Dead End Stories From the End of the World

by P. S. Power

  He grunted instead.

  "Yes sir. I suppose we'll have to walk in?"

  Jake was tempted to say yes, but teasing the guy wouldn't help at all, not if he was actually as down on himself as it sounded. It might be fun, but it would confuse him and that would waste time later and erode trust.

  "Teleporting in. I don't know where we'll have to go, but we might need to stand guard while others grab materials. Cameron, the cute redheaded girl? She'll be taking us, I think."

  That got a reaction, and not the one that Jake would have expected from a sixteen year old boy when it was mentioned that a cute fourteen year old girl was going to be around for a while. Instead of asking the normal questions, like if she was seeing anyone, or if she might put out on the first date, Henry growled.

  "Fucking thieves. I shouldn't have to work with that sort of trash. We should just kill them all and make the world a better pla-" He didn't get to finish the statement, staring at the nine millimeter in his face like he was.

  It had just appeared in Jake's hand. Oh, it was a horrible idea for him to try and do forge work armed, but he didn't go without now, even when it was a bad idea. Things like this kept coming up. The shocking thing there wasn't that he'd drawn on the kid, or even that they weren't fighting yet. No, it was that little Colleen Becks, his oldest remaining friend, had jumped to the left and was aiming her own pistol at the back of the guys head. It was a twenty-five, but she was holding it decently steady and starting to squeeze the trigger slowly, exhaling a bit like Jake had showed her.

  "Hold." Jake said the word darkly, and for some reason it worked even though waiting wasn't something that he'd taught her to do at all.

  She was a bright woman though. She always had been.

  "Henry, we don't say things like that about our friends here. Not ever. Don't even think them please, because some of the people around here can read minds. The sooner everyone learns to play nicely, the fewer bloodstains I'll have to wash off my walls. Now, if you'd fix that, and stop whining like a little girl... Oh, wait, the little girls here don't whine like that either..." Jake shook his head, not smiling at all. "Well, stop it anyway, or well have to change the phrase to 'stop complaining like a little Henry'. You don't want that. It will play havoc on your self-image. I know, you don't think it will get to you, but it will."

  "OK. Sorry. I was told, I'm... Damn it!" He looked ready to hit something, but the forge area didn't offer a lot for that.

  Besides if he did Colleen was clearly going to kill him. He stopped and looked at the others, then shook his head.

  "See? I can't do anything right."

  Jake was just about to get whiplash from the fast pace of the kid's mood changes, so slipped the weapon in his hand away and motioned for them to start on the bellows again. Colleen was a little slower putting hers away, but half a minute later the hiss of air was the only thing that could be heard again. Like it should be. Nice and restful.

  No one spoke for the next two heats, just communicating through hand gestures in the dim light, enjoying the warmth without having to fight to be next to the woodstove inside. That part of things kind of surprised Jake a bit. It would seem to him that more people would have volunteered to work the blacksmiths shop with him. They had room for another person or two and it was both useful and not that hard. Oh, a bit boring at times, if you were stuck on bellows, but no one had mentioned to him that they wanted to try doing the work or anything. He'd have to ask for volunteers again then. It was a pain, but sometimes people didn't want to do things just because speaking up was hard, not because they were truly lazy.

  Finally the boy spoke again.

  "The Very Good Man... He's really serious about making us all work together? All the different cousin races? My father said that was the case, but it seems impossible. How can we work with thieves or mind stealers? It's bad enough that we have to work with Valkyries. At least they're halfway useful. Plus you can have sex with them all you want, since they can pick when they get pregnant, and can't carry diseases. Not like Human women, who are all slutty and often oozing puss from their lower parts, I hear." That last bit was said almost academically, rather than as a dismissive thing.

  Jake was about to correct him again when Colleen laughed at the boy.

  "Where the heck did you get that idea? That's both gross, and sounds like it came from someone that had never met a regular woman before at all."

  The boy shrugged.

  "Everyone knows it. All Human women are obsessed with sex all the time and will force you to have sex with them if you fall asleep in their presence. We were all told to be on our guard against it, to prevent infection that might slow our battle reflexes. My father told me to either sleep in the middle of the Denari or if I have to, to sleep alone outside. Plus Human women are always pregnant. We were briefed on all this before we came. They can't help it though, so we're supposed to not show that it's wrong, to save their feelings."

  Colleen smiled tightly and gestured that they should keep working the Bellows.

  "You do understand that not one part of that is correct, right? That you were told things, probably by someone that doesn't have all the facts, based on what they believed to be true, but... it just isn't?"

  Jake snorted, "except the part about the Vals. They really can control when they get pregnant. Some of the women here do have herpes, too. They got it from Holsom." He pulled the metal to work it again, decided it would need three more passes most likely, then finishing on it, an edge first hammered in, then fired for soft tempering. Then he'd use a file to get it almost sharp and get it to Robin, who was making the handles for it.

  "Still, to answer your question and back up Colleen here, yes I expect you to work with everyone, and do it without mentioning anything you just said at all. No forgetting. If you can't manage that I'll have to send you away. We can't afford to have people running around making problems here. We have God knows how many refugees headed this way and have to be ready for attack at almost any time."

  The boy shut up then at least, which left Colleen fuming a little, being one of those "slutty Human women", but she didn't mention it.

  That let them actually get some work done, which was a brilliant and lovely thing to Jake's mind. Next he started on a knife, which was meant for Billi, a friend of his. It was kind of practice, since he needed to make a lot more weapons. The fact there was that he just couldn't do it all alone. That was getting obvious. They needed at least one more forge, and probably six to ten blacksmiths. That way they could keep things running around the clock.

  The commotion that started was done without yelling, at first. Jake nearly missed the sound, having been pounding as he was, the ring of metal making it too hard to keep his awareness on everything around him like he should. He used the black iron tongs to return the knife to the coals before responding though. Picking up the heavy short sledge he turned to jog into the yard outside the open door.

  It was cold out, and bright, but he could make out the problem almost instantly. A T'srith woman was busily fighting with one of the new Denari men. It was an odd, but fairly even battle, and except for the fact that the Denari made the mistake of yelling. Some kind of battle chant it sounded like rather than an actual string of foul language, it was nearly pretty.

  Jake shot him in the leg and readied himself to hit the head if he started screaming. The man was taller than almost anyone else in the area, thin and muscular, but like a swimmer compared to the blocky dark skinned woman in white that he'd fought with, went down to one knee, gasping. He didn't scream though, biting the sound off. He stopped the stupid chanting too.

  Looking at the tree line Jake saw the half dozen zombies slowly moving toward them anyway. That meant that they needed to make a point of clearing the woods again. It was a never ending battle, it seemed. The undead were hungry and most of the easy prey had already been eaten, or turned, and they weren't wild about eating others of their own kind. That had put them on the move, restlessly searchi
ng for new prey. Following the scent of warm Human flesh in the cold.

  At least that got everyone to pay attention for a little bit, and some rifles came out, in the hands of some fit looking Nordic women that took turns taking head shots. Carefully so as to not waste ammo. Vicki, who was in charge of them pointed silently to each of the younger girls and then at a target. One of them, a new blonde girl he didn't know, that looked to be about twenty, took three shots, which made her frown, but no one said anything. The rest got it done in two each.

  After that was done axes got handed out to each of the shooters so they could go take the heads. The girls didn't move though, even though the zombies were still flopping around on the ground. They were already dead of course. Shooting them in the head just made it harder for them to hunt you. Or walk. They could still infect you though and as far as anyone knew wouldn't stop moving until they disintegrated totally. Taking the heads off helped keep them from doing that though. So did burying, but the ground was too hard for that, so they had a huge moving pile about a quarter mile away from the house made of writhing headless bodies.

  Jake thought he got it when he saw what was happening. The Denari, the other eight that had come as part of a work agreement, were gathering around him looking more than a little angry. That was getting the T'srith to move in behind them, guns in hand, already taking aim.

  He shook his head and spoke softly.

  "Noise discipline. At all times. This man was chanting. It may be culturally significant, but it will also call in the dead on us. I shot him in the leg as a courtesy, because he's new. If any of you do that again in my or anyone else's presence here, or speak too loud, we'll be forced to shoot you in the head. I don't want to, but this is the one warning we can afford to give you. Do you understand? Just nod if you do." He waited, but only one of the men did it. He had a full beard, black shot with gray, and looked like a thin mountain man.

  "Understood Smith. Let's see to William, and then get back to work." His voice was sensibly soft as well. Almost more so than Jake's had been.

  Jake tried to remember the face, since he was clearly one of the smart ones. Maybe the one in charge even? He kind of hoped so, since it would make things easier.

  Holstering the gun as he moved, Jake put out a hand to the man on the ground, who took it, but struggled up without so much as a whimper. It was only a flesh wound after all. The man glared at the woman he'd been fighting though, which was odd, because she hadn't shot him at all. They'd been going at it with empty hands. It wouldn't have been a problem if not for the chanting thing.

  The wound bled freely, but one of the others came out with a bucket of water and some cloths to staunch it. It was Ken who limped out, still recovering from his own bullet wounds. He was twelve, or maybe thirteen, black and growing into more strength than would be expected from someone that young who was living in as hard of a world as they all had been.

  "Lois said that if we let him bleed in her kitchen she's finishing the job and serving him up for dinner." It almost sounded playful, as soft as it was, which got smiles from half the people standing around.

  Vicki gestured her people out to take care of their "kills", but stood near Jake anyway, not leaving herself. After a few seconds he realized it was because she was worried that the Denari might attack him for having shot one of them. Jake didn't think so though. He tended the man's wounds silently, finally getting it packed enough they could move him to the living room to chat about what had been going on. That got everyone available to come, including about fifty of the people in the house that just didn't have anything better to do at the moment. A lot of the women were visibly pregnant, a few looked almost ready to deliver. That got most of the Denari to avert their eyes.

  It would have been funny if not for the fact that they were already causing trouble, not even having been there for six hours yet. Worse, they were losing valuable work time to this already.

  Jake gestured to the T'srith woman, not knowing her name. She winced as if he was going to beat her, but that wasn't likely. She could probably snap him like a twig. The Vals were about three times stronger than a strong Human man. One of her people was nearly twice that strong. A bit slow, but that was a relative thing. She was probably twice as fast as he was in a sprint.

  On the good side he didn't have to explain what he wanted.

  "Maitreya... This one," she gestured to the man that had been shot with an open palm. "suggested that I was a diseased Human woman. I was merely explaining that I was neither of those things. I believe that he would have understood after a few more moments. About the time I took his head from his neck..." She didn't seem pleased with the man at all yet.

  Before Jake could say anything or roll his eyes, Henry, the whiny forge kid took a deep breath, walked forward and slapped the larger man in the back of the head, hard. It got everyone in the room to stare at him, especially the Denari, but he spoke before anyone could stop him.

  "William, apologize to the warrior." The boy smiled a little weakly and didn't sound sure of himself at all. "Also to these people for calling in a hoard to where they live."

  The man on the ground, sitting with his right leg bent, but in front of him lashed out with a very smooth long arm that should have slapped the younger man in the groin, but was blocked lazily with a knee.

  "I don't apologize to anyone. Ever. Why not just cut my manhood off you stupid waste of sperm!" He was too loud, which had Jake aiming at his head again.

  The guy didn't seem to take the hint though, not at all. He saw the weapon too, but it was like he couldn't understand what it meant, even though it had been explained to him already.

  "Some smelly cunt? That's who you want me to grovel too? Some bitch in heat that has the soul of a man? I'll kill her as soon as I can stand and-" The bang cut the words short.

  Denari were pretty tough, but a bullet to the head did the trick anyway. It did for most things really. The man slumped to the right, dead, everyone else silent for a bit. Finally Jake broke the quiet.

  "We have work to do and need to be a group now. One group. I shot him for being noisy, but if anyone does that again, acts on prejudice like that... I'll shoot them anyway, no matter how quiet they are about it. Spread the word. We don't do that anymore." He wondered for a second if the Denari would attack, if a major fight would be starting right then, but Henry stepped in front of him and shook his head. Other parts of him shook too, from fear and reaction to the murder that had taken place, but his voice was decently steady, if young sounding and breathy from trying to be so soft.

  "I'm sure we can do that. We should all get back to work."

  There was a roar though, along with chanting from several men, which got one of them killed instantly when Dave blew the back of his head off. After that things got more intense and confusing. Bodies flew across the room, mainly thrown. Women and a few kids ran, which was pretty sane of them, but a few grabbed weapons and started trying to hit the Denari. It was too close to use guns anymore, after the first few shots, so Jake had to try and kick the man that came at him. It was just sidestepped by a fraction of an inch and a fist flew straight for his throat. He couldn't doge it in time at all, but a skinny arm flew in front of him, as Henry engaged the taller man.

  Jake ducked to the side and pulled the nine again, trying to aim upward and toward the outside wall. After a second he took the top of the man's head off. Then he rolled, a sloppy and inexpert thing that actually took another of the tall men off guard, being so poorly executed. It worked though, and the boot that hit between the Denari's legs got him to shut the heck up.

  The rest of the fight was a scuffle as the men were pulled to the ground, being beaten until they didn't move anymore. But they were all alive, except for the ones that had been shot.

  All except for Henry and the bearded one. They were both alive and still standing.

  Jake cast a glance at the room, those left in it and wanted to scream, but didn't. Instead he just let the annoyance fade and s
tood ready to kill someone if he had too.

  "You..." He pointed at the bearded one who, if he hadn't been in charge minutes ago was now, as far as Jake was concerned.

  "Get these men out of here. They aren't welcome anymore. This is the worst that anyone has done so far. Six hours... I've seen zombies with better group coping skills." The sad part there was that he literally had. One at least.

  "Henry can stay here, and you personally are welcome back, but these other men need to go, and if you want replacements for them, bring people willing to follow the rules please. This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. Chanting? Here?"

  The bearded man didn't look happy about it, then his friends were dead, some of them at least. He turned to Henry and looked...

  Proud.

  "Henry will stay. It will be as you say, Smith. How are we to go to our lands?"

  That, it turned out wasn't hard at all. Cam came from the kitchen along with Sammi. She looked at the men and arranged them carefully, clearly not wanting to be too near them. She made herself though and took the hand of the big wild looking man without saying anything, closed her eyes and after about three minutes had them all teleported away. She wasn't the fastest of her kind at it, but she was young and doing pretty well at learning it seemed. A month before she couldn't have taken them all in one trip and it would have been ten minutes of concentration, five per group. More than that with the return trip. This time she was back inside two minutes.

  Jake didn't say anything, really wanting to get out of the room he was in. It was too close inside the House, too many bodies all at once. It was shocking that they didn't have more problems too. These new people were the second fight that week, the first being two of the boys, both younger, having a dispute over a toy. That they had toys now was amazing, but instead of sharing they'd gone full combat, too.