Dead End (Book 3): A Very Good Thing

by P. S. Power

  Nice to know he was loved, but seriously…

  “Oh, come on. I’m not dead yet, and even if I am, you don’t need me. Not anymore. You all have various legends of some great guy at the end of the world that comes and saves you, one way or the other. Well, you know what? It’s garbage. All you’d be getting from me, all you will get, is some basic common sense. I’m twenty-four, so don’t come looking to me for some grand secret wisdom or anything.” He forced and exhausted grin and waved to the room in a sweeping gesture. It was a little truncated, a bit stilted, but no one seemed to notice. His neck stung from the scratches, which was more noticeable to him at the moment, what with most of the room staring right there. Looking down he could see brownish red blood on his blue jean jacket. It was new, that splotch, but not too big. It was just a few lines that had bled a bit, not that deep even.

  “So if I die, you work together. Trust each other and become one society, not a bunch of groups holding grudges and acting superior to the others. I mean come on, if it isn’t obvious that what’s needed is just cooperation and working as a single group, then you aren’t half as smart as you all seemed earlier. So there, you’re all set. I’ve finished my duties to you or whatever, and you don’t need me now. You really never did. Now, let’s get some pie and start working on that?”

  No one seemed all that enthused by his rousing speech. Well, they weren’t claiming he was the “Very Good Politician” were they?

  Yalla, at least Jake thought that was her name, and that Odina North was her title, got up and walked to the kitchen, shoulders stiff. Jaw that way too. It looked like someone was in trouble. He waved to the others to keep going, trying to clear people, and at Vickie, who was watching the older woman with a strange, dark look. Tipper was just looking down, but Jake slapped her arm on his way past.

  “Come on, we might have to keep some girl from being killed.” He meant it as a joke, but she just nodded and walked with him, not looking up at all.

  The scene in the kitchen was bizarre to say the least. Yalla had a knife out and was moving in on Lois, who was standing in front of the girl from earlier, not moving at all. Her face was totally relaxed and peaceful seeming. The rest of the Valkyries were standing back, watching, the younger looking ones looking scared.

  For a Christmas party everyone was just way too frightened. It was just about the worst thing he’d ever been to. Except the look on the kids faces when they’d gotten their presents.

  Yalla was focused on the girl, who had medium colored hair in this light, a light brown that was kind of pretty really. She just stood, eyes down, wearing nice clothing that was loose and looked warm. She still had a jacket on. It wasn’t that heavy, but the Vals didn’t get cold. That focus on the girl meant Yalla wasn’t looking behind her though, so she totally missed the fact that Ken, who seemed to have been making up plates of pie, was about to hit her with a chair. A nice sturdy looking one too.

  “OK, everyone freeze.” Jake said, looking at Ken directly. He was the real danger here.

  Yalla was no doubt a deadly super warrior that would be both hard to hurt and knew what to do in a fight. Ken was just an untrained boy.

  He was also a berserker. Just being overmatched wouldn’t stop him if he had to fight to save his friend, and he wouldn’t stop until he was dead, no matter how hurt he got. Thankfully his eyes weren’t all red shot yet, like they got when that happened. It was a blood pressure thing, Jake was almost certain. A massive chemical release probably.

  Thankfully everyone actually stopped. Jake was kind of surprised. People didn’t normally do what he suggested unless he had a gun in his hand.

  “Good. Now, no fighting in the kitchen. You’ll tip the pies over, and, I mean really, I haven’t had mine yet. Yalla, put the knife away please. Then Lois can move out from between you and… Sorry, I don’t know your name.” He looked at the girl who didn’t look up at all. It was Vickie who spoke, her voice a bit rough. Thick like she was fighting back tears. Jake had never seen her cry about anything.

  “She’s called Six. Her name, for now. It was probably why she was out trying to kill zombies, trying to earn an adult name. Yalla’s daughter. My sister.” She didn’t seem pleased by the fact at the moment.

  “Oh? Well, nice to meet you, Six. I don’t know the tradition, but I don’t think that cluster out there counts as something worth a name. Next time do it sensibly and learn about your opponents first. We’ll have you back here for that, in a week or so.” Jake looked at Yalla’s back and shook his head, not that she could see it.

  “Seriously Yalla, I need you to put the knife away. You’re in a strange set up and probably don’t see it all yet, but Lois is a pacifist, so she won’t fight you, if you try to attack Six there. She’ll just stand in the way and let you kill her if she has to instead. But you won’t get to that point, because the boy behind you will absolutely fight to the death to prevent that. So, let’s skip all that? We have real things to do, so leave off the special Valkyrie knife spanking or whatever you had planned? Please?” He didn’t add the part where he’d shoot her if she didn’t. Shooting a guest seemed rude though so he wanted to avoid that, if he could.

  The Val leader took a deep breath, but hid the knife in her clothing, so that it just didn’t show and turned to him looking pissed.

  “I’d make this up to you by taking her life. She has to atone for this. Her actions may have cost us the entire world. It can’t be born. If I don’t do this everyone else will think we did it on purpose, I…” She looked at him, face hard, then at Vickie.

  “I’ll offer my own life. Victoria, you’re in charge. I name you Odina North, Victoria. Let all here witness it.” She started going for her blade again as everyone stood around in shock.

  Jake blew a raspberry with his tongue. Vickie at least laughed, though it sounded forced and Tipper gave a strained grin. No one else did. Jake stepped forward a bit and touched the woman’s arm gently before she could get at the weapon again.

  “Nope. This is silly. First, were not doing anything this dramatic tonight. I’m too tired and need to get somewhere that won’t get anyone else killed if I turn. But just for future reference, a zombie biting, scratching or otherwise getting me, or anyone else killed, isn’t anyone’s fault. Not even the dead persons. They can’t help it. We’re made of their favorite food after all. If we start placing blame for that we’ll never stop. It’s just wasted time. Six here messed up. Well, it happens.” He stepped forward and touched the girls arm. She flinched as if he was going to hit her, but Jake didn’t let go and after that bit of tension she didn’t resist.

  “You won’t mess up in the same way again though, understood? You lived this time, but that was boneheaded in the extreme. Not that I’d normally have a right to tell you what to do, but getting killed at our party here would have ruined the whole thing, don’t you think? Plus, and this is probably the most important thing about this, you kind of sucked out there. You obviously have the needed skills, but you didn’t use them correctly for this enemy. That can be fixed with training and practice. I expect you to do that.”

  No one spoke for a while, but Vickie finally smiled and nodded.

  “It will be as you say. Yalla, Six, you heard him. There will be no death over this. Now, Yalla, if you’d go and rejoin the others? I’m sure you’ll be needed. Tipper, watch Six please? Remind her that the VGM said she can’t kill herself. Or let herself die.” Vickie gave Jake a look that said he’d better say something to that effect.

  “Um, exactly. Six, no dying. If you others would see to that too? For that matter, no dying all around please.” Jake looked at the other fit looking women, most young, all harder than heck. Harder looking that Tipper or Vickie, to tell the truth, carrying more muscle under the lean flesh. Then those two had been starved for a while, like all the people at the House had been. Not as long as a lot of people, but long enough. It clearly made a big difference.

  That got nods, though no one looked all that happy about i
t. Jake didn’t bother sighing. He did grab a piece of pumpkin pie though, and went to the huge bowl of whipped cream. He wanted to just load the thing up with it, but only took a single dollop, trying not to be greedy. He was eating his freaking pie though.

  “Oh, this looks good.” With the serving spoon he gestured at the fluffy whiteness in front of him in the big silver colored bowl.

  Vickie grinned again, obviously trying to follow his lead.

  “Heh, yes, that one was good. Sammi told us all about the special Christmas tradition of whipping the cream. We had to have them all draw lots. I thought a fist fight was going to erupt at one point. Luckily there were three winners. From three different groups too. Bit of luck there. Not rigged at all. Nope.” Her tone went dry, but she sounded happy enough about the idea.

  “Well, they did great, this looks nearly perfect. Now, let’s get some pie and clear everyone we can, then get people out of here before someone burns the place down or world war three starts. Four? Do the zombies count as a war?”

  All the Vals stared at him then, even the ones that had been looking away, as if he were stupid. It was Tip that explained exactly how dumb he was being.

  “Hell yeah they do. Someone had to create this, it’s too effective and exact to be anything else. It isn’t some mutated flu virus or anything random. My take is that we’ve been fighting battles in a war the whole time. We just don’t know against who yet. It should be a priority, finding that out.” Tipper didn’t growl the words, but her tone was serious.

  She made sense though. Jake had always figured it as a depopulation effort himself. Want to stop global climate change fast? Get rid of the people. It was basically the same thing though, wasn’t it? He mentioned it quietly, voice subdued.

  “I wonder… Could the people behind that be the ones that sent those other ones in earlier? The bodies weren’t frozen all the way and seemed warmer in the middle. That could happen if someone had them held somewhere warm and released them a few hours before the attacks. Why target us though?”

  That got a snort from Tipper, as Jake took a small bite of the cream, savoring it, the soft texture smooth, the whole thing sweet. The short haired woman smirked.

  “Why? Because we have the freaking Very Good Man with us, that’s why. Super rallying point extraordinaire. Every single group has some story about you Jake. Even regular humans. How you’ll come and save us all. Or let us die. But mainly that first one. People love a happy ending. Anyone trying to kill us all will have an easier time of it if you’re gone. Probably because of what you said in the other room earlier.” She leaned in and stole a bit of his whipped cream with her finger and ate it slowly, licking her finger, looking him dead in the eye as she did.

  “You can get us all to share. To work together. It’s so plain we need to that no one can deny it, but old rivalries and hatreds won’t just go away. Everyone wants to blame someone else, and only one person in the world can really just tell us all to do the right thing. It’s not that we don’t know what to do, it’s that we can’t make ourselves do it. We never could. Humans didn’t do it either. Even on the small scale we can’t manage it for long, not under pressure. But we’ll all follow you, won’t we?”

  They would? Based on what? His good looks and charm? He would have laughed, but Six, the Valkyrie girl spoke first.

  “And I may have gotten you killed. I deserve to die.” She was crying, but no one told her that was stupid, so Jake did, if a bit more gently than that.

  “Silly. Stop that now. We all have work to do and need you to do your share.” Jake shook his head and sighed.

  “I can’t handle this right now. I really just can’t. Don’t kill yourself, don’t worry about me overly, just don’t bother. This isn’t a good day for any of this and really, probably won’t be for a long, long time. Now, let’s get to work and stop being…” Calling her a moron wouldn’t help, so he took a bite of the pumpkin filling. It was just about perfect.

  “This is really good Lois.” He pointed at the pie with his fork, then took another small taste.

  “Really good.” Then, without saying anything else he walked back into the other room. They’d work it out. Or not. Either way he couldn’t control what they did and trying would probably just make things worse.

  There was a low buzz in the room when he got back, and everyone looked at him, some angry, most just blank.

  “Something happen?” He said, making eye contact with Sammi. She shook her head though.

  “No, we haven’t found anything yet. Some opinions were given that perhaps the Valkyries should make redress for the actions of one of theirs this night. Some of those plans are rather… ambitious.” The girl, still in blue stared at her own mother, who was one of the angry ones.

  The woman didn’t let her head drop or anything, and spoke loudly for the room, almost too loudly. Jake didn’t have his weapon out but Sammi shushed the woman, which worked nearly as well as the threat of death. Alyssian spoke then, in a harsh whisper. Still too loud for comfort, but probably not enough to draw anything in.

  “They may have killed us all! This can’t be allowed to stand. We should wipe them from the face of the Earth.” It was crazy sounding, but several other people agreed with the woman. Not all Bawdri either.

  “Guys, really…” Jake took a bite of crust. It was a little tough, but not too bad.

  “Calm the heck down and don’t blow things out of proportion. A kid made a mistake, it turned out alright so far. Let’s not borrow trouble. Remember, work together. Killing people on our side isn’t doing that. Blaming them isn’t either. We’ve already dealt with it, now, let it go. The only important thing here is that the girl, Six, didn’t get her name for what she did. It’s really embarrassing for her and kind of a big deal to her people. I’ll take care of my part in this, and she’ll fix hers, with a little help. She screwed up, but that was mainly due to poor tactics and lack of knowledge.”

  He said the words, but suddenly what Becky had said earlier, about what had happened to Rachel, hit him again. It was nearly crippling. He’d known she was dead, even kept going after that, but this… It was all too far past what he could take. There was nothing he could do about it and no one seemed to care at all. They wanted to have problems about him being scratched by a stupid zombie? Didn’t they know the horrors the world really held? He was just some guy. He nearly barked at them to just shut up and stop acting like morons and worse, but no one was saying anything, they just looked at him, and each other. The telepaths all staring at him, looking afraid.

  He made himself take a bite again and waited for the rage he felt to pass. It wasn’t their fault. They hadn’t hurt his friend. They were just stuck in this, like he was.

  Finally he spoke, since no one else seemed to be going to.

  “Cam, can you take me home now? I can just hang out there for a couple days. It beats the heck out of being locked in a little closet.” It wasn’t that little, but it was dark all the time and he kind of wanted to see the light. If it was all over, he might as well. If it wasn’t, well, then he still didn’t need to sit in the dark hallucinating about things coming to eat him, did he?

  If he wanted to do that, he could just close his eyes.

  “What?” This came from Darian, and sounded all too sharp for Jake’s personal comfort.

  “I need to be quarantined, in case I turn. I’m going to do that at my house. No one else is there right now, and it’s more comfortable than being here, in so very many ways. Is that a problem?” That he didn’t sound like he was about to shoot the man wasn’t just a regular miracle, it was a real one. Possibly at least.

  He’d intended for it to sound like that. Mean and surly. Instead it came out as merely conversational. Looking around he got it, Sammi was standing next to him, her left hand reaching across to touch his left arm just lightly. She was using her mental abilities on him. Probably to prevent violence. He looked at her and shook his head. Not that it wasn’t a good idea, he just didn’t f
eel like having his mind messed with at the moment. She backed off then and for his part, Jake smiled and gave the older man a nod.

  Darian clenched his jaw a bit.

  “We need to get you to a real medical facility, not lock you alone in some room. You need twenty-four hour care and something approaching comfort. Guards and some new clothes.” On the last line his upper lip curled again, as if to say the man didn’t approve of his wardrobe?

  Seriously?

  Jake smiled and smothered a laugh. It wasn’t real, but he made it seem decent enough. Robert glared at him, probably getting the idea. That or thinking he was about to get to loud, Jake didn’t let that happen.

  “What was that I heard about this situation? Something like “we’d be giving A Very Good Man silk robes to wear, scented oils and flowers to eat”? I think that’s close. I don’t need that. What I need is for people to start working together and to stop treating me like I’m special. I’m the least special person left, maybe in the whole world. You don’t need me, you just think you do because of some legend or prophecy or whatever started all this. Now, I’m going home and no one is invited to visit for five days. Then, if I’m not too dead for it, I have some projects to build and need to let the people that live with me come back. You can all just play nice and be on the same side for that long, can’t you?”

  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.