Dead End Stories From the End of the World

by P. S. Power

  The Bawdri leader looked down his nose at Jake, as if a little boy had just defied him. Too freaking bad. He was only going along with this game for so long and so far. If they needed him to pretend to be something to get through it all, he could do it, sure, but right now he was leaving.

  After he finished eating his pie.

  “You should all get some of this.” He said softly, taking another small bite. “Good food might just be the last good thing anymore.”

  For some reason no one moved. Again. It was like they didn’t hear him, or get the idea. After a while, from the back of the room where most of the people from the House had clustered, there came a soft female voice. To his surprise it was Rita, not someone he actually cared for all that much. Her words were a little pointed, given everything she’d done to sabotage him over the last weeks. He had to remind himself that it wasn’t really her fault. It was tough to do. He kind of didn’t like her that much. It wasn’t fair, but he really felt it still.

  “What about love?” It was slightly timid sounding, then, when she wasn’t accusing people of things they hadn’t done, she nearly always was kind of shy.

  He shook his head and swallowed, buying time. For a second he wasn’t going to speak at all, the idea’s too raw and nerve wracking for him to give voice too. Finally they bubbled out anyway.

  “What about it? Love died long ago for me, and then came back as a dead thing that I had to shoot, and lose again. You want me to be all loving now, after everything that’s happened? There’s no love left here. Now we just have to survive and hope that someone better than I am, better than any of us, can find it again someday.”

  With that he took one more bite of pie and set the plate down, then got Cam to take him home.

  All he saw when as they left were tears running down cheeks in the bright electric light, making it all too plain.

  He got it, Jake was stupid after all. They were sad because he couldn’t love anymore and their “superman of touchy-feely” was supposed to love everyone without end. That wasn’t him though. Not anymore.

  It hadn’t been for a long time.

  Love was dead.

  That or on vacation.

  Probably with God, wherever he’d gotten off to.

  He smiled into the dark of his kitchen.

  Then drew and shot the zombies in front of him. There were a lot of them.

  Chapter five

  It was dark and they were fast, but after he shot the first two and one grabbed Cam, he got the idea. They weren’t undead at all. They were just people come to try and steal his stuff. Finding the place empty, that had probably seemed fair, but they couldn’t have been there long, could they?

  They hadn’t even started a fire.

  The giveaway came when the man that had grabbed Cam, threw her to the floor, which normally would have been stupid, not knowing what the girl could bring to the fight. It worked out for him in this case, since the answer was functionally nothing. There was a woman, an old woman to have been surviving like this, in a roving band, that screamed at him and died choking on it. That was just instinct on his part. He’d been about to try and talk them down when she made the noise. He didn’t blame her, but she still died for it. That left three, an adult man with a dark beard and two young boys. Or possibly girls with boyish clothing. No facial hair at least, not that Jake could tell.

  He didn’t have any either, so he tried not to judge based on that. They were both short if that meant anything.

  He pointed his nine at the man as he tried to grab a kitchen chair and hit Cam with it, she cringed away, but didn’t make a sound.

  Good girl. Jake felt a rush of honest pride. She wasn’t much in a fight, but she didn’t make noise either, even when frightened and threatened with harm. The new people didn’t either, not the remainder of them. Jake took a deep breath, tasting the sour scent of them on the air.

  “Don’t. If you hit her with that, or more to the point, start to, you die. Go ahead and put the chair down. Slowly please.” His voice was soft, tense and edgy. For all he knew there were ten more people just outside the door, waiting to come in. The kicked open door, splintered around the edge near the handle wouldn’t stop anyone from just walking in. That would take some work to fix of course, but he’d need light for that. Carpentry wasn’t his strongest suit. Not yet.

  The girl with her bright red hair stood and looked around, then moved behind Jake, near one of the bodies on the floor. The first man shot. He was dead, unless a bullet to the brain was survivable for his kind of person. It didn’t seem likely, from all the blood on the floor, black in the dark like it was. Just enough light from outside to make out the forms inside.

  The man held up his hands, but if he was trying to show he was peaceful, it was a bit late.

  Or maybe not. Depending on what he did next.

  “Please don’t hurt us. We were just looking for something to eat. We found this place and thought it was abandoned, and then we noticed there was food, figured we could settle here, maybe live for a bit. We’ll leave. We didn’t know anyone was here.” He sounded honest enough, if anyone that was that close to dying could be.

  “Cam, I have some candles on the counter over there, in the box? Could you light one please? The matches are next to them. Try not to waste those.”

  It took her a few minutes to find everything and two matches, but the small flame finally lit the room. He looked at the people in front of him, and still couldn’t tell much about them. The kids could be either boys or girls, and looked small, but that could be short, not young.

  They all looked different, one of the kids had a nose not too different than his own, so decently big, the other had a broader thing, slightly flat, but still looked ethnically white. The man was darker though, and decently tall, six-three at least.

  The one thing they all had in common was how thin they were. Tiny really. Jake was a stick practically and Cam wasn’t exactly curvy, but these people made them both look practically rotund. Not cannibals then, or they’d have more weight on them. They also kind of stank. Jake tilted his head to think and ended up just waiting in silence, the black nine millimeter held out at arm’s length.

  “I can give you food. It will be a while, unless… Cam, can you get back to the House and make up a few plates? I think that will be faster than making something here. I know it can take you a while to set up…” Her teleportation skills beat his by about a million and a half times, being that she could do it at all, and he couldn’t, but it still took her about ten minutes each time. The older people were all a lot faster and could carry more, but at fourteen she wasn’t really up to moving cars on her own yet, or just instantly blinking around.

  Gesturing toward the table with the gun, Jake winced. That looked pretty friendly, didn’t it? Like he was going to kill them or something. Like he just had their friends. They’d startled when they realized someone else was there and he shot at the noise, thinking zombies. Oops.

  He put the weapon away, using big gestures so that they could see it in the dark. Possibly. From the murmur that came from Cam, he figured she was gearing up to leave. He ignored her then and remembered to use his words.

  “Sorry about your friends. This is my place. My friend is going to go get some food, it might look funny when she does, but don’t let it startle you. She can teleport. We’ll explain later, after you see it. Until then I get that it probably just sounds insane. Please, have a seat at the table and I’ll start a fire. Then we can figure out what to do with these people here.” The ones he’d killed.

  “I’m Jake, by the way. Um, I know, I don’t wear a beard, but I’m a man, if that makes a difference to you.” He waited then and finally a soft voice came from the far side of the table, one of the kids.

  “I’m Mark. These other two are Greg and Tim. Tim’s the one with the beard. We’re looking for someone. Greg and I. Tim is just someone we met, but he’s a good person. I ask you not to harm him. If you do, we’ll fight. I know that m
ight not seem like much of a threat, but if you have a Skalliwaga here, you might know that not everyone left is exactly standard anymore.”

  That got a grunt from Greg, and raised eyebrows that they couldn’t see from Jake.

  “OK, well, who are you looking for? There aren’t a lot of people in the area, but as much as it’s possible right now, I have some contacts. I can’t promise anything though.”

  The boy on the far side of the table just shrugged, or at least Jake thought that was the case. He loaded kindling into the woodstove and lit a small piece of wood in the candles flame, then used it to start the fire. It took a lot of gentle blowing to get it going, but about the time he was ready to black out, and that Cam vanished, it caught nicely. Then he caught his breath for a second, smiling, a little light headed. If they were going to attack him, this was their best shot, since he could barely see, lights dancing in front of his eyes like they were.

  Then he noticed the fire trying to go out and started blowing again, huffing hard for a while, until it really took off. A big enough fire tended to stay burning. There was a lesson in that somewhere, but Jake was too tired to think about it.

  “So, Mark. Who are you looking for?” Jake sat in front of the stove, leaving it open for light, which helped a lot in the dark space. Way more than the candle did.

  The boy didn’t speak for a long time, finally he did, making Jake wonder if he was lying at first. Taking his time to think up a likely story?

  “My… brother, I suppose you’d call him. Close enough. He went by Daryl last I know of, but that can change.”

  It seemed odd, but Jake had heard the name recently. One of the new people from the police compound. Distinctive enough that he actually recalled the meeting.

  “Um, shape shifter?”

  That got an intake of breath from both the boys.

  “Yes! You have news of him? Does… does he yet live?” It was Mark that spoke still, sounding excited, but wary. Like Cam’s people, shifters didn’t fight. Not really. They hid and let others protect them.

  Still, Jake had good enough news then, if it was the same guy.

  “The House had a shifter named that. He’s kind of new. I don’t know if it’s the same Daryl the shape shifter, but I mean, what are the odds? As far as I know it’s an odd name for one of those.” Jake sounded so tired he nearly didn’t recognize his own voice for a second. It was the smoke from the fire, he thought, making it so harsh. It wasn’t on purpose, but it didn’t sound as friendly as he’d have liked.

  The room was suddenly filled with people. Jake was looking down the barrel of his handgun again before he realized it wasn’t an attack.

  “It’s us.” Vickie said into the dark, shotgun in hand.

  Dave looked down at his feet, nearly standing on top of the woman that had screamed.

  “Damn Jake, you can’t even go home alone without getting into a fight, can you?” He sounded playful at least.

  “What, and ruin my perfect record? Well, this time they weren’t trying to kill me, we just had a miscommunication and I shot first, not realizing they were people until it was too late. So basically murder. A waste of life.” Nothing else he added would help, or inform, except one thing.

  “The younger looking ones might be related to Daryl, the new guy from the police compound? I don’t know about the bigger one here. Maybe someone could get Daryl for us? Please?”

  Morris stepped forward then.

  “At your other house?” He made it sound as if it were Jake’s personal residence or something, rather than a place he didn’t live at anymore.

  “Yep. Is that OK? I mean, it’s not a strain on you, doing it so soon after bringing this many?” He nearly whispered the words in the man’s ear, his skin shining amber in the fire’s glow. It was nearly cheery, except for the bodies.

  “No… Jake, it’s not a problem for me. I would eventually tire, but I can make several such trips without hardship. I’ll be about that now, if you wish?” The voice was smooth enough, almost kind sounding, as if the situation was almost exactly what he expected to find.

  “Would you please? I know that would make me feel better, if some crazy, over reactive jerk just shot my friends. I… Then I need everyone to leave.” Two of the people, standing at the back, had food on plates, rather than firearms. So did Cam. She walked forward and set a plate down in front of Mark, who pushed it over to Greg. Then Billi offered hers to Mark. She lived there so the idea wasn’t too farfetched, her coming to see what was going on. Her dark skin worked to make her almost invisible in the dim room. Old movies never got that right, but fire wasn’t great for really showing things. Jake wasn’t even absolutely certain who all was in the room with him, until they spoke, or at least moved closer to him.

  Jill stepped forward with her own plate, uncovered, but well loaded, since the “boys” hadn’t started eating, waiting for their friend to get some too. It was incredibly polite, considering how hungry they all had to be. They’d need to eat slowly though, or they’d get sick. It happened when you were starving. Jake was just about to mention that when Jill made a low sound, like a growl and hit Tim in the side of the head with the plate she held. That got followed by a fist to about the same area and then she cast around for something to hit him with. Everyone else looked at her in shocked silence.

  “It’s Tim, Billi.” The broken nosed woman said, keeping the sound of her voice down at least.

  “Oh.” Then the black woman picked up a piece of cordwood from the pile and jumped in when Jill moved to the side, beating the man on the back as hard as she could. The women did it right, staying silent, or nearly so the whole time, but Tim started groaning.

  The shape shifters rose almost as one, and grew, inches becoming feet, thing frames becoming heavily muscled, becoming covered with fur, and growing giant talons from their hands. Paws? It would probably look pretty cool in the daylight, and was freaky in the dark. Single long sickle shaped claws.

  “Um, unless that form is bulletproof, you can’t survive a fight with us. Besides, I’m pretty sure you’re both natural pacifists. Daryl is. Let me see if I can save Tim and then we’ll see what to do about this, all right?”

  They didn’t move, but then they were being covered by half a dozen weapons, so that was probably a wise plan.

  “Say, Jill, Billi… why are you killing that man?”

  It was the darker woman that spoke, her voice filled with tears and pain, even though she hadn’t been hit at all yet. Tim really hadn’t rallied much, mainly just covering his head ineffectively. Not much of a fighting style really.

  “He was one of Derrick’s thugs. He raped us and… Did worse things than that. He’s not going to do it again.”

  Oh. That made sense then.

  “Stop.” Jake made his voice cold enough no one moved for a few seconds after he spoke.

  “Are you really sure it’s the right man? It’s hard to tell things like that in the dark and Tim isn’t exactly an unusual name, is it?” He asked gently.

  Standing, lurching a little as she did, Jill moved to get the candle, a light cream colored thing mean to be a decoration, not used for light, but it was thick enough around it stood up on its own, which made it convenient. She turned and brought it close to the man’s face, wax splashing a bit onto the floor and into his beard. He yelled. It was too loud.

  “Quiet.” Jake whispered the word, trying to get the man to realize the noise he was making. Burns hurt, but yelling was a choice. Sometimes screaming wasn’t, but this kind of hollering always was. After five seconds the man hadn’t stopped, so Jake shot him. It took two shots, since he was writhing so much and hard to see.

  That or Jake was just too tired for this BS. Yeah, he reflected. That one. Still, it was a waste of ammo, shooting him twice like that. His head wasn’t solid so there was no excuse.

  The two giant things froze, standing behind the table still.

  “Don’t worry, that was about the noise, nothing else. Why don’t you go
ahead and eat? I know it might be hard, with your friends dead, but at least one of them wasn’t as nice as all that, it seems. He got off light though. I was going to let the girls beat him to death with firewood. This was much faster than he deserved. If it was really the same guy, I mean.” Dead either way, but Jake wouldn’t think back on him as negatively if he was innocent.

  “It’s him.” Billi said, a bit like she was in shock. She took the candle from Jill and looked at the others on the floor, which required a lot of people shifting around to make happen. She hunched down by each, and from the spit that went into the men’s faces, Jake was going to guess she knew them too.

  “The rest of Derrick’s people. Milla, she was one of the woman that didn’t come with us when we ran away. She couldn’t break Derrick’s hold on her. I don’t know why she was still with them. Probably just nowhere else to go.”

  “Um,” the giant furry one on the right said, still sounded exactly like Mark. After a few seconds shrank to his previous size, clothing appearing as he did. It was kind of a cool trick, Jake decided. It kind of meant they could change outfits at will.

  “They were looking for someplace that Mr. Holsom told them about? The Farm, he called it? Figured he could take it over and we could all live there. I don’t know how that went for him, but Greg and I, we have family close by, so thought we’d give it a shot. It was a messed up group, but all the others we’ve seen were as bad or worse.” He sat and started to eat, even with all the bodies in the room. After a little bit the other one did the same.

  When Greg spoke, the voice wasn’t young boy, but pure girl. Probably why he hadn’t spoken much. Couldn’t get the voice right yet, and being a girl in a group with Holsom anywhere near it would be… worse than Jake wanted to imagine. He’d been told some of it. That bit was more than he wanted to know.