Silencer, p.2
Silencer, page 2
He nearly shot her first, to stop the noise, since it ate at his every instinct at the moment, nearly forcing him to silence her but he managed to load three rounds into the charger's brain pan instead. Stopping the large fellow no more than a foot outside an arm’s reach from its target. Molly kept screaming.
“Stupid cunt. Shut the fuck up.”
Jake didn't like to use foul language as a rule, and even felt awkward about doing it then, but the girl was going to get them all killed. Possibly in the next few minutes, if she didn't shut it fast. Before he could shoot her, which was his job on the crew, if someone went off the rails and started getting loud for too long, Tipper cast him a worried look and spoke low, nearly the growl that Jake used most of the time himself. It wasn’t actually needed. He just did it to remind people not to go over the top with the noise.
Tip glared as well, and sounded like she was about to lay down the freaking law.
“Can it Molly. Stop now or we'll have to kill you.” She kept looking at Jake while she spoke.
Ever since the beginning, in the first weeks after the fall, whenever people had to be killed for the good of the group, everyone always looked at him. Probably because in the original group of eight, he'd been the only one willing to take out Gary when the poor guy had freaked. Finally losing it, after far too long soaking in insanity. It had been the eighth night when it happened. Zombies came toward organic noises, especially human voices but they totally ignored gunfire.
What Molly didn't ignore was the clatter of Dave's shotgun chambering a round. It was a very distinctive sound. The kid wouldn't kill the girl, or at least Jake didn't think so, not yet. He really wanted to though. So did Jake, at the moment.
That feeling stopped when the girl did, her voice going dead instantly. Thanks to the short guy in their crew.
Holding his nine down, Jake smiled, gently.
“Good. Keep that under control, Mol. Let's pull back and see what comes out now. That racket had to get some zombie saliva flowing, I bet.” This, again got muttered low and deep. Jake may not have had more than a mid-tone tenor for singing but his dulcet voice went freaking low for zombies. Nearly into an inhuman croaking range. They liked high pitched voices better and higher tones seemed to carry better to zombie ears.
The cleaners moved quietly then, weapons out, except for Molly, who glared at him when she thought he wasn't looking. Why she was bothering to focus on him, he had no idea. True, Jake would have killed her if she hadn't shut-up but so would the others, if he hadn’t been there. Screaming when it wasn’t time for it was dangerous on a level that could have ended all their lives in moments. They even all liked her well enough when she didn't freak out like that. He wondered what her problem with him could be, if only for a moment. At the same time he scanned the world, looking for any hint of movement.
Thinking as he watched. It had been her screwing up as far as he could tell. Even with that, when she moved wrong, he'd covered for her and gotten the dump in time. Her messing up basic things was annoying but not something to carry around with them really. Truly, anyone could make a mistake, or even several, when a half dozen dead people were running at them.
Plus, he really had gotten his part of things done. If mainly by luck, instead of skill or planning.
That, dumping a single zombie over, made a vast, almost indescribable, difference when hunting them. The first hunters hadn’t known about that basic trick and had ended up in vast open fights with undead climbing all over them. About half of them had died each time they fought, because zombies don't stop unless you destroyed a big chunk of their brain, which movies aside, was harder to do than it sounded. Unless you provided food.
Yes, they could have thrown a living person to them too. That even worked pretty well, overall. It was a bit hard on morale, though. Dumping another zombie got the others to stop for about half a minute while they each tried taking a bite of the downed form, just in case it was lunch. They didn't like the taste, or so it seemed but it could take them three or four bites to make sure of that fact.
All of the dead stopped, at least most of the time, to check on an already downed potential snack. Hence a guy at the door with a spear. Machetes and baseball bats had been tried too, and they kind of worked but had drawbacks. Machetes let the creatures get too close and bats didn't get them on the ground fast enough. It could take a half dozen swings to down one and that just took too long if the z had a buddy or two with them.
Shooting worked but zombies rarely went down from anything less than a headshot and shooting them holding still and bent over a body, trying to get their munch on, was much easier than doing the same thing as they were charging directly at you, full blast. They didn't move all that fast as they aged, certainly but the fresh ones were nearly as quick as live people.
Anyone could take out slow shamblers. Jake had done it while sleeping, at least twice, himself. That was only half a lie, even. He’d woken up enough to get that something was going on, after all. Still, shamblers were easy to take out.
That was where the old movies had it wrong though, thinking that the old ones were all you'd have to ever face, and that they'd all look like they'd come out of the grave. They really did get that way after a while but the fresh ones could sometimes pass as human. In looks at least.
Except most people didn't try to eat you. Not even when food was running scarce.
They moved back a nice distance, quietly, waiting to see if anything else came out to play. Nothing did, thank god. Not that Jake believed anymore, if he ever really had. Not now. If there had ever been a God the jerk had abandoned them all six months back and hadn't even sent a note to explain why. No backup had been sent, or anything.
Which was kind of a douche move if it was really the case.
Molly sat on the ground crying in relative silence and glaring at him between sobs. At least she was muffling the noise now. Really, Jake felt like just getting a new screamer, or just learning to do it himself. He really couldn't though. His voice always stayed too soft now.
The chubby girl would end up getting him killed, however, and the way she'd been doing things, he'd come back as a zombie. That would suck.
For one thing he really didn't think human flesh would be all that tasty since zombies didn't even cook it first. Plus everyone was thin and stringy now. Even Molly, who he’d been thinking of as chunky would have been no more than kind of soft, nine months before. His mind had simply gotten warped on the idea.
The other matter was the whole look they got going, pasty and torn up. The rotting and strange, acrid scent didn't help either. Sure, he was white but finally had a little color to his face from all the hunting the team had done that summer, along with the farm work he'd put in. He'd hate to lose that now. It was the best tan he'd ever had.
Nothing happened at all, not for hours. Finally, just about the time he was getting ready to call a halt to the day, a single form walked out of a house near the one they'd been working in. The form didn't shamble or run. No, the thing just walked carefully, looking around. It could be one of the rare smart ones, or it could even be a regular person.
Which wasn’t their problem if the latter, the former was, though. The intelligent zombies were the worst. There was no easy way to tell if it was a dead person for sure from there, or, well there was one but it was kind of dangerous. After watching the being for several minutes, still not able to tell, except that it seemed like a girl, or a woman... or a young man wearing a dress. Jake decided on trying the easy thing. First he signaled to Dave and Tipper, a single wave from him to the target, cupping his hands in front of his face to explain the plan. They both nodded back, ready to move if need be.
“Hello!” Jake yelled, his voice still hoarse from all the whispering he'd been doing over the last months. Then he waited.
The form didn't run toward them, instead it turned and ran away. Meaning she was human, then. Good. They could go. If the person had wanted to talk, they would have either yelled back, or if they were sane, waved and waited to see what happened. Of course their hunting group were cleaners, the people that moved in and cleared neighborhoods of the undead, which meant, if not a safe group, at least one that probably wouldn't rape or rob you. Everyone knew that by now. Most of the other remaining groups were a little spottier than that.
Really, that wasn't exactly correct.
Most groups were made of decent people that would as soon leave you alone as not, truth be told. Those groups hid and kept their heads down when they could. Some of the worst went out looking for victims a lot. There had been a biker gang that terrorized the area for the first two months for instance. That group had been a pretty rough and tumble lot.
They didn't make it.
What might have worked to intimidate good regular people back before, didn't work very well on zombies at all, and people who hunted the already dead didn't just give up because you looked a little scary or waved a gun. It was an attitude thing, really.
The biggest problem they still had in Westwood, was the police. The remaining piece of the police force, that was. The fire department had held together for nearly three weeks at the beginning, scrambling to fight fires and protect people, even if they weren't armed for the job at all. The EMTs held nearly as long after the announcement from the Center for Disease Control came over everyone's radios and television sets.
The police had started breaking the law inside four days. They didn't just run, which could have been forgiven, Jake guessed. After all, they weren't trained for Armageddon any more than the next group of people. What they’d done though was use the taxpayer provided weapons and their badges to loot the town, then took over Castor's farm, which, thanks to crazy Mr. Castor's paranoia, had a fence around the whole place topped with barbed wire. They made occasional raids still and had taken to stealing women for some reason, or so it was rumored. The reasons why varied depending on who you asked. Jake didn't know himself.
He just kind of hoped it wasn't for food.
All he knew for certain was that they didn't send out small groups like his. Any group over ten people had to be watched, just in case it turned out to be them. Luckily, the police were trained to be cowardly. They constantly feared everything, meaning they didn't go out too often. That worked for the rest of the survivors at the moment, and his crew since it meant they could just walk back home before dark. It was only about five miles, which meant two hours since they had Molly along. She couldn't keep up with even a slow jog and whined about a fast walk.
If she did that today though, Jake was going to have to shoot her.
It wasn't a rule that you had to go quickly, or even that you couldn't whine. Really, complaining was as close to entertainment as they had most days, any longer. He'd just had enough of her for the moment. Hopefully, the others would back his story about how she'd turned into a zombie without warning and he'd had to help her along, or they could claim she'd tripped and gotten lost... Or that gypsies had stolen her.
No one would buy that last one but that would be halfway funny at least.
Instead of doing any of that, he pasted a soft grin on his face, and mugged a bit for the others. Even Molly, who kept glaring at him. Still, even she kept looking around, in case of attack.
The journey went even slower than normal and Molly did, of course, start complaining about halfway there. Not loudly but it still rankled. Mainly because she'd decided everything that had happened was his fault and harped on the idea without pause.
“We agreed on left, that's what we practiced and then you moved right. How am I supposed to do anything about that? Those things nearly got me!” She said, her tone rather sincerely bitchy.
Jake, thankfully, didn't have to answer her, since Dave did.
“You stupid cunt, you ran the wrong way. Again, for the third time. It's always your own left. You went to the right. Not doing that is how you're supposed to stop it. Yeah, Jake took the spear to the other side, scrambling not to stab your chunky ass. It nearly got him killed and you're trying to blame him for it? God. Look I know you're not exactly Mensa material but you could at least learn to notice when you mess up that badly, can't you?”
The girl, wearing no make-up on a slightly round face that actually looked better now than it had early on, having thinned a good bit due to reduced rations, looked to Tipper for some girl solidarity. Her big brown cow eyes were kind of imploring actually. Jake nearly felt bad for her but she wasn't trying for good will from him. Just Tipper.
She didn't find it.
One thing about Tip, she was all work in the field. Hardcore, like a soldier or even a special forces operative. Most of the rest of the time, too. Freaking tough really. It meant she called things like she saw them, no matter who it might offend. Including him if he was the one screwing up but this time that wasn't her reaction at all.
She simply glared before speaking.
“No shit, Mol. Jake went by the plan and the only thing that saved you was how quick his reflexes are. Twice. If you think Dave or I could have saved you back there, think again. We were in the wrong place totally and would have taken half your face off if we'd tried to hit those hostiles with shotguns at that range. What was with the screaming off plan crap, anyway? That should have bought you a bullet to the brain you know. I'm really kind of shocked that it didn't.” She fired a strange look at Jake then, one that spoke of fear she hadn't shown when everything had happened at all.
Worry about Jake having not killed the girl. Maybe he was being too soft.
The dark-haired girl looked at the other woman with a bit of venom in her eyes but didn't say anything. Tipper may have given them a funny name to call her but that was the only joke she'd told. If it was one.
Dave just walked, bored with the conversation already. Jake could see that. There would be more of it to come, obviously, from the way Molly stared at him, but hey, that was part and parcel to being around other human beings. People generally whined, and almost always their complaints were going to be about useless shit. Before, back when he lived in his parent's basement and played video games sixteen hours a day, that's how he'd been. A whining and annoying little waste of space. If he were going to be honest, Molly now was a better person than he'd been back then. At least she tried to help people by screaming.
He'd mainly just moped, sulked, and felt like the world had wronged him.
They kept walking and the complaints became less frequent as they sped up. It really wasn't that Jake wanted to silence Molly. He was still for freedom of speech, even if they didn’t have laws any longer. Low voiced, calm, free speech. Still, he truly wanted to get back in time for dinner, since it was potato night. The night before they'd had venison, which was a treat, which Carl had taken down on his way back from a clean-up with his crew. That was rare though. No one hunted regularly and the deer avoided town. They still had some meat left, which would probably be a stew or something for dinner but they'd had mashed turnips the day before. Those weren’t exactly a culinary delight as far as Jake was concerned.
Then again he'd complain about that out loud at just about the same time he could run into town to pick up a big bag of something else for dinner. It was food and that's what they had, so he ate it.
A few people still went on about things like that, or dreamed of foods they didn't have. It didn't help. It just made you hungry for things you couldn't get, which left you unsatisfied. Better to just forget about food as anything more than what you had at the moment, and that night they had potatoes. Early ones managed to grow on the farm that their group had taken over. It had been backbreaking labor but they'd gotten nearly two hundred acres planted back in May. The big harvest was coming, and then they had to can, dry and all that other stuff he'd never done before and had barely even heard of. Thank God they had Lois and Mary to run that part for them. If it weren’t for the two women, one an old hippie who used to live on a commune and the other a survivalist, they'd have been going hungry the next winter for sure.
The farm was in the middle of a field of green, low things planted around the house, corn off a way in the distance, so that no one could sneak up on them too easily. They had herbs near the back of the house, which improved the food a lot, and beets as well, maybe carrots too. Jake didn't really know for certain off the top of his head. Most of the crews that went hunting didn't do a lot around the place. He tried, when he could, because it only made sense. If everyone pitched in, their odds of survival went up. If they carried dead weight... Well, winter was going to be hard that way.
He didn't mind the kids that much, because really they weren't dead weight, just young. The two who were left did their chores without complaint and even did a decent job of it. Better than a lot of the older people to tell the truth. The elderly people... well no one really old was alive any longer. You couldn’t run with bad joints, or any other health issues that came with age. The oldest people they had were Burt and Lois, and both of them stayed in and around the house or went into town to loot only with a heavy guard. Burt knew stuff. Useful things, like how to make water pumps and wind turbines from scratch, as well as how to fix plumbing, chimneys and too many other things to count. The man didn't just carry his own weight but part of everyone else's as well.
All Jake could do really was manual labor. He tried to learn at least, when he could, and work as best he was able.
But they had dead weight.
The idiot squad, in particular. They weren't hunters or even useful at anything, they weren't even good for guard duty for the most part, since they were too lazy to trust at night, when things got boring. It was a team of four or five men, led by the oh-so popular Derrick Holsom.
He'd been on the police force before but they hadn't taken him in when they raided the town. Holsom had claimed it was because he was a good cop and that the criminals on the force just hadn't liked that he'd wanted to try and protect the civilians. Jake was pretty sure he understood what they'd really been thinking now, though. At very best Derrick would have been a pain in the rear for whoever was in charge of the cop compound. Even here he tried to undermine Nate, their leader, at every turn.
