Dead End Stories From the End of the World Read online

  “Beet time. Everyone out. Everyone except the breakfast crew. If you aren't working on something else, move. Please.” He sounded pissed. Then he kind of felt that way. It wasn't about the beets, or anything else, just his feeling that there wasn't a reason to do anything for these people. They rarely did much for him after all.

  Almost no one moved. Not even Holsom, who had to know that Jake was looking for an excuse to kill him about then. He'd certainly hinted at it enough times.

  What the hell? Jake stared for a second. Fine.

  “All right, raise your hands if you don't want to bother collecting food. I'll just run and tell Lois and Mary who doesn't eat here anymore. It will save them work, so I'm sure they'll be glad to hear it. We just need to get a head count...” He looked around, but no one raised their hands.

  “OK, then come on. We have a deadline.”

  People still dragged themselves out, but they got nearly thirty people all told. That worked for today. When the real harvest season came this kind of response just wouldn't cut it. What, did they think the food would magic itself into the glass canning jars or dry itself in the wind? Maybe they thought that they'd all just run down to the corner store or grab a pizza? He worked with a will, trying to go as fast as his beaten body would let him. Not quick, but faster than most worked, except Jose, who fairly flew through the row he'd picked. Dug really. The small man had been out getting wood each day too and had to be at least as sore. Jake tried to go faster, filling his bucket and carrying it to the cart while about half the people just stood, not certain what to do.

  “You, the ones standing, we need to speed this up. Go to the first ten rows and take over for the person working it for the second half. Think speed now. Hurry.”

  Things did get faster then and the ones getting a break didn't lounge after Nate started helping Burt fill a bucket too. That got everyone going and made the whole thing easier. No one helped him, he noticed, but then he'd kind of been snapping at them already that day, so who'd want to?

  They ate their simple breakfast, turnips, boiled, mashed and dolloped on top of oatmeal. Not an inspired combination to be sure. It beat starving though and almost no one grumbled too much. No one close enough for Jake to hear. Tipper kept looking at him and swallowing even when not taking a bite. Whatever that meant. Probably that she got that he felt a little worked up over everything. That shouldn't take a rocket scientist. He wasn't hiding the fact at all. When he looked at her at all, which wasn't frequently, he glared.

  Holsom watched the glances and grinned, but didn't say anything. That was good, because he probably wouldn't have survived the meal if he had.

  Carley led them out to the woods bravely enough, but the whole day took longer, because they had to fight deeper into the brush and cut more trees down instead of just trimming stuff on the ground. Taking the trees down took a bit of practice and they didn't always go where they were supposed to yet. That meant being ready to dodge out of the way, which was hard since his right leg still hurt. Worse, the gas was running out. They were halfway through what they had left already, the red plastic can with them representing about a third of their whole supply. They had enough of the engine oil, but not the actual fuel. That meant they might have to start taking trees with axes soon, however that worked. It sounded like great fun, but would take a whole lot longer, Jake guessed.

  They got nearly half of the wood they should have, everyone slowing down due to fatigue already. Sammi kept trying to get everyone to speed up, but people felt too tired to do it for long. Too little food with too much work. Still, it had to be done, so he pushed himself, trying to be a good example. Carley and Nate pulled out the stops too.

  “We need some fresh people on this soon.” Carley said as they came in on the last trip of the day. “Everyone is just too far gone to keep this up right now. I know some of the homebodies don't want to go into the woods...”

  Nate grunted, pulling the straight steel bar next to Jake.

  “But they're going to have to go out sometime. People are kind of losing morale, which we can't afford right now. The work only gets harder from here on out, until winter sets in. We need to get people pulling together and make life worthwhile again. Any ideas?”

  Actually, Jake had two. The first one he didn't say, it being that maybe some of the women could think about putting out for someone other than Holsom to boost morale. They'd just act all insulted if he said it and the jerk would gloat. Not worth it just to vent. Still, he'd let them know that if they weren't pulling their weight they could find themselves beheaded and buried down the street. Subtly though. Not sleeping with him wasn't a crime.

  Just freaking annoying.

  Compounded by lies and the fact that they all thought that lazy piece of trash Derrick was the cat's meow. Sure the guy was good looking enough, but no better than Carl or a couple of the others. Maybe not even, really. How the guy managed like he had was a mystery.

  The other, more “group friendly” thing was a sing along. They'd have to hold it during the day, in the cellar to keep the sound down, and with some of the cleaners out as guards, of course, but that could help a little maybe. Possibly. They could make it into a little party of sorts. As soon as he mentioned it, everyone gave him funny looks.

  “Bad idea? Well, it was just a thought.”

  Their leader shook his brown haired head and grinned.

  “No, good idea, everyone's just shocked that you'd be the one suggesting singing, that's all. The cellar idea is a good one, too. We need to clean it out to get ready for harvest anyway, so this will give people some incentive.”

  Incentive? How about not dying as an incentive? Not that Jake intended to kill everyone that felt a little lazy now and then, not really. Pointing out that they'd die without getting the work done might just help. He didn't, just pulling instead. At least he didn't have Tipper next to him trying to talk about things to make herself feel better. He did have Holsom on the other side of him, half-assing his part of the work like usual. The man's hands barely touched the bar in front of him and he basically just strolled the whole time. When the jerk took a hand off to scratch his face the whole thing kept moving at the same speed even.

  Not for the first time that day Jake wondered if the man had really earned his oatmeal.

  They all agreed that they needed a fresh team for a bit, so Nate asked around for some people, getting almost no volunteers. Vickie managed to get some interest at least, not being afraid of a little hard work or zombies, which got her crew too, so they'd have some shooters. A few of the men that were normally too scared to walk fifty feet from the house managed to find their balls long enough to agree to go when Vickie asked the room. She was probably sleeping with them all or something. Or not. Maybe they just wanted to, or possibly the guys just realized that they couldn't hide and survive forever off of other people's efforts.

  Probably the sex thing though. Vickie was hot.

  It took brow beating and glaring to work up ten people to take over the next day's work, which gave Jake a full day off. That meant he could take off into town and look for those wood stoves and maybe some supplies that could be made to work for things. Quietly he mentioned it to Burt, who gave him a funny look and shook his head.

  “You'll need the cart for that, and until the wood is done we can't afford to take it out of use. We can make do with fire places and cold water if we have to, but without the fuel, we die. I'd make a second cart, but I don't have any way of doing that yet. Not in metal. I'll work on it, but for now, well it's all we can do.”

  A good point, and one that he hadn't thought about overly. Well, maybe he could just help Jose or something like that. No one would care overly what he did, as long as he did his part. It just... felt off. Wrong. Like something was missing. As if he had some piece of himself that just wasn't there and no one could be bothered to help him find it, or fill that void.

  In other words, his life was still fucked.

  His parents had blamed ever
ything on him being lazy, and claimed that if he just did the work, everything would be all right. They'd always worked hard, but what did that get them in the end? A bullet to the brain. Many of them. From his father's own gun. Maybe everyone else had it right and he should just relax, and not care?

  Jake knew that didn't work, not in this new world, where death waited for them every day. Being a slacker wouldn't save him, or anyone else. Being depressed wouldn't help either. He needed to snap the hell out of it and get back to work. Slowing down just meant he'd fail. So... he needed to find a way to make a cart? Or find one capable of carrying a wood stove or two. An idea occurred to him and he smiled. Right.

  “Shopping carts.” He said out loud. It would suck, but no one complained at the store if you took one now. If there were any left...

  That got a chuckle from Burt, “All right then. Who's on your team?”

  Who? Probably no one. He'd need help and backup, that was clear, but who'd be willing to go with him? It wasn't a cleaning job and no one really liked him that much. He just shrugged. Tipper had kind of shown that really, hadn't she? In the end, Jake was alone. It had always been that way.

  Even when he'd thought he wasn't. Back with her. Before she dumped all over him too. He made himself think the name. Rachel. It didn't make him feel any better.

  “No problem, I can manage on my own...” Always alone. That was the rule, wasn't it?

  No one said anything about it and the next morning when he set out after breakfast. No one volunteered to come with him either. He walked resolutely down the front steps, knowing that it had to be the worst plan he'd had so far, going out alone. Feet crunched on the stone walkway as he headed out, bits of sand and pebbles making the noise. That turned to a softer sound as he hit the road a few minutes later. Watching carefully he went toward town. Specifically the city center, hoping to find a cart or two at the IGA. With his luck he'd get the one with the twisty wheel that would always pull to the left. He walked for the first four hours, going slowly even though it wasn't that far. Feet tired and sore as he saw the shopping center ahead. Jake knew that there wouldn't be anything inside, but went in anyway.

  The shelves were bare, of course, but he did find a cart, seven of them in fact. Some lying on their sides, a few on top of shelves for some reason and a single cart, all the way at the back in the area of the store for employees only. All broken in some way, except that one. It had rotten fruit in it, which had kept anyone from bothering. It reeked. Smiling Jake had to stifle a cheer. About time something went his way. Other than fights. A few of those had, or he wouldn't be here now.

  Nothing else though.

  Jake started working and tried to remember what houses they'd cleared had what he was looking for. That and try to get the seeds from the reeking soft puddles of molding fruit. They were as precious as gold now, if you had half a brain. More if you had a whole one. You couldn't eat gold, and burying it wouldn't do more than make extra work. Digging sucked. Much less digging with seeds.

  It was a mess, but he got a few hundred seeds out in all, apple and pear. He left the oranges, just because he didn't think that they'd be able to grow them. Maybe not even in a greenhouse. They'd talked about building something like that, but no one had acted on it yet. Not enough glass. Burt said they just needed something clear, that plastic tarps might work. It was something to look for and on his little mental checklist.

  Right now he needed large pieces of metal and barrels if he could find them. He couldn't get them that day, but the shelves were all steel, weren't they? The backing things they hung on too. Not perfect, but eventually when they needed metal to work with on the forge it would be a good place to look. No barrels in the back, or rather, there were, a few of them, but they were all plastic. Good for holding water or oil. In fact, one of them was half full. Some kind of cooking oil? It smelled right. That left him torn. Nearly in half for a second. He could, maybe, rig another cart to carry the oil, using two wheels that were sitting on a half broken basket, but that would make the whole thing a lot heavier if he could manage to find a wood stove, those things were all metal he knew.

  “Screw it.”

  Grinning, Jake set to work. It meant stripping wire from the walls, behind the plaster board, to substitute for rope, which took a lot more effort than it sounded like it should, then about an extra half hour to connect the carts. On the good side, once balanced, the metal part with no wheels on the edge of the good cart, it sort of locked into place, making the wiring more of a formality than not. Getting the barrel of oil, a fifty gallon thing, into place, was harder than he'd figured, too. Jake kind of regretted not actually asking anyone to come with him now, and he hadn't even had to fight yet. Still, twenty-five, maybe even thirty gallons of used vegetable oil could be cleaned up and reused. If not for cooking they'd find some other way to make it valuable. The seeds in his right front pocket kind of smelled and made a damp spot, but that was all right, he'd be soaked anyway as soon as he started pulling the whole contraption around.

  The whole thing was a vast hassle, he realized, as he trudged down the street slowly, tugging on the already heavy cart. Oh well, nothing good came easily. Someone had told him that once. Probably to get him to work harder in school. Maybe it would prove right? It took two hours to get to the house he thought had a wood stove, a huge old thing that turned out to weight a lot more than a few hundred pounds.

  That, or he was really weak. He could move it, by working it back and forth on the ground, one edge at a time. He took the metal pipe from the chimney too. Now all he had to do was develop super-powers and he could set the whole thing on top of the cart, miracle up some rope and trudge the whole thing back before dark.

  Yep, that would work.

  Sighing he set to anyway, finding some rope three houses over, going slowly in case he met up with a zombie or two. At least that would break up the day. When he walked out he very nearly ran into the goth girl wearing a long, and ridiculous for the weather, black dress. Jake had been distracted, but found himself looking at the form down the length of his arm black gun in hand, having reacted without understanding why at first.

  The girl went wide eyed.

  “Don't shoot! I live here, but you can take my rope I... Just don't hurt me. You can... do whatever you want to me. I, I won't fight or anything, I promise. Please?” She sounded really worried. Ah, well, he did have a gun pointed at her head.

  Jake nodded.

  “I didn't know it was your rope. Can I borrow it? Or... do you have some we could trade for, or something? I don't have much on me. I won't trade guns or ammo. I have a little food. I can go hungry if need be. Well, that and some used vegetable oil and some fruit tree seeds.” He put the gun away looking around carefully. Very few people lived alone anymore and the whole thing could easily be a trap.

  One he waltzed into without even noticing. Brilliant if that was the case.

  The woman, thin and with dead black hair that didn't look natural at all, stared at him for a minute.

  “Um, not to be pushy, but aren't you going to rape me now? Or steal all my stuff? That's what the police did. Take my stuff. One of them suggested rape, but I guess they had more important things to do.” She went from scared to conversational with a speed that probably meant insanity. Then, who was he to talk?

  He shot people in the head for getting too loud for goodness sake. Yeah, that was something to put on the resume.

  “No. I don't rape people, just kill them, and I try not to kill the living ones if possible. I'm taking a wood stove from down the way, if you help me and are saner than you look, I might be able to get you into a place, it's over half women and most of the guys are nice. No rape there at all. If anyone tried, I'd shoot them. Part of my job there, I think. It really hasn't come up. You have to work, but we may just manage heat and food this winter. It's a bit of a sweet deal really.” The offer was a little less than genuine in a way. Not that Nate wouldn't take the girl, just that there was no test or even san
ity requirement to join up, even though there should be.

  Jake just didn't want to bring home dead weight.

  “Um, all right. I don't have anything better. You aren't cannibals are you? I keep having nightmares about those. Coming to eat me in the night. Regular people, not zombies. I think it's coming in the winter. I don't know when exactly yet.” She smiled and held out her right hand to shake.

  “Heather Morley, pleased to meet you. Call me Heather.”

  “Hi Heather, I'm Jake. Call me Jake.” He smiled and looked at her hand for a long time.

  “We can shake later, after I'm sure this isn't all a trap, all right? I don't want to be rude, since you seem nice enough, but I don't want to tie up my hands if I have to fight your boyfriends or girl gang or whatever. Trained pack of dogs or gerbils.”

  It would have been insulting and crazy to say Back Before, but the girl just nodded and smiled back at him. She wasn't good looking, maybe the type that would have been all right with make-up and better clothes. Plus she still seemed loony and more than a bit nervous. That could be almost anything though, from just having had a gun pulled on her suddenly, to her not wanting Jake to notice her attack kittens sneaking up behind him. It all worked with her expression. He glanced over his shoulder suspiciously, but didn't see anything that looked dangerous. Not yet.

  She followed him to the wood stove and helped gamely enough, which was more important to him than looks. Way more. They nearly dropped it twice, but finally used a stout tree branch in the front yard as a makeshift pulley and got the cart under it well enough. The healing blisters on his hands broke open, because he'd lent the girl his gloves. They were just the cloth garden type. Her hands would have been turned into shreds, he figured. They were soft and white looking, like she'd never done much work at all. Even in the end times, some people still looked like that. He didn't, not now, but he pretty much had, a week back. Now his palms just looked diseased. All cool, as long as he kept them healthy, and could pull the trigger when he needed.