Voices in the audience gave rise to moans, rumblings and catcalls.
“There is much to discuss today. We are living in extraordinary times, desperate times, so there is good news and bad news to report. We’ll start with the bad. As you know, we moved tons of ash and tilled it into our croplands, and still had low potato yields due to the cool weather induced by the Yellowstone eruption. Things did not work out well, despite the fact we had some very hearty Andean seed and did a fair job of covering some of our crop with plastic sheeting. According to Oleg, our esteemed farm manager, we have brought in a crop not so much as half the size of the one last year. Still, we do have our eight ninety-foot coldhouses full of potatoes to be harvested next month, so we’ll have a fair supply of potatoes to eat. Considering the field crop is one of the very few staples to make it through the cold summer, I suppose it would not be too much to ask to give thanks for the humble spud.”
“Here, here,” rang out a voice from the back of the room. The townspeople broke out in spirited laughter. Clapping followed.
Abel did not share the people’s enthusiasm. Pushing his glasses tight to his nose bridge, he looked long at a paper printout. “Penny did a comprehensive study of our calorie needs and our calorie production. Despite all we have done, it is likely we will see a substantial calorie shortfall, as much as fifteen or twenty percent. Unless we do something about this, we will not be able to sustain ourselves.
The audience fell stone silent.
“At our present level of consumption, we will not have enough calories in storage, from the greenhouses, from the barns and fish tanks to see us through at current levels. We need a supply of grain. We will not short-change the food needs of the children, no matter what. If we have to cut back consumption a bit, we adults will be the ones to tighten our belts.”
A wave of commotion swept through the interior, voices colliding, ricocheting.
“I would like to tell you that the….”
One of the double doors fronting the dining room at the rear of the hall opened and a single figure stepped through. Abel cast a glance at the individual and faltered in his address. He paused to take a second look, pulling his glasses down off his face and squinting so that he might see better the new arrival.
Abel’s facial muscles went slack. Men and women in the audience took notice of the founder’s sudden loss of candor. What had shanghaied him? Many turned in their chairs and gazed toward the rear of the hall.
A trim female filled the opening in the rear doors. The woman did not come forward to take a seat. Her eyes were nailed to the man at the podium. Slowly, she raised a hand and waved just the tips of her fingers toward him in an abbreviated gesture of hello. Each individual in the audience spun around to watch Abel. He bowed his head a fraction before shrugging his shoulders to bring himself back into the present.
Winnie remained at the back of the hall, drifting inconspicuously from window to window; peering across the commons, up to the greenhouse cluster on the bluff and along the snow covered access road. She kept one ear to the proceedings and one ear to the wind outside the walls. Young Pelee, seated with several friends, was overwhelmed by the sight of the woman and insatiably curious about Winnie’ unobtrusive movements at the back of the hall. The youngster rotated in her chair every few seconds to check on the adult. Abruptly, she left her seat and slipped to the back of the room.
Pelee approached in a crouch, wearing a great toothy grin on her face. “What are you doing, Win-Win?” the child whispered. “You look like you’re spying on somebody.”
Winnie winked at the child and gave her hair a tussle. “I am spying, Pelee,” she said holding up a finger to her mouth in the hush sign.
“Who are you looking for?”
“You! I need your help.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I do. I want you to go to that side of the room and watch out the window for anyone you see. Absolutely anyone. If you see someone, just wave to me and get my attention, okay?
“Okay.”
“It won’t be much fun, but I am counting on you.”
“Okay.”
Abel put a fresh face on the calorie shortfall problem. “Despite the hardships that have befallen us because of the Yellowstone disaster, we have a surplus in dairy, greenhouse greens, mushrooms, and greenhouse fruits. Where we once sold these goods, we offered to exchange our goods for supplies of grain from Sweetly Cooperative. Our request was rejected, most forcefully, I might add.
“So with the help of Max and his able crew at the Beaver Den, we have developed the means to try to secure a supply of grain before the vast inventory of grain in the elevators in Sweetly is removed by federal order.”
Voices rang out and more joined the first calls. The room suddenly throbbed with conversation and echoed with oaths. Awash in the din, Pelee placed the palms of her hands onto the windowpanes, searching for a low buzzing noise, like that of a fly newly caught in a spider’s web. She pitched her head to the window glass and scanned about, doing what Winnie had instructed. She could not see the source of the annoyance, but the buzzing persisted. The youth peered across the room at her newly arrived friend. She could see Winnie at the opposite window intent on something outside. The woman craned her neck around and looked at Pelee. The child shrugged her shoulders. Winnie knew Pelee had heard the sound, too.
Winnie disappeared through the double doors she had first entered through, and crossed the community dining room’s large dimensions to a rear window, facing north. She saw nothing unusual as she approached the glass, then noticed a narrow flattened trail through the snow leading to the parking area and away down the access road. She hustled to the window and discovered forms parked against the building, small machines, idling. Snowmobiles. Leading from them were foot tracks in the fresh snow. They rounded the eastern corner of the building.
Winnie wheeled and sprinted to an east corner dining room window, desperate to see who had just arrived via the motorized sleds. She slammed against the window frame and saw the figures of two men, one huge, standing twenty feet out from the east face of the building. Each held a rifle up to the chest.
“Winnie!” Pelee screeched.
Glass shards, wallboard gypsum dust and shattered wood splinters exploded into the great hall, showering the occupants in the room. From her position at the dining room window, Winnie screamed, “Get down, get down!” Terrified, she sprawled on the floor, trying to press her body into the floorboards. At her abdomen, something hard pressed against her. She reached for object to move it. It was in the parka pocket: the Beretta.
“My God.” She had forgotten about it.
Winnie attempted to wrench her pistol from her coat pocket. In paralyzing fright, she fumbled with the weapon, dropped it, picked it up and dropped it a second time. Struggling to steady her trembling hands, she managed to hold the pistol up to her eyes. Beyond the barrel of the gun, through the main hall doors, an image of the small body on the floor flashed into Winnie’ consciousness. She recognized the twisted frame on the boards. Pelee! The child was down, a pool of scarlet spreading in a growing arch around the youngster’s head.
A vicious nuclear light flooded Winnie’s cranium. The heat of blind hatred seared her flesh. Do something! Do it now!
Winnie rolled to her knees, slapped her arms on the window frame to steady herself, smashed a pane of glass, pushed the pistol out beyond the shattered edges and aimed.
Two shots to the body; one to the head. Her self-defense training kicked in. She heard not a sound, not the screaming from the townsfolk, not the roar of weapons fire, nothing.
The man nearest her position was less than twenty feet away. One of Winnie’ first shots struck the man in the temple. The character’s head exploded in a spray of blood and his body jackknifed into the snow.