The Weak Shall Die: Complete Collection (Four Volume Set)

by Taylor Michaels

  "Stop or we shoot. You be dead. Quick."

  The woman turned, tripped on the underbrush and fell down. Cho ran like a deer and was standing over her before the woman could sit up. Cho kneeled down with her knee on the woman's chest and held the muzzle of the rifle an inch from the woman's nose. "Why you here? What you want? Why you watch us?"

  A few seconds later, John arrived, with Fred not far behind. "Let her up, Cho," John said, putting his hand on Cho's shoulder.

  "John, I've seen her before," said Fred. "Not sure where."

  "I keep gun on her," Cho said, as John helped the woman to her feet. She shook the leaves from her clothes and eyed them all nervously, especially looking at all the guns.

  "I wasn't -- doing anything, wrong." Her voice had a tremble as she spoke. "I wasn't spying on you. I was only …," and she stopped.

  "Only what. What you want," Cho yelled, loudly, pushing her rifle into the woman's stomach.

  "Uh -- I was looking for -- uh -- stop that -- George. This is where he lives, isn't it? I saw you in the store with him. One of my neighbors said some new people moved into the lodge and were going to start it up again. I thought he might be with you folks."

  Silence hung between them for a few seconds until Fred snapped his fingers. "Oh, yeah. You're Iris. Now I remember. From the grocery store. George said he was going to go back to talk to you."

  She jerkily nodded her head up and down, then looked down at the rifle in her stomach. "He came back to the store, but we were busy and I didn't have much of a chance to talk. He seemed real nice," she said with a bit of a flush across her cheeks as her voice quieted.

  "So why are you sneaking around in the woods?" John said, adding, "Cho, put that rifle away."

  "I wasn't sneaking," she said, with some irritation in her voice this time. "I was walking. I live a mile or two east of here. I grew up in this area. I used to go hiking in these woods when I was a girl." Her head turned toward the trees as she continued, "Kind of forgot how much I enjoyed it. Out here with nature. The trees are nice and green with new leaves. The air is crisp and the sky is blue. Really pretty. No people. Wasn't sure this was the right place. If I saw George, I was going to talk to him some more. Where is he?"

  "He back soon," Cho said, pointing her rifle at the ground and clicking the safety. "You want cup of tea?"

  "Sure."

  "Nice weather for walk, yes?"

  Iris and Cho turned and walked back toward the lodge talking, as John and Fred stopped and watched.

  "What just happened, John? Didn't we miss a few steps? I thought you were running this place. Aren't we supposed to sit her down and give her the third degree? Maybe whack her a couple times on the sole of her feet with a rubber hose? At least run a background check on the internet or something?"

  "Back in China, the same thing would happen all the time. Cho looks at a person the way we would look at a new tool. We would imagine what we would do with the tool and make a quick, logical decision whether or not to buy it. Cho used to recruit girls and guys for her businesses just like this. She would see somebody she thought was right and just grab them up. Most of the time her intuition about people's natures paid off."

  Fred and John started walking toward the lodge, but suddenly Fred grabbed John's arm. "Wait a minute. She also had guy prostitutes?"

  "I'm not sure. But, she also had a home repair business. Plumbing, carpentry and electrical. To her it was just like the business with the girls. Somebody had a need and they called her to take care of it. She would decide who was the best person for the job and send them out."

  "I never thought about it that way, but maybe the two businesses are the same. No, not really. She's planning to start running the prostitution business again? Here? Now? She's going to rent out Iris?" Fred's eyes were wide.

  "No, of course not. She's recruiting Iris for George. George is lucky. Cho has a good instinct for people, especially women."

  "Glad somebody has. Rather nice of her, isn't it?"

  "I suppose so. She did say she was going to be on the lookout for a girl for him. 'Two weeks, tops,' she said."

  "Unbelievable."

  * * *

  That night before dinner, John stood up, clinked his fork on his glass. He was becoming more comfortable in his organizational role with the group. "For those of you who haven't noticed, we have another face at the table, tonight. Iris works at the grocery store on the other side of town. She met some of you when you were buying things to stock up." John then went around the table and introduced each person and gave a little of their background.

  "John," Fred whispered after John sat back down. "Aren't you revealing more than we should? We said we would maintain better secrecy."

  John leaned over and whispered. "I'm not worried about it this time. Either she likes George and she buys the whole virus and prepping bit or she doesn't and she believes we're all completely crazy. Cho says Iris and George are a definite maybe."

  "She said that, did she?"

  "Not exactly. More like, 'Iris and George good match.' She knows things like that. Either way, Iris is no danger to us. If it works with her and George, she may be able to find us some more goods."

  "You mean theft?"

  "Not necessarily. We just let it play out and see what happens."

  "You used to be more of a planner. With everything thought out detail by detail ahead of time. Cho has had a strange influence on you."

  "Maybe. Even if I were the official leader of this group, I couldn't tell people what to do. You have to have the flexibility to let people find their own solutions to the problems. Tell them what the problem is and let them go. If they don't come up with an adequate solution, you take another shot at it."

  "I thought you were the official leader. The boss."

  "I think of myself as the organizer. Definitely not the boss. If somebody fails, I don't blame myself. It works out better that way. Less ulcers. My father was great with people. Never met a stranger. I'm trying to be more like him. My stepfather was more reclusive. Didn't trust anybody. I had become too much like him. I'm going back to my roots."

  After dinner, John rose again, clinked his glass with his fork again and said, "Thanks to Marceau for a remarkable dinner." All heads nodded and 'Thanks' rang through the room. "I'd like to ask George, our quartermaster, to give us an update on the prepping."

  "Sure John," said George, taking a small spiral notebook from his shirt pocket and, possibly to impress Iris, he assumed a more professional stance and tone than usual. "Today, we picked up about fifteen percent of our needs. We're now at forty-five percent of our food goal, eighty percent of the non-food materials. Four more good days and we'll be ready."

  "Sounds good, George."

  "I do have an unrelated announcement. Iris would like to join our group. She is single and likes our lifestyle. John, what do we do? Vote?"

  John thought for a minute as eyes were riveted on him, waiting for him to make a decision. "I don't know. Iris, why don't you tell us something about yourself. We don't care how old you are or if you've been married. What we're mainly interested in is what kind of survival skills you have, because that's what we need."

  Iris stood up and looked around the group. "I don't know any of you, but I've seen most of you in the store. Really, I don't have much to tell. My parents always had a garden. Half an acre or so. I helped out. I know how to plant a seed in the garden and I can drive a tractor. I did a little plowing. My mother canned as much as she could and taught me how to do it. It's been a couple years, but I can probably remember how. So, I can help out. I can cook, just country cooking. Nothing special. I could help Marceau prepare vegetables. I can't cook like her, but if you're all not too picky, I could give her some days off."

  Marceau perked up. "I like her already. Where do I sign?"

  "Sounds good. Ever shoot a gun?"

  "Yeah, John. I used to go squirrel huntin' with Daddy. I guess he really wanted a boy. I got a few. Not boys, squirrels th
at is. Well, there were a few boys. Nothing serious."

  Masako and Marceau had a brief chuckle.

  "Too much information. I was never a political person," said John. "I said before that if anyone wanted to make any new friends, do it now. George, you've done that and I can't criticize either your choice or your timing. So, I suppose she's in, based on your say-so. Any objections? You'd better have a good reason because Marceau likes her and crossing Marceau is a mistake." He looked at all the faces around the table.

  "I like too," said Cho.

  Fred spoke up, "John, you know this increases our food requirement. Our forty-five percent complete will drop to forty."

  "True, but like I said. If anybody is going to make any friends, now's the time. It's late, but not too late. Besides, I have confidence that Iris is a diamond in the rough. No offense, Iris."

  "Sure. Sounded like a compliment to me. Nobody ever called me a diamond before."

  "I was thinkin' it," said George, as both he and Iris blushed.

  "Well, since nobody else has raised their hands, welcome to the group, Iris."

  George interrupted, "Now that her membership is settled, Iris told me she knows a wholesaler where we can get a whole bunch of supplies quickly and at a discount. Tomorrow, we'll go talk to them."

  * * *

  The television news each day showed a map of the world with more and more and bigger and bigger red spots, like the map had a worsening case of giant measles. At first, the spots covered most of China, Southeast Asia and Japan. Then, spots on the US map erupted and began to grow. The map was bleeding and the blood spelled death.

  The next three days were busy with everyone becoming more and more nervous as they moved closer and closer to their prepping goals. Everyone knew that their safety and the security of the compound was more at risk than ever. At one point, George divulged that even it they met their prepping goals, nobody was going to get fat. His goals were based on fifteen hundred calories per day and not two thousand. Until the garden began producing, everyone would be hungry.

  On every trip, they expected the panic to begin and on every trip, they knew that if this trip were the last, then their survival was in jeopardy. Each person shopping tried to imagine something they thought the group might need sometime in the future. But each person knew they would forget something and that would make life more difficult. The group began to be more and more nervous and tempers began to flare.

  * * *

  "Tom, hurry up. We don't have time to dally. Find what's on the list and let's go." Elspeth jockeyed back and forth in the hardware aisle of the store, giving the impression she had a serious need to go to the toilet.

  "Get stuffed, Elspeth. Stop with all the agro. I thought about some hardware we might need last night in bed and now I can't remember what it was." Tom strained his mind, looking across all the shelves and all the little bubble packages. He knew he was missing something important, but what was it?

  "That's what woke me up in the middle of the night. You were tossing and turning over some little scrap of metal. I'm tired. I'm not sleeping enough. Just take something and go. We have to buy everything on this list before I can go back and hit the sack, as the Yanks say. I need more sleep."

  Tom didn't like the hassle. Elspeth was difficult on a good day and he hadn't seen a good day in weeks. If she didn't drink so much, she might be easier to get along with. "You wake up in the middle of the night because you go to bed soused. You wake up because you finally sober up. If you drank less, you'd sleep more."

  "Bloody git. If I drink less, I'll remember where I am and why more often. And then I'd have to drink even more to forget where I am and why. Oh, yes. That reminds me. We need to stop by the liquor store."

  "That's what wastes all our time. If you're not drinking it, you're buying it," Tom said grabbing half a dozen sets of drill bits, throwing them into the cart and scurrying on. "Every time we go out, you have to go to the liquor store. You are their biggest customer. All the clerks know you by name. Big El, they all call you."

  "All men remember my name," she said flipping her brown hair and putting six boxes of salt into her cart. "Besides, John said to buy what we wanted after we bought what was on the list. George always stops by the sporting goods store for bullets and arrows and then the hardware store for electrical and mechanical parts."

  How could she think like that, Tom thought. "Electrical parts for the lodge is not the same as alcohol for your own personal use. Bottles you put under the bed so nobody knows you have them."

  "Fred always wastes time in clothing stores and in the Tractor Store."

  Tom was exasperated and tired of arguing. He also knew they had to lower their voices. "Those are to help the group. You won't even tell anyone you have all that booze. You don't share. You could put it in one of the storage rooms. The space under the bed is full. Where are you going to put it all?"

  She pointed at her mouth and said, "That's were it's going. It's not their business. It's mine. I need it. My life is not fun any more. I'm trying to forget we are soon going to see the end of the world," she said, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. "The end of the world as we know it. Isn't that what the Yanks keep saying? Bloody Yanks. We can't even go home any more."

  "Keep your voice down." He continued to whisper. "It wasn't supposed to be fun. It was supposed to be life. Staying alive. That was the only promise John made and he didn't promise it would be forever or nice or fun. We're getting what we were promised." Tom could hear his heart beating, feel his face red and his legs were wobbly. Why did everything have to be so damn difficult with her? They had gotten as much as they could get, as much as they were promised and she was never happy. This wasn't happy time. It was stay-alive time. Why couldn't she understand that? The world had changed. She would have to change too.

  "You are really making me feel bad now," she said, pulling out another tissue. "I'm no weaker than anybody else. Pierre stops at a pharmacy each day and picks up things. Nobody complains about that."

  "Again, that's for the group."

  "Not always. He injects himself with something from time to time. I was looking for Marceau yesterday and their cabin door was open. I saw Pierre giving himself an injection. He didn't see me. He's not the rock you think he is. He's a mushy little froggie. So don't give me agro because I'm human. I won't stand for it. You hear me!"

  Tom let out a big sigh. This bickering was so tiresome. "Nobody is a rock. We're just people and we're doing the best we can. We have a terrible problem and we're doing the best we can to deal with it. Grab a couple of those big bags of rice." He pointed to the bottom shelf.

  "They're not on the list. And they're too low. And too big. I'll strain my back."

  "Rice and beans are always on the list."

  Elspeth moved her cart. "You'll have to do it. My cart is almost full."

  More attitude, he thought. It's not my fault either. "OK, but this will fill mine too. We should be going. Is that Charles?" Tom said, pointing.

  "Yes. Follow him, Tom. I'm curious."

  "You said you were in a hurry."

  "I'm also curious."

  "You've been a little too curious about him, don't you think? You two have been spending time together. What have you been doing?"

  "Jealous, are you?"

  "Sports department," Tom said, pushing his heavy cart faster and following. "Come on." Tom stopped at the end of an aisle, peeked around and watched as Charles went to the counter where guns were sold. He bought a bag full of boxes of shells, several knives and a box the size of a rifle. The sales clerk took the box and Charles followed him toward the front door of the store.

  "Is that for the group?" said Elspeth, dodging down another aisle to avoid being seen. "We have plenty of guns. More than three for each person. I have six, myself."

  "We aren't gunsmiths. If something happens to one, we won't be able to fix it. Maybe it's something special. Maybe he ordered it."

  "I'll ask him when I see him."
r />   "You are seeing too much of him as it is."

  Elspeth stood up straight and looked Tom straight in the eyes. "And aren't you spending some time with that Iris? George won't be happy about that."

  "For Christ's sake. She needed help bringing her stuff from her apartment and George was working on the solar panels. I couldn't sleep."

  "So, you went to her apartment with her?"

  "Now, who's jealous?"

  She squinted her eyes. "I'm just saying that what's sauce for the gander is sauce for the goose."

  "That's backwards, but I say you are getting way too much sauce."

  "It's a new world. I'll decide how much sauce I can handle. If you don't like it, then get yourself another goose."

  He nudged her on the shoulder and cursed under his breath. "The carts are full. Let's go."

  "To the liquor store."

  * * *

  George was pulling wires in a small box in the basement when John walked down the stairs." 'Sup, John? Tired of your four hours of sleep. Goin' to try livin' on three?"

  George never understood his relationship with John while he was in China. He spent his weekends at John's place and enjoyed the parties. John always treated him as a guest, never mentioning he should pay for anything. Now that he was here, what was his position? Was he a hired hand who received his shelter in return for work or was he a partner in the operation? He thought of himself as partner. They all were. But more important things needed to be done than hooking up power and water lines. George had many good ideas that would benefit the group, but they had no time for such things. He needed to be much more aggressive in pushing his ideas with John. And, it would be nice to get a little recognition for his work. After all, nobody else could do what he could.

  "I'm so sleepy I can't sleep. So, I came down here. Maybe in a few minutes, I'll be sleepy enough to go back to bed. You doing alright?"