The other half (standard:horror, 2434 words)
Author: Lev821	Added: Mar 10 2022	Views/Reads: 902/562	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
After she'd killed and buried her husband, he wasn't happy

He stared out from behind the glass of a small frame, the picture taken
22 years ago as he stood on a beach, the sea behind him beneath a 
cloudless sky. She wanted to feel emotion at his passing, wanted to 
shed a tear, but couldn't. He hadn't been a bad husband, and he 
certainly hadn't been good, but then neither had she. Yet he had seemed 
to treat her as though she wasn't really there. She had been someone he 
could fall back on when he had nothing else. 

He had had many affairs, but she always forgave him. It had come to the
point where he would simply tell her he had been with another woman. He 
didn't fear any repercussions from her because he knew she would 
forgive him. He had exploited this for many years, using her 
reliability to get away with anything. 

Perhaps it was because she needed him as much as he needed her. The word
‘doormat' often sprang to mind. If that was what she was to him, then 
so be it. At one point she had thought he may be right. If she could 
put up with his playing away and drunken mood swings, then there must 
be something wrong with her if she stayed. What was it that she didn't 
have that made him look elsewhere for affection? 

Again, if she could not provide contentment for him, then that of course
must prove that there was indeed something wrong with her. This 
provided the reason for her forgiveness. It was a case of, if I cannot 
provide you with what you are looking for, then I forgive you for 
looking for it elsewhere. Yet, at the back of her mind, suppressed by 
this train of thought, was her conscience telling her: ‘Sandra, how 
long is this going to go on? Tell me you're not living in denial. He's 
using you as a base. Off he goes to work all day as head of his car 
insurance agency, coming back for his tea, then going back out to 
nowhere you've ever been with his rich mates, drinking and getting up 
to all sorts while you're sat in here watching your soaps and waiting 
for him to come in so you can make him a cup of tea in the false notion 
he actually cares about you. You provide him with his food, mother him, 
and believe that one day he'll change. You know very well he's not 
going to change. 

Is he suddenly one day going to stop his philandering, buy a huge bunch
of roses and declare his undying love, and never even glance at another 
woman? You've more chance of walking on Mars. This seed of doubt 
eventually grew to overpower the notion of reservation she had 
harboured for many years. 

It is the reason she had killed him. 

She had poisoned his food, and finished the job with one of his rusty
saws he kept in the garage for the rare occasions he actually bothered 
to decorate. 

Perhaps it was desperation borne of insanity. Her tolerance over the
years had slowly eroded away any normal thoughts she used to have, and 
brought with it a type of neuroses that eventually led her to let him 
ingest the poison. 

Why she had to saw him in half, she couldn't really answer. Maybe it was
in case he woke up. Perhaps she hadn't put enough poison in. If he 
found out, then she guessed he wouldn't be too happy about it. 

Her hands were still filthy with soil, having buried him in the garden
which had never properly been maintained. Occasionally an old lawn 
mower would be taken out of the garage and taken over it, but the weeds 
always grew back. Now though, in amongst the undergrowth was a large 
patch of soil. 

Using a rusty spade, she had surprised herself with her strength at
digging, especially at 59. There were no witnesses, the nearest 
neighbour being all of 50 metres away around the curve of a country 
lane that led into the town, and eventually the town of Lynswood. 

Silence hung in the air, omnipresent, his absence noted by the very
atmosphere, and altered accordingly. Walking out into the kitchen, she 
looked down at the place where she had used the saw, where his innards 
had spilt, where she found it hard to saw through his spine, where the 
blood carpeted the tiles, and seeped into every orifice and cavity in 
the kitchen. It was all gone now, mopped and soaked up with towels and 


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