War of the Sunset

Silence had at last settled over the fields, but it was no more comforting than the final slip of a drowning man beneath the water’s surface. There was no peace to be had, and so it had been for what seemed like years now. At least when the demons outside were shrieking and moaning in their starving rage it was easy to tell where they were. When they became quiet like this it was worse than the noise, because anything could happen.
Outside it was very dark, but that hardly mattered because no one even cared to look out the reinforced windows. The scene out there past these walls of this house was always the same. Instead, time was well spent in checking the stock of food and ammunition, cleaning the guns, filling jugs of water to be put in the cellar, taking care of the house and the barricades, making sure the defenses were strong, and caring for those remaining alive. It was all business when someone stepped out, and then it was right back inside when business was through. There was nothing past the door but death, despair, and horror. And they all had already had enough of that to fill two thousand lifetimes.
In the kitchen were the dull, muffled sounds of someone cooking, and this was reiterated by the warm and inviting smells of food that had drifted into the living room where the soldiers sat around in comfortable silence. The thing about fighting a war was that no matter how many head a man severed, how many skulls he split open, or how many shots he fired into foreheads, at the end of the day he was hungry. It seemed not all the blood and violence in the world could change that, for now you lived by instinct or you did not live at all. At some point one or the other became the most appealing option, and you made your choice. You also took on the responsibilities of that choice, asking no one to shoulder it for you. The razor’s edge of modern times had been hurled back to a place where martial law and self-preservation was the golden rule - "Kill or be killed" the literal mantra of the times. And all this was accepted with the grim understanding that there was no other way, or it was accepted with a loaded gun to the temple. In the end everyone made their choice, and most chose the latter.
For those few who wanted the fight, this was a communal place of battle and survival. It was a home, once, nestled deep in a wide valley of rolling meadows and fenced on all sides by thick conifer forests. The weather was always mild and the air humid, but the nights were relatively cool, and some distance away the beginnings of a now nameless mountain range jutted up into the sky to run through the northern end of this now nameless state. It was probably considered a beautiful place just one year ago, with its sprawling house and sprawling landscape. But now those fields outside were stained rust red with blood, and dappled throughout with the corpses that had not yet been drug away and disposed of. And when the sun was shining now it only illuminated the nightmare that had become the world.
"That dinner sure smells super." Blaine said cheerily as he adjusted the strap of the automatic rifle across his chest. The shirt beneath the strap, which may once have been a tiny blue and white checked design but was now indiscernible through the blood and dirt staining it, caught and bunched up. Blaine did not seem to notice, but Ivy did, and it made her crazy. Why didn’t her fix it? Why didn’t it bother him?
With a sniff she reached over and jerked at the bottom of the button-up shirt, which was effectively straightened out, and offered no explanation. Despite Blaine’s puzzled look, she knew that they all knew her well enough and would not be too surprised by such actions. Besides, they were all family (Bach wrote that rarely do members of the same family grow up under the same roof, after all), and in light of that, coupled with their current situation in life, the little idiosyncracies hardly mattered between them.
Ivy smiled wryly and leaned back into her own personal space. Personal space became very important when it was aggressively violated on a daily basis in battle by creatures who wished little more than to rend you limb from limb. "Anything would smell super to you, you’re always hungry." she said lightly to Blaine with a slight air of superiority, a sarcastic smirk barely curving at the corners of her mouth. He was not slow to respond, as was usual when they went back and forth this way, which was quite often.
"I have two words for you, guess what they are. And anyway, missy, don’t even pretend like you aren’t starving." he crossed his arms as he finished, giving her a trademark look of contempt and challenge. She gave a low chuckle and shrugged.
"Fair enough - I’m hungry, yeah. That doesn’t change the fact that you always are."
He huffed and rolled his eyes, but said nothing in response at the moment, for a voice came from the kitchen, declaring that the food was ready. The 9 soldiers got up from their seats, some from the floor, and moved into the kitchen where the massive table was waiting. And it was a beautiful sight after a day of hard, bloody labor.
There were 3 platters of cornbread still steaming from the oven, a deep and wide bowl of mashed potatoes, another large platter holding 4 whole chickens that had been cooked in the oven as well. Stanley, Ivy’s father, picked up the long knife that was laying beside the platter of chicken and immediately began cutting them apart. While he did this, the rest of them ritualistically pulled their weapons off and laid them beside their plates at the table, or hung them from the backs of their chairs, keeping them very close at hand but at least making this nightly supper together somewhat apart from their battle. As everyone took their usual seats and started up their usual quiet chatter about the day, and the future, Ivy looked around at each of the 12 of them, and thought about how they got here.