by P. S. Power
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. Exhausted. Blood loss probably.
Jake crawled to the box of makeshift bandages and tried to wrap the wound, but kept passing out for some reason. Going 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 blonde, 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. It was 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.
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 looked 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 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 blonde 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.
Nate gestured to Carl and Vickie. Tipper stood back in the doorway watching him for some reason. It didn't look mean or angry, but she was probably hoping he'd still die from his wound or something. Oh, possibly not, but he wasn't disposed to like her at the moment still. It would take a while to move past things. He probably would eventually, given enough time.
“Bring them in please.” No one had to ask who, they all knew why they were there. Everyone had the facts already, even. Nate waited until the women sat before he spoke, his voice calm, but sad sounding.
“You stole things that weren't yours, knowing that it would hurt a lot of people if you did. Two of your group fired on our people, injuring one of you, Justine here. You also helped to steal valuable equipment and personal valuables from almost everyone here. We aren't here to establish guilt, that's already done. Do you have anything to say for yourselves before we pass sentence?”
The girl with the bandage shook her head and looked down, tears running in twin rivlets down her face. No sobbing though. A good sign, Jake thought, maybe she was even redeemable? Moving his attention to the next woman over, the older one that had been in the armory itself he stared. Her hair had gray in it, mixed with a mouse brown color. The face didn't have a lot of lines yet, so the color might have been a little premature. She might even be younger than he'd thought. About thirty? Her tan pants had been mended several times, and there were faded stains on the blue shirt she wore. She looked at the other two and spoke slowly, as if praying some reason to keep her alive would pop out of her mouth.
“I... I know it was wrong, but we needed those things. We... we earned them! We've all worked and were only trying to get what we knew you'd keep from us if we didn't just take it and leave, that was all.”
Jake nodded tiredly.
“Half the food, all the gold and silver people had? That had to have taken weeks or longer to collect, which means a long term plan to steal from everyone.”
“Be we didn't do that! That was him, Derrick. We just-”
From the audience Tipper spoke her voice harsh and tight, “near cleaned out the armory, leaving us defenseless? Greatly weakened at least. You personally were in on that Yvonne. I helped collect half those weapons and a third of the ammo myself, and Jake did most of the rest, how do you figure that you and your group were 'entitled' to most of it?”
The woman cringed, probably because there couldn't be a good answer to that. What she said didn't help her case at all.
“I... Derrick said we needed them to keep you from coming after us, that Jake would kill us if we got caught and... and Tracy's pregnant!” She added as a last ditch to try and save herself. Or maybe just the woman next to her.
If that was the case, it was braver than Jake would have expected from any of them. Stupid, but kind of noble in a way. If it wasn't just about saving her own bacon.
Hmmm.
Bacon.
Jake shook himself and focused on the scene again.
The girl to her left, a mid-twenties woman that had spurned Jake so hard and fast he hadn't even gotten past “hello” before she shut him down cold, started crying. She did sob a bit. Quietly though. She looked at him through her eyelashes with fear. Good. Jake didn't want to be a bully about it, but attracting attention would get them all killed if they weren't careful. If she had to fear him to make that happen, so be it.
They didn't have any babies with them for a reason. Mainly because they were zombie bait. Delicious undead snack food, tender and moist. They cried all the time and the land sharks came to them like magnets attracting. Even shamblers would try to run fast in order to get tender baby flesh. The girl tried to use it as a plea to leave her alive... Insane really, because no one in particular wanted Derrick Holsom's kid bringing the hordes down on them.
But...
Things really were safer now and if they built that underground nursery he'd thought about, sound proofed it somehow, maybe just by putting it deep enough, and made sure they kept a good guard going all the time, they could possibly pull it off. Maybe.
A lot of women in the room looked worried for some reason, a couple stared at him and held their stomachs. Heather looked down, then up at him and nodded. It wasn't just one or two babies coming.
Fuck it all.
“Ah.” He said quietly. “And how many pregnancies have been left on us by Derrick 'Wonder prick' Holsom then?”
Six hands went up. Six. Jesus wept.
They couldn't handle that many, and all were single mothers too. He felt like screaming at them for being fickle sluts, too stupid to at least find a guy that wasn't fucking half the house already. Morons. He had to grind his teeth to keep from talking. The next bit surprised him as well. A lot really. No one at the table looked at him, but he did finally figure out what they'd talked about in the kitchen. Him.
“All of us here are too soft to put you to death if you need it. Except Jake.” Nate said sadly, morosely. “To that end, we're leaving your fate in his hands. Jake?”
“Wait!” The grayish one in the middle spoke fast, panic taking her, she nearly yelled the word.
Jake pointed his nine at her and waited while she quieted down. She did though, so he nodded at her. Smart in a way. Stupid in a lot of others. He took a deep breath and looked at the women; Justine the simp, Tracy the pregnant one, and miss “old before her time”. He just didn't have a name for her. Good enough. He'd learn.
The easiest thing would be to just kill them all. They couldn't lock them in the closet forever, and prisoners were just a drain on everyone. He knew that his judgment was supposed to be death, that being what the others had planned on, or it wouldn't be left to him. But... they weren't doing anything wrong right now. Everyone messed up sometime.
Still, he couldn't let them do it again.
“All right. I get the idea. Before I execute you all, let me ask you one question first; if I leave you alive, are you willing to really put your all into helping everyone survive here? Are you willing to do what you're told, when you're told, to the best of your ability? No matter what that is?”
The pregnant girl nodded, her head jerking rapidly.
“Yes!” She whispered, a stage whisper that almost verged on too loud.
On the other side of the woman, the doe eyed Justine, big boned and tall, nodde
d without speaking. OK, Jake realized, not all that dumb, then. Only the woman in the center didn't answer. She stared at him, almost angrily. It wasn't helping her case with him, but after nearly a minute she nodded too.
“Fine,” She said finally, looking down. “Being a slave is better than being dead.”
Slave? Intriguing thought, but not exactly what he had planned. Not at all really.
“All right. So, instead of death, you all promise to be good, helpful, honest and brave, not whine or complain, all that good stuff, including things to be added later at Nate's personal whim?”
“Yes.” It came from three voices, all quiet, all subdued.
“Then I won't kill you. Justine, you're injured, so you stay with me for the day. You can walk?” It wasn't a trivial point, she'd come into the room on her own, but that didn't mean the wound on her side was up to cross country hikes. Her arm was bound too, so that could mean a wound there as well.
“Yes sir.” She said meekly.
Being called sir nearly made him lose it and start laughing. Him a “sir”? Well, it was a start.
“Good. You two, um, Tracy and...” He stopped looking at her. The woman just looked down, but Nate bailed him out, thankfully.
“Yvonne.”
“Tracy and Yvonne. For right now and the foreseeable future you work backup kitchen duty. You answer to Sammi and Ken, and if you don't do what they say instantly then the deal's off. If any of you works less than hard all the time and I see it or hear about it, I won't correct you, I'll shoot you in the head when you aren't looking.”
OK, the threat was a bit much, but everyone smiled. More or less everyone. The panel people with him all smiled and Sammi did. Ken didn't, probably not trusting the women. The day before he would have, but now they were scary and strange. Thieves that could have cost them their lives possibly.
Well. Kind of the point.
Jake wanted them watched and it had to be by someone not afraid to tell him what was going on. The kids fit the bill.