Read Online The Zombies Of Lake Woebegotten by Harrison Geillor - Free Book Online
Authors: Harrison Geillor
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you feel like you need to leave me over this, go with my blessing. The kids are grown and it’s not like we’re spending Saturday nights slow dancing anyway. I like having you here, like how we can lean on each other, but I don’t have a lot of happiness in my life, and I’m not letting you take this away.” And he’d turned his back on her and gone out to the garage and they’d never spoken of it again.
That was back in September, and she’d been plotting his murder ever since. Killing him so soon before Christmas seemed a little cold, but it would spare them false attempts at holiday cheer, and it wasn’t like the twins were coming home, they were too busy going on ski trips with their college friends. In a way, the timing was good. Lots of people got depressed and did themselves in during the holidays, she’d read.
Brent had the trunk open and he was thrusting, having made some modifications to the trunk’s interior to accommodate such peculiar habits, and he was so deep into his groove that he never noticed when she put the chloroform rag over his face. He slumped and fell to the concrete, and she looked down at his naked unconscious body, expecting some twinge of remorse or regret, but all she felt was disgust. Brent spent all his time sitting behind a desk at the dealership, not like Dolph, who had to stay active moving boxes around in the storeroom and such. The difference showed.
She wrapped up the chloroform rag in a bunch of plastic bags to dispose of later, then started the car. Brent never ran the engine inside the garage for more than a few minutes at a time—though she knew he liked to put his privates on the hood while it was vibrating—because he said it was a vintage car with no catalytic converter, which meant the exhaust was about a quarter carbon monoxide, and that stuff could kill you. Apparently modern cars were a lot harder to commit suicide with. Sometimes old things were better.
Eileen got the car running good, purring away—the slut—stuffed some towels along the bottom of the garage door to seal any cracks, then went inside the house and shut the door. Maybe it would look better to put Brent inside the car, but dragging his body across the concrete would have been nearly impossible—he had about 80 pounds on her—and would have scraped him up enough to make even the town policemen suspicious if she’d managed it. No, the towels under the door would make it clear enough the death was intentional, though probably everyone would be polite and rule it an accident. She’d considered faking a suicide note, but Brent wasn’t one to pour out his feelings to anything that didn’t have an engine, so she figured the silent treatment would be more plausible. Everyone knew the dealership wasn’t doing well. Ford got a bailout from the government, but that didn’t really trickle down to the people who sold the cars, and even the Cash for Clunkers program everybody liked so much was a big hassle for the dealers, with the government taking forever to pay up and the paperwork was a nightmare. People might be surprised Brent had taken the coward’s way out, but not too surprised.
Eileen bundled up and went out to run some errands, including a visit to the Post Office to mail some last-minute Christmas gifts and a stop at the library to return some books, making a point of talking to people so she’d stick in their memory if the police asked later, not that she expected them to. She stayed gone about two hours—way longer than the internet said it took to die of carbon monoxide poisoning—then returned home, making a point of pausing by the garage and looking concerned about the sound of a car running inside, just in case one of the neighbors should be watching.
But then the fake look of concern became a real one, because there was a sound other than the engine running. There was a steady rhythmic thumping, like someone pounding on the inside of the garage door. Had a
That was back in September, and she’d been plotting his murder ever since. Killing him so soon before Christmas seemed a little cold, but it would spare them false attempts at holiday cheer, and it wasn’t like the twins were coming home, they were too busy going on ski trips with their college friends. In a way, the timing was good. Lots of people got depressed and did themselves in during the holidays, she’d read.
Brent had the trunk open and he was thrusting, having made some modifications to the trunk’s interior to accommodate such peculiar habits, and he was so deep into his groove that he never noticed when she put the chloroform rag over his face. He slumped and fell to the concrete, and she looked down at his naked unconscious body, expecting some twinge of remorse or regret, but all she felt was disgust. Brent spent all his time sitting behind a desk at the dealership, not like Dolph, who had to stay active moving boxes around in the storeroom and such. The difference showed.
She wrapped up the chloroform rag in a bunch of plastic bags to dispose of later, then started the car. Brent never ran the engine inside the garage for more than a few minutes at a time—though she knew he liked to put his privates on the hood while it was vibrating—because he said it was a vintage car with no catalytic converter, which meant the exhaust was about a quarter carbon monoxide, and that stuff could kill you. Apparently modern cars were a lot harder to commit suicide with. Sometimes old things were better.
Eileen got the car running good, purring away—the slut—stuffed some towels along the bottom of the garage door to seal any cracks, then went inside the house and shut the door. Maybe it would look better to put Brent inside the car, but dragging his body across the concrete would have been nearly impossible—he had about 80 pounds on her—and would have scraped him up enough to make even the town policemen suspicious if she’d managed it. No, the towels under the door would make it clear enough the death was intentional, though probably everyone would be polite and rule it an accident. She’d considered faking a suicide note, but Brent wasn’t one to pour out his feelings to anything that didn’t have an engine, so she figured the silent treatment would be more plausible. Everyone knew the dealership wasn’t doing well. Ford got a bailout from the government, but that didn’t really trickle down to the people who sold the cars, and even the Cash for Clunkers program everybody liked so much was a big hassle for the dealers, with the government taking forever to pay up and the paperwork was a nightmare. People might be surprised Brent had taken the coward’s way out, but not too surprised.
Eileen bundled up and went out to run some errands, including a visit to the Post Office to mail some last-minute Christmas gifts and a stop at the library to return some books, making a point of talking to people so she’d stick in their memory if the police asked later, not that she expected them to. She stayed gone about two hours—way longer than the internet said it took to die of carbon monoxide poisoning—then returned home, making a point of pausing by the garage and looking concerned about the sound of a car running inside, just in case one of the neighbors should be watching.
But then the fake look of concern became a real one, because there was a sound other than the engine running. There was a steady rhythmic thumping, like someone pounding on the inside of the garage door. Had a
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