She Always comes Back

 As promised here is a sample of my writing. This is my very first short story. It's a horror story which I don't actually write anymore... or at least haven't written any horror in awhile. This one is called "She Always comes Back".

I’ve been in this stinking place for near on fifteen years. A small portion of the lifetime I’ll spend in this hell; not even a drop of the time I’ll spend in the other one. I don’t often get cellmates nomore. Apparently the Warden has finally figured it’s a bad idea to place another living breathing soul in a cell with me. I don’t hurt them though. No sir, I always leave them alone. She’s the one that beats them, bloodies them, kills them.

I tried to warn the last one they put in here. I thought maybe he’d be able to get away before it was too late. I told him, I said she don’t want no one in here. She wants me alone. I said if he stayed in my cell, he’d die! Told him it wouldn’t be that night, no she never does it the first night. He’d have at least a week to live, but he needed to get out of my cell. Of course, he thought I was a raving lunatic. Hell, in this place I can see his point. He was comfortable living with a lunatic apparently. That first night she stayed away. The second night he woke, screaming like a little girl! He raised a lot of hell, I can tell you that. I asked him what she did. Must’ve been a nightmare he says to me and lay back down.

I’ll tell you the truth of it right here and now. It weren’t no nightmare he had, it was her. She tried strangling him. Nah, he didn’t die that night. It’s ain’t that easy. There were more nights to come. He lasted a week. That seems to be the norm for her, less she wants to tease me. The longest I’ve had a cellmate last is about a month. I almost thought she had gone; maybe she was done with her revenge. That’s my wife though; she always comes back for the last word.

She was always that way, my Sarah. Never could let an argument just lay, no she had to win. She wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box. My daddy warned me before we married that he

thought she was missing a few crayons, I didn’t listen. She were beautiful she was, tall and thin, long legged with perky tits that strained any shirt she wore. Wonderful long blonde hair. After we married, the legs stayed the same but those tits didn’t last long. Gravity and a child destroyed those. She was still beautiful mind you, just not as much. I stayed with her mostly for the kid. Made it a good six years before it got to be too much for me.

The thing is I don’t mind stupid people. If I’m to be totally honest, I’ll admit that no one ever accused me of being the next Einstein. No, we were just a couple of kids, too stupid to know we’d never amount to much. We had love though, and were dumb enough to listen to all them that said all you needed was love. Turns out, money and a decent house go a long way also. We never had much of either. I worked my fingers to the bone at the shop, and then I’d go and put in a few hours in a stinking cab. She waitressed, and boy could she work them tits for some great tips let me tell you that now! We never woulda made it had it not been for those tips.

She never could cook or clean much though. A man can only take so many burnt dinners, and so much filth in a house before it starts making him crazy. That’s what we argued about mostly. A decent home cooked meal would’ve gone a long way towards

keeping me happy. Maybe a steak that wasn’t as tough as shoe leather sometimes. I tried to get her to learn from mamma. At first, I thought maybe she was just too stupid to learn how to cook; now I think she just didn’t care for it.

Well, the night it happened I came home to find the house a mess as usual. I’d been pulling overtime so wasn’t home much to clean. She had sent the boy off to stay with her parents. Those bastards never thought much of me I can tell you. Always thought she deserved better. Someone better than me would’ve thrown her out like the garbage she couldn’t see! I worked myself to the bone for her and it never was enough for them! Anyway, she wanted us to have the night together cause somewhere in her head she thought it was a good time for us to have another kid.

Don’t get me wrong, I like kids. I was all for practicing to make one when the time was right, but we were just barely getting by with the one we had. Why would we want to bring in another one? Well I was all for jumping in the sack and going through the motions. She was always great in that one area. She could make it so good you hoped for death so you could die that happy! I told her that that night. I said I was happy to practice making a baby, just didn’t think now was the right time to actually squeeze one out. Boy she liked to hit the roof! Said all I wanted from her was sex. If I weren’t so tired, I never

would’ve opened my mouth after that. I never had before, but now I just couldn’t hold it in. I told her, I said “Baby” that’s what I called her sometimes, I said “Baby, that’s the only thing your good at!” Let me tell you that little comment flew like a load of brick.

She started shouting some nonsense about her cooking and cleaning all the damn time. Well I’d done stuck my foot in it so I figured it was about time to see if I could get my foot so deep I could taste my knee. I just looked around myself quietly like see. Dirty clothes were all over the floor, dirty dishes littered the nice coffee table I had bought years ago, and general trash lay about the place. Then I said just one word. Just the one was all that needed to be said; I looked at her and asked her “Cleaning?” That was when she said she was leaving me.

Now if I had known then just what was about to happen, I woulda walked out and come back later to see if she had gone yet. Like I said though, I’m no Einstein, besides I was about as angry as I never had been in my life. So I told her I’d help her pack. I went to our room and grabbed what few clean clothes she had hanging in there. Then an idea came into my head. I don’t know where it came from, honestly I don’t. I pictured her doing some other guy like she did me and I just saw red. Next thing I

knew I had one of those wire clothes hangers and was straightening it.

That wire hanger fit inside her ear just neat as could be. Lord how she screamed, I still hear that scream sometimes. Pretty sure it’s just in my head though. The screams just pissed me off more though so I kept ramming that damn hanger into her ear. I must’ve jammed it in there a good fifty or so times before I got it out the other side! That was important to me you know. A man has to have goals I’ve heard and at that time, my goal was to get that damn hanger all the way through her head. Course now I was stuck with the corpse of my wife.

That’s when I had the only stroke of intelligence I believe I’ve had in my life. I figured if she knew so damn much about cleaning, she’d be happy in the laundry room. So that’s just what I did, I twisted that damn hanger back together and hung her sorry corpse in with the dirty laundry! I don’t know exactly what happens after we die, got a better idea now than I did then, but whatever it is, she sure as hell knows what the inside of a laundry room looks like now!

After hanging her, I called her parents. I asked them if they’d keep the kid for a while. Told them we’d had an argument and she left. Her bitch of a mother didn’t even bother hiding the happiness in her voice when she asked me where she went. I

asked her how the hell I should know a thing like that and hung up on her! Stupid cunt could’ve sounded concerned! I was pretty hungry by this time so I decided to treat myself to a good dinner. I went to Denny’s and ate myself a “Grand Slam”. Best meal I had since we got married; enjoyed the peace and quiet and the food that wasn’t burnt.

She hung in that damn room about a week before people started suspecting something might not have been right. I called the kid every night, whenever he asked me where his mommy was I told him I didn’t know she was mad with daddy. Course now he knows better. I used to write to him about every day. For a while, he wrote back, and then told me he hated me for what I did to him and his mother. I guess I can understand that.

If I had been smart enough, and rich enough, to leave the country I probably would’ve gotten away with it. Like I said, it wasn’t till a week later that her boss called me wanting to know where she was. I told that rat bastard I had no idea, the bitch had left me and I hadn’t heard from her since! That was when I shoulda thrown out the body. Buried it in the garden or something. To be honest though I had just plum forgot it was there, hanging with the laundry, staring at the washer and dryer she couldn’t figure out how to work.

I was use to the house smelling bad, my sniffer didn’t work too good, and I didn’t spend much time at home. Wasn’t until the cops came looking for her, I first noticed the sickly sweet smell of a rotting corpse in my laundry room. Course they noticed it also. Weren’t no hiding it I suppose. One of them boys turned greener than the hills of Scotland at that smell. I didn’t see no point in forcing them to get a warrant. Let them on into the house so they could find my lovely wife. I just sat in the living room with the green officer. I didn’t get to see it but I believe his partner must’ve went a few shades greener just before we heard him greeting his lunch for the second time.

#

As they arrested me, I felt a little sorry for the kid. His mom dead, his daddy the killer, him stuck with her rotten parents. Didn’t feel sorry for myself though, nope, I was getting what I deserved. The one person I truly felt bad for was the poor son of a bitch that was going to have to pull that damn hanger out of her ear. It was a rat bastard to get it in there I couldn’t imagine it being any easier to pull out!

I read in the paper a few days later about her funeral. Funny isn’t it? If she had died of old age, I would’ve had to pay for her death to be in the paper to tell people when the funeral was. Instead, she got a long article all about how she

was a good mother, a good wife, and her monster of a husband had killed her in cold blood. I imagine they interviewed her parents and stayed away from my folks. None of them ever asked me my side of it. The article did mention though that if you looked at her just right in the casket you could see the ends of the hanger still in her ear. They probably couldn’t pull it out, musta just snipped it off as close as they could then tried to hide it.

I was appointed a lawyer, some kid just out of law school by the look of him. He tried to call me insane. Said that was the only way I’d avoid life in prison. Well sir, I didn’t much fancy a life behind bars, but I knew there wasn’t much outside of prison for me either so I didn’t care one way or another really. They had me talk to all sorts of head shrinkers. Some were trying to figure out what was wrong with me, others trying to prove there weren’t nothing wrong with me.

In the end, they called me mentally deficient but fit for trial. Like I’ve said, I ain’t no Einstein, but I know right from wrong well enough. Sure what I did was wrong, knew that when I did it, can’t say I cared much at the time though. Well once insanity was thrown out I plead guilty, wrote up a confession and everything. Told them exactly what I did, how, and why I did it. Didn’t get no plea for it though. Was

sentenced the max I guess, anyway I know I’ll never be out from behind these bars. She’s made sure of that.

#

This is where my story really starts I guess, but you needed to know the back of it before understanding the front of it, if you take my meaning. I was here maybe a month before it happened the first time. I still weren’t comfortable with my surroundings but I had a few friends. Couple of guys trying to make sure I weren’t cornholed anymore than need be; in here, those are good friends to have. I was lying in my cell one night. For once I was by myself cause my cellmate had gotten hurt in the laundry earlier in the day. Silly bastard slipped and fell into a dryer door about twenty times.

Anyways as I said, I was laying on my bunk when I see this light. It flickered a little, like the reflection of the moon off ripples in the water. I looked over to where it seemed to come from and that’s when I saw her. She was standing in my cell looking right at me. That was the best she had looked in years, her tits was perky again and pressing against the front of a tight little red dress she hadn’t wore since our honeymoon at the Holiday Inn the next town over. I tell you no lies; that were the first boner I’d gotten since putting that hanger in her ear.

I could tell she was pissed. More pissed than she ever had in life. For some reason all I could think, other than thoughts of what she could do in bed, was wondering if she finally learned what a washer and dryer were for. I wasn’t afraid of her then you see. She looked better than she had when she died. It wasn’t like she had fangs or demon horns or nothing; she just stood there looking at me. Slowly she faded and I swear on my daddy’s grave I heard her giggling like she were a little girl again. That giggle sent shivers through my spine something fierce!

I started seeing her any night I was alone in my cell after that. She never said nothing then, just came and stared at me with anger coming off her face. I tried talking to my friends about that, they just laughed at me. The damn prison shrinks just thought maybe I was seeing things on account of remorse. Maybe something’s wrong with me but I truthfully haven’t felt no remorse. Then one night I woke up hearing these god-awful retching noises coming from my cellmate. Sounded like he was trying to swallow his face! I looked down at him from my bunk and saw her, hunch over him, choking him.

Now I had never seen a ghost, let alone seen one try to choke somebody. I yelled loud as could be, raised one hell of a commotion! Lots of people started yelling, most telling me to

shut my mouth and take it like a man. Just before the guards got to our cell, she looks at me and raised another scream out of my throat. Looking at her face, I sees a white worm wiggling around the corner of her eye. I’d seen enough of them to know this was a maggot on my Sarah’s dead face. The she faded with that same giggle that sent more shivers up and down my spine.

I was accused of attacking my cellmate. I did no such thing but nobody believed that. I was sent to the hole for six weeks. I saw her every night of those six weeks. Every time she came to me, she looked more and more like the corpse I had created. Worms were inching in and out of her nose; her eyes became dried dead things that were soon replaced by black holes with pieces of skull showing through. The red dress gradually grew darker with dirt and fluids seeping out of her body. Sometimes I was even visited by the stench of a decaying body. Once she even let me hear the crunching, popping, squelching noises of worms chewing through her ears where I had stuffed the hanger.

While I’m no Einstein it didn’t take me long to figure out I really would go insane with this visitor. I knew what to do. I tried to avoid looking at her for the rest of my time in the hole. When I got back to my cell, it was empty. No cellmate. Her visits wouldn’t stop. Two nights later, I took my sheets, formed them into a noose and hung myself from the upper bars of my

cell. That is to say, I tried to hang myself. It would’ve worked if it weren’t for her.

As the world started to fade out I heard myself yelling from the other side of the cell, then I felt cold hands covered with slimy flesh, squiggling worms, and scratchy bone grab hold of me. She held me just enough to stop me from dying. I woke up in the nut basket with guards watching me to see if I tried offing myself again. She stayed away while I was there. I began to enjoy the nut basket. The company was amusing, and most of all I never saw her. I was released after a few months though and sent back to a cell.

I had a roommate again. It took her two weeks to kill him. I avoided the hole by staying in my bunk and yelling whenever I heard the choking noises, or the muffled grunts and groans as she beat on him. The guards never saw me lay a finger on him, he never saw me by his bunk. That was the first time I tried to get someone removed from my cell. They didn’t listen and he died. By the time the guards got to us, a couple pints of his blood had coated the bottom of my bunk and the cell floor.

It was back to solitary for me, she had decomposed even more. Her dress was growing mold and all sorts of creatures were crawling all over her. She always left with that giggle. After the hole, I tried suicide again, this time I took a shank and

tried slitting my wrists. Her hands covered the slices and kept pressure on them while she used my voice to yell for the guards. I lost my right arm after that due to some infection the doctors didn’t understand. I tried to tell them that a corpse grabbing an open wound would probably cause that. Hell I was going back to the nut basket again anyway.

This vacation was longer, and when I went back to my cell, I was kept alone for a while. Finally, I begged the warden for a cellmate. I hadn’t figured out the pattern by then see. I was desperate for company and tired of her visiting me all the time. The warden tried, god help him he tried. I was given a big mountain of a man for a cellmate. He was a transfer from another prison. He lasted the month. I think he lasted so long because she enjoyed seeing me pay for the pleasure of his company. I finally understood why she got so angry about me only wanting her for sex.

In the end, of course she killed him also. Honestly, that time I was the slightest bit glad. You can only be forced into pleasuring a mountain so many times before you start preferring the company of your dead, decomposing wife. Back to solitary, then the nut basket, again. Now I figured out the pattern. I knew any time I got a cellmate she would kill him. Then I’d go to solitary where she could torment me with her slow rotting

corpse. Sometimes she would touch me, a sensuous stroke on the cheek with a cold bony finger. A soft kiss on the neck to wake me up, from her cold lifeless lips covered with insects. Whenever I thought I’d get use to her, she always came back worse.

As I said, that’s my Sarah. I only tried suicide two more times after that. Each time she prevented my death and stayed away while I was in the land of fruits and nuts. I lost my left leg after that. I scrapped it in the exercise yard. She kissed it that night. It rotted away in two weeks. The docs couldn’t figure it out. I kept my mouth shut. She obviously doesn’t want me dead yet. She’s not done punishing me for what I did to her.

I tried keeping her away with religion. I started talking with the chaplain and attending services every Sunday, and Wednesday when they were offered. I accepted Jesus as my savior, took him into my heart. It was a true conversion also, not a jailhouse conversion seeking parole. I know I’m still going to hell for what I did, but I’m going with Jesus in my heart; supposedly. Didn’t stop her. I held the crucifix the chaplain gave me out at her once. She giggled that entire night then slowly pushed a bony finger into my right eye. I cried out in pain but I don’t think anyone heard. Not until after the tip of the finger squished through and my eye made a silly popping noise.

She made her point. I still go to services but mostly to keep the boredom away. For a crippled convict there isn’t much to do. I think she’s trying to take me apart piece by piece. I’m waiting for her to go one piece too far. Sometimes if I need a break, I start telling the guards about her, only now I don’t get to spend as much time in the nut basket. I think some of the guards believe me, not that they can do much about it. One guard tried help me by standing outside my cell all night long so I could sleep. He was found in the morning. He looked like he fell over the rail three stories to his death. No one had heard him scream. Except for her. It’s the fifth night I’ve had my new cellmate. I’ve tried to tell him my story. He doesn’t believe me despite the bruises on his face. It’s too bad. He was a nice guy.