CW: pregnancy, implied cannibalism.

When my daughter was a newborn, I found I only had the attention span to write micro and flash; I wrote a lot of it. I was also sleeping very little at night and crashed most afternoons, which for me is when the weirdest dreams happen. “NotRob” was one of them.

—IC

I’m in the living room with Rob when there’s a knock at the door. He looks up from his bowl of cereal with detached interest.

His face drains to gray.

“Oh.” He swallows. “No.”

We rent a craftsman house. The door has an ornamental window; I can see who’s standing outside. Generally, I don’t like it. I don’t want delivery guys seeing me eating cereal in my underwear on the couch next to my husband, like I’m doing now.

I see my husband on the porch.

Rob—Rob but not, NotRob—knocks on the door.

“Do not open the door,” Rob cries.

My brain stumbles as I stand. Before I know it, Rob’s on his feet and he’s seized my face, jerking my chin so that I’m forced to look at him instead of NotRob.

“Do not look him in the eye.”

He’s never touched me like this; I go straight into prey mode. This is bad, really bad, though I can’t say why. My saliva just tastes like it.

“We have to let it pass,” he says, firm as a mantra.

“I want to wake up from this dream,” I say, voice taut.

The anti-nauseas I’ve been taking for morning sickness wipe my sleep black and clean. I haven’t had to break out of a nightmare in months. I’m rusty.

Rob releases my jaw. “This isn’t a dream.”

“That’s exactly what you’d say if it were one.”

I turn to go upstairs. Rob snatches my arms, gripping to bruise. “Do not look him in the eye.”

My heart thrashes my sternum. This feels thick and sticky and wrong. I have to force myself out of this.

“I am going to take a nap,” I recite. I’ve practiced and failed and succeeded; decades of night terrors have nothing on this spell. “When I wake up, this will all be over.”

Grief softens Rob’s face. The taste of milk and cereal lingers on my tongue; it goes sour with doubt. My senses are too crisp, my pulse too heavy. I feel the hardwood beneath bare feet and the sweat on Rob’s palms.

But I know how to get out of dreams. I will get out of this one.

I turn away as NotRob bangs on the door. I ignore his voice, which is garbled and tinny, a missive through a distant walkie-talkie.

I’m halfway up the stairs when I hear the baby cry from the porch.

My breath cuts out.

My hand flies to my stomach. I’m not even in the second trimester.

I shut my eyes. “When I wake up, this will all be over.”

“Stay upstairs,” Rob says. “I love you.”

It feels like sleepwalking, hand on my belly, as I shuffle to our room. I pull the covers over my head, heart pounding.

Eventually, it slows.

• • • •

When I wake, the sunlight is afternoon red, hazy as fire season. My lips part dry. Maybe I have a fever.

“I had the worst dream,” I say to the other half of the bed.

But Rob isn’t there.

Of course not. Only I sleep until one sometimes, because it’s better than being on my knees in front of the toilet all morning.

When I pad downstairs, the house is empty.

“Rob?”

The house swallows it.

Then: a knock.

I swallow the panic rising acidic in my throat. He must have gone on a run. I must have locked him out by accident. I can’t remember what happened before I went to sleep.

I turn and see the top of his head through the door window. Catch a glimpse of familiar cheekbone as he looks behind him.

I unlock the door. Open it.

He faces me; a reptilian-quick gesture.

Rob’s blue eyes that lock on mine, but not.

I remember.

I slam the door shut.

He catches it and pushes back; finds resistance, forces his way forward. I brace and grit my teeth, but I’m not strong enough, I’m still groggy from the anti-nauseas, my feet are slipping, I met his eyes . . .

“Please,” NotRob says. “Please.”

His softness makes me waver.

But it’s the sound of the baby crying that makes my arms release.

I release.

As NotRob spills into the house, I bend around him to the porch.

It’s empty. There is no baby, not anymore.

I shudder backward, my tongue metallic.

“Please,” NotRob says, the sss lingering, lascivious. The house seems to shrink around him. “I’m so hungry.”

Across the front of his shirt, there is a fine spray of fresh blood.