by P. S. Power
No one argued at least, even though Jake himself wanted to follow the people that had left and kill them all. It wouldn't shock him to find them all dead within the next few years, which they had to know was what would likely happen. Still, it wasn't on the orders of the new government, so at least they looked good, if a little soft.
Darian stood and bowed toward him, which got the rest of the room to do the same.
He bowed back, awkwardly, smiling and feeling good about the day's work. Then he took his friends and left, since they had other things to see to. For instance making sure that they found a way to prevent the Windigo from spreading as soon as possible, and that they stopped all of them they could.
It wasn't going to be easy, but they could do it, working together. Maybe the new world they made would be better than the one that had died around them?
Taking Colleen by one hand and Sammi by the other, Jake walked down the hallway, smiling. It was infectious, causing everyone else to do the same.
Finally, for more than two minutes at a time, Jake felt a feeling of peace come over him. This time it stayed that way.
As they all walked away the man that had been Jake finally faded away for the last time, leaving only The Very Good Man in his place.
It wasn't just a good thing, it was one of the best things ever. No one noticed it happening, but that was all right. They'd figure it out soon enough.
He was becoming what the world needed him to be, and now it needed love again. Peace and hope. All the good things, that he'd thought lost forever.
But here they were, back again.
As he smiled a single tear of joy slipped down his face.
It was a brand new world, and not a Dead End after all.
Not even for him.
Epilogue
(Year 132 After Founding)
"So that, as they say, is that. The story of Jake at the end of the world. I told it to you the way it was told to me years later, by the man himself. I was there at the time though, and I have to tell you, it was far more fantastic than it sounds like from his perspective." The kids didn't really know who she was, of course. It would lessen the impact of the story if she'd told them that first.
The class was made of young men and women that looked about her own age, fifteen or sixteen for a regular Human. The Vals in the group looked younger, the Denari and T'srith older, if in different ways. She was Bawdri though, so it made a bit of a difference. Most of them got it when she walked in. One or two might have even recognized her. Most didn't. The young had their own concerns after all, and tales of Zombies, Windigo and Very Good Men might as well have been fairy stories for little children to most of them.
She couldn't blame them for that. It was the way that they'd been raised. Their world was soft and rounded. Kind and most of all, extremely fair. Mickey had seen to that first. Then, when she was grown up, Hope Morley had. It didn't make these youngsters weak or foolish to not believe what she said, it had happened so long ago that these kids grandparents hadn't had to live through the end, much less anyone in the room with her. Except one, of course. Their teacher had been there with her, with them all.
One of the girls sitting near the front of the room on a soft cushioned chair like the one she was in sighed and looked a little troubled. A Human, most likely. They always felt a little bit bad about the story, especially if they had direct Technologist ancestry. That wasn't even a thing anymore though. There were just people now, like everyone else.
"I... that's so sad. It sounds like he did everything for everyone, more than a person could do and they just... I mean, all of them in the story hated him didn't they? Not at the end, but... I don't know. It doesn't seem fair. I guess that's stupid, the world wasn't fair then at all. Someone should have loved him. They should have made sure he knew it, not just... used him like that." The girl blushed, her dark brown hair drooping in front of her face to hide it as soon as she finished speaking.
From the front of the group, facing them like she was, it was possible to make out the looks on all the faces. No one seemed that bored at least. In the last class she'd been in one of the boys had actually fallen asleep on her. It was both rude and hilarious at the same time. This group was better though, making a point of looking at her as she spoke, focusing on what she said as if there might be a test later. There wouldn't be.
Mickey had insisted on that part.
After all, if there was a test, it wasn't a fun story. How could anyone be expected to learn then? Unless of course their lives were in danger. Mickey... It was the hardest part about telling this story, a thing she'd done once a year since his death, so that someone would always remember.
"I know. You're right. I tried, but I looked about eleven at the time, and he really was a good man. Even thinking he was going to die at any moment, never having touched a woman at all, he wouldn't do anything with me. I should have known that he was the real Very Good Man a lot sooner than I did. I was young though, so you know, excuses and all that." She waved that part away to some light chuckles. Her being "young" was funny to the ones that realized what she meant. They were a smart group after all. She didn't bother telling this story to just anyone.
"Something I'd add now, that isn't in his story, but is, I guess if we have to frame it, from mine. He was loved. Always. By me and by a hundred other people that he saved. Yes, a lot of them were afraid of him, but they worshiped him when he wasn't around. He did something that no one else could have managed. He kept us all alive. The greatest evil ever committed wasn't just killing all those people, it was that they turned such a good soul into a killer. A monster in his own mind. I never saw him like that though. Not even once. Very few of us did. We had real ones to compare him too. Back then we all knew the difference, but he was always so hard on himself." It was hard to explain to kids, but for once, instead of the room going silent someone asked an interesting question.
"What happened after that? I mean, did he vanish into nothingness, or go into seclusion? I can see doing that after all that happened to him." This came from a T'srith boy, which made it interesting for two reasons. They were bright enough people, but didn't hold with a lot of deep introspection as a rule. Their focus was mainly on others, the group they lived in. For him to empathize with Jake was incredible.
The other reason was simpler.
He didn't assume that Jake had died in battle. T'srith hero's always died in battle, even when they really hadn't. If this had been about one of them, Jake would have been the one to set the bomb off and the story would have ended there. This was a person used to the tales of other cultures then. She decided to take note of the name after the day was over. The world might have use for someone like that someday.
"He became a musician actually. He married, and had two children. His wife Colleen performed with him as did one of his offspring. The other went on to be the fifteenth Chancellor of the Unification. Have any of you heard the holiday song 'Veils of white'? Or perhaps the old tune 'Let's Mug Santa'? Or the popular song 'Merriment'? Those were ones he wrote. There are hundreds more. He was a very hard worker after all." She waited a beat. Everyone had heard his music, that or one of the remakes of it. After a minute a few people started nodding.
From the back a young Val spoke up. She reminded Samantha a little of a young Vicki. That wasn't just chance, after all, it was the woman's granddaughter.
"We play some of those at family gatherings. My grandfather supposedly wrote them though, he was just a musician though. I mean..."
Sammi laughed, covering her mouth with her hand, her Bawdri eyes crinkling a bit at the corners.
"And two and two comes together. Mickey Robson, the singer, famous furniture maker, and as you know if you've been paying any attention to your history teacher, Very Good Man."
A brown haired boy from across the room raised his hand, the school orange furniture shifting under him as he waved it a bit, looking fierce.
"Um, he was like, my great something or other too. T
hat's a little weird, isn't it?" He looked at the Val that had just spoken about her own family line, which got her to look back a bit surprised.
Sammi shook her head.
"Not really. All of you are related to someone that was in the story I just told. A lot of people changed their names after that, or at least went back to their real names. I hardly ever call myself Sammi anymore for instance."
That started a flurry of questions, people wanting to know what happened to everyone else. She didn't know all of it, of course. Some people had fallen away, or lived quiet lives after that, farming, or taking up a trade. She tried to explain it all, but people still wanted to hear what she knew.
"Who? Which ones do you want to know about?"
A name was called out, from a boy near the back.
"What about Dave? He was pretty intense. Could someone like that survive after things started to get back to normal?"
That one she knew, remembering it all a bit more sharply than she wanted too. It wasn't all nice after all. His rage killed him in the end.
"He was always a fighter, a warrior. The world moved on without him after a time. For twenty years though he served, hunting the Windigo and the remaining zombies that were found in outlying pockets. When... after that, when there was nothing left to fight, he turned his rage in on himself. Drinking and drugs. We tried to help, but some people can't be saved. He'd seen far too much, too young and, well, not the happiest of the stories, perhaps another?"
Someone called out both Carl and Carley as if they might be the same person.
"Carl helped set up the first census after the Founding. He was an important government official, if in a low level capacity, for most of his adult life after that. Carley... Now she did something truly unexpected, and married a man and settled down. She ended up owning a large set of forestry related plantations I believe." She'd died, in an accident. The vehicle she was in running off the road at high speed. No one had ever known if it was on purpose or not. That wasn't something to tell this group though.
The next name was another one she knew the answer too. Molly.
"Oh... you all know her. Mrs. Schmidt? Your teacher?" Samantha waved to her, getting one back, the brown eyes that Jake had often described as "cow like" shining a little.
"What?" This came from more than one person, who probably thought that she was joking with them.
"I know, who would have thought? Teaching. She's pretty good at it though, but don't let her looks fool you, she's a hundred and fifty if she's a day." She looked about thirty, thanks to the treatments that she'd taken, old Technologist things that were common now. Most of the people that wanted to bother with it had life spans that were in the hundreds of years. That "Suicide Molly" had chosen that path heartened her greatly. Not everyone had of course.
She grinned happily and waved at the front of the room.
"Tell all my secrets why don't you?"
"Well, all right, if you insist... this one time everyone was locked in the basement and Molly got bored so she took off-" She laughed then and let her face go serious.
"Most of the people in this story died young. A lot younger than they had to, given modern technology. It was like they'd used up everything they had in that one year and after that it was hard to keep going."
It was what had happened to Nate. He hadn't made it ten years past the start of the new world. He was an old man at fifty and seemed ancient at fifty-five. The voices in his head eventually drove him mad. He didn't have the early training that telepaths normally got, since it sprang on him only after the Plague had started.
Heather...
That one had really hurt. Some of the others had most likely killed themselves, or had gone into hiding to fade away quietly. She held things together until Hope was sixteen and then slit her wrists. Mickey had nearly died of grief then. It hadn't helped that in her note she mentioned that he was the only person, other than Hope, that she'd ever loved. Those had been some dark days for them all.
She sighed and shook her head, editing as she went, no one needed to know that part of things. She certainly didn't. No help for that though. It was the curse of living a very long life. Things, both good and bad, happened. It was always easier to remember the bad.
There were some happy things though.
"Cameron went on to become the leader of her people, what we call Travelers now, and still holds the position. Samuel went on to be a religious leader, one of the Children of Hope. The first one actually. Tipper... Well, she leads the outer worlds expeditionary forces now. That's about everyone, isn't it?" She was trying to wrap things up, having already been talking for hours. There was a lot more, but these kids didn't need that part of the tale. Just the part about how she once helped turn the best person in the world into a killer for a year, out of her own ignorance and foolishness.
They wouldn't get it, of course, not until they were older, and then only if they bothered to think about it, but the lesson was there. She wasn't alone in that guilt, but very few that shared it with her were still alive. Only Burt, and she wasn't totally positive of that. It wouldn't surprise her to find out that he outlived her someday though. He'd taken his mandate to fix what he'd destroyed literally and had been seen on every continent trying to do just that over the last century and change. Nothing would ever be enough though.
She could feel that one herself.
The worst part was that Jake, Mickey, had never blamed her for what she'd done to him. How she'd allowed The Very Good Man to become a killer, a dark thing that no one should have had to be. How she'd used him, thinking he was just a convenience, the right person there at the time she needed a figurehead. It was worse than that. She hadn't just gotten him to betray what he was, she'd forced him too.
The one time she'd mentioned it he'd just laughed and served her some lemonade. When she pushed the point, in tears, he'd held her close and sung to her, a song that she'd never heard before and that had never been performed by anyone that she knew of after that one time. It was just a voice in the dark and soft breath on her ear.
She could almost hear the words still though, in her heart.
The words had been sweet and sounded lightly happy, but they spoke of things she wasn't quite ready to admit to herself, even now. That everyone was a Very Good Man and that he was just the one that got the job at the time. That, in short, she'd made him what he was. But that the pain of one person, no matter how great, was always worth it, to protect everyone else. Or to protect a single friend.
It wasn't a bad thing, but when she tried to ask about it later, he always acted like he didn't know what she was talking about. In the end it didn't really matter, but she could never be certain that he was really what everyone had thought. It might have just been his way of letting her off the hook though, for what she'd done.
If so it hadn't worked. Not totally.
The class said goodbye to her, and Molly gave her a hug, then reminded her to keep in touch. They wouldn't, except for once each year, but that was all right. Most of the people from that time tried their best to forget. That was why it was her job to tell the stories until the time came when she could be truly forgiven for what she'd done.
By herself.
She just hoped it would someday come.
Stories From the End of the World
Preface: A word from Hope Morley.
I had occasion, in the one hundred and fifty-seventh year after the founding of the new union, to find a collection of stories from a variety of individuals about the time of the rising. When the dead walked the Earth, and a brave few fought them back. Often at the cost of their own lives.
It was a much larger collection than what is seen here. Written over the course of nearly one hundred years.
You may note that the tenor of each history is slightly different, but not completely. That is, as you must by now suspect, due to two factors. The first is that memories fade over time, and often shift to allow people to hold to their own particular
version of what was. We all choose our own best history, do we not? Over time that kind of thing grows until one persons reality might be very different than another's.
This in no way means that one person is correct, and another wrong however. All of us can relate to the idea of there being more than one version of the truth, no doubt.
The other thing you may suspect is slightly more sinister. A darker thing than you would probably guess at, being that it originated by my hand.
I selected a few of them, and put the others aside for now, in hopes that I could flesh out the story of the last Very Good Man in particular. Not all of the tales I found were about Mickey Robson at all. Most of these particular stories directly impacted the world around him, in his darkest hours.
Added to the end of the story as told by the Bawdri Princess, Samantha Connolly- Burgess, from whom I "borrowed" the collected reports. Save one, that was left for me. The last one to be found here.
The goal is to show that, perhaps, no one was quite as alone as they thought they were. Not even back then.
So, and then. This is the tale of Jake, at the End of the World.
And how he helped to form the new one in which we stand.
Thank you all.
Hope Morley
The Inside Perspective- Nathaniel Burns-Green
Nate looked across the cold back yard, plumes of white fog coming from his own mouth as he huffed. Puffing in reaction to what was happening. What couldn't be allowed, if anything would work to stop it. Fear tore through him, stealing his breath after a moment. It cut at his innards like a knife. Twisting, and seeking the soft spot at the center of his being. His very soul, it felt like.
That was normal enough. Everyone was afraid, all the time now, but this... It was the worst thing he could have imagined.