Headlights in the Mirror
Administrative assistant Madge Delaney printed out the real estate contract she had been typing for the past hour, photocopied it, put the copy in her inbox for filing and sealed the original in a FedEx envelope, which she then gave to the mail clerk to be sent overnight to her boss who was attending a regional realtors conference in New York City. Her work done for the day, she removed her cardigan sweater from the back of her chair, grabbed her handbag from beneath her desk and headed toward the fourth-floor elevator.
What a day! she thought, exhausted after putting in twelve hours.
As she exited the car in the lobby, she was dismayed to see through the window that the sun had already gone down. Madge hated driving home alone in the dark. The most direct route to her house was along Schuyler Road, a narrow, winding street that went past a deserted farm and the Pineview Cemetery whereas alternate routes would add a minimum of thirty minutes to her commute.
It was almost 7:00 p.m., and there were only two other cars in the parking lot. Madge's heartbeat quickened as she went out the office door and walked toward her vehicle.
I've seen too many horror movies, she thought as she tried to shake off the feeling that someone was standing in the shadows, watching her. I'm thirty-one, and I act like a five-year-old. You would think I'd have gotten over my fear of the dark by now.
But the sad truth was she hadn't. She still imagined unknown dangers lurking in the shadows.
She made it safely to her Subaru Forester, but before putting her key into the lock, she peered through the window into the back seat, fearful of the old urban legend wherein a maniacal killer hides under a blanket waiting to pounce upon an unsuspecting driver. As usual, the back seat and cargo area were empty; not so much as an ice scraper or a shopping bag was to be seen. Madge unlocked the door, got inside the car and quickly relocked the door. In the comparative safety of her automobile, she breathed a little easier.
She started the car and drove down Westbrook's main thoroughfare, through the only congested traffic she would encounter during her drive home. Along the way, her stomach growling from hunger, the secretary went to the drive-thru at MacDonald's and bought a Cobb salad and a Diet Coke.
As Madge made the sharp turn unto Schuyler Road, just across the Westbrook-Elmwood Township border, the heavy soda cup tipped over its lightweight cardboard carrier. She leaned forward and righted the fallen cup, causing the Forester to swerve and head toward the shoulder. Luckily, she quickly regained control, and the automobile was soon safely back on the road.
The further south and west Madge drove, the fewer buildings she saw along the route. She glanced into her rearview mirror and was grateful to see a set of headlights reflected there. She knew the driver would probably turn into the driveway of one of the houses along Schuyler Road, but for the moment she took comfort in the fact that hers was not the only vehicle on the street.
Soon Madge passed the last house on the road. For the remainder of her drive, there would be nothing but darkness. Again, she looked into the rearview mirror. The car was still behind her.
"That's odd," she remarked. "Not many people use this stretch of road."
The headlights in the mirror were no longer a comfort. On the contrary, they were beginning to make her nervous.
She took her foot off the gas pedal and the Forester's speed dropped from forty to thirty-five to thirty.
"Go ahead and pass me," she said under her breath to the car that followed.
Still, the driver made no attempt to pass the Forester even though they were both traveling on a straight stretch of road with no oncoming traffic in sight.
The Subaru continued to lose speed: twenty-five, twenty. It felt as though Madge was crawling along at this speed. Still, the car behind did not pass. It kept the same distance from her as it had when she was doing forty miles per hour.
I can't keep this up, waiting for you to take the hint. I won't get home until after eight if I do.
Madge decided if slowing down did not have any effect on the driver of the car behind her, perhaps speeding up would. She pressed her foot down on the gas pedal, and the Subaru accelerated: twenty-five, thirty, thirty-five, forty miles per hour. The car following her temporarily fell behind, but then it soon caught up with her again, doggedly remaining in her tracks. The pressure on her accelerator increased: forty-five, fifty, fifty-five.
"Bye-bye, Jerk," she said.
However, the car following her sped up, too, sticking to the Forester like an insect to a sheet of fly paper.
As she neared a sharp bend in the road, Madge slowed down considerably yet still nearly failed to negotiate the turn.
That was a close call, she thought as, for the second time that night, she regained control of her vehicle before it went off the road.
She looked up and saw that the headlights were still in the mirror.
"I've got to stop this," she told herself nervously. "I'm going to get into an accident trying to shake this guy."
The thin cardboard beverage carrier again tipped over. The plastic lid came off the soda cup, and ice and Diet Coke spilled out onto her floor mat. In her agitated state, Madge didn't even notice.
A few minutes later Madge passed the cemetery and approached the long dirt driveway that led to the abandoned farm. She slowed down the Subaru but did not put on her turn signal. Instead, she quickly spun the steering wheel to the right just as she came to the dirt road.
She stared up at the rearview mirror, desperately praying that the car behind her would continue along Schuyler Road. But the car turned, too, the driver obviously intent on following her down the dark, deserted driveway.
Fear gripped Madge like a vise. There was no longer any doubt in her mind that the mysterious vehicle had been deliberately trailing her. Her hands and legs were trembling as she passed what remained of the old barn and grain silo. The driveway circled around the deserted farmhouse and returned to Schuyler Road.
Rather than turn right and continue on toward her home, Madge made a left. She would head in the direction of Main Street, back to street lights and houses. Once there, she would pull into the parking lot of the Elmwood Township Police Station. She could think of no safer place to be. Surely no murderer or rapist would follow her there.
The terrified young woman drove at a steady fifty miles per hour, slowing only for bends in the road. The unknown car followed, but the driver made no attempt to overtake her.
He must know I'm headed back to town, she thought, naturally assuming the vehicle's driver was a man.
If he did plan on attacking her, now would be the most opportune time.
"What's he waiting for?" she asked herself.
But she had guessed the answer already. He was probably waiting until they got to the Pineview Cemetery, where he could no doubt find countless places to hide a body.
Madge felt a tightening in her stomach, and her leg started to shake again. Unwittingly, she put more pressure on the gas pedal. The Forester's speedometer slowly climbed. Meanwhile, her eyes kept darting to her rearview mirror. She was fearful that the menacing headlights would draw nearer, but they stubbornly kept their distance.
Eventually, she saw a streetlight up head and not much farther up the road, the lamppost of the first house past the cemetery.
Everything's going to be okay, Madge thought and relaxed a little.
One final time she looked up into her rearview mirror and saw the headlights menacingly beaming back at her. When her eyes returned to the road, Madge was horrified to see a deer run out of the woods directly in the path of her car. She slammed on the brakes and then, knowing she would never stop in time, she swerved to avoid hitting the startled animal. The Forester skidded on the gravel-strewn shoulder, and its driver, for the third time that evening, lost control of the vehicle. Only this time, she would not be able to recover it.
Just before her Subaru crashed into a giant oak tree, Madge Delaney saw the car that had been following her pull off the road and safely come to a stop on the shoulder. It was the last sight she would ever see.
* * *
Police Officer Arvin Roxford radioed for an ambulance. It arrived in a matter of minutes. The paramedics who responded to his call looked doubtfully at the wrecked Forester.
"Only one car involved?" the ambulance driver asked.
"Yes."
"Any passengers?"
"Just the driver, a young woman," the saddened police officer replied.
"This car is a mess. She must really have been flying down this road. A deer was it?"
Roxford nodded and said, "I'd be willing to bet her blood alcohol level is over the legal limit."
"You think so?"
"I was behind her when she turned onto Schuyler Road from the north. She almost drove into a ditch then. I followed her just to make sure everything was okay. She was all over the road, and she couldn't maintain a steady speed. To tell you the truth, I was going to pull her over and give her a sobriety test once we got past the cemetery."
"Why wait?" the driver asked.
"I don't like to pull anyone over on a dark stretch of road like this, least of all a woman driving by herself."
The paramedics removed Madge's body from the wreckage, put it in the back of the ambulance and drove off toward Mercy Hospital.
A tow truck then arrived, and shortly after the ambulance left, it towed the demolished Forester down Schuyler Road with the police car following behind. Had Madge Delaney still been behind the wheel of her car, she would once again have seen in her rearview mirror the headlights of Officer Arvin Roxford's patrol car.
Since brooms don't have headlights, I take Salem with me whenever I fly at night.
