THE SNIPER

by Vandemonium1

My thanks to CTC once again for the ideas and edit.

There is no sex in this one, sorry.

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“You must be Mrs. Brown.”

“Call me Sandra, please. You are Mark?”

“I am. Now, what is all this about, Sandra? You said on the phone that this was a matter of life and death.”

“Yes, it is. Not mine you understand, but a… man I know. I believe you have been counselling my husband?”

“Yes, off and on for ten years now. I hope you understand that us military psychologists are bound by the same code of ethics that civilian ones are. I can’t discuss details of what he and I discussed.”

“Wow, ten years. I had no idea. Sure, I knew he was in the army, but military counselling?”

“Once in, never out, is our motto. Your husband was a sniper in an infantry regiment. We see more than a few of them here at the clinic. You see, most soldiers fire their rifles or whatever and never see the guy they may be hitting. Snipers are different. They see whether the guy has pimples or not, and know exactly who they hit, and what their bullet does.”

“So, Dave killed people?”

Mark saw the blood drain suddenly from the face of the obviously terrified woman opposite him, so he poured her a glass of water before continuing.

“Oh yes, Sandra. And not only soldiers either. As you know, the stoushes the Australian Army were involved in during the last Middle East fiasco weren’t one side in uniforms shooting at other guys in different uniforms. Most of the enemy were in civilian clothes and, er, they didn’t shy away from using children to deliver grenades and rockets. Your husband’s job was to ride shotgun on his company and protect them from ALL threats, if you know what I’m saying.”

Sandra did read between the lines of what the khaki-clad counsellor was saying and knew why her quiet, gentle husband had needed help. Still, it was disturbing how much she didn’t know about him.

“Dave never spoke about his time over there to me.”

“Oh, he wanted to; needed to really. But from what he’s told me, you’ve been pretty wrapped up in your own woes recently and he didn’t want to burden you with his issues. Is that why you came to see me? He did say that your problems seemed about over, and he was going to open up to you. I’ve done just about all I can. Now he needs someone he loves and who loves him to open up to. He needs acceptance. He was looking forward to receiving that from you, I can tell you. I don’t think I’m breaching confidentiality to say that the burden of carrying all that pain around was really getting to him.”

“Um, no. Tell me, has he spoken about me, I mean, recently?”

“No. I haven’t seen him for about a month.”

“Well, god, this is really embarrassing. What if I gave him some bad news? Could he become violent? He threatened to kill someone, um, close to me. I need to know; is he serious?”

“I tread a fine line here, Sandra, but well, without knowing the details, off the cuff, I’d say no. Dave’s reaction to his experiences in the army, if anything, made him more gentle than he was prior. It would have to be bad enough to trigger him regressing to his past; to the time where he had to kill without compunction to save something he valued above anything else. Can you tell me what the bad news you gave him was? I have plenty of time. I have no more clients and my wife is away this week.”

He waited patiently while the interplay of emotions ran like a kaleidoscope across the attractive woman’s face. Underlying it all was sheer, unadulterated terror. He surmised what she had to tell him was humiliating for her, but that wasn’t going to stop her getting the peace of mind she obviously craved. Finally.

“I don’t know what Dave told you about me. My problems.”

“Just start from the start, Sandra. From when you met him until he made this alleged threat.”

“I met Dave eight years ago. I was instantly convinced he was my soulmate. We married within a year. I was waitressing at the time but always wanted a career. Dave supported me finishing the degree I’d had to abandon when I ran out of money. We kind of had an unofficial deal that I’d work for a few years, then have the babies we both wanted.

“It was all going to plan, but a couple of years in my mum got sick; breast cancer. They did a double mastectomy, chemo, all that stuff, but eventually she died. Dave was great. He helped me survive all that. I suppose that’s what you meant when you said he was so busy supporting me that he didn’t have a chance to tell me about his past; his problems.”

Mark nodded and waited.

“I got myself tested for the breast cancer gene and they found I had it. Even though they caught my mum’s early, it was still too late. Dave supported me in my decision to have both my breasts removed; I just couldn’t take the chance. It was classed as elective surgery, so our insurance wouldn’t cover it. Dave wanted the best surgeon for me, so when I didn’t have enough saved from my job, he made up the difference without hesitation.”

Sandra paused as painful memories, long buried, ate at her.

“Tough, was it?”

“Unbelievably. Although the surgeon insisted on counselling before I had the op, it wasn’t till afterward that it really hit me. I felt like I wasn’t a woman anymore. I’m afraid Dave didn’t get any, um, intimacy for a long time. I just couldn’t stand the thought of him seeing me or touching me naked. Thoughts of kids were shelved as I tried to come to terms with it all.”

“Yes, Dave did talk about that time. He understood, though. Not many women would have a guy as patient and understanding as you had.”

Sandra dropped her eyes as the truth of the statement hammered into her extremely bad conscience.

The counsellor prompted her to keep going. “So, you decided to have breast reconstruction?”

“Yes. We couldn’t afford it, but Dave re-mortgaged his house to pay for it all. He wanted me to get the same size as I was before; said he loved me just the way I was, but I decided on a little upgrade. I’d been barely a B cup, but went for a full D.

“I had the enhancement about eight months ago. I was sore for a couple of months and so that meant poor old Dave still didn’t get any oats. But it did give me the confidence to go back to work, I was even promoted.”

Again, Sandra paused, deep in thought. Mark thought it useful to fill in a couple of blanks for her.

“Yes, this was the time that Dave started coming to me once a week. His own issues were getting worse as he concentrated on helping you. He was really looking forward to you getting better so he could talk about his issues. You must have noticed something.”

“Well, looking back on it, he did seem a little down for the last month or so, and his nightmares got so bad that I asked him to sleep in the spare room.”

The sense that this woman was completely egocentric was firming in the counsellor’s mind. He brought the discussion back on topic.

“He had it all planned out, you know. He was going to hire a cabin in the woods for a week and unload. How did that go?”

Mark started to get a horrible sinking feeling when Sandra’s chin dropped to her chest and fat tears started to fall. He gave her time to compose herself.

“Yes, that was this week. He was being all mysterious, but he took a week off work and we went off last Friday. He seemed disappointed that I would only go for the weekend.”

“And did he unload? Did he tell you about the time he…”

“No. He wanted to talk about something, but I got in first.”

“And can I surmise that what you told him sparked why we are here today?”

Sandra nodded.

There were so many signs of guilt that Mark didn’t need her to fill in the details. But she had to verbalise them herself. The words had to be said. He waited.

“Dave obviously hoped we’d reconnect, you know, as man and wife, on the Friday night. He cooked a lovely meal, lit candles and everything. But I just couldn’t.”

Mark remained silent. Waiting for the inevitable and horrific admission he knew was coming.

“I told you that I’d had the enhancement eight months ago and was sore for a couple of months after that. I didn’t sleep with my husband even after the soreness went away because, well, because my lover told me not to.”

Sandra didn’t dare look up at Mark’s face. She couldn’t handle the condemnation she might, even should, see there. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. With the things he’d seen and heard in his career, Mark was expert at hiding his own feelings and emotions. When Dave had first come to see him and had totally broken down describing how he’d had to shoot a teenage boy who was obviously hiding in wait for soldiers under Dave’s protection, with his hand hidden under his over-large coat, he’d remained outwardly unmoved. His patients deserved that. Dave had been sitting in the very chair his wife now sat.

Perhaps Sandra should have looked up. It couldn’t be any worse than the self-condemnation happening inside her own head. Her betrayal had been hard enough on her conscience before. Now she knew her husband had been battling his own demons all along, it was crippling. The silence dragged on, uncomfortably long.

“I saw how Dave had prepared the cabin and I knew I had to stop him getting his way. I was planning to tell him what I did, but not for a couple of weeks. I decided to tell him there and then, rather than waiting. I had to; I couldn’t think of a valid reason not to have sex with him. I’m just lucky he hasn’t pressed me before; after all, the soreness from my operations has been gone for months.”

Sandra lapsed into silence again. Mark found his growing contempt for this woman was making him impatient. His rumbling stomach also reminded him he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

“What was the big news, Sandra?”

Sandra felt the need to justify her actions, so paused to collect her thoughts and plan her words.

“After the breast enlargements, well, I became the focus of plenty of male attention. It’s remarkable what two cup sizes will do to some men. There was one guy I met, a friend of a friend; his name is Jo…, no, don’t worry about his name.”

Mark noticed that rather oddly at this point, Sandra glanced over her shoulder at the vacant parts of his room. Strange, he thought.

“We got talking; firstly, just when we were out with friends together, then just the two of us. He told me that his mother had died of breast cancer as well. In fact, we had so many things in common. I started making excuses to Dave on why I had to work late or be somewhere else on the weekend. He trusted me so he never asked any difficult questions.”

‘At least she has the decency to look embarrassed about this breach of a good man’s trust,’ Mark thought to himself.

“The strange thing about a personal tragedy is that it can drive a wedge between you and other people. Although Dave held my hand through Mum’s passing and all through my surgical worries, I felt that he never really understood what I was going through. Jo…, this guy had such similar experiences to me that it was like he could finish my sentences. We grew very close.”

Sandra paused to blow her nose. Mark butted in, more and more impatient.

“When was all this, Sandra?”

“I met him about six months ago.”

“So, that would be about a month after the augmentation? Hmm. Well, I don’t need to know much else about your relationship with this guy. It’s obvious you started an emotional affair with him. Thank god, it didn’t progress to the physical. From the extensive things Dave has told me about you, I know you had a deal to ask for a divorce from each other before getting, ah, physical with someone else.”

The sudden sob from the woman in front of him sent shivers down Mark’s spine. He knew how damaged Dave Brown was and assumed his wife did as well, even without knowing the details. Surely, she wouldn’t hurt him that way? He was struck dumb with awful thoughts screaming into his head. It was a struggle to maintain a professional façade. Sandra sobbed away with her face fully facing the floor. Time to get this over with. He had a responsibility to the army, to Dave.

“Tell me, Sandra. What exactly did you tell Dave at the cottage?”

The authority in his voice brooked no disobedience. Sandra responded reflexively.

“Like I said, I wasn’t prepared for that conversation on Friday. I made the decision to advance my timetable on the fly.”

“And?”

“I told Dave I’d fallen out of love with him and wanted a divorce to marry someone else. My soulmate.”

“What was his reaction? Exactly?”

“Well, he went kind of cold and blank. Said he thought he was my soulmate. Then he asked me…, if I’d slept with the guy.”

Mark’s growing sense of dread worsened. Much depended on the answer this woman had given her husband. He knew that.

“What did you answer to that, Sandra?”

“I… I didn’t. I couldn’t. I couldn’t hurt him like that. I ended up saying nothing. He… he must have guessed the truth anyway. That I’d been sleeping with John. Well, we were in love. Dave just looked away from me. I think he may have been crying. I waited for him to absorb it all so we could talk about the separation. I suppose I gave him five minutes and was about to raise it when he turned his eyes to me.

“It was horrible. Whoever… Whatever was looking at me, it wasn’t Dave. There was not one mannerism or expression that I recognised. Even his eyes looked a different colour.”

Mark saw Sandra shudder. He kept silent as he couldn’t trust himself to speak at the moment.

“If I thought his face was scary, his voice, when he spoke, was like the lid being slid off a stone sarcophagus. It was horrible.”

“What did he say, Sandra? It’s important to be precise. Tell me exactly what he said. Do you remember?”

“Oh, I remember all right; it’s why I’m here.”

“What?”

“Like I said, it was like he was someone else; someone I’d never met before.”

“You’d better believe you’re more right than you’ll ever know about that.”

Sandra carried on as if Mark hadn’t spoken.

“It was terrifying. He just looked at me with those dead eyes and said, do you think I’ll let you ride into the sunset with lover-boy and live happily ever after? There is nowhere in this country or anywhere that the wife stealing prick can hide. I’ll find him and kill him.

“He then pressed me for my lover’s name, but I didn’t answer him. He just grabbed my phone and drove off. He left me with no car at that cabin in the woods. It took me six hours to get home. Some of Dave’s stuff was gone and I’ve checked; all our bank accounts have been closed; none of my cards work.

“I can’t ring to warn John; his number was programmed into my phone, but I can’t remember it. I’m not worried about the call log giving John away to Dave as I hardly ever rang him from my cell or home phone. His name is in there along with forty or fifty others. I don’t want to ring our mutual friends to pass a message to John in case Dave is monitoring me somehow. I think he’s watching the house. I can’t even go to John’s house to warn him. I’m stuck and don’t know what to do. I can’t contact my soulmate without exposing him to danger from my husband. I live in terror that John will come around to the house after not being able to speak to me.

“That’s why I came to see you. I need to see John but can’t without exposing him to danger. Should I be scared? Is Dave capable of doing what he said?”

Sandra paused to look at the counsellor with wide, imploring eyes, hoping he would say she didn’t have to make the worst choice of her life; to never see her soulmate again. But that was a path she’d gladly take rather than exposing him to be killed by an avenging husband. Even though she knew she’d never find true happiness with anyone else as long as she lived.

Mark’s professional countenance slipped, his voice revealing his despondence as he saw all his hard work with Dave Brown evaporating in his mind’s eye.

“I imagine there is a strong possibility that a shock like that could throw him straight back to sniper mode. He will have to protect his ‘group’, that being, you and him, his team, by killing your lover. Plus, I imagine he’ll find it very soporific, almost therapeutic to exact some revenge.”

Sudden anger overwhelmed Mark and he stared at Sandra, condemningly. Years of work had gone into recreating Dave Brown as a useful, balanced citizen. The self-centred bitch before him had unravelled all that in six months and one conversation. His normal professional detachment broke. Over the years he’d formed a bond with his patient and really thought they were near the end. Now, that all lay shattered in the dust.

“You stupid self-centred slut! What have you done? I’m surprised your husband didn’t strangle you there and then. It must have only been his residual love for you that stopped him. As for the slimy little cunt who helped rip out Dave’s heart, I wouldn’t give a fart’s chance in a jacuzzi for him living thirty minutes from the time Dave discovers his whereabouts. Get the fuck out of my office, you slag!”

“Hey, you can’t talk to me like that.”

“I can talk to you any way I like. You didn’t come here as a patient, but as a private citizen. You’ve probably destroyed one of the most decent guys I’ve ever met, just because you couldn’t keep your promises and your fucking legs together. When I last saw him, Dave strode out of here with a vigour I’d never seen before. Now you’ve destroyed him.”

The woman with the white face continued to sit and stare incredulously at him. The half minute it took her to decide to leave, allowed him to cool down. He felt obliged to give her some advice as she opened the door.

“You’re in grave danger. Once Dave completes the process of falling out of love with you, he may well lash out at you. You want to pray he finds your lover first. That way his sense of outraged justice may be satisfied before he comes after you. Personally, I think you deserve everything you get. I despise you.”

More blood drained from Sandra’s head and she sagged against the door frame. Not only because she now had confirmation she and John were in real danger, but for the things this member of a healing profession obviously felt about her. Shocked that what she’d told him had caused his professional demeanour to slip so badly. She stumbled from the office hoping her car had enough fuel left to get her home.

DESPITE WHAT THE counsellor had said, Sandra never felt in any danger from Dave. She was absolutely terrified for John, though. Her conscience was also troubling her greatly. To calm her nerves, she hit the top shelf of the liquor cabinet. As she felt the glow start to relax her, she yearned for the sound of her lover’s voice. The thought of putting him in danger froze her. If she didn’t contact him soon, he was sure to come looking for her and thus expose himself if Dave had the place under surveillance. To save him, she must contact him. To contact him was to put him in danger. Catch 22.

She ran over all the possible contact methods again in her head.

She couldn’t ring John directly. For one, she couldn’t remember his number. She just relied on the contact list for that. He didn’t have a landline, and directory enquiries didn’t give out cell numbers. Besides, if she rang him from her landline and Dave was monitoring it somehow. Not good.

The same went for ringing a mutual friend of her and John to get a message to him. That would lead Dave straight to him if he was listening in.

Her visiting John’s place was the deadliest idea and immediately discounted.

After two stiff drinks, a solution appeared as if by magic. It was so low-tech it hadn’t immediately offered itself to the enlightened 21^st Century woman. Grabbing a pen and notepaper, she wrote her soulmate a letter. To stifle the tears, she continued drinking. Just after sealing the letter in its envelope and adding the address, Sandra passed out on the couch. She’d subtly buy a stamp and post it tomorrow.

THREE DAYS LATER

JOHN THREW THE letter to the floor, angry, frustrated, and a little afraid. It had been in his mailbox when he got home from his week-long trip away. Pissed off, he grabbed the same brand of sherry that Sandra had written herself off with the night she wrote the letter. Remembering what was in Sandra’s missive, and after a glance toward the darkness outside his loungeroom window, he pulled the blind then moved to the kitchen after picking up the open letter and the open bottle to help him decide what to do. He took a swig from one and started re-reading the other.

My Darling John,

I’m writing to tell you of the catastrophic things that have happened since last Friday. I’m afraid that they will be the end of us, and we may never see each other again.

I got home last Friday and my husband had packed a bag for me and drove us up to a cabin he’d rented in the woods. He’d gone to a lot of trouble to make it a romantic getaway and obviously wanted us to re-connect on a sexual level. I just couldn’t do that to you though, it seemed like cheating.

So, I told him about you and how we love each other. How we complete each other’s souls. I then asked him for a divorce so you and I could be together forever.

He went real quiet. Well, I knew he wasn’t going to take it well, but thought he might just accept it to make me happy. He asked me if I’d slept with you, and because I hadn’t rehearsed the lie, he realised I had. That’s when he threatened to find you and kill you. You had to see the look in his eyes to realise he was hurt enough to do what he said.

He left me at the cabin and took off with my cell phone. If you get a call or text from him or a strange guy, pretend like we know each other vaguely from work or something.

By the time I got home, all our money was gone and cards cancelled. I’ve been living off what was in my purse and what I’ve borrowed off friends since then. I’ll be right after my next pay day. Dave has obviously got to some of my friends as I’ve had a few calls and messages telling me exactly what they think of me.

Monday, I found out Dave has been seeing a shrink, regarding his time in the army, I went to see him to see if he thought you were in danger. He said you were. Very much so, in fact. It turns out that Dave may have been turned into a bit of a psycho after seeing some stuff over in the Middle East.

Darling, I am mortified that I’ve put you in danger like this. I know you will forgive me because I was doing it all so we could be together forever.

I guess you have two choices, sweetheart. You can accept the danger, come get me and we can run away together to hide or live openly if you accept the risk. You can think of a way of neutralising Dave, so he isn’t a threat anymore. I can’t think of anything to help there. Or you can say that the risk is unacceptable and we end right here without seeing each other again. I list this as a choice knowing it will be a complete anathema for you, my love. If you love me even as much as one tenth of how I love you, the very thought of not seeing me again would be too much for you to bear.

The only good thing about the situation now is that for the first time I can openly wear the engagement ring you bought me. I love it as much as I love you. If the worse happens, I will always have it as a symbol of our love.

Think well, my beautiful John. I hope you can find a way around this, but if you can’t then I will accept our separation as the price I must pay for your safety.

Goodbye for now, and perhaps forever, my sweet, sweet, John.

I love you.

Your dearest, Sandra.

John threw the letter down again. Knowing that he would always go for choice number three. Getting away and getting away fast. Like, tomorrow. Fuck Sandra’s husband! After all the work he’d done grooming the ditzy bitch.

Never having gone to college, John had learned young how to use his looks and talents in the bedroom to supplement his meagre income as a salesman. He had the technique down pat. Find some well off wife, seduce her. Convince her she was the love of his life. Get her to divorce her husband, then get his hands on as much of the cash as he could. His bank balance was a healthy six-digit number.

Like so many things in sales, John knew the secret was research. Using mutual friends, he found out as much about Sandra as he could, even down to discovering what her favourite drink was. Once he found out her mother was dead, some basic research on breast cancer gave him enough knowledge to convince his target he knew all about it from his own mum being a sufferer. Using that common bond, he drove in the wedges. He ‘understood’ her better than her husband. He ‘loved’ her more than her husband.

Once the emotional bond was made, getting her to jump into bed with him, and basically cut off her husband, was relatively simple. He’d almost been to the stage of revealing her affair to her clueless husband himself, when, using his absence while he was grooming his next target, the stupid slut blabbed.

‘Oh well. My own fault for being greedy, I suppose,’ he thought. The next target was worth it, though. Richer, better looking, but most importantly, more gullible than Sandra. She’d soon fall for the technique. It rarely failed and was almost cost free.

Sure, he’d received a few black eyes and broken noses from pissed off husbands over the years, but that usually helped drive a wedge between husband and wife. It also often helped the wife get more than her fair share of the marital assets if her hubby was in gaol.

John had a clear conscience about what he did. After all, there had been female gold diggers since time began. Shit, the Asian women that ensnared and bled lonely guys in the west was a healthier trade now than ever. Still, it pissed him off that he would have to abandon his bachelor pad tomorrow and quickly move somewhere else. This guy sounded like he could be a nutter.

However, that might work in his favour. Put him closer to the woman the next town over that he’d been grooming for weeks. That’s where he’d been the whole week. He was on the cusp of bedding her and knew that once that happened, her marriage was all over bar the shouting. He knew it was greedy to have several targets on the go at the same time and that it cut into his ability to do thorough research, but it promised to be lucrative. In a way, dropping Sandra made things easier. Still, it pissed him off that he’d wasted so much time and effort.

Casting the irrelevant letter aside, John poured another drink while his mind wandered back to a memory from earlier that day. He’d seen a woman that strongly reminded him of the girl he’d lost his cherry to. It wasn’t her, just a doppelganger. Regardless, it did bring back very fond memories. He decided to look her up in his old high school yearbook.

John hadn’t accumulated many things over his life. He preferred to travel light and be able to disappear at an hour’s notice. He did still keep a few personal things, though. His old scrapbook from his childhood, his scarf from when he was a scout, and his old yearbook.

Getting it from on top of the cupboard in his bedroom, he took it to the kitchen and sat down at the table. Before he opened it, he turned it flat with both hands and blew the dust off it, smiling in anticipation of a pleasant trip down memory lane.

The dust blew into a little cloud. It revealed something that confused John for several seconds, then filled him with abject terror. Strangely, it didn’t trigger a flight reflex and fighting wasn’t an option. He knew instantly that any form of flight was a complete waste of time. All he could do was stare at the red laser beam revealed by the twinkling dust motes. The beam that came in the kitchen window, downwards, at about a thirty-degree angle. A beam that terminated in the centre of his chest.

DAVE’S ENDING

Many years later, Dave Brown was still convinced that the comical picture he’d witnessed through the telescopic sight of his black-market rifle was one of the funniest he’d seen.

It was the blood draining from the target’s face; the book dropping from suddenly nerveless hands. It was following the target down as it sank to its knees, his vantage point high enough that he saw the spreading stain on the front of the trousers as the mark involuntarily pissed himself.

The turmoil that had been going on inside Dave Brown’s head since he’d been viciously betrayed by his wife was so monstrously big that mere words would never do it justice. His guilt for what he’d become when he was serving in the Middle East, along with the things he’d been forced to do, had become critical in recent months, as the constant nightmares attested to.

There was another source of guilt as well. Without telling her his whole history, Sandra, the most important person in his world, couldn’t know who he really was. He felt like he was concealing something from her.

He’d wanted to bare his soul for what seemed like forever, but with all her suffering in recent times he’d remained silent. He likened his need to having a boil—to relieve his pain, he needed to lance the boil. He needed to release the poison with words. Words he needed Sandra to hear. Until recently, he knew he couldn’t do that to her. When he finally judged she had the strength, he mentally and physically prepared himself to reveal who he really was; warts and all.

The anticipation of the relief he would achieve built large in his head over the weeks it took him to prepare for his confession. The terror that she may not like him when he revealed what he’d felt he had to do, over there, was palpable.

The depth of his astoundment, when she beat him to the punch of revelations, froze him to the core. He could no longer remember what he felt or spoke before escaping that awful cabin. All he remembered was that he had to get away or kill the source of his pain. The feeling that grew, morphed and developed over the next hours was all too clear to him, though. Revenge! His world had been attacked. Defence at any cost was the order of the day. He experienced the drag to destroy Sandra but was just sane enough to remember the love he once felt for her. He still felt some of it, but it was diminishing day by day.

The cunt that defiled her and that love, however, was a very viable target.

So, he did what snipers do best. Yes, he was a sniper. One thing the army did extremely well was pick exactly the right personality for each particular role. Patience and cunning were the sniper’s art.

With no clues from Sandra’s contact list, and not wanting to interrogate her friends, Dave concealed himself in the urban environment and watched his former love. Waiting for her to lead him to the target.

He followed her to the counsellor’s office but didn’t approach Mark afterward. If the counsellor did his civic duty, he would have contacted the army authorities and maybe even the police to warn them of a rogue element potentially within their midst. No, he simply followed the cheating bitch back to their house and continued his vigil.

Later that night, as the sniper snuck into his former residence, he found the breakthrough he’d been looking for. Steaming open the unstamped letter from Sandra’s purse, he read the contents to verify the target. He then retrieved the rifle from its place of concealment and began stalking his prey. For three days he patiently hid in bushland behind the target’s house, only moving at night to get sustenance, waiting for his return.

Three days is a long time to think, and Dave thought of everything. From the feeling of joy he would get as his high velocity bullet tore the wife stealing cunt’s lungs out; to how he could get away without ending his days in prison. From the empathy he’d poured into his loving wife over the years; to how she could tear him open as she had; destroying the solid team he thought they were.

All that coalesced as he looked at the pathetic creature kneeling in a pool of his own piss in his kitchen. New thoughts wiped away three days of anticipation. The guy just wasn’t worth it. All life was precious, even despicable pricks.

The sniper didn’t have to defend his team now. There was no team now. The Dave-Sandra team was shattered and broken. He was a team of one and his new mission was to protect himself.

Releasing the pressure on the trigger, he made the weapon safe, removed all evidence of his presence and stole away into the night. He noticed the spring in his step and felt pride that he’d finally conquered his inner demons.

SANDRA’S ENDING

After posting the letter to John, Sandra continued to live in terror for her lover’s life. After work, she rushed home and checked for messages on her home phone; dreading that John had left a message stating his name on it. Whether he did the same with her cell phone, presumably still in Dave’s hands, was out of her control.

She took to hanging around between the phone and the front door. The former to answer before John left a message with his name. The latter so she could usher him inside and out of danger.

The day it was likely the letter would arrive at John’s house found Sandra becoming increasingly excited; increasingly sure that John’s love for her would overcome any fears he had over his safety. In her romantic head, the worst Sandra could imagine was that she and John would die together when he came around and they were mowed down by her deranged ex. It was almost worthy of a Shakespearean tragedy.

When, three days after the letter should have been delivered, Sandra still hadn’t heard as much as a peep from John, her delusions that his return from his latest sales trip may have been delayed, began to crumble. Two possibilities began to solidify. The first that Dave had already exacted his revenge on John; the second that John’s fear had outvoted his love. In her sleepless mind, Sandra couldn’t decide which was the worst possibility. She constantly monitored every media outlet she could think of for reports of attacks on local men.

The weekend after it became obvious that Sandra had lost John’s choice, her friends were getting worried about Sandra. Well, the few friends that hadn’t ditched her over her betrayal of David, anyway. Two of them invited her to join them in a bar. They introduced her to a new acquaintance of theirs, Susan.

Within five drinks, Sandra was reduced to a maudlin state; rhetorically asking her friends how a man that would buy her such an expensive ring, a full one carat diamond no less, could abandon her so readily. Susan asked to see the ring but went strangely quiet after she examined it. Only after insistent nagging from the other three did she reveal the reason for her silence. She explained she worked in a jewellery shop and knew the trade. A genuine 18-carat gold ring, with 1-carat diamond was worth thousands. A gold-plated ring with a fairly convincing cubic zirconia, was worth a tenth of that.

In extreme embarrassment, Sandra stormed out, jumped in her car and headed toward home. Straight into the waiting arms of a booze bus. Her anger sustained her through the early part of the process, until a policeman began reading Sandra her rights and formally arresting her. She was taken to the station, charged, had a blood test administered and released. The next day she took the walk of shame to get her car.

The first place she went was John’s apartment. There was no car in the driveway and looking through the window, it was obvious he’d gone. In a hurry by the look of it.

A trip to where John said he worked, where they denied anyone by that name was known there, irrationally angered Sandra. The deep embarrassment at the certain knowledge she’d been played for a sucker, despite her perception of her own intelligence, filled her with rage. When the rage at John passed its peak, the self-loathing began to creep in. Destroying her husband had been totally self-justified before. Now it was revealed for the low act it truly was.

Sandra realised from her actions and Dave’s look, the last time she saw him, that reconciliation was a non-starter. She decided to punish herself by not fighting the divorce or trying to claim any of the marital assets. To help ease her conscience, she wrote Dave a long letter of apology. Included in it were full details of her former lover. Sandra secretly hoped Dave would kill John in such a way that he wouldn’t be blamed for it, but in a manner that she could piss on the corpse.

Hoping Dave was still spying on her, Sandra left the letter on the kitchen table.

Sandra’s life settled into a pattern for the next week. Go do a distracted day’s work, fuming about being played like a sucker. Go home, find letter untouched, and drink until she was fuzzy in the head. In that state, she could believe that John had bought her the best ring he could afford, that she’d misheard him when he told her where he worked, and that he was lying low, planning how they could escape together. Hung over the next day, she would be really conflicted and confused, before beginning the cycle again.

She hadn’t seen John for two weeks when she stumbled upon the solution to her problem. It was obvious John had left his apartment, but she had another means of finding him. When they were together, he’d insisted they install find-a-phone software on both their cells. She wondered at his motivation now. Was it so he knew when she was near him?

When she came home one Friday to find all Dave’s stuff gone, she also found her phone lying on the kitchen table. Putting a minimum charge on it, she checked for messages from John; there weren’t any. She ignored all the others. She then played around with the find-a-phone app and saw that John’s phone was fifty kilometres away in another town. Turning her phone off, to conserve the battery and to hide her approach from her target, she jumped in her car and headed out.

It was after eight at night when she turned her phone back on to pinpoint the exact location of the former love of her life. It turned out to be an intimate little restaurant just outside the city limits. Walking around outside, looking in the windows, she located John in a back corner. He was sitting across from a beautiful, well-dressed lady, closer to his age than Sandra was. A large, sparkling engagement ring sat next to a flashy looking wedding ring on her left ring finger. Any doubts about his feelings for Sandra were shattered as she saw him reach across the table, grab the woman’s hands and stare lovingly into her eyes. Sandra remembered well having all that attention. The woman shook his hands off and looked nervously around the room.

Sandra also noticed something she’d not seen when she was out with him. When the woman’s attention was elsewhere, John’s face relaxed into a neutral expression, only to burst once again into a radiant smile when her attention returned to him. Sandra realised the guy was a predator. She surmised he got off on seducing married women.

She never guessed at the rest of it. That he deliberately killed marriages to get his hands on the divorce money. That would have made her feel even dumber than she did at the moment. She just continued to stare through the window, recognising all the moves from the familiar man.

Recognising he was in the mid stages of seducing his next victim, Sandra was torn between jealousy and wanting to warn the woman what she was getting into. She decided not to walk in and confront John and his target right there and then. With the rage she was feeling, she’d be arrested for assault. No, she decided, she’d wait until the woman was alone to tell her what a snake she was being pursued by.

Sandra returned to her car, turned it to face the exit, then sat and waited. When John led the attractive lady to her car, Sandra fought the urge to run him down. If she could have hit just him, she may well have given in to temptation. The couple reached a Lexus parked next to John’s car. In the gloom, Sandra saw John wrap the woman in his arms and kiss her deeply. She made no attempt to break off from him. Sandra guessed from the inferred stage of the budding relationship that John would otherwise act the perfect gentleman and not try for a grope. He was obviously very good at playing the long game.

Sandra watched him open the Lexus door for her and wish her good night. He stood there waving her out of sight. Sandra started her car and began following his latest victim. Her plan was to pull in behind her when she got to her house and tell her a few home truths. That plan went awry when the lady drove straight though a pair of opening iron gates to a flash looking mansion. The gates were almost closed before Sandra reached them. She watched the car drive behind the huge house several hundred metres beyond the gate.

She sat there conflicted on what to do. Finally deciding she only owed the woman a little, as a fellow human being, Sandra reached into the glovebox and removed the notebook that Dave left there to record the services on her car and began writing. With limited space, she stuck to the basic facts. She’d seen the hand holding and the kissing. She was John’s last victim and it had cost her a good marriage.

Folding the pages, she pulled up next to the mailbox and stuffed them in. Driving away with a clear conscience but still with her confidence shattered by the ease with which she’d been duped. Her conscience about what she’d done to Dave also increasingly undermined her conviction that she was a fundamentally decent person.

She took to drinking to quiet her demons. Her demons being that she’d betrayed a good man that needed her, for absolutely nothing. Her performance dropped at work, which coupled with losing her licence for the DUI, meant she was lucky to keep her job with a demotion.

Low on funds, she had to sell the house. In the depressed market, she barely broke even on the deal.

The last thing she packed was the unopened letter addressed to Dave.

With no parent left, being an only child, and with a rapidly diminishing group of friends, Sandra became cynical about life in general and men in particular; never trusting the motivations of any man who showed an interest in her. At one point, her lack of interest in men convinced her she must be a lesbian. That lasted until the first time she woke with a hangover and the taste of pussy in her mouth.

Her loss of faith in herself caused her to pick losers as partners, then convince herself she deserved whatever they meted out to her. Several cheated on her and she subconsciously welcomed the pain.

By the time she found a friend that helped her to clean up her act, allowing her to find a half decent man, it was far too late to have children. She was content, if lonely when her end came.

Sandra never saw Dave in the flesh ever again. All she knew was that she came home from work one day to find all his stuff missing. She never saw a cent of their money.

She did see a photograph of him ten years later, in the national press. It was a story of him accepting a national innovation award. The photograph showed him looking fat and happy, surrounded by a smiling wife and laughing children. Sandra sighed. Both for the memories lost and for the certain knowledge she could finally stop looking over her shoulder for the first time since the terrible events of that month.

JOHN’S ENDING

Unfortunately for John, Sandra’s hastily scribbled letter, shoved through the mansion’s letterbox slot, wasn’t read and taken as a warning by his latest victim, but by her husband. Her large, jealous husband who had dragged himself up the ranks in the building trade. A husband who had been conditioned to believe that all problems could be solved with his fists and steel-capped boots.

Confronting his wife, he got her to reveal everything she knew about her predator. Then he made her contact John the following night somewhere secluded, ostensibly to further their relationship. John was found the next day, face and ribs broken, testicles crushed beyond repair.

Being a huge story in their little district, a local reporter did an excellent job of investigating the story. Some publicity caused a few of John’s previous victims to come forward. He was in the media several weeks later. There was a full exposé of his modus operandi, with interviews from several other women he’d seduced whose marriages he’d killed, and whose money he’d made off with. When Sandra read the article, she realised she’d been played for an absolute fool.

The police never charged him with fraud but two of the thicker-skinned former victims sued him to recover some of their losses. Let’s just say, he no longer has a car, or a six-figure bank account. It’s only four figures if you include the numbers after the decimal point.

THE END

Now lighten the fuck up.

I saw a fortune teller the other day. She told me I would come into some money. Last night I rooted a sheila called Penny – spooky or what?