Brush With Death: Ride With a Serial Killer

It was a dismal, rainy night in Autumn of '78. My buddy Bob and I
had enjoyed a couple of beers and a game of pool at a little
"hole-in-the-wall" west of Daytona that my uncle tended bar at.

In actuality, "tending bar" was a pretty glamorous term for serving
canned or bottled beer, hot sausages, and pickled eggs. "Gabe's Place"
was small, old, dirty; and at some point during the night you could be
sure of hearing "Red Necks, White Socks, &; Blue Ribbon Beer"
cranking from the juke-box.

I had learned to shoot pool at the place... actually, my uncle had
attempted to teach me. I play a pretty good game until I start to
think; then I might as well use a rake-handle as a pool-cue! Bob just
liked to hang and drink and since I had a car and he didn't at the
tender age of 18, he chose to ride shot-gun with me... and sometimes
he'd spring for my beer and throw a couple of bucks into the gas
tank... so it was cool with me.

And so on this night we cruised along the wet-asphalt in my '69 Buick
Electra... the windshield wipers beating in an a staccato rhythm while
Nazareth's "Hair of the Dog" blared from my car stereo...

*****

On the night in question, as I said, it was raining. Not a torrential
downpour by any stretch of the imagination; this was the kind of slow
and steady rain that settles in for the night and will soak you to the
bone... We were driving east on US92, nearing the on-ramp for the
beginning of I-4 when we saw her.

She was standing beside the road; looking more like a drenched rat than
a babe... and though even back then I was cautious about picking up
hitch-hikers I figured "What the hell?" I mean, it was rainy, she was
one girl and if worse had come to worse, I figured Bob and I could
handle her... As my friend climbed from "shotgun" and into the back
seat, the girl slid into the passenger seat next to me...

She was an odd one... quiet, aside from a thank you for the ride and
asking if we'd mind taking her all the way to A1A; where US92 ends at
the Atlantic Ocean. Since we were planning to go to US1, which was
little more that two miles short of A1A; I agreed to the extra
distance.

Sitting quietly, apparently lost in thought as we rode, the woman
looked to be just a bit older than Bob and I. I was guessing 23...
maybe 25... I was 19 at the time and as I mentioned, Bob was 18...
being a young guy I was considering the possibilities... "older" woman,
younger guy... and yeah, maybe even the "two guys pick up female
hitch-hiker" type scenario crossed my mind...

But in the end, I was nothing more than a good Samaritan and I steered
my car on through downtown Daytona traffic, crossed the Halifax River,
and drove onto the beach ramp on the east side of A1A.

The girl climbed from the car; slung her purse over her shoulder and
leaned back into the door... Her still-damp dark hair clung to her face
as she once more thanked me for the ride...

Bob climbed back into the front seat and we watched our passenger walk
up to one of the beachside hotels; her wet clothes clinging to the
curves of her body...

"Damn," I muttered as I watched her.

"What you thinking?" Bob asked.

"I don't really know," I confessed, "I feel like we missed
something..."

"Yeah," Bob said, "I didn't like the feel... I'm glad she's
gone..."

*****

It was a number of years before I gave that night a second thought. It
was just a matter of doing a good deed... heightened by the hint of
danger... then one day I realized just how much of a hint there might
have been... just how close to being a part of history Bob and I had
found ourselves...

I was watching the news one night when the story broke... a serial
killer had been caught... her name was Eileen Wournous... and when I
saw her picture, I flashed back to that night... and I knew down to my
very soul that she was the passenger Bob and I had given the ride
to...

What had happened after that night? Her killing spree had not happened
until a few years later; but her story has always been that she had
been raped several times while hitch-hiking and/or while
prostituting... At some point she snapped and began to extract a
terrible toll on the men she considered her tormentors...

I haven't seen Bob for many years; and I can't say conclusively that we
had Eileen in my car... But like I said, when I saw her picture it
seemed to trigger that memory... and the news reported that when in
Daytona, Wournous had turned her tricks from a hotel in the area where
Bob and I had dropped our passenger off...

So I wonder sometimes... were Bob and I lucky? Or did we perhaps fail
at some chance of intervention in a life that would soon go totally out
of control? What if we had caved to our own dark impulses... as
apparently numerous other men did? Would we have accelerated her
descent into madness with our evil or could we have saved her... and
her victims... from her madness with our good?

It's one of the mysteries of life that can never be explained... a
nagging question that will never be answered... and always pondered...
especially when there is a steady rain on the highway and a lonely
woman stands, soaking wet, with thumb outstretched in hopes for a haven
from the storm...