My Better Half Read online

"Nobody calls me BITCH!" she yelled, fury pouring off her in waves. "Nobody!"

  She yanked the fork out and stabbed his other eye, pushing the fork as deep as she could. He shoved at her with one hand and clawed at the fork with the other, screaming like a wounded dog on the highway.

  "Shut up, you whiny cretin!" she growled.

  Her whole body was on fire. Her skin was so hot it felt like she was standing in a furnace. Her brain was seething. All she could think was she had to hurt him, had to punish him, had to make him pay.

  He stumbled into the stove, smearing blood all over the shiny steel. She watched him for a moment, growing angrier with every second. He wouldn't stop screaming, and he was making a complete mess of her kitchen.

  She ripped a filet knife from the knife block and sliced it across his grasping hands. "I SAID SHUT UP!!" she yelled.

  But he didn't. He kept shrieking and calling her terrible names. If he called her bitch one more time... He did.

  Overcome with fury, Lucille jumped on him, stabbing him in the throat. He gurgled frantically but the words become lost in the blood gushing out the hole. His fist struck her wildly in the head, but she didn't even feel it.

  She stabbed him again and again and again, dropping to the floor with him, stabbing him until his mouth stopped moving and his throat stopped bubbling pale, red bubbles.

  She stabbed him once more, then sat on top of him, panting in exhaustion, trying to understand what had just happened. Her body slowly cooled, and with it came the cold, hard reality of what she'd done.

  She scrambled off his body, gasping as pain shot up her feet. She glanced at the floor and realized it was covered in broken glass. Now that she wasn't angry, she could feel the cuts on her feet, and they hurt. A lot.

  She limped a few steps away and stopped to stare at him. He was dead, whoever he was. He was lying on her kitchen floor in a puddle of blood, totally and completely dead, and she had killed him.

  "Oh my god," she whispered. "What have I done?"

  She needed to call the police. She started to go for her phone but froze, staring in wide-eyed horror at his disfigured face.

  She couldn't call the police. It would have been one thing to just kill him. He'd called her a bitch. No, that wasn't the reason. He'd broken into her house and threatened to rape her. She was justified in defending herself. She was sure that she was.

  But this... This wasn't defending. This was slaughter. The fork was still hanging from his mangled eye, and his neck was just a mass of bloody flesh. His palms were flayed open, and his entire body was covered in blood. He had bled so much. How could he have bled so much?

  She would definitely end up in prison if she called the police. They would lock her away for such a long time she would never see her grandbabies.

  "What am I going to do?" she whispered, rocking back and forth on her injured feet.

  Her hands were coated in blood just like Lady Macbeth. Her white robe was ruined, stained with his blood. Her kitchen floor was a bloody, glassy mess. What had she done? What was she going to do?

  "The bath!" she suddenly yelped, running awkwardly towards the bathroom. Water was running over the top of the tub onto the tile and out into the hallway. She slid across the floor and slapped the faucet lever down. She reached her arm into the tub and pulled the drain, then sat on the rim of the tub and stared at her soaking floor.

  Just another mess she'd have to clean up. Surely this was a dream. Surely she'd fallen asleep and just had another imagining. She couldn't possibly have killed him. She couldn't have. Not like that. She was too... too unimaginative, boring, scared.

  She stared at the blood on her hands. It was tacky and smelled like metal. She had killed a man. She had brutally and definitely killed a man. She stood shakily and washed the blood from her hands, half expecting it to have stained them permanently, but it hadn't.

  She mopped the wet floor with towels, washed and bandaged her feet, put on some old work clothes, and walked slowly back into the kitchen.

  He was still there, sprawled across the creamy brown floor, face a mask of blood and terror. The blood splattered around him was bright, standing out starkly, almost cheerfully, against the earth tones of her kitchen. There was no doubt about it. He was dead. Totally and completely dead.

  Lucille swallowed a sob. "What have I done?" she whispered. "What have I done?"

  Her heart pounded fiercely. Richard was going to be home sooner or later. She had no idea when, and there was such a mess. She couldn't even begin to fathom how to clean it all up before he returned.

  She thought again of calling the police, but she knew she couldn't. The rage she'd been in when she'd killed him had left a mark. It may have started out as self-defense, but it hadn't stayed that way. She'd been enraged, and she had slaughtered him.

  She tiptoed carefully around the blood and retrieved her dust pan. Glass first. She stepped into her Crocs and started sweeping. Glass tinkled, and blood and wine smeared across the floor. After she dropped the glass in the trash, she stared at the bloody tile. Now what?

  Realistically she had to move the body, had to get it out of here before Richard came home. She pulled on her rubber cleaning gloves, then plucked the fork from his eye, grabbed the knife from the floor, dropped them both into the dishwasher, and turned the dishwasher on.

  She filled a glass with wine and downed it. Her heart hadn't slowed down, and she felt sick. She just wanted to crawl into her bed and hide.

  She glanced at the clock, wishing she knew when Richard would be home. She dropped her robe and the soaked towels into the washer and filled it with cold water to soak.

  Then she grabbed the dead man's arms and tried to pull him to the door. He didn't budge. She pulled again. He slid an inch, then stopped. "Damn it!" she hissed, panic making her want to vomit.

  She stared at him for a moment. He was a human being. Or had been twenty minutes ago. She wondered if he had a wife waiting for him. If he did, Lucille had done her a favor. Who wanted to be married to man who robbed and raped women? Lucille shuddered. At least all Richard did was cheat on her.

  A car drove up, and she froze, listening intently. The garage door didn't open, so she ran to the window and peaked outside, heaving a sigh of relief when she saw it was the neighbor and not Richard.

  She had to get the dead body out of here. She opened the dishwasher, jumping as steam poured out into her face. She waved it away and pulled the filet knife back out. Since she couldn't move him like he was, she'd have to make it so she could.

  He wasn't a person anymore. He was a lifeless hunk of meat, just like a roast or a chicken, and she needed to cut him up so he'd fit in the pan. Or the trunk.

  She laid the knife on his shoulder and sliced. It tore through his shirt and into his flesh. Blood seeped out rather slowly, but she tried to ignore it and kept cutting. Roast for dinner, she thought. That's all.

  She gasped when the knife stopped suddenly. His flesh was hanging open like a fileted steak, but she had hit his bone. She sawed at it for several minutes, but with all the gore oozing around the blade she couldn't tell if she was getting anywhere.

  She glanced at the clock. It was almost ten. She was running out of time. Richard never stayed out all night. What would he do if he came home and found her with a body? She couldn't even begin to guess, but she knew he certainly wouldn't help her bury it.

  There had to be a way to get it into manageable pieces. There just had to be. She tried all the knives in the knife block, but none of them could saw through the bone. She finally ran into the garage, searching desperately for a tool that might work. Richard had gone through a brief home improvement stage, and she was certain he had a saw or something somewhere.

  She opened box after box. Her stomach rolled, and her heart hammered wildly. She had to hurry. Finally she found something that looked kind of like a rifle with a saw blade attached to the front. She lugged it into the kitchen and plugged it in. It didn't quite reach.

  "For cry
ing out loud!" Lucille screamed. "What else can go wrong?!"

  She ran back into the garage, looking for an extension cord. She grabbed one off the wall and sprinted back to the kitchen, breathing heavily. Any minute. Any minute Richard could pull in.

  She plugged the saw in and pulled the trigger. It jerked angrily, and the blade lurched back and forth. When she touched it to the shoulder the blade caught a chunk of flesh and tore it off, spurting blood in her face. She dropped the saw with a gag and rubbed at her face with the back of her glove.

  "Keep it together, Lucille," she whispered. "You can do this." She almost laughed. There was absolutely no reason to believe she could do this. She had never done this. She couldn't possibly do this.

  She blinked back tears, trying to think, but she couldn't. All she could think was her life was over. She'd killed a man; she was going to be arrested; she was going to prison. Forever.

  She looked at the clock again. Richard was going to come home soon, and he was going to be greeted by an absolute mess. She frowned. Lucille Stevenson had never met a mess she couldn't clean up. Never. She could do this.

  She picked up the saw with trembling hands and pulled the trigger again. She touched it to the shoulder, and it tore through the already mangled flesh and jerked slowly through the bone.

  Finally, after pushing for what seemed like hours, his arm popped off and landed on the floor with a plop. She lifted it, trying to remind herself it was just a piece of meat, and stuffed it into a heavy-duty, black trash bag.

  She started the saw again, arms shaking with effort, and went to work on the other arm. When both arms were bagged, she started on the first leg. Sweat poured down her forehead as she held the saw in place, pushing on it with all her might.

  Damn, I'm out of shape, she thought, wishing she could take a break. Not that I've ever cut up a dead body before, but really. The saw finally snapped through the bone, and she fell forward. She dropped the saw and caught herself, but her chest landed on the squishy, bloody stub of his leg.

  She swallowed a gag, pushed herself up, and shoved the loose leg into a bag. Then she started sawing again. After she finished with the other leg, she stared at his torso. His chest was long, and she wasn't sure it would fit in a bag if his head was still attached. It would certainly make sense to saw his head off. She'd come this far.

  She set the saw at the base of his already disfigured neck and pressed the power button. She shuddered as his head wiggled back and forth, gasping when it popped off with a snap.

  Her stomach rebelled. She swallowed the bile that climbed up her throat and forced herself to breathe. She didn't have time to panic. It was already eleven o'clock.

  She shoved the head into a bag. Then she wiggled a bag up and over the torso. Once the torso was completely covered, she tied the red plastic strips as tightly as possible and sat back on her feet.

  "God!" she exclaimed. "What a mess!"

  The bags were covered in blood. There was blood all over the floor. There was blood and strips of mangled flesh hanging from the saw blade. Eleven bloody knives lay spread out on the floor. Her clothes were stained red, and she looked as if she was wearing gloves made of blood.

  She glanced at the clock with a frown. Richard should have been home by now. It didn't take him that long to climax. Ten minutes at most, but he'd been gone for hours.

  She had to hurry. She washed her gloved hands, opened the dishwasher, and shoved the knives in. She stared at the saw for a moment, then threw it in the dishwasher too. It would surely ruin it, but it would be clean. She'd put it back in the box, and Richard would be none the wiser. She rolled up the extension cord, and, after a moment's thought, tossed it in the dishwasher as well.

  She poured in more soap and started the dishwasher again. She got out six clean trash bags and carefully put the bags containing the arms, legs, and head in new, clean bags, stacking them in the only blood-free corner of the kitchen. She couldn't easily lift the torso, so she'd have to deal with it once the floor was clean.

  She tried not to think about Richard. She tried not to wonder when he'd be home.

  She got out the mop and started mopping. There was so much blood she had to keep changing the water. Who knew one person could spew so much blood?

  She mopped and mopped, breathing heavily, wishing she'd just given him the damn money and let him have his way with her. It might not have even been that bad. If only he hadn't called her "bitch".

  Richard used to call her a bitch. After the "honeymoon" stage, once he'd realized she was cold, he called her a bitch all the time. She hated it. But she put up with it. What else could she do? He was her husband. She had married him, hadn't she? Done deal.

  When she finished the floor, she grabbed a rag and started wiping down the counters and cabinet doors. Finally the entire kitchen was clean except the floor under the torso.

  She pushed and shoved until the torso was in a clean bag and dragged it across the room to the others. Then she mopped the floor again, rinsed the mop head with bleach, put it away, stripped off her clothes, shoved them in the washer, and ran upstairs to put fresh clothes on. Almost done.

  She heard Richard's car just as she was pulling a clean shirt over her head. "No," she moaned. She was so close. She ran down the stairs, reaching the kitchen just as he did.

  "Lucille," he said, voice a bit surprised and eyes a little glazed with alcohol. "I thought I told you not to wait up."

  Her heart was pounding so hard she wondered he couldn't hear it. "I got caught up cleaning," she murmured.

  "Oh." He glanced around the kitchen. "Good. It has been looking a bit shabby lately."

  Lucille bit her lip. It hadn't been. She cleaned all the time. And it's not like he ever helped her clean. He didn't help her do anything. He didn't even mow the lawn in the summer. She paid the neighbor's son to do it. She did everything, took care of everything.

  But right now she just needed him to go away. "I still have a little bit to finish up," she said with a smile. "See you in the morning, dear," she added, hoping he would go straight up.

  He shrugged and said, "Just don't wake me when you come in." She caught a whiff of acrid perfume as he waddled past her towards the stairs.

  She frowned at his back. She couldn't believe how old he looked. His belly had gone to fat, his hair was receding, and he walked like he needed a cane. Who would willingly have sex with him?

  She shook her head. This was not the time. She had a body to get rid of. She opened the door leading into the garage and lugged each bag over to her car, dragging the bag with the torso. She popped open her trunk and stared at it in relief. She'd always said it was big enough to carry a body in.

  She shoved the bags into the trunk and climbed behind the wheel. What now? What did one do with bags full of body parts?

  Chapter Three

  Lucille tried to remember all the movies she'd watched with people needing to dispose of bodies, but she didn't watch movies like that. She preferred... She didn't actually know what she preferred. Richard always picked.

  She shook her head. "Focus!" she snapped. "Body in the trunk!" If she dropped the bags in the reservoir would they come to the surface? She felt like they would. If she dumped them in the prairie coyotes would probably find them and drag body parts all over the place. She shuddered at the idea of some kid going out to play and finding an arm in his favorite hiding place.

  She laid her head on the steering wheel in exhaustion. It was way past her bedtime. She was tired; she was scared; she was too old for this.

  Her grandpa used to say "the simple solution is usually best". He wouldn't approve of what she'd done, but his advice was still sound. She was taking out the trash. So she'd take out the trash.

  She drove across town until she reached her regular grocery store. It was closed for the night. The lights were on, and deep inside night stockers were hard at work filling shelves with cans and boxes, but nobody was out back by the dumpsters.

  She drove down the
alley and parked by a dumpster. She'd never been in an alley before. She didn't even know how she'd known the dumpster would be here, but it was. Along with a lot of other filth.

  She didn't want to step out of the car. She didn't want to breathe alley air. She didn't want to walk on alley dirt. She cringed, imagining all the junk and disgusting stuff that would stick to her shoes and follow her home.

  "Get over it," she muttered, popping the trunk and stepping from the car. She ignored the something that squished under her shoe and walked to her trunk, breathing as shallowly as possible.

  She chucked one bag at a time into the dumpster, flinching with every bang and glancing around to make sure no one was there. Soon only the torso was left, and she stared at it in dismay.

  Her arms felt like overcooked noodles. She needed to work out more, join a gym, lift some weights. How could she possibly heave the torso over the side of the dumpster? She was exhausted, and she hadn't been able to lift it in the first place. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. I am Lucille Stevenson, she thought. I am strong. She snorted. Maybe fifteen years ago.

  But she didn't have a choice. She had to get the damn torso into the dumpster or she was screwed. She grabbed the bag and pulled it slowly out of the trunk, being careful not to let it drop to the ground. Once it was on the bumper, she knelt down and tried to leverage it onto her shoulders.

  She wished she'd just given him the money. She could have endured a few minutes of nasty business. It wouldn't have been any different than her couplings with Richard. Afterwards, she would have called the police, they'd have written a report, and she'd be in bed already. Asleep.

  Her muscles wouldn't be screaming in agony. She wouldn't be so tired she felt like she might actually die. And she wouldn't be here. In this nasty alley, by this nasty dumpster, with this nasty bag of trash on her shoulders.

  She grunted and heaved the bag up, stumbled to the dumpster, and dropped it over the side. It tumbled to the bottom with a bang. If she was lucky no one would ever even know the body was there.