"No, you're just transparent."

"I would like to go to," Azile said, raising her hand slightly above her head.

"Fine...pack up. Travis, keep an eye on your uncle, I'm going to see if I can get in his closet trap door."

EPILOGUE.

Mrs. Deneaux watched from the truck cab as Tracy plunged the knife into Eliza's chest. "Didn't see that coming." She said making sure to keep low and not attract any attention. She regretted her decision now to leave the Talbot household, once again she would be on her own. She wasn't overly concerned because she did what all survivors did, she survived. She waited for another three days in that cab, living off the stores the driver had left behind, it wasn't much but it was more than her and her boyfriend had when he had got them lost hiking the Ozark Mountains some forty years previous. At one point during the ordeal she had thought about killing him so she could feed. Luckily for Baxter he had redeemed himself the following morning by trapping a rabbit which they had shared over a small fire.

With no zombies in sight, Mrs. Deneaux left the confines of the truck cab, she stepped down onto the pavement, took care of some pressing matters. She then unhitched the trailer, got back in and started the rig up. Even she had to laugh at the irony of it all as she drove off into the sunset.

THE KISS.

"Why me?" I begged. Her silence only confounded my bewilderment. "I can't."

The thin wisp of what some may construe as a smile vanished. As her arm came back down, I could feel the reneging of the offer. She approached slowly. I was going from freedom to food. My brain screamed for flight, the fight portion was nonexistent. This was no battle of wills, I was helpless, like a fear-frozen marmot I waited for the screaming eagle to descend and sink its claws deep into my flesh. I did not even have enough control to close my eyes. I watched in increasing horror as she approached; death would not be swift. My bladder burned to be released. I was denied even that last suffrage of indignity. A fly crawled into her nose. She paid it no more attention than the lice that swung freely from her dirty matted hair. A beetle plowed its way through a small hole in her neck holding a small nugget of meat, a trophy garnered from who knows where. The only thing still working was my olfactory sensors. This had to have been done on purpose. Gorge tried in vain to roar up and out of my stomach. The fetid odor was so palpable, I could see it, I could taste it. Like Campbell's soup, it was so thick I could eat it with a fork. Yeah, she hadn't cut off my sense of sarcasm either. Thin strips of flesh which used to be lips parted, revealing black cracked teeth from which strings of meat hung in decaying strands. Her charcoal gray tongue flicked over them, attempting to pull away some of the tastier morsels. She stood toe-to-toe with me, not six inches from my face. Sweat coursed down my body. I shook from impotence and then that stilled. I wouldn't die fighting, but at least I'd be standing, small consolation. It's like 'winning' a partic.i.p.ation trophy in Little League baseball. Who gives a s.h.i.t.

What would it feel like to have your face ripped open? Would she still my pain centers? Doubtful. I couldn't tell much from her near-frozen features, but still I sensed that she was taking some form of perverse satisfaction from these events. She moved in closer; I would have offered her a mint if I had one. My eyes still were not allowed to close. My vision of her blurred as she moved in even closer. A fly landed on my eyeball. It was singularly up to this point in my life, the most disgusting thing that had ever happened to me. Then my zombie girl topped it, she kissed me. My innards roiled in protest, my guts churned like a washing machine on spin cycle. If I wasn't allowed output through my intake or outlet valves this was going to blow a hole through my midsection a la Ripley's Alien. The kiss was not so surprisingly, very cold, but very surprisingly tender. It was literally the kiss of death from the dead. It doesn't get much more ironic than that, does it? A Brillo pad wrapped around coa.r.s.e grit sandpaper applied at a hundred and ninety revolutions per minute under skin-scalding hot water would never allow me to feel clean again. I was tainted, for f.u.c.k's sake a zombie is kissing me. Didn't she get my bio? I'm a card-carrying germaphobe!

As she slowly pulled away, a dark viscous fluid kept us tenuously connected. The fly finally descended from my eye to land on this small bridge. Her tongue shot out, incredibly long, and pulled the fly into her canines. I swear I could hear the small crunching of its delicate exoskeleton. The spin cycle was in full throttle. A whoosh of haunted air escaped her lips. She was laughing, she had known exactly what she had done and she found humor in her dark actions. She pulled back another foot and let loose her controls. I fell to the ground, afflicted with crippling cramps. I rolled into a protective fetal position hugging my midsection. Mount Vesuvius erupted. Hot refuse steamed on the cold ground; the whoosh of air which accompanied her amus.e.m.e.nt persisted. Glad I could be her entertainment. For long minutes I alternated between evacuating my stomach and pulling in long, cold drags of air. How long this happened, I'm not sure. The pain lessened minutely-small fractions of degrees is the best way I can explain it. Each breath was better than the previous but only in infinitesimally small measures. It might have been minutes or days, all reference to time was lost, although my cheek touching the ground was rapidly becoming cold and my refused refuse was not steaming anymore.

"Mike?" I heard a tenuously thin voice try to break through the paralyzing grip of insanity that was beginning to blanket my mind.

"Mike?" There it was again, a disa.s.sociated voice speaking an incoherent word. "Grab his legs, I'll get his head."

I felt myself being lifted and then, mercifully, blackness sheathed my capacity for thought. I was floating in a white void, but I was not afraid, I was free; free from burden, free from sin, free from responsibility...and then I think I puked again. Not because I could 'feel' the sensation, but because I heard the disgust from one of the people carrying me. I found it funny the same way an insane person finds humor in slinging s.h.i.t at walls. How different was this from that? I was close to the edge, maybe I had even taken that first perilous step over and gravity had finally worked its magic. I was being pulled down into the abyss. There wasn't a drug invented that would raise this sinking ship. I spiraled down. Whiteness faded to black, cognitive thought became an illusion.

Eventually, I will tell you what happened while I traveled the netherworlds, but that all hinges on what happens in the foreseeable future. I had come out from under my unnatural hibernation in remarkably good shape. There were no ill effects that I knew about; they would manifest later. I had lost weight and I was as thirsty as I had ever been, but after downing three huge gla.s.ses of water I felt right as rain, even more so. Now I know this sounds weird, but power is the word that comes foremost in my mind. Maybe healthy would be a better descriptive, but not as accurate, or as powerful. I just don't know, and I really don't have the time to dwell on it.

These are as near to the events as I can remember. Having lost the majority of my journals, I am thankful that I have found the power of an almost photographic memory with which to recreate the events. Some of them are indelible; it would take more than death itself to erase them from my mind. I should know.

A lot has happened since Little Turtle. I've lost a lot of friends, loved ones, and even a significant portion of myself. But we're the closest we have ever been to a victory. Okay, scratch that, we are the furthest from defeat that we have ever been. We've almost pulled into a stalemate. I consider that a huge improvement. Hey, we take what's given to us and do the best we can.

For three earth days I walked in Eliza's world, on her side it was significantly longer. My thoughts are that it had much more to do with the perceived pa.s.sing of time rather than actual, but tomayto, tomahto...who gives a s.h.i.t when you're in h.e.l.l. Okay, not literally, but it wasn't a walk in the park either. Henry just perked his ears up when he...what? Heard me think that? Is that possible? He was sitting with me doing his best to absorb the cold that flowed through me. He gave me a wide grin and laid his ma.s.sive head back down on my lap.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h," I said aloud. "You can read my thoughts." Henry's little tail wagged furiously, his eyes were shut. The economy of movement in this dog was a study in perfection; it was d.a.m.n near an art form.

But I'm digressing and it's pretty much on purpose. I sat down here today with the express reason of relating all the events that happened while I was under Eliza's spell? Was that it? More like poison. But do people that go through traumatic events like a car crash really want to relive the whole d.a.m.n thing, like when the safety gla.s.s shatters and chunks of sharpened fragments imbed themselves in the side of your face, rupturing your eye? Or how about when you're thrown violently sideways and the gearshift goes up and under your rib cage busting out your sternum, bone fragments cutting through the aorta, your life blood bleeding out inside of you. Are these things you want to revisit? I don't.

My wife says it will be cathartic, I say bulls.h.i.t, she just wants me to get out from under her feet. I have not come out of this last battle as well as I went in. I know it and she knows it. I've been diminished, that's the best way I can put. I need to be around those I love CONSTANTLY and I think I'm driving Tracy a little nuts. But even in the best of times I had that effect on people. At least Henry doesn't seem to mind my constant ministrations.

"d.a.m.n, with the tail again, Henry? You're not even awake, I can hear you snoring." His tail didn't stop.

Fine, I'll corral my thoughts, kicking and screaming mind you and I'll probably lodge a formal protest when I'm done but let's see where this journey brings me. Back from the edge or over it, right now both are viable alternatives to the way I feel now.

The kiss...that d.a.m.ned kiss, it would have been more humanly (humanely?) of her to just rip my face off and be done with me, but cruelty is (was) Eliza's game. She survived the centuries with it as her guide, her driving force, and she was adept. She knew where I would end up, my guess is/was that she was hoping that I would never recover, that I would always be left to wander there, but she never took into account the power of love. How could she? She only ever had a taste of it, a morsel from her brother, whereas the Talbots basked in it like a Spring Break co-ed in coconut oil. (Good visual? Tracy probably won't appreciate that, but she's the one making me write this d.a.m.n thing so she'll have to d.a.m.n well live with it!) Sorry, honey, if you read this The d.a.m.ned kiss, I felt myself slipping away the moment our lips parted. Black dots began to invade my vision. First they were barely bigger than a black fly (which I have since come to loathe here in Maine. Want to know the seasons in Maine? It goes, Summer, Fall, Winter, Mud and Black Fly, I s.h.i.t you not!) I should have picked a better locale for my last stand or final resting spot. Sorry, I am avoiding this trip down memory lane like a fat kid avoids fourth period gym.

So the spots began to expand-black fly, mosquito, house fly, horse fly, f.u.c.king wasp, crow-then the sensation of my head bouncing off the frozen tundra. For a while there was nothing more than the sensation of pure and utter blackness. I was aware, but I was alone. It's hard to describe. I did not have the sensation of falling, but I also wasn't rooted to anything. I was afraid to move not knowing if I would fall into an abyss or into a wall. Terror began to mount; I had never felt so powerless in my life. There was nothing I could do. If she had just left me there, I would have been gone in a matter of hours, though the concept of time meant nothing there either.

By degrees the veil was unwrapped from my eyes, for time unimaginable there was a gauzy light that seeped into my vision, slowly that changed to a pre-dawn storm morning muted light. Then blissfully (at least at first) I was able to see, at least shapes, bathed in shadow but it was something. The human mind deprived of stimuli will begin to make its own nightmares up, like I needed any help in that department. The expanse that started to show itself could have been Mars as barren and rocky as it was. Or it could have been Eliza's parched, dry, dead heart, either would fit. I found myself standing on a significant sized boulder, had I moved I would have fallen a good two or three feet, not enough to die but maybe twist an ankle maybe bust a knee cap, who knows I'm getting up in there in years stuff doesn't work quite as well as when I used to take it for granted, like when I was a teenager.

I gingerly hopped down and tried to orientate myself, but the light did not come from a single source in the sky it was just an illumination across the entire expanse of my visage, that it was an ugly pea green did little to help with my discomfort.

"You ready for this, Talbot?" I asked myself. I even jumped a little it was the first sound I'd heard since this ordeal started and it startled me, G.o.d I hope n.o.body reads this. BT sees this and he's gonna call me a little girl. One direction seemed as good as the next so I took off for what I figured was north, but only because that was the direction I was headed, there wasn't a clue at all to let me know whether I had chosen wisely.

I whistled a little Zeppelin, When the Levee Breaks I think, maybe a bit of In My time Of Dying, followed by In the Evening, but my song choices started to sound a little ominous so I left it to the professionals. The light never changed in brightness as I trudged on through, at some points I could feel a 'shifting' in myself like I was being moved. And occasionally I swore I heard Tracy or the kids, maybe even a bark or two from Henry, but it was so far away it could have been brought along a non-existent breeze from a place that ceased to exist.

At times I felt that the ground I was on was sloped upward but the horizon never changed, odds were my dominant leg was pulling me just enough off course to lead me around in huge circles, learned this in the Marine Corps but without a compa.s.s or a point of reference there was no way for me to make any corrections, and I had a sneaking suspicion that even if I had a compa.s.s there would be no magnetic North anyway. No it would be much better to believe that I was still somehow on Earth.

If rocks were a life form I would have been inundated, with teeming abundant, prosperous life! But the world I was in was sterile, no sun, no water how could anything survive here. Then had I not stumbled over it I would have completely pa.s.sed it by. As far as plants go, this would have been the one that the greenhouse threw out after the planting season was over. It would have been at the bottom of the large dumpster in the back of the building covered by the dried manure and broken bags of decorative rock. Right then that little runt of a twisted stick popping up from the soil was singularly the most beautiful thing I think I had ever seen.

I cried as I dropped to my knees to get a better look. No I didn't cry out, like 'Aha!' I actually cried. You know, the kind where moisture actually flows from the eyes...yeah that kind. A starving horse would have pa.s.sed this thing over, yet, at this moment I would have staked my entire life on it. This represented a chance; if this was alive, there was more...that was for sure. Life is adaptable. Like a typical selfish human my first thought was to pull it up and take it with me, if I could have punched myself with enough force to make it worthwhile I would have.

It took me long moments before I could leave my new best friend behind. We had shared so much. I told him about my plight and he listened patiently. I knew it was a 'he' because he didn't interrupt me once. (I'm dead meat if Tracy sees this-WAY worth it though). I kept moving on, this was a barely habitable place. Although I wasn't sure if I was still trapped in my mind, or Eliza's for that matter (though I didn't know who she was at the time). It was another forty-seven days (or an hour) before I ran across the next plant, it was most a.s.suredly a brother to the one I had met earlier, it was slightly more full-bodied, but it wasn't going to win any compet.i.tions at the Rose Off. I stopped briefly to acknowledge its existence and kept going.

Then I saw something in the far distance scurrying off. 'Scurrying off' was just fine with me, that meant it wasn't coming my way, the best defense I would be able to muster would revolve around some rock throwing and in my High School hey days I hadn't been able to get a ball much over 65 miles per hour and I know my shoulder hadn't aged very well. Best I'd be able to do would be a nice bruising before whatever wanted to eat me slammed into my body with teeth a gnashing.

But whatever was going on, I was coming out of the abyss of sterility. The outer fringes of hardy life for sure, but who knows what I would begin to encounter as I kept moving steadily forward, but what were my options? Stay and languish waiting for death, but I wasn't sure if I could really die here. I'd been walking for hours and I wasn't tired, thirsty or hungry, I just was.

I was self-aware enough to realize that this woman (who I will now call Eliza going forward) hadn't physically teleported me to anywhere, but mentally I was on a trip for the ages. And not like any trip I had ever taken in my experimental drug days of college (s.h.i.t forget Tracy finding this, I'm glad, in one sense, that my dad will never see this, he knew I wasn't the greatest student in school but he most likely didn't know why, even at this juncture in life I had no desire to spill the beans on what I used to do).

Mentally I was out to lunch. Was my body still in the ground across from Little Turtle or had Eliza hefted me over her shoulder and was even now bringing me back to her lair for whatever insidious reason she might have? I had no idea. More than likely, I was propped up in the corner of my home drooling excessively after finally having traveled into the deep end of psychosis. How long would Tracy change my diapers before she just put me out of all of our miseries?

I walked on because sitting and reflecting on what was or could be or may be, really just isn't my way. If you've read any of my journals I'm sure you've come to the realization that I act first and then have to figure out a way to get out of my newest predicament. Someday I'll learn not to do that, but my guess is that it will be my last (day).

The pea green color may have been steadily brightening it was difficult to say, if it was happening at all, it was in degrees so slow as to not be registerable. But I just got the feeling that was what was happening. Still didn't know if it even meant anything, although I would take any sort of light no matter the color over the pitch blackness I had been immersed in earlier. I would have feared any sort of movement in that environment. Looking back on all this now, I've got to wonder if Tommy's hand played in any of this. I can't imagine that Eliza would have given me any sort of handhold from which to pull myself out of the quagmire she had plunged me into.

The illumination had Tommy written all over it. In the short time that I got to know the boy he had stamped himself indelibly onto my life and the lives of all of those around me. It would have been just like him to risk everything to help a man he barely knew at the time. Although he was much more aware of the bigger picture than I was. I was under the very misguided thought process that I was only dealing with a zombie apocalypse, why and how could I have known any differently. Well like Alex's meemaw used to say, "When it rains, you get wet." No wiser words could have been uttered.

I miss Alex. My gut says he's dead, but I don't think I'll ever be able to confirm that until I meet him once again topside if the big man deems me worthy. Wow, I'm pretty easily distracted these days. I think a lot has to do with the injuries I've sustained. I think for necessity sake I will try harder to stay on task if only to finish this infernal story. Although it's hard not to miss the ones that have fallen along the way, it's when I write that the pain becomes acute, focused like the tip of a particularly sharp knife blade, it finds ways to cut and slice, deeply. Sorry. Where was I? Right, I didn't know it then, but it had to be Tommy's influence in this alien scape.

f.u.c.k! (I yelled it, then wrote it, that was cathartic.) The puke green light was getting brighter. I think I've established that. I was coming across increasing vegetation, nothing that could really even sustain a lone locust but there was a comfort of shared life here. I hadn't seen anything scurry off since that first time and was now beginning to wonder if I had even seen it or whether it was just my mind trying to establish some sort of normalcy to this void although a Wendy's or Subway would have been preferable (but not McDonald's, never them again.) Still I wandered, much like Moses. (My blasphemy alone in these journals is probably enough to keep me exiled from THE epitome of gated communities.) My guess was I was meant to 'wait' in this place while my real self wasted away, would I know when that end came. Would I cease to exist here or would that mean I was now forever bound here. Did the zombie girl have that kind of sway? Could she parlay my soul? I wasn't much of a people person, but who the h.e.l.l was I going to issue snide and sarcastic comments to if I was alone. I could always berate myself, it wouldn't be the first time, but that would get old quick.

I kept walking for what else was there, and then, in the hazy distance, there was an irregularity. At first I could not discern it and then it began to dawn on me that I was seeing objects not of nature. Man made? Could it be? My heart leapt, that of course was until I began to think of where I may or may not be, would I want to come across anything made by the sentient beings of this place, because that would mean the sentient beings were around also. Maybe that would be preferable, one quick death instead of this long drawn out c.r.a.p.

Typical Talbot, jump headlong into the teeth of the tiger instead of gently skirting around. I guess I just work better with the gun pointing at my head rather than having to think my way out. Well when you have as little going on in your head as I do you could see why I tend to go with my strengths! As the day wore on I began to see wisps of smoke coming up from a variety of homes, I guess huts might be a more apt word. Well s.h.i.t, if I want to get honest, more like earthen mounds with a thatch roof.

"h.e.l.lo," I said, I wanted to yell it, but I still felt like a stranger in a strange land and until I knew the customs I wanted to be as discreet as possible. I began to peer inside of a hut when the flap of deer hide used as a door began to rustle. I stepped back as a heavyset man. No...that was the wrong terminology, he wasn't fat, he was thick as if he were hewn from one solid block of wood. There wasn't a curve on the man, he was all hard angles. I had height on him and that was it, his arms looked as thick as my legs. He walked right past me and I couldn't have been more than six inches from him. I wanted to shout at him to look at me, but the square set of his jaw outlined in a scowl made me think twice.

I could hear guttural talking inside, it sounded Germanic but the brutish words issuing softly made even the harsh modern day German language seem French. The only reason I dared peek in was the voices sounded young, I might be able to take the off spring of the thick man that had just pa.s.sed me by. You'll notice I said 'maybe'. "h.e.l.lo?" I asked as I walked in. I had a girlfriend back in college that was taking German as a second language. She used to speak it all the time around me. You'd think I would have at least retained the word 'h.e.l.lo' in German. Nope not me I was too busy staring at her t.i.ts, sue me. I'm sorry if what every male on the planet does offends you.

Listen, the planet right now is in the midst of a near extinction event, I can help with the repopulating of our home. It's VERY, VERY simple, because if you're a woman and a guy is next to you, he wants to have s.e.x-except for the obvious exceptions, related, dead, or zombie. Other than that, if he's had a good sandwich today, humping is the only other thing on his mind. I mean now that sports have literally been wiped off the table, what else is there really?

I think I'm avoiding this next part; I've been sucker punched in the gut with less wind knocked out of me. The inside of the hut had a stone fireplace off to the side, a small table was in the center and a pile of filthy animal skins was in the far corner where I imagine the family, I use that word loosely, slept. A girl with long raven hair was leaning over a table, tears fell heavily from her face, her torn and worn skirt was draped around her shoulders, her skinny legs caked in dirt were shaking violently, an even younger boy was facing away from the scene he kept repeatedly banging his head against a stout branch, the sobbing and the hollow knocking were the only sounds in the small enclosure.

"Are you okay?" I asked. My heart was thumping wildly in my throat. I couldn't think of anything else to say. The girl had been raped and the young boy, I figured to be her brother, had not dealt with the violence very well. What kind of monster does this? I put my hands up in as non-threatening a posture as possible and approached. I had made up my mind, I was going to kill that man or die trying.

"Miss," I said trying to sound as comforting as possible. Her tears and mutterings kept up, the boy was now rocking back and forth crying heavily himself, he was saying something, but even in a foreign language I could tell it was gibberish by its tone and cadence. The girl had still not acknowledged my presence as I approached. She looked up wildly when she heard a noise behind me.

Zombie girl? Was the first thought that came through my head, she was a dead ringer for the thing that had kissed me albeit an earlier version, this girl couldn't have been more than twelve or thirteen, it was tough to tell with the amount of malnourishment she seemed to be sustaining. I stepped back as her intense, frightened gaze bore holes through me, then I realized she couldn't see me at all. She was reacting to the thick man who had come back from whatever errand a.s.shole rapists do.

He yelled at the girl and she immediately stood up and placed her dress back into place. She stood there with her head down, looking completely beaten as the man kept berating her. This wasn't just some stranger. The longer I stayed and witnessed the interaction, such as it was, the more I came to the realization that this thing that called himself a man was the father of the two children in the hut. He yelled until they began to do menial work around the house. The boy was fixing holes in the walls where light was spilling through and the girl took the pile of skins and brought them outside. She placed them on the branch of a small tree and began to beat the bugs and dirt out of them with a stick. Oh how I wished she would use that on the man.

I was a ghost here. I had no more influence than a flying piece of dust. No that wasn't true, dust could carry germs. Germs could be inhaled and the host could become infected and die. I shuddered at the thought (airborne germs I mean) not me being a ghost part. I watched as something in that girl was dying, she had lost whatever semblance of innocence she had possessed, it was early in her development but I thought I could see the foreshadowing of what she was to become. Abuse takes so much that is good from our children and replaces it with so much that is dark. Her scales had not yet been tipped but the process had begun.

Her brother came out and lay by her feet. He was still crying. The girl alternated between beating the skins and rubbing his head.

They began to utter that guttural language that I could not discern so I filled in what I thought they were saying merely by their tone and posture.

Tomas looked up at his sister, his tear-soaked face lined with muddy runnels. "Are you okay, Lizzie?"

A quick narrowing of the eyes, then a softening when she realized who she was talking to. She got down on her haunches and stroked his face. "Tomas, I have to leave this place."

Then and there I realized that Eliza had sacrificed all that she was and could have become to shield her brother from the man that they called 'father'. "He'll stop, Lizzie! Please don't leave," he begged, clutching onto her.

"Oh, Tomas," she cried. "He'll never stop." And in that she was right. But I think Eliza feared what would become of her brother if he was left behind to face the wrath of that sick b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

That was Eliza. She had been a small girl in a brutal world and she should have died after a pitiful existence. The dialog between the two siblings had no sooner finished when I felt a loud whooshing noise pa.s.s around my head, much like if you were crazy enough to stick your head out of a car moving at a hundred miles per hour down the Autobahn. I was at what looked like an alleyway ab.u.t.ting up to a small market; although I had not moved my feet so much as an inch. As I began to orientate myself, I noticed an older Eliza being dragged along by her father. He had one large meaty hand wrapped completely around her forearm and was pulling her towards the back of the alleyway.

My heart began to sink and gorge began to rise, if that was even possible in the embodiment that I was adorning. Eliza's head was whipping back and forth violently as she fought desperately to be released from her father's clutches. He turned and open palmed her so hard against the side of the face that she staggered. I impotently stepped forward. If I could have willed his death I would have done so. She recovered quickly and the look she directed at him more than adequately reflected the vampire she would become. I think even her father caught a glint of it for he pulled harder and faster to get her to her final destination and away from him.

A hook nosed man waited fervently in the corner, he may or may not have been rubbing his hands together, I honestly can't remember, I was so sickened from the events taking place I couldn't think clearly.

a.s.shole, I mean Eliza's father, pulled the girl flush with himself and then thrust her towards the other man. Eliza looked back defiantly at her father with eyes almost as black as coal. Hooknose pulled some coins out of his pocket and put them in the outstretched hand of Eliza's father. He eyed them greedily, then quickly put them in his own pocket. Eliza spit in her father's face and let loose with a litany I can only imagine was some of the most colorful commentary known up to that period in time.

Her father reared back and looked about to let loose with another vicious blow when Hooknose interceded. He waggled his finger and seemed to be saying that she was his property now and that the father no longer had claim. Eliza's father seemed happy to be rid of the girl, he 'pahed' as he turned and left, still looking at the money he clutched in his hand, never once turning to look at his daughter.

Hooknose was leering. It was not difficult to imagine what he was thinking. Eliza had a hint of fear in her, but she tried her best not to show it, weakness was not a virtue in this world. The scene again whooshed away, but was repeated often throughout the years. Eliza grew older, but there never seemed to be a shortage of lecherous men around. With each transfer of her body, I watched more of her soul become exposed and stripped bare. She looked beaten, worn down, possibly even disease-ravaged. Who knew what she could be carrying from her exposure to the worst of what the world had to offer.

I 'whooshed' again, this time into a market and at first I was unsure as to what I was hearing, then it dawned on me. I was hearing English. A c.o.c.kney version for sure but it was English, I could understand at least a good two thirds of it through the thick accent. I won't even pretend to think that I could 'translate' the rest. I watched as Eliza was coming directly towards me, she looked both fiercely proud and sufficiently beat down it was a strange dichotomy. She looked much like the woman I would come to know as my mortal enemy Eliza, I'll be honest I was scared s.h.i.tless to be this close to her even if she couldn't see me, even if this was only an echo of the past, didn't matter. Here was the woman that had the ways and means and, more importantly, the drive to kill all of those I loved.

I wished I could kill her here, right now, but I also felt a deep pity, her life had been nothing but a cesspool of slavery and deprivation. A man who I had not noticed earlier swept pa.s.sed me on the left on an intercept course for her. For a moment I wondered if he was also 'outside' of this time and knew that she had to be destroyed. He was a destroyer alright, but not just of bodies, souls were included.

I watched as he latched on to her arm much like her father had five maybe six years previous. Her eyes ratcheted up defiantly to look at him, then I watched as the will was sapped out of her and was replaced with rabid fear. She was petrified, but did not struggle as the stranger spoke.

His words were clear and of a higher origin than the rabble strewn around him, who I noticed tried their best to ignore him completely.

"I can give you the world," he promised her. "I can take you away from this filth of humanity. Do you want that?"

Eliza alternated between nodding and shaking her head back and forth. Who wouldn't want out of the s.h.i.t hole she was in, but she was thinking the cost might be steeper than she was prepared to pay.

"Answer me correctly, girl," she stranger said angrily. "Either I will dine and you will die, or I will show you a world you never knew existed."

She was trapped. What were her options? I wonder now, if an Eliza with a soul was able to look back on her life if she would have stayed human. She had spent the last five hundred years making mankind pay for her rotten childhood, think of how many psychiatrists off-spring college tuitions she could have funded in that time. The thought of Eliza on a couch explaining all her problems brought a small smile to my face.

Eliza nodded as the stranger led her into an alleyway much like the one that had first enlisted her into the ranks of slavery, this was slavery but of another sort.

"I am going to feed on you slightly." Eliza's eyes grew wide. "If you live, you will be changed forever. You will be beautiful forever," he said, stroking some stray hair that had fallen across her eyes. Eliza winced but did not move. "When you are strong enough, I want you to meet me in London. There is a pub down by the docks called the Dragoon, I will be there tomorrow night only. If you do not show, it will be because the vampirism did not take." Eliza backed away at that word.

Vampire was still a scary word today. I can't imagine the connotations it held back in these dark ages.

"It would be a pity if you died," he said as he leaned in and bit deeply. Eliza's head tilted back as her eyes rolled up inside her head. Her ruddy cheeks began to drain of all color.

The stranger took his measure and seemed to take a cruel dose of pleasure when Tomas ran up to his sister. He moved swiftly and silently away as Tomas cradled his sister in his arms. I wept at the sight. I figured this was as about as safe as it was ever going to get for me to cry and n.o.body to actually witness it. What little part of her was still left when the vampire came was stripped away like rotten bark on a dead tree.

Her eye's fluttered open as Tomas cascaded her face with his tears. "Tomas? Is that really you, Tomas?" Eliza asked.

"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." I wept even as Tomas uttered the words. He had been minutes from finding his sister still human. But she was not intact, her life thus far had twisted and gnarled her, she would be distrustful and bitter until the day she died, unfortunately the stranger had now extended that indefinitely.

Even as he wept for joy, it was not difficult to tell that he sensed something else happening something evil beyond even his extraordinary sense of empathy.

"What is the matter Lizzie? You are burning up." Tomas asked the question but even from my vantage point I could see the snow around her melting at an alarming rate as if she were a mini sun going nova.

"You should go, Tomas," she said, closing 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."

I had no idea what the boy was referring to, but in these Middle Ages it was never good to be a.s.sociated with witches. His life had most likely only been spared because he had left home to find his sister.

"I love you, Lizzie."

I wanted to turn away this was worse than watching the Hallmark channel.

"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 and 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 as he wiped at his blurring eyes.

"GO!" She pushed him away. Her eyes seemed to produce their own light as she looked at him menacingly. I backed up an extra step. This was more of the Eliza I knew, unbridled power and a deep wish to unleash it on all those around her.