Chapter 1

You’ve probably heard of the uncanny valley.

It’s that unsettling feeling you get when something looks almost human but not quite enough. A face that is close enough to familiar that your brain initially accepts it, only for some tiny discrepancy to make your skin crawl. A mannequin. A doll. One of those old computer games with strange models.

There are plenty of theories for why we react that way.

Some say we evolved to avoid the sick, the diseased, or the dead. Others think it comes down to attraction and symmetry: we recognize faces that fit a certain pattern, and instinctively recoil from those that do not. The sensation certainly goes beyond just finding what you see 'repulsive' though, if you search up images related to the uncanny valley it isn't just that they're ugly; there is something quite off about them.

But there is another theory.

Maybe the uncanny valley exists because, at some point in human history, there was an evolutionary advantage to recognizing something that looked human but wasn’t. That something hunted us that looked somewhat like us. There are examples of mimicry in nature like that, but nothing quite on this level.

You would think that, if such things ever existed, they would be gone now. Extinct. Forgotten. Reduced to folklore and campfire stories.

They couldn’t possibly still be out there.

I want to share three stories.

The first happened when I was four years old.

I was walking down a street with my mother. She had stopped to look through a shop window, and I, being four, kept walking. Maybe I had seen something interesting. Maybe I was chasing a bird. I honestly do not remember.

Things were different back then. A child wandering a few steps ahead of their parent was not treated as the immediate catastrophe it would be today.

Eventually, I got bored and turned around to find my mother.

She was standing a short distance behind me. She did not say anything. She simply held out her hand, a signal that it was time to leave.

I took it. We walked together for maybe ten feet before I heard someone scream my name.

I turned.

My mother was standing behind us, staring at me with absolute terror on her face. She was running toward me.

“Where did you go?” she cried. “How did you – what are you doing?”

She could barely get the words out. The hand holding mine suddenly went limp. Then it let go.

At first, I did not understand what was happening. I had assumed I had simply grabbed the wrong person's hand, as children sometimes do. Maybe the woman’s clothes looked like my mother’s. Maybe I had not been paying attention. I'm sure something like that's happened to you.

But that was not what happened.

The woman was dressed exactly like my mother. Same coat. Same scarf. Same handbag. Same shoes. And please remember, she was the one who held out her hand to beckon to me.

When I looked up at her face, I realized that it was also my mother’s face. Almost.

At the time, I did not have the language to describe what was wrong. My mother’s face was one of the most familiar things in the world to me. I saw it every day. Because of that familiarity, I think my brain had been filling in the gaps when something didn't make sense. It saw what it expected to see and ignored the things that did not fit.

But when my real mother grabbed me and pulled me away, I finally noticed.

One eye was spaced just a little too far from the other. One eyebrow sat higher than it should have.

The nose was almost right, but the bridge was too narrow.

And her expression…

That was the worst part.

It was not angry. It was not confused. It was not surprised. It was trying to look like my mother.

It was wearing an expression that I do not think a human face should be able to make: a careful, rehearsed imitation of concern, arranged incorrectly over features that did not quite belong together. It looked like a doll whose face had been partially melted under a candle.

I started screaming. The woman looked down at me for a few seconds. Then she turned and walked into an alleyway.

I never saw her again. My mother never let me out of her sight after that.

A few days later, I told my father what had happened.

He listened quietly, his face getting paler as I spoke. When I finished, he was silent for a long time.

Then he told me something that had happened to him as a child.

My father had grown up in a small town in Pennsylvania. He had a neighbor named John, and they usually walked to school together. It took about twenty minutes on foot. Again, this was a different time. Two children walking to school alone did not seem especially dangerous.

They had a usual meeting spot near the end of the road.

One morning, my father arrived and found John already waiting for him. This was strange, because my father was always the punctual one. John was usually late. Seeing him on time, let alone early was almost unheard of.

But John seemed cheerful enough. “Hey,” he said. “Check out my new hat.”

He pointed to a red baseball cap pulled low over his forehead. The brim cast a shadow over much of his face.

My father complimented him on it, and the two of them started walking. After a few minutes, John said, “I found a shortcut to school. Want to take it?”

My father was a kid. A shortcut sounded exciting. “Sure,” he said.

The trail curved near a stretch of thick woods. The boy in the red cap started leading him toward the trees.

Then someone shouted from behind them. “Hey! Wait for me!”

My father turned around. John was running toward them. The real John.

He was out of breath and furious, asking why my father had left without him. Why he had not waited at their usual meeting place.

My father looked back toward the woods.

The other John had stopped moving.

At first, my father could not tell what was wrong with him. The hat still covered most of his face. He was wearing the same clothes as John – the same jacket, the same jeans, the same worn sneakers.

But the longer my father stared, the more wrong it became. The face under the cap was similar, but not identical. The jaw was too narrow. The eyes were not level. The hat hid most of these imperfections, but not all of them.

Then the boy in the red hat turned and ran into the woods. My father and John never followed him. They ran to school instead.

My father said he spent years trying to convince himself it had been a prank. Maybe another boy from town had dressed up like John to scare him. Maybe he had imagined the entire thing.

But he never really believed that. And I could tell he was terrified of why the thing wanted to lead him astray and what it planned to do if successful.

For most of my life, I tried not to think about either story. I told myself that I had misremembered my childhood. That my father had embellished an old memory. That there were rational explanations for everything.

Then this morning happened. The third, main story I want to get into. My wife is away on a business trip.

She left two days ago and is not supposed to be home for another three. This morning, I heard the doorbell ring. I looked through the peephole and saw my wife standing on the porch. At first, I assumed her trip had concluded early.

She was wearing the coat she had left in. Her hair was tied back the way she usually wears it when traveling. She had the same suitcase beside her.

I had my hand on the deadbolt when my phone rang. It was my wife.

I looked down at the screen, then back through the peephole.

The woman outside was still standing there. I answered.

“Hey,” I said. “What happened? Did you come home early?”

There was a pause.

“What?” my wife asked.

“You’re at the front door.”

Another pause. Longer this time.

Then she said, very carefully, “No. I’m at the hotel. I won’t be home until Monday. I was calling to ask if you remember whether or not I'd packed my charger. I can't find it and-”

I stopped breathing. My door doesn't have a camera, a feature I was regretting not keeping. The peephole distorts what you see through it, hence my confusion.

I did not look through the peephole again. I moved to the front window instead, keeping low enough that whoever was outside would not see me.

From the side, I could see her clearly. Or it.

It was wearing my wife’s clothes. It had her suitcase. It had her hair. It had her face.

Almost.

The eyes were too far apart.

The mouth was too wide.

One cheekbone sat higher than the other.

And the expression on its face was the same one I remembered from childhood. Not anger. Not confusion.

A careful, artificial imitation of concern.

It looked directly at the window.

Then it smiled. My phone was still pressed to my ear. I hadn't been paying attention, prompting for my real wife to say something.

“What is it? Are you even listening.” my wife asked. “What’s wrong?”

The thing outside lifted one hand and knocked on the door.

Three soft taps.

I whispered, “There’s someone here. Someone who looks like you.”

My wife went quiet.

Lock the door. Call the police. That's what makes sense to do. But we live far too out.

The knocking came again.

Three taps. Then three more. The thing outside spoke. It had my wife’s voice. Like I was hearing it distorted through an old telephone.

“Please,” it said. “It’s cold.”

I shouted through the door, “Go away.”

For a moment, everything was silent. I thought it would go away, remembering those two stories.

But it hasn't left.

It was standing completely still.

It has not moved from the front step. It has not blinked. It has not adjusted its grip on the suitcase or shifted its weight.

It continues to knock.

My house has only one proper entrance and exit; that door. There are windows, but beyond them is nothing but forest for miles. I do not know whether it is alone. I do not know whether it can get in. I do not know whether it would follow me if I tried to run or if I could outrun it.

The knocking is getting louder.

It is no longer asking me to open the door. Now it is using my wife’s voice to tell me that she knows I am inside.

My wife is still on the phone with me.

She keeps telling me not to open the door.

But a few minutes ago, the thing outside stopped knocking.

I thought it was over but… two more people joined it. Not people I know, but there's something off about them as well.

This has never happened before. They're supposed to run away when they know the jig is up but… I guess they know that I'm alone. I called the police; they'll likely be an hour away.

I don't know if my door will hold if all three try to break in. I don't know if anyone has any advice when dealing with these mimics… but please hurry up.