September 2006 Issue The Horror Library, your Haunted Home for Horror Fiction, Dark Art, Horror Games, Movie Reviews, Book Reviews, Non-Fiction, Alternative Music, Horror Authors, Horror Short Fiction and featuring The Terrible Twelve - RJ Cavender, Bailey Hunter, Boyd E Harris, Megg Roper, Jason Beirens, CJ Hurtt, Eric Stark, Cordelia Snow, Chris Perridas, Curt Mahr, Stephen Sommerville, M Louis Dixon, Kerry Drummond
Sarah sat at the kitchen table, sipping wine and watching Kevin work. All chirpy and chatty, he busied himself at the counter, ripping and shredding and chopping, building a bright and lovely salad. She had wondered if he had figured out that she was on to him, that she knew what he was all about. She didn't have to wonder long.
Watching him work and toss sweet glances and roguish grins over his shoulder, she knew he had.
Near two years it had been since he'd tried to please her in any way, done anything for her, touched her. And now suddenly he was behaving as he had when they'd first met, when she was still untried and unconquered. Before she knew of the real evil beneath the surface of all that lovely manly flesh. Flesh she had allowed to marry her, lie beside her, make love to her. If what he did could be called loving.
Colorful salad piled high; he turned and placed it before her with a charming bow and wide white-toothed smile.
Steeling herself, Sarah met his look, and there, deep within his dark eyes, she saw missing children. Her hand shook in a tremble she fought to control, keeping her bottom lip between her teeth and the glass she sipped from, lest the crystal clatter against her teeth.
"You like?" he asked.
"It's lovely. So very colorful." She stared at the artfully crafted combination of leaves and flowers, nuts and mushrooms, seeds and sprouts, piled on a textured garden plate. Porcelain grape leaves and fruit curled in a raised wreath about what she knew to be a center of near translucent milkiness beneath the salad.
The dish belonged to her favorite set, left to her by her grandmother. The old but sprightly woman who had warned her that he did not feel right to her. The one who soon became fragile and seemed to fade away before her very eyes no matter the wonderful things he had cooked to tempt her appetite. Knowing what she now knew, a cold realization snaked deep into her soul and rocked her.
"Come now, I've worked all morning long gathering and preparing our brunch." Long fingers removed the wine glass from hers. "Where's your appetite?"
"I don't know. I just feel a bit off today." Accepting the salad fork and linen napkin he offered, she stirred the upper layer about. "I recognize the pansies, but what are these yellow blooms?"
He laughed. "I don't recall the name of them, but I do know they're delicious. Don't wait for me. Go ahead and begin while I get mine ready."
As he turned away, all she could think of was the very same yellow meadow buttercups nestled amongst the greenery of her grandmother's salad two years ago and one small bare foot showing just above the ground's surface beneath the Russian sage hedge after yesterday's heavy rain.
Lifting the top layer of leaves: some grass green and some dark and dull, she found small dark lavender blooms and two of purple shaped like bells.
She had done her best to erase her footprints yesterday evening, but she was now quite sure she'd not done enough. With what she now knew of the local wild plants, she was sure her plate held enough to kill three men, let alone one small woman.
The digitalis she took for her heart condition would maybe mask the foxglove but how, she wondered, did he plan to hide the rest of what they would surely find in her if they performed an autopsy?
Her chair scraped when she stood, and he turned to raise a questioning brow at her, the brow that used to intrigue her and make her smile. Now all she felt was the threat behind that sharpened stare, as sunlight slanting through the window glanced off the blade he held.
"Sarah?"
She smiled somehow. "Just going to the bathroom, darling." Picking up a glowing slice of tomato, she put it to her lips and licked its length, then bit it through and allowed her smile to widen. "I'll be right back."
He relaxed visibly. "Hurry back then."
She was quite proud of the slow pace she managed to tread out of the kitchen, down the hall and all the way up the stairs and, when he came looking for her, she was ready.
The boom of the magnum echoed in the small bathroom, deafening her to the second and third shots, but one thing she knew for sure.. he'd not be coming after her when she left.
