Marlene and Hubby Take the Haunted Tour

Robb White

“I’m not going to stop for one more goddamned haunted cemetery, mansion, or massacre, or whatever the hell else is on your list, Marlene.”

They’d done every haunted site since Salt Lake City. Always the next place would have something—aliens, freakish lights, ghostly apparitions, men in black capes or girls in yellow slickers supposed to have died a century ago.

“I haven’t seen anything worth jackshit.”

“We must be close to Kolob Canyons Road now.”

Almost on cue, the female voice of the navigator chirped: “Turn right the next one hundred yards.”

“Great,” he said. “Just fuckin’ great. I can’t wait.”

He’d been brooding in silence ever since Tooele to see Asylum 49. No ghostly nurse in white, no man in black crawling up the ceiling, or giggling child clinging to an upstairs banister. No eerie feeling or cold drafts. No spooky apparitions. This wasn’t the patch-up-the-marriage road trip she’d proposed, and he agreed to, thinking one last hurrah before he lowered the boom and kicked her out of the house. It was now definitely the “dump-the-wife” excursion. He was determined to end this farce of a marriage.

Marlene, his wife gone to seed, bug-eyed with wonder. He’d break the news to her at the campsite in Mount Zion, as good a place as any. Let her gawk at some stupid rock formations while he mentally composed the Big Adiós. We’re kaput, Marlene. I’m tired of you. I’ve found someone new and she’s ten times the woman you are.

“Why are you smiling, Roger?”
          He ignored her, grunted, made the turn. What a relief to get off Interstate 15 with the traffic: idiots in SUVs packed with slobbering children and dripping popsicles, truckers high on pills in their eighteen-wheelers driving side-by-side to slow traffic, sucking up their exhaust for miles. He gave them the finger every time one of those clowns moved aside to let him pass.

The camping would serve his purpose. Now she couldn’t go running to everyone in their social circle blubbering about what a rotten husband he was. Especially not to his father. The old man was teetering on the brink and he was fond of Marlene, always praised her. But never had a good word about Cora, his first wife—She’s all tits and no brains, you fool Roger . . .

His father’s brain was almost mush from Lewy body dementia. Roger once feared him; now he loathed him, clinging to life like a barnacle. The family business would fall into his hands. It was just a matter of time before he had power of attorney. Marlene and the old man given the heave-ho simultaneously.

“Lawyers,” he said suddenly, following the asphalt road leading to the trailheads. “I was thinking of the law firm handling the business.”

“What about it?”

She sounded bored. Marlene never showed interest in the family firm, a furniture outlet chain his great-grandfather started in the 1890’s, now a three-state empire worth millions. She signed the prenup without demur, the dumb bitch. All the stocks, bonds, and lately, crypto, he’d accumulated over the course of their marriage was safe. Getting her to sign on the dotted line had been a stroke of genius while he was still blinded by the sex. And that didn’t last long—at least, not with her. He thought of Su-Su, the barmaid in his club back home. Her image popping into his mind never failed to cause a pleasant stirring in his trousers.

“Roger, I asked you. What about it?”

“I was just thinking. They keep upping their billable hours. I think they’re taking advantage of us.”

“Everybody’s costs have gone up.”

She dismissed whatever he said as trivial.

“They should change the name of their firm to Trickem, Dickem, and Dumpem.”

“Time to retire that joke.”

He seethed, knuckles whitened on the steering wheel. He couldn’t wait to hit her with the news she was done, gone, finito, out the door without a penny. Too bad. The prenup was tighter than a frog’s asshole. One check for ten thou and then Sayonara.  Don’t let the door hit you in the ass.

When she proposed this haunted tour, she caught him by surprise. He’d just come from Su-Su’s apartment and was worried he smelled of sex. That might have been the reason he foolishly agreed to this ludicrous trip down the entire state of Utah, gazing at desert landscapes, buttes, and escarpments and every haunted site a chamber of commerce put on its glossy brochures for rubes.

Just listen to her now, he thought. Babbling about “hoodoos in the twilight.” The trouble was, he’d used camping trips with colleagues as an excuse to get out of the house for an overnight with Su-Su or a quick trip to Vegas. When she proposed ending the tour in the Utah canyons, he didn’t dare tell her he hated camping.  

Now she was going on about “lying out under the stars.” He loved the notion of an apex predator lumbering out of the wilderness to maul her in her tent. That would solve the divorce problem nicely!

How sad this, he thought, her feeble attempt to bring us closer . . .   

She somehow managed to pick the span of time he was completely free of business obligations. Any other time, he could have trotted out six reasons why going was impossible. He had the words on the tip of his tongue but something stopped him. He wondered if she had suspicions about Su-Su. It was her fault they met. The ballet performance she dragged him to left him rigid with boredom. He was desperate for a drink. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught glimpses of Su-Su’s swaying breasts in that low-cut bodice like something out of Marlene’s stupid romance novel covers.   

“How much farther, Marlene?”

“The brochure didn’t say,” she replied. “Keep following this road.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“No, Roger, I’m not sure about that.  We’re camping in a national park the size of Rhode Island. I thought you liked going on camping trips like this?”

“I love camping,” he lied, “You know that.”

“I do know, dear.”

 He didn’t know whether adultery affected the terms of a pre-nuptial agreement legally. He always did a little homework on the places he told her he was going, then once back home, he’d drop a comment about a mountain stream, or a tasty brown trout; the whole time he had Su-Su’s double-D’s and pancake-sized areolas in mind from the real trip. She never nagged like Marlene. Only once did she ask him about his worth.

Roger couldn’t wait for the weeping and gnashing of teeth to begin.

“See? I told you, scaredy-cat,” Marlene said with her usual smugness. “There it is, a perfect spot.”

They turned into a well-lit parking area, replete with RVs and campers everywhere. Signs directed hikers to this trail and that, gave mile indicators, and directions. Hardly a wilderness hike in any direction, he thought. Modern man was nothing like his brave forebears. Some of those RV’s were the size of semis and must cost hundreds of thousands. They came with full kitchens, deluxe beds, hot showers, Wi-Fi access, and every other convenience of modern living.

He tried to salvage some lost integrity. “Well, we won’t be glamping like these jerks. We’re the real thing. Come on, help me unpack the gear.”

He loaded up her backpack with almost as much as he carried in his rucksack.

This’ll teach you to wise off, bitch.

They hadn’t gone a thousand yards on the trail leading to Observation Point when she stopped, panting, and pointed at another sign.

“Let’s follow this other trail,” she said. She dropped her pack with a groan. A passing young couple, obviously fit and tanned, glanced at them and smirked as they passed by.

Roger stood in front of the sign. “The Court of the Patriarchs,” he read aloud. “I thought you wanted spectacular views before sunset.”

“I like the challenge,” she said. “C’mon, don’t be a wimp, Roger.”

Wimp. That galled. He relished a wicked thought of demanding a farewell blowjob before he dropped the divorce bomb on her later in camp.

“C’mon, man up,” she said, gloating in his hesitation. “You’re acting like a big scaredy-cat, Mister-Go-Camping-Every-Other-Weekend?”

“Afraid of bumping into a couple dozen other tourists’ asses maybe,” Roger said. “Your call, Marlene. I’m game. Pick it up. Let’s go before dark falls.”

He deliberately set a fast pace to wear her out. He could hear her catching her breath behind him. He played football in high school, was as nimble as a goat at linebacker back then twenty-five years and fifty pounds ago. His membership at Planet Fitness didn’t last through January. Marlene always came home exhausted from work in the hospital, too tired to work out, too tired for sex, or anything but her moronic TV shows and goofy novels. Her boobs had drooped to her navel, her ass split the seams of her yoga pants. Nowadays she wore loose blouses and sweat pants to hide the belly bulge.

After a mile of that quasi-military fast march, she halted again and dropped to her knees, sweating and gagging.

“Jesus, I can’t go on any farther,” she pleaded. “Let’s hike off the trail a bit and set up camp.”

He looked around. No moon tonight, he realized. After last month’s Hunter’s Supermoon, the night would be blacker than Satan’s ass. He wasn’t keen on going into that kind of dark where you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.

“We can see by the stars,” Marlene said.

What stars? He was exhausted from walking over and around the rock rubble, the closer to the buttes, the trickier the footing. Break an ankle out here, he thought, and you’d be up shit creek without that paddle.

“Nothing but desert scrub but, hell, we’ve come this far.”

He wondered if rattlesnakes were nocturnal. He never read up on any of that.

No landmarks. The same cholla, yucca, and sagebrush everywhere he looked. The sun was still high, but once it dropped below the jagged slickrock peaks surrounding the canyons, it would be cold and dark. Better set up camp and get a fire going while the light was still good.

He banged a hammer on his knuckles setting the pegs in the rocky ground.

“God damn it!” he bellowed. “This ground’s like concrete.”

She collected rocks for the campfire.

“Are we allowed to have a fire out here?”

“Marlene, it’s a little late to ask that now, don’t you think? Look around. There’s no one within five miles of here.”

They ate beans with slices of hot dogs in grim silence. She gave him a greasy, pudding-like concoction supposed to be dessert. He took a couple bites and said he was too stuffed to eat more. Sunlight faded steadily until he thought she was glaring at him from her camp chair. The way the light flickered across her face gave her a spooky look. That was as much of a haunted tour as he desired.

She sipped wine and stared out at the desert. He figured a couple more shots of his Glenfiddich, and he’d embark on his Fuck Off Marlene speech. He’d modulate his tone and soften the blow. He’d have her nodding in agreement. What else could she do out here so far from the city lights?

She sat still as a wax figure in the freakish light. He realized she was uncharacteristically quiet. Other than lifting the drink to her lips, she barely moved. At home on the couch, she’d be all restless movement, tucking a leg under her in a feline pose, stretching her legs out on the coffee table, or crossing her feet at the ankles. Her mousy brown hair remained in the practical ponytail for work, mussed around her face. The dancing flames of the campfire filled the features of her face, shadowing her crow’s-feet, giving her a menacing look. Her once youthful beauty gone like smoke. She wore a hideous mask now. Roger felt sick to his stomach, queasy for the first time being alone with his wife.  

His hand throbbed from the hammer. He wondered if he cracked a knuckle. His eyelids began drooping like a sudden facial tic. Strange because he hadn’t drunk that much. He put away three times that much cavorting with Su-Su. He enjoyed the boozy feeling of his heavy drinking. This felt different. It was like slipping into a warm bath while sparks were popping off in his head like tiny firecrackers.

Slipping into a warm bath—

Jesus Christ, he remembered that line from one of her horror films she made him watch. Hannibal Lecter plunging a knife into the FBI agent’s abdomen when he realized he was hunting the very man who was supposed to be helping him find the serial killer.

“Mar—Marlene . . . I think I’ll turn in. Can’t keep . . . eyes open.”

Weird, man. His head was filling with a fog the whisky couldn’t explain. He could hold his liquor.

“You said something, dear?”

She hadn’t moved a muscle in her chair but she seemed to be wobbly in her chair. That creeped him out even more. He tried to stand up; his legs buckled. He and the chair went down together in the dirt. His head lay inches from the rocks containing the fire. Heat from the embers scorched his forehead. His tongue was too thick to speak.

“Another round, Roger? Or would you prefer Su-Su to serve it to you? I don’t think she’d find her way out here even if you handed her a GPS tracker. We are way out in the boonies, and I doubt she knows any more about camping in the wild than you do. I checked her out with a private investigator. Her brains are proportional to her cup size. But she does have an eye for the money. Did you really think it was your sparkling personality or good looks that drew her?”

“Marlene . . . I.”

Speech became a ropy gurgle in his esophagus. He swiveled his head to look up at her, but someone substituted a helium balloon for his head. His tongue tasted dirt.

“I put up with your whoring for years. I was so stupid to think you loved me.”

She laughed. The sound sent a frisson of cold fear up his back. He clawed with his hands at the ground but couldn’t get up.

“It’s over, Roger,” she said. “But I guess you know that.”

She stood up, brushed the front of her pants, and walked slowly into the tent. He craned his head to follow her but none of his muscles worked. He heard rummaging in her backpack. Then the tops of her hiking boots in front of his face. The pain from the fire was turning half his face red.

She stooped. He felt her lift his head away from the fire.

“There, that better?”

His jaw muscles didn’t work at all. He tried speaking to her with his eyes, pleading.

“It’s working just as I’d hoped. Propofol would have knocked you out. I needed you to hear me and know what’s happening. You can keep making that gurgling noise, but it won’t affect me. Be a good boy, Roger, and pay attention. I have something I’ve been wanting to say for years. Now’s my only chance. First, I have a few housekeeping chores to attend to.”

He was unable to follow her movement. She moved lower down his body. Her hand slipped behind her and drew something from her boot. Firelight winked off it. Before his mind could formulate the concept, her blade slashed across one ankle, then the other. He was aware of a brief sensation of wetness. An instant of red-hot pain disappeared in the cloudy miasma of his confusion.

“You won’t feel much pain. I used a ceramic scalpel, although obsidian’s better. They make them really sharp from volcanic glass. Better than a diamond knife because it cuts to within thirty angstroms. I won’t bore you with technical details. After all, I’m just your stupid wife.”

She slashed at his clothing with short, sweeping arcs of the knife. His clothing came off in feathered tatters like an animal molting in a high wind. Some of it stuck where he’d been cut. His eyes were glazed, uncomprehending. Roger’s mind heard the words. If he could have wept, he’d have gushed tears thinking she was going to slice him up out here in the desert.

She left him briefly and returned to douse the fire and cover him in a cone of intense light from a flashlight. Grease from the iron frying pan dripped onto his back and buttocks. It should have burned but he felt nothing.

“This will light the way.  Given the wind direction right now, I’d guess they can smell you from two miles’ distance. I heard yips awhile back, didn’t you?”

She bent down and cupped his chin with her hand. “You’ve abused me verbally for too long, criticized my looks, my weight, my clothes. But have you ever looked in the mirror? You’re carrying a beer belly you could give a name to, your combover looks so ridiculous your employees laugh at you behind your back.”

“You never looked at me long enough to notice I’ve been working out like a fiend for months. I’m strong enough to haul both these backpacks. Don’t worry about Su-Su of the giant boobs, by the way. I texted her from your cell phone while you were in the rest stop buying snacks. I told her you’ve decided to return to my loving arms. Used your pet name for her and your moronic spelling mistakes.”

Shuffling noises around the smoking campfire never penetrated the cotton wall surrounding his neocortex. His eyes were gummy like a dirty fishbowl. She stooped down in front of his face, her crotch almost touching his nose.

“They’ll come for the grease they smell. They’ll find you before dawn. I researched this place. It’s teeming with predators and night hunters. You’ll hear and soon you’ll feel everything. One more thing before I go. That prenup you made me sign? I’ve replaced it with a postnuptial. That Hold Harmless document you signed for the tickets to the haunted asylum, remember?”

His head was muzzy, stuffed with excelsior, hard to think clearly. Two days earlier, she’d confronted him coming home from Su-Su’s intoxicated, and handed him a waiver, she said, “a jokey thing” from the owners of the haunted asylum. “A souvenir, honey, that’s all. Just sign it. He was unsteady on his feet. He signed it to humor her. He’d splashed cologne on after leaving Su-Su’s.  She knew . . . she knew all along—

“Babycakes, to use your term for Miss Boobs, the bar whore,” she said from above him, high above among the stars now. “That wasn’t in case you become so frightened at the appearance of ‘Mad Margaret’ in the asylum you were to suffer a heart attack. I made that up. But my lawyer made up the rest. It’s a post-nuptial agreement leaving me everything. House, vacation home, stocks, bonds, money-market certificates. The whole shebang, Roger. All mine. Your lawyer left a hole the size of the Grand Canyon in the prenup. Fuqua doesn’t want the bad publicity if we went to court.”

“B-bitch . . . kill—”

“You won’t be killing anyone, dear. You’re the killee, if that’s a word. There’s one more paper I’m looking forward to. Your death certificate. God knows, I’m not going to wait seven years to have you declared dead. I’ll make sure some hiker finds you even if it’s a femur lying around in the sand or a tooth good enough for DNA testing. I’m walking right out of here into the good life you denied me. Stop gurgling before I cut your tongue out with this scalpel. So long, Rog. Enjoy what time you have left. It won’t be much. I spiked your whiskey flask with Succinylcholine. They don’t test for that. You married a med-surg nurse in case you forgot.”

She stood up, dusted the grit from her pants, and blew him a kiss walking away.

* * *

The night air dipped to frostlike temperatures. Roger dreamed he was floating inside one of those indoor skydiving wind tunnels. He woke and passed out several times before dawn. He heard yipping in the distance and then closer. The first tugs at his body were like gentle kicks from a toddler’s foot. Then they became progressively harder and more frequent. Most of the action happened near his stomach and genitals. The alpha male who left the feast to bite him in the face signaled a fresh round of mayhem that tossed him around on the desert floor like a game of spin the bottle. He wanted death to come soon, soon. But he’d forgotten how to pray long ago.

-END-

BIO.

Robb White is the Derringer-nominated author of genre fiction and three series detectives: Thomas Haftmann, Raimo Jarvi, and Jade Hui. Betray Me Not was selected for distinction by the Independent Fiction Alliance in 2022. His 2024 publications include a collection of noir tales: Fade to Black: Noir Stories of Grifters, Drifters, and Unlovable Losers and a crime novel: Danse Macabre in New Orleans.