Against The Darkness (Cimmerian Moon) (27 page)

My mother is
shaking so bad that it feels as if she’s going to fall over. “Oh my,” she says,
her voice shaking. “You were caught by aliens and you used grenades.”

I look up at her
with a half-smile. “I also have guns and a samurai sword. I chopped one of them
to pieces.” Might as well tell it all and get it out into the open before
Jasmine does.

“Whoa!” Dave
yells out, with a laugh. “I like the sound of that.”

My mother’s
eyes roll back as though she might faint.

Wade jumps up
to stand behind her, holding her up. “Hold steady now.”

“She’s still
your baby,” Jason says. “But she just has a little more
umph
in her
now.”

I raise a brow
at him. What he calls “
umph
”, I call bad-ass.

The sound of
someone humming a soft melody is what pulls me from my dream. As the fog lifts
from my mind and I open my eyes, I find my mom sitting next to me.

She’s
really here.

I’m on the cot
that has been assigned to me in the room that I share with Mia and Jasmine. It
isn’t spacious or furnished with anything besides three cots lined up
side-by-side, with only space for one person at a time to pass between them and
three lockers against a wall. I don’t mind my accommodations—my new home.
When preparing for the apocalypse, all decorating extras are basically thrown
out the window. Which is understandable. This cot feels better than anything
else I’ve slept on in a while.

“Good morning,
sweetheart,” she says, when I finally open my heavy eyes. She’s casting her
gaze down on me and everything inside of me seems to relax, knowing that I
don’t have to run and hide anymore. I’m safe and I’m with my mom.

“Is it time to
get up yet?” I lift my arms over my head, stretching out muscles that have been
overused. “I’m still sleepy.”

“You’ve been
here for two days now. It’s time for you to get acclimated to how things run.
Come on, up and at ’em.” Using her hand, she brushes my hair out of my face.
“What are we going to do about all this? I think I’ll put a cute braid in it
today.”

I roll my
eyes. “Mom, I’m not ten. I don’t need you to do my hair anymore.”

She tilts her
head and pouts. “I just got you back. Let me indulge in pampering you.” When I
don’t immediately answer, she adds, “Please?”

“Alright, but
only for a little while,” I say, giving in. If she can let me snuggle in her
lap like a toddler, then I guess I can let her comb my hair for a little longer.

“Come to my
room after you get dressed.”

Her room is a
lot smaller than ours and has only one cot, otherwise I’m sure she would have
made me bunk with her.

“Sure.”

She gets up
and heads for the door. “Come on Winnie-poo,” she says, calling Winston by the
nickname she had given him. He doesn’t seem to mind it, because he jumps up
from where he had been sleeping between me and the wall.

“Ow,” I say,
as he scampers across me, digging his nails into my torso.

As he jumps
from my bed onto the floor and trots over to her with his tail wagging, my mom
says, “Make sure everyone else is up too. Rocky wants you all at breakfast this
morning.”

As the door
closes behind them, I roll to sit up, placing my feet on the cold floor. “Mia,
Jasmine, time to get up.”

Mia has her
body, including her face, buried beneath the blanket while Jasmine is sprawled
wildly across her bed, her blanket half on her and half off. She’s snoring so
loudly I don’t think she could possibly have heard me, but when she bolts
straight up, she catches me off guard.

“What? What’s
going on?” she asks, her eyes wide open and darting around the room, as if she’s
trying to find something out of place.

Startled from
her sleep, Mia sits up and looks around too. “What’s wrong?” she asks in a
panicked voice.

“Nothing
goofballs. It’s time for breakfast.”

“Urgh, I’ll
skip. Wake me up at lunch.” Jasmine flops back down to her bed.

“No can do,” I
say to her. “My mom just left. She said it’s time that we get acclimated to the
way the compound operates. Plus, Rocky wants us all at breakfast.”

“Why?” Jasmine
moans, pulling the blanket over her face.

“He probably
wants us all to start our duties. Maybe he’s getting tired of seeing us bum
around all day while everyone else works their tail off to keep this place
running.”

I get up and
head to my locker. Until we can go out and get new clothes I only have the
three outfits that I got from the surplus store, so picking something out to
wear doesn’t take long at all. I have my choice between camouflage, camouflage and
camouflage.

“Hold up,” Mia
says. “I’ll go with you.”

I pick out a
clean outfit and wait for her. “You coming to the bathroom?” I ask Jasmine, who
is still in bed.

She waves me
off. “I’m coming. Go on without me. I just need five more minutes.”

Mia retrieves
one of her four outfits and meets me at the door. “Don’t be late,” she says to
Jasmine over her shoulder. “We have a good thing going here. I don’t want them
to regret ever opening their doors to us.”

“Point taken,”
Jasmine groans, as we leave the room, closing the door behind us.

The bathroom
is basically the same set up as we had in camp. There’s a large common area
with a couple of sinks and mirrors for washing your face, brushing your teeth
and grooming. Passing through that area leads to a divide, with one side taking
you to a room with ten showers sectioned off by concrete walls and curtains,
and the other side the same number of toilets, sectioned off using the same
design. The only difference between this place and camp?

This bathroom
is unisex. So men coming in and out is a little off-putting, but something I’m
sure I can get used to.

The way we get
our water supply is pretty ingenuous. It’s on a filtering system that pumps
water from one of the nearby lakes and our used water gets pumped through the
filtration back into the lake. This works out perfectly for everyday needs, but
our drinking water is boiled to remove any contaminants.

So after a
shower and dressing, my mother, who was too impatient to wait for me to go to
her room, is standing by the row of mirrors. She places a round, light-weight
stool on the floor, which I recognize from the clinic.

“Where’s
Winston?”

“Jillian lured
him away with bones.”

“What? That’s
all it takes for him to be lured away?” I ask playfully. Since we’ve been here,
Winston has been spoiled to no end. I want to pretend that he’s mine—all
mine—but everyone has taken to giving him treats and love. But sharing
him with everyone isn’t so bad; I’m just happy that they love him just as much
as I do.

“I guess,” she
chuckles. “Now, let’s see what we can do with this lovely hair today,” she says
as I sit down.

She begins
combing through the tangled strands. I don’t complain as she does, but let her
fuss over me. But if this scene isn’t embarrassing enough, Jason and MJ come
strolling through the doors.

“Good morning,
Sinta and Ms. Allen,” both MJ and Jason say. MJ seems to be holding back a
laugh and Jason has a humor-filled look of pity on his face.

My mom shoos
them with her hand. “Please, call me Diana.” She
tsks
and, with an
exasperated huff, releases the lock of hair she was holding. “Sinta Marie
Allen, I think your hair has developed a mind of its own. I can’t get it into a
braid this morning. Maybe it wants a ponytail.”

Flames. That’s
what it feels like is causing my face to burn. “Oh, God,” I whisper, hiding my
face in my hands.

“What?” she
asks, as if she hadn’t just embarrassed the crap out of me in front of Jason.

“Really Mom?”
I whisper, when both MJ and Jason have passed through our area and have gone to
one of the back rooms. “Did you
have
to say that? Ugh. Now he’ll really
think I’m a kid.”

“Who? What are
you talking about?”

“Never mind.
The damage is done.”

She puts the
brush down on the sink and steps in front of me. She crouches, coming to eye
level with me. “Talk to me girl,” she says, as she lifts my chin up so that I’m
looking at her.

A quick peek
to my right lets me know that Jason and MJ are out of earshot and, since I hear
the showers running, I decide to let her know exactly how much she ruined my
morning.

“Jason. My
hair is all crazy, I look like a geeky-nut.” My shoulders drop. Now I’ll never
move out of that little girl or sister category. “He already thinks I’m a kid
and I think that’s just been cemented into his mind.”

She pulls back.
“Really? Is that what you think? Well let me tell you what he just saw. He just
saw a mother doting on the daughter she feared was dead. So he may see a lot
more of me fussing over you, because I don’t intend to stop. You don’t know the
hell I went through when I thought I’d never see…or touch you again.” She
cradles the side of my face in her palm and I can’t help but to lean into it,
because I also missed her touch as well.

“I know. I’m
sorry. I just…I just want him to see me…differently.”

“You know what
I see?”

I scoff. “Mom,
no offense but your opinion is biased. I’m your one and only child.”

“Oh baby, that
maybe true, but I know what I’m talking about. When I see you I see someone who
has the purest and most penetrating eyes. Your eyes have seen so much, they
mirror a soul that’s grown and matured, also one that has held onto hope, love
and determination. Those lashes of yours are so thick and plentiful that super
models would be jealous of them.”

I blush with
embarrassment.

But that
doesn’t stop her. “You remind me of a fairy princess—so small but so
fierce. Your aura is so strong and powerful it makes you seem ten-feet-tall.
And this beautiful hair of yours, well, people would line up for miles to have
a snippet of this for their own.”

I run a hand
over my hair. “I was starting to believe you before you got to the hair. No one
wants this mess.”

“You believe
what you want to believe but, mark my words, one day you will learn to
appreciate your hair.”

“It doesn’t
matter,” I say, twisting a finger in a curl. “I’m just a kid with wild hair.”

She pulls my
hands from my hair to hold them. “You want to know what else I see?”

“What?”

“My little
girl left for camp and came back a woman.”

I snort. “I’m
not a woman. I won’t be eighteen until November.”

She places her
hands on my knees. “A little kid couldn’t have done what you had to do. Age
doesn’t matter, sweetie. Do you think anyone around here is referring to Masana
as a little kid? No, age wise, yes, she’s still a child. But she grew up when
she had to watch her classmates murdered, her companion get taken by the
lizards and had to cross two states to get home—on her own.”

I tilt my head,
thinking about what she just said. I do see Masana differently. Not the small
ninth grader I had previously known her as, but someone stronger now, after
everything she endured.

“I say all
this with one disclaimer though.”

“What’s that?”
I ask.

“You’ve grown
up, but you’ll always be my baby.” She stands, with a groan. “That will never
change.”

I giggle. “I
know.”

“Good.” She
picks up her brush and moves behind me again. “So now that we’ve established
that you’re a woman. I still think you should wait until you’re at least
thirty-five to have sex.”

“Mom!”

* * * * *

“Glad you all
could make it,” Rocky says with his gaze touching on everyone in the mess hall
in turn, but when he gets to Mia, Jasmine and I it lingers.

The intensity
of his stare makes us sink into our seats. He isn’t upset with us, that’s not
what I’m feeling, but he wants us to know that he has given us time to recuperate,
but the free ride is over. He was an imposing figure when we first met him and
he remains so. He has that same authority vibe I got from Captain Page and Ken.
When I asked my mom about him, she told me that he used to be a Navy Seal,
which pretty much clarifies why he seems strict and controlled and why I feel
like if I rubbed him wrong, he could snap my neck like a twig and walk over my
dead body without any remorse.

He finally
breaks his eye contact with us. “Everyone is expected to eat breakfast unless
some unforeseen source is keeping you away. It’s not only the most important
meal of the day—”

A child-like
giggle erupts in the room. I straighten in my chair so I can see who’s about to
get their neck broken.

“Hush now,”
Jillian says to a girl no more than eight or nine, who’s sitting next to her.

“I couldn’t
help it,” she says, with laughter in her voice. “I’m sorry for interrupting,
Daddy.”

Rocky shakes
his head playfully before he continues, a move that seems so out of character
for a hardened man. “As I was saying, it’s not only the most important meal of
the day, but also when we meet to discuss duties, actions needed and other community
business. Everyone is expected to attend because everyone here is a member the Arrowwood
community, meaning we are all family and we have one voice.” He pauses to take
a look around. “Any questions so far?” No one says a word. “Good, I’ll let the
meeting continue then. We eat during these meetings so try to keep the side
chatter down so that we can all hear.”

Rocky takes
his seat on the other side of the girl and Jillian rises. As she does, everyone
begins to dig into their food. I turn to my plate of powdered eggs, bread and
oatmeal. Two months ago I wouldn’t have touched this food, but now I can’t wait
to scarf it down.