Read A Very Good Man for Free Online Page A

little menacing.
  “I'm setting up a firewood collection detail that's going to run from now until we can't get any more wood for the winter. I'd like you and your friends to come along, we need all the able bodied people we can get that aren't afraid of the zombies. Since you all carry weapons all the time, I assume that means a few dead people won't bother any of you overly? Really, we probably won't have any problems that way, but it's important regardless.” Jake smiled. It wasn't a nice thing.
  “Fuck that. I'm not a lumberjack.” The man said, surly and as stupid as always.
  Like anyone would confuse him with someone that cut down trees for a living? Or worked? Jake had some negative thoughts about the Westwood police force in general, but he really couldn't fault them for not taking Holsom along with them.
  His buddies chimed in, all fingering weapons, but not drawing them. Jake got ready to kill them all, wondering if he'd survive it. Probably not, there were five of them and one of him. They didn't have to be good, just put out enough bullets.
  Oh well. Jake faced death several times a week, it would find him sometime, today might be the day. People shifted in the room but no one yelled or said anything.
  Quietly from the corner Nate cleared his throat, a soft and calm sound, “None of us are Derrick, but the simple fact is that without wood we won't make it through this next winter. Half the people that died so far did so from the cold six months ago and that was in the spring nearly.”
  Holsom laughed and thumbed the clip on his holster open, a menacing move that meant the man didn't get the situation at all. Tipper stood behind him with her shotgun pointed right at his head, tilted upward politely so that his brain would decorate the ceiling rather than take a chance of hitting someone on the floor. She always had perfect control of her weapon. And a cute butt. Jake tried not to think about that though, not just then.
  Chuckling lightly, standing almost invisibly behind one of Holsom's large friends, a man known only as Stan, Dave spoke. His voice was menacing, as if hoping they could kill all the lazy freeloaders right then and there. It was creepy really, half little kid, the rest grown up killer. Raspy and rough.
  “Look around cocksmokers.”
  Jake glanced himself, hoping that didn't mean he was a secret cocksmoker, and saw that each of the men had at least two weapons pointed at them. The other cleaners had apparently decided that they'd had enough too.
  Yay.
  It was about freaking time.
  “Let's do this civilly gentlemen, by you putting your weapons, all of them, on the ground, please.” Nate said.
  It took time for them to get the idea that their options were limited. One of them tried to draw and shoot Jake, and got shot three times for his trouble. Jake's hit just below the throat, a miss if the man had been a zombie. Lethal on a human. Vickie, the head of the other good cleaning team, removed the top of his head with her sawed off shotgun and much to Jake's surprise Nate both had a pistol out and had used it. A shot to the chest, off centered, but it hit. Since the man was a pacifist by nature and upbringing, that was a huge shock to everyone. The barrel didn't smoke visibly in the candle light, but just having fired it had an impact on the room.
  Everyone but Jake and a few of the cleaners looked like statues. Nate shook his head slowly.
  “No. We can't have people here plotting against us Derrick. You and your friends have been trying to take us down for too long. I'd hoped that you'd all see the error of your ways and learn to help out, but...” He didn't finish, because of the three women that ran into the room, throwing themselves in front of the man. Brave of them, but foolish.
  “No! You can't kill him... I love him.” Deborah said, her forty year old mouth saying what her equally old brain should have realized was a stupid thing to say given