by P. S. Power
The Comtrice shrugged. Then she pulled a knife and cut her hand. The move nearly got her shot, but Vickie put a hand on his arm fast.
“I think she’s going to use her power. I mean, to read someone. She can’t lie when she does it, so whatever she tells us has to be true then. I don’t know what her intent is, but I doubt it’s an attack. She’d never make it out of the room alive and she knows it. Especially with Dave pointing that shotgun at her head.” Vickie pointed, and sure enough, there the kid was, right behind her, muzzle pointed at the base of her skull.
He chuckled slightly.
“Hi Cisco. Since I actually almost like you, how about you don’t make me put half your brain on the ceiling? I’m young and it might scar me for, who knows how long? Day’s maybe? Weeks?” Just to amplify the words he chambered a round.
That meant it was all for affect, because if he was really going to shoot, that would have already happened. Cisco didn’t know that though. She turned a bit white. She didn’t stop even with that, moving across the room, carefully not touching anyone, until she got to Becky Fines. Holding out her hand she waited, but the other woman, dressed in a black t-shirt and jeans didn’t move at all. Instead she kind of froze, a hard look coming into her eyes.
“Wait, you framed me? Why? What did I ever do to you?” The hatchet faced woman with her dark hair looked ready to fight then, but Cisco just grabbed her arm.
Then she didn’t move for a bit. A half minute later the gripe was broken, leaving Becky with a bloody half palm print on her arm.
Cisco turned to the front and spoke, her eyes white, rolled back in her head nearly completely.
“I attempted to remove you as a threat to Jake. You aren’t a real one, but you kept undermining him. I voted him out of the House once, not knowing what I did, then later I spoke against him with others, and tried to drive him away out of ignorance and spite, not understanding. The Very Good Man. I had to atone, to stop you from harming him anymore, but when I spoke to you about it, you wouldn’t stop. You called me brainwashed and stupid. So I made you look guilty so that they’d kick you out. Or kill you, but if they tried to do that, I’d have spoken up and confessed.” The voice came slowly, and sounded gentle. Dreamy.
“I had the arsenic, to kill myself with. If I couldn’t get a gun and needed to die. I knew that the dosage I used it wouldn’t harm anyone except a Comtrice and most of us can’t stand the taste of clove, which played a strong role in the mulled cider. It was as safe as I could make it and still seem a real threat. It worked, after a fashion, because you see now that Jake isn’t what you imagined him to be. It’s enough.”
Then she came back to herself, eyes shutting and coming back to the front, blinking several times. It all looked a little disoriented for a while. Which meant she didn’t see it when Becky jumped forward and grabbed her hair with her left hand, punching sloppily with her right fist. They didn’t yell though, not even Cisco as the other woman’s knuckles met the soft flesh of her cheek.
After a second Becky stopped though. After three she suddenly rose in the air and ended up stuck to the ceiling. A little like a carnival balloon set free in the house, lacking only a string to pull her back down with. The lighter haired woman, who looked older now, worried and tense, held her hand up. Fresh blood had come out of her nose, making a thin red line. Almost festive.
It was the blood on Becky that let her do it. Basically that’s what a Comtrice was, he thought. A blood mage. Kind of awesome, in a creepy way. At least so far they only seemed to use their own blood.
“Wow two women fighting... over me? It’s both a first, and just as awkward as I would have imagined. OK, Cisco, let her down now please? Becky, if you’ll refrain from doing whatever you called that again? I think you made your point. You’re a bit upset. Got it.” He spoke to the woman without looking at her, waiting on Cisco to do her part first.
After Becky floated to the ground, gently even, not just dropping, which would have been his go to move in the same situation, Jake stepped between the women, but moved closer to Becky as she found her feet, looking ready to start throwing punches again.
“Becky? We don’t need violence here. Not with each other.”
“You don’t understand! The accusation is out there already. Everyone still thinks I had something to do with it. Even after proving myself innocent! No matter what I say, they keep looking at me, judging me based on things I didn’t even do. It’s not fair.” Her words were heartfelt, but so clearly oblivious he had to raise his eyebrows at her.
“Um, yes. That can happen. Why on Earth would you think I don’t understand though? Trust me, I get it. I really do.”
She gave him a funny look for a minute, but didn’t apologize. It would have been a great time for it, almost perfect, showing that she’d actually learned a valuable lesson. Instead she just glared at Cisco.
“Kind of a big transformation for you though isn’t it? One word about this Very Good Man crap and you suddenly think Jake can do no wrong. In minutes you went from acting like he was Satan himself to going on about him like he was the freaking second coming of Christ. What the hell’s with that?”
It was a good question, but the answer came from the back of the room, where Sue, the slightly older Indian woman with a few extra pounds was standing.
“Becky… Don’t you understand?” The lady was wearing heavier clothing than she normally did, but in a nice golden yellow. And black combination. Almost as if she planned to go outside at some point in her day.
“In a very real way, Jake is the second coming. I thought everyone knew that…”
The room went silent then.
Except for Jake, who chuckled.
Chapter seven
It took a few more seconds for the next person to start laughing, covering her mouth, stomach sticking out just a bit more from the child growing within her now. Heather had a strange, fierce look on her face, but didn’t bother saying anything about what Sue had told them.
Why would she? It was patently insane. Probably meant as a joke.
“Jake Christ.” He said the words low, but wryly, wondering if it would sound the same way to everyone else in the room as it did to him? Probably even funnier really. These people knew him after all.
“That really sounds more like Jesus’ disreputable brother than anything, doesn’t it?” He turned to include everyone, since they all kind of stared still, making eye contact with a dozen people in the sweep. Then he pitched his voice in a way that he hadn’t for years.
For comedic effect. He went for trying to sound like a radio announcer.
“For all your used camel needs, see Jake in the alley behind the temple.”
That got silence again. Until Dave stepped over to him, moving bodies out of his way a little rudely, as if no one actually mattered but him. It was part of who he was. At least Sammi thought so.
Thinking that reminded Jake of what was happening there, the tragedy with her mother. Or, more likely, the attack on Alyssian. The whole thing didn’t make sense though. If she’d been bitten and somehow just turned, wouldn’t she be by wherever the Bawdri were held up? The Lake, Jake thought it was called.
He didn’t know where that was, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t within easy walking distance of his place. That meant something more sinister then, didn’t it? Why though? If Alyssian had been sent to kill him, or even all of them, well, a few well placed rockets or grenades would be easier, wouldn’t it? Or just waiting for them all to fail and die on their own?
The boy stopped when he got to Jake and put his shotgun up, held away from everyone, on his right shoulder. Then he peered into Jake’s face closely as if looking for something deep in his eyes. Finally he shrugged.
“Miracle of the multiple head shots?”
Not able to help himself Jake snorted. It didn’t have a real smile with it, but he managed a fake one well enough that a few others took it as him playing at least. Then, thankfully, Nate suggested they all set the room
up for dinner. It was pretty packed in the main room, so instead of helping there, he headed to the kitchen. They’d stolen Sammi without warning, so someone would need to take her place. Not that he was that great a cook, but he could keep things from burning or boiling over if nothing else.
Cam came with him, which made sense, more than him going really, since she knew the job better. Morten tried to follow too, which didn’t scan at all, unless the man was secretly a chef in his spare time. Lois held a dishrag in her hand and looked kind of pissed.
At Mort.
Right. He was a Sammi thief. They’d all seen him do it, hadn’t they? No denying it now.
“Jake.” She sounded cold, but didn’t glare for long. “Can I help you? We kind of need to get dinner ready, but if you need something to eat earlier…”
“No. Cam and I are here to help. Morten is going to take a team back to my place, to stand guard, in case of an attack there. We need to do something like that here too.” He looked around, to find Six standing in the door to the main room, blocking it with her body, preventing anyone else from getting in. Already on duty then?
Jake gestured to her.
“Get with Tipper and Vickie and see to that please? Um, Dave should go with the group to my place. We’ll take them dinner, if you’re in Mort? I don’t want to presume, but…” Otherwise it would all take too long really.
It got a real smile as if this were an adventure and not a tragedy at all. That was either braver than the average Teleporter, or more stupid, but either way, it worked. They all left to the other room to get things done at least, and five minutes later a group of young, fit looking women holding rifles headed out the back door, followed at a slightly slower pace by Tipper, Len the slow guy and Rita, the woman that sewed and repaired clothing. She held a rifle too.
It was a changeup, since not a week before she’d been busily betraying them and bringing in zombie hoards to eat them all. Then, she didn’t have a choice at the time, did she? Derrick Holsom had control of her mind then. Now her one true and overwhelming love was Carley.
Even if the curly haired blonde didn’t want to sleep with the other women she’d liberated from Derrick, it was a step up. The woman might not have a lot of use for men either, but she at least wouldn’t let the others under her influence come to harm if she could help it. Jake nodded to them all as he stirred the large pot of thick stew. It smelled pretty good, but needed more water if it they didn’t want it burnt on the bottom. He got some from the sink as the other six people bustled around the room, working without too much chatter.
The whole thing was nerve wracking. Everyone was tense, and didn’t really know why, Jake didn’t think. It was an attack… but only possibly. It wasn’t anything that showed at the House, but affected them. Maybe. All they could do was work.
Only most of the people just sat and talked or played games with the kids in the fading light as day turned into night. It wasn’t the best use of time, to tell the truth, but Jake let it slide for the moment. Part of all this was his fault.
If he wanted people to work, he needed to make sure they did it. Set things up and keep track of it all constantly. Otherwise people got lazy and ran out of ideas as to what to do.
At dinner he really expected to have to fight for a seat at one of the tables, or eat last, sitting along the wall, which had become the norm for him with all the new people that had come, but he was waved to almost instantly instead. By Heather. She pointed to the chair next to her, which no one else had taken, and started getting food from the serving dish in front of her for both plates. Green beans it looked like in the dim light.
He settled into the hard chair, forty-five digging into his back, boney backside pressing into his jeans on the seat uncomfortably as he made contact. Heather kept dishing up his food for him for some reason, and smiled. Warmly.
He didn’t trust that at all. The girl was a lot of things, including unpredictable and possibly insane, but friendliness was likely to be a trick from her. Sure, he couldn’t cast stones in the sanity department, as Cam had pointed out more than once, but that didn’t mean he was stupid did it?
Jake had agreed to be her “partner” though, so she wouldn’t have to leave the House. All the pregnant women needed someone to help keep up their share of the work, since most of them had gotten pregnant by Derrick. Nate had made up the rule, so Jake really doubted anyone would be kicked out because they couldn’t find someone, but it was a good idea. So he’d been saddled with her.
With Karen too, who was one of Holsom’s old girlfriends. Now she was Carley’s. Only Jake got to do all the work to make sure they were both provided for. All four of them really, once the babies came.
The girl next to him touched his arm gently.
“The cannibals are here.” She said it like a normal person would mention the weather, which was odd, given how she’d harped on the subject for months. Then the girl could get her times wrong, thinking that things had already happened that hadn’t yet for the rest of them. She had to live it all, sometimes over and over again, searching for the best way to organize the future. For what she could do to change it.
“Oh? As in were under attack right now or…”
“Kind of. No one has noticed, but people are missing. Most of the time when they came the cannibals just attacked, but we’d win now, thanks to all the new people. Instead they’ve made camps in the surrounding areas and are coming in to take people more slowly. For lunch. No one believes 'crazy Heather' so this is about the first time I could tell someone that would actually do anything about it. Starting with a head count after dinner works. No one else is taken tonight if you do that.”
“Oh.” He took a bite of what was in front of him, stew ladled over mashed potatoes. It was good and had a lot of meat in it. Better than anything he’d ever made himself.
That made sense, didn’t it? If you attacked the House, well, people would fight. The psycho cannibals wanted food, not combat. Windigo, the Bawdri had said. People gone so crazy from having eaten flesh that they’d lost all sense of social convention, kind of gaining powers from it. Mainly speed and strength that people didn’t normally use, rather than anything else, though the few he’d met had been faster than just that, so maybe it was more than just not caring so much you could make yourself move faster than otherwise? If they just cleaned themselves up, maybe got a younger person to do it, they could probably just walk up to the House, chat someone up and get them to follow them outside.
Do it right and the person might even walk far enough out not to be noticed when they were overwhelmed by their buddies.
“How long do you think it’s been going on?”
The girl took a careful bite of the food in front of her, like it made her sick, but she knew she had to eat.
“Three or four days.”
“OK. We’ll get a head count then, like you want, just in case. It can’t hurt, can it?” It made sense, but there was a bigger problem with it than Jake would have thought. No one really knew who everyone else in the place was. People kind of hung out in tight groups, but sometimes those rotated without notice, so people didn’t really see everyone each day.
There was no list of names, and no one really knew everyone at all. It was mind boggling, since they lived with each other all the time, but Jake held his tongue. After all, he only knew about twenty names for people here anymore. Maybe thirty.
The first one to mention someone missing was little Darla. The vampire girl.
“I can’t find Eric. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him in a few days.” She looked around as if searching for him, but shook her head.
“I’ve been feeding on him every few weeks… I can’t feel my connection to him anymore. That means he’s dead. I didn’t notice it, because I have so many links right now, but that one is just gone.” The tiny form shrugged and looked around as if to see if any others were gone.
After that it took nearly half an hour to determine they were missing two other
s, both girls, one sixteen or so, the other eleven. That one wasn’t an orphan, her mother was there, but she wasn’t watching the girl that closely, since the House was more or less safe and the woman had issues. She started crying, far too loudly, which got Colleen to walk over and put a hand over her mouth, whispering into the woman’s ear as she held her. Then she rocked the woman, but the noise level went down a lot.
It beat shooting her in the head.
Half the people wanted to go out looking for them immediately, even though it was already dark out. More to the point, they wanted other people to go and do it. The rest just sat, gloomily. Little kids being eaten wasn’t a good thing. Not ever. Jake felt it, the desire to run off and start searching, hoping that one of them would still be alive, but Heather shook her head.
“They were dead before they got to the edge of the woods. Each time. What we need to do is wait and get help, then send out teams in the daylight. Big ones. Made up of the Cleaners and Jake’s new friends. It’s why Jake had to be here for this, I think. Without him we wouldn’t have the others and the cannibals would have just come in and captured us, this first time, or at best killed us all in the fire. Now we have to fight, but out there, in the woods. At first anyway. The others are further away. Smarter and worse than these first ones. When they come, we have to fight for real. No matter what.” Her voice had gone back to her regular dreamy sound. A half sing-song that made her seem like a loon.
In this case she was probably a correct nut job, but it didn’t help her overall credibility, did it?
Worse, it meant more work for Jake that wasn’t what he should be doing. That really should be forge work and helping with the new greenhouse, not walking through the woods looking for murderers.
He was one, wasn’t he? The only difference was who they’d killed. Well, and that he didn’t eat them once they were dead. Not yet at least. Hopefully never.
This time he didn’t have to suggest anything though, since Vickie just got with Mort and Nate on it. That was kind of a relief, to tell the truth. He’d go with them, but he just couldn’t bring himself to really care about it at the moment. He knew that he should… they were kids. They’d been murdered for food, by monsters that wouldn’t have refrained from doing it even if given something else to eat. A lot of people had eaten the dead, trying to survive. That was sickening to think of, but understandable. You did what you had to, right? It was just by grace, luck and hard work that the people at the police compound and the House hadn’t had to. It had been the emergency winter survival plan for the police though.
