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CHAPTER FIVE
"WHOA, hold up, back up!" Lizzie said, springing from the front door to Karr, "You can't drive on the flowers!"
She pushed Karr's hood, and almost to her surprise he took the hint and moved backwards.
"There, stay on the driveway," she said, "I've got to go inside and-"
"Wow, you're strong." A small voice said.
"What?" Lizzie asked, looking up.
"You pushed that car with your hands," the voice continued.
A quick glance showed Lizzie that the voice was coming from a little girl on a scooter on the sidewalk.
Uh oh.
"Um, thanks," Lizzie said awkwardly, "Um, I eat all my vegetables."
She turned back to Karr.
"Wait here," she whispered, giving him the stay gesture with her hand.
Then, before the girl on the scooter could ask her any more questions, she quickly walked back up to the front door of the house, let herself inside and took the key in with her.
She was immediately assailed by three excited dogs, two large and one small.
"Okay, okay!" She said, putting the key in her pocket, "Just let me take care of your food and water first. Then we'll go for a walk. Alright?"
Instead of calming down, the dogs became more excited. But of course Lizzy was expecting that. She had said the magic word 'walk,' after all.
A short while later, she excited the house with all three dogs on separate leashes. To her relief, the girl on the scooter was gone and Karr was still there, exactly as she had left him.
"Good," she whispered.
She walked up the Karr, and the three dogs ran forward to sniff him out. Karr backed up a few feet and started shivering.
Whoops. Should have seen that coming.
"No no it's alright," Lizzie said, reining the dogs in closer to her and away from Karr, "They're not going to hurt you. See? They're just excited, that's all. I'm going to give them a walk. I'm going to walk them around the block, and then we'll come right back. Alright? You stay right there until I get back."
She walked the dogs down the driveway and began walking down the sidewalk. Behind her, she could hear Karr's engine start up.
"Oh no, tell me he isn't doing what I think he is," she whispered aloud.
Karr drove up next to her, using the street this time instead of the grass.
"He is," she sighed. Then, trying to speak to him without drawing too much attention, "Karr, I'm just walking the dogs. You can wait back at the Smith's house."
No response. Karr just continued driving, keep at a slow pace to match hers.
"Well," Lizzie said, "We might as well walk to the park then. I can let the dogs play, and you won't look too out of place in the parking lot."
Karr flashed his headlights.
"What was that?" Lizzie asked, stopping in mid-step. The dogs weren't too happy about that, and tried to pull her further, but she stood her ground. "What did you say, Karr?"
Karr flashed his headlights again, a little slower this time.
"Alright," Lizzie said, paying close attention to the pattern, "Long flash, short flash, short, long, short, short, short, long, long, short..."
She lost track around there, but it seemed to her as if this was the same pattern Karr had flashed at her the night before.
"Ugh!" She exclaimed, letting the dogs finally pull her forward again, "Can you wait until I have a pen and paper to write this all down?"
Karr stopped flashing, but set off next to her at the same pace as before as if he had never flashed his headlights in the first place.
"Right," Lizzie said, "Well, we'll figure that out soon. In the meantime, let's focus on the issue at hand: how to get to the park safely."
It wasn't as difficult as she thought it would be to lead Karr past the houses to the park. The area where the Smith family and their dogs lived was near the dullest edge of campus, and the community consisted mostly of retired people. The few families with children were usually comprised of parents who studied on campus with children younger than ten years of age.
So even though there was always the chance someone would peek out of their window to see the slow-moving black car following Lizzie as she walked the dogs, compared to the rest of campus it was eerily quiet.
The playground itself was mostly empty when they got there. A few students were studying on park benches, but they were on the other side of the playground. The park itself was surrounded by woods on three of its sides, with plenty of clean-cut grass between the wood and the playground. It was in there that the dogs liked to play.
Lizzie walked Karr over to the parking lot in front of the playground, and had him park close to a park bench. One by one she released the dogs from their leashes, and sat down on the bench as they scampered off. They had at least half an hour to spend here.
She looked at the sky. It looked like it could rain soon. Huh. It wasn't supposed to rain today. Hopefully they would be gone before it started.
"Might as well make the best of my time," Lizzie said, looking at Karr.
Karr was silent, but his scanner was very active. He had moved a little closer to her where she was sitting; his tires were over the white lines of his parking spot.
"I'm going to call FLAG again," Lizzie said outloud, "If Kitt is keeping a tight eye on the phone line, then he probably knows I've been trying to call them already. He might be keeping track of how many times I've already called. Hopefully he's pretty annoyed at me by now, but if I know Kitt, he's not going to answer me just because he's annoyed. Maybe, though, I can send him a message..."
She was silent for a while.
"Aha!" She finally said, her excitement causing Karr's scanner to move just a little faster than normal, "Morse code! Maybe I can call again in an SOS pattern-three short tries, three longer tries spaced further apart, and three short tries again. Could that work?"
It sounded like it might. She pulled out her phone, and pressed the button on speed dial which connects directly to Kitt.
No answer, just as she expected. The number died on her without so much as bringing her to his voicemail. Quickly, Lizzie called that same number again two more times. After the third time, she waited half a minute and then called again. When that call ended, she waited for fifteen seconds before calling, and then did the same for her third 'long' call. She then waited another half a minute before dialing the number three times for the last three 'short' parts of the SOS.
Then she put down the phone and waited for a response.
One minute passed. Two minutes. Five.
Nothing. There was no response. Not even a text saying Nice Try.
Lizzie looked at the dogs to see if they were still running around within view. Then she looked over at Karr, to make sure that he was still there as well. He had moved a little closer to her again and was now taking up two parking spaces, but at least he was still there.
With a sigh Lizzie huffed and repeated dialing her SOS signal, keeping her eyes on the dogs. This time she waited ten minutes before repeating the calls. After waiting ten more minutes after that, she finally pocketed her phone.
"Either Kitt knows I've called an SOS three times and is ignoring it," she said, "Or he has no idea what I just did."
She glanced at her watch. They had been there for a little over half an hour.
"How are you doing, Karr?" She asked, looking over at him.
Karr was halfway on the grass now, facing a tree and apparently scanning it.
"Hey hey, off the grass!" Lizzie said, getting off the park bench and pushing Karr back into the parking lot, "You don't want me to get into trouble again, do you?"
Karr responded by flashing his favorite headlight pattern at her.
"Right," Lizzie said, although she had no idea what he was saying, "Now, just stay there. We'll be leaving soon anyway."
She looked back at the dogs, then at the sky. The threat of rain she had seen earlier was turning into a real possibility.
"Hm, maybe I should start getting them back now," she said outloud, "Before the rain hits."
She cupped her hands to her mouth and called out the dogs' names one by one. They were well-trained dogs, which is why she could let them off the leash without worrying about them, but like many dogs at play they didn't come to her right away.
She called to them a second time, and this time the smallest dog came running. With a pet and a snuggle, Lizzie tied him to his leash as the other two dogs-seeing the treatment the smallest was getting-decided that they wanted to come back too.
At this point Lizzie felt the first raindrop.
"Well, it's raining," she said.
Karr revved his engine behind her, and Lizzie turned to look at him even as she clicked the second dog's leash into place.
"What's wrong, Karr?" Lizzie asked, reaching for the third dog's collar.
The black vehicle moved backwards into the parking lot, then just as quickly moved forward onto the grass and crashed hood first into a tree.
"Karr?" Lizzie asked, snapping the third dog's collar into place and ignoring the next several drops of rain, "Are you alright?"
Instead of responding, Karr backed up from the tree-leaving behind a nasty scratch-and made a rapid reverse turn to the right, banging his rear bumper violently into the park bench.
"Karr!" Lizzie said, stepping forward, bringing the three dogs with her.
Karr drove forwards now, and with a small turn he was in the parking lot again. The rain began to fall more often now.
"What's going on?" Lizzie asked, racing after him.
Driving as if he was drunk, Karr swerved alternatively to the left and right.
"Karr, stop!" Lizzie cried, running up to his bumper.
She saw the rain land on Karr's hood, and Karr swerved to the left again. A drop landed to the left of his front left wheel, and he moved to the right.
No. It couldn't be the rain. Could it?
"It's only rain, Karr," Lizzie said, "It won't hurt you!"
The rain was no longer a drizzle. It started to come down in sheets, and Karr was driving increasingly erratically.
"Karr!" Lizzie cried out as her partner left the parking lot, "Calm down! It's alright!"
Just past the park there was a tree over the road, next to a small suburban house. Karr found the tree and parked underneath it, even as the rain became harder than ever.
"Karr, it's alright," Lizzie said, running over to him. The dogs with her were having the time of their lives, trying every way they could to tangle her up as they chased the raindrops.
Karr only stood there shivering. The tree couldn't keep all the rain from hitting him, but it did keep much of it out.
"Karr, it's alright," Lizzie repeated, reaching forward to touch him and calm him down with the hand that wasn't holding the dogs.
That was the moment, however, that the dogs chose to come under the tree too and shake themselves off.
Then something horrible happened. Karr screamed. It was the sound of his engine and his horn, and it sounded terrible. Lizzie shrieked, and fell backwards into the rain while the three dogs jumped and barked around her. Before she could say or do anything, Karr sped past her into the rain he was so frightened of and drove between the grass separating two houses across the street.
Lizzie was soaked to the bone, but she quickly jumped up. She almost ran after him, but she tripped on the dog leashes.
"Right," she said, spitting wet hair out of her eyes, "I'd better get you guys home first."
It didn't take too long to run to the Smith home in the rain with the dogs, get them inside and dry them off, but it felt like forever. After making sure that she had done everything for the dogs that she was responsible for doing, and after she had quickly dried the wet floor where the dogs had entered, Lizzy said good-bye to them and left the house, locking it behind her. She took a deep breath, and ran out into the pouring rain.
The first thing she did was go to the last place she had seen her partner. Backtracking down the street, she raced back to the large tree and tore off across the grass between two houses in the same direction Karr had last gone.
The rain was coming down in buckets, and it was hard for her to see five feet ahead of her. Lizzie just kept running, looking around every corner for some hint of black...
It was still raining some time later when Lizzie finally walked back to her dorm room, sopping wet.
"Brit?" She asked, unlocking the door.
But her roommate wasn't there.
"Probably at class," Lizzie assumed.
She looked at the clock and cringed. She was already late for her class. What was worse, she would have to miss it today.
"Karr is so going to kill me for skipping class," she said, "But then, this is his fault."
Quickly, Lizzie grabbed some clean clothes from her drawer. She was only here to dry off, and then she was going back out there again.
Where could Karr have gone? She had looked everywhere she could think of. In fact, her first reason for coming to the dorm was that Karr might be there. She really hoped that he didn't drive off campus.
After taking a quick shower, drying most of her hair and donning the driest, most rain-proof clothing she had, Lizzie consulted her mental map of the university. Karr had discovered that trees offer shade from the rain, so maybe he was hiding in the woods somewhere. That was where she would look next.
"But where will we go once I find him?" she asked herself.
She was slightly surprised she had thought of that question. Where would they go? If Karr was still on campus-and hopefully he was-he might be too frightened of the rain to go anywhere. And anyway, he might not let her into his cabin. So if she found him, she would probably have to stay with him until the rain stopped.
Lizzie threw a couple granola bars and water into a backpack when she thought of that. Then she took another look at the clock. She could skip the rest of her classes that day, and she didn't need to go to the dogs again until tomorrow. She didn't have any other responsibilities. That meant that she could devote the rest of the day to finding Karr and figuring out how to help him.
With a nod, Lizzie packed a few more things into the backpack-a blanket, a flashlight, and anything else she thought she might need.
"Don't want to forget my cell phone," she muttered to herself.
But just as she grabbed the device, it rang.
"Hello?" Lizzie asked, answering without bothering to look at the caller ID. Inwardly she yelled at herself. She didn't have time to answer the phone! What was she thinking?
"Elizabeth?"
"Oh, hi Mrs. Mahogany," Lizzy said.
Uh oh. Mrs. Mahogany was probably going to ask her if she could watch her house.
"Can you watch my house for the next few weeks? I'm leaving on a trip but I want to make sure it looks like someone's home."
"Um," Lizzie said. She hated having to turn Mrs. Mahogany down. She was such a nice old lady, although her frequent travels came with little warning.
"You don't need to come by tonight, dear," Mrs. Mahogany continued, "But you can come by sporadically to turn the lights on and off. You still have the keys, right?"
"Yes," Lizzie said.
"Feel free to use the tv, the fridge, yadda yadda."
"Actually, Mrs. Mahogany," Lizzie began, but she wasn't heard.
"Thank you so much, dear! You don't know what a life-saver you are. Oh! And before I forget, feel free to spend the night if you want. It's kinda nice to have a quiet place to study sometimes, you know? I'll see you when I get back. Thanks again!"
"Wait, Mrs. Ma-"
But Mrs. Mahogany hung up before she could finish.
"Oh." Lizzie said, speaking to herself now, "Well, I guess I can do it. Just not tonight."
She glanced at her phone as she went to put it in her pocket.
"Wait. Thirty missed calls?" She asked, seeing the number on her phone's screen. Did Kitt call her back? Quickly, she pulled up the list of missed calls. Unfortunately, she discovered that they were all from the same number. It was a number she didn't recognize, but it had the same area code as her school.
"I'd better not call whoever this is back," she said, throwing her phone in her pocket, "I've taken too much time; I'm out of time. I'll listen to the voicemails later."
She hoped it wasn't one of her professors trying to reach her, but she would deal with that later. Right now she needed to find Karr. Quickly she grabbed the backpack she had prepared. Locking her dorm room door behind her, Lizzie left the building as fast as possible and headed for the woods.
