Free Screamscapes: Tales of Terror by Evans Light Page A

tell you what manuscript - the three hundred and fifty-two pages you left by my side of the bed yesterday with a handwritten note asking me to overnight it to your agent in New York - Jerry something-or-other.”
    She turned her frustration back to the search in her pocketbook. Seconds later she withdrew her hand, clutching a shipping receipt.
    “I didn’t give you anything to mail,” Gerard stated flatly.
    Sonia glared at him, squeezing the shipping receipt into a ball inside her clenched fist.
    “You know what? I’m done,” she said. “You can take your stupid book and you can stick it straight up you-know-where. I’m finished.”
    She threw the receipt at him. It hit him square in his forehead and rolled under the table.
    He stared at her, blinking and confused.
    “I’m taking a shower and going to work,” she said, trying to calm herself down. “I’ve let you waste enough of my time, my life , already. We can figure out what we’re going to do about living arrangements later.”
    Gerard felt the pounding in his head growing louder, faster.
    Maazo Maazo, Maazo Maazo , it thumped, each word stabbing like a knife deep into his brain.
    The room began to sway around him, and Gerard saw the edges of his vision turn black, like he was being sucked into a dark tunnel. He held onto the kitchen counter to keep himself from falling.
    Then his voice started talking, but he wasn’t trying to say anything.
    “Sonia, baby,” he heard himself say, but his voice was different, like it was coming from somewhere else, somewhere far away.
    Darkness swallowed him. He was passing out.

    He startled back into consciousness, clawing at the kitchen counter to keep from falling. He was surprised to find himself clutching linen sheets and a comforter instead of a smooth granite counter top.
    He wasn’t in the kitchen anymore, he realized; he was lying in his bed, nude, the sheets cool against his skin. A shower hummed in the master bathroom.
    How did I get here? he wondered.
    “Are you going take the whole day off, or only the morning?” His wife’s voice echoed cheerfully from the stall in the adjacent room.
    He jolted up in the bed and looked at the clock on the nightstand. It was almost noon. The shower stopped.
    “You want to go grab some lunch with me?” she sang in a delighted tone as she danced into the bedroom, hair wrapped in a towel.
    She shook her glistening naked hips.
    “What?” he asked, confused.
    “Oh, did I bang my poor baby’s brains out? Is that why you look so silly?” she baby-talked, and kissed him hungrily on the mouth.
    He struggled to get away, but she jumped on the bed, straddling him.
    “What time is it?” he asked.
    She bounced up and down on his crotch, eager and playful.
    “It’s almost noon. C’mon, take the rest of the day off. I’ll let you have your way with me for three more hours,” she begged, sounding hopeful.
    “No, I need to get ready for work myself. Shouldn’t I save some strength for later?” he asked, trying his best to go along.
    “You’d better, lover boy!” she squealed and rolled off him. She started getting dressed for work.
    He touched his head, checking for sore spots.
    “Sonia, did I hit my head when I passed out in the kitchen?” he asked.
    “What are you talking about, silly? You didn’t pass out in the kitchen! Practically raped me in the kitchen, yes – and in the hallway and on the bed - but I wouldn’t exactly call that passing out.”
    “So I didn’t fall down?”
    She laughed at him, and slipped on her shoes.
    “Only once, when you were trying to screw me and carry me down the hallway at the same time, remember? You might have to keep working on that move. Why do you ask? Did you hurt yourself?”
    “No, I thought…never mind.”
    “Well, don’t you think about it - keep on lovin’ me like that and we’ll never fight again, I promise. I’m just jealous of your keyboard. If only you fingered me half as much as you do that thing,” she