Cody

 Chapter 3: Cody

 

 

It was coming after me again. He was slyly approaching; I could feel him coming closer.

            I was sitting in this small house, scared and alone, gasping with fear, it wasn't even a house, more like a shack, but it was made of brick. I knew he blew Juni and Dad's house down already, and killed them. I was sobbing in the corner of this small brick house. I heard its paws slowly walking approaching my house. I felt his presence even more vivid than I had before. His paws came to a stop in front of my door.

            He growled a deep growl. The scariest growl I have ever heard. I was overwhelmed by the loss of my family, and I was next on his list. He started digging his way in under the door.

            "Little girl, little girl...let me in." His voice was a deep growl, sly and evil.

            I was not going to say the next line... come on; we aren't in a little kids storybook. There was a part of me that wanted him to take me, how could I live anymore without Juni and Dad? There was no life without them. I broke out into a sob again thinking about them, gone... forever. He stopped digging and started to run and hit at the door. Every bang was the seconds of my life left, the wooden door was starting to crack open, and the damage was getting worse and worse after each blow. I started counting down. Soon enough he burst through the door and was charging at me, his amber eyes were bloodthirsty. I gave a petrified shriek.

            I woke up screaming, and it wasn't loud, it was a weak scream. Like I had no more left in me to do anything else, I hated nightmares; they play tricks on you. You think it’s real, and you go through all that worry and suffering and it ends up being nothing. But it was a huge relief to know that didn't just happen.

            Why was I getting so worked up over this wolf? I shouldn't be frightened anymore; he’s long gone now, in the past. I realized I was sweating; I then raked my hair back with my fingers, being careful of the stitches and rubbed my eyes. I got really good rest, even when I did get a bad dream.

            I felt so gross. I was sweaty and dirty… and my hair was still crusty in spots with dry blood. It made my hair smell like blood. Ew. I looked over at the clock; it was 12:34 in the afternoon. I climbed out of the heavy clean white sheets of the hospital bed, and realized I wasn’t dressed how I last remembered. I was wearing my favorite outfit for bed, my loose yellow Aerosmith t-shirt, and my plaid pajama bottoms. The nurses must have gotten it from my dad and changed me out of my jean shorts and dirtied up white T. Thinking about that, I felt kind of uncomfortable that they had changed my unconscious body, seeing more than I wanted them to, but I managed to shrug it off. I opened the door to the bathroom and took a hot shower, brushed my teeth, hair and put my pajamas back on.

Betty, the nurse gave me breakfast. It was waffles and scrambled eggs with orange juice. I bit into the waffle sleepily.

            "Blech!" I whispered out loud, I heard it echo from the empty room, and I wearily chuckled. The food here was really bad compared to my dad's.

            Dad and June got here at around 1:30, they said they stopped by at eleven, but I was still sleeping. The nurse ended up letting me out early, and gave me the pain reliever for my head. We all got into dad's Chevy and drove the long drive home; the hospital wasn’t close to the cabin I’m guessing. When we got home I had the chance to change into my green blouse and brown corduroy shorts before leaving to get my much anticipated jeep.

            We drove into that same car place and met up with the salesman. They negotiated for a bit and I painfully watched my smiling father sign the check. I made sure I thanked him a million times, and the salesman drove the car over to us and he explained the general gears and where everything is. Happy to get rid of what he obviously thought was a piece of junk, he handed over the key to me and I took it, trying not to scream with joy. After that I couldn't keep the smile of my face, and my dad loved that. I had my license for a whole year and now I finally can drive without having to ask permission for my parent’s cars.

            "Desi! Desi! Can I ride with you home?" she looked up at me, eyes wild with excitement.

            "Of course you can Juni, hop in!" She jumped up into the passenger’s seat with a wide smile.

            "You two should go give it a ride, I'll be home preparing for dinner anyways. " Dad said while walking to his truck.

            "Okay, I'll see you later then!" I hopped into my car, started the ignition, which gave a gentle roar, and drove out of the lot.

            It felt like I was meant to drive this car. It was awesome the feeling of the wind and the sun shining down without any roof to cover it up. Juni loved it too; her head was out the window waving to random people. I had the radio turned up to my favorite station and we were cruising through the roads.

            We ended up seeing our favorite ice cream shop on the side of the road. We were very in the mood for ice cream so we parked the car and went up to the small window. June and me were scanning the menu nailed to the wall.

            "Um... I'll have one medium chocolate marsh mellow on a cone, and..." I looked down at June.

            "Cotton candy!" June whispered up to me.

            "And a small cotton candy on a cone please." We waited briefly and she handed us our ice creams.

            June and I went to go sit at one of the picnic tables. I could hear the people at the table across from us laughing obnoxiously. We sat down and talked about mom and how we miss her, and our dog back at home Sadie. She's a Bernice Mountain dog, very pretty, and loyal to the family, even though she chews everything in sight. The chortling continued with the boys, I had to strain my ears to hear what June was telling me, something about how her Barbie’s were probably eaten and missing limbs. I looked across at them, they weren't far away, and maybe about 7 feet apart were our tables. One of them looked up at me from his ice cream, and did a meager double take. That alerted me, and I realized why, he recognized me... and I gave him a better look, he was the boy behind the cash register at the souvenir shop.

            He nudged his head up in a greeting gesture, smiling. I did the same, he was sitting with two others, one who looked like he could be his older brother, with the same caramel, and olive toned skin. His dark brown hair pulled back in a low ponytail. And the other was maybe the same age as him, he had a lighter beige skin color and had short golden blonde hair, his eyes were a un-natural light green, it made his eyes look cat-like... it was intimidating, but cool.

            He went to go throw out his napkin, and on his way back he sat at our table, he gave us both a bright smile.

            "Hey I thought I saw familiar faces, I'm Cody by the way, how you liking the bear?" He looked over at Juni.

            "Hi Cody, I'm June, and I love him! I named him Bo." She said, wiping the pink ice cream off her face.

            "Nice, and how about that necklace?" He looked back to me with his deep brown eyes.

            "Oh, I haven't gotten the chance to wear it yet actually-"

            "She had to go to the hospital!" Juni blurted out, she was on the verge of a story to tell.

            "Juni... shh" I was dreading to tell the whole story again; especially to some person I just met. The stitches seemed to ache again.

            He then looked down and I saw creases form in his forehead; he looked back up to me with a hidden pain.

            "I'm... really sorry to hear that." He said with what sounded like true meaning to his words.

            "Oh, don’t worry about it; I only needed a few stitches.” I said with a shrug. Not expecting that much worry from a stranger.

His face lightened a smidge.

            "Well me and my boys over there are going to go four wheeling, we could always use a few more people to ride with, you guys in for it?"

            I looked over at Juni; she knew what I was thinking.

            She dropped her shoulders. "Oh come on, I can do it Desi!" I gave her a unsure look, and pulled out my phone.

            I called and asked dad and he gave a quick no, he said she was too young for it. After Juni's complaints and moans dad picked her up and gave the boys and me a wave and drove off. June was leaning out the window with a pout face that broke my heart.

            We walked out of the ice cream shop area, and walked across the street to a pathway in the woods.

            "Hey you haven't told me your name yet." He pointed out while we were walking in twos down the narrow dirt road. The sun was still bright shining down at us.

            "Ha, oh yeah... I'm Desiree."

            "Nice to meet you Desiree, so uh, I must ask... are you ready for the ride of your life?" He asked with a mocking dangerous voice.

            I looked up at him, he was a nice height. "Bring it."

            He chuckled lightly. "This is Leroy..." He pointed to the guy with the light green cat-like eyes and golden blonde hair. He had an average slim figure, but there was muscle underneath it, he was a little shorter than Cody.

            "Hello Desiree," he shook my hand with a good grip, and cracked a smile. He had a really smooth voice.

            "And this is my older brother, Jack." He gave me a welcoming smile and shook my hand too. He was around 6'4 and brawny.

            It was so easy to tell they were brothers; Cody resembled Jack easily, other than that Cody was younger and shorter, and not as brawny as his brother.

            We walked into an opening and there were 4 four wheelers parked in the space, they were facing a dirt trail into the woods.

            "Wow, are these yours?" I asked. There was one red one, one hunter green one, one black, and one blue. They had big wheels and all had an orange flag sticking out of it in the back.

            "Well, we rented them. We have them until the end of the summer... it was a nice deal, only 85 bucks each." said Leroy.

            "Nice." I was excited to start driving it.

            "So are you ready?" Cody said.

            "Ready as I'll ever be."

            He grinned. Jack jumped onto the hunter green one and Leroy on the blue.

            "Want me to show you how to start it? That would be useful." We went over to the red four-wheeler and I climbed on top of it. He handed me the helmet and I put it on.

            "Okay, now turn the key there to the right." I did as he said and turned the key.

            "Now hold your break down, it’s on the right side by your foot." I started to put pressure on the break with my foot.

            "Now over here by your left hand is the kill switch, push that, and press the button next to it to start the engine." I followed obediently and the four-wheeler made the same sound as a motorcycle.

            "Now all you have to do now is put it into first gear, squeeze your right hand over the gas, and your good to go!"

            "Sweet."

            "Now remember where your break is, by your right foot." He said over his shoulder as he expertly climbed onto the black four-wheeler.

            "We all good?" I heard Jack yell through the rough sound of all the engines.

            Cody looked over at me and I gave a thumbs up, he grinned and passed the gesture on to his brother, who then zoomed by us disappearing into the dirt trail in the woods. Leroy followed, and then it was my turn. I nervously squeezed my hand onto the handle, jerked forward, and started to steer into the path. I was going so fast, the feeling was like adrenaline. At first I needed to focus on keeping control of the four-wheeler, but once that was down it was an amazing, carefree ride.

            We went through the dirt path surrounded by trees and greenery, And over a few wooden bridges that went over creeks. The cool wind felt nice blowing through my hair. There were a lot of bumpy trails that were fun; if you went over one the whole vehicle would do a big hop. We were racing for a while when the trail broke out into another opening, I drove out into it, following Jack and Leroy and was facing a huge meadow, you could see all the far away mountains in the distance. I saw Jack and Leroy riding at high speed doing doughnuts and other tricks. Then I saw Cody pop up in the corner of my eye and he was going at the same speed as me, but slowly starting to pass me. That could not be tolerated. I switched to 2nd gear and squeezed hard on my gas handle. I started to pass him, he looked over at me happily challenged that I was getting ahead and reached down to switch his gear, and I laughed and gave him a smug smile. I could really feel my hair flying behind me now. We saw Jack come to a stop and park his four-wheeler out in the open field. He waved his hand over for all of us to come over, so we all parked ours too and jumped out.

            "I have to get going, you guys can stay a while, but I need to get ready for work at six." Jack explained, he then glanced at Leroy.

            "You know, I really need to get back too, my mother will be pissed if I'm not home for supper." He looked over at me.

            "I had fun Desiree, you sure you don’t motocross for a living? Gee, she almost bumped me from behind a couple times." He said bewildered and gave a nice wave to Cody and I. He jumped onto the four-wheeler and sped away.

            "Nice meeting you Desiree, I'll see you later bro." Jack said giving us a quick smile and sped away as well, shreds of grass flying behind him.

            It got really quiet in the meadow.

            "Well... It's just the two of us now huh." I said breaking the silence, we were just standing there side by side in the huge open meadow with the two four wheelers behind us.

            "Hah, I guess so." he turned around to face me; he made a silhouette with the setting sun behind him. His olive skin looked pretty with the orange lighting.

            "When do you need to be home?" He asked. His hands were in his jean pockets, looking at me with his chocolate colored eyes.

            "What time is it now?" I completely lost track of time, and reality.

            "It's..." he turned around and looked up at the sky. "About 5:45ish."

            "You can tell the time by the sky?" I asked in awe, squinting up at the setting sun close to disappearing behind the mountains.

            "Yeah, from the positioning of the sun, when the sun is close to setting, its 5:45 in the afternoon. Same thing goes for sunrise, at 6:25 in the morning it starts getting bright out. It changes too with the different seasons and whatever."

            "Wow, I have to admit, I'm impressed." I turned back to him.

            "Yeah well I’m half Native American, it runs in the family." He said humbly with a long shrug. "We got special skills." He said with a hint of sarcasm and nudged me in the side.

            I nudged him back. It was crazy I could get along with Cody so well, I technically just met him today a few hours ago, and I felt like I've known him a lot longer than that.

            "Oh, and I've got to be home at 6:30, that’s when dinner starts." I said, remembering about the question he asked to begin with.

            "Alright, it'll take us approximately 20 minutes to get out of here, so we could chill for a bit and then we can leave if you want." He was still facing me with his hands in his pockets.

            "Sounds good to me… This field is so big, there’s so much space. We should run."

            Out of nowhere I started sprinting ahead across the meadow toward the setting sun. My arms were extended out; the warm air went under my arms and flew through my hair.

            "Woo!" I was still running, and smiling. I felt content, my heart beating fast, but it didn’t feel like the rapid kind of beating from exercise.

            I heard running behind me, and Cody soon popped into view and was running next to me.            We did that for a little till we were out of breath, I was out of breath before him, and he didn't even look like he broke a sweat. I was hunched over with my hands on my knees, trying to get some oxygen. My long wavy strawberry blonde hair was dangling. While he was next to me standing, not even breathing heavily.

            "Man, you- you have some-some good stamina." I said in between breaths.

            "Eh, I do a lot of running in my day." He said. I looked up at him awestruck he was standing normally, with a tiny smile on his face it looked like he was sharing a private joke with himself.

            "We should get going huh?" I said with remorse, the kid was so fun to hang out with.

            "Hmm it looks like it." He looked at the almost setting sun again.

            We got back onto our four-wheelers and drove back to the opening. All the other ones were there, we parked ours along the rest and began to walk down that narrow dirt pathway again, but it was darker this time.

            "So, I haven’t seen you up here before, are you on vacation or something?" He asked with his throaty sound.

            "Yah, my dad, June and I are up here for the summer." I said walking, getting Goosebumps from the dropping temperature as night was sneaking through.

            "My mom couldn't come though; she got caught working at the hospital."

            "Oh, man that really sucks… where you from anyway?" He asked and looked down at me, he was hard to see in the shade of all the trees.

            "I'm from Burlington, Vermont. It has some mountains like here, but not the mountains you can live in. We live in the suburban part of Burlington. It's pretty, but not as pretty as here."

            "Yah, I've always heard Vermont is a pretty state. But every place has its ugly parts." He stated.

            "I would believe that, but here nothing is ugly." It was true, nothing was, and there were no cities, loud obnoxious honking cars and litter on the roads. Everything was clean and fresh.

            “Eh, the dump isn’t so appealing.” He said smiling.

            I rolled my eyes at him. “Well any dump wouldn’t be.”

            We kept walking at a casual pace. There was a brief silence till a question came in my head.

            “I can’t believe I’ve never seen you before. I go here every summer, you think I would have.” I asked looking up at him. He was staring ahead.

            “You probably have, but never actually spoke to me, or really see me.” He said putting the see in quotes. “It’s kind of like any day at the grocery store… there’s twenty people you pass in the aisle, but you don’t really acknowledge them.” I pouted my lips in agreement.

            “That’s true, but this is such a small town, though you know?”

            “Yeah I know, but hey, here we are.” He said happily. I cracked a smile.

            “Do you go to that school on Westbrook?” I asked.

            “Yeah, I’m going to be a senior there in September.”

            “Really? I’m going to be a senior too!” I said happily.

            “Woo! Top dogs!” He said with a fist in the air and gave me a high five.

            “Sheesh, about time huh?”

            “Yea I know. Leroy and I have been waiting forever to be able to do our senior prank.”

            “You’re going to do a senior prank?” I asked laughing. He looked as if I asked a stupid question.

            “Well yea of course! Got to go out with a bang right?”

            “Ha-ha yeah I guess so. So what’s your guy’s plan then?”

            He smiled, happy I asked. “We are going to saran wrap all of the teachers cars.” He said proud of himself.

            That was the stupidest thing I ever heard, but in a good way. I laughed.

            “Nice, how are you going to do that?”

            “During lunch, Leroy and I are going to do it so when they leave the school they won’t know what to do!”

            “That’s a good one.”

            He looked to me again, “What’s your school like? Got any good friends?”

            I looked ahead at the little bit left we had to walk. “My school is normal, a lot bigger than yours though, and there are tons of more people. The only people I hang out with are my good friends Rachel, and Bryan. But other than that nah, most of the people I just talk to in school.”

            “Huh, you’re like me, out of everyone in my school I only really hangout with Leroy. No one else seems worth the time, he basically lives at my place, his parents completely ignore him.”

            “Really? Why? That’s horrible.” I said with pity. I couldn’t imagine my parents just pretending I don’t exist. “That’s got to be hard.”

            “Nah, not really anymore, he’s used to it, and no one really knows why they ignore him, they just do.”

            “So what do you usually do around here anyway?” I asked relaxed. He paused for a moment thinking of what to say.

            “Well, you know I work at the souvenir shop… other than that, I usually am with Leroy or my brother and his friends, and we go out and go four wheeling, sometimes we go out and kayak down the rivers, we love that. If there’s a concert playing close by I usually go and a lot of the time, I’m just, running around everywhere. Or fixing something my mom broke, and let me tell you… she breaks a lot of things. The car, the radio, and the railings… most the nights we have bonfires and my family, Leroy, and Jacks friends come around and we eat a lot. And then there’s school and all that boring stuff.”

            Cody’s way of spending his time was very different from other people I knew. It seemed like he was always up and busy, using his muscles in some way or form.

            “How about you?” He asked politely. I was no match for his adventurous commodity, so I hesitated to answer.

            “Well, I usually hang out with Rachel or Bryan, we love to go see movies or walk around pretty much everywhere, anywhere new is always fun. I baby-sit June a lot when my parents work, we live by the lake, and I got my boating license last year, so I like taking the motor boat out and just reading, it’s nice, other than that really everything’s repetitive with school. I work at a pizza place called Pablo’s.”

            “Hah. Do you deliver?”

            “Yea.”

            “Nice, you play any sports?”
            ”Basketball and ice hockey.” Cody turned to me impressed. I smiled modestly.

            “That’s awesome, and I’m sure you’re really good at both. I play ice hockey too, and I snowboard.”

            “Really? We should so go one on one, I’d take you down.” I lied. Just looking at him I could tell I wouldn’t stand a chance.

            “In your dreams little girl.” He said slyly.

            “I’m not little.” I muttered defensively. “I’m 5 foot 6 and three quarters.” That ought to count for something.

            He laughed. “That isn’t tall, maybe a tiny bit for a girl, but next to me you’re tiny.”

            I stared at him amused and noticed the noise of cars.

            We reached the end of the pathway and the full darkening sky became visible, the stars appearing ever so slightly. The lights for the ice cream shop were on, prepared for the night. When there were no cars coming we walked across the road back to my parked Jeep on the curb and stopped at the driver’s door.

            "Thanks for letting me come with you guys; I had a lot of fun." I said smiling, but a bit reluctant to go home.

            "Nah thank you for being great company, we should diffidently hangout this summer." He said leaning on the hood.

            "Yah, that would be great, want me to give you my number so we don't have to bump into each other next time?"

            "Ha, yah sure... But, I don't go around carrying a pen and paper in my back pocket you know." He said sarcastically and smiled.

            "Well, I have a pen, so give me your hand." My hand was out waiting for his hand. He placed it on mine and I began to write. His hands were smooth, but very masculine, his veins were slightly bulged of his olive skin and his knuckles were prominent.

            "There." I put my pen away as he was reading his hand.

            "Okay sweet. But you’re going to need my number too you know." He put his hand out for my pen smirking and then took my hand and scribbled gently.

            "Alright, see you around Desiree, I'll get in touch with you soon." He flashed a smile and walked back to the sidewalk along the road.

            I got in and started the engine. My stomach growled loudly, good thing it did right when the engine turned on.

           

            "Bye Cody! See you later." He waved and I drove off down the moonlit road to where an amazing meal awaited me. 

Author's Note

Thanks a lot for reading!

Reviews

[Nickle]

wow lyss...i can recognize all of ur humor in this story lol...this desiree girl sounds awfully similar to someone ;p...anyways this chapter was full of things i wish that we did on a normal basis lol...i will say though...

some of ur tenses were a little messed up at when the first word is a and the next starts with a 'u' you have to use the word an lol...also some of your sentences were a little choppy so maybe just brush up on that...and i saved the best for last...i laughed when i saw this one..."He said with a fist in the air and gave me a high five"...some of ur sentences don't make sense...wouldn't he put his fist up if he wanted a fist bump and his hand up if he wanted a high five lol...im still laughing from that one...anyways good chapter :)

[17thWhitePrince]

WoW !!! Very Very Good Indeed !!!
Quite Interesting !!!
I Liked It !!!
Not Bad At All !!!

And as ussual, there was a certain couple of lines that I liked most ... namely,
This one ... "Betty, the nurse gave me breakfast. It was waffles and scrambled eggs with orange juice. The food here was really bad compared to my dad's." ... that is so true ... it always is that way ... the hospital food is never and is rarely ever better then anyone else's cooking, unless that person just can't cook, then it's just fine then ... hahahaha :) :D

Oh and in this line, I think I spotted an error ... "We ended up seeing out favorite ice cream shop on the side of the road." ... I think the word "out" should be "our" instead ... I'm not sure though but I think so :)

And here ... " 'Saweeet.' " ... hahaha ... so that's how you spell that word ... LOL :D ... hahahahaha ... :)

And finally, this line is felt by so many too often indeed ... " 'Thanks for letting me come with you guys, I had a lot of fun.' I said smiling, but depressed I had to go home." ... I think we all know what that feels like ... we always have so much and then it has to end :( and we have to go :( ... don't you just hate that ... I sure do :( ... haha :)

Overall ... this chapter was great !!! Not my favorite but Great nonetheless ... haha :D
I mean I really enjoyed reading it ...
All these chapters are really really good !!!
You write so well indeed !!!
I'm impressed !!!

Can' Wait To Read And Review The Next Chapter !!!

[Kayla]

I luvvv this chapter!! Cody is awesome!!! and that is a rlly pretty pic!!