Full Beam by Newton Webb
A Contemporary Slasher Horror Short Story: Suze, a sharp-tongued widow, is pursued in her Mercedes by a van driver who seems determined to force her off the road.
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Full Beam
The A41, Hertfordshire, 14 December 1994
A plummy voice on the local radio started talking about a police incident near Watford. Tutting, Suze popped a tape in and turned the volume up. The tinny speakers in her Mercedes did their best to boom out Buddy Holly’s ‘Peggy Sue’ as Suze hurtled down the bypass. In just half an hour, she’d be surrounded by family with a glass of red in her hand. She watched the trees on the verge whizz by through the weak yellow glow of the headlamps. Rain crawled across the windscreen.
A panel van approached her, closing rapidly and maintaining a position right behind her. Suze glowered at him in her rear-view mirror as he flashed his headlights at full beam. Moving to the inside lane, she waited for him to overtake.
He flashed his lights at her again.
Suze flashed her hazard lights at him to hint that he should overtake.
He didn’t take the hint and flashed his lights again.
She tightened both hands around the steering wheel as the van seemed to fill the road in her rear-view mirror.
It was an old Ford Transit. It could have been dark blue or black in the rain, and its grille was stained with rust. When she went round the corner, she gained a bit on the van and glimpsed the driver. He sat high behind the wheel. He looked older, but she couldn’t get a good look at him.
He flashed his lights again, and the Mercedes’s interior exploded with white glare.
Suze flinched, and the car swerved for a moment. “Get stuffed!” She pressed her foot down. “What’s your problem?” The engine complained as it sped up to 75, then 80 miles an hour. The Mercedes began to shake. It was a good car, but, like her, it was getting on a bit.
The Transit stayed behind her.
Suze reached for the mirror and tilted it down. The glare had already stubbornly imprinted itself across her vision.
Something creaked behind her.
She looked towards the passenger seat.
Her handbag rested where she had left it, wedged beside a Waitrose carrier bag containing a bottle of wine, a bottle of bath bubbles for each of the adults, and a £10 note for each of the kids.
Another sound came from the back seat. It was the faint squeak of vinyl.
Suze glanced over her shoulder.
Her bright red winter coat lay in a heap across the seat. She had thrown it there after leaving the office. Beneath it were two carrier bags full of clothes bought from the ‘little shops’. She refused to admit to going to charity shops. There was also a rolled umbrella and the daily paper.
The Transit sounded its horn in one long blast.
Suze faced forward again, her grip tightening. “Get lost! Just go around me.”
Enough of this madness.
She eased towards the edge of the road and slowed.
The Transit slowed with her. Its headlights fixed on her Mercedes.
Indignation had turned to anger. Suze was 58 years old. She’d outlived two husbands. She’d gone drinking in the East End in the sixties, attended concerts in pubs where the carpets stuck to her shoes, and once spent an entire weekend in Brighton with four women from the typing pool.
Suze wasn’t easily frightened, and she wouldn’t take this kind of nonsense from a van driver.
Ahead, the road curved between dripping trees. Beyond them stood the curly-wurly bridge, a pedestrian crossing that loomed over the road like a noose. There were no houses and no other cars.
Well, if he isn’t going to overtake.
Suze pressed the accelerator again. She was fifteen minutes from the family home now. Overcooked turkey and dry potatoes, but a wellspring of love and wine.
The Transit surged after her. Its full beams came on. This time they remained blazing. The inside of the Mercedes became painfully bright, and she cursed. Suze saw the passenger seat, the carrier bags, and her own angry eyes reflected in the windscreen.
For the briefest instant, she thought she saw something else.
A pale shape behind her shoulder.
Then the lights dipped, and the car was dark again.
Suze twisted around.
Her coat had slid partly onto the floor. She stared at it, the Mercedes drifting towards the centre of the road.
A horn screamed behind her.
Suze grabbed the wheel and swerved back into her lane. The Transit came close enough for her to hear the rumble of its engine.
“Fine.”
The coat must have moved when she took the bend. That was all. She had piled too much rubbish on the back seat, and it had shifted. She’d seen her own reflection in the glass.
A metallic click sounded behind her.
Suze looked into the lowered mirror. She could see only the back window and the Transit’s headlights.
She reached up and adjusted the mirror.
At that moment, the Transit flashed, then accelerated. Its bumper struck the back of her Mercedes.
The impact threw Suze forward against her seat belt.
“You prick!” Suze pressed her hand against the horn and held it there, feeling an unfamiliar sense of fear that was rapidly building towards terror.
A sign appeared for Bourne End Services. She indicated automatically. It was a ridiculous act of courtesy, considering the circumstances, but one born of habit.
The Transit followed. Suze’s heart sank.
Her coat rustled behind her. The sound came from directly beside her right ear. She could smell something: damp sweat, old grease, and stale ale.
She hated service stations, especially ones out in the sticks.
The sensation of being watched became a physical pressure against the back of her neck.
The slip road dropped away from the A41. Suze took the roundabout too quickly, swung right, overcorrecting as she raced onto the BP forecourt. Its green-and-yellow shield glowed above the road. Eight petrol pumps stood beneath a canopy, surrounded by pools of orange light.
A pimply kid sat inside the kiosk, reading a copy of Smash Hits.
She screeched to a half in front of the kiosk. Opening the door, she leapt out. Thankfully, she always wore flats when driving. The Transit slowed, parking behind her.
The attendant looked at her as she ran towards the kiosk, panic on his face.
The door was locked. A handwritten notice told customers to pay through the night window after eleven.
Suze hammered on the glass. “Let me in, I’m being followed.”
The attendant looked round for help he knew wasn’t there. “We’re window service now, miss.”
Suze banged on the glass with her fist. “Let me in at once. That man rammed my car.”
“Miss, if you don’t stop that, I’ll have to call the police.”
For a moment, Suze paused, looking at him incredulously. Then she pounded on the glass with both fists, using all her might.
The van driver emerged, holding a tyre iron in one hand.
“Miss, I’m calling the police right now. Stop it.” The kid held up the phone receiver, looking visibly shaken by the mad woman. He spoke into the handset and then put it to one side, the call still open. “You’ve done it now. The police are on their way. They’ll be here in minutes.”
“Good, now let me in!”
“No chance, love. You’re proper mental. Go, wait in your car.”
The van driver approached the window. The kid looked at him. “Oh, fuck.” He ran to the door with a set of keys. Suze followed him. He fumbled with the first key, without success.
“Slow and steady wins the bloody race,” Suze hissed.
“Miss, please.”
“Wait!” the van driver called out.
The third key worked, and Suze ran inside. The attendant locked the door behind her as the van driver thudded his shoulder against it. Pulling down the metal shutters, the kid locked them.
“You’re in danger!” the driver yelled from outside. His voice sounded muted as the night window closed.
“The police will be here any moment, miss.” The attendant returned to his seat. “Have a tea or something from the machine. I’ll have to charge you.”
“It’s Mrs!” Feeling safer now behind the iron shutters, Suze walked over to the vending machine, adjusting her dyed black bouffant. She selected the button for tea and waited as it filled a polystyrene cup.
She looked around as the machine gurgled. The attendant steadfastly refused to make eye contact, fidgeting in the corner.
Fat lot of good he is.
When the tea finished brewing, she took a sip. It was lukewarm, and the tea was an anaemic puddle of milky white water that tasted of piss.
Ironically, there was a fire extinguisher next to the machine.
Abandoning the tea, she looked round the service station, her heart rate steadying despite the rhythmic thud of the man outside pounding on the glass.
Then she froze, her eyes narrowing at the back door. “Young man, does that door lead anywhere?”
“Er.” He sat still, looking at it dumbfounded.
Faced with someone with a torpid mentality, she raised her voice to compensate. “Does it lead to a tradesman’s exit?”
“Yeah.” He stood and moved over to it. “It’s the stockroom, but Davvers always locks the back door before he leaves.”
“Check it.” She stepped away from the exit. “Don’t trust this Davros. There’s a psychopath outside.”
“It’s Davvers.” The kid reluctantly approached the door. “Yeah, we can hear him. He’s out there, not at the back.” He walked through the storeroom door. “Damn it, Davvers. Okay, so…”
There was a wet gurgling sound as his voice cut out.
“Young man?”
Silence.
The door creaked open.
Suze raced over to the vending machine and grabbed the fire extinguisher. A gangling man with lank, greasy white hair slid through the gap, holding a bloody Stanley knife.
“Stay away from me,” Suze thundered.
The man shook his head, a smile sliding across his face.
Suze pressed down on the fire extinguisher, covering him with a choking white cloud. He flailed under its unrelenting assault as she approached him. “I don’t know who you are, but if you’re with that ghastly van man, then you’ve made a poor life choice.” As the stream of suppressant weakened, she raised the extinguisher and smashed it hard into his head. Raising it again, she went to repeat the strike when a long, emaciated arm lashed out, knocking it aside.
His body slammed into her, and she fell hard onto the floor, her head striking the cheap tiles.
She grunted as her vision blurred. She could feel him crawling up her body, his face looming above her. Hot, fetid breath washed over her as she saw his wild eyes and yellowed teeth leering at her.
He raised the Stanley knife, clicking the blade out farther.
Her breath caught as fear rolled through her. Her earlier rage dissipated into paralysing terror.
Thunk.
The man’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped over her body.
A thick, meaty arm grabbed the back of his shirt and dragged him off her.
The van driver loomed over her. “You hurt, love?”
“No.” Suze looked up at her rescuer. He was heavily built and swarthy, looking like someone born south of the river. “Thank you.”
“Then what the hell were you playing at, you daft bint?” The man scowled at her. “I’ve been trying to warn you since I saw someone in the back seat.”
“What?” She struggled into a seated position, automatically adjusting her bouffant as police sirens sounded.
“I thought he was a passenger until I saw the knife. Every time I flashed my headlights at full beam, he ducked down and hid. I checked your car outside when I parked, but couldn’t see him.” He shrugged. “I hoped he’d done a runner.”
Suze stared at the driver, struggling to fit his words together through the pounding in her skull.
“Well then, for God’s sake man, hit him again. He might get up.”
THE END
Tales of the Macabre
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