I'm Right Here

Parker Vanegas

 

Elaina could not breathe. Long fingered hands clawed at her face and throat, stealing her voice and digging into the soft flesh of her cheeks. Her mind felt sluggish and coated in the thickness of sleep. Thoughts seemed to float by just out of reach as something more instinctive took over, fear flushed her veins with ice, and she felt her body jolt upright of its own accord. Blinking hard, eyes adjusting, Elaina slowly began to make out shapes around her in the blackness. A monstera plant, growing out of control up the slats of her wooden blinds, a green armchair in the corner covered in yesterday’s laundry, and finally the very concerned face of her husband lit by the earliest hints of morning light. 

 This was not the first time that she had woken up gasping for breath, knuckles white around her own throat, but it was the first time that Jake had been home to see it. He looked as rattled as she felt, but she plastered a quick self-deprecating smile onto her face to reassure him. 

“Yikes, I guess the stress with the audit is catching up to me. I should probably take a melatonin or something tonight.”

“Elaina, you were strangling yourself! That seems a bit excessive for an audit that you know happens every year.” 

“It’s really fine, I think I’m just not breathing super well from that cold I had last week and my throat’s still kind of scratchy, I’m sure I was just rubbing at it.” 

“You were talking too. I’ve never heard you do that.” 

“What did I say?” She asked in a whisper, using the guise of a voice still raspy from sleep to hide her horror. 

“I’m right here,” Jake responded with a questioning look.

“I know you are, and I appreciate it.”

“No, that’s what you said. You said, I’m right here,” Jake said again, this time imitating her in a menacing tone. 

“Okay well I sound insane when you say it like that.”

“No, you just scared me is all.” 

“Everything’s fine Jake, once this financial stuff is over, I’ll be a new woman. Speaking of, I guess I’ll just go ahead and get ready to head to the shop,” Elaina said, pulling the sheet away from her sticky skin and swinging her legs over the side of the bed, “I am not seeing any more sleep in my future this morning.” 

“Ah, the oracle has spoken. Be safe on the drive, I’m going back in for a few more winks,” he said with a yawn, flopping carelessly back onto his side and taking half the comforter with him. 

Jake had been working nights at the hospital since Elaina had opened her own bakery. it turned out that starting a business wasn’t cheap, and night shifts paid better. Jake was happy to do it, after all Elaina had supported them both as he’d finished nursing school, and he loved to remind her that it was her turn now. Elaina was overwhelmingly grateful for his support, but her independence chafed at the idea that she would have had to shutter the shop twice over by now if it weren’t for Jake helping to make ends meet. She preferred to want her husband, but never to need him. That went for most everyone in her life. At the center of her being, Elaina Jimenez preferred to be alone. She would never voice it aloud, but every happy memory that she could conjure was characterized by one distinctive feature: no one else was there. 

 

Elaina unlocked the pale blue front door to the bakery and opened it to find three of her staff already inside prepping for the day. That was odd, it was already seven in the morning, there should be four of them here by now with opening just thirty minutes away.

“Hey gang,” Elaina tossed distractedly over her shoulder as she bee-lined toward her small office to the right of the kitchen. She felt an odd chill up her spine as she stepped into the dingy hallway that led out of the bakery proper and into the back rooms behind. Elaina had always played a little game with herself, unwillingly she might add, wherein any attempt to unlock a door was accompanied by a pounding heart and the feeling that something was right behind her, making her ability to get the key smoothly into the lock a deadly race. Her hands shook now as that familiar feeling overtook her, and she had to admit she was a little impressed by her ability to spook herself. It was seven in the morning in a well-lit bakery in the middle of town for Christ’s sake. 

Opening the door in time to stave off her imagined pursuer, Elaina stepped inside the office and glanced around for the handwritten schedule she kept close by. She should probably upgrade to putting it on the online calendar, but that was a task that always fell to the wayside when bigger emergencies arose, plus she fancied herself as an unplugged type of girl. 

 

The schedule sat atop a stack of recipes that the bakers had submitted to her in hopes of their creations being selected as the special of the month. She really needed to go through those by the end of the week. Elaina grabbed the schedule and scanned it for the four names listed next to this morning’s shift: Alex, Kristen, Heather, and Todd. 

“Where’s Todd?” Elaina muttered to herself, determining that he was the culprit due to a distinct lack of backwards ball caps on any of the present employees she had passed on her way in. 

“I’m right here,” came a low voice, it sounded as if he was standing right behind her, felt as if he was breathing onto the baby hairs of her neck.

“Jesus Christ, Todd! Where the hell did you come from?” She shouted a little louder than she’d meant to as she spun to find him standing in the doorway to her office. 

“Sorry Laina! I came to check the order sheet, I couldn’t remember if we had raspberries coming in for today or not. Did you need me?” 

Elaina shook her head to clear the jolt of adrenaline that Todd’s sudden appearance shot through her and gestured him inside. Her office was a cramped space with just enough room for her desk covered in its myriad to-do lists and order sheets. Todd stood a little too near her back for her liking as she fished through another stack of papers for the week’s order sheets, and she could feel her heart rate rising again. She told herself it was just the lingering funk of her nightmare tinting the experience darker, but something felt off.  

“Ah, here’s the most recent one. It looks like we should have some raspberries coming in from Granger’s today actually.” 

“Excellent,” Todd replied with a grin that seemed to crack his face open. Why did she feel so unsettled? Todd baked with raspberry often, particularly because it was a favorite of hers and he was nothing if not a suck-up. This was not at all unusual behavior. 

“Need anything else?” she asked, slapping on the same fake smile she’d used on Jake that morning, “I’ve got to sit down and answer some emails, they’ve been haunting me all weekend.” 

“I got everything I needed. Door open or closed?” 

“Closed. Thanks.”

Todd backed out the door, never turning from her, and she didn’t exhale until she heard the door thwick behind him. He had always been an odd bird.

 

The morning flew past as Elaina responded to multiple inquiries about wedding cakes, a few for birthday cupcakes, and a very dramatic email detailing a request for a divorce cake covered in pulverized penises. That one she would be taking on personally. The only time she left the cramped desk was to whip up a quick snack for Jake to take to the hospital. He hardly ever remembered to feed himself if she didn’t do it for him. By the time the afternoon rolled around,  she found herself again staring at the mountains of paperwork and financials on her desk willing to do any task on earth aside from those in front of her. Elaina stared into the middle space between her computer monitor and the pale pink office wall and for the first time in her busy day, she allowed her mind to drift. It floated past the tangible tasks and outstanding bills in front of her and settled down like an old friend next to the nightmare that had awoken her so abruptly this morning. Her hands ghosted across her throat as she remembered the feeling of constriction. 
 

“Your subconscious is speaking to you, you need to allow yourself the space to listen,” her therapist used to tell her when she would report the return of the nightmares. They had been her most constant companion, there alongside her very first memories. But every now and then the dreams seemed to ratchet up in frequency, as if she had offended her own brain and it was striking back in anger. She’d seen all the specialists, had sleep studies done, been hypnotized, she had even tried sensory deprivation tanks at the urging of a slightly new-agey friend. And yet the nightmares remained. For the past four years, since she’d met Jake in fact, they’d seemed to slip back into the shadows. Still there, she could feel them behind her eyelids as she slept, but they’d left her largely alone. Almost as if they were simply watching her. Or biding their time. Why last night? 

 

She did her best to shake the nightmare off, knowing that she had plenty of work to occupy her for the rest of the afternoon. There was no sense in dwelling on something that she and a dozen professionals hadn’t been able to solve in the past twenty-some-odd years. But that tingling at the nape of her neck remained. Subtle, but there. Still, she focused on her work, knowing this may be the only time alone that she was granted as she had scheduled herself to work front of house for the rest of the week. 

 

Before Elaina realized it, she was alone in the bakery, all her employees having closed shop and called it a day while she remained sequestered in her office. She shot a quick text to Jake before slinging her bag onto her shoulder and grabbing the keys to lock up.  

  Of course, pretty girl. I’ll wait for ya.

 

Just as she was about to lock the front door behind her, Elaina suddenly remembered Jake’s croissant sandwich. She pushed the door back open and headed through the darkened shop toward the back hallway, flicking lights on as she went. As the fluorescents flickered to life Elaina glanced around her office, eyebrows drawing together when nary a sandwich came into view. She had set it right near her computer, next to her favorite kitchen knife, so that she would remember to grab them both to bring home and yet there was nothing on her desk aside from those same messy papers. She slid her bag from her shoulder and onto the desk chair, rifling through it wondering if she had gone on autopilot and packed the sandwich and blade without remembering. No luck. If she didn’t leave soon, she’d make Jake late to work, so much for her sweet wifely gesture, she huffed out a frustrated breath and told herself she’d make him an even better sandwich the next day. 

 

Elaina whipped her small SUV into the driveway and yanked the strap of her bag over her shoulder as she opened the car door. She wanted to melt into Jake for at least a few seconds to try and shake off the eerie day that she’d had, but she knew that he’d need to leave within the next five minutes or so. He waited at the front door for her, wearing a cheesy grin. 

“Did you bring me any snacks?” Jake asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“I tried but I somehow…misplaced your sandwich?” 

“How exactly do you misplace a sandwich?” 

“I am truly not sure. It was a weird day,” she responded, and he folded his arms around her as her bag fell to the floor. 

“Don’t worry baby, I’m right here.” 

Elaina flinched at those words for reasons she couldn’t quite understand. As she stepped back out of his arms, Jake looked down at his watch and frowned.

“Gotta go pretty girl. Try to relax, okay? Love you.” 

Elaina went up on her tiptoes to give him a quick kiss.

“I’ll be fine, going to go take a bath and shake it off.”

“That’s my girl. Bye, babe.” 

With that Elaina walked past him further into the living room to set down her bag as he grabbed his keys and twisted the knob of the front door. She looked back at Jake with one last wave and headed upstairs to discard her chafing work clothes and get comfortable. 

 

By the time Elaina came downstairs dressed in one of Jake’s oversized t-shirts and a pair of sleep shorts, hair blessedly out of her face, she felt almost human again. Like she had shed the strangeness of her day along with her chef’s jacket. She started down the stairs and stopped short halfway, spotting a shock of black hair spread out over the arm of the chaise lounge that served as reading nook at the bottom of the stairs. She took two steps more and saw the rest of Jake’s lanky form come into view between the balusters of the stair rail.

“Jake?” she asked in a voice quiet with something between fear and confusion.

He turned to face her with a crooked smile. 

“I thought you left? Aren’t you late for work?” she asked, concerned now. 

“I’m right here,” he said, smile widening until it seemed to stretch the entire width of his face. He cradled something in his arms. 

Elaina felt her hand begin to shake on the stair rail, foot dangling limp between steps. Jake was fastidious about punctuality and would never willfully be late for work. Was he sick? Having some sort of episode? She descended the last three stairs on weak knees and turned to meet Jake as he rose from the chair. The height difference between the two of them put her face to face with what he held reverently in his hands, the sandwich she had made him earlier in the day. 

“Wh-where did that come from?” She asked in a faltering voice, her hand lifting of its own volition toward the dinner that she had made for him but had not brought into this house. Jake took a large bite from the sandwich; feral grin still spread across his face. 

“My wife made it for me,” he responded, in a voice completely void of inflection, with none of the warmth that usually seemed to radiate from Jake. 

As Elaina backed away from the man in front of her, her gaze swung to the window near the front door. The window out of which Jake’s white Jeep Wrangler was perpetually visible whenever he was home. The window which showed an empty driveway, and nothing more. Elaina’s mind struggled to put the pieces of information before her together. Jake’s keys were gone. Jake’s car was gone. But Jake was here? 

“What’s going on?” she asked the man, he couldn’t possibly be Jake. He advanced on her, closing in until the backs of her thighs bumped into the arm of the couch, still wearing that too-wide smile.

“I told you, I’m right here. You need me. And I need you. I’m sorry for last night, but you know how I get when you make me so very angry.” 

“L-last night?” she stammered.

“I do so hate to choke you. But you’d been ignoring me lately. Always surrounded by people, never alone. With me.”

“What do you mean?” she asked, hand flying to her mouth as fear dug its cold fingers into her spine. 

 “I mean I like it best when I have you all to myself. When you’re in the bath, when you’re sleeping on the couch while he works, when you walk to your car in the dark…” 

At that moment, a faint illumination from the coffee table beside her caught Elaina’s attention as a text came through on her phone. She held still, not breaking eye contact with the man, not even daring to breathe, as she silently counted to three. When she hit three, she dove for the phone. He noticed what she was doing a second too late and crashed down on top of her, but the phone was already in her grasp. The text that lit the home screen had Elaina seeing stars, blood pounding behind her eyes, as she took in the message from Todd. 

 

Elaina jerked her head away from the phone, back toward the man kneeling over her. The man who now had the golden curls and signature backwards baseball cap of Todd Matthews. 

 

“Hey Laina, you forgot your sandwich at the shop, so I grabbed it for you, didn’t want you going hungry.” He said it in Todd’s voice, but the intonation pattern was all wrong. The words seemed to drip out from between his clenched teeth and slide straight into the part of her brain that knew fear. 

“See Laina, if you’re hungry, I’m hungry. We can’t have that.”

He lowered his face to hers, sprawled out across the living room floor from her dive to the coffee table. 

“You sustain me, Laina,” said not-Todd.

She blinked hard as his rancid breath swept across her face.

“You created me, baby,” said not-Jake. He pinned her down, thighs bracketing either side of her torso. 

“You’re unwell, dear,” said her therapist, shaking her head in mocking disappointment, “Let me help you.” 

She felt those long fingers, familiar from the hazy memories of her dreams, entwine with her own as they wrapped around the hilt of her favorite kitchen blade. The blade she’d assumed was lost somewhere amongst the detritus of her desk in the bakery. 

“Don’t make me hurt you, Elaina,” a new voice, cold and sibilant, whispered into her left ear, “I’m right here. Just let me stay right here.”

Elaina kicked out hard, attempting to buck the creature from her body. A scream rocketed up from the deepest part of her and ripped out of her throat. Her own voice was so laced with terror that she could not even recognize it as her own. 

“Just say that I can stay and it all ends,” the creature said gently, dragging on the esses like a cigarette and lending its voice a snakelike quality. 

“Get the fuck off of me!” Elaina bellowed, fighting with everything her small frame had, but the creature did not budge. 

It shook its head slowly back in forth in faux disappointment, the undulating movement again drawing her mind to thoughts of serpents. Elaina’s mind raced as she cycled through and discarded options that could save her from this fate. Just as despair began to take hold, red brake lights illuminated the front windows, and the square taillights of Jake’s jeep came into view. 

“Jake!” Elaina tried to scream, the sound cutting off in a gurgle as the hilt of her knife came down on her vocal cords. 

Suddenly, the pressure above her body lifted, and she opened her watering eyes to see the creature hovering above her, again wearing Jake’s face. 

“Next time, pretty girl,” it whispered, smile cracking open again, this time revealing pointed fangs. 

The sound of a key entering the front door deadbolt sounded like the cavalry coming to her rescue, and Elaina watched as the creature backed into the shadowy corner of her once cozy living room. It gave her a quick wave and melted completely into the darkness.

The front door swung open to reveal Jake, in black scrubs with keys in hand, face flushed and so full of life compared to shade of him the creature wore.

“Laina! I forgot my – what are you doing on the floor, pretty girl?” he asked.