13

Doug Hughes twisted the handset on his front door and pushed, all in the same motion. The handle didn’t turn, and he almost smacked his face into the door. He tried the handle again. Locked. He rang the doorbell and waited. Nothing. It was just after five on Monday—no reason for Elsie to be out with the kids. He dug in his pocket, fished out a key, and opened the door. The house was quiet.

“Hello,” he said, a slight lilt to his voice. “Honey? You home?”

Silence.

A small, scarred wooden table sat in the foyer, and he dropped his keys on it. The day’s mail, usually stacked neatly and waiting for him, was nowhere in sight. He opened the front door and checked the mailbox. It was full. He closed the front door and set the mail on the table next to his keys. Something wasn’t right. Unless the kids had some sort of sports or after-school activity, Elsie was always home when he arrived from work, and tonight was no different from any other: The train had dropped him at the station precisely when it did every night. He was positive their calendar was clear. And where were the kids? He slipped off his shoes, calling again for his wife and kids.

Silence. Not a sound.

His wife had been under the weather for the last week, quite sick actually, but if she was heading out to the doctor’s office, she would have called. He stopped at the garage door and peeked in. Her vehicle was parked next to his. He felt his heart beating faster and a steely taste in his mouth. Panic. He moved quickly through the house now, checking each room as he went. The main-floor family room was clean and quiet, the television and audio system both turned off. The kitchen was exactly as he had left it, the glass from his morning fruit shake still in the sink. He ran up the open staircase to the upper floor, glancing in the kids’ rooms as he moved down the hall. Nothing. Everything clean and quiet. He grasped the handle to the master bedroom and turned. The knob rotated easily and the door swung in a couple of inches.

“Elsie,” he said quietly as he entered the room. The bed was ruffled and he could see the outline of his wife under the covers. He took a deep breath and exhaled. She was sleeping. Probably had a neighbor or one of her friends pick up the kids so she could sleep off whatever bug she was fighting. He walked across the room, his stocking feet making no sound on the thick nylon carpet. He reached the edge of the bed and folded the covers back.

And then he screamed.

Doug Hughes screamed again and again as he staggered back from the bed, knocking over the night table and spilling a full glass of water. Staring at him with bloated eyes, one popped completely out of its socket, was a dead person. His wife’s face was a strange shade of purple, her lips almost black. A thick, vile liquid was oozing from her mouth onto the sheets. Her mouth was set in a horrific grimace, as though her last breath had been in total agony. A pungent odor drifted to him and he vomited onto the carpet. It was an odor he had never smelled before. It was the odor of death.

He grasped the phone with unsteady hands and dialed 911. “My wife is dead,” he said when the operator came on. “My wife is dead. Oh my God, my wife is dead.”

He dropped the phone on the floor, then fainted.