Into Ruin

Chapter 18 Monsters

A piercing scream pulled Cynthia, and probably the others on nearby floor mats, out of her sleep. The slow adjustment to the darkness caused her heart beat to increase. Anything could be out there.

Where was Winston? Had something broken into the facility? Did it have anything to do with what Marcel -- she stopped her racing thoughts. She had to find Winston.

Her fingertips glided across the smooth mattress next to her, still warm to the touch.

"Go away!" Winston screamed.

That voice came from nearby. A round form lay curled up below her feet, partially off the mattress. At least he hadn't gone too far.

"Stay away! Don't eat me!" he cried out again.

Vita's dim outline shifted in the darkness. "No one's going to hurt you," she muttered in a sluggish tone that left Cynthia wondering if Vita too was asleep.

"Get off me!"

Cynthia sat up and scooted closer to Winston. "Baby, it's mom. No one's after you; you're just having another bad dream."

She had learned two nights ago that immediately trying to hold and comfort him confused his slumbering mind. She took a few good jabs to the ribs and scratches to the face before she was able to wake him fully. At least he wasn't going to be attacked without a fight, should a mother's nightmare ever come true.

Winston lurched forward and grabbed the collar of her t-shirt so hard that it tore. She placed her warm hands on his.

"Winston, you're beside mom. There are no monsters."

His shot open and his gaze shifted from Cynthia's face to his clenched fists. He let go of her ripped collar and looked away. "Sorry, Mom. It feels so real."

Three nights of nightmares at Nouveau Depart left Cynthia reconsidering her plan to leave. His confidence in her was already rocky given his comments and questions. She wanted to keep him with her at all times to control the ideas Marcel put in his head, but she also didn't want her son to be in the room if they discovered another bite victim. It was bad enough that they had --

No! She forced her eyes shut to keep the focus on her son. It wasn't the time to unravel.

"How did this one start?"

Winston lay back down and looked at the ceiling. "Me and you, and Vita, and Peyton start walking to the new place. Everything's fine. But then something starts growling, like Connor's old dog used to, then a monster jumps out of a building and starts attacking Peyton." His hands went up to cover his eyes. "There's blood, so much blood everywhere."

Cynthia took a deep breath and lay down beside him. She needed to replace those images in his head with something more soothing so they could both get some rest. "Do you remember that summer we spent at grandma's?"

Winston slowly separated the fingers covering his eyes to look at her.

"Remember when she took us down to the river?"

Winston nodded and he closed his eyes. Cynthia ran her thumb along his hands. "You and dad spent all day lying in those inner tubes..."

"He said if we stayed really quiet the animals and fish might come see what we were doing."

Cynthia let the image of her husband's brown eyes and wide nose flash before her eyes. She could still hear the deep reverberations of his laugh, the warmth of his hands on her hips. She wiped away her tears away with her free hand.

"After it didn't work, you guys spent the day drinking lemonade, skipping rocks, playing t--" her voice faltered for a moment "tag."

Her body trembled as she tried to keep in a sob. Her emotions were running high tonight long before Winston's nightmares.