Torn Asunder, by Amy Grech

Sorry for my absence. My computer was down for a while. Here is a wicked little story by Amy Grech. I hope you enjoy.

Torn Asunder

500 word short by Amy Grech


Shelia Kiernan’s come to a head when Robert, her husband of seven years showers. His iPhone won’t stop beeping, so she while he’s no doubt rubbing one out, she grabs his phone from the nightstand and swipes through his text messages. Her jaw drops when she sees hundreds sexts from Mellanie Montgomery, his Physician’s Assistant. An extremely successful Cosmetic Plastic Surgeon with a Park Avenue office in Manhattan, his day ofen starts at 6:00 a.m. and often ends at 10:00 p.m.

She comes to bed dressed in her silky red teddy, brown curls caress her shoulders; her husband reclines in bed busy with his iPhone, tucked in, all warm and toasty. She slides reaches under the comforter.

“I’m not interested! Can’t you see I’m busy?!” Robert, a fiery redhead, grabs her arm and clamps down with a vice-like grip.

“You’re hurting me!” She drops the comforter and stands frozen at the foot of the bed, like a statue.

“You asked for it!”

Shelia rolls her eyes.

“While you’re up, make yourself useful and bring me a nightcap. Dewar’s, on the rocks.” Robert scowls.

She storms out of the room, grabbing her bottle of Ambien from the bathroom medicine cabinet on her way to the full bar in the living room. Shelia sighs, reaches for a frosted highball glass from the shelf, takes some ice from the mini-fridge, and plunks the cubes in. Clink! She takes four pills from the bottle, slams them down on the bar. Raising the glass, as if making a toast, an overdue farewell. The highball glass collides with the bar, pulverizing the pills into a powder blue haze. Shelia gently lifts the glass and sweeps the remnants in.

A Hooters matchbook, real classy, sits on the remarkably cold, black marble next to Robert’s precious Dewar’s. Shelia pours Scotch over ice, smiling for the first time in months. A quick stir with an orange swizzle stick, also from Hooters, helps this potent nightcap lose its murkiness. She takes the matchbook and makes a quick trip to the garage for some lighter fluid.

Drink in hand, Shelia saunter back into the bedroom.

“It’s about time. I’m dying of thirst!”

Robert chugs it like a frat boy, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and puts the empty highball glass next to his phone.

She hands him the drink. “Bottom’s up!”

“What’s the lighter fluid for?” His eyelids grow heavy; he collapses on the pillow.

Shelia smirks. “I know how much you love barbecue.”

She opens the lighter fluid and douses her husband with it before striking the match against the cover; it hisses to life. Shelia tosses it in Robert’s lap, which ignites with a whoosh! Bright yellow flames hungrily engulf him; a charbroiled Irish bastard gets his just desserts.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Never trust a man who gives into his lust!



About the author:

Amy Grech has sold over one hundred stories and three poems to various anthologies and magazines including: Apex Digest, Beat to a Pulp: Hardboiled, Fear on Demand, Funeral Party 2, Inhuman Magazine, Needle Magazine, The Flash Fiction Offensive, The Horror Express, Space & Time, The Brutarian, Zombie CSU, and many others. Damnation Books published her second collection, Blanket of White.

She has a story forthcoming in The Uninvited Magazine, exclusively for the iPad. Amy is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association who lives in Brooklyn. Visit her website: http://www.crimsonscreams.com. Follow her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/amy_grech.