The Man who killed his Wife and got away with it

A Chapter by Ashh Burnes

he killed her, now she'll kill him...

He killed her. The whole town of Nocturne knew it. But when the court acquitted him, they watched and forgot that this ingenious mastermind had not only murdered his innocent wife, but he had got away with it.

Rider Clive had married Lola two years after the court had adjudged him ‘Not Guilty’. She was the complete opposite of his late wife Nana. While Nana had been petite with dark hair and eyes, Lola was tall and had long blond curls. Lola was also as noisy as Nana was silent. She was also fearless enough to marry a man who had murdered in cold blood.

Clive wanted to start over again. The rock hard guilt he carried in his heart for killing Nana was eating over him every second of every day. He hadn’t meant to kill her. She had tried to order him and reprimand him from taking bribes in his business. She was his wife, and she had no right to order him about. He had struck her in such anger that she had fallen down the stairs and died almost instantly. He had been shocked but that didn’t prevent him from masking her murder and making it look like she’d died by accident. His connections in the legal system had helped too. He was innocent by law and free of conscience. Now he was remarried and it was as if Nana Clive had never existed at all.

Clive used to come home late every night after a long day of working with all the big names of the corporate world. That night, he came especially late. It was nearly midnight when Lola opened the door for him. He waited for the usual bear hug she used to greet him with. But she just smiled and told him that dinner would be served in a while. That was weird, thought Clive as he went to his room to dress, she never served dinner. It was usually the maids who ushered him into the hall and serve the food as she used to eat disgracefully. Maybe Lola was finally acting like a proper lady. As he put his silk robe on, Rider couldn’t help but wonder if Lola had grown shorter. She was at his eye level with her stilettos on; but today she had barely reached his shoulders. Her silver blonde hair was almost coppery gold. It must be the lights. He shook his head as the thought of her turning into Nana filled his mind. He went downstairs and noticed that everything was spotlessly clean. The servants had done a great job. Then he glanced at the clock and remembered Lola’s stupid argument that the clock was a whole minute fast and that it made her late for her so-called ‘Appointments’. He laughed. Lola was really stupid and she said the dumbest things. Sometimes, he missed Nana.

As they sat to dine, Clive noticed that there was not a servant in sight. The house was empty but for him and Lola. He wondered who had cooked the food. Lola had been a pampered brat who knew nothing about domestic chores. The one time she had tried to cook for him out of spite, she had produced toxic scum and the poor maids spent a whole week trying to get rid of the residues. He grated his throat and looked up at Lola, surprised to see her eating like a refined lady of class rather than the greedy pig she truly was.

“Where have the maids gone?”

“I sent them off,” Lola said after swallowing her caviar. “There is no need for servants when I can spend my time cooking and cleaning the house. It is my duty to take care of you and I am quite capable of doing it on my own.”

Clive was stunned. He was surprised that she had come to think like a proper wife, and was even more surprised to see that it had not ended in disaster. As he finished his Crème Brule, he couldn’t understand the chill that ran down his spine as he realized that the eyes that were watching him with intense love were not their original aquamarine, but they had turned into a muddy and almost brown shade of blue. It also didn’t help that Lola had not carried on with her usual gibberish. She had been as silent as the dead.

It didn’t escape Clive’s notice that Lola had become shorter and shorter with each passing day. Her hair was almost brown and her eyes were more brown than they were blue. He also noticed that she was getting quite good at her wifely chores. She cooked like a chef, cleaned like a maid, did the linen like a launderer, and behaved like a sophisticated lady. In brief, she stopped being Lola. The quite woman who greeted him with a silent and sad smile was a completely different person. She was the opposite of his new wife, and the synonym of his old one.

Clive arrived home at a quarter to midnight. It was raining cats and dogs, he thought, as he waited for Lola to open the door for him. To make things worse, it was a New Moon Night and there was not a ray of light in sight. He was quite surprised to see that the Lola who greeted him had grown taller and blonder and had bluer eyes. He felt relieved, but she still smiled that cold smile and refused to hug or greet him. She walked to the hall without a word. He sighed as he made for his room. He was glad Lola had got back her original appearance and he hoped that she would return to her original personality too. It was true that Lola had been acting like a lady, but there was an almost abnormal quality about her that made him scared. He entered his room and started to fish around for a candle. The rain had turned into an outraged storm and the only light was from the flashes of lightning accompanied by roars of thunder. It was an unpleasant source of light but it was also the only one. He started fumbling in the drawer until he finally found a candle. AS he held it up in triumph, the lighting miraculously struck the wick of the candle and it started to illuminate the whole room. Clive turned pale, not at the knowledge that he had almost been struck by lightning, but at the form that lay before his eyes.

At the foot of his armchair, lay a small woman with dark brown hair. She was crumpled into an awkward position. He paled as he recognized it. She lay as if she had been dropped from the stairs. He didn’t need to turn her over to know that it was the same woman he had buried two-and-a-half years ago. He clasped the candle harder and he was so numb that he couldn’t scream at the shock of seeing her body, or even at the pain of having the melted wax run down his hands. At the next flash of lightning, he swallowed the lump in his throat and willed his legs, which had turned into pudding above his feet, to run.

He ran down the stairs, screaming “Lola”. He made his way to the dining room where the grand clock was a few minutes away from greeting midnight. He didn’t think about a rational explanation for what he had seen or rather he couldn’t think with all the pictures of him murdering Nana swimming in his head. He was viewing her with anger, planning to punish her in the cruelest manner imaginable, and then he had lost his temper in a blind rage and struck her. As she fell in slow motion, all the painful expressions on her soon-to-die face flashed before his eyes, but nothing was as vivid as the satisfied grin plastered on his face as he saw her body crumpled in death. He clutched his head willing the pain and the visions to go away. As his hazy gaze came upon Lola, he ran up to her and grabbed her by the shoulders. He closed his eyes and panted as he thought of what to do. He finally opened his eyes, only to feel his heart stop beating at the sight of the sad, almost cruel smile on her face.

“Lola, what’s happening to you?” He was practically choking as he tried to prevent the tears of despair and confusion from falling down his face. “What’s happening to me?”

Lola smiled that same cruel smile and reached up to cup his face in her palms. He was so numb and confused that he could not feel the pain of the blood prickling down from where her long red fingernails dug into his skin. She dug deeper into his flesh, drawing a line of blood the same color as her nails. She made a trail from his cheek to his throat and then back up. She kept moving her fingers drawing blood at the same time. It was as if she was creating a pattern. He still couldn’t feel the pain, only numbness that to him felt even worse than the most unbearable of tortures. He gaped at her as she finally finished whatever she was doing to his face and stepped back. She licked his blood off her nails and gagged in disgust. She looked at him and sneered.

“Your blood tastes like a murderer’s.”

His heart stopped as he recognized her voice. He watched with barely suppressed shock and overpowering horror as Lola began to shrink. Her hair turned shorter and browner. Her cruel eyes took a whole new meaning as they turned into brown circles of accusation. He was no longer looking at Lola, but the figure that stood smiling before him could only have been Nana. Clive started to laugh hysterically as the most blinding difference between the two women came into light. Lola was alive, while Nana had been dead for a long time.

11:57:45pm

Nana smiled at Clive. The smile was cruel and cold.

“Don’t you want to know what’s happening, Rider? Aren’t you worried whether I killed that blonde bimbo the same way you killed me?”

Clive stopped laughing. Did he care what happened to Lola? No! At the moment, the only thing he cared about was whether his dead wife had actually come back to kill him or whether he had lost all sanity. He stared at Nana in fear, as she continued.

11:57:45pm

“I came back for revenge, Rider. I have more than a minute to tell you what happened and to finally kill you at the strike of midnight. This is the only chance I’ll ever get, Rider. I’m going to make you pay!”

She could only kill him at midnight, so that meant he could survive if he stalled her till then. He could do that. He knew quite a bit on that subject. All he had to do was get her to keep talking till a second after midnight.

11:58:31pm

“I couldn’t rest in peace knowing that you had got away with my murder, so I made a contract with the Lord of Death, Hades. In exchange for my soul, I could kill on a New Moon Midnight, when the angels of Hell will come to collect my soul once I’ve killed you. I have only this chance, Rider, to make you pay.”

Nana smirked and Clive noticed that her teeth were yellow and her gums were rotting at an unimaginable speed. She would die any second. He slowly made his way to the mantelpiece where he kept his stainless-steel poker. She didn’t seem to notice that he hid it beneath his robe ready to use it when she tried to kill him.

11:58:59pm

“Your weak wife was the best vessel for me.” Nana continued, wistfully. “She was disgustingly dense and didn’t even notice that I was slowly transferring my features and energy into her body. But I’m not cruel enough to kill her in my revenge. She will get her body back once I kill you. So you see, it is not just my necessity that you die, it is hers as well. That body you saw in your room is your Lola. And the person before you is me.”

11:59:27pm

“It’s nearly time for you to die, Rider. Any last words?”

Clive swallowed. He no longer felt threatened. She would not succeed in harming him. Instead, he would send her to hell without the satisfaction of performing the deed for which she sold her soul. He smiled.

“Nana, you still haven’t learnt, have you? I don’t like being bossed around. How many times do I have to kill you for you to understand?!!”

11:59:57pm

“Why you…”

Nana growled as she leaped at him. The surprise on her face was uncanny as he pulled out the poker and pushed it into her. She was flung aside and landed with a thud, just as the gong went off.

12:00:09am

Nana stumbled to her feet in horror. Clive disposed of the poker and flashed the same cold and victorious smile that she had on a moment ago. Nana stared at him with dead and shattered eyes.

12:00:41am

Then she smiled and Clive frowned. Why was she so happy? She should be devastated! Nana started laughing and then bent over with sheer delight. Now, he was starting to get confused and angry, not to mention desperately scared out of his wits.

12:00:56am

Nana was still laughing. Then, she straightened up and started smiling.

12:00:58am

Still smiling, she lunged at him. He was too surprised to move. She was supposed to be gone. She was supposed to be rotting in hell. Why was she killing him?!!!

12:00:59am

Nana smiled as she practically purred, “You should’ve listened to Lola and fixed that clock, Rider!”

12:01:00am

Nana plunged her hand into his neck. He couldn’t feel the fatal pain as her hand pushed out his tongue through the other side of his head. He couldn’t feel the blood pouring out of her hand as she withdrew it from his neck. All he could see was Nana licking his blood in satisfaction as the Hell’s angels descended upon her to carry her to Hell. There was a white glow around her and she was turning translucent. He died wondering why he had killed her.

Well, it wasn’t that bad. It wasn’t as if he was never going to see her again, he thought as his soul was carried off by the Hell’s Angels. He would be with her for eternity, suffering in Hell.

Lola stood before Clive’s grave. He had been buried beside Nana. On his tombstone, she had engraved the words which Nana had scratched onto his face the night he died. Lola sighed. She turned back to see what his tombstone read as she walked away.

R.I.P.

Here Lies Rider Matthew Clive.

Guilty As Charged.