I just found my wife outside.
I'm sitting here, freaking out. It's 3:17am, and I just found my wife outside. This is going to be a mess, as I'm still shaking, but let me explain it as best I can.
So a bunch of years ago we lived in another house. One night I woke up in the middle of the night because I heard noises coming from the other half of the house. I quietly opened the bedroom door and immediately saw a light on in my wife's study which was situated next to the kitchen. The house we lived in was a few blocks away from "the bad neighbourhood", so my immediate thought was that someone had broken in and was going through the stuff in my wife's room, as my wife had come to bed with me several hours prior and as far as I knew, she was still in bed.
I crept through the house and was ready to confront the person in the room, when I realized that it was my wife. In my still half-asleep state, I just assumed she was still in bed. Turns out she had woken up, couldn't get back to sleep, and so went to her room to browse Facebook or whatever for a while. I had almost confronted my own wife thinking she was a burglar.
Now, in our current house, we have a screen door and a wooden door. The wooden door has a deadbolt on it, and you have to make sure that you take the house keys with you because if you close the wooden door, you're not getting back in unless you grab the hidden spare key or knock on the door / window to be let back in.
So it's about an hour ago, I'm woken up by the front door rattling. I immediately grab my phone and pull up the security camera located right by the front door. To my surprise, I see my wife standing there, kinda shivering. It's definitely her, because we've been married over a decade and I know what my own wife looks like. She's dressed in the same clothing she wore today, a red top and black pants. 100% her. I dunno what she's doing outside, but she is.
Confused, I roll over and there's my wife fast asleep. Remembering the incident in our last place, I use my phone screen to shine a light on her and confirm that it's definitely her and she's definitely in the bed. At this point I'm really confused. I get up and make my way through the house to the front door. As I walk into the loungeroom our cat looks up at me, half asleep. Normally she's super curious about stuff going on outside, and I would have thought that hearing the screen door rattling would have caused her to be at the door trying to see what's going on, but it's as if she hasn't heard a thing.
I stand by the door and call out "who is it?".
"It's me, hurry up and let me back in, I'm freezing. I went outside because I heard something but forgot to take the keys in my bag with me"
That absolutely sounds like my wife. Accent, intonation, knowledge about where her set of keys are, everything. But I'm not convinced, because I've just seen her sleeping in the bed with my own eyes.
"Hold on a second" I tell her. Now I'm heading back through the house and into the bedroom. I wake up my wife and say "this is really fucking weird, you have to see this". I open the camera app and show her the front door. She's still at the door, looking around, wondering what I'm doing because all I need to do to let her back in is turn the handle on the deadbolt and open the door.
My wife says "what the fuck? When was that recorded?". I tell her "it's not. This is live. You're standing outside by the front door. I just went down there and asked who it was, and your voice told me it was you and that I should let you back in because you're freezing and you left your keys in your bag"
My wife gets up and peers through the bedroom window, as you can just see the front door alcove from there. She gasps and pulls the curtains shut. She turns around and I'll never forget the look on her face as long as I live. She's terrified.
"That's me!" she says.
At this point I'm freaked the fuck out. I'm wide awake. I'm speaking to my wife, and I'm physically touching her while trying to peer out the window with her, but there she is, standing outside in the very outfit she wore today. Same hair, same glasses, same everything.
We walk into the loungeroom and I grab the big torch I have. It's a big sturdy metal super bright light, great for blinding people and hitting them if they get too close. We stand by the door again.
"What's your name?" I ask. She tells me her full name including her middle name. It's correct.
"What's your birthdate?". She tells me. It's also correct.
"What did we have for dinner tonight?". She tells me this too, and tells me that I cooked it. This is right too.
I can hear my (real) wife standing next to me, trying to control her breathing, as she's scared out of her wits. I nudge her and whisper "ask her something only you would know". After a moment to steady herself and think of something, she speaks.
"When we last stayed with my parents, what change had dad made to my old room?"
There was a pause.
"Who is that?" the person outside said. "Why aren't you letting me in? You know it's me. You're starting to freak me out here. Who is that inside with you? Is that a recording of me? What's going on here?"
I said "answer the question. What change had been made to your room when we last visited?"
Another pause, then finally "uh.. there was a second bed added, as Max and Damian [my brother in-law's two kids] sleep in there while visiting mom and dad"
There's an audible gasp from my wife next to me. Now we're both freaked out. I grab her hand and lead her back into the bedroom and turn the lights on.
We're still awake, watching the cameras. The other person walked towards the backyard, presumably to grab the spare key, but that was about 40 minutes ago and I haven't seen them since. I'm too shit scared to go to bed, because I'm scared that this person, who knew everything about my wife, will find the spare key and enter. I don't know who the fuck they really are, or what they want, but I'm not sleeping.