Flash Fiction: Two and a Half Miles by W.D. County

Raymond glanced at his wife, Martha, who sat in the passenger seat, pen in hand, appending items to their shopping list, oblivious to everything else. He increased pressure on the accelerator, bringing their speed to exactly sixty-five. He scanned oncoming traffic. This section of rural highway lacked dividing wall and guardrails; opposing lanes were separated only by twenty feet of flat green ground, a no-man’s land strewn with clumps of freshly mowed grass.

He felt calm. Felt justified. After all, Martha had started it, and bore most of the blame.

As an actuary, Raymond knew how to analyze data, calculate probabilities, and assess risks. He loved logic and statistics, applying them to all manner of real world situations. Whenever Martha went out, he knew when to expect her back, and when she was late he worried. Statistically, traffic accidents were the leading cause of death for people between age two and thirty-four. Martha was thirty-two. A third of all traffic fatalities occur within two and a half miles of home. The mall and the super market were three miles from their home, a significant risk given her frequent shopping trips, especially when he factored in her propensity for driving fast.

Her behavior was overtly dangerous, and he had told her so. She laughed it off, even after he patiently explained the numbers, even after he reminded her how much he loved her and wanted her to be safe.

Her behavior did not improve. Each time Martha failed to arrive home within five minutes of the expected time, he reassessed the situation, updated the probabilities, and came to the natural conclusion that she had been in an accident. This led to thinking of what he would do without her. He’d have to sell the house, get something smaller and more affordable. Should he remarry? Dating was an emotional burden, even with the aid of dating services offering statistically ideal matches.

Raymond tried to keep his thoughts positive. He let his mind dwell on whether to buy a larger, safer car to minimize Martha’s risk of death, or to increase her life insurance in order to minimize the financial impact.

Weeks went by and she was always late, sometimes by over an hour. Miraculously, Martha arrived home safely every time, and Raymond would breathe a sigh of relief, relax his tensed muscles, and kiss her cheek.

Until he realized the gravity of the situation. Probability is like a natural law with a tiny bit of wiggle room. A person couldn’t beat the odds over a sustained period, yet Martha had done that for months, maybe years. The only way to beat the laws of nature was to employ supernatural means. The supernatural came in two flavors, good and evil. Would a good person deliberately and repeatedly flaunt death the way Martha had? Would a good person continue to cause him pain and suffering by always coming home late?

The logic was impeccable, the conclusion inescapable.

Martha was evil, and using black magic to cheat death.

She was smart, too, and goal oriented. Raymond realized Martha wasn’t being callous for its own sake—she must have an actual reason for being late. Statistically, the most common reasons for repeated absence and tardiness were illness, alcoholism, and illicit sex. Martha wasn’t sick and never displayed any sign of intoxication. That left only one conclusion—his wife was having an affair.

Raymond identified four responses he could take: accept what she was doing and let things continue, confront her and make her stop the adulterous behavior, divorce her, or kill her.

He would never accept her sinful, shameful behavior. Nor could he trust her if she promised to stop—after all, her success in cuckolding him for years proved she was a consummate liar. A divorce would give her half of their assets, letting her take the wealth he’d worked so hard to accumulate and give it to her lover. No, absolutely not! Which left only one option.

Martha had to die.

The conclusion wasn’t based on any malice in his heart. She’d been cheating death already. He was simply restoring the natural order of things.

Pleased at determining the proper response, Raymond’s daydreams of life without Martha took on a cheerful cast, with many pleasant hours devoted to how it could best be accomplished, until another realization hit him with such force that he slumped into his chair and covered his face with his hands.

He was evil, too. Not as evil as Martha, of course—he hadn’t sold his soul to obtain supernatural protection from the statistical certainty of vehicular death—but he was evil nonetheless for contemplating murder just to free himself from her subtle torments. Even if killing her was necessary, it wasn’t legal; and taking personal joy from killing your wife was hardly moral. Which meant he had to adjust his plans, had to make it a double.

So here he was, driving down the highway, forced into this course of action by Martha’s evil nature and his own sense of justice. He felt remarkably calm, proud that his voice hadn’t quivered when he’d asked Martha to go shopping with him, grateful she didn’t object when he slid into the driver’s seat. Fate smiled on his plan. The oncoming traffic was going at least fifty-five. He was going sixty-five. Statistically, a head-on collision between a small car and a large truck at a combined speed of one hundred twenty miles per hour had a near one hundred percent fatality rate for occupants of the smaller vehicle.

The approaching flatbed truck, piled high with massive logs, was ideal. He reached over and patted Martha’s hand.

“God help me. I still love you,” he said. She looked up, puzzled.

He turned the wheel hard left, bounced across the grassy median and into the path of the truck, with just enough time to look at the odometer.

Two and a half miles from home.

***

W. D. County (“Dave”) took early retirement a few months ago in order to write full-time, and is enjoying it immensely. He writes dark stories, and he’s a member of the Horror Writers Association. His work has appeared previously in Spinetingler and in the Speedloader anthology from Snubnose Press. Dave is currently working on a science fiction novel, tentatively titled “The Oasis at the Bottom of the Sea.”

R Thomas Brown

R. Thomas Brown is the Flash Fiction Editor at Spinetingler and writes the Short Thoughts on Short Fiction series. His writing appears around the web and links can be found at his website. "Hill Country" will be coming out in 2012 from Snubnose Press. When not writing or reading, he is a clueless husband and father of three inspiring and exhausting children.

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