The Anchor

Chapter 6

After weeks and weeks of Sharon making sure that he was out of the house on time, she was not there this morning. The light was not even on upstairs.

"Great..." he thought sarcastically, I must be a big boy now.

He flipped on the entry way light, illuminating the area with a warm, homey golden glow. It was obvious that Sharon had taken great care in selecting every piece of the entryway remodel, including the color temperature of the light bulbs for the lights. Her attention to even the most minute detail was impressive. He grabbed his thin coat and his thick work coat, along with his keys as he walked out the front door. It was not as cold out as he thought it would be. Suddenly a chill ran through him. "Kansas in January, it should be 10 degrees outside, but it was not. It was much warmer than that. So warm in fact that the snow on the ground was melting and that moisture had created fog. Very thick; and murky. He could not even see his truck parked in front of the house.

He found his way to the truck, started it up, turned the headlights on and prayed he would not hit anything. He traveled in that thick blanket of fog, driving on instinct. Seeing stoplights ahead, he put on his blinker and turned left to head East. He looked down to tune the AM radio to a station playing something. The dial was alive with music this morning. The fog must be keeping the signal from Denver low today, he thought to himself. They were all older songs, but songs that he knew.

There was a slight lifting of the dense fog ahead and he could see the sign for the golf course. He slowed and reached for the volume to turn down the radio to concentrate on finding the road into Golden Meadows. The fog bank enveloped the truck as he passed the golf course entrance. The headlights blinded Trevor as he flipped on the high beams, hoping to cut through soup like fog. So he quickly turned them back off. His eyes were still seeing spots and trying to adjust to the darkness when he saw the turn ahead. Trevor turned his blinker on for the right hand turn into Golden Meadows. I thought I would never make it, Trevor thought to himself, with a sigh of relief.

As he started to finish the turn, his truck began to vibrate violently. He slammed the truck to a halt.

"Dammit, those foundation guys have got to find a way to clean the roads when they are done pouring in crappy weather. This shit goes everywhere." Trevor said grumpily.

He opened the truck door, hitting a bush with his door and as he looked down, he saw dirt. Tilled dirt. A fresh tire track and tilled dirt.

"What in the...."

He stepped down and sure enough, fresh, soft dirt.

He looked up towards the way he came in and was able to see the sign for the golf course through the fog.

"OPEN, THIS SPRING"

"OAKHAVEN MUNICIPAL GOLF COURSE"

"GRAND OPENING, MAY1st"

Well, there is the golf course, where is Golden Meadows? Trevor thought to himself.

A brief hole in the fog allowed Trevor a look around his truck. He had pulled into a field. A freshly tilled field. In all of the weeks coming to work, he had never seen this field. And now, he was parked in it. He looked at this watch.

6:58

"Shit"

He reached for his cell phone to call Mike Collins to tell him he will be late. But then he remembered that conversation they'd had on his first day. He slowly closed the lid on the cell phone and put it back in his pocket.

He knew what this meant.

Mike Collins looked at the entrance of Golden Meadows on this bitterly cold, cloudless morning and then down at his watch.