Read Online Hi I'm a Social Disease: Horror Stories by Andersen Prunty - Free Book Online Page A

she had been more alert, maybe, or a better driver, then none of it would have happened. He knew that was ludicrous, of course, but knowing it didn’t stop the feelings and the thoughts rushing through his head. Knowing it almost made it worse, turning the whole situation into some all-consuming paradox.
    God was at fault too, naturally. Elijah had never been a very religious person but he wouldn’t have considered himself an atheist until that day. A god that would kill a beautiful, successful woman in the prime of her life and an innocent child wasn’t a god worth believing in. A god that would force him to suffer as much as he had after their deaths was a god that was better off dead.
    Completely drunk at this point and watching the thunderheads gather up their black dresses of grief and march toward the graveyard, he realized there was a new dimension to his anger and he finally figured it out.
    Maya was cheating on him.
    The signs were there, he had merely refused to acknowledge them. But now that he did, now that he told himself she was cheating on him, the pieces fell into place.
    It started with the way she was acting this morning. How she had told him affairs happened. It wasn’t even the way she said it, “It happens,” it was the way she completely broke down after he had told her he wasn’t cheating on her. Like, after her suspicions were denied, she was the guilty one. It would be completely like Maya to fuck someone to get even with him.
    Then Elijah remembered something else. Actually, it was some one else. All last week, about the same time everything became blue again, Elijah had seen the same man coming from the direction of their apartment building. In a small town like Moston, it wasn’t unusual to see the same faces over and over again, but he hadn’t seen this man until last week and he never saw him at any other time.
    Elijah remembered touching Maya this morning and how unresponsive she was.
    Well, he thought. There’s only one way to prove it.
    With that, he stood up, guzzled down the rest of the bourbon, pulled some flowers away from a neighboring grave and put them into the empty bottle, setting it down in between the graves as a small reminder he was there.
     
    On his way back into town he drove straight through the storm. By the time he reached the apartment the storm had subsided and the air around him resonated with the ozone blue of sun trying to break through dark clouds. He did the best parking job he could muster, nearly popping the tire as the car flew up onto the curb. It didn’t matter. He didn’t plan on being there for very long anyway.
    He knew what he expected to find and, at this point, a scary thought, it was almost what he wanted to find. He wondered if they would actually be fucking or maybe Maya was now feeling guilty and blowing the guy off. Whoever the creep was, Elijah felt certain he would try and get a little something from her before saying his goodbye.
    Elijah threw open the door from the street and bounded up the stairs.
    Would they even bother locking the doors?
    He had his key ready but, turning the knob, discovered he didn’t even need it. Hell, the anticipation of getting caught had to be half the thrill of it.
    One could not see the front door from the bed. It was one of the small touches that made the apartment feel a little less like an efficiency.
    Elijah grabbed the aluminum Louisville Slugger he kept propped against the door in case of intruders. It had never really occurred to him before that was probably the worst place he could have kept it if anyone wanted to break in. It would be like arming the criminal. Of course, there was a gun in the bedside table. He anticipated Maya going for that if he didn’t act quickly enough. Elijah hated guns. He had no intention of trying to go after it himself.
    As he rounded the corner, his mind took a quick snapshot of what was happening on the bed before he moved in to put a stop to it.
    Maya was lying back,