Nathan Jones - Shortage

He wanted to protest, but he also desperately wanted her company. So they said their good nights to April and sat together on the couch with the blanket wrapped around them, talking quietly about everything that had happened. Matt told Sam about Catherine’s offer to lead the town’s defenses, and unsurprisingly she insisted that if he wanted to do it she’d do everything she could to help.

In spite of his nerves being with her calmed him down, and at some point he must’ve fallen asleep. He woke up with a start sometime later with no idea what time it was, sprawled halfway across the armrest with Sam curled up against his shoulder.

It wasn’t a phantom noise this time. He could hear a quiet rustling from the direction of the kitchen.

Matt carefully extricated himself from the couch, ignoring Sam’s sleepy murmur of protest as she wrapped herself tighter in the blanket and curled up against the back of the couch, and reached under the cushion to grab the pistol. He also reached into the lamp table’s drawer to get the flashlight they kept there.

It might be Terry coming back from the storehouse, or April or his mom pottering around the house unable to sleep. It might even, the thought filled him with a surge of hope, be his dad safely home.

He limped towards the noise, flashlight ready to flick on and point at whoever it was he heard. He wanted to wait until he had a clear view at least in case it was an enemy, since shining a light around would reveal his position and make him an easy target.

When he reached the kitchen he realized the noise was coming from the pantry, so he cautiously made his way over there. He could see light filtering out from beneath the closed door, and the hair on the back of his neck prickled. They hadn’t used the pantry since Ferris’s first inspection because there was nothing in there.

Holding his breath, he groped for the doorknob with the hand holding the flashlight, getting his Glock ready. Then in one quick surge he threw open the door, stepped back, flicked the flashlight on, and aimed both the light and the gun inside the small room.

Wide green eyes stared at him with a deer in the headlights expression and Matt drew in a startled breath. “You.”

Mandy Townsend slowly set down the empty #10 can she’d been peering inside and turned to fully face him, doing her best to appear calm. “Oh hey. Matt. Good to see you’re okay.” She started to step forward, extending her hand as if to shake.

“Don’t!” Matt said sharply, easing the slack on the trigger until it was nearly on the point of firing. Mandy froze, but just to be safe he took a few steps back to put some distance between them.

To be honest he wasn’t really surprised it was her. She’d lived in the house so she knew her way around it, and from everything he’d heard about her from Sam and his parents, as well as his own observations the few times he’d had the misfortune of seeing her, sneaking into the house of people who’d been kind to her to burglarize it in the night seemed right up her alley. And after she’d lied about Trev and his promise to let her stay in town Matt had zero sympathy for her.

“You’ve heard Mayor Tillman’s new policies, right?” he demanded. “The punishment for anyone caught committing theft is exile.”

Her green eyes widened further in a nearly convincing show of confusion and dismay. “Policies? Theft? I don’t know what you mean. I just came to beg your folks to let me stay here again. I have nowhere else to go and you’ve been so kind to me.”

“Doing that begging in our pantry?” Matt asked sarcastically. “How stupid do you think I am? Also did you honestly think you’d find food in there after Ferris has been all over this place?”

“It’s not like that!” Mandy insisted. “One of Razor’s guys, Teddy, has been hassling me. After Ferris left I had no choice but to go back to the refugee camp and he basically grabbed me and—” she broke off with a shudder. “Anyway he forced me to break into your house and look for food. He said he’d hurt me and you guys if I didn’t. You don’t want to hear what he threatened to do to Sam.”

Matt felt his anger boil over, not because he believed her but for the exact opposite reason. She was blatantly trying to exploit his feelings for the woman he loved to push his buttons and manipulate him. After what Sam had been through during Razor’s attack and because of his feelings for the dark-haired woman, Mandy’s tactic was unforgivable. “So which is it, you came to beg us to let you back in or this Teddy punk is making you steal from us?”

“Both!” she insisted. “When I saw you didn’t have any food I knew he was going to punish me, so I was planning to beg you guys to protect me.” She hunched over slightly, hands fluttering in front of her stomach, and gave him a pathetic look. “I can’t go back out there and I don’t have anywhere else to go.”

The blond woman’s deceptions were almost convincing enough to be believable, mostly because she seemed to believe them herself. No wonder she’d been able to turn everyone in Aspen Hill against Trev even though everyone knew and liked him. She was willing to make completely outrageous claims and fully invest in making people believe them.

Too bad they were so transparent. “A few problems with your story, Mandy. First off we were told Razor’s gang hadn’t gone back to the camp, any of them. Second of all we headed there not long after the attack and invited the refugees to come into town. I notice you didn’t mention any of that, though. Have you even been out to the camp at all today?”

“Matt?” Sam hissed, padding into the kitchen. Matt glanced over just long enough to see her clutching the revolver she’d gotten off the looter. “What’s going on?”

“Your boyfriend’s pointing a gun at me, Sam!” Mandy shouted from the pantry.

“Shut up!” Matt snapped. He turned towards his girlfriend just long enough to answer. “It’s Mandy trying to rob us.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Sam said, expression darkening. “After everything we’ve been through today we have to put up with her now?”

“Not for long. I’m going to take her to the storehouse to see what the Mayor wants to do about her.”

Sam pocketed the small revolver. “I’ll come too.”

“I’d feel more comfortable if you were here to guard the house while me and Terry are both gone.”

“Oh, right.” Sam came over and gave him a quick kiss, glancing into the pantry at Mandy as she did. Without saying a word to the blond woman she turned and made her way back into the living room.

Matt reached into the drawer where his mom kept twine for tying up herbs to dry and pulled out a length, then bound Mandy’s hands behind her. “Ooh, I feel like such a dangerous criminal,” she said sarcastically over her shoulder.

“A criminal, at least. Although you’re definitely more dangerous than you look, especially to your friends.” Matt put away his gun and prodded between her shoulders. “Come on, out the way you came in. Let’s get this over with.”

The blond woman stomped towards the back door, where Matt had to open it for her, then shine the light down the stairs to keep her from tripping. They walked across the yard in silence, but once they reached the gate Mandy turned to glare at him as he opened it. “You think your precious Samantha’s any different than me?” she asked, voice dripping with spite.

Matt fought the urge to laugh. “Yeah I do, actually. You guys are just about complete opposites.”

“Oh really?” The blond woman gave him a contemptuous look. “You took her in, fed her, and gave her everything else she needed. The only difference is that you’re such a sucker that she just had to bat her eyelashes to get everything she wanted from you, while I’ve had to work to survive.”