Page 35 of Devil Inside

If she wasn’t going to talk to him, open up to him about what was going on—what the hell is wrong with you, what has gotten into youall of a sudden—then so fucking be it.

“I can’t keep doing this,” Greg said to her back. Her shoulders. Was she listening to him? Were the words sinking in? He wanted to grab her. Shake her.Listen to me, damn it!

So Greg closed in. “Do you hear what I’m saying? I’m trying, Kim. I’m trying to—”

Kim turned. Spun around so fast, Greg couldn’t help but halt. For a second, barely long enough to let out a gasp, Greg expected to see her brandishing a kitchen knife.

Jesus, did heactuallyimagine she was going to stab him?Really?Is that how bad things have gotten between them? That he would imagine her doingthat? Tohim?

Neither of them said a word.

The placid look in Kim’s eyes was disconcerting. She was smiling without smiling, the ripple in her lips turning, but there was no mirth to it. No happiness.

No Kim.

“We’re going out,” she finally said.

Well, that wasn’t what Greg expected to hear. “Excuse me? You’re what?”

“We’re fatigued by all this. We find you suffocating. We’re going out.”

“What the fuck has gotten into you?”

Kim laughed. A husky, guttural laugh. Greg had never heard her laugh like this.

“Gotten into you,” she repeated. Really relished it, too.

Greg didn’t get the joke. “Kim. I’m serious as a goddamn heart attack. What has—”

“Not Kim,” Kim said. “Not anymore.”

“The hell you are—”

That’s when the mallet came down.

It happened so fast.

Barely a blink.

Greg focused on Kim’s arm rising from her side, a glint of dull silver catching the kitchen lights, her hand lifting over her head for one brief peek—striking a Statue of Liberty pose—before plummeting back down. It was difficult for Greg to understand—comprehend—what happened to his face, his skull, until he felt it.Seeing is believing, they say, but in this case, it only made matters more confusing. Why was Kim doing this? To him? Her husband? Why was she repeating herself? Over and over again? What was this?

It was far easier, simpler, you might say, for Greg to understand the feeling.

Feeling is believing.

It hurt.Reallyhurt. Impact between the meat tenderizer and his forehead—that dull crunch, that blunt bite of gridded teeth into his temple, the fresh rupture of blood, skin splitting in a dozen different pecks, his eyes blinking back the sudden rush of wetness.

By the fifth strike, Greg knew exactly what was happening to his head. What Kim was doing to him. His skull. “She hates you,” Kim said in between bludgeons. “Despisesyou.”

Greg’s legs finally gave out. He collapsed to the floor. More marble. So expensive. How many months of his paycheck had gone into this floor? Does marble stain? How will the house cleaners get that blood out?

“She’s wanted to do this for so long now... So long.”

Kim stepped over him, so that she now hovered above Greg’s body. Both legs straddled him. She stared down at him, tilting her head to one shoulder, as if to study him.

The heap that is her husband.

“She called upon us,” Kim continued, taking him in, as Greg suddenly slipped into these—what do you call them, spasms—a frantic break dance across the kitchen floor.