The Silent Years [The Complete Collection]

by Jennifer R. Povey

  "We can use that," Maria murmured. "But we need to get everyone to the gates."

  "Shouldn't be too hard. Let's go. Does everyone have weapons?" asked Lucy.

  Betty was relieved. She didn't have to pretend to be a grown-up any more. She could let the adults handle this. All she had given them was the last piece of information they needed. "Grace, you go out there and find the others."

  "You're..." Ted seemed about to object, likely because of her age, then pronounced a wry judgment. "Wildlings."

  Grace flickered a grin at him, then was gone. Betty could almost have sworn Grace had passed through the door rather than opening it. Some people thought the wildlings were a little supernatural.

  Grace wasn't truly a wilding, though. She was something else, and Betty wondered if Grace somehow remembered the survival skills the Silents had developed? Surely, Grace did not remember killing, there was too much innocence in her for that. Or had she accepted, somehow, that it was not her fault. Some of the other very young Recovered—none were younger than Grace acted the same way. They were inclined to go wild, inclined to be good trackers. They were probably better off with the wildlings.

  Lucy handed Maria her journal, than led the way towards the gates, her head high. Betty thought the old woman looked fragile.

  Betty hoped that Lucy did not plan on getting herself shot. But Lucy was using herself as the bait.

  They did not get far before being stopped.

  -#-

  "Lucy, you're harboring a fugitive."

  The men had stepped into their path, but Betty could hear shutters opening all over the place.

  "The poor girl was out in the snow, half frozen."

  "That poor girl is a bandit and a murderer. Let her freeze."

  Ted had a hand on his own gun. "We don't let people freeze even if they are bandits. That's our first law."

  "You don't have any laws," one said.

  "You mean we don't write them down. Our laws are based on how one survives. We didn't put up walls because it was better to have to worry about Silents than to let sane people die."

  "There aren't any more Silents." The protest came from somewhere near the back. "Now we need to protect our own and rebuild civilization."

  Betty heard several doors open. "There aren't enough of us for war. You can't survive without us, because you don't know how. We know how. The wildlings you despise know how. You want your lives back? Work with us, not against us."

  "Oh, don't listen to her, she's just a kid."

  "Either I'm just a kid or I'm a dangerous bandit. You can't have it both ways."

  Betty noticed that Ted had disappeared. She hoped he was sneaking around to open the gates.

  "We have to end this stupid fight now. Let them in," Lucy said with precise dignity. "All of them."

  Betty felt the cold slice through her again. If the shooting was going to start, it would start now. She heard guns being cocked. She reached for her own.

  She looked around; guns were pointed randomly in all directions. "I think this is called a standoff," she muttered.

  If anyone fired, it would turn into a free for all, and she would not know who to aim at. Who was on which side?

  It was silent, and the silence seemed to last as long as the plague had.

  "Everyone stand down," the man said. "We start a firefight here and it's just going to cause random deaths."

  Most of the weapons lowered.

  "I see you have quite a bit of support here, Miss. But I'm not prepared to let you back in without some kind of terms."

  "Screw terms." One of the villagers spat the words. "You're not the Mayor, he's dead. We didn't elect you."

  Weapons raised again.

  Another voice. "We're done with this. All of it. It's over. Either follow our laws or leave."

  "We're not throwing anyone out into the snow!" Betty protested. "No terms, no conditions, let everyone back in and then sort it out!"

  "She's right," Lucy said. "End the war then discuss the peace. I'm pretty sure we are all civilized...even the wildlings, in their own way...and can resolve this."

  For a moment, Betty thought the firefight was going to break out after all.

  Then she heard hoof beats, from the direction of the gate. The riders swept in, one of the wildlings riding Spot. He sat the mare easily, showing some talent. Behind them came the rest, on foot.

  The riders rode with one hand, holding their bows, hard faces fixed on those already in the street. The horses reined in and arrows were pointed at the villagers, at least at everyone but Betty, Grace and Lucy.

  "It's over," Lucy said. "Surrender, and nobody is going to get hurt."

  Betty hoped they would surrender. Another long, tense moment passed, and then all the weapons were lowered again.

  "We gotta sort this all out," a male voice said, finally. "But I don't get it."

  "You tossed people out just for helping wildlings...who happen to be part of our society, even the way they are. You don't know how to farm. You aren't qualified to be in charge," Betty spat at him.

  "And you are?"

  "Heck, no! I just know you aren't." She sought out Winston's eyes. Her friend nodded to her.

  "So, who should be in charge?"

  "We had a perfectly good system before you showed up. There will be cities again, just not today and not tomorrow. But maybe you can help us start to work towards it. If it's really where humanity should go."

  She glanced meaningfully at the wildlings. "That's what we have to work out: where we're going. As to who should be in charge" Betty pointed at Lucy, "I vote for her."

  "Now, excuse me, young lady."

  "I just had my sixteenth birthday. I'm old enough to nominate somebody to the Council, and I'm nominating you."

  "And I," Winston said suddenly, "nominate him." He pointed at the leader of the very men who had tried to take over.

  "Are you nuts?" called somebody.

  "Yes, but it's got to be done. We can't have peace while either side is locked out, now can we?" He turned his horse. "We vote now. Seat or not seat. Where's the rest?"

  In ones and twos the remaining councilors stepped forward. Larry had died, and the council had already been short a member before that death. This might work, though Betty still thought Winston was crazy. But maybe he was the right sort of crazy.

  "How about we don't vote in the snow?" That was Patrick Larson, who had been on the Council for years.

  "We vote now. It won't take long and then everyone can go inside."

  The wildling with Spot walked the mare over to Betty, dismounted, and offered her the reins. Betty stood there holding the horse while the council voted in a series of ayes that would change the future.

  Or maybe wreck it.

  Epilogue

  Betty married one of the Recovered, Eric Maloney, and had three children. She had a long and successful career on the council of what was to be known as Spring Lake Village. At the age of sixty, she became Mayor of the reincorporated city of Chicago, proving her own prediction about cities wrong.

  Grace Swiftfoot, as she became known, also married and had several children and became a strong voice to ensure her people's survival...that mix of orphaned children, Native Americans and Roma whom some people still call wildlings, but whom most now honor as the Rangers.

  Winston never married, but enjoyed a long, healthy, and happy life working with the Recovered to restore electricity to Spring Lake and the settlements around. Betty named her oldest child after him and sometimes spoke of him as her first love.

  Chroniclers' Notes

  Complete accounts of the plague years are rare. While we could have elected to use Lucy Elmsworth's diary as our primary source, the decision was made to use three partial accounts from different geographic areas.

  Thus, the first account is that of Dorothy Mayling, a middle class woman from Siler City, North Carolina. A West Coast account would have been preferred, but the accounts from that area that survive tend to
be fragmentary. Very few individuals made it out of the major West Coast cities and most of those who did faced harsh winters in the north and drought in California and did not survive long. Only a few 'wildling' bands endured in the true West.

  For the second account, we chose Helen Locke, whose meticulous record keeping has also given us most of the material for the volume Beer and Electricity: Village Economics During the Plague Years. A rarity as a female leader in the southeast at the time, her competence stands out as evidence that the patriarchal attitudes that dominate the Carolinas and West Virginia to this day are ill thought.

  For the third account, we elected to choose an individual who had little memory of the pre-plague civilization. Unfortunately, such individuals seldom kept journals. Most were basically illiterate. Betty Clayson was a rare exception in many ways. In fact, she has become a symbol of survival and rebuilding.

  These accounts were presented to give students a better understanding of the reality of those times than a dry textbook.

  For us, two generations on, the re-ordering of society that took place seems to be the natural order of things. It is good to remember that it is not, and that we have to be careful with our technology, all of it. Otherwise, it may bite us once more, and this time, there may not be enough of us to survive...

  Yet, this account is also intended to remind that we should not abandon the pursuit of higher knowledge, because to do so is to sacrifice its potential, as well as its dangers.

  Professor Grace Maloney

  University of Chicago

  Author's Note

  Quite a while ago I wrote a short story called "The Silence," which was eventually purchased by Damien Broderick for the online edition of the Australian popular science magazine Cosmos.

  While I was shopping this story somebody said it felt like part of a larger work. So, I set out to write a novel - but it morphed in my hands into a collection of three novellas, connected and in order, but in no way an actual novel.

  So, I'm presenting the work in the format it was clearly meant to be in - a series of three novellas. Each one tells the story of a different woman and her struggle to survive during the apocalypse.

  The Silent Years has its origins in zombie fiction, but it's not a classic zombie story. It's closer to apocalyptic science fiction than it is to horror. Perhaps it's ironic that somebody as in favor of science as I am has written a "science goes wrong" story - but it was the framework I needed for the story I wanted to tell. And a reminder that we should be careful in our endeavors in case they come back to bite us.

  You can find more of my work at www.jenniferrpovey.com

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks go out to:

  My husband - for his usual moral and emotional support. Oh, and for being a very good proofreader.

  Damien Broderick - for buying the original short story and letting me know I might actually have something good here.

  Suzanne Hartwick - who gets full credit for wrestling with the editing and giving me ideas on how to fix my problems, whether I used them or not.

  Starla Huchton - for the awesome cover art.

  Everyone at RoTaNoWriMo for the mo checks.

  My father - for teaching me to like end of the world stories.