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Mark turned the wheel and veered right. The right front tire crunched deeply into the gravel beside the two-lane road and pulled their vehicle into a skid. He turned the wheel, trying to stop the inevitable, and the roof of their car rang off the pavement as they rolled. 


The ringing kept on until he opened his eyes with his hands in the air in front of him, twisting an imaginary steering wheel in a failed attempt to prevent what had already occurred. Groggy from lack of sleep and regretting his late-night binge with a vodka bottle, he flailed out to pick up his cell phone on the table beside the couch. 


“What?” he said. “This had better be important.” 


There was no answer. He shook his head to clear his vision and regretted it as the pounding between his temples intensified. The ringing continued. It was the doorbell. He slowly got up and shuffled to the front door.


“Hold on. Okay, who is it?” 


Mark opened the door, and late morning sunlight dazzled his eyes.

When calamity strikes, will John and his family run and hide as some demand, or will they fight on? Each knows that they must be willing to give all.

Available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. ASIN: B08MT5YY4B

If you are interested in reviewing this book or would like to comment on the series, contact me at: Lawrence.Simpson@LawrenceSimpsonWrites.com

https://www.audible.com/pd/Dot-Audiobook/B08JHH6CZ6

I have a limited number of US/UK codes for a free review download copy of “DOT.” If you are interested, please send me an email: lawrence.simpson@lawrencesimpsonwrites.com

Mentioned in September 2020 newsletter from freeaudiobooks.co.uk in section Audio books we are loving – “The reason we love it: This may be a short story, but the narrator is brilliant and the sample was chosen perfectly. You will want a copy as much as I did.”

But the lesson I think of over and over came one morning during residency. I was six months in to my rotating internship, and had worked an exhausting thirty-six hours shift at the university hospital on green team medicine. Overnight, I had responsibility for eighteen admissions. That morning after thirty minutes of interrupted sleep, I stood praying I could recite the pertinent issues correctly for my share of the sixty plus patients on our service. I knew I would be asked by our attending physician, and I was not disappointed.

We were asked a question regarding the proper initial medication and dosage for community acquired pneumonia. It seemed like a simple question. We all answered penicillin G aqueous. We all knew the answer and felt sure of ourselves. After all, we had heard this mantra repeated over and over by other residents with greater experience. Our attending looked at us with a patient expression and asked, “How do you know that?”

It was a simple question, but as I thought on it, the only answer was that I had heard the answer from other apprentice physicians, but I couldn’t quote any other source. You can guess what he said next. The answer was Erythromycin. We had all answered wrong. He invited us to look it up. Now, in 1986, there was no hypertext learning. There was the library, and papers, and books. Of course, he was correct.

Every day, week, month, and year since that moment, I have remembered that simple lesson and tried to take it to heart. Never make an assertion without a reputable source, preferably several. Avoid make an assumption. Be patient. Gather the evidence. Do the homework. Never believe what I’m told without fact checking for myself, especially when it runs against common sense or my core principles.

That morning, beyond exhaustion, I was given a gift. Priceless wisdom that helps for almost every decision in life and is ignored only to peril. I’ve said thank you many times in private. I would like to say it one more time.

Thank you.

Peace be with you.

This Friday evening his parents had him chauffeur them into town for dinner and a movie. The Presbyterian Church held a nice potluck dinner and old movies once a month, and he looked forward to the evening. The movie tonight was ‘Father Goose’ with Cary Grant and Leslie Caron, and his parents were fans.

The weather forecast suggested thunderstorms later that night, but their plans were indoors. They planned to be home long before the weather rolled in.

John was driving, and listening to his parents talk happily about their week. He could smell his Mom’s broccoli casserole wrapped in a foil covered baking dish sitting on the passenger front seat of their extended cab farm truck.

The evening air was cool in the middle of October, and he worked the heater control to keep the interior warm. The dark trees to either side of the road, barely outlined in the trucks headlights, were dancing in the quickening wind. John did not take his eyes off the road as he took his duty of driving his parents into town seriously. He could feel their amused pride in him, as he carefully negotiated the curving two- lane road. He felt happy in that moment, like he was doing exactly what he was meant to be doing.

He woke up lying on the ground beside the overturned truck. A light mist was falling producing a tick, tick, tick from the still warm engine in the misty rain as the only sound in the evening silence.

John realized his parents, Oh God, his parents were lying in the truck bloody and unconscious. He could see both breathing as lightning flared overhead. Then the rain quit teasing, and fell in sheets.

He tried to wake them, but their shallow breathing was the only response to his efforts. He knew from Scouting he wasn’t supposed to move them, and his parents were sheltered from the approaching thunderstorm in the truck better than out on the side of the road. He pulled the rolled up blankets kept under the rear seat of the truck and covered his parents to help them stay warmer.

He had no way to call for help, and there was nobody around except for the Kincaid house up the road. The fields across the fence actually belonged to Senator Kincaid, the biggest landowner in the area. Everyone knew him, and unfortunately his son, Paul.
John did his best to stay away from Paul Kincaid. But tonight, he needed help, and there was nowhere else to turn.

He started toward the Kincaid house about one thousand yards up the road. His light denim jacket soaked up the rain, and he quickly began shivering in the rain. His right knee felt sore under a tear in his wranglers which sported some dried blood at the frayed edges. His mind and emotions heaved together in waves of anxiety, as he thought of his parents.

Approaching the house, there was light everywhere and multiple cars and trucks were parked along the long driveway. Oh yeah, he remembered, Paul was having a party tonight, a senior’s only event, he remembered. Well, sophomore or not, he was going to get help.

Hurrying up the driveway, he ignored his throbbing right knee. Hearing music and voices inside the house, he pounded on the door willing someone to open. Finally, a girl he recognized from his high school opened the front door. She smirked at him. ”You’re too young for this party.”

He pushed in past her. At sixteen he was big for his age. He looked around wildly for a phone. “Where’s the phone. I have to call for help.” The girl, he remembered now as Darlene, face flushed, and speech slightly slurred, said, “There’s a phone in the kitchen, but you shouldn’t go back there.” She pointed to the back of the house.

He pushed through the crowded rooms jammed with swaying jubilant teens, finally seeing the kitchen ahead.

Two senior boys with bared teeth blocked his path into the kitchen. “What are you doing in here? Paul didn’t invite you, no way.”
“My parents are hurt. There was an accident. Out on the road. I
have to call for help.” He had to get to that phone.

The football players parted slightly shrugging their broad shoulders, and he squeezed through face to face with both of the burly football linemen. He was thin, but already had most of his height. Spying the phone on the wall, John slid forward and picking up the handset, began to dial for help, but there was no dial tone.

He panicked. Okay, either the phone is out because of the storm or a handset is off somewhere else in the house. He decided to shout for help to see if the other students would help him, but it was useless, they were all too wasted to care.

Maybe I can find Paul, he thought, and ask him to give me a ride? Heck, I could get a couple of these guys to help me get my parents. We could use doors from the house for backboards, rig up cervical collars, and drive straight to the hospital. The police could come later.

However, he didn’t see anyone sober he would trust to drive a car. John had a learners permit only. Never mind that. He would drive illegally if he could get keys and some help saving his parents.

Turning to the same football players, he said, “Where’s Paul? I need to talk with him.”

“He don’t need you bothering him now. He’s got serious business going on upstairs with the Ice Queen.”

“Yeah, she’s getting melted tonight,” said the other ox of a senior as they slapped hands in a high five howling in unison. They started chanting, “Ice Queen”. “Ice Queen.” “ICE QUEEN.” “ICE QUEEN.” The chanting grew louder as several of the nearby students echoed the call with added snide remarks followed by more laughter.

John felt nauseous. He understood then. Paul Kincaid, son of a state senator, senior at the local high school, who thought of himself as God’s Gift to women, was always bragging about this conquest or that. He didn’t care who overheard because of his father. Paul thought himself above any consequences.

He had heard Paul talking with some of his senior buddies about his scoring ability, and how, sometimes, when he needed help, he had a source for a special something that made every girl want it. No, even beg for it, and he was only too happy to oblige.

He knew Paul had his sights set on Jessica Holloman. She was a senior and a neighbor. Her family lived in a small trailer down the road from John’s family farm. She was quiet, beautiful, and very intelligent. John had spoken to her probably a half dozen times, but he remembered every moment in detail.

What he couldn’t understand was why she would be here. He knew she had ignored every advance Paul had made. He had seen her cold shoulder Kincaid at school more than once. If she was here, she was in danger. Now, he had two reasons to find Paul.

John shouldered his way quickly thru the throng of stumbling schoolmates. Thunder boomed overhead outside the large house, while rain danced against the windows.

Escaping from the intended embrace of a buzzing girl, he headed instinctively up the winding stairwell leading from the entry hallway to the second floor. He had never been in the Kincaid house before, and he didn’t know the individual rooms, so he started opening doors back and forth down the hallway. How many bedrooms does this house have, anyway, thought John amid the muttered “Hey” and “Get your own room” from other couples in various positions of entanglement?

Finally, he was at the door of the last room. He could hear muffled voices beyond the door. He turned the knob, but the door wouldn’t open, it was locked. With time running out and thinking of his parents and Jessica, John kicked in the door. He was tall and whipcord thin at sixteen, but strong from daily work on the farm.

He barged into a version of hell. Paul Kincaid was motionless holding his pants unbuckled about his waist startled at John’s entrance. There were three other senior classmates in the room all in various stages of undress. On the bed, disrobed from the waist down was Jessica. She was mumbling nonsense with open glassy eyes and rubbing her abdomen and sides.

“What are you doing here? How dare you come into my home uninvited!” Paul was shouting, either out of fear or anger. John couldn’t decide and didn’t care. Kincaid had been found out and was cornered. He knew he wouldn’t be getting any help from Paul Kincaid now or ever. He advanced on Paul.

The three other boys dashed out of the room just as the lights went out. Shrieks could be heard from the panicked teens downstairs, but John had no ear for that. He needed car keys and had already decided he was taking Jessica to hospital with his parents. Any punishment for Paul Kincaid and the others could wait. He only hoped his parents were still alive.

A flash of lightning shown briefly thru the bedroom window warning him of Paul Kincaid’s swing. John took the blow glancing off his shoulder as he turned to the right. He struck back then, righteous anger fueling hammer like blows matching the lightning outside in quickness. Kincaid went down to the floor wheezing.
He reached into the pockets of Kincaid’s trousers and found car keys.

He left Paul groaning on the floor. Wrapping the blankets around Jessica, he lifted her off the bed. She didn’t seem to understand what he was doing. There was no way he was leaving her in this place of horror. I can call her parents from the hospital once we get there, he thought.

Carrying Jessica, wrapped in blankets, down the stairs in the darkened house lit only briefly by lightning stabbing through the windows proved difficult. John thought he was going to fall several times, but somehow he managed to reach the entry hall. The front door was wide open.

He could see cars and trucks weaving away from the property as the teens abandoned the now dark house. Gusts of cold wind whipped into the entry hall carrying rain onto the high thread count Persian rug in the entry hall.

He managed to get Jessica into the back seat of Paul Kincaid’s Cadillac Escalade. Adjusting the seat slightly, he drove down the driveway and turned left back along the road until he arrived at his family’s overturned truck. He prayed he was dreaming, and he wouldn’t find them, but they hadn’t moved from where he left them.

Jessica was sprawled out in the Escalade rear seat with a bit of saliva leaking out of the corner of her mouth, but she was breathing as near as he could tell. She was covered by the bedding and belted in as best he could. He folded the third row seats of the Escalade and opened the rear hatch to have a way to get his parents into the truck.

He turned to get his parents and stumbled a bit feeling very lightheaded. Everything went very bright around him, and then, blackness.

As his senses returned he realized he had placed his parents in the back of the SUV. He really didn’t have much time to think about his weird blackout spell. Maybe he going into shock? All he could tell at the moment was he felt numb. John shut the doors, adjusted the driver’s seat, and headed for the county hospital.
“Hang on Mom and Dad. Jessica it will be alright.”

He felt power- less to help them. He concentrated on his driving, willing the bubbling panic back into a corner of his brain, not to be let out until unlocked. He could feel it pressing against his mind’s door, even bowing the door inward, but no, not tonight, he thought, saying a quiet prayer for strength as well as protection and healing for his passengers.

He reached the county hospital intact pulling in front of the glass doors. He jumped out of the truck running around and into the sliding glass Emergency Entrance shouting, “Help! My parents are hurt.” After a moment of hesitation, nurses and assistants rushed out to the Escalade.

As soon as they saw his passengers, the rush of hands from the staff multiplied as his parents and Jessica were placed on stretchers and rushed inside.

His parents were taken into the resuscitation room, the drawn faces of the nurses and doctors speaking volumes confirming John’s worst fears. Still he hoped.

While the doctor and nurses labored for his parents in the resuscitation room, he sat beside Jessica. She was mumbling incoherently at times, but mostly, she lay on a hospital stretcher breathing slowly. Her monitor echoed the second hand of the
clock on the wall, each second, each heartbeat here and then gone forever, he thought.

Jessica paused her breathing just as the lights flickered briefly in the ER. The clock on the wall stopped. He heard increased activity from the trauma room, and he knew. His parents were leaving this world as they lived in it, side by side.

Later, much later, even years later, John would remember sitting there holding her hand.

Peace be with you.

Lawrence Simpson