"American Hopeless" by Charlie DeMott Wildey

Something is different in my house. I noticed it changing and I’m not sure when it started or how far it goes. Actually, it’s not really correct to say “something,” I think. Probably more accurate to say “some things.” Though if it’s connected – which I’m sure it must be – then it does add up to a single something. I don’t know who is doing it, or why, or what is going to come of it, but I’ve got my eyes open and I need to talk about. I’m paying as close attention as I possibly can. Hopefully it’s enough. I want to make sure I know what’s going on before things get worse, before things are so far that it’s too late.

​I first noticed the vegetable oil – I have a regular bottle of vegetable oil, in the cupboard next to the stove, just like everyone – I noticed it was different one day. It had been swapped for a different bottle. Same brand, same amount of oil inside, as far as I can remember (as far as I can keep track of how much oil I expect to have on a day to day basis). The attention to detail was impressive: not just the brand, but it even had that layer of oil around the outside like the old one. But as soon as I picked it up I could tell it wasn’t the same. The bottle had been swapped for something with a sinister energy. Brushing off the notion, and maybe against my better judgement, I cooked with it anyway and after a few bites could immediately tell something was wrong. The food was wrong. My stomach turned, head started to squeeze and fog. So I dumped the plate but I kept the oil just in case. I didn’t know what was happening, but if someone had done this on purpose I guess I didn’t want them to know I had noticed it yet.

​ After that, two days later, it was the ottoman. Like with the oil, they’d done a very good job, whoever it was doing this. It looked almost exactly the same. It’s possible it had been swapped for several days before I noticed, no way to know for sure. But a few days after the oil was wrong I realized it, too, was different. The fabric did not quite match the chair anymore, the stuffing wasn’t the same, a few of the stitches were rushed, and most telling of all three of the feet had those felt pads on the bottom. Two of mine had been missing for years. There was an extra suddenly. It even smelled a little different. There was a smell of tobacco or something, it almost smelled rotten. I inspected it closely and then stood back, looking at it, looking around the room. It brought with it something vile – quiet, but vile.

​At this point I knew for sure it was happening that I couldn’t define exactly. The next day I realized the same thing had been done with the book I was reading. The printing was wrong: the text on each page was slanted, the kerning was off, the color on the cover wasn’t quite lined up. Just everything was a little bit wrong. I slid the book under the false ottoman. I’m not sure why, I just needed to do something. It showed them I was paying attention now, proved I noticed. It wasn’t happening without my awareness. I locked every window in the house, double checked before going to bed that the front door was locked and deadbolted. Probably a futile effort, but maybe I could simply prevent them from coming in and it would stop.

​ Over the next week I noticed more and more things had been subtly replaced by copies that all had their own kind of darkness about them. Clothes hangers, my sheets, handsoap in the bathroom, the lightswitch at the top of the stairs, the kitchen faucet, multiple cans of beans, most outlets. All replaced by uncanny facsimiles. My home was becoming something different, transforming around me piece by piece. One evening I noticed that a few of the steps had been changed somehow. Looking carefully I could just detect scratches in the wood where the old planks had been pried away to be replaced by imposters. I wrote it all down whenever I noticed it. Date, time, object, and any additional observations, trying my best to describe the spiritual difference present in the new items.

​ So each day began with an inspection of every room, taking inventory of every change I could find. By the end of the second week I had filled an entire notebook and moved on to another. I marked the dates on the completed record and hid it behind some loose panelling in my bedroom closet. The atmosphere in each room had completely shifted. Lightbulbs felt different. Everything was more and more ominous as each familiar piece of home was replaced by a malevolent counterpart. One cloudy morning – after noticing a particularly large number of new objects and feeling a frantic, distressing energy oozing through the house, seeping into my brain through my ears – in a moment of desperation I found a piece of poster board and made a sign. STOP DOING THIS I scrawled with permanent marker in blocky letters. I placed the sign proudly, boldly, defiantly in the entryway that night. Of course at dawn I found that it, too, had been replaced by an evil lookalike.

As time went on the copies weren’t even as exact. The differences were getting more brazen, unconcerned with maintaining the illusion. Completely indifferent to my reaction. Looking at the other houses on my street from the window it was clear some version of this was happening elsewhere. Maybe not every house, but the street itself was starting to feel different. I struggled to get restful sleep, and when the mattress was finally changed I resorted to sleeping on the floor of the living room. This put me in proximity to the front door, so I could be sure nobody was coming in while I slept. I ate only food I’d brought home that day, unable to trust any food in the house.

​The second night on the floor of the living room I lay on my back staring at the dark ceiling. Unable to sleep, something caught my eye just outside. With a tingle running from my neck to my finger tips I turned to see a shadow move past the window. At first I stayed still, I didn’t want them to think I was awake and watching. Shadowed figures, I think three, walking around the house and leaning in to peer through my windows. Without a sound, they left, disappearing into the night leaving nothing behind. When morning came I inspected the yard and found their footprints in the soft dirt near the foundation in a few spots. Smooth bottomed shoes. Not mine, definitely not the boot footprints of a utility worker or anything.

​ One afternoon I left the house, being as conspicuous as I could be doing something so mundane. I locked the door, stood on the sidewalk and looked at my phone for an extra moment to make sure I could be seen, and finally got into my car to drive away. I drove only as far as the parking lot at the end of my block and here I waited. Nothing happened, nothing except the regular here-and-there of the community, for an hour and forty seven minutes. That’s when something did happen. I watched someone approach on foot, carrying a box, toward my street. As they got closer I realized they were wearing something on their face. I strained to try and see what it was, wishing I’d brought binoculars or something – do I even have anything like that? I don’t think so. They walked at a steady, confident pace. Not rushed. Not concerned about being seen. When they’d drawn near enough to be see clearer, a flush of hot, confused, fear burst from stomach as I could finally recognize what it was: they were wearing a crude, rubber mask of my own face.

​ The masked stranger turned the corner and walked to my house. They stepped up to the front door and slung the box casually under one arm, pulling a huge ring of keys from a jacket pocket. They unlocked the door of my house and entered. The stranger was inside for eighteen minutes, according to the clock on my dashboard. After that time, they appeared again, locking the door behind them and going off down the street the other way before disappearing out of my view. After taking a beat to collect my nerves I rushed back into the house to look around. It didn’t take long to spot some changes, but by now I could never be sure I’d seen all of them; the curtains, the cheap old Amazon shoe rack I’d been carrying around since my first apartment after college, bowls in the cupboard, the TV remote.

In the basement I found a box of nails leftover from an old project and started nailing down everything that I could. I tried zip tying cupboards shut and gluing things in place, stapled the carpets and couch cushions. They had keys to the front door. They could come and go at will. The only definite way to make sure things were safe would be remain in the house all the time. It would take some preparation, but I could try to do it quickly and then stay put as long as possible. Hopefully in that time I could find a solution or someone else could finally do something about it. Eventually someone would have to.

I got a big bag of rice, lots of beans, frozen vegetables, boxes of pasta, the biggest value pack of toilet paper I could find, multipack bars of soap. Shelf stable, cheap, basic. Just enough to keep going. Back inside my home (I noticed some of the zip ties on the cupboards were a different color than they were when I left), I put the frozen food away and left everything else out visible on the counter. I nailed the door shut and glued all of the windows on the first floor. Then I settled in, sank into survival. Numb. Days have passed. Shallow and joyless days, dark and slow. I don’t dare look to see if new perversions have been made around my house despite my constant vigilance.

Then one night I’m slowly pulled out of my shallow sleep. There is a smell, a new smell in the house. Familiar but out of place, and as I blink and come to my senses I realize it’s smoke. Stumbling I make it to my feet, looking in every direction and following the smoke throughout the house to find my basement engulfed in flames. The conflagration far spread, swallowing everything it could and reaching up to house above. I grab a bucket of water but know it’s hopeless; the fire is already too advanced. Still I dump the pitiful amount of water into blaze, meaningless. My only hope is to get myself out while I can. Of course, I remembered, the door was nailed shut, the windows all sealed. I’ll need to break out. So grabbing a hammer I make for the closest window and smash it, shattering glass exploding everywhere, cutting my hands.

Almost out of breath already I climb out and fell the short drop from the first story to the ground outside. Collecting myself I walk to the sidewalk, unsure what to do next. I see on the street so many people to be out this late. All my neighbors, people whose faces I recognize but whose names I do not know. The street is full. Every house belching black smoke, many houses already illuminated in bright, hideous orange as the entire neighborhood burns around us. No sirens coming to signal help, the only sound is the crackle and shudder of homes buckling and dying. I don’t know what else I could have done.

Charlie DeMott Wildey is a writer from Upstate New York. His novel Lightning Bolt is available from NFB Publishing, and his writing can also be found in The Rialto Books Review Vol.020, Roi Fainéant Press, and his Substack “Feed Charlie.”