Identity Theft and other stories (collection)

Driving A Bargain

Although my novels are exclusively hard science fiction, I occasionally write fantasy or horror at short lengths; indeed, to my delight, I’ve been nominated for the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award.

My great friend Edo van Belkom is, without doubt, Canada’s top horror writer (and, just to put me in my place, he’s actually won the Stoker). In 2000, he edited a young-adult anthology called Be Afraid! It contained my story “Last But Not Least” which was reprinted in my collection Iterations.

Be Afraid! was a big hit, and so Edo did a sequel anthology, Be VERY Afraid! This story was my contribution to that book.

Jerry walked to the corner store, a baseball cap and sunglasses shielding him from the heat beating down from above. He picked up a copy of the Calgary Sun, walked to the counter, gave the old man a dollar, got his change, and hurried outside. He didn’t want to wait until he got home, so he went to the nearest bus stop, parked himself on the bench there, and opened the paper.

Of course, the first thing he checked out was the bikini-clad Sunshine Girl—what sixteen-year-old boy wouldn’t turn to that first? Today’s girl was old—23, it said—but she certainly was pretty, with lots of long blonde hair.

That ritual completed, Jerry turned to the real reason he’d bought the paper: the classified ads. He found the used-car listings, and started poring over them, hoping, as he always did, for a bargain.

Jerry had worked hard all summer on a loading dock. It had been rough work, but, for the first time in his life, he had real muscles. And, even more important, he had some real money.

His parents had promised to pay the insurance if Jerry kept up straight A’s all through grade ten, and Jerry had. They weren’t going to pay for a car itself, but Jerry had two grand in his bank account—he liked the sound of that: two grand. Now if he could just find something halfway decent for that price, he’d be driving to school when grade eleven started next week.

Jerry was a realist. He wanted a girlfriend—God, how he wanted one—but he knew his little wispy beard wasn’t what was going to impress … well, he’d been thinking about Ashley Brown all summer. Ashley who, in his eyes at least, put that Sunshine Girl to shame.

But, no, it wasn’t the beard he’d managed to grow since June that would impress her. Nor was it his newfound biceps. It would be having his own set of wheels. How sweet that would be!

Jerry continued scanning the ads, skipping over all the makes he knew he could never afford: the Volvos, the Lexuses, the Mercedes, the BMWs.

He read the lines describing a ’94 Honda Civic, a ’97 Dodge Neon, even a ’91 Pontiac Grand Prix. But the prices were out of his reach.

Jerry really didn’t care what make of car he got; he’d even take a Hyundai. After all, when hardly anyone else his age had a car, any car would be a fabulous ticket to freedom, to making out. To use one of his dad’s favorite expressions—an expression that he’d never really understood until just now—“In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.”

Jerry was going to be royalty.

If, that is, he could find something he could afford. He kept looking, getting more and more depressed. Maybe he’d just—

Jerry felt his eyes go wide. A 1997 Toyota, only twenty thousand miles on it. The asking price: “$3,000, OBO.”

Just three thousand! That was awfully cheap for such a car … And OBO! Or Best Offer. It couldn’t hurt to try two thousand dollars. The worst the seller could do was say no. Jerry felt in his pocket for the change he got from buying the paper. There was a phone booth just up the street. He hurried over to it, and called.

“Hello?” said a sad-sounding man’s voice at the other end.

Jerry tried to make his own voice sound as deep as he could. “Hello,” he said. “I’m calling about the Toyota.” He swallowed. “Has it sold yet?”

“No,” said the man. “Would you like to come see it?”

Jerry got the man’s address—only about two miles away. He glanced up the street, saw the bus coming, and ran back to the stop, grinning to himself. If all went well, this would be the last time he’d have to take the bus anywhere.

Jerry walked up to the house. It looked like the kind of place he lived in himself: basketball hoop above the garage; garage door dented from endless games of ball hockey.

Jerry rang the doorbell, and was greeted by a man who looked about the same age as Jerry’s father … a sad-looking man with a face like a basset hound.

“Yes?” said the man.

“I called earlier,” said Jerry. “I’ve come about the car.”

The man’s eyebrows went up. “How old are you, son?”

“Sixteen.”

“Tell me about yourself” said the man.

Jerry couldn’t see what difference that would make. But he did want to soften the old guy up so that he’d take the lower price. And so: “My name’s Jerry Sloane,” he said. “I’m a student at Eastern High, just going into grade eleven. I’ve got my license, and I’ve been working all summer long on the loading dock down at Macabee’s.”

The bassett hound’s eyebrows went up. “Have you, now?”

“Yes,” said Jerry.

“You a good student?”

Jerry was embarrassed to answer; it seemed so nerdy to say it, but … “Straight A’s.”

The bassett hound nodded. “Good for you! Good for you!” He paused. “Are you a churchgoer, son?”

Jerry was surprised by the question, but he answered truthfully. “Most weeks, with my family. Calgary United.”

The man nodded again. “All right, would you like to take the car for a test drive?”

“Sure!”

Jerry got into the driver’s seat, and the man got into the passenger seat. Not that it should have mattered to whether the deal got made, but Jerry did the absolute best job he could of backing out of the driveway and turning onto the street. When they arrived at the corner, he came to a proper full stop at the stop sign, making sure the front of his car lifted up a bit before he continued into the empty intersection. That’s what they’d taught him in driver’s ed: you know you’ve come to a complete stop when the front of your car lifts up.

At the next intersection, Jerry signaled his turn, even though there was no one around and took a left onto Askwith Street.

The bassett hound nodded, impressed. “You’re a very careful driver,” he said.

“Thanks.”

Jerry was coming to another corner, where Askwith crossed Thurlbeck, and he decided to turn right. He activated the turn signal and—

“No!” shouted the man.

Jerry was startled and looked around, terrified that he’d been about to hit a cat or something. “What?” said Jerry. “What?”

“Don’t go down that way,” said the man, his voice shaking.

It was the route Jerry would have to take to get to school, but he was in no rush to see that old prison any sooner than he had to. He canceled his turn signal and continued straight through the intersection.

Jerry went along for another mile, then decided he’d better not overdo it and headed back to the man’s house.

“So,” said the man, “what did you think?”

“It’s a great car, but …”

“Oh, I know it could really use a front-end alignment,” said the man, “but it’s not that bad, is it?”

Jerry hadn’t even noticed, but he was clever enough to seize on the issue. “Well, it will need work,” he said, trying to sound like an old hand at such matters. “Tell you what—I’ll give you two thousand dollars for it.”

“Two thousand!” said the man. But then he fell silent, saying nothing else.

Jerry wanted to be cool, wanted to be a tough bargainer, but the man had such a sad face. “I’ll tell you the truth,” he said. “Two thousand is all I’ve got.”

“You worked for it?” asked the man.

Jerry nodded. “Every penny.”

The man was quiet for a bit, then he said, “You seem to be a fine young fellow,” he said. He extended his right hand across the gearshift to Jerry. “Deal.”

Today was the day. Today, the first Tuesday in September, would make everything worthwhile. Jerry put on his best—that is, his oldest—pair of jeans and a shirt with the sleeves ripped off. It was the perfect look.

He got in the car—his car—and started it, pulling out of the driveway. A left onto Schumann Street, a right onto Vigo. Jerry didn’t have any real choice of how to get to school, but was delighted that some of the other kids would see him en route. And if he happened to pass Ashley Brown … why, he’d pull over and offer her a lift. How sweet would that be?

Jerry came to the intersection with Thurlbeck, where there was a stop sign. But this time he was trying to impress a different audience. He slowed down and, without waiting for the front of the car to bounce up, turned right.

Thurlbeck was the long two-laned street that led straight to Eastern High. Jerry had to pick just the right speed. If he went too fast, none of the kids walking along would have a chance to see that it was him. But he couldn’t cruise along slowly, or they’d think he wasn’t comfortable driving. Not comfortable! Why, he’d been driving for months now. He picked a moderate speed and rolled down the driver’s-side window, resting his sleeveless arm on the edge of the opening.

Up ahead, a bunch of kids were walking along the sidewalk.

No … no, that wasn’t quite right. They weren’t walking—they were standing, all looking and pointing at something. That was perfect: in a moment, they’d all be looking and pointing at him.

As he got closer, Jerry slowed the car to a crawl. As much as he wanted to show off, he was curious about what had caught everyone’s attention. He remembered a day years ago when everybody had paused on the way to school as they came across a dead dog, one eye half popped out of its skull.

Jerry continued on slowly, hoping people would look over and take notice of him, but no one did. They were all intent on something—he still couldn’t make out what—on the side of the road. He thought about honking his horn, but no, he couldn’t do that. The whole secret of being cool was to get people to look at you without it seeming like that was what you were trying to do.

Finally, Jerry thought of the perfect solution. As he got closer to the knot of people, he pulled his car over to the side of the road, put on his blinkers, and got out.

“Hey,” he said as he closed the distance between himself and the others. “Wassup?”

Darren Chen looked up. “Hey, Jerry,” he said.

Jerry had expected Chen’s eyes to go wide when he realized that his friend had come out of the car sitting by the curb, but that didn’t happen. The other boy just pointed to the side of the road.

Jerry followed the outstretched arm and …

His heart jumped.

There was a plain white cross on the grassy strip that ran along the far side of the sidewalk. Hanging from it was a wreath. Jerry moved closer and read the words that had been written on the cross in thick black strokes, perhaps with an indelible marker: “Tammy Jameson was killed here by a hit-and-run driver. She will always be remembered.” And there was a date from July.

Jerry knew the Jameson name—there’d always been one or another of them going through the local schools. A face came into his mind, but he wasn’t even sure if it was Tammy’s.

“Wow,” said Jerry softly. “Wow.”

Chen nodded. “I read about it in the paper. They still haven’t caught the person who did it.”

Jerry finally got what he wanted at the end of the school day. Tons of kids saw him sauntering over to his car, and a few of the boys came up to talk to him about it.

And just before he was about to get in and drive off, he saw Ashley. She was walking with a couple of other girls, books clasped to her chest. She looked up and saw the car sitting there. Then she saw Jerry leaning against it and her eyes—beautiful deep-blue eyes, he knew, although he couldn’t really see them at this distance—met his, and she smiled a bit and nodded at him, impressed.

Jerry got in his car and drove home, feeling on top of the world.

The next morning, Jerry headed out to school. This time, he thought maybe he’d get the attention he deserved as he came up Thurlbeck Street. After all, even if the cross was still there—and it was; he could just make it out up ahead—the novelty would surely have worn off.

Jerry decided to try a slightly faster speed today, in hopes that more people would look up. But, to his astonishment, he found that the more he pressed his right foot down on the accelerator, the more his car slowed down. He actually craned for a look—it was a beginner’s mistake, and a pretty terrifying one too, he remembered, to confuse the accelerator and the brake—but, no, his gray Nike was pressing down on the correct pedal.

And yet still his car was rapidly slowing down. As he came abreast of the crucifix with it wreath, he was moving at no better than walking speed, despite having the pedal all the way to the floor. But once he’d passed the cross, the car started speeding up again, until at last the vehicle was operating normally once more.

Jerry was reasonably philosophical. He knew there had to be something wrong with the car for him to have gotten it so cheap. He continued on to the school parking lot. Not even the principal had a reserved spot— it made his car too easy a target for vandals, Jerry guessed. It pleased him greatly to pull in next to old Mr. Walters, who was trying to shift his bulk out of his Ford.

Jerry was relieved that his car functioned flawlessly on the way home from school. He still hadn’t managed to find the courage to offer Ashley Brown a lift home, but that would come soon, he knew.

The next day, however—crazy though it seemed—his car developed the exact same malfunction, slowing to a crawl at precisely the same point in the road.

Jerry had seen his share of horror movies. It didn’t take a Dr. Frankenstein to figure out that it had something to do with the girl who had been killed there. It was as though she was reaching out from the beyond, slowing down cars at that spot to make sure that no other accident ever happened there again. It was scary but exhilarating.

At lunch that day, Jerry headed out to the school’s parking lot, all set to hang around his car, showing it off to anyone who cared to have a look. But then he caught sight of Ashley walking out of the school grounds. He could have jumped in his car and driven over to her, but she probably wouldn’t get in, even if he offered. No, he needed to talk to her first.

Now or never, Jerry thought. He jogged over to Ashley, catching up with her as she was walking along Thurlbeck Street. “Hey, Ash,” he said. “Where’re you going?”

Ashley turned around and smiled that radiant smile of hers. “Just down to the store to get some gum.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

“If you like,” she said, her voice perfectly measured, perfectly noncommittal.

Jerry fell in beside her. He chatted with her—trying to hide his nervousness—about what they’d each done over the summer. She’d spent most of it at her uncles farm and—

Jerry stopped dead in his tracks.

A car was coming up Thurlbeck Street, heading toward the school. It came abreast of the crucifix but didn’t slow down, it just sailed on by.

“What’s wrong?” asked Ashley.

“Nothing,” said Jerry. A few moments later, another car came along, and it too passed the crucifix without incident.

Of course, Jerry had had no trouble driving home from school, but he’d assumed that that was because he was in the other lane, going in the opposite direction, and that Tammy, wherever she was, didn’t care about people going that way.

But …

But now it looked like it wasn’t every car that she was slowing down when it passed the spot where she’d—there was no gentle way to phrase it—where she’d been killed.

No, not every car.

Jerry’s heart fluttered.

Just my car.

The next day, the same thing: Jerry’s car slowed down almost to a stop directly opposite where Tammy Jameson had been hit. He tried to ignore it, but then Dickens, one of the kids in his geography class, made a crack about it. “Hey, Sloane,” he said, “What are you, chicken? I see you crawling along every morning when you pass the spot where Tammy was killed.”

Where Tammy was killed. He said it offhandedly, as if death was a commonplace occurrence for him, as if he was talking about the place where something utterly normal had happened.

But Jerry couldn’t take it anymore. He’d been called on it, on what Dickens assumed was his behavior, and he had to either give a good reason for it or stop doing it. That’s the way it worked.

But he had no good reason for it, except …

Except the one he’d been suppressing, the one that kept gnawing at the back of his mind, but that he’d shooed away whenever it had threatened to come to the fore.

Only his car was slowing down.

But it hadn’t always been his car.

A bargain. Just two grand!

Jerry had assumed that there had to be something wrong with it for him to get it so cheap, but that wasn’t it. Not exactly.

Rather, something wrong had been done with it.

His car was the one the police were looking for, the one that had been used to strike a young woman dead and then flee the scene.

Jerry drove to the house where the man with the basset-hound face lived. He left the car in the driveway, with the driver’s door open and the engine still running. He got out, walked up to the door, rang the bell, and waited for the man to appear, which, after a long, long time, he finally did.

“Oh, it’s you, son,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

Jerry had thought it took all his courage just to speak to Ashley Brown. But he’d been wrong. This took more courage. Way more.

“I know what you did in that car you sold me,” he said.

The man’s face didn’t show any shock, but Jerry realized that wasn’t because he wasn’t surprised. No, thought Jerry, it was something else—a deadness, an inability to feel shock anymore.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, son,” said the man.

“That car—my car—you hit a girl with it. On Thurlbeck Street.”

“I swear to you,” said the man, still standing in his doorway, “I never did anything like that.”

“She went to my school,” said Jerry. “Her name was Tammy. Tammy Jameson.”

The man closed his eyes, as if he was trying to shut out the world.

“And,” said Jerry, his voice quavering, “you killed her.”

“No,” said the man. “No, I didn’t.” He paused. “Look, do you want to come in?”

Jerry shook his head. He could outrun the old guy—he was sure of that—and he could make it back to his car in a matter of seconds. But if he went inside … well, he’d seen that in horror movies, too.

The man with the sad lace put his hands in his pockets. “What are you going to do?” he said.

“Go to the cops,” said Jerry. “Tell them.”

The man didn’t laugh, although Jerry had expected him to—a derisive, mocking laugh. Instead, he just shook his head.

“You’ve got no evidence.”

“The car slows down on its own every time I pass the spot where the”— he’d been about to say “accident,” but that was the wrong word—“where the crime occurred.”

This time, the man’s face did show a reaction, a lifting of his shaggy, graying eyebrows. “Really?” But he composed himself quickly. “The police won’t give you the time of day if you come in with a crazy story like that.”

“Maybe,” said Jerry, trying to sound more confident than he felt. “Maybe not.”

“Look, I’ve been nice to you,” said the man. “I gave you a great deal on that car.”

“Of course you did!” snapped Jerry. “You wanted to get rid of it! After what you did—”

“I told you, son, I didn’t do anything.”

“That girl—Tammy—she can’t rest, you know. She’s reaching out from beyond the grave, trying to stop that car every time it passes that spot. You’ve got to turn yourself in. You’ve got to let her rest.”

“Get out of here, kid. Leave me alone.”

“I can’t,” said Jerry. “I can’t, because it won’t leave her alone. You have to go to the police and tell them what you did.”

“How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t do anything!” The old man turned around for a second, and Jerry thought he was going to disappear into the house. But he didn’t; he simply grabbed a hockey stick that must have been leaning against a wall just inside the door. He raised the stick menacingly. “Now, get out of here!” he shouted.

Jerry couldn’t believe the man was going to chase him down the street, in full view of his neighbors. “You have to turn yourself in,” he said firmly.

The man took a swing at him—high-sticking indeed!—and Jerry started running for his car. The old guy continued alter him. Jerry scrambled into the driver’s seat and slammed the door behind him. He threw the car into reverse, but not before the man brought the hockey stick down on the front of the hood—somewhere near, Jerry felt sure, the spot where the car had crashed into poor Tammy Jameson.

Jerry had no idea what was the right thing to do. He suspected that the bassett hound was correct: the police would laugh him out of the station if he came to them with his story. Of course, if they’d just try driving his car along Thurlbeck, they’d see for themselves. But adults were so smug; no matter how much he begged, they’d refuse.

And so Jerry found himself doing something that might have been stupid. He should have been at home studying—or, even better, out on a date with Ashley Brown. Instead, he was parked on the side of the street, a few doors up from the man’s house, from the driveway that used to be home to this car. He didn’t know exactly what he was doing. Did they call this casing the joint? No, that was when you were planning a robbery. Ah, he had it! A stakeout. Cool.

Jerry waited. It was dark enough to see a few stars—and he hoped that meant it was also dark enough that the old man wouldn’t see him, even if he glanced out his front window.

Jerry wasn’t even sure what he was waiting for. It was just like Ms. Singh, his chemistry teacher, said: he’d know it when he saw it.

And at last it appeared.

Jerry felt like slapping his hand against his forehead, but a theatrical gesture like that was wasted when there was no one around to see it. Still, he wondered how he could be so stupid.

That old man wasn’t the one who’d used the hockey stick. Oh, he might have dented Jerry’s hood with it, but the dents in the garage door were the work of someone else.

And that someone else was walking up the driveway, hands shoved deep into the pockets of a blue leather jacket, dark-haired head downcast. He looked maybe a year or two older than Jerry.

Of course, it could have been a delivery person or something. But no, Jerry could see the guy take out a set of keys and let himself into the house. And, for one brief moment, he saw the guy’s face, a long face, a sad face … but a young face.

The car hadn’t belonged to the old man. It had belonged to his son.

There were fifteen hundred kids at Eastern High. No reason Jerry should know them all on sight—especially ones who weren’t in his grade. Oh, he knew the names of all the babes in grade twelve—he and the other boys his age fantasized about them often enough—but some long-faced guy with dark hair? Jerry wouldn’t have paid any attention to him.

Until now.

It was three days before he caught sight of the guy walking the halls at Eastern. His last name, Jerry knew, was likely Forsythe, since that was the old man’s name, the name Jerry had written on the check for the car. It wasn’t much longer before he had found where young Forsythe’s locker was located. And then Jerry cut his last class—history, which he could easily afford to miss once—and waited in a stairwell, where he could keep an eye on Forsythe’s locker.

At about 3:35, Forsythe came up to it, dialed the combo, put some books inside, took out a couple of others, and put on the same blue leather jacket Jerry had seen him in the night of the stakeout. And then he started walking out.

Jerry watched him head out, then he hurried to the parking lot and got into the Toyota.

Jerry was crawling along—and this time, it was of his own volition. He didn’t want to overtake Forsythe—not yet. But then Forsythe did something completely unexpected. Instead of walking down Thurlbeck, he headed in the opposite direction, away from his own house. Could it be that Jerry was wrong about who this was? After all, he’d seen Forsythe’s son only once before, on a dark night, and—

No. It came to him in a flash what Forsythe was doing. He was going to walk the long way around—a full mile out of his way—so that he wouldn’t have to go past the spot where he’d hit Tammy Jameson.

Jerry wondered if he’d avoided the spot entirely since hitting her or had got cold feet only once the cross had been erected. He rolled down his window, followed Forsythe, and pulled up next to him, matching his car’s velocity to Forsythe’s walking speed.

“Hey,” said Jerry.

The other guy looked up, and his eyes went wide in recognition—not of Jerry, but of what had once been his car.

“What?” said Forsythe.

“You look like you could use a lift,” said Jerry.

“Naw. I live just up there.” He waved vaguely ahead of him.

“No, you don’t,” said Jerry, and he recited the address he’d gone to to buy the car.

“What do you want, man?” said Forsythe.

“Your old man gave me a good deal on this car,” said Jerry. “And I figured out why.”

Forsythe shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. I know you do.” He paused. “She knows you do.”

The guy told Jerry to go … well, to go do something that was physically impossible. Jerry’s heart was racing, but he tried to sound cool. “Sooner or later, you’ll want to come clean on this.”

Forsythe said nothing.

“Maybe tomorrow,” said Jerry, and he drove off.

That night, Jerry went to the hardware store to get the stuff he needed. Of course, he couldn’t do anything about it early in the day; someone might come along. So he waited until his final period—which today was English—and he cut class again. He then went out to his car, got what he needed from the trunk, and went up Thurlbeck.

When he was done, he returned to the parking lot and waited for Forsythe to head out for home.

Jerry finally caught sight of Forsythe. Just as he had the day before, Forsythe walked to the edge of the schoolyard. But there he hesitated for a moment, as if wondering if he dared take the short way home. But he apparently couldn’t do that. He took a deep breath and headed up Thurlbeck.

Jerry started his car but lagged behind Forsythe, crawling along, his foot barely touching the accelerator.

There was a large pine tree up ahead. Jerry waited for Forsythe to come abreast of it, and …

The disadvantage of following Forsythe was that Jerry couldn’t see the other kid’s face when he caught sight of the new cross Jerry had banged together and sunk into the grass next to the sidewalk. But he saw Forsythe stop dead in his tracks.

Just as she had been stopped dead in his tracks.

Jerry saw Forsythe loom in, look at the words written not in black, as on Tammy’s cross, but in red—words that said, “Our sins testify against us.”

Forsythe began to run ahead, panicking, and Jerry pressed down a little more on the accelerator, keeping up. All those years of Sunday school were coming in handy.

Forsythe came to another tree. In its lee, he surely could see the second wooden cross, with its letters as crimson as blood: “He shall make amends for the harm he hath done.”

Forsythe was swinging his head left and right, clearly terrified. But he continued running forward.

A third tree. A third cross. And a third red message, the simplest of all:

“Thou shalt not kill.”

Finally, Forsythe turned around and caught sight of Jerry.

Jerry sped up, coming alongside him. Forsythe’s face was a mask of terror. Jerry rolled down his window, leaned an elbow out, and said, as nonchalantly as he could manage, “Going my way?”

Forsythe clearly didn’t know what to say. He looked up ahead, apparently wondering if there were more crosses to come. Then he turned and looked back the other way, off into the distance.

“There’s just one down the other way,” said Jerry. “If you’d prefer to walk by it …”

Forsythe swore at Jerry, but without much force. “What’s this to you?” he snapped.

“I want her to let my car go. I worked my tail off for these wheels.”

Forsythe stared at him, the way you’d look at somebody who might be crazy.

“So,” said Jerry, again trying for an offhand tone, “going my way?”

Forsythe was quiet for a long moment. “Depends where you’re going,” he said at last.

“Oh, I thought I’d take a swing by the police station,” Jerry said.

Forsythe looked up Thurlbeck once more, then down it, then at last back at Jerry. He shrugged, but it wasn’t as if he was unsure. Rather, it was as if he were shucking a giant weight from his shoulders.

“Yeah,” he said to Jerry. “Yeah, I could use a lift.”