Spencer Seidel | Little Flash Fiction

Dear Reader,

My new novel, DEAD OF WYNTER, is a dark and spooky suspense thriller. Alice Wynter rushes home to her estranged family in rural Maine after her father commits suicide. But nothing is at it seems. Alice's alcoholic twin brother is missing,and detectives want to know where he is. And there are some family secrets Alice's mother would sooner take to the grave than reveal. Alice is forced to admit that she herself holds the key to unlocking not only the mystery of her father’s death but the 25-year-old murder that started it all.

And while you're waiting for your copy of DEAD OF WYNTER to arrive, why not take a minute to read a flash-fiction story I wrote especially for Fresh Fiction. It's called Love Always. I hope you like it!

He discovered the hand-written letter in his wife's briefcase one morning while she was drying her hair in the bathroom. She was ending an affair in that damn letter, that much was obvious, but with whom he didn't know–someone named Michael. She'd written it using the expensive pen he'd bought for her last February for Valentine's Day. He'd even had it engraved: Love always.

He stood in their kitchen, holding her letter in his trembling hands. The rage he felt at the betrayal would have been obvious to anyone who saw him standing there, red-faced, shaking, little spit-foam bubbles collecting at the sides of his mouth with each ragged, angry breath.

His eyes danced across the words, occasionally stopping long enough to make out a phrase or two. My husband will find out. Didn't know what else to do. I hope you can forgive me. I love you, too. Won't forget your hot hands on my body. The worse of it was at the bottom, however. She'd signed it: Love always.

He thought about her bizarre crying jags, her late nights, her nearly pathological indifference towards him, and the lies she'd told with that God-awful subconscious smirk on her face. They'd been in trouble for months, and now, thanks to his wife's carelessness and his need for that Love-always pen to write a goddamned grocery list of all fucking things, he knew why.

He put the letter and pen back into the briefcase and sat down on a stool he pulled out from under the counter. A rapidly cooling bowl of sour instant oatmeal sat on top. The little black TV underneath the shelf where they kept the having-company dishes flickered, and he listened absently to the weather forecast. He thought about how she used to like when he ran his fingers through her long thick hair while they made love. That just made it worse. After a moment of this, he got up and walked over to her briefcase again before the hot white noise of her hair dryer stopped. She was still in the bathroom. It would be easier if she was there.

He approached her with the Love-always pen clutched tightly in his right hand like a knife, massaging it rhythmically in his fist. Her head was down. Her long hair hid her eyes. She didn't know he was there. He saw himself swinging that heavy pen down in a wide arc, puncturing her pristine white neck with a satisfying thunk. He saw the blood from the dark ragged hole spraying the fancy show towels in the bathroom and her terrified, confused expression, all in a flash of horrific violence and rage in his mind's eye.

And then it was gone. She turned off the hair dryer casually and looked up into his reddened eyes. Her head tilted in confusion, as if she expected him to say something. He put the pen in his pocket–it was his goddamned pen now, and that was that–and said, "I'm going to be late for work. See you later. Love always."

Sincerely,

Spencer Seidel

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Spencer Seidel lives and works in suburban New Jersey but has also called Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Portland, Maine home. He is an honors graduate of Fairleigh Dickinson University and attended the Berklee College of Music to study guitar, which he has been playing for over 25 years. His love of reading and books began as a child after discovering Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Later, he was drawn to darker work by authors such as Stephen King, Peter Straub, and Jack Ketchum, who continue to influence his dark novels and short stories. His debut novel, DEAD OF WYNTER, was published in May 2011. You can find Spencer at his website, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads.