I Feels Like I Been Hypmotized

Almost the last Halloween tale. A failed attempt at something like J-horror.

From the Wikipedia.

Hypnagogia (also spelled hypnogogia) are the experiences a person can go through in the hypnagogic (or hypnogogic) state, the period of falling asleep. Hypnopompia are the experiences a person can go through in the hypnopompic state, the period of waking up. The term hypnagogia often encompasses hypnopompia as well. Hypnagogic sensations collectively describe the vivid dream-like auditory, visual, or tactile sensations that can be experienced in a hypnagogic or hypnopompic state. These sensations can be accompanied by sleep paralysis, the sensation that the body is temporarily paralyzed after waking or before falling asleep.

The trio of hookers I’d hired for the week giggled their way out of my suite. I would have kept them one more night but I’d been overdoing the party thing and hadn’t been sleeping well. My flight left early and I wanted to be well rested before I faced my former mother-in-law at the airport.

“Moms” was undertaking the extreme measure of flying to Ljubljana just to speak to me … confront me, really. She was under the impression that I had killed her husband and daughter. She had no proof but she was absolutely right.

Killing my father-in-law was a necessary preliminary to killing my wife. His death would provide my wife with a large inheritance and served as practice for her murder. His “heart attack” also helped cover her death as a pre-existing condition. Bad hearts run in families.

A heart attack can be brought on by applying the chemical that puts octane in gasoline to the skin. As a liquid the chemical evaporates quickly and completely. Its presence in the body can be tested for but the test is expensive, takes a very long time, and is only 80% conclusive The price of the test balks the authorities in most jurisdictions and any lawyer worth its sharp, jagged teeth can argue 80% to nothing.

Purchasing the stuff without leaving tracks would have been a problem several years ago but now I was able to open bank accounts, establish corporations, and rent property over the Web. I’d learned enough from another former wife about using anonymous proxies, other people’s unsecured wireless networks, and laptops with removable hard drives to make myself electronically invisible. It was one of the easiest jobs I’d ever done and certainly the most profitable. Even if I hired every hooker in the former East Bloc I couldn’t spend all of their money.

We lived with her parents. Not because we were lacking but because she wouldn’t be separated from “Moms” and vice versa. They were more like sisters than mother and daughter. Their resemblance was the source a lot of risqué jokes on my former father-in-law’s part. The close proximity to both targets made the job easy. The lame-ass jokes made it even easier.

I did “Dad” in around Halloween and after a decent wait I killed my wife just after our anniversary in June. After it was clear that there would be no investigation I left the house after the New Year. Since then I’d been splitting my time between Eastern Europe and Eastern Asia. Or at least the parts with easy attitudes about prostitution. “Moms” wrote me a lot at first but I never bothered to write back. She began to suspect I was an opportunist due to my “cavalier” attitude and demanded to speak to me in person. I put her off for several months but she hired a detective to track me down and forced a meeting.

Planning her death, I crawled into bed. I probably wouldn’t kill her but planning it helped me relax. Sleep came over me.

I woke instantly. There was someone in the room. I felt the bed move and a form settled next to me. It moved close and whispered my name. It was either my former mother-in-law or my wife and since my wife was dead my choice was made for me. I was paralyzed and couldn’t move to confront her. She moved over me and off the bed. As she knelt next to the bed she moved into the moonlight. I saw her face. It wasn’t “Moms”. Even with the flesh rotting off of her face it was obviously my wife. Her boney hand moved toward me.

My heart stopped.

I looked down at my dead body. She looked at me and smiled. Even death wouldn’t save me from her.

I couldn’t scream.