A Speedometer Outside Of Windshaw
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by PepperSalt89
Everyone knows what a speed camera is. Roadside cameras that track your car’s speed. You’ve probably seen the ones with LED matrix displays; they form a happy face if you’re going below the speed limit, and a sad or angry face if you go above. They’re very common in my part of the world, anyway. Now I feel abject terror whenever I pass one on the road, stiffen up as its LED display blinks to life. It sounds ridiculous, but if you had seen the same thing that I’ve seen, you’d understand.
Just outside of Windshaw (a village I used to live in), a new speed camera had just been put in. Several speed cameras, in fact, were being erected around the village, after a child was hit by a speeding car the previous year. I had passed by them hundreds, maybe thousands of times, when the incident occurred. It was a late night, and I was driving home. I was going a little over the speed limit. I passed the speed camera. I was aware that I was going a bit fast, but I didn’t care. The red angry face that would appear on the LED matrix was nothing more than a slap on the wrist. I’d decrease my foot’s pressure on the accelerator, and that would be it. But instead, something worse happened. The LED display began showing images. Images of corpses. Children’s corpses. It all happened so fast. It was a blur of legs and arms and spines and limbs bent in directions that made me physically sick, streaks of red and the discolored blues and greens and pinks of kid’s clothes, chunks of suffering smeared across a background of tarmac. I was so distracted and horrified that I swerved off the road, hitting the speed camera.
I had never spent a night in a jail cell before, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The police were ready to let me off with a warning for reckless driving, but after I had explained the whole story, they seemed to get even more tetchy. They were convinced that such a speed camera did not exist, and I wanted to believe them. They tried to convince me that I had imagined it in a tired stupor, and some suggested that I had been taking drugs. I was ready to leave the police station and (hopefully) never look back, but one officer took an interest in my story. His name was Detective Shall, and he invited me to discuss the incident later that afternoon. Well, the afternoon came, and I returned to the Detective’s office. I found him to be a fairly likable man, though he had a habit of interrupting me. We came to the conclusion that the speed camera that we dubbed the ‘murder camera’ did exist, and was some sort of macabre PSA. The government’s never shied away from using shocking or grisly imagery as a way to scare us straight. Shall suggested that the corpses were victims of vehicular manslaughter, like a way of saying ‘this is what happens when you go over the speed limit’. We joked that the murder camera would take your eyes away from the road, making it even more likely to crash. Shall told me that the village council were in charge of implementing and managing the speed cameras, even if they were surveyed by the Windshaw police. He suggested we went to the camera, to look for evidence. Why not.
The road was closed, but Shall’s police pass gave him access. The speed camera lay on the side of the road like a wounded animal, surrounded by construction workers and council members in blinding hi-vis jackets. Me and Shall watched them for a while, before the apparent foreman noticed us and came to have a word. He was a snide, slightly overweight, red-faced man, closer to sixty than fifty. Shall was out of uniform, and the foreman must have thought we were trying to vandalize the construction site or some other lofty claim. He seemed somewhat deflated when he found out that Shall was a police officer, and I immediately got the sense that he took great joy in calling the police on people. Shall asked him if the speed camera’s LED could be tested. The foreman said that he wouldn’t, as the speed camera was not connected to the mains electricity yet, as ‘some lout had hit it with his car’. Fair enough, I thought. The foreman added that his men would be testing the LED at around 4AM next morning, but ‘he’d be surprised if we’d be there to see it’.
I’d like to see the look on the foreman’s face if he saw me and Shall at the construction site at 4AM sharp. But he didn’t see us. We were hidden in a hedgerow on the side of the road, eyes fixed on the murder camera. Sure enough, the foreman gave some sort of hand signal, and the LED display lit up. I instinctively flinched. Another slideshow of images, a slew of bent bodies that moved so fast they seemed to blend together into this half-remembered… shape. The council members gathered around the speed camera, standing stock-still. It was like something from a horror movie. I looked to Shall, who was watching the whole ordeal through the lens of his camcorder. Finally, the LED display shut off. Me and Shall slipped away into the night, getting back to his car and driving as far away – and as fast – as we could. I hoped we wouldn’t go past a speed camera.
Shall was practically ecstatic that we had evidence. During the whole journey, he kept telling me to make notes of this and search up that on my phone, and that ‘the boys at the station are gonna shit themselves’ when they found out that their self-inflated lies were just that. I found that the head of the village council was our local MP, Elizabeth Ross. We both wanted to pay her a visit, and ask her some questions. I was given this task, while Shall would try and sell his story to the Windshaw news. Sleep would have to come first, though.
I woke up at around 9AM the next day, opting to walk to Mrs Ross’ house. It was a large stately home that appeared to be crumbling at the edges. I half-expected the doorbell to fall away when I pressed it down. Mrs Ross came to the door almost instantly. She appeared to be about fifty, but her already-greying hair and wrinkles suggested otherwise. She seemed very pleased with a visitor, and practically demanded that I come inside. The first thing that hit me was a strong smell of rotten food. The house itself was surprisingly dirty, with mold-infested furniture and dust-covered trinkets packed into every corner. I breathed through my teeth, but somehow the smell still managed to permeate into my nasal cavities. She led me through a maze of hallways, finally coming to a sitting room where she told me she would bring us some tea, disappearing away into the bowels of the house. I hovered above my armchair, trying to avoid the stained everything of the house as much as I could. The mantelpiece was covered with images of a girl – presumably Elizabeth’s grand-daughter. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t explain why. There was also an old digital camera, which was surprisingly dust-free. Suddenly, Elizabeth returned with tea for the both of us. It was cold.
Trying to break the awkward silence, I asked Elizabeth about what it was like being a MP. This eventually lead to “What are you doing to improve the village?” to “What do you think about the new speed camera plan?” to “I had a strange experience with one of those speed cameras the other night.” I ended up telling her about everything I had seen, bar my experiences with Detective Shall. Her demeanor instantly changed. She seemed more on edge, more… unstable. “We need to scare these wrongdoers. To show them what happens when they hurt people we love.” I asked her who had designed the murder camera.
“It was my design. The sort of thing you see after watershed. I want to make Windshaw safe.” I asked her how she had got the images. “Drink your tea, dear.” I cautiously took a sip, trying not to swill it around my mouth too much. When Elizabeth looked away, I spat the tea back into its mug. I asked her if anyone on the council had spoken against her plan. “It does not matter. I have the final say. Windshaw is my child, and I will do whatever it takes to keep my children safe.” I started to feel uncomfortable. The sickening heat, the omnipresent smell of rot, the bitter taste of the tea that I only now recognized as curdled milk, it began to make me feel very worried. I quickly diverted the topic, asking about the girl in the picture. “My granddaughter, Lucy. Such a sweet girl. I cared for her like I cared for my own child.” Cared. Past tense. Lucy is dead, either that, or grown up. Did I recognize her from the murder camera? I decided to ask her the burning question. “What happened to Lucy?”
I don’t know what happened exactly, something must have snapped. Elizabeth began screaming at me to go away, and that it was ‘my fault’. Her fingernails were sunk deep into her armchair. I began to spout apologies; I didn’t know what Elizabeth would do, or what she was capable of. Finally ending her outburst, Elizabeth seemed to shrivel into her armchair, hands shaking. I quickly performed the old trick of pouring the tea into a nearby potted plant, asking her if I could have another. “Why of course, dear.” Elizabeth had returned to her old self, snatching up the empty mug and disappearing out of the door. As soon as she was gone, I grabbed her camera, and a few images of Lucy, placing them in my bag. I then made my way to the window, jimmying it open with the help of a fire-poker. I practically fell out of the window, lungs automatically gasping the first breaths of fresh air in what felt like hours. I sprinted across the garden and back to the street, where I was protected behind the hedgerow. I could hear Elizabeth screaming in anger from the house.
I walked very briskly back to my house. I had to go through the village marketplace to get home; it was a short detour, and I was not immediately worried about it. I was surprised, however, to walk past the newsagent’s and see the Sunday newspaper’s headlines. “WINDSHAW COUNCIL TO BLAME IN SPEED CAMERA SCANDAL?”. All I could think was that Shall must have got to the news companies quick with our story. Any tabloid would jump at the chance to report anything vaguely scandalous, and a speed camera displaying images of dead children is like a journalist’s dream. Suddenly, I felt worried. I felt like people were whispering to each other, talking about me, and I could swear I saw the foreman from the night before somewhere in the crowd. I quickly made my way to the police station, eager to discuss what I had found with Shall. But I was barred entry. The officer at the gate explained very simply that Detective Shall is ‘away’, whatever the hell that meant. I decided to spend the rest of the day at home, attempting to decipher what clues I had taken from Elizabeth’s house. I felt somewhat guilty, exploiting a clearly disturbed, elderly woman for evidence, but she was clearly a key part in this ever-increasing web of mystery surrounding that godforsaken speed camera. In the privacy of my own home, I went through Elizabeth’s camera. What I found chilled me to my core. Every image of every dead child I had seen on the speed camera, preserved in graphic detail. There were 52 images in total, and I went through every single one. Fifty-two images and several pints later, I came to an even stranger conclusion. Not a single child on the camera matched the image of Lucy, Elizabeth’s granddaughter. So where did I recognize her from? That was a question I still didn’t have an answer for, along with “Why did Elizabeth create the murder camera?”, and more chillingly, “Where the hell did the pictures come from?” I quickly saved the images onto a USB for evidence, before closing my curtains for the night. Just as I did so, I noticed a man staring at my house from across the street. It was the foreman from the construction site.
The next day, I drove to the police station. I had all my evidence with me, and I hoped that Shall would be there to talk with me. We would go over everything, he’d come up with some hair-brained connection, and we’d put this mystery to rest. Instead, I was told startling news. Shall was in the hospital. I was over there like a rocket. The closest hospital was Trellisham General, thankfully a mile or two away from Windshaw. I had to drive past some speed cameras on the way, which wasn’t the best experience. Luckily they were normal ones. Arriving at the hospital, I quickly learned what room Shall was in; surprisingly, my alibi of ‘a family friend’ wasn’t doubted for a second by the absent-minded receptionist. Entering the hospital room, Shall seemed pleased to see me, offering a clearly pained smile. His leg was in a cast, and he was covered with an array of bandages and plasters. His first question was “Have you got anything on Elizabeth Ross?”, which I quickly deflected with “What the hell happened to you?” Shall explained that after providing the Windshaw Independent with their newest shock story, he was attacked by a group of men. The only thing he could recall about them was the fact that they wore hi-vis jackets. Not to demonize construction workers, but that was a clear lead. I explained my experience with Elizabeth, and showed Shall the camera, and the image of Lucy. He instantly recognized Lucy, but I half-hoped he wouldn’t. I knew what he was about to say was bad, and while I wanted closure, I didn’t want to know. I listened anyway.
Lucy Ross was the grand-daughter of Windshaw MP Elizabeth Ross. Last year she was hit by a speeding car, something which traumatized the elderly Elizabeth, sending her into a downward spiral of instability and a crumbing mental state. That was clear enough by my meeting with the woman, she was living in squalor and was obviously suffering from some sort of delusions. From her position in the council, she had the final say on anything they were doing, and that included the speed camera program. She must have used the ‘murder camera’ as some insane way of avenging Lucy’s death, but the final piece of the puzzle was still missing. Where did she get the images from? They weren’t from any old gore site, they had been taken with Elizabeth’s camera. Shall obviously couldn’t return to Windshaw in his state, but he gave me his police pass so I could continue to conduct the investigation. I left as quickly as I had came.
As I drove back through Windshaw, I noticed that the “WINDSHAW COUNCIL TO BLAME IN SPEED CAMERA SCANDAL?” papers had been replaced with “INTERFERING DETECTIVE FIRED WHILE IN HOSPITAL” and “WINDSHAW INDEPENDENT ACCUSED OF MISINFORMATION”. These weren’t the flashy tabloids of the Windshaw Independent, but the official, council-run Windshaw Sunday Post. It was clear what had occurred. The council had been outed to the public, and now they were covering their tracks. I hoped that it wasn’t too late, but me and Shall’s story was likely now viewed as fake news. I quickly drove to my house, but before I even locked the door, I realized that something was off. My furniture was slightly misplaced, and drawers that were once firmly closed were now half-open. Someone had broken into my house and searched through all my things. A few things were missing, including the notepad in which I had written down theories and ideas, and the USB with the images on it. I still had Elizabeth’s camera and the picture of Lucy in my bag, but it was clear that my current… situation had been compromised. However, if people had been in my house, their fingerprints would likely be everywhere. I thanked myself for forgetting to dust the week before, taking a strip of tape and managing to collect one smudged thumbprint. I hoped it was enough. I was ready to leave Windshaw and sleep in my car for a few days until Shall was recovered, so I began to pack. I took my essentials, and some stored food and water, but as I was about to leave I saw a letter on the floor. It was not there before, and I had just walked through this corridor a minute ago. I opened it and read it.
“Michael, we know who you are. We know where you live and where you work. We know that you’ve been sticking your nose into business that doesn’t concern you, and we know that you’re trying to upend the sanctity of Windshaw. You can stop your peace-disturbing ways now, or we will stop them.”
Suddenly, I heard floorboards creaking upstairs. Without missing a beat, I wrenched my door open, stumbling outside. I ran to my car, throwing my stuff into the back and taking off down the road. I swerved past a speed camera on my way out of Windshaw. It gave me a red angry face.
I returned to Shall’s hospital room, explaining that someone had broken into my house, and he had likely been kicked off the force. He seemed unfazed, convinced that we now had enough evidence to confront Elizabeth. We would do it together. He kept reminding me, what’s the worst a nearly sixty-year-old woman can do against two men in their prime? It was a good question, and I had an answer. She can use her connections in the council to kick Shall off the force, destroy all evidence against her, and send people to break into my house. Enough was enough. We would go to her house tonight – tonight, because Shall had supposedly healed in record time. I wondered if he had persuaded the doctors to let him go early, but his only side affect was a slight limp as we left for Windshaw in my car.
It was about 7PM when we arrived at Elizabeth’s house. I knocked on the door. No response. I knocked again. No response. Shall looked around, before gesturing towards the open window. We’re already public enemy number one, I thought. At least things can’t get any worse. We ventured through the maze of damp carpet and peeling floral wallpaper that was the Ross house, but it wasn’t long before we found Elizabeth.
She was lying dead on the floor. A revolver was in her hand. In the other hand was a note.
“They wish to take Windshaw away from me. They call me a devil. They are taking away my children. I only now wish to be with my Lucy in heaven.”
It was tragic, in a way, but I was somewhat glad she was dead. Shall snapped a picture for evidence, before we were off again, this time heading for the police station. Shall may have not been on the force anymore, but we now had a caseload of evidence that was practically irrefutable. The chief inspector didn’t seem to see it the same way. As we walked through the police station, every officer was eyeing the two of us suspiciously, but the chief seemed even more suspicious, if that was even possible. He took the camera, Elizabeth’s suicide note, and the piece of tape with the thumbprint on it, and threw them into a bin. Shall quickly retorted that the chief had just contaminated important evidence, which most would call perversion of justice.
“Remember this, David Shall,” he said. “The police, the council, the news, we are the eyes and ears of Windshaw. Be careful what you say, or it’s your other leg.” I froze. There’s no other way to put it. I suddenly felt so irrefutably stupid. I should have left this hellish village when I had the chance. I should have sold my house – but would the council even let me sell it? – and gone as far away as I could. Every aspect of this village is controlled, and now they’ll probably throw us in jail without a trial. The Windshaw Sunday Post will say we left the village, and nobody will think twice about it. While I continued to freeze, Shall thought up something to say. “Of course, Chief Inspector. My apologies, I must’ve still been woozy from the anesthetic at the hospital. I’ll leave now.” The inspector nodded slowly.
“And you fell a few days ago and had to go to hospital.”
“Yes, Chief Inspector.”
I felt like hugging him. Why didn’t I think of that? Me and Shall quickly made our way back outside, where I caught the last glimpse of my car before it was towed away by a council truck. My car, with all my belongings in it. The men driving the tow truck wore bright hi-vis jackets.
As I finish writing this, I’m standing beside a speed camera. I don’t know if it’s the camera, I’ve been standing here with Shall for god knows how long, in the cold, waiting for a car to come by so I can hitchhike away from here. It’s a stupid idea, really. Nobody ever leaves Windshaw. I’ve lost everything, my house, my possessions, my social status, my reputation, all because of a fucking speed camera. I’ll probably post my whole story to the internet, but I doubt it will change much. Shall taps me on the shoulder. A car is coming. We stand there like idiots, thumbs out. The car speeds past us. The speed camera lights up, and a flash of blood and broken faces and cracked bones and torn clothes erupts from the LED matrix display. I scream out in anger, grabbing a metal pipe from the ground and smashing the LED display with all my strength. Shuddering with emotion, I look into the camera. There is a notice above it.
“THIS SPEED CAMERA IS MANAGED BY WINDSHAW COUNCIL.”
“THIS CAMERA IS MONITORED 24/7 BY WINDSHAW COUNCIL.”
“ALL DAMAGES WILL RESULT IN THE OFFENDER BEING REPORTED TO WINDSHAW COUNCIL.”
I can hear sirens in the distance.
