Carl woke up after a strange deep sleep full of unsettling dreams. He opened his eyes, relieved, but immediately realized that he wasn’t in his bedroom. He tried to stretch his arms and legs to get up, but something he couldn’t recognize was digging into his whole body and preventing him from making the slightest movement.

He wanted to scream to call for help. But his mouth was blocked, full of rags. It was hard for him to breathe. A cold sweat ran down his forehead. What was going on?

He was lying on a hard, cold surface.

He heard footsteps and a familiar voice crooning closer. When she arrived, she turned on the cold water.

Carl shuddered as the water began to drench his immobilized body and fill the bathtub where she had put him.

The female voice continued to sing softly as the water rose.

“I don’t want Mr. Roberts to smell bad on such an important day”, she said.

And she poured bath salts into the bathtub where Carl was going to drown.

His wife and kids had gone on a field trip that Sunday, but he stayed behind because he was tired and wanted to sleep.

Last Friday he fired Margaret, the maid, because she had made a blatant advance on him, and Susan, his wife, said that the situation was inadmissible.

Now he had Margaret before his eyes, looking at him with a kind of pity. She had drugged him while he was sleeping and conscientiously tied him up with roast beef rope until he became like a mummy in the bathtub.

-“Poor Mr. Roberts, you did not want to be mine and now you will not exist at all.

-Carl! We’re home!

Susan had a problem with the car and returned with the kids sooner than planned.

Margaret heard her and fled thru the kitchen door.

Susan went to her room and heard the noise of the water in the bathroom. This is how she found her husband drowning. She took his head out of the water horrified and called 911 not sure if she would be in time to save him.

FFFC 196