After a while of driving, David pulled up in front of a run-down motel by the side of the road.
'We can definitely rent a room in this one.' Jamie threw an arm around Mandy's shoulder.
'Yep. I am starting to regret this idea.' Amanda stared at the motel.
'Come on. How bad can it be?' David grabbed his duffel from the car.
'Pretty bad but it's gonna be fun. We might encounter a serial killer in them.' Sarah laughed.
'Shut up Sar!' Mandy exclaimed.
'I love you Mandy but you have got to stop worrying about this stuff. We'll be fine.' Sarah assured her best friend.
In the motel, a middle aged ragged looking man was there at the reception.
'Hey, we were hoping to rent two rooms here for the night.' David said.
'You can rent ten.' The guy grunted. 'Does it look like we get any visitors here?'
'Nope.' Sarah mumbled under her breath making Mandy nudge her in the ribs by her elbow.
Sarah ignored her and asked. 'How much do we have to pay?'
They paid the cash and followed the receptionist to the rooms.
Both the couples occupied one room each.
Jamie threw himself on the bed while Mandy pulled apart the curtains to glance outside.
'Found any serial killers yet?' Jamie asked jokingly.
Mandy turned around and smiled sweetly which wasn't a good thing. Jamie knew this much from experience.
'I would like to reiterate; shut up Jamie!'
'Okay, okay.' Jamie raised his hands in surrender and grinned.
Mandy shook her head and walked towards the bed too.
'I think,' Jamie began, 'David and Sarah are regretting bringing us with them. First they had to work hard to convince me and now you are worried.' He chuckled.
'Nah. They can't live without their respective best friends so they are fine.'
Amanda commented offhandedly while tying her straw-colored hair in a ponytail.
'And I am looking forward to LA and was looking forward to a motel too. But this place is disturbing.'
'That's the best we are going to get.'
Jamie's phone started ringing at that moment. Mandy picked it up and glanced at the screen.
'Your dad.' She handed the phone to Jamie.
He grabbed it with a grimace.
'Hey dad.'
'Hey son. Everything going fine?'
'Uh yeah.'
'How long till you reach Maine?'
'An hour or so.' Jamie made some mental calculations and hesitantly replied.
He could see Mandy's anxious face in his peripheral vision.
'Call me when you get there. There might be signal problems afterwards.'
'Okay dad,' he was kind of relieved that he didn't have to talk to his father. But that relief flew out of the window in the next moment.
'Jamie, hand the phone to Sam.'
He instantly panicked. Mandy read the look on her boyfriend's face and shifted worriedly.
'Why?' Jamie stupidly asked.
'I want to discuss a couple of things with him.' Frank stated patiently.
'Umm… he is driving dad.'
'It doesn't sound like he is Jamie. There is no traffic noise,' Frank was beginning to sound exasperated.
'Uh yeah, dad, we are on the highway' Jamie scratched his head.
'Give your phone to Sam,' Jamie winced at his dad's sharp voice.
He looked at Mandy. She was mouthing the word 'signal'.
Without thinking anything further, Jamie blurted out.
'Dad, what did you just say? I can't hear you. There is some signal problem.'
He abruptly ended the call and threw the phone on the bed.
'I am dead,' he announced gloomily.
Mandy looked at him sympathetically. 'Can David imitate his brother?'
Jamie morosely shook his head. 'Dad knows you guys from the beginning. He'll instantly find out.'
Mandy threw a look at the phone and then at her boyfriend.
'He is going to call again.'
'I know,' Jamie groaned.
Mandy stared at her hands for a while and then suddenly got off the bed.
'Okay. We didn't come all this way for nothing. Let's think of something.'
Jamie looked at her expectantly.
Mandy ran different ideas through her mind until she settled on one.
'Why don't we ask Sam to make a quick call to your dad and say that there is some problem with signals and we are on the move and he stopped just to call him.'
'There usually is no problem with signals on the highways.'
'Usually. Plenty of things go wrong all the time.' Mandy replied.
'And what if dad wants to talk to me again?' Jamie contemplated for a moment and then it hit him. 'Look, Sam will say that he stopped at a gas station or something to call dad and if dad asks about me, he can say that I went to buy some stuff.'
Mandy snapped her fingers. 'Right, quick call it is. And when everyone will think that we are in wilderness, they wouldn't try to call us anyway.'
Jamie smiled for the first time after the call. 'We just have to get through this.'
Mandy nodded. 'I am going to let those two know about everything. You call Sam.'
Jamie grabbed his phone to call Sam. He knew that suspicions were bound to arise in his dad's mind but he just hoped that his dad would chalk it up to Jamie not wanting to be treated like a child.
He couldn't let his dad find out the truth after all the times he had already lied to his family.
The next morning, Jamie woke Amanda up.
'Hey,' she mumbled.
'Hey back,' he urgently replied. 'We have to get back on the road soon.'
'What? Aren't we going to have breakfast?' Amanda threw her legs off the bed.
'Do you really want to do that in this dump?'
Amanda smiled at his comment and moved towards the bathroom for her routine morning rituals.
When she came back looking more presentable, Sarah and David were already in the room.
David threw a packet of Cheetos at her. 'Breakfast of the champions.'
'No, it's not.' Sarah said. 'Come on guys, chop chop, we'll stop at some diner on the way to eat.'
When Jamie started driving, Amanda pulled out her phone to play some game.
Sarah looked at her like she had lost her mind. 'We are not supposed to have signals.'
'I am not making any call,' Mandy shrugged.
'What if someone calls you?' She grabbed the phone out of Mandy's hand and turned it off.
'You are paranoid.' Mandy shook her head.
'I am vigilant.'
Sarah cast a look at Jamie.
'Have you turned off your phone?'
'Nope.'
'Idiot.'
Jamie retrieved his phone from his pocket and extended his arm backwards.
Mandy grabbed it and turned it off.
TBC…