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so
many people.
     
    I had to start off strongly. It was
important that I was confident and that I put weight behind my arguments. I had
to persuade the people to trust in me and stay in Vasey.
     
    Moe shifted in his seat. I stood up
before he got chance and addressed the crowd.
     
    “Quiet please people.”
     
    My words echoed up to the rafters,
the acoustics of the theatre designed to carry the volume of voice from the
stage and send it into each corner of the building.
     
    Voices stopped, faces turned. All
eyes were on me and Moe. I bit down on the nerves that fired inside me.
     
    “We all know why we’re here,” I said.
     
    I took a few steps to the front of
the stage, the thuds of my footsteps hammering on the boards.
     
    “This isn’t an ordinary meeting.
We’ve got something important to discuss. And I do mean discuss. This isn’t me
telling you that you have to do something, there are no orders. Everyone’s
opinion is welcome.”
     
    At the back of the room the theatre
door opened. I hoped it was Justin coming to take his empty seat, but it was a
woman. She ducked her head down and shifted across a row, apologising to
everyone who had to move out of her way while she found her seat. I nodded to
Moe.
     
    He stood up and cleared his throat.
     
    “Been a long time since an old fella
like me was up here,” he said. “Last time was probably when I played the skull
in Hamlet.”
     
    He grinned, and a few laughs rose
from the crowd.
     
    My busted leg ached. I could stand on
it less and less these days, as though the onset of winter was making my bones
creak. I didn’t feel like a man in his forties; I was ancient. I grabbed my
chair and pulled it toward the edge of the stage. I sat down and tried to slow
the rushing of my blood. Come on, Kyle. Be confident. Persuade them.
     
    “We’ve all got a choice to make
today,” I said, trying to send my voice booming across the hall. “You all know
the question, and you know your options.”
     
    Silence. Usually, people chatted with
each other while I talked on stage. They laughed with friends, made jokes.
Today was different.
     
    I carried on. “You know how I feel.
You know what I think of Vasey and our future. The plans we’ve got. The things
we need to do to build a life here.”
     
    To my right, Moe stood up. He dragged
his chair across the stage, cutting my words with the scrape of the metal legs
on the wooden boards.
     
    “And you folks know how Ifeel
too. Supplies are running out. All we do is work. We’re surviving, but we ain’t
living,” he said.
     
    A few murmurs in the crowd. Some
heads nodded in agreement. I tried to think of the names of the people
agreeing, but came up blank. Maybe I didn’t know these people as well as I
thought.
     
    “Is it true?” a man shouted in a
scratchy voice. It was an Irish guy in his thirties who hardly ever spoke. He
did the job I gave him on the fields, but never with a smile. I thought his
name might have been Martin. “Is what he said about the infected true?”
     
    This was what everyone wanted to
know. This was why the meeting had the biggest attendance I’d ever seen.
Harlowe had spilled his secret on the square, that half a million infected were
all headed in our direction. Word had spread like thrush, and soon everyone
panicked. They wanted answers today. And I had none.
     
    Moe put his hand on his chest. He
straightened his posture. “I’ve made it no secret that I’m leaving Vasey. And I
know Kyle is going to do his level best to convince you all to stay. But here’s
what I suggest. That we don’t listen. We don’t debate, we don’t talk. We’ve
done enough of that.”
     
    He let a few seconds of silence pass
to emphasise his points. Heads in the crowd nodded. Then he spoke again.
     
    “We’ve had enough tongue wagging. I
say we end this right here right now and put it to the vote.”
     
    At first a few murmurs in the crowd.
Then a man shouted out.
     
    “You’re