Distant Minds

Chapter 19: Acceleration

          Daniel widens his eyes. "You're gay? Since when?" "No, no, I still like girls, but the dude back there, Jason, I sort of had-" "love at first sight?" Daniel begins to laugh. "I'm serious! I feel a connection. I just hope he feels the same way." Jacob cuts off the conversation. "Richard!! You're buying me another sandwich!" Red nods. "I might as well get the things we came here for." "Did you see what Kyrie posted on her Instagram?" Daniel asks agin. Red gets up from the chair once again and looks back. "I came here to get my mind off of her. And judging by what happened today, looks like I have."

Conversation with Gabby and her mother
Hey honey
Hey mom, what's up?
May I ask a favor?
Anything mom, what do you need?
I left my wallet in the master bedroom at grandmas place.
Do you want me to go get it for you? I'm at Daniel's place right now.
That would be great, thank you
Sure,
          Gabby puts her phone in her back pocket and gets up from the couch. Randall looks up, "where you going?" "I have to get something for mom and give it to her at work. I'll be quick." Randall nods. "I forgot to ask, where did your parents stay after the fire?" "Oh, they're staying at my grandparents place and making sure our actual house is getting fixed up by the renovators." "All right, well you get to your thing, I'll be here waiting for you." "You're so sweet. I don't know why I didn't see anything in you earlier on." Randall gets up and they both hug. Gabby let's go, walks out the front door. And gets into her car.

Kate speeds her bike down the grassy hill at Sunrise park, with Ralph tailing behind her. "Slow down!" Ralph yells out with a smile. "You're going too fast and you don't have a helmet on!" Kate looks back but keeps going. "Well neither do you dummy, just try to keep up!" The afternoon sun beams into their eyes as they cycle into the deep forests of the park, next to each other on the wide concrete bikeway. Kate sighs, swerving her bike a bit. "This is amazing. Back when we did this, our parents had to watch us, and the experience became really boring." "Yeah," Ralph answered. "But now, we have this moment all to ourselves." Kate looks at Ralph, but Ralph says as he looks forward, "look out!" Kate's bicycle falls over with her by large rock. "Shit!" She yells out. Ralph stops his bike and gets off. He kneels to see Kate with a bleeding knee and a scraped up right arm. "Does it hurt?" Ralph asks calmly. "The knee stings, but the arm is fine." Ralph pulls out a handkerchief from his back pocket and ties it around Kate's bleeding knee. "Can you still ride?" "I'll try." Kate smiles. Ralph stands back up and asks Kate, "cmon, this is enough riding for today. It's been like three hours already. Let's head back." "Sure." Kate stands up slowly. "Lead the way." "I thought you knew where we were." Ralph says confused. "But weren't you the one who told me to follow you to this trail?" Ralph pulls out his phone. "Crap, no signal. And low battery," Kate reaches in her back pocket, but feels nothing. "M- my phone is missing! I probably left it at Daniel's place!" Ralph looks at Kate with a sigh. "We, were lost, aren't we?"

          Gabby drives down exits the road and enters Springville's main highway on her way to her mothers work. Her phone begins to ring, but she ignores it. She also notices a bus behind her in the rear view mirror, and speeds up a bit to avoid a cut. The bus behind her swerves slowly to her left, and drives right next to her. The sun can't be seen from the towering public bus surrounding her car. But out of nowhere, a blue Tesla SPEEDS down the highway to the right of Gabby's car and a huge rock bounces off of one of the speeding car's wheels. The rock smashes through Gabby's front window and she lets out a loud scream "AAHHHHHHH!!!" She yells in agony and she jolts the car to her left smashing against the bus right next to her. The bus immediately stops with a huge dent to the right if it, but Gabby's car continues to spin, then finally hitting the rim of the side of the highway, leaving Gabby in the car, unconscious.

We see Troy at Klint's house. Troy puts his phone back in his pocket. "She won't answer" he says to Klint. "She won't talk to me now that she's with Randall. I can't believe it." Klint chuckles, "don't worry man, girls are complicated these days. Try focusing on something else. Relax for a bit." "Hm, yeah I guess you're right." Klint gets up from his bed and picks up the television remote. Troy turns around from the desk chair. He turns on the television in his bedroom and jumps back into his bed. "Let's watch a movie or something" But as he turns the television on, it immediately flips to the news channel. A car wreckage is seen first and Troy says to Klint, "wait wait I wanna see this." Look out for a car accident at Springvilles main highway. A young female is found unconscious supposedly crashing her car into a moving bus. Authorities are already at the scene. "Holy shit," Troy says in shock. He leans in towards the television closer and sees the car. "That's Gabby's car."

"Alright everybody, get off!" The bus driver yells to the panicked crowd of people. Daniel Red and Jacob quickly exit the bus and see that they are in the middle of a highway. Daniel looks to his left and sees a crashed car. "Shit, that's a bad crash. But why does that car look so familiar?" Red and jacob shrug as they walk towards the nearest intersection about a mile or two away. Daniel turns around one more time and sees two police cars and an ambulance surround the crashed vehicle. About 15 more people exit the bus and head towards the nearest intersection, emptying the bus. Then he sees the ambulance carry a stretcher next to the car and haul a familiar girl onto it. Daniel Gasps. "NO," red and Jacob turn around to see Daniel in shock. "Cmon Daniel," red says impatiently. "What is it?" Red and Jacob walk next to Daniel and looks closer at the stretcher being carried to the ambulance. "Daniel," Jacob says worried, "that isn't-" Daniel cuts him off. "It is. It's Gabby."