52stories

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I sat at the edge of the boat, looking out across the water, waiting for someone, anyone, to say something. Balancing at the edge of falling in. Wondering what I should do next.

We came for the weekend, our group of “halves”. People without spouses. You might think we looked like a dating group, being single and all, but none of us were interested in dating. Especially not each other.

We came here each month for a late afternoon cruise. A short trip out on the water. At the start, there were almost twenty of us. It had been a fun trip then. A couple of boats, a trunk full of beer, and we had hours of pleasure before going home.

The second time we met, things changed. Jimmy fell in the lake, and drowned before we even noticed he was missing. The third time, Mary Martha slipped in a boat, hit her head, and fell into the water, unconscious. We fished her out, but she died the next morning – too much water in her lungs, I guess.

Ever since then, it has gotten worse. In a year and a half, we’ve lost one person each time we’ve met. Last month, we tried to skip the meeting, and Sandy died in a car accident. Whether we meet or not, the same result.

“I think we can stop this,” I said.

“If it keeps happening even when we’re not here, how are we supposed to fight it?” asked Jane.

“Why do you think it’s happening?” I asked.

“The only thing we have in common is our relationships,” said Bill. “So I assume it has something to do with that.”

“But who even knows about all of us?”, complained Jill.

“No one, I don’t think.”

“So why would it be related to that?”

“We each murdered our spouses.”

“And someone is trying to get back at us?”

I sat alone at the front of the boat. I was watching the cliffs ahead, thinking how calm I felt here. I used to come here with my wife. For a lot of years, it was the best time of the year for me. But then, I decided it was time to let her stay. I looked out across the water again. She is still here, somewhere up there to the right. They never found her body.

They wouldn’t find the others, either.

I put my hand in my jacket pocket. And said goodbye to my friends.

[Note: I know this is short, but I wrote a 20K word novel in the 3DayNovel contest this week (over the holiday weekend), and have been battling a rough pneumonia since the middle of that. I didn’t want to kill my streak of weeks I’ve submitted here, but also didn’t want to insult your intelligence, so this is kinda short. Thanks for understanding ]