Dead End Stories From the End of the World

by P. S. Power

  “That schedule is probably going to have to change. I mean, since I’m not going to most of those places at all, and not staying away from my actual work that long. I guess some day trips might work, occasionally, but seriously, this looks like some kind of tour schedule set up and I haven’t practiced nearly enough for that. I don’t even have any roadies.” He was trying to make a joke, but Billi and Kara both just stared at him, and George, ever practical, started working on lunch, a stew made in the large pot, but it would take a while to get ready, so even as early as it was, it made for a good idea.

  Kara coughed.

  “I heard you sing. I never would have thought you could do that.” She looked down at the table. “That last song you sang, it made me cry. I didn’t think I could do that over something like a song, not anymore. I hear you singing it in my sleep. When the nightmares try to get me. It helps.”

  That got nods from Billi and Jill too. Oddly Robin shrugged at about the same time.

  “Yeah, I don’t, but a bunch of people have been saying that. Who was she? Rachel I mean? From that last song?”

  Jake leveled his gaze on her. Right, she’d been there too, hadn’t she? When the chief and his men… It wasn’t her fault, but he nearly growled at her anyway. It wasn’t fair. None of this was.

  “Your sister in-law.” He said a bit more darkly than he’d intended too, which got everyone in the room to look at them, confusion playing around their eyes.

  That got the girl in front of him to grimace.

  “Oh. Fuck then. Do… you know what happened to her? All of it, I mean? What my dad and the others…”

  “Yeah. That…” Jake sighed, but didn’t explain to everyone else. It wasn’t their business now, also not important.

  Cam asked anyway and he desperately wanted to change the topic. Robin gave him a funny look and explained. All of it. Everything she’d seen, including the wedding and the later things… By the end Jake had tears running down his face again. So did Morten and Kara, so at least there was that. Always good not to be the wimpiest guy in the room.

  “Ba-Dehist…” The man said, but didn’t add anything to it.

  What was there to be said?

  Drying his eyes with his hand Jake started talking about travel schedules and work. He had things to do. He explained the forge work, the new saw blades he wanted, more axes, some knives, one for Billi and maybe one for Yalla, so she’d know he wasn’t pissed at her. To his mind the situation hadn’t even involved her. It was between him and Six and even that just had to do with learning proper zombie protocols. Obviously.

  “One for me? Why?” The dark skinned woman didn’t look displeased about it, but her tone was questioning.

  “Oh, I um, made up all the bed’s, and found yours. Figured it was for self-defense, you know, if I turned out to be a psycho killer or rapist. You need something sharper, and with a point. Not that I’m going all bad guy on you, but we should all be armed now. Guns too.” Another tear fell, but no one paid attention to it overly. He wiped it away absently and kept moving forward. It was all he could think of to do.

  Then he told them they should have walls. Not wooden ones but earth structures and a whole host of other work projects. Kirby the Teleporter had told Nate that he could get some digging equipment and fuel. It was odd that he’d remember that, given everything, but if the guy was serious, they could really use it.

  “Then we need to find out who did this in the first place, ended the world I mean, and why, and if they’re the ones sending those other, new zombies, after us, or if that’s someone else. Maybe one of our people that got confused and didn’t realize we were all friends yet?”

  After a while Morten started tapping his pen on the paper in front of him.

  “How about this instead, you go where I schedule you to, and I don’t end up being stabbed repeatedly by one of these groups for slighting them? I don’t think you’re taking my safety and well being into proper consideration Ba-Dehist. Not all of these people love my kind. Crazy, I know, but that’s the way it is. So what do you say? Keep me alive?” He acted hopeful, turning his face away and hunching his shoulders up just a bit.

  Like that would work on Jake?

  “Counter offer, we flip them all off, and I get you a gun?” Jake closed his eyes, knowing he was sounding like an ass. He covered it with a chuckle he didn’t mean.

  “Fine, we’ll go, but day trips only, and they have to agree not to make a big production out of things. Planning sessions and useful things. I can’t live up to these peoples idea of what I’m supposed to be as it is. If they put me in situations too far away from what I’m used to it’s really going to show and that will be bad for group morale. If they claim they need more of my time for something halfway real, fine, but otherwise…” What? What could he add that made sense? “Otherwise tell them that they have to come help me do forge work or rebuild the greenhouse while we chat. If they want to rub my tummy for luck they can darned well earn it.”

  Cam chuckled along with Morten. Jill just sat, watching it all, taking it all in carefully.

  She grinned a little, which was forced too, but was nice. Her face had been messed up by a beating, broken nose and all that, but it was good to see she had enough will to keep trying. Jake didn’t know who had done it to her and hadn’t asked. She hadn’t shared that information either. He had a sneaking suspicion that he’d shot that person the night before though, somewhere in the mix. Probably Tim. She looked at him pretty directly, making good eye contact.

  “OK. But, we get to do that for free right? I could use all the luck I can get.”

  He shook his head slowly.

  “Nope. Luck has to be earned. That’s always been the rule. People just like to pretend it isn’t, because they can’t always see the lines behind everything, how it’s all arranged to set something into motion.” Jake grinned, halfway meaning it.

  “Now that is either all deep and stuff… or total BS.” He looked at Cam.

  “So, do you know where that girl is? Six? Or Yalla? I should do that first, don’t you think? At least if so she can see that I’m all right. We need to plan out how she’s going to get her name too. I kind of hinted I’d help with that.” He held out his hand, but the girl didn’t take it or stand up. At first he felt a slight sting of rejection, but her face looked sad.

  “Um, Morten is supposed to do that from now on. Morris said. He’s really good, and already knows all the locations, so, you know, it makes sense.” She sounded sad too.

  “Oh?” Jake nodded to the man and smiled, knowing it didn’t reach his eyes.

  “I’m taking Cam with us. No slight against you Morten, but I want the backup and she should learn those places too. Obviously your people are the backbone of this whole thing. We can’t coordinate without you. For that matter, if you have other people, kids or whatever, that are looking for something useful to do, we should bring them all along, introduce them around and let them get used to working with the other parts of our new group.”

  Cam clapped happily, and smiled, but didn’t make any loud human sounds. Mort frowned.

  “Ba-Dehist, I think some might object. We aren’t… well trusted by many. They tend to reject our help, even when offered freely.” It was clear he was trying to be diplomatic.

  Jake wasn’t.

  “OK. They’ll deal. We don’t have time for thirty years of slow integration and hand holding. We may not have thirty days. I’ll be there with them at first, and then you can take over, being in charge of all that, unless Morris wants someone else to do it. I’m planning on keeping Cam with me, if she wants the job. It pays… nothing really, but on the good side there’s lots of hard physical labor involved. Probably danger too, the way things are going.” Jake grinned. “Wow, I don’t know how to sell someone on a job at all, do I?”

  That, as far as Jake could tell, worked for all of them, so Cam started focusing and about seven minutes later held her hand out for him to take. It was faster than before
, which made Jake feel proud. He kind of expected to open his eyes on the back porch of the House, but found himself in a forest instead. Crotch deep in snow. He sucked in a gasp of air, but didn’t yelp. Cam did, but cut it off nearly instantly.

  “Sorry. This is Valhalla. It wasn’t like this when Morris showed me it a few weeks ago. The main fence is over this way a bit.” She pointed, then started scrambling in the loose powder, trying to move forward. It didn’t go quickly at all, but it really wasn’t that far, about a quarter of a mile. He could see it nearly at once, since they were only twenty feet inside the tree line or so. They were evergreens, but he didn’t know where in the world they were. He had a strong suspicion it wasn’t North America though.

  When they got to the fence, near the gate, two women in white stood inside, carrying assault rifles. They were young, about fourteen or so by looks, but darned if he was going to call them kids when they were armed like that. He just waved at them and smiled, then as they approached, carefully, but not pointing anything at him or Cam, Jake spoke.

  “Here for Odina North, Yalla. May we see her, or leave a message maybe?” He was shivering, wet from the waist down, which the girls caught on to pretty quickly. One went into the little guard shack and came out with two shiny emergency blankets. Undoing one she wrapped it around Cam, then indicated he do the same, being careful not to touch him at all. The other one called something in a small walkie-talkie. What language she used he didn’t know.

  Well, that wasn’t exactly true, it was Valkyrie. He’d heard Vickie and Tipper use it before, but he didn’t know any of it. Some of it wasn’t in the normal human range of hearing he didn’t think. He was pretty good that way hearing wise, but he lost parts of it in the crinkle of the blanket around him.

  It was kind of ugly and pretty at the same time, shining like a mirror, but uncomfortable to touch. Considering he hadn’t brought a jacket though, it was welcome. It really did hold heat well. He still shivered, but it was lighter now.

  The girl with the hand unit looked at him and smiled, then said something. It was in her language, but he just couldn’t understand her. It was pretty clear they didn’t speak English either.

  Not knowing what she wanted, he tried to think of what he’d want to know if someone came to his gate out of the snow in the middle of nowhere. The first things would be; who the heck are you, how did you get here and why are your pants all wet?

  He tapped his chest.

  “Jake.” He waited, then pointed at the girl next to him, with her bright red hair. “Cam.”

  Then he waited and the girl said the names into the black box she held, then smiled again and said something that he hoped was “come in”, rather than “orders to terminate confirmed.” They opened the gate though, which was done manually, sliding it to the side on a runner with wheels, basically just an iron bar or pipe, opening it just enough to let them both get through. It was clearly freezing up, ice needing to be broken at the base just to do that. The girls had to work together to get it done.

  Then they closed and locked it again, and didn’t move. One did point at the closets building, a brown thing with a sharply slopped roof and widows that were made of small vacuum glass squares. A lot of them though, so it was kind of pretty and probably well lit inside. There was nothing in the space, except for some plastic chairs and a fire near the back. Jake figured that they’d get to wait for a bit now, so smiled and moved closer to the flames to wait.

  Whatever else the Vals were, inefficient wasn’t one of them, because not five minutes later a woman he didn’t know came running in, her face smiling, but also dressed in white, like the guards had been. She looked at them both and nodded, then stared at Cam for a few seconds. Finally she nodded again, face serious, but not looking unfriendly.

  She spoke, a fluid sound, something that was slightly Indian sounding, like Hindi. After a few seconds Cam replied the same way. She ended the sentence with a shrug and a single word that Jake knew.

  “English?”

  The woman, bits of dark brown hair showing in wisps sighed.

  “Oh, yes. Better at that than Ch’aglla by far. I’m Stander. I understand you’ve come to speak to the Odina? She’s… not expecting anyone, and left orders not to be disturbed. I know that you must have come a long way, and the last part of the trip can’t have been comfortable, but I don’t know if I can help you…” Her accent was kind of pretty in a slightly Nordic sounding way. Tipper and Vickie didn’t have accents, but they were both from, well… probably two buildings over, if he had it right. This should basically be the secret Val capital or something, and their mother was the leader, so that would make sense. They’d both lived in the States for years though.

  “Oh? Um, OK. There’s someone else I should talk to then, if she’ll see me. I was a bit rude to her last time we met, so she might not want to. Um, Six? Would it be possible to tell her Jake and Cam from the party are here to see her?” As the words came out he realized that the girl might not recognize their names at all. Well, he could come back. Maybe Cam could learn what this place was like inside, so she could come back here instead of in that snow? It would make it a lot more fun.

  The woman, Stander, went over to the wall, a plain looking thing that had what seemed like raw logs in it, stripped of bark and lightly sanded, and pushed on part of it, getting it to open, revealing a phone. Then she picked up the black, old fashioned hand set, actually connected by a curly cord, and spoke rapidly for a while. After about five minutes she was actually yelling loud enough Jake had to refrain from shooting her. It was pure habit at this point.

  Turning she spread her hands and smiled, a little wanly.

  “I told her new friends had come for her, but she’s… Well, things have not gone well for her lately. I’m sorry…” She sounded more than sorry, it was pure embarrassment on her face.

  It kind of made sense to him, but Cam pointed at the phone.

  “Tell her that The Very Good Man didn’t come across half the world, and more, just to go away without seeing her.” The tone wasn’t exactly normal Cam. She was kind of soft spoken, playful or at times, even a little flirtatious. Right now she sounded odd.

  Like Sammi, to tell the truth. Sort of bossy.

  It worked though, and grinning Stander repeated that into the phone, in English. Then after a few seconds looked at the handset.

  “Hung up on me. I think she’s coming. Would you like something to drink? Maybe some hot chocolate? Or, I think we have some brandy?”

  “I don’t drink alcohol,” Jake looked at the holster on his hip, making a bulge under the silver wrap, which got a small nod from the woman. Only a fool drank and carried weapons anymore. Especially as hair trigger as everyone was.

  “Some chocolate sounds wonderful, if it’s not a hardship. I don’t know how long we’ll be here though, so maybe we should skip it?” He didn’t come to bother these people. Not as a group. Just a few of them. So basically he was planning to be an individual pest? That sounded about right.

  “Not a difficulty, let me see to that.” Moving to the door fluidly, the woman jumped back as a decently tall girl with light brown hair ran in at nearly full speed.

  Six.

  She didn’t look well. Not at all. In fact, she had scratches on her face, and bruises. A lot of them. Her lip was fat on the bottom right side and her left eye swollen nearly shut. There were knuckle imprints on her cheek, so these weren’t just self inflicted wounds.

  “Stander? Please call Yalla and tell her I want to see her. Now. We need to have a discussion.” Jake stood and pulled the space blanket off. The crinkling loud in the near silence of the space, competing only with the soft crack and pop of the fire.

  It freed his gun in case he needed it. Possible, since apparently someone had been beating the girl pretty severely. Jake wasn’t going to allow that. Not over him. The move wasn’t lost on the woman, who just smirked at him a little. Well, not just a smirk, she dropped her right hand to her side, as if going for
a weapon and started to turn to the side as Jake drew on instinct. She had something halfway out, then rapidly thrown when Six jumped in front of it.

  “Agh.” The girl winced and pulled the bit of silver out of her stomach with two fingers. It bled, but not much, even as she removed the six or seven inch spike.

  “Stander!” She said sounding scandalized, then she moved to get in front of Jake’s aiming point, just as he started to squeeze the trigger. It was close, but he stopped and relaxed his hand just in time not to hit the girl in the head.

  “Stop! Everyone. Please.” The girl looked freaked, but Jake held the weapon at the ready. He could see the chain of events that had caused it all, but that didn’t mean that Stander wouldn’t start fighting again. She was fast.

  Way faster than he was. That meant, if he wanted to survive a fight with her, he needed to kill her before she knew what was going on. Probably a bit too late for that now. He sighed and shook his head.

  Cam was silent and had backed up against the far wall, but Six just stared at him, not even bothering to put a hand over the wound she’d just gotten.

  “Well at least this time it’s not me nearly getting the VGM killed. You still live, I see. I…” She blew out a long puff of air and started again, just as stiltedly. She had an accent too, a bit thicker than Stander’s.

  The other woman went wide eyed and rolled off a few sentences in that strange tongue that Jake didn’t know at all, after Six answered, the woman shook her head.

  “I’d heard, but… You aren’t like what we expected at all. I always thought you’d be softer looking. That, and not have a gun. Maybe holding an arrangement of tulips? Maybe older? I’ll call Yalla.” She blushed and turned away, speaking on the phone while Six watched him like he was mentally unstable.

  Of course he still had a weapon pointed at her friend, so, yeah, it kind of made sense. He put that away smoothly and smiled at her.

  “So, what the heck?” With his right hand, he indicated his face, meaning she should explain the mess that was her own. She just shrugged.