Love is Murder

by Sandra Brown

  She filled the new Sherman’s bowl with food and watched him dig in, surrounding the bowl with his big paws as he always did.

  Incredible, Molly thought, turning to find Bob standing halfway between her and Matt curled up on the couch watching Nickelodeon.

  “We need to talk,” he said.

  * * *

  “You shouldn’t have bought this dog.”

  “Well, I…”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you lost your job?”

  “How did you—”

  “I called the office.”

  “I just couldn’t tell you.” Molly felt the tears coming, but pushed them back, not wanting to make a scene in front of Matt. “And I didn’t buy the dog, Bob.”

  “So, what, you got it from the pound or something?”

  “Something,” Molly said, hesitating. “You said we’d get through this. You remember saying that?”

  “I suppose,” he shrugged.

  “Then let me do it. Let me get us through this.”

  Molly wanted to hug him, wanted to feel him hug her back reassuringly. But the time for gestures was gone, and they stood facing each other with the few feet separating them feeling like a valley.

  “Bob? Please, trust me.”

  Bob shrugged again and nodded, his own eyes moistening.

  * * *

  That night, as soon as Bob drifted off to sleep Molly padded back downstairs to the computer, quickly locating an image of real piles of money with the caption, Did you ever wonder what a million dollars looked like?

  No sense getting greedy. A million dollars would change their lives plenty.

  Molly saved the image and then opened the real estate website that had posted the listing of their home. She found a picture of the bedroom and saved it to the desktop.

  She tweaked the images with Photoshop until she felt it looked perfect. It depicted the money sitting on top of the bed, the piles looking exactly as they had over the Did you ever…caption. Except the same piles now appeared atop their covers and neatly folded afghan, promising a better and happier life.

  Molly hit the print key and waited for the HP to roll out the resulting product. Her mind wandered while she waited, drifting back to the honeymoon they’d taken. Finances didn’t allow for the typical week in the tropics, so they’d opted to go white-water rafting, something neither of them had ever experienced. Pictures of them framed amid the rapids was part of the package, only once the photos arrived Bob’s face wasn’t visible in any of the shots. At her wits’ end, Molly had labored with paste and tape in the pre-Photoshop days to repair the omission, before finally coming up with something acceptable, Bob displayed clearly now alongside her.

  In creating it Molly had the sense that if she made things right on paper, they would remain just as right in life. Even though that had hardly been the case, the picture had remained her favorite of the two of them together for all this time. How often she had stared at it displayed on their family room wall as if to will such unrestrained happiness back into reality and how foolish that had made her feel.

  But maybe not so foolish anymore.

  The Photoshop effort of the money stacked atop their bed emerged from the HP looking even better than it had on screen. Molly trimmed the edges to make sure it would fit on the Kodak 470, stealing a glance toward the rafting shot hanging on an adjacent wall.

  Just one last time, she promised herself.

  * * *

  Molly was there minutes after the Rexall opened, Bob having offered to drop Matt off at day care after she told him she had an important job interview.

  “Back again?” Jasmine said from behind the counter, blowing a bubble. “Can you wait until tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  Jasmine tilted her eyes toward the Kodak 1000, a state-of-the-art scanner pressed up against the wall currently with protective plastic wrapped around its shiny frame in stark contrast to the 470’s worn and faded casing.

  “We’re installing it later today, matter of fact,” Jasmine told her.

  “No, the old one will do just fine.”

  With that, Molly positioned the Photoshop shot of a million dollars on the glass and hit Scan. The stench from the Kodak 470 was worse than ever, the thing rattling up a storm as soon as she hit Print, threatening to burst from its bonds and rampage through the store spewing chemicals in its wake. The machine’s corrosive smell assaulted her, blackening smoke now rising in thin wisps from its innards.

  Please, let it work. Just this one last time… .

  The copied picture emerged from the slot in a series of fits and starts, much too hot to touch at first, but looking even better than the original she’d created.

  Thank God, she thought, brimming with hope and expectation for the first time in longer than she could remember as she moved to the counter.

  “Anybody ever have, you know, any strange stories about that scanner?” Molly asked Jasmine.

  “I don’t know about stories, but we’ve had plenty of complaints, especially in the last month or so.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, like people saying their pictures were gone by the time they got home.”

  “Gone?”

  “Washed out, colors all bleeding together, something like that. I called the company, but customer support doesn’t support the 470 anymore. That’ll be a dollar six with tax.”

  * * *

  Molly rushed straight home, breathless with expectation, the Kodak 470’s parting gift to her hopefully lying on the bedcovers. But she couldn’t stop from wondering why the machine, and the magic behind it, had chosen her of all people instead of the multitude of others who had seen their memories dissolve in a mishmash of blended colors. Certainly there was a reason and whatever the reason was, it stopped her from questioning the moral implications of what she had done. Besides, was it any different from praying in church for the impossible to come true.

  But what if this time it didn’t?

  She stepped into the bedroom with eyes closed, terrified she was about to learn she’d played herself for a fool. That it would turn out Bob really had hired someone to brush up the house’s exterior and the new Sherman was no more than a look-alike stray. She realized in those final moments between breaths that the machine had taken her hostage, enslaved her in hope. But what if that hope were false?

  Molly opened her eyes.

  And saw the money, big heaping piles of it stacked atop her bed exactly as it had been in the picture. The scale was identical, the denominations, she was certain, identical, as well.

  Molly reached out and touched the cash, half expecting it to be no more than an illustration set atop the spread. But, no, it was real. Smelled real, felt real, fanned like real. An assortment of neatly wrapped twenties, fifties. A million dollars.

  A million dollars!

  Molly sat on the bed and tossed packet after packet into the air, enjoying the thump when each one smacked the pile. Her family’s problems solved, the house to remain theirs. No For Sale sign added to the endless collection dotting their suburban world.

  Then a different thump, one car door and then another slamming closed, brought her to the window.

  A pair of police officers was heading up the walk, having exited their cruiser parked in the street. They looked dour, purposeful. Molly shrank away from the window so they couldn’t see her, heard the doorbell ring.

  Were they here to arrest her? Did they somehow know what she’d done? Surely this couldn’t qualify as counterfeiting; she hadn’t printed the money, she’d just, well, brought it to life. Was that a crime? Was she going to have to explain this miracle to Bob from a jail cell?

  Molly debated briefly about not letting them in, then figured they’d get her sooner or later anyway. So after the second ring she went downstairs and opened the door.

  “Good afternoon, Officers,” she said, forcing a smile. “Is there a problem?”

  The cops removed their caps in eerie unison. Molly
saw the look in their eyes and knew.

  * * *

  An 18-wheeler had run a red light and obliterated Bob’s Volvo, while he was on his way to drop Matt off at day care. Both Bob and Matt had been pronounced dead at the scene. Of course, if she hadn’t made up the lie about the job interview, so she could be at the Rexall when it opened, they’d both be alive now. Bob never would have been behind the wheel at that exact place and time. So this was all her fault, the scanner’s fault. Not a blessing, after all, but a terrible curse. A gift from hell, not heaven.

  “Ma’am,” one of the cops was saying, as Molly sat in a chair with broken springs that felt ready to swallow her. “Ma’am?”

  She wanted to wake up, wake up and find the fence posts still broken, Sherman still dead, and no million dollars upstairs in her bedroom. Because then Bob and Matt would still be alive. She was fresh out of miracles. There was no magic that could bring them back to life.

  “Is there someone we can call for you, ma’am?” the cop was asking now.

  Unless…

  Might the scanner, could it possibly…

  “Is there someone you can be with, someplace we can take you?”

  “Yes!” Molly blurted out, hoping against hope. “The Rexall! Please take me to the Rexall!”

  The cops did, both eyeing her strangely but not bothering to question a grieving woman. Molly wished only they’d drive with siren screaming and lights flashing the whole way, praying it wasn’t too late. But he drove at a modest clip and it turned out it was too late indeed.

  The Kodak 470 was gone, having already been replaced by the 1000 that glistened beneath the harsh fluorescent lighting in the Rexall.

  Molly grabbed the clerk Jasmine by the white jacket. “Where is it?”

  “Where’s what?”

  “The scanner, the old scanner!”

  “Out back,” Jasmine said. “With the trash.”

  Molly bolted for the back, nearly crashing through the automatic doors before they had a chance to open. There it was, the Kodak 470 leaning up against a fence surrounding the Rexall Dumpster. The smell of garbage assaulted her as she rushed up to it, already tearing her wallet from her handbag and a picture of Bob and Matt together from her wallet. The top that covered the scanner’s glass had been broken off in the move and was resting against the bottom of the sun-faded frame. Molly laid the small picture down on the clearest portion of the glass and wedged the cover over it, reaching up for the scanning controls to the chilling realization that the machine was no longer plugged in.

  Since even the 470’s magic extended only so far, Molly ran back into the Rexall and yanked three extension cords from the home electronics shelf.

  “Where’s the nearest power outlet?” she screamed at Jasmine, already unraveling and connecting them.

  Jasmine pointed to a wall featuring the store’s ATM machine.

  Molly had to snake a hand behind it to plug in the strung-together extension cords and then burst back outside with the cords strung like a white snake in her wake. The store alarm began to wail, a surprisingly polite female voice advising her to please return inside because the store had failed to deactivate the security sensor. So now she was a shoplifter on top of everything else.

  Outside a garbage truck was backing its way toward the Dumpster and the scanner.

  Beep, beep, beep…

  “No!” Molly screamed, daring the truck to hit her as she found the 470’s power cord and plugged it into her assemblage of extensions.

  She hit the on button and the machine coughed to life, black fluid seeping out from its front, more with each spit and rumble.

  “What the hell?” one of trash men asked, approaching warily as if afraid of what the crazed woman operating a junked scanner with patched together extension cords might do next.

  Molly hit Scan.

  Nothing happened.

  She pushed it three more times and still nothing, not even a wheeze. She pushed and held the button down and finally the old-fashioned grid that charted the scan’s progress popped up and began filling in, each lurch accompanied by a burning smell that reminded her of a blown-out tire. The scanner’s steel casing grew so hot it burned her fingers and forced her to shrink away.

  The screen flashed Scan Complete in scratchy letters that were dissolving before her eyes. Molly hit Print.

  Black smoke wafted outward, the machine’s insides grinding, seizing up. Fluids colored red and green and blue flowed outward from the slot where finished pictures were retrieved, the screen now flashing Paper Out.

  Paper! She hadn’t even thought to check if the machine had any left in its feeder!

  The trash men were grabbing hold of her, pulling.

  “Get away from the machine!” one wailed. “It’s catching fire!”

  “No, please! It’s not finished! Please!”

  She tried to grab hold of the scanner’s lip but it singed her fingers and she felt herself being yanked backward. Her hands flailed for the Kodak 470 as more colored fluids leaked from the retrieval slot and the Scan Complete message dissolved into nothing. She saw flames peeking out from the machine’s underside before bursting out its feeder slot. Then the glass screen blew out and smoke swallowed the scanner in a thick black cloud that looked like a monstrous specter with a mouth formed of crackling flames laughing at her.

  * * *

  The same cops who dropped Molly at the Rexall brought her back home and escorted her up to the door, exchanging no words because there was nothing to say. Molly entered to find the new Sherman wagging his tail to greet her, oblivious to the scanner’s failure to right this terrible wrong. A life so filled with hope barely twelve hours ago now lost to tragedy and guilt. Was it so wrong what she’d done? Was it so wrong to want to preserve her family’s life and happiness?

  She heard the cops slam their doors closed and drive off, leaving her alone as she’d be for the rest of her life.

  Then she saw the tiny football flash by the window looking out into the backyard and, after a brief pause, flash by again in the opposite direction. Molly moved out into the backyard through the sliding glass door off the kitchen, gasping for air as if she’d forgotten how to breathe. Time slowed, then froze.

  “Where you been?” Bob asked. “I was worried. The school called when you didn’t pick up Matt.”

  Molly finally found her breath, but not words. Then Matt hugged her tightly and she knew it was real, all of it.

  “We made a photo book in school today, Mommy.”

  Scan Complete, the machine had said. The lack of paper must not have mattered… .

  She pictured the remains of the Kodak 470 being hauled away to some junkyard, compressed and sold for scrap.

  “A photo book,” Molly managed to echo. “Wow.”

  “Wanna see it?”

  “Later, Matty, later,” she told her son, taking her husband’s hand in hers. “We’ve got plenty of time now.”

  * * * * *

  GRAVE DANGER

  Heather Graham

  Spooky…and then some! Action-packed…and then some! Trust Heather Graham to plot so many twists into one short story. ~SB

  The shuffling sound of footsteps had brought her here.

  A leg lay on the floor, burned and scorched, blood pooled and congealed along the severed flesh at the kneecap area. In the shadows, Ali MacGregor stepped carefully by it. She blinked and saw the enormous monster beyond the leg. Fanged teeth appeared to drip saliva; the eyes were red, as if within them, all the fires and brutal evil of hell could be found.

  Ali stood still, her heart thundering. She heard the noise again, the shuffling sound that had brought her here. She moved as silently as she could. Another step brought her face-to-face with the decaying skeleton of a one-eyed zombie.

  Tattered flesh fell from the bones. The jaw bare, the tongue and teeth looked truly macabre. Now, its head hung in a parody of sadness, creating something even more horrible about its appearance—a touch of humanity, eaten away.
<
br />   On screen, it had been one of the most terrifying creatures ever.

  She was proud of the zombie. She’d had a part in the creation, and she thought it was one of her best pieces. The one eye was brilliantly blue, and it seemed to watch her as she listened again to the shuffling sound that had come from the storage room at the production facilities of Fantasmic Effects.

  It was strange. She was accustomed to the horrific and the bizarre; without it, she wouldn’t make a living. But it was one thing when she was here during the day, when the rhythmic churn of sewing machines could be heard, when buzz saws roared, and there were people at every different workstation.

  How different it was by night… .

  She was there alone for the first time. Of course, she wasn’t supposed to be alone. Victor Brill was supposed to be working with her. They were finishing up the last of the half-eaten zombies for tomorrow night’s shoot in the “graveyard.”

  The ironic thing, of course, was that the fake “graveyard” lay just beyond a real graveyard. A small plot in back fell under the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church. The land had been purchased and donated by Blake Richards, the brilliant man who had founded Fantasmic Studios. Despite his love of horror and the occult, Blake had been a devout Catholic, and a boy who had almost gone wrong, except for the intervention of a priest. Now, Blake Richards was buried in the plot that immediately bordered the brick-walled parking lot of the studios, and the fake cemetery had been established nearby.

  The cemetery had never frightened her. Not the real one, certainly. She’d loved Blake Richards; he’d hired her. He’d been the kindest man in the world, and the first to give a young artist a chance. So why was she so frightened tonight?

  Victor. The jerk.

  Victor had headed out to buy them both some fast food to get them through the next few hours. He’d left at five, when it had still been light. Now the sun had set, and the world around her was dark. Fantasmic Effects was out of the city, away from the congestion that seemed a part of all of Los Angeles County. Still, there were other studios and businesses not that far away. Enough so that there were scattered streetlights here and there.