Moonlit Retribution

Chapter Seventeen

Andy swivels the gun to and fro among us. Probably doesn’t know which idiot to aim it at. Sighing, not entirely surprised by his random appearance, I straighten up and unconsciously back away from his loaded gun. Great. Another possible infectee.

Not that everyone back home might not be infected already.

Shut up!

“You and I are both well aware of just where I’m needed, Andy,” Mella sighs in aggravation, resting her hands on her cocked hip, as if they’ve had this discussion a hundred times before. “Really, I’d have expected you to get over it by now.”

Ríjez growls aggressively, sounding more like a rabid wolf than his usual timbre. “Just what the hell is going on here?”

Cocking his brow, Andy turns his aim from Mella to Ríjez. “I should be asking the same thing, boy. I don’t recall a lack of importance being placed on outings. You leave with my permission or not at all. And just what the hell is on that trailer?”

Mella shakes her head with a hiss of impatience. “If you’d just swallow that nasty pride of yours and let us be on our way, I’d happily explain the situation.”

The idea of her doing anything happily is enough to make me snicker. I manage to hold it back.

“I’m telling you to explain now,” he growls, turning the gun back to her. I step back even farther until I’m standing just in front of Mella.

Judging from the look on the medic’s face, I’m either going to laugh my ass off at what she’s about to say, or grab Andy’s gun and shoot myself. Baring her teeth in a maniacal smirk, she says exuberantly, “We retrieved the body of an alien and we’re taking it back to the lab to perform an autopsy.”

I choke on my giggle. The sound that comes out makes me think of a strangled ostrich.

Andy actually lowers the scope from his right eye to regard Mella like he would a head case. Slowly, bushy gray brow quirked oddly, he turns his gaze toward the body on the trailer. “That’s one foxy alien,” he comments in that odd caustic humor of his.

Rolling my eyes, I finally decide to end my silence. “That is not the alien. Something inside it is, though.”

Snorting, Andy relaxes enough to shoulder the gun. “Alrighty then,” he drawls slowly, tiredly. “Going all Roswell on me just to get some attention. Look here, kiddies, I know it ain’t all fun and games out here, but we can’t afford to let the severity of the situation escape our minds. And for God’s sake, if you’re out here body snatching, why couldn’t you have gone back to get Sloan while you were at it?”

“The severity of the situation,” Ríjez says lowly, “has just escaladed ten-fold, old man.” The addition of his voice in this mess is enough to put Andy back on his toes, and he raises the gun back to its original position.

“Ríjez,” he barks gravelly, keeping a steady aim at my PO’s head. “I’d appreciate it if you’d put your gun down.”

“I’m sure you would,” he replies stiffly. I hear Mella shuffle uncomfortably as she realizes the same thing I have: one of us is not getting back to the complex tonight. But she’s not one to take things as they come.

“Gentlemen,” she says tartly, stalking forward and stopping at my side. “You do realize that the ‘my balls are bigger’ posturing is grossly overdone among your gender. Really, you two are better than--”

“Shut your hole, Mel,” I hiss. “Just. Shut. Up.”

Andy eyes me oddly, then snorts derogatorily. “Huh. So the girl can actually speak more than a sentence a day. Almost had myself convinced that she was a mute.”

And for some reason, this does not settle well with me. At all. Through gritted teeth, I snarl, “‘The girl’ has a name, goddamn it!” Oh God, leave it to me to finally snap when the man that hates my guts is holding a gun. “And you’ve heard me talk before, asswipe!” I shriek shrilly.

And now the gun is trained on me. God damn.

I can’t even act surprised when I hear the air-cleaving crack.

I drop to the ground, numb with pain as I clutch my middle, crying out in shock. The space between my ears that’s supposed to hold a brain is pulsating in slow, subdued throbs that make the world tilt, sweeping the earth from under my knees and sending me plummeting into the opalescent sky as the world goes black, recedes to nothingness…

I’m dying…the son of a bitch shot me just for badmouthing him, and now I’m dying…

Wait… Dad always said that if you were fatally shot, you wouldn’t even hear it. So…

“Dramatic much?”

The voice is horribly muffled and echoes as if rippling through water. I take my hand off of my stomach and see that there isn’t a speck of blood on my hands. Nor is there any pain, except for the tiny pricks of pine needles digging into my back. Wide eyed, I look up at stony-eyed Mella as she strides forward and kneels at Andy’s body.

Whoa whoa, what?

Yep. Sure enough, Andy lies on the needle-blanketed ground with a pool of blood pouring out of his stomach, his hazel eyes already glazed over and staring into nothing.

Hastily, I scramble over to his prone body and poke his shoulders, slap his cheeks, toss every curse word and profane phrase I’ve collected in my short seventeen years at him in hopes that this will rouse his anger, kick his old heart into motion, anything.

“Come on, you old bastard! You’re too stubborn to die!” I shout, pounding at his chest haphazardly, sending small gushes of dark blood out of the gaping hole in his middle, slicking my fists with the warm, sticky liquid.  No movement.  No breath.  No flickers of pain behind those old gray eyes.

Not stubborn enough, I guess.