Broken Shadows

by Tim Waggoner

  Enough stalling, she told herself. Let’s go.

  The key was already in the ignition. She reached for it, noting with satisfaction that her hands were steady, and turned it. The engine came quietly to life.

  Susan didn’t like driving at night, and she especially didn’t like backing out of their driveway, not when there weren’t any streetlights. But they were out of so many things—milk, orange juice, bread—that a grocery run couldn’t wait until tomorrow. Besides, her period had started a couple days early, and she needed tampons. She’d thought about asking Brian to go, but he’d landed a long-term gig subbing for a middle-school teacher on maternity leave, and he had papers to grade. So unless she wanted to bleed all over her clothes for the next twelve hours or so, she had to drive to the store whether it was night or not.

  She pressed her foot on the brake, then shifted the car into reverse. But she didn’t let off the brake. If Brian were here to see her hesitate, she knew what he’d say: Why don’t you just back into the driveway when you get home? That way you could pull out face-first when you leave again.

  And he’d be right, of course. That would be easier for her—much easier. But that was precisely why she didn’t do it. She was determined not to give in to her fear, no matter what. So she pulled in forwards when she got home and backed out when she left, regardless of how difficult it was.

  She gritted her teeth and slowly eased her foot off the brake. Their driveway sloped downward slightly, and the Civic began rolling backward. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel, and although the illumination from the porch light wasn’t enough to tell for certain, she knew her knuckles were turning white.

  Her mother telling her older brother to quit bouncing in the back seat. Her brother singing the lyrics to a song he’d learned in first grade music class. “I’m going to the zoo-zoo-zoo, how about you-you-you?” Her brother bouncing up and down in time with the song’s rhythm. Susan giggling at her funny brother.

  The Civic picked up speed, surely going no more than one or two miles per hour, but it felt to Susan as if the car were racing backward toward the street. She felt a surge of panic in her gut and she slammed her foot on the brake. Red light washed the driveway behind her as the car jerked to a halt.

  Mother yelling at them both to be quiet so she could concentrate. Their station wagon backing into the street, the sound of a car horn blaring, Mother screaming, her brother screaming, Susan screaming too, though she isn’t sure why. A jolt, as if a giant fist punches into the side of their car, the sound of crumpling metal, shattering glass, the world spinning round and around, and everyone still screaming, their voices merging into one sustained burst of pain and terror.

  Then the world is still again and Susan—little four-year-old Susan—is the only one screaming anymore.

  Susan’s face and neck were slick with sweat. She could feel it running down her sides and back, trickling between her breasts… Her breathing was rapid, and her heart felt like a small, frightened bird fluttering in her chest.

  Get a grip, girl. That was twenty-four years ago. Just because some drunken bastard in a pick-up slammed into your mother’s station wagon when she was backing out of the driveway doesn’t mean it will happen to you.

  Another thought whispered through her mind, a dark thought, and it was quickly followed by more. Doesn’t mean it won’t, either. Doesn’t mean anything, really, other than your mother and brother died and you didn’t. If that sonofabitch had been coming from the opposite direction, they would’ve lived and you would’ve died. Your death would’ve been just as meaningless as theirs.

  And her survival? Was it ultimately just as meaningless? It was a question that had haunted her all her life, long before she’d gained the ability to articulate it to herself. It was a question that she doubted she’d ever have an answer for—wasn’t sure she wanted answered.

  “Fuck.”

  She took her foot partway off the brake, closed her eyes, and let the car roll backward. When she felt the bump of the back wheels hitting the street, she opened her eyes and saw no headlights coming from either direction. It looked like she was going to survive another night.

  She let out a long sigh, finished backing into the street, put the car into drive, and headed for the grocery store at precisely twenty miles an hour.

  * * *

  The next day after work, while Brian graded yet another set of papers, Susan went outside to prepare the flower beds in the front. It was mid-April, and it would be time to start planting soon. Cookie whined to come with her, and Susan put on the dog’s harness and leash, and took her outside. She tied the end of the leash to an old tent stake and pushed it into the ground. Cookie gave Susan what she interpreted as a long-suffering look.

  “Don’t mope. You know you’re not allowed to run around the front yard. What if you ran into the street and got…” She trailed off, not wishing to complete the thought, almost as if by finishing it she risked making it come true. “Just be glad you’re outside where you can watch what’s going on and smell all sorts of interesting smells.”

  She turned and walked to the flower bed to the left of the porch and got to work removing dead flowers and weeds, dried leaves and other debris by hand, stuffing it all into a brown lawn waste bag. Occasionally, she glanced up, looking down the street in the direction the blue-black car always came from. It didn’t come every day, but when it did, it was always about the same time. She checked her watch. Right about now, as a matter of fact.

  It had been almost two months since she’d first seen the car roar down her street. It was February, and she had been out shoveling the driveway after a snowstorm. Only a few inches had been deposited, and given the forecast, there was a good chance it would melt off in the next couple days, but Susan figured she could use the exercise. Besides, she wanted to work off some steam. She and Brian had fought again last night over having children. Brian really wanted kids, but she wasn’t so sure. They were both in their late twenties, so it was a good time biologically to start, but Brian hadn’t found a full-time teaching job yet, and she only made so much as a bank teller. She wasn’t certain they were financially ready. Brian said that there was no such thing as the perfect time to have a baby, and if she insisted on waiting for one, they’d never have any children.

  There was another reason for Susan’s reluctance, however, one that she wasn’t comfortable sharing with her husband. She wasn’t confident that she could bring a child into a world where you could be killed simply for backing out of your driveway. Her mother had been thirty-three when she died; her brother only seven. What guarantee would Susan have that her child would live to reach adulthood? None, of course. There never had been any guarantees in this world and there never would. Most people ignored this simple but cruel fact of existence and got on with their lives. Or, if they couldn’t ignore it, they somehow found a way to make peace with it. Susan envied such people and wished she could be one of them. But she wasn’t, and so despite Brian’s desire to be, as he put it, “a real family,” she didn’t think she’d ever be able to have children.

  So she shoveled snow, putting her back into it, trying to toss away a bit more of her anger and frustration with every shovelful she cast aside.

  And that’s when the car came for the first time. Moving way too fast, engine making that strange high-pitched scratchy noise, twin trails of slush splashing in its wake.

  After seeing the car on a couple more occasions, Susan took to watching for it, and before long, she decided to do something about it. She called the police and complained, described the car to them, and demanded they step up patrols in her neighborhood. For several weeks, she did see police cars drive by more often, but of course, the car never came when the cops were around. She called and complained again, and this time a cruiser parked on her street for an entire afternoon, displaying a large SPEED LIMIT: 20 MPH sign next to another that said YOUR SPEED above a large liquid crystal readout. An officer stood with a radar gun, training it on e
very car that came by, their speed shown to all the world in large black numbers on a pale greenish background. Everyone slowed down as soon as they saw the cop, of course, but the blue-black car didn’t make an appearance that day, either.

  Susan had tried getting photos or video of the car to show the police, but it was moving so fast that they couldn’t identify the make and model, let alone the license plate number. The last time she’d taken a photo to the police station, she didn’t even get to speak to an officer, was asked instead to leave the picture with the receptionist, and she knew that she had become a nuisance as far as they were concerned, a crank to be humored and then ignored. That was the last time she bothered the police.

  After that, she’d tried to get a petition going to have speed bumps put in the neighborhood, but she got very few signatures, and more than a few people told her in quite rude terms what they thought of the idea before closing their doors in her face. She had a grand total of six signatures when she finally gave up on the petition.

  Now, out rooting around in the flower bed, she had a new plan. What she needed was the license plate number of the car—the police wouldn’t be able to ignore that—and the only way to get it was to be outside when the car came by, to get close enough to see the number and write it down. She had a small notepad and pen in her back pocket. Now all she needed was—

  She felt it before she heard it: a crawly feeling at the base of her skull that ran down her spine like a centipede with electric legs. Then the sound: fingernails on chalkboard, knife blade cutting glass, leathery tires rolling over asphalt.

  Susan dropped a handful of desiccated leaves and stood up. Calmly, she began walking down the driveway, removing the notepad and pen from her back pocket. Cookie began barking, a high-pitched yarf-yarf-yarf! but she ignored it. She was trying to focus, to prepare her mind to see the license plate, to register the numbers so she could record them. The car was moving fast, and she knew she’d only have a few seconds to get the numbers down before it roared off.

  She reached the end of the driveway, stopped, pen touching paper, ready to write.

  The car approached, a bruise-colored blur with an impenetrably dark windshield. Susan wondered how anyone could see through that glass, it was tinted so darkly. As the car drew closer, she had the impression that the glass wasn’t tinted at all, that it was clear and what she saw were thick, black shadows roiling and seething inside. Stop it, she told herself. Concentrate on getting those numbers.

  She trained her gaze on the front license plate, prepared to write, but then frowned. There were numbers there, she was sure of it, but they didn’t…look right. The figures were blood-red, and they seemed to swim in and out of focus. The harder she worked at seeing them, the more indistinct they became, almost as if they were changing shape as she watched.

  Cookie’s barking seemed to become louder, and it was accompanied by another sound now, the whissk-whissk-whissk of tiny paws moving through grass. She realized what had happened before turning to look: Cookie had pulled the stake up and was running this way, running toward the street…toward the car.

  She turned, dropping the notepad and pen as she did, and saw Cookie running pell-mell for the street, tongue lolling happily out one side of her mouth, the dog delighted to be free at last. Susan forgot the car, shouted, “Cookie, no!” and began running toward her pet. Cookie ignored her, of course, and put on a fresh burst of speed. The car kept coming, its strange engine noise filling the air, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once, like the rise and fall thrum of cicadas in summer.

  Cookie was almost to the curb, and Susan knew in her gut that the dog was going to get hit by the car, crushed beneath its tires, little spine snapping, blood gushing out mouth and nose, intestines squeezed out her tiny rectum like coils of toothpaste from a tube. Cookie was too fast; Susan wasn’t going to be able to catch her in time, so she lunged out with her right foot and stomped on the trailing end of the dog’s leash.

  The leash snapped taut and Cookie jerked to a stop with a gagging arwp! just on the other side of the curb.

  The car roared by, its tires less than half a foot away from the dog.

  Susan looked up at the car, saw the pale oval of a face peering out at her from the back seat. It was definitely a little girl, no more than six, maybe less. Blonde hair, big eyes…Those eyes moved from Susan to Cookie, any emotion they might have contained unreadable, and then the car was past and barreling toward the stop sign. As usual, it barely hesitated before sliding through the intersection and turning sharply, tires squealing as it drove off, leaving behind the acrid smell of gasoline and burnt exhaust.

  Susan had noted that the car’s rear license plate was no more readable than the front.

  She bent down and picked up Cookie, who was shivering from the tip of her nose to the end of her tail and whining softly.

  “Hush, girl. You’re okay.” She stroked the top of the dog’s head. “Everything’s all right.” She stood there for a time, reassuring Cookie with soothing words, staring in the direction the car had gone, and knowing that she was lying to her pet. Everything was most definitely not all right. Not at all.

  * * *

  Yes, I think it’s awful that Cookie was almost hit. But she wasn’t, was she?

  Susan sat behind the wheel of the Civic, engine idling.

  And yes, it could have been a kid instead of Cookie. But that’s not what I’m most worried about.

  Brian was still at school. He’d had to stay late for parent-teacher conferences. Too bad; if he were here, he’d see that she’d finally taken his advice and backed into the driveway when she got home from work. She’d been sitting here ever since, car in park, engine still running, watching and waiting for over an hour now.

  I think maybe you should see someone. You’ve become…well, I suppose obsessed is too strong a word, but…

  After Cookie had nearly been run over by that asshole in the Bruisemobile, she’d gone inside and told Brian. She’d hoped that he’d finally understand why she was so concerned about this lunatic who insisted on using their street as a racecourse.

  Maybe you could get a prescription for some pills…

  She didn’t speak to him the rest of the evening, and she spent the night on the couch. What little sleep she got was far from restful.

  The hell of it was, on one level, she not only understood why Brian was suggesting she seek counseling, she agreed with him. But it wasn’t as if she hadn’t seen her share of psychologists over the years. More than her share, beginning with the school psychologist in elementary school and ending with a doctor she’d stopped seeing a little more than a year ago. They all said the same thing in one form or another, variations on a single psychological theme: survivor guilt. Why had she lived when her mother and brother hadn’t? If they hadn’t deserved to die, then why had she deserved to live? If she hadn’t been laughing at her older brother’s antics, egging him on, their mother wouldn’t have been yelling at them to settle down, and she wouldn’t have been distracted. Maybe Mother would’ve seen the car coming, hit the brake before the station wagon backed out into the street. Maybe…

  It was Maybes like that which had been gnawing at her for more than two decades now. She knew there were no answers, no resolution, that she had to accept what had happened and get on with her life, that there wasn’t anything else she could do. But no matter how hard she tried, she wasn’t able to forget—wasn’t able to forgive the four-year-old girl she’d once been, for living.

  She knew the blue-black car wasn’t the pick-up that had smashed into her mother’s station wagon so many years ago. But if she could stop it from barrel-assing through the neighborhood, prevent it from hurting anyone…well, it might not completely cure her psychological problems, but she’d feel a damn sight better.

  So here she was, lying in wait for the goddamned thing, intending to pull out and follow it until it stopped, whereupon she’d get out of her Civic and ream the driver a new asshole. Then s
he’d get the license plate number—and maybe even the driver’s home address, too—and she’d give it to the cops and tell them if they still weren’t going to do anything about the situation, they could shove it up their collective departmental ass. At least she would’ve done all she could.

  Ten more minutes she waited. And then it came.

  From the same direction as always, that teeth-jangling engine noise cutting through the air, windshield as dark and impenetrable as ever. But as the car neared Susan’s property, she thought it slowed, just a little, as if the driver somehow knew what she was planning and wanted to make sure to give her enough time to get ready. Probably her imagination, she thought as she put the Civic in drive and pressed the gas pedal.

  Blue-black flashed by—and that pale little girl face, too, hands pressed to the glass, looking straight at Susan with wide, wide eyes—as the Civic surged out of the driveway and into the street. She whipped the wheel around, tires squealing in protest, and tromped on the gas as her quarry continued on toward the stop sign at the end of the street. As always, the driver didn’t slow, ran right past the sign and turned left.

  Susan followed, suddenly realizing that if she had any hope of keeping up with the Bruisemobile, she was going to have to drive like it. Tendrils of panic brushed the inside of her stomach, and her hands gripped the steering wheel so tight, she wouldn’t have been surprised if it snapped in two. Given her history, learning to drive in the first place had been hard as hell, but she’d been determined and kept at it, finally passing her driver’s test at the age of nineteen. But in all the years since, she’d never gone so much as a single mile over the speed limit, had never merely paused at a stop sign before sliding through the intersection. Hell, she’d never even gotten a parking ticket!