“We have nothing to do with this war,” he says. “Nothing. We are too far north to bother with. They’re not going to care whether forty-three people living by a lake in Maine join them or the other side. They probably won’t come here.”
A tiny voice rises. “What if they do?” It’s Fiona. She’s been with us since the beginning. She was with us the final year on the island.
It’s a good question. Everyone turns to listen to the answer.
Eric looks around. “We have everything we need here. Food. Shelter. Safety. There’s no reason to choose a side. There’s no reason for us to get involved. If they come, I say that we refuse to pick a side.”
“And if they force us?” This question comes from Wesley. He’s only five or six years older than me, and he’s a favorite of all the girls. He plays guitar and has long hair and thinks of himself as a carpenter.
Eric pauses, thinking, and, for a moment, I’m afraid he’ll keep thinking and vanish into himself, but then he says, “That is something too complicated to speculate about.” He looks around. “We have to wait. If that happens, we’ll deal with it then.” The crowd murmurs a bit about that. I know they want certainty. They want to feel absolutely safe. They want Eric to say something that will make it all go away. There are people who will say what people want to hear, to make people feel safe. They’ll even lie to them. But that’s not Eric. “Listen,” Eric continues. People turn back toward him. “We’re a strong community. We don’t just survive here, we thrive. We can handle this together.”
“I need to say something.” People turn to see Norman standing up. He’s one of the older guys. Like me, he doesn’t say much. He works most of the time in the barn, so he always smells like manure. He’s a tough old guy and pretty highly respected by everyone, including me. He’s wearing his patched and faded overalls and plaid shirt. People wait for a second while he gathers himself. “I just want to say that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if we did join one of them groups.” Norman looked around them. “Seems to me we need some type of organization. Maybe then we wouldn’t have to worry so much about all the bandits on the road. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if we did join up with them. Maybe that’s exactly what we need.”
There’s a few people who nod.
But then Matt stands up, red in the face. “Yeah, easy to say that,” he says. “But how do we know which side to choose? We choose wrong and the other side will kill us dead. We sign up with the Gears, the Stars kill us. We start flying a Star and the Gears kill us.”
“What if we don’t fight? We just surrender? They wouldn’t kill us then.” This is Crystal. She spends most of her time baking in the farmhouse.
“Yeah right,” Matt scoffs. He looks around. “Don’t tell me I’m the only one who remembers what the military did when things got real bad. They killed more people than the Worm!” I don’t remember any of it myself, but people still get pissed about what was done at the end. It started when the military fire bombed Houston into ashes. It got worse after that.
“This ain’t the Worm,” Crystal argues. “This is different.”
“Believe me, it’s NOT different!” Matt returns bitterly. “I know these type of people. They don’t give a shit about people like us. When it’s war, they’ll do anything they want!”
“But what kind of threat are we?” This is Lissa’s tiny voice. I have the feeling from the sound of her voice that she didn’t mean to say that aloud, and by her blush, I can tell I’m probably right.
“I’ll tell you what kind of threat we’d be,” Matt continues. “We’d be the group that chose the wrong side. They’d always think of how many of us secretly hang up the other side’s flag in our basements.”
“We don’t have no basements.” That’s Rebok. He’s too stupid to get the point.
People chuckle a little at that, but it’s faint and disappears quickly.
“Whatever side we pick, we are screwed.” Matt looks around. “Screwed.” His face is the color of crushed strawberries. I’ve never seen him so angry. He sits down, still fuming.
People are quiet after that. I look over to Eric, kind of hoping he might provide us with direction or something, but he’s sitting down again, thinking. His eyes are in another world and doesn’t see anything around him. The meeting just kind of sputters to a confused and scary ending, and people unhappily rise from the benches and walk around in a daze.
In another fifteen minutes, the Lodge is loud with discussions and arguments. I see Sam in the back, trying to lecture everybody on what they should do, but no one is listening to him because he’s an idiot. Gunner from the goon squad is saying he thinks they should join the Gears because “we’re people like that.” There’s a dozen messy conversations happening all around.
Eventually, Eric walks away from the table and joins people, listening mostly. People are unhappy and unsatisfied. They want stronger certainty, stronger statements, but Eric isn’t that kind of leader. He just walks around, listening, hardly saying anything at all. People are talking about our guns. They’re talking about finding more. About manning all the watchtowers, doubling security. They’re talking about resisting and surrendering. There’s even some talk about picking up and moving north, away from the fight. It feels like people are just desperately grasping at anything. I think people are waiting for Eric, waiting for some kind of decision. They keep throwing out ideas, hoping he’ll catch one.
Eric listens and nods, but as the minutes turns into hours, people realize that Eric has no intention of making any decisions. He just listens. It creates frustration. I can see groups forming, some breaking part. It’s the same groups as usual. The ones who want to fight. Matt, Crypt, Rebok, Gunner, Pest, Anthony. The ones who want to flee or surrender. Norman, Lissa, Crystal, Franky. Some people get angry when they’re frightened, some people just stay frightened. I watch. I stand close to Eric when I can and listen as he does.
Matt comes over and talks to Eric. He looks angry. The four boys are behind him. I can see Pest is watching things carefully. He and I make eye contact for a second and the strength of his look makes me turn away. Crypt and Gunner and Rebok all look pissed off.
“Listen,” Matt says, “don’t you think we should be prepared for war?”
“What do you mean?” Eric asks.
Matt makes a hissing, exasperated sound. “You know, get out the guns, train, drill, increase our defenses.”
Eric shrugs. “Maybe,” he says. “The problem is that we can drill all we want, but we’ll never be able to stop them if they really decide to attack. If they roll up here looking for enemies, I’m not sure a town full of guns and trained people sends the right message. But you could be right. A show of force might save us.”
Matt looks confused and angry. He doesn’t seem to be listening.
“If you want peace, prepare for war,” he tells Eric, his lip twitching a little. I can tell he’s been planning to tell him that for an hour or two now. Once he’s said it, he smiles a little, but it’s an ugly little grin that doesn’t do much to hide his anger.
“I understand that,” Eric says. “But we also have to think about how we are perceived. If one side or the other thinks we might be a military danger or if they think we might be an effective military ally, we could get dragged into this quicker.”
“So we should do nothing?” Now Matt’s anger is naked. Behind him, the boys make a puffing sound. Only Pest is quiet, watching, his eyes intent on Eric. I can never decide whether Pest is an asset or a danger. I watch him from the corner of my eye as I pay attention to Matt and Eric.