The first time was an accident.
We were fighting. All couples fight, but this was different. Lucy was screaming at me. Waving her hands in my face, pounding my chest with her hands. Was it my fault there had been layoffs at work? Was it my fault that she was too LAZY to try and get a job herself? I was on the computer all day, from morning to night, job searching. And I was the stupid one? I was the failure?
I wrapped my hands around her fat, fleshy throat, and I squeezed. Just a little, not even hard. All I wanted was for her to shut up. I just wanted some peace and quiet, for once.
She stopped screaming.
I took Lucy’s head in my hands and I told her I didn’t mean it. Told her I was sorry. Asked her to please wake up. She didn’t.
I panicked. I took the body into the backyard and buried it in the flowerbeds. Resting amongst her beloved rosebushes. Lucy might have found that poetic.
I went back inside, and puked into the kitchen sink.
I had no plan, no cover story. Some nosy neighbor might have spotted me digging, or heard Lucy screaming. I spent most of the afternoon alternating between the bottom of a bottle and sitting on my bed sobbing, waiting to hear sirens. I downed half a bottle of pills only to throw them up minutes later. I was losing my mind. At some point, I must have passed out from exhaustion.
The next morning, I awoke to the smell of frying bacon.
You can’t possibly imagine my surprise when I walked downstairs to find Lucy waiting for me. Alive and well, not a scratch on her. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
At first I thought the events of the previous day had just been a terrible nightmare. I sat down at the kitchen table, torn between shock and overpowering relief as my wife set a steaming plate of pancakes down in front of me. She went on and on about some nonsense she had seen on TV the other day and I nodded along absentmindedly. Everything seemed normal. I almost fell for it.
I hadn’t touched my food. Something about the lingering image, real or not, of burying the dead corpse of my wife had robbed me of my appetite. Lucy kept encouraging me to eat, but I just wasn’t in the mood. However, I noticed that she wasn’t eating either. I commented on it, but she just kept rambling on about TV like she hadn’t heard me.
Finally, I decided that I needed to get back to work searching for jobs. I stood up from my uneaten breakfast, waving off Lucy’s protests, and started for the living room. On the way, I stopped to grab a beer from the fridge.
As I went to throw the cap away, I noticed a shiny bottle in the trash can. RAT POISON was written on the label. Wondering where Lucy had seen rats in the house, I turned to ask her.
Just in time to see her lunging towards me with a knife.
I don’t completely remember what happened next. There was a struggle. The next thing I knew, I was standing over the body of my wife, who lay motionless on the kitchen floor. My arms and wrists were covered in cuts, but the knife was buried in the stomach of Lucy. Blood was everywhere.
I checked for a pulse, but she was gone. For the second time, I had murdered my wife.
As I tried to staunch the flow of my own blood, I was terrified. What was going on? Why had Lucy tried to kill me?
Didn’t she know that I had already killed her?
After I bandaged my arms, I checked the pancakes on the kitchen table. I couldn’t tell for sure, but after cutting them open and examining them closer, I thought I could smell a faint trace of rat poison. I was unsure what to do now. I almost called the police.
But then I realized the body was gone.
Blood still covered the kitchen, but there was no sign of Lucy. I searched the entire house, wondering if she had somehow managed to survive and crawl off, but there was no sign of her.
The next morning, Lucy was sleeping peacefully next to me in bed when I awoke. Again, no wounds, no sign of injury at all. In fact, she looked… beautiful. More beautiful than she had in years.
Her eyes opened. “Good morning, honey,” she said, smiling. “I have a present for you.” She went to reach for something next to the bed.
I grabbed my pillow and smashed it down over her face. I held it there, long after her frantic movements had ceased. After I was certain she was dead, I looked at what she had been reaching for.
A loaded gun lay on the nightstand.
I took a shovel out to the backyard. I tore up the flowerbeds, as fast as I could. Soon, I found what I was looking for.
Lucy’s rotting, decomposing face grinned up at me. Maggots wriggled over her, and the stench was overwhelming. She had been dead for days.
I covered my face in my hands and screamed.
I have killed my wife 12 times. Every morning, she returns, tormenting me. I haven’t slept, haven’t left the house. She could be waiting around any corner, watching. Awaiting her vengeance.
Please, stop. Lucy, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I DIDN’T MEAN IT.
Please, just stay dead.