by P. S. Power
Jake nearly laughed. As if killing could be avoided here? The whole world had become death in an eye blink already. Someone was dying in this. It was the new rule, wasn't it?
Turning he went back in to bed, since the dark wouldn't be going away for several hours. Holsom and most likely the women with him, would be too afraid to try and leave in the dark. Jake kind of was, so he didn't blame them, but it meant they got a little time. Nate could watch first. That meant little to no sleep for the other man, but Jake felt like going to sleep already, his eyes heavy and closing nearly on their own. If he didn't go lie down, he'd probably fall asleep right where he stood. He found his way to the room he shared with everyone and fell into bed quickly, dozing almost as soon as his eyes shut. A while later, minutes probably, something shifted on his mattress, at first he thought Nate had come to wake him, but a soft female voice whispered in his ear. Heather.
“I can't... I'm not ready to have sex, not after... You know, I've been raped a few times. It's too hard... Maybe later? Can I just sleep here, with you? I mean, I'll go if you want. I don't... I like you but... there are things in the way for now. The past and future and...” Her voice sounded tense and ashamed.
Jake murmured, “sure”, a little groggily and went back to sleep. Having been raped was at least as good of an excuse not to sleep with him as any of the others he'd heard. She might be too young for him anyway. Well, no loss and he had some mattress space to spare, compared to most of the others, some of whom just curled up on the bare carpet, not having gone to get their own beds yet. They'd need more of those before winter too, just to get people off the floor. That thought carried him to sleep.
Besides, he realized, if she was willing to sleep next to him like this, maybe that meant she liked him a little? She'd said so, but that could have just been a friendly thing right? Or not. Sixteen wasn't that young and if she could ever feel comfortable with sex again, it might work out. He drifted off happy enough with the thought, since it was nearly like hope, in a way.
Heather shook his shoulder a little, causing him to wake with the forty-five in his hand, suddenly, adrenalin pumping hard. A soft voice came, lips pressed to his ear warmly, softly. Enough to get a reaction from him, even if he couldn't have sex with the girl yet for her own peace of mind. Not that it took much work. They didn't even have porn anymore. A girl's lips on his ear was a huge deal.
“Something's coming.” She whispered, “out front, from the right.”
Ah. Well then. Jake just got up and made sure he had both his weapons. The girl may be insane, or psychic. Or both. It didn't matter. Ignoring a warning could get a person killed. He told her to stay put, and moved off down the stairs quietly. It had to be about time for him to wake up anyway. To the front of the house, off to the right? The armory in the cellar. The little one on that side of the big house. They had two, a much bigger one out back where they planned to store a lot of the fall harvest. He walked carefully and tapped the dozing Carl on the shoulder softly, speaking before the man could shoot him.
“Front. Armory. Maybe. New girl warned me.”
It would probably be nothing, but Carl got his people around anyway. They were supposed to stay up all night, but in the pitch black that could be hard to do. It was generally enough for the guard to just be dressed, armed and dozing anyway. They moved as a unit, but sloppily, Carl and the old vet moved well, their screamer, a woman that held her shotgun nervously and the other hunter, a guy about Jake's age, though bigger and stronger looking, moved like someone had tied water buffalo to his feet. Carl signaled those two to go and cover the perimeter while the remaining three men moved on the armory.
It didn't take long to get the picture.
Two forms stood outside the cellar door, and a lot of noise came from within, things being loaded into a bag or box probably. If they were in there, then they were armed. Jake already had the nine in his hand and pointed to the two in front. Women probably.
The old vet, whatever his name was, Barry, Jake remembered suddenly, nodded and moved in alongside of them, visible in the pale light, but the women didn't look alongside the house as the man took the first one from behind, a hand over her mouth. The second one got half a scream out, which got the people inside to boil out, weapons ready.
Jake shot them.
There were three of them, he couldn't tell who they were, so he used zombie protocols, taking them in the head. One of them got a single round off, as they came up the stairs. Someone groaned, a sharp sound followed by moaning, the whole thing only took about a half minute, and most of that was figuring out if anyone else was left in the armory. There was; a scared older woman, one that had never been helpful to Jake at all. It was tempting, the thought of just killing her then and there, taking out another useless eater, but he held off for a moment, knowing that Nate and the others wouldn't like it if he did.
Plus, it would just be wrong. She couldn't fix herself if she was dead, could she?
No one came out of the house or anything, so Jake and the rest waited, just in case there were more bad guys coming. A few minutes later a familiar noise could be heard, a rolling sound. The large work cart. Pulled by a large form that he couldn't make out in the dark, the raw steel glinting in the moonlight as the wheels squeaked a bit. They needed some grease or oil. Jake would look into that with Burt before they used it to get more wood. Maybe they could use the cooking oil? In the back there was a nearly full load of something.
Jake was willing to guess it wasn't wood.
Carl shot first, but his shotgun, the preferred weapon of night duty, didn't hit the man who was trying to run for the road. Holsom was too far away. He'd heard the shots and was just taking off, leaving his girls behind.
What a creep.
Oh, the women deserved it, but Jake wouldn't have left them if they'd been on an operation with him. Not like that. The shotgun couldn't reach the cart, so Jake tapped Carl on the arm.
“We can't afford to lose the cart. I'm going after him. Don't shoot me.” He said, his voice sounding light. Almost happy. He finally had a chance to kill Holsom and no one could really complain at him for doing it. Yay. It was the best thing that had happened in a long time. His turn to feel like it was Christmas.
Maybe things were looking up?
The chase didn't last long. Unencumbered Jake got to the cart about the time it made the road. Holsom was wheezing a bit, the whole thing being too full for one person to really run with. Jake didn't ask him to stop, just started firing. At first nothing happened, but finally the man slipped out from under the long front pulling bar and fired back at Jake, having gotten a handgun already. Nothing hit, so he shot back as the man ran, firing back at him the whole time. A burning sensation creased his right arm, but that didn't stop him from giving chase for a ways.
When you fought, you got hurt. It was almost a rule. He'd learned the hard way not to pay too much attention to things like that early on. Mainly by example from others, most of who died, clutching themselves instead of attacking.
Finally the man made it to the bushes that lined the far side of the road and vanished. If running noisily through the night counted as disappearing that was. Arm burning or not, he couldn't afford to leave the cart, just in case Holsom came back for it. He worked himself into place under the bar and slowly, far more so than the large man had managed, got it turned around and going back to the house.
This time there were people outside, Carl had called out the situation apparently, and since no zombies were around, it didn't matter much if people helped to secure the remaining prisoners. They hustled them into the front room and tried to treat the one that had been shot on the floor by candle light. The cart got left out front, but Vickie and her crew were on that fast, securing it like it had been loaded with gold. Or food. No one looked at him for a while, until he just sat on the floor. Blood loss probably.
Jake crawled to the box of makeshift bandages and tried to wrap the wound, but kept passing out for some reason. Goi
ng out with zillions of little shining black and blue dots rushing in from the sides of his vision, making everything a tunnel. After about five tries, feeling a bit like he wanted to throw up the whole time, he got it wrapped well enough and let himself lie down on the hard wood floor. It was clean at least, where his head lay. It got swept daily he knew and that really seemed to make a difference. After first light he felt a boot against his ribs. Gently, a mere nudge, not a kick. Probably not a woman then. Opening one eye he looked at the person doing it, Vickie, and groaned a little. Heh, it was a girl and not even taking advantage of the fact he couldn't really fight back at the moment. Go figure.
“Mom, I don't want to go to school. I don't feel good.” He said, very softly. Vickie grinned.
“He's alive. I don't know if he's being a smart-ass or delirious though.”
Jake sat up and immediately felt like vomiting again. Blood loss always did that to him. He waved at her with his right hand slightly and then started dry heaving. It hurt, but that wasn't a huge thing. Everything else did too. When he stopped, taking shallow breaths for a while he looked at the tall cool blond, lines that hadn't been there originally showed on her face from stress and having been woken up by gunfire.
He fought a grin onto his own features and took a deeper breath, still fighting for control.
“Smart-ass mainly. I need some water.” Something to eat too, but he wouldn't ask for that. They didn't have enough for him to be taking extra to try and make his tummy feel better.
A cup came to his hand a minute later, brought by Ken who looked scared and worried. After a minute the boy whispered at him, so softly that Jake almost though he imagined it at first.
“We should have killed that bastard while we had the chance.” He said, sounding angry. Livid was more like it.
Jake nodded back, “Hell yeah we should have. Thanks for the water. Say, Ken, could you go and get an inventory of what's in the cart? Then it needs to be unpacked, if it hasn't been already, we'll need it for getting the wood later. Maybe... see if Carley will help you? She's good and no one will doubt an accounting done by the two of you.”
The silent boy nodded as if him doing all that made perfect sense. Maybe to the kid it did? He was obviously smarter and more “in charge” than about half the adults here. That was actually a real point, Jake decided. Whatever the thought process he moved off with a sense of purpose as Jake sipped slowly from the large plastic tumbler of cool well water. When it was done he tried to stand up. That took a few tries and he needed to use the wall to keep himself upright at first. Being weak bothered him. Weaker than normal, he meant. Still, the bandage didn't look that red, only half of it soaked with his blood.
Vickie walked over and pointed at it.
“Life threatening do you think?” She said softly, not laughing at him, but a small smile on her face.
“Nah, flesh wound. Nothing to worry over. Unless I'm wrong. I hate lethal flesh wounds, don't you?”
The woman shook her head.
“What? Nothing to worry about if it's just a flesh wound. You should know that by now.”
Those hurt a lot, but at least the damage had only come from a bullet. If a zombie had done the same thing he'd have been sucking on the end of his nine about then. Small favors, right? He stood and walked a little clumsily, feet feeling heavy and his gorge rising over and over again.
Outside there was frantic activity, Carl and Vickie moved to lead their teams on a perimeter search, in case Derrick decided to come back. The man wouldn't of course, being fairly cowardly. Taking chances didn't protect you, being careful did, so Jake wouldn't fault him there. The police were trained to be cowards, but in the main, that was because it worked. Ten armed men taking down one unarmed one wasn't brave, but it got the job done with a strong limit to casualties, didn't it?
Ken had found Carley and however they'd worked it out, the two of them were making a list of everything in the cart. That included about half the current food supply, a lot of the spare clothing, bedding and a decently large bag of jewelry and other bits of gold and silver. It looked heavy. The paper got handed off to Nate who sighed and shook his head.
“It's a good thing we stopped them. This would have made getting through the next few weeks really hard. We need to set up and decide what to do with the women that survived, three of them did. I'll need you in on that Jake. Besides, you probably shouldn't be getting wood today.” Nate pointed at the bloody bandage on his arm.
That part would just be true, he felt like crap, still, he could go and stand guard for Jose in a bit, he thought. Maybe take a chair with him, as lazy as that sounded. The people that had volunteered the night before would be nervous no doubt. Of course one of them, the older lady that had volunteered the night before was locked up in the quarantine room with her friends. Their little prison, just an old pantry or linen closet that had been reinforced with some boards. The idea was that if a person got hurt by a zombie, but not bitten, just scratched or bled on, then they could be held in there to see if they'd turn or not. No one wanted to die if they didn't have to. Jake had to sit in there for five days once himself, a horrible time, because there wasn't enough water or food and just a bucket to relieve himself in. After that he'd fixed it up a little. The bucket had a lid now and there was a large container of clean water in the corner. It wasn't a huge space, especially for three people. No lights at all in there either, which meant you hallucinated after a while. That part was entertaining at least, except that all Jake had seen were zombie images rushing at him the whole time.
He'd have felt worse about it if the women hadn't tried to clean them out as they left. Jake would have voted for them to get a full share, even if they hadn't worked for it. Just having them gone now would be worth it, but what they took...
It was close to a death sentence for everyone else.
Getting help from Jose, he set up a dining room chair in the field as the others came out. No one had to tell them to it seemed. Apparently when the injured guy went to work without anyone mentioning it, everyone else just kind of followed along.
Heather was dressed in an old pair of jeans and a light shirt that hugged her torso a little bit. For the first time Jake noticed the bump there. Kind of obvious as to what that meant. Well, that or a tumor. For a second he hoped for a tumor, but then relented. It wasn't his problem really, but if they had a baby coming, things would have to be arranged carefully. Maybe they could build on an underground room, so the noise wouldn't attract attention? Jake smiled at her then as she bent to pick radishes with the others, then he started scanning the horizon around them constantly.
One thing at a time after all.
Doing anything else just got people killed.
Chapter Four
The trial of the remaining three thieves was set for after breakfast. That gave them enough time to pick three kinds of early vegetable and wash up before they ate. It took work, standing over the bucket of cold water next to Jose, to make himself shave and scrub, but he did it. If nothing else he wanted to be a good example to the others. Not that they noticed him overly.
He'd nearly bled to death on the floor of the living room earlier because no one bothered to think about checking on him, even as he sat bleeding. Having just kept them from being robbed. Even after he collapsed. Luckily the bandage was enough. The thought made him feel a little down. He tried to help people, didn't he? Do his share and more if he could and had just helped keep them from being ripped-off and everyone had simply ignored him. Maybe even hoping that Jake would just die?
Fun to think about.
The living room had a single table brought in from the dining room, a rectangular one and Jake found himself led to a chair behind it by Lois. There were five of them instead of the seven he would have expected, or nine. Why he was there didn't make a lot of sense, but whatever. They weren't making him stand in the back. Not this time. The other chairs filled rapidly, Nate, of course, Burt, Lois and Mary all settled almost as a group. It l
ooked to him like they'd been conferring in the kitchen. The room noise settled as the chairs made little noises being pulled out and sat in. Nate rubbed his chin, shaved too now, clothing changed to something approaching official even. Jake looked down at his own outfit. Hardly pretty. Clean though, and as nice as he had. All his stuff was hunting gear and had seen hard use.
His place was the far left, the right side to the audience, everyone floating in about that time, even Heather, new and shiny looking for the room, looking cuter today, more relaxed. That a trial like this was an improvement to her life should have told people how tough it really was outside the house, but only he noticed it. The old faces were a little boring he realized. Plus, if they were maybe, possibly, together sort of, Heather and him, then that made her a lot cooler, didn't it? Jake smiled at her, and got one in return. She had Carley by her side. That could be a problem if the curly haired blond girl got a hold of Heather's mind. Well, then someone would have a grasp on it, so that just might work. Radical feminism from two people would be a pain, but survivable.