ME

“Samantha honey, you got to get up. You promised we would clean out the attic today and put Tommy’s things up there,” Jason calls out to his wife as he walks into their bedroom. Samantha, laying on the bed in the fetal position, has tears streaming down her face. The thought of cleaning out their son’s room terrifies her while going into the attic terrifies her even more. She hadn’t been up there since she was a child when her grandmother had shown her old family heirlooms claiming she was a part of something special.

“Jason please don’t make me, I’m not ready yet.”

“The doctor said it would be good for you Sammy and help you to heal.” He looks over to the nightstand and notices the untouched bottle of anti-depressants. “Why haven’t you been taking the medicine he gave you that should also help.”

“They make me forget him Jason, and I can't forget him. It’s my fault he died. If we hadn't been arguing he would never have stormed out like he did, and that car would never have hit him." She starts to cry again remembering every detail of the night, the argument over unwashed dishes, him yelling how he hated her, and the slam of the door as she yelled at him to get out. The last words she ever said to him "I sometimes wish you were never born" still echoing through her mind. With it still being fresh in her mind in spite of the passing of a month she just could not get over it.

“Honey, it wasn’t your fault! How many times do we have to say that before you believe it. Now come on get up. If I have to I’ll carry you around the house until you’re ready to go up into the attic and help out.” Jason’s voice was stern but caring. He wanted to help her but knew that her depression was only going to get worse if he let her stay in bed. This was the reason why he planned the day to do this together, to help get her mind off everything and focus on something new.

Samantha got up slowly, her nightgown and hair looking disheveled, her frame skeletal, and skin pale. Her once beautiful features had begun to sink in a result of not eating, and crying all day. When slowly pulling off her nightgown, and reaching in the drawer for a shirt, one could see that her ribs were starting to protrude through her skin. The shirt selected was pink and when pulling it over her head she found it was no longer a perfect fit but, in fact, three sizes too big. Same was true for her leggings. Being too loose, sagging from a waist having bony hips, too large for her disfigured legs, they no longer hugged her once beautiful hourglass shape.

Jason wanted to cry as he watched her dress. Realizing her health situation had become borderline dangerous he wished now he had paid more attention to its decline. Constantly caught up with work it made him miss how much she didn’t eat. The extended lack of body nourishment was slowly beginning to kill her.

Before heading up to the attic they stopped at Tommy’s room. Jason had already packed things in boxes and removed the large furniture. The only sign left of their son was the shelf lined with all his baseball trophies. Walking over to them, Samantha slowly placed a single finger on each as tears streamed down her face. Moving throughout the room she stopped in front of the mirrored doors to his closet. Standing there she became frightened by what was staring back at her, hardly recognizing herself with the slim frame and disheveled appearance. She caught a glimpse of her son standing behind her slowly reaching an arm out looking like he wanted to touch her. As she watched there was a whisper in his voice that sounded like ‘mom’.

Jason tapped her on the shoulder making the image of their son fade from the mirror. “Are you going to be alright honey?”

“I will be, let's get this stuff upstairs.”

“Alright, let's go.”

Carrying the few packed up boxes they head to the attic. Creaking with each step, the stairs give evidence of their lack of use. The noise from their assent makes Samantha cringe as she imagines it is her son still trying to grab her to get her attention. Reaching the top Jason opens the door that lets out a loud groan making Samantha jump as it sounds just like her son’s voice.

Walking into the attic they immediately smell dust and years of possessions sitting in heat, and moisture beginning to rot. They go through several cobwebs which Samantha imagines are thousands of fingers reaching out to grab her causing her to rush even more. Putting the boxes down she looks around the space littered with piles of boxes and antiques filling most of the area. Walking down the center aisle she stops in front of an old claw foot mirror. Staring in it she again sees the reflection of her son.

This time he points to a large trunk towards the back of the attic. Seeing it, Samantha remembered the trunk from her childhood. It was her one of her ancestors who had brought it to California from Salem during the witch trials. Slowly she walks up to it and lifts the lid. Inside is a large assortment of trinkets, and some ancient books which looked as though they would disintegrate at the slightest touch. Looking throughout she comes across a box labeled spirit board. She pulls it out and reads the label a little more carefully. Talk to the spirits of loved ones, and to those lost in the spirit realm. Place a candle at each point of the pentagram, and pointer in the middle. Light each candle starting with the point, and moving clockwise. Do beware, while some may trick you, not all spirits can be summoned. Looking up from the box she turns to the mirror, her son’s reflection still there, he nods to her. She looks back down at the box and grabbing it quickly rushes towards Johnathan. While rushing a piece of paper falls to the floor settling in the dust. Do not use this board. Trapped inside is a powerful demon that will try to cross over pretending to be someone else. Lock this away. The reflection in the mirror smiles as Samantha runs by and drops the note, the smile turning vile as it grows across its face reaching in size from ear to ear. In what appears to be a laugh the reflection opens its mouth to reveal multiple rows of sharp teeth like a shark’s as well as a forked tongue. Samantha, too preoccupied with the chance to talk to her son, doesn't even realize that what she saw was not her son.

“Jason, look at this,” Samantha says as she shows him the spirit board she found.

"Samantha, that is just a toy, it won't work. Why must you continue to torture yourself?" Jason felt sorry for her. The ideas she kept coming up with to try to talk to their dead son was beginning to take effect on him and not for the better.

“Please Jason, just this last try, can we please? If this doesn’t work I will stop it all and start taking the pills, I promise.” She pleaded with him almost hysterically.

“Fine, but if it doesn’t work I will be making sure you take the pills manually just to be sure.”

They brought the box downstairs to the living room, Samantha placing it in the center of the room while Jason grabbed some candles. She slowly lifts the board out of the box and inspects it. The board, shiny from a resin of sorts poured over it, is a single piece of oak. In the center is a pentagram surrounded by runes, the entire alphabet, and numbers from 0-9. At the far edges are a yes on one side, and a no on the other. Samantha places the pointer under the pentagram. After finishing her inspection of it Jason walks in with the candles. Setting them in the correct spots, and using a match from the box she lights the candles as the directions said. At first, the flames are barely visible but, after the last candle is lit in unison, they all spring to full life, flames dancing across the board while casting eerie shadows throughout the room. She motions Jason to sit next to her and together they place their hands on the pointer.

“We ask that if there are any spirits here to let us know of your presence,” says Samantha in a shy little, barely audible voice.

“Let us know if you are there, any sign at all,” Jason calls out in a firmer, minimally sarcastic voice.

After a few times of calling and nothing happening, Jason laughs, believing the whole thing to be a joke from the beginning. He started to take his hands off the pointer when slowly it moved, pointing to yes on the board.

“You moved it didn’t you because I was about to leave,” he says, a bit of worry and touch of anger in his voice.

“No, it wasn’t me I swear,” she replies. Her voice is a little shaky from nerves and some fear of what might be answering them. She secretly hoped it was their son. She so badly wanted it to be so she could talk to him again, and be reassured it wasn’t her fault that he died.

“Who are you?” she calls out, voice shaking.

Slowly the pointer moves making a scraping sound across the board’s oak surface.

“M……E” she calls out in a terrified whisper, her voice shaking in fear with each letter called out.

“What is me?” he says, “that makes no sense. You must be moving the pointer, this is crazy. You’re just trying to get out of the deal.” While worry poured from his voice he tried not to let it show.

“Is that your name?” stuttering as she whispers out each stressed syllable, fear taking over.

Slowly the pointer moves again.

“M……E” she calls out, more terror in her voice, quivering of her lips making him worry for her.

“This has to be you” he says, sounding more terrified as he lets go of the pointer. "I'm done."

“M……E," she says, “it’s getting faster but still only repeating the same two letters.”

Mustering all the strength she has she lets go of the pointer, the one warning they never heeded had they read the directions. If they had, they would have realized what a mistake that was.

“Holy fuck,” he says, jumping back a foot as the pointer moves on its own, nobody touching it. The scraping noise of the pointer gets louder as it jerkily moves along.

“M…E…W…A…N…T…Y…O…U…T…O…B…E…M…E,” Samantha says, each letter in her voice quivering full of terror, her eyes beginning to tear up.

“Me want you to be me? What the fuck is this thing Samantha? Let's get out of here.”

“M…E…M…E…M…E…M…E…M…E…M…E” she says again, every letter as it is shown an unseen force getting ever stronger while holding her there. Unable to look away she just keeps repeating the letters as they come, m, followed by e. Me, always me.

“Samantha, we need to go now. Look away, please, look away. We need to go and put this thing away, maybe bury it or burn it.”

“No!”

“What do you mean no? Samantha, this is bad. This isn’t a ghost, it’s something worse.”

“Yes!”

“Samantha, is that you?”

“No.”

“Who are you?”

“Me!”

“Who is me?”

“Me.”

“I don’t understand. Who the fuck are you?” he cries. screaming at the top of his lungs.

“I am me, and I is you. We are me!”

Looking at Samantha he sees her eyes are no longer blue, no white, no color, just black. He lets out a scream and starts to back away.

“Me,” a low guttural voice says, barely audible as though very far away, not coming from any specific direction. Samantha falls to the floor crying hysterically. Trying to console her Jason grabs her around the waist pulling her towards him saying it will be all right

“Me,” the voice is louder, seemingly closer than it was a minute ago. The smell of fire and brimstone begins to fill the air, temperature dropping to freezing in the room. Their breaths become instantly visible looking like puffs of steam from a teapot. They both begin shivering immediately as the temperature continues to drop. Frost forms in their hair and over their eyebrows. The steam from their breath starts to freeze as it escapes their chattering mouths, all the while making a melodic tinkling sound to accompany the loud chomping and chattering of their teeth.

“Let’s go, Samantha, we need to get outside. We need to get out of here before it gets us whatever it is,” Jason calls out to her, barely able to speak over the chattering of his teeth.

“Me,” the voice is so close and loud that the sound of evil in it is incarnate, a voice that wants nothing more than to kill and destroy them.

The room temperature drops even further and Jason collapses as hypothermia starts to set in. “At least we will die together my love,” he says, his voice becoming so quiet as the shivering takes over his body causing what looks like a seizure as she reaches out to take his hand.

“Together,” she says in a whisper as she lays back to accept her fate. As she lay there dying she thought she could glimpse their son looking at them. He was surrounded by light and seemed to glow as he reached out his hand towards her. Reaching out to take it in the real world her hand was knocked aside. As her hand falls to the floor her son begins to disappear from her sight, all she can see is the fire in her vision.

“Me!”

The voice sounds victorious as it is right on top of them, but she’s too scared to look. They just squeeze each other tight. Samantha feels his hand go limp as the sound of ripping bone and flesh comes from right beside her. She feels his blood spray all over her, giving a sense of warmth if but for just a second.

Slowly she turns her head to look at what is consuming Jason and screams. The demon is bent over Jason slowly ripping the flesh from his body. It looks like a lizard of sorts covered in scales and spikes. Its body, black with eyes that glow red, has hands with three fingers each with long serrated claws. The demon looks at Samantha and smiles, blood dripping from its shark-like yellow-toothed mouth.

“Me,” it says laughing, “me is you. I eat you and become you.”

With a quick lunge it slashes her with its claws. Grabbing her head and torso it rips her in two, blood spraying in every direction. Putting her body with Jason’s it begins consuming her, taking her flesh for his own.

“Becoming us, becoming me, yes," Me says as it takes the skin of both and puts it over its body. After covering its body in the flesh it shrinks slowly into the size of a human, the seams of skin slowly disappearing as it becomes more human in shape. Me stands up and walks around getting used to its new form. Walking over to a picture hanging on the wall it laughs. It is a picture of the family, Jason, Samantha, and their child. Me walks outside looking like a mix of Jason and Samantha blended as though me was their child all along.