The Ides of Marta

Marta told her boyfriend, Anthony or Toni for short that she planned something special for his 30th birthday. She told him to come to her apartment at three on Saturday.

Saturday, March 15th, Toni took an uber to his girlfriend’s apartment.

He took the elevator up to the third floor. He knocked on her door, but no answer. Maybe she wasn’t home? Then the door unlocked and it opened a crack. He pushed the door open and turned on the lights. “Marta, are you there? Is everything okay? I’m here for my birthday surprise.”

She sat at the dining room table. “Hi, honey!”

A cake with blue frosting on it sat in the middle of the table. She cut the cake with a big knife and handed him a piece.

“Is this the surprise? Is this a surprise party? Is everybody gonna jump out once you tell them to?” Toni asked her.

“No, it’s just you and me. Here, take a seat.”

He took a bite of the slice of cake and his face instantly fell into the cake.

“One down. Who’s next?” Marta asked herself. She took her dead boyfriend’s phone from his pocket. She found his friend Tom’s number and called him up a few days later.

“Hi, is this Tom?

“Yes. Is this Marta, Toni’s girlfriend. Ya know I haven’t heard from him in a few days.”

“He’s out of town.”

“Why did he give you my number?”

“Oh, for emergencies.”

“Is there an emergency? Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m fine. His family is fine. I just need someone to distract me from worrying about Toni.”

“And you want me to distract you? I can’t do that to my friend, sorry.” He was about to hang up.

“Wait, um also my aunt just died.”

“Yeah right.” He hung up.

Marta looked through Toni’s texts in his phone and found his text conversations with Tom. She scrolled up a few months and found Tom’s address from when he had a party.

She drove to Tom’s apartment downtown.

She trod up the stairs to his apartment on the fourth floor. Before she walked down the hall to his door she drank from her water bottle. She poured some of the water under her eyes to make it look like she was crying. She walked down the hall, then knocked on Tom’s door.

“Ah, Toni hasn’t called me in three days!”

“Marta? What are you doing here? Come in.”

“Thanks.”

Tom handed her a tissue. “Tell me what happened.”

“Toni’s not out of town. He left me.”

“What? Why did he break up with you? Did he give you a reason?”

“He said I was too clingy and neurotic, but I don’t know what he meant.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.” His cell phone rang. “Sorry, I have to take this.”

“I’ll be here.” She continued to fake weep.

Tom walked into the kitchen.

She poured some liquid Chloroform into his tea. Just enough to knock him out.

He returned, “Sorry, that was my mother.”

“Is she alright?”

“She’s fine. She just wanted to check on me.” He took a sip of his tea and passed out onto the floor.

“I did not think this through. How am I gonna get outside?” She said to herself as she thought about the four flights of stairs.

She found a wide box in the closet and shoved him in it. She taped up the box and poked some

holes on the top with a pen.

She threw open his front door and pulled the box down the four flights of stairs. She dragged the box to her car, opened the trunk, and lifted the box into the trunk. She drove away and later found a nice spot to bury him alive in the woods.

She took out the wooden coffin in her backseat and cut through the top of the box with scissors. It started to rain as she took out the shovel from her trunk. She dug a wide hole in the ground, took him out of the box, and dropped him into the coffin. With her hammer and nails, she nailed the coffin shut. The rain stopped as she dropped the coffin into the hole. She shoveled the dirt onto the coffin. She drove away.

Hours later, Tom woke up in the coffin. “I knew she wasn’t sad. I shouldn’t have trusted her. I bet she killed Toni.” He tried turning around but the coffin was too small. He punched the coffin, but he got a splinter.

He then remembered he had a Swiss army knife in his pocket. He pulled it out from his back pocket and found the tiny knife attachment. He cut a head-sized hole inside the lid of the coffin, but dirt fell through once the circular wood piece fell on him.

He dug his way through the dirt with his hands and pushed his body through the hole of the coffin.

He walked back to the city and to Marta’s apartment building.

He tracked into the elevator and took it to the third floor. The elevator doors opened and he walked down the hall.

He jimmied the lock on her front door with his swiss army knife. He got in. He turned on the light in the kitchen and found a steak knife in the drawer.

Marta woke up and slowly walked out of her bedroom. “Tom? What are you doing here? I thought I — What are you doing here?”

“I’m here for revenge. You buried me alive and I’m pretty sure you killed Toni.”

“I — I didn’t. I told you he broke up with me.”

“I’m sorry, but this has to be done.” He stabbed her in the heart.

She fell backward and Tom loudly and manically laughed.

Marta’s neighbor must have heard him because he heard police and ambulance sirens. He ran

downstairs and outside, but the police had already arrived. He was arrested for the murder of Marta and Toni. But they later found Marta’s fingerprints on Toni’s body, which they found a few miles away in the woods. Tom was sentenced to life for murdering Marta.

Apparently, Marta killed her boyfriend for cheating on her. Her friend saw Toni and Tom at a bar downtown flirting with other girls and she told Marta. She wanted revenge, so she killed her boyfriend and Tom. Tom did invite Toni out for drinks for his birthday.