The Boy in the Gray Hoodie

10...

10…

“Lisa!” James shouted at her back.

            “I’m going to get Aunt Pam!” she called over her shoulder, her pink rubber boots clomping against the gravel. A minute later, she had disappeared into the darkness.

            James mumbled unintelligibly under his breath and let me go. I stumbled back, barely managing to grab hold of the side of the car. He stood there for a moment, his hands braced on his hips. “Well.” He shook his head and limped over to me.

            “You’re hurt,” I said, glancing at his damaged leg.

            “I twisted my ankle when the car flipped.” He growled, grabbing onto my upper arm and pulling me up the road in the direction the girl had gone.

            I winced with each step as the gravel cut into my feet. James was pulling me too hard and I couldn’t keep up. I tripped several times before he finally pulled me closer to him, supporting me with his arm underneath mine.

“Lean on me,” he grimaced. “It’s not that far.” I put my weight on his arm and limped along beside him, gingerly stepping out into the dark. The road and the surrounding trees were drenched in shadow. I could just barely make out several pinpricks of light in the distance. We were heading toward them one slow, lurching step at a time.

            There was a heavy, biting odor hovering in the air around us, along with the cold scent of rain. I quickly wiped at my nose, thinking I was detecting the smell of my own blood even as the downpour washed it from my face. But the odor was still there clinging to the air around us even after all traces of my blood had been washed away.

            “What…what is that?” I asked haltingly, rubbing at my nose again.

            “Pine and Cedar,” he responded, sniffing loudly. “And wood smoke,” he added after a moment. “Pam’s got a fire going.”

            I wondered who Pam was, and what Pine and Cedar were, but I didn’t ask. It still hurt to move and to breathe, so I concentrated on keeping up with James instead of on the dozens of questions circulating inside of my head. I wanted to know things, but I also wanted to breathe, and talking was making that increasingly difficult.

            James stopped when we reached the base of a steep hill. The house was at the top, bright yellow lights flooding the darkness just out of our reach. I stared up the incline and moaned softly. There was no way my legs would carry me up there. I could tell James was getting tired too from the way he was starting to lean against me. I was so cold and my legs felt like two heavy bricks attached to my trembling body. I wanted to lie down right there, in the middle of the road at James’ feet.

            We had been standing at the bottom of the incline for less than a minute when James squeezed my arm, making me wince. His fingers were coiled around bandaged gash below my elbow. “Let’s go,” he said, bracing my shoulder against his side to help me up the hill.

            It took all the strength that I had left in me to make it to the top of the incline. By the time we reached the house, I was already beginning to collapse. James clutched at my hoodie as my knees buckled and I fell into the stony mud.

            “James? Is that you?” someone called out. A tall, thin shape blocked out a portion of light coming from the open door above us. “Where the heck is your car?”