A Very Good Man (27 page)

  The next morning he found out what had happened from the whispers in the living room before breakfast.

  She'd slept with Randy.

  Had sex with him. Apparently to get him to be her partner. It made sense of course.

  With him it was “Oh, I've been raped, just hold me Jake. I couldn't possibly do anything like that...” but Randy didn't even have to talk to the girl to get her to spread her legs. Yep. That made perfect fucking sense. Just like the whole rest of his life.

  Fuck it.

  Just fuck it all to hell.

  He wasn't good enough for anyone, that was the message? No matter what he did?

  Screw them then.

  A feeling of pure rage washed over him. A blinding thing of fire and red that made Jake want to do very bad things to a lot of people.

  If that's the way they all felt, then he'd just let them fend for themselves and look out for number one like everyone else always did. A burning filled his stomach, hard and hot and cold all at once. He really wanted to just kill people and make them pay, but that passed. How Jake couldn't tell, but that part did fade after a few moments. Heather had made her choice and that was fine. She could get Randy to help her from now on. He'd do alright. He was a good kid and actually working now. Important even, being in charge of the animals.

  It hurt a lot, but it was a valid choice, wasn't it?

  They held hands in the living room as they walked in, Randy smiled and Heather seemed fine enough with the whole thing, not a giggly bride, but she didn't seem traumatized by what she'd done either. Jake didn't look at her after the first glance. Instead he just walked over and sat next to Nate and Carl. The hunting and scavenging trip was the topic anyway, so he just nodded along and tried not to care about anything else.

  When it had happened with Rachel, he'd just shut down. For years. Freezing in place and kind of letting go of the whole world. If he let himself do that now, he'd probably just die. No, Jake had to hang on to the present and not let this affect him too much. Somehow.

  They got the small wooden wagon, ten people and a full cleaning crew and a half among them. Burt would set up a smoke house with Justine, who was basically his assistant now, and the rest of them would see to the first day of the harvest. Jose had indicated to Nate that they had about two weeks before the real heavy work would begin, crops wise.

  As they geared up Heather ran over to him, smiling.

  “Jake, I...” She went silent when he turned and walked away. That didn't stop her from following him though. Really she should have gotten the point. It wasn't some huge or difficult thing to understand was it?

  “What's wrong?” She asked, sounding baffled and a little hurt.

  Jake knew what she'd done, no one had doubted that, it had been pretty obvious since neither Randy or her had been exactly quiet. Not having a lot to talk about, everyone else knew about it already too. Did she think he wouldn't know? Or care maybe? Right, because he was just there to work and kill things. Jake didn't have real human emotions, did he?

  Obviously.

  It was done, and talking about it wouldn't help now. Still, she kept walking after him. He decided to just go with his feelings. His hurt, bitchy little human feelings that he wasn't supposed to have. The ones that didn't matter to anyone in the whole fucking world.

  “Well, I thought we were friends, that you liked me, and you said that you didn't want to have sex, because you weren't ready, having been raped. I tried to be understanding and let you sleep next to me and you acted like we were close. You said things that sounded to me like you wanted to be close. Like it might be going somewhere even. Then you find another guy and sleep with him like that.” Jake snapped his fingers. “Kind of like saying I'm not worth anything at all. More than just kind of. So, yeah, that's what's wrong.” He kept walking. She stopped at least.

  “But...” She said behind him softly. “I didn't...”

  He stopped and turned to look at her. She had tears in her eyes, but looked down. She shook her head but didn't say anything else at all. Probably sad because he'd figured her out and wouldn't be there to help her out for free any more.

  Jake didn't storm away, but he did go. No one sane “stormed” anymore. It looked too much like a runner before they caught a target. That could get you shot.

  The hunting crew gathered quietly, Tipper standing away from him, Dave alongside. Together they pushed the nearly empty wagon along, the trip going slower because of it. They had some rope and tools with them, shovels and sledgehammers for pounding stakes into the ground. The first leg of the journey took them to the other house, a trip of almost two and a half hours. Slow because they watched for animals and went carefully, practicing for later. The second part went a lot faster, taking them to the stream. Carl assured them that not a lot of animals would be out before dusk, so they could spread out along the dense underbrush in both directions. They just had to make sure not to shoot each other. Easy enough. They didn't look like deer at all, did they?

  It wasn't like any of them were drunk after all. It pretty much meant that anyone “accidentally” getting shot was hit on purpose.

  In the meantime they could hide and wait for any animals that might happen by. Carl got a few squirrels and Dave surprised everyone by collecting a small bucketful of fresh water crawdads. He even took them alive. Kind of amazing really.

  Jake got nothing and saw nothing until dusk, like Carl had said.

  Then there was a small parade to the water. Where he was, a family of deer, three does, two bucks and two little baby ones came down to get a drink. They looked majestic, regal almost. Perversely, Jake's mouth watered.

  If he took the younger buck and the doe without a fawn, that would be alright, wouldn't it? He didn't really know, but made the shots. The buck first, having more meat on him, then the doe as she bounded away. That took two shots. Moving like that reminded him of the new zombies and how they'd moved. About as fast, but the deer were lower to the ground by a good bit. Hard to hit though, so good practice for the future.

  Jake used some rope to pull the things back, sliding them on the tall grass. Not an easy thing, but doable. As he walked along a different small group of deer walked past him, headed away from the water. They couldn't have been fifteen feet away. Moving carefully he took down another buck, hitting him in the head. The others scurried away before he could do anything at all. It turned out that was a good thing. If he thought pulling two of them away was hard, three proved nearly impossible. As dark fell he staggered up to the wagon, where everyone else stood waiting for him. The rest of them had gotten two more, Carl got one and Dave the other. Everyone just stared at him as he struggled up.

  Carl shook his head and laughed, a deep rumble that almost couldn't be heard.

  “I'll help you bleed them. You really should do that first, pretty fresh kills though, should be fine.”

  They wouldn't dress them until they got back to the house, cooking a bit for dinner and breakfast the next day. They moved in silence. It was nearly restful. The silent trudge of feet on grass, the slight squeak of the wheels as they turned.

  As they neared the house Jake felt it.

  Fear.

  It bit at the pit of his stomach hard. Zombies. It didn't seem likely, but he held up his hand and got everyone to wait, regardless. They were inside. That didn't make any sense at all, because the door was closed. The undead didn't tend to lock up after themselves as a rule. Jake could be wrong, he supposed. Just because he felt this way, that didn't mean there would be something actually there, right? He couldn't shake it though, some sound or scent or maybe just intuition warned him. He pulled his nine millimeter and waved at the door with his free hand, the light of the moon letting everyone else make it out. He wanted a spear, but hadn't come for a cleaning. Instead he and Dave went to either side of the door and opened it. Then, standing in shooting positions the others started talking.

  “Alright, so is anything in there, do you think?” Tipper said conversationally, too loudly.

  Carl hooted loudly and then called out, “Free food out here, come on down!” It didn't take a half minute for the first of them, a runner to come out. He looked like a fairly young man, fresh, but still just a new regular one, not a super-z. Dave, pointing upward, took its head as it passed. The next one Jake got and the last turned out to be the kid again, as it stopped to feed on the downed one.

  It didn't make sense at all, he'd swept the place himself thoroughly when he'd brought the others and had stayed there for nearly a week. Then they did it again when they got there not five or six hours before. For them to have gotten in like that, someone had to have let them in. Put them there.

  That explained the clacking of shotguns behind them.

  “Just put those weapons down easy and we won't have any problems. Police. You folks are all under arrest for poaching government livestock.”

  The man that spoke sounded smug, but even in the moonlight looked too hairy to be a real police officer, at least Back Before. He had buddies with him though, and they did wear jackets that said police on them in nice, big, bright white letters. Right across their chests. That meant the heads were just above that and centered. Just up from the “L”. Helpful of them. There seemed to be fifteen of them or so, arrayed in a partial circle. It had been them that used the zombies in order to soften them up? Only no softening had happened.

  You'd think they would have noticed that?

  Tipper's voice sounded scared. Timid.

  Totally fake.

  “Alright, we'll put our weapons down now, slowly.”

  Then the gun fire started and all hell broke loose.

Chapter Six

The gun fight lasted about twenty seconds. They were surrounded after all. Normally that meant doom for the good guys, but over half their people were cleaners and that meant two things. They worked well as a team and were good at taking head shots under pressure. Often in the dark. Normally without small reflective letters to help them aim. That part was really a godsend.

  The first three seconds saw six officers dropped to the ground, missing at least part of their skulls. The next batch took longer, about seven seconds, because the targets moved. They still had those nice white letters on and when they turned to run they had them on their backs too.