Fishing in Brains for an Eye with Teeth (Thirteen Tales of Terror)

by William Markly O'Neal

  A reporter appeared on the screen, holding an Eyewitness News Team microphone. “Well, Andrea, as you can see, it’s probably going to be quite a while before anyone gets any sleep around here. Until then, residents will be watching the skies.”

  Frank heard a little bit about this at work today but not much. His mind was elsewhere.

  Convinced now that Faith was hiding something from him, fearful she was cheating on him, he’d been thinking a lot lately about who the other man might be.

  Frank asked, “What’s up?” Seeing his wife and teenage son together on the couch was too strange. The last time Frank saw a scene like this was when Blake was Bobby’s age.

  Blake said, “You don’t believe in this stuff, do ya, Dad?”

  “What stuff?”

  “U.F.O.s! Haven’t you heard? A bunch of people have seen U.F.O.s the last few nights. Everyone was talking about it at school today. Some Freshmen say they saw, like, real spaceships— War of the Worlds crap— but nobody believes them.”

  “Mass hysteria,” Frank said.

  “What?” said Faith sharply.

  Frank repeated, “Sounds like mass hysteria to me. One guy sees a plane or Venus when it’s particularly bright and believes it’s a flying saucer. The next thing you know everyone is seeing lights in the sky.”

  Blake looked at his mom with triumph. “Isn’t that what I said?”

  Faith picked up the remote and turned off the TV. “Supper’s almost ready.” As she walked off to the kitchen, Blake told Frank, “Mom believes it.”

  As usual, Frank was confused. Lately, it seemed like he never understood anything that was going on in his house. “Believes what?”

  “She believes in U.F.O.s.”

  Frank shook his head. He married a pragmatist. The idea that Faith would give credence to such hogwash was unfathomable to him. Grumpy now, he said, “Well, what’s not to believe, Blake. Unidentified Flying Objects do exist. They always turn out to be odd cloud formations or planes but the phenomenon is real.”

  Blake waited for Frank to stop talking so he could clarify. “Mom actually believes in extraterrestrials.”

  “What?!” Now Frank was really upset. If he lived to be a hundred-years-old, he would have bet he would never hear the word extraterrestrial used in a conversation in his home.

  Blake got up from the couch and pulled up his baggy jeans. “E.T., dad. Mom believes in strange visitors from outer space.” With that parting shot, Blake headed for his bedroom.

  Frank walked out to the kitchen, where Faith was putting garlic toast in the oven. Spaghetti sauce was bubbling in a pot on the stove while water boiled in a bigger kettle.

  Frank approached Faith like she was a volatile drunk or a dangerous beast. From a distance, watching her closely, he said, “Blake tells me you believe in E.T.s.”

  Faith closed the oven, and then hung up her oven mitts, huffing, “Your son has a very limited imagination.”

  Since Blake agreed with Frank— and Blake happened to be right in this instance— Frank felt Faith wasn’t just insulting Blake, but also him. “What’s that supposed to mean? Do you believe we’re being visited by little green men from Mars?”

  Faith gave him a look that, a month ago, would have hurt him. Now, it just made him angry to see contempt in her eyes. She shook her head and hissed, “No, Frank. I don’t think we’re being visited by little green men from anywhere.” She opened a box of spaghetti and began snapping it in half above the boiling water, then dropping it in.

  Frank just stood there, uncertain whether he wanted to continue this conversation or not.

  Finally, frustrated, he decided he didn’t.

  He asked Faith, “How long until dinner?”

  Coldly, she answered, “Ten minutes.”

  He could tell she was angry and her anger made him angrier. What’s she got to be mad about? Does she really expect me to take any of this seriously?

  He told her, “I’m going to take a shower,” and walked out of the kitchen.

  Frank headed upstairs to the master bathroom, stripped down, and got into the shower.

  He couldn’t believe it. Exactly at what point in our marriage did my wife lose her mind?

  Like Frank, Faith had always been a skeptic. She didn’t believe in Big Foot or the Loch Ness Monster.

  She also didn’t believe in E.T.s.

  He really wanted to know, When did she change?

  Suddenly he had an idea and it caused a sinking feeling in his stomach. He wondered if Faith’s newfound interest in U.F.O.s was influenced by her new lover.

  That seemed like a likely possibility.

  He couldn’t imagine where else Faith could be getting these bizarre ideas.

  ******

  The following Friday, as Frank was finishing up a particularly grueling work week, Faith called him at the office.

  “Frank.” He knew from her voice that something was wrong.

  “What is it? Are the boys okay?”

  “They’re fine but I’ve got a big problem. Annie’s in trouble.”

  “What?” Annie again? What this time?

  “She’s going to have surgery this afternoon.”

  “Surgery?” Instead of being concerned about his wife’s friend, his first thought was, These kinds of surprises are supposed to wait until I get home, darling.

  “As usual, Stan is no help. I need to be with her tonight.”

  The word tonight set off alarm bells. “What time will you be home?”

  “Actually, I was thinking about staying at Annie’s house tonight.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “Stan’s out of town right now. He went to his brother’s specifically so he wouldn’t have to deal with this, the callous jerk!” Faith sighed. “Look, I know you’re not happy about this, but I’ve tried to make it as painless as possible. Blake is spending the night at Austin’s.” Austin was Blake’s best friend. “And Bobby is at my mom’s so you’ll have the whole house to yourself. I took a T-bone out of the freezer for you, or you can just warm up some of the leftover hamburger helper from the other night.”

  She’s going to Him. Whoever He is, she’ll be spending the night with Him. Annie will cover for her and, oh sure, she’ll probably spend some time at Annie’s house but there’s more going on here than she’s telling me. He snapped, “Well, thanks for notifying me.” She’s going to cheat on me again.

  “Oh, don’t act that way!”

  “Exactly how should I act?”

  “Dammit, Frank, since when did you become so selfish? Annie is hurting right now!”

  Frank tried softening his tone but he resented having to do it. “What kind of surgery is she having?”

  “It doesn’t matter. What matters is she’s frightened out of her mind and she needs me to stay with her.”

  “Okay, then.”

  There was a brief, tense silence and, just as he was about to ask her when she would be back, Faith said, “I’ll be home in the morning. Call me if you need me, okay? I’ve got my cell phone on me.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m standing outside the hospital.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh,” she said, mocking him. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing,” he said, thinking, What is wrong with you?

  Annie sighed. “I’m going to go. Call me if you need me.”

  “Okay.”

  “I love you.”

  His eyes narrowed as he gave the appropriate response, “I love you, too,” even though he was not feeling any love at all at the moment.

  Frank gave up drinking years ago but on the way home, he stopped at a liquor store and bought a bottle of Captain Morgan.

  Many hours later, drunk on rum, he picked up the phone and called Annie’s house.

  The phone rang and rang.

  She’s not going to answer. Tomorrow they’ll tell me they were already in bed. He looked at the clock and saw the numbers that indicated it was after m
idnight but his foggy brain didn’t make much sense of them. She’s with Him. I know Faith is with Him and Annie will lie and say—

  “Hello?”

  Spontaneously, Frank hung up. His head was reeling. He’d never been this inebriated in his life. He thought, Okay. So Annie’s there, but Faith’s not. Faith is—

  The phone rang, startling him so badly, he spilled rum on himself.

  He picked up the phone and said, “‘lo?”

  “Frank?” It was Faith.

  He didn’t say anything. It dawned on him he might be a bit too drunk to talk.

  “Frank?”

  “Wut?”

  “Is that you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did you just call here?”

  He wanted to lie but knew he was probably caught and said nothing. The words ‘Caller ID’ flashed through his muddled mind.

  “Have you been drinking?”

  “Maybe,” he said, not realizing he might as well have just said yes.

  Faith sounded disgusted. “Dammit, Frank, don’t I have enough problems without you making me more?”

  What kind of problems have you got, other than hiding your lover from me?

  “Don’t call here anymore tonight!”

  Before he retorted he’d call her any damn time he pleased, she hung up on him.

  “Sh‘ung up on me!”

  He couldn’t believe she hung up on him.

  Nobody knew the troubles that Frank Farnsworth had seen.

  Nobody but Captain Morgan.

  ******

  They fought the next day when Faith got home. She was furious about Frank’s drinking.

  He was suffering from a terrible hangover and he was in no mood to apologize. He believed all this was Faith’s fault, excusing himself by thinking she drove him to drink.

  He never asked about Annie’s surgery. He didn’t care.

  Faith spent hours on the phone talking to Annie.

  The entire day was extremely tense. When they finally went to bed, Faith scooched all the way over to her left side of the bed while Frank scooted to the far right.

  ******

  Hours after they went to sleep, Faith awakened him, saying, “I know you don’t approve but please don’t judge me too harshly.”

  As he opened his eyes, Frank muttered, “Don’t approve of what?”

  Faith answered, “I hired somebody.”

  He rolled over to face her, wondering, Hired somebody to do what?

  “I hired someone to kill him.”

  “What?!” He jumped as if he had just received an electric shock.

  “I know, I know. You still value your marriage. You must think I’m terrible! You don’t understand how bad it is.”

  So your lover is married too, huh? That figures.

  Faith whined, “It’s too late. I already gave him part of the money. At this point, I can’t call it off.”

  This isn’t happening. This cannot be happening.

  Faith sounded like she was crying. Instead of softening Frank’s heart, her sobbing hardened it. She said, “I did it for you. I did it for us. I did it so it would be easier for us to be together.”

  Mortified, Frank asked her, “When is this going to happen?”

  Faith said nothing more.

  Frank lay awake all night.

  ******

  The next day he talked again with his friend Josh. Once again, Josh didn’t take his concerns seriously.

  At work, exhausted, short-tempered from lack of sleep, Frank spent his lunch hour calling Private Detectives, only to confirm what he already suspected: he couldn’t afford to hire one.

  That night, the atmosphere in his house was still chilly.

  Once again, he went to bed before Faith.

  Once again, it didn’t do any good.

  She awakened him from a dead sleep, saying, “No, I don’t think I’ll get caught. The guy barely knows me. He’s a friend of a friend and he needs the money for his family. He has every bit as much to lose as me, if not more. He’s not exactly a bad man but I think . . . I think . . .”

  What? Frank asked and apparently the lover in her dream asked the same thing because Faith finished, “I think he might have done this once before. I think he’s experienced.”

  In his mind, he screamed, WHERE THE HELL DOES SHE MEET THESE GUYS?

  He was surprised when Faith laughed. “Oh, he’s clueless. I’ve been stashing away money for years. I never even put it in the bank. I didn’t do that because I was, like, premeditating murder but, the way it turns out, there will be no record of the money anywhere! I had to make several trips to the bank to change it all over into large bills!” Faith snickered again. “I literally had over $6,000.00 just in singles!” She laughed a laugh that wasn’t her own.

  Inwardly, Frank shuddered and groaned. Faith had a part-time, working three days a week, and he’d never made his wife account for her paycheck. She did all the shopping for the family and she also wrote all the checks for the bills. They had a joint bank account, but, yeah, when Frank considered if it was possible that Faith could have been hiding a secret stash all these years, he knew, It’s totally possible!

  Faith had finished her sleep-talking. Frank had only begun to think.

  By the time the sun’s earliest light was touching the skies, he had convinced himself that it was in his best interest to contact the police. That was the only way he found he could let go of his consciousness.

  ******

  The next morning at breakfast, after getting very little sleep, Frank knew contacting the police wouldn’t just be futile, it would be downright embarrassing.

  He picked at his food, deep in thought, imagining the encounter. Yes, officer, I’m certain she’s cheating on me. She tells her lover I make her miserable and that she wants me dead, even though she’s never said any of these things to me directly. She’s being influenced by this guy, whoever he is. He’s even got her believing in extraterrestrials, if you can believe that insanity! And now she’s hired a hit man to kill me. I don’t know who she’s hired or when he’s going to strike but my life is in danger.

  What? How do I know all these things?

  His frown deepened as he imagined admitting to a cop, She talks in her sleep.

  He shook his head, glumly realizing, They’ll never believe me.

  Faith asked him, “What’s wrong, Frank?”

  “Nothing. I’m just tired,” he said, thinking, I’m on my own.

  Sitting across the table from his family, Frank had never felt so alone in his life.

  ******

  Frank made arrangements to take the afternoon off. His boss wasn’t happy about it, but Frank lied and said there was a problem with Bobby at school.

  The first thing he did when he left work was drive home and hurry straight upstairs to the attic. He located his gun, a .380 caliber double-action Beretta. He hadn’t fired the weapon in years, not since Bobby was born.

  After grabbing a sandwich, Frank drove by the place where his wife worked, just to make certain her car was there. It was.

  He then went to a gun shop, where he purchased four boxes of ammunition and a holster he could wear just above his ankle. Frank spent the better part of two hours on a gun range practicing shooting.

  After driving again by Faith’s place of employment, Frank headed home.

  He found himself looking in the rearview mirror a lot. He was more than a little paranoid about being followed.

  At home, Frank put on a baggy sweat suit, with string-tied pants that were two sizes too big for him, so that he could hide his pistol in his ankle holster.

  Over dinner that night, the boys were talking about U.F.O.s again. Teenagers were still going out at night to stare up at the stars.

  And, as usual, Faith was worried about Annie. Again. Still.

  Frank’s mind was a million miles away.

  He couldn’t believe he was secretly wearing a gun.

  Even more astonishing was the notion that he
would probably have to use it.

  He had no intention of being murdered by the hit man who had been hired by his wife.

  ******

  At night, as he lay down to sleep, all the fears he successfully suppressed during the day came bubbling to the surface.

  Faith slept on the left side of the bed. He slept on the right. Each of them had their own nightstand. The door to the bedroom was also on the right, on Frank’s side.

  When he lay down, Frank tucked the pistol under his side of the bed. It wasn’t an ideal place to stash it but, in an emergency, he would be able to access it quicker there than if it was inside the drawer of his nightstand.

  Faith fell asleep long before he did.

  Frank tossed and turned.

  I’m so tired! I’m going to be useless at work tomorrow.

  He kept remembering how the gun felt in his hands when he was firing it.

  He couldn’t sleep at all.

  Four hours after Faith fell asleep, Frank was still awake. His wife rolled onto her back. After a deep sigh, she murmured, “Sweetheart!”

  Agitated, upset, incredibly weary, Frank glared at Faith as she said, “You worry too much.”

  His heart seethed when he saw his wife was smiling.

  Faith said, “It’s all set for Friday night. Once the bastard’s asleep, I’ll slip downstairs. The hit man— I know! I know how crazy it sounds for me to call him that but I’m not going to tell you his name, just in case something goes wrong!”

  How considerate of you, darling.

  “The hit man will be waiting for me. I’ll let him in and then go into the kitchen, where I’ll spill a gallon of milk on the floor. Then I’ll hide in the basement while . . .”

  While the hit man sneaks upstairs and murders me.

  “Yeah.”

  Frank shuddered. Friday, he thought. The day after tomorrow.

  Faith talked rapidly, breathlessly, “After it’s done, he’ll tear the place up. I told him to take anything he wants, anything of value. We’ll rip all the pictures off the walls to make it look like he was trying to find a safe. Basically, I’ll help him trash the place. Then I’ll give him the rest of the money. I’m not a total idiot. So far I’ve only given him half of what I owe him. He’ll get the rest Friday night. I converted most of the money to Traveler’s Checks.

  “The minute he leaves, he’s headed to the airport. He’ll take whatever flight is available to whatever destination is available. Then the next day, he’ll catch a flight to Germany.”