CHAPTER 11 - Mike Journal Entry Seven
We were on the road again. Bailey joined us, she was sent as an emissary of Talboton or, more likely, a spy to report back what she discovered. I did not harbor any secret notion that Talboton was going to willingly join in any fight. And honestly I didn’t blame them; as of yet, nothing had happened except stories from strangers they did not believe no matter who they were. Lana seemed overly morose with the addition to our party. Oh, she got along fabulously with Oggie and Tommy, but Azile and Bailey were threats to her.
Oh, I love women in all their flaws and foibles. I’d learned long ago that women aren’t in competition with men; they are in competition with each other. Constantly sizing each other up for battle, but not with swords, knives, and guns….no, nothing that crude, they use something much more dangerous: their looks and their biting wit.
“I’ve heard the Red Witch devours her mates,” Lana said to me as we were riding along.
I laughed. “I don’t doubt that at all,” I told her.
“Then I shrink their heads and stick them in this saddle bag,” Azile said from twenty yards up. Not sure how she had heard, but I laughed again.
We traveled the next three weeks from town to town; with pretty much the same result we had suffered in Talboton, scorn and derision. We were sitting just outside the city limits of Harbor’s Town – a name which made absolutely no sense considering they weren’t anywhere near a body of water. Tommy and I were sitting in the back of the wagon watching Oggie run around in the grass.
“Gonna have to check for ticks tonight,” I said.
“Why won’t these people listen, Mr. T?” Tommy asked.
“Because it’s easier not to. Who wants to think the end of the world is around the corner. If you had come to me a week earlier before the zombies showed I would have called you crazy and shut the door.” I paused. “No…that’s a lie. I probably would have invited you in and at least listened to your entire story.” I paused again. “Shit, who am I kidding? I probably would have quit work and started prepping the house that night. Okay most people don’t want to think about doomsday scenarios.”
“What now, Michael?” Bailey asked, as she approached.
I looked over towards her. She was framed in a midday sun. “God, you remind me of him, and you’re beautiful. You’re really messing with my head, you know that? He would kill me if he knew I was looking at you like this.”
“You’re not really my type,” she said.
“Too pale? Vamps aren’t really known for lying out in the sun. I could try and find some spray on tan.”
Bailey smiled.
“Is it an age thing? I mean…because what’s a hundred and something years among friends? It’s all subjective. It’s how you feel, and honestly I don’t feel a day over eighty-six, ninety-two tops.”
“You haven’t answered my question.” She continued to smile.
“I don’t know really. I’m not even sure why I’m out here. It’s Azile’s game as far as I can tell.”
“He loved you,” Bailey said.
“And I him,” I told her, my head sagging a little.
“I’ve read all his writings at least a dozen times. Said you were crazier than a rabid bat, but always found a way out…no matter how bad the odds.”
“Not always unscathed,” I said, pointing to where Tommy had bit me and then lifting my shirt to show her where I had gotten shot and where the Lycan had raked his claws against me. “And the same cannot always be said for those that choose to stand with me.”
“Do you believe the Lycan are amassing for a war?”
“Azile believes it…that’s good enough for me. I just haven’t completely decided on my role.”
“That does not sound like the man BT wrote about,” Bailey said.
“That man died on a rooftop,” I said.
Now Tommy’s head sagged.
“I have no soul, Bailey. Do you know what that does to a moral compass? It’s like having a fan on a pinwheel – thing spins around crazily,” I told her. Bailey had a look of confusion on her face. “Fan or pinwheel?” I asked, realizing she probably didn’t know either one of the words.
“Both.” She replied.
I laughed.
“But I get the idea without any further clarification,” she said. “Know what I think?”
I nodded my head in response.
“I think you made up your mind the moment you left your home.” And with that, she pulled her horse away.
I watched her leave. Lana was up next.
“We should have gone fishing,” I said to Tommy.
“Want one?” he asked, pulling a gummy fish out of his pocket.
“I’m good.”
“What do you see in her?” Lana asked.
“Besides being a bronzed goddess, what else do I need to see?” I asked, egging the girl on. It wasn’t often I could claim a position of superiority with a woman and I was going to relish it for at least a little while.
Lana snorted and walked away.
“Why?” Tommy asked.
“Why not?”
“You have been alive too long to have learned nothing,” he said as he hopped down from the cart.
“Don’t choke on that candy,” I told him.
I hopped off as well, figuring I’d go down by the small stream and see if I could catch some dinner while we waited for Azile. We had traded in the previous town for a small net, some hooks, and a thin line that looked like it would snap if anything bigger than a sunfish snagged the hook.
Oggie’s head stuck up as he heard me walking off. He came bounding over. “Want to go take a nap with me?” I asked. Of course he did, as he stayed next to me.
I found a decent pole – looked like hickory from the feel of it – tied the line and hook and tossed it into the water. Without bait, the only way I was going to catch something was if it got impaled on my hook. I dug a small hole, jammed the pole into it and braced it with a couple of rocks. I wasn’t quite sure why I had gone so far with the illusion of fishing, but I was already ‘in’ so I might as well make the most of it.
I leaned up against a tree; I think the same one that had yielded my fishing prop. Oggie’s head immediately rested on my chest. I draped an arm around his neck and pretended to slumber almost as much as I pretended to fish.
I ‘lived’ in the past; today meant nothing to me, tomorrow even less. I was constantly reliving things that had happened. My brain, which should have been so much oatmeal by now, had been honed into almost a hard drive of information from which I could retrieve data within an instant and with as much clarity as the day it happened. Another ‘benefit’ of the vampire half of me. No wonder Eliza was such an evil bitch, she never had the luxury of forgetting all the bad that had happened to her. I, however, was weighed down with all the good. I could not forget the love and touch of my wife, the laugh and twinkle of my daughter’s eyes. The growth into manhood of my sons. Henry the air-fouling wonder Bully. They were as real to me now as they had ever been. Like a ghost, I could walk in my memories with them. Always seeing but never touching. I knew this to be one of Dante’s circles of Hell. And not just any circle…but the most torturous of them all. To constantly see your loved ones and never be able to touch them or interact. To never be able to have their memories diminish, yup, pretty much hell.
“How long you going to stand there looking at me?” I asked, never raising my head or opening my eyes.
“I sometimes forget how enhanced your senses are,” Azile said as she strode across the small stream. I felt Oggie stir, but he did not awake. “Fishing I see?”
I shrugged.
“I cannot get these people to listen to me, Michael.” She pulled up some bark and sat next to me. Due to the curve in the trunk, she was facing away slightly at an angle. “I fear by the time they figure out what is going on…it will be too late.”
“You’ve warned them, Azile. You can’t force them to fight.”
“I could,??
? she said absently.
“Like zombies?” I asked, then dropped it. “You’ve warned them. And if I know anything, they will at least prepare. They may not believe you or want to believe you, but they will still want to protect their own even if the threat is minute. They will post more guards, they will make more weapons, and they’ll fix or improve any holes in their defense.
“That won’t be enough. Xavier will lay waste to everything.”
“Why do Lycan have names? That makes no sense.”
“I see the way the girl looks at you.”
This time I opened my eyes. “That’s an abrupt change of subject. Are you talking about Lana or Bailey?”
“Both. Lana has fallen for you. Bailey eyes you suspiciously…she does not truly believe who you say you are or your intentions.”
“Well, she’s the smarter of the two then.”
“And what of Lana?” Azile asked.
“Seriously, Azile?”
“Then you won’t mind this,” she said as she moved in, kissing me tenderly on the lips. I almost pulled back – the betrayal to Tracy almost too much to bear. It was that contact, the basic human connection that kept me there. Although, on further reflection, I was a half-vamp and she was a witch. How much humanity was involved?
Oggie had since gotten up and positioned himself so that his head was near to my own. Our kiss was broken when Oggie decided he wanted to join in. The magic was broken the moment that large swath of tongue rode up my chin, across my lips and the side of my face.
Azile laughed merrily as I pulled away. Her face lit up as she did so, it was a side of her I had never seen. If I hadn’t known any better, I might have assumed she had an enchantment spell working. I felt something for her. The cynical side of me thought this was just a ploy on her part to keep me committed to her cause. The other part didn’t give a shit. If that look in her eyes wasn’t genuine, then she was an Oscar-worthy actress and I would do all in my power to find one of the now useless statuettes to give to her.
“Does this mean I have to buy you chocolates for Valentine’s Day?” I asked.
She smiled and tenderly touched my face before getting up and walking back towards our impromptu encampment.
“I feel so used,” I told Oggie as I grabbed his face. He went for lick number two and I was able to pull back before he could make contact; he then sneezed abruptly. That, I could not escape as spittle peppered my face. I dipped my head into the stream and exhilarated at the feel of the cold water as it stung against my flesh.
I stayed down there a while longer, trying to wrap my head around what had just happened and what I actually felt about it. When I decided I couldn’t come to a conclusive answer, I grabbed my line that not surprisingly had nothing on it and headed back up.
Azile was as aloof as ever, which, considering the dynamic of our merry little band, was probably for the better. I think Lana was pretty good with her knife, and I’d just as soon not have her try and open me up.
“Where to now, Azile?” Tommy asked.
“One more town, Wheatonville, and then back to Talboton before the full moon.”
I almost wanted to tell her ‘why bother.’ Until it happened, it hadn’t…and that’s how these towns would see it. Also, I was quickly learning that the Red Witch was not widely loved. I was going to have to get that story, soon.
The trip to Wheatonville was fairly uneventful. Azile never once approached me and Lana wouldn’t stop. Bailey laughed at every one of the girl’s fumbling, inexperienced attempts.
“You sure do have a way with women, Michael,” Bailey said, flashing a wide smile.
“BT pretty much said those exact same words. He may have had one or more colorful phrases in there, and he certainly didn’t call me Michael, but other than that, pretty much the exact same,” I said as we both watched Lana stomp away, which was impressive considering she was on horseback. The girl really wanted nothing to do with me. I think it was that she didn’t want Bailey or Azile to win whatever game she thought we were all playing.
“My great-great-grandfather wrote a lot about you and your family and the events that had happened up to and into founding our town…but he spoke very little of himself.”
“Would you like to know?” I asked.
She nodded.
“He was a large man.” Bailey nodded. “No, I don’t think you’re getting the full picture. He was huge and not in a cutesy hippo kind of way but in a charging Rhino sort of way. Man scared the hell out of me for the first few weeks I’d known him; thought he was going to pull my head off like a spoiled child pulls a doll’s head off.” Bailey nodded in understanding. “I take it that still happens?”
“Mostly things younger brothers do to sisters, but, yes, it happens.”
“So you can imagine how I felt.”
Bailey laughed.
“And he was no gentle giant. The man had no problem whatsoever using his genetic freak-dom to scare or intimidate people into doing what he wanted to do. Did he write that in his journals?”
“Not quite that eloquently,” Bailey answered.
“On top of that, Bailey, I thanked God every night that, that man was on my side. Once we got over our pissing contest—”
“Pissing contest?” she asked.
“Yeah, kind of a non-life threatening way of determining who’s in charge.”
“And what was the outcome of this ‘pissing’ contest?”
“Oh, I think BT let me win. I’m not entirely sure why, but the man had more confidence in what I could do than I did.”
“He said that you could get out of trouble with no more than a candle and a prayer.”
“Did he also tell you about my penchant for getting into trouble?” I asked.
“Yes, he did not leave that out.”
“That man sacrificed everything to stay by my side. I know he had family he was never sure made it through.”
“He considered you family after he lost his wife.”
“He was married? He always gave me so much crap about it, I figured he was a lifelong bachelor.”
“She died on that first night.”
“Oh my God, that explains a lot of his surliness. I always thought it was because his shoes were too small and they pinched his feet.”
Bailey looked up strangely at me.
“Sorry…random thought,” I told her. “The longer you hang around me the more sense they’ll begin to make. I loved that man,” I said with a faraway look. “I considered him family – as much a brother as Gary or Ron.” A pang chased through my heart thinking about Gambo singing a Survivor song or Ron giving me crap for finding his secret stash of firearms.
“He wrote that leaving you was singularly the most difficult thing he had ever done, but he could not watch as your affliction ravaged your soul. He said day by day it was taking a little more of you.”
It wasn’t so much the vampirism that was undermining me it was the slow degradation of those around me. I knew with crystal clarity what was going to happen, and I was powerless to stop it. It is difficult to watch a grandchild be born and know without a shadow of doubt in your heart that you will outlive it. I didn’t know how to respond. I was thinking back to that day. I wished him well even as anger bubbled in me that he was leaving.
I was saved from further reflection as Azile called out. “Watchers!” She brought her horse back around to be with Tommy, who was directly ahead of Bailey and me. Lana had stayed directly ahead of the cart when she realized her advancements weren’t making any headway.
“What the hell is a Watcher?” I asked, bringing my horse up. “Sounded like a different word for scout. Azile was pointing off somewhere to the left on the horizon. Tommy was straining to see what she saw.
“I’m sorry, Azile, I don’t see it,” he was telling her.
I thought I might have caught a ripple in the air – much like one would see heat rising from a roadway during the summer months – but there was significant chance that was
exactly what I had seen.
“There were a dozen of them heading roughly towards Wheatonville or perhaps Harbor’s Town,” Azile said, a look of deep concern was etched on her face.
“What the hell is a Watcher?” I asked. Lana and Bailey both seemed to be doing prayers, different in words but with the same context. Tommy was still struggling to see the unseen. Oggie, bless his heart, was asleep in the back of the cart.
“Watchers will usually gather before a great calamity. They play no part in it that I have been able to discover but, rather, are impartial observers”
“Sounds like news reporters,” I told her.
“The only difference is they show up before something happens.”
“That is different.” I said. “How big a calamity?”
“Many believe the Watchers are death’s tabulators. The more there are, the more death will be dealt,” Tommy said.
“Must have been a lot of OT during the zomb-apoc,” I answered callously. “Should we warn the towns?” I asked, trying to cover up my earlier words.
“The fools won’t listen,” Azile said. “They will just believe that I have ratcheted up my rhetoric.”
“Should we stand with a town?” Tommy asked.
“Which one?” Azile asked. “They are heading in a direction that could be any of half a dozen, and just because they are going this way doesn’t mean there aren’t more heading towards Talboton or a dozen other locations.”
“I must get home!” Bailey said, tightening her grip on her reins.
“The full moon is less than a week away, does this have anything to do with that?” I asked.
“I cannot be certain, but it would appear that way. The Watchers generally arrive a few days before an event. They seem to thrive on the buildup, and then the subsequent destruction and carnage.”
“Fuck…they are reporters,” I said. “Maybe worse because they know and do nothing…but not by much. Is it possible to stop a Watcher?”
“Can one stop the rain?” Bailey asked.
“You can get out from under it,” I responded.
“Bailey’s right, we need to get back to Talboton,” Azile said.
I turned to look one more time where the Watchers had been. I wouldn’t swear it on a stack of Bibles, but I was fairly certain one had stopped and was looking in our direction. Chills had raced up and down my spine. Whatever I was seeing was entirely too far away to get any refinement from; it was like looking at smoke in gale-force winds and trying to pick out a discernible shape.
“Can’t it ever just be pissed off chipmunks or something like that?” I said as I turned my horse around.
We spotted nothing amiss when we got back to Bailey’s home. There were two days before the full moon and everything looked, as it should in a thriving, healthy community. We weren’t exactly welcomed back with open arms. Bailey had spent the majority of the day in with the elders giving her account of what had happened the last few weeks. I figured by the time she got to the Watchers we would hastily be escorted from the city gates.
Bailey came back a few hours later. “They said you could stay through the full moon and then must leave.”
“Convenient,” I said sarcastically. “They make sure we’re here just in case and then, once the ‘all clear’ is sounded, we have to get out of Dodge.”
“Would you rather be out there, or in here if something happens?” Azile asked.
“You should probably remember who you’re asking that question of. The answer would have been the same even when I somewhat liked people,” I said.
“When was that?” Tommy asked.
“See? That’s comedy. Let’s go in, and the only reason I’m staying is because they have beer.”
I don’t care what any of them said, the beer was still affecting me. Maybe it was just a remembered response, but I thoroughly enjoyed the numbness it afforded me. Word of what we had sighted had spread through the town like wildfire, and there was an expectancy that hung in the air. Part hope, part despair. Not many folks were going to sleep tonight. Me? I was going to be at the bar.
That thought lasted until Azile found me that afternoon. “You coming?” she asked.
“I’d rather not,” I told her in all honesty.
She kept looking at me.
“Fine.” I quickly downed my beer. Noon had long passed, shadows were growing longer. A coolness hung in the air that belied the date. If I wanted to wax poetic, I might have gone with “the cold finger of death was present” but that seemed a little much. Azile and I climbed up into a small turret, crowding in with two archers. It was normally a one-man job, but the council felt it wise to double up on at least this night.
“If one of you starts farting I’m tossing you out.” I told the two guards, neither seemed overly amused with my light-hearted threat. Then I began to wonder how I’d feel if the threat of mass-extinction was hanging over my head. I really had the social grace of an ox. The only plus side to this whole evening was how close I got to be to Azile; she smelled like an earthy blend of sage and lemongrass.