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    Road Rage
    Â 
    by
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    Robert T. Jeschonek

    *****
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    More Horror Tales by Robert T. Jeschonek
    Â  Bloodliner – a novel
    Diary of a Maggot
    Dionysus Dying
    Fear of Rain
    Â 
    *****
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    Road Rage

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    As soon as the two-lane road opened up into four lanes, Walter Haskell swung his mammoth Dodge SUV out from behind the Honda compact he’d been chasing and jammed the accelerator to the floor.
    â€œAll right, you son of a bitch,” said Walter as the Dodge bolted ahead of the Honda. “See how you like it.”
    Heart pounding, Walter pitched the SUV back into the right lane in front of the Honda and immediately slowed down. The Dodge dropped from seventy miles an hour to sixty, then fifty...and kept slowing.
    When the Dodge hit forty-five, the hotheaded ballcap-wearing kid at the wheel of the Honda tried to dart into the left lane and get past Walter...but Walter wouldn’t let him. Every time the kid slipped left, Walter swerved in front of him, cutting off his escape. When the kid veered right, Walter followed and intercepted him there, too.
    In his rear-view mirror, Walter could see the pissed-off jerk screaming and cursing and making obscene gestures. It made Walter feel like a trillion bucks.
    Justice was served...Walter’s version of it, anyway. He’d seen the kid tormenting an elderly couple in an Oldsmobile, first tailgating them, then passing on the double yellow and trapping them in a snail’s pace crawl for five miles or so. The couple had finally pulled over, defeated, and the kid had roared away into the night, penalty-free because there hadn’t been a cop in sight.
    But he hadn’t counted on Walter. Walter had followed at a distance, watching everything...and Walter was a guy who took road rage personally, even when it wasn’t directed at him. Especially then.
    Walter made it his business to balance the scales for victims of hotheads like this one.
    â€œThere, asshole,” he said, punching the Dodge left as the kid made another attempt to pass. “That’s what you get. Let’s see how you like a nice, slow ride for the next ten miles or so.”
    Mission accomplished. Another road rager put in his place, thanks to the self-appointed guardian of the highway.
    The kid charged left, then right again. Walter blocked his every move, bolting the Dodge from side to side with deft flicks of the customized joystick that served as his combination steering and shifting apparatus.
    The reason for the joystick – his useless left arm – hung at his side, strapped to the plastic splint he’d worn ever since the accident.

    *****
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    It had happened on the same stretch of road he now drove, a state route between Dayton and Troy, Ohio. It had happened with him at the wheel (with two good arms then) and his wife in the passenger seat, sound asleep.
    It had happened one year ago today.
    Walter and Sue were on their way back to Troy after a night out in Dayton, celebrating their twentieth anniversary. Sinatra was in the CD player, crooning away as Walter guided the Mercedes through the warm July darkness.
    As Sue slept, Walter mused about time and how fast it was passing him by. Though not unhappy, exactly, he felt a longing for something more. Once, his whole life had been laid out before him, flashing with magic and potential; now, he felt like walls were closing in around him, narrowing down his choices, trapping him in a single, limited space.
    He was comfortable, and occasionally delighted, but never fulfilled. Something was missing. He felt as if he had been meant to do something important, but had never quite managed to figure out what it was.
    And time was running out.
    It was just as he was thinking these thoughts that the souped-up Nissan came barreling up alongside him.
    The silver Nissan was tricked out street-racing style and had a filigree of flames painted along its side. It swept up out of nowhere, leaping into the left