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bloody right!”
     
    Heads nodded and murmurs of agreement
trickled through the rows of people.
     
    Moe had blindsided me. He knew I
wanted to talk this through and rationalise it. He probably knew that I had a
point, so he’d gotten in there first and suggested the vote, because he knew
people had short attention spans. A yes or no vote; leave or stay. 
Without the chance to explain my reasons for staying or to tell them that I
didn’t think the wave of infected existed, it was a vote I was sure to lose.
     
    A grin twisted at the corners of
Moe’s lips as the din around us rose. I gripped the arms of my chairs, did my
best to hold the anger in. It would have been sweet to stand up and smack him
in the face, but if I acted rashly now, I’d lose every single one of these
people.
     
    Moe stood up.
     
    “You all heard Harlowe yesterday. He
was a thief. Scum. A man who deserved to die a thousand times over. But in his
last few seconds of life, he didn’t beg for mercy. He didn’t try to persuade us
to spare him, or curse God for putting him in this mess. Instead, he spoke the
truth.”
     
    I bolted to my feet and winced as I
put my weight on my bad leg. “Hang on a minute. You’re saying that you believehim? The man who tried to steal from us not once, but twice? The guy who
killed Sam?”
     
    Moe gave a knowing smile, as though
I’d walked right into his trap. He spoke loudly, the twang of his Lancastrian
accent amplified by the acoustics.
     
    “And whose fault is it that he killed
Sam? Who gave him that chance?”
     
    My chest dropped and a fuzzy feeling
ran though my arms and legs. The faces in the crowd turned from nodding
agreement at Moe’s words, to flinches of anger when they looked at me.
     
    They all knew that I’d shown mercy.
Moe had made sure that every damn person was aware that I had gone against the
town law and spared Harlowe’s life, and that by doing so I’d given him the
chance to come back and kill Sam. I was sure that he hadn’t meant to kill him,
but that didn’t mean shit. A man was dead, and they blamed me.
     
    My coffers of confidence were empty,
and the people of Vasey didn’t have enough respect for me to let me draw some
on credit.
     
    Moe puffed up his chest, his arms at
his hips.
     
    “Harlowe told the truth, ladies and
gentlemen. When men think they got a chance at life, they lie. But Harlowe knew
he was a dead man. And in his final words, he warned us of what’s coming. Five
hundred thousand of the fuckers heading our way. They will kill every single
one of you.”
     
    The silence broke. Faces flashed with
panic. People started hurried conversations with the people next to them; their
husbands, wives, friends. Every so often one of them would spin a look at me,
but there was nothing friendly in it.
     
    I needed to do something. I needed
support from somewhere, but looking at the crowed, there was none coming. Who
was going to help me?
     
    Dan? No, he was Moe’s man.
     
    Faizel? I didn’t think he’d tied
himself to Moe despite working for him, but he wasn’t my friend either.
     
    Justin? He was loyal, but I didn’t
know where the hell he was.
     
    This was down to me. I wasn’t an
orator, and I damn sure wasn’t a salesman. But I had to do my best. I had to
sell them the dream, get them to believe in what we were doing here. Vasey was
our only shot at building a life for the survivors, and if we left it, then I
didn’t see any hope.
     
    I tightened my fists until the blood
drained out of them. Took a deep breath and held it in.
     
    “Do you all want to die?”  I
said, my voice springing out against the timber of the roof.
     
    The murmurs dropped.
     
    “Because the second you walk out of
these walls, that’s what’s going to happen. I’ve been out there. How many of
you have been in the Wilds for more than an hour?”
     
    Two hands rose. One was Dan’s, the
other was Faizel’s.
     
    “You’ve lived here too long. You've
been safe so long