The fluorescent lights above made a soft humming sound and shone a pale greenish glow on the scratched linoleum floor.
My duffel bag felt heavy on my shoulder, the weight of three months at the police academy finally sliding off. I was home.
The familiar, slightly musty smell of our old apartment building filled my nose, like dust, lemon polish, and something else… something sharp and sweet I couldn't place.
I pushed the door open. "Mom? I'm back early, they gave us a half day."
The living room was dark, the curtains drawn tight against the afternoon sun. Mom was sitting in her favourite armchair, staring at the blank television screen. She didn't turn. Her posture was stiff straight, unnatural.
"Mom?" I said again, dropping my bag by the door.
She slowly turned her head. Her smile was too wide, stretching her face in a way that didn't reach her eyes. They were empty, like dusty glass. "Heidi. You're home. Good. I was just about to make a shopping list."
Her voice was… off. Monotone. Robotic. It sent a cold through me. This wasn't the warm, slightly exhausted woman I'd FaceTimed just last week.
"Are you okay? You seem… tired." I took a step closer.
"I am perfectly optimal," she said, the words precise and cold. She picked up a notepad and a pen from the side table. "We require supplies."
I watched her hand as she wrote. Her movements were jerky, like a puppet on strings. This is stress, I told myself. She's been alone too long. Dad's been gone for six months, it's been hard on her.
A voice in my head whispering about trauma responses, dissociative states. But this felt… deeper.
"Okay," I said, keeping my voice calm, neutral. "What do we need?"
She began to write, her pen scratching loudly in the silent room.
THE SHOPPING LIST
1. Bleach. Two large bottles. The industrial strength. "We need to sanitize," she said without looking up. "Purity is the primary objective."
"Sanitize what? The kitchen's spotless." I looked at the kitchen. It was cleaner than I'd ever seen it. It sparkled.
"Not the kitchen," she said. Her head tilted. "The workspace. The impurities must be cleansed."
2. Heavy duty black trash bags. The thickest gauge. 30 count box. My throat felt tight. "That's a lot of bags, Mom. Are we cleaning out the garage?" Dad's old stuff was still in there. Maybe this was her way of coping, of moving on. A deep clean.
"Containment is necessary," she stated. "Leakage is not acceptable. It compromises the environment."
3. A new hacksaw. Your father's is too dull. Teeth must be sharp. A cold dread, solid and real, twisted in my stomach. "Mom… why do you need a new hacksaw?"
She finally looked at me, and for a second, I saw a glimpse of something terrified deep in her eyes. It was gone in an instant, replaced by that blank, dead calm. "The material is resistant. It requires precise sectioning. Dull tools are inefficient."
Material. Sectioning. The words were all wrong. This wasn't my mom. This was something wearing her skin.
4. Five pounds of rock salt. "Is… is the water softener broken again?" My voice was a whisper.
"Crystallization aids in the drying process," she recited, like she was reading from a manual. "It draws out the remaining moisture effectively."
Drying process? Moisture? My mind hunted for answers, trying to find a logical, non horrifying explanation. Making homemade jerky? Preserving meat? But we were vegetarians. Had been for years.
5. A roll of duct tape. The wide, silver kind. "For what?" I asked, listing off the uses for duct tape in a criminal context: binding, gagging, sealing.
"Sealing is the final step," she said. "To ensure no… evaporation. The scent must be contained."
Scent. That's what I'd smelled when I walked in. That coppery, sweet smell. Under the lemon polish. I knew that smell from ride alongs, from the academy's forensic demonstrations. It was the smell of old blood.
My eyes scanned around the room. Everything was clean. Too clean. The carpet near the basement door looked moist, recently scrubbed. A dark patch was bleached pale.
The basement.
Dad's "workshop" was in the basement.
"Mom," I said, my voice shaking. I took a step toward the basement door. "Where's Dad? You said he was on a long business trip. His phone goes straight to voicemail."
She stood up. Her movement was smooth and fast, completely unlike her usual self. She blocked my path to the basement door. "He provided the material. His contribution was vital. But the project required more. It is not yet complete."
He provided the material.
It was awful and hard to believe. My knees felt weak. I thought I might be sick. The list in her hand was no longer a grocery list. It was a confession. A recipe.
"What project?" I begged, tears stinging my eyes. "Mom, what did you do?"
She looked at me with that lifeless smile. "The project is improvement. Evolution. Purging the weak, flawed components. Your father was… faulty. But you," she said, her head tilting again in that bird like, unnatural way. "You are young. Strong. Your cellular structure is optimal. You will be a superior integration."
She took a step toward me. I took a step back, my hand reaching behind me for the front door knob.
"The list is not finished," she said, her monotone voice dropping to a whisper that was somehow more terrifying than a scream. She raised the pen and added one final item to the bottom of the page.
6. New components. Fresh and healthy. Her eyes held mine.
I finally found the doorknob, twisted it, and threw myself backwards into the hallway. I bolted to my feet.
I turned to run, to scream, to get help.
But the door didn't slam shut. It swung open slowly. Mom stood there, silhouetted in the doorway. She wasn't chasing me. She just stood there, holding the shopping list out toward me.
And she spoke, her voice that same, dead, instructional tone.
"Heidi. You forgot the list."
I stared, frozen.
She took a single, step forward into the hallway. "We can't complete the project without the necessary supplies."
I forgot everything I'd been taught. All that was left was a child, terrified of the thing that looked like her mother. I turned and ran, my boots stomping on the stairwell concrete, not stopping until I burst out into the blinding afternoon sun.
I grabbed for my phone, my fingers slipping on the screen, dialing 911. I gasped out my address, babbling about my mother, my father, the list, the basement.
The police arrived fast. I sat in the back of a cruiser, wrapped in a blanket I didn't feel, watching them enter my apartment building.
An officer stayed with me. His face was tense. After what felt like a lifetime, his radio crackled. I couldn't hear the words, but I saw his face go pale. He looked at me with an expression of such profound pity that I knew.
He got out of the car and spoke quietly into his radio. When he came back, he didn't say anything for a moment.
"Miss," he finally said, his voice gentle. "We found your mother in the living room. She's… catatonic. She's just staring. She won't speak."
Relief flooded me for a split second. They had her. It was over.
"And… my dad?" I asked, though I already knew the answer.
The officer took a deep breath. "We found… remains. In the basement. The forensics team is on their way. It's… it's not good."
I nodded, numb. They led my mother out in handcuffs. She walked calmly, her head held high, that empty smile still on her face. She saw me, sitting in the squad car. And she spoke, her voice clear and carrying across the yard.
"Don't forget the list, Heidi. We still need the supplies."
They put her in the car and drove away.
Hours later, a detective approached me. He held a clear evidence bag. Inside was the shopping list.
"We found this on the kitchen table," he said. "Do you recognize it?"
I nodded, unable to speak.
He looked uncomfortable. "There's… there's something else. The forensics team, they found something in the basement, next to the… the worksite. A journal."
He handed me another evidence bag. Inside was a small, leather bound book I recognized instantly. It was my father's.
"You should read the last entry," the detective said softly. "I'm so sorry."
I took the bag. Through the plastic, I could see my father's familiar, neat handwriting. The date was from two days ago.
'The degeneration is accelerating. The thing wearing Helen's face is not my wife. It's a parasite. It speaks of 'components' and 'integration'. It says it is making us 'perfect'. It started with the cat last month. Now it looks at me with its dead eyes and talks about 'faulty wiring'. It's planning something. For Heidi. It's making a list. My God, it's making a list for when she comes home.'
The words blurred as my tears finally fell. I looked up at the detective, my world ripped apart.
He sighed, running a hand over his face. "One more thing," he said, in a quiet, strained voice. "The crime scene… the way the… the body… was dissected. It wasn't the work of a person. The cuts were too precise, too clean. The medical examiner said it was like something… something that had done it a thousand times before."
He pointed to the shopping list in the other evidence bag.
"We also found this, tucked into the journal."
It was a second piece of paper, older, yellowed. It was written in the same neat, blocky print as the shopping list my mother had written. But this one was in my father's handwriting.
The top of the page read: Project: Integration. Phase 1 – Gather Components.
And the first item on his list was:
1. A suitable donor vessel. Female. Healthy. (Subject: Helen)