George knocks on my door.
“Lin,” he says when I open, “I-“
I stab him twice in the heart, shluk-shluk, and he collapses, blood gurgling from his mouth and wound. I slam the door.
***
Ten minutes later there’s a knock on my door. I open it a crack and there’s George, standing over his corpse.
“Lin,” he says, “I’m-“
Shluk. Right in the gut. I yank out the knife, and he sinks to his knees, screaming. I keep stabbing him until he finally shuts up. My arm is sticky with his blood.
***
George knocks on my door. I yank it open but he’s on the porch steps, behind his two corpses.
“Lin, I’m so-” He ducks when I throw the knife at him.
“Lin, listen to me!”
I slam the door.
***
Knock-knock.
Who’s there?
Smith-and-fucking-Wesson, you bastard. And now he made me put holes in my door.
***
I see him walking up my front steps. The holes really help me aim. I hope he runs out of credits before I run out of bullets.
***
The materialization booth is three minutes’ run from my house. Building a body from backup takes five minutes. I can’t even brew a decent cup of tea before the bastard’s back.
***
Blam! Blam!
Who’s there?
“I’m your husband, Lin!”
Not any more you aren’t. And your brains are staining my concrete.
***
There’s a knock on my door. I yank it open, baseball bat in hand, but stop my swing when I see the uniform.
“Miz. Lin Leigh-Minh?”
“Yes, officer?”
“The neighbors have complained about the noise.”
“I’ll try to keep it down, officer.”
George peeks from behind the policeman’s broad back. I swing, smashing George’s head into the steps, whacking him again and again.
“Littering is a capital offense,” the policeman says.
“I’ll clean it up.”
***
He’s so fucking heavy. All that muscle. Never marry a vain man.
***
“Lin, I’m so sorry, I never meant to hurt yUAAAAAAAA-“
***
“You have two million unread messages, read now?”
Delete account.
Never marry a man who uses an auto-composer to apologize.
***
My back hurts. I’ve been hauling George’s corpses to the recycling. Fucker gave me a hernia, too.
***
From: GEORGE
To: SAMANTHA
Re: Re: I want to lick your body.
Logged in as George Leigh-Minh, wipe all accounts, are you sure?
Never marry a man stupid enough to cheat and leave his account open overnight.
***
The hole in my door is large enough to climb through. The porch steps are sticky with half-dried blood. George stands on them.
“It was all a mistake, a terrible mistake,” he says. “Lin, she means nothing to me.”
I keep fiddling with the silver whistle in my hand.
“Say something, Lin.”
I’m too tired to hit him. There’s a five-day cooling-off period for mail-order guns. Even my frying pan is broken.
“I’ve been too emotional,” I say, “thinking with my heart instead of my head.”
George’s demeanor instantly flips, and he’s old George again.
“No, really?” he says.
“This is a problem, with a solution.”
“Glad we could get that out of the way.”
He is about to continue, but then there is a deep, rumbling growl, like an idling motorcycle.
“What the hell is that?” says George.
I give him my sweetest smile, and blow the whistle. George stares, then starts to run.
Gengineered attack dogs are a girl’s best friend.
By day, Filip Wiltgren is a mild-mannered communication officer at Linköping University, where he also teaches communication and presentation skills at a post-graduate level. But by night, he turns into a frenzied ten-fingered typist, clawing out jagged stories of fantasy and science fiction, which have found lairs in places such as Analog, IGMS, Grimdark, Daily SF, and Nature Futures. Filip roams the Swedish highlands, kept in check by his wife and kids. He can be found at www.wiltgren.com
