My grandmother used to tell me that dead people didn’t know they were dead.
I know for a fact this is true.
Because I see dead people.
They never really look dead, though. In fact, if I wasn’t the only person who could see them, I would think they were alive.
They look how they do at the moment before their death; so, no different from anyone else. Their cheeks are always rosy and their eyes always shine with life. They never carry the paleness of death. Their eyes are never glassy or pale and their body is never rotting or stuck in rigor mortis.
I’ve learned to notice the little things that separate the dead and the living. I kinda have too. It makes for awkward conversation if you introduce a person to someone they can’t see.
The dead, they never notice life moving on without them. They never notice that the times change or the weather grows colder as winter approaches. They live in the day they died. Forever repeating it.
They’ll wake up as they always do. They’ll have breakfast as they always do. They’ll go to school or work as they always do. And they’ll die as they always do. And the very next day, they’ll repeat the whole process over again.
Admittedly, I never thought about it more than I had to. Why would I? It never affected me.
But recently, this little fact has become the thing my life revolves around.
Every day I get up.
I get dressed.
And I go down to eat.
Every morning, I always find myself making blueberry pancakes. It’s almost unconscious. As I’m standing at the oven, it’s the first thing that comes to my mind to make. I never used to make them before, but recently, I always have an appetite for it. It began a couple of weeks ago, on a morning just like this.
My husband sits across from me as he always does, and we make chit-chat about our plans.
My husband is going to go fishing. I’m going to go to work. I’ve always been the main breadwinner in our house. My husband never minded having to not work and I think that has always been the main reason I loved him. Unfortunately, we’ve grown complacent in our lives. The picture perfect wealthy family that’s had money for as long as anyone can remember.
Or at least that's the image we portray. You see, over the years I’ve grown non-complacent. I think my husband has begun to notice. I’m not stupid. And neither is he. From the beginning, we’ve both known that I had a thirst for excitement. And nothing, not even him, could prevent me from getting what I want.
As we sit down for dinner, my stomach is fluttering. Excitement. Makes sense. I love the part that's going to come after. The moment he realizes just how little he can stop me.
You see, my husband dies tonight.
Every night.
The moment the clock on the wall hits eleven.
We’ll always be getting ready for bed.
And by the time he realises, it’ll be too late to stop me.
Because no matter how smart he is or how quick, he never seems to notice the knife under my pillow.
The knife that kills him.
Veronica Williams is a sophomore in high school and has literally never written a horror story in her life. She decided to write one after too many late night horror films and three cups of coffee.
