Short Story: Missing Husband by Annette Bryant

Got a second short story sent to me. Two in one day, I like it! This one is sent by Annette Bryant, who is the wife of Roger Bryant. He's the one that gave us the spine tingling, cyberspace thriller called Unknown Zone. This one acts like a sequel to his story, but in the wife's point of view.

To any writers out there: I am accepting short stories at anytime, so don't be shy to send me yours. Just drop a line with your story in an attachment. Just please make sure that the grammar is good along with spelling. It must be in the paranormal category, but I will also accept horrors and zombies. It doesn't have to be gritty, it could also be a comedy or drama, or what have you.

Send to: scaredsheetlessncn@hotmail.com

Scared rated this story E for Everyone.

Disclaimer: I did not change anything in this document and it is posted the way it was received. The only thing that might have changed is the formatting.

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Missing Husband
by

Annette Bryant

It started out like any other day, as they say in the movies and novels;  cliche' ,  but true. I left my husband, Roger, getting ready to make himself some breakfast and morning coffee as I left for work. If I had known I would never see him again, I might have kissed him a little longer and a little harder, but I had no clue as to the  events that would unfold in my absense.

When I arrived home that evening, I discovered my husband had left the computer on, and it was flashing a warning that something was wrong. Typical...when he got busy downloading music, collecting different pictures that tickled his fancy, and working on one of his numerous writing projects, he had a tendency to get sloppy and often downloaded numerous viruses and malware as well, which were always left for me to clean up. His car was here so I assumed he was out with some friends.

I made myself a light supper, changed into some comfy clothes and sat down in front of The Beast. This is what I called our old hunk of a computer. We talk about getting a new one but we seem to have some odd attachment to the dinosaur. I resigned myself to a couple of hours of intense work since I am not a computer tech, but learned one, and only one way, to clean the thing. It was lenghthy but worked and saved us money. All at the cost of my sanity.    

I began by running our tried and true programs, and when that didn't fix the problem, I started going into individual folders looking for the culprit. As luck would have it, it was very good at hiding and I simply could not figure out what the problem was. By this time, I began to wonder what was keeping Roger since he was still nowhere in sight and hadn't called. He is usually very good about making sure I don't have anything to worry about. A check with his friends and local hang-outs turned up empty, no one had seen or talked to him. I realized he must be the local library. He sometimes likes to do his research the "old fashioned" way, with a stack of books, articles, whatever he feels is useful. Yes, that must be it, since he had crashed the computer again.

Speaking of the computer, my knowledge of how to fix a problem had been exhausted which left me with no other choice but to reformat and reload all our files. Ugh. This sometimes resulted in losing valuable things but I hated to pay someone else to fix it so I opted to erase ever single thing and start over. At one point, I swore I could hear Roger screaming, yes, actually screaming. But of course, that was impossible since he was probably on his way home from the library.

It has been 6 months and my beloved Roger is still missing. Local and state authorities say they have exhausted all leads but will keep the case open. I have packed up the old computer and it is sitting outside with some other items waiting to be picked up by a local charity. I finally broke down and bought a new laptop, but I have to admit, I sure miss that old dinosaur.