Ruin

by Harry Manners

  *

  Alexander didn’t appear at all that day. Only once the sun had set and the evening meal on Main Street was afoot did he emerge. But he wasn’t himself, didn’t say a single word to anyone. His head was ducked, and he blanked the welcoming cries of the city folk. He spoke only once, to Norman, in passing. “Keep them in the fields.”

  Then he retreated to the rear of the kitchen, beside the inglenook, to eat alone.

  The hall was soon buzzing with muttered chatter, and fleeting glances leapt in his direction every other moment. But nobody dared approach him. His eyes were too staring, too empty—elsewhere. His gaze didn’t leave the flames.

  For a while, his sullen puss weighed heavily over everyone. But the excitement stirred up by the radio was too great to be tempered. The news had sent the city into a storm of heated discussion and debate. Norman’s decision to convene the council in London was mentioned just as often.

  Many already claimed that he’d ordered it himself—had demanded that representatives from settlements across the country be brought together.

  At first, Richard tried to correct them. But when those many became most, he surrendered, and even began conjecturing along with them. Within an hour, it was common knowledge that Norman had had a hand in the radio’s discovery, and had ordered the Runners away himself, part of a brilliant plan between him and Alexander.

  What was that plan? Everyone was sure they’d be told in time.

  Norman was beginning to understand how the elders’ stories had started, and grown into the legends they were today—even the legend of Alexander Cain.

  Opinions flew every which way, well into the night. The debates were fierce.

  But it was all only so much smoke, obscuring the naked truth that now tortured their empty stomachs: This was the last full dinner they could expect to eat for some time.

  They could from now on only afford one meal per day, itself composed of mere meagre rations, leftovers dredged from beneath crates and hauled from the weeds in the wilder parts of the city.

  In addition, Ray’s murder had choked any plans for further foraging expeditions. During the day, few had dared to go beyond the fields, the streets, or even their own homes. Most were convinced that the wolves were at their door.