Short Story / Jealous Rage
Victoria had the life she always wanted. One day, while kicking the front bumper of her overheated car, the handsome mechanic David Gale walked in to her life and left with her heart and car in tow. They were married within months and spent the following couple of years enjoying their youth.
Around the time David’s first automotive repair shop began to turn a profit, Victoria felt her maternal clock begin to tick down. She stepped out of the corporate world and into the glow of motherhood with the birth of her first daughter Jessica.
Overjoyed with the gift his wife gave him and with high hopes for a son, David purchased the two-story home his wife always wanted. It was a three-bedroom, two-bath home in a gated community. For only a beat, David’s heart felt disappointment when he discovered the son he had hoped for would be not one but two daughters but he loved the twins Ashley and Addie just the same. As the Gale family grew and David’s auto shops thrived, now one for each of his girls, his hopes for an heir to his auto empire were severed when Victoria demanded he get a vasectomy.
What the Gale women wanted they got and when the girls wanted a dog, David eagerly took them to purchase a strong, German shepherd. Once again, David’s heart felt a beat of disappointment when in the rearview mirror he watched Addie tie a pink bow on the head of Hank, a Yorkie pup and the newest male of the family.
David explained to the girls how much responsibility a dog would be and for the first month they seemed to understand but quickly David assumed the role of Hank’s caretaker, leaving the tea parties and fashion shows to the girls.
The Home Owners Association that governed the Gale’s gated community had specific rules regarding pets. Out of the forty-five by-laws regarding the purchase and upkeep of dogs, the Gales followed none. They did not submit to the association, in writing, their intent to purchase a dog. Hank would not be neutered and thanks to David’s intense training, when in the yard, was never leashed. The only rule the Gales obediently follow was set by Victoria, Hank was never to set foot in the Cooper’s yard.
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Samantha Cooper bought the life she always wanted. Before the age of dial-up, a young Samantha dropped out of college, invested the tuition payment from her parents in a dozen .com names and became rich.
With a small investment at the right time, Samantha bought herself millions. After a couple of years spent spoiling herself, experiencing and buying finer things, Samantha bought something else she wanted. With the purchase of another unclaimed .com name, she purchased herself a husband.
Henry Cooper worked for a company that did what Samantha did, on a larger scale. He was a smart, driven man who knew what he wanted his life to be like. This life, for Henry, included money, a home, a car and a beautiful wife to share it with. He knew if he could get a certain elusive .com name, he would be promoted and well on his way. Little did he know, securing that .com name would be the key to the life he wanted.
At their second business lunch, Samantha realized what she wanted. Across the table from her sat a common looking man who could provide security, companionship and was clearly attracted to her. Samantha named her price. She offered two hundred thousand for the .com name and a date, with the promise of no kids if it works out. Henry talked her down to one hundred, fifty thousand and a ring within the week, no kids. What Samantha Cooper wanted, she bought and what she couldn’t buy, she would find a way to get.
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Around this time two years ago, the Gale girls still excited about their new dog, were out walking Hank. A walk, according to the girls, consisted of dressing Hank up and parading him down the sidewalk in a red wagon. Hank, who thankfully raced around less when less when dressed, enjoyed the royal treatment. On this infamous day, Hank sat motionless on a pillow in the wagon, sporting a pink ruffled dress with a matching barrette. A salt and pepper fountain of hair sprayed up from between Hank’s ears.
Before the Gale by-law regarding Mrs. Cooper, the girls were only allowed to parade Hank in front of their home at the corner of the block and in front of Mrs. Blunt’s home. Mrs. Blunt being the elderly woman who lived next door to the Gales and often spoiled the girls with gifts. While the girls were turning their parade around, Jessica in the lead, Ashley pulling the wagon and Addie blowing bubbles, Hank became distracted.
When Samantha Cooper was tired of the color of her grass, she bought a new lawn. Thanks to the Internet she found an unbelievable deal on a strain of Kentucky bluegrass that upon maturity, does not exceed five inches. Samantha, of course, talked the salesman down to an even lower price, installation included.
In keeping with perfection, Samantha asked that the men installing the lawn, to not leave any piece of lawn uncovered, black dirt exposed, for too long. She thought this was not too much to ask but after an eight by three foot section of black dirt sat uncovered for over five minutes, Samantha instructed them in the art of lawn installation herself. Pleased with the way her old lawn was being changed out, she sat on her back porch and watched as two men ripped up the sod and two men laid the new sod directly behind them.
The only thing Samantha and Hank ever had in common was their appreciation of well-manicured lawns. The Gales always thought their well watered, emerald green grass was enough for their dog, unknown to them, he had been seeking greener pastures.
Hank shot off his pillow like a rocket and hit the ground running. Despite the constricting pink evening gown, Hank put purebred trophy dogs to shame. He weaved through Samantha’s rose garden unscathed and burst through a stand of peonies with dramatics only seen in action movies. In the split second it took the Gale girls to react, he was gone and all they saw was a wall of pink and white pedals gently falling on the grass.
As Samantha was pouring herself another glass of Chablis, she stood slack-jawed as a little pink ball cleared her koi pond in a single bound. Hank was on a mission and sped over the old yard towards the smoky blue hue on the horizon.
By the time the Gale girls got to Hank, they broke ranks and scrambled to avoid the steamy gift Hank left on the new Kentucky bluegrass. Jessica grabbed him, spun around and was face to face with Samantha Cooper. Hank, who was in the process of marking his territory when Jessica grabbed him, continued to mark Samantha’s sea foam green cardigan as his own. Ashley and Addie screamed in unison and ran past Samantha, a girl on either side, Jessica close behind.
The Gale girls raced past their mother in a pink and blond blur. Victoria knew they would be barricaded behind their beds with Hank in his puppy palace and she would deal with them later. For now, they would be safe from whatever was about to happen.
“That heathen beast should be put down.” Samantha shouted as she marched across Mrs. Blunt’s lawn towards Victoria, her cardigan darkened below her breasts with a urine soaked line.
“I highly doubt what happened is grounds for capital punishment.” Victoria replied, planting her feet firmly in her lawn.
“That animal, tore up huge patches of my lawn after defecating on it and then urinated on me.” Victoria noticed immediately the urine line across the cardigan but now Samantha was close enough for Victoria noticed the pile of dog shit in her yellow rubber gauntlet.
“To be fair, you were tearing up your own lawn.”
“The old yard,” Samantha sternly replied. “He ripped up my rare Kentucky bluegrass!”
“I’m sorry Hank ruined your lawn.” Victoria said. “Just send me the bill for your dry cleaning and I’ll pay it.”
“That’s right you’ll pay.” Samantha said, as her eyes narrowed to evil slits.
“Listen Samantha.” Victoria said, taking a step forward. “It was an accident and I’ll make sure it will never happen again.”
“You’re right it won’t happen again because if any of your little beasts set a foot on my lawn, they’ll lose it.”
Victoria clenched her fists at her side. “If you ever threaten my family again, I will personally take you out.” She shot one last glare at Samantha, turned and walked away.
When she was about five or six steps away a brown bullet shot past her and exploded against the side of the Gale’s garage. Victoria didn’t even break stride as she walked past the crap-plastered garage.
That night at dinner, Victoria made sure that everyone in the family understood not to step foot on Mrs. Cooper’s yard. When David asked Victoria what they were going to do, Victoria smiled and reassured the family she would take care of it.
Yes, Victoria Gale has the life she always dreamed of until she decided to ruin Samantha Cooper’s.
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According to the Home Owner’s Association by-laws, June was the only month residents could hold a yard sale. This, the Association thought, would allow residents to finish their spring cleaning and get rid of all unwanted items before the last day of June, when the private company, hired by the Association, came through and picked up everything the city’s sanitation department would not collect.
July was the busiest month for the Association. Every July first, they kicked off a month long celebration of summer with a small fireworks display, launched from the hills that formed the northwest border of the community. The next display on their agenda, the one held on the fourth, consumed a majority of the community’s coffers and was intended to be the grand finale of the opening display. Since the aerial explosions were skillfully launched from the hills, the residents did not need to leave their yards to see the solid twenty minutes of lavish fireworks that drew many oohs and ahhs. The Association hoped the fireworks displays would distract the residents from their ulterior motives.
The climax of the month long celebration was the “Best Yard Competition” held during the last week of July. While not every resident in the community participated in the competition, every home was judged and for the last five years, the same three judges have critiqued and criticized the every inch of their yard. A professor of botany from the local university was the only one of the three judges that could be considered credible. The other two were the Associations presiding president and vice president who had held the since the community’s creation. What these two lacked in lawn appreciation, they made up for in their ability to notice a by-law violation.
Like every other event the Association held, the competition had a dark agenda. The sole purpose was to provide the Association access to their residents’ yards, so they could stay on top of any new violations. Since the competitions conception the judges have dismantled fifteen tree houses, removed twenty-one front yard fountains and twenty-four permanent basketball hoops. They have also issued countless citations for minor infractions ranging from burned out porch lights and too many birdfeeders to grass exceeding six inches in height.
For five years, those serious about the competition have planned, planted and pruned in vain as Samantha Cooper effortlessly bought the prize. She did not sabotage her opponents nor did she buy off the judges, though it would have cost less. No, Samantha bought the perfect lawn, the healthiest, purest strains of flowers and weekly care to compliment her daily attention.
“It’s nothing.” Samantha said during last year’s acceptance speech. “When you love something as much as I love gardening, you make time in your busy day for it.” With that simple statement, she insulted anyone who lets their family take precedence over their lawn. She also gave Victoria Cooper an idea.
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Victoria felt an absence from her bed. An absence she had not felt in some time. She awoke in the middle of a cold spring morning and found David’s side of the bed empty and cool to the touch. David had struggled with sleep issues a good portion of his life, often spending endless nights counting sheep well into the thousands. In the last year alone he had been on four different sleeping medications before his doctor finally prescribed Nodoff, a sleep aid. At his last visit, three weeks ago, David’s doctor decided five milligrams was not efficiently working and upped the dose to ten. Ever since, he has slept the night through.
As Victoria lay in bed, staring at the digital clock illuminating the empty spot next to her, she debated whether to get up and see if he is okay as she fell back asleep. A couple of hours later, she was startled from her slumbers by the sound of shattering glass. She shot out of bed, flew down the stairs and turned the corner to the kitchen.
“I’m sorry hon.” David greeted her. “I was hoping that wouldn’t wake you.”
“What happened?” Victoria asked as she knelt to help David clean up the orange juice and shattered glass.
“Well, I poured myself some juice and when I went to put it on the counter, it missed.”
“Missed?” She asked half laughing. “ Did you throw it?”
“No, I went to set it on the counter but when I let go, it fell straight down and shattered, missed it by a couple of inches.”
“Can you see okay?”
“Yeah, everything seems fine. Guess I’m just a bit clumsy this morning.” David replied as he dumped the broken glass in to the trash.
“Did you sleep alright last night?” Victoria asked, moping up the last of the juice.
“Okay I guess.”
“Did one of the girls get you up earlier?”
“No, but tell me if you think this is weird. I had a dream I was working on the exhaust of your car but all of the tools were the girl’s toys.”
“It’s kind of weird.” She replied, as the girls came bouncing down the stairs.
Later that day, after getting the twins buckled into their car seats, Victoria headed off to the store. As she slowly backed out of the garage, she saw a multi-colored toy hammer lying on the garage floor. Both Victoria and her car sat idle in the drive way as she stared at the space where her car had been parked. A dozen or more of the Gale girl’s plastic toy tools, ranging from screwdrivers and pliers to a handsaw with real sound, were scattered around under where the car’s exhaust had been. The girls denied attempting to overhaul the car and continued to answer “No” every time Victoria tried to trip them up.
Victoria racked her brain the whole drive home, trying to come up with a logical answer to what happened that morning. With the girls adamantly denying their participation. Victoria kept coming back to a story about a man who drove his car while sleepwalking and blew through a series of stop signs.
Online, Victoria easily found the story about the man, along a detailed police report. As she clicked from link to link she found numerous articles about people binge eating, sleep talking and performing other day-to-day tasks while sleeping. She read about individuals carrying on complex conversations and responding so appropriately they appear awake to observers. All of the reports Victoria read were contributed to side effects of the sleep aid Nodoff.
Over the following week, Victoria watched as truck after truck unloaded the contents of their flatbeds on to Samantha Cooper’s yard. Bags of the finest black dirt and most absorbent peat moss came first, followed by bags upon bags of fertilizer. Flats of wave petunias and pansies, snapdragons and marigolds were carefully arranged around the yard as Samantha ordered the workers about. She stood on the edge of her driveway, clipboard in hand, conducting her annual symphony. Workers hauled, tilled, shoveled, dug and planted without a hitch, day in and day out. When they left each night, she stood pleased with the progress of her masterpiece.
Victoria learned a lot that week about her neighbor. As she watched Samantha turn her yard from ordinary to award winning, all without a smudge of dirt on her pristine clothes, she saw how being in control of every aspect of her life was calming to her. Victoria also noticed how Samantha presented a façade to everyone she encountered and how she paraded about with sense of unearned pride.
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The decision Victoria made was not an easy one but she made it quickly. At dinner, she told David about a report she read that stated while under the influence of Nodoff, some patients take more than is necessary because they forgot they already took one. She went on to tell him they advised a trustworthy family member should hold on to them.
“I don’t buy it.” David said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I haven’t had any side effects so far. I think this is the ticket.”
“Well, I’m glad you finally found a medication that works for you, I was just trying to be cautious.” Disappointed her attempt to control David’s pills was not going as planned, Victoria listened as her husband unknowingly offered another idea.
“You know, I was thinking yesterday, maybe you should get a prescription.”
“I should?” She questioned, “Why me?”
“I…well…you said the other day you’ve been feeling tired, that’s all.”
While she could have turned her husband’s poorly worded attempt to help in to an argument, she let it slide and simply agreed it might be a good idea. The next morning she called her doctor and after loading and unloading the twins several different locations, she has her own prescription of Zolpedim.
That night, Victoria smiled at her husband then turned the page of her book as she sat in bed next to David. She was not smiling because he had successfully placed his empty glass on the nightstand next to him, she was smiling because he clearly had no idea his wife dosed him.
Before they went to bed, Victoria poured a glass of water for her husband to drink with his pill. While he brushed his teeth in the bathroom upstairs, she poured the contents of a sealed container she had hidden in a kitchen cupboard, in to his water while she was downstairs. Earlier in the day, she took two of the five milligram Nodoffs her doctor had prescribed and ground them into a fine powder. A task made easier with her mortar and pestal.
“Ta dah!” David said, pointing to the nightstand.
“Good job.” She replied. “You made it through another week without dropping a glass.”
“I think I’m going to turn in.” He said as he kissed her goodnight.
“You don’t mind if I read my book do you?”
“That’s fine.”
“Are you sure my light wont keep you up?”
“Nothing can really keep me up once I take that pill.”
“You have a point there.” She said after giving him another kiss. “Thanks hon, I think it will be a real page turner.”
Over an hour later, Victoria realized she had not turned a single page since her husband finished drinking his water. In fact, she didn’t even make it through the first sentence before her mind started reeling. She just sat there, in the soft glow of her bedside light, thinking. While she thought about many things, she never once thought about her husband. Thoughts of concern like if she gave him too much or what effect it would have on him never entered her mind. Jealousy had begun to take a hold of her heart.
As she blankly stared at the second page of her book, David sat straight up, threw the sheets covering him on to her lap and slowly started to walk towards the closet.
“David? Honey?” She called out
“Yeah?” David stopped mid-step, his hand reaching for the closet door.
“What are you doing?
“I was just going to go to the bathroom.”
“Okay.” She said, pausing for a moment. “The bathroom is over there.” She continued, pointing towards the glow of the night light on the other side of the room.
“That’s right.” He said with a chuckle. “Must be a little sleepy still.”
Victoria pondered if he was actually awake or is he was experiencing what they described in the reports. When he came out of the bathroom, he confidently walked over to the closet door, opened it and flipped on light switch
“What are you doing now?” Victoria asked as she shielded her eyes from the harsh light.
“I was going to make some breakfast. Is that okay?”
“It’s fine but that’s the closet again.”
“Oh, sorry.” He replied as he closed the door and began to walk towards the bedroom door with an embarrassed look on his face. He stopped in the doorway and asked, “Are you going to get up now?”
“Sure, just give me a minute.”
David smiled and turned to walk down the hall as she sat in awe of what was happening. It was two eighteen in the morning and he was going on like the sun was shining and it was nine in the morning.
Victoria walked into the kitchen, wrapped tightly in a terry cloth bathrobe and sat across the table from her husband. David sat in a pair of boxer shorts before a tall glass of milk and the box of donuts Victoria picked up while at the grocery store earlier that day. She sat and watched him inhale to chocolate ones before stopping to drink a quarter of the glass of milk. He proceeded to eat another three before stopping again, this time to offer her one, which she politely declined. She watched in disbelief as he ate the entire dozen, even the ones with sprinkles, which he does not care for, claiming the sprinkles are a waste.
When he was done licking his fingers, he drank the last of the milk and put the glass in the dishwasher before going back upstairs. Victoria followed after she threw the empty box away and found him getting back in to bed.
“Before you fall asleep.” She said from the doorway, “Could you close the window?”
David did what she asked him to do and was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Victoria smiled and turned off her nightstand light.
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Victoria’s plan was a go but with only three weeks until the judging began, she would have to act fast. The first strike, she decided, had to be serious but not obvious. She scoped out Samantha’s backyard while the girls played in theirs and picked out possible targets as she drove past her front yard, both on her way to the store and back. With so many options, she did not know where to begin until she parked the car and saw destruction hanging on the garage wall.
After a little coaxing, Victoria managed to convince David to put on the dark blue jeans and black hooded sweatshirt she laid out on the settee after he fell asleep. He listened intently as they stood face to face in the garage. Victoria explained that she needed him to complete a special task, one that he could not let anyone see him perform.
“So, it’s like a mission?” David questioned as he donned a black knit stocking hat.
“Yes, like a secret mission.” She replied as she handed him a limb lopper.
David held a red rubber tipped handle in each hand and pulled the loppers open. The foot lone, razor sharp blades briefly glistened in the moonlight before he snipped them shut. Victoria waited under the garage eave as her husband zigzagged his was across Mrs. Blunt’s backyard. By hiding in hedges and behind bushes, David carried out his mission with ease, making it back in less than ten minutes.
“What’s next?” David eagerly whispered.
“Next?” Victoria was surprised by her husband’s willingness. “How ‘bout the front yard?”
David smiled and headed out along his previous path. Victoria could barely hold back her laughs when her middle-aged husband, dropped to his stomach and army crawled along the hedge between the two houses. By the time she regained her composure, David leapt into view, hit the ground hard and rolled behind his shop.
“You didn’t even see me, did you?” David proudly asked.
“No, I didn’t.” Victoria replied as she pulled him into the garage. “Where did you jump from?”
“Mrs. Blunt’s garage.”
“You were on her garage?” Victoria asked as she hung the loppers on the wall.
Yeah, when I finished off Samantha’s front yard, I hopped from old lady Blunt’s central air unit, onto her roof and ran across it to the garage.”
“Impressive.” She commented.
“I thought so. No one can see you if you’re above the window line.”
“Okay secret agent, time for bed.”
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When Samantha Cooper was upset, she was a force to be reckoned with. Fifteen minutes after she pt her contacts in, she was past upset, well on her way to furious. On that particular sunny morning, she stood in front of a twelve by eight foot section of her garden and cursed whatever evil had been unleashed on her precious flowers. She cursed everything from the deer, rabbits and gophers to delinquent teens drugged out of their adolescent minds. She even cursed the Association President, who explained that while they do live in a gated community, the fence stops when it merges with the hills where the beautiful firework displays are set off. This comment made Samantha irate and the assumption that she could be pacified by the mention of fireworks appalled her. She dismissed the Association President and attempted to salvage what she could.
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The cheerful sound of little girls at play had been replaced with an eerie silence Victoria knew all to well. As a mother of three girls, she learned that the trouble they cause triples when all of them are involved. She grabbed her travel mug of coffee and headed outside. As she made her way past abandoned bikes and over the chalk murals on the driveway, she heard Samantha ranting in the distance. With a hastened step, she made her way to the backyard where she found the girls.
Only slightly relieved, she made her way across Mrs. Blunt’s yard to the patio set where the girls were sitting in the sun eating donuts. Mrs. Blunt told Victoria that when she walked out to get her paper earlier that morning, she heard Samantha going on about a beats that terrorized her front yard, screaming about how she’ll kill it. Ever since then she had sat outside enjoying her morning tea, listening to the drama over the hedge.
“I hope the girls weren’t bothering you Lynn.” Victoria asked.
“Nonsense my dear.” Mrs. Blunt replied. To Victoria’s knowledge, she was the only neighbor whom Mrs. Blunt let address her by her first name. Lynn wasn’t a proper woman but she was an older woman who clung to many old world traditions. Letting only close friends address her casually was on of them. “We ladies were just enjoying a small brunch.” Lynn continued and smiled at the girls.
“Well thank you for indulging the girls.”
“Nothing at all. Besides, what’s this I hear that you wont let the girls eat donuts?”
Victoria shot a glance at the girls before she explained how David snacks on them all night and takes the rest with him to work. “So I told him, if he cant learn to share with the rest of us then I wont buy them.” Victoria finished as he girls giggled.
“Well I hope you don’t mind, I let the girls have some.” Lynn said. “I have some tea on also if you care for some.”
“No thanks, I have some coffee.” Victoria replied as she hoisted her mug. “So, what exactly happened over there?” She innocently asked with a nod towards the hedge her husband recently belly crawled under.
“She claims.” Lynn began. “In the middle of the night, some animal tore up her front and back gardens, shredded rare plants and ate a bunch of her flowers.”
“What do you think happened?”
“It’s tough to say but whatever it was, I’m positive the animal wasn’t a little rabbit or deer.”
“Why not?” The twins asked.
“Well, if it was an animal,” Lynn explained to the girls. “They would have left little bunny footprints.”
“Oh.” The girls comment.
“Also, if it was an animal, they would have eaten the whole plant.” Lynn told them a story about a plot of prize-winning hostas she has before she moved to the gated community. Each spring, they doubled in size and had grown for years with minimum care. She came home late after a dinner party and spotted the deer mid-bite. That single deer had eaten six prize-winning plants, flower and all, leaving only three-inch high stalks sticking out of the ground. “I snuck over myself and looked at Samantha’s mess.” Lynn continued. “Her plants were cut clean through. Whoever snipped them used something sharp but didn’t do a good job making it look like an animal did it.”
“So, you think someone did it on purpose?” Victoria asked as they all watched Samantha throw the last handful of decapitated flowers into a wheelbarrow.
“Well, they weren’t accidentally cut in the middle of the night dear. All I know is something stumbled across my roof around three this morning and it wasn’t a deer.”
After her morning chat with the Girls, Victoria realized she needed to rethink her plans. Lynn was clearly suspicious and confident foul play was involved. David, while efficient, was unpredictable and she feared the delusion he had about the secret missions mixed with his altered thought pattern could get them caught.
She put the girls down for their nap and sat out on her back porch. In the afternoon sun, she created a detailed list of new attacks and a separate one for the items she needed to get ready before hand. She also decided something needed to be done with David, to make him more obedient. After she made the girls a snack and sent them out to play, she searched the Internet and found an abundance of ideas.
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The next day, as Victoria neared her home after running a series of errands she slowed down to observe a spectacle in Samantha Cooper’s front yard. She told the girls when they got home that it was not polite laugh at Samantha, who had been drenched by the water spraying out of the random holes in her garden hose.
What she did not tell the girls was their father was the one who had sliced the random holes in the garden hose, with a box cutter, while it was coiled up in the middle of the night. They were children, she thought and the less they knew the better.
The same went for David, who the next day, had no memory of a mutilated garden hose, the twelve foot high maple tree he sawed halfway through, or of the green vested gnome he smashed on a stepping stone. He carried out these tasks under a waxing moon, with a vacant stare and for the first time, went back to the bedroom on his own when he had finished. Victoria was not sure if he went straight to bed because she had increased the dose in his water from ten to fifteen milligrams but she was pleased with the new development.
Confident in her plan, Victoria powered ahead and sent David out on a barrage of attacks. Each night, after she explained the task and gave him the necessary tools, she went back to bed to catch up on some much needed sleep.
David, on the other hand, efficiently crawled, jumped and crept around at all hours of the night before he finally got to sleep for an hour or two. The lack of sleep and increased doses of Nodoff wore on him, as Victoria’s tasks became more physically demanding.
One night, he pushed over the tree he previously sawed halfway through, sending it crashing down on a handful of bird feeders and lawn ornaments. Another night, he snuck through Mrs. Blunt’s back lawn, then trough Samantha’s to the far back corner where her koi pond was, dragging an eighty pound bag of quick dry cement and a wooden broomstick. In the shadows cast by the moon, he carefully poured the gray powder into the shallow pond filled with brightly colored fish and watched it coagulate at the bottom. He then quietly stirred the sludge water with the broomstick until it started to get thick.
The morning after this strenuous night, David overstepped the first stair, missed the railing and tumbled head over heels down the stairs to the landing. Later, as he left for work, he backed his car down the driveway and ran over the mailbox. He hit it with enough force it flew in to the street where he flattened the sheet metal box under his wheels as he continued to back up.
Victoria remembered reading about residual hangover like effects experienced by Nodoff users. The article stated, while the elderly are at a greater risk of hip fractures due to falls while taking Nodoff, most users are at a risk of impaired psychomotor and cognitive processes, which may impair the users ability to safely drive. While Victoria was investigating the potentially detrimental side effects of her husband’s medication, Samantha was attempting to begin an investigation of her own.
The six officers that responded to her terroristic threat call agreed that what had been done to her koi pond was a crime but it was vandalism at best. They told her it looked like the work of some delinquent teen, drugged out of their adolescent mind. Samantha stated that at first she thought the same thing but after repeated attacks against her home, she is positive someone is targeting her. She told them how her husband had grown more paranoid over the past two weeks and has been having difficulty sleeping but it did not seem to make a difference. The cops reassured her they would look into it but informed her crimes like this often go unsolved.
After the police left, Samantha realized that if she was going to get any answers, she was going to have to get them her self. So she did the only thing she knew how to do when she wanted something, she bought it.
Within the hour, a private investigator she hired from the firm she found online pulled into her driveway. As he introduced himself, he informed her he preferred the term private investigator to private detective, stating “You’re the one who detected something was wrong, I’m just here to investigate.” She agreed to pay his outrageous hourly fee and quickly ushered him out the door as their first visit neared the fifty-five minute mark.
After the morning commotion died down and the neighborhood was quiet again, Victoria went out to tidy up her yard. While the girls played with Hank instead of putting toys away, Victoria had an interesting chat with Mrs. Blunt. She hurried her through the mundane details about the cemented over koi pond before she found out that the police probably wouldn’t be investigating the crime. This was the only positive bit of information Mrs. Blunt offered her before she unknowingly soured their conversation. She continued to tell Victoria that Samantha had hired a private investigator that started right away and had already begun questioning the neighborhood. A bit of information she obtained from a bridge partner of hers moments before their conversation. It was also a bit of information that Victoria realized, did not bother her. She was not upset when she learned that her dear friend Mrs. Blunt was going to tell the investigator, she saw a dark figure run across her back yard with a long pole in the middle of the night. The bit of information that made her furious was when she found out Samantha hired a company to tear out the solidified pond and replace it with a new one in time for the judging for the competition.
While Victoria’s world began to crumble around her, she remained strong. The following day, she picked up her husband’s prescription refill and topped off her car with gas after she filled an eight-gallon, red plastic gas can. Unable to sleep, she decided it was time to hit Samantha where it would hurt her the most. The plan she devised while she laid in bed, the night before, would not only cripple Samantha, she also would not be able to do anything to stop it before the judging.
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That night, Victoria followed the same nightly routine she had for the previous six attacks but the minor changes she made along the way would forever change her life. While David brushed his teeth, she took the pre-crushed powder and mixed it into the glass of water she brought him. After he took his prescribed ten milligrams of Nodoff, he finished his glass of water, unknowingly ingesting an additional twenty-five milligrams. As the minutes ticked by his breathing became more and more labored. After two hours of sitting next to her sleeping husband, waiting for him to take his next breath Victoria grew anxious and went out to the garage.
Victoria had not smoked a cigarette since she found out she was pregnant with the twins. For over two and a half years, through her mother’s death and all the stress that comes with having three little girls, she had thought about lighting up but something in Victoria had changed. When she stepped up to the counter to pay for her gas earlier that day and the woman behind the counter asked if she needed anything else, without a second thought, Victoria asked for her favorite brand.
After she finished her cigarette, she looked out from under the eave of the garage at the few stars that outshined the city lights. She quickly put out her second cigarette after a couple of drags when she heard the door leading from the kitchen to the garage open She went back into the garage to find David taking the limb loppers off their hook on the wall. She was relieved he had gotten up and was okay, even though he was only wearing an open robe over his boxers because now she would not have to do it herself.
“You don’t need those tonight.” Victoria said as she took the loppers out of David’s hand.
“I need to cut more flowers.” David shot back as he took her by the wrist with a vise like grip that caused her to drop the loppers.
Victoria was caught off guard by her husband’s aggressive behavior, which was far from the zombie like state she had hoped for when she increased the dose in his water. She also noticed, when she handed him the red plastic gas can, his pupils were the size of pinheads, despite the lack of light in the garage.
After she explained what to do with the gas can, she relit her cigarette and watched her husband set off on his route across Mrs. Blunt’s lawn. Even drugged, David was efficient and emerged from under the edge as she finished the second half of her smoke.
“Now can I cut more flowers?” David asked after sneaking back to the garage.
“You can do whatever you want.” Victoria replied in a short tone as she set down her lighter and exchanged the loppers for the empty gas can. Never before had she left David’s drugged mind in charge of deciding how to terrorize Samantha Cooper’s yard but after his little tantrum earlier, she did not want to upset him again. “Just come back to bed when you are done.” She finished as she stormed out of the garage.
Victoria’s parting order was the last minor change she made that night. As she went back upstairs to their bedroom, she had no idea never see her husband alive again.
David stood under the garage eave and flicked Victoria’s lighter over and over as he stared vacantly in to the warm glow of the flame before he took off across his yard.
He hid behind the large juniper bush, planted to mark the property line for mowing reasons and looked to see if any neighboring windows were lit. Mrs. Blunt’s back yard posed the greatest challenge to him, mainly because it consisted of few objects to hide behind. Only two large Sugar Maples, shipped from up state, had been planted on the property when the community was created. Other than their thin trunks, there was a small wooden barrel filled with Ghost Face Pansies right next to the house.
He quick-stepped his way, crouched like a soldier in a trench, to the first of the maples and shot straight up in an attempt to hide behind the foot wide trunk. On the ground, the tree’s shadow swelled and shrank with each breath he took.
He eyed his next move. With brisk steps, David darted from the tree, tightened the grip on his limb loppers, planted his right foot firmly and jumped. His body arced across the barren, moonlit lawn like an eerie scene from a twisted Russian ballet. His arms stretched out in front of him and pointed towards a shadowy patch of grass, cast by the massive Minnesota pine in Mrs. Cooper’s yard.
While the tuck and roll method of landing kept him from seriously injuring himself after such a long leap, David was not as young as he though and sat for a moment, recovering in the darkness. From where he landed, he would be able to effortlessly creep into the Cooper’s yard undetected. He followed the pine’s long shadow to the hedge dividing Mrs. Blunt’s yard from the Cooper’s. He crawled under the hedge’s lowest branches and into a small flowerbed engulfed by the pine’s shadow. David snipped and hacked away at the plants. In his aftermath; long, slender hosta stems with white flowers, deep violet dahlia blossoms, pink poppies and neon colored snap dragon heads, fell like confetti from the razor sharp blades.
As he stood in the widening shadow of the pine, his shoes topped with colorful petal pieces and looked out the over the Cooper’s backyard. Slowly his eyes began to trace the invisible path he made with the can of gasoline as his mind began to wonder. His free hand traced the edges of Victoria’s lighter, tucked away in his terrycloth bathrobe pocket. The equation was simple. Gasoline poured all over the lawn, plus lighter equaled, flaming lawn, but this was not what David was contemplating. No, he was trying to figure out if the path he walked was uninterrupted which it was.
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Henry Cooper sat, half asleep and stared out the three-pane bay window across the dining room table from him. He was unable to sleep, again. He was wearing a pair of white boxers with thin vertical red stripes, a white t-shirt and a blue bathrobe. Half of his hair was standing up, half of it was matted down. His eyes were red and had sunk deep into their sockets, leaving dark half moons under his eyes. The sound of his hand against his unshaven face echoed loudly in his head. He could have been the “Before” man from the Nodoff ads, except he chose not to go to sleep.
Instead of waking up in a cold sweat from a horrific nightmare when he did finally fall asleep, or the endless nights spent staring up at the thousands of specks on the ceiling tiles, he decided to look out the kitchen window. It calmed him. Not to the point where he could fall asleep but enough so he would not go mad.
Henry was an anxious man to begin with. Couple that with a stressful job and a wife who was slowly realizing that someone was plotting against her and his anxiousness bloomed in to full-blown paranoia.
Henry had gone to the kitchen for a cup of coffee earlier when David Gale ran around the backyard with the gasoline. Through his drowsy eyes, he did not see David shred the flowerbed in a flurry of flower petals and he did not see him as he crept along in the pine’s shadow. What Henry Gale saw that night, he could not describe.
From the back corner of his yard a small flash of light, sparked a puddle of flames a foot in diameter. Then the flames flew forward, as if blown by something and raced towards a small maple. The flaming path ringed itself around the tree and shot off across the yard. The flames grew around the sapling as its fresh bark began to dry out.
In the middle of the yard, Samantha’s central garden was engulfed in flames. David had poured the majority of the gasoline here and it the time since, it had soaked in to everything. The growing flames destroyed her prize-winning roses, known for their deep red color, then took off for the far corner of the yard and looped around another maple before weaving its way back across the yard.
As the hearty plants began to dry out, the flames of the central garden grew more intense and ignited the gasoline trail further down the line. Two flaming trails ran back and forth across the yard and set fire to everything it touched.
Henry scrambled from his chair to the window and stood in shock. For a moment he thought he was asleep, caught in another hellish nightmare but after slapping his own face, he leapt into action.
He raced through the kitchen to the laundry room and flipped open a four by six inch, crème colored box on the wall. In the darkness, his fingers rapidly entered the bypass code to the sprinkler system and then entered the code to activate the back sprinklers before he raced out of the room.
He unlocked the door at the end of the hall and burst into the garage, ran around his car to the service door on the back wall and grabbed one of the many “home security” items he had hidden around the house. He stepped out on to his patio and saw the dark figure of a man step into his yard. As Henry raced through the dwindling flames a small garden Samantha watered by hand still raged on, burning several tomato plants at the stake.
David was dumbfounded. He was positive the sprinklers were not fire activated, which meant someone must have seen him. He stood up from the shrubs and stepped out of the shadows to get a better look when he saw Henry Cooper charging towards him.
The light of the dying flames mixed with the moonlight, reflected off the fine spray of the sprinklers and illuminated the Cooper’s yard. At first, David only saw a flash of light drop to Henry’s side but now in the pseudo-daylight he could clearly see the lead pipe with its oversized, elbow bend threaded on it, sparkle as Henry bore down on him.
David lunged with his serrated blades pointed forward and sliced through the excess fabric of Henry’s blue robe, nearly goring him through the kidneys like some deranged bull. As he attempted to yank the loppers free, Henry twisted his hips, tightened his thumb-over thumb, interlocking grip and with his full body weight, swung the lead pipe with all of his might. Henry’s golf swing connected with a satisfying crunch as the oversized elbow bend, struck right above David’s right ankle and knocked him to the side.
The sprinkler’s cool water soothed the blinding pain that seared through David’s body as he lay on the wet grass. Henry stepped between David and the dropped loppers as the men turned to shadows in the steam that rose from the smoldering lawn. His paranoid mind flashed with fear and anger as he raised the heavy lead pipe above his head.
With the gargled roar of a tranquilized bear, David shot forward and slammed his shoulder into Henry’s knees, which knocked his arched body off balance. Both men fell to the ground. Henry tried to kick free as David attempted, with his shattered shin, to get on top of him.
As the men struggled on, their attention was briefly drawn to a flash of light in the lawn. A small patch of grass burned on beyond the sprinkler’s reach and reflected off the steel lopper blades. David threw himself off Henry and began to crawl towards them. With his head dazed from David’s tackle, Henry tried to stand but quickly collapsed to his knees. Both men, David on his stomach, Henry on all fours, made their way towards the flickering light.
Henry made it to the open lopper’s first and as he got to his feet, grabbed the red handle. David reached up for the other rubber tipped handle that dangled above him, grabbed it and pulled. Henry stomped his good leg into the ground and pulled back with all his might, foolishly helping David to his feet. In an attempt to break Henry’s hold, David yanked hard but then quickly pushed the handle back towards his fearful foe.
Henry Cooper did not scream or cry out. He simply took a deep breath and watched the final sum of Victoria’s minor changes equal out. After David yanked the loppers back, Henry, in an attempt to regain his balance, stepped on to the leg David had smashed earlier. His stressed knee gave way knee gave way and without a sound he fell forward. The blade of the open loppers slid right between two ribs and pierced his heart and lung.
Terror flashed across David Gale’s face as he braced himself with the leg Henry shattered and instantly crumpled under the dead weight propelling towards him. The open blade plunged through David’s chest and staked him to the ground.
David Gale lay dying and saw his terror reflected when Henry, who was impaled directly above him on the other blade, looked down and realized the man he had been fighting was his own neighbor.
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As the years went on, Victoria Gale slowly went insane, tormented every minute by the things she loved and lost to her jealous rage. At her lowest, she often tried, in vain, to remember how she felt that morning as she stood on the scorched earth, next to the pool of blood that marked where her husband murdered Henry Cooper before he himself was killed.
She tried over and over again to feel the joy that filled her the moment she heard the judges announce there would be no winner of the “Best Yard Competition.” declared as she looked out the window at the brightly colored gardens that dotted the asylum’s lawn.
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1st page you use “heart felt disappointment” and “beat of disappointment” on the same page it just seems repetitive. I will not tell you how to reword it (your artistic license)but I will tell you I find the thesaurus is my best friend.
7th page “The other two were the Associations presiding president and vice president (who had held the) since the community’s creation.” Did you mean “held the position”?
14th page “The foot lon(e)change to (g), razor sharp blades page ” typo
15th page “Fifteen minutes after she p(u)t insert (u) her contacts in” typo
16th page “Samantha going on about a bea(ts) switch letters (st) that terrorized her front yard,” typo
18th page “told the girls when they got home that it was not polite (to) add word; laugh at Samantha”
19th page “he snuck through Mrs. Blunt’s back lawn, then t(h)rough insert (h) Samantha’s” typo
23rd page “door leading from the kitchen to the garage open(.) or(,) She went back into the garage to find
24th page “she had no idea (she’d) insert word, never see her husband alive again.”
25th page “David was not as young as he though(t)add (t)” typo
26th page “What Henry (Gale)? is that supposed to be (Cooper) saw that night, he could not describe.”
27th page “David had poured the majority of the gasoline here and i(t) change to (n) the time since, Typo
29th page “His stressed knee gave way (knee gave way)remove repetitive, and without a sound he fell forward
Wow! Great story a real page turner, especially at the end. Wonderful description of the neighborhood. Not alot of Physical description of the characters, (which is just something I like) but really made up for with the descriptions of personality. Fantastic good luck!
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