henaultrs

@@@@@These brows pulled low over eyes that burned with furySix men and two women, some of them very big, most of them bigger than meI felt the blood drain from my face as I realized why they held their hands so oddly?gripped tightly in front of them, each balancing an objectSome held blades?a few short ones like those I had kept in my kitchen, and some longer, one huge and menacingThis knife had no purpose in a kitchenMelanie supplied the name: amacheteOthers held long bars, some metal, some woodenI recognized Uncle Jeb in their midstHeld loosely in his hands was an object I'd never seen in person, only in Melanie's memories, like the big knifeI saw horror, but Melanie saw all this with wonder, her mind boggling at their numbersEight human survivorsShe'd thought Jeb was alone or, in the best case scenario, with only two othersTo see so many of her kind alive filled her with joyYou're an idiot,I told herI forced her to see it from my perspective: to see the threatening shapes inside the dirty jeans and light cotton shirts, brown with dustThey might have been human?as she thought of the word?once, but at this moment they were something elseThey were barbarians, monstersThey hung over us, slavering for bloodThere was a death sentence in every pair of eyesMelanie saw all this and, though grudgingly, she had to admit that I was rightAt this moment, her beloved humans were at their worst?like the newspaper stories we'd seen in the abandoned shackWe were looking at killersWe should have been wiser