The Monster by J. A. Giunta & D. Palmer

Author:J. A. Giunta & D. Palmer [Giunta, J. A. & Palmer, D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-02-18T22:00:00+00:00

BERYL | 16

I CAN’T SLEEP. Harlan would tell me to try, that I will need my strength for what will come in the next day or two. But I don’t believe he would sleep, so neither will I.

But I’m exhausted. My head spins from the wound or from the vodka. I feel nauseous. And not just from the unwanted touch of Cyrene. Too many fearful images crowd close, my mind flowing from one thought to the next with no guidance, myself a passenger and no one manning the helm.

I run a hand along the stubble on the side of my head, gingerly probing the cut that winds its way back behind my ear. It’s a dull throb now, the pain helping me focus myself as I wait for Harlan and Theo to return. And as I plan for what to do when they arrive.

I’m content being used as bait. To play the part of the damaged girl, too traumatized to cause any problems. It pleases me knowing that this isn’t true, anymore. For the most part. And I’ll have to hope the others can see what I’m doing.

People will die.

So be it.

Maybe this should bother me. Maybe I should be bothered more about what happened in the last forty eight hours. A lot of death. A. Lot. Of. Death. People met and befriended. People met and murdered. People who I didn’t get a chance to know before their time on this earth was over.

But I don’t care. I’m more bothered by the people outside. I listen to the girls chatter, about things they miss and things they used to do. Phones and computers. Fast food, of all things. I pity them, even as I’m filled with disgust. They are stuck in an old way of thinking. They haven’t awoken to the true nature of things, haven’t seen the world for the beauty as well as the horror.

The world that was. They talk of nothing else, it seems. How everything was documented. Or photographed. Or put on social media. They wonder if that’s all gone now, or if it could be recovered. Resurrected. As if that’s important.

I pity them, even as I recognize the pangs of jealousy.

I spent my whole life waiting for someone to take a picture of me. Tag me in a group photo. Just hanging out. Me and my family.

“You need, like a toothbrush, or some face cream, or anything?”

One sticks her head into the tent and asks me in a voice far too loud.

“No.”

“Gotcha.” And she winks and cocks her finger at me, an imaginary gun firing as she smiles.

You have no idea.

She returns to her friend and I hear whispers, then titters, as if there was something funny to be found in our brief encounter. As if we are still girls in high school clawing and pecking at each other in some hormonal-driven attempt to establish a hierarchy. I remember those days all too well. Odd to find them here.

There’s this universal feeling that we’re better. That we’re stronger.

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