Running On Empty

Jon Ford rubbed his eyes as the tiredness and exhaustion wasted over him. He switched off the computer, and glanced at the clock on the other side of the office. Just before ten o’clock at night. What a day it had been. He had been at work since before seven that morning. He tugged his tie down a couple of inches, shrugged into his coat and headed for the car.

As he pulled off the car-park, his head was pounding. The back of his head hurt. A stress headache. There was just too much to do, and his colleagues were either utterly clueless or as lazy as a Labrador. He had been complaining for months that he needed help. Each time he mentioned it to management, usually as they were waltzing out of the office on the stroke of the official home-time, he was told to leave it with them, that they were looking into it.

As he drove along, staring at the dark road stretching out in front of him, his mind went over the issues at work with the collections and the vehicles. It had just been one thing after another, and then management had insisted his month-end reports were complete by the end of the day. Not that the managers would be staying late, of course not. It seemed that their role at the company was to pile as much work on the clerks as they could, while sitting in endless meetings, the outcome of which, the workers never seemed to hear. 

He was so glad it was Friday. He would finish on time next Friday night regardless of what dramas were unfolding at work. He needed a break. He owed it to himself. He couldn’t carry on much longer like this. What was the worst that could happen? If they sacked him that might actually be a blessing. Any job would be better than this. 

The orange glow of the streetlights gave the road a sinister unreal quality. He felt like he was in the opening scene of a horror film. He sighed and continued along the road.

Suddenly there was somebody in the road in front of him. The figure in a grey hoodie was crossing the road, dashing right in front of the car. Jon didn’t even have time to brake, before the car ploughed into the figure with a dull, sickening thud. The figure was flung over Jon’s windscreen, and tossed into the road behind him. Jon slammed on, his brakes screeching, before coming to a stop. 

Jon stopped, breathing hard, staring in the rear-view mirror, at the figure, now crumpled in the street. Panic and disbelief gripped him. Was this actually happening? He had left work, thinking the day couldn’t get any worse, only to discover how wrong he was. The person he’d hit lay motionless on the tarmac. Panic turned to terror. Were they dead? Had he killed them? Was he now a murder? 

He wound his window down and glanced out, listening, watching, for any signs of life. Whoever it was, they were silent, unmoving. No groans of agony. No writhing limbs, thrashing in pain. Nothing. No signs of life. Lifeless. The word sent a shudder through him. 

Something snapped in him. He turned back to face the road in front, and without looking back, he slammed his foot down on the accelerator hard. The car darted away down the street. Jon didn’t check the rear-view mirror until he was three streets away. 

He drove the rest of the way home slowly, with all the care of someone taking their driving test. He pulled up to the kerb outside his house, half-expecting the police to be there waiting for his return, blue flashing lights, sirens and hand-cuffs.  But the street was quiet and dark. He crossed the pavement on weak legs and fumbled with his key in the front door.

He switched on the television set and poured himself a large whiskey. On screen a wise-cracking American comedian cracked jokes about this week in politics. Jon simply stared at the screen, sipping his whiskey. He tried to concentrate on the TV but he kept seeing the person stepping out right in front of him. The image of the person slumped, unmoving in the late-night street, would stay with him forever. He should have got out of the car, called somebody. He could have called an ambulance to help. He could have called the police and explained. It had been an accident. They had just stepped out in front of the car. He hadn’t done anything wrong, until he’d driven off. He had panicked and wanted to get away from the whole situation. He hadn’t been thinking straight. But the law wouldn’t see it that way. They would charging him with leaving the scene of a crime at the very least. 

As he lay in bed, he went over and over everything. The person stepping out, the impact, the screech of brakes, and him driving off, leaving the person in the road. It was just awful. 

Jon must have drifted off to sleep as he woke up just before seven o’clock the following morning. He opened his eyes. Sunlight spilling in through a gap in the curtains made him half-close his eyes again. His head hurt from the stress of the week and the whiskey he’d put away last night. Then the events of last night came back to him. Once again he saw the figure in front of him, the impact with the car, and lying motionless in the late-night street. He felt sick. Had that actually happened? Had he hit someone and driven off? Hit and run, that’s what they called it. Had he really done that?

The whole thing didn’t seem real. Coming after an awful day at work, on the late-night drive home. Had it really happened? Maybe he had dreamt it. Or maybe his mind had been playing tricks on him, causing him to see things that were not there. He threw the duvet to the side, and forced himself up out of bed.

He was still trying to make sense of the whole thing, downstairs, drinking tea, watching the breakfast news on television. He was wondering if he’d imagined the whole thing, a strange ending to a strange day, when the local news came on. The headline story made him gasp.

Our main story tonight, a man has been killed in a suspected hit and run. The incident took place just after 10pm last night on Pleasant Crescent, Salford. The police are asking for anyone with information to come forward.

Jon felt like the whole world had suddenly gone under-water. He was just stunned. To hear the events of last night describe in such a matter-of-fact way by the reporter left him reeling. This was his doing. He had knocked somebody down, and fled the scene. Should he turn himself in? Should he go to the police? It was an accident. He hadn’t deliberately gone out to take somebody’s life. He hadn’t been driving recklessly. While he had been behind the wheel, he was innocent. Should he really ruin his life for a chance accident? No, it might be better if he kept quiet for now and see how things played out. 

At that moment his mobile phone pinged. One new message, number unknown. Expecting some spam message offering him the bargain of a life-time, Jon clicked on the message. He stared at the screen, the phone trembling in his fingers. 

I know what you did last night.

Jon dropped the phone onto the coffee table, reeling as though the device had given him an electric shock. He slumped back on the sofa. This was all too much. Somebody knew what he did last night. There must have been a witness, somebody had seen him run the man over, and drive off into the night. Maybe they’d managed to find his mobile number from his car license plate. Should he reply to the message? What would he say? If they had seen the incident, then they could vouch that it had been an accident, that the guy had stepped out in front of his car. But the tone of the text hardly sounded agreeable. 

The day passed by in a blur. He drank tea, paced up and down his living room, tried to sleep. He wanted to leave the world and this existence. Stop the world, as they say, he wanted to get off. Sleep offered temporary release. He curled up into a ball under the duvet, and, with a talk radio station playing low, he closed his eyes and tried to relax. Things would sort themselves out somehow. 

It was early evening when he got up. He went to the bathroom, and splashed cold water on his face. He looked at his reflection. He looked like a different person than the day before. He looked haunted, drained. He was on his way back downstairs for yet another cup of tea, when his phone pinged again. He perched nervously on the edge of the sofa and read the latest message, again from the unknown number.

Do you really think you will get away with this?

Jon sighed, looking to the ceiling, in desperation. He just wanted this to stop. Since leaving work last night, things seemed to have spiralled out of control. He rubbed his face with his hands and sighed. This was all just too much. His life as he knew it, his future, his entire existence, seemed to have been suddenly pulled out from under him. Somebody had died because of his actions, but he hadn’t set out to take a life. He hadn’t jumped a red light, or been speeding. The accident could have happened to anyone. He had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. In anger, frustration, and despair, he reached for his mobile phone. 

It was an accident. Jon typed quickly and hit the send button.

A man died. The reply came almost straight away. 

He stepped out in front of me. There was nothing I could do.

And that makes it okay??

Jon didn’t really have a reply to that. Tears stung his eyes. 

You have to go to the police!! Tell them what you have done. 

Jon nodded to himself. Whoever was texting him, they were right. There was no other option. He had to go to the police. If he explained that he had been driving home from a long day at work, and had panicked and driven off after knocking the man down. He would apologise, he was really sorry, and then see what happened from there. Even if they gave him a custodial sentence, whatever punishment they gave, he couldn’t feel worse than he did right then. In fact, in a strange way, he might feel better, having got all this off his chest. He would finally be holding himself to account, admitting his guilt. And then, he would accept whatever justice they served. 

Just before nine o’clock that evening, Jon walked into the police station. He was calm, he was resigned to his fate. He was here to confess his crimes and take whatever punishment the law deemed fit. He was shown through to an interview room and two uniformed police officers, took the seat facing him. They were both in their late twenties and had serious but concerned expressions. They wanted to hear what he had to say before seeing how things went from there. The female office pushed the record button on the tape machine and nodded for Jon to begin. 

Jon told them everything. He explained how he had been working really long hours at an office job that was slowly crushing him, how after leaving the office, late on Friday night, he had been on the drive home, stressed and tired from work, when a man had stepped out in front of him. There was nothing Jon could have done. As tragic as it was, he had run down the poor man. And then, regrettably, Jon had made the worst decision of his life, and driven away. The male officer nodded, as he listened to Jon’s explanation.

‘So what made you come here this evening? Why have you decided to turn yourself in now?’ He asked.

‘Of course, I am very sorry for what I’ve done. I am truly sorry for all that has happened and I would have definitely come here soon to hand myself over to you.’

‘But?’ the female officer asked. ‘What was it that prompted you to come in tonight?’

‘I started getting these text messages. Somebody must have seen what happened. I got these messages saying they know what I did and telling me to turn myself in.’

‘Can you show me the messages?’ She asked.

Jon nodded, and slid his mobile phone across the table. 

‘It’s the top message chain, from Unknown Number.’ Jon said. 

The officer tapped on the phone and scrolled through. She waved the phone at him in puzzlement.

‘There are no messages from an unknown number on your phone.’

By Chris Platt

From: United Kingdom