Page 69 of Marked By Feral Monsters
And I take my time, so I don't end up in that in-between place, and by the time she's ready to come, I give her my everything.
Dina
Sitting cross-legged, I open the last two musty boxes. Over the last year, I've cleared every room of Greta's trophies except this one.
I've already emptied all the stuff that was stacked on the floor. I carried the big armoire out to the street and sold it online, along with a ton of other furniture.
It was all beautifully handcrafted, ornate, vintage. Likely had been in my family for generations. But there was a wretched darkness permeating the wood. I can't explain it, but I couldfeelit. So, I got rid of almost everything.
This closet is the last to empty, and previously, every time I came in here, Eric would shove me away. So I worked through the rest of the house. There were plenty of other things to do.
But this is all that's left.
"The new slim silhouette convertible Hoover. Your wife will love it!" I read the advertisement, shaking my head, and throw it in the garbage bag. "I guess vacuum cleaners were too sophisticated for husbands to operate in the 70s," I muse.
Eric nudges the bigger box, where the brand new Hoover vacuum is all folded up. Even though I can't see him, his tension radiates around us, making the air feel heavy and caustic.
It doesn't take me long to unearth a book buried beneath the sales pitch pamphlet and piles of old receipts. I flip through the pages. It's filled with dates and times logged in pencil, fading with age. A ledger of sales.
Flipping through the notes, I fan the pages to the front of the book until I see it.
His name. An old yellowed label, typed on an old-fashioned typewriter.
Property of Eric Greer.
Tears burn my eyes, tracking down my cheeks. I wipe them away and suck in a breath, the air catching in my throat like a jagged piece of glass.
"I'm so, so sorry," I whisper, though the words are insufficient. I knew what I was going to find before I found it. The evidence was insurmountable, and there was only one reason Eric would make me save this room, this closet for last.
Eric, and many others, had the unfortunate luck of knocking on Greta's door. That's all it took.
He was a door-to-door salesman. He sold vacuum cleaners. And my great aunt was a serial killer, and no one, not her neighbors, not even her own family, knew the truth.
Except, now, me.
I find a pencil in the box, and write on the back of an old receipt, numbers 1-9. A slow, annoying, albeit effective means of communication Eric and I have developed over the past year.
"How old were you?" I ask.
I tap my finger over the one and pause, then the two, where he nudges me. I nod and start over, and he stops me at the four.
"Twenty-four?" I ask.
Icy fingers brush my wrist.Yes.
Tears stream down my cheeks.
He was so young. I'm only twenty-six. I can't imagine what that must have felt like. Two years ago, at twenty-four, I'd felt dissatisfied with life. Bored, indifferent. That all feels so trivial now.
This… having it end like that, so violently, at the hands of someone like Greta… I don't know how he can stand to be in the same room as me.
"I'm so sorry, Eric."
He doesn't touch me or make any noise. I give him a moment.
He likes to touch me. I suspect he follows me more than he lets on.
But right now, it seems like he wants to be alone. I don't know if he's left the room, but I decide to give him space. Like every other room I've cleaned out, I pick up all the trash, collect it into big black contractor bags, and carry it outside, stacking it up beside my car to bring to the dump.
