Phobia (14 page)

Luck was on his side, and Harold managed to secure two First Class seats on Flight 266 to Honolulu and a room at a luxurious Oceanside resort.

The following morning while Bernice was sleeping off her hangover, Harold slipped out for coffee at Starbuck’s so he could call Linda in relative privacy. He related the previous night’s events to her.

“I just don’t know what to do, Linda. I’m so sorry you got dragged into this. If I divorce her now, she’ll ruin me.”

“Then there’s only one solution,” Linda said.

“If you know of a way out of this, I’m all for it.”

“You take her to Hawaii, but only one of you returns.”

“Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Yes. Read between the lines, Harry. All I’m going to say is, lots of accidents can happen in Hawaii. People drown in the surf. You take a hike up a volcano, then… oops! Use your imagination, Babe. You’ll figure something out. When you get back, I’ll be waiting for you. I love you, Harry.” She hung up before he could respond.

She loves me!
 His heart fluttered, in a way it never had for Bernice. No matter what happened in Hawaii, he had Linda.

But kill Bernice?

He had to admit, he’d thought of it more than once, the same way he’d fantasized about having sex with Linda. That fantasy had come true, so why not this one?

His phone dinged, indicating a text message. It was from Linda. He opened it eagerly. It was a picture of a breast. The message said, ‘
Remember what’s waiting for you. Now delete this and go get ‘er!’

He picked up a bouquet of flowers on the way home and walked back into the house whistling a light-hearted tune. For the first time since he walked down the aisle, he saw light at the end of the tunnel.

After receiving a tongue-lashing from Bernice about buying flowers that were just going to be dead by the time they returned, Harold helped her pack for their dream vacation to Hawaii.

It was going to be a dream, all right. A dream come true. He had the entire flight and subsequent two weeks to plan and execute his wife’s demise, and then he could finally start his life.

* * *

The plane hadn’t finished taxiing down the runway when Bernice started to complain.

“This seatbelt is faulty. It’s too tight. I’m taking it off.”

“Just a few minutes, Dear. Once we’re in the air you can take it off.”

“Well who designed these damn things? Probably the same assholes who design clothes – anorexics only!”

Harold clamped his lips shut tight. It wouldn’t do to argue with her or point out that the seatbelt was tight because she had gained considerable girth since their wedding. It was a good thing he had booked First Class, because he didn’t think her ass would have fit in a Coach seat.

The moment the 
Fasten Seatbelts
 sign went off, Bernice had the flight attendant running, bringing her gin after gin, slippers, a pillow, then a new pillow because the one she had smelled like farts.

Harold gazed out the window at the rugged snow-capped mountains below, picturing the curve of Linda’s breast in her last text. He mulled over the various ways he could kill Bernice. Drowning might be difficult, since a woman her size was incredibly buoyant. With his luck he’d push her overboard and she’d bob there like a cork until someone rescued her. Of course, there was always the possibility of a shark attack…

The volcano option was unlikely, since Bernice wouldn’t hike anywhere unless a buffet was waiting at the other end.

Poison, perhaps? Alcohol poisoning? Maybe he could make it look accidental. There had to be a way.

The plane gave a sickening lurch, then shuddered violently. Harold jumped in his seat. The 
Fasten Seatbelts
 sign lit up again. Bernice muttered curses into her gin and tonic.

Oxygen masks dropped in front of their faces, and a crescendo of screams rose from the Coach cabin behind them. A flight attendant emerged from the cockpit and gathered the others into a cluster, where she whispered to them urgently before ducking behind the curtain that separated First Class from Coach.

A woman’s voice came over the intercom.

“This is flight attendant Julie Todd. The captain has informed me that we are having mechanical difficulties. The cabin may lose pressure, so please take a moment to place your oxygen masks over your faces. If traveling with small children, please put on your own mask first before assisting with theirs.”

Harold detected a quaver in the flight attendant’s voice. She sounded scared, and it frightened him. She was trained to handle events such as this.

Harold put on his mask, noticing that Bernice was still sipping her gin. She had made no move to fasten her seatbelt or put on her mask.

“Honey, you should put your mask on. This could be serious.”

“Bullshit. This is just a drill. They do it all the time. It’s like a fire drill.”

Harold knew for a fact that she was mistaken, but decided to leave her alone. She’d be better company unconscious anyway, if the plane did depressurize. A flight attendant was headed in their direction, having seen that Bernice was not wearing her seatbelt and oxygen mask. The plane suddenly banked to the left, sending the flight attendant and anything that wasn’t nailed down hurtling to the other side of the plane.

“Assume crash position and brace for impact!” the captain’s voice said over the intercom.

Everything moved in slow motion. The sounds of fear and chaos filled the cabin – screams of passengers. Flight attendants telling people to place their heads between their legs to prepare for an emergency landing.

Harold dared a peek out the window. Did those mountains look closer? The plane was traveling in a distinct forward slant now, and he realized that he probably wasn’t going to survive.

His thoughts went immediately to Linda. Not to the loss of his own life, but the loss of what might have been if he hadn’t been such a pushover all his life. If this is what it meant to have your life flash before your eyes before you die, his was a pretty poor example of a life. So many regrets, so little life lived.

Bernice’s screams jolted him out of his reverie.

“This is all YOUR fault, Harold! You dragged me onto this death-plane against my will! Is this how you planned to get rid of me? To kill me in cold blood? You coward! You’ve been a coward all your life, and now you’re going to die a coward!”

Suddenly, everything became crystal clear to Harold. His biggest regret was not that he was going to die without having really lived, but that he was being robbed of the chance to kill the red-faced screeching banshee wedged into the seat beside him.

Harold tore the mask off his face. Nobody reprimanded him, because all of the flight attendants were already strapped in and tucked into crash position. He unbuckled his seatbelt and lunged at Bernice, wrapping his hands around her throat.

“I’m going to kill you if it’s the last thing I ever do!” He shouted into her face, squeezing with Herculean strength he didn’t know he had.

She made a 
gackkk
 sound and flapped her thick, doughy arms at him. Her face darkened from red to purple. Harold squeezed for all he was worth. He felt her windpipe pop under his thumbs and he pressed harder. There seemed no end to his strength, and he’d never felt more alive than he did at that moment. All the years of quiet subservience, humiliation and frustration culminated into that one single act.

Bernice’s eyes bulged and her lips opened and closed, silently for the first time since he’d known her. She looked like a giant purple fish, dying on the shore.

“You WILL die before I do!” he panted, spittle raining over her violet face. “You owe me at least that, you insufferable bitch!” Harold closed his eyes and clamped his hands down with everything he had. Bernice’s head sagged limply to one side, but he maintained his iron grip on her throat. This was how he wanted to die. They would literally have to pry her from his cold, dead hands. He would have the satisfaction of seeing her suffer in his last few moments of life, and that was the greatest gift she could ever give him.

“I love you, Linda! Harold shouted, bracing himself for impact.

* * *

Linda stretched out on her couch with a glass of Chardonnay to watch the evening news. Harry would be in Hawaii by now, and hopefully he had figured out how he was going to kill his wife.

It had been a long, slow process, but she had finally succeeded in seducing her boss. Now that he was in her back pocket, all she had to do was get rid of his wife and she would be on Easy Street. With Bernice too dead to drain him for alimony, everything would be theirs, and eventually hers. As Harry’s wife, she would no longer have to work as his secretary. Her replacement was already waiting in the wings – Brittany was a sultry blonde who had given up exotic dancing for secretarial school. Harry wouldn’t be able to resist Brittany. Once a cheater, always a cheater, and now that he’d done it once, the second time would be easier.

Linda would use the same trick she had suggested to Bernice when she placed that anonymous call months earlier. She would hire a private investigator, most likely the same one Bernice had used, to gather all the evidence she needed to prove adultery.

Yes, Easy Street. She’d earned it.

Lost in her champagne and caviar daydreams, Linda only half listened to the newscast, until something about a plane crash caught her interest. She sat upright when she heard the word Honolulu.

Wait – what?
 That was where Harry and Princess Bingo-Wings were landing. What the hell flight were they on? It couldn’t possibly be the same flight! She turned up the volume and sat, riveted to the screen.

“Flight 266 from New York to Honolulu experienced engine failure while flying over the Cascades near Washington State. The pilot saved the lives of nearly all passengers and crew with a last minute maneuver that steered the plane away from the mountains and over the Pacific Ocean, where he successfully executed a water landing. The Coast Guard arrived quickly and rescued all survivors. There was only one casualty, a woman whose name is being withheld pending investigation and notification of immediate family. There has been talk of extenuating circumstances surrounding the woman’s death. She did not die as a result of the crash.  Apparently she was deceased beforehand, having been strangled to death by her husband, who survived the crash. Several witnesses have corroborated the story, though authorities have declined to comment.”

The picture switched from the newscaster to live footage of passengers disembarking from Coast Guard cutters in Seattle. The dejected masses wrapped in blankets lost the spotlight to a single passenger, a man, who was led from the boat wearing handcuffs and handed over to waiting police.

Published in Dysfictional 2: Shreds of Sanity

Copyright © 2014 Mandy White

~*~

Mandy White
grew up on a farm in Creston, British Columbia, then later relocated to the West coast of Canada, where she currently resides with her family and a menagerie of pets. Living her dream of being one of those weird, reclusive writer types, she can usually be found lurking in the forest somewhere on Vancouver Island.

When not distracted by shiny objects, Mandy writes fiction, primarily in the horror genre. Many of her stories feature Canadian characters and locations.

Author of three novels and two anthologies, Mandy is particularly fond of short stories. She is founder of WPaD (Writers, Poets and Deviants), a group of writers known for publishing charity anthologies for MS.

Books by Mandy White:

Phobia

The Feeder

Avenging Annabelle

The Jealousy Game

Dysfictional: Short Stories for Twisted Minds

Dysfictional 2: Shreds of Sanity

Creepies: Twisted Tales From Beneath the Bed by WPaD
(contributor)

Passion’s Prisms: Tales of Love & Romance by WPaD
(contributor)

Dragons and Dreams: A Fantasy Anthology by WPaD
(contributor)

Tinsel Tales: A Holiday Treasury by WPaD
(contributor)

Goin’ Extinct: Tales From the Edge of Oblivion by WPaD
(contributor)

- All of Mandy White's books are available worldwide in print and ebook editions from Amazon.com and other online book retailers.

http://www.amazon.com/author/mandywhite

- To learn more about upcoming projects, visit Mandy White’s website:
http://mandywrite.weebly.com/

Facebook fan page:
http://www.facebook.com/authormandywhite

or follow
@mandywrite
on Twitter

Preview:

Copyright © 2013 Mandy White

...Hollywood Hunk Feeder’s Latest Victim

The headline screamed up at me from the morning edition of the LA Times. I scanned the front page article quickly, then tossed the paper aside in disgust. “Victim” was what they called him. Ironically, they had made no mention of all the young women, some of them barely more than children, that he had victimized. Being one of Hollywood’s hottest leading men apparently gave the scumbag license to use and abuse prostitutes and starstruck female fans as he saw fit.

Dirk Davis had some nasty fetishes that he liked to indulge with any woman unlucky enough to find herself in his company on a one-on-one basis. Some of his sick little sex games resulted in permanent scars for his victims, both of a mental and of a physical nature. Toward the end, Dirk had felt all of their pain. I had made damn sure of that.

A handful of his victims had come forward and tried to press charges against him, telling horrific tales of the sadistic things the Tinseltown bad boy had done to them. The victims who were brave enough to testify were effectively torn apart in court by Dirk’s lawyers. A celebrity with his wealth and status could easily assemble a ‘dream team’ of legal defense that made OJ’s team look like a pack of baboons. After discrediting and reducing to tears one victim after another, Dirk walked away a free man without even having to pay a dime of settlement to any of his accusers. His victims’ lives were ruined after having endured what they did at Dirk’s hands and then getting mentally raped again by his dicksnot lawyers.

Yes, Dirk had deserved what he’d gotten and I had enjoyed giving it to him; every damn second of it.

So now, I was apparently the serial killer known to the Los Angeles media as “The Feeder”. After just a mere handful of murders. Talk about dramatic! But then, this was Hollywood so it wasn't terribly surprising. The Feeder. It was a creepy nickname; one that evoked the chilling mental image of one who feeds upon his or her victims’ remains...

And now here I was, about to return home to Canada where I planned to resume my normal life and put all the killing behind me yet for some reason the need was still with me. I had not yet purged the hunger for revenge from my soul. How many more? How much blood needed to be shed before I once again felt pure?

As I pulled on my fishnet stockings and clipped the garter belt around my slender hips, I daydreamed back to a time not so long ago when I wasn’t a killer; back to a time when I still had a sister. Camille was my twin, even in death and not a day passed that I didn’t miss her, pine for her and seethe with outrage at her murder…

* * *

My voice deepened to a sinister growl.

“Where is that murdering fuck, Diamond Vinnie?”

My cover was blown. I could tell by his reaction he knew I wasn’t Camille. Louie’s face turned a sickly white despite his caramel California tan.

“A-Aurora? What’s wrong with you?”

Hol-ee shit!

The fucktard still thought I was Camille!

Laughing heartily, I planted my feet on the floor in a confident stance, put my hands on my hips and flung the raincoat behind me to give him a good look at my body.

I waited for his reaction. He still didn’t show any sign of realizing I wasn’t Camille.

Time to have some fun with this little puke.

“I’ve never felt better, baby! Aside from the fact that I’m now the undead, of course. I’m a vampire and I’ve come to drain your fucking blood!”

Louie might even have believed me, from the way he reacted. All that Hollywood shit must have gone to his head. He backed slowly away from me, moving toward the bar.

I took a step toward him, reaching behind my back to caress the handle of the knife. It calmed me, knowing the weapon was there even if I had no intention of using it.

I monitored Louie’s actions with a well-trained eye. A good hunter knows to always watch the body language of the prey. A cornered animal, no matter how terrified, will often lash out at its attacker in a gallant last-ditch effort to save its own life.

Louie edged behind the bar. I sensed there was something back there that he wanted. He reached but wasn’t fast enough. He was a soft, wimpy Hollywood leech and I was a skilled hunter; lean, fit and prepared. In one fluid motion I closed the distance between us, drawing my knife from its sheath as I went.

When he lunged toward me I reacted without thinking, opening his face with a single diagonal stroke of steel. He howled and clawed at his face, stumbling backward into the glass shelving behind the bar and bringing a rain of crystal shards down upon his head.

I stepped behind the bar and saw on the counter the pistol he had been trying to reach. I smiled.
Well, howdy there, good-lookin!
I stuffed the gun in the back of my waistband before advancing on Louie with my newly christened blade. I didn’t need a gun to deal with this asshole but I was sure it would come in handy later.

He cowered against the wall, trying to hold his gushing face together. I admired the impressive work I’d done with just one swipe of the knife. I had taken out one of his eyes and the flesh on the side of his face hung loosely, neatly flayed from his cheekbone. The slash continued across his nose and split the corner of his mouth opposite the missing eye.

“And now,” I said, standing before him, “I’ll ask you again. Where the fuck is Diamond Vinnie?”

“Y-you already know!” His breathed in short, shallow gasps and his hands shook like an epileptic with Parkinson’s.

“Maybe I fucking forgot!” I shouted at him. “Tell me again!”

He sputtered out the name of the place and room number, “Seymour Hotel on Esplanade. Room three-fif-fifty-nine.”

Another hotel? Don’t any of these people have proper homes?

I intended to leave Louie just like that, bleeding, blubbering and in need of a good plastic surgeon but the idiot just had to push his luck.

The cornered prey launched his last-resort attack. He grabbed my ankle, trying to pull me down to the floor. I drove the heel of my boot into his groin and he collapsed back into the corner with a pathetic mewling sound. There’s nothing quite like a stiletto heel to the nutsack when it comes to subduing an attacker.

My hand swept the blade across his throat before I even realized I was killing him.

He made a gargling noise and flailed about, kicking over several empty liquor bottles and adding to the bed of broken glass on the floor. I dashed out of the path of the crimson spray, grateful that I had chosen to wear black.

From across the room, I sang to him as I watched the life bleed out of him. “Louie Louie… oh, baby! You gotta go.”

I collected all of the items I had touched and disposed of any evidence of my presence in the apartment. I poured the gin and tonic down the sink and slipped the glass in my pocket, picked my lipstick-stained cigarette butt from the ashtray and pocketed the silver Zippo I’d used to light it.

“Yeahyeahyeahyeahyeahyeah,” I hummed under my breath as I worked.

I went back to check on Louie, who was pretty much bled out by that point. He slumped in the corner slack-jawed, surrounded by bloody shards of glass. He had stopped trying to hold his face together. His remaining eye fixed me with a creepy unblinking stare. I didn’t know if he was seeing anything at this point or not, but I didn’t like him looking at me.

I remembered reading about how the retina or something stores a negative image of the last thing the eye sees when the body dies. I couldn’t remember if it had said how long the image lasted, but either way, I didn’t want my face on the back of his eyeball. I drove my blade into his uninjured eye socket and twisted.

“Stop fucking staring at me.”

The Feeder is available worldwide in paperback and ebook

~*~

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