Roadside Crosses

driver] was coming on to [deleted] and they were like, just go away. But he didn’t, he followed them out the door when they were leaving. But we have ourselves to blame too for not doing anything, all of us who were there. We all knew [the driver] is a luser and perv and we should have called the police or somebody when they left. I had this bad feeling like in Ghost Whisperer. And look what happened.

    Reply to Chilton, posted by Anonymous.
    Somebody goes into Columbine or Virginia Tech with a gun and they’re criminals but when [the driver] kills somebody with a car nobody does anything about it. Something is very messed up here.

    Reply to Chilton, posted by WizardOne.
    I think we need a time out. Some poster dissed [the driver] because he didn’t like sports and he played games. What’s the BFD? There are millions of peoplewho don’t play sports but like games. I don’t know [the driver] real good but we’re in the same class at [deleted]. He isn’t a bad dude at all. Everybody’s dissing him but does anybody here actually KNOW him? Whatever happened, he didn’t hurt anybody on purpose and we all know people who do, everyday. IMHO, he feels bad about what happened. The police didn’t arrest him because, duh, he didn’t do anything illegal.

    Reply to WizardOne, posted by Halfpipe22.
    Another gamer-lamer. Look at the name. L00ZR!!! FOAD wizard!

    Reply to Chilton, posted by Archenemy.
    [The driver] is a total phr33k. In his locker at school, he has pictures of the d00ds from Columbine and Virginia Tech, and those dead bodies from the concentration camps. He walks around in some ch33p ass hoodie trying to look kewl but hes a luser on roids, thats all he’ll ever be.
    [The driver] if your reading this, d00d, and not hanging with the elves and fairies, remember: we OWN U. Why don’t you U just do us all a favor and blow you’re [deleted]ing brains out. Your death = EPIC WIN!

Chapter 9
    KATHRYN DANCE SAT back, shaking her head. “A lot of hormones there,” she said to Jon Boling.
    She was troubled by the viciousness of the blog posts—and most of them written by young people.
    Boling scrolled back to the original post. “Look what happened. Chilton makes a simple observation about a fatal accident. All he does is question whether the road was safely maintained. But look at how the responding posts arc. They go from discussing what Chilton brought up—highway safety—then move on to government finances and then to the kid who was driving, even though he apparently didn’t do anything wrong. The posters get more and more agitated as they attack him and finally the blog turns into a barroom brawl among the posters themselves.”
    “Like the game of Telephone. By the time the message moves along, it’s distorted. ‘I heard . . .’ ‘Somebody knows somebody who . . .’ ‘A friend of mine told me . . .’ ” She scanned the pages again. “One thing I noticed, Chilton doesn’t fight back. Look at the post about Reverend Fisk and the right-to-life group.”
    Reply to Chilton, posted by CrimsoninChrist.
    You are a sinner who cannot comprehend the goodness within the heart of Rev. R. Samuel Fisk. He has devoted his life to Christ and all of His works, while you do nothing but pander to the masses for your own pleasure and profit. Your misreading of the great Reverend’s views is pathetic and libelous. You should be nailed up on a cross yourself.
    Boling told her, “No, the serious bloggers don’t argue back. Chilton will give a reasoned response, but flame wars—attacks among posters—get out of control and become personal. The postings become about the attack, not the substance of the topic. That’s one of the problems with blogs. In person, people would never feud like this. The anonymity of the blogs means the fights go on for days or weeks.”
    Dance looked through the text. “So the boy is a student.” She recalled her deduction from the interview with Tammy Foster. “Chilton deleted his name and the name of the school but it’s got to be Robert Louis Stevenson. Where Tammy goes.”
    Boling tapped the screen. “And there’s her post. She was one of the first to say something about the boy. And everyone else jumped on board after that.”
    Maybe the post was the source of the guilt Dance had picked up on during the interview. If this boy was behind the attack, then Tammy, as Dance and O’Neil had speculated, would feel partly responsible for the assault on her;