Moonlit Retribution

Chapter Eight

Blood and brain matter splatter against the trees as the body drops to the ground. The sound is clamorous enough to make me jump slightly. Which is actually pretty stupid because I barely even flinched at the gunshot.

The silence after a gunshot is always the most pronounced. The power of that stillness has nothing on the kind that comes after a great bout of thunder. Thunder doesn’t kill people.

Well then. Even my thoughts are halted in the tension.

I gape quietly at the scene, eyebrows raised as Ríjez stands stock still, still holding the gun up. I approach him cautiously and gently lay my hand on his shoulder. His breathing is labored, and fine lines of sweat trickle down his temple, wetting his hair. His skin has a sickly pale look to it. His eyes are as wide as Tupperware dishes. Freaked out. Very, very freaked out.

He gulps audibly, then slowly, as if waiting for the girl--or whatever it is--to jump back to life, lowers the gun to his side. Never taking his eyes off of it.

I forget that I’ve had experience with this, and he hasn’t. He probably doesn’t even know that these things play a part in this epidemic. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s thinking something along the lines of the zombies adapting to the sunlight, not malicious E.T.’s coming to reign terror on us simplistic humans. I know better, of course. I didn’t know that they could take over our bodies, or maybe just project a materialization of a human, but I guess it’s possible. The one I had the misfortune to meet certainly enjoyed playing mind games. But I’m not so sure that I should tell Ríjez what I know.

Unfortunately, he doesn’t give me much of a choice. After looking over the girl one last time, he turns to me and says tonelessly, “You know something, Vessa. Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”

Ha ha. Not funny, dude. See, this is the problem with spending so much time with one person for so long: unless if you are adamant about keeping a mental wall between you, they’ll eventually know everything about you. I’d tried to built that wall, but it had been only too easy to knock down once I realized the fate of the people we loved.

I don’t even know where to begin, so I just shake my head, grasp my bleeding shoulder, and turn to continue on to the compound. Ríjez growls angrily, then huffs and clamps his hand on my shoulder, wrenching me around to face him. Scowling, I fling his hand off of me. “I don’t know, okay?” I shout as harshly as I can; the gravelly sound to my voice aids that a bit.

“I’m not buying that.”

…

But it apparently isn’t enough to convince him.

I sigh tiredly, dragging my hand through my ratty hair. The tie had snapped and fallen out some time during my little tussle with Alien-Zombie-Whatever-The-Hell-She-Was Girl. “I don’t know, Ríjez. Really. I’ve never seen anything like this.” Which, in itself, is not a lie. I really have never seen anything like this, just the original--or what I assume was the original--form of the creepy things.

Ríjez stares at me for a few moments, his eyes flicking to and fro, probably trying to find any sign of deception on my face. I must look pretty innocent, because he turns away without another word and limps back to the trail. Rolling my eyes, I trail after him, forcing the pained grimace off of my face once we rejoin shoulder-locks.

The silence really isn’t helpful now. And it doesn’t help knowing that I just angered the one person I know who actually gives a rat’s ass about me. Even if he’s buying what I said, he knows that I know something, and he isn’t going to be happy until he gets every last detail.

Should I tell him and risk dragging him into something that we both don’t understand? God knows, if I say something to Ríjez, it’ll get out to someone else in the compound. He’s not the snitch type or disloyal or anything, but if he thinks telling them would be beneficial to our cause--and I know he would think that--he’d do it in a heartbeat. Should I just keep my mouth shut and hope we never have to encounter something like this again? My instincts tell me that this isn’t the last we’ve seen of them, not by a long shot. Deep down, in the cytoplasm of the billions of cells of my body, I know that they aren’t done with us until we’re all dead.