“You’re such a jerk. I can’t believe you’re trying to make me feel guilty.”
“Guilty for what? For not getting ice cream for your poor tired hubby after he’s worked hard all week and then slaved over a hot stove all day to make you a nice meal? I did cook you breakfast and dinner.”
“Well, I made lunch and you burned the pancakes this morning, so we’re even. But the enchiladas were pretty good. I guess that’s worth a trip to the grocery store.”
“Wait until I finish with the dishes. I’ll go with you.”
“That’s a good hubby.”
“Don’t push it, woman.”
Josh and Sarah were arm in arm, looking like new love as they walked out of the house and climbed into their SUV. When they drove off, they glanced only casually at the house across the street. There was a light on in the den and Sarah thought she could make out the silhouette of the neighbor’s head through the closed blinds.
An hour later they were curled up in bed with a couple pints of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, watching Dexter on Showtime. Sarah was asleep before the credits rolled.
Josh must have gotten up and turned off the television after she’d fallen asleep because the room was completely black when Sarah awoke suddenly to the sound of her husband choking. She reached out for him and her hand came back wet. Josh was bleeding. His throat had been cut. He was choking on his own blood. When Sarah’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw the new neighbor standing above her husband, stabbing him in his chest again and again.
“Oh my God! What are you doing? Josh! Oh my God! Josh! Get the fuck away from my husband! You’re killing him! Heeelllp!”
Sarah grabbed hold of her husband and began scrambling off the bed, trying to drag him with her, away from the crazed man with the knife.
The neighbor put the knife, dripping with her husband’s blood, against Sarah’s throat and raised a finger to his lips.
“Shhhhhhh. Shut. The. Fuck. Up. I don’t want to kill you but I will and I’ll enjoy it.” Dale smiled to emphasize the point. “I’m going to fuck you anyway. Dead or alive.”
“Y-you-you killed Josh. Oh my God. You killed him!”
The neighbor’s fist lashed out and punched Sarah in her mouth, knocking her back onto the bed.
“I told you to be quiet. Since you won’t cooperate, I’m just gonna have to kill you first.”
The neighbor climbed over her husband’s corpse and straddled Sarah’s stomach. He drew the knife across Sarah’s throat, cutting through both her jugular vein and carotid artery and lacerating her windpipe all in one clean cut. Sarah watched her own blood spray out over her breasts. She was struggling to breathe, lungs filling with blood, drowning, as she watched the neighbor begin to undress. When she saw him remove his erect penis from his pants she hoped that she would be long dead before she felt that puny uncircumcised thing inside of her.
The neighbor was fondling her bloodied breasts and stroking his ugly little cock. Her blood squished between his fingers as he squeezed her breasts and pinched her nipples. Sarah was beginning to lose consciousness. The neighbor slid his cock between her breasts and was using the blood from her severed throat as lubrication as he fucked her tits. When he finally came, his cum splashing onto her neck and face and mingling with the blood in a sickening mess of red and white, Sarah had already begun to convulse. By the time the neighbor was hard again, she was already dead, sparing her from feeling his cock between her thighs and in her mouth.
It was still dark when Sarah woke up in her bed with the taste of blood and semen on her tongue. Josh was snoring quietly beside her. The sheets smelled fresh, like they had just been washed. So did Sarah. Even Josh smelled unusually clean. He smelled like Irish Spring and ammonia. Sarah screamed.
She kept screaming even when Josh woke up and wrapped his big, strong arms around her. Even when he began to rock her back and forth and stroke her hair and tell her that everything would be okay. She was still screaming as he kissed the tears from her eyes. His eyes were half closed and he was still blinking the sleep from his eyes and trying to clear his head but even half-asleep his first priority had been her.
“It’s okay, Sarah. It was just a bad dream. Everything’s okay.”
Sarah checked Josh’s neck and chest. Then she checked her own. There were no wounds, no blood. She dropped her head onto Josh’s shoulder and began to weep.
“That sick bastard. You don’t know what he did to me. He killed us. You were dead. We both were. The new neighbor…that guy…uh, Dale…he murdered us!”
“It was just a dream.”
“No! He stabbed me! He stabbed you and…and he raped me! It wasn’t a dream!”
“Baby, you’re okay. You’re not dead. I’m not dead. It was a dream. That’s all. A bad dream. Now go back to sleep. You’re safe. I’m right here. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Sarah laid her head down on the pillow and pulled Josh’s arms around her. He snuggled up against her back, spooning with her as she slowly drifted back to sleep. He didn’t notice the door across the street open and the porch light click off, but Sarah did. Sarah shivered and began to weep again. She buried her face in the pillow and shook her head back and forth.
“No. No. No. No.”
It was a long time before she fell asleep again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When Sarah woke the next morning she didn’t remember anything that had happened the night before. Her mouth still tasted like pennies and the smell of soap and disinfectant still permeated the air, tickling the fine hairs in Sarah’s nostrils. She stretched, looked over at Josh, who was already dressed and ready for work, and smiled.
“Good morning, lover.”
“Good morning. That must have been one hell of a dream you had last night.”
“What?”
“You woke up screaming in the middle of the night. You said you had a dream about that guy who just moved in across the street killing both of us?”
“That little skinny guy? I’d probably kick his ass.”
“You said he raped you and stabbed us both to death.”
“Wow. He must have really creeped me out the other day. I don’t remember any of that.”
Sarah looked over at the clock on the nightstand. It was seven thirty in the morning.
“Aren’t you late for work?”
“I’ve got a few minutes. I just wanted to make sure you were okay before I left.”
“I’m fine. Go ahead and get to work. I’ll let you know if the neighbor tries to break in and kill me.”
Sarah winked coyly and draped her arms around the back of Josh’s neck and gave him a light kiss on the lips.
“You sure you don’t want me to stay?”
“Not unless you’re going to spend the day fucking me. But honestly, I’m still sore from yesterday. I need a few hours to rest up.”
“You are incorrigible.”
“Maybe dreaming about the neighbor all night made me horny.”
“Dreaming about Santa Claus makes you horny.”
“He does look good in those big leather boots and he carries a whip.”
“You have problems.”
“And you have fifteen minutes to get to work.”
Josh bent over and kissed Sarah again.
“Good-bye, sweetheart.”
“Bye, lover.”
Sarah rolled back over and snuggled up against her pillow as she listened to Josh’s footfalls descend the stairs and walk out the front door. The door closed quietly with just a slight click and then the garage door rose as Josh pulled the SUV out of the garage. Sarah squeezed the pillow and a small red dot appeared on the pillowcase. She threw back her sheets and the indentation of her body was outlined with blood that had seeped up through the mattress.