Reyna Strikes Out

Author note of caution: This is a horror story and might be upsetting to some readers.

“Strike! Look at that turkey! Eric wins the tournament by one pin with that strike in the tenth frame!” The loudspeaker carried the voice throughout the bowling center.

“Good job, Honey!” she praised him.

“I’m hungry, let’s go get a bite.” Reyna was all in. Fried calamari began their meal with a garlicky aioli dip, next to breaded and fried mushrooms. Reyna chatted nonstop during appetizers. Eric barely listened, nodding occasionally to keep up appearances. He felt increasingly disconnected from her, craving something more meaningful. He’d already decided on divorce; he just wasn’t ready to tell her. Eric felt he had married below his status and intellect. Married for 5 years, they had no children. For him, it was a secret decision. He pretended sympathy when she miscarried twice, then got a vasectomy without her knowledge while on a business trip in Europe. She brought home IVF information, but he found excuses. Adoption information was discussed, but she felt his resistance and didn’t want to make him angry, so she dropped it.

As she began chattering, he hushed her, squeezing her hand. “Let’s just enjoy the waves gently lapping, and walk in silence, okay?” He smiled patronizingly, and she kissed him.

Reyna began thinking of her vivid and increasingly disturbing dreams. “Want to hear my dream?” Eric stared straight ahead, waiting for the onslaught of nonsense. He gave her an impatient wave of his hand.

“I dreamed I asked you what your rosin bag was made of because its cover was so pretty, and it smelled like your HUGO cologne. You ignored me, and I asked again. Then you yelled at me: It is made out of the bones of babies! I screamed EWWWW! You replied: I tried not to tell you."

Eric was silent, frustrating her. They drove home in silence, and she slept close to the edge of the bed.

In the morning, she confronted him. “Eric, I am so SICK OF YOU IGNORING ME.” He began to walk away, but she grabbed his arm. “I did a Google search on my dream. It said: Something made of baby bones points to using your core vulnerabilities (or past experiences) to build something new in waking life. It can mean you are attempting to create stability from a fragile or sensitive situation, or perhaps trying to protect a project with raw, untried methods."

“You can start something new without me. I’m so bored with you. I’m thinking of moving out.” He went to work.

Reyna roared out of her driveway in her bright red Mustang, heading in the opposite direction from Eric, speeding past a state trooper who didn’t stop her.

She had a spending frenzy at Home Goods, charging $500, and felt fabulous after. On her drive home, she vented to a friend about the situation and what he had said.

Eric climbed into bed around 12:30 a.m., and Reyna was snoring loudly, tossing and turning. She kicked the covers off and mumbled. He waited quietly until she calmed down, then closed his eyes and slept deeply.

Reyna woke up gasping and hit Eric on the chest, yelling YOU BASTARD. He sat straight up. “What the hell is wrong with you?” He saw she was shaking and pulled her to him. He felt bad about earlier. “A bad dream? It’s okay, it’s all okay.” Then he pushed her off in disgust when she began dry heaving.

After he left for work, Reyna savored her Nespresso, while updating her LinkedIn profile to say she was looking for work. Her layoff had been brutal, delivered via email, and she’d been networking for two months. The clock read 10:30 a.m. She went back to bed, lying there and humming. She had read that humming helps one stay calm. She dozed off for a bit but awoke, her chest pounding.

She had felt for some time that Eric wanted out of their marriage, but kept denying it. She had been afraid of a divorce, but now she kicked into action. She prepared. Secretly, while he was at work. At night, she babbled about her job search and networking to him and to her friends on the phone within his hearing. That was not how she was spending her days.

She and Eric had met at a college bowling tournament. Not as good a bowler as him, she had bowled on two leagues and practiced each week, cashing in tournaments. Her average was closing in on Eric’s. After three years of marriage and being constantly ridiculed by Eric, she realized he was jealous of her bowling skills. Tired of his nasty remarks and rotten attitude toward her on the lanes, she quit bowling and began playing tennis. Reyna knew he hated that sport, but she excelled at it. She was happy he stayed away from the court and never watched her.

Now, however, she was deep into her preparations. While he thought she was searching for work, she spent her days improving her bowling from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. each weekday at a bowling center twenty miles away from their town. She joined two women’s leagues there and continued in them for 15 months, so she had established a tournament average. There had been no further discussions of Eric moving out.

He bowled on Tuesday and Friday night leagues, and he had no idea she was planning a surprise for him in the basement. It will knock his socks off.

Tuesday morning, Reyna went to Eric’s bowling center and found a spot open on a team. Someone had dropped out due to illness, so the center asked the team captain if she could join. He agreed, thinking it was a favor for Eric.

That night, she walked into the bowling alley, and saw Eric getting a beer.

She came up behind him and slammed one of his rosin bags onto the bar. “Here ya go, Babe. I thought you might need your bag of bones.”

Eric spun on the stool to face her, his face red from the shock of her showing up. She stroked the rosin bag and then ran her finger down his cheek, making him cringe. “Afraid of some bones, Honey?” He grabbed her wrist, and she jerked it away.

He went to his bowling lane, and she followed, waiting. She had dumped raw meat bones into his bowling ball bag. As he reached in, his hands came out slightly bloody, and she caught his eye, smiling. “What the fuck?” he whispered to her. She shrugged and tried to hand him his bowling rag, but he went to the restroom. After he washed up, he saw her putting on her bowling shoes four lanes down.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“I’m bowling. I joined Richard’s league. Good luck, Eric, you’ll need it.” He gave her the finger under the cover of his bowling towel.

Reyna’s first roll was a strike. He got a split.

“Nice! Be sure you pick up the spare!” Reyna taunted.

She beat him 275 to 189. His face red in fury, he changed his shoes and put his bowling equipment in his bag. Reyna left as he stormed over to talk to Richard.

Once home, he downed 2 whiskeys and went to bed, but didn’t sleep well from his poor bowling and the whiskey. She heard him tossing and mumbling. Too bad for him, he has to catch a 6 a.m. flight; can’t wait until he’s gone. A whole week to myself.

A week later, Reyna startled him by slapping a packet of papers before him as he sat down to dinner. “Welcome home, Eric. The Divorce Intent has been filed in the county courthouse. You know what that means.” She laughed at him as he sat with his mouth opening and closing like a guppy fish. Their prenup stated that whoever filed for divorce first was entitled to the house and a $200,000 cash settlement. That money was in a fund their attorney held.

He leaped up, but she dodged him. “You might want to look in the basement.”

His eyes became saucers, and then he yanked open the basement door. “You didn’t!” She grinned. He ran downstairs, and she laughed at his shriek echoing up from the basement.

He stood before his tournament-winning bowling balls. Some were cracked in two; others dented when she had pounded on them with a sledgehammer. He ran up the stairs after her, but the door was locked. “Open this door, Reyna.” When there was no response, he went back down to break out a window. He realized she had bricked them over, and he was a prisoner.

**

“Yes, that’s right, Mrs. McTorrance. That’s your signature, isn’t it?” Reyna looked at the agreement, and it was her signature. She was in a lucid dream, aware that it was a dream, as it continued:

“I didn’t sign this. I wanted babies. I wouldn’t sign something like this.”

“Mrs. McTorrance, you did agree to the procedures, and we used the baby bones for science, just as you requested.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? I DID NOT SIGN THIS!”

“You did. Remember all the meetings we had? You agreed to give us stillborn babies. Your womb is not a friendly place for babies, Mrs. McTorrance, and your body expelled them well along into your pregnancies.”

“I want what’s mine.” She stared at his arched eyebrows; finally, he shrugged and stood.

As Oscar Simonton, PhD, led her down the hallway, she noticed his nameplate on the door. They entered a room, and he flicked on the overhead lights, blinding her. Labeled plastic bins sat on floor-to-ceiling shelves. Hundreds of thousands of plastic bins with the bones of babies, some stillborn, others with ages in months.

“You evil bastard!” she shouted.

“Both you and your husband are signatories to the agreements. You have no legal standing in this matter.”

The dream continued: She followed Simonton as he pushed a cart loaded with several plastic bins. “I put lids on the bins so you won’t lose any of your babies’ bones.” She was shoved into the driver’s seat of her car and the bins were thrown into the back seat.

“Don’t come back. There is nothing left here for you.”

It took some time to carry the bins from the garage down to the basement, where Reyna gently laid them on the floor amongst Eric’s cracked bowling balls - her handiwork; her brain remembered within the lucid dream that she had destroyed the balls. Now, within the dream, Eric sat there silently watching her while she explained.

“I brought the babies home, you sonofabitch. The divorce is final. I’m leaving,” she shouted at Eric. The dream sequence ended as Eric laughed.

**

Reyna woke up in a semi-dark place that had an overwhelming odor. Her heart wouldn’t stop pounding from her nightmare. She held her shirt over her nose and breathed through her mouth, almost retching several times. Flipping on the light, she realized she was in her basement. Turning slowly, she screamed a long, shrill, witless scream, full of terror. Eric’s decomposed body had been propped against the wall, supported by his bowling equipment, prior to death, or was it after someone murdered him? It was a body, but in an extremely decomposed state, and had been dressed in Eric’s clothes. Will the police believe me, or will I be a suspect?

Then she saw the stack of plastic bins and walked closer. She pulled off a lid. Neatly lying inside were tiny bones. She could still hear Eric’s laugh from the dream.

**

A/N: A bowler's rosin bag is a small bag held in the palm of the hand with a powdery rosin inside that absorbs moisture and enhances grip, making it easier to control the ball. Bowlers squeeze the bag and it dries their hand.

Copyright © 5/30/2026 by Andrea O. Corwin Thanks for stopping by! 😃 If you like ♡ my scribbles, hit the subscribe button. Please consider leaving a comment. ✍️❤️