Dead End Stories From the End of the World

by P. S. Power

  "Damn straight you stole. Thieves the lot of them. Took the sacred iron!" The man was short, not more than three foot five inches, but nearly that wide, all of it muscle it looked like.

  "That was meant for Vulcan, not you playing around and spreading it on the ground like you plan. There are no undead underground!" He seemed about ready for violence, and was moving on Morris pretty fast, a weapon coming into his hand. Jake started to draw a weapon himself, but stopped, enough of Mickey's good will toward everyone left to leave the fellow alive.

  "Wait." Somehow that got the room to go still.

  It was pretty cool.

  "You have iron. Can you get more? We need... A lot of it. Sulfur too." They could do burns to get carbon from trees, but the other things seemed nearly impossible to get to him. "You can do that?"

  "Aye. We can, Good Enough. But it shouldn't be taken by stealth or force." His fist shook on the words and his deep red beard twitched a little. It was tied at the bottom with something that had gems hanging off of it.

  "Sorry about that, a communications error. We'd really love to not have the world die because of this. I don't suppose you and your people could forgive us this once? Just for the sake of the future?" He didn't expect much, since the little man sounded pretty angry, but he flapped his arms, making several people back up, and put the hatchet he had out back in his belt.

  "Done then. As long as it was just the once. We don't crave the death of the world more than the next, we simply don't wish to see ourselves abused in the fixing."

  "Who does? I promise that we'll ask from now on. In fact, why don't you and your people take over as far as that portion of things goes? Collecting the raw materials needed? I'm sorry, I don't know your name yet..."

  "Winsor." He didn't add who his people were, and Jake would be damned if he was calling them Dwarves. They could just be "Winsor's people" until he was told otherwise.

  Morris swallowed his pride and apologized too, and they actually had raw materials headed to the correct location by the time everyone was ready to leave. It wasn't the only thing they had to do though. They needed teams to start getting things spread too. No one had organized anything, just handing out capsules for people to spread around their own dwellings and encampments. It wasn't a horrible place to start, but it didn't save the world either. Most of the things were just sitting in South America, waiting for someone to do something with them. They hadn't even set up any secondary manufacturing sites.

  It was Lamont that informed him of that, not making eye contact at all, as if he figured Jake would be mad at him. It didn't make a lot of sense, so he ignored it and looked around for people he knew, most of whom were at the back of the room, eavesdropping.

  "Becky Fines, get a crew together. I'd like you to go with me to the Linster's place and see about setting up a few of these manufacturing plants if possible. Are you up to it?" She might not be, or she might just decide to flip him off, even if he was supposed to be super-Jesus again. It was always a toss-up with her.

  "On it. How many people?"

  That was a harder one to come to, he just didn't know. Really it would probably have to do with how many of the building units were possible to make and then how much raw material they could get.

  When in doubt make stuff up though.

  "Ten for now. People willing to relocate and get along with others. They'll be the project leaders, so make sure they're ready for it. Reliable people. Be ready to leave in... An hour." All the Teleporters were gone, but hopefully someone would be back before then. If not they could spend the time picking out where the things would be placed.

  The locations needed to be well guarded, but otherwise as random as possible. Like that would be happening. Anyone with half a brain would want these things as far away from themselves as possible. That the main one hadn't been attacked yet was incredible.

  He was missing some people though, and it was starting to bug him. His personal group was missing in action except for Colleen and Sammi and for whatever reason the Bawdri girl still hadn't spoken to him. Vicki was somewhere around, but not in the room at all and Heather was down below with her new baby. That was safe enough, most likely, but it would have been nice if they could have looked in on him. Instead of waiting for someone else to come to him, Jake decided to be the one to reach out. It wasn't what he'd been doing for a long time, but it made more sense now, suddenly. It was one of the better things about how he used to be and even though he was trying to claim he was actually changing, the truth was that no matter what he said, just pretending to be nice or in this case all tough, didn't alter who he really was. Then, he wasn't totally certain that he hadn't fooled them all with the power of crazy. It just didn't matter now.

  It was another odd thing, but Jake had never been down below in the underground rooms since they'd been built. He'd helped on the work, and knew the basic layout, but he wasn't really ready for how dark and oppressive they really were. There was no light except for some very weak battery powered LEDs that Burt had rigged up. A single one in each space. It wasn't a lot to work by, but would milk the energy they had. The place was also stuffed with people, even in the long hallway that linked the separate rooms together. It was warm enough, but smelled a little of unwashed bodies and mildew.

  Tiny eyes stared at him from the dark. Children mainly, looking up from the games they played together, seeming scared when they recognized who it was that stood there. The boogey man.

  Jake the killer.

  If he was a kid he'd have wet himself. These youngsters just got a bit wide eyed, and only some of them did that. No one whimpered or made a sound though. That was the rule to surviving Jake, wasn't it?

  "Hey, has anyone seen Heather around? I'm just checking up on her. In my group, you know..." For a second he wondered if he needed to explain more, but then they saw Colleen, who smiled and waved at them. That got a happier reaction. She was the music lady after all. Everyone should love her.

  One of the girls near the back walked forward. Barb, who wasn't working in the kitchen even though it was her regular job for the dinner meal. Instead she'd been sewing a pair of jeans by hand. Just putting a patch on the behind it looked like.

  Jake grinned.

  "Hey Barb. Um, I wanted to see Heather? By the way, you should get with Becky Fines, she's putting together group leaders for a really important project. We need ten people, so really, if anyone wants to give it a try, they should. It means traveling some and I can't claim it will be safe, but it really is needed. As in world-saving."

  Barb was one of the group that he generally referred to as the "Jake Haters". It was a charming name, but accurate enough. They still needed to work and from everything he could see the sixteen year old in front of him was a natural leader. She might decide that his suggesting that meant he wanted to rape her or something, which was about in line with her normal behavior, but she actually just walked up to him and...

  Gave him a hug.

  "I bitched them all out you know. When they made you leave. Nate, and that creepy old guy. Sammi's grandpa? They should have stood up for you. Jerks. Are you back now? Until they get rid of you again, I mean?" It wasn't even said with a sense of irony.

  "Nope." Jake said it quietly, but Colleen gasped a little behind him. So did Heather, who'd popped her head out of one of the open doorways.

  "You're not?" This came from Colleen, who took his hand, the left one and gripped it so hard he was afraid something was going to break for a few seconds.

  "I thought, they said you weren't exiled anymore."

  "Right. But it's time to get out and start fixing things. We can't do that from here We need help and I think I know where to start with that." He pointed at Barb.

  Barb looked at him funny, but moved closer to him rather than away like she normally did.

  "You want me to help with that? Like... Fighting or something?" She sounded scared, but didn't back off.

  "No, I want you to run one of those plants that ma
kes the compound that shuts zombies off. I don't know what that takes, it could be really hard and complex, but you can do it. Then we need teams to travel around spreading the stuff. We can't hide here anymore. Not if we want the world to make it."

  From down the hall he heard a tiny voice. One he wasn't familiar with at all. It was male, but the kid was new, maybe nine from the look of him.

  "I'll do that. Get me the stuff, and I'll take it and kill them all."

  He sounded fierce though, so much so that Jake just nodded.

  "OK. Anyone that wants to help, meet me in the front room in half an hour." Then he turned and gave Heather a hug, which included both a Colleen and a baby, so it had to be done carefully.

  Heather smiled at him, but made a face at the same time.

  "It's gone, Jake."

  "What is?"

  "The future. I can't see it anymore."

  Chapter four

  Jake didn't even have to think about what he did next, which was hug the girl again, happily. Smiling he even leaned in and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. Everyone else seemed to be taken aback by it, so he explained, still using a hushed voice that was probably not needed at all at the House anymore. It was still a good habit, since spreading the compound around the world would mean going where the undead were, so he didn't make himself change up from that.

  "Good. We can get by just by being careful, we don't need you to go crazy in order for us to be safe." She had a useful talent, but it could also be a troublesome pain in the rear at times. His words got a smile in response though.

  "I... is it OK though? That's the only thing I really do here. I see the future. Crazy Heather, and her vague predictions of doom. Without that, what am I?"

  Jake shrugged stepping back a little.

  "Sane, most likely. Do you know why it stopped? Or when exactly?" There was a chance that it meant something bad, like she wasn't seeing a future at all, because it was about to end for the final time in the next few moments after all. He didn't mention that, since if it was the case, they couldn't stop it.

  "About three hours ago. I saw you coming back and telling everyone that you were that guy, the one they all waited for and then everything split into a million lines and vanished. It's so empty now. My head I mean. Quiet and peaceful." She looked around and glared at someone in the back of the hallway.

  "Don't try claiming that my head is always empty either Marta, that isn't the case..." Then she made a face.

  "OK, so it isn't all gone, is it? I just saw her saying that and responded... What's going on?"

  It was a bit of a puzzle, but Jake had a guess. Heather had always had problems understanding that he could do something truly good or selfless. She just couldn't believe it, so she would kind of ignore those lines, which meant that at times he could change things in a way she couldn't see at all. When he proved that he was The Very Good Man to everyone, it had pushed all the realities into something she wasn't ready for. So it went blank on her.

  Not a real respite from the torture her mind had to endure at all. Not a long one anyway. Poor girl.

  He didn't explain it though, letting her have what little time of peace she could. Maybe he was wrong anyway. It wasn't like Jake had some kind of actual proof after all.

  "Anyway, let's just enjoy this for now and get everything else set up? I need to get with Cam."

  That caused him to go back up top, which smelled better if nothing else. Fresher and like warm smoke, instead of slightly sour bodies. They needed to make another push for hygiene or else people would get sick, being so close together like that. Being a zombie was off the table for most of them maybe, but that didn't mean the flu couldn't take them all out.

  Cam was nowhere to be found though. Not at first. None of the Teleporters were. It was a little worrying since Alyssian, the Bawdri Princess and Sammi's mother, had passed a message to him that said one of Cam's people might be involved in her kidnapping. It wasn't an absolutely certain thing, because Technologists were involved, and if anyone could build a machine that let them mimic teleportation it would be them. Still, Morris had been at the meeting, and Morten had been around too. Why wasn't Cam?

  She was supposed to be his personal teleportation assistant or whatever they were calling it that week. Or she had been. Hopefully she hadn't gotten in trouble for being too close to him or anything when that whole exile thing had come down. As it turned out she was just working on the mid-day meal in the kitchen, pitching in since she wasn't doing anything else at the moment.

  She smiled when he finally looked in.

  "Hey boss. So I hear those stupid-heads finally got what I was telling them the whole time, huh? Like I would have said you were the Ba-Dehist if you weren't? Anyway, what's the plan?" She kept working while she talked, stirring a huge pot of stew, one of three that she had to move between quickly, or else they'd burn on the bottom.

  It was a lot later in the day than they used to eat, but then things were changing weren't they? World leaders in the dining room making trouble for one thing. That had to throw the schedules off. Jake grimaced and looked at her hard.

  "First you have to finish up here. Then after people eat we need to get off to the Linster family place. After that we're setting up the full dispersion network and manufacturing. At the same time we all have to keep the world going too. Just because we have a chance to start cleaning some areas of zombies doesn't mean we don't still have to survive and make sure everyone gets fed and all that. Really, I'm kind of surprised you didn't take care of that while I was gone." He looked at the people in the room, ten of them packed in, working in too small a space, nearly bumping elbows sometimes.

  "I mean all of you. Just because I was kicked out doesn't mean you couldn't have stepped up and taken over. Just refuse to feed anyone until they got into line or something."

  He smiled though, even as half the people looked down at the floor. There was only one man in the group, Samuel, who shook his head a little, seeming pretty relaxed about the whole thing.

  "I know. Glad to have you back though. So how long before they do it again do you think? Kick you out or start trying to fight with each other instead of saving the world?"

  Jake shrugged.

  "Three days, give or take. Oh, I don't think they'll do the same thing again, not exactly, but it will be something. I want everyone to make plans just in case it starts to happen. Protest or something. Those of you that aren't leaving, I mean."

  Then he had to explain the whole plan again, figuring that it wouldn't be the last time for a long while. The whole plan got put off for almost two hours though, because everyone wanted to eat something before they left. Once that was finished he had to find Becky Fines, who was in the back yard berating a woman he didn't really recognize, who was shaking her head, looking away.

  "No Becky, I can't. I can't leave... I'm sorry." She wasn't making eye contact, not with the hawk nosed scowling lady in front of her, but she saw Jake walking up and tried to leave before he got there. That got her arm grabbed though.

  "Come on, Tracy, we need good people to do this. I don't know if we can either, I'm no scientist, but if we don't try, we won't know. It's important work and..."

  The other woman pulled away from her and shook her head, walking away fast, without looking back.

  "No. I can't."

  Becky looked ready to run after her, but turned to Jake instead, looking more angry than he'd ever seen her, which was hard to imagine, because he'd told her about how he killed her sister once. She fairly shook with rage.

  "No one is willing to go. They're afraid. It's new and everyone thinks it's dangerous. I can't even tell them it isn't. I don't know enough. What do we do now?"

  The voice that came from behind them was a different one than Jake would have expected, but it sounded calm and more adult than he'd ever heard it too.

  Dave.

  "We have the team ready. People to run the manufacturing plants or whatever they are." They did too. Dave had fiv
e of them right there, pointing a shot-gun at them. Three women and two men, looking like they were about to die. Barb was behind the boy, with a rifle, backing him up, standing next to two of her friends. After a minute Samuel came out of the House holding a sack, obviously ready to go himself.

  "Great! There we go Becky, all the people we need. Well, as long as Dave is leading one of the groups?" That might be a hard one to fill with workers, but Jake had no doubt they'd make their production quotas. The ones the boy didn't shoot would probably work themselves near to death.

  Becky laughed, which was almost too loud, but no one pointed a weapon at her.

  "I should have thought of that. Perfect. I didn't know we had conscription yet."

  Cam walked out soon after that, looking at the firearms with a skeptical expression, but she didn't wait for directions, just closing her eyes and concentrating on the location they needed to get to. Then she held out her hands less than two minutes later.

  Jake took the right one gently and motioned for the other people, the "conscripted" ones to do the same. The chain ended with Samuel on the far side, which got Jake to shut his eyes hard and just in time.

  Most of the people did, but some of the conscripts didn't, not having teleported before. They dropped to the ground retching when they reached the clearing. That meant waiting for a minute while they recovered.

  The air was humid and warm, the surroundings a lush green, filled with tropical plants. Donald and Sara stood with their son Hal, waiting for them. Smiling. No one had told them they were coming, so it was a cool effect, them being ready like that. They didn't explain it though.

  Jake walked to them, smiling himself gesturing to the people behind him.

  "Trainees. We spoke of multiple compound manufacturing... things?"

  Sara nodded happily.

  "We can teach you to use them in a few minutes. It isn't difficult. Then we just have to locate the facilities, and find materials for you."

  Then she walked away, leading them off through the dense brush on a path that was barely visible at all. Insects tried to eat him alive, but other than that it was a nice place. He was overdressed for it, so loosened his top shirt, not taking it off yet. He was going to be in a lot of different places that day anyway, so it wouldn't pay to lose track of his clothing. At least that was the plan.