Against the Darkness (Cimmerian Moon
#1)
by A.M. Griffin
Release Date: 06/04/14
Summary from Goodreads:
This one time, at band camp…aliens
invaded earth. Sounds like a bad riff on an old joke, doesn’t it? Unfortunately
for me and my friends, it’s all too true. I thought a mess like this only
happened in the movies but, as I watch the alien ships hovering over the major
cities, I suddenly realize I’m a thousand miles away from my Mom. From home.
From safety.
Darkness may have fallen over the
world, but I won’t let it claim me. I’ll do anything I have to get back to
Michigan. Yet nothing could prepare me for what we find on our trek north from
Tallahassee. There’s hardly anything the aliens haven’t bombed. Survival, at
any cost, is the name of the game for the few people who haven’t been killed or
captured. As if trying to stay free and alive isn’t enough, I think I just met
the love of my life. And he’s just the kind of bad boy who’ll tear down the
walls I’ve built around my heart—then break it.
Available from:
Amazon * Barnes & Noble
Excerpt :
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 other. I rest my face on my hands and
she does the same, watching me too. I watch her until her eyes finally close
for the night. When I’m sure that she’s sleep I roll over onto my side. This
position is just as painful as lying on my stomach. Trying to get comfortable
on the cold ground with only a few tufts of grass sprinkled in among rocks,
dirt and twigs is the least of my worries.
Right about now is when I again start to
have my recurring wish for the gift of foresight. But I’m sure everyone in the
world has probably wished for the same thing. At least then there could have
been some kind of planning. The military could have been ready for the aliens’
arrival and mounted an attack. Not only that, but the government could have
organized some kind of evacuation. Although I don’t know to where exactly.
How
do you evacuate an entire country?
At any rate, the gift of foresight would
have helped us all. Maybe, with it, my mother wouldn’t have forced me to go on
the stupid field trip. I remind myself how I’d begged and begged her not to
make me go.
But I bet she regrets it now, especially
since I’m almost a thousand miles away from her during the worst possible time.
I know what I’m doing and I try to hold
onto the feeling for as long as possible. If I’m mad at her then I won’t miss
her as much.
Just as I have that thought, my eyes
begin to water. Being mad at her usually doesn’t last very long at all. I can’t
make it. For all it’s worth, I know she’s regretting she ever made me go and
she’s missing me just as much as I’m missing her.
I sniffle back the trickle of liquid
that’s making a trail from my nostril and across my cheek. Tears fall in fat
drops from the corners of my eyes. I’m crying so softly that I doubt anyone can
hear it.
About the Author
A.M. Griffin is a wife who rarely cooks, mother of three, dog owner (and
sometimes dog owned), a daughter, sister, aunt and friend. She’s a hard worker
whose two favorite outlets are reading and writing. She enjoys reading
everything from mystery novels to historical romances and of course fantasy
romance. She is a believer in the unbelievable, open to all possibilities from
mermaids in our oceans and seas, angels in the skies and intelligent life forms
in distant galaxies.
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