Kodi

“You okay kid?”

“Yeah,” Kodi said a little too quickly.

The old man noticed the muscles in Kodi’s jaw clench, and the sporadic three blinks they gave, which were more like twitches.

“You don’t look okay,” The old man said. “You on drugs?”

“N… no.”

“You hurt anyone?”

“No.”

“Good… Where’d you come from?”

The old man looked Kodi up and down. He wasn’t good with faces or determining ages. Kodi’s face was soft, so the old man determined Kodi could have been anywhere between fifteen and twenty-four.

“I live here.” Kodi’s voice wavered like someone who picked up a plate too close to its edge.

“No way, you do not, kid,” the old man scoffed, then paused, thinking. He squinted. “You been livin’ in my barn?”

Kodi’s neck cracked as they tiled it up to look at the unfamiliar, breaking wood panels. There was a layer of dust and dirt over everything. The ancient hoe and rake handles were rotten or snapped.

“No. But…” Kodi sounded confused. “I didn’t leave home.”

“Where is that?”

“I… I guess, I don’t know...”

The old man let out a breath, and with it the tension in his shoulders. The walls rattled as a growl of thunder shook the foundation of the old barn. Kodi flinched, their head jolted up and around.

“I’m surprised one of these storms hasn’t taken this place out already,” the old man said, patting a splintering support beam. “Well, come on inside.”

The old man looked sincere. He’d put his guard down at that point, seemingly in trust of Kodi, though he didn’t even know their name. Inviting this person in wasn’t something he wanted to do, but the old man, whose name was Edger, fought against that grumpy, little goblin that sat on his shoulder and babbled nasty things into his ears. It was a goblin that had been with him since he was a little boy, constantly telling Edger he wasn’t good enough, or what the people around him really though of him, which was never good or supportive. He fought hard to not hear this goblin, to not let its words penetrate his eardrums, echo through his canals. Its propaganda became illegal when a kind soul came and outlawed it from his mind. That soul was long gone, but Edger persisted in keeping that law upheld, no matter how hard it was to thwart at times.

Kodi was frozen in place, their mind reeling around, attempting to open a window and clear the suffocating smoke of fear.

“Don’t worry. I ain’t gonna hurt you,” Edger said, holding back his annoyance. Still, Kodi didn’t do anything. They clenched their jaw harder. “Kid,” he said sternly. Edger reached out to Kodi, but stopped when Kodi flinched.

“Has someone hurt you?” he asked.

Kodi stared at the ceiling as it shook from another thunder rumbling.

“No.”

Kodi blinked. To Edger the statement didn’t seem like a lie, or a willful avoiding of anything.

“Good,” he said. “Rain’s coming soon. Why don’t we go inside the house?”

“I like it out here,” Kodi said and touched some loose strands of hay.

“You can get some food if you come in.”

That made Kodi look Edger directly in his eyes. For a split second, it frightened the old man. Kodi’s eyes were dark and piercing, and Edger could tell they were hungry.

“That sound good?” Edger asked.

“Yes.” Kodi said it quickly.

Edger stood up first, but Kodi was close behind him when they walked out of the barn. Kodi’s head moved around as if they were on the lookout for something, or someone, like an animal of prey does for a predator, or like how an introvert looks for their friend at a party of people they don’t know.

The house was small. The back door opened into the kitchen which was barely big enough for two people to stand shoulder to shoulder in, and the hallway was barely wide enough for one, but it smelled like beans and garlic. It sent the good kind of shiver through Kodi, and made them start salivating.

“Why don’t you go get cleaned up before dinner,” Edger suggested.

Kodi was staring into the bubbling pot of chili, their dark eyes wide and lit up as the sun. They didn’t hear Edger so he nudged Kodi and directed them to the even smaller bathroom with an ancient porcelain sink. Kodi swallowed, clearing their throat and licking their teeth. Edger left them alone as he went back into the kitchen. Rain started to clink against the fog-stained window pane. Kodi’s heart rate increased, like a drum in their chest and a shiver shot up their spine into their head. They licked their teeth again and turned on the water.

When the two sat down at a wooden dinner table in yet another small room off of the kitchen, Edger watched Kodi dig into the meal. Chili with toasted bread and corn. Kodi didn’t care much for manners. Edger figured that was alright, seeing as the young person was obviously hungry, near starving even.

“There’s more if you want it,” he said.

Kodi nodded and before finishing what was already on the plate, got up and shuffled into the kitchen. Edger’s mouth was slightly ajar as he watched Kodi go. From the table, he could hear the scraping of the ladle against the pot and the crunching of toast as Kodi’s fingers grabbed more slices. Edger looked at the framed pictures on the walls and in the next room where the tv was still on. They all held memories and images of family, friends, army buddies, lovers. Edger stared into the distance when Kodi returned with a plate twice as full as the first. Edger’s eyes widened when he saw it.

“Hungry, huh?”

“Yesh,” Kodi said scooping chili into their mouth with the toast. “Tank you.”

“No problem, kid… Don’t think you’re gonna go anywhere tonight,” he said, motioning to the rain on the windows and clattering down over the roof. “If you’ve even got anywhere to go.”

Kodi looked out, a mouthful of corn, then shook their head. Edger nodded.

“You can sleep on the couch.”

Edger pulled some blankets out of a cabinet and set them on the soft, green, woven couch where he already had plenty of pillows.

“Don’t worry, kid,” Edger said. “I don’t think you’re gonna steal from me. You’d have to be some pretty kind of stupid to do that. We’ll figure things out in the morning.”

Then he walked across the front entrance area where he had boots and hung his coats, disappearing into another room with a bed in it, and he shut the door.

At some point in the night, Edger was awoken to a rustling in the kitchen, which he could hear over the thunder storm outside. It sounded like clinking of bottles and plates. Man, that kid can eat, he thought. Edger tried to go back to sleep when he heard the back door open and the sound of the thunder and rain echoed in.

“Jesus,” he said aloud, as he sat up. In the living room, across his bedroom, Edger could see that the couch was empty. Down the hall, the light in the fridge lit the whole kitchen, and Edger saw the back door swaying as rain poured down, splashing onto the kitchen tiling.

“Jesus,” he said again as he slid his bare feet into a pair of dirty boots, tossed on a hat and jacket, and grabbed a flashlight.

Edger closed the fridge. There were a couple of broken plates and bowls on the floor with chili, corn, and a few other things he’d had in there spilled all over the place. He stepped outside and shut the door behind him. The open air was cold from the rain and the beam of his flashlight barely caught the movement of a person shuffling towards the barn.

“KID?! IS THAT YOU?” He shouted, but there was no response. Edger blinked himself more awake and trudged through the slop of his yard towards the run down barn.

“KID! What’re you doin’?” he yelled out again. But Kodi had slipped back in through a hole where a chunk of the barn’s paneling was broken off. Edger opened the smaller, side door he had when first finding Kodi, and called into the darkness, “Kid? Seriously.”

He shone the flashlight around, the rain plinking against the corrugated sheet metal that had been used to patch a hole in the roof long ago. “Seriously kid…” Edger called out. His flashlight stopped when it found Kodi, crouched in a corner of one of the old horse stalls. They had the pot of chili and a mash of all the other things that had filled Edger’s fridge in their hands and scattered on the ground. Edger moved closer to get a better look and saw a conglomeration of possums and racoons all being fed by Kodi’s splendors.

“Jesus Christ!” he cried, which terrified the animals and Kodi. Kodi spun around and hissed at Edger, barring their torn, yellow teeth. The animals scattered and huddled deeper into the corners.

“What the hell are you doing, kid?”

“This is my home… I said so,” Kodi replied.

And the more Edger looked, the more Kodi resembled the animals around them, the more Edger realized that Kodi’s eyes were the same black beads as the possums’, and the more he thought Kodi was turning back into one.