Tales From Castle Diablo - "Re-Test" (full story)

Hello there

I am going to dispense with any grand intro here, and just present to you this story.

This is the first bespoke story I've written for Tales From Castle Diablo, although it shan't be the first story in the collection.  It is called "Re-Test" and I've not included the wraparound story that holds it in place, but it still works as a stand alone tale.

I'm very keen to hear your thoughts on it, as a fear bit of graft and drafts went into the structuring of it, so it's quite far along. 

I do appreciate with 50 mins of podcast yesterday, and a full story today, it is asking a lot of your time, but if you do manage/want to read it, it's one of the projects I'm ultra-enthused on.

Hope all is good over your way, sending love from here (story is below)

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RE-TEST

Why would anybody wish to be a driving examiner?

A feeling of importance, certainly. The power of being the decision maker on the freedoms of others? Without doubt. The ability to make judgements, sometimes on a whim, as to what levels of capabilities warrant success.  Yet there is also the undeniable mantle of responsibility that comes with the noble protection of the highways.  Safeguarding from the inept and reckless, denying them the opportunity to spread their inevitable, delicious, destruction.

Russell Prescott, a driving examiner of nearly fifteen years, appeared to display all the vanities that revealed him as harbouring a deeper sense of self-importance.  Of all the examiners in the Patton Leek driving test centre, he became the only one afforded the respect of formal address.  Hopeful learners were adamantly warned by their driving teachers that he would present his full name on greeting, but they must – absolutely must – only address him as Mr Prescott.  It was a confusing and nonsensical hurdle of his own creation, thus giving him an aura of dominance and imposition.  Which was an essential disguise.

Because Russell – sorry – Mr Prescott had ultimately become a driving instructor for a rest.

Within the stiflingly critical environment of a driving test, eyes are on everyone and everything but the examiner. The process is awful for the student, consumed as they are with completing every task to perfection. Yet it is the perfect sanctuary for the examiner. Isolated and untouchable in plain sight. It was here that Mr Prescott had cultivated the further eccentricity of nodding off during driving tests. “Sleepy Prescott”, the instructors would call him, incorrectly believing he wasn’t aware of his own nickname.  Of course, things like that always get back to people. He adopted the pretence of being wounded, but – in reality - not only did it not hurt him, he welcomed it.  That was exactly what he wanted them to be saying. Students would be reassured by their instructors that Mr Prescott won’t actually be asleep.  It’s just his way of getting the students to drive naturally, rather than under examination. After a few instructed tasks, a three-point turn or reversing around a corner, he would close his eyes. The word was, this was how he got a true picture of their capabilities, to allow them to drive without the pressure of instruction.

They bought it too.  Ridiculous perfection.

This was all part and parcel of the legend that Mr Prescott had cultivated, and it worked a treat for him.  Worked a dream, you could say.  Because in almost every driving test he conducted, within moments of him closing his eyes to ‘put the student at ease’, he was – in fact – absolutely, categorically, fast asleep.

Over the years, he had supposed there was the possibility that he had some sort of narcoleptic strain. That this was something over which he had no control. Eventually he acknowledged the fact, admittedly only to himself, that it was simply a choice. A choice to seize the opportunity and have a nap. His sleep pattern was as regular as it was possible to be. Unusual for sure, but ultimately reliable.  When he closed his eyes with the intention of sleeping, he slept. Every time. He just happened to be doing this at work, because – as we have discussed – he could.

Between us, the truth was, Russell Prescott was a deeply unhappy man. Unhappy, resentful and – ultimately – resigned. That’s what the sleep really was, if he just dared admit it.  Resignation.  He loathed life and couldn’t handle the successes of others. To be the arbiter of dishing out this success, watching people fly by him, onto their new adventures, was just too much. The less he saw of it, the better.  He wouldn’t even think about how he became a passenger for a living. He would justify his lack of observations in the driving tests he barely administered, with the belief that no instructor would let somebody who wasn’t ready even apply for their test.  If they did, that was their lookout, not his fault.  All Russell Prescott was really testing was if that generation could appear anything less than utterly objectionable to him.

On the morning of January the 13th, the first of his six daily tests was with a girl named Victoria. As he emerged from the test centre holding his examiner notes across his chest, she greeted him with an air of familiarity. She appeared to smile without moving her lips. It was in the eyes. A flair of recognition that was most confusing; an anomaly he found himself mirroring.

“Hello again,” he said, assuming they had met before, without any of the specifics called to mind.  He met a lot of people more than once in this scenario. One lad currently held the record at nine times and counting, and Mr Prescott had long since decided he was never going to pass him.

“Hi,” Victoria smiled warmly, and turned to lead him to the car.

Mr Prescott enjoyed this old ritual, as it saturated his ego with everything it was denied elsewhere. He was important, and this charade of being led to the car by the hopeful – indeed, the subservient – never lost its appeal. They weren’t normally this composed though. This girl seemed to be very together. Whatever nerves sabotaged her into making the misdemeanour that led to her return were not in evidence here.

“Hopefully better luck this time!” He announced jovially.

He never spoke to them as they led him to the car, and the only thing he ever said jovially during a driving test was “I’m sorry to tell you…”.

He had been knocked off guard by the serenity of this strange girl. It was not allure. It wasn’t even a challenge; she had arrived in charge. On the first test of the day, he would ask the student to pop the bonnet and tell him how they would check the oil.

On this test, he opened the car door for her. What was going on?

As he walked around to the passenger side, he composed himself. While he settled into the seat, and she buckled her seatbelt, he scrutinised her for clues. Nothing about her features triggered a spark of recognition. Her eyes were circled with dark makeup. Perhaps it was untidy, perhaps that was how they did it these days. Her hair, equally dark, was cut at odd angles, framing her face.  She’d either cut it herself, or paid a fortune. She suddenly turned and looked at him with an expectant smile.

“Better luck this time!” he repeated stupidly, which made him annoyed - first at himself, and then at her for making him do it. He quickly adopted a professional stance.

“So, tell me how you would check the brake lights are working on this vehicle.”

Victoria lifted a black-booted foot and hit the middle pedal, glancing in the mirror.  Mr Prescott looked at her expectantly.  She pointed at the mirror. He looked, seeing the red illumination reflected in the large windows of the test centre.

“This is the ‘tell me’ part of the driving test,” he said. “If you could tell me?”

Victoria repeated the action, but this time narrated her pointing at the mirror.

“Like that,” she said.

Russell Prescott just wanted his nap. He asked her to pull out of the test centre safely and turn left onto the highway.

“Better luck this time,” Victoria said quietly, and released the handbrake.

They drove for several miles, and Mr Prescott considered questioning her on whether he had examined her on a driving test before, but thought better of it. That air of familiarity was now frustrating him greatly. He supposed there was every chance she now bore no resemblance to herself during her previous attempt. This look she sported could well be the fashion of the week.  Beyond this, what really struck him was her driving.

It was impeccable.

He had expected her to drive too fast, but she had maintained a careful and conscientious speed that was irritating in its precision. She checked the mirrors at all the right times, not just methodically at intervals that could be timed to the second, like many of these kids trying to con him. After ten minutes driving, he hadn’t noted a single fault, major or minor.

Ten minutes was more than enough to get some shut-eye. He asked her to pull over safely, and then explained that he would shortly be instructing her to perform an emergency stop, which he would signal by stating “Stop,” and raising his hand.  Victoria nodded and pulled the car away again, without being asked. Fifty metres on, Mr Prescott firmly said “Stop!” and raised his hand, but Victoria continued to drive. He looked across at her. Her eyes stayed set on the road before her.  She was still driving with that careful and conscientious speed.

“Okay,” he said.

“Yes?” Victoria replied, calmly.

“You have to perform an emergency stop at that point,” he said, with a hint of confusion.

“At what point?” asked Victoria, still calm.

“When I say stop and raise my hand,” Prescott said, resisting the urge to make it patronisingly sing-song.

“Do it then,” Victoria stated.

Mr Prescott stared back at Victoria, before briefly turning and looking out of his window. As if the answer to this game was somehow outside. He ultimately opted for a snort.

“Well…I did…” he smiled.

Victoria didn’t smile in return.  She looked irritated.

“Well…” she echoed. “You didn’t.”

After another staring pause, Mr Prescott snorted another laugh and sat back in his seat.

“I’d like you to drive freely now,” he said quietly.

This was the announcement of his nap. He had seen enough to fail her, and this was one of those occasions where he was happy to. Any charisma that had initially swayed him had evaporated. He had watched generation after generation deteriorate in attitude, and the least they could do as their future lay in his hands was to afford him some courtesy. If he'd spoken like that to an elder when he was that age, and…well, I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. He was threatened. But he wasn’t helpless. He could ruin their freedom. At least temporarily. Today was one of those occasions. If he had met this girl before, she couldn’t have had this attitude. He would have remembered that.

He would remember that.

He closed his eyes. Yes, you drive freely, he thought, smiling to himself. Make the most of it.

*

There is a moment before we open our eyes from slumber where the brain reboots. In this split second, a million assessments are made.  A scan for danger, a scan for time, a scan for threat, a scan for location, it all happens in that heartbeat. It prepares us for anything untoward as we emerge. A safety check. In that moment, for Russell Prescott, the alarm went off when he realised the hum of the car engine was absent. He opened his eyes and jolted awake.

Then came the next series of assessments, as he looked around his surroundings.  Things got significantly worse. Indeed, they were unfathomable.

He was still in the car, but the car was not still on the road. Not on any road.  It appeared to be in a forest.  He instinctively hit the brake pedal on the dual-controls, but they were already quite still.  He considered that they may have crashed, rolled down a hill and landed here.  There was nothing to indicate this being the case.  They were the right way up, there was no misshape to the interior, no smoke from under the bonnet.  This is before the consideration that the chances of him sleeping through a car crash were very slim indeed. Outside, everything was settled and still. No earth was churned up, none of the foliage that seemed to envelop the car was crushed or damaged. This hadn’t just happened. He glanced at the clock in the centre of the dashboard.  It was 9am, just a quarter of an hour after the start of the test he had been taking. Even allowing for the clock being slightly slow or fast, this was alarming. It was as though he had blinked and dropped into another world.

Even more alarming was the body in the driving seat beside him.  He couldn’t look at it for long. That odd, angular haircut and those big boots told him it was Victoria, but there was little else by way of clues. She was mangled. That’s the word for it.  Bloody and destroyed. He looked away quickly, but the image was already burned into his brain. Red and wet.  Where her face had been was impossibly hollow. The seatbelt was threaded into her.  It’s not something that needs explaining, you can imagine.  Or perhaps you can’t. Had it not been in front of him, it wasn’t an image that Mr Prescott would have been able to conjure.

He pulled the door handle and shouldered his way from the vehicle, against the resistance of the thick greenery surrounding it. He scrambled as quickly as he could to get out of the epicentre of horror, eventually stumbling down to his knees in a slight clearing. He looked back at the car. There was no clue. No broken glass, not even minor bodywork damage. It looked as it had looked when he opened the driver door for Victoria just fifteen minutes ago.  He glanced at his watch. Yes. Fifteen minutes ago.

This all needed to change. Nothing about this was right. It couldn’t be real. A childhood nightmare had taught him an escape plan from these intense anxiety dreams. In the thick of the fantasy ordeal, if he lent back and opened his mouth, he would awaken. He did it quickly.  Then again and again. He didn’t awaken.

“Please,” he cried, as he repeatedly tried to wake.

A sense of urgency overtook him. Where was this?  He looked around quickly.  The car was in a thick part of the forest, but there was light and a sparser area of trees around fifty metres behind the car.  He started to stumble through the undergrowth towards it, panicking and desperate. Desperate for civilisation.  A road.  Traffic.  Anything to tell him where he was, and wrench some sense from this trauma. He lifted a hand to shade his eyes from the emerging light. Through his squint, he could see the castle. The Hell Castle or whatever they called it. He was still in Patton Leek.  It was a fair way away, but it was a marker.  A tiny reassurance, but at least he was somewhere geographically plausible.

He needed to get the car out, and get back.  He needed to speak to somebody, for this to be a horrific shared problem. He moved back toward the car, the gruesome shadow of the driver coming into view. He didn’t know where to put her. He’d have to move the body, of course, but into the passenger seat?  The back seat?  The boot?  His stomach flipped at the thought of lumbering this cadaver into the boot, like a gangster in a movie.

Then what?  Where would he even go?  Who would he go to?  What would he say?

He stopped asking himself questions.  He was starting to hyperventilate, and this was playing further havoc with the nausea he had felt within seconds of opening his eyes.  He swallowed back foul bile and steadied himself. He tasted the conflict of needing to move quickly, battling with the need to breathe and think.

There’s a key moment in these situations where a decision has to be made.  Those who know about them will tell you there is a guarantee that the wrong decision will always be taken.  It’s tragically understandable, as one cannot possibly make a settled and considered decision when manic and confused. Yet, it is impossible to be anything but when you wake to find a dead body in the car beside you.

Which is how Russell Prescott arrived at the decision to dispose of the body himself.

Whatever reasoning led to this decision; it was the wrong one.  Yet once he had committed to the gruesome task, he never considered the possibility that it may be anything but the right way.  Even as his heart pounded with the exhaustion of attempting to dig a shallow grave with a windscreen ice scraper, or when he tried to negotiate the sickly corpse of Victoria into it, turning his head away and blindly pulling her towards his dig site, he refused to have second thoughts.  As he threw the ice scraper back into the car and pushed the earth back over what was left of Victoria, he was finally very sick.  He steadied himself on all fours, surrendering a high pitched scream as he clenched his fists into the soil.

It was his turn to be in the driving seat, and the pounding in his chest had not abated.  He could hear it in his ears and his face prickled.  He saw his filthy hands on the wheel in front of him, and felt the emptiness of the seat he had vacated beside him. It was his test now. To get back.  Then what, he didn’t want to think about.  As he reversed back out of the forest, praying for no wheel slip, he pushed the need for explanation deep into his broken soul.

Despite his best efforts with denial, the return drive was fraught with agitation. As his heart rate finally began to regulate, Mr Prescott was forced to think.  Regardless of the unreality of his situation (and describing it as merely a “situation” was an undersell for the ages), there were unavoidable realities.  Firstly, this was not his car.  Returning with this car, but not the student, was never going to pass unnoticed.  Secondly, vast as it was, there was simply no option to return to normality.  The life that left the test centre with him that morning was now impossible to access.  It was gone.  He wouldn’t be taking up where he left off, he wouldn’t be examining the other students today, or ever again.  He also didn’t have the option of help.  Where would he go for help?  Who to?  He couldn’t explain it to the police because the situation had no explanation.  There’s no caveat in common law that allows for such mystery.  He had left the test centre with a student who was now buried in the woods, and the absolute truth would not explain a thing.  Even in the twisted trauma, Mr Prescott was well aware that this was first and foremost a police matter, but given the impossibility of going to the police he was left with only one option.

Run.  Get back to the test centre, get his personal belongings from inside, talk to nobody, disappear.  Do it fast.  Go first, details later.  Get into his own car, get as much of his money in his pocket as he could, get far away and never return.

This may sound like the worst thing in the world.  To have every stability of one’s existence removed before lunchtime, is as overwhelming and destructive a thing as can be imagined.  Yet, strangely, for Russell Prescott, the closer he got to arriving at the test centre, the more he calmed.  This would never have happened to his existence.  He would have continued, miserable and entrenched in routine and bitter monotony, for the rest of his natural life.  Now he’d had an unnatural life suddenly thrust upon him.  He was about to be an outlaw on the run.  The feeling bubbling away inside him was utterly alien.  It was exciting.  He was charged.

That’s how he assessed it. We don’t need exhaustive psycho-analytical training to decipher that he had actually plummeted into an unstoppable madness. Madness, of course, brings its own reward of catharsis. And so untameable too. Whether this is a better or worse fate would be a matter for your personal taste.  I know what I think.

He pulled the car back into the test centre, and on reaching to unlock his seatbelt found he hadn’t been wearing it.  Another surge of catharsis.  Not wearing a seatbelt had manifested into a cardinal sin in his life, vigilantly checked several times a day in others.  Now here he was, not only ignoring his, but not even realising it.

He got out of the car, moving around to the passenger side to retrieve his folder.  Not that he needed this folder ever again, but he supposed it was evidence he had been there.  He refused to look around, lest anyone acknowledge him with eye contact.  Speed was paramount.  Again, in a life reversal, high speed was suddenly of the essence.

He opened the passenger door and reached inside, as a shadow blocked the light and a body plonked down into the driving seat.  Booted feet were positioned in the footwell, ready to touch the pedals.  Before he dared to peer down to confirm who they belonged to, he knew.  He had become grotesquely familiar.  He slowly lowered his head and looked at the driver.

Victoria looked back at him.  Alive and uninjured.  No blood, no dirt.  He stared into her eyes, wearing that same expectant smile as before.  His knuckles were white as he clutched his folder tightly and he felt himself mesmerised back into the passenger seat. He saw the mud-covered ice scraper still on the floor. Victoria continued to stare at him, and Russell Prescott found himself unable to escape.

She slammed a booted foot on the brake pedal and pointed at the rear-view mirror.

“Like that,” she said, and started the engine.

Mr Prescott swallowed.

“Better luck this time,” Victoria said quietly, and released the handbrake.

As the car pulled out of the test centre, for the second time that day, Russell Prescott had his world turned upside down. He didn’t speak, couldn’t speak, and what was left of his mind continued to eat itself.  Victoria continued to drive impeccably, seemingly following silent instruction.  He searched for words, but clung to the mercy of being merely a passenger.  In any other circumstance it would be a time to gaze through the window, to breathe, to sleep.  Now his eyes couldn’t leave her and he felt as though he would never dare sleep again.

Victoria’s smile sharpened and she took a deep intake of breath.

Mr Prescott glanced ahead, as though this had been an indication of a forthcoming hazard, but Victoria began to speak.

“I expect you’re confused,” she smiled, not taking her eyes from the road.

Mr Prescott cleared his throat, but still no words came.

“If you want an explanation, I can give you an explanation,” Victoria said, fairly. “If you haven’t worked it out of course. Have you worked it out Mr Prescott?”

Victoria turned her head to lock eyes with him.

Mr Prescott impulsively looked ahead out of the windscreen.  Eyes entirely off the road whilst travelling at speed. This would have been a compulsory fail.  She kept looking his way.  He scrambled for words, anything at all, just to give her the impetus to return her gaze to the road.

“I don’t…I don’t understand…I mean…I’ve clearly…you know…” he flitted his gaze between her eyes and the road.  It felt as though they were going much faster now, and each new vehicle of oncoming traffic seemed closer.  “I’ve… I don’t remember, but I know I must have failed you previously…It’s not a personal thing…you must understand that…plenty of people - in fact – most people, come back and pass and…I understand if you feel it wasn’t fair or …”

It appeared that all the words that had eluded him had arrived in one go.  Victoria continued to look right at him, and he saw her booted foot nudge further down on the accelerator.

“Please…” Mr Prescott said quietly.  “Please look ahead.  I’m sorry…I’m sorry I failed you…”

Victoria gave a mock frown.

“You didn’t fail me,” she said, in feigned confusion.  “You passed me…I passed my driving test first time.  Thanks to you.”

She gave a broad grin.

“Then what…?  I don’t understand…please look…please…”

The car continued to gather pace, there was a loud bang as a wing mirror was clipped at speed.

“Oh!” Mr Prescott exclaimed, he remembered the dual controls and tried to push the brake.  There was no resistance.  The car continued undeterred. Victoria kept her eyes locked on him.

“You passed me!” she hissed.  Gone was the pretence of misunderstanding.  Her voice rose sharply “You passed me!  You shouldn’t have passed me! I wasn’t safe!”

“Wha…Please…please can you slow d…”

“You should have seen that I wasn’t safe!”

“Oh…for the love of…please can y…”

“You passed me because you weren’t looking!  You were asleep Mr Prescott!” She spat his name in disgust. “You woke up and passed me and that is why it happened.  I should not have been driving.  It wasn’t just me…there were others.”

Tears were welling in her raging eyes.

Russell Prescott was frozen.  The car was now hitting stationary vehicles as it continued its course.  He couldn’t take a moment longer.  He threw up his hand and shouted.

“Stop!”

Like every other part of Victoria’s tested driving that day, the emergency stop was impeccable.

Regardless, momentum is unavoidable.

Momentum without a seatbelt invariably has just one conclusion. A crushing and irreversible conclusion.

The test folder, the final thing Mr Russell Prescott could cling to, proved very difficult to remove.

*