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Sandra's stories have appeared in Crime and Suspense, A Cruel World, and Flashing in the Gutters. She has two stories in the anthology The EX Factor, due out in October from Koboca Publishing.

Fighting Back by Sandra Seamans

The knife slashed across the freckles on her skin, oozing a trail of blood to the floor. The crimson puddles were slippery and her feet couldn't get a solid purchase on the linoleum. She fell, hitting her head on the kitchen table. Her knife slipped from her grasp and went sliding across the floor, out of reach. Carrie struggled, trying to escape the sharp edge of the dream knife bearing down on her.

It was the incessant beeping in her ears that jolted her out of the dream. There was a monitor next to her bed sounding out her heartbeats and recording them on a roll of paper. IV bags dangled from a wire frame, with rubber tubes snaking down into her veins.

She still wasn't awake. Couldn't be. She felt herself drifting back into the nightmare, struggling to reach...what?

"Good morning," said a nurse. "I see you've finally decided to rejoin the living. You gave us quite a scare last night."

Carrie tried to speak, wanted to ask the nurse what she was talking about. But the nurse was hustling out of the room to fetch the doctor before the words could form in her mouth. She closed her eyes again, fighting to make sense of the dream.

A beam of light penetrated her eyeball.

"For someone determined to kill herself, you've certainly fought hard to stay alive," said the doctor. "But I've got to admit, I've never seen a woman slice her face when she was trying to suicide."

"What are you talking about?" asked Carrie. Her hand automatically reaching for her face, touching the coarse threads of the gauze taped to her cheek.

"You don't remember?"

Carrie shook her head.

"Your husband said you tried to kill yourself."

Carrie shut her eyes, trying to blot out the upside down world she'd slept her way into. If she could just get back to the dream, back to...where?

"Mrs. Keller?"

Why wouldn't they let her think? She opened her eyes. A heavy-set man in a rumpled suit leaned against the wall. Another man sat in the chair beside her bed.

"Mrs. Keller, I'm Detective Kidd Corbett, the fellow holding up the wall over there is my partner, Wally Burns," said the man. "We'd like to ask you a few questions."

"I'm not sure I can help you. Everything's a bit hazy."

Kidd lifted an eyebrow. "You don't remember what happened last night?"

"That's a pretty convenient alibi," said Wally.

"It's not convenient at all." Carrie looked from Kidd to Wally. "The doctor said I tried to kill myself. He said that I cut my face. Why would I do that to myself?"

Kidd leaned close. "Were you and your husband having marital trouble?"

"Just the usual married stuff. He was working a lot of late nights. I accused him of having an affair with his secretary, Cheryl Duncan."

"Was he?"

"He said he wasn't."

"Did you believe him?" asked Wally.

"I wanted to."

Kidd frowned. "Is there anything at all you can remember about last night?"

"Just blurs, bits of dreams. I know this sounds silly, but I dreamt I was in a knife fight. It just felt so real. But, I don't know."

"Could you see who you were fighting with? In the dream?"

"No, just flashing knife blades. And blood, dripping blood. The floor was slippery. I remember falling and the knife sliding across the floor, someone stabbing me. It's all mixed up."

"What kind of floor?"

"Linoleum. With Daisies. Just like my kitchen floor."

Wally left the room. He returned with Carrie's husband, Jack.

"I’m so sorry, honey, but I had to tell them. They found Cheryl’s body."

“Cheryl’s body? She's dead? How? I don’t understand what’s going on, Jack.”

"When I got home last night, I found the two of you on the kitchen floor. You were unconscious, but Cheryl dead. Why did you kill her, Carrie?"

"I don't remember what happened last night. Why did you tell the doctor I tried to kill myself?"

"Because I dumped Cheryl's body in an alley on the way to the hospital. I didn't want you accused of murder."

"But that doesn't make any sense. Why would they accuse me?"

"You were alone with Cheryl. You must have killed her. I dumped the body, hoping nobody would connect her to the house. I was just trying to protect you. Besides, I didn't think the cops would believe me, since I was having an affair with Cheryl."

“You were having an affair with Cheryl?”

“Don’t you remember? I told you. Yesterday. I asked you for a divorce, but you refused. Cheryl must have come over to reason with you, and you killed her.”

A police officer entered the room and handed an evidence bag to Kidd.

Kidd looked up at his partner. "Wally, cuff Mr. Keller."

"What for?" sputtered Jack. "I didn't do anything except move a body so my wife didn't have to go to jail."

Kidd held up the bag. "One too many knives, Jack. Cheryl had one, which you conveniently left on the kitchen floor for us to find. The second knife, you put in Cheryl's back. But you missed the third knife when you were setting up your wife for murder. Carrie's knife slid across the floor and under a chair when she fell. You grabbed a knife off the counter, not realizing your wife had been defending herself."

"Lucky for us, your wife's a fighter, or you might've gotten away with murder," said Wally.

THE END