Carno's Successor
Part 2/7
By Selenite
One Month After The Wedding
Donald Gordon lay in the king-sized bed he shared with his new wife, who had formerly been Betty Marie Griswold. Now, she was Betty Marie Gordon, till death did she part. His hands were folded behind his head, and the light-blue cotton sheets only covered his lower half. His chest was exposed, and the hair on it was softly rumpled from his wife's caresses. Don looked over at Betty and smiled. She was sound asleep. He sighed contentedly and looked up at the ceiling.
"I'm so glad I married her," Don thought to himself. "It's been so long since a woman has held me in her arms, and, oh, how much I missed that. The kisses, the strokes of her hands, the lovemaking--everything." He smacked his lips together. "She may be a little lax about keeping the house clean and cooking, but as long as she loves me and she's there for me, I really don't give a damn if the cabinets are dusty." He chuckled to himself and snuggled down deeper under the covers. Don closed his eyes, inched closer to Betty, and began to feel the first pangs of sleep come over him.
Betty, however, who was sleeping soundly, and who usually did not dream, began to have one just then, as she felt her husband wriggle closer to her, wanting to cuddle. "Mmm," she muttered, knowing he was there, but not wanting to open her eyes. They felt like lead weights.
She and Don were in the dark collectibles room on the second floor of the Carnovasch Estate. Don was sitting in a chair to her left, and he held an extremely thick leather-bound book sitting on his lap, with his hands folded over it, almost piously. Don's expression, however, was anything but pious, containing a murderous glee. A thick metal rod was leaning up against his chair.
Betty herself was lying on a table, with leather straps buckled around her wrists, ankles, and head. A huge iron funnel with a wide opening was lodged in her throat. She thrashed against the straps and tried to gag the funnel out, but no matter how she tried to force herself to vomit or wriggle free of the straps, she could not. "MMMMFFF!" she cried desperately, looking up at Don.
Don stood up and smiled down at her gleefully. "The Bible is a wonderful book," he began, "but some people definitely take it far too seriously. One of them is you, my fundamentalist friend!" He raised his head and spat out a high-pitched falsetto giggle. "You think that your life should be controlled by this book!" He mimicked Betty cruelly. "Not tonight, Don, I just found out sex was a SIN!" He giggled again. "Rock music? Ohh, Jason, don't listen to that garbage! It's a tool of SATAN!" He threw his head back and let out a scoff. "Don't be a magician, Marie," he parroted. "Magic is not God's will for your life, but being a HOOKER might be! Ha ha ha!" He grinned. "Well, tonight, Betty Tammy Faye Baker Griswold, you are going to EAT YOUR WORDS!" He clacked his teeth together.
Betty's eyes brimmed over with tears of indignation and sadness. How could he hurt her this way? She didn't think she had turned into Phyllis Schlafly or Jerry Falwell! She had only wanted strong, sensible moral guidance for her life and for the lives of her children, Jason and Marie. So, how could Don--how could he--!
Don opened the thick book, which, Betty realized, was undoubtedly the Bible. He tore out a thin sheaf of pages and crumpled them all up into a ball. Picking up the metal rod and walking over to Betty, he tossed the paperwad into the funnel like throwing it into a wastebasket. After that, he shoved it down into the funnel with the rod.
Betty choked as the paperwad lodged itself into her throat a little. Tears were streaming down her cheeks.
"The book of Hebrews," Don commented gleefully. "Delicious, but far too thin. More like a Saltine than good food for the soul. I think you need something a little more substantial!" He flipped to another section of the Bible and tore out a thick and heavy sheaf of pages, ripping them away sacrilegiously. He crumpled these and then pushed them down into the funnel as he had done the first set. Betty choked and gagged, feeling the dry paper deep in her throat.
"Psalms!" he cried. "Bunch of boring poetry! I never could understand what you saw in it, or for that matter, what you saw in this whole stupid book!" Don chortled. He tore out another sheaf of pages, and then another, and then another, and then another, and then another. One by one, he wadded up the groups of pages and plunged them into the funnel and his wife's throat.
"Genesis! Exodus! Leviticus! Numbers! Deuteronomy!" Don cried. "The FDA recommends five servings of Bible books a day--or is that fruits and vegetables?" he snickered. "For you, they might as well be!" He continued to rip out pages and make Betty eat their words. "Galatians! Ezekiel! Phillipians! Colossians! 1, 2, and 3 John--all in one! Ha ha ha!"
Betty choked hard, the pain becoming unbearable. Her airway was completely blocked by the wads of paper, which were becoming soggy with her saliva. Even if she could swallow the pages, she knew she could never swallow the whole Bible. Suddenly, she began to run out of the stored oxygen in her lungs, and her eyes began to roll into the back of her head.
However, before her rolled eyes glazed over, Betty glanced in the collectibles-room mirror--and saw a dark-haired woman in the same situation as she. The funnel in the woman's throat, however, was filled with red, glistening, goopy masses that looked like, of all things, entrails. She also saw the woman's salt-and-pepper-haired husband in a chair, holding some intestines and smiling smugly as the woman died.
At the point of her death in the nightmare, Betty sat bolt upright in bed, gasping in horror, her heart pounding in her chest.
"Oh, crap!" she cried. "No! No! Please!" Panting like a fish out of water, she glanced all around the bedroom to make sure there were no entrails, no people in the room except for them, and, most of all, no funnel, metal rod, torture table, or Bible.
"Betty?" Don asked sleepily as he sat up. "What's wrong?" He slipped his arms around his wife tenderly. "Awww," he said comfortingly as he kissed her twice.
"It was horrible," Betty gasped. "All that paper in my throat, and I was dying, and I saw that WOMAN, and--!"
"Shhhh," soothed Don. "Betty, it's okay. It's just a bad dream." He looked at her closely. "You don't ever have to be afraid of anything. I'll always be here to protect you."
Betty smiled, reassured, and kissed Don deeply, letting him taste the fullness of her lips. Don rubbed her back gently, massaging all the tension out, and stroked her long brown hair. Within a few minutes, they were making love, and Betty slowly forgot all traces of the nightmare as she responded to Don's gentle touch.
Don, however, suddenly had a frightening flashback. He could picture this same scene, only a year earlier, and with a different wife. He had used the exact same words and had done the exact same thing to comfort--
"ADRIENNE!" Don screamed as he pushed himself away from Betty. "NO! NO! NOOO!" This time it was Don who was breathing hard, like he had just awakened from a nightmare.
Betty's insides turned to water. Hot fear swept over her, and her body trembled. She could still feel him beside her, could still feel the touch of his hands and the kiss of his lips. She dared not ask who this Adrienne might be. Deep down in her heart, where bitterness, fear, and resentment lay, she thought she already knew. Betty began to weep silently, letting the tears slide down her cheeks.
Don, realizing his horrible mistake, suddenly swept Betty into his arms. "Betty!" he cried. "No! It's--It's not what you think at all! Adrienne--she doesn't exist! I was just having a nightmare, a flashback! Like you! Oh, God! Please, Betty!" He kissed her again.
Betty simply rolled over onto her side, letting her back face Don. She would have nothing more to do with him, either emotionally or physically. To emphasize this, she scooted over onto the other side of the bed as far as she could without falling off.
Don slumped back onto his pillow and cried again, letting his sobs shake the bed as he begged Betty to listen to him and hold him again. He ended up crying himself to sleep, as did his wife.
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