Current Issue

Sam Douglas is a former military man who served in Air Force Intelligence all over the world including several combat and Cold War stations. He is now a freelance writer living in the southern US with his wife of over 40 years. His work has appeared in print publications such as Short Stuff, Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine, Bibliophilos, and The Rocking Chair Reader and online in Espresso Fiction, Cyber Oasis, Monthly Short Stories, and Reflection's Edge, among others.

"I work my butt off all week so you can have a house," he replied, lifting his eyes only momentarily from the Saturday afternoon football game on TV. "I think I ought to be able to relax a little on weekends."

"The least you could do is help me outside on the stuff I can’t reach," she persisted.

"Like washing down the vinyl siding," she said. "You know when we got this stuff, they said we’d never have to paint the house again, but you still have to hose it down once in a while."

"Cause I’m too short. I can’t make the hose reach all the way to the top. It would be easy for you, tall as you are. All you gotta do is walk around the house and hose it down."

"Okay, okay. If it will shut you up for a little while, I’ll do it. Soon’s the ballgame’s over."

About an hour later, he was out in the front yard hosing down the house. She peeked at him around the living room curtains. He didn’t seem very inspired by his work, and he paused frequently to gaze at the neighbor wives working in their yards. What’s the matter, she thought, isn’t Juanita Snelgrove enough for you? You want the neighbor wives, too? She’d suspected for a while, but this week she finally saw them together, her husband and Juanita Snelgrove from Accounting. She’d watched them go into the hotel together, and she’d waited until they came out two hours later. There was no doubt what they were doing.

Now, as he hosed down the house, he made steady, if slow, progress toward the attached garage. She watched until he passed out of her line of sight. Then she moved to the front door and opened it a crack. From there she could see him hosing down the garage doors and moving slowly toward the corner of the house.

Under the eaves at the corner were the two floodlights that they’d installed when they moved into the house over ten years ago, one pointing forward into the front yard and the other pointing back along the side of the house. They had these lights on all four corners, but almost never used them.

She saw that he was hosing down the vinyl in the area of the floodlights. She opened the screen door a little and craned her neck so she could look around the porch columns. When it appeared that his stream of water was pointed directly at the floodlights, she pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and used it to flip the switch inside the door. The floodlight facing forward flashed on briefly. Then she saw a brighter flash from under the eaves and a puff of smoke floated upward from there. She saw her husband’s body jerk spasmodically several times and then slump to the ground. He lay still.

Last week when she’d been working alone in the yard, she’d noticed that the lights on the corner by the garage pointed away at strange angles. When she examined them closer, she saw that they appeared to be dislodged from their base. The swivel seemed to be broken, and she thought she saw loose electrical wires exposed under the lights. But it was hard to be sure from ground level. She had meant to tell her husband to get them checked; but when she found out about Juanita Snelgrove, she was glad she’d forgotten.

She pulled her head quickly back inside the house and closed the door. Now her only question was whether she should call 911 or wait until a neighbor discovered her husband’s body in the yard. She decided to wait.