Mrs. Barthelme's Madness

When Rachel Barthelme has a car accident one Halloween night in which she believes her car hits a young child, a group of frighteningly masked youths surround her, including a girl who shouts to her that she has killed her brother. Frightened by their hideous visages and believing they are out to harm her, she flees the scene of the accident and runs for her life, calling the police the minute she gets home.The problem is that the police fail to turn up any such victim. Rachel, however, remains convinced that this occurred, despite no evidence to support her assertion. With her marriage failing and her ambitious husband believing that she is losing her mind, Rachel begins to question her own sanity. Complicating matters further is her new born baby, who keeps her tethered to her loveless marriage. As her teenage children become friends with two teens with strange ideas that give her the willies, she finds that something about each of them seems strangely familiar in an unpleasant way. She also finds herself reliving the accident, as she continues to find herself haunted by brief glimpses of those youths she believed to have been there. It is as if they were stalking her. Moreover, Rachel seems to be falling in love with a police lieutenant, Sam Lomax, who is investigating the matter of the accident and seems to be the only person really listening to her. This is a suspenseful, well written work of fiction, with enough twists and turns to keep the reader guessing.