The Dead Husband by Carter Wilson (guided reading books .TXT) 📕

“Somehow the dog got out of the backyard. The gate was found open, so maybe someone just came and took the thing. But whatever happened, they found the dog on the green belt behind the elementary school, over a mile away.” She leans forward and whispers the next part. “The poor thing’s throat had been cut.”

“Oh my god.”

She nods. “It must have been awful. With all that white fur and… Well, I just can’t imagine. But now, everyone is freaking out. Rumors about animal sacrifice. Satanic things. Here, in Bury. I don’t even understand it. I mean, who would do such a thing?”

It comes to me immediately, without thought or consideration. Just enters my consciousness and burrows like a bad memory I can’t turn off.

Cora would do this.

I ball my fists because I have to squeeze something.

“What…what are the police saying?” I ask.

“I have no idea,” she says. “I can’t imagine they’re saying much at all right now. All I know is, if you have a dog, keep it inside the house. That’s what I’m doing. It’s all just so horrible.”

I force myself to finish ringing her groceries, then close down my lane. I’m the only checker working at the moment, so I head into the back office and find Erika, a new employee, working on inventory sheets. I ask her to cover me for five minutes, telling her I’m not feeling well and need some air. It’s the truth.

I walk out of the back of the store and suck in dumpster air. The chilled air is wet, snow to come. My mind spins and, with it, my body. I turn slowly around, not even aware why, like a dancing figurine set atop a music box. Scanning my surroundings, three hundred sixty degrees, as if looking for holes in my reality.

John, my manager, comes scurrying through the back door and joins me outside, his salt-and-pepper mustache twitching faster than normal. He has the nervous look of a gerbil burrowing through wood shavings.

“Rose, you can’t take a break now. Erika’s not properly trained to work the register yet.”

I stop turning and face him, a sudden wave of nausea washing over me.

“She’s fine, John. She’s done it before, and I just need five minutes.”

He sucks in his face, as if allergic to logic. “You need to ask me before taking breaks. You don’t just leave your post.”

Post. Like we’re taking turns keeping watch for zombies in some postapocalyptic world.

“Fine, John.” I don’t hide the attitude in my voice.

He keeps looking at me, but with only rapid-fire bursts of eye contact. His agitation is apparent and disproportionate to the minor infraction I’ve committed.

“I just need a minute,” I say, my stomach still unsteady.

He doesn’t leave. He just twitches more.

“What?” I ask him.

“You know, Nate called me up, asking about you.”

Nate. Nathan Carnes, owner of the store.

“What about?” I’m not sure I want the answer.

“All these…all these rumors.” He waves his arms as if the rumors could be seen, swirling about in toxic clouds.

I take a step toward him. “What rumors?” I ask.

“You know.”

“I don’t know, John. I want to hear you say it. What rumors?”

I’m calmer, the nausea subsiding as I take another step. I’m only a couple feet away, and all that is going sideways in my life has manifested itself here in John, a mid-level manager of a gourmet grocery store. He is the embodiment of every mistake I’ve made, of every wrong done to me, whether I caused it or not. And as I bask in his nervousness, my control kicks in, something I haven’t savored in some time.

He looks away. At the ground. In the sky.

“What rumors, John?”

John clears his throat. “About the cops talking to you about…you know. Your husband.”

“What about my husband?” I inch closer. This has turned into a sociology experiment. I’ve become the alpha, absent of fear, and I’m measuring the impact of my aggression on the beta.

John doesn’t answer. Eye contact is no longer a thing.

“What, the rumors that I loved my husband?” I ask. “Or that we were living happily ever after until he accidentally overdosed? You have to say it, John. I won’t know what you’re talking about unless you say it.”

His shoulders hunch forward, a flower wilting in extreme heat. God, how easy. I never knew it was so damn easy to be dominant. All I ever had to do was shed my fear and stop caring, and then I become the one to be feared. If only I’d know this earlier in my life, how many different paths would I have taken? Where would I be now? Certainly not here, in the back of this grocery store, arguing with this man about taking an unauthorized break.

He mumbles, but I give John credit for finally saying it. “About…whether or not your husband was murdered.” He waits, swallows, then spits the next two words out like poison. “By you.”

Now I’m in his face, and less than six inches separate our noses. John doesn’t back away, but his eyes dart everywhere to avoid contact with mine.

“That’s some rumor,” I say. “I mean, that’s just crazy, right? And Nate… He doesn’t even live in Bury. How do you suppose he heard some kind of insane thing like that?” I lean just an inch closer, and only the thinnest of a children’s book could be slipped between our faces. I smell him, that sweet tang of middle-aged mediocrity, basted over with Old Spice and accented by halitosis. “Did he really call you? Or was it you who called him?”

He closes his eyes, swallows, then summons a modicum of resolve. “You really need to get back to work now, Rose.”

I pull my face back, almost feeling high. Dizzy and delightful. I untie the back of my work apron and then take it off.

“I like to consider myself a nice person,” I say. “Sometimes even too nice for my own good. That person was working checkout five minutes ago and just needed a break. Just a short