The room falls into silence.

  “My name is Richard Maxwell. I think we can all agree by now that whatever this is that’s happening isn’t going away, and it’s time that we come together as a community to ensure our long-term survival. With all the talk about the Survivor Identification and Reunification Program happening in Toronto, we decided that we should hold our own, smaller scale version of it here.”

  “The SIRP is conscription!” someone yells from the back of the room. A few other people call out agreements. “You just want to use whatever powers we got.”

  Richard holds up his hands, placating. A few of his shirt buttons pull taught over his substantial belly. The light pink of the shirt matches the pink swirls in his blue paisley tie. “I’m not conscripting anyone, or using any of you. We have children and elderly who survived, and more than enough bodies to ensure everyone’s safety. The animal attacks are getting worse—they’re all just getting stronger—and we need to work together.”

  He gestures to the table behind him. There’s three women and one other man, all looking about the same age, with the same weariness in their eyes. I wonder what their last five days have looked like. “We’re thinking that if everyone comes together, pools their resources, we can find a way to make it through winter. Livestock is gone, unless you want to try to catch one of the mutated animals and eat mutated meat, and we need to make it to spring to start a proper farming initiative.”

  “Sounds a lot like socialism!” another voice yells from a different corner.

  “And maybe it is!” Richard yells back, breaking his composure a little. “Is it so bad to want to come together and work toward a common goal? Winter is going to be here before we know it and I—” Richard takes a deep breath. “I’m getting ahead of myself,” he goes on, sounding more in control. “I—We just wanted a chance to see who’s still here, what our town’s future can be. We need to work together, now more than ever.”

  A couple of people get up from their chairs, the sound of the legs skidding across the floor echoing the space. Every pair of eyes in the room turns to them—a younger pair, a man and a woman, maybe around my age. They’re holding hands.

  Briefly, I wonder if they both survived or if they’ve found each other and started a relationship during the apocalypse. Not important, Jane.

  “We’re not interested,” the man says, looking wildly at the clearly unwanted attention. “We’re just going to slip out—”

  “And then you’re going to die,” one of the women sitting at the table calls out, pushing her own chair back and smacking her hands onto the folding table. The whole thing shakes, the risers rattling. “What don’t you people understand? It’s the end of the world. Haven’t you watched Walking Deads and Last of Uses? Coming together is the only way we’ll survive.” She looks like a caricature of a strict old lady, in a pressed sweater set and a calf-length straight skirt. She wears a necklace with a large cross pendant.

  “And what do you assholes bring to the table?” someone else in the room calls out.

  A lot more echoes of agreement with that one.

  “Well, none of you tried to hold something like this,” Richard volleys. It sounds like a kid in a playground saying ‘no you are.’ I stifle a laugh.

  “That’s because the rest of us are doing great,” a new voice yells. Laughter fills the room.

  Richard’s face is getting pretty red. It clashes with his shirt. His hands form fists at his sides. I almost feel bad for the guy; I’m sure his intentions were honourable. But clearly, our town prefers independence over community.

  Still, I’m a little surprised so many people showed up just to heckle.

  And then Richard does something that surprises me. He shows us what his magic is.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Maybe it’s because I’m already looking at his fisted hands, but I let out a gasp. A few people, including a couple of the folks sitting at the table, turn to look at me.

  But Richard’s fist shrinks, his fingers melding together, until a solid little hammer protrudes out of the man’s shirt cuff. He whirls around and uses it to whack the folding table where the rest of his sort-of council sits. The sound echoes through the room.

  It’s not a hard hit, but the folding table isn’t strong. One of the legs collapses into itself and the whole side of the table crashes down, letting a much louder sound crash. In the wake of it, silence rings.

  One of the council members, a woman still sitting at the upright side of the table, is still staring at me.

  “None of us are doing great,” Richard’s voice booms over the silent room. I thought it was the sudden silence ringing in my ears, but no: the table is still ringing slightly from where the folding mechanism caved in. “No one on the planet is doing great! That’s why we have to all be together.”

  “So your magic sucks and now you want to take advantage of the rest of us?” someone asks, standing out of his chair right in the front row. He’s a gangly guy, some sort of baby-level adult, maybe a fresh 18 or very close to it. He’s dressed in all black, head to toe, even his toque. It’s not quite cold enough outside for that kind of hat, and it’s actively hot in here. Too many bodies in one space.

  Gotta give the kid credit, though, for telling it like it is.

  Richard tries to talk back, but he sputters for a second. Maybe he’s surprised that someone actually owned up to their heckling. I am.

  “Look, hammer-hand,” the kid goes on, “we’re not joining your little commune of the magically gifted”—he lifts his hands and wiggles his fingers at this—“because you pulled the short end of the stick. If that’s all that this meeting was supposed to accomplish, then use your little gavel to say that the meeting is adjourned.” He gestures to Richard’s hammer.

  There’s a tittering that goes through the hall, and Richard’s face goes redder. I wonder if he can transform in any other way, if we might actually see steam coming out of his ears like in a cartoon.

  The other man sitting at the table—now sitting with nothing in front of him—pushes his chair back in such a deliberate way that the room shuts right up and turns to him. That kind of stage presence is rare. I’m almost impressed.

  “That is not the only item on today’s agenda,” this new man says, scanning the room with a keen eye. The only way I can describe the energy in the room is like when an elementary school class had a substitute teacher who couldn’t quite control the classroom, and the principal walks in. You know you’ve behaved badly, the principal knows you’ve behaved badly, but there’s a general consensus of ‘don’t do it again and maybe we’ll pretend it never happened.’

  Or maybe that was just my school.

  This new man is reed-thin, completely bald, and wearing slacks and a black turtleneck sweater. It kind of looks like he belongs at a poetry reading. But the way his dark eyes track the room leave no room for funny business.

  The only thing that I can think of is that I wonder what his magic is.

  “As it is, we had an entire agenda planned.” The poet-lookalike steps around the fallen table and reaches Richard’s side. With a long-fingered hand, he slowly pushes Richard away. “I knew we should have had someone more competent run this,” he says, mostly directed at Richard. I almost feed bad for the man, who dejectedly goes back to the table, taking the seat the poet vacated. He slouches, trying to make his wide girth disappear behind the collapsed table.

  “Our agenda is such,” the man goes on, his fingers steepled in front of him. He paces along the front of the risers, sharp pleats in his pants making me wonder if he used a generator to get his iron working. Or maybe pleated pants is his magic. “To discuss who is going to be in charge of the town. To discuss who has survived and get an idea of numbers. To discuss water rations, food stores, and gasoline access. To discuss medical supplies. To discuss the status of emergency services, and whether we need to create a police force. To consider moving all survivors to a more localized, and defendable, consolidated location. To discuss the surviving children returning to school. To begin preparations for winter.” He stops pacing and turns over his shoulder. “Have I missed anything?” he asks to the rest of his council.

  Richard drops his gaze, but the women shake their heads.

  “If some of these topics feel like they are too close to your socialism concerns, you may leave. If you do not wish to be part of our community, you may leave. But understand: if you leave, you will not be welcomed back. If you do not help our community survive, then you will not have access to any of our preparation for survival.” He stares over the tips of his fingers to the room, daring for someone to interrupt him. “You think you can survive the winter on your own, then by all means. Be alone.”

  In my opinion, it’s not too different from what Richard was saying: the town needs to work together, there’s safety in numbers, pool their resources, et cetera. But the way this guy says it garners no disagreement.

  “No? No one wants to leave?” he laments to the room.

  I try to spot if that couple who got up managed to leave, or if they sat back down. There’s too many people in the room and I can’t tell.

  “Good. Then let’s try this again.”