shot in the dark !

[isabelle candace harrison.]

There were few things that Izzy Harrison loved more in life than her cats. Actually, she could only think of one thing, and that was her family. And since she counted her cats as part of her family, the only conclusion to be made was that Izzy didn't love anything more than her cats.

Weed was a close second, but she could do without it in a pinch.

People always gave her strange looks when she was out walking Estella, but what was she supposed to do? She couldn't keep her cat cooped up in the house when it didn't want to be. And she wasn't about to let her baby roam outside on her own. The other two cats were fine indoors, but Estella was finicky, and Izzy was fully prepared to deal with that finick and bite the head off of anyone who questioned it. Besides, Estella had been shot by a particularly aggressive ghost just a few days before, and she was antsier than usual in the house.

Fucking Tyrone.

So for the past few days Izzy had been taking Estella to the park for walks. It was close to her house, and Estella seemed to like it. Izzy didn't mind the attention much, either. Her favorite was when people took videos of her. In light of that, she had decided to dress up a little for these little excursions a bit, and today was wearing a sun dress and wedges she'd stolen from Irene.

Estella was tugging ahead on her harness when Izzy spotted a familiar head of brown floppy hair and pulled the cat back. It was sort of hard to keep her balance in Irene's stupid heels (maybe this had been a mistake), but in the end she managed and hobbled over to the park bench where Cody was sitting, staring fixedly at his phone.

"Cody!" she squealed, coming to a halt next to him. Then she ruffled his hair. "Codyyy!"

[cody james walsh.]

Life could be a bitch some times, and Cody Walsh knew that better than most people. Now, his life was not as horrible as some, but it was definitely up there in the ranks. For starters, his parents had died years ago leaving him to be cared for by his gang member older brother, Logan. They shared a run down old house with a few of his "brothers" for quite some time...that is, until one of them was stabbed and killed in it. Cody had always been rather close to Tyrone, more so than any of the other gang members. That was probably why even in death, the man still followed him around like a stalker.

Now, the boy typically was rather antisocial, and for just reason. His former life style made him way more antsy than he probably should be. Loud noises and large crowds were just a few of the things that made him...jittery, to say the least. He also was not too fond of public bathrooms, but that is a whole nother story entirely.

Despite his fears however, Cody had managed to muster up enough courage to seek help from a girl at school in an effort to rid himself of the ghost that haunted him. Mind you, Tyrone had ended up shooting her cat, but he had managed to make his own friend-type-thing in the process. That in itself was a feat.

In an effort to try and be less antisocial, Cody had decided to venture forth from his room at school and go to the park. Of course, he was starting to regret that decision now, but it was too late to turn back. The park was a horrible, germ infested place and he was beginning to wish he had brought his bottle of hand sanitizer.

He was dressed in his usual tie dye shirt and jeans. He was in no way "trendy" when it came to his outfits. He much rather preferred to be comfortable. He jumped slightly as he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and pulled it out to see who was texting him.

New message from Logan: got a new bag. know anyone who wants to buy?

Typical. Despite his best efforts to put the gang life behind him, his brother was still up to his old ways. Cody began to type a reply and was too entranced in his answer to hear foot steps approaching him. By the time he noticed someone else was there it was too late. He let out a yelp of alarm and jumped, his eyes darting up from his phone as he heard a familiar voice.

It took the poor boy a moment to calm down before he answered, recoiling slightly from the hand that ruffled his hair. "Don't be so looooud," he whined before giving a slight smile and taking a deep breath.

[isabelle candace harrison.]

Izzy always forgot that Cody didn’t like loud noises. She figured it probably had something to do with Tyrone, the crazy ghost that liked to follow him around. She figured Tyrone was probably a closeted gay gang member, but she didn’t want to tell Cody this for fear it would upset him. She did have some sense of empathy to Cody’s troubles, even if she couldn’t fathom his aversion to loud noises. Pretty much all of Izzy’s life so far had been characterized by loud noises and general weirdness, but she’d never had anything traumatic happen to her like Cody had. She had two brothers and a sister; a crazy mom who really did talk to ghosts and had passed on the ability to all of her children, even if the oldest of them didn’t embrace it; a great dad who against all odds had found love with the strangest woman imaginable; and three lovely cats who, for all their loveliness, had indeed been conditioned to be just as strange as the rest of the family. But it was a great family, nonetheless. Cody hadn’t really been so lucky.

“Sorry,” she said, consciously dropping her voice down several levels for his benefit. It was no secret that Izzy was loud, exuberant, and more often than not a little obnoxious. In short, she was the polar opposite of Cody, who always seemed timid and worried that someone was going to pop out of a bush and shoot him. Actually, considering Tyrone’s overzealous use of a gun in the past, that might not have been far off.

She wondered if Tyrone was lurking about anywhere today. If so, Estella would probably get jumpy soon, and Izzy would end up yelling at apparently thin air in a public place. Still, she wanted to see Cody and get the update on his progress with the ghost. But mostly see Cody. She was really beginning to like the guy.

“How’s the – uh – situation?” she asked quietly.

[cody james walsh.]

Cody never really had much growing up. He had lived in a tiny house with his brother for as long as he could remember. As hard as he tried, he really could not remember much about his parents. He had a single dirty, slightly torn picture of them buried somewhere in the depth of the hellhole he used to call home, but any time he took it out it was quickly snatched away by his brother or one of the other guys in the gang. He considered some of the gang members to be family, but still, when it came to blood relatives, Logan was all he had.

That was more than likely why he now clung to Izzy like a sad puppy. He craved the company of other people who weren't packing heat at all times. To him, Izzy and her family were as close to sane as he would ever get, so he latched on and was not about to let go any time soon.

He turned his head at the sound of her question, his thought process being momentarily broken by it. Giving a slight shrug he glanced around nervously before looking back over at her. "I haven't seen him in a couple of hours....he said he was going to get some chicken or something..." he muttered, glancing around again.

As if on cue, Tyrone appeared on the bench next to Cody, giving a wide grin at the two of them. "What's shakin' love birds?" he asked, laughing as he took a bite of a ghostly drumstick.

Cody made a more than audible groan, rolling his eyes and looking at Tyrone before turning his attention back to Izzy, trying his hardest to ignore the ghost hungrily devouring some chicken next to him.

[isabelle candace harrison.]

Izzy genuinely wanted to help Cody with his problem, especially since it was now partially her problem as well. Tyrone didn't seem very fond of her, and it made sense that they would clash. Izzy had a strong personality in an obnoxious, don't-give-a-fuck way, and Tyrone had a strong personality in a gang member, will-shoot-everything way. Luckily, he was a ghost, which tipped the balance in he favor since he couldn't really kill her with a gun. The point was, she sympathized with Cody. She didn't understand his trauma because she had never experienced it, but she did understand that Tyrone was an annoying, illiterate dead bastard who needed to go away.

At the sight of Tyrone, Estella puffed out her fur and hissed, then ran behind Izzy's legs. Izzy scooped up the cat and cradled her to her chest, giving the agitated animal a kiss on the head. "It's okay, baby, I won't let anything happen to you," she said. Estella was busy glaring suspiciously, in the way that cats do, at the ghost only the three of them could see.

"And you," Izzy went on, turning her attention to Tyrone despite Cody's attempts to ignore him, "at this point you have to be trying to make yourself a walking racial stereotype. Seriously. I didn't even know ghosts could get fried chicken. Christ."

She was more than a little annoyed by the ghost's sudden appearance, because even though the reason she started hanging around Cody in the first place was because of his ghost problem, she had really grown to like the boy. She wished they actually had time alone to talk, but every time she was with him Tyrone was either already lurking around, or appeared shortly after they started talking.

"I guess it's not his fault, I mean, his parents did name him Tyrone; they sort of set him up for failure there," she said to Cody. "But anyway, I was asking my mom about how to banish persistent ghosts and she said..." Izzy paused, remembering what her mother had said and realizing she'd already sort of blown it for the day. Oops. "Uh, she said it sounds like Tyrone is just lost and we should try to be nicer and offer him more guidance."

[cody james walsh.]

Tyrone scoffed as if offended, leaning back now with his legs spread wide and his arms sprawled across the back of the bench. He took another huge bite of his drumstick, waving it at Izzy as he answered. "Well ain't you got a attitude t' ya? Anyways, I just go inta a reg'lar KFC 'n tell dem I want some chicken. It's gettin' da Koolaid dat's da hard part," he scoffed, bits of chicken flying out of his mouth every couple of words.

Cody groaned again, rolling his eyes. Honestly, all he really wanted was to be rid of the ghost. Half the time, the things Tyrone said did not even make much sense, and he was really getting tired of him popping up at the most inconvenient times. He just wanted to live like a normal kid...or, at least as normal as Cody could get.

He forced himself to turn his attention back to Izzy, trying to ignore Tyrone as he gushed "See! You two done better be nicer t' me! Her mama told you to!" and listen to what his friend was saying. At first, the boy looked slightly wounded. "But...I'm always nice..." he said softly, looking down at his shirt. he then realized that Izzy was most likely not calling him unkind, but rather making a generalization.

He looked up, tilting his head to the side slightly as he pondered what she had said. He knew they could not talk about how to get rid of Tyrone if he was around or else he would easily catch on and refuse to leave when the time came. Where then could they talk that he would not show up? He popped up in her house, in the gym at the dance, out out in the public at parks. It really did not help that only he, Izzy, and her cat could see the ghost. If either of the teens talked to him, others around them only saw them talking to themselves. Not that he honestly cared what random strangers thought, but it really did not help his social anxiety when people stared.

A thought suddenly hit him, and he grinned, practically bouncing up and down. Why had they not thought of it before? It was brilliant! "Hmm...well, you want to talk about what your mom said in class tomorrow?" he asked, racing his eyebrows, hoping Izzy would catch on. Tyrone seldom followed Cody into school. The only places he would pop up were in the bathroom, in the gym, in the lunchroom, or in the hallway. The ghost tried to avoid classrooms at all cost, having some sort of gangster fear of learning...or at least that was how he put it. Cody knew that was the one place they could talk without fear of interruption by his ghostly stalker.