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pellycan
Since: Nov, 2014
pellycan
Since: Nov, 2014
pellycan
Since: Nov, 2014
pellycan
Since: Nov, 2014
2015-11-27 10:31:56
FOUND IT AT LAST: https://sites.google.com/site/davidnickle/thesloanmen
it's a little different from what i remember but still worth the re-read.
Edited by pellycan

I'm trying to find a horror short story that I believe I first read after seeing it mentioned on this site. I know that I read it online, but Google has proved useless so far.
The story is from the POV of a wife who I believe is visiting her husband's parents for the first time. She is constantly thinking to herself how great her husband is, how in love with him she is, things like that, but the only dialogue we get from the husband is sort of flat and unimpressive. (I want to say the husband's name was also something really dull like Kevin.)
We start to realize that the husband is not this incredible dreamboat but something way worse - he has sort of hypnotized his wife into adoring him and caring for him - I seem to recall something about her clipping his awful toenails while she's in this hypnosis. Anyway, this all comes out after the wife meets her mother-in-law, and it turns out the husband's father has the same thing going - "hypnotizing" the mother-in-law to tend to him and take care of him when really he's kind of awful - even monstrous. The two women are alone together when they manage to figure out that they've been married to these toad-like, horrible men who have convinced them to be their caretakers. There's a sort of awful realization where the wife has flashbacks to taking care of her husband where she is able to see that he's ugly, charmless, the toenails, etc. etc.
As the women are realizing this they both turn to each other in horror and I think decide that they have to kill their husbands to break free of this awful hypnosis. I think they do end up murdering their respective husbands - I forget the murder weapon but want to say it's a shotgun or a shovel for the wife (POV character). Despite recalling the plot this much I haven't been able to find hide nor hair of this story - can anyone help me out?
Edited by pellycan