AncilChapter 27: Safe In My Arms
I suddenly woke up, beads of cold sweat coated my face and my heart raced at a million miles per second. The dream I had that night had scared the living daylights out of me and the first thing I looked at when I came to my senses was the door just to make sure that it was closed. It was. I then looked around for Sara, Justin and Saraya who were safe on the floor sleeping. I was so relieved that everyone was okay. The staff room windows were all barricaded with planks from before so I couldn’t really see outside but I could tell that it was daytime from the light that shone under the door.
It was only after I got up that I realized the air conditioner was on. Sara must have put it on sometime during the night. I really wasn’t sure how the air conditioner didn’t suck up all the energy stored in the panels overnight, however I didn’t bother to try to figure that out. I was starving and I was sure that Sara and her siblings would be too. The bag of food was practically empty and I didn’t want to take the little bit left because I didn’t need it as much as Sara and her siblings did.
I grabbed my cutlass and slowly opened the staffroom door welcoming a stream of sunlight that dazzled me just a bit until my eyes adjusted. It was really refreshing to see the sun. There were no jumbies or faceless children outside so I assumed that it was safe. The dead body of the faceless girl I had killed the other night was still there and I was really surprised that it still was, especially since Clive’s body was all but gone.
Even though I knew the faceless girl was dead, I still had a strange feeling that she would suddenly jump up and eat my face off when I wasn’t looking. So in order to bring myself some relief I swung at her head again, severing it from her body, ensuring that she was dead. After I assured myself that she was dead I stared out across the field at the trees that adorned it at the very end. I didn’t want to wake Sara and her siblings so I decided to admire the scenery until they got up. Well — try to admire the scenery for a while. During my attempt I didn’t notice that Sara came up right beside me.
“Looks fun,” she said, startling me a bit.
“What looks fun?”
“The wide open field. It’s not too late to go frolicking,” she laughed. “I’m sure the kid in you is calling out right now.”
“Yeah, he is. But even a kid needs company,” I said, keeping my eyes on the field.
She stole a glance at me, then quickly looked away, her cheeks reddening. Was she blushing? I didn’t know it was possible. I wasn’t used to seeing her even a little vulnerable.
I smiled a little inwardly at just the thought of Sara smiling. But the thought quickly turned grim as I remembered my dream. My face became stern and I drew her attention to the corbeaux in the sky then said, “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”
“I’ll go get Justin and Saraya,” Sara said militantly before heading back to the staff room.
She retrieved the children and we all headed back to the house where we had a short ceremony in honor of Clive. We didn’t have a body to bury but Sara and I dug a hole in the backyard and buried some of the clothes he had worn, the car racing game he had loved so much and a little bit of his favorite foods. It was apparently a custom in Mas Camp to bury a person’s belongings and favorite things when they died since most people who died in Mas Camp had their bodies used as shells for other beings. Saraya and Justin both broke out weeping for their brother while Sara comforted them. Sara was also teary eyed and I could see the distress in her face although she didn’t break down like her siblings. I, on the other hand, just stood there looking down at the burial site with my face stern thinking about not only the way he died but also the way he loved playing games and how he struggled with saying the word “Nocturnal” pronouncing it as “Nockinal” instead. I didn’t know Clive very well and I didn’t have many memories of him but a little tear still fell from my eye. I knelt down beside the burial site, kissed the tip of my fingers then placed my hands on the dirt. “Sleep well Clive.”
After the ceremony, Sara and I quarreled with Justin and Saraya for leaving the house without our permission and putting themselves in grave danger causing Clive to die an untimely death. They had never seen a Secondary School before and really wanted to see one but in the end it wasn’t worth it.
***
We survived in the house for a couple weeks after Clive’s death, but it always came down to one thing: food. We needed more of it. The grocery stores weren’t being restocked so I always had to find a new store when one got emptied out. The weird thing was that even the new groceries I found were strangely empty as though there was someone else taking stuff from them. That was a problem and I feared that it was only a matter of time before I wouldn’t be able to find enough for us all. I used the map that Sara had found in the library to pinpoint new locations and I was able to find one or two with food but it was just a matter of prolonging the inevitable. I had to either kick them out or find more food if I was ever going to keep my promise to my father but I tried not to be depressed and angry over it. Sara seemed to be on the same page because she started treating me with a bit more respect and we got along a little better too. I was relieved that she actually smiled at me.
One night while Sara was washing the dishes I stayed downstairs in the living room with Saraya and Justin and read them a couple of stories. I had managed to find a few cool stories among the papers that I had discovered in the staffroom at the school. I had learned a lot from the documents. I had learned that the faceless children with backwards feet were called douens. There were a whole set of other creatures in the documents that I feared could be real but there were also a few that I wished could have come to our rescue. I read about a spider named Anansi and how his cunning ways made him a hero. He used his wit to outsmart evil and save the lives of children. There were a lot of stories about Anansi and I read them all to Saraya and Justin who seemed to be captivated by them. Every time I read one they wanted more and I kept fueling their hunger.
