by E A Owen
I reached over and turned the radio on. “Believer” by Imagine Dragons was playing. I cranked up the music. Drowning myself in good music always put me in a good mood, but I just couldn't seem to shake the horrible, daunting feeling that came on out of nowhere earlier. What was that all about? I decided I wasn’t going to worry about it too much, as mysterious and confusing as it was. I was not going to let it ruin my day or freak out my dad.
As we pulled into the driveway at home I glanced at my phone. Julia hadn't responded to the text I sent her. That's not like her. I usually got a text back by now. I assumed she must be busy and wondered what she's up to. My dad had to rush back to work; he picked me up during his lunch break on days I was scheduled to work. I thought maybe I’d swing by the arcade and play a few games. I unlocked the garage door as my dad backed out of the driveway. He honked the horn and I turned around and waved. I reached around the corner and flipped on the light switch in the garage, walked over and grabbed my bike, which was hanging on the wall, and started my two-mile ride to the arcade.
It will be nice next year when I get my license and can drive everywhere instead of relying on my mom or dad to take me places. I'd been getting some behind-the-wheel practice with my dad a little bit this summer, trying to rack up some driving hours with this learner’s permit. I'd also been saving the money I earned at my summer job to buy a car. I was not sure what I wanted to get yet, but Dad had been talking about taking me car shopping in the next couple months once I had enough saved for a down payment.
I played at the arcade for over two hours. Time flew when I played games, wrapping my mind into a whole different world of dimensions: racing cars, fighting zombies, attacking aliens or monsters. It let me escape the real world momentarily, but it was also addicting and I could spend all day wrapped up in this fantasy world. The arcade also had a small snack bar, with pizza by the slice, hot dogs, nachos, pretzels, popcorn, and a variety of candy bars and plenty of different drinks. So, you could literally stay here all day since you don't have to leave when you get hungry. And attached to the building was a movie theater. If you walked down the north hallway, you walked right into it. A couple of the rooms played 3D movies, which was really cool to watch, but I hadn't seen anything playing recently that I wanted to see. Maybe one day I will take Julia to watch a 3D movie with me.
That thought reminded me that I still had not heard back from Julia since she left Taco Bell. I glanced at my phone again. Nothing. Now I've really started to worry. It had been about three hours since I sent the text after work. I looked up at the clock hanging on the back wall: 5:15. Dad would be back at the house a little before 6:00, and so I stepped outside, grabbed my bike, and took the scenic way back home because there would be less traffic this time of day.
Shortly after I got home, my dad came walking in with a couple bags. The aromas were seeping through and bursting into the air. “I hope you're hungry for some Chinese?” my dad said as he set the bags on the counter in the kitchen. “I grabbed us the sesame chicken you like so much, with some fried rice, egg rolls, and spicy Szechuan green beans.” He pulled the containers out of the paper bags and set them out for us to dish from.
“I'm starved!” I replied. I piled the food on my plate. I know I'll regret it later, but I hadn't eaten Chinese in so long and planned to stuff my face until my stomach exploded. I started shoveling food the second I sat down at the dinner table.
“Looks like someone was hungry!” my dad said with a smirk.
“You have no idea!” I said, shoveling more forkfuls of fried rice into my mouth. “Thanks for dinner, Dad. You must have read my mind.”
“You bet!” he said with a big smile. It had been nice spending more time with my dad after so many years without seeing much of him. I really didn't blame him. My mom was a disaster, wallowing in depression and self-pity. I didn't even want to be around her. She reeked of booze all the time and smelled of B.O. because she'd go days without showering. Alcohol destroyed her and this family, and I really hoped this treatment helped her recover and we could start repairing the broken pieces left in its destructive path.
I was in fact looking forward to seeing my mom on Sunday, but at the same time, it was nice not having to take care of her and finally getting to spend quality time with my dad. He really was a broken man. I knew he loved us, and he was a good father, but I also knew he had been unfaithful to their marriage. Since my mom is trying to get the help she needs to get better, he will have to try to gain her trust again. I hope this means that my dad will be around a lot more now.
I turned the TV on in the living room, sat down on the couch, and kicked my feet up on the coffee table. I grabbed my phone out of my pocket. Julia still had not texted me since she left Taco Bell. Seven hours now with no word from her. Maybe it’s nothing, I told myself. She may have lost her phone or dropped it in a puddle after the storm.
I started texting: Hi, Julia. I hope you're having a great day. It was nice seeing you today :)
My dad came in and sat down in his recliner. “What's bothering you, Trevor? You looked perplexed,” my dad said with concern. “Oh, I just haven't heard from Julia since she and her parents came to visit me at work for lunch today, which was seven hours ago now. She usually texts me back shortly after I shoot her a text. I haven't heard a word from her and I've sent two texts now.”
“I wouldn't worry about it too much. I'm sure it's nothing, son. She just might be busy, you never know.”
“I know but they were driving back home when the bad storm came through town, and not too long after that a bunch of emergency vehicles came flying through the stop lights with their sirens blaring, most likely hurrying to an accident.”
“How about this? If you're that worried, and you don't hear back from her in the morning, I'll go into work late tomorrow and we can swing by her house to give you some peace of mind.”
“You'd do that for me?” I replied, surprised.
“Yeah, of course I will. I can tell you really like her, and you'll worry yourself to death while I'm at work all day. I'm sure she's fine, but…”
“Thanks, Dad!” I said with a half-smile.
“Let's find something funny to watch. It will be a nice distraction,” My dad said while he scrolled through the guide. “I'd suggest making some popcorn, but I think we're both too full for popcorn after that Chinese food we just devoured,” my dad said with a chuckle.
“Yeah, you're right, way too stuffed!”
***
I woke up at 6:56 in the morning, and the first thing I did was check my phone. Nothing! Good Morning Sunshine :) I texted half asleep. I could smell the coffee, which meant my dad was up. I jumped in the shower quickly, knowing we were going to have to rush out the door soon so my dad wouldn't be too late for work. I hurried as fast as I could to get ready.
My dad was sitting at the kitchen table, enjoying his coffee and reading the paper. “Good Morning!” my dad said as he set the newspaper on the table and took a sip of coffee. He was a morning person, but for me, I need a couple hours before I'm fully awake and alert. “Any word from Julia?”
“Noooo,” I said, disappointed.
“If we go over there this early in the morning, do you think she will be awake?” my dad asked.
“Probably not. She usually sleeps late, but I'm sure one of her parents will be awake by the time we get there.”
“Let's get going then,” my dad said, taking his last sip of coffee, then setting his mug in the sink.
It was only a twenty-minute drive, but it sure seemed closer to an hour. I just sat quietly, gazing out the window at all the clouds in the sky. We finally pulled up to the gate in front of her house and I pushed the buzzer, hoping that someone would answer. But nothing. Maybe they were still sleeping, I thought for a second, but I doubted her parents would still be sleeping because it was almost 8:00 now.
An older lady was pulling weeds in her yard next door. I walked over to her. “Excuse me,” I called. The lady st
ood up and turned around.
“Can I help you?” she said in a gentle voice.
“Yes. My friend Julia lives in that house over there,” I said as I pointed. “Oh yes, what a sweet family they are. I think the girl's name is Jessica?”
“Julia,” I corrected her.
“Why, that's right.”
“By chance did you see any of them around here yesterday?” I asked.
“Now that I think of it, I saw them leave yesterday around lunchtime but haven't seen anyone around since.”
“Okay, thank you, ma'am.”
“No problem,” she replied and went back to weeding. I walked back to my dad, who must have tried buzzing them at the gate while I was talking with their neighbor.
“Still nothing,” my dad said. “What did you find out from the neighbor?”
“She saw them leave around lunchtime but hasn't seen them since,” I replied, the worry obvious in my voice. “But they have quite a bit of privacy, with the gate, trees and bushes bordering their property. Maybe they came back while she was inside.”
“But that doesn't explain why I haven't heard from Julia and why no one is buzzing us in.”
“Maybe they are still sleeping,” my dad said, trying to be the positive one while I'm thinking the worst.
“What if something did happen? What if they got into a car accident on their way home yesterday? How would we even find out?” I had a million thoughts screaming in my head. I could feel the anxiety boiling inside me.
“I can make a few phones calls on our way back to our house to see if I can find anything out. I have a friend who is an EMT in town, and maybe he knows who was involved in the emergency call yesterday during the storm,” my dad said as he climbed back into the car.
He dialed his phone. “Hi, Alex. It's Travis. I'm doing good, and how are you? Actually, I was calling because my son is worried his friend may have been involved in a car accident on their way home yesterday afternoon during the storm we had, and I thought maybe you had some information. Trevor told me that several emergency vehicles were rushing somewhere shortly after his friend and her parents left his work. Do you have any idea what happened yesterday?” My dad paused for a while, listening to his friend. I couldn't make out anything that was being said, just some mumbling on the other end of the phone.
“Are you sure? Okay, and thanks for your help Alex. Talk to you soon. Bye.” I could tell something was wrong and my dad must have been searching for the words to tell me.
“What did he say, Dad? Does he know anything about the accident yesterday and who was involved?” I said impatiently, expecting the worst but crossing my fingers it wasn't Julia and she was okay. It took a while for my dad to compose himself.
“I think it's best I drop you off at home and I then swing by the hospital to get some more detailed information about the people involved in the car accident yesterday.” My dad said this very calmly.
“No! I want to come with you.” I demanded. “Do you think it may have been them?” I asked as my stomach did somersaults.
“He's not sure who was involved. He just said that it was bad! Two vehicles were involved. One car had three people in it, two adults and a teenager, and the other had two adults. Everyone involved was rushed to the hospital with serious injuries. He didn't have any names or much detail about the accident. But he did say they are all at Eastside General Medical Center,” my dad said nervously.
“I'm coming with you. I need to know if Julia is there!” I said a little choked up. I felt like a golf ball was lodged in my throat and I was having a hard time talking. I had a bad feeling about this.
We drove the rest of the way to the hospital in silence. We pulled into the visitors’ parking lot and my dad found a parking space quite a way from the entrance. The hospital seemed overly busy today. Not like I come here often, but I wouldn't think it was this busy all the time. As we walked toward the hospital, my dad pulled out his phone and made a call.
“Hi, Matt; it's Travis. I was just calling to let you know I won't be coming in today. An emergency has come up. I'll keep in touch.” We stopped at a crosswalk and waited for the lights to turn, then proceeded to cross the busy road and walked through automatic revolving doors into the hospital and approached the front desk.
“Hi, my name is Travis. My friend who works as an EMT let us know about a two-car collision that happened yesterday afternoon involving five people. All of them were all rushed here with serious injuries. I was wondering if you could tell me if any of those patients involved may have been the Hendricks? The girl's name is Julia, and her parents’ names are Alex and Janessa.”
The girl behind the counter, who couldn’t have been more than twenty, just froze and turned white as a ghost. Her eyes saddened and she was trying to choke out words, but no sound came out. She paused and looked down, trying to compose herself. I could sense the news she was about to give us was going to be hard to hear.
“Sir, I'm so sorry to tell you this…but Alex and Janessa…were pronounced dead at the scene, and their daughter Julia…is in a medically-induced coma.”
Tears started streaming down her cheeks but she wiped them away quickly. My dad just stood there, in shock. He didn't say a word. I could feel a hard ball forming in the back of my throat. “This can't be happening,” I said. “There has to be a mistake. I just saw them yesterday afternoon.” I realized I was the last person to see them all alive. The temperature in my body was climbing fast, my hands started trembling, and cold feel sweat was forming at the edge of my forehead and the back of my neck. The room started to spin and I felt like I was going to get sick. My knees started to give out from under me. I was being swallowed into complete darkness.
IX
Kentucky
I visited Julia in the hospital every day for the next week. Julia was nonresponsive but alive. The doctor had her in a drug-induced coma due to her head injury and brain swelling. It was very difficult seeing Julia this way.
When my dad wasn’t working, he did some private investigation of his own, trying to find a relative or friend of Julia's to let them know what happened. I suggested going to the town she moved here from and knocking on every door until we found Nicole and her parents because I never did catch a last name while she was visiting. I should have asked more questions or paid closer attention. But I never thought in a million years, this would have happened. The only things I knew about Nicole was she lived in Olive Hill, Kentucky, was friends with Julia and the same age, and her parents took a trip to Hawaii for a couple weeks while she stayed with Julia. No last name, birthday or school she attended.
Our only advantage was that Olive Hill was a small town with a population of fifteen hundred people. Although the local police had been no help, we might only have to ask a few people where Nicole lived before finding someone who knew her. But since Julia has moved so much, I'm not even sure if contacting Nicole would be of any help. I don't even know if Nicole let alone her parents knew much about Julia's family. But my dad was determined to find Julia's family so Mr. and Mrs. Hendricks could have a proper burial.
***
“Wake up, Trevor! We're going to Kentucky,” my dad said in a hurry. He flipped on my bedroom light and I pulled the blanket over my head.
“Right now?” I said half asleep. “Yep! Got the car all packed up. We're going to find Nicole and her parents. I haven't been able to sleep for a week. I just toss and turn, thinking about how no one knows what has happened to Julia and that her parents are both…in a better place.”
I noted that my dad can't bring himself to say that they are dead. It sounded awful, but there was no other way to put it. But I don't like saying it either. “Can I at least jump in the shower quick before we leave?”
“Only if you make it quick, and I mean like five minutes quick!” my dad replied like he had already drank a whole pot of coffee, which he probably had. I climbed out of bed and stretched my arms outward while I let out a deep yawn. I looked over at my da
d, who was pacing back and forth like a maniac. I just shook my head as I walked to my bathroom and closed the door behind me.
Five minutes later I was showered and dressed. At least my dad wasn't pacing back and forth in my room anymore. “Hurry up, Trevor. I don't have all day!” he yelled from the other room. He must have heard the bathroom door open, but how? It didn't even creak. I'd never be able to sneak out the house if I wanted to, given that man’s amazing hearing. My dad should have been some secret undercover spy or detective. No one could hide from him with his ultra-sensitive hearing, which seemed that of a moth. I learned in Biology 101 that moths have the capability of hearing sound frequencies of up to 300kHz, blowing away our human abilities of about 20kHz. Who knew the moth had a superhero gene? Researchers suspect that the moth's extraordinary sense of hearing is used to outwit its main predator, the bat. I think I'm going to start calling my dad the Moth Ninja. I chuckled at the thought. My dad was close to getting a black belt in karate when he was a kid. It takes a lot of dedication to become a black belt. I'm pretty sure my dad has a brown belt, which comes after white and yellow and gold and orange and green and blue and purple and just before black and so is very impressive.
I've noticed my mind wandering more lately, and I gave myself a hard time for such ludicrous thoughts now, at a time like this. I grabbed my backpack out of my closet and stuffed a bunch of clothes in it, not knowing how many days we would be gone.
“Trevor, let's go! I'm going stir crazy in here,” my dad hollered from the kitchen.
“Give me a second; I'm grabbing a few things,” I responded with an annoyed tone. I grabbed the book from my nightstand that I had been reading at night to help me fall asleep and distract me from worrying about Julia so much. And of course, I couldn't forget my baseball cap, which was sitting on my dresser. I took a quick look around my room to see if anything caught my eye before heading out the door. But of course, you always have that overwhelming feeling like your forgetting something before a big trip. Not like I had much time to prepare for this trip anyways since I just found out about it literally eight minutes ago.