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Brian could barely squeeze his next words out. “Oh, this is terrible. This is the worst news. I don’t know how to tell you this, Chris.”

Not understanding what the hell he was talking about, I asked him what the problem was.

“I don’t want to tell you this. This is horrible and I don’t know what to say.”

I started guessing what could be so bad that he couldn’t bear to tell me. The first thing that popped into my head was that Vince was going to go live on Raw and totally bury me. I’d just begun early negotiations for my return to the WWE and maybe for some reason I had pissed him off and he didn’t want me back. Was he going to go on the air and call me a piece of shit that would never work for his company again?

Midway through my thought, Brian dropped the hammer.

“Chris is dead.”

Chris is dead? Chris who? Chris Masters? Chris the Trainer? Chris the Writer?

“Chris who?”

“Chris Benoit,” Brian said, his voice cracking.

The world froze as I processed what I had just been told.

Chris Benoit was dead.

Did I know a Chris Benoit? The name sounded vaguely familiar; like someone from high school maybe? Someone I played rec hockey with?

The car behind me honked alerting me that the red light had turned green, snapping me out of my daze and bringing me back to reality.

“What do you mean, Brian?”

“He’s dead, Chris. I’m sorry.”

I let out an anguished groan and I could see my face contorted into a grotesque grimace in the rear-view mirror as I swerved down the road at a snail’s pace.

“What happened? What happened?” I was a broken record, but it was all I could say.

“Nobody knows what happened, but he’s dead. They’re all dead.”

They’re all dead? What was he talking about?

“What do you mean, they’re all dead? Who’s all dead?”

“Nancy and Daniel. They’re dead too.”

Those words pushed me over the edge and I had to pull over.

“Brian, I have to call you back,” I muttered as I started sobbing uncontrollably. I lost control of my faculties like Benoit had at Eddy’s funeral. I was moaning and my breath hitching as I tried to compose myself.

Ash, all of three years old, commented innocently from his car seat, “Daddy, you cry funny.”

I wiped my eyes and put on my brave face for my son’s sake, but I was tearing apart inside. I couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened to Chris and his entire family. How could they all be dead? Carbon monoxide poisoning? Food poisoning? Had someone murdered them? But despite all of the possible scenarios that were running through my head, I knew in my heart that something much worse had happened.

My gut feeling was Chris had killed them.

I chased the horrible thought out of my head and finally made it home. I wasn’t interested in talking to anybody; not even Jessica or especially John Laurinaitis, who kept calling my house until Jess told him that I wasn’t up to speaking to anyone.

Ironically, Raw that night had originally been slotted to feature a “funeral” for Mr. McMahon, who’d been “blown up” in a limo accident a few weeks earlier. The office told everybody to dress in black mourning clothes and the set was all decked out with flowers, with a choir, a priest, and a coffin set up in the middle of the ring.

There were going to be special guests eulogizing Vince, one of them being Bruce Campbell, Ash from the Evil Dead trilogy and the inspiration for my son’s name. Knowing I was a big fan, Campbell’s appearance was the funny news that Brian had originally called me about.

So when Vince called a talent meeting to inform everyone that Chris had died, the whole roster was already dressed for a full-service memorial.

The plans for the Raw interment were canceled and replaced by a Chris Benoit tribute show, a compilation of his greatest WWE matches (which might be the last time they’ll ever be aired on TV), along with heartfelt comments from his peers. Amid the kind words and valiant portrayals of Chris was a serious, more ambiguous comment from William Regal that chilled my blood. He said that Chris wasn’t quite the person everyone thought he was and there might be more to