by Amy Cross
Taking a look back at the path that led to his home, the boy recognized that he would never return to this place, not for many years. He would never see Hanmar again, and he would never rejoin his old life, but he had a sense of a much wider world out there, waiting for him.
He was ready for anything.
So the boy turned away from home, and he followed the river, and he walked and walked and walked. He liked being alone, and he knew that it suited him, even if he also knew that he would sometimes have to talk to people. Along the way, he put his new-found strength to the test, bringing down animals twice his size and eating directly from their bodies, sometimes even drinking their blood. All of this filled him with new strength. When he eventually met a party of raiders, they attacked him and ran him through with swords, yet he was still able to kill them all and keep walking. His wounds healed, and he finally understood that something very unusual was happening to him. He also felt a sense of destiny, something wrapped up in the heartbeat that urged him to keep walking. He would find the people he needed to find. He would live. He would breathe. He would die many times over. He would fight. He would love. And for now, he would explore his new strengths and his new powers, and he would discover the truth about himself, so that he could hide it from others.
He would eventually become the last vampire, but long before that he was also, once, the first.
Dark Season II
Book 0
20th Century Vampire
(A Dark Season Prequel)
According to legend, only one vampire survived the great war. He was buried alive in a pit of fire, and he would have remained down there forever if he had not been filled with the desire to fulfill an ancient prophecy. A charred, blackened husk of a man, he was in such pain that he couldn't even think. He struggled beneath the surface of the Earth, looking for a way out, and he crawled and crawled and crawled for more than ten years, crossing whole continents and moving beneath the rocky floors of great oceans. Finally, pure chance brought him to the surface once again, in the midst of another war...
Prologue
August 1917, just outside the village of Passchendaele in Belgium.
The mud explodes in my hands, engulfing me with a bright white flash that knocks me several feet into the air. I land with a thud and it takes me a moment to realize that I've landed on top of another dead body. I roll off and splat down into the mud. It's dark all around now, but the night sky is lit up regularly by flashes from artillery fire that illuminate dark shapes strewn around the ground. I know what those shapes are: the bodies of my fellow soldiers.
I could die here. There's no need to keep fighting. I could just let myself die, and I'd be hailed as a hero. It would be, all things considered, a good death.
With the sound of gunfire and screaming all around, I struggle to my feet. I feel dizzy, and my head is ringing. I look down at my hands. The explosion tore off most of my fingers: the bones are gone, and the flesh of each finger hangs like a ragged strip. Strangely, the sight of blood and bone - even my own - doesn't disgust me at all. I just stare at the injury, and for some reason I smile. There's no pain, no shock, no horror. Just wry amusement at the way my body has been damaged. It's almost as if I'm staring at a child's toy.
Nearby, there's another huge explosion, loud and bright.
I look up and see a bank of fog swirling toward me. Must be a fire somewhere. And then, out of the fog, there emerges a staggering, limping human shape. Clearly injured, perhaps even worse than me, the shape is heading straight toward me. Although it occurs to me that I should try to defend myself, I just stand and wait. There's nothing that this person can do to me that would hurt now. This war is over for me, whether I live or die.
As the limping figure gets closer, I see that its injuries are truly horrific. This man - if it can still be said to be a man - is burnt to a crisp from head to toe. Two white eyes stare out at me, with an inhuman look of detached shock. We stare at each other, experiencing a brief moment of connection. I don't know if he understands what has happened to him, and if he knows that he's going to die. It's as if he's looking at me and hoping for an answer, hoping that I'll step toward him and make everything okay. I can't, though. He's beyond salvation.
Slowly, he raises his hands up to his face, and looks at his own burnt skin. He opens his mouth, as if he's about to say something, but no words come out. Then he drops to his knees, and finally he falls face-first into the mud.
And then he's still.
And it starts to rain.
"God bless," I say, but I can barely hear my own voice because now the rain is really pounding down, louder than all the explosions and gunfire. The muddy ground quickly becomes a swamp, with little puddles forming and small rivers flowing with water and blood, and the burnt man's body just remains where it fell. The strange thing is, I've seen hundreds of men die during this war. Maybe thousands. But there's something about this man, about the way he died, that strikes me as somehow different. What that difference might be, I can't quite say, but it feels almost as if this man was not the same as all the others.
I become aware of a whining, whistling sound getting closer and closer. I look up into the rain and I see something dark falling from the sky. A bomb. There's no time to run. I just watch it fall. It's going to land almost on top of me. I watch and wait. Even as the rain hits my eye, I don't blink. I just wait.
As the bomb hits the ground and explodes, I close my eyes. A wall of white heat hits me. If this is how I'm going to die, it's pathetic.
Part One
August 1917
Passchendaele, Belgium
Joe Hart
"So what's your name?" the orderly asks, not looking up from his clipboard.
"Joe," I say quietly.
"He doesn't talk much," says Carstairs, the annoying English guy from the next bed.
"Thank you, sir," says the orderly. "I don't need your help. So. Joe. What's your surname? Joe what?"
The hospital ward is bright but stuffy. None of the windows can be opened, because of the danger of infection, so the patients - all twenty or so of us - have to sit and breathe and fart and bleed in this hot room, with no chance of escape. It's enough to drive a man crazy. In fact, I'm not entirely sure that it hasn't already driven me crazy. I don't feel very much like myself these days. It's as if someone else has climbed into my head and taken control, while my mouth just gives the answers that other people want to hear.
"Joe what?" the orderly asks again, sounding annoyed. He still doesn't look directly at me.
"Hart," I say with a sigh. "Corporal Joseph Hart."
"American," says the orderly, not sounding very impressed.
"As it happens," I reply. "Why, is that a problem?"
"Not for me," the orderly says. "How old are you?"
"Twenty-five," I say.
"Huh." He finishes writing something on his clipboard. "Okay, that's all I need," he says, turning and walking away.
"Hey!" I shout out. "When am I getting out of here?"
He doesn't bother to answer. I look down at my hands, or what's left of them: each hand is a fingerless blob, covered in bandages. The funny thing is, given everything that happened, I'm actually one of the lucky ones. They tell me that so far almost half a million men have died at Passchendaele, and that's just on our side. God knows how many Germans are dead. Apparently the rain means that many of the bodies are lost, mashed together in the mud, and of course the battle is still raging. Men are still out there dying every second, on both sides, for no reason other than that their superiors want to control a small but strategically important village.
A sharp pain rips up my left side. I've been having this pain since I woke up in hospital two days ago. The only thing that relieves it is if I get up and walk around, so I swing my legs over the side of the bed and get to my feet. I'm still unsteady, but at least I can walk without help, which is more than most of the other poor bastards in this ward can say. Tottering away from my bed, I
look at the faces of the other patients as I pass them. Almost without fail, they look at me with blank expressions. Like me, they've seen horrific things in this war. Although I feel so much anger and fear and sorrow, I can't help wondering whether - to other people - I have a blank expression too.
Leaving the ward, I slowly limp into the corridor. Doctors and nurses rush past me, too busy with the latest arrival of wounded soldiers, too busy with their daily battles, to notice me. That's fine; I didn't come out here for attention. I came out here to get away from the hot stink of the other patients.
"My God," says an unfamiliar English voice behind me. I turn to find a middle-aged doctor with gray hair and a perfectly round, friendly face. "What are you doing up? If you can walk, you should be out of here!" He laughs. "Don't worry, only joking." He looks down at my bandaged hands, and he nods. "Ah," he says. "I've heard about you. No fingers left, huh?"
I pause for a moment, not sure how to reply. I've become so used to the way that everyone politely avoids saying anything direct around this place; it's a little odd to have this guy being so forward and... well, cheery about my injuries.
"Sorry," he continues. "We do talk, though. Around here, there's not much to do but gossip about our patients. But don't worry, we don't say anything rude. We -" He pauses. "I'm sorry," he says. "I'm disturbing you."
"No," I say, glad to be talking to someone... anyone. "It's fine." I hold up my bandaged hands. "You're right. No fingers."
Together, we start walking slowly along the corridor.
"Doctor Richard Tarmey," the friendly man says. He reaches out to shake my hand, but then realizes I can't. "Sorry," he says.
I smile. For the first time in ages, it's a genuine, proper smile. "Joe Hart," I say. "Corporal."
"American!" Tarmey replies. "Yes, we were talking about you just a couple of hours ago. In fact..." He pauses, seeming a little uncomfortable. "You're a bit of a mystery, did you know that?"
I frown. "Me?" I ask. "I'm just Joe Hart from Kentucky. There's nothing mysterious about me."
"There is, you know," Tarmey says. "In fact, there are two mysterious things about you. And the fact that you're completely unaware of them is, in itself, yet another mysterious thing to add to the list."
Reaching the end of the corridor, we stop by a window. "What's going on?" I ask.
He smiles awkwardly. "Don't worry," he says. "It's nothing to worry about. It's just... Most of us have been working here for six months, since the hospital was set up. And we've seen thousands of people come through here, and in that time we've developed a kind of... understanding of what war does to a man. To his body, to his mind. And you..." He takes a deep breath. "Your injuries... Look, I know what happened to your hands, and that's awful. But considering where you were found, and considering that a bomb went off almost on top of you, it's a miracle there's anything left of you at all. The fact that you're walking around in one piece..."
"It's a miracle," I say. "I know. I understand that. But God -"
"You believe in God, Corporal Hart?" he interrupts. "Really? After all of this?"
"Yes, I do," I say. "More than ever. God isn't responsible for what mankind does. God just looks after us and..." I pause. I'm not sure what to say. The same old phrases I've been using all my life suddenly seem old and tired. Most of them are borrowed from my mother, anyway; she used to constantly remind us to be grateful for our supper, even when our land was in ruins. "I believe in God," I say firmly.
Tarmey narrows his eyes as he stares at me for a moment, and then finally he smiles. "There's something else," he says. "Ordinarily, a story like yours could be chalked up to luck. Or a miracle, if you prefer to use that terminology. Freakish things happen. Except..." He glances both ways along the corridor, as if he's worried that we might be seen, and then he indicates for me to follow him. We walk toward a door, at which point Tarmey stops and turns to me with a serious look on his face. "There's the small matter of your friend."
I stare at him. "What friend?" I ask after a moment.
"The man we found you with," he says.
I open my mouth to argue with him, but suddenly there's a flash of memory in my mind: a burnt man, stumbling toward me from the fog, staring at me with wild eyes before collapsing in the mud. And then there's a whistle, and I look up and... I don't remember anything else.
Tarmey opens the door and we go into the room. There's nothing in here except for a curtain screen at the far end, with something behind it. Tarmey carefully shuts the door behind us.
"Come on," he says, and he leads me to the curtain screen. "Do you remember your friend?"
I'm not sure what to say. I want to say that I don't, that I have no idea what Tarmey is talking about, but this seems strangely familiar.
Without saying another word, Tarmey pulls the curtain screen aside. I take a step back as I see the burnt man. In the harsh artificial light of this little room, it's shocking to see his blackened, charred skin, with little hints of red meat and blood poking through. It's as if he's been on a barbecue.
"Recognize him?" Tarmey asks.
I nod slowly. "Just before the explosion," I say. "He came toward me. He was alive and then... and then he collapsed and..." I force myself to look at the body, even though the injuries and burns are horrific. I swallow hard, and I feel as if I might throw up. "I don't know who he was," I say. I turn and suddenly I can't control myself: I rush to the corner and vomit onto the floor.
"A natural reaction," Tarmey says. "Of course, I'm kind of de-sensitised to these things."
I wipe my mouth on the sleeve of my shirt, but I don't turn back to look at the body. "Lucky you," I say.
There's a pause.
"This man is not dead," Tarmey says suddenly.
I still don't turn back to look. "What?" I ask.
"This man is not dead," Tarmey says again. "He has 99.9% fourth degree burns, extending through the skin into subcutaneous tissue and even into underlying muscle and bone. He's basically cooked all the way through. There's even heat damage to his heart and other organs. But he's not dead. And day by day, slowly by surely, he's getting better. His wounds are healing."
"He can't be alive," I say, finally forcing myself to turn and look back over at the body..
Tarmey nods. "He opens his eyes sometimes. Not often, and not for long, and he doesn't make eye contact with anyone. But just sometimes, he opens his eyes and stares at the ceiling. I've seen it happen. It's like he's... waiting... until his body is healed enough for him to get out of here."
I walk slowly back over to Tarmey and the body. "How the hell does a man survive something like that?" I ask.
Tarmey shakes his head. "Ordinarily, he doesn't. Ordinarily, he'd have been dead a long time ago. But then..." He looks me up and down. "I could say the same about you."
"Me?"
"Look at it from my point of view. Two men, both found alive in places where a bomb just went off. Two men who should have been killed instantly, yet they're both, in different ways, essentially okay. Two men who defy all logic and who defy the experience of every doctor in this facility."
I look at the burnt man. "He was like this before the bomb went off."
"I figured as much," says Tarmey. "Believe it or not, there's something else that's odd about this guy. His injuries aren't consistent with Passchendaele. Not remotely."
"What do you mean?" I ask.
"I mean... He hasn't been shot, he hasn't been bayoneted, he hasn't been blown up. He didn't drown in the mud. He just got burnt. Really, really badly burnt, in a way that's inconsistent with anything else that happened on that battlefield." He smiles wistfully. "Corporal Hart, Passchendaele is the most horrific theater of war that mankind has ever created. And yet it's as if this man was right in the middle of it, having a completely different war all of his own. I can't even tell you if he's British or German, or American like yourself, or what. It's like..." He shrugs. "I don't know what it's like. I was hoping you could tell me something abou
t all of this."
I shake my head. "I don't know anything about anything," I say. I look down at my stumpy, bandaged hands. "I just want to get out of here and get back to the front-line," I say. "They need me."
Tarmey narrows his eyes a little. He's clearly thinking, clearly trying to decide whether he accepts what I'm saying. "I believe you," he says eventually. "I really do. But that doesn't help much. We still have a mystery on our hands." He glances at my bandaged stumps. "Sorry, bad use of words."
He leads me out of the room, back into the corridor. As he pulls the door shut gently, it's clear that there's something weighing on his mind.
"He's healing?" I ask. "You said he's healing, right?"
"Slowly," Tarmey says.
I nod. "So... eventually you'll be able to ask him what's going on. You'll be able to get it straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak."
"I guess so," Tarmey says. "I'll be very interested to hear what he has to say."
"Me too," I say. "I guess you won't need me, though. There's nothing I can tell you, so just leave me out of it, okay?" With that, I turn and limp away along the corridor. I'm still not totally healthy, and all this walking around has made me tired.
When I get to my bed, I climb in and get ready to sleep, but I suddenly realize that Carstairs from the next bed is staring at me. "What do you want?" I ask.
"You got any cigarettes?" he asks.
"No!" I say, annoyed at him. "Get your own."
"Fat chance," Carstairs says. "Don't you know there's a war on?"
