by P. S. Power
Dinner was good, fresh potatoes slow baked, and as he'd figured a deer meat stew. That had potatoes too. The servings weren't huge, but they were real enough, a full bowl of stew and two decent sized potatoes each and a slice of oat bread. During the end of the last winter they'd gotten by on less than that per day. The ones that survived at least. Of course that had mainly been scavenged food. This year it would all be about planning and farming. Everyone was doing it, all the other groups had some kind of farm going, except the police in their closed encampment. Morons.
They probably thought that they'd just let the little people do the work then come and raid them. It would probably have worked before, but now everyone would fight to the death if they came. That made a much bigger difference than the likes of the cops were ready for, Jake bet. Back before they'd always had greater numbers to fall back on, or the people they faced were simply unarmed. If that didn't work, they could call in back-up and often did even if it hadn't been needed.
The rules had changed.
No one said much while they ate, just focusing on the food they had, enjoying it. The room was dark, except for a single candle. Everything was now at night, not that it was really that late, still dusk out. Even the candles were a luxury. The zombies didn't go toward the light or anything, but they'd need them for the winter, when it got dark at five each night. People could only sleep so much and they didn't functionally have entertainment.
When the meal ended Holsom and his crew all glared at Jake, a few spending time looking hard at Nate too. Jake got it. They felt like he and Nate had shown them up or some macho bullshit like that. They had of course, but not in the way the men imagined.
It wasn't some ego trip, or even that Jake was a better fighter than they were, which they should have gotten already. It just came down to the fact that they weren't nearly as important to everyone as they thought they should be and he'd pointed that out. Really, the only power they had as a group were their guns. Jake wondered if they should have them at all. The only other people that did were the cleaners.
Ah. That was actually a good point. One he could use. If they wanted to be armed, they should earn the right. No one would argue that, would they?
“So, Holsom,” Jake said firmly, but in a whisper, making it sound a little menacing.
“I'm setting up a firewood collection detail that's going to run from now until we can't get any more wood for the winter. I'd like you and your friends to come along, we need all the able bodied people we can get that aren't afraid of the zombies. Since you all carry weapons all the time, I assume that means a few dead people won't bother any of you overly? Really, we probably won't have any problems that way, but it's important regardless.” Jake smiled. It wasn't a nice thing.
“Fuck that. I'm not a lumberjack.” The man said, surly and as stupid as always.
Like anyone would confuse him with someone that cut down trees for a living? Or worked? Jake had some negative thoughts about the Westwood police force in general, but he really couldn't fault them for not taking Holsom along with them.
His buddies chimed in, all fingering weapons, but not drawing them. Jake got ready to kill them all, wondering if he'd survive it. Probably not, there were five of them and one of him. They didn't have to be good, just put out enough bullets.
Oh well. Jake faced death several times a week, it would find him sometime, today might be the day. People shifted in the room but no one yelled or said anything.
Quietly from the corner Nate cleared his throat, a soft and calm sound, “None of us are Derrick, but the simple fact is that without wood we won't make it through this next winter. Half the people that died so far did so from the cold six months ago and that was in the spring nearly.”
Holsom laughed and thumbed the clip on his holster open, a menacing move that meant the man didn't get the situation at all. Tipper stood behind him with her shotgun pointed right at his head, tilted upward politely so that his brain would decorate the ceiling rather than take a chance of hitting someone on the floor. She always had perfect control of her weapon. And a cute butt. Jake tried not to think about that though, not just then.
Chuckling lightly, standing almost invisibly behind one of Holsom's large friends, a man known only as Stan, Dave spoke. His voice was menacing, as if hoping they could kill all the lazy freeloaders right then and there. It was creepy really, half little kid, the rest grown up killer. Raspy and rough.
“Look around cocksmokers.”
Jake glanced himself, hoping that didn't mean he was a secret cocksmoker, and saw that each of the men had at least two weapons pointed at them. The other cleaners had apparently decided that they'd had enough too.
Yay.
It was about freaking time.
“Let's do this civilly gentlemen, by you putting your weapons, all of them, on the ground, please.” Nate said.
It took time for them to get the idea that their options were limited. One of them tried to draw and shoot Jake, and got shot three times for his trouble. Jake's hit just below the throat, a miss if the man had been a zombie. Lethal on a human. Vickie, the head of the other good cleaning team, removed the top of his head with her sawed off shotgun and much to Jake's surprise Nate both had a pistol out and had used it. A shot to the chest, off centered, but it hit. Since the man was a pacifist by nature and upbringing, that was a huge shock to everyone. The barrel didn't smoke visibly in the candle light, but just having fired it had an impact on the room.
Everyone but Jake and a few of the cleaners looked like statues. Nate shook his head slowly.
“No. We can't have people here plotting against us Derrick. You and your friends have been trying to take us down for too long. I'd hoped that you'd all see the error of your ways and learn to help out, but...” He didn't finish, because of the three women that ran into the room, throwing themselves in front of the man. Brave of them, but foolish.
“No! You can't kill him... I love him.” Deborah said, her forty year old mouth saying what her equally old brain should have realized was a stupid thing to say given everything.
Erin said something similar, but she could be forgiven, Jake guessed. Still a bit overweight and pug nosed, along with not being overly bright and maybe seventeen. She'd probably felt lucky that Holsom had bothered to pay attention to her at all. She was probably right. As she spoke Sara, an older woman, the third in their little triumvirate of the yaya sisterhood or whatever, started screaming at Nate. Jake trained his handgun on her and spoke softly.
“Quietly. Please.”
She didn't seem to hear him. Jake sighed and shot her in the head. This time it wasn't a miss. He did manage to angle the shot at least, so no one else got hit. The room went silent as she fell. Everyone knew better than to scream now. That just got you killed. Jake half expected Molly to raise a fuss, just to make him kill her. She didn't though. She just stood back, her little twenty-two pointed at one of Holsom's buddies. The bearded one. Jake always thought of him as “Smelly” but that probably wouldn't turn out to be what his parents had named him. That was just the name he'd earned.
Washing paid off.
Turning back to Derrick as if nothing had happened, Jake grunted.
“Weapons please. All of them. If you don't comply we kill you all in... Thirteen seconds. Starting... now.” No one moved. It would be the thirteen second thing, throwing them all off. It was why he'd said it after all, to try and get Holsom to hesitate long enough.
“Ten.” He said, beginning to pull the trigger, nine millimeter pointed at Derrick's head. If he got to seven the man would die. Element of surprise and all that.
“Eight.” He said two seconds later.
Just as he was about to start killing people, Holsom pulled his gun with two fingers and started removing the other weapons he had hidden. He only had three, if the large knife got included, an oversized bowie that would only be good for intimidating people, not taking out zombies, at least not more than one. People had tried that in the beg
inning, using swords and machetes to take on the undead, because it had worked in video games or, as some had said, “swords don't run out of bullets” which was a good point on paper. It turned out to be a lot harder to behead a person than it seemed. Most of them were dead or had at least moved to firearms. Mainly the first one.
Dave collected up the weapons quickly, without being asked and removed those to the side. Two bodies were on the floor and six people stood in the middle of the room that they just couldn't trust anymore. At least Jake couldn't trust them. Derrick started talking then, his voice low and urgent.
“Whoa, this is getting way out of hand here. I just meant that, you understand, I think my time would be better spent leading instead of doing grunt work. We have people for that here, plenty of them. I...”
Jake nearly capped the man right there, but Nate shook his head.
“No, we all have to pull our weight now. If we don't we die. I'm going to go get wood in the morning and so is everyone else not on guard duty that can be spared. No one is too important for this.”
Jake nearly shut his eyes. They were not going to let Holsom stay, were they? That would be so... suicidal. Thankfully Tipper mentioned it, which got a nod from Nate.
“Agreed, these men haven't been holding up their end yet at all. More they looked to be about ready for violence when called on it. If they stay they can't be armed again. That's about the only thing that's been keeping me from mentioning their behavior so far. We can't have that. We'll put it to a vote, majority rules. Do they stay or not?”
What the fuck was the point of having a leader, if Nate was just going to do crap like this, Jake wondered. No sane person would want people like this to stay would they?
“Um, I think they should be allowed to stay.” One of the remaining female traitors said softly, looking at Jake as she did. Deborah, the older one.
Proving Jake's point. No one who wasn't crazy...
The debate started then.
Quietly.
After ten minutes Jake put his weapon away and started dragging the bodies out. He'd made a mess and dried blood stained. Then he washed up and followed Ken and Sammi into the kitchen to help with the dishes. They were already working, the light wouldn't wait after all. Those would be needed in the morning after all and people died all the time, it wasn't a good reason to skip out on the task.
Just before they were done getting the dishes all onto the wooden drying racks, they used six of them, large things that Burt had made early on, another shot came from the living room. Jake motioned them to the floor as he turned to run in, crouched low. Trying not to get shot, he poked his nine millimeter, a dull black, held in his left hand, into the room and peeked in, only his brown left eye around the frame. He knelt close to the ground. One of Holsom's crew, Smelly, laid on the floor, wet glistening in the dull light from where the top of his head had been. He had a gun in his hand, and it seemed that Dave had taken exception to it. Good. Now he wouldn't ever have to bother learning the man's real name.
That should have illustrated the point well enough, but most of the people wanted to give them another chance anyway. Throwing someone out into the night was... Harsh, and no one wanted it to happen to them later, so they argued against it as a precedence. In the end the three remaining men were allowed to stay. Jake would have fumed, but didn't bother. He'd probably still have to kill them all. The vote had been... instructive though. Not because of who voted for letting them stay, that was nearly everyone. No, it was the dozen people that had voted against it that caught his attention.
Nearly half the cleaners did, right off the top. No hesitation even. Tipper and Dave led the way, and both the other team leaders, Vickie and Carl. Vickie's screamer, a fifteen year old boy named George did too and the old guy from Carl's team, Barry. At least thought that might be his name. The man was ancient, pushing fifty at least maybe older. He was good though. The rest voted with everyone else.
The others that could see the problem for what it was made less sense.
Lois, the older kitchen lady and Burt voted against letting the men stay. So did Carley, but since she hated all men, that kind of made sense. The other two... Sammi and Ken. They went last too, even knowing that the vote would be going against them and that doing it would make enemies. It was clear they were making a point. Jake got it at least. Sammi spoke for them both.
“They're dangerous and lazy. If we let them stay it's going to come back and bite us later. We should take them out back and shoot them right now. If we don't, we're going to regret it. I'll do it myself if someone will lend me a firearm?” It was too dark to make out her facial expression and she whispered, but the tone didn't sound teasing.
Jake didn't speak his mind, but that about summed it up. Maybe he could sneak the girl a shotgun later? No one would blame a little kid for executing the men, right?
He, personally, would sleep easier if they were dead. It felt nice to know that at least a few other people could see that too. It worried him that more didn't.
It worried him a lot.
Chapter Two
The screaming woke Jake up with a start, a flash of cold poured over him and he considered freezing even while his body moved, grabbing the sidearm under the mattress he slept on. It was trapped under the right edge, the handle of the forty-five sticking out. That meant the whole thing came clear of the holster easily. He rolled to the right so that his back would be to the wall. He'd done this often enough that the move was almost smooth now. Not really fluid, but pretty good for having been asleep. He brought the weapon up and automatically thumbed the safety, cradling the thing in both hands. Like on an old cop show.
He whispered into the room, “I'm covering the door. Anyone know where that came from?”
For a moment no one spoke, then finally a soft voice answered, female, though not someone he could recognize in the dark like this. So it could be any of nearly forty odd women then.
“It was... uh, me. Nightmare. Sorry.” The woman sounded scared still. Jake exhaled slowly, not having realized he'd been holding his breath at all.
That happened, everyone got scared sometimes and that meant yelling or screaming in their sleep. Carl's team had the night watch this week, and really, one or two screams shouldn't attract anything. Not unless it was already close. If that was the case they'd hear fighting from below soon. That or more screams. If that happened he'd go, but otherwise it would just take too long and invite being shot by the watchers on the ground floor. On night watch they didn't use candles, so anyone going down the stairs needed to be careful. You couldn't call out, but zombies didn't either sometimes. If you stubbed a toe and grunted you were probably going to die.
“Alright. Happens to everyone. Can you go back to sleep? Do you have someone with you?”
The voice said “no” so softly that Jake nearly winced, that also happened, a lot. The next bit that the speaker clearly knew was coming. You woke up screaming and then just had to lie in the dark, waiting for morning, hoping you didn't die before the light came back. He'd done it more times than he cared to remember himself. Less now, but at first it had happened almost every night.
“Move over here then. I'll sit up so you can sleep.” It wouldn't guarantee anything, but sometimes if you acted like this was all normal it helped.
There came a sound of movement, a rustling, then a subdued “hey” as someone else got stepped on or jostled. Finally nearly a minute later his mattress, a twin sized thing he'd dragged from town himself, moved as the weight of someone settled onto it. He still sat by the wall. He could just sit and doze if need be. He'd learned how. Jake kept the gun out, ready just in case.
Not everyone did it, but sometimes dreams were prescient. At first he hadn't wanted to believe it himself, since it wasn't all that scientific, but over time he had to admit that some people could feel things like that. His own life had been saved more than once that way, so he'd pay attention to this too. Ignoring it would be stupid.
That m
eant that he dozed off for a while, he thought, waking with the slight hint of change that came in the pre-dawn hours, about four something in the morning, maybe five. Jake didn't have a watch anymore. His had broken in the third week after things started and there'd been no reason to find another one yet. The door slowly opened which got his attention and the two crouching figures came in, a hint of silver in the fist of the first one, a knife. Jake waited for a second, the large weapon in his hand pointed at the man.
The waiting was just to make sure he wasn't still asleep. He didn't want to kill someone for just coming back from the bathroom, and he really did just wake up with a gun in his hand sometimes. Crouching didn't help their case, but if he dreamed it, that could all be him.
Then, if it were a dream, he wouldn't have a gun and they'd be moaning zombies trying to eat the people on the floor, wouldn't they? That or a group of women refusing to ever have sex with him. That probably wouldn't be in a bedroom though, being too close to actually getting some for his own mind to handle. The man finally looked over at Jake and froze.