BEHOLD, FOR I AM THE WILL OF THE REAPER By Ryan Brinker

BEHOLD, FOR I AM THE WILL OF THE REAPER. 

I met her on the stairs, taking a drag from her beat up cigar, humming some song I didn’t recognize. Such an odd, eccentric woman, she asked if I knew the time. I told her that I didn’t own a watch, apologized, and continued up to my apartment. I couldn’t shake the cold chill going up my spine as I felt her eyes on me all the way up. It was such a menial, stupid little encounter. Still, I couldn’t help but make sure to lock my door. I sat in the dark for a little while. She was so beautifully imperfect. Like a lily on a grave…

Shaking, as I rest her body down, I try to wipe the blood off my shirt. Her sticky, sweet lipstick still clings to my lips from the last kiss my darling Annabel gave me that night. My memory was a blur, it was like the subsequent seven years between that fateful encounter on the staircase and now seemed to be missing. I tried so hard to remember it, but it was like a dream. I only realized after surveying the environment for a few minutes what I had done… I had murdered the only person that will ever make me feel truly loved. As I loaded her bloody, disfigured corpse into the pickup truck, her body teased me. That same slender figure I had seen so acutely and bare on our wedding night. Calm consumed me, and I finally realized what little regret I felt. I tried to remember our life together, but I couldn’t. All that I had was a face full of blood and a dead wife, just drifting forward. It wasn’t me. It looked like me, it felt like me, but it wasn’t. Who was the man that killed my beloved? I think I’ve seen his face, before. I swear I have.

My hand trembled as I slammed the door of my truck and drove away. For a second I wondered if she was still alive, but this thought was quickly put to rest. I remembered the moment that the knife went in. her chest retracted as she screamed and cried for the longest second of my life, and never came back out. After six years of marriage, sleepless nights watching your darling angel sleep, the slight moves, the whispered noises, while you contemplate her demise and don’t know why, I know what a living Annabel looks like. I started humming that damned song again, except, this time, I recognized it. It was our song… My beloved… My victim… My truck was going just over thirty five, but my thoughts were going a million miles a second. I had loved that song. She loved it, too. We were so alike. There were only two problems with our marriage: I was a psychopath and she didn’t notice. It’s funny, in a way. I think we could make it in another life. I’ll try the next one. We’re both going to the same place.

The truck pulled up by the lake. I got out in my long, black boots, I didn’t want to get my pants muddy or wet, I had work the next day. I put down the tailgate and slid her body out into my hands, watching the moonlight bounce off of her cherry red lipstick and the blood on her mouth. I cradled her in my arms; I didn’t want to hurt her any more than I already had. She had paid her life. That’s all she owed me. I started humming our song again, then I sang it, then I screamed it. My words became incomprehensible through my wailing cries. Tears rolled off the edge of my nose and onto her dress. She had just bought that dress for our seventh anniversary. I was just in a T-shirt. I’m so inconsiderate. She deserves better. She can have Satan.

I couldn’t stop shaking while I rested her into the water. It was so cold; she must have been so uncomfortable. I made sure to strap a life vest on her so that when all the air escaped her lungs, she wouldn’t float to the bottom and be forgotten. I knew someone would find her. I had no illusions of escape. I sat in my truck until someone came and asked me to help rescue her, unaware that she was already dead. I didn’t move. I didn’t move until the police arrived.

Now, as I sit in this cell, people ask me why I did it. I don’t answer. I don’t know. She was so perfect, too perfect for this world, that’s what I keep telling myself. I know the truth, however, and the truth is this: My darling Annabel is dead because I wasn’t powerful enough to stop it.