The Silent Years [The Complete Collection]

by Jennifer R. Povey

"Crazy kids," Tom commented, but not without good humor.

  "Just kids. I knew we should have included them in the plan."

  "Why bother? They included themselves quite nicely."

  "So, let's take care of this." Helen smiled a little bit. It felt as if the muscles of her face had forgotten how.

  "They won't kill the kids," Tom said, laughing.

  Who would? It was hard enough to kill Silent children. Teenagers sure, but some of these kids were barely old enough to lift a gun, and they were forming up around her, like an honor guard. Her breath caught in her throat, then she relaxed. Oddly enough, she felt safe for the first time in days. She was able to convince herself she might not be about to die after all.

  She felt truly alive.

  Their band turned towards the council house. Was Easton in there?

  Chapter Twelve

  Silence. It spread outwards. Nobody was shooting any more. Even those who had been willing to fire on the children before had lowered their weapons. Perhaps they feared the looks on those young faces, for even those not gone wild had grown masks. They were not children any more, just people who had not finished growing.

  Helen saw them as they were and shivered in fear. Then gunfire broke out again. Easton's men shot at a woman who rushed towards the wagon. She went down. Helen had not even had time to recognize her, only time to flinch.

  It was a standoff. The children outnumbered the men, but many of them did not know how to use the weapons they held. It was obvious in the way the kids held them.

  "Easton!" Helen called. "Come out and talk, coward!"

  Nothing. Perhaps he wasn't there. Perhaps he was cowering in one of the store rooms, where there was no chance of a stray shot taking him out.

  Perhaps he was considering what to say.

  "I know you're in there. I know you don't like not having guns to back you up."

  He soon would have guns to back him up; shooters were moving to position themselves between the children and the courthouse. However, the next adult who ran to join the children was not fired on.

  "Nobody's going to shoot you, Easton."

  Tony either ruined or added to the effect by calling, "I wouldn't waste a bullet."

  She thought of the gallows, wondered if they would soon have another occupant. How many been hung while Easton was in charge. “It's kinder.” That echoed in her mind as she just sat there, gun across her lap, not sure of her next move. Maybe Easton thought he could wait them out.

  No...the council house had a back door, and she would bet any amount he had a horse tethered there and would be gone.

  "So, if Easton won't talk, who will?" she demanded.

  Finally, a grey haired man stepped forward. "You and the rug rats should surrender. They can't fight us."

  "No, but do you really think they're the only people who want to?"

  "Surrender, and the only person who need be harmed is you..." He regarded her.

  "Surrender, agree to behave, and nobody will get hurt at all." Except for Easton, and she would allow him to leave. He'd maybe find somewhere he fit in. Maybe everyone could.

  "You really want to turn this into a shootout with those kids in the middle?"

  Several of the children cocked weapons and aimed at him. None fired. That was amazing discipline even for adults.

  "Do you want to gamble on being able to win? Do you really want more human lives to be lost when they are the most precious things we have?"

  "Who started this, anyway?"

  "You did, with your lies. There is no Republic. There is nothing but a group of bandits desperately wanting a place to settle, carrying law books you no doubt stole from the cooleemees. If you'd come to us, given your parole, agreed to live by our laws, you would have been welcomed." She glanced at Tom. He had been welcomed, and had repaid it with...not honor, he was not capable of that, but something. Something that made her decide then and there to give him a chance.

  "Here's my terms," she said. "Any man who sets down his gun now will not be harmed. Any man who wishes to leave will be given supplies and a gun. Any man who wishes to stay must swear allegiance to the community and agree to our laws."

  She was not sure who fired...it came from one end of the line. All she knew was that suddenly she was being pushed off the buckboard. She landed in a heap next to the wagon, the wind knocked out of her. "Tom!"

  No answer. There was a shot from one of the kids. Had somebody who would, once, have been in grade school just killed a man?

  "Tom!" She hauled herself to her feet. He lay across the buckboard, his blood soaking into the boards beneath him. He was so very still.

  She was not sure whether he was dead... No, he was alive. He moved, looked at her, then stilled. Playing dead seemed like a smart idea. Or maybe he was dying.

  Why did she care? He had saved her life. Now, perhaps she would have to return the favor. The shooting had stopped again. She stood there, trying not to shake. "Enough. We can deal with this like reasonable, civilized people." She hoped anyway. What did civilized even mean anymore?

  She stood there, waiting for them to shoot at her again.

  Finally, somebody spoke. "Christ, Tom. You were supposed to..."

  "Tom Milkins was on nobody's side but his own. Let's sort this out." It was true; he had always been on his own side. Had he moved again? She could not check him.

  "Shut up. He's dead. We gotta deal with the bitch now."

  Several weapons aimed at the speaker and he stepped back, intimidated by the wild children and their strangely adult manner. Or perhaps he realized just how many guns were pointed at him, along with a couple of bows.

  Tony checked Tom, feeling for a pulse, then glanced at her with an eyebrow raised.

  She shook her head at him, hoping he would get the message and keep mum. Whoever had shot Tom was likely aiming at her, but somebody might want to finish the job. Heck, some days she had wanted to shoot him herself. Today she was proud of him, proud of herself, and proud of the children.

  It felt like the end. Any second now, things would erupt into gunfire and people would die.

  -#-

  The standoff might have lasted for hours. Nobody wanted to be the one who restarted the gunfire.

  Helen stepped forward. She had dropped the rifle when Tom had saved her from the gunshot, and it still lay in the dust untouched. It felt as if she needed to do this unarmed. She walked right up to the man who seemed to be in charge. Head in the lion's jaws.

  "This ends now. Stand down." She shouted right in his face, as if he was her adversary in a courtroom. No, as if he was a defendant she was interrogating—a man for whom she had no respect.

  She heard hoof beats behind her, but did not turn.

  "You stand down." But he had taken a step backwards. He was wavering, his stance and the lines of his face showed it. The uncertainty rippled outwards.

  “You don't know what to do with me, do you?"

  "You're an unnatural bitch and probably a lesbian!" he snapped.

  "Just a woman," she countered. "Just because I'm not a housewife and broodmare." She did glance around at this point. She saw quite a few women in the crowd that had gathered but remained at a wary distance.

  "Women raise children. That's the natural order, the order we broke before..."

  "Bullshit. We broke things when we tried to do shit with science we didn't understand. We broke things when we tried to use nature as a weapon. Nature bit back, and is that really a surprise? Humans don't have a natural order. That's why we're human, that's why we're so successful, because we can use any 'order' we want or need to."

  "Bitch," was all he could say.

  "You're outnumbered. Because we know everyone needs to be able to fight, when they have to. Because we give weapons out depending on who can shoot, not what..." She bit back a coarse comment about plumbing "...gender they are. Maybe your way works too, but so does ours, and there's space for both. There has to be."

  Tony glanced at her, then s
aid: "There has to be, 'cause if one way doesn't work, the other has to take up the slack."

  That was what she had been struggling for, and she shot him a look of gratitude. "So, what is it to be? Do you stay or go?"

  It would be a loss if they did, they were strong men and good workers, but could they live in a society they did not believe in?

  "Give us horses," one of the men said.

  "Of course." She knew in that moment that she had won.

  -#-

  Easton rode off not quite into the sunset. He was heading more south. Maybe he would find a cooleemee that would take him. Maybe he would die.

  Helen found herself not caring as she watched him leave with those of his men who went with him. Some had stayed. Some were willing to give her way of doing things a chance.

  The same chance she was giving Tom Milligan. She found herself reaching for his hand, and then pulled it away. He had proved he could be a decent man. But he was still a weasel.

  He had a lot to do if he was going to fully prove himself to her. Time would tell.

  She turned away to walk back to the council chambers, feeling his eyes on her.

  "Helen..."

  She turned.

  "Is there any decent cider at Sandy's?"

  There was something in his eyes that made her look at him again. She started to walk back towards him. "How about we go find out?"

  She still wasn't going to let him touch her. Not yet, at any rate. But she did walk towards Sandy's with him, feeling almost as comfortable as she had with long absent friends.

  Feeling eyes on her, she turned, but whichever child it was disappeared before she could get a solid look at them. But she was fairly sure it was Irene.

  "And maybe you should run for sheriff. I think we need one."

  "Maybe I should."

  She smiled inwardly. Her town was safe. Easton would not dare attack it again. And maybe her life had possibilities she'd set aside since that night in DC.

  The bar was full of people celebrating. She found a table, and watched them. Her people. She would keep doing what she had to to keep them safe.

  For the rest of her life.

  Epilogue

  This account was put together from the detailed records Helen Locke kept. According to those records, Tom Milkins recovered from his gunshot wounds. The two were married six months later and adopted three children, including the wildling Irene.

  Helen was still in charge of Bruceton Mills when the area was retaken by the East Coast Republic. She retired soon afterwards, having preserved, in the old museum, numerous valuable papers and artifacts from before the Plague. Irene's descendants still live in the area today.

  Book Three

  Maiden

  Chapter One

  Betty shook her head, and regarded Winston wryly.

  "It is just because you aren't into women," she teased him.

  "Hush. You know how some people around here feel about that." The young man made a great show of checking the area, then grinned back at her.

  She felt herself relax. "Yes, but at least I'm safe with you. I have a horrible feeling I'm going to end up having to hit Derek somewhere sensitive."

  "He deserves it. I caught him trying to cop a feel on Margie, too."

  Betty brushed back her hair. "Anything with breasts," she said. "We need to get him married off to some battle-ax who'll kick his butt if he tries his shenanigans with another woman."

  "An ugly battle-ax," Winston mused. "Carla?"

  "Oh god, that would be perfect. She even likes him." Betty couldn't help but flicker a grin at the eighteen-year-old.

  "At least they aren't trying to marry you off yet."

  "Another year and they probably will. Of course, the age they marry people off seems to be drifting younger."

  "When half of the kids have the plague, we need to breed. Even those of us who would rather not."

  "I'd marry you," Betty promised. "I wouldn't interfere with anyone you had on the side. We could have our share of children and just be friends."

  He studied her. "Wouldn't you rather have somebody who actually wanted you?"

  She ducked her blonde head. "Depends. There's want and want. At least I know you like me for me, not my breasts."

  "Let's get back, before anything nasty jumps us."

  Betty nodded and picked up her gun. Ammunition was at such a premium these days that not everyone carried a gun any more. Winston had his bow; arrows were much easier to make.

  She remembered cars and stuff, but it was a dim memory. Eight years ago. She had been seven, and her parents had both died. She had been taken in by the people here, raised as a sort of communal child.

  She had stayed. She was not entirely sure why, except that it had felt like the right thing to do. Stayed rather than leaving with the wildlings, as other children had. Nobody quite trusted wildlings, but they were valuable allies to settled humanity.

  New patterns. She might be barely able to read and write, but she understood the pattern of humanity. The flow of it.

  They moved down the street lined with the remains of houses. Nobody lived in the city center, where the skyscrapers slowly decayed and fell. One day, that land would be safe again. Now they seldom even foraged there. Too many people had been killed by falling concrete as its reinforcements rusted out, or by falling glass, windows tumbling to the cracked hardtop with a fragile tinkling sound, so light and musical to be a harbinger of blood and death.

  Grass grew up through the cracks in the street, although most of the street’s surface remained somewhat solid and stable. At the very least, it helped them avoid the mud, and wild creatures, still remembering human dominance, gave the road a wide berth.

  The animals that did forget might find a shot fired over their heads, or into their bodies, for deer, plentiful here, made good eating.

  The houses sagged, their windows like blind eyes onto the street, the glass glittering in their yards. The wood within was returning slowly to the earth. Glass and plastic sagged toward the ground, the latter warped and bent by the loss of structure underneath.

  But there was no sign of wild beasts or Silents now. Most people had once predicted that the plague victims would survive about five years.

  They had been wrong. Silents could breed, and they retained the instinct to care for their young; Betty had witnessed that. Sane humans were stuck with the Silent, and hunting them to extinction was not as easy as people had once believed it would be.

  If exterminating the Silents was even desirable. Some people thought the Silents should instead be preserved in the hope that some of those children might be intelligent.

  Those children might be saved.

  -#-

  Often, breakfast was whatever there was. This morning, there were potatoes (easier to grow than grain) and eggs from the chickens. Their community had settled in and area surrounding a former park. It was now a farm, expanding out into the yards that had backed onto the former park land. Those houses were maintained enough to be livable, although no Neighborhood Association would have approved of them now.

  The village needed more space, and were looking for it. The young couples needed space of their own, for those children who were not affected by the plague.

  Betty did not want children, not not knowing how many of them she would have to kill. Those would not be “children,” of course. Silents were not people, for all that they looked like them and wore the same basic form.

  They were not people. That was why Betty cleaned her gun once she had finished breakfast. She had the gun because she was better with it than with a bow. Practical considerations. She had looted what she wore from those that did not need it anymore. Some people wore looted clothing, some homespun, but most wore a mixture of the two.

  The settlement needed more sheep. That meant a major Expedition, and she had no illusions about being asked to go. Girls, even competent ones, did not go on big Expeditions. She chafed under the restriction, not quite seeing th
e reason for it, other than the falsehood that women were weaker.

  She was very definitely a girl. Her figure had shaped up of late, she had a waist and good hips. Good hips were important. Too many women died in childbirth for want of medications and techniques that had once been common.

  While she daydreamed, Winston took his leave with a wave and a murmured "Goodbye." Betty dismounted and picketed the mare, walking back to her porch. She cleaned her gun and wished she was a man. Men had to take risks too, but they were different risks. Risks that were more within the person's control. She could not control what might happen with pregnancy, with childbirth. It was not like hunting Silents.

  "Betty?"

  "Hey there, Steffi."

  Maybe what she really wanted was to be Steffi, who got to do everything the men did by virtue of not being able to have children. Steffi didn't even have to put up with periods. Betty envied her.

  "Could use a hand with something here."

  Betty stood up. You didn't say no without a good reason, for you never knew when it would be your turn to need help. It was all turn and turnabout. "Okay."

  She followed Steffi to what had once been a back yard. Now the fences were gone and rows of various vegetables extended into the old park. It was a view she was used to; it felt right. The old pictures of lawns and hedges seemed wasteful now, too much space being ill-used.

  As wasteful as sports and as...well...as that had all been before. She dimly remembered stores full of televisions and toys and everything that anyone might want. Not need, want.

  They had looted those stores, looking for anything useful, and found nothing. Nothing but the debris of a lost world.

  "Can you walk across there and help me stake this row straight?"

  It was clearly a two woman job, but an easy one. Betty's mind had room to wander. There was very little threat of Silents this far inside the community. That didn't mean you relaxed and certainly didn't mean you went unarmed. It meant you only watched with one eye, instead of two.

  Sometimes, Betty wondered what it would be like not to have to do that, what it had been like before. They had pictures of that, too. Grinning girls in short skirts and too much makeup, worrying about their grades, or not worrying about anything at all.