She first heard it while she was making coffee.
The morning was already off to a rough start. Rachel had woken up, lazy and languid in the wake of her twice-snoozed alarm, and reached for her husband’s side of the bed. Much to her disgruntlement, the spot where he should have been was empty and cold. She glared at the empty space for a moment, then promptly snoozed her alarm again out of spite. One of the downsides of working from home was she missed out on good morning kisses as Mark got ready for his morning commute. The upside, however, was she could take a few extra minutes to pout about it.
Once her alarm declared her brooding time over, Rachel sighed, put the alarm to rest for good, and pulled herself out of bed. She immediately had the urge to crawl back into it. The air beyond her cozy covers was chilly with mid-October refusal to turn on the heater until absolutely necessary (Mark). Even worse, as soon as she was upright, she was reminded of every little discomfort that came with having an adult human body. Back pain, ankle pain, jaw pain from sleeping strangely, and a bonus ache in her joints from the cold. Oh, and after a few moments upright? She also needed to pee. All the usuals, checked off!
After a brief stop by the bathroom, Rachel shambled her way into the kitchen like the zombie she sometimes suspected herself to be. Undead or not, she still had bills to pay, meaning she needed to be alert enough to do her job. A strong, hot cup of coffee was in order. She made her way to the coffee machine and fell into familiar routine, seeking her prize almost on muscle memory.
She got a mug from the cabinet. She set it beneath the machine’s dispenser. She opened the machine’s lid. Something began to buzz. She reached into the cabinet again. She retrieved an off-brand K-cup. The buzzing grew louder. She put the cup in the coffee maker. She closed the lid. The crunch felt violent. She selected ‘8oz’ on the little touch screen. The buzzing became a drone. She pressed the button beneath the touch screen. The machine began to whir. She could barely hear it over the droning. The floor creaked behind her. Something was watching her. Something was watching her—
The world snapped back into uncomfortable clarity as she whirled around, nearly knocking a jar of sugar to the floor in the process. There was nothing behind her, of course. She was alone in her apartment. Mark had left for work before she’d woken up, and a quick glance to the right confirmed the door had been locked behind him. He even remembered to lock the deadbolt that morning. No one was there, the only sounds to be heard being the coffee maker steaming and the pounding of Rachel’s heartbeat. No buzz, no drone.
Rachel took a deep breath, then leaned back against the counter with a groan. Shaking off the adrenaline, she opened the fridge to grab some creamer and poured a generous amount into her cup. As she stirred her coffee, she reached for the pill container next to the kitchen sink. What better way to christen a fresh cup of coffee than by using it to wash down an unassuming little capsule? Not that she needed the coffee anymore. After whatever the hell that was, she was plenty awake.
Coffee in hand regardless, she crossed the apartment to settle into her office and get to work. Over six months in, and her job still felt too good to be true. She’d managed to land a remote biller position for a telehealth practice. Medical billing was a notorious nightmare of paperwork, but that made it perfect for Rachel. Translating rejection errors, filling in boxes, deciphering ERAs? That scratched a mental itch she hadn’t realized she had. And the best part? Through the whole process, she hardly had to speak to a single soul. She could put on some music, bury her head in paperwork, and not worry about the world beyond her office for hours.
Speaking of paperwork, signing into the practice’s EHR revealed several bright red claim rejections waiting to be reviewed. They were all from the same insurance company, and all related to the same clinician, so Rachel’s first guess was an NPI-related issue…
That puzzle led her to another, and soon enough, she found herself easing into the natural flow of work.
She deciphered the error message. She emailed the clinician. She opened the next batch of rejections. She ignored the drone. She turned up her music. She pulled up a patient profile. She selected the billable dates of service. The droning overpowered her music. She double-checked the payer address. She finished the intimidating red form. Her jaw still ached. She submitted the claim. It was so loud. She opened another ERA. The drone was right behind her. It was in her lungs. She couldn’t breathe.
Her monitor suddenly shut off. She stared into her reflection. Something else stared back.
Rachel pushed herself away from the desk with a gasp, nearly knocking over her chair in the process. She shivered and blinked at her computer screen, still on, lit with the awkward tables and blocks of text of insurance paperwork. She turned her head to look to the left of the screen, at her office window. The glare from the still-rising sun provided her a decent view of her reflection, normal and familiar.
It hadn’t been real. Rachel was safe, alone. Still, she turned around and double-checked that her office door was closed before she slid her chair back into place, just to be safe. Just for her own foolish reassurance.
The workday continued. She got back into a rhythm, forcing herself to focus even when she started to hear that drone again. It wasn’t real, after all. It was just a trick, her brain playing games with her in retaliation for too-little rest.
Lunch rolled around at noon like usual, but the memory of that morning made Rachel hesitate. She had to leave her office to get her lunch from the fridge. Why did that make her nervous? Even if the drone came back while she was in the kitchen, it couldn’t hurt her. It wasn’t real.
She gave the coffee machine a wide berth anyway, taking the long way around the kitchen island to get to the fridge and scolding herself for being stupid the entire time. And for apparently leaving the creamer sitting out, she realized. God, what was with her that morning? Why was she having such a strange day? She shook her head at herself, then set the likely-spoiled creamer by the sink to dump out later. She would deal with that mess after she had tucked into some leftover pasta.
She opened the fridge. She picked up a plastic container. She opened the lid. Her hands were so cold. She put the container in the microwave. She pressed the ‘1’ button. Her hands were shaking. The microwave turned on. The hum sounded off. The container began to spin. The hum wasn’t coming from the microwave. Rachel turned around. The drone was in the office. The container kept spinning. The drone came closer to the door. Rachel was in danger. She could feel the droning in her bones. She couldn’t move. There was nowhere to run.
The microwave beeped and Rachel yelped, jumping in place and tears stinging the corners of her eyes. She started shaking, wrapping her arms around herself. There was nothing to be afraid of, and yet for some bizarre reason, Rachel felt as if she was being hunted by something. What, exactly, she couldn’t articulate, which just made her fear more frustratingly irrational. She was a grown woman. Couldn’t she handle a few weird sounds scattered across her day?
Briefly, she considered texting Mark. He could stay on the phone with her while he was at work; he’d done it before. If she really needed him to, she was sure he’d come home. But what was she meant to say? There was a strange noise following her around the apartment, making her feel like she was going to die? That was absurd. If she texted Mark that, he’d come home, sure. He’d come home with a cop to take her to a mental hospital.
Rachel grabbed her food from the microwave and left it on the counter to cool. She wasn’t hungry anymore. She’d just throw it away later, after work. Missing lunch once wouldn’t kill her, right? She felt like she’d been asking herself a lot of questions like that the past few hours, avoiding the question she didn’t want to answer. The question idled in the back of her mind as she went back to her office. It let her sit back down and start to settle at her desk again, then slowly crept up on her, in time to the rise of an unsettling, familiar sound.
What was making that noise?
It was nothing. Rachel knew that. The drone that was drifting up from her doorway again wasn’t real, which meant nothing was making it. That nothing sure was loud, though, for something that didn’t exist. The more Rachel let herself focus on it, the more she started to notice. It was hard to hear anything beyond the droning, but if she really focused, she could’ve sworn she heard the whisper of feet on carpet as it came closer.
The drone was giving her a headache. She focused on it anyway. The drone came closer. She could hear the whisper of feet on carpet. It came closer still. It radiated cold. It was standing right behind her. She could feel its shadow over her. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
It was.
Rachel screamed, swinging into open air as she turned to push away whatever that thing behind her was. Much to her tearful frustration, it was gone again, the mind-numbing drone having retreated to the living room. It was in the living room. There was something there, something dangerous. It was toying with her, like a hunter that knew its prey was cornered. And now that she’d acknowledged it, it was bound to go in for the kill.
Well, Rachel wasn’t going to just let it have her. She forced herself up on shaking legs, stumbling to the office door and pushing it closed. She turned the lock, for all the good that would do, and started to back away. Just as she did, the drone suddenly rose to a crescendo and a heavy weight slammed against the hollow wood door. Rachel startled, stumbling back, back, back until she found herself in the corner of her office with nowhere else to go.
The thing slammed against the door again. Rachel sank to the floor. The drone was furious. The door couldn’t hold forever. Rachel hugged her knees and sobbed. The door shook with its rage. Rachel closed her eyes. She hoped Mark would be okay without her. The office door started to splinter. The front door opened.
“Rachel?”
The monster stopped throwing itself at the door and Rachel’s head jerked up. That was Mark’s voice. Oh, god, no. “Mark, don’t come inside!” Rachel yelled. “Leave! Lock the door behind you, don’t let it get to you!”
“Rachel, what are you talking about?” Mark called back, paying her warnings no mind. To Rachel’s horror, the drone moved away from the office and back toward the kitchen, where her unsuspecting husband was.
She started to choke on her sobs as grief and panic clashed in her throat. It was going to get Mark, too. The monster was going to kill him, and then it was going to come back to the office and finish what it started with her. How long would it take for someone to notice they were dead? Would her coworkers worry after a few days of silence? Would her neighbors notice Mark’s car never left? Would her parents call for a welfare check when she stopped answering their texts?
“Oh, honey. Hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. Can you open your eyes for me? Please?”
Slowly, disbelieving, Rachel opened her eyes. She lifted her head to find Mark kneeling in front of her. He was completely fine, the office door wide open, and the apartment quiet aside from her confused sobs. How? Did the monster escape out the front door? Did Mark kill it?
“Can I hold you, sweetheart?” Mark asked, settling on the floor in front of her. Rachel nodded, and Mark gently coaxed her forward into his lap. “There we go,” he said gently. “It’s okay. I’ve got you. It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re safe.”
Rachel wrapped her arms around him, still shaking as she hid her face in his shoulder. “Did you see it?” she asked him. “Did you see where it went? Mark, I thought it was going to kill me. I almost died.”
“Baby,” Mark replied, “I don’t know if there was a monster. Do you think you might have been hallucinating?”
“What?” Rachel felt her thoughts stutter to a halt. Hallucinating? But—
“The psychiatrist lowered the dose of your ziprasidone a couple weeks ago, remember? And she warned us that your brain might react badly to it,” Mark reminded her. “She said it might even trigger an episode, so we needed to be watching for it. Do you think that could be what happened? That you could have been hallucinating, because your brain’s not adjusting well to the lower dosage?”
Suddenly, just like that, the previous several hours of panic felt… embarrassingly unnecessary.
The last of Rachel’s panic dissolved in an instant, replaced by hot shame that warmed her face and neck. “Oh my god,” she mumbled into Mark’s shirt. “I was totally hallucinating, wasn’t I?”
She felt Mark’s shoulders loosen under her head in relief. “Yeah, Rache, I think so,” he said, bringing a hand up to play with her hair, “But it’s okay. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, remember? Schizophrenia’s an irregular bitch. We couldn’t have known for sure if it was going to be okay with you taking less medication, which is why we didn’t go cold turkey, right? Now we know. We’ll get you back on your regular dose first thing tomorrow morning, take a few days off work to make sure you’re adjusting alright, and we’ll tell the psychiatrist it didn’t work out. It’s okay. You’re fine.”
Rachel took deep breaths as he spoke, letting his words sink in. His reassurances didn’t chase all the embarrassment away, but… they did help. At the very least, she knew that Mark wasn’t upset.
“God, I hope the neighbors weren’t home,” she said after a moment, lifting her head. “I think I was screaming. I really thought something was there, Mark. God, I haven’t had an episode like that in years.”
“Yeah, that sounds like it sucked ass,” Mark agreed, leaning back on one hand. “How about this— you clock out early, take the next few days off, tell your boss you aren’t feeling well. Then you’ll sit on the couch while I make a big pot of chili with extra diced tomatoes, and we spend the rest of the day watching terrible reality TV and bastardizing the ideal chili-to-Frito’s ratio. Sound good?”
Rachel met Mark’s eyes for a moment, considering, then leaned up and kissed him. “I love you,” she said simply.
Mark chuckled and responded, “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Ten minutes to email her boss and a few more kisses found Rachel settled on the couch as promised, wrapped up in the fluffiest blanket she and Mark owned. A British chef was yelling on the television and Mark was bustling around the kitchen, opening drawers and cabinets while the ground beef browned on the stove. For the first time since she’d woken up, Rachel felt truly grounded and calm.
“Hey Rache, do you know where our can opener is?” Mark called from his spot by the stove.
“Check the sink,” Rachel called back.
Dishes clattered together for a moment before Mark cheered softly, “Success!” and turned on the faucet to wash the can opener. “By the way,” he asked, “Why’s our creamer sitting next to the sink?”
“Oh, that was my bad,” Rachel apologized. “I accidentally left it out this morning. Man, that’s another thing that should have tipped me off. I’ve been having disorganized symptoms for days.”
“I didn’t catch them either,” Mark pointed out, “And out of the two of us, I’m the one more likely to notice something’s up. Don’t beat yourself up about it, okay?”
“Okay, okay,” Rachel chuckled, rolling her eyes. Mark was starting to go a little overboard with his effort to keep her from feeling bad, but it was sweet how much he cared. It was also just nice not to be judged. She wished more people’s partners could be like Mark.
The conversation gave way to comfortable silence. Something began to buzz in the office. The buzz slowly built into a drone.
Rachel sighed. Acknowledging that the droning monster was a hallucination evidently hadn’t sent it away. She took a deep breath, focused on the TV, and ignored it. Thankfully, the droning faded on its own, but would probably be good to keep track of her recurring hallucinations until she was steady. That in mind, Rachel looked toward the kitchen to tell Mark that she was hearing things again, only to notice… he wasn’t facing the stove. He wasn’t looking at her, either. He was looking toward the office.
Rachel’s blood ran cold. Time seemed to slow down as Mark finally looked at her and asked the one thing she wished he wouldn’t.
“Did you hear that?”
