Death's Awakening

Chapter Eighteen: Parrish

The neighborhood was eerie and silent. 

The only time she remembered it being so quiet was one morning after a particularly heavy snowfall. She had woken up super early and taken a walk in the powdery white morning. But there was no snow this time. It was sunny and hot and beautiful.

The flowers were blooming, and the birds were still singing. Everything looked normal for summer, except that there should have been children playing in the yards and dads mowing lawns. People should have been swimming in their pools and heading out to the lake or the grocery store or the mall.

Was anyone even going to work anymore? Parrish couldn't be sure.

Not one person had even come over to check on her after her mother died. She was sure someone had to know by now. But no one had come to see if she was doing okay here by herself.

She hadn't been able to reach her aunt Stacey, her mom's sister. She was supposed to be coming to stay while her mom went to join her dad and Zoe in Paris, but something in Parrish's gut told her she wasn't coming. That she was sick, too, and would never be coming to visit again.

She'd tried to call her dad for days, but couldn't get through to him. She kept getting the same message about the cellular network being busy. When she looked it up online, she found out that all of the signals in New York City had been jammed like crazy and service had been really patchy. She wasn't sure what hotel they were staying in and couldn't find her mom's notes about it anywhere.

She'd been working her way through the phone book, calling every swanky hotel in Manhattan, asking for her dad. The answer was always the same. No one by that name was registered.

Parrish sat down in the center of the living room floor and dialed the number for the Four Seasons. It took a dozen rings for someone to finally pick up, and when they did, Parrish went through her routine of asking for her father or Zoe and explaining that they were guests of the New York Philharmonic.

"Hold on one moment and I'll connect you," the man said.

A gasp escaped Parrish's open mouth. She clutched the phone so tight against her face, its warmth nearly burned her.

Three rings in, someone picked up and Parrish nearly cried from relief.

"Hello?" Zoe whispered into the phone.

"Zoe? It's me. Oh my God, are you okay?"

"Parrish?"

"Yes, I've been trying to reach you for days," she said. She couldn't sit still. She hopped up and paced the floor in front of the couch. "The cell service where you are is completely screwed and I couldn't get through. I didn't know where you guys were staying."

Zoe was crying. Parrish could hear the little choked sobs coming from her sister and it broke her heart.

"Is everything okay, Zoe? Are you sick?"

"No," she said. Her voice was so small and quiet.

Parrish took a breath in and released it slowly. "What about dad?" she asked. "Is he okay?"

More sobs. Parrish closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall.

"Is he there with you now?"

"He's in his bedroom," Zoe said. "We have two rooms here in a suite and as soon as he started getting sick yesterday, he locked himself in there and told me not to come in unless he opened the door. He said he didn't want to get me sick, too."

Parrish balled her free hand into a tight fist and slammed it against the wall.

"What about a doctor?" she asked. "Can you call an ambulance or a doctor there? Is there anyone you can call for help?"