Head On Collision Kills Three People On State Route 9


    Robin Daily News, October 29th, 1998


    A fiery crash on State Route 9 left three dead Wednesday night when a pickup truck and minivan collided head-on in what witnesses described as "a scene from hell."


    The horrific accident occurred shortly before 7 p.m. when an eastbound Ford F-150 slammed into a westbound Oldsmobile minivan near the treacherous curve east of Roxbury Road, setting off an explosion that illuminated the night sky.


    David "Bud" Merrill, a 54-year-old Marsden resident, was behind the wheel of the pickup. Known throughout Marsden for his 22 years with the Public Works Department and his booming laugh at the Corner Tavern, Merrill died instantly in the wreckage.


    The Oldsmobile van carried 36-year-old Gregory Atwood and his 7-year-old son Cody, both of Swampton. The father and son were returning home after visiting relatives in Robin for a birthday celebration, according to devastated family members. Neither survived the impact.


    "I heard the explosion from my porch," said Eleanor Chambers, who lives a quarter-mile from the crash site. "I thought it was a transformer blowing, then saw the glow through the trees. By the time I got my husband to call for help, the flames were taller than the roadside pines."


    State Trooper Mark Simons, first officer at the scene, described it as "the worst wreckage I''ve seen in fifteen years with the department."


    While investigators haven''t determined the exact cause, State Route 9''s reputation for danger—especially after dusk—is well-established. The winding two-lane highway has claimed seven lives in the past three years alone.


    "You''ve got blind corners. No shoulder to speak of and sometimes wildlife that comes out of nowhere!" said Simons. "Add darkness to that equation, and you''ve got a recipe for disaster."


    The collision shut down the route for nearly four hours as emergency crews worked to clear the charred wreckage and state police gathered evidence. An investigation into the circumstances leading to the crash continues.


    A roadside memorial with flowers and three wooden crosses appeared early Thursday morning at the crash site.


    Services for Merrill will be held Saturday at Marsden Community Church, while the Atwoods will be remembered in a joint service Sunday afternoon at Swampton First Baptist.


    ~


    Lucy cannot sleep that night. She stares at the ceiling, replaying the accident in her mind. She has never seen two cars blow up before and she can''t help but worry that it is her instigation of the imp that led to the deaths of whoever was in those cars.


    But how can Lucy know?


    She is just one girl trying her best to get through the strangest time of her life. Not only is her world around her descending into chaos, she still is struggling to fit into Robin and her place in the world.


    Lucy looks up at the white crinkly ceiling and hopes that tomorrow will be better. That her and Dr. Brighton will find a solution to the infestation before things get any worse. Judging by the worry in Dr. Brighton''s voice, things could get much worse, though Lucy has a hard time envisioning what that would exactly look like.


    Nothing ever happens in Robin.


    Especially nothing evil.


    For the first time in a long time, Lucy closes her eyes and puts her hands together and prays. She isn''t sure who she is praying to or whether or not they will listen, but she prays.


    She prays for herself.


    She prays for Dr. Brighton.


    She prays for Otto.


    And she prays for her new little city of Robin.


    ~


    Across the city, Dr. Brighton is also awake. Dr. Brighton owns a nice lovely house on Main Street. One of those picturesque ones that you see in New England with the steep sloping roofs and the sweet porches that wrap around the front part of the house. She lives there alone now, and every ache and groan that the old house has raises the hairs on the back of her neck.


    She sits in her living room in an old rocking chair as she sips a glass of red wine. Dr. Brighton''s living room has a small fireplace in the center that she lights to warm the house. The fire crinkles and cracks as sparks dance around the bricks.


    Beatrix finally takes a moment to breathe.


    She takes a deep sniff of her cabernet and swirls it around in the thin wine glass. The glass is part of a set that her father had gifted her when she bought her home in Robin. Her father, also a professor, has moved down to Baton Rouge, Louisiana where he teaches history at the Louisiana State University. Like his daughter he is kind, patient, and has bright green eyes that attract so many friends and students. They are inseparable for a very long time until they are not.


    Eventually fathers and daughters must leave each other to live their own lives. When Beatrix''s mother died five years ago, her father decided to leave their apartment in New York City for Baton Rouge. Baton Rouge is a bit like Robin in some ways – quiet, slow, and just a little too spooky.


    "I''m concerned about you," her father said one night on the phone. It was right after Beatrix''s mother, Sandra, had passed. Beatrix was in Paris chasing a former lover and enjoying everything the city had to offer. From the fine dining to the unsettling darkness of the catacombs. Beatrix was in Paris and didn''t really want to leave. She wasn''t working, she wasn''t doing much of all, really. Just studying and living. Trying her best to recover and take a break from her reality. After publishing her book, it had made Beatrix a nice little chunk of change so she didn''t really have to worry about working if she didn''t want to. She could just live and explore everything that the world had to offer.


    "I think you should come to New York," her father said. "Come to New York, you can work with me at Columbia and we can figure something out."


    "I don''t want to come to New York," Beatrix said. She sat on her small patio looking out over Rue De L''abreuvoir with a cigarette in hand and an espresso on the small table next to her. This was the life that she wanted to live. Not cramped in some shitty university talking to some students who could really care less about what she said – most of them just had a crush on her anyway… the boys and girls – but they were really just infatuated with her for whatever reason.


    "Please, Bea," her father pleaded.


    Beatrix let out a little laugh. She loved her father, but he was wrong. "Dad, you don''t even want to be in New York right now. You''d rather be anywhere else."


    "I''d love to be in Paris, that''s for sure."


    Beatrix smiled. "Then come, Dad. You''d love it there''s so much history here you would be a kid in a candy shop!"


    Her father sighed. "Unfortunately, I have to work. And I worry when you don''t."


    "You don''t have to worry about me, I am interested in other things at the moment."


    "Like what? Dungeons and dragons? Aliens? What''s still on the table that you haven''t uncovered yet?"


    Beatrix sighed and sat up in her seat. She loved her father, but he wanted her to be a History professor and Demonology was not of his interests. "Okay, time for me to go."


    "Bea – I''m sorry."


    "Look, I am happy and doing what I love. Just leave me alone."


    Beatrix headed to Robin shortly after her Parisian conversation with her father. Once it didn''t work out with that particular Parisian lover, Beatrix packed her bags and left in a hurry. She was on the next flight to Boston, the center of academia, to find a new job. Her colleague from Oxford told her about the opening at Robin State College and with Beatrix''s credentials – she got the job almost immediately.


    She has called this house her home ever since. Beatrix likes it, enough, but she can''t stand being alone. She can''t stand the house being so empty and so quiet. That is the worst thing about living in New England – alone. You are really really really alone. When the house creaks, you look over your shoulder. When the floorboards ache, your stomach turns. And when it is dark – it is too dark.


    Beatrix does not want to be alone.


    Not anymore.


    A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Not with everything that''s been going on.


    With a knot in her stomach she gets up from her rocking chair with her glass of wine in her hand and walks into the kitchen. On the wall, next to the refrigerator is the phone. She picks it up slowly, gripping it tightly. Beatrix does not want to make the call, but she also doesn''t want to be alone in this scary godawful town alone. Not right now.


    She dials the number while biting her lip.


    It isn''t fair for her to call him and it isn''t fair for him to come but she knows he will anyway and while that makes her sick to her stomach, he has a similar problem. He knows she will call and that he will be happy to go over and help her with whatever she needs.


    In any other story, this would be a love story and both Beatrix and Scott would be together and live happily ever after. This is not this story, unfortunately, because Beatrix is, most likely, very gay. And they both know it. And neither of them, at this particular time in their lives, really gives two shits about it. They are both in their late thirties and they are both tired of dating. Not that they are dating, to them, they are just very, very, very close friends who fight a lot and miss each other a lot and think about each other a lot, but they are not and would never be dating.


    On one hand, Beatrix hates to call Scott. She feels like she is manipulating him, needing attention even though she knows she will never and could never be with him.


    On the other hand, Scott wants the attention and he wants to help his friend. Does he love her? Of course. Does he want to be with her? Of course.


    But they both know very well that it will never work out.


    He stands at her door on the porch with a Red Sox hat on and a Carhartt jacket. Scott Jensen is everything that Beatrix isn''t. He is simple. While Beatrix chases adventure and intellect around every corner, Scott strives for simplicity. He wears one outfit every day: a pair of jeans, a tee shirt, and a baseball hat. Short sandy blonde hair peeks out from the brim of his hat falling just above his eyebrows. His bright blue eyes dance under the light of her porch.


    "Hey there," he says smiling as she opens the door. He holds a bottle of cabernet in one hand and raises it with a toothy grin. While Scott might not necessarily have the best taste in fashion… he does have a great taste in wine. Growing up in Robin, his father was the director of the funeral home and his mother was a sommelier from Boston. After passing away from breast cancer ten years ago, she passed down her love of great wine to Scott. It is hard to come by in New Hampshire, but every few months, Scott drives down to his mother''s favorite wine shop on Broadway in Cambridge and stocks up for a few months. Lucille''s Wine – they have everything: Tanants from Uruguay, Nebbiolos from Baja, Assyrtikos from Greece. It is Scott''s little slice of the world.


    It''s how the two of them met. Scott is a plumber by day and a wine bar owner by night. He owns a small shop on Main Street that he names after his mother: Meryl''s. It only sits about fifteen people and is only open from 5 to 9 every night, but it attracts a small crowd of locals and professors. When Beatrix first moved to Robin, she would go into Meryl''s to read her book. After she had come in twice, Scott couldn''t help but say hello. He desired to know Beatrix Brighton.


    "Come in. Come in," Beatrix says as she ushers him in. They walk into the house and into the living room. She pours him a glass of wine and he sits on her couch across from the rocking chair. Scott is a kind, sweet man who never wants to overstep her boundaries. More than he wants to be with Beatrix, he wants her to trust him.


    He takes a sip of his wine, "This is really nice, what is this?"


    Beatrix laughs. "Honestly, nothing fancy. Just a cab."


    He laughs and takes off his hat, "That will do." He looks across the room at his friend who he has looked at so many times before. She looks paler, thinner, and dark circles hang under her eyes. "So… I have to ask. Are you okay?"


    Beatrix shifts in her seat. "Of course I''m okay. Why would you ask that?"


    Scott looks down at his watch. "Because you called me at ten o''clock at night."


    Beatrix shifts in her seat and looks down at her wine glass. "Honestly, this house just feels very, very empty tonight."


    He nods and takes a sip of his wine. "I hear that. Things have been a bit weird lately."


    "You think so too?"


    "Yeah I mean, the death of that kid really has folks on edge. I''ve had two employees quit in one week. That''s never happened. Had a kid who was working with me who was right out of trade school, called me up, cussed me out, and then quit. Then I had another from the wine bar snap on a customer and we got into it and then I had to let her go. People are just very on edge lately."


    Beatrix nods and bites her lip as she lets her mind wander. With Scott, she has always kept things pretty surface level. She never tells him about her background or her specialties or anything like that. Sure, he makes a few remarks about the odd artifacts in her classroom and the strange books on her bookshelf, but to Scott she is just a beautiful and quirky history professor with a few unexplainable interests.


    But Beatrix can''t help it.


    She wants to tell Scott.


    She wants to tell him everything.


    Her stomach twists and turns as he tells her about his week and the mundane things that happen while he''s out on jobs or at the wine bar. Beatrix can''t stop her mind from racing: what would he think when she tells him? How would he act? Could she even tell him?


    If she did, she would be breaking all her own rules. Whenever Beatrix shares with anyone what she believes in and what she specializes in, she never receives a good reaction.


    Occultist.


    Satan sympathizer.


    No matter how she tries to explain it, the human brain just can''t grasp that the world isn''t all sunshine and rainbows. There are demonic forces in our world that seek to cause harm. It isn''t Beatrix''s fault for knowing that, though many blame her for it. Beatrix after all isn''t a Satanist or an occultist, in fact she considers herself to be a Christian. How could one see so much evil and not believe in good?


    "Are you listening, B?" Scott says, sitting up on the couch. "Why invite me over to talk if you''re just going to zone out?"


    Beatrix snaps back into reality. "Yup. Sorry. I just have a lot on my mind."


    "Yeah, I mean me too, we have Pumpkin Fest coming up in just a few days and I am totally understaffed. The bar is going to be slammed and I have no one to work it. You think any of your students are looking for a little part time gig? Even just for the weekend?"


    "I don''t think so," Beatrix says quietly.


    "Aw, come on, can you ask?"


    "Um… sure."


    It is times like these when Beatrix hates herself a bit. She hates herself for putting herself in this position. Being alone in a big New England house not only gets lonely but it gets scary, even for a demonologist. Especially for a demonologist! And it is times like these that when Beatrix invites Scott over, she almost immediately wants him to leave. Deep down she knows that he isn''t right for her but his presence is the only thing that gives her comfort.


    "Do you think you could work a few shifts? At the bar? And help me out?" Scott asks as he leans forward off the couch. He rests his wine glass on the coffee table and he folds hands together.


    "Me?" Beatrix laughs.


    "Yes, you know tons about wine, you have great taste and I trust you. It would be a huge help for me, Bea," Scott says. His eyes glisten from the reflection of the fire flickering.


    "I''m sorry, Scott, but I can''t. I''m not going to Pumpkin Fest this year."


    Scott frowns and furls his eyebrows in disbelief. "What do you mean you''re not going to Pumpkin Fest this year?"


    "I mean I''m not going."


    "Why? You have to go. Everyone goes," Scott says as he scratches his head. He adjusts his shirt collar and begins to fidget with his hands. "Why would you even say that, Bea?"


    "Because I don''t want to go, Scott. It''s not that hard. I just don''t want to go!" Beatrix is raising her voice now. Sometimes Scott can be so pushy and demanding.


    "Well, I want you to go."


    "And I want a billion dollars but I don''t see that in my future," says Beatrix. She bites her tongue, trying so hard to hold her poise, trying so hard not to kick Scott out. She is the one who wants him here in the first place and now she deeply regrets it.


    "Look Beatrix, you call me here, you come by the bar, you''re constantly asking me for favors. The minute I ask you for one it becomes a problem, huh," Scott says as he picks up his wine glass. He throws the rest of the wine back down his throat like a shot and slams the wine glass down on the coffee table with a loud whack sending broken glass rocketing in all directions.


    "Jesus, Scott!" Beatrix says as she jumps up from the rocking chair. "Why would you do that?"


    "Because I''m tired of your bull shit, Bea," Scott says as he stands up from his seat. His hand is bleeding but he is so crazed and so irritated that he doesn''t seem to care. "Why can''t you just help me with one thing? I don''t ask you for anything. Ever. I leave you alone when you want to be left alone and I come when you want me. I don''t ask you for shit!"


    Beatrix freezes. She knows exactly what is happening. And she doesn''t want to believe it.


    Scott continues on, "How many years have I known you, Bea and how much have you relied on me while I get nothing in return? Nothing except your presence."


    As Scott begins to pace, stomping across the floor in his thick boots, Beatrix springs into action. She walks up to the big tall windows and begins pulling down the blinds of each of the windows in the big living room. She doesn''t look to see if there is a creature looking at them from outside. She doesn''t want to know. The only thing worse than Scott being influenced by an imp would be if he wasn''t!


    "You use me Beatrix! You FUCKING USE ME!" he yells. He picks up the bottle of wine on the coffee table by the narrowest part of the bottle and smashes it down on the coffee table, sending glass and red wine splattering across the living room. "You''re NOT LISTENING TO ME!"


    There are four windows in the living room. Beatrix always keeps the blinds up – they are a pain to take down anyway. They have old, worn strings that frequently get tangled or jammed, making it impossible for the blinds to fall. While Scott rages, she is able to get two of them down, but the other two windows sit wide open. As Beatrix rushes to the other side of the room, Scott walks towards her, his eyes are bloodshot and his eyes almost glow. The veins in his neck are raised, pulsing with fire and fury.


    "Scott, back up," Beatrix says as she holds up her hand. She begins to slowly back up towards the far side of the living room where the two remaining windows sit. All she has to do is close the windows. And hopefully, if Scott is being influenced by the imp, he will stop.


    Unless it is in the house with them.


    Then, Beatrix will need another plan.


    "What do you think, I''m going to hurt you? Are you THAT fucking ridiculous?" Scott spits. He is closing in on Beatrix now, she can feel his heavy angry breaths which get faster with each step.


    "Scott, relax. This is not you," Beatrix says as she backs up slowly. She can feel the cord of the blinds with her fingers and she pulls it down quickly. The set of blinds comes falling and crashing down quickly behind her, closing one of the windows.


    There is only one left and her back is pressed up against the wall. She slides to the left, trying to feel around for the second cord. She can''t turn her back. She isn''t sure what Scott will do if she does.


    "Scott, what do you want from me?" Beatrix yells. "If you want me to work the bar, I''ll work the bar. Fine! There! See! I''ll do whatever you want."


    "I want YOU," he yells. As Scott extends his hands to grab Beatrix, she raises her leg and kicks him hard in the stomach, causing him to stumble backwards.


    Beatrix quickly turns to the window, finds the worn white cords, and pulls it down with as much force as she can, causing the white blinds to fall in front of the red demon with its bright yellow eyes who is looking in the window.


    As soon as the blinds fall, Scott collapses to the floor hitting his forehead with a loud clunk. His head splits open on the old wood floor and begins to bleed.


    Stunned, Beatrix kneels on the ground slowly to examine her friend as a part of her finally feels relief. Not just because Scott is incapacitated but because her sweet friend and confidant isn''t a monster. He is just under the influence of something very pervasive and very evil. Beatrix puts her fingers up to his neck. He has a pulse. He is breathing. A tear falls from Beatrix''s eye as she realizes once again that she should have never asked him to come.