A Very Good Man (55 page)

   Everyone here had gotten by while making it harder on other people so far, even if they didn't have a choice. For a group this large to get a winter's supply of food, this late in the season was probably impossible, if anyone wanted to be lazy, that could be enough to send them all to their deaths. Yay.

  His little adventure in angry extortion had pointed out to him how fragile so many things were. The greenhouse was a boon, but just taking away the plastic made it useless for instance. Or the clothing... even some of the tools. These people had things that the house didn't, but those were limited in quantity and not going to be around forever. Not even close to it.

  He explained it all as well as he could on the fly, and everyone listened, looking afraid. But if they were afraid right now, just wait until the food ran out, there was a foot of snow on the ground and fifty cannibals stood at the gate demanding the young children be thrown out first, because they were more tender.

  It was a mess that their men had gotten them into and really, even if they tried, Jake didn't think they'd last half the winter without help.

  Honestly they probably wouldn't make it with help either.

  But Jake wouldn't just leave them to die. It was hard, because more women just meant more rejection most likely, but they had kids with them, and really, you just didn't abandon people to die. Not if you could maybe do something. Even if it was a lost cause.

  “Right,” He said, looking around trying to size everyone up, he pointed to Dave and grinned suddenly.

  “See that man right there? He's killed more zombies than any of us could bother to count. He and I are going to teach you basic survival skills, then we're going hunting, for animals, not the dead. Becky? Do you have spare ammunition or anything like that? We have a man that may be able to make more if you have the equipment... Burt? I think I mentioned him?”

  Becky didn't answer, a pert looking blond that had pale skin and couldn't have been twenty-five did.

  “Heck yeah! We have re-loaders, brass, and everything else you'd need. Here, I'll take you to it.” She seemed excited at least. And loud about it.

  Suddenly they all did as if they'd just been waiting for a chance to prove they weren't dead weight. Well now they'd get it.

  Ready or not.

  Jake just didn't think it would really be enough.

  Not without a lot of help.

  Not without a miracle, he amended.

  Probably not even then.

  It was a chance though, he thought with a shrug. Smiling a little he got to work. It was going to be a long day and a longer winter.

  A very long winter.

The story continues in:

“Dead End: A Very Good Neighbor”

By

P.S. Power

Available right now on Amazon Kindle. Get it today!

Keep reading for a free sample of

“Abominations”

By P.S. Power

The first in the astounding new Gwen Farris series!

Available now.

Chapter one

  Gwen woke up in a strange room, unable to move. Not even twitch. At first it felt like a night terror or sleep paralysis, but after a minute it was clear something more serious was going on. She tried to struggle for a second but got the idea pretty quickly.

  Whatever was happening, she wasn't allowed to just get up and leave on her own. Beneath her the bed... table... whatever it was, felt hard – cold – like stone. Not the softly comfortable memory foam she'd gone to sleep on at all. Something in her mouth kept her from making more than the smallest of sounds. Oddly enough it didn't keep her from breathing through her nose, an uncomfortable thing for her to do at the best of times. Right now the air flowed easily for some reason. No pain came from that area of her face, so it wasn't that someone had just freed up her breathing passages by cutting her open or anything like that either. Not that she could tell at least. If they had wouldn't the blood be getting into her lungs?

   She should probably panic about now, Gwen knew, since her hands and feet seemed to be tied securely to the surface below her. That just couldn't be a good sign. She couldn't even begin to wiggle enough to start trying to escape. That got a try for a bit, because there should be more movement, unless someone had her legs and arms strapped down too? Considering that as an option – panic – Gwen decided to put the idea aside for now. It would leave her something to do later if things really got bad.

  Always good to have a fallback position and her realistic options were a bit limited at the moment. Panic or not panic... that was about it, as far as she could tell.

  Gwen looked around, only a little frantic, trying to stay calm and take in everything she could, in case she managed to get out of this one alive somehow, as unlikely as that seemed.

  Not that she cared that much about living really. The thought occurred to her for what must have been the twentieth time that week, an old and familiar thing at this point in her life. Now, not letting these creeps, whoever they were, get away with this, that gave her a real reason to live. For the moment.

  It felt ironic to her that these freaks, and face it, they had to be pretty freaky if they wanted to tie her up, gave Gwen more of a reason to go on than anything else had for quite a while. Possibly ever.

   Maybe a Christmas card would be in order, to thank them for thinking of her? A choked chuckle came from low in her throat. She'd take what she could get and run with it for now, a laugh, a reason to live, whatever. When you had nothing, a crumb could feel like a feast. She'd feasted on enough crumbs to know the feeling.

  A man in a black robe, with the hood up, the floppy kind that covered the top part of his face, hanging down nearly over his eyes altogether, walked over and gestured to someone else who was just out of her field of vision.

  She assumed it was a person. It could be this guy's imaginary friend for all she knew. Giant invisible rabbit maybe? Her head didn't turn to the side, so she could only see a small portion of the room. The guy acted like someone else was there, if that meant anything. Who could tell with crazy?

  “She's awake! Good, we can begin. Anything to say dear, before we start?” The man bent down, as if actually listening to her. Nice of him.

   Gwen made a noise, trying to form words around the gag, the taste of rubber in her mouth as her tongue moved against it. The object tasted and felt like a car tire to her tongue. Not pleasant, but at least they hadn't just shoved a used sock or condom in. She'd had both done to her in the past, along with a lot of other things, some of them worse. Bullies, for some reason, always seemed really drawn to her mouth. Attacking what they feared.

  He looked slightly shocked and asked her to repeat herself, which she did, calmly. Mostly calm. She tried for peaceful, if nothing else. Gwen understood that she was going to die, the knife in the hand of the man that walked into view looked sharp, wickedly so. Pointy too.

  So hey, the imaginary guy was real. Well, main hood guy should be happy he had friends. Never could have too many of those, or so she'd heard.

   Scrambling mentally, she tried to think of a reason someone would kidnap her from bed, probably drugging her somehow first, as a prank or to do something that didn't involve simply killing her. Any reason at all. She came up blank. Rape would be right out. In her entire life, after dozens of assaults, from men, women, and even a few kids, not one of them had even bothered trying to feel her up. Not looking like she did. So, someone had apparently just decided to make her life easier and do it.            Kill her.

  Well fuck.

  After the third, very calm, she thought, all things considered, attempt to speak the man seemed to grow curious and loosened the gags strap, pulling the fairly large ball of black rubber out of her mouth. Her jaw ached as the pressure was relieved and she moved her mouth a little, trying to regain circulation.

  “Here, this will make it easier to speak, dear. Do you have some kind of last request or statement you wish to make before the sacrifice?” His tone sounded nice – kindly – almost like a grandfather from a television show or something. That or some old country doctor, but with a slightly British accent that had to be fake. No one talked like that in Nebraska. Even English people didn't. Not that she'd ever heard at least.

  He drew his hood back, heavy black material of some kind, showing him to have a face that matched the voice. Older, in his sixties she guessed, face lined, but with smile lines as well as others, not someone that frowned all the time. Hair a mix of white and gray, neatly combed and freshly cut looking. It was a good face, she realized. One that people would trust. It would be a mistake, but people would do it anyway. People almost always judged based on looks.

  Swallowing so that her voice wouldn't sound too rough, she looked at him with her eyes, head and body still bound somehow, or frozen from drugs. Her tongue moved, so maybe her voice would work. Only way to tell would be trying.

  “I said, fuck you, motherfuckers. I hope you all burn in hell.” Her voice sounded strange to her, softer than normal, less nasal, lower pitched. Then again she didn't know what she really sounded like after having her mouth stretched for hours, or however long it had been, by a black rubber ball gag. It sounded better to her. Another thing she'd missed out on then. Who would have thought gags could have therapeutic value?

  The man smiled at this, laughing suddenly.

  “Oh ho! Very good! You know, most people try to beg and plead their way out of things at this point. Too bad you're about to die, I think you may have been a very special woman, Katherine.” He flipped his hood up and took the knife back from the person next to him, a man she thought, from the hands. No identifying rings, but the hands didn't look old and wrinkled, for what that meant. Why couldn't the bad guys ever have identifying tattoos on their hands in real life like they did in the movies? It would make things so much easier later.

  Even knowing she'd probably die, she kept making herself record everything, the scent of the room, something she didn't recognize but tried to hold in memory, just in case. How many people? Six or seven, her head held in place somehow, so she couldn't just look around, there could be more, out of range. Keep everything, just in case.