Entwined
By Brian Tobin, first published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine
A college student is traumatized after accidentally killing a man with his car. His feelings become complicated after he talks to the man's daughter and learns about the victim's past.
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Plot Summary
On September 12, 1994, a student driving his car and listening to the radio strikes and kills Russell Gramercy as he is walking with his two children, Daria and Chris. Russell seems to trip and fall into the road, right in front of the student's car. That driver, now traumatized, never drives again. He drops out of school, struggles in his career, and his love life. Russell was a beloved professor, and the former student has become semi-known as the person who killed him. Seventeen years after Russell's death, bodies are found in Russell's cabin. It was clear that Russell had been a serial killer who targeted young adults. His daughter Daria, who had been the most emotional and resentful towards the driver (in comparison to her brother Chris) sat down and had a talk with the student to apologize and attempt to take the burden of guilt from him. Daria also felt guilty of her father's evil, and wanted to do some good to counteract it. She also reveals that Chris had died of a drunken crash in 2004. A few more years later, the driver is at a family gathering, and there happen to be younger cousins at the function who have childhood videos of themselves at the time and place of the accident, and the accident can be viewed just vaguely in the background. The driver takes the video to a place that can enhance it so he can better see the event, and it reveals that Russell's son, Chris, pushed him in front of the car. Later, Daria calls the driver again. She says she can't help but feel as though Chris had something to do with her father's death. At the end of Chris's life, he harped a lot on the idea of killing someone for a good reason and whether or not it was ever morally good to murder someone. Daria is clearly torn up about it. The driver, knowing the truth, lies and tells her there was no way Chris had pushed Russell, hoping to save her from the same chronic torment he felt from thinking of what ifs and possible scenarios. After this phone conversation, the driver begins to feel as though he might be getting better.
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