Dead End (Book 3): A Very Good Thing

by P. S. Power

  Selfishly he didn’t want to ruin his bedding by putting a bloody girl on it, but he did it anyway, deciding that it would be easier to get into town in the coming days for new stuff than to explain why he made an injured woman sleep on the floor.

  “OK, Sammi, I can’t see squat so, you know, you’re up. I’m going to reload and get you two weapons. Um…” He knew it was mean, but it had to be said, didn’t it?

  “Barb? You need to be quiet now. Like before, when you played dead. I know you’re scared, but Sammi needs to treat you, and you can’t scream during that, even if it hurts. Then we need you to get up and get ready to fight. You know how to use a rifle?” Honestly Jake didn’t think the girl would be able to do it, but she went silent instantly and after about fifteen seconds made a soft noise, like a grunt. Her face was in his pillow, but after a few seconds she spoke, still muffled.

  “Yeah. Not very well. But I can point and shoot. I don’t know if I can reload in the dark though.”

  Jake grinned, knowing only Sammi would see it.

  “Good enough for now. One second…” He moved as quickly as he could, first pushing, then dragging, bodies out of the door, hurriedly closing and locking it. He had blood and snow stuck to his feet and pant legs by the time he was done.

  Like a snow cone for a vampire.

  The next thing he did involved going to the corner of the room, behind the woodpile, where a few extra weapons and some ammunition was stored. It was accessible, but out of the way. In a pinch he could hide behind the wood for a bit while he got a fresh weapon. He needed more ammo, but it had been hard to come by of late. Maybe he could take some off the dead outside, in the morning? They’d had at least a little. It probably wouldn’t be the right kind, if he could tell from the sound of it. Still, someone would be able to use it.

  Sammi spent a long time treating the girl on the bed, which, disgustingly enough, included licking the back of her bloody head. It was a Bawdri thing, their saliva being proof against almost all infections, viral and bacterial. It was still creepy and gross. It was far too close to cannibalism for his own comfort. Useful though, so he didn’t make a face, pretending not to get what the sounds meant at all.

  Then, after the wound was bound, a bit awkwardly, since just wrapping it would mean going over Barb’s mouth as well, Jake handed out the weapons and they waited in silence.

  Nothing happened, naturally. The odds of two groups of people coming across his place in one night was tiny. Actually that even one group did was… Incredibly bizarre. Softly, barely a whisper, he asked about it.

  Sammi sighed.

  “It was a long shot and I was surprised it worked, but they started to lead us away in a different direction, so I struggled a bit, trying to head that way, as if I were eager too. The one holding me seemed to figure I felt that way was safe, and steered the group away from where I wanted to go. She didn’t know she was doing it. These weren’t Windigo. Cannibals, yes, and insane, but not truly gone. Not yet. They lacked the true abandon that kind would have. It’s why they seem to have powers you know. They simply don’t care anymore. I hope the others are all right.” Her voice was barely a whisper, but Jake made it out anyway. He’d gotten good at that over the last months.

  “Me too. We can’t do anything until light though.” Well, they could, but that was asking for death. They’d made enough noise that zombies would eventually show up, yelling and shouting, then Barb crying like that. He’d have to have a talk with her later about that. Work out a strategy so it wouldn’t happen again.

  Something occurred to him then, he meant it as a joke, but like always anymore, it didn’t come out sounding right. Seriously instead of playful.

  “Say, Sammi… If I learn to not care about anything, do I get super-powers too? It could come in handy.”

  There was no answer for a very long time. Jake figured that his attempts at a joke had just gone flat, but when she spoke the words were different than he’d figured they would be.

  “I… Yes Jake. I don’t know what would happen though, if that kind of… letting go, were mixed with your own true nature. It… it might make you very powerful indeed. It could be dangerous though too. The sheer contradiction could cause you to disintegrate, personality wise.”

  Jake stifled a chuckle.

  “Oh? Well, we’ll see. I think I’m most of the way there already.”

  That got a sharp intake from the dark, from where his little friend was.

  “I know Jake.” She sounded very sad about it. “I just don’t know what to do about it. It’s horrible to watch and shouldn’t be happening at all.” Then she fell silent.

  They waited. It was the new national sport after all. Huddling in the dark, not knowing what the morning would bring. At first light, before most people would venture out, he heard them. From the noise in the snow, the predictable, almost marching sound of feet, but not in unison, he knew the dead had come. He just stayed inside though. They wouldn’t go away, not once they smelled them, but fighting in the light was always more accurate than in the dark and he really didn’t want to miss too often. It wasted ammo.

  Plus, though he never told anyone about it, the fact was, when he missed it always made him feel a little stupid. It didn’t matter if others missed more often even. Jake just felt incompetent when he didn’t take a target down with one shot. Winter was having a horrible effect on his ego, requiring at least two to stop the frozen undead in most cases.

  When it was light enough he simply stepped out, not telling the others what the plan was. Sammi knew already no doubt, and Barb had dozed off, lying on her face on his bed. Drooling on his pillow.

  The fight was brief and intense. One of them managed to nearly bite him, coming up from behind, and it took a flailing leap into a snow bank and a tooth torn pant cuff on his jeans to get enough distance to shoot. He did miss, twice, and had to get his forty-five out, having used the bullets in his nine. It only took a few minutes though, so he added wood to the coals under the water heater and blew on that for a while before going in. It let him get another shambler, one he hadn’t noticed, so that worked out. The water wasn’t warm enough for a bath, but he needed to wash up anyway.

  It was a thing.

  Smiling he stripped in the bathroom, to scrub, the cool water uncomfortable, and his body sore, but lack of sleep could do that. Stress too. He shaved in the dim light through the window, a rippled glass that made it so no one could just look in, as if peeping Tom’s would have ever been a real issue that far out in the country. Then he went out to start breakfast, only to find Barb sitting at the table and Sammi already working on it.

  The face clicked in his mind when he saw the girl, finally having enough light.

  “Oh… I recognize you now. One of the Jake hating crew. Their leader in all things anti-Jake, if I have it right?” He said the words without thinking, but the girl made a face anyway. It wasn’t a pleasant one either. Not a humble denial or apology. It held anger instead. It held fear under that though.

  The girl was pretty, normally at least, less so at the moment, her face twisting into something hostile and ugly.

  “That’s your fault, not mine. If you weren’t going around… doing things to women and girls, I’d like you just fine.” Her tone was snotty and a bit evil sounding, but Jake just nodded, as if she were simply right.

  “I don’t suppose the fact that I didn’t do anything you think I did will ever influence you to change your mind?” He watched her closely as Sammi kept working, tension creeping into her small shoulders.

  Barb grimaced.

  “I know what men are. It doesn’t matter if you did any given thing or not, you’ve done something. You’ve hurt some girl. You’re a man.” It was stated with as much conviction as he’d ever heard from anyone.

  Not the most pleasant thing to hear, but he let it go. After all, he wouldn’t argue the girl out of blind hatred. Trying would just waste his time. It hurt to hear, but in her world it was probably needed. Men had
hurt her. Very bad men. Worse, most of them had been ones that were supposed to serve and protect. If she ever trusted anyone again, it wouldn’t be him. It most likely wouldn’t be anyone with a penis.

  Jake nodded again and turned to Sammi, changing the subject.

  “We need to check on the House. I don’t know what we’ll find there, so, I’ll go in alone and you can stay here with Barb?” It was the only way it worked. The injured girl couldn’t make the walk easily yet and Jake wouldn’t send Sammi instead of going himself. She was a decent shot, but not a real fighter. It made a difference.

  “No, we should all stay here. It’s too dangerous.” Barb spoke softly, sounding terrified now, instead of angry.

  “They’ll come for us, if they can. If they can’t, there’s no need to go back.”

  Raising an eyebrow, Jake gave the girl that had, not a minute before established that she thought he was an evil rapist based on nothing he’d ever done, a look that held as much skepticism as possible.

  “Why would you care if I’m in danger? You’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t care if I live or die…”

  “What?” The girl looked truly baffled. So did Sammi, but she didn’t say anything.

  “Um, well, you just said that you thought I was evil and had hurt people, didn’t you? That being male means I’d do it again and must have in the past? I kind of have to take it as a negative statement about how you feel about me. Plus, I did try to kill Heather once. That was because she keeps making my life almost impossible and accused me of things just to make people like you hate me, but I don’t expect you to see it that way. I understand you probably can’t see my innocence as possible, given everything.”

  The girl looked at the table, her face holding anger then, hands clutching the rifle in front of her so hard they turned white and shook a little. Finally she looked up at him, jaw clenched. Jake got ready to draw and shoot her, if she started to turn the weapon on him. It was close, but the girl just started crying instead.

  Softly this time. Just tears running down her face and hiccupping sobs. After a few minutes of this, as Sammi worked away behind them, the dark haired girl spoke.

  “I hate you.” She whispered. It didn’t hold venom though, just sadness. A darkness to the words that made them sound hollow and almost empty.

  “I hate that I need you. I hate that we all need you. I hate that nothing seems to stick to you and that no one can prove you’ve done anything wrong. Women accuse you of rape and you just walk away, then later they take it back. How powerful do you have to be to scare them into doing that? I know you’re scary. I hate you for that too. That you make me feel afraid all the time.” A single wracking, shuddering breath was taken by the girl.

  “And I hate that I’m wrong about you.”

  It was so contradictory Jake couldn’t process it. If she knew she was wrong, why hate him at all? Why bother to hate? Or even think of him.

  “Oh.” He didn’t call her on it. It wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t let him understand her or make sense of things. He was hated. But that didn’t change anything. The work still had to be done.

  “I still need to go and check on the House.”

  Sammi gestured to the stove where two pans had things frying in them.

  “Eat first? Going hungry won’t help. What’s happened has likely already taken place.”

  Jake knew that, but still felt like every moment wasted on himself could cost someone their life. He ate though, braised deer meat cut into fine strips, with a side of potatoes. It was what he had a lot of, so it made sense for it to have been made.

  No garlic got used. Sammi hated it.

  About the time he was halfway through the potatoes, trying to enjoy them, even with all that was going on, because good food was probably the last good thing, Cam showed up, appearing across the room from him. He just turned, used to it by now, but Barb had her riffle aimed in panic. She pulled it away just as fast though and didn’t shoot. Cam was her friend after all.

  Decent reflexes, Jake realized, if she got enough practice the girl might be useful as a guard. Before he could say anything at all, Barb spoke, slightly breathless.

  “Geez… I keep forgetting you can do that.” She sounded scared for a second, but took a deep breath and set the rifle on the table just in time for the orange eyed Teleporter, who was wearing an all white snow outfit, one that had bloodstains on it at the knees and elbows, to dash across the room to hug her.

  “You’re alive!” It was too loud and Jake started to pull his nine, but the girl stuck her tongue out at him and waved his hand back. It was cute and playful, considering he’d been about to shoot her. She went back to hugging her friend for a bit. Then, almost as if making herself do it, she walked around the table and held her arms out to Sammi.

  It was a nice thing for her to do, considering the Bawdri had taken a knife to her before, just for being one of her kind. It wasn’t lost on the smaller blond. She looked at the open arms and finally set her fork down and opened her own. It was a brief thing, begrudging and didn’t seem exactly genuine on either part, but it was a real start.

  When the moment was done, Cam looked at him directly and spoke as if her words had been rehearsed. Like a report to be given to a superior, rather than just telling them what was up.

  “Five dead at the House. Two kids, three women. Killed when Barb and Sammi were taken. About fifteen injured in the fight. Ken was shot, but is up already, and Burt has a broken arm. The team that was in the woods got six of the… cannibals, but some got away.” She looked at the two women, then walked to the window, saw the bodies in the pile ready for disposal, and nodded.

  “Or, as it turns out, they didn’t. Heather doesn’t know why she screwed up, but she’s almost positive that these weren’t anywhere close to the last group. Or the most dangerous. She wanted me to come get you and make sure you keep Colleen with you from now on. She got banged up pretty bad, fighting. She was taken, but Randy managed to get her back from them. Colleen, I mean.”

  She listed off the names of the dead, none of which Jake recognized. It still made him sad. Everything did though, anymore. Finally she shrugged.

  “So, Nate has us all picking up and setting things back to right. Morris has a lot of our people over at the House, bringing in supplies and helping to fix things. It’s… a lot of people are really scared now. We were attacked by a huge hoard of zombies and no one even got really injured, but nine crazies come in and people died and got kidnapped for food.” She shrugged.

  “Can we go back? It will make everyone feel better, seeing you all. Especially the Ba-Dehist. Just knowing that these other cannibals are dead will help a lot. Everyone is afraid they’ll try and come back as soon as they sleep.”

  Jake blew out a breath of air, and took another before saying anything, feeling too tired to care about much, but knowing he had things to do anyway. Sleepless night or not.

  “OK. Let’s finish eating and get to that, then I need a hunting team, I promised some people, the Technologists, that we’d help them get food. It’s in the tropics somewhere, but Mort knows how to find it. He can take us.”

  Cam just nodded and looked down, but didn’t say anything. Barb looked at her friend though and made another angry face.

  “You don’t have to go with him… Or let him…”

  Cam just shook her head slowly at the girl and sighed.

  “No, it’s nothing like that. It’s never anything like that Barb. I told you… Jake’s never touched me. Heck, I’ve offered, more than once, and he’s refused each time. I just… feel like I’ve let him down. I should have stayed at the House like I was supposed to, but went off with the warriors to the woods, just in case they needed to get to a medical facility fast. If I’d been there…” She didn’t finish the statement.

  Sammi didn’t let her.

  “If you’d been there… what?” She sounded a bit sarcastic, but didn’t look like she meant it at least. Her gaze was almost gentle. “You’
d have fled? Only that would have taken you too long. You’d have tried to fight? Maybe, your brave enough, but you hold no great talent for it. None of your people do. You went out into the woods to help hunt killers, knowing all that, so no one thinks you less than brave, but your abilities simply weren’t suited to the task. It’s not a failing, and Jake doesn’t think that any of us failed him. I doubt he could.”

  That was true so he nodded, then spoke directly to Cam.

  “I wasn’t there either. I know how you feel.”

  It didn’t help of course, but she stopped talking about it and started to focus, eyes closed, motioning to them all a few minutes later. It was a lot faster than she had been. Still almost five minutes, but under that by a little, Jake thought. She was getting better.

  Then, she had too, didn’t she?

  They all had too. Especially him. He’d been letting his emotions rule him, which wasn’t always bad, but some of them got in the way of good planning and doing the right thing at the right time. That needed to change. He needed to change. How to do that, he didn’t know.

  They came out in front of the back porch, a perimeter of guards dressed in white out in the distance, black and multi-colored clad new people appearing and disappearing rapidly, one every few seconds for a bit, bringing in boxes and cases of things. One of them looked up, and waved. Morris. He looked around, found a large brown case with leather straps with buckles wrapped around it and picked it up by the wooden looking handle on the top, carrying it over to them carefully.

  “Jake. This is for you.” He sounded happy about it, so Jake opened the top. It held a bunch of little jars. Not that little, enough to hold about two cups each. About twenty of them. The fronts had hand written labels.