Jake's Law: A Zombie Novel

by James Gurley

  At this, Hawk again fingered her knife and paced the room, clearly agitated at the attention he was paying to Jessica.

  “I’m nothing like you,” Jessica replied. “You’re a murderer.”

  “Murderer? I seem to remember you three killing several of my men. We were no threat to you, yet you took it upon yourselves to become judge, jury, and executioner. By what expediency do you claim that right, yet withhold it from me. I intend to survive. I’ll help as many as I can of my choosing to survive with me, but I’ll tolerate no slackers or enemies. You must choose.”

  Quietly, Reed whispered to her, “For God’s sake, Jessica. Don’t ruin this. He’ll kill both of us.”

  As much as she wanted to drive a knife into Levi’s heart, she knew that opportunity wouldn’t come without a price. “Okay, I’ll play along. I guess I have no choice.”

  “Kill her,” Hawk cried, stepping forward. “Kill her now!”

  Levi scowled at her and snapped, “Shut up.”

  Hawk continued, “She’s lying! They both are. Look at her. She’ll kill you the first chance she gets.”

  “Then don’t give her the chance. Keep a close eye on her, on both of them, but if you hurt her, I’ll make you pay for it.”

  Hawk fumed as she paced. Her dark eyes focused on Jessica with so much rage and hatred that Jessica feared they would burn her skin. It’s not loyalty, she thought, and it’s not love. What thread binds her to Levi so tightly? Jessica knew without a doubt that one false step and Hawk would kill her in spite of Levi’s orders. Slowly, she rose to her feet, rubbing her throat where Levi’s fingers had dug in so deeply. She backed up and stood beside Reed. Reed’s hand pressed into the small of her back trying to reassure her.

  He whispered, “Thank God, Jessica. You scared me to death.”

  Levi stared at them. “My men have removed anything dangerous from the RV. You two can share it for now.” He nodded to Reed. “I will allow you limited access to the workshop under guard. I want a few of those bombs you used so effectively against me.” He smiled at Jessica. “I advise you to cause no trouble. My people are stupid and a bit ornery. They might act before thinking. Later, we’ll discuss your roles in my little society. You may both go now.”

  Beside her, Reed released his breath. Her anger still simmered just below the surface. She fought to keep it under control. To Reed, Levi’s pronouncement had sounded like a reprieve. She had watched Levi’s not-so-subtle body language and the way his eyes lingered on her and knew that he wasn’t finished with her yet.

  * * * *

  June 24, 2016 Split Rock Canyon –

  However restricted their movement, life in the RV was better than confinement in the workshop. They had beds, a bathroom, and a kitchen to cook their own food. They avoided the other residents of the ranch as much as possible. Reed maintained the solar panels and produced ammunition. She repaired what remained of the vegetable garden, tended to the remaining pigs, and washed clothing for everyone like a camp follower. Everywhere she went, she felt the men’s eyes on her. She knew that only their fear of Levi kept them from treating her like they did the other women. She didn’t know how long that would last.

  Of the five women, two were pregnant, but she doubted they knew who the fathers were or that the fathers cared. Once, when she tried to help one of the pregnant women, heavy with child, as she carried a heavy load, Hawk appeared from nowhere and shoved her to the ground. Looming over her, she smiled down on her.

  “Let her do her job.”

  “She’s pregnant,” Jessica pointed out. “Look at her. She’s weak.”

  “The weak die.”

  “What kind of monster are you?”

  Hawk’s cheek quivered in anger, as she narrowed her eyes at Jessica. She pulled her knife from its scabbard. The sun gleamed off the long steel blade. Fear rose in Jessica’s throat, bringing with it the sour taste of bile. For a long, breathless second, she thought she was going to die. Then, to her horror, Hawk slashed out at the pregnant woman instead. The tip of the blade left a long slice along her cheek. The woman screamed in pain, dropped the load she was carrying, and ran off holding her hand to her bleeding cheek. Hawk pointed the bloody blade at Jessica.

  “That is what I will do to you if you look at Levi.”

  Jessica was aghast. Did Hawk think she wanted that animal? “I want to kill him,” she replied.

  “He is mine,” Hawk said. She shoved the knife back into the scabbard and left, leaving Jessica relieved but confused. Had Levi been discussing her with Hawk? What did she know that upset her so?

  She discovered the answer sooner than she wished. The next day, Levi paid her a visit. After sending Reed away on the pretext of checking the engine in one of the vehicles, he sat at the table ogling her. She wore a pair of cut off shorts and a t-shirt with no bra, and his lecherous gaze made her decidedly uncomfortable.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “Take off your clothes.”

  Now I know. She fought the impulse to try to rush past him and remained motionless. She said nothing. Frowning, he rose and walked toward her. “I said take off your clothes.”

  She stood defiant. “If you want me, you’re going to have to rape me, and to do that, you’ll have to beat me into submission.”

  The slap came so quickly that she didn’t see his hand move. Her right cheek stung from the heavy blow. He followed the slap with a punch to the abdomen, forcing the air from her lungs and almost doubling her over with pain. He was on her before she could fight back, pinning her right arm behind her back and throwing her to the floor. White hot sabers of excruciating pain lanced up and down her arm and through her injured shoulder, bringing tears to her eyes. Her flailing left arm soon joined the right beneath her. She was unable to move either arm. The sour odor of whiskey was on Levi’s breath, as he pressed his face into her neck. With his full weight on her, he ripped away her shirt and tugged down her shorts. She struggled and succeeded in biting his ear, but he ignored the pain, even seemed to enjoy her fighting back. With one hand, he unzipped his pants. She bucked wildly to throw him off, but he was too heavy. Wedged in the narrow hallway of the RV, she couldn’t roll over to topple him. Pushing her panties aside, he entered her with one painful thrust. She cried out in pain, but that just emboldened him. He thrust harder, leaning forward to bite her nipples. Unable to resist, she turned her head away and sobbed.

  He was finished in a few short minutes. He rose and stared down at her. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” He laughed. “I bet you didn’t fight so hard with Jake.”

  She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Jake didn’t take anything from me,” she replied in almost a growl. “I gave it freely. As for you, you took nothing either with all your animal rutting. You could have gotten as much from one of your stinking men or that black-haired whore. Rape is an assault, not sex. You might have gotten off, but to me, it was just a brutal beating. If you expected anything more, I’m sure you were disappointed.”

  He stared at her for a moment, and then grinned. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t matter to my men. By the time they get through with you, you’ll wish you were nicer to me.”

  “I’ll kill them if they try to touch me. I’ll kill you next time.”

  He laughed at her. “Good luck with that.”

  He zipped up his pants and walked out. She lay there sobbing for a few minutes. Then, afraid to let Reed see her like that, she pulled up her shorts, threw away the torn shirt and put on a clean one. She wasn’t the first woman to be raped and wouldn’t be the last one, but it was the last time it would ever happen to her. At her first opportunity, she would kill Levi, even if it meant her death. Such men didn’t deserve to live. Now, she understood Jake better. She had thought him unnecessarily callous and cruel, but she had been wrong, or at least his reasons had eluded her until now. She remembered Jake’s Law #6 – Bad people deserve bad ends. She would see to it that Levi got the end he so richly deserved.

  18
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  June 24, 2016 Galiuro Mountains, AZ –

  Jake’s camp slowly took shape. Choosing a location in a saddle between two red rhyolite ridges overlooking Rattlesnake Canyon gave him a commanding view of the lower slopes on each side. At about five-thousand feet in altitude, the nights were cooler, but copses of juniper, pine, and oak provided wood for his fire. The plastic tarp draped over a tree limb and secured by rope produced a serviceable shelter against the wind and sun. A bed of pine needles beneath his sleeping bag provided a comfortable resting place. He had gathered prickly pear fruit, chia for tea, wood sorrel for greens, yucca fruit, and ripe elderberries in the lower altitudes as he climbed. These, along with the few canned goods he had scavenged provided his nourishing but lean meals. A small pool of potable water had collected in a nearby natural rock depression from the rains. He filled the collapsible water jug and purified it with the chlorine tablets. If he used it sparingly, the water would last him six or seven days. After that, he would have to search for more.

  On his second day in the mountains, he supplemented his meager store of food by catching a rabbit with a twine snare. Two fat quail soon followed. Removing the wooden handle of the eight-inch knife, he mounted it in a slit he laboriously cut in the end of his rake handle. Securing it with heavy twine, and then wrapping the twine with multiple layers of duct tape, he eyed his spear with the judgmental eye of a hunter. It lacked the aerodynamic qualities required for good flight, but as a jabbing weapon, it passed his muster. He was eager to try it out on some of the larger game whose spore he had crossed on his scouting forays.

  His most cherished possession was not his weapons, his tent, nor his food, but two rolls of toilet paper he had carefully packed. Removing the cardboard cores had made them compact enough to fit into the backpack. He didn’t mind roughing it. In fact, it felt good after so long confined to his ranch to once again be out in nature, but some habits were hard to break, and wiping his ass on leaves was not one he looked forward to.

  The key to survival in the wild was conservation of energy. Every calorie burned was one he would have to replace. Even a cheetah pursued its prey only so far before abandoning the chase. He had killed elk, white-tailed deer, mountain goats, and even the occasional javelina, but always through the sight of his rifle. Stalking a deer on foot, getting close enough to stab it with a spear, required more skill than he had ever considered. He had spotted deer tracks the previous day while foraging.

  Before sunrise, he set out with his spear in hand, his knife, backpack, and a canteen. He had rubbed mesquite sap and prickly pear juice into his clothes and skin in hopes that the mélange of scents would mask his own human scent. He moved as silently as a shadow through the sparse thicket of brush and trees, stepping cautiously over brittle dead branches, careful to remain downwind of the deer. The deer led him on a winding trek up and down the slope for most of the day. He finally spotted a magnificent buck in a meadow standing knee deep in a patch of yellow Mexican poppy, grazing warily on the tender growth.

  He climbed into the lower branches of a pine tree and waited. His hunger begged him to take a chance and attack, but his training stayed his hand. The deer would soon eat its fill and return to the safety of the woods. It’s only path led back in his direction. He ignored irritating insect bites and the heat, watching the animal with the intensity of a hawk. He shifted his body occasionally to prevent stiffness but remained vigilant. At last, the buck began moving back toward him, stopping at times for another mouthful of grass. He inched the spear into position, hoping his inexperience with a spear wouldn’t betray him. As the deer passed almost directly beneath him, he fell on it, careful to avoid the dangerous antlers. His aim was true. The eight-inch blade pierced the heart, killing it almost instantly.

  He took a moment to regard his trophy before removing his smaller knife and gutting the animal. He reluctantly discarded the heart and liver. They would have been nourishing, but his fear of parasites won out. The deer was too heavy to carry to his camp intact. With no way to preserve so much meat, he would have to take what he could easily transport. He hacked off the two rear legs, carved out the loin, and a section of rump roast. These he could slice into thin strips and smoke or roast whole. He regretted wasting the rest of the carcass, but he knew the smell of death would soon draw scavengers. The deer would not be wasted. Already, a crow cawed at him from a nearby treetop, eager for its meal.

  He secured the legs with a length of duct tape. He wrapped the loin and rump in a piece of plastic and stuffed them into the backpack. He donned the backpack and slung the legs over his shoulder and around his neck. Loaded down by his heavy burden of meat, the journey back to his camp was exhausting. Only the thought of a thick steak cooking over an open fire kept him going.

  He could hardly contain his hunger as the aromatic smoke drifted through the camp. With a little salt he had brought along and some fresh sage gathered from the slope to season it, it tasted as good as any steak he could have produced at home. He followed it with the remainder of the peaches for desert. As his meal settled, he sliced most of the meat into thin strips and hung them from a wooden rack near the fire to slowly smoke and dry. The rest he cooked to serve as his next few meals. He realized he could stay in the mountains until winter, stealing back to San Manuel occasionally for supplies and hunting for meat, but that wasn’t in his game plan.

  He had worked for ten years to create the perfect retreat. It had sufficed to keep him safe and in reasonable health during the apocalypse. If it had been destroyed by an act of nature, he thought he could have dealt with the loss, but to be taken by force … that he could not allow to go unpunished. He wanted his ranch back, but more than that, he wanted Levi dead. He didn’t bother trying to justify his desire as an attempt to rescue his friends or to eliminate a very bad man from society. His reasons were not as altruistic as that. He wanted revenge, pure and simple. He wanted Levi dead, and his band of thugs with him.

  Of course, he hoped Reed and Jessica were still alive. He clung to the thought that if Levi wanted them dead, they would have joined him in the desert staked to the Palo Verde tree. Reed would find a way to be useful to survive. Jake didn’t hold that against him. Surviving was surviving, and Reed had the instinct for it. However, Jessica was another matter. He had noticed the lecherous stares Levi had leveled in Jessica’s direction. He had also noticed the reaction of the dark-haired woman, probably his whore. The thought of Jessica in Levi’s bed sickened him. He hoped Jessica would find the idea of being Levi’s woman as repugnant as he did, but she had traded sex for security with him. Why not Levi?

  No, he thought, deriding himself for underestimating her. She wasn’t that kind of woman. She had made a bond with him. There might be no love involved, but at least they had a mutual respect for each other. As he thought about Jessica, her image swam before him – cute but not beautiful; slim, but not waifish; confident, but not overbearing. Whatever the relationship between them, she held nothing back, whereas, he had. He had kept his secrets, not because he didn’t trust her or Reed, but because it was in his nature to be secretive. He was glad now that he had revealed the location of the buried crate to Reed. If nothing else, he could use its contents to mollify Levi in a difficult situation.

  With Levi searching for him, he would have to keep his cook fires small to avoid detection. That night, satiated by the fresh meat, sleep still eluded him. Jessica’s plaintive face haunted him. The wind through the trees was her voice whispering for him to save her. He arose before dawn, his mind made up. He would take back his ranch and free his friends or die in the attempt.

  19

  June 26, 2016 Split Rock Canyon, Galiuro Mountains –

  Levi surveyed his new domain not with the pride of a man who had wrestled it into existence with his bare hands, but with the satisfaction of having taken it by force. In the new world, force trumped all. Might truly did make right. With no laws, the lawless need fear nothing. His men were not farmers or ranchers. They didn’t
appreciate the effort that had gone into creating the ranch they so callously set about destroying. He had been forced to beat senseless two men who, in a drunken frenzy, began shooting and damaging solar panels on the roof. His object lesson in brutality had halted further wanton acts of destruction, but he realized that he could never change them into anything more than simple scavengers.

  Since his unsatisfying encounter with Jessica, Hawk had been cold and distant to him. She followed his instructions but spoke only when he demanded a reply. He didn’t mind. Her constant cloying presence annoyed him. She clung to him as if she owned him rather than the other way around. Her rage seethed just below the surface and would soon erupt like a volcano. The likely target would be Jessica, and he wanted to keep her alive, at least for a while. Raping her and threatening to turn her over to his men had humbled her if not cowed her. She refused to meet his gaze the few times they were near one another. He almost quivered in anticipation at the change in her. Before, she had been aloof, looking down on him as a spoiler, a taker. Her admiration for Jake Blakely had slanted her view of the new reality. Now, she understood the meaning of real power, his kind of power, raw and unbounded. Presenting her with Blakely’s rotting corpse would break what remained of her spirit. Whatever hope she clung to would vanish. She would come to him, subdued, humbled, and eager to survive under whatever terms he demanded.

  He motioned to two of his men. They came over and stood beneath the balcony. “Go get the jeep ready. We’re going to pay our former landlord a visit.”

  He would bring back Blakely’s rotting corpse or any remaining parts to show Jessica. That would remove the specter of his presence and show her what fate awaited her and the fat man if she didn’t cooperate.

  On the journey, his mind was preoccupied with bold matters – killing off the zombie populations of San Manuel and Oracle, looting the entire town for supplies, and expanding his territory to include Oro Valley and Marana. He could build a small army, offer protection to survivors at a price. They would swear allegiance to him or die. He would carve his own little empire from the ashes of the dying world. He would be Lord Levi.