Silencer, p.5
Silencer, page 5
The room went silent as she fell. Everyone knew better than to scream in response to the sudden action. That just got you killed. Jake half expected Molly to raise a fuss, just to force him kill her. She didn't though. She just stood back, her little twenty-two pointed at one of Holsom's buddies head. The bearded one. Jake always thought of him as Smelly but that probably wouldn't turn out to be what his parents had named him. That was just the moniker he'd earned.
Washing paid off in more ways than just disease prevention.
Turning back to Derrick as if nothing had happened, Jake grunted. Softly. Not smiling now at all. Waiting, hoping, the other man would fight.
“Weapons please. All of them. If you don't comply we kill you all in... Thirteen seconds. Starting... now.” No one moved. It would be the thirteen second thing, throwing them all off. It was why he'd said it after all, to try and get Holsom to hesitate long enough.
“Ten.” He said, beginning to pull the trigger, nine-millimeter pointed at Derrick's head. If he got to seven the man would die. Element of surprise and all that.
“Eight.” He said two seconds later, planning to pull the trigger at five.
Just as he was about to start killing people, Holsom pulled his gun with two fingers and started removing the other weapons he had hidden. He only had three, if the large knife got included. An oversized bowie that would only be good for intimidating living people, not taking out zombies, at least not more than one. People had tried that in the beginning, using swords and machetes to take on the undead, because it had worked in video games or, as some had said, swords don't run out of bullets which was a good point on paper. It turned out to be a lot harder to behead a person than it seemed. Most of them were dead or had at least moved on to firearms. Mainly the first one, of course. The dead didn’t care about you having a second chance to learn.
Dave collected up the weapons quickly, without being asked, and removed those to the side. It made a tidy pile. Two bodies were on the floor and six people stood in the middle of the room that they just couldn't trust anymore. At least Jake couldn't trust them. Derrick started talking then, his voice low and urgent.
“Whoa, this is getting way out of hand here. I just meant that, you understand, I think my time would be better spent leading instead of doing grunt work. We have people for that here, plenty of them. I...”
Jake nearly capped the man right there but Nate shook his head.
“No, we all have to pull our weight now. If we don't, we die. I'm going to go get wood in the morning and so is everyone else not on guard duty who can be spared. No one is too important for this.”
Jake nearly shut his eyes. They were not going to let Holsom stay, after what had happened. They couldn’t. That would be... suicidal.
Tipper cleared her throat.
“That’s a horrible plan. Not the part where we all work. That only makes sense. Leaving these people alive after this. They were planning a coup, which would have ended up with most of the people here being dead inside half a year if it had worked. We need to end this now.”
Vickie, blonde and nearly as good looking as Carly, as well as being useful, and a good leader, chimed in then.
“I second that. We need to handle this... Differently.” Most of the cleaners in the room, even the women, nodded then. Ready to kill some people, from the look of it. Jake was glad for the backup on the matter.
Nate, for his part, missed the point, totally. Possibly on purpose, being a good person as he was.
“Agreed, these men haven't been holding up their end here yet, at all. More, they looked to be about ready for violence when called on it. If they stay they can't be armed again. That's about the only thing that's been keeping me from mentioning their behavior so far. We can't have that. We'll put it to a vote, majority rules. Do they stay or not?”
It was a silly idea. The point of having leadership was so that someone could do the hard things when they came up. Derrick wasn’t useful, or a good person but the man was incredibly popular with a lot of people there. Stupid ones who, clearly, thought with their hormones, not their heads. Only an insane person would let the men stay, but...
Almost as if reading his mind, one of the ladies spoke.
“Um, I think they should be allowed to stay.” It was one of the remaining female traitors, speaking very softly, looking at Jake as she did. Deborah, the older one.
Proving Jake's point. No one who wasn't crazy would allow such a travesty.
The debate started then.
Quietly.
After ten minutes Jake put his weapon away and started dragging the bodies out. He'd made a mess and dried blood stained. Then he washed up, scrubbing as well as he could with cool water out of a bucket on the back porch. It took some time, and left him damp, of course. Clean again, though. Then he joined Ken and Sammi into the kitchen to help with the dishes. They were already working since the light wouldn't wait after all. The plates, cups and silverware would all be needed in the morning and people died all the time. It wasn't a good reason to skip out on the task.
Just before they were done getting the dishes all onto the wooden drying racks, they used six of them, large things that Burt had made early on, another shot came from the living room. Jake motioned them to the floor as he turned to run in, crouched low. Trying not to get shot, he poked his nine-millimeter, a dull black, held in his left hand, into the room and peeked in, only his brown left eye around the frame. He knelt close to the ground.
One of Holsom's crew, Smelly, laid on the floor, wet blood glistening in the dull light from where the top of his head had been. He had a gun in his hand, and it seemed that Dave had taken exception to it. Which was good. Now he wouldn't ever have to bother learning the man's real name.
That should have illustrated the point well enough but most of the people wanted to give the useless eaters another chance anyway. Throwing someone out into the night was... Harsh, and no one wanted it to happen to them later, so they argued against it as a precedence. Jake could actually get behind that. Then, he wanted to kill the remaining people, including the women who had defended the idiots. Throwing them out was inviting an attack in the future.
In the end the three remaining men were allowed to stay. Jake would have fumed but didn't bother. He'd probably still have to kill them all. The vote had been... instructive, though. Not because of who had voted for letting them stay, since that was nearly everyone. No, it was the dozen people who had voted against it that caught his attention.
Nearly half the cleaners did, right off the top. With no hint of hesitation even. Tipper and Dave led the way, and both the other team leaders joined them, Vickie, and Carl. Vickie's screamer, a fifteen-year-old boy named George did too and the old guy from Carl's team, Barry. At least Jake thought that might be his name. The man was ancient, pushing fifty at least, maybe older. He was good though. The rest voted with everyone else.
The others who could see the problem for what it was made less sense.
Lois, the older kitchen lady, and Burt, voted against letting the men stay. So did Carley but since she hated all men, that kind of made sense. The other two... Were Sammi and Ken. They went last too, even knowing that the vote would be going against them and that doing it would make enemies. It was clear they were making a point. Jake got it at least. Sammi spoke for them both.
“They're dangerous and lazy. If we let them stay it's going to come back and bite us later. We should take them out back and shoot them right now. If we don't, we're going to regret it. I'll do it myself if someone will lend me a firearm?” It was too dark to make out her facial expression and she whispered but the tone didn't sound teasing.
Jake didn't speak his mind but that about summed it up. He could sneak the girl a shotgun later, then teach her how to use it. No one would blame a little kid for executing the men.
He, personally, would sleep easier if they were dead. It felt nice to know that at least a few other people could see that, too. It worried him that more didn't.
It worried him a lot.
Chapter Two
The rather loud screaming woke Jake up with a start. A flash of cold poured over him and he considered freezing even while his body moved, grabbing the sidearm under the mattress he slept on. It was trapped under the right edge, the handle of the forty-five sticking out. That meant the whole thing came clear of the holster easily. He rolled to the right so that his back would be to the wall. He'd done the whole thing often enough that the move was almost smooth now. Not really fluid but pretty good for having been asleep. He brought the weapon up and automatically thumbed the safety, cradling the revolver in both hands. Like on an old cop show.
He whispered into the room.
“I'm covering the door. Anyone know where that came from?”
For a moment no one spoke, then finally a soft voice answered, female, though not someone he could recognize in the dark. So it could be any of nearly forty odd women who lived there. Not Sammi and probably not Tipper since he’d have gotten who they were. He thought.
“It was... uh, me. Nightmare. Sorry.” The woman sounded scared still. Jake exhaled slowly, not having realized he'd been holding his breath at all.
That happened. Everyone got scared sometimes and that meant yelling or screaming in their sleep. Carl's team had the night watch that week, and really, one or two screams shouldn't attract anything. Not unless it was already close. If that were the case they'd hear fighting from below soon. That or more screams. If that happened he'd go but otherwise it would just take too long and invite being shot by the watchers on the ground floor. On night watch they didn't use candles, so anyone going down the stairs needed to be careful. You couldn't call out very well but zombies didn't either, sometimes. If you stubbed a toe and grunted you were probably going to die.
“All right. That happens to everyone. Can you go back to sleep? Do you have someone with you?”
The voice said no so softly that Jake nearly winced. That also happened, a lot. The next bit that the speaker clearly knew was coming. You woke up screaming and then just had to lie in the dark, waiting for morning, hoping you didn't die before the light came back. He'd done it more times than he cared to remember himself. Less now but at first it had happened almost every night.
Jake nodded, into the oppressive black. No one saw him. It was too dark for that.
“Move over here then. I'll sit up so you can sleep.” It wouldn't guarantee anything but sometimes if you acted like everything was normal it helped.
There came a sound of movement, rustling, then a subdued noise, as someone else got stepped on or jostled. Finally nearly a minute later his mattress, a twin sized thing he'd dragged from town himself, moved as the weight of someone settled onto it. He still sat by the wall. He could just sit and doze if necessary. He'd learned how. Jake kept the gun out, ready just in case.
Not everyone did it but sometimes dreams were prescient. At first he hadn't wanted to believe it himself, since it wasn't all that scientific but over time he’d had to admit that some people could feel things like that. His own life had been saved more than once that way, so he'd pay attention to this bad dream too. Ignoring it would be stupid.
That meant that he dozed off for a while, he thought, waking with the slight hint of change that came in the pre-dawn hours, at about four something in the morning, maybe five. Jake didn't have a watch anymore. His had broken in the third week after things started and there'd been no reason to find another one yet. You got up when the light came and slept in the dark. The door slowly opened which got his attention and the two crouching figures came in, a hint of silver in the fist of the first one, a knife. Jake waited for a second, the large weapon in his hand pointed at the man.
The waiting was just to make sure he wasn't still asleep. He didn't want to kill someone for just coming back from the bathroom, and he really did just wake up with a gun in his hand sometimes. Crouching didn't help their case but if he were dreaming it, that could all be him.
Then, if it were a dream, he wouldn't have a gun, and they'd be moaning zombies trying to eat the people on the floor, obviously. That or a group of women refusing to ever have sex with him. That one probably wouldn't be in a bedroom though, being too close to actually getting some for his own mind to handle. The man finally looked over at Jake and froze.
“Fuck!” The man yelled as the gun went off.
“He should have whispered.” If he'd whispered Jake might have paused for a bit. Yelling was a good reason to shoot, dream or not.
The bang caused a tumult since most people couldn't help screaming being woken like that. The second man had a knife as well, so he got shot, too. Now Jake could just hope he hadn't gotten anyone that he actually liked. That always made killing people harder.
People started to stand in the room, including, by voice and the size of the silhouette, Nate, who the two men had been standing over, or at least near. He always took the position by the door since it would be the one in the most danger if an attack came. Jake always pulled the far wall for the same reason. Or maybe not exactly the same. Really Nate did it because the others were afraid. Jake did it because he was.
So not at all alike. It had worked out for Nate though, this time.
Moving carefully past the form on the bed with him, just standing and walking on the mattress, he flowed across the room toward the men on the floor by the door. Nate held his hands out and identified himself clearly. It was dark after all.
“I'm Nate Green.” He said.
“Jake.” The answer was automatic. It was also pretty close to the first thing they'd said to each other, on the second day, when they'd met on the street.
The shadowed form nodded and Jake pointed at the people on the floor as everyone else started to gather around slowly.
“Who...” This came from behind him, the woman from his bed. Nate knelt and examined the first one, checking the pulse at the neck.
“Dead.” He said, just in time for the one next to him to surge up and try to attack.
Moron number two, proving he wasn’t very bright at all.
He could have possibly escaped if he hadn't moved. Jake thought about this fact right after he blew the man's brains out. It was instinct now, to shoot at the least sign of trouble. This time it worked. It would probably be an issue if things ever became more civilized again. Killing the mailman for knocking or ruthlessly hunting down the neighbor's dog for being a little too loud.
Carl came to the door, massive, muscular, and grumbling slightly, a deep sound that was half felt, not just heard. He had a lit candle with him.
“Who'd we lose?” He asked, noticing that Jake was armed. Not why it happened. Not yet. Just who.
Then he noticed the knives and grunted again, kicking one of the blades free from a dead hand. Lowering himself he held the candle close to the faces. One couldn't be recognized but the other was one of Holsom's crew. The other guy would be the last man then. Jake thought the clothing matched. It was pretty hard to tell given the weak light. It made perfect sense that Holsom would send two goons instead of trying to take Nate on himself. This way the softies with them could say it hadn't been their pretty boy Derrick and give him yet another chance.
Maybe he really could get that gun for Sammi.
Jake just sighed. It was going to be a long day. It always was when you had to argue with stupid people.
He quickly reloaded the forty-five, an old and slightly clunky revolver, then strapped his nine into place on his right hip. The forty-five went into the small of his back, which was a constant annoyance but mainly when sitting. Since he only sat at meals anymore it wasn't such a huge issue. The light was still dim, so Jake asked Carl to hold the candle while he dragged the bodies outside. Nate signaled to a few people in the dark room to help as well and someone moved in next to him, grabbing a shoulder with a sense of purpose. Together they pulled the man down the stairs with a series of jarring thumps. It was a good bit of noise for that early in the day but everyone would be awake already. Gunfire always woke him up at least. In fact, it was better for getting people going than coffee.
Especially since they didn’t really have any of that. Not that they broke out most days. A few scavenged cans of it had been hidden in the storeroom, he thought. At least he’d brought them back from town, and no one had been seen drinking a cup without him.
Outside, he could finally make out his helper's face. Carley. She looked scared and stared at him nervously for a few seconds, then... hugged him. It was a simple panic reaction, he knew, so Jake didn't read anything into it. It was nice, even if it was coming from someone who really didn't like him very much. Since the world had ended he'd only gotten three hugs, and one of those had been a zombie. A girl though if a bit rotted. The other had been Nate.
Carley grimaced, her face going hard.
“Fuck. I hate this. I hate it all.” She said, keeping her voice low, nearly in his left ear.
“Yeah. It's really screwed up. We deserve at least eight solid hours sleep a night, and here these assholes don't even let us get six. I say we kill them both... Oops, too late.” He whispered this back, smiling at the end, even if it was a creepy thing to do and the woman nearly lost it. She had to tuck her head into his collar to muffle the sounds. That was fine. As long as she wasn't loud about it, she could do what she wanted. It was a confusing half-laugh, half-sob thing right now but whatever worked for her was allowed, really.
They were all dressed. No one wore pajamas to sleep in anymore, even in the heat. That could be miserable but they all did it. Not everyone was a cleaner, though.
Carley wore a sensible pair of shorts and a light shirt. Jake had on jeans, a t-shirt, and a heavy denim jacket. Which was way too freaking hot but comfort was a luxury for after the dead were gone. A few layers of heavy material had been all that saved him on two occasions already. One of them just coming out of sleep, a lot like the current situation. Only with zombies instead of armed idiots.
