Against The Darkness (Cimmerian Moon)

by A. M. Griffin

  Mia’s crying borders on hysteria now. “They’re dead! They’re all dead.”

  “What…” I glance to Ian for clarification. “What is she talking about?”

  This stuff…I can’t get it off.

  Ian runs a hand through his dark brown hair and hangs his head low. A sob breaks through his lips. I look to Shayla and MJ. They’re hugging each other tight. Shayla has her head buried in his chest. MJ’s arms are wrapped around her and he’s crying on her shoulder.

  Ms. Burgess wipes tears from her eyes and takes a step forward. She holds out her shaking hands. “We thought they got you too.”

  I smile but my lips quiver as I do. “Is that what has everyone upset? Wade sprung his ankle.” I look to him, but he’s not smiling like I am. He’s staring at Ms. Burgess. His skin is ashen. His face slack. “Tell them Wade. We’re fine.” A nervous chuckle escapes me.

  “That’s blood, Sin,” Wade says, his voice flat and even.

  I peer at my hands. They’re painted in…

  Blood?

  Chapter Three

  My fingers are stuck together from the…no not blood. As I try to separate them, they start to shake. My body soon follows. My knees buckle from my weight. Mia yells again as I slip from her grasp.

  Before I hit the ground an arm reaches around my waist, stopping me, holding me up. I close my eyes and lean onto it for support. It’s the only thing saving me right now. There’s crying around me but it sounds so distant—so far away, but I don’t concentrate on that. I can only hear the blood rushing through my ears.

  “Sin! Sin!” I hear Wade calling my name. I open my mouth to respond, to tell him that he’s mistaken. It’s not blood, it can’t be blood. If it was, whose blood would it be?

  I open my eyes and focus on my hands.

  It’s not paint.

  My stomach churns and bile rises. Before I can stop it, vomit explodes up the back of my throat. I have just enough time to turn to the side as it spills from my mouth. My stomach convulses as I empty what little food I have in me onto the ground.

  My hair is being held away from my face, by who I don’t know. I can’t catch my breath, as my stomach empties. My body can’t recover from what’s going on. I dry heave so forcefully that my chest hurts.

  “Oh, God,” I cry out, when the vomiting finally stops.

  Wade pulls me to him. Since I don’t have control of my legs, I go willingly. I lie against him. The tears don’t stop pouring down my face.

  “What happened?” Wade asks. His chest rumbles as he talks.

  “They came for us,” Ms. Burgess says, her voice shaking so much that I can only guess that she’s crying too. “We didn’t see or hear them until it was too late.”

  “Who? Who came for you?” Wade asks.

  “The goddamn aliens!” Ian yells. I hear him kick or hit something. “Those motherfuckers ambushed us!”

  “Ian!” Ms. Burgess snaps.

  “What?” Ian says. “Watch my language?” The laugh that he expels is devoid of humor. “I think I earned the right to cuss.”

  Wade doesn’t seem to pay any attention to Ian’s smart retort to Ms. Burgess. “Is everyone dead?”

  I cringe, thinking of that possibility. Everyone in the band…gone. Their faces flash across my mind.

  “I think—” Ms. Burgess starts to say.

  “You can’t say that!” MJ yells, seeming not to care about any aliens nearby. “Don’t you dare say that.” In a calmer and lower voice he says, “We were split up, that’s all.”

  I grip Wade’s shirt. “There’s blood all over my hands,” I whisper. “I have blood all over me.”

  He runs a hand down my back. “We’ll wash it off. We’ll go to a lake and wash it off,” he promises.

  I take a deep breath and wipe the tears off on his shirt.

  “We can’t leave yet,” Shayla says in a panic. “We have to find the others.”

  I turn around and grab for Mia again. I don’t care what she’s covered in. I’m just happy to have her safe with me.

  “We don’t know where they are,” MJ says gently to her.

  “But maybe they got away like we did. All we have to do is find someplace to hide until the aliens go away and then go back for them,” Shayla says.

  “Go away? Hide?” Ian says with mock laughter in his voice. “We were hiding when they found us. Where would we even go? Huh Shay?” He crosses his arms across his chest. “Where do you propose we hide?”

  MJ pushes away from Shayla and heads for Ian. “You know what. I’m tired of your mouth!”

  Shayla grabs for MJ and holds him back. MJ struggles against her briefly before he finally relents and steps back to her. “It’s not worth it,” she says.

  Ian snorts and turns away from them. “Whatever. I’m not delusional. I know what the hell is going on.”

  “Then tell me,” I ask. I’m not trying to be smart-Alec-y. I really want to know what the hell is going on.

  “We were attacked,” Ms. Burgess answers.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Ian says sarcastically.

  “Why did we have to get stuck with this asshole?” MJ mutters to Shayla.

  Ian whirls around with his fists balled. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “Stop!” Wade yells out. Both guys turn to toward him. “We just want to know what happened. That’s all.” Wade points at Ian. “We don’t care how you feel about MJ or about how MJ feels about you.”

  With a sniffle, Mia lifts her chin to speak. “We were trying to get some rest, waiting for you and Sin to come back and…out of nowhere…they came.” She gestured her hand through the air wildly. “They were these big, green, scaly-looking reptiles, just like the ones we saw on television. With fangs and large yellow eyes.”

  A shudder runs down my spine.

  “We ran. We scattered,” MJ says. “I grabbed Shayla and we ran.”

  “They started shooting anyone who ran, which was everyone,” Mia continues. “I was running with Callie and they shot her. She went down and I tried to help her back up, but Ian grabbed me and pulled me away. He saved me.”

  “You left her?” I ask in disbelief. Callie, the petite red-headed ninth grader who couldn’t fend off a fly…they left her? I shook my head. “How could you—”

  At my words Mia leans away from me, as if in shame. Her brown eyes brimmed with tears.

  Ian moves with determination, stomping over to us and trying to pull Mia from my grasp, but I won’t let her go. “What did you want her to do? Stay there and get caught or killed?” he asks defensively.

  I can’t imagine either scenario, but I can’t imagine leaving Callie Smith behind to those aliens.

  “What about them?” Ian waves a hand to MJ, Shayla and Ms. Burgess. “They left people behind too. Ms. Burgess is a teacher and she ran just like the rest of us.” He turns to Ms. Burgess. “Aren’t you just the good chaperone?” he sneers, as she recoils from him.

  Before I know it, Wade is in front of Ian with his arm pulled back and, in a flash, lands a fist on Ian’s nose, making a loud crack. Ian falls backward without so much as a stumble.

  As soon as he hits the ground Mia unhitches from me and runs to his side, crouching next to him. “Ian, Ian, are you okay, baby?”

  MJ lets go of Shayla and claps loudly. “Bravo. It’s about time somebody shut him up.”

  “Did that bitch hit me?” Ian asks Mia, slurring his words.

  Wade moves forward, but Ms. Burgess side-steps between him and Ian. “No, don’t. He’s right. I left children behind. I left them screaming and crying. I left.” Her voice is shaking so bad she can hardly form her words and I feel sorry for her.

  “Ms. B,” MJ starts, but she puts up her other hand to silence him.

  “I saw those…those…things and I just ran. I only bumped into these guys while I was hiding in a tree. I don’t even know what happened to the other teachers.” She lowers her eyes and tries to hide her face in a hand.

  Ian li
fts up to rest on his elbows. “They’re dead. That’s what happened to them.”

  MJ takes a step forward, while Shayla holds onto his shirt, stretching it out. “Wade, man, if you don’t shut him up again, I will.”

  And I don’t doubt it. Ian is a spoiled rich kid who’s used to hanging around guys who let him walk all over them, while MJ is neither spoiled nor rich. He’s from the low-income housing projects and has played football since he was seven. MJ has an athlete’s body, trained to perfection, and not a high school athlete either. He’s a got a body made for track and football.

  He stands six-foot-one and weighs a little under two hundred pounds. Wade talked about me being the record holder in the one hundred meter dash of our school, but MJ is the record holder of the one hundred meter dash in the state of Michigan. He was offered a full ride scholarship to five big ten schools. The entire state was anticipating his selection. I don’t doubt for a second he could shut Ian up if he wanted to.

  Ian snorts. A sound that seriously gets on my nerves.

  “It’s called adrenaline, Ms. B,” I say. “You saw something that freaked you out and your fight-or-flight response kicked in and you ran. It’s normal.” I look at Ian, meeting his eyes. “That’s why you’re all here.”

  Ian begins to lumber to his feet. “And you know this because, what? Your mother is a poor people’s nurse and you plan to follow in her footsteps?”

  “Stop,” Mia warns. “Don’t talk to her like that.”

  Ian shakes Mia’s hands off of him.

  I lift my chin. “My mother helps low-income families who wouldn’t normally be able to afford health care and yes, if I’m half the woman she is, I’ll follow in her footsteps.”

  Ian raises a cocky brow. “If you’re half the woman? Well you are Sinta. You’re half-black so you are half the woman that she is…was.” He flicks a hand at Ms. Burgess. “And look at that, you’re also half the woman Ms. Burgess is too.”

  Ian was down again. This time with me pinning him with my knees and raining blow after blow on his face. “You son of a bitch,” I growl.

  I can’t stop hitting him. My knuckles ache with each blow I strike. Even as he tries to shield his face from me I assault him. I want to hurt him…so very bad.

  Wade pulls me off with one hand. I don’t want to stop. I want to smash Ian’s face into the ground. I kick, trying to connect my foot with Ian’s skull.

  Wade holds me back. I struggle against him, to no avail. “First things first,” Wade says to Ian. “If you want to stay with us you’ll have to learn how to keep your mouth shut and your opinions to yourself.”

  Ian wipes his mouth. “Stay with you? I don’t need you. Mia and I are better off on our own than hanging around you losers.”

  Mia straightens and squares her shoulders. “I’m not leaving Sin,” she says. “Or Wade, MJ, Shayla or Ms. Burgess.”

  “What?” Ian glances around nervously. “You would leave me for them?”

  “I love you, but you’re acting like an ass. And if it means staying alive and staying with my friends, then that’s what I’ll do.”

  I hold my hand out to her and, seeing it, she grabs it and I pull her to me and Wade.

  “We need to stick together, Ian,” Mia says. “All of us.”

  Everyone waits, watching Ian, waiting for his next move. The smart thing for him to do would be to apologize and suck it up. But this is Ian Harmon, who wouldn’t know the right thing to do if it came up and bit him in the ass.

  “Pft, whatever.”

  Ian wasn’t as smart as he thought he was.

  MJ rolls his eyes and Wade lets out a heavy breath. Ms. Burgess nods and Mia holds out a hand to him. Peering up at her hand, he curls his upper lip in a snarl. “We’re through.”

  A hurt sound escapes Mia’s mouth, as she puts her hand down. I tighten my grip on her other hand. I don’t want her to go begging to him, asking for his forgiveness like she’s done so many times in the past. Ian’s an asshole. But Mia surprises me by not trying to slip away from me. Instead she gives my hand a squeeze. She’s going to be fine.

  “You are some kind of stupid,” MJ says. “The end of the world is a fine time to break up with your girlfriend.”

  Ms. Burgess puts up both of her hands. “Enough. It’s agreed that we’re sticking together. With that settled we need to figure out where we’re going to hunker down for the next couple of days.”

  “Couple of days?” I ask. I want to go home—now.

  “We need to stay out of sight for a while, let the aliens leave the area. I agree with Shayla’s idea. We need to stay close, just in case we can spot anyone else.” She turns in a tight circle. “Wade and Sinta, you’ve scouted this area. Where’s a good place to hide?”

  Wade takes the crumpled map from his back pocket and opens it. “Lanier Lake is just north of here. It’s pretty large with plenty of places to hide.”

  “Can we get there without being seen?” Ms. Burgess asks warily.

  Wade passes the map to her. She studies the route he traces with his finger. “There are some major roads, but it shouldn’t be a problem with just…” He cuts off his words. There was no reason to continue. We all knew what he intended to say.

  Chapter Four

  It shouldn’t be a problem with just seven of us.

  “Even so, I hate us being out in the open.”

  “It’s our best hope right now. That area has plenty of trees for cover. We can build shelter and blend in with the surroundings.”

  I nod, affirming what Wade said. “It’ll be perfect.”

  “We thought the last place was perfect,” Shayla mumbles.

  There were forty people hiding in some woods by a residential area, I want to tell her. That’s not perfect. That was a disaster waiting to happen. I clench my jaw tight to stop myself from pointing out the obvious.

  “What about food?” MJ asks. He puts up his empty hands. “When we left, we didn’t have time to get to anything, food or water. We had to leave everything, even our backpacks.”

  Crap.

  Wade pulls his pack off his back and rummages through it. “I have a flashlight, four bottles of water, two sleeves of crackers, a lighter and Swiss army knife. Sin,” he says, looking over to me. “What do you have?”

  I don’t have to pull my bag off to recite its contents. “Two bottles of water, one sleeve of crackers, four slices of bread and I have my knife tied to my sweats.”

  “Awesome. We’re definitely prepared to head back to Michigan,” Ian says.

  “What did you bring?” I ask him, since he’s still being a smartass.

  He glares at me before turning the other way.

  “Let’s get going. Our circumstance isn’t going to change by just standing here,” Wade says.

  We let him lead the way with Mia and I following close on his heels. Shayla and Ms. Burgess are at our backs and MJ and Ian are behind them.

  We move silently through what used to be the residential areas. Everyone is on edge, watching out for aliens that could come out from behind trees or what used to be buildings or houses. We also keep peering up, watching for their ships.

  Under the cover of night, we go through the few houses that don’t threaten to topple on us. We search for anything that will help us survive. We don’t find any more bottled water, but we are able to find a lot of canned goods and, luckily, an opener. We load what we can carry in three plastic bags. We don’t take so much that the bags will slow us down and only take what is needed.

  By the time we get to the lake, its well into the night. We scout out the best possible spot, somewhere with trees thick enough to hide us. Once we find our hide-out, Wade directs us to gather all the wood we can find.

  After watching him make a stick shelter that’s only two feet high, we set out to make our own. We each pick spots along the lake, under a tree, and position the openings so that we can see at least two other shelter entrances. We don’t talk about what happened—about how we think everyone e
lse is dead. We hardly talk at all, besides to help each other find sticks and build the hobbit huts that we’ll live in for the next two days.

  It’s past ten p.m. before we’re finally done and it’s so dark we can barely make out what’s around us. We’re tired, mentally and physically. There’s nothing left to do but to rest and think about all we’ve lost.

  I crawl backward into my shelter. I won’t be able to sit up. I’ll hardly be able to turn around or shift my position. It’s long enough so that I can stretch out. I’m so short that my shelter won’t appear out of place against the bank of the lake. The guys had to make theirs shorter, and have to sleep curled up.

  Once I’m fully inside, I glance over to Mia’s shelter. We made ours facing each other. I rest my face on my hands and she does the same, watching me too. I watch her until her eyes finally close for the night. When I’m sure that she’s sleep I roll over onto my side. This position is just as painful as lying on my stomach. Trying to get comfortable on the cold ground with only a few tufts of grass sprinkled in among rocks, dirt and twigs is the least of my worries.

  Right about now is when I again start to have my recurring wish for the gift of foresight. But I’m sure everyone in the world has probably wished for the same thing. At least then there could have been some kind of planning. The military could have been ready for the aliens’ arrival and mounted an attack. Not only that, but the government could have organized some kind of evacuation. Although I don’t know to where exactly.

  How do you evacuate an entire country?

  At any rate, the gift of foresight would have helped us all. Maybe, with it, my mother wouldn’t have forced me to go on the stupid field trip. I remind myself how I’d begged and begged her not to make me go.

  But I bet she regrets it now, especially since I’m almost a thousand miles away from her during the worst possible time.

  I know what I’m doing and I try to hold onto the feeling for as long as possible. If I’m mad at her then I won’t miss her as much.

  Just as I have that thought, my eyes begin to water. Being mad at her usually doesn’t last very long at all. I can’t make it. For all it’s worth, I know she’s regretting she ever made me go and she’s missing me just as much as I’m missing her.