Meredith sat in the darkness and listened. She sat with her back flat against the hard brick wall of her cell. The temperature in the underground cell was uniformly chilled, and cold air currents blew through the cracks in the bricks and from beneath the closed – and locked – entrance into the cell. Faint traces of smoke were mixed with the otherwise odorless air delivered by the current. Had there been a fire? The large hood on her cloak, which normally served the purpose to conceal her face, was at the moment not drawn over her head. Meredith’s hand went to her forehead, where Conrad had struck her. She felt a bulging, lumpy bruise, and some dried blood, likely hers. It took a while for her to get her footing to be able to stand up. Conrad had dealt a heavy blow.
Meredith already knew that she had been disarmed thoroughly. She checked the pockets on the interior of her cloak, to see if they had missed one of the many useful things she always kept on her; they did not. For a while she thought about why they did not tie her up when they imprisoned her.
She did not know whether her dungeon was below ground or not, she merely guessed by the coolness in the air around her. She had already tried the door, and found it locked. Pressing her head against the ground – tiles – and looking beyond the narrow space beneath the door – a painted wood surface, she only saw more darkness. Without a trace of light anywhere, Meredith felt around the perimeter of the cell without the aid of her sight. She still felt rather dizzy, and her eyesight would have been blurry anyway, she thought. With one hand pressed to the wall, Meredith circled the room and mapped out the cell’s perimeter. She did not encounter any obstacles. The room – a six by twelve meter rectangular space - was empty.
Meredith sat back down against the wall in the same spot she had sat at after waking up. The spot was right opposite the wall with the door. She continued to listen, and heard approaching footsteps from the other side of the door, echoing down what was surely the basement hallway of the local public school. She recognized the sound.
She was imprisoned in the basement of the former Coniston elementary school.
The hill ground around the mill was a grisly sight. The grass was stained with patches of red here and there, and the red was especially vivid in places where a body or a few had fallen by the sword or the gun. Ryan’s division was tasked with collecting the bodies of the dead, and the bodies were piled against the mill’s outer wall, to be unceremoniously cremated that night.
Ryan stood off to the side, watching the work. He had helped with the cleanup of the battleground for a while, until Beniot came to him with a message from Guillaume, to stand by and wait for him. Ryan thought it quite pointless for Guillaume to order him not to assist the cleanup while he waited, but Guillaume had been – as always – precise with these orders.
After their leader was struck down, the majority of Meredith’s army had surrendered immediately, effectively ending the battle. They were presently confined on the parking lot outside the former supermarket, guarded by William’s division.
Ryan looked towards Main Street at the foot of the northwestern side of the hill on which he stood. The carcass of the Main Street barricade still lay crumbled where it had been built. The buildings lining the left side of the street, adjacent to the barricade, were burned to various extents. It was an unwise decision on Guillaume’s part to have used gasoline bombs during the battle. The first of the bombs were thrown into Meredith’s advancing troops, and at close proximity to the throwers behind the barricade. Fire erupted in the midst of Meredith’s troops, and spread to the nearby barricade, setting it ablaze, and then spread to the buildings, setting them ablaze too.
The battle ended around the time the fire blazed out of control. With a quarter of Guillaume’s troops occupied by the surrendered prisoners – who were led away from the flames to confinement at the town hall, the rest scrambled in frenzy to put the fire out. The fire hydrants on Main Street were still functional, yet by the time it was put out, the fire had consumed half of the street side buildings anyway. The smoking ruins of buildings; the wrecks in the street (the charred barricade, cars that had been destroyed, looted, or both, and other debris large and small); the bodies; altogether, the town was the picture of a miniature war zone.
Coming up the hill from Main Street, William jogged towards Ryan.
‘Guillaume is coming shortly.’ William said.
‘And shortly he comes.’ Guillaume stepped out from the collapsed entrance of the mill and announced his simultaneous arrival. The front of the mill had also caught fire by another batch of ignited gasoline bombs. Only the entrance had been destroyed before the blaze burned itself out.
‘Ah, you’re here already, what did you want to tell us?’ William asked.
‘What to do with the prisoners.’ Guillaume replied.
‘Go on.’ Ryan said.
‘I shall,’ Guillaume took out his pocket watch, a weighty dull bronze instrument with no engravings. No one in Coniston carried a pocket watch, except Guillaume. He had said once that it was passed down through generations in his family. ‘Presently, I intend to exterminate the prisoners, from the lowest ranked cohorts up. Wait, let me finish. The executions will be in public, and will be implemented by a firing squad. I ask for your opinion, not your approval. I have my mind already set on its course.’
William cleared his throat, as he often did in an uncomfortable situation where he could not formulate an appropriate response. Ryan said nothing and made no sound either; he was not put off by silence as William – who in conversation could not adequately handle exchange that was anything less than constant, unbroken dialogue - was.
The kids on the hill had finished collecting the bodies into one heap by the mill and they gathered in a wide circle around their three leaders, who were still deep in non-conversation.
‘Everyone,’ Guillaume addressed the crowd, ‘Go to the town hall and keep a close eye on the prisoners. Don’t let any get away.’ Guillaume flashed a handsome smile, a smile that, no matter the circumstances, always elicited trust towards him in whatever party he directed the winning smile at. The thirty or so kids on the hill nodded, smiled back as if hypnotized, and filed off towards the northern end of town in a loose crowd. Some of the smaller kids replied to Guillaume here and there in their high-pitched voices; they said ‘Okay’ and ‘Uh-hm.’
The crowd left.
‘You probably won’t listen, but I’ll say, killing any more people than those already perished is overdoing it.’
‘That is what you think, and you are almost right, I will not listen. The triumph today must forever solidify my position as the true leader of Coniston. I shan’t let the idea of a future uprising dwell within a single mind in this town, to make that happen I must eradicate all participants of this current uprising. After this, any potential usurper will be wisely convinced to forfeit her plots against me, once and for all, knowing destruction is all that awaits one who challenges my authority. The executions, I’m sure, will achieve that. I do this not for bloodlust, but for peace, and what price I must pay for peace, I’m prepared to pay it.’ Guillaume looked for indication that the conversation was over, since he did not expect Ryan to question his decision further.
‘The peace you achieve then will be stained with too much blood, and what sort of peace is in that?’ Ryan said, ‘After what you propose to do tonight, people will not challenge you out of fear. What sort of peace is in fear?’
‘There is no other sort, not in this world.’ Guillaume replied gravely.
‘I don’t think fear is a substitute for peace.’ Ryan said, ‘You’ll realize that shortly, if you plant the seed of fear tonight.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Take it as a hunch. I’ve never lied to you about hunches, have I?’ Ryan stood his ground. Guillaume could not deny that what Ryan had said was true; Ryan’s hunches were like a seer’s prophecies, never far from exactly what will occur. Guillaume’s excellent judgment enabled him to consider Ryan’s advice seriously.
Guillaume exhaled a deep sigh, ‘What do you think, William?’
William was, of course, torn between his loyalty towards the leader of Coniston and his loyalty towards his best friend. He knew too, from trials throughout their childhood together, that Ryan’s predictions were usually spot-on.
‘I agree with Ryan.’ William said quietly. Guillaume barely heard him, but did. He looked around him, then at the ground, in contemplation.
‘I will have Meredith and the ringleaders of the revolt executed at dusk, the rest can be set free after serving a labor sentence.’ said Guillaume, he did not wait for a reply from either Ryan or William, and turned around and headed straight for the town hall.
The door to Meredith’s cell opened. Three figures entered, the middle one shined a flashlight in her face as they approached. Meredith could not make out their faces in the blinding light which she had no time to adjust to.
‘We have to bind your wrists.’ The middle figure said, and struck out a punch with the hand not holding the flashlight.
Meredith felt the impact of a fist on her cheek, knocking her sideways. Simultaneously, the two figures standing left and right to the middle speaking figure caught her mid-fall and roughly tied her arms behind her back.
‘Sorry about that, it was a distraction.’ The middle figure apologized to Meredith, who did not respond because her mouth was filling with blood.
Meredith was escorted from the cell between the two figures who tied her arms. The middle figure followed behind them. Sure enough, Meredith saw that they were passing the hallway of the elementary school’s basement. The school’s generator had broken down already, and the hallway was dark except for the middle figure’s flashlight shining the way ahead.
Meredith recognized the two escorts beside her; one was Renee Lesage, a listless goon of Guillaume’s gang from before the First Day, stilling faithfully in service to his master. The other was Jack Toll, a talkative and immature kid whose parents ran the pharmacy.
‘Hey Cyril, I’ve been thinking’ Jack said as Meredith’s escort brought her out of the school’s main entrance, and steered her towards the town hall, ‘I thought guys aren’t supposed to hit girls, and that’s what you did just now.’
So the figure behind her was Cyril Bouchard, Meredith thought. Cyril was another one of Guillaume’s goons, but a more intelligent one than Renee.
‘That’s why I apologized.’ Cyril replied to Jack. ‘Anyway, Guillaume said we shouldn’t say our names in earshot of her.’
‘Aww shit, I forgot, my bad.’
‘That’s okay, also, I just remembered, you were supposed to put a blindfold on her so she can’t see.’
‘Shit! Aw damn, can we put it on her now?’
‘We’re already outside, she can see us anyway.’ Cyril said.
The escort unit stopped on the sidewalk. The elementary school was situated on a side road in Coniston. Houses, most of them empty, occupied the two sides of the street. There were no others on the street. Meredith, while amused at Jack’s two blunders, also wondered why she was kept separate from the rest of her army. All of them must surely have been captured.
‘Renee, hold her arms while I get the blindfold on her.’ Jack let go of Meredith’s left arm to blindfold her. It didn’t matter; Meredith knew who they were anyway. Despite her beaten-up state, Meredith still had the capacity to be amused by stupid people around her.
‘Hey! Prisoners aren’t supposed to smile!’ Jack said, ‘Wipe that smirk off your face!’
‘It’s okay,’ Cyril said, ‘Let her smile. It was your fault anyway.’
Jack, disgruntled, tied the blindfold to block Meredith’s sight, and had to do it again because Cyril pointed out to him that Meredith couldn’t breathe the first time he tied the cloth around her face.
Then they continued on towards the town hall.
The prisoners were put against the front of the town hall, standing in across the town square in a line several bodies thick.
‘Hey look, Meredith is coming.’ The voice of a small boy among the line said, and all the heads turned to look.
‘Shut up.’ said one of the guards, a large boy holding a shotgun, who stood next to Conrad, guarding him. Conrad was as disheveled as the rest of the prisoners, but he stood apart with the guards of William’s division, and there was slyness in his eyes that twinkled and nobody noticed.
Jack and Renee led Meredith up to the line of prisoners. Cyril walked around Jack to face her, he said, ‘Show me from the crowd which are your lieutenants.’
Meredith said nothing.
Cyril slapped her across the face, sending her toppling sideways again before Jack caught her. The prisoners groaned.
‘Sorry for that, I was ordered to do that if you don’t respond.’
Still hearing no response, Cyril shrugged and was about to strike her again when Conrad spoke up.
‘Her hands are tied, how do you expect her to show you who you’re looking for?’ Conrad stepped forward, ‘I know them too, I’ll tell you.’
Conrad’s guard followed him up to the prisoners, and Conrad pointed. ‘That one, Dean DeBois.’
Cyril went forward and pulled the boy from the crowd.
‘Pierre Dumas, there.’ Cyril pulled out the second boy.
‘Tristan Guerone.’ the third.
Conrad paused, finally he said, pointing to the end of the crowd, ‘Truman Jones, end of the line there.’ Cyril dragged Truman, who was half unconscious, from the crowd. ‘That’s it.’ Conrad said.
Without anyone noticing, Conrad’s eyes locked on a boy with a large head, standing at the far back of the crowd. The boy gazed back. Conrad winked at him.
‘Lead them away.’ A voice ordered. Conrad, Cyril, Meredith and all the others raised their head to the origin of the voice; it belonged to William, coming towards them with Ryan, and behind them, Guillaume.
‘Everyone watch.’ Guillaume said, directing everyone’s attention to the middle of the square, where four of Meredith’s lieutenants were being led to, in a single filed line, by two of Guillaume’s guards.
The Coniston town square, facing the town hall due north, was a parking lot with a fountain in the middle that had dried up long ago. Standing in front of the fountain was a row of twelve kids, each with a different kind of rifle strapped across their chest.
The guards made the four boys line up in a row parallel to the row of twelve. The twelve unstrapped their weapons and held them in firing position, pointed at the four boys, none of whom moved.
‘Fire!’ one of the guards shouted.
The four boys were shot down instantly.
There were gasps among the prisoners. The majority of them began crying. Conrad maintained his composure, as did Meredith, though their reasons were different.
‘You see?’ Guillaume addressed the prisoners, Conrad, and Meredith, but mostly the prisoners, ‘Death is the price you pay for rebellion. Here in this town, there can be only one authority, and that authority is me. Follow me, and you will be protected. Trust me, and you will be rewarded. As the oldest here, I am in charge, and I will take care of you all. So do not defy me, do not challenge my authority, it is all for the best.’
Guillaume was improvising the speech as he goes; to those who knew this, it was an impressive sight to behold.
‘The rest of you are pardoned, with the exception of the leader of your revolt, Meredith here. You all know what must happen to her. She led this revolt and laid waste to this town, therefore she must be punished as her four co-conspirators just now. I assure you all you will not miss her once she is gone.
‘And though you are all followers and I pardon you, for your participation in the revolt I, as a just ruler of this town, must punish you accordingly. You are all sentenced to one month of labor, to restore this town from the damages sustained during the war.’
A wave of relief swept through the prisoners.
‘Conrad,’ Guillaume said, ‘for your betrayal to my enemy, you too are likewise pardoned.’ Conrad appropriately shaped his expression into one of total relief.
‘Oh thank you, Guillaume.’ said Conrad blissfully. I’m getting good at acting, Conrad thought on the inside.
‘Meredith,’ Guillaume addressed her last, ‘you are to die in five hours, at sunset. Have you anything to say?’
Meredith raised her head and looked straight at Guillaume. Not many present were successful to decipher her expression; even Guillaume did not fully understand it until much later on. Meredith opened her mouth slightly and spat. A glob of blood splattered onto the pavement.
‘If dead is to be my punishment for being ambitious, then I sincerely call it unfair.’ Meredith smiled, inexplicably, ‘We’re alike, Guillaume, probably more than you realize at the moment, and I wonder, why must like-minded people tear each other apart?’
Guillaume replied coldly, he said, ‘we’re not alike, Meredith, we’re incompatible, and only one of us can remain at the end of this battle. Look around you, isn’t this picture carnage enough? It is better that one of us goes, and that better one to go is you.’
‘You’re a smart boy, Guillaume. In the end you’ll realize you’re the one who did it, you’ve brought this all on yourself.’ Meredith gave Guillaume one last look. The look lasted a long time.
‘Take her away.’ Guillaume ordered Cyril.
‘Back to the school, mayor?’ Cyril asked.
‘No, to the mill, confine her in one of the warehouses. Give her some space.’
‘Ay ay, mayor.’ Meredith was led away.
‘And the prisoners?’ William asked Guillaume, who had not moved nor turned his head.
‘Put them in the community center, the gym there, and await my further instruction.’ Guillaume said, as if in a trance.
William signaled for his division to follow Guillaume’s command. The town square cleared quickly, and soon only a few remained. In front of the town hall, only Guillaume and Ryan did not move.
‘Her look, it unnerves me.’ Guillaume said, to no one in particular.
‘Well then, I’m glad not to have been the target of that look.’ Ryan replied, ‘Have you made up your mind?’
‘Yes,’ Guillaume finally unfrozen from his position, he said, ‘When the sun sets, take her into the woods. Have a guard with you, I don’t care who. There, dispose of her.’
‘Why me?’ he asked. Ryan already knew Guillaume trusted him most; he was seeking the other reason.
‘So you too can be the target of that look she gave me.’ After saying this, Guillaume walked briskly away.
The sunset bathed the town in dying shades of orange and deep crimson. Some lights were lit, and they were sporadic and few, for Coniston’s electricity supply were dwindling.
Meredith paced around in the warehouse within the mill where she was confined. She heard the roll-up door open and turned to see Ryan and another boy, taller than he, enter.
Only Ryan carried a visible weapon, a handgun.
‘The sun has set.’ Ryan said.
Meredith stood where she was. Her wrists were still bound by rope.
‘We’re here to escort you…to the woods.’ The other boy said, ‘My name is Melvin.’
Melvin Hudson, the loner, Meredith thought. She didn’t know him very well, or took much notice of him, for that matter.
‘Come along.’ Ryan motioned for Meredith to come to them.
They made their way out of the mill, single file. Melvin led the way, Meredith in the middle, and Ryan brought up the rear.
Meredith knew that Ryan was attentive. She did not continue her cutting of the rope that bounded her wrists. The sharp chip of wood she found in the warehouse was tucked away in her sleeve. Her progress was half finished when Ryan and Melvin came to take her.
They reached the bottom of the hill and trekked across the plain towards the southern woods. There was just enough light left to see their surroundings draped in a blue shadow. The sky was a clear deep blue.
They entered the forest, over the crest where Meredith, Conrad and Truman observed the town from just that morning. Weaving between the spruces and pines on a footpath, they came to a clearing that was a campground for Meredith’s army.
At the edge of the clearing on the trail up ahead, Meredith noticed the stump. The tree stump was not entirely flat; a sharp protrusion stuck out of the stump’s surface. The tree had been sawed partway and then felled. The protrusion was made by the trunk not splitting evenly at the side opposite where the sawing was done.
The ground on the trail was smooth except for rotting leaves. A meter away from the stump, Meredith tripped herself.
Before Melvin knew anything and before Ryan could react (he had tucked his handgun beneath his belt), Meredith flipped her arms upward behind her back. Her shoulders rotated full circle in their sockets accompanied by a crack. Her tied wrists sailed over her head as she fell forward and the rope in between wrists landed sharply on the stump’s protrusion. Her wrists were freed.
Ryan was astonished at Meredith’s display of flexibility. His hand automatically went for the pistol.
Meredith rolled around, leapt up and tackled Ryan in the stomach. Ryan fell backwards with Meredith on top of her.
Melvin turned around in surprise. From the way he just stood there, it was clear he had no weapon on him.
Ryan and Meredith wrestled on the ground. Meredith’s hands went at Ryan’s waist, where his gun was tucked in. She grasped the handle and pulled the entire pistol out just as Ryan struck out his right hand and slapped the barrel out of his way before a shot fired. The gun itself was also knocked out of Meredith’s hands, it skidded into the bushes.
Meredith was about to dive into the bushes after the pistol and Ryan grabbed her wrists, which were bruised by the rope.
‘Wait, don’t go for it! I don’t want to kill you.’
Meredith stopped struggling. Melvin grabbed her and tried to haul her off of Ryan, and Meredith elbowed him in the side. Melvin fell down too.
All three of them lay just short of the clearing, panting.
‘You mean it?’ Meredith asked Ryan.
‘I don’t like to lie, and I’m not lying right now.’ Ryan replied; he tried to get up. Meredith held him down
‘I believe you, so would you believe me too and allow me to have the pistol?’
‘I’m not so sure about that.’
‘Why do you need it? Just get out of here and don’t come back. We won’t go after you. I certainly won’t.’ said Melvin, who is still on the ground. He had never been an aggressive one, and never will be.
‘Melvin’s right, you should go now, get as far away from here as you can and never return. We’ll keep our end of the bargain and never seek you out.’ Ryan said, ‘now will you get off of me?’
‘No, not yet, I believe what you say, but I want you to know one thing,’ Meredith pressed herself down close to Ryan, and they saw eye to eye, ‘I will return. I will come back to exact my revenge on Guillaume for what he has done, and I will be successful. Mark my words, you’re my witness.’ Meredith stood up swiftly.
‘Guillaume nearly killed you.’ Ryan stood up too and dusted himself off.
‘He didn’t. What doesn’t kill me, it just makes me stronger.’
‘What doesn’t kill you now will kill you later.’ Melvin said, the last one to stand back up, ‘Go, before they in town get suspicious. When we return we will say we buried you underground, there will be no trace of you left here.’
‘Did you see where the pistol fell?’ Meredith said.
‘No, and it will take hours in this dark to find it.’ Ryan replied, ‘If you are worried about us shooting you in the back, rest assured we won’t. I swear it.’
‘Then farewell, and remember what I said.’ Meredith gave them each a look one final time, turned, ran across the clearing and disappeared into the woods beyond.
‘Goodbye,’ Melvin called after her. The woods were silent.
Melvin and Ryan stood side by side a few moments, and then Ryan said, ‘Why did you say to her that we will lie about her death?’
‘Because that’s the right thing to do,’ Melvin replied.
‘Well, I thought so too.’ Ryan sighed, then continued, ‘My hunch goes, I will tell many lies tonight, including the one about us falling down and losing the pistol, and as for you, unlike me, you will have to answer for nothing. The secret is safe between us?’
‘You don’t even have to ask.’
‘Ryan sighed wearily, ‘and don’t forget to thank me occasionally for getting you out of the brig tonight.’
‘Am I out of the brig indefinitely?’ Melvin said.
‘The war is over. There is no more violence for you to protest.’ Ryan simply replied. The two friends made their way back to Coniston, as the sun dipped below the jagged western horizon in the sixth month since the First Day. In darkness the few lights of Coniston shined, and in darkness Meredith van Zant traveled south, not to be seen again.
