It's All In Your Head

The steaks sizzled as Lauren flipped them out of the pan and onto dinner plates. 

“Honey, dinner’s ready!”

She sat down at the dining room table, sliding one of the steaks across the table to her husband’s place. She straightened the cutlery and set out a wine glass for herself, with her favorite red. 

Her husband entered the room and sat down, rubbing his belly. “Mmm,” he said happily.

Lauren smiled as he dug in, and took a sip of her wine. 

Her husband was a few bites into his steak when she began to cut into her own. 

Lauren was about to take a bite herself when she noticed something long and white in her meat. At first, she thought it was a string of fat. Then she saw it move. 

Lauren suppressed a gag and set her fork down.

She quickly grabbed her husband’s steak and inspected it. To her horror, she saw the remnants of a softly moving white worm. 

“Spit it out!” she demanded, without explanation.

Her husband looked confused. “What’s the matter?”

Lauren suppressed another gag. “I… I think the steak is bad. I found a worm—”

“It tastes fine,” her husband insisted, finishing the bite he had been working on. 

Lauren swiftly removed his plate from the table, and went into the kitchen. She dumped the remnants of the steak in the garbage.

“Hey!” her husband protested. 

“You don’t want to eat that,” Lauren said. She shivered slightly as she threw away her own steak as well. “Sorry, I just bought these, I thought they were fine…”

Her husband shrugged. He got up from the table and wandered into the kitchen, to find something else to eat, Lauren assumed. He shuffled through the pantry, but didn’t pick anything to eat.

Lauren was about to leave and finish her wine, when she saw her husband eyeing the trash. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He didn’t respond. Lauren felt uneasy. She retreated to the living room, but after a while became concerned for her husband again. 

She went back to the kitchen, and caught him red-handed finishing the steak off, hunched over the trash can.

“Ew! What is the matter with you?!” she shouted. 

Her husband didn’t seem nearly as embarrassed as she thought he should have. He averted his gaze and shrugged. 

“I would have made you something else, you didn’t have to eat the trash food!” 

He frowned. “I wanted it.”

Lauren shuddered at the thought. “Are you alright?” 

He nodded. “Fine. Leave me alone.”

Lauren was rather taken aback by his bluntness. Her husband was never rude to her. And he certainly never ate anything out of the trash.

“You need to throw that up,” Lauren insisted. “You just ate something from the trash that had a worm in it! A worm! Some kind of parasite!”

Her husband stiffened. “Leave me alone,” he repeated coldly. He brushed past her roughly, hitting his shoulder against her own. “I’m going to watch TV.”

Lauren stood in the kitchen, aghast at his behavior. 

She followed him into the living room after a moment. “What is the matter?” she asked. “You’re acting very strange—”

“It’s all in your head,” her husband grumbled back. 

Lauren shook her head. “No, it’s in yours! What is going on? You’re acting crazy!”

Her husband stood suddenly, causing Lauren to back away. He raised a hand, as though he intended to hit her. Lauren felt tears well in her eyes. Her husband had always been very gentle. None of this seemed right. 

“Never mind,” she whispered quickly, which seemed to appease him. He sat back down and continued watching TV, as if nothing had happened. 

The next day, when her husband was at work, she took a quick trip to the pharmacy and bought something that would supposedly help with stomach issues and parasites from meat. 

When she cooked dinner, she snuck a bit of it into his food. 

She served him silently, and he made no attempts to converse with her. She thought he looked rather grumpy, as opposed to his usual cheery self. 

She watched him eat, hoping the medication would do something. He finished the plate, and pushed it aside. He sat there for a moment, unmoving.

At first, nothing seemed to change. 

Then, Lauren noticed he had begun to drool.

She noticed foam beginning to form at the corners of his mouth, and he began to convulse. 

Lauren made eye contact with him, and saw he looked confused and frightened, before he collapsed onto the floor. He spasmed for a moment more, then became still.

Lauren rushed to his side, panicking. She couldn’t hear him breathe or feel a heartbeat. She attempted CPR, but was unsuccessful. She reached for her phone to call 911.

She felt a hand wrap around her wrist.

Lauren screamed.

“I’m fine,” her husband said calmly, now sitting up and covered in spit. 

“No, you were dead!” Lauren cried.

“I’m fine,” he said again. “I had this happen when I was younger. It’s no big deal.”

Lauren wasn’t convinced, but her husband casually got up and went back to the living room. She heard the television switch on. 

Lauren awoke the next morning, feeling chilly. She gently touched her husband next to her, but he felt ice cold. She supposed she was used to him heating up the bed for her. Was he sick? Surely if he was, he would be warmer.

Her husband left for work at his usual time, and Lauren was relieved, but became concerned again midway through the day. What if he had another episode at work?

She decided to call his work, just to check in on him, but was alarmed to hear that he had never shown up. 

She thanked his manager and hung up, perplexed and concerned. Where had he gone? 

It was then that Lauren heard a commotion downstairs. Coming from the kitchen.  

Feeling rather ill, she rushed into the kitchen quickly.

Her husband stood there, with a handful of gray meat in his hand, calmly munching on it. It was raw, and Lauren could see little maggots wriggling in his fist as he brought it to his lips.

Lauren began to approach her husband cautiously, when the smell hit her. Her husband smelled of—there was no easy way to put it—rotting flesh. 

She gagged, and took a step back.

It was then that her husband noticed her. 

“How was work?” Lauren asked timidly, trying to breathe through her mouth. 

“Fine,” her husband lied. “Why?”

Lauren shrugged, trying to remain nonchalant. “Just wondering. You’re...early.”

Her husband narrowed his eyes. She saw the skin around them was very pale and blue. 

“So?” he said.

Lauren didn’t know how to respond. She didn’t want to anger him. “Um… It’s just unusual, is all.”

Her husband took a step towards her, and inadvertently, Lauren took another step backwards.

“What?” her husband fumed. “Why do you care?”

Lauren gulped, “I don’t, it’s fine…”

She noticed the basement door was open behind her husband. She wondered if she could get him in there. And away from her. 

“Leave me alone,” her husband grumbled, still occasionally taking a nibble of his rotten snack.

“I’m sorry,” Lauren said. She squared her shoulders. She could do this, right? It wasn’t an overreaction?

Her husband turned away from her, and she seized the opportunity. She grabbed him by the shoulders and managed to push him through the basement door. He seemed vaguely annoyed by her, but once she slammed the door in his face, he began to wail. 

“Let me out!” He demanded. Lauren could hear him banging his fists against the door, but she didn’t dare open it. She took a chair from the dining table and propped it against the door handle, just in case.

She backed away, but she could still hear him shouting. 

After a few weeks, Lauren didn’t know what to do anymore. She could still hear her husband banging on the door, and screaming hoarsely for her to let him out. Sometimes he sounded desperate, sometimes he sounded deranged. Over time, the stench of him had only become worse; and instead of the usual muffled bangs, she could hear what sounded like hard plastic hitting the door. At first she didn’t know what it was. Then she realized it was bone. 

A dark, goopy red puddle had begun to extend from under the basement door. The smell was unbearable. Lauren didn’t know what was in her basement, but she was fairly sure it wasn’t her husband anymore.