(Welcome to my latest Nightmare. It comes directly from the Horror genre and proves once again that Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, to paraphrase William Congreve's proper expression in The Mourning Bride, 1697, of "Nor Hell a Fury, like a Woman scorned".) - Doctor I.B. Howler

The cage Linda Deavers was contained in seemed to mimic her. The room shifted with each echo of her desperate pleas and the walls panted. Startled by the sound, she could feel the presence in the pitch blackness. Then quick footsteps danced down the hallway.

The purple shadows held a quality of vastness but they would not hamper her. There would be no black pearls of worry. Tonight, Linda Deavers would celebrate her individuality.

Outstretched on his bare back, as far as his arms and legs would extend, Roger Balister struggled mightily against the leather thongs that bound his wrists and ankles, rubbing them raw. He could feel every painful piece of his rough-hewn stone bed of broken dreams.

Secluded in the Novak Caverns, Balister could hear the howling coyotes. He could also feel the biting ants begin to crawl all over his honey-covered body. Affairs of the heart constituted his past time. The affairs, that is, of cheating on Linda Deavers. How was he to know Melanie Janis was Linda's secret lover, or that the two women conspired his demise? Slow and torturous as the drama would unfold.

Balister loved Linda. Honestly and truly he did. But, Melanie caught his eye, too. That was back when he possessed a pair of them, before the hot poker Linda pierced him with extracted his left one the previous night. She promised he'd pay dearly for his crimes, one body part at a time!

There would be no escape because the dog collar Linda fastened tightly around Balister's neck was affixed to a choke chain, with the other end padlocked around the largest hemlock tree in the caverns. To avoid strangulation, and eliminate extra tension pinching off his windpipe, Balister could only lay as still as he possibly could.

Balister knew when the sun came up, Linda would appear with fresh-honed cutlery in hand to complete what she'd started. He could see dawn's early light illuminating the horizon.

Suddenly, twin car doors slammed shut. Straining to turn his head in the direction the noises came from, Balister immediately observed Linda and Melanie rapidly approach like they were on a mission.

Linda straddled Balister's defenseless body at the waist. With a carving knife tightly gripped in both hands, she plunged the blade deep inside his chest. Balister felt the shank slice him wide open to the mid-rift.

Chanting incantations as she worked, Linda reached down with her hand and yanked Balister's internal organs out one at a time. Not contented to stop there, and drinking in the ecstasy with each delicious amputation, Linda delighted in her crowning achievement. Now, she and Melanie could live happily ever after.

Abandoning Balister's mutilated remains to rot away, or become fodder for the birds and wild beasts that roamed Novak Mountain, Linda placed her blood-soaked right arm around Melanie's shoulders. From out of nowhere, Melanie thrust a meat cleaver deep into Linda's skull.

As Linda crumpled to the ground in a heap beside Balister, Melanie walked away. Waiting for her at the base of the mountain was her newest flame, Teresa Bradshaw.