Early in the morning, Tim woke feeling quite restless. He sat on the side of the bed, going through his morning ritual of yawning, stretching and scratching. He had a foggy remembrance of a very strange dream last night. Maybe it was just the stress of adjusting to married life.
Tim shook his head. No, it was more than just stress. The dream held the darkest secrets of his soul. The truth of the matter was that he really did marry Becky with the intention of killing her. It all seemed so simple at the time. It’d been almost laughably easy to make her fall in love with him. Women as obese as Becky didn’t get many proposals.
Tim wasted no time getting the dual life insurance policies. Though doubly expensive, it might’ve raised suspicions if the policy covered her alone. In the three weeks since marrying her, however, some strange things took place.
One of these oddities was the vivid nightmares over the last few nights. Although he hadn’t devised a fool-proof plan to kill Becky yet, his nightmares never seemed short on ideas. If only real life were as easy as dreams.
Stranger still was something even he could never have anticipated. He found himself actually growing fond of Becky. As he came to know the caring, gentle person inside, he took less and less notice of her gargantuan size. The longer he put off his plan, though, the harder it’d be to kill her and receive that money.
Now that his thoughts were on Becky, where was she anyway? She wasn’t in bed; this was unusual since she rarely gets up early. She had no job to go to. Her weight caused a number of health problems that prevented her from working. Thankfully, holding down a job wasn’t necessary for her. With her parents quite well off financially, they’d never do without.
If she wasn’t here in bed, then she was probably in the kitchen or the front room watching TV. Before checking either location, he needed to take care of some bathroom business first. His bladder was screaming for relief.
When Tim opened the bathroom door of the master bedroom, his jaw dropped to the floor. He stood, staring in dumbfounded amazement. A scene from his nightmare had been ripped from his mind and plastered onto the reality of the bathroom. He nearly fell backwards out the door.
There was water everywhere, on the floor, the walls and even dripping off the ceiling. The tub was partly filled, looking both dirty and soapy – someone had taken a bath very recently. But the thing that really caught Tim’s eye wasn’t the tub water.
His attention focused on a black, plastic radio floating half-submerged in the bathtub. His eyes followed the radio cord to the wall outlet. It was still plugged in. He stepped carefully – the floor was wet and he wanted to take no chances.
This couldn’t be real – it just couldn’t. Killing his wife was only a dream. He hadn’t actually done it – had he? He shook his head. No, of course not. Other than the radio and water, the tub was empty. If Becky was dead, then where was her body?
There had to be a perfectly logical explanation for this mess. Perhaps Becky was in the kitchen right now getting a mop and bucket. He couldn’t wait to hear how she did this. The bathroom looked like a tidal wave had hit it.
Tim shook his head again. No, actually it looked like someone had accidentally knocked the radio into the water. With the exception of his missing wife, the room looked like the scene in his nightmare.
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