Serial Fiction -Installment One Entry

            Since Harold had been found floating face down in her pool two days earlier, when Caroline saw him eating waffles at Denny's on Sunday, she wasn't sure whether to call the police, her mother, a psychic, or her shrink.  She called her mother - wrong call.

Caroline and Martha had been questioned for hours that night about the body in Caroline's pool.  Caroline had been little help.  One, she was too shaken and two, she hadn't really kept up with Harold much the last couple of years.  That night, Harold had borne scant resemblance to the young, vital man she had known.

            "No, I've never seen those tattoos before.  Harold was very conservative," Caroline had explained to the homicide detective.  The tattoos had almost looked as though they had been carved into Harold's skin, except there was no blood in the pool.  Caroline had opted not to make a closer inspection herself.

            And now, two days later, here he was.  There was no mistaking it.  Caroline had known Harold since grade school.  They'd even been close for a while after high school when he had lost his fiancée so tragically.  Seeing him sitting there in his signature khakis and polo with his dark blond hair parted to the left just as always, there was no doubt that this was Harold.  But how?  Caroline felt ill.  The room began to spin and she was in danger of finding the floor.

            "Mom, what do I do?!  He's right across the restaurant.  If he turns his head he'll see me!" Caroline held tight to the edge of her table and drew in a deep breath, letting her dark curls swirl down around her face a bit.

            "Caroline, you are obviously hysterical.  You've been through a great deal these past few days.  I told you it was too soon for you to go out.  You're overwrought and imagining things.  There's no way that's Harold."  Martha's condescending tone only made Caroline's nausea worse.  But if she could see how large Caroline's brown eyes were at this moment it would only add fuel to her fire.

            Caroline just said "goodbye" and hung up.  Then, screwing up all of her courage, she approached the man.

            "Harold?" She spoke so softly she wasn't sure he could have heard.  He turned slowly to look at her.  There was no trace of the tattoos that had even partially covered his face.

            "Have we met?" Harold looked a bit lost.

            "Harold, it's Caroline, don't you know me?" For an instant, something like recognition flickered in his pale blue eyes, then just as quickly it was gone.

            "I'm sorry Miss, I don't.  Perhaps you have me confused with someone else." He then calmly went back to eating his waffles.

            "My mistake.  Sorry to have bothered you." Caroline's spine crawled as she turned and walked away from the dead man.

            She was just reaching for her cell phone to call her psychic when it vibrated through the fabric of her Vera Bradley purse causing her to nearly upend a nearby tray stand.  The noise it made was deafening.  No one else seemed to notice, except Harold, who now watched her as she continued to move away from him.  She fumbled for the phone and finally got it to her ear.

            "Hel-"

            "Beware of Harold!"  It was Myrna, her psychic!  "He's not what he seems."

            "Yeah, he's dead!" Caroline snapped in a harsh whisper.

            "No child, he's alive.  But he's not the Harold you knew anymore."

Caroline had been so intent on her conversation with Myrna that she hadn't noticed Harold standing over her.

©TSW  2008