by P. S. Power
“I think I may have had a clue.” He tried for a wry look.
Carley sighed. She didn't say sorry again at least.
Tired, after a fashion, Jake realized that there were four people and three beds. This time he wasn't giving his up. It was in the kitchen with them, and closest to the fire. He wanted to be there to tend it during the night. He mentioned that. The hangings, just blankets mainly, were still up on all the walls, so the place was relatively cozy, even in the other rooms. As long as the door stayed open to them.
Who slept where turned out not to be a problem, since Sammi took the guest bedroom and the other women the second room, which wasn't as nice. There were rooms upstairs, but that would be chilly and he hadn't fixed them up at all yet. They probably either wanted to talk, or do something else. Not his business, but it seemed a little rude for them to do it in his house, since he wasn't good enough for either of them himself. They could wait a day, right?
Well, he wasn't going to check on what they did under the covers. The night went uneventfully, and he managed to get cleaned up and have breakfast cooked by the time everyone else had gotten up. Just fried meat strips, but it was what he had.
“Are you certain you won't come back Jake? I think that...” Sammi started, but he sighed and winked at her sadly.
“What I think, is that I'll do better here, alone. Tell you what, when it's time to move the new people in, come get me and I'll help with that, if anyone wants me, alright?” He tried to sound positive, but doubted that anyone really would see a need for him to be there.
For some reason that idea didn't seem to make anyone happy at all. Except him.
Jake felt pretty good about it. After all it would be a bit before that happened, and he could get a lot of work done before the snow came. They all looked back at him as they walked away for some reason, as if he were any different now than he had been for the last six months.
He got back to work as soon as they were out of sight.
He managed to get some fish, which he mainly smoked, having some recollection that people liked it that way, and worked to improve his little pump, going into town for supplies. It was a bit of a surprise, but he found nearly a dozen undead there, almost as if they'd drifted in from other places or something. They were all shamblers, and had a worn look to them, reeking of decay and injured, many with human looking bites on them. Was it possible that they were migrating after a fashion, looking for food?
He tried to be sparing with his bullets, but there were limits to what he could do without a nice clean head shot or two, alone as he was. No one sane hunted zombies with anything but a firearm. Except for him now. He knocked them down with a spear made from the longest pole he could find and took the heads with his machete when he could. So four out of twelve were done that way. It worked, as long as the zombies didn't have friends nearby.
The next group of people to show up were nearly as surprising. Mainly because Jake didn't know them at all. There were four of them. One man and three women. All dangerously thin. All armed and desperate looking. They came to his door and knocked though, instead of just ambushing him when he went outside.
“Well, hello.” He said, voice rusty from disuse. Before he could say anything else the woman in front, possibly their leader, spoke quickly.
“We don't mean harm. We... Do you have anything to spare food wise? We're from Durberry, about fifty miles away, we heard it was better near here, that there was a safe place, but we don't know where that is. Even a bit would...”
Jake looked at them carefully. Hungry looking, tired, bedraggled. All different looking. One black woman, a square face blond, the man who looked like a rat, more or less, small and thin and the leader who looked like someone had squashed her face with a baseball bat at some point.
“Are you cannibals?” He asked bluntly. The man started an automatic denial, but the leader nodded.
“Yes. We... well last winter, when people froze. There wasn't any food and...” She looked down, ready to leave it seemed.
Jake shrugged.
“I guess what I mean to say is, if offered animal meat, are you still going to kill me in my sleep? If not, I have enough to share and we can get more. If so... well, then I guess we fight now.” Waiting for a second, one of the women in the back, the black one, stepped forward.
“You'll just give us food, like a whole meal?” She seemed shocked by the idea.
He had the food though, so he shrugged.
“I was thinking that I could set you up for the winter if you like. I could use the company. I have enough food for this many, plus a few. I'm strict about bathing and keeping clean, and keeping noise down. If you get too loud for long, I'll shoot you. I could also take you to the House, which is that safe place you heard of, most likely. It's about three miles that way. Get too loud and they'd shoot you too.” At least they better be keeping up with that, if the undead were migrating.
For some reason two of the women started crying.
Quietly.
The one in the front didn't and the man just looked... scared. Like it might be a trick or trap. Then he could be the cannibal, couldn't he? Right, well, best to start with the barn then.
“Here, let me show you around before you make any decisions.” Why not. If they needed food that badly he'd give it to them and if they tried to hurt him, they'd either succeed or die. They all seemed much more relaxed and even excited when he showed them the barn. It had a section for smoked meats and twenty full, but skinned deer and cows hanging up. The dried meat was more than enough by itself, but the point was, none of it was human. He kept expecting to be hit from behind, but no one even tried to get that close to him.
After that he showed them the house, but not the cellar or the secret underground room. If things played out well, he could show them later. If not, he didn't want them telling everyone about it. The entrance was underground and hidden, just in case.
“This is amazing. You have hot water and a flush toilet that works? I haven't seen a working one in... half a year. More than that now.” Their leader smiled, trying to look happy, but it was a bit sad at the same time. Remembering things lost most likely.
“So, deal? A place for each of you, but you have to work and help out. Food for the winter, warm baths and beds, some toiletries, toothbrushes and soap, new clothes... I have some boots too. All men's though, so they might be a little large. Took them off the last of the police here.” Waiting while they decided, he realized he hadn't introduced himself at all. Oops. Kind of rude.
“Sorry, I'm Jake, forgot to add that.”
They each gave a name, George was easy, being the man, the leader was Jill, the dark skinned woman was Billi and the light haired square looking woman was Kara. He tried to commit all that to memory.
“So, if you want we can go to the House too, so you can see that. More people there, and a better variety of food. But it's just a walk away, so if you make friends there you can go and visit.”
Later that night, after feeding them all and getting them tucked into bed, all downstairs with him for warmth, Jake kind of wondered if he'd wake up the next morning. To his surprise he did.
It seemed a promising start.
Chapter Four
It wasn't until nearly noon that the first problem came up and when it did, Jake was slightly taken by surprise. It was still dark when he fixed breakfast, got the fire blown up into something respectable and did his first wash up of the day. He set a low fire under the insulated tank outside and set the food out about the time that Billi, the dark skinned woman, came out. She was tightly bundled up, since it got cool away from the fire, but smiled when she saw him.
“Good morning! That smells delicious...” She spoke gently. Hesitantly too, as if the food might not have been for her and she didn't want to be rude. Jake just gave her a small plate of lightly seasoned deer meat strips, explaining what it was.
“I want to get out and see if I can catch anything at daybreak near the stream. I
'm taking the cart. I don't know when I'll be back, but tell everyone to make themselves at home. There's more food, and you know, just don't burn the place down. You can eat what you need though, make sure everyone knows that, alright? I don't think we need to ration at all.”
The woman was barely visible in the still dark room, but he caught a flash of white teeth and a slow nod.
“You're very kind. I'll tell everyone.” Then the woman ate, slowly, but steadily.
The hunting went well for that early in the day. Very well. Almost too well. Jake managed to get the two cows onto the cart, somehow, he wasn't entirely sure about the mechanics, but it involved a lot of wiggling and shifting and there was no way they were getting bled before he got help with it. They were good sized animals after all. The herd was bigger, too big to count, but if he'd gotten even one more, he wouldn't have been able to move the cart over the uneven ground.
The others came out when he rolled in, alert to the change in noise, which was a good sign.
“I have a post frame out back that can handle the weight, help me string these up?”
It took all of them and the others weren't strong, but it worked, if barely. The problem came when he slit the cows' throats. That wasn't the issue, people got that part of things, it was that Kara, the square faced woman moved close to him. Just to help steady one of the cows, but it was light out, full daylight if cloudy. Staring at his face, she suddenly moved back, pointing.
Everyone else looked a bit shocked too for some reason.
After they got whatever it was that Kara had seen. Jake touched his face, a bit of stubble, because he hadn't shaved yet, but not too bad...
“Do I have something on my face?” The words were innocent, he thought, but Jill pulled an old revolver from her coat pocket and pointed at him with shaky hands.
“You're a man.” The words were dark, not angry, but more than a little scared.
“Um, yes... I have been this whole time, my name's Jake... I haven't exactly been hiding the fact from you. Is it a problem?”
George stepped in then, his voice strange now that Jake paid attention. George didn't need to shave though, and wore oversized layers of clothing, kind of like everyone else. Cleaning gear basically, or poor person cold weather outfits.
Ah.
So it wasn't three women and a man, but four women. Most people didn't shave anything anymore did they? It was just habit for Jake, and he'd never changed it. He rubbed his right cheek.
“Beards look funny on me. Scraggly still. I wasn't trying to fool anyone. Is it a problem? I shave daily.”
They just stood for a minute, while the cows bled out, red dripping slowly to the ground. Normally Jake would have been fighting by now, trying to kill these people, since one of them was threatening him, but it just didn't seem needed at the moment. He couldn't say why. Jill certainly looked ready to shoot, even if he hadn't done anything yet. Finally she put the gun down, pointing it at the ground, but not away.
“We... need to talk. I... is that alright?” She sounded so tentative, scared still.
“Not a problem.” The words were light and airy sounding and came with a small smile. “It will be a few minutes before I need help skinning, then prepping these for freezing. I'll do the first part myself, if you want, that's the gross stuff. You should all watch, if you don't know how to do it already though. OK?”
Jill looked at him, gun still in hand. “Uh... sure...”
They walked away, far enough that he couldn't hear what they said, but that was alright. It was a bit worrisome that they'd thought he was a girl, especially since he knew he looked freaking hard and lean now, everyone did. Even the kids. The facial hair thing must be a bigger deal than he'd thought. Maybe that was why none of the women liked him? Or that weird thing that Sammi and Tipper were going on about. How he was supposed to be all kind and friendly, but had to kill things now too?
Jake was removing the intestines from the second cow, collecting them in a bucket, to try and figure out what could be salvaged and used from the mess, separating the organ meats carefully into a separate bucket, when they all walked back over. No weapons showed this time at least.
So things were looking up already.
Jill took a deep breath, caught a whiff of the fresh blood and stood back, shuddering a bit. He hadn't breached the bowels at least, but it was still a powerful odor. After a few seconds she took another breath, her slightly bashed in looking face set, she looked pretty solid, Jake noticed. But that was everyone still alive, wasn't it? At least outside the fence of the police compound.
“OK... We, didn't know you were a man when you invited us to stay here, but, well, we just escaped from another group, we were, made to do things and... I... We...” She looked down at the ground and started shaking. George put an arm around her shoulder, to give comfort.
Finally Billi spoke, her voice nearly as shaky as Jill's.
“It's... we were all raped. It was so frequent it wasn't even rape anymore, just our lives. For months. We did what we had to in order to survive. But, Kara and I are pregnant. Derrick, the man that took over the group, he got a lot of the women pregnant. It seemed alright at first, he wasn't mean or anything, but then the other men insisted on having sex too, and we were...”
Seriously? Jake shook his head.
“Derrick Holsom?” He muttered softly. The women all looked scared again.
Finally George nodded.
“Yes. You know him?” She seemed worried about the idea.
“Oh yeah. If I ever see him again I'm punching him in the balls, after I put a bullet through his brain and cut his freaking head off. So he's moved on to sanctioning rape and abuse now? I apologize for not being a better shot. If I'd killed him, your lives would have probably been better for the last few months.” He meant it but Kara shook her head.
“Not really. Things are bad, other places I mean. We'll do what you want, if you let us stay here. Even if it's hard. I don't know if the babies...”
Jake shrugged.
“We'll check with the House. There are pregnant women, so we can possibly get information and advice about that there. We'll need a nursery. You might have to move there for that. How far along are you?”
It turned out to be about two months each, not showing yet and given the poor diet and starvation, lack of a period didn't confirm pregnancy George informed him. Jake thought about it and counted months. That would possibly put them into June or so when the kids came, which gave them a little time at least. Who knew, maybe their cycles would start again once they had good food for a while? He muttered all of this and then shrugged.
“For today though, let's not worry about it. We have meat to take care of and should go and visit the House tomorrow. If we leave early enough, maybe we can be back here for the night. Does that sound alright?” They could wait for all he cared. It wasn't like he was in a personal hurry to just rush on over.
If they were all sexually traumatized, well, that kind of meant he wasn't getting any, kind offers or not. On the good side, they probably wouldn't be having noisy sex in the same room with him either, so it was still better than what had been going on.
After the cows were done for the time being, left hanging to freeze, since it was clearly cold enough, Jake took them all on a trip to collect firewood and check the trap lines he'd set up. No joy as for rabbits or other small game yet, though one of his snares had been triggered and the bait was gone, but he found out something amazing.
With the extra bodies, they could load logs onto the little cart.
Not huge ones or anything, but they got three dead fall that were probably several hundred pounds of wood each. He'd need a saw, of course, but he could make one now, if he had a forge. The easiest thing to do would be borrow the one at the House, but it would mean staying for a few days and he didn't want to do that. When he mentioned that, Billi asked why.
“I really don't want to explain, but basically it comes down to me having left because no o
ne there wanted to sleep with me. Oh, everyone else, but... yeah, I'm not really popular there. Still, I built the forge, so they should let me use it, I think.” They'd better.
If not it would take him weeks to build another one and that would be annoying.
The women were all uneasy for the rest of the day, and hesitant when it came to be time for bed. Jake just took to his own bed and let them find their own as they wanted. Under the covers was warmer after all. That they were scared of him, he understood. He even kind of got why. Being male, he represented being made to do things. Possibly beatings if they didn't. It had taken the four of them to equal even his average strength, lifting the logs earlier. That could be a little intimidating, he knew.
But they weren't in danger. Not from him.
It would take time for them to get that though. If they ever did. Jake didn't have a great track record with women at all and kind of expected them to all hook up with some guy, or maybe gal, when they went to visit the House the next day. That would about fit, right? It was all scary and bad when it came to him, but everyone else in the world was just fine? Something like that no doubt. He decided not to care. If they got too bad about it, they could go live at the House and he'd be alone again. They might want to anyway.
It was a good place after all, and as long as you weren't the one being ostracized, even the close quarters wouldn't be that big a deal.
Their little group showed up next to the main windmill at about nine in the morning, having left just as daylight let them see ten feet in front of them. The cart was filled with frozen meat, a lot of deer and cow, but enough that even over the hard frozen ground it took all of them to move it.
There was no one outside when they got there, the windmill working slowly in the light breeze, the big wooden blades still moving the nylon belt that Burt had put together months before. It needed power conversion gears, but no one had gotten to it yet, apparently. Jake could see that. He was the one that had been learning how to use the forge before he left. He also had most of the good tools he'd made for it. Useless without a whole set-up, but he'd made them. Himself.