The Silent Years [The Complete Collection]

by Jennifer R. Povey

  Again, she could not be sure whether it was her shot that had killed the guard or another's. It allowed her to imagine she remained innocent, that no one’s blood stained her hands.

  In her heart of hearts, she knew innocence to be a delusion. Time slowed, the second guard fell before she could raise her weapon again. It was her responsibility, each life, each death. She could have walked away when she had the chance.

  She should have walked away. But now it was too late. As silent as if she had the plague, she slipped through the streets, ducking behind buildings and through yards until she finally reached her house. The retrieved key was heavy in her pocket, weighing her down as she unlocked the door. It swung open to reveal a dark interior with remarkably few stacked boxes.

  Were those boxes enough? They could not even take all of it. For a moment, she fantasized lighting a match and blowing up what was left, destroying it so it could not be used.

  Except that gunpowder was a finite resource, one she dared not waste. They took what they could, guns and bullets both. Took it and fled into the night, the boxes heavy. Not as heavy, though, as the burden of guilt that crushed her into the ground. There was so much more she could have done to avoid the confrontation.

  She stole a glance at Tom Milkins.

  Was he playing both sides so that he would emerge as the new Mayor?

  Maybe. But she would be dead without him. Then again, what was she achieving but getting fifteen-year-old kids shot in the back?

  Survival. Survival was more than genes, it was culture. To protect that was worth the pain in her arms, the ache in her back. They should have brought a wagon.

  Where would they have found one? Even if they had, it would have been too obvious. The key was back in her pocket. Let Easton puzzle over that one. Let him wonder why and how his guns had gone missing. Let him wonder who had killed his men.

  He'd blame the Whites, she realized. He might even guess Helen was with them. With luck, though, he would not know where she was. The rain would blur their tracks...another reason not to bring a wagon.

  At the thought of that, her mood lightened a little, even as the water continued to drip on her. Her clothes were soaked. She would be so glad when this was over.

  A part of her might even be glad if it ended with her death — at least then she would be out of all of this. Helen wished she believed in some kind of afterlife, in the concept of something more. She wanted to believe that the box and the rain and the unlit farmhouse ahead were only one level of reality. She wanted to believe that the dead were not truly lost.

  Shaking herself out of it, she moved back out of the town. They had the guns, now they had to use them properly. Which meant more than the few of them. It would be suicide to press the attack now. She needed to find a way to rally people to them. The rain poured down on her as she fled back to the barn, feeling as if she was running away. Knowing, though, that they needed to sleep, regroup, and plan. Above all, to sleep.

  -#-

  The rain did eventually fade out, but its constant drumming on the barn roof made anything deeper than a fitful doze impossible. They were all huddled in Tony's barn, praying they had not been followed. "Helen?" Tom’s voice came from nearby. From the sound of it he was no happier than she was.

  "Yeah?" She kept her voice down. Maybe somebody had managed to find the path to dreamland, and if so, she did not want to wake them up.

  "I'm still not sure what the right thing is." His tone was uncertain, almost childlike in its doubt. He needed somebody to reassure him, to tell him it was okay. To tell him he was okay.

  Helen could not quite do that. She could not help but react as an adult, with an adult's kind of doubt. "Honestly? Is anyone ever sure of the right thing?"

  He pulled himself into a sitting position and scooted towards her. "Who has the right to decide how society should rebuild?"

  She had an answer to that one, delivered even more softly now he was closer. Part of her wanted him closer still, which surprised her. Then again, that was supposed to be an effect of combat stress, and she had certainly experienced that. It was not surprising that Tom—or any man—would look good to her right now. Heck, right now she wasn't entirely sure that a woman would not look good to her...of course, after Latisha and her children had fled, there were no women around to test that theory. "The people society lets do it."

  "That sounds like ‘might makes right.’"

  "No..." She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them. "Might only makes right if people don't stand up for themselves. I was more aiming for 'people get the government they deserve'."

  He laughed, a short and sharp sound without humor. "So, what did we do to deserve those clowns who ran things before?"

  "Could always blame lack of voter turnout." Somehow they had ended up next to each other, although she had not consciously moved. "It was apathy, I think. People had their toys...they were turning into lotus eaters." She didn't expect Tom to get that reference.

  He didn't. "Lotus eaters?"

  "Greek mythology. A race of people who lived on an island where all they had to do to survive was reach out, grab a lotus flower, and eat it. Their society degenerated."

  "I can see that. People need something to strive for. But I'm starting to think we need conflict and war, too."

  Mysteriously, Helen found her head was now on his shoulder. It must have been Tom that had moved. And damn him, he was not the man she wanted. Not now, not ever. Yet, right now, she could not pull away. "Maybe war is how societies evolve. Maybe it's the natural selection of culture."

  "I wish that idea did not make so much sense."

  She fell silent. Natural selection of culture? It made too much sense. It sounded like some bizarre kind of predestination, though. It made failure something meant to happen, not chance. Or it made everything chance and nothing meaningful. Did it explain the failure of the Third Reich? Maybe, but she was not sure how or why. The idea was not fully formed in her head, but rather wandered around; one more thing to keep her awake. She might die tomorrow, but that had been the case for a very long time.

  It had always been the case. Even before, death had always been a possibility: getting hit by a car, accidentally wandering into the wrong neighborhood and ending up the star in a gang initiation, cancer. Yet, facing her mortality so directly brought such clarity that she shivered in fear. Tom had also fallen silent next to her. His breathing was suspiciously even.

  Damn him. He had fallen asleep.

  Chapter Eleven

  The next day dawned sunny, much to Tom's disgust.

  "Much easier to sneak around in the rain."

  "Says you." She wondered if he even remembered last night. She wished they had had beds, not the straw in the barn. Still, it had beaten sleeping outside under the stars.

  Had she once thought of that as a romantic thing to do? Something to do with a lover on a warm summer night. She remembered the few stars she had been able to see. Now, clear nights showed the full panoply of heaven. No more lights to drown out the brilliance of the Milky Way.

  "I know it would be miserable, but we can't afford to be seen."

  "We can't wait." Tony came in with scrambled eggs.

  Helen took her share, wolfing them down. "I know."

  "What's wrong?" Tony asked.

  "Too many people dying. We need people too much to be killing each other."

  "They started it," Tony pointed out.

  "That's not the point, is it? I mean, that's what we always say—the excuse. What it's really about is land and ways of life."

  He pushed some eggs around his plate. "Isn't that what war has been about since somebody invented it?"

  "We can't afford war."

  "We'll have it." Tom sounded tired. "As we get rid of the Silents, that unifying force vanishes and all that is left is tribe and not-tribe. We are going back to the natural order, just not in the way Easton thinks. Slavery, feudalism, war, all those things are perfectly natural."
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  "So, what does it take to stop it?" Helen wasn't sure why she asked Tom, except that he had brought it up.

  "I don't know. Before, it took communications and travel. It's going to be centuries before anyone builds a plane again, or a phone."

  Maybe he was overly pessimistic. Maybe not. "Especially if we really lose so many of our children to the plague."

  "That won't last," Tom said. "We will build up our immunity as the immune have children, the plague will eventually go away or mutate into a less dangerous form. Just like new strains of flu."

  She glanced at him. "Those are natural viruses. This thing was probably designed not to mutate."

  "It was also not designed to turn people into zombies. They got it very wrong...and paid the price."

  Helen shuddered. Those scientists must have been the first victims, one way or another. "At least we had a solid immunity rate."

  "If the victims hadn't been violent, we might have been okay. Ten percent, you can build back up from...but we're at less than one, I'm sure."

  She frowned. "I was in Washington. I...have to agree. Maybe we need to not let the population ever get that high again."

  "Won't happen," Tony predicted. "Go forth and multiply is biological. People don't stop having kids until it's too late."

  She glanced down at herself. "Maybe you're right. And right now, it's right back to the days when you had six children, hoping two would live."

  "At least it's more than ten percent. Probably because the kids are born to immune parents." Tom rubbed his forehead.

  "I didn't know you knew so much about biology."

  "My dad was a doctor," he admitted. "Tried to turn me into one, but the idea of all those years of school..."

  Helen laughed. "I can't talk. I was a lawyer."

  "Figures." Tom glanced at Tony. "You? I know it's impolite to ask."

  "Farmer, all the way through. Which I suppose makes me one of the lucky ones." Tony shrugged. "Let's move out?"

  Tony's wife emerged to clean the plates. Ironically, she was the kind of woman Easton's crowd liked — quiet, unassuming and happy in the kitchen and the nursery.

  Helen, as she slung a rifle over her shoulder and stepped out into the crisp morning air, feared that woman would be the kind who would survive, who would thrive in the new order. She kept hoping she was wrong, that there would be a place for strong women, that women would lead humanity into the new world. Maybe that was what was being decided now. Today. Or now and many other times.

  War was natural too, as much a part of being human as speech. They could not get rid of war and stay human. She had read a book once, some famous writer (heck, maybe more than one) who had said that if humanity gave up war, they'd end up getting their butts kicked by aliens.

  They had a route already planned, had figured out which people were the most likely to be both supportive and useful. Helen had worked that out. Arm the women...maybe even some of the men; some might not have been left anything useful.

  As they approached the first target, she thought she saw something red on the horizon. What was burning? Helen hoped it wasn't Sandy's. They would not have dared touch the tavern. Would they? Then she laughed. She could not help it.

  "Hush...what's so funny?" Tom sounded annoyed.

  "I hope Easton and his cronies drank all of the bad batch of cider."

  Tom tried not to laugh himself. "That was pretty awful, wasn't it?"

  "Vinegar," she pronounced and kept moving. There was nothing they could do about the fire, except hope that it was not burning anyone they knew. Maybe they had killed those Silents and were burning the corpses before they attracted more.

  That would be a good thing, not to have to worry about another large incursion for a while. Better would be to be rid of Easton.

  This time, they did have a wagon, but they had muffled the horse's hooves. If they were heard, they would be stopped as a matter of course. The dull thuds that accompanied each step were too quiet to be heard at any distance. She hoped.

  The fire was still burning when they reached their first target.

  -#-

  At this point, Sandy's had stopped being her first concern. No, she worried about the council house, with its collection of pre-plague artifacts and, most importantly, books. Those books held knowledge that humanity could not afford to lose. There were so few surviving books. Would the kids even learn to read?

  They provided three guns to the first family they came across, for the mother and the two eldest daughters. The daughters were both coming dangerously close to the age Easton considered “marriageable.” Then they started to move on. That was when things went south.

  Two riders were coming up the road, two of Easton's men. They were probably looking for whoever had killed the two guards. Helen and her growing crowd had not had time to properly dispose of the bodies, after all.

  The two riders had the road blocked, and it was clear they would search the wagon and find the ammunition.

  Helen had one hope. Tom was driving. As Helen crouched in the back a gun in her hands, she hoped he could bluff them.

  In any case, they were almost within earshot of Bruceton Mills. So small a territory, really, and so insignificant. A shootout would alert everyone to their location.

  So, she held her breath.

  "What ya find, Tom?"

  "The blacks had a cache of food and weaponry. I'm bringing it in for redistribution."

  "They're dead, then?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, you won't mind if we take a look."

  Helen held her breath some more. Tom had explained the crates of weapons, but her presence? Not hardly! She and Tony could barely see each other across the wagon.

  They would have to shoot first, because if anyone fired into the wagon right now, they might blow it sky high. That was not how Helen planned on this adventure ending.

  As much as she had planned any of this adventure. Somehow, she had been pushed aside by the men who felt they had more of a knack for this. And then one of the riders was pulling back the tarp.

  Tony fired first, wounding the rider in his side. Helen lifted her own gun a moment later. It was two against two, and Helen had the advantage of surprise, but this time she had to take all responsibility for that life. She looked him in the eyes and fired.

  The bullet hit home and he fell. She had fired high, hitting him in the head. He would be telling no tales; she felt tears prick at her eyes. Too many deaths. They had to stop the killing. Yet, they could not help but continue to kill if they wanted to be free, to live the way they had chosen.

  She felt a stirring of hatred for humanity at that. The other man broke off running, away from them. She heard a shot.

  Tom Milkins had shot him neatly in the back.

  -#-

  "Let's try not to kill anyone else."

  "I agree," Tom said. "We can't afford to lose too many people. Sadly, that assumes we'll have any choice in the matter."

  She wanted to throw her gun into the bushes but didn't. "I'm not cut out for this."

  "You're cut out for sitting behind a desk making decisions about people's lives, not wandering around with a gun."

  "I try not to make too many decisions about people's lives either." She thought of the kid exiled for rape. He might have died too, and he had deserved it no more or less than the man she had shot. "But I get your point."

  "It's different when you have to do the killing yourself. Maybe we should make that a law." He met her eyes.

  "We can't afford to imprison somebody who kills, rapes, or causes that level of violent trouble."

  "Then use that gallows," Tom said. "It's kinder."

  Tony interrupted them. "Look, there's going to be a posse here in minutes. Let's just..."

  "Run," Helen said. "We're not going to complete this mission."

  Tom lifted a hand in the silence that followed. "Listen."

  Helen could hear shouting. The fire had been put out, but there seemed to be...
"That sounds like somebody's throwing a riot, doesn't it?"

  Tom hopped onto the buckboard. "Get your butt up here, Helen, ride shotgun."

  She pulled herself up next to him; Tony jumped into the back. "I'm kinda visible."

  "That's kinda the point." He shook the reins and the whip, driving the horse to the fastest pace it could pull at.

  "Risky."

  "I think that the time for sneaking around is gone."

  They were approaching town from the north, and she realized what had burned—one of the warehouses.

  "Hell,” Tom swore, “that's where they were keeping the kids."

  Helen could find no words for the pain. Not the children. Whoever had started this...

  "They were locked up, no doubt."

  He could not look at her. And then, the rest of hell broke loose.

  First there was gunfire, sporadic and then more certain. A battle in progress, and it was being fought with more than guns.

  Tom had reined the horse in when he realized what had burned, then drove her back up to speed, sweeping into the street…

  …the street that was full of children. Helen blinked, and then she jumped into the back of the wagon.

  "Helen..."

  But she was pulling guns out of one of the crates and tossing them to the kids. Some were the children of Bruceton, some were the wildlings. Tony gave her a thumbs-up, then started shooting at anyone threatening the kids.

  It was chaos. Complete and utter chaos, and she knew who had set fire to the barracks. Those wildling kids had developed a canniness equal to any adult. She realized that there was a method to their madness. As soon as they realized the wagon was a weapons source, they formed a circle, grabbing the guns and then moving to protect it.

  Irene. There she was. She winked at Helen, "Who do I belong to now?" she teased.

  "Whoever you want to," was the only response Helen could manage. What else could she even say? The kids had earned the right to be treated as adults.

  Maybe that was how it should always have been. She grabbed a gun and jumped back on the buckboard.