The Aftermath: Parts I and II (7 page)

“How much effort have we put into blocking sound from leaving the room?” Matthew pushed.

“As much as we possibly could,” Emma answered then let out a large sigh.

“That's not good enough!” William demanded.

“Then give us a suggestion!” Emma yelled back.

“Have we tried to block the sound?”

“We've boarded up everything we can possibly board up. We drape blankets over his bed.”

Tess could see the way the room was shifting. Emma and William knew how they would vote, she was almost certain nothing would change their minds. Edna and Matthew were very conflicted though. At their core they each agreed with William, but neither could deny the importance of safety; especially not Edna after all she had lost.

It was safe to say each of them had lost something. These days the degree of loss was something much more apparent though. It wasn't that people sat around and had contests over who suffered more, rather the loss of loved ones was something that everyone was constantly measuring.

Matthew had been very distant with his family. To be honest he didn't know where most of them were. It was safe to assume they were dead but there was no confirmation. His shyness was due to years of emotional and physical abuse, whether or not his family was alive or dead meant nothing to him. It had meant nothing long before the outbreak so why should it mean something now? Even if they did have a moment of clarity about the way they had treated him he didn't know if he was ready to forget it. His heart was empty of hatred, but was not welcoming to what they might do again. What he did have was a fiance.

Someone that understood why he was so shy and distant. A man he had met that had enough patience to keep pursuing him, despite how often Matthew pushed him away. A man that got it wasn't about Matthew needing to come to terms with his sexuality, but rather his broken past. The people that were supposed to love him the most had hurt him the worst. Why would he ever let someone else in? Matthew had found the best type of patient, loving, and supporting partner though. He had been Matthew's best friend, and a lover that waited while Matthew struggled against their love. He eventually broke Matthew's walls down one by one. Then he was gone. There were no happy endings in this world.

William had lost very little after the outbreak occurred. A few of his friends had passed but no one he was very close to. Many people envied the lack of suffering William faced after the dead had risen. Those that stopped to think about it realized William lost so little after the outbreak because it had all been taken from him before. His wife, daughter, and son had all been long gone before the world fell apart. He had moved far away from the memories he created with his family and met new people, but people he kept at a distance.

Even William admitted he had a certain amount of luck though. He had talked about the fact that he never had to see his beautiful family turn, or worse he never had to prevent that from happening. It was a nice way to look at it but it begged the question, what kind of world did we live in that he had already lost so much before any of this happened.

Emma had no lovers, and she was from a small family. On the surface it might seem like she was lucky she only lost her parents. However, since she had so little to lose she took the loss pretty hard.

Edna was Emma's opposite, she had many children and grandchildren. They were all gone now. Edna not only felt the pain of a parent burying her children but of a grandparent burying her grandchildren. She had nothing left when she found the town, including hope.

Tess was a mystery. She didn't share, they couldn't force her to either. She was calm, smart, and collected, how could they force her to talk about her past.

They sat in silence again. Tess looked down at the candles as they lowered bit by bit. Every one was glancing around at one another, but their faces were still turned down if they thought anyone might make eye contact.

“The reality is we are deciding whether or not to kill someone that has no idea what they are doing just to save the group,” William said, choking on the last few words.

The entire groups looked at him, he said the words they had all hoped to avoid. He made the gravity of the situation a clear cut reality.

“No one is unaware of what is happening William,” Edna snapped.

“Well they sure as hell are acting like it!” He screamed back.

“Look I understand your perspective, but you have to understand ours. We know the stakes, but we can't focus on those,” Emma responded quietly.

“Some of us can't separate the two,” William grunted.

“Which is good, as long as we eventually reach a decision,” Edna said patting his hand.

“There is a reason you were voted in, your varying ways of seeing the world is part of that,” Tess said softly. “They don't want you to make this decision easily, but the last thing they want is for you not to make it.”

“There is no way to make this easier, someone dies or we all remain at risk.”

Silence filled the room again. Tess knew they would keep reverting to this. No matter how passionate William and Emma were, even they didn't want to vote.

The shadows on their faces became darker and darker. Tess sighed and slowly walked around the room lighting a few more candles and setting them down. As she passed them she handed them each a pad and pencil for voting. Edna opened her mouth to protest, but Tess held her hand out to stop her. She took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly while walking back to her seat.

“When this all began I knew what was going on. I was enough of a horror freak that I got it. Of course I didn't see the signs until it was too late, but when the news first started making reports while still denying I understood,” Tess said then paused to sit down slowly. “Now I am going to tell you the rest of my story and we're going to take a few votes. I feel this might help us as a group decide for the real vote.”

The faces looked up at her a bit confused, but one by one they opened their pads and waited.

“The only family I had that was close was my grandfather. He was of course not a healthy man, but he had meant so much to me for so long. I had to go back for him. I did, and we grabbed some supplies and hit the road. He didn't protest too much. I don't know if it was because he trusted me, loved me, or just didn't know better anymore. Either way we hit the road together.”

William coughed and slouched in his seat. He was clearly annoyed, but Tess didn't care. They weren't going to make a choice any time soon no matter who was babbling about what.

“It was fun being with him before things got worse. We could pretend nothing was that bad, and just enjoy having time together. Naturally of course it didn't last. More of them started to show up, survivors got more hostile. The world fell apart, I don't need to remind you.”

Their eyes all cast down a bit, no matter how long it had been no one liked to hear a person's outbreak story. Not the story of where they were or what they did, but the story of when they started to lose all they had left in the world.

“My grandfather became a problem. He would wander off, wanted to be too nice and trusting with strangers, and of course brought a lot of unwanted attention down on us. I dealt with it as long as I possibly could. One day I left to find supplies and told him to just wait and be quiet. I came back to discover he had wandered off. I found him surrounded by a few of them. He was yelling and drawing the attention of more. I might have been able to save him, but he was far enough I could sneak away.”

Eyes were completely averted at this point. They had all left someone before, but it didn't change the gravity of what they just heard.

“I would like to know yes or no if you think I did the right thing.”

All four set of eyes quickly looked up at Tess.

“I don't want you to worry about my feelings because I won't read this vote, but I want you to write it down and understand that's how you feel.  Yes or no I did the right thing.”

No one wrote right away. They looked at her blinking slowly before shifting their eyes down and writing. None of them wanted the others to see what they wrote.

“Now that you've voted I lied” Tess said with a small smile, it was not greeted with warm faces. “It was actually my father. Yes or no.”

They looked even more shocked. Had she lied to them in order to get an honest vote or was she lying now? Were both lies?

“Vote.”

They all did.

“I lied again, it was my brother.”

They weren't surprised she said that, and they each reflected a moment before writing down a vote.

“Once again I lied, it was my nephew. He was just an infant who had not wandered off. Those responsible for him stopped watching and the dead heard him.”

There was a long pause before each person wrote down another answer.

Tess let out a slow exhale again, “Reflect on your answers than on a new page write your vote and hand it in.” Tess then wrote down her own vote and folded it in half holding it. Slowly yet surely all the votes came in.

Tess took her time carefully reading and sorting them. She turned to the group and told them the results. She offered to let each member see the votes, but they all declined. Maybe they knew the outcome, maybe they didn't want to be confronted with their own votes, or maybe they liked the idea of putting all the responsibility on the person that called out the vote. Tess would never know.

They walked out into the darkness, each of them carrying a candle. A few guards met them outside, and they began to walk towards the center of town. Most of the people were locked in their homes. Normally the night of a vote the streets were filled with onlookers, nobody was surprised that no one was out tonight.

Tess was the lead of the group when they reached the home. She raised her hand slowly and knocked. A woman of maybe thirty answered the door. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying, her hair was in a mess. She saw the counsel standing before her and said nothing, but pulled the open door more. A man, who had also been crying walked up and handed Tess a baby. She looked at him as he was silent, she willed him to stay quiet. It didn't work though he began to stir and cry, and a guard moved forward to grab the baby.

The counsel turned back to the family, the cries began to fade into the distance until they stopped. The couple just closed the door.

The heat weighed down on the counsel as they stood silently on the porch.

“I will see you next week,” Tess finally said breaking the silence, breaking away from the group and walking back to her home.