Till Death Do Us Part

She lies next to me on the bed. She's asleep now. I lie here quietly and wonder if what I'm doing is right. I love her. I've always loved her. I believe in some place deep inside she loves me as well. Some part of her that is still the woman I married. That's why I'm still alive.
It's dark in our room. I kept the lights off while I did my work. Making no noise, although she never seems to stir no matter what movements I make, yet I feel inside me that if she know then I would be in danger.
Gently I touch her. Her skin, if it can still be called that, is hard and rough. More like hard wood than flesh. I cannot feel any trace of a heart beat. There's no sound of her breathing. No movement to say that this is not a statue beside me.
Her size is still astounding. I'm amazed the bed can hold her. I think it was the first thing I noticed when she started to change. I've heard of people putting on weight fast, but not like this. I thought perhaps she was pregnant. But even then I think she knew.
It was all because of that book. I should have thrown it away once I realized what it was, but she begged me. She said she needed it for her studies. But part of me knew. She always loved the idea of forbidden knowledge. The thought of something beyond science. No, even at the beginning I knew it was far beyond her masters thesis for her collage courses.
But I didn't connect her growth to it at first. I had no way of knowing. Then she started to pull away from me. I thought it was just hormones, that old male stand-by when women do things we don't understand. She barely talked to me, didn't like having me around after all these years.
Things had been so good for so long. We got married just after I graduated collage. I worked two jobs to allow her to continue her studies. We bought the house four years after the marriage. Everything seemed to be so good. She got her degree, decided to go for another one. One of my jobs promoted me, with a big enough raise to allow me to quit the other job. We spent the weekends driving to universities out of state to allow her to consult books not available at her collage. We both liked to fish and would rent a cottage in the summer and compete to see who caught the biggest.
Then she came to me one night and said she needed a lot of money to purchase a book for her studies. I think she would have done it behind my back if she could have, but it was too much money for me not to notice. The book was called De Vermis Mysteriis, a Latin book that was apparently very rare. I agreed, sad to think that we might have to cancel our trip this year but willing to put her degree before fishing.
She knew how much the trip meant to me and even suggested that I go on the trip alone.
Was she trying to protect me? Or afraid I'd realize what was happening and try and stop it? Did she know what would happen even then?
Several weeks passed without anything unusual. But then the weight gain started. I wanted her to get a test done. She agreed, but for some reason I felt, even then, that there was something she wasn't saying. But the pregnancy idea faded once she started to change.
That last time we talked....
She begged me to leave. Told me she didn't know how long she could control it. I knew by then. The disappearances, the stains on the floor, the strange lights at night. I knew by the rough texture of her skin. Even then I couldn't resist her when she told me to leave the book alone, to not destroy it. She was always the strong one in our relationship. But I wouldn't leave. I couldn't. What good was my life without her? After all these years, who I am was too wrapped up in her, our lives too entwined.
I had a breakdown. It was after the little Marchen boy up the street went missing. Pets and vagrants were one thing, but a child? But by then she didn't even pretend to listen to me. She knew I'd never go to the police. Or maybe even then she didn't care.
So I made myself sick. They took me to the hospital. For two weeks I was in and out of consciousness. She never came to see me. She couldn't go outside in daylight by then. Not without someone seeing her.
By the time I got back she was as she is now.
Huge.
Solid.
Changed.
Yet I still love her. She is still beautiful to me, even if she no longer has a face.
To my amazement the ring is still there. It's bent and twisted, but it still lies on what was once finger. That's how I know she still loves me. That, and she hasn't killed me.
Perhaps I would have never had the courage to do anything. Perhaps I'd have just lived this way, tending her by daylight, ignoring the blood I sometimes found in the house when she had been out at night. Sleeping in the afternoon next to this monolith that was once my wife.
But yesterday I finally knew it had to end. When I saw what was in the basement. She must have started it before she lost her mouth, read something out of the book that caused it to form. It's growing, even overnight I knew it had grown. Is that what the bodies are fed too? After she's done with them? What will it become? It moved a little, when I went down today, and I could swear it was watching me. How it could without eyes is a mystery, but then again so is much of what has happened.
So I got what I needed today, while I was grocery shopping. A quick stop at the gas station, not long enough to vary my timetable so as to make her suspicious.
Now I lie here. The lighter is in my hand. The smell of the propane is almost overpowering, but the window next to me is letting in just enough of a breeze to keep me from passing out. I can hear a noise from downstairs. It knows what I'm doing, but even It cannot make her rise before she is rested. I know her schedule too well. I have almost an hour left.
So I'll wait a bit.
To think back on good times.
To think back on regrets.
While the thing in the basement stirs and struggles.
While the moon rises higher.
While the tears fall down my face.
A little while to lie here next to her and love her just a bit longer.
Just a little while longer.......