I was laughing hysterically now and covering my mouth to hide it. When my father shot me a look of warning, I did not suddenly pretend to be seized by a coughing fit; I merely laughed harder.
He cleared his throat and looked back at the crowd.
“They say that if we do either of those things, there will be consequences. Therefore, anyone that strays too close to the tree-line will be shot.”
I must have looked slightly crazed for a moment as I turned my head to stare at him with eyes widened and all traces of that boisterous humor from a moment earlier gone in a flash. First of all, I had been unaware that guns were on the ship. That was just what we needed on an “uninhabited” planet. Clearly, he had known that Pangea was populated long before we got there. Secondly, I was shocked at the brutality of his new order. He was already starving people in hopes of lowering our numbers. Now, he was threatening to shoot people if they got too close to the trees? Was being put in front of a firing squad for leaving one's dishes on the ground the next step in his plan?
“You haven’t thought this through.” I told him as he walked behind the ship, flanked by his goons. “He said nothing about littering, for the sake of all deities and Gods!”
“I hate when you say that!” He snapped after turning around to point his finger at me.
“Would you just listen?!” I grabbed his arm and he shook me off forcefully, almost knocking me to the ground in the process. “This is his planet and he wants us off. They are threatening us with murder!”
“Do you think I am so stupid that I zoned off during our conversation? I heard him! There is no use repeating it, Brynna Claire. What would you have me do? Do you want to be the one to tell people that we have to get back on the ship, leave here, and fly around until we run out of gas? We have no choice but to stay here. My guards will watch over the campsite. If they come for us, we’ll shoot them.”
“Why did you bring guns to a planet that wasn’t populated?” I challenged him after grabbing his arm again. “You knew they were here! You knew we were invading their planet!”
“We didn’t want anything from them but a place to live. How many times do you think these people have been on Earth? We’ve never told them to leave!”
“We didn’t know they existed!” My voice had risen. My tone was betraying my growing trepidation that the situation would soon spiral completely out of control. In fact, I knew it would.
“Of course we didn't know they...
“If they were on Earth, so what?!” I continued furiously, “They did not drop five thousand of their people on us and demand that we let them stay! They know that what happened to Earth was our fault. If it was nuclear, we started the war. If the sun exploded or the ozone layer depleted suddenly, it was because we burned too much fuel or threw our plastic bottles in rivers... I do not know what the environmental implications or the catastrophic consequences of all of that would be! You will have to ask your son! Either way, why would they let us stay here? In enough time, we will do the same thing to this place!”
“So, you believe everything was all our fault? It wasn’t! I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why the earth had to end! But...”
“Yes, you do!” I interrupted him loudly, “You are lying! I will have no parts of this! I am telling everyone everything!”
He grabbed my wrist in a hold so painful that I was forced to wonder very briefly how I would make a splint after he shattered the bone.
“If you say a word, I’ll give you over to him. That’s how they do it in those stories you read, right? To create an alliance, they arrange an exchange of a female? If it’s through marriage or through slavery…”
“I never pegged you as a reader.” I snarled at him through a sardonic grin. “If you want to hit me and I can see that you do, then do it. But I am taking people who want to go. I am well aware that we cannot leave the planet but we sure as hell are not staying here.”
When I broke free of him, he reached out to grab me again but I dodged him. I will admit that I did not expect him to try again. That is the only reason why he was able to succeed in getting a firm hold on me. After pulling me backwards and slamming me against the outer wall of the ship (again), he backhanded me hard across the face. If his hands had not been pinning me to the side of the wall, I would have fallen to the ground, only this time, James would not be there to scoop me up. As my ears rung and my eyes struggled to move back into focus, I heard my father shouting about “remembering who I was talking to” and “watching my (expletive) mouth.”
My head was turned away from him and his hand was holding my chin. I only smiled slightly as blood dribbled out of my mouth onto the ground; I was thinking over and over again that what he was doing was more of a sign of weakness than of strength. Even as the tears of pain stung my eyes, I thought how humorous it was that he believed himself to be such a man and yet he could not tolerate my scathing sarcastic nature, my threats to leave the land he ruled so cruelly, or even my demands for common sense.
“We are staying together.” I heard him clearly now. “If you’re not here, then I guess it will be Violet, right?”
I stopped smiling abruptly and looked up at him, livid beyond my wildest dreams. I know now that he saw my eyes turn red. They were redder than they had ever been. I could almost feel them burning.
“If you try anything like that with her, I will rip your heart out!”
I do not know where that violent sentiment came from but I pictured disemboweling him clearly. I was drunk on the image of ripping his heart from his chest and biting into it. Something was seriously beginning to go wrong in me. Screws were loosening and some creature I had no knowledge of before was taking hold.
“What is wrong with your eyes?” He demanded, but through his rage, I could hear the slight tremor in his voice. I had shaken off his hand but he grabbed my face again to get a better look. The moment he touched my skin, though, he exclaimed in agony and pulled his suddenly reddened hands away.
“Do not try to stop me.”
“Don’t you understand that there is strength in numbers!?” He yelled after me as I began to walk away. “I will never let you take Penny! You goddamn freak, I will kill you before I let you take her! You won’t take Elijah or Violet, either. Or Maura!”
“Keep her. I don’t want her.” I replied quickly and with an air of blatant arrogance that I am sure only infuriated him more. As I walked back around to the front of the ship, I heard him yelling still but did not care enough about what he was saying to listen. Once I was physically out of his presence, I could feel the cold night air on my face again. I could smell the sweet aroma of the white flowers that grew at the sides of the field where there were no tents.
I had returned to normal.
“Pack your stuff.” I told Violet.
“What? Why?!” She demanded before jumping up and looking at me with eyes widened in terror. “What happened?!”
“Penny, honey, get your bag.” I called into the tent.
“What are you on about now, Brynna?” Maura demanded. “What is going on?” She saw my face and grimaced. “Sit down. Let me get you some ice. I will talk to him later.”
I chose to answer the first two questions she asked but ignored the second part of what she had said completely.
“We are leaving. Now that you are newly reunited with the love of your life, you will feel no need to join us, I assume. But we will not stay here long enough to experience what is to come.”
“What is to come, dare I ask?” Maura asked as she crossed her arms over her chest, rolled her eyes and yawned.
“I apologize. It is clear that what that man said is boring you. Please, go back to sleep if you are exhausted. Explaining the severity of the situation is slowing me down.” I told her hurriedly
. “Look, I am as stunned by the fact that there are people on this planet as you are.” She chose to ignore my momentary rant. “But I am not going to be afraid until I have reason to be.”
&
nbsp; “There is reason to be afraid.” Elijah told her bluntly as he stood and watched me throw my own things into my small suitcase. “Brynna, we can’t leave her and Dad here.”
“Really? He knew those people were here. He was just going to make them accept our presence. I do not want any parts of that. I do not want any parts of the massacre, either.”
“Maybe he was bluffing.” Elijah reasoned. “Maybe he was just trying to see if we really needed to be here.”
“I doubt it. What would you do if someone just dropped in on you the way we did to them? You would be angered greatly, would you not? We are getting out of here.”
“But Dad said that if we go into the woods…” Violet started.
“That native man said nothing about the woods. He told us to pack up our things, get back on the ship and leave. We have no home to go to, as you know very well.”
“I think he was just trying to see if we really needed to be here. Brynna, please…”
“Here.” Maura stuck her hand in between us and dropped an icepack into Elijah's lap. “Make your stubborn sister put some ice on her face.”
She strode away before I could offer a snide retort to that comment. Elijah pressed the icepack to my face and I cringed before moving away.
“I do not want that. I am perfectly fine.” I snapped at him as I busied my hands with untangling Violet's headphone cords. She had asked Maura to do it earlier but instead, our nanny had decided to take a long, extended walk to the ship with our father.
“Shut up and put this on your face, asshole.”
“I should punch you in the throat for calling me such a vile, unoriginal name.” But I finally did put the icepack on my face. His eyes flashed red and I reached over to grasp his hand. “Let it go, Eli. He is nothing of concern for us.”
“He is of concern...”
“We are not going to talk about this. We are going to pack our things and go.”
“Let’s just see what happens tomorrow.” He told me. “How dumb will you feel if you take off and nothing happens?”
“I will not be around to find out if I was right or wrong, will I? If you and my father…” I turned my gaze to Maura because she had suddenly resurfaced behind us, “want to stay here and get yourselves killed, that is your prerogative, most certainly. But I will not sit by, doing nothing, and let the three of you die.” I looked back at Violet and Elijah. “I will not do it. And no, Violet, it has nothing to do with the fact that I saved your asses once!”
“Stop doing that!” Violet exclaimed before covering her ears and stomping her foot.
“Just to keep you informed, covering your ears does nothing.” I handed her the newly untangled headphones.
“Yay!” All traces of her aggravation at me evaporated suddenly; she smiled widely and walked back to her tent.
“Adolescent mood swings...” I muttered irritably with an eye-roll.
“Brynna, come on,” Elijah led me away from the group, “I sincerely don’t believe that this is anything to be worried about. It makes no sense! If he wanted us off Pangea that badly, why would he only be taking ten people every day? Why wouldn’t he just come and kill us all right off? I’m sure that they have the means to do it. Plus, we don’t even know if he has any other people with him!”
“Right, this whole planet was created for one man. Aren’t you the more spiritual of the two of us? What Divine point is there in creating a huge mass of livable space for one person?
“I know that you’re being sarcastic right now. But if he wanted to show his real force to really convince us to leave, he would have brought others with him. He would have threatened to kill us all immediately. I don’t think this is serious. Please don’t go running off before you know if this is a real thing or not.”
“I do know because I just know.” I replied, though I also knew that what I had just said made little sense to him. “If you want to stay here for a day to see the extent of this man’s devotion to his cause, then fine. I will allow it for one day. I cannot guarantee that we will not be one of his first ten. But after tomorrow, I am gone,” I stopped, feeling an unfamiliar lump in my throat as I prepared to finish my thought, “with or without you.”
“Okay. I know that you’re freaked out. But everything is fine. You’ll see. Tomorrow, nothing will happen. This guy is just trying to see how badly we need this place. Otherwise, he’d kill us all right now.”
“If you say so, Elijah…” I replied shortly, “Perhaps he is not killing us outright because he enjoys playing games.”
XXX
How people could live in such a state of delusion was beyond even my vast understanding of the human condition. I waited throughout the duration of the next day, feeling the storm on the horizon before it literally and figuratively broke over us. There was a rumbling in the suddenly overcast sky; it was a symbol from the heavens that trouble was brewing.
At six PM, Earth-time, lightning began to streak fantastically across the sky. People gazed up, dumfounded at the show of light just above our head. In brilliant patterns, the lightning struck, leaving black holes in the clouds that quickly filled back over like a scab forming over a gaping wound. A beautifully scented rain descended on us.
People scrambled to get into their tents but I stood on the moistening ground, staring up.
Alright, heavens. Message received. I thought to myself.
Even Elijah, the realist, was beginning to show signs of worry. Maura was beside herself. In a foolish display of trust in Maura's fragile emotions, my father had relayed all that had been said between us and the man who had come. Now she was clutching Penny in her arms and keeping a firm grasp on Violet's hand.
Others were cloaked in feigned ignorance. However well they hid their growing trepidation, I saw in their minds that they knew something monumentally dangerous was stirring in the cover of those trees. I watched several people stop their meandering activities during the day to stare blankly off into the darkness as they assessed a threat that they could not yet see. No matter, it would present itself before the night was over.
My father was perhaps the only one sure that nothing was going to occur. He pranced around like a show-horse, reminding me of his wife who had behaved with the same irritatingly fake brashness every time an election was near. He spoke to people candidly, explaining away his brutish actions and actually convincing a few of the survivors who were less able to think independently that their safety was his top priority. Those woeful individuals possessed a humanity that could be sold in exchange for their peace of mind. People were going to starve to death but perhaps their faith in our morally corrupt leader would save them in the end.
Fools. He would trade the lambs that followed closely behind him, the shepherd, because they would go willingly. The ones that fought their slaughter would perhaps meet their ends brutally but at least they had fought.
I was neither the obedient nor the fighting lamb for I was not a lamb at all. I was the wolf hunting the flock. I was looking for the weakest links to sacrifice to the butcher and his comrades that hid in the darkness of the trees. I had no grounds to call anyone on their lack of humanity because my own was being called into question. My own self-preservation instinct was beginning to supersede my belief that we all needed to pull together. If it came down to either me or one of the faceless survivors being taken, I would willingly devour them in order to escape. I would kill anyone I had to if that was what it took to protect Violet, Penny, Elijah and myself.
Please note that I took no pleasure in such a depraved selfishness. I expect and will accept punishment from a higher power on the mythical day that I depart this earthly realm, though I feel I have paid my debts in full. Perhaps there is no price high enough for feeling such self-centered ruthlessness.
The darkness of night was upon us. The rain had lessened to a light drizzle.
Alright, you have the cover of darkness. Bring it on, I urged the man silently. I stared at the spot where he had appeared the night befo
re. After blinking once, he was there. But this time, there were others. Nine others, to be exact.
“What is going on?!” A woman behind me exclaimed. She had immediately sensed the imminent danger. There was a menagerie of screams as the natives rushed forward in a blur. A blinding sheet of rain erupted from the clouds and further disoriented us.
“Get to Penny!”
The thought was almost heart-stopping in its urgency. I ran to Maura, yanked Penny from her arms and looked at Violet for one moment, only to fill her head with the thought to follow. She looked at Maura and then back at me before running in my wake.
I do not know where we were running but the screams were the soundtrack to our flight. With every last shriek of horror or pain I heard, a new burst of adrenaline forced my legs to move faster. With one arm, I held Penny. With the other, I pulled Violet along. The muck that was rising from the rain-soaked field was making it harder to run as quickly as was necessary. With every step, we faced the risk of becoming lodged in it, immobile and defenseless as the natives hunted us.
“Brynn!” Elijah's voice shouted behind me. I turned to see that he had become stuck. Behind him was a blur of black getting closer at a speed that was impossible for us.
There was not one thought in my mind. The clearness was what spurred me to action. I threw Penny to Violet and ran the length of the distance between us and him. I knew that my momentum rivaled that of the man in pursuit of Elijah because I was the one that reached him first. However, the enemy was not far behind and he reached Elijah just a second after I did.
Something had come over me that day in my apartment when we faced those Reapers. A new, violent beast consumed my human self. Though I had neither claws nor fangs nor the fighting instinct of a cornered animal, I had behaved like I did. My new ability to destroy a threat on Earth was nothing compared to what suddenly overtook me there in that field on Pangea. I took one huge leap over Elijah and tackled the man running towards us. While still in midair, I sunk my teeth down into his neck and spun around quickly so that I was behind him, latched onto his back. He fell to the ground and landed face-down in the mud.
The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) Page 28
