CHANCE HAPPENINGS

PROLOGUE

“Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,” the voice sang, slightly off-tenor and a flicker off-key.  “Mama’s going to buy you a mockingbird.”

Who are you?  What’s happened to my body?  Caroline demanded silently, because her lips wouldn’t move whatsoever; she couldn’t get her vocal cords to even let loose with a gurgle, let alone anything resembling coherent speech.  She’d just come home to her and Dan’s modest four-room apartment after an afternoon session at the tanning salon a while before, and had been riffling through her mail when she felt an odd prick at the nape of her neck.   And then, she couldn’t move any part of herself.  It was as though an instant paralysis had gripped her in a steely hand.

And since that time, she’d just been standing there frozen like a display window figure, her eyes open with surprise and the beginnings of an ‘O’ on her lips.  It was the oddest sensation—she still could tell she had a sense of touch, but she couldn’t even manage to blink.  Air circulation rustled her short skirt, blew strands of her blonde hair across her vision, played across her skin through the open top button of her white blouse.  Her frozen pose allowed her to see the light wind’s source: the open patio window; she hadn’t noticed it until it was too late.  Even if she had noticed it, she wasn’t sure what she would make of it.  She and her current boyfriend lived on the fifth floor of a high-rise.

Why can’t I move?  She demanded again, silently, although by this point her demands were becoming less forceful and a lot more desperate.  What did you do to me?

The voice didn’t answer, and she wasn’t sure that it would have answered if she could have coaxed her voice into working somehow.  It had mostly been silent the entire time she’d been standing there mute and frozen, here and there raising itself in almost a singsong manner just when she thought whomever it was had gone. 

It was closer now, when it rose again.  She could feel wet, heated breath on the back of her neck, even if she couldn’t move it to see who it was.

“And if that mocking bird won’t sing, Mama’s going to buy you a diamond ring.”

It then dropped back into a soft hum.  The voice was higher-pitched, almost youthful... there was almost something familiar about it, something she couldn’t quite place.  The voice almost cracked as its owner sang, and then after it dipped back into the singsong humming, the voice was followed by hands gripping her arm and her waist from behind her… and then one hand moved over and began to pluck at the buttons to her blouse, one at a time, revealing more of her skin to the open air.

What are you doing?  Oh God, please don’t rape me!  There’s money here, I swear!  Not much, but take whatever you want!  The DVD player, the computer, the car… hell, the keys are in my purse!  Caroline thought frantically as the man paid no heed, and instead merely finished up peeling the blouse from her arms, and out of the periphery she saw the flash of white as it was tossed away without care.

Her skirt came next, and she could hear the tearing of the fabric as it was ripped from her as well and the coolness of the air on her bared thighs, as she was left clad in only her underwear.  And still her assailant hadn’t moved around her.  The voice mocked her again.  He maneuvered her legs to take off each sandal and leave her barefoot

“Soon now…  If that diamond ring turns brass, Mama’s going to buy you a looking glass.”

Stop it!  God, stop it, you freak!!  Caroline screeched mentally.  She felt her bra being unhooked, her tanned breasts only moving enough to fill out from their confinement as the thin straps were slid off her arms.  She felt the heat rise to her face, and distantly wondered if it was possible to blush when she could seem to do nothing else.  She felt something cold press against her hip, and then her panties were slit away, and Caroline had never been more mortified and terrified at the same time in her life.

And then the hands grew more insistent as they touched her, she could feel herself being manipulated, posed.  Her sunblessed, toned legs were forced slightly apart, one hand positioned on her thighs delicately, her pink painted nails almost just touching the bare flesh, seductively.  The hands roughly grasped her hips and moved them until her rear was thrust back in a cheesecake manner, all with no regard for her decency. 

Please!  She begged mentally.  Why couldn’t Dan come home right now?  Why couldn’t one of her nosey neighbors knock on the door?  Why couldn’t she move?  Why is this happening to me?!

And then her captor moved around her, into her field of view, and if her eyes could possibly have widened, they would have.

You?!  But... but...

Her assailant continued to hum, a singsong hum that Caroline thought sounded almost the slightest bit unhinged.  And then the hands moved her other arm and her hand, cupping them around one rounded breast, as though displaying it to the world as if it were on sale.  Satisfied, the hands then pushed her chin upward and the rough fingertips even squeezed her cheeks to purse her lips into a kiss.

And then they let go.  Caroline almost sagged in relief, despite the way she’d been handled.  At least thus far, even if she’d been humiliated, her captor had almost taken pains not to touch her in an overly risqué manner.  But even if it had been years, she knew who’d been touching her, knew it with every fiber of her being.  I must be delusional!  It’s been high school since I saw—

And then there was a hiss, and the pain shot through her, and all her thoughts flashed to the liquid fire engulfing her bare back.

The voice started again, and through the haze of pain, Caroline realized now that the voice definitely sounded unhinged, perhaps even past that, to outright insane, as it sung to her.  Her assailant moved around her, brandishing a heavy-duty spraygun that reminded her of the power-painter Dan had in storage. 

A thin, worn smile glistened on her captor’s angular face.  “And if that looking glass gets old, Mama’s going to turn you into gold.”

No!  Caroline shrieked mentally, and then she saw a small spritz of smoky spray coming at her from the nozzle, and just like her back, it felt like her front side was on fire, like her blood had been turned to acid. 

The human mind only has so much tolerance for pain, especially when it is completely unused to hardship.  At that point, Caroline’s mind just blacked out.

¬R¬

The assailant shut off the valve and smiled at the masterwork that was being created in the living room.  Already the specialized solution was doing its work on poor, unlamented Caroline.  Her tanned, fit stomach was already lightening in shade, the skin was gaining the hardness and luster of solid gold.  A couple small spritzes were all it took; the solution was not only conductive but remarkably fast.

Caroline likely wasn’t feeling anything anymore... but her transformation, like the others, was a wonder to behold.  The gold crept upward over her breasts, until she was displaying one golden orb with a hand that was becoming the same metal.  It also flowed downward into the delicately shaped curls of her pubic hair, leaving a golden bouquet of wiry strands in its wake, and began to seep down her thighs, capturing the play of her muscles perfectly.

Already Caroline’s blonde hair was beginning to take on a much richer, golden hue, and from there the gold swept over her face, stealing the color from her eyes and leaving empty pools of glistening metal.  It curled around her cheekbones and over her upturned nose, and then over the pursed lips.

At that point, the assailant turned.  Two more, and the job would be completely finished.  And all it would take was what doomed Caroline... a specially coated dart to render the victims unmoving and yet pliable, and then, the Golden Shell. 

That was a misnomer.  But oh, well.  It’s not like the name of the stuff had been advertised.  It was a liquid, kept under pressure by the firing sprayer, and it was likely more than just a slight bit dangerous.

A small chuckle escaped the assailant’s lips.  Slight bit?  Caroline would say that was an understatement.  It was a creation of alchemical genius.  Already the upper layers of her skin and the outer shell of her body would be transmuted by just a couple sprays of the solution.  But more than that, the solution was conductive... already it would be working its way further inward, until Caroline was no longer coated but a fully transmuted figure of pure, solid gold.  And gold, for all its preciousness, was still an extremely dense metal.  No need to hang around to watch what would happen.

“Goodbye, Caroline.  We won’t meet again,” said the same voice that taunted her earlier, as its owner made the way out the same door Caroline herself had walked into a few minutes before, leaving the apartment altogether.

And inside, the golden statue that was Caroline Reiner stood in its cheesecake pose, the sunlight through the open patio window glinting and glittering off her gilded curves and throwing reflections wildly around the room.  Her expression was immortalized in mid-kiss, just thrown off by the slight wideness of her eyes, and her golden hand remained fondling one round gold orb, the nipple just a nub on its crest.  For now, it was a golden shell around a still-living woman.  But that was changing far too quickly to help her now, making her all the more solid, all the more dense, all the more weighty.

And so even though no one moved inside her apartment, the floor of her living room slowly began to creak and moan.

¬R¬