Dead End Stories From the End of the World

by P. S. Power

  Chapter four

  Jake had to pull himself together, that was all there was to it. There was no one left to kill for having hurt Rachel. No one guilty of anything at least. Taking it out on anyone else would be worse than wrong. Evil came to mind as a term that could be used for that. He wanted to lash out, but there was just nothing left to go after. All that was left of her was memories and more pain than he’d thought could exist inside his soul.

  It wasn’t his business even. Her own choices had led her to that end. Not that anyone ever deserved that, but it wasn’t his fault. Nothing he could have done would have stopped it. He hadn’t even known that she was with the police at all until after he’d shot super-zombie her. After it had all taken place. If he had known, he still wouldn’t have thought that things would be that bad for her. Not in time to do anything about it.

  Poor Rachel though. His heart wanted to rip out of his chest, but it couldn’t. He wanted to stick his nine in his mouth and go see her. Tell her that it was safe now. That the bad men couldn’t hurt her anymore.

  But he couldn’t do that either. People, still living ones, seemed to need him. He had to keep going for them. That meant pulling himself together. Now. Before he left the quarantine room. It’s what was needed. Hadn’t Sammi mentioned that part of being what he was, had to do with becoming what the world needed him to be? Not some perfect superman, but a person that just did exactly what was needed? Right now it needed him to be strong, and not give up. Didn’t it?

  Across the space Becky was silent for a long time, finally she spoke.

  “Jake?” The words sounded scared. She should be. She’d been there and hadn’t tried to stop them.

  Sure, it probably would have been her instead if she had, but this wasn’t about being rational, it was about what he felt. Really, it was about trying not to kill the woman across from him. That wasn’t rational though. He forced himself to let it go and tried to explain. Each word left his mouth like it was made of ragged, broken and razor sharp glass.

  “She and I… we were friends. I loved her. She’s the only person I ever loved. I… I don’t know what to do now. I mean, I already killed them. The police, Derrick… I can’t kill them again. I would if I could, but it wouldn’t make a difference now. She was married to… that thing? I…” No, everything about this was too much. He had to shut it off, not think about anything but the moment. If he didn’t he’d never make it through the day.

  “Right, OK. So, just to get this straight Becky. I believe you didn’t poison anyone, and that someone set you up. We’ll go and get you cleared in a moment. But, before we go…” He set his plate down and pulled the nine millimeter and pointed at the center of the breathing he heard. He didn’t make a lot of noise and she didn’t speak or react at all. She didn’t get what he’d just done. It kind of reduced the meaning of the implied threat, didn’t it?

  He nodded into the dark. He’d have to use his words then.

  “Before we go, I want you to know three things and believe them will all your heart. The first is that I will never force anyone to have sex or do anything like what you just described. The second is that if anyone else tries to do that to anyone, I’ll fight as hard as I can to stop them, even if it means I have to die trying. Those are both true. I know it may be hard for you to believe, but it’s just a fact and it goes for everyone here. Including you. Do you understand? Even if you hate me, even if I don’t like you very much, I’ll protect you just the same as the others. By the exact same rules.” If he sounded hard then, well, a broken mind could do that, couldn’t it? He had nothing left inside. Maybe he never would again.

  Poor, poor Rachel. His thoughts drifted into pain for a moment, until he could force himself back.

  “The last thing is this…” He hesitated, not knowing how to say the words, but then he never really had. It was time though. If the woman was going to hate him she needed to know the truth, so she could do it correctly, right?

  “I killed your sister. She tried to kill me, when it wasn’t needed, but I did it. I took her life. I was walking ahead of her, and she tried to knife me in the back. I turned and shot her in the throat. She could have gone with me, or back to the House, or even just left, but for some reason she decided that killing me was the right course and it didn’t go very well for her. She’d offered to have sex with me if I’d save her life, but I’d already told her she didn’t have to do anything if she didn’t want to. I didn’t know about the withdrawal from whatever crap Derrick Holsom was spewing out then, and that she might not have had a choice, thinking that I was the one that made him leave. If I did know that and she’d tried the same thing… I still would have had to kill her. There was no other option. She’d most likely already killed several people, in their sleep and almost stabbed Burt to death. I couldn’t just leave her free to keep doing that. Not that I knew it was her at the time. She was dead the second she’d killed the first sleeping person.”

  He stood then, putting the nine away as he did, grabbing the plate, which was empty now, with his left hand.

  “My reason for telling you this is twofold. First, so that you know that I did it, and that I’m not hiding from it. It was her or me, and it didn’t have to be, she made it into something bad, when it could have been the start of something better, really almost anything she wanted. At least at the time. Second… Well, it’s this.” He leaned over just enough for the sound of his voice to change, as if he was looming. Which he literally was.

  “If you keep claiming I raped anyone, I won’t 'punish' you. I won’t kill you, or turn everyone against you. I won’t yell, or threaten, or make you feel like you don’t have any power. What I’ll do is leave, and I’ll never come back. It’s so close to that already that you cannot imagine it. I don’t know why it is, since these people should be able to hold things together on their own, but so far every time I leave, people here suffer more than if I’d stayed. I’m not sacrificing what’s left of my sanity to you though Becky. Not to anyone. No one in the world that lives is worth that to me now.”

  With that he turned and opened the door, the low sound of people talking in the other room came through, it was near the end of the reading, Colleen’s pure but low voice speaking the words clearly enough for them to be heard. Almost. Jake was just a little far away, but he got the idea.

  “God bless us, every one.” He said into the dim light of the hall, in time with the girl in the other room. The woman. His oldest remaining friend. If someone he only sort of known counted as that. Why not though? He didn’t have anyone else from back then.

  Oh, if he was honest about it he kind of recognized a few of the new women from the police compound, since they’d come into his parents hardware store on occasion, but if they recognized him none of them had mentioned it yet. They might get it now, since Colleen had kind of given away who he was to the whole room and then Tipper had asked about it, but, oh well. It wasn’t like it really mattered who he’d been. Jake was who he’d chosen to be. A survivor.

  “Come on Becky, we need to get you cleared and see if we can’t figure out who might hate you enough to frame you for such a lame murder attempt.”

  Then he walked away, taking his plate and fork to the kitchen to be cleaned. The hawk nosed woman followed behind him. He didn’t look back, but he knew she was angry. Why wouldn’t she be? He killed her sister, hadn’t he? At the kitchen door he caught her face in the candlelight, the electrics not being used yet, probably for dramatic effect. Tears streamed down her face, and she didn’t look mad at all. Just sad.

  Everything was made of sad now, wasn’t it? That and anger. No wonder she was so enraged seeming all the time, after what she’d seen. Probably a lot more than that too. It wasn’t fair. Nothing about any of this was though. Not for him, and not for anyone else either.

  He took her plate just after they walked through the door, to find half a dozen people washing dishes already, working away hard. It was a slightly odd crew, but after a few seconds, Jake
got the idea, it was a political statement of sorts.

  Sammi did dishes most nights, and sometimes Jake helped with them, when he was there, but tonight Molly was there as well, so were Vickie and Cam. Ken, who was nearly thirteen, Jake thought, if not that old already, stood beside Cisco of all people. It wasn’t representative of all the people in the place, but it clearly sent a message. No one here was above anyone else. Not really. Jake moved into the end of the line and scraped the tiny bit of residue off a plate into the bucket they used for that. It wasn’t compost, but they used it each day, for something, and Jake didn’t question where it went. He was there a lot, but not all the time, so he missed stuff.

  He still didn’t really know everyone’s name, because he was afraid he’d have to kill them. Maybe it was really just better that way? Not knowing things like that? They’d lost so many already. Not that he cared at the moment. He forced a small smile to his face, even though he’d recently been crying. Sammi saw his face and went still for a second, but then looked to the front and didn’t ask. The others probably couldn’t make out his expression well enough by the light of the single candle, but she could see in the dark, like a cat. Better than that, if he had the idea right. The light of a single candle was like daylight to her.

  So she saw. But she hadn’t heard?

  It didn’t matter. He couldn’t care right now. Maybe he never had?

  “When we finish this up, I’d like to take care of some of that other stuff. Cam, after that, can you get me home? I… don’t want to be here anymore.” Not ever, but he didn’t add that part. Jake had a job to do. No matter how he felt.

  “Sure, I can do that, I caught a few hours sleep earlier, after it was pretty sure we weren’t going to be overrun. I’m no good with a gun, so, you get the idea, I might as well, right?” She sounded guilty about it, but it really did make sense. Why shouldn’t she have?

  He just nodded, not able to muster the strength for speech anymore. He washed dishes, working into the line, just working and not thinking for a while. Becky shook a little but watched him closely and got into the line herself, which made it two too many people instead of just one. No one complained though. Everyone just worked for half an hour or so, until it was done.

  At the end just as the last plate was cleaned, Lois came in to see to the pies. They had six kinds, which was amazing, and real whipped cream. Or at least they would as soon as she whipped it. The cream had been brought with the food stuff earlier, so she’d kept it outside on one of the tables that had been brought, wrapped with some warmed rocks to keep it from freezing solid. It was a clever idea, if it worked. She wasn’t sure it actually would, but cold cream would be easier to work with than warm, if it hadn’t frozen solid.

  “Jake, would you be a dear and get that for me? Wrapped in a green towel? Center table? I don’t think it has anything else on it, so it should be easy enough to find.” Jake just nodded, understanding the idea.

  It was a brilliant use of resources, not having a working refrigerator, but meant going out at night, after a vast zombie attack. The biggest they’d ever faced. There could well be stragglers, or who knew what else, out there just waiting for a Christmas dinner of their own. Lois was worth more than her weight in gold, but she didn’t fight, and wouldn’t use a gun. She was sixty-five, and while she was a hard worker she didn’t feel the need to prove herself by taking on the unkillable dead.

  Really, he couldn’t blame her.

  “I’ll get that now. You should go tell them all about the honor of whipping the ceremonial Christmas cream and see if anyone wants the pleasure of doing it? Maybe pick three this year, so that no single person is too honored. You know, we want to keep things a little fair.” He pasted a fake smile on his face. “Or, you know, open it up for bidding. The highest bidder get’s the privilege? Whichever seems more equitable to everyone.”

  Drying her hands on a dish towel, Sammi walked into the other room without saying anything, which was too bad, since he had been going to get her to be his look out on the cream retrieval mission. It was really dark out with the clouds. He could do it though, he just needed to listen carefully and stay ready. The great thing about zombies, so far, was that they weren’t exactly quiet. They moaned all the time. When it was warmer they also stank. It was a fear inducing reek that could act as an early warning system at times.

  Jake really missed that fear, now that the dead had all frozen and that trick had stopped working. It just meant he needed to be even more careful, that was all. Brave was nearly the same as dead anymore. So was cowardly, if for different reasons.

  He scanned the area around him, listening hard, not hearing anything at first. Then he noticed it, barely. At first he thought it was in his head, a high pitched artifact of the hearing damage all the shooting he’d done had caused, but it wasn’t that at all. It was a whistle. A dog whistle. The kind they’d used earlier to do their little hunt.

  The kind that had been used the night before to draw in the hoard that had attacked in waves.

  Someone was coming back for more? He’d thought they’d captured and converted all the women, and Derrick Holsom wasn’t coming back, not even as a zombie. But there could be more women, it was Derrick’s power after all, enslaving women with love. Not just the regular kind even, a real addiction. If they missed some they could very well be coming back for revenge. Or just to try and get Derrick back, not knowing that the man was dead. If so, calling in the dead was a bad plan. It had failed the day before and would fail now, with fewer people trying to draw them in.

  Jake looked at the sky, using his peripheral vision to scan the area the sound was likely coming from. He could see a single form, just standing out in the middle of what had been the corn field before the harvest, and was now mid calf high in snow with dead stalks collapsing over. Julio had told them to leave the things at the time, but hadn’t explained why. It meant you made extra noise walking through them, so Jake stopped a good ways away and aimed at her head, just as the three zombies shambled out of the brush at the tree line noisily. Instead of turning and running toward the House, the form took a firing stance, at least Jake thought that was the case. He couldn’t hit her for sure from that distance, not in the near dark, so he used the distraction of the incoming dead to cover the sound of his footfalls. It wouldn’t have worked normally, but three of the undead coming for you was kind of distracting. It kind of focused the mind on that and nothing else. It was needed for survival, but worked for him in this case too. He pretty much just walked over slowly.

  He got within fifteen feet by the time the zombies got to the person, who still blew the stupid whistle, as if they wouldn’t find her by scent at that range. Then she started fighting with them.

  With her bare hands.

  She wasn’t in a firing stance at all, her hands were empty. Not even a blade flashed in the night.

  Jake nearly shot her for being that stupid. If she wanted to commit suicide, she could have asked to borrow a gun. For a few seconds she seemed to do pretty well. People did against the dead. After all, they weren’t smart fighters. They led with their chins, didn’t block, and did nothing but keep coming at you, no matter what you dished out.

  That was the flaw, because in the main, they could take it. Whatever you had and more. It was why he used guns when he could. Ten seconds in the woman went down under the weight of two of them, the third trying to jockeying for position angling for a nice chunk of no doubt tasty shoulder. Jake pulled and fired at close range. He had to close, because he couldn’t see more than two feet in front of him, not well. Luckily the things kept moaning. It was what he used to aim.

  The first one stopped attacking on the third shot. The second one took two, but he was close to it, the powder from the back blast burning his hand as he did it. A single stomping kick knocked it away, so the girl or woman didn’t have to wrestle the other one with the second lying half on top of her. It worked, except that Jake slipped, and went down, the nine falling out of his stif
f fingers. He didn’t make a noise as he fell, just rolled to the side, hoping to go over the nine. He had his forty-five still, but it was harder to use with an injured hand, the action was stiffer, the trigger took more force to pull. Just to be difficult the third zombie decided to switch to the newly downed form, him, hoping it would be easier for it to handle. Or maybe it just saw food that was closer? Easier prey would have been what he thought.

  Probably right, if the girl had though she could take on the undying with her bare hands. It was his turn to wrestle with the thing now, trying to keep its solid flesh away from him enough to avoid being bitten. The girl next to him rolled and got to her feet quickly and launched a kick into the things side hard enough to send it flying. It made a mad grab for him as it flew off, raking his neck and face with dull and broken fingernails. The sting spoke of skin breaking, and the sudden warmth and cold of blood running down his skin.

  Fudge.

  Jake got clear and went for his backup gun, then shot the thing in the head for a while, six shots. It left him with nothing, the revolver empty. He just really wanted to make sure it never got back up. Since it may well have just killed him.

  He rubbed at his neck, a dark wetness coming off on his fingers. Sticky and smelling vaguely of metal in the snow filled night. He wiped his hand on his jeans and looked at the woman, girl, whatever she was, panting next to him.

  Instead of speaking he looked for his nine. Even if he turned, it was a good weapon. Someone else might need it. It wasn’t far off, only a few feet. He just hadn’t seen it in the dark, half buried in the white on the ground as it was. He knocked the snow out of the barrel and put the empty revolver back in its holster on the small of his back. He waved at the girl to get her to follow him.

  It had been incredibly stupid of her to try, but she seemed ready to give it another go already, since she’d turned and faced the woods again. He rolled his eyes at her, but she didn’t acknowledge it. She moved to put the whistle to her lips again. The stupidity of it was so colossal Jake nearly froze.