The Package

Twelve times. The same package has arrived at our front door twelve times in as many days. On day one, I assumed it was my wife who had ordered it. She insisted it must have been me. On day two, I was sure she was playing some sort of prank on me.

“Didn’t you say you took this back to the post office?” I asked her.

“Yes! I swear I did.” She insisted.

On day five, we made a little game of it.

“I’ll take care of breakfast; you watch the peephole.”

“Deal.”

After a few minutes, I had finished making omelets.

“Anything?”

“Not a single delivery van or mail truck.”

I opened the door, expecting nothing to be there. I had thought I would sit on the porch and eat my breakfast. But, as always, there it was.

It’s a simple cardboard box, no bigger than a foot square and half as tall. It only weighs about a pound, and the only markings on the outside of it are a standard USPS postal shipping label and a sticker claiming it to be fragile. There’s no return address or product listing. The only peculiar thing about it is that there are several small holes in the top of the box. The holes are too small to see into, and no distinguishable smells or sounds escape from them, either.

You may be wondering why we haven’t opened it. And that’s a valid question. It’s not as simple as it sounds. At first, we simply assumed it was a misunderstanding and returned it. We did this three times before becoming overly suspicious. After that, we assumed it must be malicious. I’ve heard too many stories of packages containing bombs and the like to trust a mysterious package, let alone one that has now entered my home twelve times without the slightest hint of a reason.

“Hey, hon, I have an idea.” Said my wife.

“Yes, dear?”

“Why don’t we leave it there?”

“Where?”

“On the porch.”

I paused for a moment, considering it. I hadn’t thought of that. We tried taking it back, throwing it out with the trash, even setting it on fire. It didn’t catch fire or even char. And every time we put it in the trash or somewhere else, it wouldn’t be there the next day. Instead, it would be right there, first thing in the morning, like clockwork, on the front porch to the right of the welcome mat. But we had never just left it alone.

“Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow, if it’s there again, I’ll leave it alone.”

And with that, I walked to the entryway, put on my shoes, and walked out front with the package. I placed it on the driveway about halfway down. I got into my truck, and I put it in reverse.

“Let’s see you come back from this!”

I floored it backward, running straight over the package with the back left tire. Not only did it not become flattened by my truck, but it actually caused the tire to bounce off wildly, sending the truck careening wildly to the right.

“Holy shit!”

Deciding to take the hint, I drove the truck back into the garage, closed the door, and went to bed.

The next morning, sure enough, there it was.

“Well, it sure is nice there’s no packages at the door, right, honey?” I asked, motioning with my hand across my throat to tell her to play along.

“Uh, right. Sure is.” She shrugged and mouthed, “What?”

I walked over to the small pad of paper and pen we keep by the phone.

“I think we should ignore it.” I wrote.

She took the pen from me.

“Oh, I see. It’s worth a try.” She wrote beneath my note.

For the next seven days, we ignored the package. We even stopped using the front door entirely so as to not so much as look at it as we went to work or to water the plants. It was nice, actually. I almost forgot about it entirely.

However, that night, it visited me in my dream. I dreamt I was a mailman, working in the room that sorts all the incoming packages. At first, it was a normal dream. But then, every single package started to look like the package.

“Hey, isn’t it weird that every package is the same?” I asked my coworker.

“Huh, no. That always happens.”

“What? No, look. It’s weird!”

“I don’t know what to tell you, man. It’s always like that.”

I turned to confront my coworker, only to find they had been replaced by a stack of the same package, only with a sinister smile and vacant eyes.

“Open me.”

“No. I don’t want to. Just leave me alone!”

“You want to open me,” it smiled, wide and toothy, “I know you do.”

“No…you’re…wrong…”

I woke up. I was standing at the front door, grasping the handle tightly. My knuckles were white from the strain.

“What are you doing?” My wife asked from behind me, startling me.

“Ah! Oh, it’s you. I thought you might be the package.”

“Don’t be silly, dear. Come back to bed.”

“Okay—”

When I turned around, I did not see my wife. Instead, I saw the package lying in the light of the living room lamp. It had the face of my wife. She was smiling, wider, and toothier.

“Uh, that’s okay. I think I need some fresh air.”

I turned and opened the front door, but she, no it, no, I don’t know. The package. It was there.

“No!”

I ran through the house, looking for a rubber band. I snapped it against my arm, trying to shock myself out of the dream. I jolted awake, covered in a cold sweat. I looked over and saw that my wife was sleeping next to me. Everything was fine.

“It was just a dream,” I whispered to myself.

I lay back down, but I couldn’t fall back asleep no matter how hard I tried. An hour passed, then two. I made up my mind to teach that package a lesson. I grabbed my shotgun from the safe and then walked to the front door. I paused for a moment before opening it, steeling myself.

“It’s time to end this,” I said under my breath.

I threw open the door, aimed the shotgun at the package, and froze. It was…different. I tried to convince myself to pull the trigger, but something felt off. That’s when I realized there were no holes in the top of the box like there always had been.

“What the hell?”

I aimed the shotgun again.

“Who cares. You won’t get the better of me!”

I fired. The box was surprisingly undamaged. However, the small holes in the top were back.

“Wait, but that…”

It was then that I did something I swore I would never do. I grabbed my knife from my belt, switched open the blade, and sliced the tape. I set down the knife, took a deep breath, and opened the box.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

It was empty. It was a cardboard box filled with air and small pieces of shrapnel from my gun.

“That makes no goddamn sense.”

“What’s going on? I thought I heard a gun.” My wife emerged from behind me.

“Sorry, I just. I thought…well, I don’t know.”

“You shot the—you opened the box?”

“I just couldn’t take it anymore! It was haunting my dreams now,” I threw up my hands in exasperation, “but it doesn’t matter anyway. It’s empty. It’s always been empty, I guess.”

“That makes no sense. It wasn’t heavy, but it didn’t weigh nothing.”

“You’re right. But, well, look.”

“I see it’s empty. But it also makes no sense.”

We both sat there for a moment, staring at the now-opened box in front of us. The only sounds were of a party down the street and a distant siren.

“So,” I finally broke the silence, “what now?”

No response. I turned to look at my wife, and what I saw made my blood run cold. My wife was no longer standing right next to me. Instead, she was several feet away from me, dimly illuminated by the one lamp that was on in the living room. And she was not standing. She was…floating.

“Honey, can you hear me?” I stood up and slowly walked toward her, the shotgun clattering to the ground from my trembling hands.

“Thank you for letting me out. I was starting to think I’d never get out of that accursed box,” she replied, but it wasn’t her voice.

“Oh, well…you’re welcome,” I replied, my voice shaking.

“I will require more.”

“More?”

“More flesh.”

I started to back up, but the door slammed closed. I tried to open it, but it was locked, and the lock wouldn’t turn. I spun back around, and she was gone. I could hear a soft laughter coming from the hallway.

“Please, just leave us alone,” I pleaded.

My heart was beating so fast I felt it would leave my chest. I picked the shotgun back up and walked slowly toward the hallway. I turned the corner and aimed the gun.

“You wouldn’t shoot your wife, now would you?”

I tried to pull the trigger, but I couldn’t. My hands wouldn’t move. I couldn’t turn to run. I was frozen in place, staring at the face of my wife, knowing it wasn’t her.

“Take me,” I conceded, “at least I’ll be with her.”

A wide smile slowly broke across her face, stretching the skin around her mouth to an unnatural degree.

“As you wish.”



I closed my eyes. For a moment, I felt oppressively hot, then just as cold, and then nothing at all. My only thought was of my wife.