creature was, it was a fake. I struck a match and, smiling with grim satisfaction, threw it onto the fuel-soaked carpet roll, where it bloomed into a sudden, small inferno, taking the sinful imposter to hell.

x

I stood there for a while, watching the fire burn, watching it condemn this evil creature to hell, before I headed back to the cabin with a heavy heart. I was confused, but felt certain that I'd done the right thing. I didn't know what I would tell my family, and her family, but I knew that people just know these things, they know when someone is real and when they're not, and ever since we got to this cabin, she hasn't been real. Once I get back inside, I've barely sat down when Hunter starts barking again. I feel panicked, but when I try to get up I find that I'm feeling very dizzy. I don't understand what is going on, and Hunter is still barking, but suddenly his bark sounds more like a laugh, and the laugh somehow sounds like the rattling of chains. My heart is suddenly pounding, and for the first time I feel a twinge of doubt about what I've just done, about whether or not what I killed was really some kind of imposter. The most chilling thing of all though was who my dog was barking at now... he was barking - at me.