Moonlit Retribution

Chapter Four

Forty minutes and a painful change of clothes later, I’m pacing in the common area, my boots clomping obnoxiously against the soiled marble floor. I’m all alone down here with nothing but the overhead candle-lit chandelier (which I don’t even know why, of all things, Andy decided to keep) keeping me company. And as nice as it is to have a moment to myself, it’s just irritating me right now. I’m anxious to prove to Andy that I am capable of soldiering on.

A scowl tightens my face. He probably doesn’t consider a zombie bite and an almost-crushed windpipe enough to merit some respect.

Andy has to be one of the most confusing people I’ve ever met, and, trust me, I’ve known plenty of them. As far as I know, he’s also one of the most paranoid. This whole operation only exists because 50-ish years ago (and this has all been passed down to me from Ríjez, so I don‘t know how much of it is legitimate), the man had a nervous breakdown after his wife left him. He’d been in Vietnam, and apparently his sanity was only held together by her. After that, he got it in his head that people were searching for him, like a wanted man. He started storing up on food, batteries, and other basic necessities, had the basement reinforced with three-inch thick steel walls, and had even dug a freaking labyrinth in the ground. Which, admittedly, comes in handy these days because, even though the house itself is pretty large, there are over 30 people holed-up here, and seven bedrooms just isn’t enough for those numbers. He’s also established some kind of greenhouse type room in those tunnels, which provides us with all of our limited veggies and fruits. He cans it all to make sure that none of it goes bad. I haven’t had fresh produce in years, and it kind of makes me regret all the times I dumped my broccoli down the garbage disposal.

These days, in the times of zombies and extraterrestrial plagues, he uses his paranoia to maintain floodlights around the area, as well as masterfully crafted tripwires and traps plotted around a two mile radius.

I suppose that his previous experiences with loss and battle are the main reasons why he’s so hard on the rest of us, particularly me. Here he is, a hardened warrior who’s been witness to human cruelty and gore way before this zombie thing even started, trying to pound it into some little girl’s mind that fighting and killing is the only thing that’s going to keep the rest of us alive. I can understand his frustration, just not his reasoning.

Footsteps clatter from the winding staircase, and down comes Techie Lyle, carrying a ginormous trunk that I can only guess what he’s stuffed into. I race up halfway, suppressing my grunt of pain as the stitches pull, yet again, and masking it as a cough. Lyle grins at me sheepishly as I grab the end of the plastic container and help him haul it down the rest of the way.

“Thanks, Vess,” he huffs, wiping the sweat off his brow with his sleeved forearm.

“No problem,” I choke out painfully. He gives me a funny look at my strangled tone, then he notices the bruises ringing my neck and falls silent. I have to settle for a throaty whisper. “Any particular reason why you’re hauling a ten ton trunk of crap to a raid?”

He smiles condescendingly at me, as if I’ve just visibly dropped 30 I.Q. points. “It’s not a raid, hon. Well, okay, you and your man meat will probably be better off snatching some stuff from around Rigs, but the rest of us are going to check on the windmill. Routine maintenance and whatnot.”

I ignore the indirect insult to my intelligence. And the “man meat” comment, which kind of makes me a little queasy. Ríjez is over eight years older than me. The thought, for the moment, quells my hunger by replacing it with nausea.

Soon, our entire entourage is downstairs, which consists of me, Andy, Lyle, Ríjez, and two other guys that I have yet to learn the names of, even after almost a year of living here. Andy preps us on what’s going on: he, Lyle, and Marv, one of the previously nameless dudes who is apparently an engineer of sorts, are heading on over to the west side of town to do a routine check-up on the windmill, as well as the backup generator. Ríjez, Dev--previously nameless dude numero dos--and I, he says, are to check the northern border between the compound and Rigs, map out the obvious traps, and see if there’s anything salvageable around the area. It’s a five mile hike up to my group's destination, but the land is fairly flat, so it should be okay for me to trek.