by Lynn Lamb
October 31
It has been snowing hard, on and off, for the last few days. Today is Halloween, and a very miserable Bailey has been moping around the house all day. We had intended on having a Halloween event at the Town Hall, but obviously that couldn’t happen now. Everyone was too sad and stressed out to make new plans.
Mrs. Ingram was able to remake our costumes, Ma and Laura Ingles dresses, that were lost in the fire. She had to sew them by hand because we also lost all of her sewing machines. Poor Mrs. Ingram. The house that we had moved her from, the one that she had lived in for forty-two years, burned to the ground. She lost most of the photos of her husband in that fire, and the rest when our house burned down. I am envious of how cheerful she remains in the face of so much loss. The good news is that Bailey’s mood changed this evening, and I have to admit that mine did, too.
Bailey and I showed off our costumes in the living room with “oohs” and “ahhs” from Annie and Mrs. Ingram.
“Now, you two sit down on the sofa because I have a big surprise for you,” said Annie.
Bailey and I sat while Annie left the room. We giggled at how excited she was. Mrs. Ingram wore a look of satisfaction on her face.
Annie brought Bailey a paper sack, and she sat waiting expectantly as Annie addressed us.
“And now, without further ado, may I present The Ghosts of Bad Halloween Costumes Past?” she said in a low and official tone.
That’s when Jake, Adam, Ammie, Bri and Mark came through the double doors wearing the most ridiculous looking costumes ever.
Jake was wearing an old tutu I made for Ammie when she was little— on his head. He was carrying a bouquet of ugly, fake flowers and wearing a white “granny” nightgown over his clothes. I could only imagine he was supposed to be a bride.
Adam was wearing a sad Harry Potter costume with a lightning bolt drawn with an eyebrow pencil on his forehead and a black towel pinned to the back of his shirt like a cape.
Ammie starred as one of Santa’s elves, and Bri made for a very skinny Santa. They had obviously dived into the Christmas boxes when the Halloween costumes ran out.
Mark was the only one who actually had on a full costume; he was Superman. He must have found the outfit in one of the donation boxes in the ballroom. He ran through the room, letting his cape fly behind him, singing the theme from the old Batman TV show. None of us had the heart to tell the comical African man that he was singing the wrong tune. He was fabulous just the way he was.
I am not sure I can explain the skit that came next. It had a convoluted plot about how Harry Potter zapped them all to the North Pole, everyone except for Superman because of course he flew there. The bride may or may not have been marrying Superman, and that was all that I could follow.
It made Bailey laugh so hard she fell on the floor snorting. That was all I needed. She was as happy as I had ever seen her.
Following the evening’s entertainment, Bailey went from character to character saying “trick or treat” and holding up her paper sack for her rewards. Ammie threw in some plastic Mardi Gras beads, while Bri gave her a “Go National Guard” cap. Adam was the only one to give her candy; a snickers bar, her favorite. He said that he zapped it in all the way from Hogwarts, but I am sure that he had been saving it from one of his runs. Mark’s gift was touching. It was the American flag that he got when he came home from the Iraq War. It was in a beautiful triangle frame with his name engraved on a little metal plate on the front.
I turned my head so no one could see my tears. My family loves that little girl as much as I do. Like it or not, she is now a Balous-Patton. And I do think she likes it.
“Laura, when we have school again, can I wear my costume?” she asked while I was tucking her into bed.
“Sure thing, sweet girl,” I told her.
This was the best Halloween I have ever had.
November 2
The dark sky has dumped around three more feet of snow.
I was worried about sending out Adam and the other Out-bounders, but we were running dangerously low on food supplies. They have been trying to go through the snowy debris of where homes used to stand. I asked Adam to stay as close to the Village as possible, but I can’t imagine there is much that we and the other scavengers haven’t picked through yet around here.
There have also been more rumors about a group of over 100 Wanderers. Their numbers are now closing in on our population counts, that is, if they do exist. Jackson says that they are probably out there watching us and keeping tabs. He’s one paranoid SOB.
Jackson, Mark, and I sat in my dreary office.
“So, why don’t you go and do secret ops defensives, or whatever it is you do?” I mocked.
“As much as I wish he was wrong, we really need to make a decision on what to do. The way I see it is that we have two choices; we stay or we run,” said Mark.
“It’s not running,” said Jackson, irritated. “It’s about finding the most strategic and the safest place to settle the Village.”
I could tell that Mark’s temper was about to steam over. He didn’t like agreeing with the Colonel in the first place, but when Jackson became argumentative, Mark became indignant. “Is it because when you say ‘strategic,’ you mean ‘strategic for battle’ not ‘strategic for supplies, our own belongings, and the hospital’?”
Those were all good points, especially the hospital. As far as I could recall, there was only a small clinic in the Valley where an old country doctor had his practice. Who knows if it’s even still there?
I used to go to Carmel Valley when I was a teenager. At the time, it had the only public pool for miles. It was a long ride out there, but my friends would pick me up, and we would make the drive together, giggling about boys the whole way. It was worth it in the summer. Monterey’s summers used to be in the fifty to sixty degree range before the Last War. The Valley would get into the ninety degree range, and my friends would get killer tans - and I would get killer sun burns - but those were such wonderful, carefree days.
I wonder what the weather is going to be like in the Valley this summer.
∞
I got a call from Jackson on our emergency walkie. I now had three separate walkies, each with its own purpose, besides being my own personal lojacks. I knew that if a call came on the emergency walkie it was about something big, but that the whole Village should not be alerted.
I ran out of the ballroom to the next street over, where I had been summoned. The day was bright and the glare of the snow burned my eyes. When I blinked away my blindness, I saw Cory on the snowy ground with Jackson standing over him trying to get zip-ties over his wrists as he wriggled around in the snow, trying to get away.
I ran to his side and noticed Levi Samuels standing behind Mark, who was facing him. He looked very agitated, and I knew that he had something to do with whatever was going on.
I knelt down next to Cory, my knees sinking into the deep powder. “Stop fighting him. He outweighs you by fifty pounds of muscle. Stop and we will figure this out.”
“Bring them to the ballroom,” I ordered.
“No,” Jackson contradicted. “This is security, and it’s my jurisdiction. Take them to the paddy.”
“The ‘paddy”— what is this, 1875? Is there a wagon that comes with that, Constable Jackson?” I asked, not understanding how there could be any type of prison that I wasn’t aware of.
I followed Cory, who fought being pushed in the direction Jackson wanted him to go. Jackson himself, followed by Mark, and Levi, and three others on the security team, determinedly aimed him in the direction they wanted him to go. Our feet sank in the snowy powder until we finally made it to a small house that I thought was one of our few remaining empty dwellings.
Mark seemed to have been there before, and I was feeling betrayed. He led Levi to a chair and went back outside. Before I knew it, he was back with wood, and he was starting a fire to warm the freezing and sparsely furnished room. I looked on feeling as if I w
asn’t even in the room, like I was watching a movie and all of the actors’ movements were well choreographed. I stayed back as an observer.
After shoving Cory ahead of him into what I can only guess was a secure room, Jackson came and sat behind a desk that was near the fire.
“Okay, how did it start?” Jackson asked an uncomfortable-looking Levi.
Levi looked sheepishly at me. “He was saying that Laura had no idea what she was doing and that you all just follow her blindly.” I made a small, snarky noise before I had even realized it.
Mark sent me a look and took a seat next to him. “Go on, Levi. It’s okay.”
“He said that she was getting power happy and that a bunch of Villagers were getting sick of it. That she let those people die in the fire because she had no plan.”
I bent my head at that to stare at my boots. It was true; I had no plan for fires of that magnitude.
“Anything else?” asked Jackson.
“He said that pretty soon she was going to try and get us all to move away from here for some ridiculous plan she has to bring us all to the Valley,” he said. He looked at our faces as if he was trying to pull information from us using only the power of his glance. His look turned accusing when he looked over to see my guilty expression.
“What happened after that,” Mark asked, getting him back on track.
“I told him he was a total dickweed and he swung at me. We ended up rolling on the ground, beatin’ the crap out of each other.” We all sat staring at each other in thought for an uncomfortable moment.
“Levi, you can go now if that is everything.” Jackson’s dismissal concluded his investigation.
“It’s not true, right?” begged Levi. “You aren’t thinking of moving us, are you?”
I stared at the lost-looking guy, just sitting there willing me to tell him it wasn’t true. “Levi, any decision like that would be left for the Village, not for me to make unilaterally. It would be done by vote.”
By the look on his face, that was not the answer he was looking for. He walked out of the little make-shift court house and jail looking very uneasy.
I wasn’t sure where to start with Mark and Jackson, so I went with, “What the hell is this place?”
“I decided to make this a jail right after you left on your little adventure,” said Jackson smugly.
“And you didn’t tell me?” I asked, steaming at his tone. “Why?”
“You can see why, Laura,” Mark said, defensively. “Because there are Villagers who are questioning your authority.”
“Doing this behind my back only undermines my authority more. How will this help? And people still have the right to question. This is still America, isn’t it?” I said, channeling my youngest niece.
“Is it?” asked Jackson.
I had never even questioned whether or not we were still Americans, or if America even existed anymore. America had failed, I couldn’t deny that. But had it ceased to exist?
∞
“For as much as you hate Jackson, you sure do defend him a lot,” I told Mark as we were walking home. I was so mad, I couldn’t even look at him.
“I don’t ‘hate’ anyone. I just dislike him— a lot,” Mark retorted.
“I have nothing going on with him. He’s my advisor, Mark. That’s it.”
“I know. I am just tired of fighting. Can we just hit rewind and start over?” he asked.
“It wouldn’t be the first time we did that, would it?” I asked, knowing very well that we had. “Fine, rewind ‘hit.’ Let’s move forward.”
I had no idea where the beginning point would be for this rewind, but I was just too tired of the tension and arguing. I don’t know why I decided to keep the Pandora’s Box open, but I continued to talk. This time it was about the giant, pink elephant in the room that I had never really come to terms with.
“I killed someone, and you don’t even seem to care that it’s eating me up,” I said as we persisted up the icy hill. Obviously, I still needed to talk with him about this.
“I know. I killed people in the war. Yours was self-defense, plain and simple,” said Mark.
“I feel different, though. Like I can never go back, and I am not even sure where ‘back’ is. Everything is just off,” I tried to explain.
Mark sucked in air and blew out a visible breath that swirled with the snowflakes that were coming down softly. “I get it. You took a human life that you can never give back. And I am glad you did it. Because if you hadn’t have done what you did, I wouldn’t have you here with me right now.”
I felt no better. We walked the rest of the way home in an uncomfortable silence.
November 6
Now that the snow has stopped falling for several days, the Village is starting to come back to life. Charlotte Copeland, our resident agriculturist, has even come back to work on the garden. During the deep snow, we placed heaters in the raised plant beds using one of our remaining generators. I have been apprehensive about burning our gas supplies on the remote possibility that our crops can survive this freeze, but we must have the food.
Adam came home on Monday with the smallest amount of supplies that our Out-bound group has collected yet. The team gathered a few cans of vegetables, including tomatoes, corn and green beans. They also were hunting, and they came back with four large bucks.
Ammie has been focusing on nutrition with Annie, who is in the kitchen again. We use our own kitchen at home since our old one was destroyed in the fire. Even though it’s a bit small, she is still able to make meals for everyone. We all gather to eat at Jill’s house in shifts. I can tell that the Villagers are growing impatient with this kind of dining, but we have no other choice at the moment.
Ammie and Doc Malcolm have been treating people for constipation, which is developing from our new high-protein, low-fiber diet. Ammie says that it is not a problem yet, just uncomfortable. And I can attest to that. I am also getting really tired of venison and rabbit. What I wouldn’t do for a big bowl of steamed veggies and some homemade chicken soup.
The one thing I can’t help but be really excited about is the eight turkeys we are storing in our recently built ice house. We are saving them for Thanksgiving. We have decided that we will celebrate it, if we can. I have found that making plans in this new world is usually disappointing, though.
November 8
Ironically, Cory’s trial came far more swiftly then it would have in the old world. This is ironic, since we needed to create a new justice system to deal with this fairly minor incident. We spent most of the week arguing about how it should unfold. It made me wonder if our Founding Fathers also argued about the ethos of justice in the same way that we did; loudly and with conviction.
Retired Judge Shayna Rosen was leery of becoming involved in the law again. I don’t blame her, but she was the most experienced person in the Village to help us create a fair system. It was she who insisted that in this world justice needs to be truly swift.
It was decided that we would have a jury of six randomly chosen Villagers. Judge Rosen would preside over the hearing; William Broderick for the defense and Shelia Akron for the Village - both lawyers in the old world - would serve as Counsel.
We all met in the ballroom, where chairs were placed in the same positions as a courtroom from the past. I was becoming increasingly concerned about so closely modeling our new legal system on the former one, but old habits die hard even when you are honestly trying to change.
The six jurors, including Steve Rolette, a man who has been leading a group of vocal dissenters of the organization that has been established in the Village, sat upright and attentive in their chairs. There was a palpable excitement radiating from the jury, and that had me nervous from the start.
“My client has been unjustly brought to trial,” began Broderick. “All because he simply stated his opinion to someone who violently disagreed…”
The three hour hearing ended in Cory being exonerated on the charges of creating undue t
hreats to the “government” of the Village. He was found guilty of assault on Levi because he threw the first punch. The assault was deemed a misdemeanor and he was sentenced to three weeks of kitchen cleanup duties.
I dreaded Cory being in my home for his penance, but I felt that justice was served. Personally, I never had a problem with him stating his concerns about the next steps for our future. And it is only fair to admit that we were indeed considering the move he was complaining about when the fight broke out between the two men.
The scary part for me was that I was becoming more and more convinced that we needed to leave the homes that we have fought so hard to keep.
November 12
Today the Council was called at the request of a group of Villagers.
Council members were set to go half an hour before our eleven o’clock meeting time. I am proud of the people I have surrounded myself with. They are the best in their fields, and they are also some of the most ethical people I have ever met.
The buzzing began as soon as everyone found a seat. They all had a theory about what this group might want. Most thought that it had to do with the food rationing that began just last week. I knew that there was probably one person who knew exactly why we were called to meet, but Jackson sat there without saying a word.
An ice cold breeze announced the forty-six Villagers who walked solemnly into the ballroom without a word. The atmosphere became electric, and I had goose bumps up and down my arms. Each person had their hands clasped together in front of them, and each was holding a small, but thick book to their chest. My stomach did a deep summersault when I saw Steve Rolette and Cory Forsyth taking a seat at the rectangular table set up in front of the Council’s table. The remaining people, who bore no facial expressions, found a seat on the chairs set up in the gallery.
“Welcome,” I said, shushing the Council members who seemed to have missed the dramatic entrance. “It is nice to see you all here today. To what do we owe this honor?”