BT was a man I loved, an incredible friend, confidante and ally. A person who I would have given my life for if he had merely asked. I mean I would have questioned him on it, but if he had a valid reason, I would have done it. The last few chaotic years we had fought, the zombies had exhausted us all and strengthened an already steel-encased bond. When he had come to me at the end asking my blessing to leave and see if he could start a life anew, what could I say? I couldn’t deny him that. What future did I hold for him?
I had missed him intensely for years, mourning his leaving as if it had been a passing, because, in those days, it was. He had taken a radio with him and we had talked often those first few months. He said he had finally settled – somewhere at the edge of Pennsylvania, I believe. Said he had found someone and they were going to start over, their own Garden of Eden. We had laughed. I don’t know if he ran out of batteries or life just got too busy, but our communication stopped. I had momentarily entertained visiting him after the love of my life had passed and then it had sourly dawned on me that he would have as well; or even worse, he would have been so diminished from the ravages of time as to be unrecognizable. I would not replace the image of him I held dear with the shell of an old man who might not even remember me. I never thought about his relatives; it was tough to care about people I had thus far never encountered.
And now his status had been moved from that of mere mortal to god…maybe demi-god. I don’t need to piss any other deities off. I lifted my glass of amber pilsner to my mouth and drank deeply.
“They say he started to experiment with brewing when he couldn’t find any more,” Bailey told me as I showed her how to clink our mugs together.
She looked at me questioningly. “It is a custom of celebration,” I told her.
“By the bumping of cups?”
“Well you’re supposed to say ‘cheers’ as well.”
“He has many other strange customs,” Azile said, sipping on a goblet of wine.
“My great-great-grandfather devoted entire chapters to those customs,” Bailey said. “He called them the Idiosyncrasies of Michael Talbot. They were so humorous I thought them to be completely fabricated.”
I downed a big swig. “Wonderful, he’s giving me shit a hundred years in the grave. God I miss him,” I said, swigging the rest of the pale ale down.
The rest of the night, at least for me, was spent in a foggy daze remembering past events, forgetting present grievances and some talk of future planning. I left that to the adults as I kept checking to make sure they weren’t going to run out of ale any time soon.
I tell you, there are some perks to having vampire blood coursing through your system, when the sun streamed through the small window the following day, I should have been half blinded, head pounding, and stomach swimming in acidic stew. I sat up entirely too quickly and half expected to swoon. My feet hit the Cfee pofloor and I stood with not so much as a hiccup.
“All the benefit of getting a drink on with none of the nasty hangover,” I said, stretching. It was out of the corner of my eye I got my first inkling something might be wrong. The blankets which I had been under were still harboring a form. As inebriated as I was last night it could damn near be anyone, Lana, Azile, Bailey, shit maybe even Tommy. I laughed a little at that part. But what had I done, more importantly…who?
Oggie rolled over, and my heart rejoiced. I had not done anything foolhardy. I wasn’t even sure I knew how to anymore.
“Hey, you big lug,” I said, wrestling his head. He rolled back over; apparently he’d had a little too much celebration himself.
I opened my door to realize I was in some sort of hotel. A man was seated in a chair right outside my door.
“Sir!” he said, standing quickly.
“Relax. Are you there for my safety or yours?” I asked.
“Sir?”
“I was just wondering why I had a guard.”
“I’m no guard, Bailey Tynes told me to stay out here until you woke up and then I was supposed to get anything you might need. And when Bailey Tynes tells you to do something it is not wise to not do so.”
“That’s a lot of words,” I told him, “but I would have to agree with the gist of what you’re saying. Anything?”
“Yes, sir.”
I thought about BT’s brew for a few moments. “Can you make sure my dog is let out when he awakes?”
“Certainly.”
“Thank you,” I told him, and then I walked down the stairs and outside into the center of a bustling community.
I walked down the boardwalk enjoying the feel of the sun on my face, careful to make sure I stayed away from people so I wouldn’t have to interact. I got a few sidelong glances at first, and then it became more pronounced. Folks were beginning to stare…and then I heard the whispers.
Were they talking about me? I thought. Did they know me for the monster I was?
I was half a heartbeat away from retreating back to my bed with my furry friend when I caught sight of Azile heading my way.
“It’s about time you got up,” she told me, like it was high noon.
“Cut me some slack, I got hammered last night. And it can’t be more than eight in the morning.”
“Seven-thirty, and you do know as a half-vamp, alcohol has very little effect on you, don’t you?”
“Well I do now, don’t I? Got anything else you want to ruin for me? Like maybe Santa isn’t real.”
“How can so many things hinge on you? Come on, we’ve got to talk to the city council.”
“How come folks are looking at me?” I asked as she led me away.
“Word has got out.”
“Wonderful.”
“It could help our cause.”
“Oh, I doubt that, but you live in whatever fantasy you want. Who am I to take that away from you?”
“Who is Lana to you?” she asked directly, stopping our forward progress to do so.
“She’s a pain in the ass, is what she is. Tried to shake her twice. Had no idea Davy Crockett had been reborn, girl could track an ant on ice.”
“Your evasiveness gives me pause to consider.”
“You pause all you want,” I told her as I started moving again. I smiled though, it’d been a long time since I’d had someone of the female persuasion interested.
She led us back into the saloon; I liked the idea of that, Azile’s words be damned, I had been crocked the night before. But having woke without any ill effects, it had given me that damn pause to reconsider her words.
“Multi-functional place,” I said as we walked in. I noticed that two tables had been joined together. There were nine people sitting there, Bailey included. Five women and four men, although it was quite possible on further inspection one of the females was a man, as her facial features were entirely too dour to get a read. Well…that and the significant amount of facial hair she had.
Bailey stood and spoke. “This committee has been called to hear concerns that Azile the Red Witch has in regards to the Lycan of the West.”
There was some murmuring amongst them. Most of it looked like grumbling.
“I have a business to run, of what concerns are the Lycan to us, Red Witch?” Dour-Faced asked. “We have always known of their existence, they leave us alone as we do them. We should leave it at that.”
“Normally, Chairperson Gount, I would agree with you. Choosing to fight the Lycan is never a healthy endeavor. But the time is rapidly approaching where they are going to force the issue.”
Chair-thingy Gount flapped her hand at Azile as if to say ‘whatever.’
“We have heard your concerns before about the Lycan assembling armies. And yet, not one person east of the Mississippi has ever seen one. Your case to cause hysteria and panic among the population is not well received here,” she continued.
“Michael?” Azile nudged.
“What?” I asked.
“Tell them who you are.”
“Don’t they know?”
??
?Ah yes, the so-called Michael Talbot, how convenient that you were able to unearth a myth to further your cause,” the chair-thingy said. “How old does that make you, sir? A couple of hundred years old?” There was some snickering among the assembled.
“I’m heading home,” I told Azile, turning to leave.
“You will do no such thing, Michael Talbot,” Bailey said. “You will stand there and convince these people who you are and why we need to help.”
“Bailey, your relationship to our Town Forefather is how you Cr i are and won your seat on this council, but I fear that your youth is impeding your judgment. Michael Talbot – IF he was truly a person and not a character in your forefather’s memoirs – would have passed years ago. And I have read all of the manuscripts. Michael Talbot would have been bigger.
“I get that a lot,” I said as an aside to Azile.
“Michael?” Bailey asked.
“Dammit, Bailey, if you were anyone else except who you are, my dog and I would now be heading home. Alright folks of this esteemed council (dripping in sarcasm, that was) how could I conceivably convince you that BT was indeed my best friend.” More scoffing on their part. “We traded off saving each other’s lives so many times I can’t even be sure who did it more, I mean most likely it was me but I’m not positive.”
“Michael,” Azile chided.
“Sorry. We fought side by side in a world that had gone mad. We had no idea if we would live to see the next day, if humanity would live to see the next day. But knowing that man had my back made everything just a little better. If he were here now he would not back down from this challenge.”
“Our most revered founding father was indeed a man of action and bravery, of that there is no doubt. And perhaps if he was as long-lived as you, he would surely side with you.” More snickering. “Or throw you out for the impostor that you are.”
“No mention of the vampire thing?” I asked Azile quietly.
“Not in the books he wrote, only his private notes. He didn’t want any persecution to find you or Tommy.”
“I guess this does seem slightly strange then. A man claiming to be somewhere in the hundred and ninety-year-old range, dressed in burlap, asking you to fight a war with a creature that isn’t even threatening you, hell, one I didn’t even know about a week ago. Well, I guess to get to point B we’ll need to get past point A. I sped around the table and grabbed Chair-Thingy’s head, tilting its neck back. I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure on sex, had some cleavage, but I’d known a few guys in my time that could have rocked a bra.
The Chair Leader did gasp as I grabbed him/her, but quickly recovered. “Parlor tricks” she (yeah, most likely, but not definitively) said as she stared at Azile.
“These as well?” I asked exposing my feeders.
The color drained from her face, as she struggled to get away from me. “The Red Witch and a demon are in our midst!” she screamed finally, and was able to scamper back as I released my grip. She pressed herself against the wall behind her.
“I’m no demon,” I told her. “I carry demons, those of my lost friends and loved ones, which I can never reunite with. That pain is almost too much to bear,” I told her, walking back to my original spot so she would be able to somewhat relax.
“Why should we believe anything you two have to say?” another asked, an older gentleman off to the side.
“You don’t really,” I said, “but in regards to the Lycan, Azile tells the truth.”
I think he was about to scoff again until I lifted my shirt, pink welts where the Lycan had clawed me gleamed back at them. His color drained much like th C mut to scoffe woman’s had.
“I received these three nights ago in a fight with a Lycan no more than fifty miles from here. Two nights ago, a small party I was with was attacked by four werewolves being shepherded by a Lycan.”
“It is my belief that the Lycan are turning humans to bolster their army. It is well known that Lycan care little for their infected kin. Most times that a human survives to become a werewolf was that the Lycan was somehow stopped from finishing its feast. But that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore,” Azile said.
“You knew?” I asked her, she nodded. “A heads-up would have been nice.”
“If you hadn’t stopped to pick your girlfriend up, I would have. I thought we were going to be together sooner, before the full moon.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“That’s preposterous,” the chairwoman said as she sat back down, I was happy to note she was absently rubbing her neck.
“It is true that Lycan suffered to some degree much like man had with the zombies. They were as big a contributor to man’s ultimate victory as anyone during that time. Albeit for differing reasons,” Azile explained. “Without us, they stood to lose their main staple. When man was in abundance Lycan were content to stick to the fringes and eat without having too much notice taken of them. Well, that has changed. A new leader has risen among their ranks. Fueled with brutality, he has savagely placed himself on top. He has a hatred for mankind that seems to have no bounds.
“He has determined that he will not allow man to overpopulate the planet and flood it with their poisons that come from an industrialized civilization. He sees a chance to accomplish that. And he is preparing diligently for it.”
“Lycan have no stomach for war, they are cowards that hide in human form and slink in the night, preying on the young and the infirm,” another gentleman chimed in.
Cowards? I thought, touching my chest. The one I fought seemed anything but.
“They are not cowards, Councilman Merrings,” Azile retorted. “It is true they do not usually wish direct confrontation, but that has more to do with survival of their species. Their reproductive cycle is excruciatingly slow compared to ours. An untimely fatality affects them much more than it does the human race.”
“So that’s why they’re using werewolves,” I said more to myself.
“Perhaps we should be afraid once a month for more than just our women’s cycles,” one of the men said. There was a riotous amount of laughter, even the women joined in. Not Azile, Tommy, Bailey, or myself though. I knew better, a man never made fun of a woman’s period, at least not anywhere she could hear it.
“Yes, next full moon, when a thousand werewolves descend on your sleepy little hamlet, I would imagine you all should be afraid. Then everyone can bleed alike…women, men, and children,” Azile said. That shut them up pretty quick. “When the sun comes up, the unlucky few that are still alive will be picked clean by the werewolves’ masters. Let’s go, Michael.”
“Really? Can I get a beer first?” I Cr frs. asked. She had already stridden through the door. “Dammit,” I said as I followed.
“Fools!” she spat as we walked down the roadway, more like a power walk she was going so fast.
“Hard to help those that don’t want to help themselves,” I said to her.
“Agreed,” she replied. Though I didn’t know if she was talking about the Talboton residents or myself.
“Hold up!” Bailey said, running to catch up. I wasn’t sure if Azile was going to or not. “Red...Azile, please stop,” Bailey said with her hand upraised. “I am sorry for the ignorance the council has displayed, they are afraid and this is how it’s manifesting.”
“How many souls do you have here?” Azile asked.
“Nearly twenty-five hundred the last time we counted,” Bailey replied.
“They will be wiped clean within the next few months, Bailey, of this I am certain.”
“We have rifles,” she replied defiantly.
“I was going to ask you about that.” I interjected.
“How many rounds, Bailey?” Azile asked.
Bailey’s head dipped.
“We have not progressed to the point where we can manufacture new rounds,” Bailey said sadly.
“So you’re using reloads which are good for three or four shots before the casing fails. You have held off rogues a
nd renegades with your weapons, which is great. But any sort of battle, and you will quickly find yourself in hand-to-hand combat with a far superior enemy.”
“Why are we, alone, put at the fore of this fight?” Bailey asked.
“I am making the rounds, and it has been an uphill climb, certainly, I have not been able to get it through more than a few thick skulls that isolationism can be a favorable tactic when you want others to do your battles. In this case, it won’t matter; the Lycan will bring the battle everywhere. Individual towns will never stand a chance It will only be under a united front that we will be able to succeed.” Azile told her.
“This is worse than zombies,” I said.
“Quite,” Azile replied.
CHAPTER 9 - Xavier
The Lycan had, for as long as any of them could remember, taken up residency in the wilds of the Yukon. Sometimes venturing as far south as upper Washington when winters were particularly difficult and food stores had suffered. When the zombies had come, the Lycan had approached them as they would any enemy, savagely and without mercy. And then more had come in numbers so vast that the only strategy afforded to the apex predator was to run. The command had come late and the Lycan had suffered grievous wounds to their clans. Fully sixty percent of their kind had fallen in those first few years before they learned that they could not fight the far superior hoards head on.
They used man as more than a meal, turning swaths of them into an uneasy ally. Werewolves had done as much to turn the tide of zombies as any man-driven army had. When the dust had settled and the zombie scourge had been purged from the lands. The Lycan found themselves with nearly unsustainable numbers and a deep hunger that their remote corner of the world could not quench. With great reservation they ventured further south than they had since mankind had crossed the ice bridge in great quantity. Mankind had been pushed further to the brink and the Lycan had to travel far and wide to feed. It wasn’t food that completely drove them; they also had to reign in their wayward children. Werewolves were untrained savages that killed for the enjoyment of it and, if left unregulated, would quickly destroy any vestiges of man.