Against The Darkness (Cimmerian Moon) (20 page)

“Has that been
the only death here so far?”

“As far as I
know, but I just got here yesterday. Jim, he’s been here for two days.”

I nod and glance
away. Days. They’ve been here for days waiting and wondering about their fate. Days
to come to grips with the reality that they were never going to see their families
again. I’d been here for… I take a glance at my watch. I don’t even know. But I
know that I can’t take it for very much longer.

There has to
be a way out of here. I can’t give up. I glance around. Everyone here seems to
have given up hope. How long will it take me to give up?

I can’t
.

I have to get
away—somehow I’ll do it. Then I’ll be what, maybe two or three days
behind them? If I sleep for only a couple of hours a day, I can probably catch
up with them in Ohio.

A sad thought
penetrates my mind.

Jason and Ken
will be gone by the time I reach everyone else. I won’t see him
again—ever. The sadness that penetrates my mind now seems to wash over me
and permeate me.

“I don’t know
how you can sit here so calm. I’ll never stop trying to get away.”

She gives me a
hard stare. “Even if I did get away, where would I go? Back home? My home isn’t
there. There isn’t anyone waiting for me. I’m alone. I don’t have a lot of
education, but I do know when to fold ’em. I’ve been caught. But I’m still
alive. I’m way smarter than that lady last night.”

I don’t want
to argue with her. Unlike her, I do have someone waiting for me…I can’t think
otherwise. “How did they find you?”

“Well, they
really didn’t have to look hard to find me. They found me in a super store.”

I cringe. “A
super store? Wouldn’t that be the first place they would be looking?”

“Apparently
so. But I was hungry and tired. And I thought, ‘the world is going to hell, so
I might as well stock up on chocolate’.”

“Chocolate?
You were in a super store and the only thing you could think to get was
chocolate?”

“That’s how I
wanted to spend my last days. I didn’t tell you that so you could get all
judge-y.”

“I just…I
don’t know…”

“What to say?
Well neither do I. My boyfriend high-tailed it out as soon as the aliens came.
He told me to stay in our trailer until he got back. And like an idiot, I did.
Well, until they destroyed it. Then I went to hide in the only place that would
have everything I needed to survive.”

“Super store,”
I say. “Sorry.”

“Sorry for
which part? For me thinking a super store was the best place to hide out or
because my asshole of a boyfriend ran out and left me alone?”

“Both.”

She glances
around. “I was really hoping that he would’ve been here. That’s the only reason
I didn’t fight them when they came for me. “

“You went
willingly?” I ask in disbelief.

“Yeah. I
wanted to see him.” Then she narrows her eyes. “I wanted to kick his ass.”

“I don’t know.
I would have let him be and ran like hell.”

“No. I
couldn’t let it go that easily. I keep hoping that they actually did catch him
and he tried to fight them, so they had no choice but to crush him into
itty-bitty pieces.”

“Ouch.”

“I pray that
God answers my prayers. He has to right the injustice.” Jasmine tosses the last
pellet into her mouth and takes another drink from her container.

I inspect what
she gave me at length now. They look like rabbit turds, except they’re hard
instead of swishy. I bring them up to my nose and take a whiff. It doesn’t have
a smell. “What are these?”

“That, my dear,
is your lunch.” Amused by the look that must be on my face, she chuckles. “Eat
up!”

“Food?”

She points to
a bucket in the center of our containment. All the food you could ever want is
in there. You eat one at a time and drink water in between.” She jiggles her bag
for emphasis. “This is some kind of canteen. I don’t know how the pellets works
but they make you full.”

I roll one of
the pellets between my thumb and finger. “It’ll make me full?”

“You might
need more than one, but yes, it seems to do the trick.”

After eyeing
and playing with it for a couple minutes more I pop one into my mouth and
swallow. It doesn’t make me feel any different. I’m still hungrier than ever.
Jasmine hands me the water and I drink it. Almost immediately my belly feels
full. I pop in the other two and gulp down water.

“Slow down.”
Jasmine pulls the canteen away from my mouth. “You’ll get too full and your
stomach will hurt.”

I wipe the
trickle of water that’s spilling from my lips. “I’m hungry.” My stomach
grumbles and a burp erupts from my mouth. “Excuse me,” I say, embarrassed. It’s
not even a girly burp, but one that should come from a teenage boy.

“Just give it
a second.”

I nod,
thinking after a couple of minutes I’ll go and empty that container full of
pellets.

* * * * *

April 23
^rd
, 2012: Day 32

The next
morning I’m sitting in a circle with the others, with a pocket full of pellets.
The lizards, as everyone else has begun to call them, don’t seem to mind that
we’re congregating with each other, plotting our escape. I’m pretty sure they
see us as insignificant little beings. Two of them have gone off, walking right
through the electrical barrier like it was nothing, leaving us with only one
guard.

“Can’t we just
take out those boxes?” Mark, Lizzie’s husband, asks. “I think if we can take
them out, even one, we’d be able to weaken the barrier and escape.”

“And how do
you suppose we do that?” Jim responds.

“A rock?” the
woman with the children suggests. She looks around wildly, searching the ground.
The two little girls cling to her sides. “Couldn’t we find a big rock and crush
it? Maybe we can damage it enough that it will break.”

“Sure. Find us
a rock, Joy,” Jim says.

Joy leans back
some in response to his tone.

I just met Jim
but can already see he has more attitude than Jasmine. I don’t know what I
expected, but I know sarcasm laced with annoyance when I hear it. The whole
idea of this is to brainstorm. “I see why no one has tried to escape,” I say. “He
shoots down every idea.”

“She’s right.
You don’t have to be a dick about it,” Mark says. “It’s an idea. We’re all
entitled to one.”

“I told her
that idea wouldn’t work yesterday. It didn’t work then and it ain’t going to
work today.”

Mark crosses
his arms over his chest and tilts his head, assessing Jim. “Why not?”

Jim threw up
his hands. “There are no freaking rocks anywhere around here.”

Everyone looks
around, scanning the ground, even me. I see grass and dirt, but not a rock in sight.

Mark loosens
his arms. “Oh.”

“Well that’s
out,” Lizzie says.

“How much time
do we have until they move us?” I ask.

Joy inhales
sharply and the kids cry and whimper softly.

Mark shrugs.
“We don’t know. That’s why we have to think of something quick. I feel like we’re
on borrowed time.”

It would be
easy to become dejected and to even lose hope. No one here can think of an
escape plan and we don’t know how much time we have before they move us. And it’s
apparent that they plan to move us. There’s no reason to keep us where we are.
We’re in some type of holding pen, that’s all this is I think, as I let my gaze
wander around.

“We’re going
to stay here until they can get more humans,” I whisper.

“What did you
say?” Jasmine asks.

She’s sitting
next to me. I turn to her and repeat the words I thought I had only said in my
head.

“They’re going
to keep us here until they have more humans. When they have more of us then
they’ll move us.” Everyone is staring at me. I don’t know why they haven’t
thought of this before. “There are only eight of us. Why move eight people when
there’s trillions on Earth? Maybe they have some kind of quota or something?”

“Shit,” Mark
curses. “I think you may be right. When we came, it was just Joy and the kids,
then everyone else came trickling in.”

“When they have
their quota they’ll make the call and we’ll be picked up,” Jim says, his face
set in disbelief. “And we don’t even know what the magic number is.”

Magic
number
.

There will be
nothing magical when they reach their quota.

Joseph stares
past me and mutters a curse.

“No, no, no,” Joy
cries. “Not another one. We need more time.”

I turn and, as
if in slow motion, I see what they are all staring at.

“Not you!” I
scream. “How did they get you?”

I leap to my
feet as a lizard leads MJ into the containment field.

As soon as the
lizard leads MJ in, it walks in the other direction, toward the other lizard. I
run to MJ, crying as I do. I wanted to see my friends again, but not here, not
like this. Never like this.

I don’t even
try to slow down as I reach him. I slam into his body, almost knocking him
down. He grabs and holds me just as tightly as I’m holding him.

“How did they
get you,” I whisper. My face is pressed into his neck. The tears are running
from my eyes onto his skin.

Although he’s
hugging me, he’s distant, cold and hard. “I let them,” he says in a hoarse
voice.

“What? Why
would you do something like that?”

He pulls away
from me and, reluctantly, I let him. “I had to, Sin.”

I stare at
him, noticing for the first time the redness in his eyes.

“They killed
Shayla.”

“Oh, God.” I
didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to imagine she had gotten up and she
was fine. I didn’t allow myself to remember how oddly her body lay against the
wall, or how the blood dripped from her mouth down to her chin. I didn’t want
to remember how still she had been.

My legs buckle
underneath me, bringing me closer to the ground. I reach out, trying to catch
myself. From behind me, arms hook under my armpits, stopping my fall.

“Whoa,”
Jasmine says. “You know this guy?

“MJ, my
friend.”

I’m still in a
daze. My mind reels with the images of Shayla. She’s dead. I should have…I
should have what? What could I have done to save her?

“I’m Jasmine,”
I hear her say. “So are you some kind of stupid or something? Or is there a
reason you let them catch you?”

“Jasmine! Shut
up! Not everyone wants to hear you talk.”

I shake her
hands off of me. Standing, I hold onto the flaps of his jacket for support. “I’m
so sorry. I know how close you were to her.”

“I should’ve
have been there. I should have protected her,” his voice cracks. “I was
supposed to take care of her.”

“You did. She
knew you were her protector.”

The tears I
think he was trying to hold back begin to slowly trickle down his cheeks. I
pull him to me and hug him.

“I should have
done more for her. I should have told her…I should have told her how I felt
about her.”

I rock him in
my arms. I feel his hands fist in the back of my shirt. He lets out a howl of
pain.

“I loved her.
I wanted to tell her so many times, but I was too stupid to do anything about
it. That’s why I went back for her. I felt it then, that I loved her more than
a friend. I thought I would find the right time to tell her. I thought…I had
more time.”

My heart is
aching so hard for him. I think I’m crying just as hard as he is. I know how
much Shayla cared for MJ and how much she wanted to be with him, and I want to
scream because of the injustice of it.

“She loved
you,” I whisper to him. “She loved you so much.”

With a
guttural cry, he tries to pull away from me, but I can’t let him go. He needs
me more than ever now. “I’m going to kill every last one of you motherfuckers!”
he screams.

I hold him
until he no longer cries out, until he can finally catch his breath, and until
his body stops shaking uncontrollably.

“Why are you
here? You could have gotten away and saved yourself. Getting caught won’t do
anything to bring her back.”

When he pulls
away from me this time, I let him. He uses his sleeve to wipe his face clean. “Payback
is a mother.” He glances from side to side and assured that none of the aliens
are watching us. He opens his jacket and, taped to the inside, are grenades.

“Holy shit,”
Jasmine exclaims. “Any friend of Sinta’s is a friend of mine.”

I shake my
head. I want the lizards dead just as everyone else. But I can’t believe Ken
let him come here. “They sent you on a suicide mission?” I ask surprised. There
are only two aliens here right now. What purpose would it serve? “They’re not
worth losing your life for.”

“We have a
plan,” he says.

Jim and Mark
are now in our circle. Jim puts a hand on MJ’s shoulder. “Good. We’re in need
of a plan, my friend.”

“Tonight,” MJ
says. “It gets cooler at night.”

Mark nods.
“They get a little slower at night. I’ve noticed it. They just lie down and don’t
really move. They watch us but they seem to be going through the motions,
putting up a front that they can still kill us. I imagine they still could, but
I think it’ll take them a couple of minutes to get their blood pumping to do it.”

“That’s what
Ken was thinking,” MJ adds.

MJ ushers us
to come closer to him. When we do he hands out some of his grenades. One to everyone
except for me. “When we hear the cue, you all will have to set them next to the
boxes that create the force field and detonate them.”

“What about
me?” I ask. “I want to get them back for what they did to Shayla.”

He presses a
cold grenade into my hand and holds out his own. “We’ll both be able to get
payback. We get to toss these at those motherfuckers.”

I wrap both
hands around it and bring it to my lips to kiss it. “This is for Shayla.”

I can’t contain
the hate I feel. I want blood. I want to see it spilling into the soil. Even
after the third alien returns an hour later, I still haven’t calmed down.
Adrenalin is coursing through my veins. The grenade in my pocket seems to get
heavier and heavier. The urge to pull it out and throw it at them is so great I
have to link my fingers together just to stop myself.

Everyone goes
about their business as if we don’t have the means to kill the lizards. We
watch the sun begin to set and I feel the crackle of what’s to come in the air.
Joy is singing softly to her kids. Jim is lying on his back, staring up at the
sky. Mark and Lizzie are hugging, sitting away from everyone else and being
typical newlyweds. Jasmine is with MJ and me.

He’s not
really talking to either of us. After explaining the plan and what we’re
supposed to do after the grenades go off he hasn’t really said much at all. I
understand and respect what he is going through. I didn’t know Shayla as well
as he did. But in the short time we had gotten to know each other, I called her
my friend.

By the time
the moon is rising, the lizards lie down. They lie on their stomachs with their
arms pressed to their sides, palms up, the claws facing the sky. They’re watching
us with their eyes pinned in our direction. The air in the containment begins
to thicken. We all pretend not to notice them, but I know each one of us is
focused solely on them.

I know that it
might be hours still, but I keep my ears tuned for the sign that will begin my
killing spree.

A bird call.

Wade will call
out and then, after a few explosions, we’ll all be free. That’s the perfect
plan. What could go wrong?

Everything.

The time ticks
by painfully slow. Every few minutes I find myself looking down at my watch. No
matter how long I try to wait between checking, it’s still not long enough. One
minute has passed, five minutes, seven minutes, two minutes, eight minutes…
This goes on for hours.

Then we hear
it.

I start to get
to my feet, but MJ stops me. “Wait. That’s the first call.”

Right. The first
call means that Jasmine, Joseph, Lizzie and Mark should move closer to the
containment field, particularly the boxes that act as some kind of transmitters.
And they do, inching closer to the boxes. I look at the lizards. Their eyes are
half-open and watching them. I pull my grenade out of my pocket. My finger
slips through the circle of the pin. My hands are shaking. I say a silent
prayer. I don’t want to accidently shake the pin loose. If I do, then
boom
!
We’ll all go.

Jasmine, Joseph,
Lizzie and Mark are as close to the boxes as we arranged they should go. We
already discussed that they wouldn’t get really close to the boxes. We don’t
want to lizards to feel threatened and get up.

Then we hear
another bird call.

It’s time
.

MJ and I jump
up, and in one swift movement we pull out the pins and roll the grenades across
the grass to where the lizards are. In slow motion I watch the grenades travel
across the grass. When they stop just inches from them so does my heart.

Die
bitches.

Boom!

Boom!

The force of
the blast slams into me. The noise deafens my ears. Lizard parts erupt through
the air.

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

Boom!

MJ pulls on my
arm. He’s mouthing at me. I can’t hear him. I beat my ears with the palm of my
hand, trying to make my hearing return and the ringing go away.

He shakes his
head and pulls me. I stumble behind him. Everyone is running in separate
directions. We aren’t leaving together. We all have different destinations. Mark
and Lizzie are going with Joy and her girls, Joseph runs off by himself and
Jasmine and Jim come with us.

We run right
through what used to be the barrier. For a fleeting second I’m worried that we’ll
be zapped and fricasseed to death. But we make it. We don’t stop running until
we make it into the woods where I run straight into Jason’s waiting arms.