It took so long for them to find him, so long for them to track him down and pin him in a single location after things had gotten fucked up again.
When the package arrived, the couriers expected a grieving man. Not one who looked wild-eyed and unslept, fourteen-days haggard and pointing a gun at their heads.
He took it, signed and shut the door, all without a word, once he realized what it was.
While she was in the shower, he stared at the box for a long, long time, and wondered if he should actually open it, considering that it was only supposed to come to him on the event of her death.
Were there things inside, better left unknown until she was somehow actually gone?
Curiosity’s a hateful thing.
Her showers were usually long enough — he went through the box, read the letters, looked at the money and stared at the video tape for awhile before he finally put everything away.
He watched the video tape in the bluegrey hours of morning where it still feels like the night before, while she slept the sleep of the eternally drugged and broken.
He’d bought a bottle of scotch, not in celebration, but anticipation of needing the oblivion, but by the time the video was over, there couldn’t have been enough booze in the world to wash away the nightmares of what had been hidden from him for so long.
So easily.
That night, he stood guard in the doorway, watching her, watching the windows, watching the world.
Sunrise was coming, and then would come a beginning to end them all.
