Jane

Crying. That was the loudest of all in the one room home, it wasn't the murmuring, the pacing or even the arguing that woke America. No it was the crying, a keening sound he knew mama wolves to make when their pups were killed. Blinking open his eyes, he stared across the dim room to see one of his colonists, Edith, a woman once plump and merry, covering her eyes with both her hands.

Struggling to wake more despite the pull of exhaustion on his limbs and soul, America sat up and saw two of his men, John and Simon, conferring in the corner. Whatever they were talking about was becoming quite heated as he could see a red hue coming to Simon's face. Studying further, he saw one of his playmates, Giles, walking the length of the home with an agitated jaunt to his step.

Edith, John, Simon, Giles...Where was Jane? The girl who knew how to make people smile despite this time of starving he and his people had found themselves in. No one knew how to tell a story like Jane...had she gone out to relieve herself? He saw a shrouded lump pushed against the wall. His heart gave a stutter and America couldn't stop himself from whimpering.

All their eyes suddenly focusing right on him, Simon, gray eyes wide with something like madness roared at them all "See?! He whimpers for he feels our end is eminent! If we were to...if we were to...maybe we could stave it off! Maybe long enough for more settlers to land on our shores! Then our dreams would not be for naught!"

Pointing at him with an energy and flourish America hadn't seen in quite a while from any of his remaining colonists, Simon declared, "He would exist even if we would not!"

America didn't know what was happening. He just knew he was tired, that he was hungry and his throat itched with some illness he could not name. Ignoring Simon in favor of his playmate, he croaked, "Giles?"

The skeletal boy came over and laid a hand on America's sunken cheek. "Yes?"

"Wha's goin' on?"

The boy, who really wasn't more than ten, licked his cracked and cancerous lips. Sending an uneasy look to his fellow settlers, he leaned in so close America could feel his warm breath on his frigid ear.

"Simon wants us to eat Jane," he uttered.

It was blasphemy. It went against every rule his people followed, but...these were desperate times. Starving Times. One had to take what they could get. Even if it was-

His eyes flickered to the form across the room. Jane.

Sighing, America let his eyes slip close as he warbled, "Our holy lord will forgive you."

"Ah-aha!" Edith wailed as she curled in on herself. And America remembered, Jane was her niece. The last of her family.

He wished the lord had dealt them a kinder hand. He wished there was another way. He wished they didn't have to eat a dead girl.

Looking so much more sickly, Simon picked up a cleaver and to Jane's side. Throwing back her shroud, he struck her forehead once. It was a dull thud. Not the crack the needed to get at her brains.

"I cannot do it!" Simon warbled, "I - Jane!"

Stepping over, John maneuvered the body so it was face down. Straightening himself back out, John told Simon, "Do it again."

"I canno-"

"Do it!" The other man raged. "You wanted us to live! Now do it!"

Tears spilling down his cheeks, Simon lifted the cleaver and turned his head. The utensil hit the dirt ground. Crying bitterly, Simon did it again and managed to crack open Jane's skull.

Raising his storm cloud gray eyes to the sky, The man screamed "Forgive me! Forgive me!"

And he did it again. And a third time. Soon, the skull only needed prying open and he was grabbing the brain out with his bare fingers and putting it into a pot to cook over the fire in the middle of the room.

Watching the man approach in the yellow flames with his face flecked with red and fingers crimson, Alfred grabbed onto the back of Giles's vest.

Shifting, the older boy comforted him. "Shh..." he whispered against his ear as he held him. "You don't have to watch anymore, America."

Trembling, he said, "Go tell the others. Go tell them we have food for today."

"I will," Edith declared as she rose up. "I will let them know."

John, still beside Jane's mutilated skull, fell down on his knees and began to tear at her clothes. "We have to use the rest of her too. That brain won't feed everyone."

Fingers digging into his shoulder, Giles begged America, "Don't look, don't look."

Closing his eyes, Alfred sucked in a breath and agreed. "I won't."

This is real History. In Jamestown during the Starving Time people actually resorted to cannibalism.

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