“I could have been Irish? Weird.”
“They would have treated you well enough, however, in all likelihood you would have died at the age of twenty-two.”
“War? Or was I saving someone?”
“Slipped on ice and fell into a culvert.”
“Really, that’s it? Was I at least saving someone when it happened.”
“You were trying to recover a cd you’d dropped.”
“A compact disc? I died for a compact disc? Was it at least Widespread Panic?”
“A Celtic Christmas.”
“I give up.”
Tommy shrugged his shoulders. “It was an easy enough fix. I just switched the tags on the beds and no one was the wiser.”
Now I felt somewhat guilty that baby Murphy died in a culvert some twenty or so years ago. “The Murphy’s…how did they take their son’s death?” I needed to know.
“Oh, he was much more cautious than you, he was nowhere near the culvert that day. He grew up to be a pretty successful broker.”
“That’s good, I guess.” I wanted to know how Murphy, my near half-brother, made out. Odds were it wasn’t good. Tommy wasn’t clarifying, and as far as I was concerned, the man had already cheated death once. I was going to let it stay like that. “Why though? I mean…I know why your sister was tied to us, I get that, but what could you possibly hope to achieve by interfering?”
“When I was a child back in what is now Germany, Lizzie and I realized that I’d been cursed with the gift of foresight. She did everything she could to keep that a secret from our father, but I didn’t have all my wits. I think a lot of that had to do with how many ‘realities’ lived in my head. I couldn’t keep them all straight. At first, my father thought I was mentally challenged, although those weren’t his exact words. Then, when I started predicting the weather or when this or that person was going to die or get married, he thought differently. Possessed is what he said. I think he would have killed me for either offense. But then he would have had to tell the other villagers why he’d done it, and he didn’t want his good name…” he nearly spat that out, “…dragged through the mud by having sired a dummy or a demon.”
“I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine what that must have been like for you growing up.”
“It was as close to a living hell as can be achieved on this plane. And even that miserable existence paled in comparison to what Lizzie went through. Being a dirt-poor peasant back then was horrible enough, add in that she was a female to an abusive, uncaring father. And even though she was going through all this, she still took on the brunt of punishment my father meant to dole out to me. You have to see why I did what I did in the hopes I could one day get her back.”
I did and I didn’t. The Eliza he’d known had long ago departed to parts unknown. What remained was an evil that dwarfed anything her father, a mere mortal, could have aspired to. She was responsible for the deaths of thousands and that was before the zombie apocalypse. Her existence as a human was rife with misery and for that I was despondent. The moment she accepted Victor Talbot’s bite, she’d gone on a crusade to eradicate all humanity. Guilty, innocent, young, old—it made no difference to her. Everything that wasn’t her, was the enemy, plain and simple.
“Your silence is very telling, Mr. T.”
“I’m sorry, Tommy. I didn’t know Lizzie, I only knew Eliza. It is tough to feel compassion for someone who has a personal vendetta against everybody you love, including myself.”
“I can understand that. Can you understand the guilt I felt about her?”
“Guilt? For what?”
“I didn’t protect her like she protected me.” He was near to tears.
“Tommy,” I said as I wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “I don’t think you were in any position to help. You were…what? Like eight years old, right? Your father was the real curse in your family, it was his actions and his alone that spawned what your Lizzie was to become. We can only hope that he is paying for his past sins.”
“He is,” Tommy said with such certainty a shiver went up my spine. I sort of wanted to know how he knew the whereabouts of his father but the larger and wiser part of me refrained. “I’m sorry.” Tommy started anew after he collected himself and his thoughts. “I’ve strayed a bit from where we started.”
“That’s probably because you’ve known me for way too long.”
Tommy smiled, and I’d swear it was like someone had turned on a hundred watt bulb in that dingy, dirty place. Maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. Who wanted to see the rats that could potentially be scurrying in the corners?
“The Talbots. Why did I follow the Talbots? At first, it was because of Victor. He was the key. All the legends I could dig up said that if I killed him, Lizzie would become human again.”
“And what of you?”
“I would have stayed in my half-vampire state. A life in near eternity without her would be a small price to pay to have her back for that short span of human life.”
Again I got a heavy ripple that rode through me. Most times I just simply could forget that I would long survive all I held dear. There just wasn’t much time for reflection; simple survival took up the majority of my existence. That was a good thing, no, that was a great thing. Thinking that I could potentially go eons without those I loved was unfathomable. I’m pretty sure most times my feeble mind couldn’t even conceive of the concept. Tommy thankfully ripped me from thoughts that would have invariably spiraled down to despair and depression.
“After she killed Victor, I knew almost the moment she had done it. My visions changed. They’d become more powerful when Eliza changed me, but when she killed Victor, they became more focused as well.”
“On the Talbots?”
“On the Talbots. Someway, somehow, one of the Talbots was going to be involved in a fight for the very survival of man as a species.”
“You didn’t know who?”
“No, my visions don’t work like that. It’s not like watching a television show.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You were thinking it.”
“Now you’re the Thought Police? Might as well put me in jail now.”
“Sometimes my ‘sights’ are nothing more than a feeling, other times I catch glimpses of what can potentially happen. At times, it is like someone shattered a mirror, and I can only see shards of what was once reflected, so I have to piece it together as best I can. Then there are the offshoots that can spell disaster if I do not step in. Sometimes, for some reason, I’m shown things that will never come to pass, at least not in the universe I travel in now. And I’m left to wonder if I need to do anything with these sights, are there things I need to do here and now that can prevent or mitigate them.”
“You manipulate the future? That sounds pretty dangerous, Tommy.”
“I just told you about how I switched you back at birth. Did that not ring a bell within you?”
“Sorry, seemed anecdotal at the time.”
“No, there are times I have to step in because, if I do not, the outcome trends toward disaster.”
“How many times have you done this? I mean step into someone’s life and alter it for them and all around them? And what gives you the right?”
Tommy looked up.
“Really?! You’re going to use Him? Convenient.” I said that last word softly though, just in case it was true.
“It is not easy, this life I have. It has been a heavy burden. I am constantly confronted with apocalyptic scenarios and the many ways that they can come about.”
“Who was your first? Who was the first Talbot’s life you altered?”
“Do you really want me to answer this?”
“It’s my lineage, I think I have a right to know.” I was being obstinate.
“I don’t think you’re going to like how this ends up.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.”
“Mr. T, you’re not fully realizing how I ‘see’ things. I am given five to ten second
visions and have to piece everything else around them. Sometimes my vision can be decades maybe even centuries in the future. Sometimes they may happen within moments of me seeing them and I have to decide on that limited amount of information how I should act or what I should do or say to those around me.”
“Are you expecting me to change my stance?”
“Not really. I was merely hoping.”
“Okay, so who was the first?”
“Just remember you asked. The first was Linus Talbot.”
“Wait. Linus?”
“Linus Talbot, sort of an obnoxious, loud-mouth drunkard.”
“Glad to, umm, see we’ve evolved away from that.” I coughed. “What? I don’t drink much…anymore.”
“Can I get back to the story?”
“Sure, sure.”
“Linus was a blacksmith’s apprentice outside of what is now Liverpool. He was heading home to his pregnant wife. I’d been shadowing him for three months. I’d seen him involved in different threads throughout my visions. It seemed he was to play an important role in a number of them.” Tommy paused. “I think maybe we should just stop. I don’t think this is such a great idea, and I’m pretty tired.”
“You barely sleep.”
“That, you have to remember? Dammit, Mr. T, I really don’t want to do this.”
“It was like five hundred years ago, right?”
“Close enough.”
“I promise I won’t hold a grudge.”
“You’re lying.”
“Your visions tell you that?”
“No, just experience. Okay, Linus was heading home, I did nothing more than steer him away from a particular street.”
“Sounds benign enough. So what would have happened?”
“He would have won a small fortune by that day’s standards playing dice.”
“See my face, Tommy? I’m pretty confused.”
“If he had won that money, his next stop would have been to the tavern where he would have drank away all his winnings and his earnings. He and his wife would have become homeless.”
“Idiot. No…no I meant Linus. But wait, why didn’t you just let him win and then stop him from going to the tavern?”
Tommy paused. “I...I guess I could have done that. It had not occurred to me at the time.”
The audible slap as I hit my forehead echoed throughout the cavernous laboratory.
“You weren’t there. I had mere moments to make a choice.”
“Okay, okay, let’s move past this part, what happened to Linus?”
“He was run over by a runaway ox-cart two weeks later.”
“What? I thought you said he was somehow involved in getting the best of some great calamity.”
“I never said that. He would have been the cause of it.”
“What the fuck, Tommy?”
“After he lost his home, he would have been living out on the street where he would have gotten bit by a disease-riddled rat. His genome was perfectly aligned to accept the disease where he would have passed it on to half the continent causing what would have become known as the Sharts.”
“Now you’re fucking with me. The Sharts?”
“It’s not as funny as today’s vernacular would have you believe. It was actually the liquefying of the bowels. Everything, and I mean everything, was destined to leak out. The death was a prolonged agony and misery, with one’s innards dragging behind them. It would have dwarfed the Black Plague. If mankind survived, their numbers would have been drastically reduced to a population that would have teetered on the brink of extinction for years.”
“That’s just gross, man. I could have done without the visual. What happened to his wife? She must have lost the house after Linus became road kill.”
“She actually became a very successful blacksmith.”
“That was allowed back then?”
“Not really, after her husband died she donned his clothing and went to work in his steed.”
“The blacksmith didn’t notice anything strange?”
“Mrs. Talbot was an, umm, robust woman, handsome in her own way I suppose.”
“Did she ever marry again?”
“No, and she also used her maiden name when she opened up her own blacksmith shop. Towns were much smaller back then, the Talbot name was not necessarily held with the highest regard. Probably saved her and the baby’s life though. Had Eliza discovered a Talbot life she would have snuffed it out.”
“And what of the baby, what happened to him?”
“He grew up most of his life with the Murphy last name.”
“Murphy again?”
“Just serendipity, no true causal relationship.”
“You sure?”
“Mostly…anyway, after his mother passed, he found some letters she had packed away among her things, basically telling him all about the life she was reluctant to share when she was alive. He changed back to the Talbot family name at that point. Lived a fairly decent life as he took up his mother’s blacksmith shop, married and had three children. Fairly uneventful as far as your surname goes.”
“Well, at least that turned out well, I suppose. What about me? Did you ever alter anything in my life besides the crib thing?”
“Haven’t you heard enough?”
“There is, isn’t there? Tell me!”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“Add it to the long list of things I don’t like.”
“Do you remember when you applied for that job with AmeriCorp?”
“Sure. I’d been laid off for months, it was my first big break in a long while. Had two interviews and was told I’d be doing a third. Figured the job was mine at that point and now we were just going to hammer out the details. Never heard from them again…why?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. “What did you do, Tommy?” He stood up, probably to get out of harm’s way. I stood up with him. “Tommy. Tell me, man. What did you do that kept me at that shitty pothole-filling job? I could have made some money, moved the family to a better area.”
“If you got the job, odds were you were going to be away on business. Minneapolis, as a matter of fact.”
“What’s wrong with Minneapolis?”
“Nothing in and of itself, other than you would have been there on December 7th.”
“The day of the outbreak.” I sat down heavily, barely noticing the lump of tile that was attempting to get intimate with me. “Wow, that’s pretty heavy.” I was thinking of what might have become of my family if I’d been a thousand miles away. All roads led to disastrous followed immediately by horrendous. “What did you do to prevent me from getting that third interview?” I was only curious. How could I be mad when he’d saved my family’s life, again.
“I’m sorry, Mr. T. I called their HR department, pretending to look for a contact number. I told them I was your probation officer and you had missed your last check in.”
“Probation officer? What crime had I committed?”
“You were a habitual driver-while-intoxicated.”
“That was enough to not give me a chance to work for them?”
“I also said you tended to pass out nude.”
“Oh, come on, you couldn’t have said I robbed a bank or something?” Then another thought dawned on me as I moved a piece of debris away from underneath me that hadn’t even the common decency to take me out for dinner before it went exploring. “Tommy.”
“I’m done Mr. T. I’ve answered your questions.”
“Not quite. What if…okay, let me rephrase this. You said yourself that not everything you see comes to pass, or maybe you don’t quite understand it. What if the zombie apocalypse had never happened?”
“My guess is you’d still be filling in holes.”
And right now, somehow even that most pedestrian of life-styles sounded like heavenly bliss.
Epilogue 2 – The Pull of Mike – As told by Joseph DiPaolo – Knight of the Templar and Rhodes Scholar
The paths of most of o
ur lives, if mapped out with string, would look a lot like Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee, as we flitted from random event to random event, making chance encounters with countless numbers of people. Not Mike, though, nor others like him. His path would be as straight as the spoke of a tire; his life trail is inexorably straight, always. He has no choice but to walk this line. Oh, there’s no rule to how one must walk as Mike has proved over and over. As the crow flies is more than just a phrase in his case. Some might think it would be easier to have a path already laid out before you. But I can assure you that is not the case. Have not all of us at certain times in our lives avoided a particularly nasty or distasteful event, person, place? Insert noun here. These are not choices Mike can avert. The crow may be able to fly above the din, but Mike has to plow through it.
Most people intersect with others at various points along their lives and move on, but when our route comes in contact with someone like Mike we are pulled to him, almost drawn. We can’t help it. There is something in the simple honesty of his path that we crave, a way to escape the chaos of life. When I talked to Tracy about this she laughed. I don’t think she was a believer, and neither was BT.
“I hated Mike when I first met him. Thought he was arrogant as all hell,” she’d told me. “I sure wasn’t ‘drawn’ to him like you say.”
“I second that,” BT had added.
“There’s resistance at first. As much as we want order, we also want to have freewill, and we certainly don’t want to walk to anybody else’s tune.”
“Especially Mike’s. Probably has the soundtrack to Pretty in Pink running through his head.” BT nearly snorted at his own joke.
“I’ve been with Mike for over two decades. I’ve never seen the man walk the straight and narrow,” Tracy said.
“Like I’ve said, it’s not how he goes through life, it’s the events themselves he has to follow. In this life and every other one.”
“There’s more than one Mike out there? Is this some sort of cosmic joke?” BT was not looking too amused.
“Does he know this?” Tracy asked with a true measure of concern.
“On some level he may.”
“That could explain some of his behavior,” BT joked.