Dead End Stories From the End of the World

by P. S. Power

  Good. Jake hated confrontation anyway, and really had been kidding.

  They'd have a real crew picked for that by then. Maybe some of the kids and new women? They had to keep busy after all. They should also have some kind of school. He kind of wondered if they had already, but didn't think so. But what else did they have to do? Firewood would only take so much time each day and a lot of it was already set up.

  Guard duty? Short shifts maybe. Hunting...

  Smiling Jake wondered if anyone would want to help him with forge work. He still needed a saw after all and they'd need a lot more, as time went on, not less. Burt and Justine could get some helpers too. It wasn't enough, but it would be a start. People to do the wash?

  He spent some time brainstorming silently while working, just doing what Lois said. It wasn't hard, though some attention was needed to the stove. They needed another one of those too. Maybe in an outdoor building? He'd get with Burt and Lois on the idea. Nate too of course. Jake wasn't in charge after all, but if they kept waiting for problems to come up, they were eventually going to be caught out and something would trip them up too bad to survive.

  Jake remembered something, and sighed hugely.

  Freaking heck.

  “We need to get the new septic system in as soon as possible.” He muttered to the room, which got Sammi to freeze in place, a shocked look on her face.

  “Ah... yes we do.” Her tone was strange, and scared. She normally didn't get frightened, not unless things were really bad. That got Dave to pay attention too.

  “Can't what we have last for a bit?”

  Jake didn't know. Not really. What he did understand was that if they lost the system now people could get sick and die. Not everyone but enough to make things really bad. Sammi shook her head.

  “No. The current system is for a family of eight. We've already been stressing it for far too long. We could lose it... Today even. We need to get on this quickly Jake.” Her tone was enough to get him going at least, tired or not.

  “Right, we do that first then. After breakfast though. You two can help me convince everyone.”

  They both just smiled, if for different reasons. Sammi because doing it now just made sense and Dave because he might get to persuade people. In his mind that meant shooting them. He liked to shoot people that bugged him. Or got in his way. Or who just didn't move quickly enough. Nate had to rein him in a lot. So did Sammi.

  Breakfast was crowded and half the people had to sit on the floor. They had enough bowls for all the corn pudding, polenta, Sammi informed him it was called, and the new people didn't turn their noses up at it, not to the point they wouldn't eat at least. It wasn't old style, Back Before, food, which had been what they'd mainly been eating for the last year. But it was food and while a little bland, the spices weren't too much for anyone or anything either. A few of the kids just picked at theirs, but Darla went to each of them and got everyone to take a few bites, telling them how yummy it was.

  Pretending to be a little child.

  That clearly wasn't the case. Sammi saw it happening and nodded to the other blonde girl, her hair a very straight, almost honey color as it bobbed through the crowd. They both sat on the floor, along the wall, leaving chairs for others.

  “Jake... We need to watch her. I... something is familiar there, but the fact that she escaped detection before she basically announced herself is... unlikely. Very few beings should be able to do that where I'm concerned.”

  “We'll just talk to her after the meeting.” Jake shrugged and waved the girl over after she got one of the women that was eating, but slowly, to speed up a little and smile.

  “Darla? Meet with us after we get things arranged for the day? Please?”

  The girl grinned, a toothy thing that was probably meant to be disarming and cheery.

  “Got it.”

  Then she tromped off to help people remember to eat and be happy it wasn't human flesh.

  Yay.

  It worked though, reminding them all of that little idea, and while the room was too loud, no one yelled or screamed. Yet. It would come, but so far so good.

  After the dishes got to the kitchen Jake got Sammi and Dave to move to the front with him and waved people to sit back down. Then, carefully, nudging Nate from two sides, they got him to agree that they didn't need a vote on something as basic as the septic system. It was heavy handed, but still, a good point. They needed it even if no one wanted to do the work.

  Sammi spoke first, to the room, her voice nearly stern.

  “This sounds minor, but if we fail at sanitation, we all die. I think that everyone should help in this. It should have been accomplished already. That it hasn't been wasn't so much an oversight as a lack of time, but now... We simply can't afford to wait any longer.”

  Jake looked at the room and saw that no one seemed ready to shoot at them. Not happy, but then there were inches of white on the ground with more falling still. No one wanted to try working in that. Jake didn't. It still had to happen.

  “Burt, um, we need you, Justine... um Len and...” Jake looked around the room trying to find a new person whose name he actually remembered. “And... Sue.”

  Jake smiled at the Indian woman, who looked baffled, but finally smiled back, confused or not.

  “To walk and mark the area. Figure out what we need, and then everyone not actively doing something else will come and help. We work in shifts until we finish. Just like we did for the shelters.”

  Only they didn't need wood teams for this one.

  What they did need, Jake still wasn't sure. Except guards. And people to clear and melt snow. Jake waved to Bart, the heat guy who frowned but walked over anyway.

  The man didn't let Jake speak at all, “Yeah, I get the idea. If we can move the snow first it will all work better. You know, not to be a whiner, but it's actual work to do all this. I mean, heating all that ground and stuff isn't just me standing there holding a hand out.”

  “OK, we can use fire too, if we can figure out how to keep the wood dry...” Jake had nothing on that one, and from the look of it Bart didn't either.

  The man looked woeful for a bit and then grinned, his brown beard looking a bit shaggy now.

  “No huge thing. Just, once the ice layer is cleared, we need to dig fast enough the rest doesn't freeze up. I can't do this day after day. I don't think at least. I lost a bunch of weight last time.”

  So more food might help? They decided to try it.

  The whole day was spent digging and moving things, but with that fast, almost frantic drive that had fueled the work on the underground shelters. The only snag came when Justine and Burt came to him at about noon, both looking far less than pleased.

  “OK...” The older man said, his bright blue jacket looking cheery and a little out of place with his almost pure white beard. “We need a four inch connection pipe to make this work. The problem there is that we don't have anything even close right now. I meant to ask for one, but I kept forgetting...” He sounded truly worried about the whole thing, so Jake knew it was a big deal.

  “Where would we find one of those?” Jake asked, hoping that it wouldn't be too hard to get. Taking it off another house might work, but he didn't know how to really do that and wanted to avoid learning how in the snow.

  “Well... I think I remember there being some at that little hardware shop we nearly cleaned out early on. If they're still there, and really, I doubt anyone would have taken them. It's kind of a specific thing...” Burt huffed hard enough that a large puff of steam came out. Water vapor, not real steam, Jake corrected, remembering what his father had always said about it.

  Of course he'd think of that now. It just made sense. Jake grimaced a little, which Burt didn't get at all. Of course. Jake hadn't told anyone about it. Colleen would know, but she was off doing something else, which was kind of a relief.

  “Do you remember where it is?” The guy sounded worried. Probably because he really didn't want to go himself. Burt was a
pacifist, and couldn't even get himself to kill zombies. It wasn't normally an issue, but with things being as tense as they were right now, it was almost certain a trip into town meant fighting.

  They'd already lost half the day too.

  “I know how to get there, but we can't make it back tonight. I...”

  Someone spoke from behind them.

  “I... can get you back here. I'd have to go with you, I don't know where that place is, but once there, I can get you, and about a hundred pounds of stuff back with us. Then, I can go back and forth, but not until I know the place.” The voice was young sounding, and female.

  Hardly surprising, since almost everyone was anymore, it seemed. At least here. In part that had to do with the police. It was the red haired girl, the one that looked a bit like a punk rocker from the eighties or something. Her eyes were a nice color too, nearly orange. Pale white skin. Nothing she had on matched, none of the girls did, which Jake could tell, because three of the other young former rape slaves stood behind her, looking worried.

  Very much so.

  “Cam...” One of them said, grabbing her arm. “It's too dangerous, plus...” The girl who had a fuzzy blue hat on leaned in and whispered, still too loud for secrecy.

  “You don't know what he'll do to you.” The words were urgent.

  Cam shook her head and looked at the other girls.

  “I do know. So do you if you think about it. Really look at him, and trust your feelings. He's a Very Good Man, guys... He's, um, basically like a saint. You can trust him. I don't know about anyone else here, but him, yeah.”

  The vote of confidence was nice, but he didn't feel all that saintly. Jake shrugged.

  “Still, I will shoot you in the head if you make too much noise. It's a rule.” He grinned at the girls though and sighed. “And everyone is too loud right now. Help get people to quiet down, will you? So, um, Cam, is it? How will we be getting back?”

  The girl let her head rise, chin high.

  “Teleport. That's what my people do.” She looked around warily for a bit. “Don't tell that Bawdri girl though. Her people kind of hate mine, and vice-versa. It's a rule. Not that she won't get it without help. We're kind of distinctive looking. I'm a bit surprised she hasn't tried to blame me for stealing the silver yet or anything. They all think we're massive thieves.” Cam smiled and stepped closer to Jake, leaning in. “Which we are. But I'm not dumb enough to steal here. Why do that, when you people are giving things away? I didn't even steal from those pigs for the same reason, and that meant taking it up the ass from three different guys for months. Let them think they have power and they always want to screw your behind. What's with that? It wouldn't have been that bad if they'd freaking washed occasionally first and remembered that I actually felt pain. Jerks. I don't know what happened to them, but good riddance.”

  All the girls seemed to agree on that score. Justine nodded too, huge boned and taller than any of them standing there. Probably stronger too. If Jake had heard correctly, the woman was actually a Neanderthal. Like a real one. That was so cool. If so, the description he'd gotten in school was a little off. Her movements were just fine. No weird stiff legged walk or anything. It did explain why she was one of the only women to regularly shave off body hair. Even her arms, which was what Jake had noticed.

  “I can tell you what happened to the cops. Most of them met up with Jake. The rest were too stupid to live. But Jake... killed most of them himself.”

  Cam stopped and stared at Jake for a while.

  “Oh. Fuck. I'm... so sorry, Dehist.” She started to cry softly for some reason, tears running down her face. One of the other girls asked what was wrong, sounding frightened again, but she just shook her head.

  “It's... guys, he's basically like... Jesus or something. Buddha maybe. Could you imagine what it would have been like for those guys to have to go around killing people? It's... Not fair. It's... wrong.”

  Wrong or not, they didn't have a lot of time. They could walk in the snow, but Cam, short for Cameron, Jake learned, didn't really know how to shoot. He had to give her a lesson on the fly as they walked. Once that was done, the girl spoke, a nearly constant chatter, but low enough. No zombies came in response at least. Not yet.

  “So, I basically decided that I'd rather sell my ass for a warm, safe bed, rather than trying to fend for myself. We, my people, don't have a central... place. Not for regular people like me. Just normal houses and estates. I went to my parents first, but they were gone and the house was burnt down, maybe exploded. Then, most of the other places I checked had nothing but zombies. It was pretty close a few times. I can... teleport, but it's slow. Takes me about ten minutes to set up each time and it's worse under stress. So I needed to get to safety.”

  They walked for a bit, snow crunching under foot. A single dead man came at them from the side of the road, so Jake shot it, using the rifle in his hand. It took three shots, he took the head, but left the rest. They didn't have a lot of time after all.

  After a few minutes Cam spoke again.

  “I'd been here once before, at the base. It was my grandfather's place. Grandpa Compton, and when I got there, I saw that people had moved in. At first I thought that Grandpa was still there and that he'd set it up, but... They'd shot him. Killed him, when they moved in. So, I did what I had to. I could have left, but I was afraid. It was better than being alone.”

  Jake didn't know if he agreed with that, but nodded anyway. It was her choice and she'd lived, meaning it had been a good one. After a bit he learned that old man Compton had been a caretaker, a person that set up a safe haven for Cam's people. Hence his “crazy” paranoia, putting up a fence, having underground bunkers and all that.

  “What are they called, your kind I mean.” He asked softly, more to prove he was listening than anything else.

  The stream of syllables that came back at him was long and nearly impossible to hear, much less repeat. Jake grunted.

  “So, Cam's people. Good name.” Smiling he walked a little faster.

  “Yeah, you regular folk have a bit of trouble with the tongue. No problem. My people works. You know... if you're too slow to learn how to speak properly and all that...” She teased with a saucy glance that Jake recognized as being playful, even if he hadn't seen anything like it himself for years.

  Not funny...

  No, the strange girl was flirting with him.

  Jake coughed, “you do know how to sweet talk a fellow, don't you?” He muttered just loud enough to get a reaction.

  Then he shot the three shamblers that came at them, probably drawn by all the chatter. After that they didn't see any more until they got inside. They didn't talk either.

  Jake hadn't been in the store since the first day. Before that really, having spent his time inside, playing video games instead of even working at the family business. The house was attached through the back hallway, even though it didn't really look like it. The sign in the front still looked all right, the paint still had a fresh whiteness to it. The glass window had been broken, probably when someone had done it to get in early on. Glass littered the ground in the front of the store.

  Perversely Jake felt like he should clean it up.

  Whiny little bitch that he used to be, he'd always complained about having to help with the family store. Robson Hardware. His parents didn't ask for much at all, just that he do something. Clerk or stock shelves, get a job somewhere else. Even start his own business, or take up begging on the street corner. He hadn't. Not without complaint. He'd felt insulted by the suggestion that he was lazy. Like they were always saying that to show how he just wasn't good enough.

  They weren't. Jake got that now.

  It was right though, even if they hadn't meant it that way. He hadn't been good enough at all.

  He heard them, the soft groan, low to the floor. So crawlers. The remnants of hardware and shelving rustled toward the back as they came. There was light enough to see through the window, but not clearly. The bla
ck hole at the back could have been a door, if he didn't know for a fact that it would've been white if it were closed. That meant he knew what was likely coming.

  Someone, at some point, had left the door open. To the house. Where he'd killed his parents. His zombie parents, but still...

  “Crap.” He said, which made Cam jump and take a step back, wide eyed.

  “Um... what?” She whispered, then clutched his arm. The right one.

  For some reason that snapped him out of it and he looked at her and smiled.

  “Gun arm.” He tilted his head to where she held him, getting her to let go at least.

  Taking a very deep breath, he let it out slowly and pointed.

  “Zombies... Two of them. They have a lot of damage, but no one has taken the heads. We need to fix that. I-” Jake saw them, both barely scooting on the floor. His dad moved better than his mother, but they'd both rotted pretty hard. They didn't stink though, being frozen solid, no doubt.

  Putting his face mask in place, a piece of oiled cloth in dingy beige, Jake stepped in and tried to be careful. For the first time in over six months he nearly threw up. After a bit he had to anyway and ran from the store, which caused Cam to follow him. At least he'd finished with his father.

  The girl looked at him, but didn't judge with her eyes. Then, for all she knew, this was just normal for him. Take four heads and get violently ill on the fifth. She patted his back awkwardly while he breathed the cold air. It settled his stomach. A bit of vomit had gotten on the mask before he'd gotten it off, which was gross, but he wiped it off on the building next door and went back in to finish the job without waiting.

  Cam spoke, seeming...odd. Not concerned as much as... Jake didn't have an explanation for the sound. Just weird.

  “I could, maybe finish the other one. If you want.” It was clear she didn't want to really. Then anyone that wanted to take off something's head was probably a monster, so that was good.

  Shaking his head he walked back in, “No, this is my mess. I didn't do it right before. I need to fix it now.”

  His mother went more quickly. She'd been thin and the rot had weakened the flesh enough that it shattered on the third hit and the whole thing came off about five solid chops of the blade later. When it was done he just stood for a minute, finally taking the mask off.