The not-so-famous author was pacing near the window when the sidewalk gate clanged shut. His incrediblyfamous author wife waddled up the lane, dressed in dark clothes from shoes to hat, looking every bit ‘the queen of modern horror’. Vanity Fair’s term, not his. With shaking hands, he placed the box on the kitchen table. Inside his chest, his heart trembled like a caged bird.
“It’s showtime,” he muttered with a sneer.
She burst through the door like the miserable hurricane that she was, wearing the same dour expression she’d worn for the last thirty years. He forced a smile to his lips and ushered her to a seat at the table. “Happy birthday, my dear,” he belted out with all the fake enthusiasm he could muster.
She glared at him spitefully and lifted the box’s top. Her foul mood seemed to lift when she saw the magnificent cake inside. Chocolate Decadence with white buttercream frosting. Her favorite.
“Tell me all about the book signing,” he said in as sugary a voice as he was able while making careful knife strokes through the cake’s moist layers. “Were the people awful again?”
Her book sales outnumbered his a hundred to one, but her contempt for her fans had always been one of their secrets. She indulged him with a story about one “particularly horrendous” woman who had all but ruined her day. “She wanted me to autograph twenty books, all of which she’d brought from home.” She shoveled a forkful of cake into the hole between her tremendous cheeks. “Can you believe it? The books were in a deplorable condition. Why, one was even bereft of its cover.”
She paused for a moment, and something caught her eye. The top of the cake was shivering. Her eyes widened at first with curiosity and then with horror as several spindly legs poked through the frosting. Inside the confection, something was moving of its own accord—something alive. Suddenly, the cake collapsed upon itself. An enormous spider emerged from the dark spongy crater. It hauled itself out of its delicious prison like a zombie hand escaping a chocolate tomb.
Her fork clattered to the table when the thing reared back on its haunches. It seemed furious to be there, and especially furious about the sticky goop coating its corpulent body. With a click of its jaws it scuttled toward her with terrifying speed, leaving an ugly brown smear on the tablecloth. At the edge of the table, the spider leapt toward her.
She jumped to her feet, and her chair fell back with a clatter. The spider plopped onto the linoleum, but by then the damage was done. She sucked in a breath to scream but it stopped abruptly. A look of confusion settled on her face. A guttural grunt sounded deep inside her throat. She grabbed the base of her neck with her hands crossed at the wrist—the universal sign for choking.
His voice dripped with sarcasm. “My dear, is something wrong?”
Her eyes bulged with panic. Crimson splotches exploded across her cheeks. She grabbed a nearby chair and slumped across it, centering the backrest directly beneath her ribcage. She heaved her body down once, twice, trying to clear the obstruction from her throat. It was no use. She dropped to her knees, then flopped onto her back. She wiggled around like a dying fish for a long moment before growing perfectly still.
He smiled down at her swollen, purple face.
“Gotcha,” he said.
•••
The spider was a Goliath Birdeater, one of the largest tarantulas in the world. She’d been a world-class arachnophobe for as long as he could remember. Throw in a recent case of heart disease, and, well… the combination was a time bomb waiting to happen. He’d hoped for a heart attack when she saw the spider. Choking had been an unexpected outcome, but one he’d happily accepted.
The arachnid had cost him a couple thousand dollars on the internet. Now that it had completed its mission, he didn’t hesitate to squash it with a broom. Whack! He swept the mangled creature into the trash, along with the remnants of the ruined cake. In its stead he placed a second cake, an exact replica of the first, save for one minor detail—the new cake was missing the secret compartment in which he’d hidden the spider.
He cut himself a magnificent slice, but only allowed himself a single bite. He suffered from a touch of arrhythmia himself, so it was best to watch what he ate. Now that she was gone, he intended to enjoy his life for a long, long time to come. The rich chocolatey flavor satisfied him deeply. He sighed blissfully, before flushing the rest of the slice down the disposal. A moment later, he dialed for help.
“911,” the voice on the phone said. “What’s your emergency.”
“My wife,” he said, faking a desperate tone. “Please, hurry.”
•••
“Where were you when it happened?” the first officer asked, staring down at the cold body.
“The shower,” he sobbed, surprised how the performance grew easier with every passing moment. “We were supposed to go out for dinner. I didn’t even know she’d made it home.” He threw himself against the wall and wailed in a pantomime of grief. “She was eating her,” he paused for dramatic effect, “buh-buh-birthday cake without me!”
The second officer scrawled notes on a pad as he wandered through the mansion. He gawked in disbelief when he got to her study. The occult items she had gathered over the years lined every shelf—totems, candles, oils, talismans.
“Grim stuff,” he said, flipping through a book on witchcraft.
“Research,” the husband said. “It’s what set her apart.”
He refrained from mentioning the strange things he’d witnessed since she began dabbling in the dark arts. Like the eerie voices issuing from her locked study. The shallow grave full of slaughtered neighborhood pets in the yard. The night he’d woken to find her hovering above their bed.
In the kitchen, a coroner zipped up the body in a bag.
“Everything checks out,” the second policeman explained. “But before we go—”
“Say no more.” He handed the officers bags filled with pre-signed copies of her latest bestseller.
“Thank you,” policeman #1 said.
“An honor,” said policeman #2.
“I also included a copy of MY latest novel, in case you’re so inclined,” he said with a smile. “Oh, and a few slices of cake for each of you. Please, enjoy.”
•••
At the funeral, security had to turn away many of her fans at the door. This was fine with him. The service was already a freakshow. Hundreds of weirdos huddled in pews in their gothic clothing. Their powdered faces cast a sickly sheen under the iridescent light.
He never understood how so many people could harbor an appetite for the themes she wrote about, all the violence, horror, and retribution. Their cold stares made him uncomfortable. More than once, they pointed in his direction, whispering to each other in hushed, secretive tones.
He decided they were jealous. She had chosen to spend her life with him, and they simply couldn’t stand it.
By day’s end, he’d forgotten them all.
His new life had begun.
•••
A few nights later during a summer rainstorm he sat in his study working on a new novel. The inspiration was flowing, and words flew from his fingers with ease. While a wind picked up outside and thunder boomed in the distance, he typed out the final lines of the first chapter. He was deep in thought when the front gate clanged shut. Three sharp raps sounded on the entryway.
Who could it be? he thought angrily. How dare anyone disturb an artist such as he when he was immersed in his work! He expected no visitors, especially this late in the evening. He had half a mind to curse out whoever it was. In a rage, he crossed the room, and grabbed the door handle. Without thinking, he swung the door open wide.
In the pouring rain at the end of the doorstep stood a shadowy visitor. The scent of damp earth rattled his composure, and he felt his dinner rising in his throat. A flash of lightning revealed the knocker’s identity—his dead wife! Her rotting eyes flashed with rage. Black beetles skittered across her sallow flesh. His blood ran cold when she lifted an accusatory finger in his direction. “Youuu!” she shrieked.
He stood unable to move, while his pulse pounded in his ears.
In one alarming motion, she charged toward him, her soggy shoes creaking against the doorstep.
Blinding fear assailed his body. He clutched at the sudden stabbing pain in his chest. No! he thought. His clenched teeth came down on the gristle of his tongue and the brawny tang of blood filled his mouth. Beneath him, his legs buckled, as he fell to the floor like a marionette cut from its strings. Slowly, he lifted his gaze to the nightmarish ghoul towering over him, before gasping out his final, painful breath. “Gotcha,” she croaked.
Unbeknownst to Robert Stahl (he/him) his body is an empty shell, telepathically controlled by a brain in a jar which was buried long ago under the floorboard of his home in Dallas, Texas. Consequently, his days are filled with the urge to write: stories, letters, articles, whatever. At night he listens to music, and when he finally drifts off to sleep, the brain laughs, a humorless, pitiful sound as it jiggles alone in the dusty darkness.
