“Backseat Driver” is his first professional sale.
Backseat Driver
by Cory
Cramer
The garage
door shouldn’t be open, Karen thought
as she stepped outside into a frigid Iowa winter. Irritated
by her husband Cole’s lack of responsibility, she shook her
head, figuring the door had been up since he left for work
at the prison over five hours ago.
“Might as well not even have a garage,” she said
while
closing her home’s side
door a little harder than normal, taking some of her
frustration out on it
before she
locked up.
Reluctantly, Karen inhaled the sub-zero
air
and
let out a sigh. Her breath hovered in front of her, just
another reminder of how cold the garage was. With
chattering teeth, she climbed into her Tahoe and pulled the
door shut. She nestled her insulated coffee mug into the
cup holder. Steam ascended through the tiny drinking hole,
condensed on the inside of the windshield and froze there,
leaving a light frost on the underside of the glass.
The engine was slow to turn over, but eventually rumbled to
life. The new SUV took longer to warm up than her old
Civic, but she loved the Tahoe’s four-wheel-drive on icy
commutes like this one. Plus, now she didn’t have to listen
to Cole refer to her car as a rice-burner or
Nagasaki-nut-buster anymore. Nope, now she drove good ole
American muscle. Who cared about the extra twenty dollars a
week it guzzled in fuel?
Karen flipped on her headlights, then backed into the
street, making sure she
shut the garage
door before pulling away. It was three in the morning and
she still had a fifty-minute
drive to her bakery in Ashtenburg.
The radio was pre-tuned to her favorite station. It was the
top of the hour and the overnight disc jockey was reading
the news:
Once again,
we have just received word that a prisoner has escaped from
the Fort Barton penitentiary. The fugitive, thirty-two year
old Phillip Conco, was convicted for the murder of his
girlfriend in 1998. He is described as a Caucasian with
dark brown hair and a small build. Police say he had no
known transportation,
and no winter clothing. They expect he will be seeking
shelter somewhere in
the vicinity of Fort Barton. Authorities are asking
citizens to be on the lookout for any suspicious activity.
Conco is considered armed and dangerous, and should not be
confronted. Please call police immediately if you believe
you know his whereabouts.
Karen snatched
her cell phone from the center console, flipped it open,
and hit speed-dial number one. The phone began to ring on
the other end. She squeezed the cell between her shoulder
and neck, freeing her hand so she could turn off the radio.
Ice crunched loudly under the tires as she pulled onto the
road to Ashtenburg and increased her speed.
Cole picked up on the sixth ring. “I thought I told you not
to call me at work.”
“Yeah, well, I heard about the break-out on the radio and I
was calling to make sure you were all right. Sorry I
cared.” Karen flipped her phone shut, then tossed it in the
passenger seat.
She slowed down for the intersection at Highway 119,
eventually coming to a halt under the amber streetlights of
the two-way stop. She checked both ways. The coast was
clear. As she accelerated back up to speed, something in
the rearview mirror caught her eye. It was a shadow, cast
on the interior ceiling behind the cargo light. It looked
like something…fuzzy.
What do I
have in the back that could make a shadow like
that? She stared for
a second longer, but continued to accelerate until the
lights at the intersection were too far away to cast the
shadow anymore. It had
looked like…fur. No, not fur. Hair? Yes, frizzy tufts of
human hair! But that’s ridiculous. How could someone be
back there? Her heart
jolted to life
as adrenaline turned every inch of her skin
clammy. The fucking
garage door! Anyone could have climbed back there before I
left the house.
Her lungs
seized and her hands trembled. She stared into the mirror,
searching for movement in the cargo area. Everything seemed
still, but the back seats obscured a large portion of her
view. She listened for noise. All she heard was the hum of
her all-season tires.
Slowly, Karen
let out the breath she had been holding in. The tendons in
her neck relaxed a bit, and her vice-like grip on the
steering wheel eased. A cigarette. She wanted a cigarette,
but she’d quit at the first of the year. It was the only
resolution she had managed to keep. Without any smokes, she
reached for the next best thing—her coffee.
As she was lifting her insulated mug from its
holder,
a voice blared out an order:
Stop!
She shrieked
and dropped her mug.
In the name
of love…
The ringtone
was earsplitting.
The Tahoe swerved left. Karen slapped both hands back on
the wheel and spun it to the right. She overcorrected a
bit. The SUV fishtailed in response. She turned back to the
left just in time, narrowly escaping a rollover.
Before you
break my heart…
The passenger’s
side tires were now plowing through the snow on the
shoulder. Karen eased back onto the road, then snatched her
phone up and flipped it open.
“Just hold on a second,” she snapped.
With both eyes fixed on the road and one hand on the wheel
Karen fished around on the floor for her spilled coffee
mug. Her fingers found the handle and she returned
it
to its holder before grabbing her phone from
her lap.
“What is it?”
“Sheesh. No need to yell. I just called to apologize.
Thought I’d given you enough time to cool down, but—” Cole
said.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m just a little jumpy,” she said.
“I take it you’re okay? I heard about the break-out.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. None of the guards were hurt, but some of
us are going to have hell to pay. They might even try to
blame me and Mitch for the whole thing. I was getting a
good bitch-out from the boss when you called. That’s why I
snapped.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear you’re okay, but you left the
garage door up and my truck was freezing so you’re still on
my shit-list.”
Headlights appeared down the road and Karen concentrated a
little more on her driving. It was only a two-lane highway
and she wanted to make sure to give the oncoming car a wide
berth.
“Garage door? I’m pretty sure I put it down,” Cole said.
“Well, you didn’t. Because when I—” Karen cut herself off.
What if he
really is in here? If so, he
can hear me. She glanced
nervously into the mirror again,
only to see the
taillights of the car she’d
just met heading in the opposite direction.
“It was almost all the way down when I pulled away, but I
suppose something could have gotten underneath the door
before it hit the bottom and the safety sensor could have
stopped it. Maybe a raccoon or something.”
If he
thinks I’m on to him, who knows what he’ll do to me?
“Okay, honey.
Sorry I bothered—”
THUMP.
“—you.”
Did that
come from the back?
Jesus, Karen, get a hold of yourself. Probably just ran
over a chunk of ice. Haven’t even been watching the
road.
“It’s alright hun. I’ve got to go though, okay?” Cole said.
“Okay…” Her voice trailed off and she shut her phone, eyes
still fixed in the mirror.
No one is
back there. You’re just imagining things. Let it go and get
to work. You have two hundred cinnamon rolls to make this
morning.
To her right,
Karen could see the light pollution from Fort Barton
penitentiary. It was set back a full mile or two from the
highway, but it was casting as much light into the night
sky as a small town and couldn’t be missed from the
highway. This morning it was even brighter,
no
doubt because of the escapee.
Headlights were closing in from behind. The frizzy-haired
shadow appeared again.
Shit!
She had to let
Cole know what was going on. Maybe she was overreacting,
but figuring it was better to be safe than sorry she
discreetly opened her phone in her lap. Shielding it from
any possible onlooker in the back, she began her text
message.
I THINK SOMEONE IS—
The car behind her was gaining ground. Karen slowed up
slightly. Maybe if there was a witness the guy in back
wouldn’t make a move. She paused her text message for a few
moments, waiting for the approaching car to get closer.
As the vehicle behind her approached, she
saw
it
was
a
police car. A sheriff’s car to be exact.
Thank you,
thank you, thank you, Lord.
It almost
had
to
be
Barry
Henderson,
the
sheriff.
He
lived
just two houses
down from her. He must have gotten called out to look for
the murderer. Karen tried to
think of some way she could get his attention
without the man in her cargo hold noticing.
Maybe if I
could get pulled over for something?
Yeah. Get
pulled over and then as soon as the car stops, jump out
before the guy in back has time to take me
hostage.
Feeling it was her only option, Karen gently added pressure
to the gas pedal, slowly increasing her speed so she would
only draw the attention of the sheriff and not her
passenger.
Ten miles per hour over; then fifteen…
She held steady, wondering why the lights hadn’t started
flashing behind her yet. Any time now, she thought.
Then, with her eyes still fixed on the mirror, she very
discreetly pushed the release button on her safety belt,
and let it creep across her body until she was free from
its constraint.
Why isn’t
he pulling me over?
Probably because he isn’t looking for
speeders, Karen. He’s looking for the cold-blooded killer
in the back of your truck.
She was going
to need a worse offense than speeding to get pulled over.
Something horrible. Something that no officer of the law
could ignore.
Drunk
driving. That’s it. Perfect time of night for it,
too.
Karen veered into the other lane, then gently eased back
across the centerline. She watched
the
mirrors, waiting for the cherries to come to life on top of
the squad car any second.
Nothing.
Time was running out. The man in the back had to be getting
suspicious by now. Desperate, Karen swerved into the other
lane again, this time sending all four tires over the
centerline. She stayed there, determined not to leave until
the sheriff pulled her over.
She looked forward and saw a car with no lights on.
The vehicles hit head-on. Karen flew forward. The airbag
deployed, breaking her nose but saving her skull. Her
momentum carried her upward. She smashed her head against
the roof of the Tahoe. A sharp crack in her neck was the
last thing she felt.
The Tahoe flipped and rolled onto its top, busting out the
side windows. Karen’s lifeless body was tossed from one end
of the SUV to the other as if she were no more
valuable than her coffee cup.
Her head and torso flopped out the broken passenger side
window on the final roll. When the Tahoe came down, it
trapped her underneath. The SUV skidded down the icy
highway on its side, first crushing, then smearing Karen’s
remains along a forty yard stretch of road.
***
In Barry Henderson’s fifteen years as sheriff, he’d pulled
a lot of dead bodies from the wreckage of automobile
accidents. It never got any easier. Especially when it’s
your neighbor’s body you’re pulling. Especially when you
watched her die.
And that
was
a cakewalk compared to notifying the relatives. Even worse
was when they had
to identify the body. Barry wished he could have done the
ID himself, and spared Cole the miserable job. It was
Karen’s Tahoe. Barry knew that. But the body, and
especially the face, was so mangled and distorted he could
barely say for sure it was a person, much less a specific
person. When it came to stuff like this you had to
be sure.
That meant Cole had to do the job.
Barry had never liked tattoos, but the little
dancing bear above Karen’s ankle turned
out to be a blessing. Not that it spared Cole much grief.
When Barry broke the news to him Cole started crying,
mumbling to himself that it was all his fault. It wasn’t of
course, but Cole was admitted to the psych ward at the
hospital anyway. He’d likely spend a day or two there
before being released, Prozac in hand.
At least it was all over now. Barry was nearly
home.
He listened to the radio, waiting to hear
how
badly the reporters had butchered his carefully prepared
statement about the accident.
Barry
knew he’d be upset if they did a poor job, but he secretly
wanted to be pissed off at
someone and he figured reporters were as good a target as
any. The radio finally got around to saying:
At
approximately 3:25 this morning, an SUV driven by Mrs.
Karen Benedict was traveling east on Highway 21 when it
crossed the centerline and collided head-on with a vehicle
driven by Philip Conco. Conco had escaped from Fort Barton
penitentiary earlier in the morning and was wanted by
police. It appears Conco was traveling westbound in a
stolen car and did not have his headlights on, when
Benedict fell asleep at the wheel and veered into his lane.
The drivers of both vehicles were pronounced dead at the
scene of the accident.
The
sheriff turned off the radio and tried to remember if he
still had that bottle of Jack in his liquor cabinet.
A
few blocks later, he turned into
his driveway and wondered why the hell his garage door was
up. He pulled the squad car into his garage and hit the
button on his new electronic
opener.
His door ratcheted closed. Two houses down, at the
Benedicts, the garage door began to
open.
Copyright 2007 by Cory Cramer