Michael Marquez has spent the last five years obsessed. Before this obsession he was an up-and-comer at his office who had found the right guy and was getting his life together the way he wanted. Now his chances of advancement are almost nil, and he spends most of his free time plotting, planning, and stalking his prey.
It has been five years, two weeks, and three days since Albert was killed while jogging. The woman, still a teenager then, had been using her phone while driving. She was too busy sending a text, or a tweet, or a Facebook update to notice that her car was drifting to the right; too busy to notice the man in the jogging suit running along the snow bank at the side of the road.
Michael has tried to convince himself that Albert was partly to blame for what happened. Why did he have to jog there, where the snowplows had completely swamped the sidewalks so that he had to run in the road? Why did he have to wear noise-canceling headphones while jogging? If he had just been wearing cheap, crappy earbuds then maybe he would have heard the car coming; maybe he could have jumped out of the way.
She hit him. He died there on the side of the road like so much roadkill, his blood turning the snowbank a deep, cherry snow-cone red.
To her credit, and this is the only credit that Michael will give her, she did not leave the scene. When he arrived, the police had called the number labeled “home” in Albert's phone and told Michael of the accident while he was in the middle of making breakfast, she was standing with the police sobbing hysterically. Albert was cooling under a sheet.
The girl's name was Sylvia Gabriel, or Sylly Gabby on Facebook, and Michael had thought her remorseful for the death, was planning to follow his religious beliefs and try to forgive her, until the trial. It was there, during her testimony, that it became clear that the only thing she was remorseful about was how this hurt her life.
She didn't care that she had destroyed two other lives, and impacted many more. She didn't care that there was another person sitting in that courtroom that had envisioned growing old with the man she had killed. She only cared that this would effect her chances at a career and future that she wanted.
Sylvia was found guilty of vehicular manslaughter. She got three months in county jail and her license suspended for one year. Albert got cremated, and his ashes spread at the shore of Lake Tahoe where he had spent many summers as a child. Michael got mad and started working, eschewing potential career advancement for revenge.
Michael could take some small joy in the fact that Sylvia did not get the life she wanted. Even after finishing college it seemed that a manslaughter conviction was enough to keep her from getting too good a job. She worked retail and still lived at home with her parents; parents who still supported her, who Michael had heard comforting her at the trial with comments of “it wasn't your fault, sweetie.”
It was her fault though. Even if Albert had picked a bad place to jog, she had been the one not paying attention while driving. Three months incarceration in trade for a man's life was not enough, it was not right, it was not justice; it could not be allowed to stand.
Michael knows all about her life now; he has spent a lot of his free time since she got out of jail observing it. He knows where she works, where she lives, what she drives, a newish car given to her to celebrate getting her license back, who she hangs out with, and what road she drives on to and from work. He knows how to get to her.
Facebook is very helpful for watching her since she checks in from her phone everywhere she goes.
“At Burger Bro getin my eat on!” says one post with a link to a map showing exactly which Burger Bro she is at.
“OMG ths lite takes 4evr!” says another post with a link to map showing which intersection she is in while posting from behind the wheel of her car.
He might have reconsidered his plans if not for that one thing. He might be able to move on at least, even if her could never forgive her, if only she had learned a lesson from everything. She didn't learn a goddamned thing though, not as far as Michael is concerned; that she still uses her phone while driving is evidence of that.
Sylvia worked a closing shift tonight; Michael knows this because she posted it on her Facebook while whining about not being able to go to the Peace Corpse concert. Her store closes at nine, she gets off at ten, and he is waiting for her when she reaches the halfway mark to home.
Michael has not just spent the last few years stalking a young woman online and in the flesh, but working on something else; a special modification to the giant, old, primer-coloured Bronco he acquired just for this. He finished it weeks ago, but has been waiting for the right time to use it. He knew it had to be snowy, and that it had to be late at night; the road Sylvia drives out to her parents' gated community home is semi-busy during the day, but virtually deserted at night. Tonight will be perfect, better than perfect because the temperature has risen just enough to turn the snowfall into rain.
He pulls the Bronco out in front of her little pink Fiat as she stops at the intersection; he can see the glow from her cellphone's screen while she types something out with her thumbs. He gets a short way ahead of her, but not so far that he cannot see her headlights in his mirror.
Once her light changes, she catches up to him fast, and together they drive out of town onto the dark, lonely road that leads to the Emerald Hills Gated Community where Sylvia lives. Michael doesn't see any cars ahead of them, and none coming up behind. No one passes them going the other way.
He slows down, an she gets right up on his bumper, as if that will make him speed up, like the entitled little bitch he knows her to be. This is good, because even though he has tested his little modification many, many times, he has never tried it on a moving car. He prays it works, realizing how wrong that is even while doing it.
He waits for the right spot; an area where the road is bordered on the right by a short, but steep hill. He rolls down the window, letting the rain and freezing air punch him in the face. When he passes just the right spot, he grabs the metal cable lying on the seat next to him, pulls it hard, and listens.
He is rewarded a moment later by a popping sound as Sylvia's Fiat tries to drive over the small, two foot wide spike strip that he had mounted under the read bumper of the Bronco with a cable release to drop it at will. He had originally gotten the idea while watching some stupid old spy movie.
The headlights in his rear view mirror wobble violently, and the pull off to the side of the road. Michael keeps driving, leaving her in the distance.
After a quarter mile, he carefully makes a U-turn. The Bronco tries to slip on the icy road, but Michael forces it to go where he wants it. He drives back towards his quarry.
Michael wonders if Sylvia notices when the car that she was just tailgating passes her going to other way. He doubts it. As he passes her she has her phone out, no doubt tweeting or posting to Facebook about how she just got a flat tire.
He goes only out of sight of Sylvia before turning around this time. No other cars have come along, but he knows he's pushing his luck if he waits too much longer. Someone may come to help her, or another driver may happen along and stop to be her knight in shining armour; worst of all, he may lose his nerve.
The Bronco makes another U-turn, this time heading the way it was originally going. It gains speed on the slick road as the Fiat comes back into view, and Michael turns on the high beams.
Sylvia is at the back of the car trying to figure out how to get the spare tire out from under it without getting mucky snow all over her. She sees the headlights coming up from behind her, and turns. She waves both arms at the oncoming car, trying to flag them down to help her.
Time slows for Michael, the space between him and the object of his revenge growing smaller and smaller. He thinks he can see when the look on her face starts to change from relief at her coming rescuer to the realization that the coming vehicle is not slowing down.
For a brief moment, Michael considers steering away. If he turned the wheel right now, he might clip her car, but he would miss her completely. He could play it off that he slid on the wet road, or he could even just drive off into the night and leave her there cold and alone, but alive.
He lets that moment pass, possibly damning himself, but from what he has been told by some who claim to speak for God, he was damned already.
The front of the large vehicle slams into the back of the small car with a crunch of metal and glass. Sylvia Gabriel is caught between the two, and her torso is torn open like a tomato hit with a sledgehammer. The Fiat slides on the slick road, going off the side of the shoulder and disappearing down the hill, taking its ruined driver with it.
The Bronco slides to a stop, its left front tire at the edge of the pavement. Michael grabs the spotlight from where he put it on the passenger side floor with this in mind, and climbs out. The rain soaks through his clothes instantly as he walks to the break in the grime-blackened snowbank where the Fiat had been pushed through.
Michael turns on the spotlight, grateful that it was not damaged in the crash, and follows the tracks down the hill to where the Fiat lays on its side. There are spatters of blood in the tracks, blood already being turned from red to a deep pink by the rain. Next to the car lies the torn, ruined body of a young woman; her innards scattered about her, staining the wet snow, like any other piece of roadkill.
The sight revolts him more than he had thought it would. His stomach protests, and he has to force his nausea down. Vomiting here and now would be a bad idea.
He puts his disgust aside, and focuses the light on the body, hoping for some sign that she is still alive; hoping to be able to see the life fade from her, but her body is still. Steam rises from the fresh corpse as it rapidly cools on the snow and rain.
It doesn't matter; even if she was still alive, even if she could see him standing at the top of the hill shining his light down on her, she would never understand why. She had put Albert's death in the past in a way that Michael couldn't, and why shouldn't she? It's not as if Albert had been someone she had known and loved; he was just some guy jogging in the street.
Michael turns around, and shines the light on the front of the Bronco. The grille guard held up beautifully, and the rain has already washed most of the blood away. He decides to clean off the paint transfer before he parks the car in the alley behind an abandoned strip mall in the sort of area where cops so rarely go that people do not bother to call them, and where unattended cars do not keep their wheels for very long, and sets it on fire. He will report it as stolen tomorrow.
He steps back, and from the road the only thing that looks odd is the break in the snow lining the road, and who is liable to notice that? There is a faint glow from the Fiat's headlights down the hill, but hopefully the battery will die before morning. Anyway, the temperature is supposed to drop tonight, and the rain should turn to snow that will cover up the whole scene until spring.
Michael looks around briefly for the spike strip, but doesn't find it; it must have gone over the side of the hill with the other car. Oh well, it's not like he handled it bare-handed, and few months buried in the snow will hopefully ruin any evidence that may be on it. If not, if there is some way to link it back to him, well he'll deal with that when it comes up.
Climbing back into the Bronco, Michael feels better than he thought he would. He had worried that attaining this revenge would leave him feeling empty and cold, but he doesn't. What he feels is satisfaction, and he thinks that he might sleep better tonight than he has in five years, two months, and three days.