SICK: Psychological Thriller Series Novella 1 by Christa Wojciechowski

Author:Christa Wojciechowski
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2015-09-30T22:00:00+00:00

*

I woke up in the middle of the night; the fried chicken carton full of bones lay between us like a box of carcasses ready for a pyre. I turned my head slowly to look at John. His face was slack and peaceful. The light from the TV strobed over his body, making the scars and bruises dance on his skin, and he appeared to writhe even though he was completely still.

I pressed my hand to his chest. His respiration was normal. His heart continued as before. His skin was warm and dry.

I reached for the lamp and switched it on. I grabbed the paper carton. It was translucent with oil and had left a mark on the bedding. As I moved it, a black cockroach scurried toward me. I jumped up and stood beside the bed, poised to kill. The cockroach kept on a warpath in my direction until it ran down the side of the duvet and fell to the floor, fleeing for the darkness under the bed. I was wearing nothing but a worn pair of slippers, but I tried to quickly smash it with my foot, and I hit my toe against something cold and hard. I mouthed a scream and rubbed my toes until the throbbing eased. What was that?

I bent over and lifted the bed skirt. There was a small hammer with a ball-shaped tip on one side. Odd, I thought. We had a lot of random junk around, but not tools. I tried to recall if I had fixed something or hung a picture, but no, I had not done anything like that in years.

It was too late to think about it, and I wasn’t going to wake John to ask him. He was in his Demerol stupor, and I was going to take advantage of it. I laid the hammer on the chair piled with clothes. Then I threw the squashed box of chicken bones in the overflowing wastebasket and climbed back into bed.

John was quiet, but my mind wasn’t. This was the cruel joke: my brain rolled with anxious thoughts. I couldn’t afford to lose my job, but I was afraid to leave John alone. I’d never heard him talk of suicide before. Should I ask Greta to watch him all day? He would be upset, but at least he would be supervised. Was there a doctor I could call to the house? Was he dying? Dying right now as he lay next to me? There were more bruises than healthy skin. What could it be? Maybe his liver was gone after all these years? Shit. The cockroach. I didn’t kill it. Would it still be able to climb back on the bed? And what was that hammer doing there?

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