Against The Darkness (Cimmerian Moon) (19 page)

I take a bold
step forward and, as it’s falling down, I bring the blade of my sword down
across its thick neck, separating its head from his body.

“Oh God!”
Shayla cries out.

“I killed it.
I can’t believe that I killed it.” My eyes are focused on the ooze instead of blood
that’s dripping from my sword and hand.

“We have to
get back to the basement.” Shayla rushes past me, but I grab her arm stopping
her from leaving the room.

“We can’t. If
there are any more aliens, we’ll lead them straight to the others.”

She pulls her
arm out of my grasp. “They have guns. They can kill them!” She runs through the
door, leaving me to stare at chopped up lizard.

But I have
a sword
.

Just as
quickly as she leaves, Shayla comes back, screaming. “There’s another one!” She
runs past me and to a small window on the back wall.

Another
lizard, just like the first comes through the door. It takes a quick look at
the carnage of its friend and in that time I raise my sword, readying for it.

I killed
one. I can kill another.

With a growl
it turns and uses its tail to knock me from my feet. As I hit the ground, so
does the sword. I hear the clang of metal sliding across the floor and out of
my reach. I can’t take my eyes off of it. It peers over me to where Shayla is.
It lifts up a foot. I see how rough its skin is, the way his black claws curl
inward.

It’s going
to step on me and dig its claws in my flesh, ripping me apart
.

I brace
myself, but it steps over me with one foot and then the other. Its thick tail
slides across my body. The heavy weight of it crushes me. I turn to follow
where it’s going.

Shayla is
trying to squeeze through a window. She’s half-way out, her butt and legs are
dangling and kicking.

“Hurry,
Shayla! It’s coming for you”

She screams
out.

I should get
up. No I
need
to get up. Grab my sword and stab it in its back.

Now
.

But I can’t.

I’m frozen,
watching in horror as it uses a hand to grab a hold of one of Shayla’s leg and
pull her back with a yank. Shayla flies through the air and slams against the
far wall with a thud. As if in slow motion her body slides against the wall and
crumples to the ground. She’s lying in an odd position. One of her legs is bent
awkward. Her head is hanging to the side. A trickle of crimson blood is forming
at the side of her mouth.

“No! No! No!”
I yell, finally coming to my senses.

I scramble
across the floor to her. “Shayla! Wake up. Get up,” I yell.

Before I can
reach her, sharpness pierces my side. Blinding pain erupts within me as I’m
lifted off the ground. I kick and scream. I feel like I’m being stabbed with
knives.

That thing has
me in its grasp. It’s holding me up, inspecting me. I claw at its hand, trying
to kick at its face.

“You will do,”
It says, in a voice that doesn’t seem real. It’s too thick, too harsh for my
ears.

“Let me go,” I
yell. I try to scream as loud as I can. “My friends will kill you! They’re
going to put fat-ass bullets through your skull!”

It tilts it
heads at what I am saying.

“Bring it with
us,” another voice, like the other, says behind me.

I crane my
neck to see another alien. The only difference with the new alien is that it
has an orange tint to its scales. The one holding me tucks me under its arm
like a football and out the door it takes me, despite my kicking and screaming.

“Quiet it,”
the new alien says.

Quiet it?

What does
it
mean? My mind races frantically. The alien holding me looks down. It blinks its
eyes. A clear film covers his iris. I stare at him, horrified. I scream louder
as its hand slams down on my face.

Darkness.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“Why did you
do it?” I ask.

I’m lying in
my bed, looking up at my mother. She’s beautiful. I always thought that she
was.

Her eyes are
wide, feathered with thick, dark lashes. She doesn’t wear make-up, she never
has and she doesn’t need to. Her nose is perfect and perky; that’s where I get
mine from. Her lips aren’t like mine, they’re full and pink.

Her skin is
darker than mine, a light caramel color. It’s vibrant, with a glow that is
always there. Her skin is smooth and even; I’ve never seen a pimple or
blackhead on her.

She’s sitting
beside me on the edge of my bed, tucking my comforter in around my body. I
haven’t seen or used this blanket in years. It has pictures of ponies on it,
whimsical and childish. I’ve outgrown it, but right now it brings me comfort
and warmth so I snuggle deeper into it.

“I can’t
really explain it,” she replies. She’s looking down at me with a half-smile on
her face, but there’s sadness in her brown eyes.

She’s wearing
her naturally wavy hair down. It falls over her shoulders in controlled waves.
I always envied her hair. So black and perfect, the kind of hair that women pay
thousands of dollars to mimic. My hair isn’t one color but many shades of
brown. My curls and waves can’t easily be controlled. I could never wear it
down in public, not without lathering it with mousse and gels so that it doesn’t
end up looking like a mop.

That’s when I
see them. The small diamond earrings that dot her ears. She doesn’t think I
know, but they were given to her by my father.

Looking at
those earrings, it hits me. “You did it because you loved him.”

She closes her
eyes and takes a deep breath. “Love.”

“You still
love him. Even after all of this?” I ask, aghast.

“I’m a fool.”

“Such a fool,”
I say, not mincing my words.

Her eyes fly
open in rage. “Sinta Marie Allen!”

I should
cower, but I don’t. She’s never hit me. I’ve never been whupped with a belt or
by her hand. And I’ve also never spoken to her the way that I have now. “He’s
married, mom. He has a family. A real family. A family that he could give his
last name to. We don’t mean anything to him.”

She shakes her
head and makes a
tsk
sound. “That’s not true.”

She runs a
hand down the side of my face and I pull away from her touch. “It isn’t?” I reach
for the phone that’s on my nightstand. “Why don’t I just call him at home? I’ll
ask him what we are to him.”

She hangs her
head in shame.

My finger
hovers over the dial pad. “Oh wait. I can’t.” I peer at her. “I don’t have his
home
phone number.” I hand the phone to her. “Do you?”

I don’t think
she’s going to take the phone from me, but she does. She takes it from my hand
and gently places back it on the base. “He loves you with all of his heart.”

I slam my head
back against my pillow and cross my arms. “Does he? Are you sure? Did he tell
you that he loved me in the same sentence he told you that he loved you?”

She shakes her
head. “You’re mad at me. You think I’m weak for loving a married man.”

“Yes and yes.”

“I’m so sorry,
baby. I’m so sorry that you don’t have a father that can spend all of his time
with you.”

“I don’t want
him to spend all of his time with me.” I swallow a cry. “I just want to be able
to count on him. To know that I have a dad who would move heaven and Earth to
be by my side.”

“If he could,
he would stay with you forever.”

“Then why
doesn’t he?”

“He’s far
away. I know he wants to rescue you from this.”

“Tell him to
do it then.”

“If I could, I
would.”

“I need him. I
need him right now.”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I need him so
much that my head hurts. It’s pounding so hard I feel as if my skull is going
to explode and my brains will splatter everywhere.

“Crap,” I
mumble. “This hurts.”

“You’re awake.
Finally. I was getting bored just sitting here and staring at you.” I hear
someone say. A female.

I struggle to
open my eyes, but even that is painful. As they do open, I focus on the face
hovering above me. She doesn’t look much older than me, maybe nineteen or
twenty years old, Caucasian, with blue eyes. Her blonde hair is in her face as
if, wanting to get a better view of me, she curled it behind both of her ears to
peer down at me.

“How do you
feel?” she asks.

“Like I’ve
been beat up.”

She sits back
on her heels. “Well, if they would have beaten you up, you’d be dead by now.”

I lift up on
my elbows. My side hurts so bad that I want to hit something. I close my eyes,
willing the swimming sensation to go away, and take a few steadying breaths.

“My side,” I
groan, remembering how it sank its claws in my skin.

“I cleaned it
as best as I could. But I didn’t have anything clean to cover it with. I
figured fresh air would be better than a dirty shirt.

I reach for my
side. As soon as my hand touches the open wounds, pain rips through me. I pull
my hand back in a flash. “Hell.” I glance down at the three holes. “That’s
going to leave an ugly scar.”

“Yeah, well
you’ll be lucky if that’s all you walk away with. A lot of other people fared
worse.”

The vision of
Shayla’s lifeless body pops into my head. I bite my lip. I shouldn’t be
complaining about the sores in my side, not when I don’t know what happened to
her.

“Where am I?”
I ask glancing around. I’m in an open field. There are about seven others with
us. And them…

The aliens
.

Three of them
standing together talking.

I scramble
away. “No, no, no,” I cry out.

She grabs my
foot, not letting me move farther away. “It’s okay.”

It is not
okay.

I kick at her
hand. The pain in my side worsens, but I ignore it. The need to get away
overrides everything.

She pulls her
hand back and yelps. “Crap. Why did you do that?” She flicks her hand in the
air.

“We have to
get out of here.” I scan the area.
I need a way out.

“We can’t
escape.” She points to something sticking out of the ground. “Some kind of
containment field.” I focus on what she’s pointing at. “There are four of those
things. We can’t get pass them, but they can.” She points to the lizards.

“But…” I stare
at the aliens in horror.

She shrugs.
“They don’t seem to bother us. They give us food and water, but don’t pay us
any mind.”

“What do they
want with us?”

“Hell if I
know, but I think we’re waiting here for something.”

“What have
they told you? What did they say?”

She rolls her
eyes. “Oh yes, on one of our many in-depth conversations, they told me their
entire diabolical plan to take over Earth and destroy mankind.”

I squint at
her. “Don’t be a smart-ass. I am not in the mood for it.”

She takes a
deep breath and then holds out her hand. “Let’s start over. I’m Jasmine
Parker.”

I take her
hand in mine, shaking it in greeting. “Sinta Allen.”

She lets go of
my hand. “Where did they find you?”

“We were in a
church. We just wanted somewhere dry to spend the night. A lot of good that did
us.”

“You said ‘we’.
Where is everyone else?”

“Hopefully far
away from here.” I can’t expect for them to hang around after everything that
happened. They’ll move Shayla somewhere safe, get her some kind of medical
attention and keep moving to Michigan.

They’ll
leave me.

But. I’ll
escape and catch up with them.

I resign
myself to this thought.

Run away
and catch up with them.

She nods
toward me. “So the people you were with, you think they escaped the aliens?”

“They did. I
know it. They’re all fine, well, except for Shayla…she got hurt.”
She’s
dead.
I shake the thought from my head. “They took care of her and got her
to safety.”

Jasmine nods
slowly. The look on her face says she’s not so convinced. She fishes something
out of her pocket and then grabs my hand, palm-up, and drops three brown
pellets into it. “If you believe that, then you’ll believe we aren’t actually
their prisoners. They’re holding us here so that they can give us candy canes
and rainbows.”

She says it
with such a straight face I can’t believe the callousness of her words.

“I don’t know
what your problem is, but you have some deep personal issues. Shayla is my
friend and she’ll be fine. Keep your two cents to yourself.”

She pops one
of the pellets into her mouth and, tilting a black bag up to her mouth, she
gulps loudly, swallowing whatever is in it. “Whatever. Pretty soon the ship
will come and take us away and it won’t really matter what I think.” She pops
another pellet into her mouth and takes another swallow. “I was just trying to make
a friend my age. If I’m going to be stuck in a space ship, I wanted to at least
have someone to talk to.”

Deciding to
put aside my attitude for a few minutes, so I can get information, I ask, “I heard
that’s what they’re doing, taking people away in ships. Have you seen it happen?”

“Jim.” She
points to man lying on his back about twenty feet from us. “He said he
overheard the lizards talking about it yesterday.”

“He was
right,” I say, almost breathlessly. I know that if I could see my expression it
would be horrified. My eyes are wide and my mouth hanging open. I don’t want to
go with them; going with them can’t be good.

“Who is
right?”

“Captain Page
of the Marines. He said that’s what they were doing. I didn’t want to believe
him though.”

She shrugs
like she doesn’t have a care in the world. “Guess he was right then.”

“What about an
escape?” I glance around at the other people in our containment, a couple in
their mid-thirties, an older man, and a mother with two small children. They
don’t seem to be plotting or planning anything. “Has anyone talked about it?”

“Last night a
woman tried to escape and they killed her. It was an accident though. I think,
well, that’s what it looked like.”

Caught off
guard, I inhale sharply. “What the hell happened?”

“She tried to
run through the force field or whatever it’s called and got shocked. When they
came for her she tried to crawl through. We could smell her burning, cooking
her insides.” Her nose twitches, as if remembering the smell. I find that I’m
covering my nose with my hand, not wanting to even imagine what it must have
smelled like. “But that didn’t stop her,” Jasmine continues. “She just kept
trying. She screamed and fried. We yelled at her to stop, to come back. When
they finally reached her, they pulled her away by her leg and well…”

“What? They
broke it?” If I were on a chair, I would have been on the edge of it.

“No, they
pulled it off,” she whispers.

“Oh, my God.”

“It was gross.
They were holding this dangling leg and looking at it like they couldn’t believe
they had ripped it off. And it only got worse from there.”

I keep
listening, knowing I should stop her but I want to hear the ending.

“One of them
held her down while the other tried to re-attach her leg.”

I shudder,
trying to imagine what that would have looked like. It would have been bad
enough to have to watch a woman with her leg pulled off screaming and crying.
There would be blood everywhere. But the idea of them holding her down and
trying to get her leg to stay on her body would be another nightmare all
together.

“When one of
the lizards was holding her down,” Jasmine continued. “It crushed her rib cage
and broke her arms. But I think that was by accident.”

“How do you
know that?” I ask, maddened. “How do you know that they didn’t dismember her on
purpose or that they enjoyed breaking her bones?”

“It was…it was
the way they looked. Like they didn’t understand why her leg wouldn’t re-attach
or why her arms were broken. Lizzie.” She points to the woman who was with the
man. “She kept yelling at them, telling them they were killing her.”

“What did they
do?”

“They
stopped.” Jasmine peers off, as if she were reliving the memory. “They just
stopped and got up and left her alone.” Jasmine turns back to me before she
lowers her head to stare at her hands. “We…we went to her. There wasn’t much
that we could do at that point. But we sat around her and tried to comfort her
before…before she died.”