Highly Commended 4 - Short Story Competition 2016
"You Have Reached Your Destination"
by Jacqui Cooper
'At the next junction, turn left.'
Sally had set the satnav to find her hotel, but turning left as the disembodied device instructed, didn't seem right. Okay she hadn't been back to Steventon since she was fourteen but vague memories suggested she was moving away from the centre rather than towards it.
'At the next junction, turn left.'
Still, who was she to argue with technology or the vagaries of town planning? Obediently she turned left and then caught her breath. She might not have been back to the town for years but she knew where she was.
'At the next junction, turn right.'
She did, turning down a very familiar street. Automatically she slowed down scanning the houses...
'You have reached your destination,' the satnav told her outside number twenty one.
This was not her hotel, nor was it even close. But Sally knew this street. Feeling goose bumps rise on her skin, Sally stopped the car and peered at the house. Twenty one Beechwood Grove, once the home of her best friend. She and Jenny had come here most days after school and Jen's mum had made them peanut butter sandwiches while they did their homework.
Sally saw a shadow move in the bay window, as if someone had noticed the car and was about to peep round the curtain for a better look. ln a panic, she put her foot down and shot off.
By the time she finally found her hotel she was tired and hungry and in no mood for the receptionist's friendly chatter.
'Are you here on business?' the woman asked.
'Yes.' Sally's curt, one-word answer didn't deter the receptionist.
The young woman cocked her head at Sally. 'You look familiar. Have you stayed with us before?'
'No.' That was true. But Sally knew why she looked familiar - they used to catch the same school bus every morning.
And of course she and Jen had been in the local papers after...well...after.
Forcing a smile Sally grabbed her key and hurried for the lift. Thank heavens she now had Jim's sumame because she had absolutely no intention of discussing the past with anyone.
Her husband rang later. 'Hello, sweetheart. How was the drive?'
'Fine until the GPS started playing up.' Closing her eyes she saw again the figure behind the curtain of number twenty-one. Did Jenny's mum still live there? Sally's family had sold up and moved away to get away from all the hooha. Especially as Jen's mum kept coming round to theirs, asking over and over about the accident. Sally had cried herself to sleep every night after those visits. lt was that as much as anything that made her folks decide to move.
'l wish you could have come with me,' she told Jim, suddenly feeling lonely.
He laughed. 'l offered to but you turned me down, remember?'
No, she didn't remember. Ending the call a few minutes later Sally tried to think why he would even say that?
Next morning when she set off for the conference the GPS was working fine. Until it wasn't.
'Straight ahead for two hundred yards then turn left.'
Sally drove slowly, looking around her. The area looked more residential than she would have expected and also a little familiar. The houses were pretty grand, so she supposed it was possible one of them had been turned into a conference centre.
'Turn left.'
The moment she drove through the sagging gates she knew the satnav had got it wrong again. But something made her keep driving. All the way up to the door of the ruined house.
'You have reached your destination.'
The satnav sounded loud now they were off the road and away from the traffic. Sally switched off the engine but didn't get out of the car. Looking up at the big house, memories slammed into her, pushing away all thoughts of the conference. They'd played here, her and Jenny. The house had been derelict even then, but they'd found a way in through a cellar door. Not that the adults knew, of course. At least not until that last time...
A bulldozer waiting on the overgrown lawn suggested the house was finally about to be demolished. Sally almost felt a pang of regret. She and Jenny had had some wonderful times playing here.
'You rang, madam?' She remembered Jenny's cheeky smile as she'd presented Sally with a packet of cheese and onion crisps using a dusty old book as a tray. Together they'd fallen, giggling onto a tattered chaise longe that smelled of mice.
Good times. Except Sally knew that Jenny hadn't been the friend she'd pretended to be. Her lips pursed. There had been that scene with Mark Dunn at the school disco. Then Jenny had sucked up to Sally's boss and poached her Saturday job. And al! that fuss over their homework…
She gave herself a shake. Jenny was gone and the house would soon be gone too. And she had a conference to attend.
Next day Sally had an appointment with one of her company's local factory managers. Infuriatingly though, the satnav took her to the cemetery of all places. Fuming, she sat in the car trying to silence the infernal machine which insisted she had 'reached her destination.' She was still trying to fix it when her boss phoned.
'How did yesterday go?' he asked cheerfully.
'Fine. But this satnav isn't working.'
He laughed. 'l know.'
'What do you mean, you know?'
'lt's on the blink. Completely dead. Didn't you get my message before you left? Lucky you know the town, eh? Anyway-.' He prattled on about work issues but Sally was no longer listening. She stared in confusion at the now silent sat nav.
Lifting her head she looked at the cemetery gates. Numbly she climbed out the car and went into the office to ask for directions. Then she went to Jenny's grave, where she stood in front of the simple white stone.
They would have been perfectly safe playing at the old house if they had stuck to the ground floor like they usually did. Upstairs the leaky roof had done more damage' when Jenny's foot went through a rotten floorboard, at first they'd panicked' Then they'd both laughed in relief and Jenny had herd out her hand for Sally to pull her out.
But sally hadn't pulled her out' she'd stood there, thinking over a1 the terrible things Jenny had done to her.
'What did I do that was so awful?'
Sally spun but there was no one there in the graveyard with her.
'I was going out with Mark Dunn.' The voice sounded all around her and she spun this way and that, trying to locate it, her panic growing. 'You knew that and you still kissed him at the school disco.'
'J...Jenny?'
'And your Saturday job? They offered it to me because you never turned up. You stole my homework because you hadn't done your own. You didn't even bother to copy it. That's how you got caught. And you pushed me.'
'No', Sally moaned, covering her ears.
'You pushed me, Sally, and I died.' Jenny's voice faded. 'Your fault.'
It was true. She had killed her best friend. Sally walked shakily back to the car and started driving.
The satnav was broken. But somehow she wasn't surprised when she pulled up outside the police station and heard it whisper softly, 'You have reached your destination.'
The End