Campfire - Chapter 3

Quick note: This story is not about me, just in the perspective of a kid like myself :)

The sound of rolling gravel fills the air as we turn off the main road and enter the woods. With the music off, all the noises of nature flood the truck and I feel a familiar sense of peace. Peace is something I haven't felt since the Lightning strike, but now I sit up straight and look out every window and mirror the truck has. Huge trees in every direction, a small creek to the right which I hope runs by our campsite, and there's even a cabin in the distance which I don't think is inhabited.

"Hey dad, what's that cabin o'er there?" I inquire. May as well ask, dad supposedly knows every inch of this place.

"That used to be a residential home, but I think it's been abandoned for some time now. The city might have left it there as a restroom, although we have nature's privacy out here. Now it's probably a log container, since we need to use wood 'provided' to us. Our spot is well past it anyway." he replies. I don't spot any cars nearby, so I guess no one lives there anymore. It's surprisingly still well-intact, and I want to snoop around inside a little. Although that's probably trespassing in some way. I can't imagine the only thing in their is wood.

As we continue down this gravel path, more and more trees go by, each one different from the last. Some have thicker branches, some have more leaves. Some are quite small, but most are sky-high. I see all these differences and admire each unique feature. It's what I like to do.

Some bends in the road take us further into the forest. After about three minutes of driving, we reach a spot in the woods that looks like it used to be a camping site. "Is this it?" I ask. It's a rhetorical question, as I'm confident this is the spot.

"Sure is champ. This is our spot!" dad says cheerfully. I'm also pretty pumped about this, and I hope my sisters are too. They're still behind us, and Sophia hasn't texted me since the Lightning strike. I'll wait to talk to her until we get out of the truck.

Not 10 seconds later I'm at the bed of the truck unloading my two bags. I put one around each of my shoulders and run to my mom's car behind us, where I meet up with Sophia.

"I thought you were bigfoot for a second with all that hair," she teases, already out of the Subaru. I can't help but smile. I do need a haircut, but I'm growing it out to try new styles.

"Well, take a picture! I'm the most famous thing in these woods after all," I chuckle back.

"Eh, don't wanna clog up my phone," she says as she walks to the back trunk of the car to get supplies. I don't think she brought a whole lot, since that was dad's job.

"What's Katie up to?" I ask her.

"She's asleep, although I doubt she can keep a dream with all your ruckus." Classic Sophia. My personal favorite, but I do enjoy a once-in-a-blue-moon kind comment from her. Happens ever other day, I think, but I don't keep track. I like the surprise of her niceness, it honestly gives me goosebumps.

I pop open the backdoor of the Subaru to find Katie still fast asleep and drooling on her little pillow. So adorable. I leave her be for now, as my arms are full with bags anyway. I see dad grabbing the tents to set up, so I run over to help him with that. Even though I'm a fancy nature boy, I've never set up a tent. So, without hesitation, I lean over dad's shoulder the whole time while he sets up one tent, then the other, taking in every step of the process and committing it to memory. He explains things while he works, giving me detailed descriptions about exactly what to do.

"Not so bad," dad says as we, I mean he, finishes with the second tent. They look just as amazing as they did in the store where we bought them. I chose an orange-colored one for us two and dad selected a blue one for the ladies.

"Only took an hour," dad whispers as he looks at his watch. We got to the spot at 12:30, around four hours on the road with decent traffic. It's hard to tell what time of the day it is because of all the clouds, but that should pass in the evening sometime. The temperature is quite cool, but I think I'll be fine. It might get below freezing at night, but that's why I have a blanket. Dad brought sleeping bags for all of us, but usually those don't fend off the frigid coldness of the air.

"Let's move these babies somewhere more convenient," dad suggests, breaking my train of thought.

"Sure thing, where we headed?" I ask, looking around the spot. I'm sure dad has a mental map of the whole layout. I place my bags down, as my shoulders are beginning to ache.

"Over near that stump. Flat and spacious land, and that stump will come in handy later." he says. So, I grab one of the tents and stumble with it over to the stump. The space is nice and neat, and I assume people have used it many times before. I already see a cigarette butt in the soil and roll my eyes. What a great way to burn this place to the ground, I think to myself. The one thing you shouldn't do while camping is play with fire. Not playing with animals is the second rule, but fire is much more dangerous.

Once I have the tent in place, dad comes over with the second. "Who left their trash here, ugh people have no etiquette anymore," he rants again about idiots. Unavoidable people in the world, but sure are a pain. He stomps on another cigarette and shoves it into the dirt, hiding it well.

"Maybe the people here before us were using them as matches," I propose, though a silly idea.

"Ya know, people would do that these days. I wouldn't be surprised." he replies. I wouldn't be surprised either. Only the stupidest of idiots would spend buckets of money on cigarette packs just to use it as a match to light a fire, then throw it on the ground. Quite literally burning money.

"Hey boys, we got everything out and ready for y'all," mom exclaims in a very happy tone of voice, almost the same one she uses when there aren't any bills in the mail.

"Thanks honey," dad says, giving mom a kiss on the cheek. Sophia is sitting on the stump now holding Katie in her arms. Her eyes are still closed, but I doubt she's asleep anymore.

"So, what's the game plan from here?" I ask. So many wonderful things we can do now that everything is set up and ready.

"Let's make us a fire!" dad shouts. I can tell he's been waiting to do this, and his loud voice gets Katie to pop her eyes open.

"Go back to sleep, it's okay," Sophia whispers to her, swaying her arms a little too. She's so gentle with Katie yet so rough with me. She has two completely different personalities that she can whip out whenever she needs to, and it's impressive in my opinion. I love watching Sophia's soft side shine.

"I'll grab some wood from the cabin we passed earlier," dad tells us. He gets in his GMC, turns it around, and rides off back from where we came.

After around seven minutes, dad arrives back with a generous stack of wood to use for our fire. I help him unload and we place a couple pieces on the smoothed ground. After this we find some dry sticks to use as well, and add them to the pile.

"I brought matches. Didn't want to bust my hands up trying to do it the old fashioned way. I also think they make better fire starters than cigarettes" he says. I'm fine with matches, yet it would have been fun to watch him conjure up some flames with rocks. Dad grabs a match from the box in his back pocket and lights it.

"I've seen at least three cigarette butts just walking around the place," mom says. I personally counted six near the forest edge, and I'm sure there's more all over the place. Disrespectful. I also heard the slight sounds of water running somewhere in the forest, which is pretty nice.

Dad places the match and flame under the logs we stacked up. After only a few seconds the flame grows into a massive dancing entity glowing orange and red. I can't look away.

Sorry for the rather long chapter. I'm enjoying writing this story so far, and I hope yall have enjoyed reading it. Tell me if yall are okay with the longer chapters or like them short and sweet. I can do either.