by P. S. Power
The room went silent.
Nate wasn't available. To Jake that made sense, most of his effort went to everyone else anyway. Taking on a child like that and a woman, well it would have been asking too much. Besides, he was gay. If he had to be attached to anyone it would have been another guy. What amazed Jake is that other people had noticed the whole Holsom taking all the women thing too and felt it was wrong. He'd thought it was just him the whole time, being a bit pissy because none of the women thought he was worth anything. Apparently it wasn't. If the gay guy noticed, then chances were good it was a real issue. That didn't make Jake feel better about it or anything. Not much.
Maybe a little.
People looked shocked, subdued. A few of the women cried, probably because they understood how hard it would be to ask other people for help when they were already barely making it. Jake waved to Carl who got up and walked over with a smile.
“I knew it Jake, you want me to be the father of your child. It's my good looks and charm isn't it?” The man smiled easily, laughing at his own joke.
Jake nodded seriously.
“Yeah. That's it exactly, who could resist?” Letting a smile come to his face, he otherwise deadpanned for a while. It reminded him of back when he actually had a sense of humor still, if only for a few moments. Carl grinned after a few seconds too. “Actually I wanted to line up a hunting trip, salvage and collection too, for tomorrow, if possible, I can shoot stuff, but I don't really know what to do with it after, I need to learn ASAP and we need to preserve things if we can. You in?”
“Hell yeah, anything to get away from the crying fest this place is about to become. I don't blame Nate for his decision on that, but no one wants to be saddled with Holsom's kids and most of these women were pretty cold to everyone else back then, not exactly a good way to make friends. Say what you want about the guy, but he certainly had a way with the ladies. You'd have thought they'd have been upset because he slept around so much, wouldn't you? They all seem fine with that part though, I haven't heard of any complaints or fights over it anyway.”
Neither had Jake, which was weird. How had the guy managed that anyway?
That part done, they just had to recruit a few more people, they ended up with ten, all men except Tipper. Dave wanted to come too, which Jake thought sounded fine. It was a trip to kill things after all. About perfect as far as the kid was concerned. A good time to be had for all the good little would-be psycho's. They'd need rifles, but they all could use them at least. Even most of the homebodies had the skill. They didn't work well for clearing houses, not compared to shotguns, but early on you could just sit and snipe from building tops and second story windows. They'd all gotten pretty good. Later the easy ones had already been taken mainly, so the cleaning crews were developed.
That night Heather didn't sleep by him, not in the room with them at all.
Jake kind of missed her, but it wasn't a huge deal, though he'd kind of thought she might ask him to help with her baby. They were pretty close and he thought he could do it. It would be a lot of work, but if you were going to be there for someone, that meant you had to be there when it got tough too, right? He just hoped she wasn't too worried about things, because he'd do it, even if she didn't want to have sex yet. All that trauma with this on top of it, yeah that would be hard. He wouldn't push her. Even if it meant her never wanting to be with him at all. It would suck, but he'd deal, if that's what she needed.
The next morning he found out what had happened from the whispers in the living room before breakfast.
She'd slept with Randy.
Had sex with him. Apparently to get him to be her partner. It made sense of course.
With him it was “Oh, I've been raped, just hold me Jake. I couldn't possibly do anything like that...” but Randy didn't even have to talk to the girl to get her to spread her legs. Yep. That made perfect fucking sense. Just like the whole rest of his life.
Fuck it.
Just fuck it all to hell.
He wasn't good enough for anyone, that was the message? No matter what he did?
Screw them then.
A feeling of pure rage washed over him. A blinding thing of fire and red that made Jake want to do very bad things to a lot of people.
If that's the way they all felt, then he'd just let them fend for themselves and look out for number one like everyone else always did. A burning filled his stomach, hard and hot and cold all at once. He really wanted to just kill people and make them pay, but that passed. How Jake couldn't tell, but that part did fade after a few moments. Heather had made her choice and that was fine. She could get Randy to help her from now on. He'd do alright. He was a good kid and actually working now. Important even, being in charge of the animals.
It hurt a lot, but it was a valid choice, wasn't it?
They held hands in the living room as they walked in, Randy smiled and Heather seemed fine enough with the whole thing, not a giggly bride, but she didn't seem traumatized by what she'd done either. Jake didn't look at her after the first glance. Instead he just walked over and sat next to Nate and Carl. The hunting and scavenging trip was the topic anyway, so he just nodded along and tried not to care about anything else.
When it had happened with Rachel, he'd just shut down. For years. Freezing in place and kind of letting go of the whole world. If he let himself do that now, he'd probably just die. No, Jake had to hang on to the present and not let this affect him too much. Somehow.
They got the small wooden wagon, ten people and a full cleaning crew and a half among them. Burt would set up a smoke house with Justine, who was basically his assistant now, and the rest of them would see to the first day of the harvest. Jose had indicated to Nate that they had about two weeks before the real heavy work would begin, crops wise.
As they geared up Heather ran over to him, smiling.
“Jake, I...” She went silent when he turned and walked away. That didn't stop her from following him though. Really she should have gotten the point. It wasn't some huge or difficult thing to understand was it?
“What's wrong?” She asked, sounding baffled and a little hurt.
Jake knew what she'd done, no one had doubted that, it had been pretty obvious since neither Randy or her had been exactly quiet. Not having a lot to talk about, everyone else knew about it already too. Did she think he wouldn't know? Or care maybe? Right, because he was just there to work and kill things. Jake didn't have real human emotions, did he?
Obviously.
It was done, and talking about it wouldn't help now. Still, she kept walking after him. He decided to just go with his feelings. His hurt, bitchy little human feelings that he wasn't supposed to have. The ones that didn't matter to anyone in the whole fucking world.
“Well, I thought we were friends, that you liked me, and you said that you didn't want to have sex, because you weren't ready, having been raped. I tried to be understanding and let you sleep next to me and you acted like we were close. You said things that sounded to me like you wanted to be close. Like it might be going somewhere even. Then you find another guy and sleep with him like that.” Jake snapped his fingers. “Kind of like saying I'm not worth anything at all. More than just kind of. So, yeah, that's what's wrong.” He kept walking. She stopped at least.
“But...” She said behind him softly. “I didn't...”
He stopped and turned to look at her. She had tears in her eyes, but looked down. She shook her head but didn't say anything else at all. Probably sad because he'd figured her out and wouldn't be there to help her out for free any more.
Jake didn't storm away, but he did go. No one sane “stormed” anymore. It looked too much like a runner before they caught a target. That could get you shot.
The hunting crew gathered quietly, Tipper standing away from him, Dave alongside. Together they pushed the nearly empty wagon along, the trip going slower because of it. They had some rope and tools with them, shovels and sledgehammers for pounding stakes into the ground
. The first leg of the journey took them to the other house, a trip of almost two and a half hours. Slow because they watched for animals and went carefully, practicing for later. The second part went a lot faster, taking them to the stream. Carl assured them that not a lot of animals would be out before dusk, so they could spread out along the dense underbrush in both directions. They just had to make sure not to shoot each other. Easy enough. They didn't look like deer at all, did they?
It wasn't like any of them were drunk after all. It pretty much meant that anyone “accidentally” getting shot was hit on purpose.
In the meantime they could hide and wait for any animals that might happen by. Carl got a few squirrels and Dave surprised everyone by collecting a small bucketful of fresh water crawdads. He even took them alive. Kind of amazing really.
Jake got nothing and saw nothing until dusk, like Carl had said.
Then there was a small parade to the water. Where he was, a family of deer, three does, two bucks and two little baby ones came down to get a drink. They looked majestic, regal almost. Perversely, Jake's mouth watered.
If he took the younger buck and the doe without a fawn, that would be alright, wouldn't it? He didn't really know, but made the shots. The buck first, having more meat on him, then the doe as she bounded away. That took two shots. Moving like that reminded him of the new zombies and how they'd moved. About as fast, but the deer were lower to the ground by a good bit. Hard to hit though, so good practice for the future.
Jake used some rope to pull the things back, sliding them on the tall grass. Not an easy thing, but doable. As he walked along a different small group of deer walked past him, headed away from the water. They couldn't have been fifteen feet away. Moving carefully he took down another buck, hitting him in the head. The others scurried away before he could do anything at all. It turned out that was a good thing. If he thought pulling two of them away was hard, three proved nearly impossible. As dark fell he staggered up to the wagon, where everyone else stood waiting for him. The rest of them had gotten two more, Carl got one and Dave the other. Everyone just stared at him as he struggled up.
Carl shook his head and laughed, a deep rumble that almost couldn't be heard.
“I'll help you bleed them. You really should do that first, pretty fresh kills though, should be fine.”
They wouldn't dress them until they got back to the house, cooking a bit for dinner and breakfast the next day. They moved in silence. It was nearly restful. The silent trudge of feet on grass, the slight squeak of the wheels as they turned.
As they neared the house Jake felt it.
Fear.
It bit at the pit of his stomach hard. Zombies. It didn't seem likely, but he held up his hand and got everyone to wait, regardless. They were inside. That didn't make any sense at all, because the door was closed. The undead didn't tend to lock up after themselves as a rule. Jake could be wrong, he supposed. Just because he felt this way, that didn't mean there would be something actually there, right? He couldn't shake it though, some sound or scent or maybe just intuition warned him. He pulled his nine millimeter and waved at the door with his free hand, the light of the moon letting everyone else make it out. He wanted a spear, but hadn't come for a cleaning. Instead he and Dave went to either side of the door and opened it. Then, standing in shooting positions the others started talking.
“Alright, so is anything in there, do you think?” Tipper said conversationally, too loudly.
Carl hooted loudly and then called out, “Free food out here, come on down!” It didn't take a half minute for the first of them, a runner to come out. He looked like a fairly young man, fresh, but still just a new regular one, not a super-z. Dave, pointing upward, took its head as it passed. The next one Jake got and the last turned out to be the kid again, as it stopped to feed on the downed one.
It didn't make sense at all, he'd swept the place himself thoroughly when he'd brought the others and had stayed there for nearly a week. Then they did it again when they got there not five or six hours before. For them to have gotten in like that, someone had to have let them in. Put them there.
That explained the clacking of shotguns behind them.
“Just put those weapons down easy and we won't have any problems. Police. You folks are all under arrest for poaching government livestock.”
The man that spoke sounded smug, but even in the moonlight looked too hairy to be a real police officer, at least Back Before. He had buddies with him though, and they did wear jackets that said police on them in nice, big, bright white letters. Right across their chests. That meant the heads were just above that and centered. Just up from the “L”. Helpful of them. There seemed to be fifteen of them or so, arrayed in a partial circle. It had been them that used the zombies in order to soften them up? Only no softening had happened.
You'd think they would have noticed that?
Tipper's voice sounded scared. Timid.
Totally fake.
“Alright, we'll put our weapons down now, slowly.”
Then the gun fire started and all hell broke loose.
Chapter Six
The gun fight lasted about twenty seconds. They were surrounded after all. Normally that meant doom for the good guys, but over half their people were cleaners and that meant two things. They worked well as a team and were good at taking head shots under pressure. Often in the dark. Normally without small reflective letters to help them aim. That part was really a godsend.
The first three seconds saw six officers dropped to the ground, missing at least part of their skulls. The next batch took longer, about seven seconds, because the targets moved. They still had those nice white letters on and when they turned to run they had them on their backs too.
Beautiful.
The last holdouts, three of them, screamed and cried. They were scared and it showed in their voices. A few of their hunting crew weren't cleaners at all, just farm guys from the area. They'd learned not to make noise though. That and a bit of ducking made them nearly invisible to the police. Jake killed the whining cops in a few seconds, one right after the other.
They searched for more in silence.
If they existed they were good. Or too afraid to make a sound or move. Either way, it worked. They didn't see, hear or smell anyone else. The police did smell. These particular ones, not the entire classification, which had, at least back in the day, been a tidy group. It wasn't a feral scent or anything, but the kind of odor you got if you wore the same clothes too many days between washings in the summer heat. The sucky part was that this attack meant that they had to strip the bodies and bury them. That would wait for morning though. Right now they needed to dress the meat, the deer meat, and fix dinner. They were all too hungry to let a little killing stop them, weren't they? Jake knew he was at least.
Half of them did that, the deer work, led by Carl, and Tipper had the others drag the bodies to the barn. They counted sixteen in all. They got beheaded by Jake, using a machete, dark or not. You didn't want to take chances after all. What had they been thinking? To steal the deer? They had sixteen men with them, all armed. Wouldn't hunting be simpler? More effective too?
Well, obviously so. After all, they were dead now. Bringing three zombies in first to ambush them, that took some doing too. Blinking Jake wondered if they had a truck with them. They had most the fuel after all. Well, they could check in the morning. He wanted to sleep and really didn't care anyway. They could take the fuel, but the vehicle would have to vanish, or else the other cops would know where this group had disappeared from, and really, all things considered, Jake kind of liked the little house. It would be a good place to live if it didn't get burned downed or ruined.
Tipper sat down on the floor next to him silently. At first he didn't realize who it was, being so dark, until she started whispering to him.
“Jake, I... I wasn't trying to lie to you, I just don't feel that way about you. I didn't mean to hurt you... You have to see that, right? That sometimes peop
le just don't want people that way. It doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with you...”
Jake nodded. Of course it did. That was kind of the point wasn't it? The real one she was making. He wasn't good enough for her, even though a whole lot of other people were? Pretty much everyone wasn't it? Was there any other way to look at it?
“But you wouldn't let me explain, it's just that Holsom was so good looking and, you know there were no strings attached with it, I thought so at the time anyway. It wasn't about you though, I don't want you to think that.”
Jake got up, or started too, but her hand on his arm stopped him. He glared at it, the contact, but realized that she wouldn't be able to see his eyes anyway.