Silencer, p.42
Silencer, page 42
It made Jake glad he'd already killed them once again. That, he feared, was going to be a common theme in his mind for a good long while.
Vickie seemed to notice that part too and stepped toward them. Weapons away for the moment, smiling warmly.
“Well this is a surprise!” She said looking at the kids in front of her. They crowded around the core group of women. At the back there were a lot more women, more than the kids. Jake noticed that there weren't any young men.
Kids under twelve but no fifteen-year-old boys. Or twenty-year-olds. It didn't seem right. He didn't ask about it but kind of wondered if some of them slipped off in the night, only to end up as zombies coming for the house or someplace else. Not all of those had been male but a lot were. Definitely more than fifty percent, which was what the natural mix of undead normally was over time. It evened out.
That was fudged up. If it was the case at least.
One of the kids, a little girl of about seven or so stared at him openly for a long time, barely blinking, hardly moving. Finally, after nearly two or three minutes of staring while other people talked, she stepped forward. Her eyes didn't leave him as she did.
“Did you kill my daddy?” She didn't sound upset or fearful, just like she wanted to know. Some of the women looked fearful and tried to shush her but the girl didn't back down even under that pressure. So brave enough there too, it wasn't just Becky Fines. That would help. They'd need that to survive now.
Jake looked at her for a second, then just answered honestly.
“I don't know. I may have, I won't lie to you. I... Personally killed a lot of the former police that were here. So if you have to be angry at someone over that, it might as well be me. If people attack you now, you have to fight as best you can. In here it seems like the rules have been easier than what everyone else has to live with but if you're going to be going out part of the time you'll have to learn some new things. We'll help you pick it all up if we can.”
The girl looked at him and just kept doing that, rather directly, until a woman came and took her by the shoulder, leading her away, muttering to the girl about not staring at men. That actually got a lot of the other women and girls to look away, too. It was kind of telling as to what had been going on, inside the closed community where men used to not being questioned in the old world had total power. Jake nearly shook his head but Becky Fines looked at him funny first.
“Why would we leave?” That was a very simple question but one that she should have figured out on her own.
It was a real fight to not frown at her and shake his head. Instead he looked into her brown eyes and held up two fingers.
“Because you have two months of food and at least five months of hard weather after that runs out. Somehow we have to find you more food but we're only going to be able to do so much. It took nearly five months to get food for about seventy people. You have a month to set up ninety, and a lot of you are kids. All of you have to help if you want to live. That's one of the new rules almost everywhere. Everybody works.” Though some less than others. He didn't add that. They might as well reset them to a high standard, after all.
Everyone there 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, even one person, wanted to be lazy, that could be enough to send them all to their deaths.
He explained it all as well as he could on the fly, and everyone listened, looking afraid. But if they were afraid then, 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.
Jake couldn't just leave them to die. It was hard, because more women just meant more problems 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 to save them. 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 any spare ammunition or anything like that? We have a man who may be able to make more if you have the equipment... Burt. I think I mentioned him?”
Becky didn't answer, a pert looking blonde who 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 seemed excited, as if they'd just been waiting for a chance to prove they weren't dead weight. Well, now they'd get it.
“Good. Let’s do that. We don’t have a lot of time, and I can assure you all of one thing, working hard now is the best option we have left, not the one to avoid.”
Then he followed them all to the storage area. It was a mess.
Then, he knew what to do. After all, when you found a mess, or a mistake, you fixed it, as best you could.
Doing anything else wasn’t going to work. Not any longer.
He just hoped that they could pull off the miracle these people needed.
Jake honestly wasn’t certain if he could.
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