Carrie's Luck

When released from the sanitarium after a four-month stay, Carrie was pleased to be going home.

“How are you feeling?” Mark asked.

“I think I’m good. Let’s go home. I want to get back to normal.” Although she wasn’t sure what was normal for her, after what she witnessed and having a serious emotional break from reality four months ago.

The doctors had suggested Carrie try returning to her routine. She loved walking down by the river but today had changed all that. She had almost stepped on the hand of the man lying on the eastern side of the river. He was all white and bloated from being in the water and was very obviously dead. There were several bullet holes in his chest. With trembling hands, she rummaged through her backpack hoping her cell would have service way out here.

She tried very hard not to look at the man while she waited for the police to arrive. When they finally found her, she was completely freaked out after being alone in the woods with a dead guy for more than an hour. One of the officers escorted her home and asked her to come to HQ in the morning to give her official statement.

Mark was concerned that Carrie had been gone longer than usual on her walk this morning, the same walk she made every morning since they moved to this quaint little town, with the exception of the time of the hospitalization. He was concerned about her state of mind ever since that episode of ‘mental instability’ as the doctors called it. He wanted to know why she had been gone so long this morning, but when he saw her face, all he could do was hug her.

“I found a dead guy in the woods along the river,” she said in convulsive gasps. Mark pulled away from her.

“What?”

“I was walking my regular path and there was a dead guy on the riverbank. I called the police and had to wait for them,” Carrie sobbed.

“Wow,” was all Mark could say.

The following morning, Mark drove Carrie to the police station. He had to wait for her while she made her statement. He paced back and forth as the officers in the room watched him. He unnerved them for some reason.

Carrie’s face was streaked with tears when she emerged after 45 minutes.

“Thank you, Carrie,” said one of the detectives. “We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”

Knowing she had nothing to eat since breakfast yesterday morning, Mark insisted they go to get something to eat. Carrie wasn’t very hungry but had a cup of coffee while Mark ate his sandwich. He was always there for her since they met, emotionally, physically, financially, in every way. She looked at him and smiled contentedly.

On Wednesday, ten days after her grisly discovery in the woods, Carrie was debating whether to go on her walk or not. Mark suggested ‘maybe a different path’. With the thought of a brand new route in her mind, she left the house and headed toward the park that led into the woods. As she walked along, she thought this was a good idea and this path Mark suggested was just lovely. “I can make this my new route every day,” she thought out loud.

Two weeks later, on her morning stroll, she tripped over something under the leaves and when she brushed herself off and got up, realized she had tripped over a woman’s body. “Oh no, this can’t be happening”, Carrie screamed. This was even more gruesome. The woman’s hands had been chopped off and were laying across her bloody chest. The police again came and took the body away, took her home and requested a formal statement.

Mark unexpectedly laughed at her. “Wow, your luck sucks. What are the chances of this happening twice?”

Carrie started to cry again at Mark’s insensitivity. “Do you think this is funny, Mark?” she yelled at him. She was trembling while she unsteadily walked to the kitchen for a glass of water.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh, but as they say, if you didn’t have bad luck, you wouldn’t have any luck at all.” She didn’t understand why Mark was being so thoughtless.

Carrie had witnessed a murder several months ago, which had caused her an emotional breakdown. The doctors called it PTSD, because it was so brutal and she would have to testify in court against the killer, so her reality had fractured.

By the time she was deemed stable, the killer had escaped from custody and was now on the run.

Her morning walks were becoming her solace now. Quiet time with nature, in the woods, all by herself. It never occurred to her that the killer could be watching her. She assumed he had taken off for distant parts. On the third month after her medical discharge, she came home from her walk to find a body on the kitchen floor, stabbed and nearly decapitated. “Mark?” she screamed.

Mark walked into the kitchen covered in blood, with a bloody cleaver in his hand. “Apparently, the bodies in the woods weren’t enough to send you over the edge, so I had to be creative. I need your insurance money which I can collect if you are permanently institutionalized.” Mark grinned at her.

Carrie could feel herself slipping away.