River, Sun, Freedom

7: Die Another Day

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tigerlily_x

Chapter seven: Die Another day       

         It was while Sheila and Jodi sat in silence, lost in their own memories that a loud growl resounded around the room. Startled looked at Jodi, who blushed and looked down at her stomach. She chuckled.

“Time for some food then?” she said, as she moved towards the door. Jodi followed her, limping slightly as her body got used to the movement. “It’s about lunchtime so most of the guys will be eating right about now, in the mess hall.” She pointed in the general direction of the room.

The army base was as sparse as the bedroom with linoleum floors and walls and fluorescent lighting. The dining room was around the same, but with long metal, heat proof tables that extended across the room, obviously designed for more than the small group of people seated at the end of the room, neat where a large window allowed access to the kitchen where a large man was stirring a bowl of food. The room smelled like pasta.

“Everyone has chores here. Since you’re one of us, you’ll be doing them too. There cleaning, kitchen and farming duty. You do know how to cook, right?” Sheila looked at her.

Jodi nodded. Sheila turned towards the group eating their lunch. By now they’d all noticed her standing there. There were about seven men, and two women sitting there.  Four women, including her and Sheila.

A tall, well-muscled man man with dark brown hair and olive-toned skin detached himself from the group and walked towards them. He nodded at Sheila.

“Hello, mother.”

So this was Sheila’s son. He turned to Jodi and held out his hand. She was confused and stared at it for a while. He grasped her right hand in his, very quickly, before the movement made her jerk back, and shook it in a vertical direction.

“This is what people do when they meet each other.” He grinned. He had white even teeth and beautiful green eyes. He looked to be in his early twenties. He would have been ten or twelve when all the evil happened.

He continued to talk. “And now we introduce ourselves.” He pointed to himself without letting go of her hand. “My name is Damien.” He pointed at her. “What’s your name?”

He said all this very formally, but Jodi couldn’t help but feel he was making fun of her. Irritated, she slapped his hand away. “I’m Jodi.”

He looked startled by her action, but then grinned. “Hungry?”

By the time Jodi had eaten drunken her fill, she had learnt a lot about the people there. Damien was the youngest of the lot; he had just turned twenty-two. The other men and women there had ranged from twenty-five to forty – except Sheila who refused to divulge her age. They all came from different parts of Australia, and knew as much about the vampyres as she did, but when they heard she had been living in the most monster-populated part of Australia, their view of her visibly changed. Even more so when they discovered her gift for guns.

“We can use guns, no problem,” said Damien, “but to make them is a different matter entirely.”

“So you’re saying you can make and repair guns?” said a blonde, scarred man whose name Jodi had already forgotten.

“Willingly,” replied Jodi, “if it would mean I could stay.”

“Of course she can stay.” Said Sheila.