Pretty Unlikely

By Emily Hodson

In every town . . . in every city . . . in every state . . . in every country . . . something lurks behind a corner. Poor Anna Strouse got way more than she had bargained for when moving to Cleveland, Ohio with her crazy mother. Getting ripped away from her small town home to live in a new dangerous city wasnt the only problem she found. As the days and months go by, crazy twists and turns spin before and after something supernatural comes into her life. From that point on, all hell breaks loose and she must decide whether to take societys side or follow her gut when doing the right thing. This is a must-read thriller about risks, love, friendship, mischief, and judgmental people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453529607

Emily Hodson

Emily Hodson is a high school graduate from Anchorage, Alaska. Her interest in writing began at the age of seven. This is her first full-length book ever published, but it won't be the last. She plans to continue writing suspenseful thrillers and novels. Her expectations are to major in English Literature at college. She is currently attending beauty school and will get her license soon, hoping to cut a celebrity's hair someday.

Book preview

Pretty Unlikely

Emily Hodson

Copyright © 2010 by Emily Hodson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

81096

Contents

Preface

1   Suspicions

2   The Interruption

3   Attraction

4   Wild Girl

5   Uncomfortable

6   A Little Surprise

7   First Day

8   Rush

9   The Other Side

10   The Story

11   Exposed Secrets

12   Lucky

13   Paranoid

14   The Makeover

15   Too Much

16   Playing With Fire

17   Heartless

18   Unadjustable

19   Distracted

20   Moron

21   Oops

22   Murderer

23   Out of it

24   Tension

25   The Nightmare Nobody Wants To Have

26   Persuasive

27   Foolish Games

28   Observe and Run

29   Maniac

30   Losing Grip

31   Unwanted Company

32   Face to Face

33   A Big Surprise

34   Short Notice

35   G2G

36   Friends and Gas Pumping

37   Plane Ride of a Lifetime

38   Ultimate Plane Ride of a Lifetime

This book is dedicated to all of the teachers who've helped make an impact in my life. Each one of you did something good for me and it's helped me become the writer that I am. Your words of wisdom and education have motivated me to do great things in life. You are all wonderful, inspiring, and very caring. I will always remember you.

"Nothing in life is to be feared.

It is only to be understood."

—Marie Curie

Preface

Do you ever feel like you’re stuck inside a bizarre dream that you can’t get out of? Or live in a scary reality?

Well I’ve felt that way before and I wasn’t quite sure exactly how I had gotten myself into this mess in the first place. But I knew it was all happening for a reason and I knew that there was a purpose for me living here. I knew that living in this new house would change my life forever. Everything that was happening to me was so crazy, yet so amazing at the same time. It was so unreal and so . . . abnormal. It filled my head with confusion and I wanted it to stop. I was honestly starting to hope that all of the questions I had to all of this nonsense would soon become an answer and that it would finally solve this long puzzle in my life. I was doing things that I never would have done before. I was causing trouble. I was driving myself crazy. I was getting other people involved. I was just . . . there were just too many things that I couldn’t figure out and I had no idea how long this was going to carry on for. I guess I would just have to find out.

1

Suspicions

Get out of the car now! she yelled at me with anger, instead of her normal sweet tone.

I ignored her and continued to boil inside the passenger seat of her white Taurus. My sweaty hands clutched on to my tote bag of belongings tightly. I looked out the car window to observe my surroundings. Curiosity was running through my fragile mind at the moment. I might as well look. Why not?

It was sunny outside. Great. Just my luck. First day here and I already wanted the weather to change. Rain was my preference. Not the burning hot sun that could melt me down like a cheap 99 cent ice cream cone from McDonald’s.

I continued to sit inside her car, waiting for her to change her mind and drive me back.

What my mother had just done to me was cold and heartless. Ripping away my childhood home, long-term friends and beautiful environment, was just too much for me to bear. And because of that, it made me stay absolutely put inside her car for several minutes, refusing to get out. I didn’t care that it was over a hundred degrees outside, I just didn’t care. I most of all didn’t care for the new home in front of me that I dreaded to go inside of.

Anna, you need to get out please. We are here. She pointed at the tall, two-story house. She was standing outside of the car, ready to burst open the door of our new home. She was anxious to go inside it, I could tell. I wasn’t and never would be. This place already reeked up danger and crime. The house was painted in a light shade of green. That was probably the only harmless thing about it; the light virgin green color.

I glanced at the house through my window carefully, still observing.

It was also surrounded by little green pine trees. They looked like a lifeless army, the way they were spread out around the whole house, just dead and depressing. It made me think of war and bombs and death. I didn’t like that.

I hesitantly turned around in my seat and saw a raccoon searching for food in a dumpster across the street in front of a beat up old gray house. It had a shattered broken window. The raccoon’s beady little eyes stared at me with grimace when it saw me looking at it.

I quickly turned my head back around and looked toward the house on the left of mine. An old woman was caught staring at me through the window of her house on the second story, quickly closing the shades. Her eyes had fear written all over them just in the two seconds I saw of her. The house was nice though so at least that gave me some relief. It was light pink with little daisies and roses planted in her front yard.

I turned my head around again to face the road and suddenly saw a convertible red Sheba zooming through the neighborhood with a cop car right behind its tail. Its alarms were going off so loudly that I felt it ring in my ears. A couple seconds after that, I heard a few gunshots fire off from a distance. And then, right after that, I heard an ambulance truck’s sirens go off.

I didn’t like the position I was in. Having to see and hear all of that rubbish. A gross rodent digging in garbage next to a haunted-looking house, an old paranoid lady, a good-looking car getting chased 60 miles an hour by a cop, and gunshots and an ambulance truck in the background? It just made me feel slightly uncomfortable, you know?

The sun continued to shine upon the helpless car I was in, burning me even more, making me slightly obligated to get out and surrender to my mother.

For some odd reason though, I wanted to give her a hard time after all she had done to me. I wanted to be resistant and not cooperate. I wanted to act like a child for once. I wanted to be scared of my new home. I just wanted to. I did not like the sight of it anyways. I did not like it at all. The house had a creepy vibe to it and I didn’t exactly know why.

Alright. My mom gave up, throwing her hands in the air. Let’s go for a drive and talk about this. She unwillingly slid into the driver’s seat, changed gears and hit the gas pedal hard.

I didn’t even have to say a word for her to give up the lecture about going inside of the new house I did not want to live in. I simply gave her my silent treatment strategy and it worked.

My poor mother. She was so stressed about the move. I really didn’t like giving her a hard time about things. But the fact that I am very insightful to my surroundings and the fact that I get suspicious about things in life makes me seem like a pain in the ass. I honestly couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be a mom. It’s hard work to raise children, pay bills, work overtime, cook dinner, and not have a husband. That was just my own perspective of an average mother’s life.

My mom Shirley got divorced when I was seven, making me question at a young age what love really was. Divorces are very common but the way I saw love going on in my household at the time really confused me. I watched my father, Patrick, pack up his things and literally leave my life; or more Shirley’s than mine because Patrick didn’t have a problem with me.

I was not allowed to associate with him after he came back for court two years after leaving the family to sign the divorce papers. Shirley had more custody of me and was given the option of if he could ever see his children again. She said no of course and I was distraught about the whole idea of not being able to see or talk to him ever again. Shirley also refrained from talking about him to me in general. She never updated me or told me how he was. The only thing I knew about him now was that he lived somewhere in Michigan, where we used to live, until we moved into this train wreck of a city.

When I was just a child, I vaguely remembered him. I remembered that he played with me when Shirley was at work. I remembered that he was an alcoholic. I remembered he didn’t care about what he wore everyday and dressed up like a slob. I remembered he was just your average dad. The thing I remembered the most though was Shirley and him yelling at each other a lot. I would hear them bicker about the bills and going into debt almost every day. It really made me confused and scared when I heard it.

After the divorce, I had to keep Shirley’s last name, Strouse, instead of Patrick’s last name, Welner. I wasn’t too pleased about that either but I had no say whatsoever on who’s last name I’d get to keep.

Even though I have a dysfunctional typical family, I do have a decent brother named Tanner Strouse who is currently attending his first year of law school in Ann Arbor, Michigan to become a Lawyer. I can’t imagine the time and patience that kind of career would take up for someone’s life. It would take three more stressful years until my brother would successfully earn his dream career. He already got his four year degree back in Detroit, Michigan.

Tanner is very close to Shirley and I, although ever since he started law school in September, it’s been harder to comminicate with him since he never answers his phone anymore. He probably answers it one out of every seven times we try calling. I guess that’s what you get when you try calling a busy twenty-one year old. It was October now. Time for a new beginning, or so my mother says.

I’m seventeen, how could that be a new beginning? I was one more grade away from graduating high school. I’m a junior. There is not supposed to be a new beginning for someone my age.

Shirley and I are the only ones left in the bunch now. I wondered who else was going to leave the Strouse family next. Patrick was gone and had been for a while now. Tanner was at a new college where it was harder to visit. My aunts and uncles lived in California as well as my grandparents on Shirley’s side of the family. Patrick’s relatives lived in Nevada, and did I mention I was also restricted from visiting relatives on my dad’s side of the family too? As for pets, my hamster Foo-Foo died a few months before Shirley and I moved, so that’s why it’s just the two of us. I kind of felt lonely in a way.

Shirley worked forty-eight hours a week and left a lot to do her own fun things rather than stay at home and take care of me. Not that I needed that much attention but I did occasionally need home-cooked food and company from her since I was pretty reserved with people and had limited friends.

Currently, I’m living in Cleveland, Ohio, my new home until I am old enough to move out.

It took Shirley and I two and a half hours to arrive here and to me, that was like forever. I swear we had stopped five times during the drive to rest at coffee shops and pump up gas.

I really didn’t like the move. Dearborn, Michigan was a beautiful state that I used to live in. It had huge fluffy squirrels lurking behind monster-sized trees. It had convenient swimming pools for those who were dying of heat. It consisted of a lot of friendly people (some who were close friends of mine). There were a lot of fun little malls to shop at. Not to mention my old home was located near bigger cities like Detroit and Clarkston too, which supplied me with baseball games and concerts to go to.

I never really liked actually living in big cities though and that’s where I live now. Big cities to me equaled more crime, more car crashes and other worrisome things. I know I worry a lot but I’m just a cautious person and it pays off in the long run.

Mom, I spoke up quietly after five minutes of silence in the car as we drove. I’m sorry for all of the hassle about the new house and everything. I just have a weird vibe about it, that’s all. I just don’t like it here. I fiddled with my hands, trying not to make any eye contact with her.

At the corner of my eyes though, I could see her instantly shoot a glance at me.

"Weird vibe? What’s weird about it? And what the hell Anna? We just got here literally like a half hour ago! How could you already not like it?"

I just shrugged, still not looking at her and still sounding apathetic and stubborn. I don’t know. It just looks too perfect and high class. I was pretty satisfied with our old house back in Dearborn. It felt more roomy and comfortable to me. Also, I’m feeling a bit nostalgic and homesick right now like Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

Maybe she’d be on the same page as me if I mentioned feeling like Dorothy.

"Anna, I swear you are so strange."

Guess not.

Stop living in fairytale land, she coldly told me. "That stuff isn’t real and if I were Dorothy, I would have stayed in the Land of Oz. That place was beautiful and so is Cleveland."

Sure, if you think the Ghetto is beautiful, I wanted so badly to say to her out loud.

Also, she unnecessarily added, "this new house is amazing and it’s exactly what we need: more space, more land, and more oomph to it. We are living in a city now so I think it will be more exciting. Dearborn was too isolating for you and you couldn’t meet very many people."

I finally glowered at her. "Wow mom, you make me sound like a loner or something. I had friends in Dearborn, just not as many as you had in high school."

That’s not what I meant, she snapped defensively as she stopped at a red light. Don’t worry, you’ll adjust to your new environment eventually. She then smiled at me trying to make it all okay when it really wasn’t okay.

Sure, I mumbled, looking out the window.

I saw numerous giant trees pass by me so repeatedly that it made my head feel dizzy and light headed. A woman barely wearing any clothing was jogging down the sidewalk with her overweight chocolate Lab. The poor lard ass was panting from getting too much exercise. I could tell he didn’t like the exercise as much as the woman did. I saw a few boys who looked around my age skateboarding towards what looked like a mall. Who was I kidding? It was a mall, it just wasn’t as small as the ones in Dearborn were. When I saw this mall, it looked like a place to hold a concert at.

Where exactly are we going? I pulled my distracted head away from the window to look at Shirley.

I thought maybe I’d take you someplace to eat so you’d feel better about living here. You know, get a taste of it. She gave me a convincing smile.

Right.

She pulled up into the parking lot of a restaurant with a red and black dangling glowing sign that said Angie’s Italian Restaurant in bold.

I slammed the door and walked behind my happy yet confused mother inside the building. Her long hair swooshed like it always did back and forth as she strutted through the parking lot, acting as if she were walking down the red carpet. She always needed to make an entrance wherever she went and it kind of embarrassed me because of how immature my mother acted sometimes.

What had she gotten herself into? Moving all the way to a city she’d never been to just because my dad lived in the same state as us. I knew that’s why she did it because when we lived in Dearborn, Patrick would call, but Shirley would not let me talk to him. She thought it wouldn’t be healthy to converse with him after the divorce like I’ve said before and wow, it made me so mad at times that I felt like I was going to punch my fist through a wall or something. In court, they said all he could do was talk to Tanner and I on the phone, but since we never got his new number and were so young when it happened, we both have no idea how to find his number. The phone book didn’t have his name under it, and Shirley’s rule at home was that she’s the only one who is allowed to answer the home phone, and if we did, she would cut the phone cord off with scissors forever. It was kind of extreme if you ask me.

But yeah, about Cleveland. I’m pretty curious where she heard it was a quote fun place to live. Didn’t she know that it could be dangerous? There were open enormous windows covering every inch of our new house, making it easy for someone to break in with just the push of a body. There was a trail next to it too leading to a maze-like forest to who knows where? What if there were bears in the forest? Who knows? The city itself was trashy and crowded.

We walked inside the restaurant in awe.

The tables were round with red fancy cloths laid on them. There were candle lights placed on top with watery glass vases holding freshly picked red roses next to them. The windows were covered in drapes with a beautiful tint of magenta color. Every single waiter was even dressed up in a suit and tie, looking professional.

A tall, dark-haired, handsome hostess came up to us and smiled with his pearly whites and dimples.

Hello and welcome to Angie’s Italian Restaurant, he greeted us in a cheery tone. After he said that, he gave me a quick wink. I gushed a red apple color. The hostess kind of reminded me of Jared Padalecki, the actor from the Supernatural T.V. series; just a tad bit.

He brought us to a large blood-red padded booth toward the back of the restaurant. I kind of felt like royalty. I mean, this place looked like somewhere a king and queen would eat at. How the hell could Shirley afford this?

While waiting for the food to come, Shirley and I talked for a bit. We talked about life in general, what high school I was going to be attending, the weather, and other things I could care less about. Most of the time Shirley talked to me, I spaced out looking at my surroundings.

Shirley had a bad habit of talking too much. It usually caused people, like me, to space out and not pay attention to the topic.

So yeah, she started. I don’t know what to do anymore. I mean, I used practically all of my savings to get him where he is right now. I could have used that money to go buy a new car or something. He is wasting my time if I’m going to get ridiculous telephone calls from his professors. Its bull shit. That kind of stuff is supposed to happen in elementary school not freaking . . .

And the spacing out began.

I turned my eyes, (not my whole head) to the left, so it wouldn’t look like I was totally ignoring Shirley, and observed a thirty-something man sitting at a small table talking on his phone across from us.

His beady black fast eyes stared into mine in fury. My body froze as I stared back in confusion, not knowing what else to do. Why was he staring at me that way? I did nothing wrong to him and he was looking at me like he wanted to shoot me or something. Well, I did technically look at him first and it is rude to stare.

I quickly turned my eyes away to focus on something else and instantly saw a little boy to my right in overalls, running around the restaurant from his stressed mother. He nearly knocked one of the waiters who was holding a tray of food over.

I giggled a little bit.

Anna? Shirley looked confused of my giggling. Why is it funny that Tanner is failing all of his classes in college?

I blinked. Whoops.

What? I’m sorry mom, I didn’t hear that part. That’s terrible! What do you propose we do? I asked her in a sarcastic tone.

I normally would have reacted to Tanner failing college immediately, but Shirley tended to be too detailed in conversations like I said. She doesn’t often cut to the chase.

She let out a sarcastic laughing Ha at me and then changed back to her serious voice.

"Well, we can either shrug it off and let him fail or pull him out and get our money back, because law school costs a whole hell of a lot of money to stay in. If he’s not going to get his degree because he’s fooling around with girls and not caring about his grades, there’s no point for me to waste my money on college for him! It’s best to pull him out as soon as possible since he’s only been in school for a month and a half."

True, I agreed, looking to my right to see our waiter bring us a tray full of deliciousness.

Wow, was all I managed to say after seeing it.

We ate in silence for a while.

It seemed like things were silent with my mother and I quite frequently. Ever since Patrick was out of our lives, we hadn’t really spoken about important things in general. It was almost always small talk like the weather, my grades, and where I was headed to if I was going somewhere. That was kind of pitiful. Maybe I should stop holding a grudge against Shirley. After all, she was probably just as miserable and not to mention as lonely as me since it happened. It was ten years ago.

Shirley had ordered a Caesar salad with a martini during her long boring rant to me. I’d occasionally lunge for the martini but she’d shake her fist at me playfully. She drank a lot of alcohol at home but never once let me take a sip of any of it.

I had ordered a plateful of spaghetti, garlic bread, and a 7-up with cherries. I stabbed my fork deep into the spaghetti and twirled it like a baton. I chewed it in my mouth slowly in pain, almost like my body didn’t want to swallow it for some reason. I forced it down anyways. I was too hungry to care. The last time we had eaten was this morning and that was ten hours ago.

So, I started, swallowing a mouthful of spaghetti. Is Tanner going to drop out of college or what? And when exactly did you even talk to him? I didn’t get a call from him, I pouted, feeling a little hurt.

He called me a few days ago when you were out spending your last day with Lacey. Shirley looked down at her food and just dabbed around at it with her fork.

I remember, I said, getting it now. Lacey was my best friend back in Dearborn.

I stuffed my face with more spaghetti and I felt like a pig. I had been left too long without food.

Shirley watched me in disgust while I scarfed down my dinner. Shirley hadn’t even taken a single bite of her dinner yet. She may have taken small sips of the martini every couple minutes, but that was it.

After quite a bit, Shirley finally took a tiny microscopic bite of her salad and looked at me. Good, don’t take it personal. Call him when we get home and talk to him about what his plan is. I’ve talked to him enough already. She said the whole sentence while talking with food in her mouth, exposing some green lettuce stuck in her teeth.

How rude. Thanks to Shirley, I just now got to witness what goes on inside her mouth. I mean at least I chewed with my mouth closed, even though I took humongous bites.

Alright, sounds like a plan. I finished up my last bite of spaghetti with a cringe after seeing my mom’s disgusting manners. I wasn’t really going to call him though; I didn’t feel like it. I was pissed.

We paid the bill; I mean my mom paid the bill. I was jobless at the moment so obviously I had to have Shirley pay for everything. Back in Dearborn, I worked part time at a tiny book store called Page Turner. I admit I’m a book worm nerd. I read almost every day. If you gave me a book like Twilight or Harry Potter, I probably wouldn’t leave my bedroom for a whole day.

Movies are a must for me too. I am in love with any movie that Steve Carell is in. He is my idol. And plus, he is actually funny. As a person, it’s hard to make me laugh. That’s just the way I am.

We drove in silence once again on the way home around eight o’clock. Shirley went five miles over the speed limit, passing by vehicles as fast as a lion going after its prey. I saw a blue convertible car on the right lane behind us start to beep its horn at my mom’s insane driving. It almost ran into her Taurus because she forgot to use her blinker and make sure there was enough space between other vehicles before changing to the same lane as the blue car.

"Um, mom . . . what’s the rush? And you do know that you could get pulled over at anytime due to your little stunt car racing act you’re doing right now, right?" I stared at her in confusion.

My heart was racing hard. Driving with Shirley sometimes was like driving with a drunk driver: always unpredictable.

Well, I want to get home, so I kind of have to beat the traffic you know? God Damnit, it’s so jam packed in here! she yelled, looking ahead to see a row of about fifteen vehicles stacked in front of us.

That’s a big city for you, I mumbled, quiet enough for her not to hear. I looked at the orange light ahead, watching it change to red and indicating what move Shirley had to do next: stop.

Ah! she yelled again, dribbling her fingers on her SpongeBob-covered steering wheel. I laughed quietly.

As we proceeded driving through the red-changed-to-green light, a man in a large red Chevrolet truck skidded on the opposite lane toward us in an instant. I stared in shock at the quick scene of Shirley making a fast dodging spin to her right, trying to avoid a head-on-collision, but skidded off the road into a ditch in front of a building immediately after.

2

The Interruption

My eyes slowly opened and saw a blurry image in front of me.

There was darkness all around me, and for a second, I thought I was dead. I was still in the car, seatbelt on and sitting up straight in the passenger seat, but my head felt dizzy. My head felt like it was going to fall off if someone shook it. I wasn’t feeling myself right now. The only thing I could recall as to how I ended up here was Shirley making a jerky turn away from a crazy driver and diving mid-air toward a ditch. I didn’t know what the fall was like when we fell in it though, or how bad it had hurt me. The fall must have knocked me out stone solid and cold. The airbag was aired out now and looked like a popped doctor’s glove.

I had woken up from unconsciousness hearing Shirley yell the word, Asshole! very loudly to no one in the car.

"Why? Why!" she yelled again, not even aware that I had just woken up.

My head felt like hell. I shook it carefully, trying to rattle out the headache I had. Outside of the car, I realized that the darkness around me was dirt and rocks covering the walls.

I glanced at Shirley and saw her quickly look up a number in her tiny phone book. Why would she look up the number for 911? Only a drunk or stupid person would have to look that number up. My head became dizzy, really badly. I thought that I was about to pass out again. I guessed that I must have bumped it on the glove box in front of me when we crashed. Wasn’t the airbag supposed to pop out whenever that happened? It must have popped out after I hit my head on the glove box because it was now inflated, like I’ve said.

Hello? Hi, I heard her say to whoever she called. My name is Shirley Strouse and my car just landed in a ditch due to someone’s reckless driving. Can you tow us out? I could feel the tension in her voice and I had a feeling Shirley wanted to punch through the window.

No 911? Okay then. I guess I’d have to heal on my own.

She paused on the phone for a moment. Thank you so much! We are in front of Macy’s on 2201 Warrensville Center Road in the construction hole, she informed, hoping the tow guy would know where that was.

We waited for about fifteen minutes before we saw a bright, almost blinding light shine above us. Shirley and I must have been at least twenty feet deep into the ditch.

While we waited for the tow guy to come, I got to hear my mother rant and