School Crossing

Notes

First published in King's collection Hard Feelings and Other Stories (1976); quote from King at https://vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/1080/pan-horror-20: "The genesis of that story came to me when I was living in Brighton in the Seventies. A wealthy industrialist asked me to ghost a book for him and I accepted. He then asked me whether I should like to be paid in cash or with a car for which he no longer had any use. The car turned out to be a magnificent Mercedes, in excellent condition, and in a moment of madness I opted for it, even though the cash would have been a far more appropriate choice at a time when I was short of hard cash. I had never learned to drive a car, much less ever held a licence. However, within a short time, as much to the amazement of the driving instructor as to my own, I had passed the test. The car was large and powerful. I was terrified of driving it and began to have a repeated nightmare about being involved in an accident of the kind described in the story. In the end I persuaded myself that my subconscious mind was giving me a warning – if I went on driving a car so large and fast, I'd eventually kill someone. I sold the car and never drove again. The story appeared in a collection of mine entitled Hard Feelings (1976)."