Seeing Red

“Last one to Dairy Queen’s a rotten egg!” my friend, Justin, shouted through a mouthful of chewing gum as he barreled past me on the sidewalk, red coat flying out behind him like a superhero cape. I chuckled to myself as I watched the coat be brought to life by the unseasonably cold September breeze and pictured Justin on the front cover of a comic book with a Dairy Queen Blizzard in hand, sporting a pink-toothed, Hubba Bubba grin. “Hurry up! Your mom’s coming to pick us up at five and I wan…”. I didn’t hear the rest of his words because all of a sudden that same red car I saw behind us a few blocks down was turning the corner. I shook my head as if that would somehow bring some clarity to the situation. No, no, don’t be stupid. They’re obviously just on their way home from work and this is the neighborhood they live in. I shook my head again. I’ve been watching too many horror movies again with dad. I stole one last glance behind my shoulder and ran to catch up with Justin. 

  ~

“Come on, you can’t really think that Lilly’s hotter than Jessica. I mean, have you seen her in her cheerleading uniform? I might be in love. Forreal this time, not like that time I thought I was in love with Katie Summers in the third grade. Like I really think I’d die for Jessica if she asked me to.”  As he spoke, tiny pieces of waffle cone flew out of his mouth like a rabid dog slobbering everywhere. Dairy Queen was Justin’s happy place. And girls were his favorite topic of conversation. As he continued to ramble, I nodded along and gave brief but well-placed “Mhmm” sounds when needed to give off the impression that I was listening (yes, yes, Kyleigh from Spanish class does look better as a brunette), but all I could think about was that car from before. Why was it driving so slow? Why do I have such a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach? And while I desperately wish I could blame the weird feeling on having, yet again, eaten one too many chocolate dipped cones (half-priced on Wednesdays), this feeling was different. I nodded along with Justin some more until I thought my head would fall off, and finally five o’clock rolled around. Scanning the parking lot from our table by the window, I saw no signs of mom’s car and figured she must be running late (per usual). Justin’s mom usually picks us up on Wednesdays, but Justin never heard back from her when he texted so I just asked my mom to get us instead. I stopped Justin in the middle of debating with himself as to whether or not school dress codes should allow girls to wear clothes that expose their shoulders (“I mean, everyone knows that shoulders are like the least attractive part of a girl’s body”) and rushed him outside. Just as my foot made contact with the parking lot concrete, my phone buzzed. “Mom can’t get out of her hair appointment because her stylist is talking her ear off again. Told us just to walk home.” Justin shrugged in a way that told me this didn’t surprise him. “Hair salons are worse than middle school bathrooms when it comes to gossip. Or at least that’s what Maddie said in class the other day. Her mom’s a hair stylist. She said that’s what she wants to do when she grows up, too, but I told her she’d make a better lawyer with how bossy and rude she always is.” Checking the time on my phone, I realized we’d better start walking if we wanted to make it home by dark. “Come on,” I said as I grabbed Justin (who was currently in the middle of giving his best Maddie impression: left hand on hip and right one making the “blah, blah, blah” motion) by the arm. “Let’s get going.”

~

“Are we there yet? My stomach’s starting to hurt from all the ice cream I ate. Or maybe it was the three hot dogs with extra chili. Whatever it was, I think I might puke.” I rolled my eyes as I watched Justin pretend to dramatically dry heave into someone’s rose bushes. The air was getting even colder now and I was starting to shiver. Glancing behind my shoulder to scold Justin for not walking any faster, I saw it again. That red car. It was parked across the street a few houses down from where we were, and though I couldn’t see anyone in it from where I was, I had a bad feeling that someone was watching us. “Justin. Justin, I mean it, listen to me. We need to get home. Now.” Nearly tripping over a fallen tree branch from texting his girlfriend (his fifth one this year, I might add), Justin looked up at me, puzzled by my sudden change in tone. “What’s your deal, dude? Are you feeling sick to your stomach, too? I told you not to eat three chocolate dipped cones. You know what happened last time.” The red car’s headlights switched on out of the corner of my eye. “No, it’s not that. I just need us to get out of here. Now!”  I grabbed him by the sleeve and we started half-jogging, half-sprinting toward home. 

~

“Look, man, I don’t know why we’re running, but I wish you’d tell me because you’re really starting to freak me out.” I could barely hear a word he said through the sound of my heart pounding like a freight train in my ears. Sweat was starting to pool in places I didn’t even know existed and my grip on Justin’s arm was becoming looser by the second. I jutted my head backwards toward the direction of the parked car. “See that car back there? The red one?” Justin nodded, clearly still confused. “It’s following us, I swear. It was behind us when we left school today and I saw it again when we were walking to Dairy Queen. You can’t tell me this is a coincidence.” Justin gulped in such a way that made his usually-unnoticeable Adam’s apple stick out. “Now that you mention it, I did see that car earlier. It was parked out front in the school lot when I was leaving. I passed right by it.” There was so much sweat in my shoes now that I felt like I was walking through a swamp. “What should we do?”, I asked, voice quivering on the last syllable. “Call the cops, I guess. But what if…” Justin’s sentence was cut short by the sight of something red pulling up right next to us on the sidewalk. The headlights switched off and all I could think about was what picture they were gonna use of me on the ten o’clock news tonight. I could see the headline now: Breaking News: Local Boys Gone Missing After Eating Too Many Dipped Cones at Dairy Queen. My heart was in my stomach now. Justin’s face was pale as a sheet next to me and he was visibly shaking. My breath caught in my throat. The window began to roll down slowly and black dots started to form around my vision. This was it. We’re gonna die. After what seemed like forever, the window rolled all the way down and revealed the face of a vaguely familiar looking woman with blonde hair. Justin dropped his grip on my arm and his mouth gaped wide open. “Mom?!” 

~

“Oh my god, Mom, we thought you were an ax murderer! When did you get a new car?”. Still in shock, I only heard bits and pieces of their conversation, but apparently her phone died before she could tell Justin that, yes, she would be picking us up from school today. Having been on an important business call for work and unable to flag down Justin before he walked right past the car, she decided to just follow us to Dairy Queen and get us there. However, she was busy typing an email to a client on her phone when we rushed out, and by the time she looked up we were already halfway to my house. Oh, and did I mention she bought a new car? It’s red.