Chapter 25

Again, I don't own any of these characters

Cody and Bailey found themselves both in pitch black darkness. Bailey felt her fears returning and she quickly called out for Cody.

"I'm right here, Bails...Are you okay?"

She replied meekly. "Yeah...I think so..."

"Okay, keep talking...Count for me and I'll follow your voice and and find you."

Bailey nods to herself. "One...two...three...four..." Just then Bailey feels a hand on her. "Cody?"

Cody laughs. "I sincerely hope that's you I just grabbed..."

Bailey can't help but to laugh. "Yeah, it is..."

Cody wraps his arm around her. "Okay, I know we have flashlights here in the room...I just can't remember where we put them..."

Bailey pauses to think. "Aren't they in the emergency kit we put together?"

Cody smacks his head. "The emergency kit...Why didn't I remember that?"

Bailey chuckles. "Its okay...now, what did we do with it?"

"Its in the bottom of my closet...Take my hand and we'll make our way over to it..."

Cody and Bailey begin to inch their way over to the closet in the darkness on their hands and kees. Cody is using his free hand to feel out around him. Finally, he finds the wall and slowly moves down it until he gets to the closet door. He reaches around till he finds the knob and slowly opens it. Cody reaches out along the floor of his closet trying to find the kit. His hands run over shoes and empty luggage bags. Finally, his hand finds a cold metal box. He probes it until he finds the latch on the box and opens it. Rummaging inside, he finds a flashlight. He flips the switch and turns the flashlight towards Bailey.

"Hi..."

Bailey flinches and tries to shield her eyes. "What else did we put in there?"

Cody turns back to the box and looks inside. "Several bottles of water, beef jerky, canned meat, canned fruits, other non-perishables, a can opener, extra batteries, another flashlight and several glow sticks..." Cody pulls out the other flashlight and hands it to Bailey. Cody proceeds to close the metal box to pick it up and take it with them. He stands up and empties out a small luggage bag onto the bed and puts the box inside of it. He slings it over his back. He turns to Bailey.

"Ready?"

Bailey nods, but Cody can tell she is still freaked out and scared. So he decided to do something to distract her and try to get her mind off of the hurricane if only temporarily. On purpose, he turns and walks straight into the wall and "falls" to the floor. Bailey shines her flashlight down on him.

"Cody, are you okay?"

Cody laughs. "Yeah...What were the odds of that? No flashlight, I didn't bump into a single thing...Two flashlights, and I run right into the wall..."

Bailey can't help but laugh. She immediately knew he did that on purpose but was grateful to him for trying to make her feel better. While she was still scared, she reminded herself that her and Cody had already survived other sticky situations. But, she knew no matter what happened, she would deal with it as long as he was by her side. Finally, she spoke. "Come on, we should get going or we're going to be late and everyone will get worried."

Cody nods and gets up. He takes Bailey's hand again, and they make their way out of the cabin, both with a bag slung over their shoulder.. Cody pauses in the hallway and knocks on Zack and Woody's door, but gets no answer. Cody turns and glances out the door onto the deck. By now, it is a literal downpour outside with water crashing over the deck. Quickly, he turns Bailey's away from the sight so she doesn't have to see it. They move towards the interior of the boat and towards the stairwell there. Slowly, they make their way up to London's floor and slowly begin to search for her suite in the dark.. Finally finding it, they knock on the door and Zack answers it.

"About time...We were about to send out a search party for you two..."

Cody shrugged. "We stopped to find our flashlights and survival pack...We figured they might come in handy..."

Zack nods and opens the foor for them to come in. London is sitting against the head of her bed, filing her nails in the dark. Woody and Addison are leaning against one wall while Zack has rejoined Cassie along another. Cody leads Bailey over the the only open wall, and helps her get settled in. He then proceeds to get out a few of the glow sticks, activates them and places them in the middle of the room. After making a pseudo campfire, Cody crawls over and places one in front of the bathroom so people can find it in the dark.. As he is doing that, there is another knock at the door. Zack opens it again and finds Moseby and Tut standing there with a flashlight. They both sigh with relief seeing that everyone is together and advises them to stay together until the storm passes. Moseby said he would be back later to check on them, but that they had to go try to account for the rest of the passengers while Emma would go to check on the rest of the students.

Everyone was settled into London's cabin, but it was pretty quiet inside. The boat was rocking, and even inside, they could hear the wind howling. Cody pulled out his cell phone to check the time. 11:00 PM. He sighed and asked London if she had enough blankets and pillows for everyone. London paused and said she didn't, but that there was a housekeeping closet just down the hall. Cody nodded and grabbed the flashlight. He turned to Zack and told him they were going for a pillow and blanket run. He turned back to Bailey and told her he would be right back. Bailey just looked up and nodded. She wanted to argue and plead with him to stay with her, but she knew he was doing what was needed.

Zack and Cody left the cabin and slowly crept down the hallway until they found the housekeeping closet London had mentioned. The opened the door and went inside. As Cody was flashing the light around to see what he could find, Zack spoke up.

"Is Bailey okay? She hasn't said a word since she's got to London's..."

Cody turned to his brother. "She doesn't like storms as it is, so a hurricane is a nightmare to her."

Zack nodded. "You really think we're going to be okay?"

Cody paused. "I don't know. But I'm sure not going to admit that around Bailey...I'm trying to keep her as calm as possible and her spirits as high as I can..."

Zack smiled. "I'm sure you will...I know you would do anything for her..."

Cody smiled. "Thanks...Now, lets grab what we can, and get out of here..."

Zack and Cody proceed to grab six extra pillows and a few extra blankets and left the closet. Again, they slowly made their way back to London's cabin. As they are creeping along, they feel the boat shudder again, causing them to be knocked to the floor of the hallway.

Zack gets back up, but he is in darkness again. "Cody?"

From behind him, he hears, "Down here...I think I landed on the flashlight..."

Zack turns around, and kneels down to the floor. He reaches out until he finds Cody's leg. "Are you okay?"

Cody begins to pull himself up. "Yeah, but I think the flashlight is kaput..."

Zack sighs. "So, what do we do now?"

Cody pauses. He honestly had no clue, but he knew he needed to get back to Bailey as soon as possible. "I don't know...I'm not even sure which direction we are supposed to go in now..." Cody feels the flashlight next to him, and in frustration, smacks it against his other palm. "Stupid flashlight..." However, doing that must have done something because the flashlight flooded the hallway with light again.

Zack laughed. "Atta boy..."

Cody just shook his head. "Let's not press our luck and get back to the cabin now..."

Zack nodded and gathered back up the blankets he was carrying as Cody grabbed the pillows. Quickly, the moved down the hallway until they found London's cabin. They knock, and this time Cassie opens the door. Both come in and quickly distribute the pillows and blankets and everyone settles in. London is stretched out on her bed, while everyone else is scattered around the room. Again everyone is quiet, until Zack finally speaks up.

"Does anyone else see the similarities?"

Woody answers him. "To what?"

"You know..." Zack clears his throat. "The weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed. If not for the courage of the fearless crew, the Minnow would be lost. The Minnow would be lost..."

Everyone else just groaned at Zack.

"Awww come on...Look, there are seven of us, seven of them...London always wears the latest fashions, she could be our Ginger. Woody could be the Skipper and Addison his little buddy. Cassie and I could be Mr. and Mrs. Howell. And of course, Cody and Bailey are easily our Professor and Mary Ann..."

Cody looks over at his brother. "So, in the middle of a hurricane, your first thought is of Gilligan's Island? Wasn't being deserted on a deserted island once enough for you?"

Zack shrugs. "I just figured it might help if we tried to get our minds off what was happening outside..."

Cassie turns to him and rolls her eyes. "By singing about a ship the crashes on to a deserted island during a storm?"

While, everyone else was talking, Bailey wasn't really paying attention. She had her head on Cody's shoulder and her arms wrapped around him as tightly as she could. All her ears would let her hear were the wind and the rain and the sound of waves crashing against the boat. In her mind, she was reliving the tornado all over again. Being in this cabin was eerily similar to her whole family being locked in their storm shelter while she heard the wind roaring.

Cody could tell Bailey was deep into her thoughts, but all he could think to do was just to keep holding her to let her know that he was there. He turned to everyone else.

"Its about 11:30...Why don't we all try to at least get some sleep..."

That snapped Bailey out of her thoughts. She looked up at Cody. "Is that a good idea? I mean, what if..."

Cody nodded. "You're right. I think we should have two people stay up in shifts. I figure by 8:30 in the morning, we will have gotten through the worst of it. That's nine hours or three shifts of three hours..." Cody looked down and knew Bailey was too wired or too upset to sleep right now. "Bailey and I will take the first shift, and I'll set the alarm on my cell phone to go off at 2:30. Who wants the 2:30 to 5:30 shift?"

Addison speaks up. "Woody and I will take it..."

Cody nods. "Okay, Zack and Cassie, you two have 5:30 to 8:30 then..."

They both nod. London speaks up. "What about me?"

"You're already letting us use your room to ride the storm out in...Alright, I know it might be hard, but we're all going to need our energy tomorrow, so try to sleep..."

Everyone else stretched out and laid down. The room got quiet again, until Cody heard two sounds that he would never ever forget. Woody and Zack were both snoring now. Even though he was still scared, he felt himself oddly comforted by those two sounds. He then turned his attention to trying to make Bailey feel as comforted as he could. Cody just reached down and wrapped his arm tighter around Bailey and leaned down and kissed her forehead. He laid his head back against the wall and tried to settle into what might be the longest night of his life.

To be Continued...