by Glynn James
She smiles at me.
"Okay I'll join. I don't know how much of a monster killer I can be, or whether I'm even strong enough to be a soldier, but I'll try."
"Thank you. You know, years from now you'll look back on that decision and wonder why you even had to think about it. Look at how quickly my brothers joined."
"They were all already soldiers," she says, laughing louder. "I make clothes."
FLASH
"Easy, take it easy."
It was Senga, leaning over me.
"Easy."
I was back in the present. I could feel my heart beating heavily, thumping in my chest, just as it had each time my head had exploded from the inside.
"I saw things."
"Yes, yes. I know you did. I was in there with you remember?"
"No I don't remember."
I took a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh.
"They were my memories coming back, weren't they?"
"Yes, they were. I found what was wrong inside your mind and triggered it."
Confused.
"What do you mean? You triggered it? Triggered what?"
Senga walked slowly across the room and sat down on the floor.
"Something or someone has been tampering with your mind. There was something blocking your past memories. Something that was not natural. It had been put there by someone, or something."
"Why would anyone do that?"
The Mirror. Was it the Mirror?
"I don't know. That is down to you to find out. But I don't think you'll have any trouble doing that now, you just have to be careful. Your mind is still fighting against the memories returning, but I have made sure that there is nothing holding them back now. Eventually, all of your past will come back."
She was also breathing quite heavily.
"I am very tired now. I think I will go and rest. You should too."
"Yes."
She stood and went to leave the chamber.
"You must be wary now, James. You will have no control over when your memories come back. I would suggest you stay put for a while and allow it to just happen. You don't want to be out there in the world, and in a predicament, when you mind decides it's time you remembered something."
I nodded, and watched her leave.
"Thank you," I said, under my breath.
I sat there for a few minutes, just taking it all in. An hour ago I had no idea who I was and where I came from. Now I knew so much more, but there was also so much still missing. It frightened me to think what might come next, what I would remember next.
Abegail. I remembered Abegail, but that was quite literally hundreds of years ago. Where was she now? Was she still alive? Had we married? This I now had to find out, but was I best searching for her, or just waiting for the memories to return?
I looked at DogThing, who was still sitting on the floor and watching me, from a few feet away.
"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted."
"I was worried."
"You were? Why?"
"You were in a lot of pain."
"Was I? Yes, I suppose I was. But now I remember who am, where I came from. And Reg was right, I am a member of the Resistance, which means I now have to go and find them, somehow."
"We are leaving again?"
"No, not yet. Soon though. Let's go and find the others. I've got things to tell them."
We found Rudy and Adler in the Sister's gardens on the north side of the stadium. The pair of them were busy poking around amongst the trees and the plants, accompanied by three of the Sisters.
They called it The Arboretum. Rows upon rows of fruit trees lined the ground, all of them cut short and kept very neat. Every tree was overloaded with nearly every kind of fruit possible, and the ground around all of the trees was home to so many types of vegetables and plants. There were many that I had not even seen before.
My ghost friends stopped what they were doing and stood watching me. Waiting.
"Well?" asked Adler.
"Come on, tell us," said Rudy.
I smiled.
"My name really is James Halldon. I was born in America, in Georgia, in 1758."
Adler's eyes nearly popped out of his head.
"1758?" he blurted. "But, that makes you hundreds of years old."
"So it would seem," I said. "Reg was right as well. I am a member of The Resistance. Have been for a very long time."
"What else can you remember?"
"I can remember seeing CutterJack when I was seventeen years old."
"You've met him before?" asked Rudy.
"Yes. And I have terrible feeling that I may remember that I've met him a number of times afterwards. Something inside just tells me so. Look, I don't remember everything. I remember most of my youth, and joining the resistance, even some of the wars and rescues I've been involved in, but after than I've not remembered, yet."
Rudy frowned.
"Yet?"
"Yes. Senga says that I will remember it all over time, but there is no way of knowing when it will all come back. It comes in these strange flashbacks. I just have to..."
FLASH
My mind races to catch up with the scene that I am thrown into.
My ears are bombarded with the sounds of gunfire, lots of weapons firing.
I'm running. Around me I sense, more than see, dozens of Resistance soldiers running along with me.
I stop for a moment, spin on my heels and fire. Others around me are doing the same. Run a few yards, turn, fire.
The Horde is behind us, a mass of shambling zombies lurching along, trying to catch us. There are thousands of them, poor tortured souls from countless worlds, but with each turn that I make and each time that I fire into them, a dozen more fall, a dozen more are saved from their horrific existence.
Something is driving them at us. Something I can't see, but I know it's there. Some presence that is the reason that we are here.
"Keep moving," I shout.
"Keeping firing."
A hill is in the distance, just a few hundred yards away, and over the top of that is our destination. We scramble up the slope and reach the top. I see that below, in the grasslands at the foot of the hill on the other side, a hundred or more Resistance soldiers are lined up, kneeling in the dirt. Behind them is a vehicle of some kind.
"Flat out. Run. Keep going," I shout, and the soldiers with me stop firing and run as fast as they can down the hill towards the line of safety.
Then I remember. This is years later and these soldiers are under my command. Below awaits the trap. The trap for the thing that drives the zombies towards us. Years of planning, years of failure, yet this time it will work. I know it will.
"Move. Move," I shout. "Get behind the lines."
My troops move fast, flowing through the firing line. I am the last to step behind the line.
This has been practiced so many times.
I head towards the vehicle, then I turn and stop, looking back, as the creature that we are here to trap appears over the top of the hill.
"Charges ready?"
"Ready," shouts a familiar voice to my right. I glance and see Abegail. She has her hand in the air, waiting for the signal.
"Hold your fire," I shout. "Wait."
The line of troops stays kneeling on the ground as the mass of zombies stumbles its way down the hill towards us. On the top of the hill the tall creature stops and watches. I can see the expression on its face. Curiousity. Nervous. Doubting.
"Light it up," I shout and I hear a noise behind me as the vehicle's generator kicks in. On the top of the hill a glimmering, shifting light appears, surrounding the creature.
"Open fire."
Guns blaze. The zombies begin to fall.
"We got it," says Abegail, her hands over her ears to blank out the noise of the guns that are yet now decimating the zombies.
"Yes," I say. "Finally we have one of them."
"What now?"
I look up at t
he creature on the top of the hill. It smashes its hands against the barrier, screaming with rage, but I know it won't escape. The defence grid technology can withstand much more than one creature's futile blows. It would take thousands to break it.
"Now we find out how to hurt it, find out how to get information out of it."
"But we will kill it, right?"
"Yes. When it has squealed everything that we can possible wrench out of its filthy mouth. Then we will kill it."
FLASH
I'm in a room in Evac City.
Abegail is lying on a bed. Sweat covers her face and there is blood on the sheets. For a moment my heart jumps and I think she must be ill. But she isn't. Far from it.
She smiles.
In her arms she holds a small bundle of cloth.
Wait
It's not cloth.
The bundle moves. It starts to cry.
A child.
"What will you call her?" asks someone nearby. I don't look to see whose voice it is. My eyes can only look at Abegail and our baby.
Abegail smiles.
"I want to call her Chione."
She looks at me, seeking approval.
I can't take the grin off of my face. I don't even try.
"It's a beautiful name. Chione it is."
FLASH
We are sitting cross legged on the ground. Chione and I. She is now four years old. We're drawing pictures.
She looks at me and grins. She has a gap in the middle of her smile, where her baby teeth fell out recently. She looks stunning.
"Where do you go daddy?"
Her voice has gained the sweetest lisp.
"When you are gone for weeks. Where do you go?"
"I have my job to do sweetheart. One day I'll tell you all about it."
"Do you help people? Or do you make things?"
"Mostly help people, but sometimes I make things."
"I want to help people too one day. And I want to make things."
"You will, honey. One day."
FLASH
We're out in the desert, standing on the roof of an open topped vehicle. It's one of the ones we use to move troop squads around. This one is mine and has two sets of bunk beds as well.
Chione is standing next to me, a rifle in her hands. It's a sniper rifle, and it's bigger than she is. She points the rifle out across the desert. Holding it tightly and peering through the view finder.
She is older now. Sixteen years old. I feel then that time has passed too quickly. She is everything I would want in a daughter, but I miss her being small.
She fires, and a hundred yards away a lone zombie drops to the ground.
"Excellent shot, sweetheart. You're getting better at this all the time."
She lowers the rifle, turns and smiles at me. I remember when that smile had two missing teeth in the middle. I can see her mother in her. Her eyes burn with the same wicked mischief, and her hair, the same dark flowing locks, even now blows in the wind.
"You think I'm ready?"
I sigh.
"If it's really what you want. Then yes."
"Mother says I will make an amazing Outrider."
"You will."
"And I don't have to stay at home when you go out any more. I can come with you and mum now."
"Hmm. We will see about that. You have a lot of training to do first. It's hard work, and you will have to be focused and strong."
"I'm tough."
I laugh,
"Yes, just like your mother."
"Mum's the best shot in the Outriders."
"She is indeed, but I think she is going to have competition from her own daughter if you carry on the way you're going."
FLASH
The same bed. Blood on the sheets. Except this time it isn't Abegail laying there with a child in her arms. It's Chione, and this is not long ago, only a few years. She smiles at me the same way that her mother had all those years ago.
"Can I hold her?" asks Abegail.
Chione nods, and hands the baby over to her mother, who smiles and talks quietly to the frightened infant.
I turn and grin at the soldier sitting on the seat next to Chione, the father of my new granddaughter. His name is Andre, and he is one of my best men. He looks guilty for a moment, then smiles and lowers his head.
"What will you call her?" Abegail asks Chione.
Chione frowns.
"I thought about this a lot, and I think I like the name Eleanor."
Eleanor.
My granddaughter.
FLASH
I stumbled to the ground and waited for my head to clear.
"Are you okay?" asked Rudy.
"Yes...I'm fine. Give me a minute."
Adler walked over and knelt down next to me.
"You glazed over for a second. I thought that you were going to pass out."
"He should rest," said one of the Sisters. I didn't see which one.
I wil be ready.
That was what she wrote.
"How long was I like it for? How long was I out?" I asked, reaching into my pouch and taking out the cloth with the note in it.
"Not for long," said Rudy. "Barely a moment. Less than a second I would say."
I unfolded the cloth and read the note again.
I wil be redy wen tis time for me to go wif yoo ganda. Eleanor
Ganda? How could that one word have got past me? How had I missed it?
I will be ready when it's time for me to go with you Granddad. Eleanor
The little girl at the road station was my granddaughter? Cory had said that she had been left behind when her parents passed away. No, he said passed on. But did that mean dead? Did this mean that my daughter was dead?
And how long had I been away? We just travelled through that road station and left again. What must she have thought? That her parents and her grandparents had forgotten her? That they had abandoned her?
I looked up at Rudy.
"The little girl. The one at the road station. She gave me a note. The one called Eleanor."
I went to hand the note to Rudy, but of course he couldn't take it. I forget that even now.
I read it out loud to them and they both stood there looking thoughtful, puzzled.
"What does it mean, do you think?" asked Rudy.
"In my last flashback. I saw her after she was born, I saw her mother and father. Her mother is Chione. She's...She's my granddaughter. Eleanor is my granddaughter."
I look over at DogThing.
"Did you know any of this?"
"No. I don't remember things."
"What do you mean?"
"Things don't stay in my head that long."
"Oh," I laughed. "You forgot too, except you forgot naturally."
"Yes."
I stood up.
"I have to go back and get her."
Rudy and Adler looked at each other, worried.
"Shouldn't you wait until your memories have all returned?" asked Rudy
"No. She may be able to tell me much more. And she is my granddaughter. I need to go to her."
"But, what if you have a flashback at an unfortunate time?" asked Adler. "You should at least wait for the night."
I thought about this. The flashbacks did seem to be coming quite quickly. Maybe they were right.
"Okay. Look, I'll stay here for one more night. I do need to sleep. But tomorrow, when it's safe to get out of the city again. Then we go."
"Agreed," said Adler.
I stood up and walked back to the marquee where I had slept before, all the time, the things that I had learned were going over and over in my mind. It was so much to learn in such a short space of time. A partner, a daughter, and granddaughter. Two of them could be anywhere, they could be dead, but one of them, Eleanor. She was alive and she was the only living connection that I had to my past, as far as I knew. And she was on her own. What must she think of me?
I lay on the bed for a few hours, thinking it over, wondering if another
flashback would come soon, but there was nothing. Were they triggered by something?
I heard movement in the chamber.
"How are you feeling now?"
It was Reg, standing near the entrance.
"Better. Worse. I don't know."
"You've got some of your memories back, it seems."
"Yes, lots of them. I have...people I need to find now. We're leaving in the morning. I take it you're staying?"
I smiled at him and he grinned back.
"Not sure," he said. "We haven't decided what we're doing next."
"You must be pretty damn happy."
"Oh god, you would not believe it. I can't, still. She hasn't changed a bit, well, except her skin is paler and she has fangs. Other than that she is the same woman that I married."
"Does she still love you after all this time?"
"I guess I stuck lucky there, too. She still does, and she says that whatever I decide to do, or go, that she's coming too. Her superior was angry at her for turning away from their ways. But...She's my wife, you know?"
"Yes. Well. It would seem that I do know as well. I had a partner. I don't know if she was my wife or not. Not yet, anyway. I have a daughter, and a granddaughter."
I told him all about the flashbacks.
"I knew it. I knew that she recognised you, somehow. I couldn't place it at the time, but now it all makes perfect sense."
"Well. I don't know about perfect."
"No, but you know what I mean."
We were silent for a moment.
"You'll be going back then," he said, "back to the road station. Not only do they have your little one, but Cory and his folks, they might also know about Chione, or even Abegail."
"Yes. We go tomorrow. What about you?"
He seemed to think about that for a long time.
"I'll talk to Marie. You helped me get here. I want to help you."
"I'll understand if you don't want to come."