Nature Ride

By LB Andrews

Soon to be twelve, Jeremy Jenkins knew what he wanted for his birthday. He wanted a ticket to ride the new thrill ride everybody was yapping about. And Torry Nading, the Nature Ride shuttle bus driver, had all the right answers for Jeremy’s reluctant mother Jean.

“You see, Mrs. Jenkins, the Nature Ride is at the main building on down the road a ways; a quick ride over in my Big Red Bus.”

It’s that big red bus - the one from your nightmare.

“Come on, mom! Dad, she’s chickening out!”
Everyone was looking at mom the ‘worry wart’. But less than ten minutes later, everyone regretted not listening. As soon as the Jenkins family boards the Big Red Shuttle bus, mom’s nightmare begins to play out for real.

The Jenkins family will never forget Jeremy’s twelfth birthday; especially the Nature Ride part.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LB Andrews
• Release date: Jul 7, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465916808

LB Andrews

Lowell Brent (Andy) Andrews grew up in Fairview, Alabama, where he lived for 18 years. LB joined the US Air Force in 1969 and meeting his beautiful wife Paulette, while stationed at Charleston AFB, South Carolina. He holds an Associate’s in Applied Science from Wallace State College in Hanceville, Ala. Since 1976, LB and Paulette have lived on Florida’s west coast in Pinellas County, where Paulette worked for the Sheriff’s Department and LB worked for General Electric as an Instrumentation Specialist before starting up his own business just after September 11, 2001. But these days, LB has turned from writing high-tech software and reports to writing high-fiction tales. “Much more fun,” he claims. Several of LB’s tales are set in the Clearwater Beach / Tampa Bay area. The setting for his newest novel titled Kill Bonnie is the sleepy Tampa suburb of Brandon, Florida. Kill Bonnie is the intriguing story of sixty-two year old Betty Martin and her lifelong quest to avenge the crimes committed against her family by Bonnie Simms, her childhood friend turned nemesis. Nature Ride, a novella and LB’s first published work, will be available soon on Smashwords. It’s the story of soon to be twelve years old Jeremy Jenkins and family who brave the heart-stopping and mysterious thrill ride everyone at school is yapping about. Jeremy and family soon learn they are the first – and might be the last – to ride the spookiest thrill ride conceived by man (or by the Devil himself). Nature Ride is a non-stop, hair-raising thriller that’s perfect for the entire family. LB Andrews has just begun to tell tall tales. He’s turned off his oscilloscope and turned on his imagination. Nature Ride and Kill Bonnie are the first two batters up. According to the author, Scotty Lancaster’s Curveball is in the hole and next up.

Book preview

NATURE RIDE

A Novella

By

LB Andrews

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

LB Andrews on Smashwords

Cover art by Judy Bullard

Nature Ride

Copyright © 2011 by LB Andrews

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - The Birthday Present Request

Chapter 2 - Going in

Chapter 3 - Torry Nading

Chapter 4 - Train Tunnel

Chapter 5 - Going Up

Chapter 6 - The Apex

Chapter 7 - Going down

Chapter 8 - Fire

Chapter 9 - The Elk

Chapter 10 - The Teenagers

Chapter 11 - Triple-Diamond Runaway Ramp

Chapter 12 - Avalanche

Chapter 13 - Thrill Hills

Chapter 14 - Flood

Chapter 15 - Underwater

Chapter 16 - Big Red Flying Bus

Chapter 17 - F Troop’s Canopy

Chapter 18 - Exit Toll

Chapter 19 - Seat Belt Violation

Chapter 20 - Home Sweet Home

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Dedicated to kids and families everywhere

And…

To the ones who’d rather smile than frown

And especially…

To Paulette and Alissa who started me up with this story

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Chapter 1 - The Birthday Present Request

(To the tune of Bennie and the Jets)

Oh Big Red Bus well have you seen it yet

Oh it’s so spec’d out, burning falling left

It’s got electrocute, and drown you too

You know I heard that everybody screams

Ohhh!

Da-Da-Da Dare you scardy cat!

There was nothing extra special about the Jenkins family of four. John, Jean, the two kids, and a cat. Jeremy was eleven and Samantha nine. They didn’t have a dog yet, but they had Kiki the cat. They lived in Vail, Colorado where John worked as a software engineer and Jean as a stay at home mom. The Jenkins’ home was as clean and well kept as Jean could keep it. About their family, one could say all was good.

It was early September, the time when the Aspen trees begin to get themselves ready for the coming winter and when people begin to anticipate the first snowfall. And it was when Jeremy Jenkins was going to be twelve years old.

Mom! Jeremy blasted in the front door as only eleven year old boys can do. When he did that, Jean never knew if he was hurt or simply excited. ‘For the first few seconds,’ she thought, ‘it’s simply impossible to tell.’

Back here, Jeremy! Jean was back in her daughter Samantha’s bedroom on a mission: It was time for some serious closet purging. So far, she’d filled three boxes with nine years worth of shoes, dolls, stuffed animals, and hand-drawn sketches. Kiki the cat had decided to help by jumping up on a stack of boxes, leaping on the dresser mirror frame and clawing her way to the very top. Now, Kiki was petrified and wanted down. Jean was standing in front of the dresser trying to coax Kiki down.

Jump, Kiki, come on jump, she coaxed, holding up her hands. I’ll catch you, come on… jump!

Jeremy burst into his sister’s bedroom at breakneck speed, cannon-balling through the half open door and leaping onto the stuffed animal covered bed. The door slammed against the door stop as Sam’s big stuffed boxer went tumbling off the bed and landed between Jean’s feet in a sitting position with its big round eyes looking right up at the cat.

Woof! Woof! The boxer’s ‘Touch me and I’ll bark’ digital dog voice yapped.

At that, Kiki – in cat freak out mode already - went airborne and jumped down on top of Jean’s head. Kiki scrambled to hold on while Jean scrambled to get her off. Jean tripped on the stuffed boxer and began to fall backwards, swinging her arms in big circles as she tried to balance herself.

The cat, sensing the struggle and the possible fall, clung to Jean’s head like a magnet.

Woof! Woof! went Boxer again, causing Kiki to leap again.

This time, she landed on the dresser top and staring at her own mortified reflection in the mirror. She spun and leaped down on the carpet toward the doorway escape route, but not before she knocked Sam’s figurines, Barbie dolls, make-up mirror, and tea set in every possible direction.

Kiki bulleted toward the door just as it was about to bump closed, but at the last instant, it caught the very tip of her tail. OW! MEOW! and then Kiki was gone in a flash.

The room was suddenly quiet, but after what Jeremy had just seen, there was no way he could prevent his boy self from bursting out into side-splitting laughter.

Ha! Ha! Ha! he belted out, as he rolled over on his stomach and kicked his feet. He got away with it for two seconds before he felt his mother smack his left sneaker and ankle as only a mother can do.

Out! she ordered. Your room, GO! Like greased lightening, Jeremy rolled off the bed to avoid another possible smack. He opened the door, blasting out the same way he blasted in, bounding down the hallway to his bedroom and closing the door before leaping on his bed.

Jean marched down the hallway after him. As she reached his bedroom door, she heard him laughing to beat the band. She knew he was trying to muffle his laughter and stop, but she also knew how impossible that was to do at times.

After all, it had been hilarious, she supposed, and she was OK and the stupid cat was OK. The cat hadn’t scratched her face, just her neck, but it was nothing. Jean stood outside her son’s door when suddenly she heard the stuffed boxer again as its timer timed out. This time, the boxer’s digital voice begged for a treat with its begging puppy whine. Treat? Treat?

Jean’s face broke into a smile as she shook her head and took her hand off of the door knob. She ran her fingers through her hair as she walked toward the living room. I’m sorry, mom! she heard Jeremy tell her, causing her motherly anger to evaporate and get replaced with her motherly forgiveness.

Jeremy was going to be twelve years old this coming Saturday. Where did the years go? Jean wondered. Next year John and I will have a ‘teenager’ running around in here. While the thought was a bit scary, it had a way of putting things like what had just happened into perspective. "Entirely different set