You Can't Do It The Same Way Twice - Chris Callaghan

John’s killed her a thousand times. The first time he shot her the caliber of the gun was so big the bullet chewed through her chest like a panzer tank. Blood and guts splashed all over the walls and floor, even the ceiling got decorated with intestines. Far too messy.

The second time, he stabbed her – got as close as he could with an insincere bid at lust and brought the knife up from behind his hip. He held the grip in his right hand, the blade facing up and drove it in between her third and fourth ribs with the force of that oil gusher in “Giant.” Instant grat, death wise. But he lost his footing and fell on top of her. He couldn’t get him self out of the room quickly enough from that awkward position.

The third time, strangulation. Ah, but then he had to watch her body twitch and jerk and hear her muffled gargles. Yuck.

Poison was good, silent with a bonus graceful collapse, even time for a poignant farewell. But trite, so very trite.

On the sixty-third try, he just burned the whole damn house down. But then he was depressed for weeks because he’d forgotten that the cocker spaniel and the mynah bird were still in there.

He’d written twenty-two crime novels in the last twelve years and he was running out of methods to kill off his victim. Maybe he should make a master list of what he’d used so far. Whoever had said that genre readers were dense didn’t get the critical emails from his readers that John did. He knew that if he ever used the same gimmick twice they’d crucify him.