She Walks at Night by Nate Ealy

I haven’t slept much since I killed Melissa last Saturday.  I haven’t written much either.  I still have her body in the basement, and in case you’re wondering, it’s not because I’m into necrophilia.  I just don’t know how to get rid of it.  I’m a romance writer so these thoughts don’t usually find their way into my head.  Friends and family have started to ask where Melissa is, and I keep telling them she went to visit France.  Eventually I’ll have to add that I don’t think she booked a return flight.

We weren’t married so that story should be believable.  Couples break up all the time.  There’s nothing weird about it.  That is, until someone wanders downstairs and discovers my story is total bullshit of course.  Hopefully by then I’ll have a better plan figured out.  I just don’t think well when I’m mad.

And boy, was I mad last Saturday.  That was the day I finally found out she had been lying to me.  I finally found out that she had been screwing my buddy behind my back.  Melissa said she was grocery shopping.  Mark said he was Christmas shopping.  They were both screwing each other in the guest bedroom of Mark’s grandma’s house.  Mark’s girl Lindsey texted me the unneeded details.

I’ve been running everything either of them ever said to me through my mind trying to find all the times she lied to me.  I think the first time she said she loved me she was actually thinking about Mark and not me.  I’ll never find all the times she hid the truth from me of course, that’d be crazy to think, but I wish I could have seen this sooner.  Otherwise I wouldn’t have her body in the basement.

Let’s see…today is Thursday.  The last time I got a full night’s sleep was Sunday.  I had way too much adrenaline in my system to sleep Saturday night after I wacked her, and Monday night is when I started to hear her.

She was dead for two days.  Dead.  I even went down to the basement a few times just to make sure the body was really there and I didn’t imagine killing her.  Every time I went down the body was laying on its back staring up at the ceiling right where I left it with her blonde hair splayed out like a halo.  I left a few air fresheners to combat the growing stench of decay too.  Melissa really started to have a smell about her after a while.

But Monday night everything changed.  

I was lying in my bed, and right as my eyelids closed, I could hear a moan.  Only it wasn’t a moan so much as it was a word.  My name.  I could hear Ted, Teeeeeddddd coming from outside my bedroom door.  I opened the door expecting to see Melissa’s ghost haunting me, but there was nothing.  The noise came from further in the house.

I put earplugs in my ear.  That didn’t work.  I put my head under the pillow and tried to block it out, but that didn’t work either.  I could still hear it, and it sounded like a woman’s voice.  It wasn’t one of those creepy anonymous voices you hear in a movie, but the soft voice of a woman.  Gentle even.   I slept maybe two hours out of exhaustion Monday night.

Tuesday morning I got up, quite groggy from my two hours of sleep, and tried to have a normal day.  I turned my computer on to do some writing, and my eyes couldn’t focus on the screen.  They were too dry and scratchy to let me work.  I instead poured a pot of coffee and paid Melissa a visit.

She was sitting up on the floor.  The body that had been lying flat on its back two nights ago was now bent at the waist like it was sitting in a chair.   I gasped when I first saw her, and then a cold sweat came over me.  How did she sit up?  How did she move?  Those were questions whose answers eluded me.

I ran back up the stairs as fast as I could and slammed the door shut.  The bright sunshine coming in through the windows felt cold.  I was glad I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet because I would have tossed everything I ate.  I felt dry heaves coming on, and I thought I was going to lose my coffee before I could even absorb any caffeine out of it.

I sat down on the couch beside my laptop.  She was dead Saturday night.  I knew it.  I had pushed her down the stairs when she got home from seeing Mark, and then smashed the side of her head in with a pipe for good measure.  There was no way she survived that, but somehow she wasn’t where I left her.

I wasn’t able to write or even focus on much all day Tuesday.  That night I turned the little lock on my bedroom door.  I slinked into bed trying to believe everything was normal, but right as I was about to fall asleep, just like the night before, I heard my name again.  Ted.  Teedddd.   And then it got louder, raspier.  TED.  TEEDDDDD.  It sounded closer.

I pulled the covers over my face and stared at the black nothing all night.

The next morning, this would be Wednesday now, I got out of bed.  I know for a fact I didn’t sleep that night.  I would get a little nap in later in the afternoon once the sun was fully in the sky.  That morning I went back to the basement.

Downstairs on the cement floor was nothing.  Melissa’s body wasn’t there anymore.  Instead it was standing up face first in a corner.  I thought I had a mini heart attack, and maybe I did have one, but I froze for a second before bolting out of the basement.  I couldn’t stand the thought of standing down there and that thing turning around to face me.

All day I paced around my house.  I didn’t try to write anything yesterday.  I knew I couldn’t do it.  I’m in a kind of slow period right now, no deadlines to meet at least, so it’s okay if I take a few days off.  I couldn’t stop thinking about Melissa’s body in the basement and what it was doing.

Night always come fastest when you want the sunshine to last forever, and I didn’t want the night to come.  I locked my door and pushed the dresser in front of the door.  I didn’t even go under the covers.  Instead I sat on my bed and waited.

At around eleven thirty I first heard the voice.  

Ted.  Teedddd.  Ted.

It sounded so close.  Almost as if it was –

SMACK.  SMACK.

There was something hitting my bedroom door.  I jumped back in bed and grabbed my pillow.  There was another SMACK on the door, and then the sound of something sliding down its length.  The dresser never budged.  I was glad I put it there.

Ted.  Ted.  Forgive me Teeedddd.

I didn’t reply, but screamed into my pillow.  Melissa’s body was outside my bedroom door asking for forgiveness.  My lack of sleep must have been turning my mind into slop.  I tried not to make a noise, but I couldn’t help but whimpering.

I’m so sorry Ted.  I love you.  Please forgive me.

My fear then turned to anger.  I took a deep breath and then said, “No Melissa.  I will not forgive you, you lying bitch!”

Then there was a wail from the other side of the door that sounded like death itself.  I heard her hit the door a few more times, before the calls of Ted, Ted, Tedddd became distant and the room slowly lit up with morning sunshine.

That all was a few hours ago.  It’s now eleven, and I still haven’t slept.  I don’t know what to do either.  I need to get some shut eye, but I can’t sleep here.  I can’t even be here with her in the basement, and I’m never going down there again because she might be standing right behind the door this time waiting to grab me.

I think I might burn the house down.  It’d be easy.  Houses burn down all the time.  I don’t need this house.  I can write my novels from anywhere.  I just hope it’d be enough to stop Melissa from ruining my life.  So far death hasn’t.