“So why did he save her life? And how did he do it?” Elijah continued to push her and I could see her patience wearing thin.
“Let the woman breathe for a minute.” I told him before turning to look at Brynna. “You look like you need to sleep.”
“I do. But I cannot. I have to keep an eye on her. She has not woken up yet and that is worrisome. He said great darkness is coming. I sense it all around us. Can any of you feel it?”
We all looked at each other, shaking our heads.
“Well,” She muttered as she her fingers through her hair, “then it’s a cross I must bear by myself, I suppose. I need to talk to my father.”
“What?” Elijah jumped up and looked down at her where she was kneeling. “Brynna, the last time we were there, he…”
“I know what he wanted to do. But we are wandering aimlessly through the woods. If something is coming, then he will be the one that starts it. I need to know what exactly is going on.”
“The group is splitting up.” Nick answered, “Do you remember those other people that walked out with you from the ship?”
“Yes. The other sacrificial lambs.” Brynna replied bitterly.
“Well, there are these two people. They’re married. Their names are Mary and Richard Bachum. Did you ever meet them?” Nick asked her.
I remembered those two. They made an obvious show of their religious devotion by dropping to their knees and praying after both minor and major setbacks. After the first attack, they were downright insufferable. I had always found broad showings of faith to be slightly uncomfortable. That day, they were gesticulating, throwing their hands up to the sky and screaming loudly to the heavens, begging for help. I had wanted to storm over and order them to stop, as they were driving everyone around them even more deeply into paranoia. Instead, Alice and I went for a walk.
“What about them?” I asked, “Their camp was two over from mine and hers.” I beckoned to Alice with a quick jerk of my head.
“Well, they’ve gathered up a huge group of people. They’re heading north. Another guy said that he was getting people together.” Nick continued, “They were heading south.”
“And my father? Which group did he choose?” Elijah asked.
“He was staying behind. He had a group of his own.”
“How very interesting. I was not aware he had a spine.” Brynna said with an apathetic shrug.
“Just because he’s staying behind doesn’t mean that he has a spine. In fact, the only thing that it proves is that he doesn't have a brain.” Elijah spat back. His anger was not at her but at his father’s continued hold of power over weak-minded people. I could definitely agree that Elijah’s ill feelings towards the man were justified but I didn’t want to know the details. It all seemed too complicated and upsetting. I couldn’t afford to carry anyone's emotional burdens because I had my own weighing me down.
“Yes, and he's not staying at the campsite. They’re moving on, too. I don’t know which direction they’re going. But I do know that these groups are staying away from each other.” Nick added.
“Why?” Alice asked.
“They disagree about where they will find safety. Perhaps there are also slight ideological differences. Am I correct?” Brynna asked.
“I’m not sure, honestly.” Nick replied, “But you’re probably right.”
“Good enough.” Brynna nodded, “Well, we can at least forage through the campsite for food and supplies. Then, we will form a group of our own, I suppose.”
“Maybe it would be better if we joined up with one.” I suggested before adding hastily, “But I definitely don’t want to go with the Bachums. No way.”
“They are out of the question, I agree.” Brynna chimed in.
“Your father’s group is also out of the question.” James added.
“Why are we joining up with a group?” Elijah asked suddenly, “I think we’ll do much better on our own.”
“Yes, because we’re doing so well already.” Alice replied with a roll of her eyes. “Violet just almost died. There are things in these woods that are deadly. Not to mention, we are so close to the natives. I mean, hello?!” Alice pointed to the city in the distance. “That’s their main city, as far as we know. They’re not just going to let us chill here. Safety in numbers, guys. I agree with both of you that we shouldn’t join up with your dad’s group or the Bachums. Even though the Bachums haven’t given us a reason to not trust them...”
“Their blind, naive, gaudy shows of faith are more reason than we need.” Brynna replied firmly. There was no shaking her conviction on anything but in her objection to the Bachums, she was overly adamant.
“Thank you!” I exclaimed, holding my hands up to the sky. I put them back down immediately after realizing that I was mimicking the same gesture that I had criticized in those weird people.
“Fine. Whatever.” Alice huffed away with her arms crossed over her chest.
“So, we need to follow the other guy. Do you know his name?” James asked Nick.
“I’m trying to remember. He was very soft-spoken. He was far back in my section of the campsite. We were number five. Oh, I remember now!” Nick snapped his fingers as it came back to him. “Don. Don Abba.”
“Oh, Don!” Elijah exclaimed as he, too, remembered. “Yeah. Weird guy. He’s not weird in a threatening way. He’s just really smart. Really short, though. He said since he came here, a bunch of guys have gained like, fifty pounds in muscle mass and he feels like he's only gotten shorter and thinner.”
A look passed between James and Brynna. They were trying to hide small smiles. I knew that James had undergone a transformation similar to the first that Elijah had described. They weren’t huge like bodybuilders or anything. But they were certainly toned up. I wished the same thing would happen to me. In James’s presence, I felt weaker and in need of an immediate weight-lifting binge. Of course, given that there were no weights, I would have a hard time catching up to him. It was shameful, considering he was twice my age.
A huge gasp behind us jolted us all out of our discussion. We turned to see Violet sit up suddenly. After drawing in several sharp gasps, she started to swing her arms around wildly; in between those huge breaths, she was screaming.
“It’s okay. It’s alright.” Brynna had run to her and dropped to her knees. She wrapped her arms around Violet’s neck and pulled her close. “They’re gone. You’re alright.”
Violet’s hands flew up to touch her face; she was checking the damage done by those creatures’ claws. But her scratches were long faded, healed by whatever magic the leader of the natives had summoned.
“What were those things?” She asked quietly as tears streamed down her face.
“I do not know. What were you thinking, eating what was there?” Brynna demanded softly as she grasped both of Violet's hands in her own.
“I was just so hungry! Nick…” Violet looked behind her at Nick, who had walked forward. “I should have listened to you!”
“It was a mistake.” Nick told her gently with a shrug. “Anyone would have…”
“Do not make excuses for her! It was foolhardy at best. At worst, it was a show of plain, blind stupidity.” Brynna barked at him as she stood up. Her warmth had iced over in a matter of seconds. She was no longer hugging Violet or comforting her. Now, she was chastising her for what was an honest mistake, as Nick suggested.
“Let’s go for a walk.” James told Brynna somewhat firmly.
“No! Of all the stupid courses of action one could take upon seeing unguarded food in the present climate, you took perhaps the most pitiless.”
“I’m sorry, Brynn!” Violet exclaimed through her tears. The genuine remorse in her voice was enough of an acknowledgment to Brynna’s accusations of stupidity. Violet knew that she had been wrong.
“Well, I am sure that you will think twice before consuming conveniently placed food, however hungry you may be.”
“I will. Of course I will.” Violet replied, �
��Please just go easy on me. I paid for it, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I know that you’re angry because I scared you…”
“You angered me by completely disregarding common sense! I would have thought you far more intelligent than this! Consider me more disappointed than angry.”
“Let’s go.” James ordered but Brynna was already storming off ahead of us, headed back towards the campsite, I assumed.
“She’ll come around.” Alice assured Violet softly as Elijah pulled her to her feet.
“You know how she is. You’re right; you scared her and she’s angry that she had to feel vulnerable.” Elijah added comfortingly. “It’s not fair of her to act this way after what you’ve been through. But honestly, Violet, what were you thinking?”
“I was hungry.” Violet insisted. She was desperate for someone to understand. “And then there was all this food…”
“It was like it had been set out for us.” Nick added helpfully, “And it smelled so good. Imagine that temptation.”
“Temptation. That sounds about right.” I chimed in with a nod of agreement. “It’s weird, isn’t it? You’re just walking along and you stumble across that. We’re all inches from starving to death. Then you find food.” I looked at Violet who was wiping at her eyes quickly and sniffling with each new, soft sob that took her. “I would have done the same thing. It doesn’t matter how stupid it was. We’re only human, right?”
“Well, we’re not,” Alice snapped at me, “But that doesn’t mean that we don’t make human mistakes still. Those things…” Her voice dropped to a whisper and all anger towards me faded as she looked at Violet. “They always tempt us first. They offer us what we want most in the world. I fell for it, too, Violet.”
“Really?” Violet was obviously reassured by the fact that she wasn’t the only one.
Alice nodded.
“It didn’t manage to attack me,” She continued, “But it would have killed me if I had given it a chance. I won’t even tell you exactly what happened after I killed it. I couldn’t tell you even if I wanted to.”
“Well, you have to tell me now. You can’t just lead into that and then drop it.” Violet told her in a steady voice. She was calmed down now.
“Sure, I can. Maybe another time.”
Alice turned and scowled at me one last time before walking off. I wanted to blurt out the gory details of exactly what had transpired after she shot the creature. But something stopped me from disclosing the secret she and I had kept so tightly guarded. I wasn’t afraid of what they would think. We hadn't known that those creatures had possessed her parents. We had only known that they were monsters hell-bent on killing us, though we still didn't know why.
The attack on Violet posed the same question. Were they simply hungry beasts in need of a meal? They were too patient. The drive to eat would have been too strong to hold off long enough to stalk us for as long as Alice’s mom had. The way they consumed the souls of the living in order to mutate their bodies into that hideous form betrayed other motivations.
I had heard about Reapers. They also possessed the living in order to fool those they were hunting. As I had heard it, Brynna had been targeted by them. They were fallible, though; in her case, they possessed two younger guys in order to gain her trust. They didn’t know that she would never trust a man, young or old.
“We have a long walk ahead of us.” I told the group as we wandered through the woods. “We need to start thinking of ways to tell if we’re still us.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Elijah asked over his shoulder.
“The Reapers and…” I raised my voice to call ahead of me. “What did you call them, James?”
“What?”
“The other ones. There’s Reapers and…”
“Shadows.” James answered vaguely, “That’s what the leader called them, anyway.”
“Well, the Reapers and the Shadows can appear to us as people we know. They do that so we’ll trust them. If one of us gets possessed by one of them, we won’t know until it’s too late.”
“Introducing such distrust and alarm into the present situation is unwise and quite cruel.” Brynna replied as she strolled along, looking up at the blue sky that was only slightly visible through the thick canopy of the various trees.
“Whatever.” I shook off her random assertion. “You know I’m right, Brynna.”
“Perhaps,” Brynna nodded, “But discussing this now, as we traverse the woods where those creatures dwell is a tad anxiety-provoking, is it not?”
“When else are we going to discuss it?” I questioned her before deciding that the whole argument was useless. I continued, undeterred. “We have to think of questions or something.”
“One question.” Elijah responded.
“What is it?” I asked irritably.
“No. We need to think of one question. It will be less confusing that way.”
“But we didn’t know each other before we came here.” Alice chimed in. “Quinn and I could answer personal questions about our lives before all this but you all couldn’t. We couldn’t answer anything personal about your lives, either. How are we going to settle on one question?”
“Who was the President of the United States when the event occurred?” James asked and I knew he was being sarcastic.
“Ooh!” Penny exclaimed as she jumped up and down with her hand raised.
“Penny!” James pointed at her as though he was calling on her in class.
“This isn’t helping!” I interrupted and Penny frowned at me. Well, if that didn’t make me feel like a jerk, then nothing would. “Sorry, Penn. Wait just a minute.”
“You are not going to suggest that we share personal details of our pre-Pangea lives, are you?” Brynna snidely asked, “This should not come as a surprise, but I will not be participating in a ridiculous emotional show-and-tell. Thank you so much.”
“You have to! You’re in the group, so you have to,” I snapped at her, “Why are you always so difficult?”
There was a part of me that was amused by her presence. There was even a small part of me that liked her, for reasons that were not clear. But her constant disagreement on any suggestion posed by anyone other than James and Elijah was beginning to aggravate me. Her disdain and her condescension were becoming too much to bear under the already stressful circumstances.
“I am difficult because people are disturbingly empty-headed.”
“That doesn't matter!” I told her angrily. “You're still a part of this group.”
“Well, then, I suppose I'm exiled.” Brynna replied apathetically.
“Brynn, be nice.” Penny ordered her gently. She walked up and grasped her hand. Brynna looked down at her little sister, smiled slightly, and offered no more argument on the subject.
“What is my favorite color?” Elijah asked.
“Clear,” Violet answered, “Because you’re boring.”
We all laughed at that. To diffuse the tension further, we all began to suggest ridiculous questions.
“How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?” Alice suggested.
“How many minutes does it take to save fifteen percent or more on your car insurance?” Violet added.
“What was my mother’s sister’s aunt’s cousin’s uncle’s father’s, twice removed, name?” Nick replied.
“If an oddly out of place tree falls in a Pangean forest, does it make a sound?” I even added to the discussion even though it was poking fun at the exercise I had suggested in the first place. Ahead of us, Brynna and Penny were singing some old Johnny Cash song softly.
“Besides Johnny Cash, who are two other bands or singers that Brynna deems worthy of existence?” James suggested.
“Do you know that?” Elijah laughed, “I can name one, but that's it.”
“I can name several. But there are two that come to mind besides Mr. Cash.” James replied.
“Excuse me, sir, but my musical tastes were disclosed to you in confi
dence during a day of boredom.”
“Well, I do apologize, ma’am.” James made a point not to touch her after he said that because Elijah was watching them in slight suspicion. James didn’t even look at her after he spoke. But I did see a small smile spread across her face.
“In what movie does Kate Winslet get naked?” I spat out quickly to change the subject.
“Oh, Kate…” Elijah sighed and looked up at the sky, “Thank God for her, man…”
“Every movie,” Violet answered, “That was a trick question. I like it.”
We continued on until we broke free of the trees. We found ourselves at the bank of a wide, deep river. Rapids rippled ominously against the large, sharp rocks.
“Look, Brynn! Look!” Penny exclaimed as James picked her up. “Look, James! Over there!”
James and Brynna were looking where she was pointing. On the bank of the river was a toad the size of a boulder. It’s massive throat shot out with each deafening croak.
“Holy sh…” Elijah muttered before we all burst out laughing again.
“I saw a lion earlier today.” Brynna was telling Penny, “Guess how big it was.”
Penny beamed brightly as she continued to stare at the frog.
“Was it as big as Mr. Brock's pitbull?” She asked after looking back at Brynna.
“Bigger,” Brynna answered, “It was as big as Eli's car. Maybe even bigger than that, too.”
“No, it wasn't!” Elijah protested with another laugh, “You're making that up! And besides, a lion wouldn't be in a forest, Brynn. Come on, use your abnormally huge brain!”
“Excuse you, I have no reason to lie to her about something as trivial as a creature in the woods. And who says that lions can't live in the woods? The planet is called Pangea for a reason, Elijah. The land is joined together. Any animal can live anywhere it wants. Are you unaware of the original theory on Pangea? Earth was joined together once, too. Goodness, don't you read?” Brynna snapped at him.
The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) Page 42