leaves on the side of the road. There were whole maple trees in brilliant reds and oaks in oranges, yellows, and browns. Jeremy noticed a few of the nonconifers speckled into the roadside forest had a few desperate green leaves left, holding out to the bitter end, putting up a fight they are never going to win.
“Northerners are used to it. Jer, when you live north of the Mason-Dixon, you have snowplow trucks, salt-and-sand trucks, heated bridges. Yankees go through this every year, so it’s not really a big deal to them,” his father replied chuckling softly at the innocence of his son’s question.
“I remember a few years back, James Spann, the weatherman, rolled up his sleeves and warned about snow falling. All the Winn-Dixies and other grocery stores had been cleared out, and the schools canceled classes until it passed. Hell, even the highways closed. I think we got a light dusting as you called it.”
“Yeah, the South isn’t too good about dealing with snow. We may have overreacted that year,” his dad said with a smile. Jeremy sat back and listened to the rock music station that was playing some song he didn’t know from the band Poison, trying to comprehend multiple feet of snow and how high the piles would get from all the plowing. I could make a snowball for the first time! Could I make a snowman? I’ll probably need some help, maybe I could…
“Hmmm,” his father said, looking in the rearview mirror.
“What?”
“Look in your side mirror, see that white package van two cars back?” Jeremy did as he was told and saw the vehicle in question.
“Yeah, what about it?” He didn’t understand what the big deal was.
“It has been following us since we left campus. I already made three random turns, and it has followed us each time. Could be a coincidence…” Jeremy’s father paused, taking another look in the rearview mirror and shook his head back and forth. “But I don’t think so.” Jeremy knew that his father had worked for the government in the past and sometimes did some consulting work at the Redstone Arsenal in northern Alabama, but he never knew exactly what his father did. It concerned Jeremy that his father knew how to spot when he was being followed in a car.
“Pop? What’s going on?”
“Hold on, I’m gonna run this red light and see if they follow.” Kalvin Baron slammed on the gas pedal and launched through the intersection where the light had just turned red. He just missed being struck on the passenger side by a Mustang, and he cleared through to the other side of the intersection. Jeremy quickly shifted in his seat and craned his neck around to look at the vehicle chasing them and saw the van, too, had sped through the intersection fast in pursuit.
“Oh well, this is not ideal. Looks like we have a problem. Call the cops, Jeremy. Tell them what’s happening. Describe our car, their van, and location, every store you see and every street sign, just keep saying what you see as we pass.”
How could he be so calm? Jeremy thought.
They were being chased, and his father just sat there calmly, smiling and giving him orders. Jeremy grabbed his phone and dialed 911. After a few rings, an operator answered the phone.
“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency? Do you need police or fire?” She had probably said that line thousands and thousands of times.
“We need some help. My father and I are being followed, chased, whatever, by someone in a white van!” Jeremy shouted into the phone. Long gone was his ability to stay calm at this point.
“Sir, I need to know where you are.”
“Um, passing the track-and-field area of school on Packard Street. We are headed south, I think it is. We are in a blue Chevy Cobalt. There is a white package van behind us. Two white men in the van, no windows on it. Please send someone to stop this guy!”
“Sir, you are doing great. Just stay with me. Police are on the way. Keep giving me updates.”
“We are flying down the road. We are coming up to E Stadium Boulevard. We just turned left onto it!” Baron peered out the side mirror at the van, almost twenty yards to their car now, and closing the distance. His father had determined eyes on the road and was swerving in and out of traffic trying his best not to hit anyone or anything. “We are passing um…” Baron looked at the sign on his left as they shot past the building at nearly eighty miles an hour. “Tappan Middle School, I think it said.”
“Great, the police are coming up from behind you. They are a few minutes back, sir.”
“We don’t have a few minutes. They are on our ass!”
“Sir, I need you to stay calm and keep telling me where you are.”
“We are passing a grocery store…um, Whole Foods I think it was…turning left on Huron Parkway now, shit!” The car fishtailed through the intersection sliding on black ice, almost like it was drifting, though throughout the whole slide, Jeremy’s father had perfect control of the car.
Where the hell, had he learned to drive like this? The tires squealed and released smoke. Jeremy could smell the foul odor of burning rubber, and a kaleidoscope of color blurred past his passenger window like he was drunk, and then everything was merging. Jeremy could see the lights and hear the sirens from the police behind them. They were trying to catch up, but his father was driving faster than they could safely match.
Jeremy and his father’s heads lurched forward as the van rammed the rear of the small car. The vehicle slid sideways but was quickly brought under control. The small car weaved in and out of traffic. Kalvin controlled the car as if he was threading a needle for the millionth time and it required no mental effort.
“Sir, are you still there? Sir?” Jeremy heard the 911 operator say into the phone.
“Yes, I am here. We’re passing in-between a golf course. Okay, we are on the other side of it. They are getting closer! Please help! Pop! Watch out, they are going to—” The world spun as the small car was smashed again; this time, just behind the rear tires on the driver’s side. Experts later would call it a textbook PIT maneuver. Their car swung to the left, and the tires screamed in protest at the unnatural grind against the asphalt but stopped their shouting when the car flipped and went airborne.
Jeremy had heard about time slowing down in moments of great stress or joy. He had seen it depicted in movies and TV shows like everyone had, but this was the first time he experienced it. As the car was rotating in the air, he could see his father’s hair moving slower, his gym bag floating in the back, and his cell phone bouncing off the windshield. His brain could not quite grasp what was happening, though it did know he was going through a form of trauma. He could feel his body tingle as his brain began flooding it with endorphins attempting to block out the pain receptors and throw him into early onset shock. As the car crashed to the ground, there was a deafening explosion of glass shattering and metal crunching and scratching against the ground. Jeremy’s face was covered in lacerations as everything in his view was upside down and glass from the windows collided with his unprotected face. Jeremy looked over at his father just as he felt weightlessness again for the second time since the car went airborne. He could tell the car was still in motion but could not understand where or why. He looked out the front windshield and watched confused as a steel-gray wall rushed at them.
As the car collided with the Huron River, water rushed in, and it began to flood hopelessly quick, filling the overturned vehicle. Jeremy snapped out of his shock and undid his seatbelt, falling awkwardly upside down onto his neck and shoulders to the
