Death Stories with Zoe

Gone Greg

It was three-thirty in the morning and the house was silent, dead quiet, except for the soft clack-clack of keyboard keys coming from the den where Greg Carrico was typing his latest chapter of Children of the Plague.

He'd gotten into a somewhat of an odd and unhealthy writing routine, as sometimes is the case for horror writers. All day he would struggle to compose a few decent sentences, but once the sun went down, his wife had gone to bed, he'd eaten at least six pieces of Texas Toast and watched at least one re-run of Scrubs, his mind would be on fire. He'd whip out paragraph after paragraph of sheer brilliance, his heart racing with creative fervor. His writing was gory. It was compelling. His Wattpad numbers were climbing.

Greg was convinced he was producing the best writing of his entire career.

His wife, however, was convinced he was going insane.

More than once, she had confronted him when she had gotten up for work and found him still hunched over his desk. She feared he was slipping into some kind of horror writers' mania; he was becoming consumed by an obsession with the dark worlds he was creating.

Greg wished she'd just be cool about it. Who really cared if he was barely sleeping? He had readers to please! At least someone was keeping the cat company at night.

Little did he know, his wife had reached her breaking point with his nocturnal hobby.

Also little did he know, she'd taken out a generous life insurance policy on him the previous November during open enrollment.

And even though Greg did know that his wife was one of the most well-respected forensic investigators in Upstate New York, never did he suspect that one day she'd use her scientific expertise to cover up his murder.

That's right...his murder.

For Greg's wife was over it. She was tired of the coffee mugs and crumb-covered plates left on the desk after Greg finally retired to bed for a few hours of fitful sleep. She had her eye on a matte black Tesla 3 and knew just how she'd get her hands on enough money to reserve her model. For weeks, she plotted the perfect murder and knew exactly how she'd scour the house and hide Greg's body to make it seem as if he'd abandoned her to move to Portland, Maine to emulate his hero, Stephen King. To lay the groundwork of lies for her cover story, she'd been taking her friends out for coffee in the afternoons, confiding in them that she was worried Greg would leave her. She'd even spread a thick coat of special varnish on the wood floor during one of Greg's naps so that a simple wipe of a Swiffer would destroy 99% of the biological evidence that might have been enough to convict her.

Oh yes, she knew exactly what she was doing.

She was, after all, literally an expert in getting away with murder.

That night, as Greg typed away, he heard the creak of a floorboard behind him. It struck him as odd; the cat wasn't heavy enough to make the floorboards bend, but his wife--

He looked over his shoulder and before he could even make sense of what was happening—

WHAM!

The blade of the axe landed right in the middle of his forehead, cleaving his head in two. He looked at his leering wife in surprise. How could she? He'd known that she was frustrated with the hours that he was keeping, but frustrated enough to strike him with an axe?

Sure. She was that frustrated. She wiggled the axe free from his skull and before he could say, "But, babe! Wait!" she struck again. This time, a chunk of brain matter went flying across the room and hit a Thomas Kincaid painting, ruining it.

Dang it, Greg's wife thought to herself. Now I will have to burn that.

The look of shock on Greg's hacked face did little to deter her. In fact, the rich copper penny scent of fresh blood pouring from his skull made her pulse race. Maybe she'd been a psychopath all her life, just waiting for this violent moment to cut loose and embrace her true nature. Perhaps Greg had known this all along, and subtle observations he had made of her had fueled his obsession with horror. So she swung again, taking pleasure in the sound of Greg's cranium cracking beneath the metal.

As Greg lay dying on the floor, his wife pulled on latex gloves to begin the process of cleaning up her crime.

Three days later, as his wife incinerated her favorite painting in the fireplace, Greg's body lay in its shallow grave...light as a feather, stiff as a board.

Light as a feather, stiff as a board.

Comment below if you'd like for me to write a death story for you, and I'll select several (un)lucky readers throughout the month of October!  Check out my book, Light as a Feather, available from Simon Pulse on October 9, 2018, and watch the Hulu original series inspired by the book on October 12!

Also - check out Children of the Plague by @GregCarrico - it's scary!!