QSFer E. F. Schraeder has a new lesbian weird horror book out: What Happened Was Impossible.
Everyone knows the woman who escapes a massacre is a final girl, but who is the final boy? What Happened Was Impossible follows the life of Ida Wright, a man who knows how to capitalize on his childhood tragedies…even when he caused them.
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Excerpt
From Chapter One, How She Died
A lot of stories like this start with the body of a woman. This time, the body belonged to a mother. That made it different than the usual dead women I stare at. I knew this one’s name and address before taking a look at her.
She was no schoolgirl nabbed by a dangerous, psychopathic stranger or handsy neighbor. She wasn’t an anonymous college woman who stayed out late partying too hard with the wrong friends or taking risks on the streets. She wasn’t an offbeat loner roaming the edge of town at night looking for drugs or other sorts of trouble that happens. Murder was never anyone’s debt for poor choices.
No. But this body belonged to a woman who’d followed the rules. Made safe choices. Lived up to expectations. At least until the point where she separated from her husband. He’d be a suspect, of course, but still. Staring at it for the first time. This body pushed against the script, and therefore threatened to make less sense. Yet somehow, this body ended up just as dead.
Caroline Wright. Fifty-four. About five foot six inches tall, Caroline was a white woman with a medium build and long, light auburn hair twisted into a tidy bun. A smear of crimson lipstick on her parted lips. Caroline was ultimately, quintessentially average. A middle-class white woman living on a cul-de-sac like a hundred other houses in a colorless suburban street. Hers was the kind of development that came out of redlined districts back in the day, surrounded by comparable houses each of which looked a little outdated. This body belonged inside one of those houses doing dishes or making dinner, not twisted in a sticky swirl of blood and sour puddle of urine.
Until this morning, Caroline’s body was that of a comfortable wife and mother of two teenagers: one boy and one girl, Ida and Jade. Two average kids who, from the awards lining the hallway, I suspected got decent grades. Also from the photos I figured there were very few distinguishing interests or features about them other than matching waves of strawberry blond hair. Two bland kids with bland lives, few extracurricular activities, and perhaps even fewer problems. Until now. Starting tomorrow, their lives would be permanently scarred by this scene.
The only curiosity about her children was how two well-off kids could manage to be so completely uninteresting and uninspiring. The mother who produced those kids seemed like part of some kind of abstracted, imaginary U.S. average. That of a good life.
That body wasn’t supposed to be so miserable she’d slice open her own throat.
But that’s exactly what appeared to have happened with Caroline Wright. On the day she died, Caroline was alone in her bathroom. She must have suffered at the time of death. According to her children, husband, co-workers, and neighbors, and everyone the cops spoke to, no one in her life could have predicted, imagined, or remotely suspected she was on the verge of committing the ultimate irreversible act. Suicide wasn’t something she spoke of.
But that’s what I was probably going to declare it. Suicide. Though it seemed improbable, Caroline’s suicide was not impossible.
What I knew was this: Caroline left no note at the scene. But there was also a lack of struggle, no defensive wounds to suggest she’d fought anyone or tried to protect herself. The house showed no signs of forced entry. In fact, there was a complete lack of evidence of any kind. Nothing indicating an intruder or even a guest had entered the house on the morning of the incident. All the fingerprints belonged to family members. And all of those family members provided completely verifiable alibis during Caroline’s estimated time of death.
Suicide. Because there were no signs of an intruder and because nothing was missing. Without an attempted burglary, there was no reason to suspect any wrongdoing or robbery gone wrong.
Suicide. Because the husband was where he claimed to be and the kids were at school.
Suicide. Because Caroline had no rivals at work, no hidden romances, no conflicts with neighbors or anyone in her life. Everyone spoke about her with a restrained disinterest. Restrained because it seemed rude not to care about her now that she was dead.
Suicide. Because there were no other options.
Author Bio
Inspired by not quite real worlds, E.F. Schraeder believes in ghosts, magic and dogs. Schraeder’s books include Liar: Memoir of a Haunting (Omnium Gatherum, 2021), which was an Imadjinn Award finalist; story collection and several poetry chapbooks.
Website: https://www.efschraeder.com