A Very Good Man

by P. S. Power

  “Nate, Jose, there's rope in the cart, right? Um, soga en el carro?” The translation was rough, but then he'd taken French in high school. Worse, he wasn't even good at it and had gotten B's.

  Still, Jose got it and smiled hugely.

  “Si!” Then he rambled off a line of Spanish so fast that no one but Nate got it. Their leader was nearly fluent. It got a laugh and an answering line from the leader.

  “He said that he has a good rope for hanging in the cart if need be. He even knows how to tie the knots properly and recommends we put Derrick in the back of the cart and pull it out from under him, which will allow him to strangle to death slowly.”

  Jake smiled and looked at the small dark skinned man, “Bueno.”

  That got an even bigger smile from Jose, who obviously took a lot more from context than Jake had figured. Or he understood more than he let on. Either way worked. If he knew how to tie a real hangman's noose all the better, they could save a bullet.

  The wood gathering was hard work, but went fast enough. They couldn't work the cart into the woods very far, still, for the first day the amount wasn't bad. They managed a full cart load every three hours or so, using the chainsaws. The last load went faster, since Jake asked if they could just load up the cart with logs. They got a half load of them. Apparently logs were a lot heavier than they looked. The tires sagged a bit and tried to press into the soil as they worked it back, everyone pulled or pushed. Holsom so obviously slacking off that it really only counted as nine people doing the work and a few of them were small, like Dave and Tipper. Molly actually tried at least, which made Jake feel better.

  It had been a long time since she'd actually worked at anything really. Except dying, and she kept sucking at that. Maybe she could finally get herself around? That would be good. He was of two minds about her, but if he had to pick a path for the girl, she'd get to live and maybe even be happy someday.

  Burt saw the logs and nodded at them, gesturing to Jake who motioned that Carley would be wanted too. Since she was in charge of it all, it wouldn't do to leave her out. Besides, given it was Carley, she'd throw a fit if they tried, even if it just turned out to be a discussion about sports or something. Not that they had sports. Unless killing the already dead counted. If so Jake was a pro-athlete now. That being kind of how he made his living.

  Cool.

  “We've got about two hours before dinner, we can split firewood here, and cut the logs too, but we need to set up a saw pit. I'd like to try it now, so we can figure out what we need to change if it doesn't work.” Burt looked at Jake first, but then spoke mainly to Carley, which made the woman look a little sour.

  She sounded fine though, so maybe it was the glance to Jake first that did it.

  “Alright, but all of us are sore. We aren't used to this kind of work. Well, I'm not. Maybe we should get volunteers to help with the digging?”

  Nate had walked up behind her and stood waiting. He looked tired and hot, they all probably did. Jake just went and got a shovel and some old gloves from the work shed, then pulled four more, the pointed kind for digging. Then, as an afterthought, he grabbed a few extra pairs of hand protection for the others. Blisters were a bitch and he already had a few started himself, right where his thumbs met his hand for some reason. Hopefully digging would at least put the stress in a different place.

  The ground was good farm earth, even in back of the house, which meant softer than they might have had. The soil was heavy and dark, moist still, once they got about three feet down. The pit didn't have to be deep, just about four feet, but they needed a raised support for the logs. That took some time to work out. Then all they had to do was send a person into the ditch to work the bottom of the saw while another worked in time with them on the top.

  It turned out to be way harder than it sounded.

  The coordination between the two people made the already hard physical labor even more difficult, the only combination that had any luck at all turned out to be him down in the pit and Carl on the top. Part of that was the large muscles and beefy strength the black man had, but a lot of it just came down to timing. They got it together enough to cut off one round before it started getting too dark for safety. Saw dust in his hair and mouth, riding down his shirt at the back and covered with sweat, Jake tried to grin. He probably looked a sight. To make it all even better, his hands ached all over. Not just the blisters, a few of which has ruptured leaving a sticky white and pink stain in the gloves. Inside his hands, between the bones, it hurt. They felt swollen and slow.

  God help him if an attack came that night. He made sure he could pull a trigger, working his fingers constantly, but this would really cut his reaction time. So would the sore muscles that were already developing. His arms and back mainly. Laughing a little he tried to climb out of the pit, and slipped. Three times.

  Carley, taking her new position as a leader seriously, came and helped him out. That was nearly a first here. A few times people had helped him by mistake or because they were helping everyone else, and Tipper had bailed him out a few times, but he'd done the same for her too, and first, so it was pretty even. This time Carley just helped him. OK, she nearly fell in and they ended up awkwardly falling all over each other when he popped out finally, being pulled backwards, but as his hands barely closed or opened at the time, it did the trick. Behind them there came laughter. Dark and a little too loud.

  Holsom pointed and tried to pretend his words were sly, “can't even wait for lights out? You two should get a room. Don't ask her for anal though, she'll never forgive you, as if her ass is too good to be touched. No one else here is that cold.”

  Carley spun, ready to start shouting at the idiot, so Jake reached out and touched her arm gently and smiled.

  “Remember not to yell. You have a gun now. More to the point, Holsom doesn't.” He gestured with his right hand, using the whole of the nearly frozen mass to indicate the weapon on her hip.

  True, making fun of them wasn't a killing offense, but the man had been warned. He just didn't seem to get that the ice he walked on was quite as thin as it really was. Carley didn't draw down, she just smiled and nodded, suddenly happier.

  “Right you are. I forgot about that part. Silly me, thanks for the reminder.”

  Holsom stormed off, muttering something. Probably just as well he didn't let them hear it, Jake really wanted the guy gone and didn't trust him not to come back if they just kicked him out. That or getting a lot of the women to work against them. He collected his now dry clothing from the line and went to the men's washing area. He had just enough time to scrub, clean the now dirty outfit and get to dinner on time.

  Some of the people were going in filthy, but most of the ones he liked washed first. Molly did too, or at least she looked cleaner when they all sat. There was a different area for men and women, behind screens, for getting clean. A few of the guys had been caught peeking, but Jake hadn't bothered. Oh, he'd wanted to, but only jerks were doing it. Holsom and his old crew come to think of it. Now they were mainly all dead. Probably not a direct cause and effect situation. There had been a whole bunch of reasons to get rid of them.

  That night's dinner was more filling, heavier on vegetables, there not being any new meat. They really needed to get a crew out to scavenge supplies soon. They had a lot, but live animals would be good. That meant more wood for fencing though, and he still had to get the book on wood stoves and water heaters from Burt and read it. When that should happen he didn't know. During the day of course, when there was light. What time though? He'd managed to get himself pretty busy all of a sudden. Well, he'd get the book from Burt and make it happen. If nothing else he could carefully read at meals.

  The soft chatter from around the table made a relaxing wash of sound to him, kind of like the old family dinners from when he was a kid, before his parents decided that their son had been taken over by an incurably lazy alien body snatcher. It had been the depression, after the thing with Rachel, but, well, it was probabl
y fair enough of them. He'd turned into a little whining waste of space for a long time. If they'd been alive they'd be pleased to know that the curse hadn't lasted at least. Jake didn't feel lazy at the moment anyway. Just a bit sore and tired.

  Nate looked across the table at Burt, one table over from the one he was at, the important persons table really, if unofficially. Technically Tipper and Vickie should have been there too, but they left that part of coordinating the teams to Carl. His cleaning crew sucked, even though Carl had some real skill for it personally. His people kept dying on him though. It happened, but Carl's team had three times the attrition rate that Vickie's did. Tipper's group used to have a man named Jay, but he didn't die on a mission. He'd passed early on, about a month into the cleaning work, when he started screaming one night and wouldn't stop. That had been the second time Jake had executed a still living person. He'd gotten about fifty dead ones by then, but they almost didn't count. Everyone had killed a lot of those. Not that they really died.

  Well, not everyone. About ten percent of the people? Twenty? Most people had just died. Jake blamed zombie movies for that really. Everyone really expected zombies to start out slow and stupid. They were stupid, mainly, but to start with they managed to be nearly as fast as a living person. They slowed down as they took damage and didn't heal from it, and from decay, kind of. To start though, they weren't slow. They also didn't always moan or chant about “braaaaiiins” like they were supposed to. Even after the CDC came out and flat said they were zombies, undead that couldn't functionally be killed, just beheaded and made safe, most people couldn't believe it.

  So those people died.

  So did the morose and those that secretly wished for the end of the world. You could still survive, but you kind of had to want to on some level.

  How he'd made it this far Jake didn't know. Honestly, if someone had asked him seven months ago what he'd do if zombies took over the world, he would have said that he'd swallow a gun. Even when things had gotten darkest he'd never felt like dying though. Inside a dam had broken open, something else hardened and closed. Almost in a blink. That was just after he killed the first two. After that he'd had to live, no matter what. Those first kills had done it, broken him somehow. In a way that really fit the new world around him as odd as it seemed.

  Not altogether sane, but adapted.

  At the other table they'd been talking for some time, with Jake ignoring them, but Burt switched to the topic of how much more wood they needed, so he made himself focus. That was his job after all, so it could be important to know the score. Well, Carley's job, but he was helping to get wood.

  “We need about twenty cord of wood by my back of the envelope figures. More if we can get it. The logs will probably be faster and save on fuel. We can set up teams of people here to use the pit saw and then split. At least some of the first stuff is pretty dry. Dead-fall mainly?” This got addressed to his table, so Carley answered.

  “Yes. Jake suggested we take that first, it's a fire hazard where it is anyway. I don't know how much wood we got today, but the getting logs idea will be faster I think.” Harder went without saying, but quicker by far.

  That got the older man to smile and nod at her.

  “My guess? You probably got about two and a half cord. It's a lot more than I thought you'd get the first day really. If you and your people can keep that up we may even have time to get the wood stoves built.”

  Jake nodded to himself and nearly whispered the next bit, quiet even for him, he had to repeat himself, since Nate couldn't hear him at all.

  “Oh. Sorry. I said that we need to go on a scavenging run soon too. To get the supplies for the stoves and to see if we can just steal some. I know at least a few of the houses we've cleared have had them and not all the stoves need to be water heaters or large cooking units. Anything we don't have to make, especially at first, will help. We also need a forge. I know nothing about that. Some kind of brick or rock? I need to know what to look for. I want to get the wood first, but we may have to stagger things, depending on who's doing what and when.” He had a real job to do too, after all.

  After the meal Burt waved to him and drew him over to the library, which was a single book case that no one was supposed to touch except Burt or Nate, that had all the useful books. There were several others with fantasy, romance, regular fiction and even three, very lonely, horror novels. Anyone could read those if they had time. Burt showed him the plans he wanted to use. Basic things, if they had the tools for them, harder without. Still, a steel drum with a tap should be doable. A fill line on the top and one going out lower down, high enough up to build water pressure. Then get a fire under it. Easy. Or it would be with a credit card and a Home Depot. They hadn't gone to the closest one themselves, it being over twenty miles away. All they had in town was the nearly empty... Robson family place. About a third of what they'd had sat out in Burt's shed. They'd have to make do.

  Jake tried to help with the dishes again, which didn't really work too well, the water and grease stinging his hands. He didn't complain, but Sammi looked at them in the near dark and then sent him away after shaking her head for about ten seconds.

  A total Lois move.

  She took care of the kids all day, so that probably had to happen, didn't it? Them becoming more like her? Well, hardworking and capable made a decent role model. About the best they had really. Jake certainly wasn't going to insist they solve all their problems by shooting people for instance. That could get messy.

  After that Jake just sat on the back porch for a while, enjoying the cool evening air. He couldn't read, so it wasn't really slacking off. Not enough light. It was black out, a deep kind of thing that he hadn't really ever appreciated before.

  Looking up at the clear sky, he saw the stars twinkle and the Milky Way actually looking white and cloud like. Back Before he'd never really bothered to check out the sky. Too much effort and not interesting enough. Not when you had television and videogames, loud music and a thousand other things to pay attention to. Now it seemed peaceful and calm, with just the occasional satellite roaming from place to place. He thought that's what they were. They could be spacecraft or even aliens though, how would he know? They just looked like moving lights to him.

  A year before he'd laughed when people talked about aliens as anything but a joke or movie device. Now he laughed a lot less. If someone came to them and started complaining about vampires in the area or werewolves, Jake would have had to listen, wouldn't he? So were aliens really that hard to believe in? For all he knew that's who made the zombies.

  If so they were dickheads.

  A breeze ran over him, removing the light sweat from his skin, Jake's body still warm from all the work of the day and the healing his muscles needed. In the backyard he could hear the windmill clacking as it started to turn slowly, each revolution pumping the well twice, and filling the raised tank that provided water to the house now. Burt had set it up so they wouldn't have to cart in buckets of water to flush the toilets, which made Jake smile. It was almost like they were civilized or something.

  They'd still have to build a much larger septic system, but they probably had a few months to get to that. From what Burt told him the system the house had would service eight people for years. But seventy wasn't eight. The only good part of the whole thing being that everyone was eating a lot less now, meaning that the level of crap wouldn't be as high.

  That kind of shit at least.

  More work, but he didn't want to get to January and have the whole thing go on them in the middle of a snow storm.

  Jake was thinking about what they'd need when he felt it. The wave of fear tingling in his gut. It tightened within him and got worse as he sat. Not waiting to see if the move was just paranoia, he pulled the nine on his belt, trying to be silent about it, making only a hint of rustling. For a long time nothing happened, until someone inside the house spoke just a little too loudly.

  That happened, people had gotten lazy, and with
out him there to suggest being quiet, they returned to normal. Back Before normal, meaning too loud. It wouldn't have been such a big deal, except a bunch of shamblers came at the house without warning.

  In the dark.

  The light from the quarter moon didn't do a lot for him, so Jake ducked down, letting the zombies get close, back-lit against the much lighter sky. He could see their outlines, a darker black on a deep blue black.

  Fucking great.

  His fingers throbbed still, and felt like sausages had been painfully glued on to replace them. Just what he wanted for this. Because really, who needed to be able to actually pull the trigger on a gun? He'd just wave it at them and scare them away. If it wouldn't have drawn them in even faster he would have called out for them to “shew”.

  There were six of them and all in the open. After a few seconds they all started to close on him for some reason. He smelled like food most likely. Yummy fresh Jake ready to be eaten. Like fast food. Looking at the situation he knew how very bad it was. He had to start shooting and not call out first. Because if he did, they'd be on him even faster. If any of them were runners just shambling for fun, he was dead.