1632

She had been able to block it out, for a time. The difficulty of coaxing the women and their children through the sanitation process had kept her busy. The fretting worry over how to handle the situation developing between Gretchen and Jeff-them, today; all the other girls, she knew, within a week, with other American boys carrying the guns which could protect them-had kept her mind preoccupied. A schoolteacher's habit, forged over decades, of maintaining decorum and discipline had kept her tightly focused.

But enough time had elapsed, now. The memory could no longer be held at bay. The memory of three boys, none of them more than fourteen years old, squatting at her feet like animals, their eyes blank, their faces numb, while their mothers and sisters and aunts wailed and shrieked like banshees. All of them, except Gretchen, utterly certain Utterly certain!

- that Melissa Mailey had come to murder them.

***

She was going to vomit.

Not here! They'll think they've been poisoned.

Abruptly, she rose and strode away from the table. She waved away Jeff's look of concern. Just thought of something I need to do, that's all. Jeff, she knew, would reassure the others. He was a reliable boy. A good boy.

Once she was out of the cafeteria she turned left and pushed through the big doors leading to the outside. Melissa was almost running now. She couldn't hold it down much longer and she was determined to be completely out of sight of the refugees. Night had almost fallen, but there was still a bit of purple sky to illuminate the area.

She turned right, away from the cafeteria windows. Now, in the semidarkness, she began to run. Her bare feet slapped the walkway running alongside the school.

She couldn't make it to the bushes near the technical center. Not a chance.

This is far enough.

She stepped off the walkway and fell to her knees. Guiltless cafeteria food surged up, spewed, splattered innocent grass. Murder came out, rape came out, torture came out; cruelty beyond imagining covered the land. Horror spilled, anguish spread. The acrid smell of her own digestive juices was perfume, covering a stench so vile it could not be given a name.

By the time Melissa Mailey finished, her conversion was complete.

***

She leaned back and took a deep breath. Clean air filled her lungs. She probed her mind, pushing beneath the rage, searching for herself.

Still there, she realized, sighing with relief.

Barely. But still there.

***

Mike and Rebecca found her a few minutes later. They had arrived for the committee meeting early, as usual. What was not usual was that they were walking hand in hand. The sight of that affectionate handclasp helped to drive despair out of Melissa's mind.

Mike knelt by her side. "Are you all right?" He glanced at the vomit, glistening in the light of the rising moon.

Melissa nodded. "I'm fine." Then, realizing the absurdity of the statement, she chuckled harshly. "Physically, at least."

Her eyes welled with tears. "Oh God, Mike, they thought I was going to have them killed." A moment later, her head tucked into his sheltering arm, she began babbling the tale. As she spoke, Rebecca knelt alongside her also, listening closely.

When Melissa was done, she took another deep breath. "You know, I'm finding myself in a strange place. Mentally, I mean. Never thought I'd be here."

She tightened her jaws. The next sentence came between clenched teeth. "The way I feel right now, I'd have every single man in that army-both armies-lined up against a wall and shot. Tonight."

Mike smiled, and stroked her hair. "Take it easy, lady. You're the worst person in the world to have to make a decision like that."

Melissa tried to stop herself from laughing. Couldn't-and then realized she didn't want to stop. The humor was cleansing. "God, isn't that the truth?" she demanded. "Nothing worse than a convert when it comes to self-righteousness."

Mike was grinning, now. "Lord save us!" The grin faded. He shook his head. "Melissa, I just talked to James. He spent the last two hours checking over those men. The Scots took the Protestant prisoners into Badenburg. We've got the Catholics under guard out in the fairgrounds."

He blew out his cheeks. "You want to know what he told me? He said those men reminded him of all the tough kids and wild young men he grew up with, that's all. He comes from the ghetto, Melissa. You don't. A man like James understands a lot better than you do how men like that get produced. Put anyone in the right circumstances-wrong circumstances-and you'll get the same result. Some of them are genuine monsters, and probably would have been anywhere. The rest? Most of them?" He shrugged. "Just men, that's all. Fucking up in a fucked-up world."