***
Bailey had afforded a clearing and I was going to do all I could to get to the doors and keep them barricaded from the carnage that would ensue if they were broken open.
“Used to love the night, the peace and quiet it afforded. Plus…no people,” I said, kicking out a knee from a werewolf that had gotten too close. “Now!” I shouted. “Not so much. All of a sudden six months of sun up north sounds pretty friggin’ good.”
“The moon also rises there,” Bailey said from directly behind me.
“Really? Buzz kill,” I told her. We were getting closer, the press of flesh getting to the point where effective fighting was becoming difficult. At least, for those of us that wielded weapons, the ones with mouths as weapons seemed to be adapting to the fighting conditions just fucking fine. I’d held on to a futile hope that the Landians would make a cameo and help out, but that appeared less and less likely as more time passed and more of us died. I’d have to thank them personally if I ever got the chance.
When I finally fought my way through, I’d wished for a video camera. The look on the closest person’s face as I approached was priceless.
“Yeah, and I smell just as good,” I told him, making sure he didn’t mistake me for an enemy. This it? I thought, looking upon the defenders-slash-survivors.
Laughing Man was somehow still alive and had been restocked with arrows. Someone had the foresight to place him in a roughhewn chair. He was happily firing away. I could only hope that, when I finally slid over that precipice I was continually hugging, I’d be half as effective of a fighting machine. More than once I noted that, as I cut down a werewolf, they had been tentatively turning their heads. At first, I mistakenly assumed it was their masters calling them back, but then the truth of it hit me; it was the moon…or more clearly, its descent.
Time, which is a mortal enemy to us all, had finally swung in our favor. I knew our new ally could be as finicky as hell. I wasn’t going to let the opportunity slide. We were literally fighting with our backs to the wall. We had been pressed as close as we could without being on intimate terms…or at least going to dinner and a show.
“Wheatonvillians!” I shouted. It had no ring, it wasn’t like ‘Spartans’ or ‘Romans’ and I wasn’t even sure if it was Wheatonvillians. Seemed more like a village of bad guys than a townspeople name. What was the alternative Wheatonvillites? Even less savory. No matter, my shout had got their attention.
“I know you’re exhausted, but we must press the attack! Even now the werewolves are in the process of turning back. You must not! WE must not allow them escape, for they will return!”
I knew what I was asking. In moments, the beasts before us would once again become the men, women, and children they once were. Frightened, naked, and completely unaware of what destruction they had wrought, we would still have to destroy them. There was no rehabilitation, even if we captured them; there was no chance of convincing them we were their friends and the Lycan the true enemy. Come the next full moon, the jailers would once again become meat.
In terms of speeches it was horrible but, truth be told, I was too damn exhausted to do much more than force them forward. Werewolves began the painful process of reconfiguring their beings; muzzles fell back, hair receded faster than a middle-aged man’s. Razor claws were reduced to jagged fingernails. Pointed ears began to look more like a Star Trek prop (if you were alive during my era you’d get the reference, the name Spock will mean absolutely nothing to you now). Pain was etched on their features as things evolution would take millions of years to recreate were being done in mere moments.
Swords still slashed, pitchforks still poked, arrows still pierced. The werewolves were falling in droves. Some tried to retreat as a means of self-preservation, but most were stuck with limbs in mid-transformation, unable to move as the Reaper unabashedly sought them out. People faltered as the enemy began to look more like them. I had no such compunction. All I noted was that it was now easier to behead them without the thick-corded muscles around their necks getting in the way. So much had been lost, and still this stupid town thought of mercy.
“Fools!” I told them. “Do you think they will be so kind when they come back? How many of your friends…of your family members are dead?” I kept hacking away. Azile might be named the Red Witch, but I acquired the name ‘Red Reaper’ that night as I savagely ended their tormented existences.
“Enough!” Azile said, being supported at the doorway to the church.
My chest was heaving. If I had previously been coated with viscera, I was now my own walking pool of it. Save my eyes…they burned with a savage fury. Blood flowed around my feet as I turned to the voice.
“You would stop me?” I asked. I wanted to fight, and right now it didn’t matter with whom.
“Tommy needs us.” Bailey grabbed my arm.
She had been alongside my genocide. She above all others knew the wisdom in defeating our enemy when the chance arose. There could be no quarter.
Tommy, I thought.
The bodies around me now more resembled the beings they had once been. In a matter of minutes, I could finish them off alone. I weighed destroying them with going to find Tommy. I won’t lie; it was a toss-up until Oggie came out of the church. He swiveled his head looking at the damage. He came up to me, somehow finding a clear spot on the back of my hand. He licked it and headed off to the main gate. That was really all I needed for the turning point. Whether they survived or not, little mattered what happened to the remnants of the werewolves. The Lycan’s next attack would destroy what was left of this once-thriving community.
It wasn’t like the naked people on the ground would be able to atone for their sins. This would be the first time in my history I would actually agree with the temporary insanity plea. They actually had no clue what they had done. They were as much predators as I had been the night Tommy turned me into a hunting machine. I caught fragmentary glimpses of that night, but nothing more, and it would be the same for these people. Might as well condemn the termite for eating your house. Sure, you could eradicate him, or at least try, but it wasn’t like he was going to have any clue as to why you were killing him. He was doing what he had been programmed to do.
Tommy.
He was all that mattered. My walk turned into a trot, and when I didn’t think that was fast enough I began to run. Oggie was still slightly ahead of me with Bailey slightly behind. Something was wrong. I could feel it in every fiber of my being. I had my line of sight slightly angled down. There were so many bodies strewn on the roadway, I had to watch my footing. It was Oggie’s savage barking that got my attention first.
“No further!” a booming voice rang out.
Oggie was bristled and looked near to charging.
“Hold that diluted monster away,” the Lycan said.
“Oggie, to me,” I said, taking in the scene. He took his sweet time doing it, but he was unlike most of the women in my life…he actually listened.
Not more than twenty yards from me stood three incredibly large Lycan (I somehow forgot how big they were, the werewolves, who also dominated over humans, were stunted dwarves in comparison). Two were holding Tommy, more like suspending him. His leg hung at a grotesque angle and he had enough scrapes and cuts over his bare torso to look like he had gotten caught in the world’s largest briar patch.
“Tommy!?” I shouted in question.
“Come no further, Old One,” the Lycan that was standing in front and to the side of Tommy said.
I upraised my sword. The Lycan laughed, it was a menacing sound. His eyes glinted cold hard steel.
“This is how it ends, Mr. T,” Tommy said with resignation. It looked like he had just enough energy to raise his head and tell me that.
“You have lost here!” I shouted to the Lycan.
“Have we?” he asked back. “I care not for the werewolves slaughtered here.” And then he spat a large voluminous phlegm ball to the ground. “The humans even less. When Xavie
r finds out I have destroyed an Old One, I will become my own pack leader for this.”
“Find my soul.” Tommy begged.
“Humans and their airy wishes,” the lead Lycan said. The other two laughed. Tommy struggled weakly against his bonds.
“I will kill you for this,” I told him.
“Perhaps, Old One, but not before it is too late.” He spun incredibly fast. Before I could even process what was going on, he had swung. Tommy’s head tumbled to the ground.
It might as well have been my head spiraling down as vertigo threatened to drop me. Bailey gasped and reached out, holding me steady. I charged at them and they dropped Tommy’s lifeless body, running back to the hole they had crept out of. I was a few hundred yards out of the town when I realized I had lost them. They had melted into the woods, and unless they were wearing reflective clothing, I’d never find them.
I howled a cry; frustration, anger and remorse were intermingled in that wail. I failed, I thought as I walked back. Bailey had taken off her jacket and covered Tommy’s head, I would imagine so that I couldn’t see the frozen expression of betrayal on his countenance.
I knelt by his body and said a prayer that I had known from my youth. I don’t think I’d even got the half of it right. Oggie released a low keening as he rested his head on Tommy’s chest. Something inside of me snapped there and then; that it hadn’t happened much, much sooner was a mystery even to me. I stood; a wildness to my eyes.
“What are you doing, Michael?” Bailey asked with concern.
“Taking care of some unfinished business.”
She reached out to stop me and missed. I put on a burst of speed she could not match. I knew what I’d find when I got there. The residents of Wheatonville were helping the former werewolves up or bandaging wounds.
“Traitors!” I screamed as I came upon them.
I meant the inhabitants of the town. I cut down anything and everything that was naked. They had no right to live while Tommy had died. Everyone fled from the ferocity and savagery I brought to bear. My sword was bathed in blood before Azile could be summoned from the church where she was tending to the wounds of friend and foe alike. I was just making her job easier.
“Don’t you dare!” Azile shrieked as I pushed past her to get into the church. “They’re just children!”
“They were,” I told her. I brought my sword over my head and was about to bring it crashing down on the skull of the one closest to me. Azile muttered something and I found myself frozen; or, more correctly, the air around the sword seemed to be solidified as if in a block of ice. It appeared I could do whatever I wanted as long as it didn’t involve my silver-gilded sword. I struggled for a moment longer.
“If you are so willing to get the blood of innocents on yourself, do it with your hands,” She spat.
“Innocents?” I questioned hotly. “You keep telling yourself that when they rip your throat out. Fine, you keep your little pets.” I released the sword. It hung for a few moments and then clattered to the floor. Azile kept an eye on me to see if I was going to pick it up or not. I thought about trying just to see which of us was quicker.
“I’m going to bury Tommy and then I’m leaving.” I told her as I walked over to my meager pile of supplies. I grabbed my hand axe and made to leave.
“I didn’t know,” Azile said aghast.
“Yeah, more innocents did it,” I told her, hoping my words would sting. It wasn’t exactly the truth, but a lie was the least of my transgressions that day. “When I’m done, I’m leaving...ALONE,” I added as I walked out the door.
Bailey had rounded up some shovels. She was leaning on one when I came back. She said nothing as I picked up his body and slung it over my shoulder. I bent my knees and bundled up Bailey’s jacket with Tommy’s head in it. I walked for hours like that. Bailey and Oggie trailing behind and thankfully silent. When I finally came across a place I thought worthy of a resting spot for him, I gently laid his body down, placing his head on his chest. We were on a small pine-covered hill that overlooked a beautiful lake, small islands the only thing breaking up the mirrored surface.
I plunged my shovel into the soft earth. Wordlessly, Bailey came up to me and began to dig as well. I knew I had found the right spot when we didn’t encounter any rocks bigger than a marble and no roots thicker than a worm. The digging was easy and we got down to a proper depth in less than an hour. Bailey got out of the hole and handed me Tommy. He felt so light in my hands. I began to cry, he was one of my children plain and simple, it mattered not that he was older than me.
I thought about just having Bailey cover us both with dirt. Finally, I stood and climbed out, Bailey grabbing my hand and pulling me up. I had dug the hole slowly, not wanting to truly realize what it was that we were doing. Now I filled it in hastily in order to be done with this extremely distasteful event. Oggie pawed at the dirt mound when he saw that we were done. I thought he was going to try and get his friend back and then I noticed he dropped something in the small hole he had dug. I fell to my knees, wrapping my hands around Oggie’s neck when I saw the sun glint off the foil wrapper. I covered up what couldn’t possibly be there and stood.
“What was that?” Bailey asked curiously.
“Pop-Tart.”
I knew she didn’t have a clue what that was, but she didn’t ask. I placed my hand over my heart. “Oh, Tommy, I thought I had saved you that day on the Walmart roof. Who would have known it was the other way around? I loved you like a father loves a son, and I will miss and mourn you along with the others until we are all once again reunited.”
Bailey watched me silently as I spoke. She waited until I was done before she asked her question. “What now, Michael Talbot?”
“I’m done, Bailey Tynes. I can’t take anymore. I’m going down to that lake, and I’m going to swim until I’m clean. Not clean on the inside, though, that, I cannot wash away.”
I stumbled down the hill, my sight blurred almost to the point where I could not see. Screw sitting on my keys or getting pollen in my eyes, this was full-on crying. Bailey sat on the small beach as I sheared everything off of me. Oggie would bound into the water and out, repeating this numerous times. I left a plume of chum as I swam. Bailey was hardly recognizable when I finally stopped my swimming to see just how far I had gone. I could hear Oggie barking urgently looking in my direction. I don’t think he was pleased with how far I had gone out. I turned back around; the lake still went on perhaps another mile or two. I could just keep swimming until I couldn’t. Then I wondered, could vampires drown? Would I just be sitting on the silt-laden bottom, mourning the loss of another with only the fish and snapping turtles as company?
It was not a plan that completely lacked in merit. I turned and began to swim back. Bailey seemed unruffled as I came out of the water naked. She had started a small fire in my absence.
“You will need clothes if you wish to hunt Lycan,” she said as she tended to the flame.
“And what of you, Bailey?”
“It is my place much like BT to be by your side.”
“If you remember correctly, that didn’t work out too particularly well for him.”
Bailey looked at me queerly. “He lived a long life, surrounded by family and loved ones, and he had an incredible tale to tell his children and then their children. Would you deny me that?” she asked.
“I would not.”
“When do we start then?”
“I suppose we already have,” I told her.
Epilogue –The Story of Tommy/Tomas
Tomas’ mother died during his birthing. His head, which had been abnormally large, had torn the lining within her birthing canal. She had bled out on the fur and dirt floor of their mud hut in 1500s Germany. His father had never forgiven him that. If not for Tomas’ sister Eliza, Tomas would have joined his mother in the afterlife. Henrick had wanted nothing to do with the baby. He had let it wail in the afterbirth for hours before he had allowed Eliza entry.
??
?Shut that thing up no matter what it takes,” he told her in their severe sounding native language.
Eliza was five at the time. She had run in and dropped down to her mother’s side. A small sob escaped as she looked upon the rapidly purpling body of her mother. A pool of blood spread between her legs, a fat cherub of a baby crying throatily. There was nothing she could do for her mother, but her brother she could love and would. They were all each other had. Henrick was a cruel man that ruled with fear, intimidation and often fists. Eliza figured her mother had probably welcomed the darkness when she saw it coming.
She grabbed the kettle of hot water the midwife had been using, some clothes and more furs. She first grabbed the baby who immediately quieted down from the contact. She cleaned him up and then swaddled him in the furs.
“What shall we name you?” Eliza asked the smiling baby.
“How about leech,” her father had suggested, coming back into their hovel. “Another mouth to feed. She should have just taken the baby with her.”
Eliza subconsciously shielded the baby; one never knew when an attack from Henrick was imminent. He had various trigger points some could be set off by no more than a cross look. And that was how it went for another five years, Tomas became attached to Eliza’s hip, wherever the young girl went so did Tomas. From an early age Eliza knew Tomas was different, he would often warn her when father was coming home. It was safer for them to feign sleep; he was less likely to strike them although that defense didn’t always work.
Tomas always knew where to find untended food. They had survived on his ability to feed them. Tomas clung to Eliza as the only mother he had ever known and Eliza had loved her brother. He was her oasis in a desert of desolation. Eliza had already started talking to Tomas about leaving; it was a fantasy of theirs. She would often times tell him of the land of dragons, where children were treated as lords and they were given sweets along with their meats.
“Is this true?” he would nearly beg her.
“Every word.” She would smile at him.
Eliza’s bright outlook on life began to dim when Henrick stepped over the line from physical abuse to sexual. Tomas had watched as his father forced himself upon the girl. Her first scream of pain had sent him into a fury and he had banged his small hands against his father’s back. He had been rewarded with a punch to the side of the head that sent him reeling into the corner. He fell over backwards, his head slamming hard into the stone hearth. Blood had leaked out from his ears as he sat up; his thoughts became scrambled from that point forward. For a moment, he wasn’t even sure who the two other people in the hovel were.
When Henrick was done, he stood, pulled his pants back up and fastened his crude belt. Eliza sobbed on the floor, blood and semen spilling from her.
“Oh, Tomas,” Eliza had cried, having difficulty sitting up. When she could, she came over to him and cleaned his wound. It was strenuous for him to keep his eyes focused on any one object.
“Are you a dragon?” he had asked before he passed out.
It was a few more years before Henrick sold his daughter to the highest bidder. He had traded her life for corn meal. Tomas had become slow, not stupid, from his father’s strike. He knew he would be next. Maybe for some rice, he thought sourly. For a year longer he had stayed with his father, the beatings becoming more frequent as Henrick dealt with his demons in the only manner he knew how.
Tomas had slipped out in the middle of the night, but not before he made sure to relieve himself on the grain his father hoped to use for the remainder of the winter. That act alone had nearly sapped him of his courage; he wasn’t sure how he was going to survive outside. Then a light came on in his head, he would not survive inside the hovel. Sooner or later, Henrick would beat him into oblivion. If he was to die then it would be with his Lizzie. He grabbed his only other set of clothes, all the dried goat jerky and struck out, unsure where he was even going.
The village was quiet this time of the evening except for the tavern where his father spent any extra time and coppers he may have had. He made sure to leave town, skirting the establishment as best he could. Life was difficult for a runaway, especially one whose thoughts were addled. He had a tenuous link to his sister. He could feel her, it was like a vast spider web and he could feel her vibrations trembling along the line. He could also feel his father’s – that one he closed off as best he could, hoping that by concentrating on just his sister he would get a stronger signal. For years he had followed in her footsteps, torturously close on many occasions.
Finally, his break had come. He could see her at the end of the alleyway. He shook not only from the intense cold that blistered through his ragged garments, but also for the joy of reuniting with his beloved sister. The dark-cloaked figure she was with held Tomas at bay as he sent waves of malice radiating away. Tomas didn’t dare move from his concealment behind some crates. Fear jogged through his spine. The fluid that leaked down his leg was most likely the only thing that kept him from freezing where he crouched.
Tomas noticed the man look exactly where he hid, but that was impossible, nobody could see him in this darkness. Tomas watched as The Stranger ‘kissed’ his sister’s neck. A flash of anger welled up in him. How dare someone do that without a marriage first! He stood up just in time to see his sister swoon and fall. The Stranger looked back once at Tomas, laughed a small, cruel laugh, and then seemingly vanished into a darker shadow. All fear disappeared with the removal of The Stranger. Tomas ran the length of the alleyway dropping to his knees to cradle his sister’s head.
Her eye’s fluttered open as he cascaded her face with his tears. “Tomas? Is that really you Tomas?”
“It’s me, Lizzie, it’s me!” He cried. “We’re finally together again! How I’ve missed you! Now we can be together again forever!”
“Tomas,” Lizzie said sadly, stroking his face gently. “It’s too late for me.”
“What are you talking about, Lizzie? I’m here you’re here, we’re together.” He wept for joy, but something evil was coming…he could feel it. His innate ability had proved an invaluable tool while he lived on the fringes of a distraught society. “What is the matter, Lizzie? You are burning up.” The heat emanating from her prone form was melting the snow around her.
“You should go, Tomas.” She closed her eyes.
“I can’t leave you, Lizzie. We’re all we have, you and me. You told me you would always look out for me. You were the only one that told me I didn’t have witches living in my head.” It was common in early Europe to convict the mentally challenged of witchcraft. “I love you Lizzie.” Even as he said it, he could tell his sister was slipping away.
“I love you too, Tomas. And that is why you should go.”
“Why won’t you open your eyes, Lizzie? Please, please look at me.”
Tears pushed through her closed lids. “Please, Tomas, don’t look at me this way. I’m not the sister you used to know. Unspeakable things have been done to me, I found a way to right those wrongs and I took it. I will exact my revenge.”
“That’s not how my Lizzie talks,” Tomas said, wiping his blurring eyes.
“GO!” She said pushing him away. Her eyes seemed to produce their own light as she looked at him menacingly.
“I will not!” he screamed, even though his inner-thoughts revolved around one word: ‘RUN’.
Lizzie sat up. Factions warred within her. The looks she sent him fluctuated between love, sadness, and predatory awareness. Tomas kept backing up even as he shook his head in denial of what was happening right in front of him.
With an ungodly speed, Lizzie wrapped her hand around Tomas’ neck. He found himself suspended six inches off the ground.
“Lizzie, please,” he begged.
Lizzie pulled him in close and punched two neat holes into his exposed collar. Tomas screamed in pain.
“Lizzie, please, I love you!” His tears splashed down on her upturned face.
Some last remnant of Lizzie rose
to the surface. She pulled her extended canines out of his neck. “GO!” she screamed again. “I won’t be able to stop next time.” She looked defeated, with her head bowed. Tomas dropped to the ground as she released her grip.
He scurried away scarcely believing the turn of events. “I love you, Lizzie. I will follow you until I find a way to fix whatever has happened here tonight.”
And he had run, running until his legs burned and his chest couldn’t move fast enough to pull in air. The connective string upon which she danced now hummed with electricity, his thoughts which moments before were clouded now shone as if under the brilliance of a noonday sun. He was unsure what Eliza had done to him, but she had awoken a hunger within him. A hunger for revenge, for retribution, and more importantly, for blood. He pulled the shroud from a segment of his mind he had actively blocked for close to five years. The string that connected him to his father was a cold gray thing but it moved and that was all the impetus he needed.
For three days he ran, seemingly without the ability to exhaust. He did not understand what was happening he also didn’t question it. It was early evening when he returned to a home he vowed he would never set foot in again. Nothing had changed; even the bag of grain he had soiled with his fecal matter was still in the corner. A pang shot through him as he looked upon his and Eliza’s bedding. It had been tossed about surely by his father in a drunken stupor, but it was still there.
He pulled one of the heavy wooden chairs away from the table and closer to the embers that burned in the hearth. He placed some logs in it to stoke a good flame. He had a cold within him that sank to the depths of his soul. He had been staring at the flames intently divining the meaning of life when his father walked in.
“Figured you’d come back someday. My stupid boy has come home,” Henrick said with a cruel laugh, opening up his mouth to reveal black and rotting teeth.
Tomas stood.
Henrick had to look up, he licked his lips nervously. “Been eating well boy, since you shat on my food have you?” He moved in to strike at the boy and once again assert his dominance. Tomas flinched as Henrick struck him in the side of the head. “Hurt, boy?” Henrick spat.
“No, not really,” Tomas said, placing a hand to his face. “Let me know if this does.”
Tomas struck his father flush in the mouth. Blood exploded from the man’s lips as Tomas’ knuckles split them wide. Henrick stumbled a few steps and fell over. Henrick was a big man and never, not once in his life had someone put him on his ass.
“Good one, boy.” Henrick wiped the blood from his mouth and stood back up. “You’re going to pay for that, though.” He pulled a long filet knife out from his waist.
Henrick charged, driving the blade deep into Tomas’ midsection. All the air was forced from his lungs as he absorbed the steel. “Should have done that outside, now you’re going to bleed all over the place,” Henrick said, letting go of the hilt. He went over to a small cask and placed his head under the tap.
Tomas stood there wrapping his hands around the knife.
“You ain’t dead yet?” Henrick asked when he was done washing the blood from his mouth. “Here let me twist that around for you a little bit.” He came back over.
Tomas yanked the blade free with an audible gasp and let the knife fall to the ground.
“Too stupid to die, ain’t ya, boy,” Henrick said. “Should have been you I sold, then I could have kept your precious Lizzie around for entertainment.” Henrick was laughing, blood spilling from his lips.
Tomas lifted up his shirt. The wound where he was stabbed had stopped bleeding, Henrick and Tomas both watched in amazement as the skin began to knit before their eyes.
“Devil!” Henrick screamed. He looked wildly past Tomas’ shoulder and to the exit.
All that remained was the drying blood to allude that anything had ever happened.
“Sit, father.” Tomas said evenly.
Henrick was looking around for something anything he could use to thwart the spawn of evil before him.
“I won’t say it again.” Tomas said with force. Henrick complied. “Why?” Tomas asked as his father finally took a seat opposite him.
“Why what?” Henrick asked belligerently.
“Why did you hate us so much?”
“I fed and sheltered you little mongrels. What more did you want?” he answered as if that was what Tomas was looking for.
“Would it have been different if mother had survived?” Tomas asked.
“Well, we’ll never know will we? You and your fat head made sure of that.” Henrick said with vitriol.
“I knew what I was doing when I came all the way back here, I just didn’t figure that it was going to be so easy,” Tomas said, rising from his chair.
“What....what are you going to do?” Henrick asked nervously.
“It won’t hurt much,” Tomas said as he struck, yanking his father’s head to the side.
He drank the sour lifeblood from his father; not stopping even after he began to feel pieces of muscle and tendon pull up through the now empty holes. Henrick was twenty-five pounds lighter when his body was discovered. The stench of his decaying body had sent the wild dogs in the area into a frenzy as they scratched at the door trying to get in.
The tether between brother and sister intensified over the years, it became a game of cat and mouse, although in this version the mouse was stalking the much more dangerous cat. Eliza was aware of the bond they shared and allowed her brother only enough access to it as would keep him on the leash. It wasn’t that she enjoyed the connection but rather the cruelty of always staying one step ahead of him. She could feel his disappointment when he came agonizingly close to catching her.
What Eliza was not aware of, was that, as Tommy’s powers grew, so did his ability for clairvoyance. He could see things that made no sense, but that had a purpose and would play a much greater role in events to come. He did not know why he saw those things, but he felt compelled to act on them.
Western Front 1918
“Who the bloody hell are you?” Crackers asked as Tommy slid into the trench next to him. Crackers was covered in mud and blood, he was almost indistinguishable from the grime that enveloped him, his hands no less filthy. When Tommy came upon him, the man was scooping some sort of beef hash out of his helmet with those same hands. The food was intermixed with flies, lice, dirt, and gore.
“I’m Tommy. Looks good,” Tommy said sarcastically, looking at the helmet.
“Get your own.” Crackers pulled the helmet out of range.
“I already ate,” Tommy replied subconsciously wiping away any blood that might be around his mouth. He had visited the enemy lines first before coming to find Crackers. He had spent three days riding hard to get here today. He had dropped two mounts along the way. He had not understood the urgency with which the power had directed him here but he also knew that he could not fail.
“You new?” Crackers asked in between mouthfuls. He had the social graces of a two-year-old, he talked while he chewed and also smacked his lips.
“Far from new.” Tommy smiled.
“Uniform looks new,” Crackers said, touching the lapel and leaving a smear of something better left unidentified.
“I had to run a message back from the lines, got one in the rear.”
“Lucky bastard, you are. I’ve got more critters living in my britches than I care to count.” And with that phrase he began to furiously scratch at his crotch. “Got sores on my arse and lice the size of lobsters crawling around my balls!” Crackers laughed.
A whistle sounded off in the distance. “Oh shit.” Crackers said plopping his half-full helmet onto his head.”
“What’s that?” Tommy asked. Crackers looked at him strangely and warily as he gripped his rifle.
“Thought you said you weren’t new?” Crackers asked.
“Not new to the Army…new to the trenches.”
A great grin split Crackers face, his teeth preternaturally wh
ite in contrast to the rest of him.
“Well ain’t you in for a treat then. That was the warning whistle.”
“Warning whistle?” Tommy asked completely at a loss.
“Yeah, a warning to how many of us are going to die!” Crackers laughed. “Next blow and we crawl out of this perfectly good trench and run across all that open, barren, muddy ground. Alst the while, Germans are sitting in their fancy hidey holes shooting at us with machine guns, it’s a riot!”
“You’re kidding right?” Tommy asked.
“Watch this,” Crackers said as he leaned in close. He scrambled up over the top and out in to the open.
“Bloody hell, Crackers! Where in the blimey fuck are you going?” a voice shouted over to Tommy’s left. Tommy thought it was his sergeant-in-arms.
“Visions suck sometimes,” Tommy said as he grabbed his helmet and rifle and followed after Crackers.
“Who the hell is that? And nobody blew the bloody whistle yet,” the officer shouted. The end of his statement was punctuated with the loud long blast of a whistle. Men screamed as they emerged from their trenches running pell-mell towards the German lines. Crackers had a good twenty or thirty-foot lead on the rest of his mates, with Tommy closing in fast.
The Germans watched in casual amazement as the British teamed out of their side of the battlefield and streamed towards them. Tommy watched as soldiers on the other side took one more drag from their cigarettes, or one more forkful of food before they primed their weapons and let loose a deadly volley of lead. Sheets of the projectiles were being sent down range. War cries became screams of the dying. They had not covered more than half the distance to their goal when the retreat whistle was sounded.
“What the hell was the point?” Tommy asked as he saw the British soldiers that could, begin to turn around and head back to their side. They’re exchanging bodies for bullets, that’s all they’re doing. It comes down to who is going to run out of what first. Tommy was saddened at the needless loss of so much life. He had passed up Crackers at some point and had intended to stay right on his back as a protective cloak as they retreated. As he spun, Crackers passed him by still going forward.
Crackers had become silent, a look of anger and determination etched in the dirt of his features.
“They sounded the retreat,” Tommy said, struggling to catch back up.
“To hell with the bloody retreat,” Crackers replied. “I’m getting this over one way or the other. I’m sick of that whistle. Next time I hear it I’m going to shove it up his ass. He blows, good men die. And for nothing, that’s the quick of it…for bloody nothing. We run, sometimes the krauts let us get halfway, sometimes when they’re feeling a little pissed off they only let us get about a quarter of the way before they cut us down, then the whistle blows so we can go slinking back to our diseased little holes. Don’t see those bastards trying to get over here.”
Dirt clods began to fly in the air all around Crackers and Tommy as more and more guns began to train on them. They were rapidly becoming the only targets available on the frozen bloodied and muddied killing fields. Tommy got in front of Crackers; the force from the rounds as they impacted Tommy sent him back into Crackers. The pain was damn near immeasurable, but still he was able to clutch Crackers and bring him down with him.
“Stay down, you damned fool,” Tommy said as Crackers tried to squirm out from under him. A few more rounds bounced their way with another catching Tommy in the leg. Tommy winced.
“You’re still alive?” Crackers asked incredulously. “I’m so sorry. Do you have any messages on you that you want delivered?” Crackers asked sincerely.
“You really think you’re going to make it out of here to deliver one?” Tommy asked.
“Sure…why not?”
“Well, because you’re about twenty meters away from a trench filled with Germans who would say otherwise.”
“Oh them. I bloody well plan on killing them. I came here with four of my best friends, Lumpy Vales, Henry Smith, Wendall Renton, and even the limey bastard Cray O’Malley, loved them all like brothers. They’re dead…every single one of them. The bloody fucking whistle did it just as much as the krauts. But I can’t kill the whistle blower, can’t do that. I get shot as a traitor and bring shame to my family. The funny thing, though, I just make it across this little line nothing more than a fly shit on a map and I can kill everything and everyone I see and I’ll be a hero. War is strange.”
Tommy agreed. “First, we stay here for a while, quiet. And when the night comes, we’ll exact some revenge for your friends.”
“You going to make it that long?” Crackers asked. “You got shot up pretty good.”
“Barely scraped me,” Tommy told him.
Crackers wanted to tell him that he’d seen the blood sprays and the approximate locations of the shots, and they weren’t of the fleshy wound variety. But he’d play along for now, a nap was exactly what he needed; and if it gave him a respite from the cries of dying men around him then that was just an added bonus.
The night was cloudy and dark as onyx. Crackers had to blink a few times just to make sure he hadn’t gone blind sometime during his sleep.
“You still with me, Tommy?” Crackers asked softly, not expecting a reply. Not unless ghosts could talk…and those he didn’t believe in. He’d made a pact with his mates that if any of them died, they would haunt the others just for the hell of it, and he’d yet to see any of their ghostly mugs. He was startled a bit when Tommy responded.
“Still here.”
“Able to move?” Crackers asked.
“Can I convince you to head back to our side?” Tommy asked.
“As dark as it is they’d be just as likely to shoot us as the krauts. No, I’ll take my chances on this side. Plus…we’re closer,” Crackers said as he began to silent crawl.
“Ever heard of a plan?” Tommy hissed behind him.
“Heard of it, ain’t never used one,” Crackers replied. Tommy could see Cracker’s teeth as the man had turned to smile at him.
“Apparently. You need to stay safe, you play a much larger role in world events.” Tommy said.
If Crackers heard he didn’t respond, all that mattered to the man at the moment was the here and now. He couldn’t worry about a future he didn’t think he’d be around to see.
Periodically, flares would go up on both sides and Tommy and Crackers would halt their progress until the eerie fluttering light gave out. They crept closer, if another flare were to go up they would have no choice but to rush the Germans, and they were too close to be anything but an approaching enemy.
Crackers slid over the small berm quietly, making absolutely no noise as he dropped into the German trench. Tommy’s foot came down on the edge of an upturned helmet sending it skittering off on the wooden planks inlaid on the bottom of the trench.
“Haben sie eine zigarette?” (Do you have a cigarette?) Crackers asked, trying to cover Tommy’s noise
“Wer ist das?” (Who is that?) the German asked back.
“Death,” Crackers said before he started shooting.
Pandemonium broke out inside the German trench. Nobody knew who was shooting at whom. Germans spilled more of their own blood with friendly fire than Crackers could have ever hoped for. Tommy ripped a Maxim machinegun from the rapidly cooling hands of the dead German who had been wielding it. A stream of fire shot out from the barrel as he swept it back and forth, harvesting men like a farmer harvested wheat.
He moved slowly North up the trench firing in short bursts. Crackers was watching their back, constantly grabbing new German guns.
“This is the life,” Crackers said in between rounds.
“What?” Tommy asked, hardly believing Crackers words.
“Look at this place. They actually have a floor and they have these dugouts in the back where they sleep. There’s food and supplies everywhere. This is like the Ritz”
“Ever been to the Ritz?” Tommy asked, looking quickly for more r
ounds. Germans kept coming around blind corners almost too many to keep up with.
“No,” Crackers replied.
“This isn’t like the Ritz,” Tommy said before firing another burst.
When the British realized the Germans were in the midst of some confusion, the whistle blew in quick succession. Soldiers roared out of their holes hopeful that this time their bayonets would finally drink their fill of German blood, a debt owed many times over.
“Bloody whistle. I swear, right after they pin a medal on my chest for this, I’m going to shove it up that blower’s arse. Right now we’re in a bit of a pickle,” Crackers said. “As soon as those soldiers come in here…they aren’t going to ask questions.”
Flares shot up on both sides, the faces of British soldiers were illuminated in various forms, some in utter terror, others exhilaration, determination, and a dozen other variations and combinations. Tommy waited until the soldiers were within twenty meters or so.
“Now we hide,” he told Crackers.
“I’ll do no such thing,” he told Tommy. “Hey! What the bloody hell?” Crackers shouted as Tommy lifted him easily off the ground and shoved him into one of the German sleeping cut-outs. “I suppose you want me to buy you some sweets now that we’re sharing a bed?” Crackers asked.
“Shut up, you fool,” Tommy said, quickly digging at the dirt with his hands to get them further into the recess. Within a few moments they were another two or three feet deeper into the ground, nearly invisible to anyone who might notice.
“Now I guess we just have to hope no one tosses a grenade in here,” Crackers said calmly.
“Hadn’t thought of that.”
“Want some dried meat?” Crackers asked, shifting around until he could get to one of his pockets. “I’m not really sure what it is…could be goat…maybe horse. Hell, knowing the guy I traded with, it could be rat,” he said as he began to chew.
“You’re eating dried rat?”
“Maybe,” Crackers replied. “I’m starving.”
As the fighting raged through the night, Tommy made sure Crackers lay where he placed him. The British had finally made some headway that night. They would give it back in less than two weeks at the expense of fifteen hundred lost souls, but it had been a victory nonetheless. Crackers had been sent back to England to receive that medal he had talked about. However, he did not get a chance to fulfill the second part. The whistle blower had caught a bullet in the mouth. The ironic part of it was that the whistle had deflected the shot, but the marble had come loose and lodged in his throat, closing off his airway and killing him before anyone could get it loose.
Tommy melted into the crowd, his uniform discarded when he had completed what he had set out to do. Crackers was up on the stage, cleaner than Tommy ever imagined he could be, a wide, gap-toothed smile plastered on his face.
“...in honor of your achievement while facing down the teeth of the enemy The British Royal Army awards you, Reginald ‘Crackers’ Talbot, with this, the Imperial Gallantry medal.”
And with a complete lack of military decorum Crackers grabbed the side of the general’s face and planted a kiss on it much to the ruckus enjoyment of those assembled.
Talbot-sode #1
During Inuktuk’s telling of the Landians history I drifted back to the first time I had killed a man. I was a kid; old enough to vote for the shithead that sent me off to a foreign land, but not old enough to legally obtain liquor. Strange that it was alright for me to kill someone, but not drink whiskey to forget about it. I had always thought the book, 1984 by George Orwell, was full of shit. How big could the government be that they could control all the transfer of information? Surely those people would be able to find out that they were constantly being fed lies. How wrong I was.
A division of Marines, myself included, had been sent to South Korea in an effort to quell the ranting politics of a dictator throwing a tantrum. Shots would constantly ring out, from both sides; at the time, only the Koreans were involved. We were strictly told that if we weren’t specifically shot at, we couldn’t join in. Never understood that shit. I had to wait for some itchy-trigger-finger asshole to take a shot at me before I could do anything. So if I was lucky and he missed, then, and only then, could I fire back. Bullshit seemed to be the general word of the day when that order came down.
Bobbie-fucking-Chen was his name, I’ll never forget it. Not sure if you could possibly know the difference, but that is not a Korean name. Chinese, to be specific. Unbeknownst to us, the Chinese, in direct response to the Marines landing, had sent four divisions of Chinese regulars to bolster the lines of North Korea. Typical Chinese overkill. China back then was like the big brother of North Korea; kind of despised the little fuck and thought the crazy shit he did was just asinine, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let anyone else fuck with him, if you get my point. How the higher ups missed four divisions rolling into town is beyond me – my conspiratorial ass will always believe that they did know, and that we were merely pawns in a much bigger game.
If we were to get slaughtered, then that would give the allies all the impetus they needed to go in and shut the little tyrant up once and for all. We had satellites, spy planes, CIA agents on the ground, and a sympathetic North Korean populace that would do all in their power at the penalty of death to let people know what was going on, and yet the US Government would feign ignorance to any knowledge of the Chinese build up. Is it any wonder where my mistrust comes from? Luckily this isn’t some socio-economic-political rant, I was closing in on nineteen, and I had no clue what any of that stuff meant. I trusted the guy next to me, and the weapon I held in my hands; that was about it.
We were far enough away from the barricades and fences that the North Koreans couldn’t get off a decent shot, but close enough for them to realize we were still there. I constantly felt like we were being watched. We did combat drills all day, whether in the searing heat or the torrential rain that seemed to dominate that shitty little corner of the world. I don’t know what the fighting was all about; the only thing that wanted to be there were the encephalitis-carrying mosquitoes. We’d been there a few weeks and the abject terror of potentially being thrust into a war had kind of worn off. We were settling in for the long haul. Cards, when off-duty and four hour guard duty shifts during the night, was the norm.
My partner Corporal Quentin Johnson and I had just lost a particularly close game of Spades and we went out of our Quonset hut to get some air and talk about the game. I had fifteen or so minutes before my shift started, and I was trying to convince Quentin he should take my shift.
“Come on, man, if you hadn’t of played on suit and pulled my queen out we could have won,” I told him. “The least you owe me is to take my fire watch so that I can sleep my anger off.”
Quentin lit up a smoke.
“Gimme one,” I told him when he didn’t even respond to my words. He lit my Camel unfiltered, tasted like shit, but better than the bile that was going to replace it in a few minutes. I took my first drag and was about a half a hitch away from coughing my lungs out.
“You hear that?” he asked, placing his hand on my chest – I guess to shut me up.
And I had. Sounded like large birds shooting overhead. Not the cries, but rather the flow of air whooshing over large wings. He poked his head back in the barracks; most of the guys were out like a light considering it was somewhere around three in the morning.
“Get up! Get your rifles!” he shouted.
We were all kids; and you know, if you’re a parent, that waking one of us up in under a half hour is a damn near impossibility…that is, of course, unless the threat of death is a real possible consequence for sleeping in. It was under a minute, and every swinging dick in that barracks was outside, M-16s at the ready. Most not completely dressed, all had boots on, though.
Some were looking around wildly. Quentin had them all shut up, even the ones grumbling that if this was a drill they were going to piss on his bunk. The gene
ral alarm had not been sounded, not so much as a firecracker had gone off. I was a moment away from thinking I had imagined it when the world turned on its side, or rather, I did as the concussion from the explosion tossed me on my ass. Sirens wailed, lights blazed, flares were popped off. Multi-colored tracers were flying up from anti-aircraft positions. Giant gray birds floated overhead, I didn’t know it then, but they were gliders, gliders big enough to carry a couple of paratroopers who were even now making their rapid descent on our position.
When they realized they’d been spotted, they began to drop grenades to clear a landing zone. You know the expression ‘raining cats and dogs’? Pissed off Pit bulls and crazed, carnivorous cats would have been ten times more preferable to what was falling from the sky that night. I watched as a Marine was nailed in the head with one of the dropped bombs. He had just fallen to his knees from the strike when the explosion ripped his head off. He stayed kneeling longer than seemed possible given the circumstances. The body finally fell forward, smacking wetly against the ground. That vision more than anything is what finally got me moving. Couldn’t hear anything except a nerve-damaging ring in my ears but I could see just fine and we had almost been completely caught off guard.
Grenades were striking and rolling off the sides of the Quonset huts blowing holes in the thin metal as they did so – at least three had struck ours. If not for Corporal Johnson’s quick thinking, more men would have died that night. Most, if not all, of our forces were trained upwards for obvious reasons, but something just didn’t feel right. I can’t imagine the North Koreans putting all their eggs in one basket, even if the country was so damn poor that they only could afford one basket. Didn’t seem right.
We would later learn that Chinese engineers had created tunnels almost a mile in length. They would eventually tie into the existing infrastructure sewer lines that the South had created. Back then, the monitors weren’t as sophisticated, and they had dug them down deep enough so as not to be detected anyway. While our forces were pointing upward, finally inflicting some damage on the invaders, the second part of the invasion was unleashed. Manhole covers behind us were moved, and troops flooded out of the sewers like water-logged rats, and with the same mean, shitty disposition.
Gunfire chattered behind us, most didn’t think anything of it because of its location, and that the bastards were even using M-16s as opposed to their normal firearm – the AK-47. The heavier staccato sound of the AK would have given them away a lot quicker. I shouted to those around me and pulled their gazes downward. We found some cover and began to lay some suppressive fire back at them. It was like they didn’t care or something, it was their single mission in life to return back to the country they had just evacuated as they came running right back into the stinging teeth of the bullets we fired.
I remember distinctly my heart hammering so hard I thought for sure it was going to jump out of my throat. I couldn’t control my breathing enough to get off a well-aimed shot. Bullets were whining by, some striking the Quonset hut I was using as a shield. Above everything that was going on, the machineguns, the small-arms fire, and the grenades, I heard men…just the men. Some in deep-throated war cries, others merely crying for help and the most disturbing were the ones that were wounded and crying out for their mothers. I learned the North Korean and Chinese words for ‘mother’ that night. Uhm-ma and mu-qing, respectively. Seems no matter how different we think we are from each other, we’re pretty much hard-wired the same.
I made more than one man cry out for his uhm-ma, but only so that I wouldn’t have to, not because I hated them. The first, well, he’s the one that haunts me some hundred and seventy years later. I had emptied my magazine; ducked back down around the corner of the hut and reached into my cargo pocket, grabbing my last remaining magazine. At the time, we were told to carry only one extra. Going forward, I would make sure to carry five times what was authorized, but right now I had to make it through the night. My bayonet was by my bunk which right now might as well have been in Boston. I had my knife strapped to my side. I truly hoped it didn’t come down to that, hell, the only reason I wore the thing was because I thought it looked cool. I was eighteen, tell me you didn’t do shit because it was cool, or at least you perceived it that way. I can bet that girl Henna didn’t think peeling rubber in her folks’ driveway was cool. Or that crap-tastic tattoo your buddy did on your arm…bet you thought that thing was AWESOME! Let’s face it, as young men, we do a lot of stupid stuff we think is cool. But, when I strapped that knife on, it was never with the intention of getting close enough to the enemy to actually use it. I was thinking it was a much better deterrent.
I heard footsteps approaching even as I shoved the magazine in its well. The words they spoke might as well have been from another planet they were so foreign. My heart, which I figured was already getting ready to explode, might just stop. I can’t imagine any muscle being able to work that hard and not just up and fail. I wondered, for a flash, if it would feel like a charley horse when it quit. I stood so quickly with adrenaline-fueled legs that I nearly hopped. I poked my head around the curved corner of the hut. Three men were coming my way, they were looking around wildly, and I would imagine just as scared as I was, but I didn’t see it that way at the time. I brought my rifle around and pulled the trigger…nothing.
No loud bang, no force into my shoulder as the round exploded out, and definitely no enemy falling as it caught my high-speed offering. What I figured was a jam was merely the fact that I had never pulled back the charging handle on my rifle, thus putting a round in the chamber. The funny part about it (okay, not truly funny, I guess just a bad expression) but the funny part about it was that not a one of them realized I was there or that I had attempted to fire on their position. Two of the men were looking back towards where they had just come and the third was now coming up to my corner. I had ducked back down and was about to do emergency procedures on my rifle to get it firing, I did not have the time, and they would certainly hear the noise.
And then I got pissed, I’d be fucking God-damned if I was going to die with a useless rifle in my hands. I stood, flipped the clip on my knife, and quietly slid it free from its sheath. The brown of a Chinese boot just became visible as I brought my right fist up to right under my chin, the blade pointing outwards – otherwise that night would have really sucked for me. I flexed my elbow out as hard and as fast as I could. The Chinese soldier’s eyes got huge as he watched my black metal blade swing towards him. He was ducking down to his left and simultaneously bringing his rifle up. My blade clipped off the top of his front sight post slowing me down marginally…and that was it, the tip of my blade pierced his forehead.
My arm shivered from the force of the strike. His eyes crossed for the briefest of seconds to try and focus on the steel that was even now scrambling his thoughts. The weight as he fell pulled my arm down, almost making me lose my weapon. I yanked it free, somewhat stunned at how little blood there actually was. I had been kind of expecting it to spurt out like a geyser. Quentin and another Marine had come up behind me and quickly dispatched the two remaining enemy soldiers.
“Hard core, man,” Quentin said to me after he checked the soldiers to make sure they were dead. I had pulled my knife free, wiping it on Bobbie-fucking-Chen’s uniform. “Right in the forehead, fuck that must have hurt. You alright, Talbot?” he asked.
Right there and then the world took a hard left turn, I wasn’t sure if I’d ever be right again. But I nodded to him, seemed the right thing to do. I’d kill more men before the night was through and many more before the veil of death will enshroud me; but like any first, he would linger in my thoughts. I searched his body quickly, grabbing what I had originally thought was Intel and shoved it into my pocket. I would forward it to someone with shiny shit on their collars as soon as I found any of them. Probably riding the whole thing out at the Officer’s Club.
The element of surprise was long past, but the forces attacking us were winning by sheer numb
ers. If not for our battleships parked on the peninsula’s doorstep, we would have been screwed and overrun. Rounds whistled overhead, the ground shook with each impact. The North side of the line was getting hammered into the Stone Age. I waited for their response, figuring missile strikes would be incoming at any moment. They never did; all I can figure is that they didn’t want to escalate to the next level. They had given it a shot, and when it fell short, they decided to cut and run. I don’t know, it made no sense to me then, and still doesn’t. They were winning.
The sun was coming up by the time we drove the yellow devils back underground or for the truly unlucky ones into the ground. Not that I cared at the time – or could even tell – but most of the paratroopers were North Korean and the men coming up through the sewers were Chinese. Media on all sides had completely quashed the notion that anything extraordinary had happened that night. The thirty-two Marines and eighty-six South Koreans that had died were apparently due to a training accident. A troop transport Marine helicopter had collided with a Galaxy transport plane that had been taking the South Koreans on a training exercise in Japan – that was the official report.
The two hundred and seventy-four North Koreans and Chinese that died that night were never reported, at least not in papers I had read. It was like they had fallen into a black hole never to be heard from again. What did those regimes tell the grieving families? Anything? Probably nothing. Probably told them they never had a son, and if they wanted to live out the rest of their natural lives they’d never talk about the mythical boy again.
We were on high alert that entire next day and night. I was straddling the line of wanting to fall asleep and thinking I would never be able to do so again. The army finally came in and relieved us, five divisions. Never seen so many men holding a rifle in my life. I think I slept a full twenty-four hours straight. Time had been severely skewed for me during this time frame; surreal, I guess, would be the appropriate descriptor. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt. As humans, I’m fairly convinced that we are hardwired with the ability and want to kill other men. Only as a means of self-defense, I’m not saying all Hannibal Lecter-style. But morality, religion, common decency, civilization, they all scream with Thou Shalt Not Kill. I got some commendation for killing Bobbie-fucking-Chen, couldn’t even begin to tell you where it ended up. Never seemed right that his life boiled down to a combat ribbon. I could bet he felt the same.
Sorry…digression. So there I am sleeping off the effects of a major adrenaline rush, and I start coming up from the depths of my tiny death with this thing poking me in the side, couldn’t get comfortable to save my life. I finally moved enough to where I could reach my hand into my pocket. I pulled out this notebook that was about six-by-nine. What I had thought was Intel was actually Bobbie-fucking-Chen’s journal. No biggie, who among us can read Chinese? Only it’s not in Chinese, it’s English and the handwriting is meticulous. Seems my first kill went to school in Chicago. He was going for his doctorate in Engineering when his government had called him back to die uselessly at the hands of a troubled teen.
He was twenty-six and actually had a fiancée back in Chicago, not sure what his parents were going to think of Lillian Fraser…didn’t sound Chinese to me. I read that entire journal. Probably simultaneously the smartest and most stupid thing I had ever done in my life. I got to know Bobbie, his dreams, his hopes, his love. But on the flip side, it gave dimension to a nameless, faceless enemy. I think I could have more easily forgotten about that night if not for the journal; but then, should I really have been let off the hook that easily? It’s important to know that the person you are killing is indeed human. Bobbie-fucking-Chen was the reason I started writing journals, I figured if someone were to kill me I would want them to know who I was. Kind of a guilt hand-off if you will.
I went to see Lillian on my next leave, almost eighteen months later when I got rotated back to the mainland US. She lived in a brownstone apartment in downtown Chicago. I thought long and hard about what I was going to say if she would even talk to me. I figured it would be a slap followed by a litany of accusations, curses, and tears. It was a cold Wednesday when the cab dropped me off by her apartment – forgot the rest of the world was on a different schedule. I loitered around the front of her building for a good five hours before I finally saw her walking down the sidewalk. Bobbie-fucking-Chen’s drawings did her no justice. She had long, blond hair, looked like worked gold with the sun setting behind her. From this distance I could see a sadness in her features even when she smiled and talked with some of her neighbors as she approached.
I had thought out an entire speech. I said not one word of it as she came within three feet of my location. She said nothing to me, my dress greens probably not stirring any kind of patriotic musings in her. She went past and I let her. She had gone up most of the five stairs leading into her building. I had turned and was berating myself for being such a coward.
“You knew him didn’t you?” she asked.
I spun, thinking she couldn’t possibly be talking to me. How could she know?
“Not really,” I said. “Not at first anyway.”
“You were there the night he died, the night the government denied anything happened?”
“I was,” I told her.
I couldn’t tell her much more than that without potentially putting myself in judicial harm. If I so much as breathed a word of what happened, I’d find myself in Leavenworth and I had no desire to make small rocks out of big ones for the rest of my life. I dipped my head, I wanted to confess, I wanted her to absolve me of his death. I approached her; my hands were trembling. She looked like she wanted to dash into her building and I couldn’t blame her. I handed her his journal. She took it, her eyes never leaving my own.
“He loved you, and I’m sorry,” I told her.
She took the notebook from me, her hands beginning to tremble as if the book was the source of the shaking. I turned and left. She didn’t say anything else. I could only hope the words he wrote would give her some measure of solace and perhaps closure, although, the only thing that would ever make it right was if she could hold her love again. I found a bar close by. Didn’t even have to show my fake ID. I let a bunch of the patrons buy me free drinks; enough so that I could attempt to wipe the stain of events clean from my mind. Alas, I never did find an elixir potent enough to do it. I tried…I tried really hard. Bobbie-fucking-Chen would haunt me all of my days.
Talbot-sode #2
Figured I’d expand on Mike’s couch fiasco at the age of 16.
I grabbed up my stuff and jammed myself between the couch and the wall. Heather had stuffed her things under the couch and pulled the throw blanket over herself.
“Hey, honey, what are you doing all bundled up?” her father asked. He was a cop and I’d had more than one run in with him. He’d forbidden his daughter from dating me; I should have silently thanked him, that just made me all the more desirable to her.
“Don’t feel too good,” she told him.
“You do look a little flushed,” he’d replied, coming over I think to feel her forehead. “That’s why I came home early, don’t feel too well myself. I think something’s going around.”
“You should go lie down,” Heather said. I could hear the desperation in her voice, I hoped he couldn’t.
“Nonsense, misery loves company. I’ll go brew us some tea,” he said.
Some might think this would be a perfect opportunity for escape. No such luck, the kitchen had a knee wall which gave a full view to the living room – fucking open floor plans. We were both stuck, Heather had more reason to be where she was, but she couldn’t get up naked, that would surely raise red flags with her father.
“Great,” Heather said, trying to add some cheer.
“Let me turn the heat up, it’s a little chilly in here,” he told her.
It was then I realized my entire backside was pressed up against the radiator. I could hear the pops of expanding pipes as hot water beg
an to find its way to the register.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I lamented.
“You say something?” her dad asked.
“Just clearing my throat,” she told him.
Dad Killington put on the television, and for two hours I got to listen to how lions were the kings of the savannah. At one point, her Dad asked Heather if she smelled chicken, pretty sure that was my ass frying. Then the party really began to swell as Mom Killington came home and started dinner.
“I have to pee so bad,” Heather muttered, when her dad went into the kitchen with her mother.
“Yeah, well I need about a gallon of aloe for my third degree burns. Not going to be able to sit for a friggin’ week.”
She laughed and quickly turned it into a cough for effect.
“Are you sure you’re alright to go get this stuff?” Heather’s mom asked her husband.
“For my women…anything.” A few moments later I heard his car start and he pulled away.
“You’ve got about fifteen minutes, Heather. I suggest you get dressed and get Mike the hell out of my house.”
I felt the blood drain from my soul. “Oh, shit,” I muttered.
“I’m going into my bathroom to freshen up and then I’m going to pour myself a huge glass of wine and pretend this never happened,” she said.
I needed all of a minute and a half to pull my clothes on, even over my singed ass. I was halfway home when Mr. Killington drove past. He glared at me as he went, probably would have arrested me for something if he hadn’t been coming back from an errand. I waved and smiled. “I’m doing your daughter,” I said as I kept smiling at him.
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For more in The Zombie Fallout Series by Mark Tufo:
Zombie Fallout 1
Zombie Fallout 2 A Plague Upon Your Family
Zombie Fallout 3 The End….
Zombie Fallout 3.5 Dr. Hugh Mann
Zombie Fallout 4 The End Has Come And Gone
Zombie Fallout 5 Alive In A Dead World
Zombie Fallout 6 Til Death Do Us Part
Zombie Fallout 7 For The Fallen
The newest Post Apocalyptic Horror by Mark Tufo:
Lycan Fallout Rise of the Werewolf
Fun with zombies in The Book of Riley Series by Mark Tufo
The Book Of Riley A Zombie Tale pt 1
The Book Of Riley A Zombie Tale pt 2
The Book Of Riley A Zombie Tale pt 3
The Book Of Riley A Zombie Tale pt 4
Or all in one neat package:
The Book Of Riley A Zombie Tale Boxed set plus a bonus short
Dark Zombie Fiction can be found in The Timothy Series by Mark Tufo
Timothy
Tim2
Michael Talbot is at it again in this Post Apocalyptic Alternative History series Indian Hill by Mark Tufo
Indian Hill 1 Encounters:
Indian Hill 2 Reckoning
Indian Hill 3 Conquest
Indian Hill 4 From The Ashes
Writing as M.R. Tufo
Dystance Winter’s Rising
The Spirit Clearing
Callis Rose
I love hearing from readers, you can reach me at:
email
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@zombiefallout
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