Silencer, p.27
Silencer, page 27
Burt went over the well, the help with the windmill and the nursery for the babies as well as the greenhouse. The work on the forge too as well as the wood stoves.
Vickie covered the guns and ammo he'd gotten and all the supplies collected. That she knew about some of the things almost baffled him. She'd been keeping a tally for a while then, he guessed. Why that was, he didn't get at all. He didn't even remember getting the kitchen supplies or new drinking glasses for instance. That had been months before.
The woman read it all out of a notebook, a yellow legal pad that flipped open at the top. It wasn't something hastily put together but rather something she'd actually been doing for a long time.
It was thick and had a lot more than just his duties in it, as well. Everything seemed to be listed.
Tipper covered his cleaning work, house defense and guard duties. The fights with the police that probably would have killed a lot of them if he hadn't been there. The gangs he’d helped to drive away, and all that.
That left Nate who sighed and stared around the room.
“Not to mention the leadership duties and how many needed projects you've started Jake. Can we even put a price on that?” The tone was almost Pollyannaish, a kind of see how good he's been sort of thing that kind of did leave him feeling good, which had probably been the point. Nate was good at things like that.
Then casually, probably thinking that everyone there would take the obvious point, Nate opened the floor for discussion.
That... didn't go well at all.
Which really Nate should have gotten already, being the people-person he normally was. Well, Jake had warned him. It started with a man he didn't even really know, except from around, over the last four months, calling him a murderer. The guy didn't raise his voice but he sounded angry, livid really.
“He killed Gloria!” The man husked to the room. “Murdered her in cold blood in front of me, and... and a lot of others, too. Anyone who had a bad day and raised their voice even a little. He'd use that as an excuse to shoot me right now if I yelled at him. We don't need bullies here. I say we should kick him out and not give him shit. He doesn't deserve what we've all worked so hard for.”
A lot of the room nodded along.
Then joined in.
It went on for a while. Going into how mean he was, was a popular theme. Also how he was bossy and pushed people around, making them work when they were tired or sick and not caring about their feelings. Jake listened, each word getting harder to hear. They all really hated him. Somewhere inside he’d thought that it was different than that. Not that anyone loved him there, but that some of them would at least have understood why he’d pushed them to work. How come he’d been forced to kill their friends, in order to save them from almost certain death.
He tried to keep it from showing on his face but the darkness cast at him built up with each grievance aired. If this was what Nate had in mind it wasn't a good plan at all. Before Jake had felt a little like some of the women there were being a bit less than kind toward him, not picking him to have sex with even though they'd gladly spread their legs for all the other guys, and in a few cases most of them.
Now he realized that almost everyone there just hated him. An actual, honest to God personal dislike. As in they mainly wanted him dead. A lot of them spoke out against him anyway, supposedly afraid, or not. Made brave by the support of all the others doing the same thing. Most of those people were holding the opinion that he shouldn't get much at all if anything. Even as Nate and the others reminded them that Jake had done a huge amount of work.
Someone called out for a vote from the back of the room. A man, one of the guys that had to be the father to one of Holsom's kids. Tracy's new guy, Jake thought. The shaggy and unkempt man in brown asked for a show of hands. One saying Jake should be asked to leave and not be given anything. Over half the hands went up. Forty-three of them. None of those came from the front table, so at least there was that.
That made him feel like part of the group. Jake also noticed that there were others who didn’t vote for his death. Most were men, but not all. Some of them looked highly... Annoyed by the goings on. Jose had to get what was happening from Nate, and turned to face the room, a seriously baffled expression on his face. Then he said something in Spanish.
Their leader translated.
“He says that this is the stupidest thing you morons have ever done.” That announcement didn’t go over well at all.
Nate tried to call for order but in a sea of whispers and happy sounds the voice got lost. Jake stood, waving his left hand a bit, the forty-five in his right, held down still. Sighing, but shaking his head and smiling a little bit.
He was taking his things anyway, he decided.
“This is different, then. I’d only asked for a bit to get me started, not everything I’d worked for. If you want to do this as a hostile action, then... Well, fairness means I have to take everything I provided, so my enemies here can’t use them. I’m sorry about that. I understand that a lot of you are... Well, not thinking clearly or being good people. It’s a stressful time and hard to understand why I’ve done what was needed. Someone else will have to take over and make that happen. I wish you all the best of luck in that. I honestly do.”
He said this with a weapon in each hand but no one heard him, except Nate and Tipper, who'd both been staring.
Tipper mouthed a single word.
“Fuck.” She grabbed Nate's arm having to stand to do it and pointed, eyes wide and a little scared looking.
Yeah, he could get that. They’d told everyone what his honest portion was. Truly, he couldn’t take it all, physically. But he'd done his share of the work. Life wasn't fair but sending him without anything was meant by these people, those who had voted against him, as a death sentence. It was night, too. Safe enough for him probably but scary to try and move around in.
Still, the unwashed masses had spoken and their word was that Jake wasn't welcome there any longer. They didn't need or want him. Smiling, gently, he nodded. He was only one person. They could get along without him, if they tried and people stepped up and did what was needed.
Jake wouldn't make the trip that night, in the dark, but the farmhouse they'd used for hunting was still free. He really doubted that the cops would be back there anytime soon and it was fairly close to water. He'd want a well, if he could pull that off, since walking a mile a day in the snow would be a pain, but there was wood and stuff around for him to harvest. He needed tools but could leave his mattress. There were some serviceable ones in place already.
Jake needed a wood stove but the little one in the second bedroom would work for that, he was just one person and could huddle close to it, which would save on fuel anyway. His plan had been to search the town for one, later, but if the people there insisted on making it a fight, then he could do that, as well. Plus, everyone who was sleeping in that particular room had voted against him. Being a bit put out by having to do some work for themselves was fine, really. It might help them become better people.
Probably not, of course. They’d had their entire lives to improve themselves and hadn’t, after all.
About half the people, made bold by numbers, started to move on him, fists clenched where weapons weren't in hand. That got a laugh from Dave which brought everyone's attention around quickly, the room going silent.
“Fucking morons. Are you all trying to die, or are you just really that stupid?” He emphasized the moron part by chambering a round in his shotgun and pointing it at the head of the man in front of the crowd.
“You all think that by sending Jake away you're killing him but you're not, you're killing yourselves. Didn't you pay attention during that accounting? I didn't even get to finish the eighth grade and I can count high enough to know that most of you would be dead already without those things. Nearly half the serious problems we’ve had here, the deadly shit, gangs, cops, and zombies, was handled by one guy. Love you Nate, but it wasn’t you. Not Tipper or Vickie, or Carl, either. Not even me. You all need to get your heads on straight and cut this shit out now.”
It got them to all stop moving. Some still muttered.
Nate spoke quickly. His voice grave and anxious, at the same time. Fast and by some strange measure, ponderous.
“We need to think about things carefully here people. This wasn't about attacking Jake, it was about trying to get him to stay. Everything is holding by a few scant threads here and one of the main strands is him and you...” He buried his head in his hands, which got some of the people to at least shift around uneasily. “You really are morons. You’re killing us all, doing this. Jake... Please...”
Jake smiled a bit, sighed, and then shook his head before walking out. They’d asked him to leave. In a vote. Forty-three to seventeen, with eight people not bothering to vote at all. He headed to the forge area, deciding to sleep there. It beat the porch and was less exposed now, plus no one knew to look for him there if they decided to attack. For the second night he was uncomfortable but that was all right. He'd leave and his life would get better. Or, possibly, he'd die.
Which was the end point for all people. The end of the world had taught him that lesson with a firm and certain hand.
Still, the vote bothered him. It was an ache, deep inside of his soul.
Even Holsom and his people had been going to be sent off with a full share per person... And they wanted him to go with nothing. In the dark. Jake had to fight down the urge to be angry with a whole bunch of people. Which made it hard to sleep but he finally managed. In the morning he got up early and started loading the smaller cart.
No one said anything, seeming to understand that he wasn’t grabbing the best for himself, even if he was taking more than an even portion. Not until he took two boxes of ammo. One for each of his weapons.
That was honestly less than his share of things, even discounting the fact that he'd brought in most of it himself and had helped with a large chunk of the rest. The same guy from the night before, Bill, pregnant Tracy's boyfriend, or man slave, whatever they were calling it, came out with three others, to try and take the bullets back.
They weren’t polite.
“You can’t have those! Those are our property. We need them if we’re going to live through the winter.”
Jake shrugged, calmly.
“I do as well. You can learn to aim a bit better. I will be all right.”
Then, smiling pleasantly, Jake ignored them and kept packing up.
They might have tried to shoot him in the back, but they were largely homebodies. Those too afraid to fight as a rule. They could bluff and bluster, and even act pretty tough but when it came down to it, they didn't have what it took to do much. Oh, one might panic and accidently shoot him in a gun fight, but with him simply packing up a lot less than he should have had...
No, even these rather slow thinkers wouldn't try it.
Nate and Carl came out, walking fast. The muscular black man looked at the others, the ones holding guns on Jake, and shook his head. A slow and ponderous thing, his facial expression amazed.
His words were the sort of calm that people used with madmen. Rather, those standing too near such a being.
“Go inside now. Move. I truly don't want to have to clean up your bodies today.”
Nate just stared and then shook his head, a large and over exaggerated move.
“God, Jake, I... we can't afford to lose you. They're just upset. Let me talk to them and we can work this out.”
“Work what out? They hate me, for killing people they loved, Nate. I did it. Nearly a dozen times. It saved a lot of their lives but they won't love me for doing it, no matter how long you talk at them. It isn’t their fault even. I... I understand the idea. Yes, they’re being petty about it, and foolish, in the moment. It's better this way, besides,” Jake decided to go for a joke of sorts, feeling a little sad already. Lonely. Still, he was only honest when he spoke. Feeling a bit sad.
“With the brain surgeon team in there calling the shots, I can probably come and scavenge from this place during the winter. What do you think? Four months? Five? Half of you could make it just fine, being solid workers and a few people that are just this side of incredible but you need to lose the dead weight, not let them lead. If you could all go easy on the preserves please? I'm going to want that later. I really like the strawberry.”
The other men grimaced but didn't laugh. Even if Jake had seemed light and even sort of happy about the whole thing. He didn’t feel that way. Inside he was burning with sadness. Not for himself, either. A lot of the people there weren’t going to make it. Probably not even if he could have stayed to help them. He shook his head and kept working.
They got his meaning though. The winter, a full winter, would be hard. In the last one they’d all had a common enemy to fight daily and food to scavenge from stores and the cupboards of dead people, and people still had died of the cold and hunger. That was in early spring really, not winter even.
Now they just had themselves and a lot of these people weren't going to make the right choices on their own. Their best action was one that he doubted anyone would take. Nate needed to man up, Vickie should be put in charge of cleaning and guarding them and Dave needed to execute about fifteen of the worst people.
Jake needed to move, he knew that, before the slower people freaked and came at him all at once. No one tried to stop him when he pulled the small round metal stove from the second room. No one helped either, so it made a lot of thumping noise going down the stairs and left a few scratches in the wood. He winced at that. No one wanted to just make a mess. No one worth their salt. As he walked away with a fully loaded cart, no one even said goodbye.
He hadn't expected that anyone would but it would have been nice if someone had cared at least a little. Jake didn't look back. There was too much to get done and no time for it.
Really he had to figure out how to get food and wood in fast. That, and water. He wouldn't need as much, not just for him but it would have to mainly be meat as far as food went. Given he had no time left to grow anything now. That meant drying it somehow. Smoking, if he could work that out. He could hunt for a while but having something to hand would help a lot.
He felt like a tool now, after doing all that hard work on the harvest for these people. The horrible ones. Well, that was life. It had never been truly fair. Right now he needed to survive, not whine about things being a little difficult.
Jake hit the house fast, set up the stove in the kitchen, deciding it would be his main room, since it was smaller than the living room on the far side of the place. Then he unloaded most of the tools, in the barn.
After that he got down to the real work, which took days. He barely rested, and didn't take the cart back, needing it to scavenge supplies from town. On the good side he didn't see anyone the whole time. No land sharks. No whiny people, and the animals who bothered to look at him funny got turned into jerky. Tough leathery bits that he used most of the house's window screens for. He collected more of those from in town during his trips. Wood was both easier and harder to come by there. The river had a lot of trees along it but they were mainly too big to take down alone. There was no chainsaw either. So Jake collected branches, even twigs and sticks, practically running through his days. Jake thought he had about four cords put by after the second week, and a lot of meat. Not enough but a refrigerator full of dried deer, raccoon, and red squirrel. It didn't work without power of course but the white insulted container made a handy storage box. He actually passed by a bunch of deer, because he couldn't dry the meat fast enough and didn't really know any other way to save it with what he had to hand.
After a bit, using trial and error and a little bit of memory from some old television programs, Jake figured out how to save skins, putting them on a frame and using string to stretch them out, then rubbing the brains of the animal on the still moist inside. That one weird trick had come from Carl. He didn't do a wonderful job at first but he saved everything he could. Even the bones and antlers.
From in town he gathered supplies and made his own pump, out of PVC pipe, with wood for the handle, and old boot leather for the gasket and plunger thing. Then he drove his own well. It worked, if poorly compared to the ones Burt had made. He needed to do better but it gave him some water without twice daily trips to the river with a bucket. He even caught two foxes and a porcupine, which he speared, trying to save bullets.
Through more trial and error he figured out a crude snare that worked for rabbits and set up thirty of them as he went around gathering more wood. After a while, about a week, he started getting a few of those each day even. That really helped. The meat was lean, and he had to eat it with berries and fat or he felt sick after a while, a few days but in all, things were going pretty well for him.
By the time anyone came to visit, about a month later, things were looking pretty good at his little place. It wasn't that small even. Not for just him. He'd even managed a little fifty-gallon hot water heater made up out of an old hibachi grill and a regular water heater that he'd stripped the outside insulation off of on a whim, wondering what would be under it. That was a large metal tank, it turned out. It worked pretty well and he got daily warm baths out of the experimentation. The place had a great old-fashioned tub, with claw feet on it. Filling the tank was a pain but he managed. It just took time and effort. Jake had plenty of both, at the moment. He wanted to figure out how to run water directly to it but hadn't really worked that out yet.
It took days but he finally got his own cart built too, so he could return the one from the house. He didn't particularly want to go, so the old one just sat in the barn, waiting for him to make the trip.
“Putting off unpleasant things? Who’s doing that, not Jake the killer? No, he would never do that.”
He smiled when he thought about it that way. In his whole time alone he hadn't had to kill anyone. Not a single person. That part was spectacular.
It almost made up for not being loved even. Every single day, he felt a bit better. A little happier. Like a weight was lifting off of him. Like he might, someday, be back to where he’d been years before. When Rachel had been with him every day. As they planned their act. Their life together. When he’d been happy and life had seemed worth living.
