Vigil

by Saunders, Craig

‘I cannot give you reasons, Tom. I cannot give myself absolution. There is no forgiveness for the man who ended the world.’

  Tom watched his father’s eyes for a sign, any sign, of remorse. There was none. But there was something there he had never seen while his father had been alive. There was a glimmer in John Fallon’s eyes.

  ‘I have come a long way to see you one last time. While I lived I wished for your love. Now I am dead I just want to know why. Can you not even give me that? In all your life you never loved me like a father. Now I ask as a man. I am no longer a child.’

  ‘I remember, Tom. I know you followed me through. I came to my memories the hard way, but I see you have kept yours. Perhaps that is as it should be. If it were not for the loss of my memory, I think this chance would never have come around.’

  ‘Chance?’

  ‘Chance of redemption, son.’

  Tom took a deep breath. ‘I come not to give you redemption. There is no redemption but this death I bring to you.’

  John shook his head.

  ‘You don’t understand, Tom. I followed you through. You would not be here if I was not here now.’

  ‘I understand perfectly. If I end you, then the plague can never come.’

  ‘I thought you would have understood, Tom, if anyone could. I allowed you to follow me. I set this up when I was alive. Who do you think allowed HUB to recognise you? I knew, in the future, that you would come. How did I know this? Tom, I told myself. Don’t you understand? Time is on a loop. I created something that I could not control. I created a hole in the universe with the LHC. Everything that happened from that moment was predestined. You cannot break the cycle, Tom. It is eternal. The cycle rests on me. If you destroy me in this moment it will not matter, because thirty miles away I am still alive.’

  ‘If I destroy you the disease cannot spread.’

  ‘You are wrong, Tom. I had such high hopes for you, but it seems they were wasted. This facility will not be destroyed. The charges you have set are being discovered as we speak. The facility is not destroyed, Tom, because you are here. This plays out the same way each and every time. You kill me and you in turn are killed. Throughout eternity we are destined to meet at this point and we both die. We are anomalies, Tom. We are ghosts. Neither man nor vampire can escape time. That was my sin, Tom, to create the gateway. I thought I could see heaven through the gateway, but instead I have opened a doorway into hell. I am doomed to live life in this cycle, doomed to learn where I went wrong and learn and grow a soul, only to be killed in this moment and relive it over and over again, while you, my son, are my executioner.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It doesn’t make any difference, Tom. You will kill me, and in my chateau I will rise again. It is not this version of me that you needed to kill, Tom, it is the old version, the me without a soul, the me that thought he could be whole should he travel through the gateway. I was guilty of sin, Tom, but the worst sin of all, the one that has long been the downfall of man, of civilisations and great men alike. Hubris, Tom. I thought I could control the world, but I could not. Neither can you. We are stuck here in this moment. For you, a moment that will last a mere blink of an eye. For me it is the same. It may seem to take centuries for me to reach this moment, but in reality it is a blink. We are in the eye of the universe, Tom. The centre of everything. The moment of creation, the moment of destruction, also. We are in the eye of God, Tom, and you cannot fool the divine.’

  Tom shook his head.

  ‘I thought to ask you why, in this last moment. But there is no time. I will not die here…’

  ‘But you have no choice, Tom. You are not in the future. You are here now, and this is where we both meet our end, until time begins again.’

  ‘Then I will destroy you before you change, I will make it to the chateau.’

  ‘You will never make it in time, Tom. Already the sun sets. When the sun rises, I...him...your father, will be the first vampire again, and the source. There is only one way for this cycle to end.’

  ‘And what would that be?’

  ‘Break the cycle, Tom. I know it’s hard, but to break the cycle you must set me free. This loop, Tom, this aberration, this is my prison and all the world is a player in my imprisonment. I have learned, Tom, but without my freedom I cannot end it. If you kill me here, then the world will still end. My other self, your father, is this day being injected with my blood. While we waste time here my other self is growing in power, changing. I am being born now in another place while I die here. Only I can end it, Tom. You do not have the power, no matter the gift of your blood. This is not about power or strength or pride or forgiveness, Tom. It is about sacrifice.’

  ‘You expect me to set you free?’

  ‘It is the only way Tom.

  ‘Put your hands on your head!’ shouted someone behind him...Tom felt dizzy. Weak...revelation after revelation pounded in his head. Someone...a guard...shouting again.

  How did the guards get down here? Tom couldn’t think. His mind was spinning. Was he living an endless moment? Was he doomed to failure no matter what he did? Could he forgive his father what he had wrought, set him loose upon the world? Was this man any different to the indifferent father he had known in his other life?

  Without thinking, almost on automatic, his hand drew the grenades from his belt.

  ‘Kill them Tom, set me free.’

  Did he want to live? Did he want to die?

  He thought of Jean, and Marie, and even Samson, surly Samson, in his world. His friends. Living a loop in a world full of despair and without hope. A world where they were doomed to live in the same cycle of pain should he fail.

  The first bullet tore through his arm, and the hand holding the grenade fell to the floor. The bullet continued through to hit the glass behind him but it did not even chip.

  Tom fell to the floor and turned his back on the men holding the guns. Their guns were more powerful than the security guards he had killed upstairs. He didn’t think they would try to kill him. After all, he was the son of their boss. But then they had just blown his arm off. Were all his assumptions so wrong?

  Hidden from the guards, who were still shouting, he pulled his disembodied hand toward him and shielded the grenade from view as he looked at his father.

  The guards were advancing, but cautiously. He could hear their boots, harsh upon the steel floor. The floor would not be destroyed, but perhaps the glass would shatter, weaken, just enough. Either way his plan had failed. He had fallen and there was no one else.

  He saw the truth in it now. He saw that the only chance to save the world rested with the man who destroyed it.

  He took another bullet through his chest and his ribs and lungs exploded outward. He looked down dumbly and the wreck of his body. It was trying to repair itself already.

  It didn’t matter. It couldn't repair. Of course it couldn't. The guards here knew the nature of the man in the cage. Their bullets were laced with silver. Tom had lost...

  He looked up at his father. His father was looking down at him, and Tom saw the one thing that he wanted to see in his father’s eyes.

  It was not love. It was sadness. Sadness at the loss of a son, the sadness Tom had felt when he had lost his father.

  He knew the look came from love. It was as close as he was going to get.

  He pulled the pin and rolled the grenade the last few feet to the base of the glass.

  *

  Chapter Eighty-Five

  Fallon Corp.

  I stepped back as the grenade rolled to the glass and pushed from the rear wall of the cell, diving, running, toward the explosion. Flame blossomed and my son’s body was vaporised in the blast, flesh blown to pieces in less than a second. Cracks spread out across the glass and I hit it with all my force at the heart of the explosion, arms laced above my head to protect me from the blast and the impact. The glass shattered outward and I dove through the flames, my trouser alight. I ran fast enough to extinguish the flam
es before they could melt my flesh.

  The two guards did not even have time to bring their weapons to bear. I smashed their faces with my fists and drank the blood of one with great gulps of thirst. There was nothing like fresh blood.

  Then I tore both men's heads from their necks and ran along the corridor. The fire alarm was wailing, and the security alarm. The facility was locking down. I could sense that day was breaking above. This was the last day. My last chance to save my soul. But I would never make it out of the facility alive. Even now, through feet of soil and rock and steel I could hear the boots of the security forces being mustered. The facility would be locked down tight. I would not be able to break down the blast doors, no matter how much blood fuelled my muscles.

  Then I had an idea. I had my memories from before, at last. I had not been able to do anything with those memories while I was locked in the cell, unable to roam this section of the facility, but while there were no physical exits there was one option open to me.

  The Large Hadron Collider.

  Hub One would respond to my commands. I could travel where no one could get me. I could go into the past once more and change the future…

  No. That way lay madness and nothing else. There was no profit in travelling to the past.

  But I had to get out of the facility. I slowed to a walk while I thought. I could hear a large contingent of armed guards entering the secret facility, now. Breaking into the facility, overriding the codes and entering with their guns and grenades. They would destroy my body beyond resurrection and all would be in vain. In their zealous pursuit of duty they would end the earth. Even now, I knew, my blood would be on its way to John Fallon. The creature would arise in the night. By the next morning all would end, the world, this life that I had come to cherish…

  I had to stop it, and there was only one way to end it all.

  I strolled into the control room, before the gateway. With a great burst of strength I wrenched the handle to the room so that the doorway could not be pulled open. They would have to blow it.

  ‘Hub, are you there?’

  ‘Yes, John. I am here.’

  All this time, I thought, I could have called on Hub One...and never knew. Not until now, when at last, my memories were resurfacing...at last, I was awake. Awake at the end of the dream that was immortality.

  ‘I want you to do something for me, Hub.’

  ‘Yes, John. I am ready to receive commands.’

  ‘I want you to set the LHC in reverse, Hub.’

  ‘That will result in catastrophic failure of all systems, John. I cannot comply. My first protocol is to protect this facility.’

  ‘If you do not do this, Hub, this facility will be used in the future to destroy mankind. Can you reason this, Hub? If you do not comply now, in the future you will be destroyed utterly. By reversing the flow you will not be destroyed, Hub. You will cease to exist.’

  ‘I cannot reason this. Computing…future flow will disable hub. Request denied.’

  ‘Override protocol, Hub.’

  ‘Unable to override,’ said Hub One simply.

  The guards were laying grenades against the door.

  ‘Then I’ll have to do this without you, Hub.'

  I entered the vectors into the computer. Overriding hubs objections. Direct input could not be changed, but Hub didn’t have to comply. Unless I could destroy hub.

  ‘Intruder protocol. Open all doors hub. Comply.'

  'Are you sure of this course of action, John? My sensors indicate that armed personal present on this level have level four clearance.'

  'I'm sure,' I said. 'I'm sure.'

  Hub released the toxin that John himself had once used, way back in 2045.

  I laughed for the first time with genuine humour as I understood the final piece of the puzzle.

  I took the dead guard's grenades.

  I entered the coordinates I needed. I rolled a grenade into the room and stepped through the gateway.

  I emerged, broken, before the chateau. My chateau.

  But this time my memory was intact and I knew what I had to do.

  Paris exploded in nuclear fire behind me. It was inescapable. In every future, Paris burned.

  In this future, this present, this past, a dishevelled and broken man, his face a map of pain and his body scarred so deeply his flesh is entirely white, stands before the gates of a chateau and prepares to meet himself.

  Prepares to stand vigil over the end of the world.

  *

  Vigil

  Centuries and thousands of miles travelled, pain and loss endured...am I any wiser than the feral body that is also me, before me, chained to the bed?

  I have questions. So many questions. But I can't answer them myself.

  But in the end, how I came by the picture that hangs on the wall of the only woman I ever loved...that question will ever be a mystery.

  Can I live with questions?

  I can. That's what people do. And I am more human than most. More human than I ever was.

  Of course there are questions. I have been through the gateway. Maybe even into the eye of creation.

  Sometimes you have to live without answers. It doesn't matter, and I think...I know...I am right where I am supposed to be.

  I only have one thing left to do. To end it before it begins.

  With a sawing motion, I remove John Fallon's head. It doesn't hurt at all. I take the painting from the wall.

  It is the only possession I have that matters.

  When I leave, the chateau burns brightly behind me and Paris burns in the distance.

  I walk away. I always walk away, always alone. But I am free, now, and until the end of time. I know now, the price of freedom.

  The price of freedom is vigilance, and to go on living...

  To go on living. That is the hardest thing of all.

  First Draft January 8th 2008 – April 25th 2008

  Final Draft Completed: April 18th 2012

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for making it to the end. Please visit my Amazon page for more of my work, or consider leaving a review on this, hate it or love it or someplace in between. Even a simple 'like' or 'tag' can help, too...

  Craig

  About the Author:

  Craig Saunders is the author of many novels and novellas, including Rain, A Stranger's Grave and The Estate. He has stories forthcoming from DarkFuse, and more fantasy tales set in the world of Rythe.

  He lives in Norfolk, England, with his wife and three children, likes nice people and good coffee. Find out more on Amazon, or visit:

  www.craigrsaunders.blogspot.com

  www.theislandarchive.blogspot.com

  www.facebook.com/craigrsaundersauthor

  @Grumblesprout

  Bonus material to follow!

  A three chapter sneak preview of Richard Rhys Jones' terrific The Division of the Damned, and a three chapter sneak peek at A Stranger's Grave!

  The Division of the Damned

  A Novel by Richard Rhys Jones

  Copyright © 2012 Richard Rhys Jones

  “Assyria knew the vampire long ago, and he lurked amid the primeval forests of Mexico before Cortes came. He is feared by the Chinese, by the Indian and the Malay alike; whilst Arabian story tells us again and again of the ghouls who haunt ill-omened sepulchres and lonely cross-ways to attack and devour the unhappy traveller.”

  The Vampyre, His Kith and Kin, Montague Summers, 1928

  Chapter 1

  Russia

  1944

  They flew from tree to tree, as silent and cold as the churning snow around them. Armed only with blade and tooth, they darted through the night with supernatural grace. The dark held no secrets for them as the day held no mercy and, slick and practised, they spread into formation as the quarry neared.

  On a densely wooded hill five miles away from the German lines, a lone Russian guard stamped his feet to ward off the cold. It was the dead man’s stag, two till three, and he was bo
ne tired. They had driven all day before halting to set up the communications post, then he had serviced his wagon, set up the tented area for the officers and helped position the radio masts. Now, after only three hours sleep, he was back on guard duty and he couldn’t see further than his dire need of a cigarette.

  The war would soon be over he reckoned. A couple more months and then he could go back to his hometown. There he would find a wife, start a family and work on a farm or in a factory. He would be a hero and, on family gatherings, he would regale them all with stories of how he single-handedly took on the might of the Fascist army and conquered them.

  Like pouncing arachnids, they dropped from the trees on the unsuspecting camp. The lone Russian’s last sensation was the warm gush of blood spurting from his now lacerated throat and the voracious teeth that greedily violated the wound. As the blackness of death dimmed his sight, he heard the first screams of the officers and men he had been guarding as the enemy wreaked carnage and death. With steel and fang, they killed and fed the way they had always done.

  No mercy, only butchery and then gorging on the blood of the fallen.

  Chapter 2

  Berlin

  Early 1944

  Newly promoted Standartenführer Von Struck marvelled at the grandeur and pretentiousness of his surroundings. After three years of virtually constant fighting, three years of mud, horror and atrocity, he felt almost affronted by the luxurious opulence of the building he was in. The marble flooring and collection of busts and statues were a world apart from the stark and unforgiving hell of the Eastern Front.

  Chic young secretaries walked briskly up and down the spotless corridors, themselves dressed in uniforms so smart and clean that they could have been hospital whites. The hours he had spent pressing his tailor made uniform and polishing his boots counted for nothing in their eyes, and they treated him with the polite disdain office personnel affect when dealing with the blue-collar soldiers of the front. Even the Iron Cross pinned to his tunic was just one of many.