Against The Darkness (Cimmerian Moon) by A.M. Griffin Read Free Book Online

back pocket and opens it. “Lanier Lake is just north of
here. It’s pretty large with plenty of places to hide.”
    “Can we get
there without being seen?” Ms. Burgess asks warily.
    Wade passes
the map to her. She studies the route he traces with his finger. “There are
some major roads, but it shouldn’t be a problem with just…” He cuts off his
words. There was no reason to continue. We all knew what he intended to say.
     

Chapter Four
     
    It shouldn’t
be a problem with just seven of us.
    “Even so, I
hate us being out in the open.”
    “It’s our best
hope right now. That area has plenty of trees for cover. We can build shelter
and blend in with the surroundings.”
    I nod,
affirming what Wade said. “It’ll be perfect.”
    “We thought the
last place was perfect,” Shayla mumbles.
    There were
forty people hiding in some woods by a residential area, I want to tell her.
That’s not perfect. That was a disaster waiting to happen. I clench my jaw
tight to stop myself from pointing out the obvious.
    “What about
food?” MJ asks. He puts up his empty hands. “When we left, we didn’t have time
to get to anything, food or water. We had to leave everything, even our backpacks.”
    Crap.
    Wade pulls his
pack off his back and rummages through it. “I have a flashlight, four bottles
of water, two sleeves of crackers, a lighter and Swiss army knife. Sin,” he
says, looking over to me. “What do you have?”
    I don’t have
to pull my bag off to recite its contents. “Two bottles of water, one sleeve of
crackers, four slices of bread and I have my knife tied to my sweats.”
    “Awesome. We’re
definitely prepared to head back to Michigan,” Ian says.
    “What did you
bring?” I ask him, since he’s still being a smartass.
    He glares at
me before turning the other way.
    “Let’s get
going. Our circumstance isn’t going to change by just standing here,” Wade says.
    We let him
lead the way with Mia and I following close on his heels. Shayla and Ms.
Burgess are at our backs and MJ and Ian are behind them.
    We move
silently through what used to be the residential areas. Everyone is on edge,
watching out for aliens that could come out from behind trees or what used to
be buildings or houses. We also keep peering up, watching for their ships.
    Under the
cover of night, we go through the few houses that don’t threaten to topple on
us. We search for anything that will help us survive. We don’t find any more
bottled water, but we are able to find a lot of canned goods and, luckily, an
opener. We load what we can carry in three plastic bags. We don’t take so much
that the bags will slow us down and only take what is needed.
    By the time we
get to the lake, its well into the night. We scout out the best possible spot,
somewhere with trees thick enough to hide us. Once we find our hide-out, Wade
directs us to gather all the wood we can find.
    After watching
him make a stick shelter that’s only two feet high, we set out to make our own.
We each pick spots along the lake, under a tree, and position the openings so
that we can see at least two other shelter entrances. We don’t talk about what
happened—about how we think everyone else is dead. We hardly talk at all,
besides to help each other find sticks and build the hobbit huts that we’ll live
in for the next two days.
    It’s past ten
p.m. before we’re finally done and it’s so dark we can barely make out what’s
around us. We’re tired, mentally and physically. There’s nothing left to do but
to rest and think about all we’ve lost.
    I crawl
backward into my shelter. I won’t be able to sit up. I’ll hardly be able to
turn around or shift my position. It’s long enough so that I can stretch out. I’m
so short that my shelter won’t appear out of place against the bank of the lake.
The guys had to make theirs shorter, and have to sleep curled up.
    Once I’m fully
inside, I glance over to Mia’s shelter. We made ours facing each