Thirty
The most rugged and determined of Brighton Hollow's
populace attended the town meeting at the sheriff's substation that
afternoon. Carl Miller brought the meeting to order and was the first to
speak. "First things first. Ammunition is not a resource we can expect
to replace. We threw away half our reserves yesterday and managed to take
the lives of three of our own children. They were victims of those
caterpillars, but we only got two of the caterpillars. Another farce like
that and we'll be defenseless.
"From now on, a bullet is well spent if it brings
down game, but only if we're starving. It's well spent if it takes out a
caterpillar, or its host, but only if the threat is immediate. Otherwise,
we're going to rely on bows, crossbows, and traps, or even knives and our
bare hands, if they'll get the job done.
"And what goes for bullets goes for every piece of
hardware you might use in the course of a day. If you don't plan on
running to Culverton to try to replace an item, don't use that item,
especially fuel. Burn wood for cooking and heating. To hell with power
equipment, especially generators. Save it for emergencies. Maybe you'll
appreciate that power saw and extra gallon of gasoline this winter when
you got a few cords of wood to cut and the woods are full of hungry
caterpillars.
"Think ahead. I don't know how long this emergency
is going to last, but it's safer to assume it's permanent than to bury our
heads in the sand and figure it'll be over day after tomorrow."
Gaiter Murphy rose to his feet. "I got a some
archery inventory at the house. Carl asked me to invite anyone over who
needs to know how to handle a bow or to sharpen their archery skills a
bit. Same thing applies to arrows that Carl was talking about. We got
nice razor-tipped metal ones for game and self-protection, but we can't
have amateurs losing or damaging them unnecessarily. The better you can
handle the equipment now, the more we'll have on hand when things get
rough."
Carl took over again. "We've all heard about how bad
things could get if people head out this way from the cities, so we're
laying defense plans early. We'll make arrangements so that we can pull
into the center of town and built a perimeter of some kind. Someone
suggested using junk cars. Hell, without gas, we could ring the town with
our vehicles. They make good cover, even from rifles. Then maybe we'll
build some sniper towers, and cut down a few trees around our perimeter.
"But if we have to pull in to the center of town to
defend ourselves, it's going to have to be a community affair. Anyone who
wants in later has to be a member of the team now, so that we can plan
ahead. Anyone who figures they can go it alone can't come bawling when
things get rough. Does anyone else have anything they'd like to add?"
Rex rose to his feet. "One favor I'd like to ask of
everybody from Doc and myself. I ask that Caitlin Biggs not be fired on
if she's seen around town."
"Ain't she the first who ought to take a bullet, Rex
old buddy?" Carl grinned sarcastically. "It was her caterpillar that did
in Biggs, her own father."
"She's got a hankering for the deputy," someone
called from the back of the room. "I think Rex has gone soft on us."
"Damn it, that's the whole point!" Rex called out.
"Because of me, she thinks she can help us! She thinks she still has some
loyalty left in her! Maybe it isn't so, but as long as she's trying, we
need to know what she's willing to share with us about the relationship
between those bugs and the people they've enslaved. If we're going to
defend ourselves, we need to know if there's a way to pry them apart,
because if we can't, we're screwed. We don't have enough bullets or
arrows or knives or even fists to fight them all. We can’t see in the
dark, but they apparently can. You saw those meteors come down. They
came down by the thousands. The hills belong to the caterpillars."
Carl Miller sobered at the weight of Rex's argument.
He stood to quiet the roar of anger emanating from the rest of the crowd.
"Rex has a point. Anyone with an ounce of common sense knows that you
gotta know the enemy to fight him. Leave Caitlin be. Let the deputy and
Doc deal with her as best they can. Anyone who thinks otherwise crosses
swords with me, because I'm hankering to know what Caitlin has to say
about what happened to her, now that I think about it. If it comes down
to a choice between her life or ours, she'll pay with hers, but not until
it comes down to that."
Knowing he had riled a few tempers, Rex left the
office to let Carl deal with the bickering over details of the plans to be
implemented. He wandered toward his apartment in the cool afternoon with
his hands stuffed in his pocket.
A gunshot sounded, echoing off the hills from all
directions, but originating directly ahead. He broke into a dead run as
two more shots sounded, thinking at first that someone was under attack.
Fear turned to anger when the evenly spaced gunshots indicated that some
mindless fool was out target practicing with ammunition that could not be
replaced.
The mindless fool turned out to be Connie shooting
into the trees behind the meat market. Rex came up behind her and
wrenched the revolver from her hand hard enough to sprain her wrist.
Connie dropped to her knees screaming. Without bothering to demand or
deliver an explanation, Rex went upstairs and paced the apartment to burn
off an overload of nervous energy. Connie followed wailing her feeble
explanations and apologies. She threw herself across the bed sobbing.
Rex tossed the revolver alongside her head. "You had
six shots and five in that box in the drawer. Now you've got two left if
Caitlin or one of her friends pays you a visit sometime when I'm not
around."
“I thought you had more!” she cried in frustration.
A tap turned Rex to the door.
"She okay?" Mat Bean said gently. Mat, a retired
trucker of about sixty, had a gleam in his eye. The excitement had yet to
strike a chord of fear in his aging heart.
"She's okay."
"I was trying to catch up to you. Carl asked that
you pay Vivian a visit. A few of the church ladies got together and
decided they can fend for themselves at the Biggs’ house. They'll be
caterpillar food if they try. Go take a look at what they figure on using
for protection.” Mat nodded to indicate the weeping woman on the bed.
“And you'd better take that gun away from the little lady before she hurts
someone with it."
Rex left Connie sobbing on the bed, but let her keep
the gun and her last two bullets. He backtracked through town and walked
the blacktop with his thirty-eight dangling from his right hand.
A single middle-aged woman blocked his way at the
front door of the Biggs' house. "Vivian is not taking visitors," she said
in a childishly insolent tone of voice. "We have no use for men here."
Rex took note of a half dozen women at the windows.
He gestured to the cast iron Christian cross the woman held in her right
hand. "What's that for?"
She held the cross up before her. "This is a shield
against the evil of Satan's spawn."
"Carl asked me to speak with you. You're not safe
here, ma'am."
"We have been warned not to attempt to explain or
defend ourselves against unbelievers, and we certainly know those who have
not attended our churches and do not understand the power of the Lord or
the trials and tribulations of the last days spoken of in Revelations."
Rex sighed. He had never been good at dealing with
people one on one, especially these kinds of people.
The woman took it as an expression of disdain.
"Young man, all those in this house have lost their men folk in recent
days, be they husbands, or brothers, or sons. We will not be subjected to
the threats, intimidation or indignation this community imposes upon us in
our hour of need. We'll be safe here. The good Lord will provide as He
always does."
"And if one of your men or your missing children come
tapping at your window in the middle of the night? Do you know about the
caterpillars?"
She closed her eyes and shuddered. "We will pray for
strength."
Reason wasn't going to work. He turned away with a
despondent shake of his head and headed back into town at a slower pace,
aware of the dry rustle of dead leaves in the trees and the nip in the air
as dusk approached. The nights were going to be long and harrowing with
nothing but memories and unfulfilled wishes and dreams to occupy his
thoughts. If Caitlin would be a bit more discrete the next time, he'd go
to her and invest in that one eighteen-year-old child whatever was left of
his ability to care for the world. His only hope of defending Vivian and
her friends was to separate Caitlin from her caterpillar, although it
wasn't for Vivian's sake that he'd try.
