Chapter 19
Mother stood and riffled the edges of the stack of index cards she clutched tightly in her hands. She stood on the road in front of the buildings they had used for the quarantine period, her feet crunching on the swiftly melting early snow. She watched as Gus pulled the large bus to a stop, and waited for Stealth to climb out and begin knocking on doors.
Wolf looked down at her hands, the zipping sound of the flapping index cards driving him nuts. "You're going to rip those if you keep it up."
Mother shot him a frown, then tucked the cards into her pocket. She didn't need to look at them. She'd studied them every night for weeks, and could recite every bit of the information off all eighty-eight. It was an idea she got from a guy running a community in New Mexico that went by the name Danver. She'd been having Striker trade information with the group, and even though she found Danver's tactics a little too heavy-handed, he did have some useful tips on organization. When her new people finally arrived in the last week of October, Mother and Eve carefully interviewed each member, noting names, ages, and skills. When Danver suggested the practice, Mother balked at first, not wanting to pry. However, after a meeting with the Town Council, she was swayed. The information would not only help with job assignments, it would also help with future expansion.
Eighty-eight people arrived, not the ninety four she was expecting. There were two deaths along the way, and a handful of defectors who decided they'd gone far enough. There was only one child, a boy of fifteen who almost didn't qualify as a child anymore, and only two women were pregnant.
The lack of children grew more troubling every day, and the confirmations from other groups like the Danvers clan that they, too, were experiencing the same lack offered little comfort. Striker often wiled the night away chatting with a woman from a group in California that said they'd had four babies, but only one was what she would consider "normal". That group had a population of nearly two hundred. Four babies in a year, only one of which didn't have serious medical or developmental problems. Those were not good statistics, and all of the leaders that communicated through Striker and Mother were worried. More and more it seemed as if the plague had a physical effect on everyone, even if they never actually got sick. Mother tried to keep positive and hold out hope that it was shock, not the biological mutations Striker liked to spout off about, that caused the alarming birth trend. Striker was always jumping to the zombie scenario, and if Mother hadn't banned the word outright in the house one day when she'd simply had enough, she bet he'd have everyone in town all worked up.
It was clear that babies were swiftly becoming the number one concern for humanity. Food first, then babies. Mother was pleased that there were plenty of women still in child-bearing years in her town, and she'd amp up the parties if she had to. Stealth had made the suggestion to pepper the new living areas liberally with porn, but that hadn't gone over too well with the Town Council. Two pregnant women was not a lot. For the time being, though, it was enough for Mother. She was still stinging from the loss of Denise, though she could finally admit that Denise's fate was mostly out of her control. Mother still could hear the screaming late at night, the wheezing whine of the poor little creature that never had a chance. It haunted her, and the idea that sometime very soon Mother would have to try and deliver two more babies was terrifying.
If they got far enough along to be delivered.
And if they were actual babies.
The one balm on the new chasm of panic was a nurse in the group. Her name was Nancy, and while she was only in her late twenties, she carried the attitude of a middle aged diner waitress in some small podunk town. Mother didn't care. Nancy could be as bitchy as she wanted and Mother was still glad to have her. An actual nurse, someone with legitimate medical training made the outlook a whole lot brighter.
The new people began lining up on the sidewalk near the bus. Stealth barked orders and they listened, though he did it with good enough humor that she knew they wouldn't hold a grudge. He'd gone out to guide them in when they were about a week to the south. Mother asked their leader, a tired man named Pete who was more than happy to hand over the reins of leadership, why he didn't just load them all into a bus and drive out.
Pete had looked at her like she had two heads. "What bus? We came through Chicago. People knew about the plague by then and tried to leave. The roads were jammed. We took buses and trucks here and there, but there's a whole lotta empty country between there and here, and sometimes it was just faster to walk instead of searching for gas."
That had surprised her. "There's gas everywhere."
Pete shook his head. "You try finding some the army didn't get to first!"
It was the first time Mother heard a personal account that really gave her pause. She knew the army was gathering supplies. She knew her own people had sniped them on a few of the bigger food caches, and that fact alone would get them through the winter. But she didn't see the army herself, or even signs that they had raided nearby. She didn't hear from them. They were operating in larger population centers and leaving her area alone. After one long night of panic at the thought of the army marching into her town, she refused to let herself dwell on the fact that they wouldn't stay away forever. They couldn't. They'd run out of everything like everyone else and come looking. Once she admitted that it was unavoidable, she decided to delegate the worry to Stealth and Wolf. With eighty-eight new mouths to feed, and eighty eight new bodies to house and clothe, and eighty-eight new personalities to watch and judge for temperament, she had enough on her plate.
Stealth trotted over and flashed a grin. "All the duckies are in a row, Princess."
Mother nodded and took a deep breath. She'd give a speech, something she sketched up the night before, and then join them on the bus. Wolf would follow in the jeep, and she'd ride to the condos Chuck cleaned to house the new group. The weather hadn't cooperated enough for Striker to rig all the homes in neighborhood three with solar panels, and had doubled the problem when it dropped an old oak right on the main lines that supplied a large chunk of the eastern part of the town as well. Chuck and his crew swooped in to save the day, cleaning out a two building condo complex that no doubt cost a fortune to live in before. It had thirty eight apartments and the utilities still worked. It would have to get them through the winter.
Mother thought briefly of breakfast that morning and felt a little sad. It was the last community meal, aside from holidays and events. With a hundred and fifty people, it would simply be too difficult to cram everyone in the barn. Though everyone agreed with the Town Council that household rations were the way to go, Mother couldn't help but notice that the rest of the town lingered as long as she did, knowing they'd all miss starting the day together. They'd all gather at the library in the town center each morning after the big bell on an old church was rung. They'd gather, get their work assignments, and then split up to go about their business. They'd still all see each other, but Mother knew it wouldn't be the same. None of it would be the same.
While that thought was a little sad, it was also thrilling. New faces. New stories. More hands in the fields and more people to help rebuild. Yes, it meant more problems. Yes, it meant more work. Yes, it meant more pain and anguish and fear and doubt. But it also meant life. It also meant laughter. It also meant friends and love and a future. Mother was willing to put up with all the torment and anguish if it meant she could be the one to help that happen, to be in her castle and watch the town bloom below, to know that her hands held the weight off their shoulders to give them the time they needed to begin again. Mother knew it was conceited, and she was finally to a point where she could say she honestly didn't care. She'd take that label and be proud. Newton was her town. There wasn't a soul among them who loved it more, and if that was conceit, so be it.
Mother took a deep breath to calm the nerves. It was silly to be nervous, she told herself. She knew these people. She and Eve had spent hours with them already, behind the safety of masks an
d gloves. She knew what they told her about themselves, and she'd figured out a lot more just by watching. They were at least familiar strangers by now, and some of them already meant more. The boy, who simply went by Dev, was quiet and pensive, and she instantly decided to find him a place working near the house so she could keep an eye on him. The nurse, Nancy, had a vicious tongue on her, but Mother found her wit hysterical. Mean, but hysterical. There was a man named Clyde who was enormous as an ox, but as soft spoken as could be, and the juxtaposition cracked Mother up. There were problematic people as well, but already Mother was finding friends among the new group. She shouldn't be nervous.
Mother took another deep breath. No, she shouldn't be nervous. The people filed into the bus, then Stealth stood back to let Mother board.
"I'll be right behind. Put your walkie on channel nine," Wolf ordered. He didn't want to sit in a cramped bus with eighty-eight people he already didn't like.
Mother rolled her eyes. "Yes, sir. Right away, sir. Anything else, sir?" she said, the sarcasm taking away her nerves.
"No, I think that's it for now," Wolf said, his face straight but a twinkle of carefully checked amusement in his eye. "But I'll let you know if that changes." He gave a little salute and hopped into the jeep to follow the bus.
"Your chariot awaits, Princess," said Stealth, bowing low and putting a show on for the people in the bus who watched out the windows.
Mother looked up at the smiling faces. Her population was about to triple. The patter of nerves fluttered her heart once again and she thumbed the cards in her pocket. She took one more deep breath, then stepped on the bus.
"Good morning!" she said to the group. She waited for their greetings to die down. "Boy, I bet that was a long six weeks, wasn't it?" Smiles. Good. She thumbed the cards and felt more confident. "I thank you for your patience during the utterly boring but very necessary quarantine. I wish I could offer you a guarantee that you won't be that bored again in Newton, but frankly, things get a bit dull from time to time."
Stealth grinned to himself as he watched Mother. She was magic. The group had been testy and bitchy. Their moving day had delayed because of the first snowstorm, and they seemed to hold a grudge as he rounded them up that morning. Yet with just a smile and a couple quick sentences, all was forgotten. Stealth knew people. It was his job. He'd dealt with everything from angry mobs to religious zealots, and all the stages in between. He'd seen all types of leaders, from gurus to despots, and he knew what it took to lead a group. Mother had it. She had that spark. Wolf was right all those months ago when he told Stealth she was something special, and sitting there on the bus, watching her change the entire mood of the crowd with an inborn ease, it was undeniable.
"I like ceremonies," Mother continued. "I think special events should be marked by a certain seriousness befitting the occasion. I know all of you, you all know me. But let's take a moment and make this official." She cleared her throat. "From here on out, each and every one of you has been granted the rights and privileges of being a citizen of the town of Newton. You will never again have to be alone. You will never again have to face an uncertain life. You will work side by side with friends and neighbors and together we will rebuild. The time of pain and suffering has passed, and the time of prosperity has begun.
"I'm not promising you perfection. I'm not promising you that life will be easy. However, I am promising that I will work my hardest for each and every one of you. I will care about your lives and families. Your pain will be my pain and we will work together until we can laugh and smile and raise our children knowing that there will be food on the table and there will be better tomorrow. From this moment on, you are not alone. You are mine."
Mother felt the tears well up and had to pause. She meant what she said and the emotion just pushed forward. To her surprise, she saw it mirrored in the faces of the people on the bus in front of her. Her people. They really were her people now. Not because she ordered it, not because they didn't have any other choice. For the first time she looked into their faces and saw that they wanted her as badly as she wanted them, and an overwhelmingly humble feeling of pride and responsibility warmed her inside.
She prepared a longer speech. There were more words she'd scribbled down and memorized. They were grand and important and probably would have made the welcome sound more official. But standing there in that moment, she knew that nothing else she could say would mean any more than those simple words. They were hers, and she was theirs, and really, was there anything else worth saying?
"Welcome to Newton."
Stealth started the clapping. At least, Mother believed it was him. Suddenly the bus erupted in cheers and applause and Mother couldn't stop the grin she felt spreading wide. She turned and patted Gus on the back.
"Bus driver," she said, wiping a tear away. "Let's take these people home."
~~~ * * * ~~~
About the Author:
Beth loves the outdoors. She'd much rather be mucking around in mud for no particular reason than doing just about anything else. Sometimes she'll grab her kukri and head into the woods with a bad idea. Usually it works out okay. She's got a scar through her eyebrow from a bad life decision involving flip flops, a steep hill, a game of tag, and the license plate of an old VW Beetle. She also has a large scar on her knee from a daredevil plan that found her standing up on the pedals of her old pink Huffy, careening down a dirt driveway while her sister egged her on...but that one there is a badge of honor.
If you'd like to contact Beth, she loves getting email and is addicted to Facebook. Email her here, or connect through Facebook here!
Other books by Beth Reason:
Looking for more books by Beth? Check out these great reads!
A Journey Deep
The Tenet Series:
Book I: Broken Tenets
Book II: Sacred Tenets
Book III: Tenets of War
Not enough of the Great Mother? Want to know what happens next?
Book II of the Great Mother Series: Base 19
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