Moonlit Retribution

Chapter Two

Andy is purposely ignoring me, his wizened gaze focusing somewhere past my shoulder. It's moments like this when I swear an eight-year-old is more mature.

Sighing exasperatedly, Ríjez tells me that we should probably take the girl to the lab on the upper floor. I nod in agreement because it's cleaner up there, safer, and the cooler temperature would help mute the rotting flesh stench.

Unfortunately for me, as punishment for thoughtlessly putting my life on the line, Mella makes me carry the sack of stinking meat up there. Yep. I get penalized for saving someone's life at the expense of my own. Some days, I really feel that life hates me...

After said moving of the decaying body, I promptly flee to the bathroom (somehow, by means of what must be magical intervention, managing to not collide with people or walls) to puke my guts up and wash myself again.

I'm scheduled for tonight's watch along with Ríjez and Drew, so I try to wash off as much sickness-stink as possible...though it would probably help keep Drew's grimy hands off of me.

I remind myself that Ríjez is always there to look out for me, and try not to worry so much. Instead, I focus my thoughts toward the girl.

Like I said, I've seen plenty of these things in the past two years since the virus broke out, especially during the first few months after exposure. That was the worst, and even though we've taken down dozens of the things already, there are somehow always more. I have theories that they've found some way to breed and create more, but Mella gave me a speech filled with all kinds of medical mumbo-jumbo that basically boiled down to the simple statement of "dead people can't have sex, and therefore cannot reproduce."

That really didn't comfort me, and that little conversation gave me nightmares about those things doing the funky monkey for days.

Andy's right about one thing: I'm way too sensitive with certain things, which makes me think too much into the subject.

Shaking my head to clear my irksome thoughts, I don my fleece jacket, head to the weapons room to select my signature handgun, and wander upstairs. There's no direct route to the roof, so I clamber out of the only window that's not boarded up with twelve freakin' slabs of plywood and slowly make my way up the side of the ancient three-story Greek revival-style house via the pseudo ladder. As usual, the air has a somewhat acidic quality to it and feels grimy on its path down to my lungs.

Early on in this whole fiasco, our oh-so brilliant government officials decided that the only method of preventing disease was to kill everyone via nuclear weapons. Yeah. My I.Q. is probably below that of the average slug, and I'm pretty sure I could have come up with a better idea.

It's already well past midnight, so I'm likely to get a tongue lashing (possibly the threat of a literal one from Drew, the creeper...) for not showing up ASAP. 'Course, Ríjez might go a little easy on me since he at least knows where I've been and what I've been doing in that time.  Plus, he's Ríjez:  the guy's more easy going than a sloth, and (normally) just as harmless.

I still don't see why we need to stay out and guard at night. I mean, I know these things hunt at night and there's no such thing as being too safe, but we've got enough booby traps and tripwires around the place to confuse even the most dedicated puzzle solver. If a damn tree rustles the wrong way in the forest, the whole complex knows about it. I can't count how many times we've been pulled out of bed for false alarms.

The glass slides up with an obnoxious screech that makes my marrow quiver. Instantly, I am pummeled with a vicious blast of arctic wind that whips some of my hair out of its band and into my eyes. I know for a fact that the chill and blustery conditions could be worse, though. The giant pines surrounding the house deflect much of the wind.