Read A Very Good Man for Free Online Page B

everything.
  Erin said something similar, but she could be forgiven, Jake guessed. Still a bit overweight and pug nosed, along with not being overly bright and maybe seventeen. She'd probably felt lucky that Holsom had bothered to pay attention to her at all. She was probably right. As she spoke Sara, an older woman, the third in their little triumvirate of the yaya sisterhood or whatever, started screaming at Nate. Jake trained his handgun on her and spoke softly.
  “Quietly. Please.”
  She didn't seem to hear him. Jake sighed and shot her in the head. This time it wasn't a miss. He did manage to angle the shot at least, so no one else got hit. The room went silent as she fell. Everyone knew better than to scream now. That just got you killed. Jake half expected Molly to raise a fuss, just to make him kill her. She didn't though. She just stood back, her little twenty-two pointed at one of Holsom's buddies. 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 name he'd earned.
  Washing paid off.
  Turning back to Derrick as if nothing had happened, Jake grunted.
  “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.
  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 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 to firearms. Mainly the first one.
  Dave collected up the weapons quickly, without being asked and removed those to the side. 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 that can be spared. No one is too important for this.”
  Jake nearly shut his eyes. They were not going to let Holsom stay, were they? That would be so... suicidal. Thankfully Tipper mentioned it, which got a nod from Nate.
  “Agreed, these men haven't been holding up their end 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?”
  What the fuck was the point of having a leader, if Nate was just going to do crap like this, Jake wondered. No sane person would want people like this to stay would they?
  “Um, I think they should be allowed to stay.” One of the remaining female traitors said softly, looking at Jake as she did. Deborah, the older one.