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“Go find some nuts,” Cody called after them. Bending to pick up the cage, he said to himself, “Think I’ll take my own advice.”
He secured the cage in the bed of his truck and, checking to make sure he had his phone and keys, locked the doors and set off along the foot trail. During summer months when he’d been younger, he and his brothers would ride their bikes all the way out here and spend hours swimming in the pond, chasing each other along this very trail, and, yes, as Dave had accused him of at dinner, breaking into the historic logging cabins that had once been part of the Marsden Mill.
Now as he walked the same path he’d followed as a boy, he reflected on the crazy trajectory his life had taken. Demmy had come out with them a couple of times, but Cody could tell even back then the rampant chaos that erupted around the Bower brothers was a bit too much for him. Demmy was the only child of much older parents, and was more comfortable with smaller and calmer groups.
Which always made Cody wonder how Demmy’s fascination with monsters started.
Voices up ahead brought Cody out of his reminiscing. He could hear Clarabell and Ollie exchanging some snarky back and forth and shook his head. How had either of them lasted this long investigating monstrous things that liked to kill?
Rounding a final bend in the trail, Cody came to a stop and surveyed the scene before him. A group of three logging cabins had been built in a clearing. One used to be open to the public at scheduled times for tours, and it looked the same as it had all those years ago, just more weathered. A sign had been added off to one side of the cabin, yellow lettering on a brown background, standard parks department colors. From where he stood, Cody could only read the top line of the sign: Historic Logger’s Cabin - 1785.
Ollie was just following Clarabell around the far corner of the cabin, talking quietly to the back of her head as he moved out of sight. With a wicked grin, Cody moved quickly and quietly to the opposite side of the cabin and, with his back pressed to the rough log wall, slid along it to the rear corner. He waited, listening as Clarabell and Ollie bickered and Demmy repeatedly shushed them.
“What are you doing?” Ollie asked.
“Cody and his brothers used to get into this cabin back when we were younger,” Demmy said. “I’m trying to remember how they did it.”
“And by ‘get into’ do you mean breaking and entering?” Ollie asked.
Cody raised his eyebrows. That might be a topic to explore further once he made himself known.
Something moved through the woods across from him, and Cody’s body reacted. His heart pounded and every sense heightened. He removed his sunglasses and squinted to see better into the deep shadows between trees. A figure moved, shifting from the shelter of one tree to the next. It was tall and big, and from the quick flash of pale skin in a shaft of sunlight that made it through the leafy canopy, partially naked. Had someone been skinny-dipping in the pond when Demmy and the others had arrived? But why sneak off through the woods when they could have slipped away down the trail?
“Did you hear something?” Demmy’s voice, quiet and firm, on immediate high alert.
It was a learned response, apparently.
Cody heard soft footsteps approaching the corner of the cabin, and he decided to play things cool rather than jump out and be a dick to his husband. Propping a foot on the wall behind him, Cody put his sunglasses back on, crossed his arms, and fixed a smirk on his sweaty face. Demmy poked his head around the corner and jumped, but then laughed and put a hand to his chest as he marched right up to him and grabbed his shirt, pulling him down for a kiss.
“You scared me,” Demmy said.
“What’s going on... Oh, it’s just Cody.” Ollie stood at the cabin’s corner, shaking his head and giving him a grumpy look.
“Hi to you, too, Ollie,” Cody said, pushing off from the wall and, with his arm around Demmy’s shoulder, pulling him in against his side.
“Are you checking up on us?” Clarabell asked.
“Hard not to,” Cody said. “I spotted Ollie’s electric blue car parked off the trail from back in town. And I could hear the two of you bickering all the way back at the pond.”
“Those might be slight exaggerations,” Demmy said trying to smooth over Cody’s interactions.
Cody shrugged a shoulder. “Only slightly.”
“Such a smart ass,” Ollie said.
“Will you think that way when I show you the Bower family method of breaking and entering?”
To his credit, Ollie blushed and looked away.
“Which, I might add, your future husband was part of, back in the day,” Cody said.
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” Ollie said.
Cody gave Demmy a squeeze before releasing him and walking to the back door of the cabin. As he passed Ollie, Cody squeezed his shoulder and said, “Oh, I know. Just had to give you some shit.”
“You’re such an ass,” Ollie said.
“Best brother-in-law you’re going to get,” Cody said with a smile. “Better start buttering me up.”
