by P. S. Power
It better not be sex, he decided right then, that would just be too gross to consider. He reached under the bed and found a water gun waiting. Bright pink and empty to boot. No help there.
Zombie Mom waved a hand at him like she used to do when he said something silly.
“Very messed up dream dear. So, these are your new friends? How are you fitting in? Are you keeping busy? You look like you've lost weight.”
He shrugged, it didn't hurt, which showed it was even more of a dream, next to him Heather woke up and stared for a second. Jake pointed and explained.
“My Mom. I had to kill her and Dad. On the second day after the announcement. I guess Dad turned first and bit her, but I was holed up, being a selfish little prick, so I didn't know about it before they changed. They'd told me about the announcement, but... even with the TV coverage I didn't believe it.” Everyone knew what that meant now, no need to explain more. It was when the world changed and the government basically used the word zombie for the first time in public. Before then it had just been talk of some nameless disease.
“Oh, is this your girlfriend? Such a nice looking girl and pregnant too. When are you due?” The tone was conversational, not accusing.
Heather smiled and brushed her hair, much longer and lighter in the dream out of her face, she sat up and patted her stomach.
“I think I'm just at about five months. Hard to know, I got raped a few times at first. I didn't tell anyone about it but Jake yet, but just about every man I met did for a while... made me have sex with them, until I learned to avoid them. So, the timing could be a little vague.”
Zombie Mom stood over Jake and smiled her features starting to melt. Rot.
“I don't have a lot of time honey, sorry about the way I look, but that's coming from your mind not mine. I just wanted to let you know that I'm alright, so is your father. He couldn't make it, but know this, we're both very proud of you and love you more than you know.” She spun on Heather and winked.
“Nice meeting you dear, sorry about the hard time you had. My son will look out for you now, don't worry. He's a very good man. It's why I was allowed to come back, not everyone is being allowed now. Look out for him too?”
“Of course.” Heather spoke in a normal tone, well that didn't matter in a dream, did it? Besides the water pistol was empty, so shooting her with it wouldn't accomplish anything.
The lights went off and Jake woke up with a bit of a start. He didn't gasp though, locking his teeth down to stifle that instinctively.
What a strange dream.
Well, it beat having his face eaten, so he'd take it as an improvement. Really he felt better now about the way his parents died. Not good, but that little ache faded just a bit. It felt like something deep inside that had been clenched for half a year relaxed just a little.
Sleepily Heather hugged him close, “Your Mom seems nice. I know you're a very good man, and that you'll look after us, even after everything. I'm sorry, it's the only way. The nicer ones didn't work. I tried. I tried them all. I wish they would.”
Then frustratingly she went back to sleep.
Well, real or not, he had a few more hours until morning. He closed his eyes and didn't dream again that night.
The next day came without warning, people actually up and moving before he was, bright light coming through the window as he staggered to his feet. He felt drunk, disoriented and hot. Too hot, feverish. That couldn't stop him though, could it? Not if he didn't let it. Unless he died of course. Time for some moldy bread he decided.
Penicillin the old fashioned way.
Mary made it, had a huge jar of the stuff now, constantly culturing more on whatever leftover scraps they had that couldn't be reused for another meal. Jake made his way down the stairs, clutching the banister, a stained wood thing that had probably been there for sixty or seventy years. He nearly fell halfway down, the world twisting about him, a sick feeling in his stomach. Holding the wall he walked slowly, carefully, no one stopping to talk to him, or help him. So, that part was normal. That's what always happened.
Jerks.
He made it to the kitchen before falling to his knees. Sinking slowly enough that the thump he made on the floor hardly seemed to hurt at all. Head spinning, he saw Lois first. The woman looked concerned, scared even and rushed to his side, holding him, her apron an old white piece of cloth, heavy and worn... smelled like soup. They weren't having any, but that's what he got from it. Clutching at her he tried to speak, tried to say what he thought was happening.
The idea made him sick, well the actuality made him feel sick, but what it might be, if it wasn't just a regular infection. Yeah. Holsom would be the type of douche to do that, wasn't he?
“Zombie infected bullets. Maybe. Infected wound maybe. Penicillin and quarantine.” He wretched, not losing any food, just a painful spasm that turned into cramps, locking his body in half, a tight, painful thing that didn't stop. Lois started yelling and people came then, carrying him off. Into the dark room. The place people went if they were turning. Or might be. He couldn't complain really, it had been his idea after all.
They could only wait and see now. He had food, laced with the mold, the water was dosed too. If he got too sick to drink water he'd die, because no one would be opening the door until five days passed and he held a cogent conversation with someone for a while. OK, a few words. The last time he'd gotten out with, “I'm still me. I think.” So the bar wasn't that high.
His head hurt and everything burned, too hot, he stripped his clothing off and stuffed it under his head. He really should have put a mattress in the tiny room, Jake realized, even if the cool floor, linoleum, felt good to him right now. In a day it wouldn't be as nice. If he turned that wouldn't matter though, would it? They hadn't left him a gun even, so one of the others would have to kill him if that was the case. Dave probably. He'd take the least damage from it mentally, but no one else would see it that way. Tipper might get it, or, if what Dave said turned out to be accurate, Sammi. Why her? She was an odd kid, but still, just a little girl. Jake wondered about it as the cramping started again, distracting him. This time on both sides of his body. The pain didn't stop, just came in waves.
Whee.
Like an amusement park of suck.
It went on like this, until he slept, drank more water, and slept again twice. He didn't eat, not for a long time. He hallucinated a lot, for entertainment. Fever dreams that were disjointed and negative. Angry or just bizarre. Nothing nice in any of them at all. Really, it would be better if he could just relive an old television episode or something. Maybe a sit-com? Something with a cute actress would be good. If he wanted to see things rending and tearing like that, he could just go into town.
Finally he heard a knock on the door, polite at first then a pounding.
“What?” He croaked, still sick, lying on the floor, desperately hoping someone would come in and kill him finally. He tried again.
“Who's there?”
“Um, Jake, are you still you? Not a zombie Jake from Mars that can mimic a bit of human speech or something? If anyone could pull that off it would be you.” Dave then, the voice sounded funny stilted and slow, but he could make out the words if he tried. It took a lot of focus.
“I just feel like crap I think. Should be alright, if someone will just pass a gun in, I can kill myself and end this. God this... sucks.” He cramped up again as the door opened, Tipper coming in first, no weapon pointed at him. He'd apparently passed the first test.
Darn.
“Five days, so you won't turn, but you look like hell. Really bad in fact.” She sounded like a person sugar coating her words, which didn't leave him with warm and fuzzy feelings for some reason. He still felt a bit pissed at her. Hidden under the... suck he felt right now, but still there.
It did fit the way he felt at the moment so Jake decided not to call her on it. The phony voice she was using. Dave stood behind her, standing with Nate and Mary from the kitchen. The woman nodded
to him firmly.
“More penicillin. I don't know if it's going to help at all, but a full ten day course is better than half of one. Should we move him?” She said, sounding like that would be the kind thing to do.
For his part, Jake couldn't care. Horribly uncomfortable and wishing for death right there was as good as being somewhere else. This way no one was gaping at him.
His head still hurt, feeling like the inside of it had been set on fire and everyone was talking at two speeds, not an overlay, he heard them normally too but it felt like it took forever, their images danced and blurred as well, his eyes playing tricks having been in the dark too long? They talked about it forever, a minute maybe, and finally decided to close him back in only to check on him every few hours.
Jake thought that sounded like a plan to him and nodded, then regretted doing that as he felt bile rise into his throat and try to escape captivity by burrowing through his nasal passage to freedom. It took six more days before he could stand on his own again. Whatever he'd had left him weak and aching, but not dead and not craving human flesh, so that would have to serve.
Then he clothed himself, filthy from the prior days of sweat and lying on the floor, but not wanting to streak through the whole house, and made his way out to the men's bathing area. He couldn't find his clothes, but Heather saw him and got him something to wear, a loose pair of blue jeans and a shirt that fairly bagged on him, obviously meant for a far heavier person. They tried to fall down a little as he walked slowly back into the house, wearing the boots she'd brought him, which fit just fine. His boots...
Actually, looking at them closely, as different as the colors seemed to him, sharper and more defined, he realized that the clothes were his too. Well, he hadn't really needed to lose weight, but there it was.
The wood pile had kept growing, and a log floor had already started being put in the pit next to the house. They were splitting flat chunks from the edges of other logs for some reason. He got it after a second, those were to be the walls. Like giant Lincoln logs. Cool. It looked like it wouldn't take nearly as long as he'd thought. Jake had to like that. Good to know that no one really needed him after all. He thought about it without even a hint of bitterness, because it really was good. For a while there he'd felt like one of the very few getting things done, but now a lot more were pulling out the stops while he sat around. Lay around. He'd have rather been working. It would have been a lot more pleasant.
Well, he was definitely up now. After breakfast he helped with the dishes, since that didn't take a lot of strength and getting back into things slowly made more than a little sense. He felt, well, alright didn't exactly work, but not bad either. Everything hurt, and he felt stiff, but that could have just been the lack of activity and lying on a floor for two weeks with frequent and painful whole body cramping.
What he didn't feel was weak, not now that he got a chance to move around. Oh, his muscles didn't surge with power or anything, but he felt normal enough that way. A plate felt like a plate in weight, not an anvil that he might drop at any moment. Sammi watched him carefully, but everyone else just accepted that Jake was back. He'd been sick and then got better. A lot of them didn't seem to have noticed at all.
Then Jake worked at pulling carrots and digging potatoes until noon, and decided to see if he could help with anything else once that finished. It felt nice to move around and not be in the dark. Justine saw him and ran over with her shotgun, looking relieved to see him for some reason. Or happy. That probably wasn't it. She smiled though.
“Jake! Um, I didn't know what to do, so I just helped Burt while you were sick. No one said anything, so, is that alright?” She didn't seem that worried, so it obviously was. Well, if she'd kept busy, he wouldn't complain, he nodded and asked what she'd been doing.
“A water tower, come see? It's pretty awesome.” She sounded pleased.
It stood next to the windmill and was higher than the roof of the house, a true tower then. The pump was set up to fill the wooden slat barrel looking thing at the top, which must have held nearly two thousand gallons of water or more. They didn't have iron bands for it yet, so had to use rope until he built the forge.
“Burt says that should be about two months? You need to hurry on that, but the wood stoves have to come first. We should have the wood at least, but we need to be able to make our own saws and stuff soon. If anything breaks now, we're going to feel it this winter.”
That meant a trip into town or two soon. He needed a much better cart then, his little hybrid shopping cart thing was too much of a pain. As he mentioned it Burt walked up and waved him over to the white walled metal shed. Sitting just behind it was a wooden wagon. Smaller than the cart, but it had four wheels all solid rubber so they wouldn't go flat, the kind from large lawn tractors, and a body made out of wood, it looked a bit rough, but it could be pulled by one or two people and was sturdy. Burt grinned.
“You can load two or three thousand pounds on this baby and she'll roll just fine. We've used it for some of the longer logs already, no problem. Vickie and her crew are out tomorrow looking for wood stoves, they've seen some too. You don't get to go, doctor's orders.” He held up his hand, the right one and made noises, an “ut, ut, ut.” sound to keep Jake from speaking.
Like he cared who got the wood stoves? As long as they had them, that's all that mattered. He could do other things for a while. Right now that would be listening to Burt, he realized, though the man seemed to be taking forever about getting to his point. Everything kept running in a perceptible slow motion. Kind of.
“Nate and I think you should stay here for a few more days, build up a little. I know that it's probably a pain, but we can't afford to lose you to stupidity. You know what I'm saying, youthful arrogance, the belief that you're indestructible, all that kind of thing you young people like to indulge in.”
Jake smiled and shook his head.
“No one thinks like that. Not now. Not here at least.” No, here everyone knew they could die and probably would soon.
“OK, point taken, still, don't push yourself too hard. Carl is taking your place on Tipper's team for now and doing well, only one job came up while you were out and it sounds like they did wonderfully.”
Jake wondered if Carl would like the job forever? He could do something else then, start his own team or... No, the man really needed to be out hunting or trapping, whatever he did. No one had tried trapping yet, he didn't think. Would it work? Jake had no clue how to do it. He could shoot things in the head, which should work well enough for hunting, but that was about all.
They talked for a few more minutes, then Jake went off with the wood gathering team and helped use an axe to take down a tree. It seemed easy actually. The aching joints hurt less when he did it, rather than more. Cool. Maybe he just needed some exercise now. He did the next six trees by himself, making good enough time it seemed, since everyone stared at him after the first two instead of trimming the branches off. Then he helped load the trees on the cart, after Carley and Nate finally got them ready. They felt light. Well, heavy still, but like four hundred pounds instead of a thousand or more. It still took eight people to do it, but the perception made it seem easier.
After a few seconds he got it.
As sick as he'd been, he'd gotten rest.
A chance to heal a bit. Probably not all the way, but way more than he'd had in the six months before that. He'd been safe, locked in a little room and after the first five days, the only stress had been his strong desire to die to get away from how awful being sick felt. He'd just forgotten what only slightly cruddy was like, so it seemed way better than it should.
Pacing would be important then, to prevent relapse, he took turns with the others taking trees after that and finished the day feeling a little sore, but not bad overall. His pants kept trying to fall down, but he dealt with it by making a belt out of a length of rope. All he needed was a straw hat and he could have his hillbilly Halloween costume ready.
It
occurred to him that no one would probably do that one anymore. Who needed fake monsters when real ones came knocking all the time anyway? Plus, no candy. Without that, what was the point?
They still hadn't even managed that sing along Nate had talked about, everyone had gotten too busy. Maybe after the harvest? That would be in a few more weeks, less now. Not everything came in at once, they had pumpkins and squash for instance that would be later in the year. A lot of the two hundred odd acres would need picking in the coming month, with nearly full time work each day. Canning and drying too. They probably had a plan for all that, Jake wouldn't know. His job had been zombie killing and wood stoves.
Dinner was a lot more interesting than it had been, because of the greater variety of vegetables and some berries that the kids had gotten with Justine a ways off, in the woods. Gutsy going there alone, but they'd lived. Really that was all that counted. At least with him. Lois thought differently and wanted to ground them, but Dave just started laughing at her when she said it. It was nearly too loud, and the kid had to hold both hands over his mouth to keep the noise down.