Landon set his feet leisurely upon the new table, and, leaning back in his newly-constructed chair, kicked off his boots so that they rested on the hard surface of the mahogany. It had taken a while, but at last, he had finally done it. Their belongings were unpacked, their new furniture built, and their house complete. The consistent hum of his wife's vacuuming allowed a wave of calm to sweep over him.

Sighing in contentment, he gazed subconsciously at the nearest window. His reflection stared back at him with a glassy look in his eyes. Grey clouds swept furiously over the horizon and across the length of the sky.

"Honey?" Rachel's sweet voice floated down the stairs, and the muted whirring of the vacuum stilled.

"Yes, dear?" The endearment fell from his lips with a strange taste. It was only natural; it really hadn't been long since they had tied the knot.

"Were you aware that your mother gave us—of all things—she gave us a clock?" Her voice hinted at amusement.
Landon was supremely disinterested. "Yeah, what about it?"

"You know what they say, don't you?" She paused, and when no response was given, continued. "A clock for your wedding, a funeral impending."

"A funeral impending?" Landon chuckled in amusement. He quirked an eyebrow at his doppelgänger. It winked in return.

Silence dominated the house.

Finally, light footsteps hurried down the stairs. The sound echoed through the foyer as the person approached the table that Landon was seated at. He craned his neck over his shoulder to see his fiancé—no—wife making her way towards him. Her hair was wavy and dark brown, almost to the point of being black. Her small frame made her appear harmless, as a child is in the eyes of a giant.

Rachel rolled her eyes malevolently in Landon's direction, muttering something under her breath that didn't quite reach his ears.

"Sorry, I didn't catch that."

"It's nothing," Rachel replied with airy reassurance.

Landon sighed at this, and he returned his gaze to the window, now rattling gently with the wind from outside. If he squinted hard enough, he could see a stray flake here and there, flying with the breeze.

"It's snowing out there." His observation caused Rachel to laugh without any humor.

"I can see that."

"Well, maybe we should check on the furnace, make sure it's working."

She spun to face him, glaring. "I think I'd know if my own furnace were working or not."

Landon persisted. "But maybe we should just go down to the basement and see—"

"Alright fine!" Rachel threw her hands up into the air exasperatedly. "If you want to waste more time doing nothing today, then go ahead, be my guest!"

He bit his tongue and, upon rising from his chair, walked over to the scarlet door that led down to the basement. Throwing one last glance at his wife, whose back was turned away from him, he descended the staircase. Trailing hands along the walls on either side of him, Landon continued down the occasionally creaking steps.

Halfway down, his hand was met with a switch, and relief washed over him. Landon would not admit it to Rachel (especially not in her given state of waspishness), but he was greatly afraid of the dark. He flipped up the switch, and immediately, a bright, strobing light consumed the space. He quickly turned it off.

Shivering, Landon inched down the few remaining planks. There wasn't much else in the basement besides the water heater, so he quickly found the furnace. Not having much experience in mechanics, he took the buzzing noise it was producing to mean that it was functioning properly. Satisfied, Landon turned to leave.

Suddenly, a deafening quiet consumed the house, interrupted only by the steady rush of wind that shook the house's foundations.

Frowning, Landon opened the circuit breaker built into the side of the furnace. He soon realized that hadn't a clue what he was supposed to do in a situation like this, so he shut the panel.

An ear-piercing scream had Landon holding his head in agony. It was muffled and distant, like television static, and yet so full of terror and volume that it seemed as though it were in the very same room as him.

It was coming from outside.

A second time, the distinctly-feminine voice shrieked, and for the second time, Landon held his head in pain. But, unlike the first time, the voice said a word. Just one word.

"LANDON!"

Landon rushed back upstairs as fast as he could in the perpetual darkness, his fingers clutching onto the smooth walls like a lifeline. Once he made it to the top of the steps, he was shaking and gasping. Rachel was the only thought that entered his mind as he twisted the knob. Rachel.

And there she was, wiping the kitchen table down with a dish rag. Calmly. As if she weren't trapped outside. As if...
He froze. It couldn't be... could it?

"Rachel," Landon called out tentatively. He inhaled sharply when she looked at him. Her usual warmth was gone, replaced with a viciousness, a darkness that his wife could never own.

"What is it?" Her confusion at his stare only made him more suspicious. It seemed far too genuine, like the perfect act.
This was not his wife.

He looked away quickly. He couldn't let her know that he knew. He had to play it cool.

Opening one of the tall cabinets in the kitchen, Landon hunted for a few moments before finding what he had come for. With the box of matches in hand, Landon made his way towards the living room, where the fireplace was located. Halfway there, "Rachel" intercepted him.

"What are you doing?" Her voice was suspicious.

Landon attempted to brush past her, but she just stepped back in his path. "Going to start a fire."

"What would you burn? We don't have any wood."

He hadn't thought of that. "I'll think of something."

Landon pushed her to the side and resumed walking towards the living room. Suddenly, he was jerked backwards, two small hands gripping his wrist harshly.

"Stop it! Why do you even need to make a fire?" The imposter questioned him again.

"If you haven't noticed, the heat has shut off! And why do you care so much? Huh? What game are you playing?" Landon's voice slowly crescendoed until he was screaming at the top of his lungs. "Rachel" stared at him in horror.

"Landon, what are you talking about?" Her tone was laced with fear. Fear tainted with lies.

"Don't you look at me like that!" Landon roared. "You killed her, didn't you?"

"Landon, stop! Don't you realize how crazy that sounds?" She pleaded with him, tears streaming down her face.

"You must think me stupid. You, my wife? Hah! What a joke!"

"I don't know what has gotten into you, Landon, but I'll find a way to put an end to it."

An irksome thought crossed his mind. "'Put an end to it?' What are you going to do, kill me?" An unreadable expression passed over his "wife's" face. "Yeah, that's just what I thought. You're going to kill me, aren't you? Kill me, just like you killed her. Trying to trap me here until I freeze, eh? Well," Landon laced his fingers around her wrist, gripping harshly until her skin was a violent red. "You can't kill me—" He smiled a twisted smile at the aberrant woman "—if you're already dead."

And quick as a whip, Landon started heaving his "wife" out of the room. She screamed pestilent screams as he brought her through the newly-furnished kitchen. She painted red stripes across his skin with her nails as he carried her down the freshly-swept foyer. But, try as she might, she could not manage to escape his merciless grip.

Landon switched his grip to a single hand and dug in his pocket for a moment before returning, keys in hand. In that one moment of blindness, the woman managed to twist out of his hold with a violent jerk, but she was quickly thrown to the floor with the force of Landon's hand. A scarlet welt appeared on the side of her face.

Grabbing her collar, Landon unlocked and opened wide the door, and a rush of freezing wind washed over them. Showers of ice and snow cascaded upon the two in a frozen rush, seeping cold into their veins and marking their skin with the blue of winter.

Face soaked with tears of fear and bitterness, the imposter cried out and struggled against Landon, but his resolve did not waver. He pulled the woman out the door and into the blizzard.

Landon could hardly see anything but for two feet in every direction, as the skyborn assailants clumped together in a thick veil that stretched across his field of vision. The dry, freezing air clung to him like a second skin, and an unshakable chill spread over his skin and leaked into his bones, leaving him shuddering uncontrollably.

"P-please..." the fraud's pathetic plea fell on deaf ears. Her knees gave out beneath her, and she fell atop a blanket of white with a quiet thump, fingers blue and eyelids fluttering weakly. There, Landon left her to—with any luck—die.

He gladly returned to the house, limbs numb and skin frosty. Of course, with no working heater, his only option was to start a fire. But that could wait a bit longer.

Landon started up the soft stairs to the second floor. He could almost smell the heat of the vacuum rising off the carpet. It was but a wishful dream, of course. Even now, the cold sunk into the walls of the house, capturing its warmth and infecting it. Returning to the house was only a minor respite.

Where could she be? What had that witch done with his wife? Landon searched the bathroom, the bedrooms, the closets. But alas, his Rachel was nowhere to be found.

Finally, he reentered their bedroom. The neatness of the room was only a painful reminder of her. The agonized man tore the sheets off the bed in anger. He kicked a chair over, screamed at the top of his lungs, but nothing was enough. Nothing could take the pain away.

Unthinkingly, he ripped a photograph from the plaster wall, nail bent and awkward. Just before he slammed it onto a dresser, he chanced a glance at it. He and Rachel, on their wedding day. So happy. So carefree.

"AARRGH!" He rammed his fist into the wall, and the glass frame cracked in his hand. Before he could realize what he was doing, his uninjured hand reached inside his pocket. A box of matches.

Landon, shaking with emotion, drew out a stick. He lit it. And he threw it onto the wooden dresser.

The red engulfed him in a blurry haze. He did not care. His skin blistered and blackened. Screams escaped his lips in an uncontrollable stream of madness. But he did not scream for the burns, or for himself.

He screamed for his wife, outside on the snow.

***

A/N: Yeah, please don't judge me on this. I just copied and pasted this from a Google Doc, for crying out loud.

I wrote this short story for a school assignment, and all the guidelines were "write a suspense narrative that incorporates separate levels of suspense into the piece." There wasn't even a rubric. My teacher frustrates me.

Most of my friends wrote about stalkers, and many of their stories involved my death. I've been drugged, suffocated, sliced open, and thrown off buildings too many times to count in the past week. Hopefully, that isn't a hint about the state of my relationships , because if it is... I might need some new friends 😅