Generation Dead - 07 (23 page)

“Oh,
boy,
” Jake
said.  “Well, they can’t stay here.  Let’s see if we can round up some extra transportation and get them to either
Ottawa
or Morris.”

We didn’t have any worries about the kids.  Someone would take them in. We were used to death, so when a parent passed away from either sickness or accident, everyone
helped
to find a place for any children.

I wasn’t surprised the children had been spared.  Since the coming of the zombies, and the settling of the country, children were highly valued.  You could kill a man, take his stuff and burn down his house, and people might find a way to excuse it.  But if you hurt a child
,
there was no place you would be safe.  Every community would hunt you down and hang you.  That is, if they bothered with a rope.  You could easily just eat a bullet as well.

“I saw some vans on our way in, let’s see if they
work,” Julia
said.

“You stay with the
kids;
we’ll be back in a
minute,
” I said.

We found the vans, and even though only one worked, it was enough for the short trip.  We packed up the kids and headed south.  Julia drove the van, since the children seemed to trust her the most, and she would be the best person to relay the news about their parents.

Jake and I did some hard thinking, and
it
wasn’t too far of a stretch to assume the trouble we had in the capitol was directly related to the trouble we had last night and this morning.

“What I can’t get is the why?  Why go to the trouble of rounding up a town, killing a man, and hoping that the zombies take care of your problem?” I asked rhetorically.

“No
offense,
little brother, but I think there was more to it than
this,
“ Jake
said.

“How so?”
 

“Someone who has taken the trouble to put together a team that will effectively take on a town, infect that town, and then guide the zombies to a target has put a lot of thought into this.  I think we were a test case, and given
who
we are, no one would think twice about zombies killing us.  It’s a hazard of our chosen
profession,
”  Jake
explained. “
Eventually,
the outbreak would have been reported, and the army would have come in and cleaned up, had we not taken care of the problem.” Jake looked back to the huge plume of smoke rising in the morning sky, marking our recent activities.

“All right, but if it’s a test, then what’s the eventual end game?  What are they hoping to do in the future?  No one goes to this trouble and just uses it for nickel and dime
stuff,
”  I
reasoned.

“Not sure about that.  I don’t think they planned on leaving the syringe behind, and someone probably caught hell for it.  Maybe they plan on making a power move, who knows?  Right now, I’m not inclined to care.  If they want to take a piece of the country for themselves, go for it.  There’s enough to go
around,” Jake
said.

“Doesn’t work that way and you know
it,
” I said darkly.  “We weren’t brought up that way.”

“Yeah, well the guy who is supposed to be the country’s moral compass bugged out
,
remember?  All that talk about saving the country and restoring what we were is just a bunch of crap when the man himself decides to go on a selfish binge just because he lost his wife.  So it’s every man for
himself
, as far as I’m
concerned,
” Jake said angrily.

“I’ll remember you said
that,
” I said.

“You do that.”

“And his wife was your mother, biological or not.  Grow up and deal with
it,
” I replied.

Jake stared at me for a long time, and I returned his stare.  This wasn’t over, and I had a feeling someone was going to get seriously hurt when we finally settled up.

Chapter 35

We dropped the kids off in
Ottawa
, and told our tale to the local authorities.  They promised to dispatch a team up to Mayfair and make sure there
weren’t any stray zombies
wandering about.  They were very disturbed to hear about the way things went down, and wanted to go to the capitol to complain.  People began to talk about burning out the bad element, and it took the mayor of
Ottawa
a good half hour to calm everyone down. 

After the grumbling died down, I told the assembled people that once we finished our last collection obligation, I was going to focus my attention on the problem at hand and make sure it didn’t happen again, even if I had to hunt down the perpetrators myself and bring them to justice.  I told them that if they went in a group, the bad guys might just go into hiding, and since they didn’t know who they were hunting, it might all be for
n
aught.  Better to have two or three go, and get the job done without a huge uproar.

Jake glared at me the whole time I was speaking, and towards the end, turned away in disgust.  Julia watched him go with an angry look on her face, and when she looked back at me, she was smiling.

I got a lot of nods of approval, and several people spoke in low tones to each other.  One man spoke up as I was leaving.

“This really
ain’t
your fight, Aaron.  How come you’re doing this?”  He asked.  A lot of people got quiet to hear my answer.

I thought for a second,
and then
gave the
answer that come
naturally to me.

“Because I
can,
”  I
said simply.

It was really that easy.  I didn’t have a
family,
I didn’t have a farm, or a real job that required my attention.  I was
well trained
, experienced in going into bad places, and taught to find solutions to problems as they came up.  I had an easy way with most people, and folks were inclined to trust me. It worked all around.  The escapade at Mayfair was going to make the rounds, and the fact we brought the kids out was only going to help our standing with the locals.

Downside was the people who tried to kill us would know we survived, and may try very hard next time to finish the job.

Julia met with me and gave me a hug.  “That was a nice thing to see.  You actually sounded a lot like your father there for a minute.”

I couldn’t explain why, but that actually made me feel really good.  “Thanks. Change in subject.  What do you think pissed of Jake so much?”

Julia shrugged. 
“Short answer?
 
Jealousy.
 
Long answer?
He’s still trying to come to grips with the fact his real mother wasn’t around, and his dad never explained it to him.”

That made sense, although I couldn’t figure out why he was holding it against me or why he would be jealous, and I said so.

“Take it up with him, he’s a grump right now and I’m not talking to
him,” Julia
said.

We walked back to the truck where Jake was waiting.  Without a word, he climbed into the cab and started the truck.  We rode all the way back to Starved Rock without
speaking
.

Jake parked the truck and went inside.  I tried to stop him but his glare told me to either keep my mouth shut or arm myself.  I decided to be quiet.  Julia and I went out to the patio and spent the rest of the day just taking in the sun and enjoying each other’s company.

The next day I expected to see Jake down at the meeting table with plans for the next collection. 
However,
Jake was nowhere to be found.  I looked in his room, down at the range, over by the Visitor Center, and even up at Eagle Point.  All turned up empty.  The vehicles were all there, so he had to be here somewhere.

I asked Julia if she had seen Jake, but she hadn’t left the lodge all day, so she hadn’t.  It was becoming clear Jake was off doing something, and didn’t want to be found.  I could respect that, but we had a job to do, and I needed to figure out who was behind the attack on us the other day.  I had my suspicions, and they centered
on
an old man with white hair and a bad attitude, but that was speculation and coincidence.  Remarkable coincidence, to be sure, but I had no proof we were the target.  For all I knew, the town was supposed to animate and go on a southerly rampage, but the one thing that cancelled that notion was the person they tortured to get to the house we were staying in.  That made it personal.  They were after us.

Chapter 36

On the second morning after our fight at the farmhouse, I went downstairs and found Jake sitting at the table.  He was holding the me
moir my father had left me and
was finishing the last few pages.  I was mad for an instant t
hat Jake had read it before me,
but I was calmed by the fact that Jake seemed to be in a much better mood.  Maybe there was something in there he needed, and luckily found.

“How’s the book?” I asked, breaking the silence.

Jake looked up.
“Interesting.
  I never really believed Dad was able to do all the things people said he did.  At least in here we have his word for it.”  Jake closed the book and slid it across the table to me.  “This is going to sound strange, but I understand our father a lot better now, and I know what happened to my mother.”

“Anything you want to talk about?” I asked.

“You can read about it, but in a
nutshell,
Dad had to make a lot of hard decisions, and he loved my mother very much. 
As much as he loved yours.
  I can see why it was painful for him to be here, and why he had to
leave,
”  Jake
said.

I took all that in, and saw that Jake had come to some kind of peace, which was good for all involved. 

“Want to talk about the next collection?” I asked.

Jake nodded.  “Let’s get Julia down here and we’ll go over things. It should be a lot easier than I thought, mostly because the place we
have to go is far outside
Josli
n
proper, so the local zombie mess shouldn’t be as much of a factor.”

That was a relief.  No one sane wan
dered into
Josli
n
, and the only thing that we used from it was the power plant on the south side.  Other than that, it was left to ruin.  Zombies were there in force, and they were responsible for killing more than their fair share of collectors.

I had another question for Jake but he answered it before I got the chance to ask.

“About the other night, at
Ottaw
a,
I think you’re right for wanting to go after the people responsible for Mayfair.  We wanted to get out of collecting, and this would do
it,” Jake
said.

You could have knocked me over with a twig.  I really wanted to dive into that book now, but I could only ask one question.  “Why?”

“Why the change?
  In all seriousness, Aaron, it’s what we were supposed to do.”

As soon as he said
that,
a weird feeling of relief washed over me.  I’d been fighting the notion for a while, tying in our skills to a single purpose, which was to get stuff for people who couldn’t, so they could have something from their former lives.  But this was a new purpose, something we weren’t collecting. 

“No offense, Jake, but
not
so very long
ago,
you talked about being every man for himself,
yourself
included.  Why the sudden shift?”  I needed more than what he was giving me, and I didn’t want to have to sift through the book to find it.  Call me lazy, but this wasn’t the Jake I knew.

“I’ll put it like this, Aaron.  Our dad wasn’t content to just survive the zombie apocalypse.  He spat in its face and dared it to come after him.  He rebuilt the country for no other reason than you and
me
.”  Jake paused for a minute to let that sink in.  “He lost countless friends, two wives, a mother, and a brother to this mess, but he kept it together.

“Let me ask you this, Aaron.  Is the capitol a good place to be right now?”  Jake looked over at Julia who had heard our voices and had come to the table.

“Not
really,
”  I
said, thinking about the troubles
that
we have been having every time we go there.

“Wasn’t always like that.  Things have changed, and not for the better.  We have it to do.  We’re expected to do
it,
”  Jake
said.