Root Cause

Root Cause

by Betty Jimenez

Her best friend, her son, her mother, and then her three sisters...all dead...all taken from her by the car sitting outside, waiting outside...keeping watch over her soul.

The first accident had been fifteen years ago. Myra had a wonderful life. A beautiful home, a wonderful husband, and two beautiful children. The accident happened on her daughter's fifth birthday.

John, Myra's husband, had taken them all to the circus. What fun! The clowns, the acrobats, the popcorn and the cotton candy. Myra and the kids had been so full of excitement and wonder at all of those acts! And Beth, Myra's daughter, had wanted to pet the lions. Of course, that would have been far too risky, so Myra told her no. Beth began to cry, and so they all decided to call it a day, piling into their brand new car, so new, in fact, the little dealer's tag was still in the window.

Myra and John rode in the front, and Beth and Douglas rode in the back. Douglas, being ten years old, was not patient with his sister, which led to inevitable fights. Myra thought they were fighting when she heard Douglas began to scream. Then, the words, those harsh, frantic, ugly words, came through to her. They still came to her in her dreams. When she managed to sleep, that is.

"There's something wrong with Beth! There's something WRONG with BETH! There's SOMETHING WRONG!"

Beth had been having a seizure. Out of the blue, and with little warning, she had begun to shake violently and struck her head on the door glass. By the time they arrived at the hospital Beth had been dead.

Myra never went to the circus again, and could not bear to look at a lion in a magazine or on the TV. She should have let her pet the lion. She would have, if she had known she had less than an hour to live.

Myra stirred restlessly, her knees beginning to ache from the cold tile floor, but she remained kneeling on the floor.

It wasn't really the car that frightened her. Not really. At least, not only the car. Sometimes, late at night, the house frightened her as well.

Myra glanced around her living room, her eyes taking in the cheap blinds leaning crookedly against the dusty window seals. The furniture was a mixture of early American junk and new age thrift store. One worn, tired lamp sat in the corner of the room, on top of a plastic trash can turned up side down.

Myra hadn't always lived this way. She had been someone's mother, someone's wife, someone's friend. It was the car outside that had taken it all away from her, everything she loved was gone.

The first accident had been just that, an accident. She had not suspected the car, and she would never forgive herself for that oversight. If she had realized then.... but, no use dwelling on that now. There would be time for that later, when she burned the candles in the bathroom. Now it was time to find something to eat.

Myra crept into the kitchen, her eyes and ears everywhere at once, on the look out for any strange sights or sounds. As she glanced through her pantry, the shelves bent and warped under the weight of the cans and boxes, Myra decided on a can of tomato soup and a small package of crackers. After opening the can and pouring it into a plastic bowl (Myra couldn't stand to be in the kitchen long enough to do dishes), she walked quickly back to the living room.

The first accident kept returning to her, and, after the cold soup and stale crackers were gone, Myra decided to light her candles. Kneeling on the cold tile floor she quickly used her lighter to light seven candles. No more. No less. As she lit them, as was her custom, Myra began to recall the seven deaths...her daughter, her husband, where she was, her punishment at being the one left living not yet complete.

The second accident had happened so fast. Myra could only remember the policeman arriving at the door, solemn, his eyes shifting from side to side as he told her that her husband was dead. It was two years after Beth died, and John had only been 45 years old, and had a fatal heart attack on the expressway. The miracle was, the car was not hurt at all. Somehow it had drifted to the shoulder, and stopped, with John's dead foot still on the accelerator. It would be three years before Myra could enter the car again without feeling nauseous and afraid. She had not suspected the car, yet, but it had began to make her feel uncomfortable.

The memories were all beginning to blur, as Myra lit candle after candle. Always saving the big red one until the end. Myra's best friend, Linda, had died in the car two years after John. Myra had loaned her the car, since she herself no longer drove, and Linda had the car for almost the entire two years. The spooky haunted feeling Myra had about the car had began to abate when her friend was killed suddenly, in the car, by a total stranger. The man had walked up to her at a red light and shot her. Linda had fallen from the car, and there was no damage to the car, at all, nothing cosmetic or mechanical. Not even a single drop of Linda's blood. Myra had known, then, for sure that the car was evil. She had known and been afraid to speak of it. The car had remained covered in the garage.

Three years later Myra's seventeen year old son, Douglas, had decided to use the car for work. Myra was afraid, but everything seemed to go just fine for a few years. Nineteen year old Douglas had taken the car to his prom, he and his date had decided to go to the beach after the dance. Myra got the call at 4:00 AM to come to the morgue and identify her son's body. The car had shifted into drive, with no one in it, and had struck both her son and his date as they slept on the beach some twenty feet in front of the car. The car was uninjured. Douglas was dead on impact.

Myra had began counseling that year, though, it had done no good. The Psychologist scoffed at her thoughts on the car's evilness. She had told Myra to sell the car, to give it away, or to have it destroyed. Yet, Myra knew she couldn't sell it. That would be like selling drugs to children. She couldn't make a gift of death, and she knew no one who would pick up the car and destroy it. She felt certain they would keep the car, and any deaths would be her fault. She knew that even before her mother and her three sisters had all been killed in the car. Labor day weekend, five years after Douglas died. Just last week, Myra's mother and her sisters had wanted to use the car to drive to a craft convention. Myra had pleaded with them to find another car, to rent a car, or to steal one, but not to use hers. Her mother and her younger sisters told her she was hysterical, and grief stricken, which was normal, but the car was not evil. Fate had taken her family and friend, but not the metal, plastic, and rubber sitting in the garage.

The Fire Chief had told her that it was the strangest thing he had ever seen. The car had spontaneously combusted, at least, the interior. Her mother and sisters had died instantly, and the seats and interior had been destroyed, yet, there was no damage at all outside. The report was written, the bodies buried, and the final family Myra had gone. Now it was her and the car. The house was only the mediator between the two.

Myra decided to not light the big candle. She knew that the car had wanted her for all of these years. She knew the evil would only stop when she gave herself to the car. Tired, with no family or friends to comfort her, Myra decided to give her body to the car, in order to save her soul.

The policeman glanced around the dirty, little garage, his skin crawling as he looked at the woman in the front seat. She had dressed in her best house dress, her matching house shoes dusty, but in place. Her hair had been tied with a matching ribbon, the curls escaping around her face. In her cold, stiff hands she held several pictures, of her daughter, her husband, her friend, her son, and her mother and sisters. He didn't understand what had made her kill herself. She had a nice enough house, a damn fine car, and enough insurance money to see her through several lifetimes.

He guessed the grief was just too much for her to handle. All of her family and friends were gone. He really did like this car, though. It was a classic automobile with chrome rims and a beautiful interior. Walking around the car, he noticed a small, bright white sign in the back window.

The letters were large and blood red.

For sale

by owner

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