Our Nashville Adventure, Told in Several Increasingly Dramatic Installments ~ Part 2, The Creeper

Read the first part HERE (or you won't really know what's going on).

We return to our story as Bridget and I are walking up the street toward Rocketown, the venue where Relient K are going to be performing very soon. As we near the building, we see several well-lit parking lots with trustworthy-looking attendants, and I grow more nervous about the welfare of my precious Mitzi - the Mitsubishi, of course. We press on and enter the venue with our tickets in hand. We gaze around the industrial-style building and realize that we are in a sea of teenagers. While the opening band is performing, we have a lot of fun searching the crowd for anyone that appears older than our 25 years. We spotted a mom in a Christmas sweater and a grey-haired dad accompanying his tweenage daughter. Inexplicably excited to be the third-and-fourth oldest people in the room, besides the bands, we try to find a place to stand in the crush. We are stuck peering around pubescent boys who haven't quite realized how tall they have grown to be. Finally, Relient K comes out and all my hopes and dreams are realized (I told you this would be dramatic)! They put on a wonderful show with some of my favorite of their Christmas and other songs. I am thrilled to finally hear my favorite band, but the concert is over far too soon and we are faced with the trek back to the car.

As we turn the corner onto the street where we parked the car, we are distracted by the Nashville skyline looming above us. We stop to take some pictures to commemorate our trip. As we turn to get in the car and head back to our hotel, I suddenly become confused. Wasn't this where I parked the car? The only thing there now is an orange cone and a huge note spray-painted on a loading dock door - NO PARKING -
"Oh. No." I say. "The car is gone." Bridget stares in silence at the empty space and ominous lettering. I start manically walking down the street.
"What are you going to do?" asks Bridget, once she finds her words again.
"I'm going to find my car." I say determinedly.

We walk up the street to where a police car is parked. The officer inside rolls down his window, and I ask how we could find out if my car has been towed. He tells us to look at the parking signs and there should be a number for a towing place on them. We walk the block, writing down every phone number we see. I call each one, and get the same answer. "No, we haven't towed a blue '02 Mitsubishi Galant tonight." Unsure of our next step, we approach another police officer that has been directing traffic (looking back, I thank God that there was so much going on that night in Nashville. We would have been in trouble if we hadn't had those officers to help us). We tell him what has happened, and he puts in a call for an officer to come help us find the car. He gives us a number to call if no one has shown up in fifteen minutes, then he goes back to directing traffic at the intersection nearby.

Bridget and I sit down on a bench to wait. The street we are on is pretty much abandoned because of construction. There is no one walking or driving by. She has left her coat in the car, so she is shivering in the 40-degree weather. We wait for about fifteen minutes, so I call the dispatch office to see if someone is coming. They tell me that someone is on their way. As we are sitting there, Bridget notices a nice, black car drive by. She thinks it might be an undercover police car, until it drives right by. When it circles the block and drives by us again, this time slowing down, she gets a little nervous. I, in the meantime, am writing down all the phone numbers I think I will need because my phone is about to die. Of course, I brought the charger, but it is in the missing car. As I am writing down the number of my cousin, who lives in Nashville, I hear Bridget say "Rachel, this car has driven by here three times."
I look up to see the car pass us, then stop and slowly begin to back toward us. I say "Oh, he's probably just going to use the meter." But I scoot down to the end of the bench, away from the approaching car. As the car gets right beside our bench, the driver parks and cuts the engine. Bridget and I stand up and nonchalantly begin walking down the sidewalk, away from the car. We peek back to see the driver climb out of the car and walk to his trunk, staring at us the whole way. When he opens the trunk and peers inside, Bridget nudges me and says "Rachel, GO!"

We run across the street to a hotel entrance. We hide behind some bushes and watch the man in the black car rummage around in his trunk. When he stands up and looks across the street to where we are hiding, we scramble to the door and try to enter the hotel. But the door is locked. We have nowhere to go.


Don't miss the final part of our adventure, coming soon (comments will speed up the writing process)!

Here it is! Part 3 ~Awkward Side-Hug~