My mouth still hung open, and I made no move to close it. The room was filled with the sounds of the glass bottles clinking as they were being handled, reminiscent somehow of the soft noises one would hear inside a clock.
“Right, and you said your job was that youworked for a company that made chemicals, right? You said it was sort of mundane to an outsider and didn’t elaborate ... I’m guessing that was a bit of an understatement as well?”
Einar turned bright red, especially as more people looked up from the task at hand to stare at him.
“That’s an understatement, that,” Russ answered for him. “Soon as he got his citizenship, this sod got hired by some private lot doin’ research fer the army. To make better bombs. Had military clearance an’ all that. He was a proper big deal, back before all this.”
Einar rubbed his face with his hand in a gesture that indicated he wanted to disappear on the spot.
“You were ...military?”
“No. I was in the private sector, designing some explosives used by the military in offshore missions. I only had the lowest level of clearance. Suffice to say I’m more than qualified for large-scale destruction. So how about we stop going over my credentials and get on with it?” He cleared his throat.
“Fine, fine.” I raised my hands in a mock surrender. “But can I just say one more thing?”
He nodded only reluctantly, with a sense of dawning apprehension.
“All things considered, you have an impressive number of fingers left.”
This was rewarded by a chuckle throughout the room and a distinctly threatening look from Einar. My favourite kind.
We started using one of Bonifacio’s erstwhile town halls as our communal dining room. It was high-ceilinged with faux-marble tiles covering the floor. Its tall windows, providing a luxurious supply of light, made it wholly different from our previous dining halls in Ascu and Vizzavona. It was equipped with intricate metal chandeliers and rows of long tables perfect for our purposes.
The seating arrangement had changed due to the deaths of two prior leaders, and I now sat at the head table next to Einar, alongside Russ and Jean-Luc and their respective girlfriend and wife.
One evening after supper, Einar’s chair scraped against the floor with a hair-raising chalkboard screech. He stood up to speak as he did every night after the meal, if only to wish everyone a good night’s rest. However, from the tension in his shoulders, I could already tell that he had significantly more to say that particular evening.
Grave silence spread through the room like fog.
“The time has come,” Einar announced, speaking in slow deliberation to let the words sink in. “We are as ready to face the hordes as we’re ever going to be. Which is why I am now going to suggest something that many of you may think insane, but which you will find, after careful consideration, to be the best course ofaction possible. I say that we do not wait for the swarm to arrive at its own volition. I say we lure it here.”
I twisted in my seat to look up at him so quickly that I felt something in my neck squeeze with a painful pinch. An agitated murmur ran through the hall.
“Insane, you say?” Dave stood up so fast that his chair not only scraped the floor but also crashed to it. “It’s barking mad, it is! Why bring that menace to our doorstep willingly?”
Anyone daring to interrupt Einar’s speech was a rare occurrence. On the other hand, if someone did, it was usually Dave. Often, I suspected that it was only my friendship and my pleading shamelessly on his behalf that saved him from getting flogged.
“That is an excellent question,” Einar replied, unperturbed, and the crowd fell silent. “It seems counterintuitive, does it not? Why not simply wait? Perhaps they’ll never get here, right? Maybe they’ll eventually die on their own without us having to lift a finger.” He paused, scanning the room with his icy glare, and I felt a customary shiver run through my body. “That certainly is a possibility. But a distant one. It is much more likely they will find their way here before long. And when they do, we won’t be in control of the circumstances of their arrival. They could get here at night or on a rainy day.” He squared his shoulders resolutely. “Also, in time, they may merge with another swarm to form even a bigger horde. No.” He shook his head slowly but with an uncompromising severity. “If we hope to survive and to restore a civilised society, our chosen way forward cannot be to hide in wait and hope to get lucky.”
“I disagree,” Dave repeated, earning one of Einar’s most unpleasant scowls. “It’s one thing to face them when, and if, we have to. It’s another thing entirely to actively encourage them to come here. That’d be not only wrong, but far too risky”
A few consentingyeahsechoed throughout the hall.
“Your reasoning is short-sighted. Because the risk of waiting and doing nothing is far greater than the risk of acting now,” Einar retorted, calmly but coldly. “Lying in wait, we would not only risk all the mentioned scenarios and more. But we would also risk further damage to our human spirit. Which is a thing easy to overlook or underestimate, but a vital thing nonetheless.”
Dave shook his head disapprovingly, but sank back down with an air of defeat, noting that people were now listening to Einar with too curious an attention to have any left to spare for his protests.
“We watched impotently as our society collapsed. We were helpless as the world we had once considered our own became overrun by mindless creatures with nothing but carnage on their minds,” Einar continued. “To restore our position, to return humans to their former glory, it is not enough to lie in wait and hope for survival. No. To become human again, we must take control of the situation, of any situation we find ourselves in. As we have been doing. The difference between winning and merely surviving is as crucial to the future of humanity as is the difference between a healthy person and a fury.”
Late evening sun fell through the windows and made so far invisible particles of dust sparkle in the motionless air. I looked around the hall and saw some enthusiastic nodding here and there, especially among the young members of our community. Some even clapped their hands together briefly, rewarding Einar’s speech with tenuous applause.
“We are ready for the swarm, as much I can promise you. We are going to defeat it. It may seem an incredible thing, perhaps, but I have no doubt we will succeed. But we will do so on our own terms, and in doing so, we will not only eradicate a large number of infected but heal ourselves and start taking the world back for our own. Now, do we still have anyone objecting here?”
The hall was silent. Dave still seemed unconvinced, but he knew a lost battle when he saw one. How come the fear wasn’t stronger, I wondered, when I myself felt suddenly consumed by it, my heart beating painfully fast and my chest constricting in panic at the thought? Was it because most people there hadn’t actually seen the swarm, its insect-like quality, its sheer immensity? Because they hadn’t felt its mindless malice radiate through the air?
“In three days, then, if the weather holds. Three days.”
Einar sat back down to deafening applause, and my body erupted in a cold sweat. Was he, his unwavering confidence and magnetic charisma, the sole reason why all these people were suddenly willing to do something that would have once seemed unthinkable? Inciting a mass slaughter of other human beings at the very real risk of their own demise? Could it all have been because he read the room all too correctly and weaponised the emotions that most people gathered there felt?
