Jack sat at the table again, the radio fixed and whole, ready to return to the spot on Mrs. Jones’s windowsill where she listened to it while washing her dishes. He stared at the radio without really seeing it, lost in his own mind, caught on too many questions that he couldn’t answer. Questions that scared the hell out of him.
Things were so much different than they’d been at first. Jill no longer came downstairs at all unless she needed him, though she seemed to need him more often every week. He always doubted that Jill was her real name and patted himself on the back for being quick enough to realize she probably chose the name just to be cute. Now he seriously wondered if she was even human.
Summer was coming; her smell would only get worse. No amount of air freshener held a chance in hell to mask it. He wondered how much longer she, they, could go on like this.
Maybe she was dying. Maybe she’d been dead when they met.
Jack took a shot of whiskey, this time from a shot glass rather than straight from the bottle, and glanced out the window, his eyes resting on the little shed outside. Inside sat an unused lawnmower, a weed whacker, gardening tools… a gas can. He was pretty sure it was still full.
He knew what he should do with that gas can, but he lit a smoke instead and stared out the window some more, trying to turn his thoughts elsewhere, into his fantasies.
Long-legged, nude beauties danced through his imagination while he kissed those young nymphs on all of their pink parts…
But that escape soured as well. Lately his fantasies grew darker until he didn’t want to dream anymore either.
Again he looked out at the shed.
He knew what he should do, what he needed to do. It wouldn’t even be that difficult. Take that gas can, splash it around, strike a match, and run like hell. Then go wherever he wanted. Never look back. Drink until he scoured the memories from his brain or damn well died trying.
He knew it’d never work that way. There would be an investigation. Someone would get curious. Maybe they’d poke through that unusual looking compost heap behind the shed, find the bones. He’d be hunted. They’d find him too, he never doubted that.
No, that wouldn’t be the way to do it. If he wanted out, there on the floor sat the boy’s empty gun. Before he lit the match, he’d buy a bullet, just one, because he knew exactly where to put it, and blow his brains out while the world burned around him.
Bang! All over for both of them—
The footsteps he’d missed while lost in his thoughts now stopped behind his chair. Jack heard what passed for breathing just over his shoulder.
If she touches me, I’ll do it! I swear to God I will!
“I’m hungry,” she said.
“I know.”
About the Author
A life-long fan of all things horror, C.W. LaSart resides in the Midwest with her three kids and beloved, Lou. Making her publishing debut in Dark Moon Digest Issue 1, she has since been included in other Dark Moon Projects, SNM Horror Magazine and was one of 3 winners of the Cemetery Dance Amateur horror contest. Her first collection, Ad Nauseam: 13 Tales of Extreme Horror, will be released early in 2012 by Dark Moon Books. Find out more at CWLaSart.com.
Copyright
Largo, Florida
AD NAUSEAM
Copyright © Caren Hanten
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-0-9850250-0-5
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
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Cover Artwork: Whendy Muchlis Effendy
Cover Design: Stan Swanson