Visitations Read Online Free PDF Page B

slammed the door upon her exit.
     
    He got up and ran to his den. To steady his hands and calm his nerves, he poured a scotch and sat in his reading chair. The picture was as it should be. Everything remained intact. Nothing moved.
     
    He waited. Nothing changed.
     
    He drank more scotch and stared. Still nothing.
     
    Matt finished his beverage and got out of the chair. With each step forward he waited to see the picture animate, but it didn’t.
     
    Did I imagine everything last night?
     
    He stood one foot from the landscape and waited, with both hands placed open palmed on the top of the metal filing cabinet.
     
    The river started first. Then the deer got spooked and bolted off. Charlie entered the painting from the left, Fran from the right.
     
    “You didn’t do it, did you?” Charlie asked.
     
    Even from his vantage point in his den, Matt could see the look of failure on Fran’s face.
     
    “It wasn’t my fault. He was carrying the lasagna to the table and tripped. The Pyrex shattered on the floor, ruining the dish.” She looked down at her shoes. “I’m sorry. I tried.”
     
    “You’re lying.”
     
    Her head snapped up. “What did you say?”
     
    “You’re lying. This was your seventh attempt. If you really wanted to kill your husband to be with me, you’d have done it by now. I’ve waited too long for this charade to play out. Goodbye.”
     
    Charlie turned away from her and started to walk off the landscape.
     
    Fran ran after him. She grabbed the shoulder of his jacket and spun him around.
     
    “How dare you!” Fran screamed.
     
    To Matt it sounded like she was in the same room.
     
    “You said you loved me,” Fran continued. “I was willing to kill my husband for you and you have the audacity to just walk away. How dare you?”
     
    “You weren’t killing your husband for me. Let’s be clear on that.”
     
    “What are you talking about?” Fran asked, her voice rising to a shriek, one Matt had heard numerous times. “What was I doing it for then?” She stepped back and crossed her arms.
     
    “You were doing it because you are a stupid bitch. I have manipulated you from day one.”
     
    Fran shook her head and frowned. “What are you talking about?”
     
    “With your husband dead, not only do I get to fuck his wife for a while, I also get his half of our little business venture as agreed upon when we started up, in the advent of a death. After a month I would explain to the authorities what you had done and that you’d just told me all about it out of guilt. You’d be arrested and I wouldn’t have to deal with you anymore. See what I mean, you’re a stupid bitch.”
     
    Matt didn’t see it coming. Neither did Charlie.
     
    Fran dove forward, both hands outstretched, lunging for Charlie’s throat. Before he could respond, she was on him, both of them falling to the ground.
     
    Matt shouted at the painting and slammed his hands on the top of the cabinet.
     
    Charlie and Fran rolled off the path in their wild wrestling match.
     
    Matt shouted again for them to stop. He had no idea where they were on the path as he had only walked it random times through the years. He never jogged it routinely like Fran did.
     
    He could hear grunts and groans as his ex-partner and his soon to be ex-wife fought in the bushes.
     
    Then Charlie rose up on his knees. Matt gasped. Charlie lifted his right arm and drove a fist down below the line of sight.
     
    “Noooo!” Matt screamed as he banged his fists on the top of the cabinet. He turned and grabbed the phone, dialing emergency services without looking.
     
    “Do you require Ambulance, Police of Fire?” he heard through the phone.
     
    “Police. My wife is being attacked in the bush behind my house.”
     
    The phone clicked. A man said, “Police, how can we help?”
     
    Matt watched as Charlie rose his arm again and again, dropping his fist into Fran’s face. The only difference was his fist was bright red