Psychological Horror Short Story: Strawberry Tart

About this story:

Maryann has always kept her jewelry shop spotless — especially the back room where Devon, their travelling accountant, insists on working. But when her partner Nathaniel begins acting strangely and Devon turns up dead in a spray of blood and glass, Maryann’s carefully ordered world fractures. As the police close in and Nathaniel is declared insane, Maryann discovers boxes in the garage filled with horrors she never imagined… and memories she can no longer trust. “Strawberry Tart” is a psychological horror short story about unreliable love, domestic dread, and the terrifying moment you realize the monster was beside you all along.

 

Today was the day. The day Devon would arrive, and everything had to be just so. With a sigh, I made my way to the back room. I carried my basked of cleaning supplies, then paused. Today it was harder than usual to enter the room. Through the windows flanking the door, the harsh fluorescent light bounced off the cold white walls. A shiver tracked my spine. instead, I started with the windows, spraying the Windex, watching as it dripped down, using paper towels to wipe it up before it could reach the windowsills. Using a second wad of towels to make sure there were no streaks. Focusing on the glass, not what lay beyond it.

Finally, I could put it off no longer. I opened the door and entered the room.

I still don't know why that room gave me the creeps like it did. Did it have something to do with what happened later? Maybe. Or maybe I believe the room gave me the creeps only because of what happened after. Once you live through something like that, it's hard to remember what 'before' felt like.

There wasn't much to the room. A small desk against the back wall with an old office chair. The pleather on the arms was wearing thin. One of these days it would split, foam bulging out. I wanted to get a new chair, but Devon insisted that he was 'very happy with this one, thank you very much' and whatever Devon said went.

I cleaned the inside of the windows that flanked the door. I dusted the desk -- empty now, but soon to be buried in paperwork. I used a small handheld, battery powered vacuum on the carpet, making sure that I moved the garbage bin out of the way. Devon would know if I didn't get every speck of dust. 

“Allergies,” he said. That’s why he insisted on a separate room. Not the main room, or even my own office. (Thank God! I couldn't imagine allowing anyone into my office. It was a disaster!)  Even my own, sweet Nathaniel didn’t enter the boundary to my office. You would think my obsessive-compulsive nature would make me more likely to be the one to commit that atrocity that happened later. I wasn't the only crazy one.

The shivers hadn't ceased during my cleaning spree, and I was just happy that the room where Devon worked was the size of a closet or those same shivers might have turned into full-on shakes. I wiped my cloth once more across the spotless desk and then hurried out of there, carrying my basket of cleaning supplies back to the actual closet where they would stay until the next month, when Devon returned. 

Only he wouldn't. Return, that is. I didn't know that at the time, of course.

Back in the main room, I shook off the willies when I saw my sweet Nathaniel working on his one and only chore, cleaning the glass cases which stored our jewelry. We went through an absurd amount of Windex. Jewels sit in glass cases, but clients shouldn’t notice the glass at all. Nathaniel would not only clean the cases every morning before the store opened, but he would quietly run his cloth over the cases throughout the day, his eyebrow twitching as he watched the dirty, greasy fingers leave prints and smudges everywhere clients touched. 

Sometimes kids pressed their noses to the glass, leaving smears beside the fingerprints. Nathaniel never cleaned Devon’s office. I didn’t ask why. Occasionally, I would look up from the paperwork that kept me busy the rest of the time, to see that Nathaniel was not in the main room and I would know. Oh, he might be in the bathroom or in my office making himself a cup of coffee, but I would know that wasn't where he was. I’d trudge to the back room and find him sitting on the floor, just as I always did. After the first time he couldn’t explain himself, I stopped asking. There was something about the vacant look and the half smile that creeped me out. Instead, I would gently take his hand and lead him back into the store. 

He never resisted and by the time we walked into the main room, Nathaniel would be himself again. If he seemed a little more intense after one of those episodes, I chose to ignore it. Should I have done more? Sure. Would you have? I don't know that anyone would have realized what was going on except for a mental professional, which I was not.

I told myself I wasn’t thinking about any of that, but the truth is those thoughts were always there, like a draft under a door. I watched Nathaniel for a moment, his movements calming my nerves.

"Hey, I found a couple of boxes of yours in the garage when I was looking for the cleaning supplies on the weekend. I'll need you to decide what you want to do with them."

An unknown emotion flashed across Nathaniel's normally placid face. Then, he smiled. "Did you open them?"

"Why would I open them?" I asked, turning my attention to the mail on my desk behind the counter. "It's not my stuff. I have enough of my own junk to go through without taking on your stuff, too." I laughed. Nathaniel didn't, but at the time, I didn't notice.

 

Devon arrived as he always did—bustling in with papers, his phone, and a satchel all competing for space. He even had a coffee cup clenched between his teeth. Devon was our accountant – one of the last travelling ones. I don’t know if there are any more now that he is gone. After we lost Devon, my business went under.

 

I say we 'lost' Devon, but that isn't correct. I find it difficult to say what really happened. You'll find out soon enough.

Devon gestured with his chin and I took his coffee. “How’s it going, Maryann?” he asked, shoving his phone into his pocket and taking his coffee back. “Got my special treat ready?”

I laughed. “Slaved over a hot stove all day, just for you.”

“Might just have to give you a discount then.” He winked.

Even through the classical music flowing through his ear pods and lost in the world of Windex and wiping, Nathaniel must have heard the disturbance because suddenly he was at my side.

“Hey, Nate!” Devon practically shouted. He punched Nathanial – who hated that nickname – in the shoulder. “Alrighty, then.” Devon cleared his throat. “I’ll go to the back and get started.”

“So –”

Devon was halfway down the hallway when he stopped and turned. “Bring me a cup of tea when you have a chance, ok?”

I nodded. Nathaniel growled.

I elbowed him in the side. “Be nice.” He glowered. “What were you going to say?”

My partner paused for a minute. With a strange look on his face, he shook his head. “I don’t remember.”

“Must’ve been a lie,” I chirped. “Oh, hey, Devon forgot to take the books.”

Nathaniel grabbed the paperwork out of my hands. “I’ll take it.”

I shrugged. A few minutes later he was back.

“All good?” I asked.

He just nodded and went back to his cleaning.

I returned my attention to the computer screen in front of me where I was bartering with a gem retailer. “I am totally going to destroy this guy,” I said to the room at large. Nathaniel didn’t reply.

Half an hour later, once I’d finished my bartering – coming out on top, I might add – I checked the security monitors. “All’s well on the Eastern Front,” I thought. No thieves, no crazies, no Devon; the back room didn’t have a camera. For good reason.

I brewed tea and set out Devon’s special treat—a strawberry tart dusted with gold flakes. Once again, Nathaniel was by my side, as if he was attuned to my movements.

“See the tart? Real gold!” I pointed to the flakes. “Get it? Cause we’re a jewelry store.”

“I’ll take that,” Nathaniel said. He carried the tray down the hall.

“I thought it was funny,” I murmured.

He liked my jokes before. The day we met, when I waited nervously for my date to arrive, he was such a flirt.

“If my date doesn’t show up soon, I will have to pretend I was stood up by someone very impressive,” I’d said and he’d laughed.

And then, when he brought our order, he’d said, “Very impressive!” as if the man across from me wasn’t even there. Funny – I can’t even remember that date’s name now. 

How did I never notice the stranger behind Nathaniel's sweet eyes?

A buzz at the door brought me back to the present. A delivery man with a package. That’s where I was when it all happened, at the front door, signing for office supplies. I grabbed the mail and headed back to the counter. That’s where I was when Nathaniel returned from the back.

I only noticed him out of the corner of my eye, but our attunement went both ways I was aware of where he was, what he was doing, always. That’s how you show love. Be aware and ready for whatever your partner needs.

“What did he say about the tart?” I asked, trying to be casual, but there was a catch in my throat. I wanted Devon to like it. I really had baked it myself.

“He wasn’t impressed,” Nathaniel said.

I looked up in surprise, hoping he was joking. That’s when I saw the blood. A streak of red bright against his shockingly pale skin and the whites of his wide, wide eyes. His arms hung limp at his sides, more blood dripping from the tips of his fingers, pooling on the cream tile. That's when the screaming started.

I rushed to the back, following the handprints Nathaniel had left on the walls. I reeled back against the door when I saw his remains. He was slumped in the small room in the same spot where my partner often sat listening to music. Blood streaked the white walls red, and the light was pink where it shone through the slowly congealing goo.

Did Nathaniel do all that damage with his bare hands? If he did, how is it that I lived with him all that time and never saw the monster within.

I don’t remember what happened next. I thought I fainted because the next thing I knew a police officer was leading me out of the store. There were flashing lights and people gawking from behind crime scene tape.

“Why were you trying to clean up the scene?” asked the detective who paced the small room where I sat at a table. In the mirror on the back wall, I could see that I had blood all over me.

“Clean up?” I asked.

“When our officers arrived, you were attempting to clean the blood off the walls.”

“Of course, I replied, it has to be clean for Devon.”

“Devon Speitz? The accountant?”

“Yes, yes. Everything must be perfect for Devon.”

The detective sat down. “Devon is dead, Mr. Angle.”

“Dead?” I said. “No, he can’t be dead. He’s the only one who can do our books. I don’t know anything about books.”

My voice rose—shrill, panicked—until I was in a full-on panic attack It took the police a long time to get the whole story out of me.

Daniel didn’t look at me once during the trial… Wait, did I say Daniel? I meant Nathaniel. Daniel was someone else. A long time ago. God, I haven’t thought of him in ages. I tried to see Nathaniel in the psychiatric hospital, but he wouldn’t see me. The nurses said he never spoke a word.

I never could stock rubies in the store after that day. They reminded me of those final drops of red plopping into the pool on the floor before I fled to the phone.

Nathans had a state-appointed lawyer, of course. We didn't have a lawyer on retainer and anyone I might have known who could help didn't want anything to do with us after that. Nathan lucked out. The lawyer was actually pretty good and got him declared insane. They carted him off to the asylum. As I said, I tried to visit, but one time was one time too many. Nathaniel is still there to this day. At least, I hope he is.

I lied when I said it was the loss of Devon that pushed my business under. Lookie-loos came to the store after the trial, but no customers. Who wants to buy even the brightest diamonds from the partner of a murderer? So can you blame me, writing this book to make a few bucks. The advance from the publisher will get me away from this town, away from Nate. I don't want to be here when he gets out, which the lawyer says, could be any day.

I'll tell you a secret. I've been packing, going through all the detritus that a person collects in a life. I’m moving to a trailer park, so I won’t have the space I have now. Gotta downsize, which means sloughing off the fluff, taking only what's necessary. I should have just thrown the boxes away. I heard once 'If you have boxes - not including taxes and holiday decorations - that you haven't opened in more than six months, just throw them away. You don't need them." I should have followed that advice, but I didn't know what was in them, but I remembered them from before. Before the crime, before the trial. Before my life went to hell.

I guess he thought they would be there whenever he needed them. 

I should have shown the police. What was in those boxes... no, I can't explain. You think of the worst thing, and you still won't be even close. What I did know is that my sweet Nate had done this before and would do it again and I didn't want to be anywhere near here when he went on his next spree.

I remember the pictures of Devon, before he was dead. And Daniel, from that time in the mountains. And Clark, the two of us smiling at the camera on our one blind date. And so many others.

I think of them all, as I sit in the dark, remembering the smell of blood and Windex.

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