Happenstance

Chapter 1

Despite the rain and chill in the night air, a young woman walks down the street, oblivious, as her mind is bathed in “warm sunshine” because her boyfriend has proposed to her. She is feeling so elated that she can’t help but stop and stare at the beautiful ring on her finger every minute or two, and at the next street light, she pauses yet again to get another look.

But instead of admiring the ring in the light as she had anticipated, a gasp escapes her lips when she notices what appears to be a blemish. Though panic initially floods her mind, the woman pushes it away, staunchly refusing to believe that the beautiful diamond could be flawed. She convinces herself, without a doubt, that she would have noticed the blemish earlier when her fiancé had placed the ring on her finger.

Though there had been dim lighting in the fancy restaurant he had taken her to, under the street light was even darker. The realization of that makes it easy to convince herself that she most assuredly would have seen any blemish in the restaurant if the ring had been flawed, as her eyes had been studying every facet of the diamond the moment her fiancé had placed it on her finger.

With her brief mental panic now assuaged by reason, the woman reaches into her clutch to pull out a tissue, intent on wiping off the dirt she has convinced herself is on her ring. But her hard-earned sense of calm washes away the moment the ring slips out of her wet hand. The woman watches in horror as the ring hits the ground, bounces twice, and then rolls toward the curb above a sewer drain.

With her eyes widening in the realization of where the ring is heading, she chases after it, but too late; over the edge and down the drain, it goes.

“No, no, no, no…” The woman repeats to herself as she paces back and forth, once again in a panic until a glint catches her eye, offering hope. She gets down on her hands and knees, uncaring of the puddle she is now kneeling in as she shoves her arm down the drain to try to grab the ring. She has to get it back, knowing that her fiancé will be furious to discover that she has lost the ring. He has a temper. But how could she blame him? She is furious with herself.

What kind of woman loses her engagement ring right after receiving it? How could I have been so foolish to have taken it off in the dark and rain? She chastises herself in a tone of disgust as she struggles to reach the ring. She is now lying flat in the street with her arm down the sewer drain as far as it can go, her two longest fingers reaching, reaching; in the hope of snagging the ring and pulling it out of the drain.

Some time passes before the woman accepts that the ring is beyond her reach. No matter how much she had wiggled and squirmed, her attempts to reach the ring had failed. Her arm is bruised and sore, and her best dress is soaking wet and covered with the filth of the city street. Though none of those discomforts register as the woman rises to her feet and begins searching the ground, hoping to find something to lengthen her reach or for some other solution to present itself. She briefly considers using her clutch but doesn’t see any way that it will help in grasping a hold of the ring, and realizing that it might even push the ring further out of reach or that she might lose both the clutch and ring, she decides against it.

Finding nothing that might help her on the ground, the woman begins to look up and down the road for someone to help, preferably someone with a longer reach. She isn’t surprised to discover that she is all alone, as she is on an infrequently traveled side-street on a wet, chilly night.

Who walks in the cold and rain this late at night unless they have to? The woman asks herself. The question prompts her to wonder why she, herself, is walking late at night on a cold, wet street. She knows why. Because she had been feeling so elated about her engagement the current weather conditions hadn’t registered until after she lost the ring. The brilliance of the ring had blinded her senses.

Her fiancé had blindsided her when he had said he couldn’t give her a ride home due to an emergency that had come up at work. He hadn’t said what the emergency had been, and he had hurried off before she could gather her wits enough to ask. It had all happened so fast. No wonder the excitement of the proposal had overridden common sense. But now that her mind is beginning to clear, she can’t help but turn her annoyance to her fiancé and wonder what sort of man runs off right after placing an engagement ring on the finger of the woman he supposedly loves.

The woman had been too distracted by the ring and her excitement to have considered her fiancés’ behavior unusual. She had risen from the table in a daze, had paid the bill, and had started walking back to his house. She hadn’t even had the sense to call a cab. Though up until this moment, the walk hadn’t bothered her, nor had the rain. She hadn't even been aware of the chill in the air because she had been floating in the warmth of happiness, oblivious to everything else around her. Now free of the ring’s spell on her, the woman wraps her arms around herself as the realization that she is soaking wet and chilled to the bone fully sets in.

Clear-headed now, the woman glances up at the sound of a car approaching, with the intent of waving it down, in the hopes of finding someone to help get her ring back. But the idea of getting a ride home and getting out of the cold and rain is also at the forefront of her mind, almost to the point of negating the need to get her ring back.

Almost.

* * * * *

The woman’s hand stops mid-air as her breath catches in her throat, and her heart stops beating. A new kind of chill comes over her when she recognizes the car. The sort of chill that is a deep-down-to-the-bone sort of chill that sets the spine to tingling with a sense of foreboding and raises the hairs at the back of the neck.

As the car passes her by, her fiancé meets her eye with a leering grin on his face, but that isn’t what is chilling her to the bone. What has turned her face ghost-white pale, is seeing herself in the passenger seat--skinned-alive--her own eyes in the car turning to meet hers on the street.

Chapter 2

Rebecca startles, blinking in confusion as she finds herself staring up at Bobby back in the restaurant as he rises from one knee. His pager is going off, and he is speaking to her, but his words aren’t fully registering yet.

“Hey, babe. I have an emergency call from work. You’re going to have to find your way back home. Oh, and do you mind paying the bill? I’ve got to run.”

Rebecca nods, feeling dazed now along with her confusion as Bobby throws a wad of cash on the table.

What just happened? She asks herself. She knows that Bobby rushing off on an emergency call for work isn’t unusual, as he worked as a Coroner’s Assistant at the City Morgue and was often having to run off in the middle of the night. Does his line of work bother me? Does that explain the strange vision I had? Her mind desperately searches for a rational explanation, but no amount of mental query can shake her rising feeling of dread.

* * * * *

In a partial daze, Rebecca forces herself to her feet. Though her mind is still muddled, she remembers to leave a tip and stops to pay the bill on the way out. She registers the cashier wishing her a good evening but is unable to respond verbally. All she can manage is a nod of her head before stepping outside.

The moment she steps outside, the chill in the air slaps away the last vestige of fogginess from her mind, knocking the sense right back into her. When she and Bobby had first arrived at the restaurant, there had been no rain or chill in the air, but now the cold and rain were serving to highlight her grisly vision. Rebecca shivers; a chill running up her spine as a sense of déjà vu overcomes her. Except, this time, she has no intention of walking or going straight home. Instead, she pulls out her cell phone and calls a cab, and when it arrives, she asks the driver to take her to the City Morgue.

She has to know.

* * * * *

After pulling into the parking lot of the City Morgue, Rebecca doesn’t see Bobby’s car anywhere, and it wasn’t as if the parking lot was full to where she might miss it. Besides the Coroner Wagon, there were two other vehicles; one of them the taxi she was in, and the other was not Bobby’s.

Her foreboding increasing but determined to find answers, Rebecca directs the taxi driver to pull up to the front door and asks him to wait for her. The need to know the truth drives her out of the warm cab, despite the cold and rain. Hurrying to the scant coverage over the door to get out of the rain, she pushes an intercom button after realizing that the morgue is closed this time of night to anyone without a passkey.

With the presence of another car in the parking lot, Rebecca is confident that someone is working and is determined to press the button until someone answers. She hears a female voice coming through the speaker after the ninth press of the button.

“Hello. May I help you?”

“Yes, I am looking for Bobby Merrick? I’m his fiancé.”

After a short pause, the woman speaks again, “I’m sorry, ma’am but no one with that name works here.”

Rebecca furrows her brow but then asks before the woman has a chance to move away, “What about Robert Merrick?” She spells out the last name, and adds, “He works here as a Coroner Assistant.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I am the Chief Medical Examiner, and I also serve the role of Coroner for the City, but I have no assistant by the name of Robert or Bobby Merrick. Both of my assistants are female. But even if you had meant Bobbie as a female nickname, I still have no one by that name working here.”

Rebecca asks with confusion clear in her voice, “Well, is there another morgue in the city.”

“No, ma’am.”

“I’m sorry. I’ve made a mistake,” Rebecca abruptly announces as she feels a chill coming over her again, unrelated to the chill in the air. She hurries back to the taxi to get out of the cold and rain but even more so to escape the increasing feeling of dread that is coming over her.

* * * * *

Despite being aware of the driver staring at her through the rear-view mirror, Rebecca ignores him as her mind begins to spin out of control with questions.

“Ma’am?” The driver asks, growing impatient.

The question snaps Rebecca out of her mental distraction, yet she pauses before answering as she briefly considers going back to Bobby’s house to pack her bags. But knowing that Bobby wasn’t at the City Morgue, that he didn’t work there at all, was setting off warning bells. The vision of being skinned alive that keeps flashing through her mind is compelling her to get as far away from Bobby as she can, and before the driver has a second chance to speak, Rebecca responds to his implied inquiry, “Take me to the bus station, please.”

Chapter 3

Arriving at her destination, Rebecca leans toward the front seat. “Thank you,” she says as she pays the driver in cash and then steps out of the cab, back into the cold and rain.

She pauses on the sidewalk in front of the Bus Depot as the driver pulls away and glances down at a nearby sewer drain. Then, decisively, with a determined look on her face, she tears the engagement ring from her finger as if it had burned her, tossing it down the drain before heading into the station.

She had briefly considered either holding onto the ring in the hope that some logical explanation of what had happened would present itself or pawning the ring if it didn’t. But uncomfortable thoughts had begun to cycle through her mind when she realized that she had no idea how Bobby earned his money. It wasn’t working as a Coroner Assistant at the City Morgue. For all she knew, Bobby had purchased the ring with blood money. Or worse, it could have been the same ring he had given to the last girl he had skinned alive--his last fiancé. Rebecca wasn’t even sure that Bobby Merrick was his real name as she realizes that she doesn’t know much about him at all.

What she does know, is that she is feeling an urgent need to get as far away as possible. She hadn’t wanted to take the chance of Bobby waiting for her back at the house. Every instinct in her had been telling her not to go home; that he was waiting for her there. That sense of danger was nipping at her heels even now, refusing to let her turn back.

Having made a temporary peace with her decision, and propelled by the persistent sense of dread, Rebecca approaches the ticket booth. Decisively, she purchases herself a one-way ticket to her parent's home with the last of the money Bobby had tossed onto the table at the restaurant. Back home with her parents, she feels she will be safe. She feels certain that Bobby won’t ever find her there, as she had never spoken to him about where she had grown up. She hadn’t brought up the topic, as talking about her family was something Rebecca was loath to do, and he hadn’t asked. With Peculiar being a small town, the chances of Bobby ever finding her were slim to none. Knowing she has friends and family back home to watch over her and who would call the police if she were to go missing was offering a modicum of comfort amidst all the discomforting thoughts going through her mind.

Rebecca thinks back to why she had left home. When she had turned twenty-one, she had been eager to get as far away as possible. Now she finds herself in a different frame of mind as she realizes that living with a dysfunctional family in a small town where everyone knows your business is better than living with a serial killer. Of course, she has no proof that Bobby is a serial killer. That was a theory based entirely on her strange vision, which she would have been fully prepared to attribute to her imagination or wedding jitters, if not for finding out that Bobby didn’t work where he had said that he worked.

In discovering his lie, Rebecca’s doubt had turned to dread and a determination to get to safety, fueled by a strong will to survive. Though a person can never know how they are going to react to this sort of situation until they are in the midst of it; being in the midst of it, Rebecca knows she is a survivor.

“Besides,” she mumbles to herself as she paces back and forth while waiting for her bus to arrive; oblivious to any people who might be staring. She then thinks to herself. Even if you’re wrong, Rebecca, it’s better to be wrong than dead. And you’re not about to marry and spend the rest of your life with a man who lies to you. You would never be able to trust Bobby after learning that he doesn’t work at the City Morgue after that horrible vision. You’d be always on edge wondering. No, you’re doing the right thing.

After pacing for a time in silence, Rebecca stops as a new realization comes to her. If she had no other reason before to throw the ring in the sewer, she would have done so now. No amount of potential income from pawning the ring would be enough to make her carry it back to her hometown, as her gut instinct is telling her that she needs to sever all ties to Bobby.

It wasn’t like she had a life outside of Bobby that she’d be leaving behind any friends or employment. She didn’t work. Bobby had taken care of her from the moment she had arrived, and the house she lived in was his. She remembered how charming and concerned he had been for her well-being after learning that she had no job or money or place to go. Rebecca hadn’t even had time to make new friends. Bobby had been the first person she had met, and outside of his supposed Coroner Assistant work, she had spent all her time with him. The rest of her time, when Bobby hadn’t been around, she spent on keeping his house clean and studying college courses online on his computer. No one is going to report her missing to the police because a serial killer isn’t going to report her missing. Her escape will be neat and clean because she had paid cash for both her cab and bus fare.

Let him wonder what happened to me. A normal, considerate man would have taken time to drop his fiancé home before heading into work--emergency or not--rather than leave her alone in a restaurant in the midst of proposing to her. Rebecca thinks to herself in indignation as she attempts to reinforce her confidence that she is making the right decision.

* * * * *

Despite all the reassurances she has been giving herself, Rebecca isn’t able to close her eyes or allow herself to relax even once she is well beyond the city limits. As the miles wear on, Rebecca begins to doubt her decision. She can’t help but wonder if there might have been a logical explanation for Bobby not working at the City Morgue when he had told her that he did. Though she can’t for the life of her think of what that explanation might be; doubt persists. Am I overreacting? She asks herself. But despite those doubts coming to mind, her gut instinct--her fear--continues to tell her that it isn’t safe to go back, and that is the voice she chooses to heed.

Chapter 4

All the second-guessing and regretting her decision to return home disappear as Rebecca sits watching the News a week later at her parents’ home.

A picture of Bobby appears behind the reporter as he announces, “The police have apprehended a suspected serial killer by the name of Robert Merrick...”

That was all Rebecca needed to hear. For the first time since her arrival back home she blows out a deep breath, releasing all her stress. She hadn’t told her parents what had happened. When they had asked why she had come home, rather than the truth, she had told them she had been missing them. At the time she had no validation of her fears to explain coming home. There was nothing to justify leaving a man who had taken good care of her and had proposed to her, aside from her vision. She hadn’t wanted to deal with the lectures or see the looks of disapproval from her parents or worse, risk them talking her into going back to Bobby.

But all the fear she has been holding onto evaporates with the good news. Rebecca knows she is truly safe now. Bobby is in custody. The realization that she isn’t crazy is also a load off her mind. Her vision had been a real warning as opposed to a sign of an impending mental breakdown, as she had feared it to be.

* * * * *

Two days later when an FBI Agent shows up at her door, Rebecca doesn’t invite him in. Though her parents had taught her manners and Peculiar was a town where people left their doors unlocked, her experience with Bobby has left her with a mistrust of strangers.

But the agent appears content to speak from the doorway and asks, “Are you Rebecca Worth?”

Rebecca nods, yes.

The agent says, “While the local police were investigating your disappearance, they discovered video recordings in Merrick’s home showing him skinning women alive in an empty meatpacking plant. That’s when they called the FBI in. The old meatpacking plant is where we found his victims; on meat hooks and skinned alive. At first, that is where we expected to find you with the report of you missing.”

Rebecca already knows the details of Bobby’s grisly acts from the News Report, but hearing those details again, the sense of relief that she hadn’t befallen the same fate as those other women is immense. Though she can’t help but ask, “How did you know I was missing?”

“The old man next door to where you were living reported you missing.”

“Someone missed me after all!” Rebecca says in a surprised tone. “I didn’t think anyone would because I didn’t work or know anyone else in the City other than Bobby.”

The agent nods, taking note of that but redirects the conversation back to his reason for being there. “I need to ask. Why did you leave?”

Rebecca begins to explain what had happened in the restaurant in the midst of Bobby proposing to her, including the vision which had flashed through her mind, as she now feels confident, she isn’t insane.

“You were lucky, Rebecca. Angels must have been watching over you,” the agent says. “His proposal to you explains why Merrick had severed the ring fingers on all the victims’ left hands. That had us stumped, but he must have proposed to each of his victims before killing them.”

That had been the same conjecture which had gone through Rebecca’s mind at the bus station which had prompted her to toss the ring down the sewer drain. But hearing her suspicions confirmed turns Rebecca ice-cold, causing her to wrap her arms around her body and visibly shiver. She says in a whispered tone, more to herself than the agent, “I wore that ring on my finger. The same ring that those other poor women had worn.” Gasping, she puts a hand over her mouth as the full enormity of what might have befallen her, if not for the vision, came crashing down on her.

After giving her a moment to compose herself, the agent asks, “Do you still have the ring? We’ll need that as evidence.”

Rebecca’s eyes widen as she realizes that she has left out the part of what she had done with the ring. “No. I threw it down the sewer drain in front of the Bus Depot because I didn’t want to keep anything that connected me to Bobby after discovering he lied about where he worked. I had a bad feeling about him, and every instinct in me was telling me to sever all ties to him. Sorry. It never occurred to me that it might be needed.”

The agent shrugs, speaking in an understanding tone to dispel Rebecca’s concern over not having the ring, “Don’t worry about it. We’ll have to look for it due to protocol, but we have plenty of evidence without the ring. Besides, better a ring, then your life down the drain.”

Rebecca couldn’t have agreed more.

* * * * *

Still, one thing continues to haunt Rebecca to this day.

Who was the person paging Bobby?