Black Rainbow Read online

  My Ex-Husband is Still an Asshole

  Daddy’s Girl

  Aggressive Mimicry

  Dear Jane

  The Miracle of Life

  Curios and More

  Moonshine

  Seven Hand-Tied Knots

  Complete Me

  The Woman with the Comb

  A Letter to My Husband, Jack

  Nap-Town

  The Unicorn

  Iceolation

  Our Love Burns

  Mr. Flip

  The Last Chance Diner

  The Yaw

  Eight Little Lies

  It Should Be Raining

  The Last First Date of Bear Bloomfield

  Friday Night Séance

  Silence

  Consumed

  Mouth of the Whale

  About the Authors

  Acknowledgements

  LGBTQIA+ Horror

  BLACK RAINBOW

  Copyright © 2019 by NBH Publishing, LLC

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations bodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information contact:

  http://www.blackrainbowhorror.com

  Cover design by Scott Savino

  Interior by E.P. Boyr

  ISBN: 978-0-359-81498-5

  First Edition: August 2019

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  This book is dedicated to everyone in the LGBTQIA+ community; every size, shape, color, orientation, and identity. We love you. We are you. We see you, and we are seen.

  My Ex-Husband is Still an Asshole

  SCOTT SAVINO

  IT WAS RAINING WHEN THE window tapping began. Daniel grabbed the gun from the nightstand drawer and we both sat on the edge of the bed staring at the curtains we’d drawn closed for the night.

  “Michael!”

  I recognized the voice outside. I’d never forget that voice.

  I took the gun from Daniel’s hand and told him to hide. He looked surprised and began to protest, but at the look I gave him he stopped. I must have looked so profoundly broken. Or lost. Or maybe he saw something else in me I didn’t know was there. A strength I was unaware of? Without a word, he nodded, then hid.

  I crossed the room to the window and opened the curtains to face my ex-husband once again.

  He said, “Hi, honey.” His teeth were black and smeared with mud. His face was dirty, pale and glowing in the moonlight. “Can you open the door for me?”

  I didn’t reply at first, choosing to simply stare at him in shock. Everything about him was shrunken. Skeletal. Bones wrapped in thin papery skin and caked in dirt. He’d rotted away, resembling something ghoulish now, though that wasn’t much of a departure from what he’d been before. The only difference was, now he’d have a harder time hiding it from the world.

  I wondered what might happen if he got in. Forced his way. Would I be able to rip him apart like parchment?

  It took a long time before I found my words.

  “Hi, Ken,” was all I said.

  “Open the door.” His voice was warm and rich, as thick and comforting as cashmere. Exactly as I remembered it. But that didn’t mean I’d forgotten everything else.

  I shook my head, willing my hands to stop shaking as I stood my ground for the first time in our relationship. “I can’t do that, Ken. You don’t live here anymore.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about the fact that you don’t live here anymore. You don’t live anywhere anymore.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” He laughed and pressed his hand against the glass, smearing it with mud. “Just let me in.”

  “Kenny, you can’t be here,” I said. “You’re dead.”

  “No, you moron.” His face joined his hand against the glass, distorting his features wildly as he continued to speak. “I’m right here.”

  “Ken, what’s the last thing you remember?”

  “Falling asleep in that hospital bed,” he said. “You were a blur of red, and my mother was an orb of blue. You both moved around me, swirling like police lights, then suddenly the world went dark.” He licked his soiled lips in the after-midnight pooling outside the window. They moved like two disgusting little worms every time he spoke.

  “Before that moment in the hospital, I was driving at night. Cars were going across the intersection. The lights on their side were green. Then yellow. Then red. My light changed and I slowly pressed the pedal to start across the intersection.”

  I stood there, quietly listening to it all. He told me he remembered the sudden lurch. He remembered his head slamming into the window. He remembered the shards of broken glass and the sound of metal rending and bending all around him. I knew he was only telling me this to raise sympathy, probably thinking if he could get me to feel bad enough I might be convinced to open the door. But time and distance open the eyes and heal many wounds. It took his death to give me the perspective I’d needed to see his flaws, but I’d realized what he was a long time ago and I hadn’t forgotten any of it.

  When he was done trying to win my sympathy he asked, “What happened after that?”

  What happened after that was I got my life back, I thought. But I didn’t say it. Instead, I tried to be calm, but firm. After he’d died, one of the first things I’d learned was how to be more direct with people. The last thing I needed was to be trapped in another relationship like the one I’d had with him, so I said, “This relationship ended a long time ago and I want you to leave. Please.”

  Firm and direct.

  “Ended? What the hell—what are you talking about? You buried me alive! Go open the door so we can talk this out.”

  “No,” I said. I kept my tone flat. He had to know I meant it. “I’m not letting you in.”

  He slammed his fist against the glass and stepped away. “I don’t understand you! I don’t remember whatever you’re talking about and I haven’t done anything wrong!”

  “I would like you to leave,” I said when he was done.

  “It’s my house.”

  “Not anymore,” I said. I felt sad. I felt cold. But I stood my ground and stayed firm.

  My therapists would all be proud.

  His fingers traced the buttons of his shirt. It was still pressed and stiff with starch after all this time. He always wore suits when he was alive, but they were never quite this dirty.

  “I know which suit this is,” he said quietly, his mood and tone a sudden departure from his outburst just a moment ago. “I could tell from the lapels. Why did you put me in this suit?”

  My body tensed involuntarily. I knew this pattern all too well.

  Fire smoldered in his words, like they were etched in burning embers on his tongue. “I hate this suit.”

  He’d spent a fortune on it and had only worn it once, burying it in the back of the closet after his father’s funeral.

  “You know I hate this suit.”

  I picked it because it was appropriate, I thought.

  He began pulling at the filthy collar, shoving his words out through gritted teeth. “Now why, oh why? Why in the world would you pick this suit?”

  “It was nice,” I whispered. “The nicest one you had. Don’t give it any more meaning than that.”I felt the tremor in my voice and hoped it couldn’t be heard. I willed my face to stay calm and blank. I willed my eyes to stay away from the g
un in my hand. It was small comfort against a man who was already dead, but holding it in the dark emboldened me and I didn’t think he could see it. I felt as if I might finally be able to stand up to him, like I might finally have some closure.

  “I passed a few people on the way here,” he said. “Bars were closing up. Most of them avoided me.”

  The cemetery wasn’t far from our house. He must have made the walk in less than an hour if he’d kept moving.

  “Kenny,” I said from behind the safety of the bedroom window, “that’s because—”

  “I know!” he interrupted. “I look like a bum in this piece of shit suit you buried me in!”

  “Ken, you look dead. Because you are dead.”

  “So stupid.” He said shaking his head. “You’ve always been so fuckin’ stupid. If I’m dead, I can’t be here. But I am here. I can see my reflection.” He paused, his eyes shifting to a point behind my shoulder as he injected some venom into the next words. “I can see that fucker too, hiding on the other side of our bed. My side of our bed.” He spat on the ground. “I’ve seen him the whole time. Did you think I wouldn’t? I been trying to keep my cool out here, fuckin’ dirty and wet.” He grit his teeth. As black as they were, the moonlight still managed to glint off them. “Open. The fucking. Door.”

  “No. It’s not the same bed, Ken! You’ve been dead for seven years! It’s not even the same life.” I didn’t know if I should cry or scream.

  “Bullshit!” he spat.

  “Kenny,” I pleaded, “please just go. You’re not supposed to be here anymore. I’m healthier without you. Happier.”

  “Happier?” Rage exploded in his eyes. “How can you say something like that!”

  I felt something then. Something I’d never felt in his presence before. A righteous fire burning calm and bright.

  “How?” I looked at Daniel in the dark beside the bed, and back to my ex. “We don’t argue, Ken. He doesn’t make me feel like everything I do is wrong. He doesn’t drink. If he disagrees with something I do or say, he doesn’t hit me.”

  “You made a promise that day in Boston! A vow!”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “‘Till death do us part’, and you’ve been dead for seven years. I wanted to throw a party after you died because I was free, finally free of you and your toxic abuse!”

  Daniel stood from the other side of the bed. “You’re dead, asshole!” he shouted. “Now be gone! Depart! Go!”

  “Who the fuck do you think—fuck you!” Ken shouted as the rain began to fall in earnest. “I’ll kill you,” he growled, pointing at Daniel. Then looking to me he added, “Both of you.”

  “Ken, just go!”

  Daniel reached for the gun in my hand as Ken slowly turned away, spitting at the ground as he walked toward the trees, and disappeared between the sheets of rain.

  With a mixture of exhaustion, relief, and confusion, I sat on the bed, buried my face in my hands, and cried.

  Daniel set the gun down on the dresser and came to my side. For a while, neither of us spoke. Neither of us even dared sleep. We were so sure he would come back again, so Daniel and I just sat there in the dark. Then, touching my hand, he said, “You lived through him once. You’ll make it again. I’m here now, love. We’ll make it together.”

  I nodded. I didn’t know how to feel. I knew he was right, but the whole ordeal had left me feeling raw. It had taken me so long to move on. So long for the emptiness to leave. So long to forgive myself for letting him slowly erode me away to nothing. Things could never go back to the way they were, not least of all because he was legally dead.

  Will I have to file for divorce now that he’s back? He’d never sign, I thought. A stupid errant thing that made no sense in the light of day, but which found its way into my head in the moment.

  “Maybe we should go,” Daniel said after hours of silence. “Just for a few days. Pack up and get away from here.”

  “I don’t know. That feels too much like letting him win.”

  “Well what do we do? Do we call the police?”

  I smiled. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t “what should you do?” or “you should call the police.” It was “we”. However unintentional it may have been on his part, the gesture wasn’t lost on me. Daniel and I had spent the last three years together weaving an intricate life. It had never been just him or me. It had always been us, and long before this strange turn of events, I’d known this man was my soulmate. Daniel and I were meant to be a two-man team. For life.

  He squeezed my hand as I weighed our options. “We can’t call the police,” I said finally. “They’ll think we’re insane.”

  “Then what?”

  “We leave,” I nodded, cementing his original suggestion in my mind. “I can’t keep letting myself get trapped into thinking it’s some kind of game with him, that someone always wins and someone always loses.”

  “If anything,” Daniel said with a smile, “he’s the loser.”

  I smiled back, my heart suddenly swelling with love for this man.

  “Well, I know I won when I met you,” I said, and got up to get something from the closet. In a dusty box on the top shelf, I found Ken’s obituary. I carefully removed it and taped it to the window facing out. Maybe if he returned he’d read it and believe he was really dead. Maybe he’d leave us alone. Maybe he’d finally rest in peace.

  It read:

  Kenneth Walsh,

  Husband, Brother, and Devoted Son.

  He is survived by his husband, Michael Thomas,

  His mother, Dolores Walsh, and two sisters,

  Janet Walsh and Faye Marshall.

  He sweetly sleeps in the Bradenville Cemetery.

  It was nicer than he deserved. There hadn’t been much sweet about him until he’d died, but even that wasn’t true anymore.

  “Where should we go,” Daniel asked, hauling one of our suitcases out from under the bed.

  He was the most beautiful, amazing person I had ever met, and I couldn’t have loved him more than I did right then, even as Ken’s filthy hand punched a hole through the hardwood floor between us.

  Shards of wood and dirt exploded into the room, followed by Ken’s growling head. He gnashed his teeth violently and groped the floor, trying to pull himself through as the first pink rays of dawn filtered through the trees. The only thing keeping him from reaching either of us was the fact that he didn’t quite fit through the hole he’d made.

  “I’ll do it slow,” he said as he struggled against the floorboards. “You can watch each other suffer. First, I’ll rip into your stomach and pull out every last inch of your dripping, shit-filled guts. He’ll watch it happen,” he said, looking me dead in the eyes and pointing at Daniel. “I’ll break his legs so he can’t run. He’ll see everything. Then, I’ll start on him while you’re still bleeding out. You can watch each other until you’re both dead. Then maybe you’ll wake up in a coffin, too,” he laughed for a moment, then growled in frustration as he flailed against the trap he’d made for himself. One of the jagged edges had pressed into the thin skin of his back, piercing him between the shoulder blades. It was holding him there as he thrashed in the dark, sending sprays of muddy rainwater around the room.