Soul Mates
A Short Horror Story
It was still dark when Frank awoke. It couldn’t be time to get up if it was still dark.
He reached out under the covers, feeling for the familiar warmth, and at the touch of his sweet wife Rosie, he rolled over onto his other side to slip back into sleep. He took a deep breath in and was shocked to smell the rotting breath of a dog, wafting into his face.
Frank coughed and opened his eyes, suddenly finding himself face to face with a stranger in the dark, a silent silhouette against the faint creeping hallway light. He cried out in alarm and scurried back away from the trespasser, jostling Rosie awake. He stomped his foot at the shadow’s face in a panic and his heel connected with a sickening crunch as he felt the cartilage of a nose rearrange beneath the contact.
It wasn’t a dream. This was real.
Frank screamed again and Rosie switched on her bedside lamp with a sleepy groan.
“What is goin-“ she mumbled in annoyance until she saw the figure in the bedroom and froze.
Standing in the doorway was a thin, middle aged woman in raggedy torn clothing. The dirty blond rat’s nest on her head matched her stained tattered tank top and the ripped shorts she was wearing, while her bones jutted against her skin in places giving her a haggard and spindly appearance.
“Who are you?” Frank demanded, pointing an accusatory finger at the stranger, “How did you get in here?”
“Frank, who is she?” Rosie asked tugging at his shirt, concern straining her voice.
She was extremely underweight, with marks running along her arms like train tracks and scars lining her thighs like tiny tiger stripes, a secret scripture of self-loathing and sadness. Her face was heavily painted with makeup as if by a child, blotched and smudged through impatient application and countless tears.
She may have been pretty once, but her thin sallow face remembered the hell she had suffered, with deep weary lines and a hint of hopelessness. Frank had crushed her pointed nose and blood was trickling down her face, dripping unnoticed onto the floorboards from her chin. In spite of it she wore an awkward half smile that unnerved Frank, as if she was distracted in wonder by a shiny object, her big blue eyes fixed upon his face with a terrifying focus.
“Who are you?” Frank demanded again, calmer now that the initial startling had passed. He felt more assured seeing the size of the intruder in the light and, knowing Rosie was there, he moved to stand in between the two women in case he needed to defend his love. He had no clue where this wretched creature came from or what she wanted but as the man of the house he felt he had responsibilities to live up to.
The stranger put a filthy hand in front of her face and snickered.
“I’m your’s, silly,” she sang playfully, “It’s me.”
Frank looked at Rosie in confusion and then back to the mysterious woman.
“I’ve never seen you before in my life,” he countered, “Who are you?”
The woman started cackling and she raised her gangly arms above her head, reaching for the ceiling.
“IT’S MEEEEEEEEEE!” she screamed, running at the bed.
Frank shouted in alarm and kicked at her as she approached, hitting her in the chest and driving her backwards. Unbalanced she fell into the wall with a yelp, crumpling in a pile by the door. Her eyes searched madly for Frank as she regained control of herself, crouching like a cougar about to pounce.
“Do you know her, Frank?” Rosie asked with shrill worry.
“I have no clue who she is!” Frank insisted throwing his hands up in exasperation without taking his eyes off of the woman.
She paused, and the smile on her face abruptly died.
“You’re mine,” she said flatly. Then she rushed at the bed again.
Frank cried out as the scrabbly hands of his assailant attempted to grab him, shoving her away only to receive several long scratches on his forearms from her long dirty nails. She jumped back like a cat and began to circle, fixated on the couple who were cramped into the corner of their bedroom, as far as they could get from the terrifying trespasser.
When she moved, her bony limbs twitched giving her the unnatural tick of an insect as she crept along the floor. There was an eerie silence as the hunched antagonist tried to maneuver behind Frank. She took a step or two to the side but when he matched her movements she abandoned the plan and charged again, piercing the tension with flailing arms.
She unleashed a horrifying wail, causing Rosie to scream in response and scamper across the bed for the door. Frank grabbed desperately at the emaciated woman’s wrists, but she barreled into him and the two fell onto the mattress in a struggling mess. The woman managed to land on top of him. She kept trying to grab at his head, despite him fighting furiously.
Frank finally managed to secure a firm grasp on both of her pencil-thin wrists, allowing him to hold her petite person at arms length. He noted her skin felt papery and dry with the look of leather, as if tanning was a forgotten interest of this individual’s younger years.
The older woman looked down on him with a sickening smile and rocked back and forth, playfully grinding on Frank’s groin. She began to giggle and then leant forward, stretching against his opposition in order to get close enough to kiss him.
As her breath drifted down to choke Frank he shuddered in revulsion. It took all of his strength to stop her from planting an infectious fat one on his trembling lips. Blood dripped from her wounded nose onto Frank’s face and he grunted in disgust as he endeavored to defend himself.
Rosie snuck around the side of the two combatants and shoved the woman off of her husband before fearfully darting back to a safer distance. The assailant rolled off of the bed with a shriek and hit her head on the wall, her legs sticking awkwardly in the air. She hastily struggled to her feet and once more lunged at Frank who managed to grab ahold of her wrists again before she could harm him.
“Rosie,” Frank urgently yelled, “Call the cops!”
Rosie snapped out of her stupor but pointed to her bedside table with a whine where Frank realized her phone lay charging out of reach.
“Use mine!”
Rosie grabbed Frank’s cell phone and retreated into the hall, as if the open doorway provided some form of defense against the mystery woman.
The skeletal stranger leaned into him, her horrid rotting breath smothering Frank’s face and causing him to gag when he attempted to breathe. He felt her weight pushing him back toward the bed and he strove to stay upright. She smiled a twisted smile revealing her broken grey teeth and tried to kiss him again.
When she couldn’t reach, she strained forward, biting at his face.
Frank shrieked in terror and held the intruder as far as he could from his person, clinging to her wrists as she fought his restraint.
“You’re my soulmate,” she whispered to him, her eyes bulging with excitement, “We’re destined to be together.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Frank snapped back, struggling to control the wiry older woman. Despite her thin limbs and small frame she had a surprising strength that scared him.
“Who are you?” Frank persisted, “How did you get in?”
“You’re miiiiiiiiiiine,” she sang at him, her rancid breath leaking out and forcing him to cough again, “You’re my soooooul maaaaaate.”
Frank tried his best to hold her off but despite having the advantage of youth, she began to fight with more ferocity, kicking and biting at him until he had to push her away with all of his strength. He turned and fled, stumbling from the bedroom out into the light of the hallway and yanking the door closed behind him.
After the slam there was a nerve wrecking silence. His heart pounded softly in his ears as he listened for any sound of pursuit.
There was a bang on the door as the woman threw herself against it, but Frank held onto the knob and after a few seconds of violent shaking, quiet settled again.
Muffled laughter could be heard from the other side.
“We’ve got aaaaaall the time in the world, baby,” the woman hissed against the wood, “You’re my soul mate.”
Rosie was holding the phone to her ear with tears of fear streaming down her cheeks. She pleaded with the police to hurry to their address. The young husband and wife shared a terrified look before they flinched at the sound of smashing glass.
Rosie’s eyes widened and Frank threw the door open to find the cold autumn wind blasting in through the broken bedroom window.
Their dangerous visitor had escaped into the night.
Frank ran to the front door but found it was still locked. He quickly undid the latch and sprinted outside into the streetlight, desperately searching both ways for any sign of the woman.
The dark road was empty.
As the cold wind swirled around him, Frank shivered with his questions, and headed back into the house to console his crying wife and await the police.
If you enjoyed that, here are some more stories by Sincerely Seb:
The Cetacean Machination
If you swam three hundred miles out into the Gulf of Mexico you would most likely drown.
Check out the first part of my fantasy Christmas adventure:
The Last Day of Christmas | Part One
The wind howled across the infinite, barren plains of the world like a sad wolf that had lost its pack. Safely hidden one hundred feet below the rocky, snow laden land was Outpost 63 and what remained of its crew.
© 2025 Sebastian Arends | Sincerely Seb. All Rights Reserved.
Unauthorized use, reproduction, or distribution of any part of this story or accompanying image is prohibited without permission from the author. No generative artificial intelligence (AI) was used in the writing of this work. The author expressly prohibits any entity from using this publication for purposes of training AI technologies.
My goodness, what a terrifying encounter! Loved it! Will we find out what happens next? Or do we let out imagination run wild?
Beautiful