Time & Space (Short Fiction Collection Vol. 2)

by Gord Rollo

  Be well,

  Simon

  June 18, 1870,

  Wittem Castle,

  Maastricht, Netherlands.

  The sun is directly overhead, and without any breeze the heat is nearly unbearable. De Muur puts his back into the tedious shovel work and is soon soaked with sweat. Twenty minutes later the hole beneath the cross is large enough and deep enough to suit his purposes. Time to take what remains of the husk that had recently been Baron Larouche down. He’s nothing but bleached white bones, some holding together on the cross, others already heaped on the ground below.

  De Muur is half way up the ladder when Hendrik comes running from the castle at top speed. He’s out of breath and clearly upset about something by the time he arrives at the foot of the cross.

  “Sir… a messenger just delivered this letter for you.”

  “You read it, Hendrik. I’ve got to get this demon buried and out of sight.”

  “I have read it, sir, and you need to read it right now. It’s from your friend that used to be at the Abbey.”

  “What do you mean, used to be?”

  Hendrik hands him the wrinkled letter.

  De Muur quickly reads Simon Hesler’s letter and then tosses it into the hole he’s dug in the ground. He remains silent for several minutes, thinking. It’s young Hendrik who speaks first.

  “Sir? Does Commander Fenton know about Wittem Castle?”

  “By that, do you mean will the Templar Knights be showing up at our doorstep?”

  Hendrik can only nod.

  “Yes, I think they might. Duncan Fenton and I were very close once, and he knows how much I love this castle. He may not show up personally, but I’m sure someone will.”

  “What do we do then? Obviously we have to leave.”

  “Not we, Hendrik, me. If they dig up some of the bodies in this garden, I’ll be swinging from the gallows soon enough, but no one will blame you. You’re just an employee and that’s all they need know. You’ll stay here and tend to the castle, as always. If I do not return, consider it yours.”

  “But, you’ll need me…”

  “Don’t argue with me. My soul is already lost but there is hope yet for yours. Whether I like it or not, this is a journey I must take alone.”

  “But there are Templar Knights throughout Europe aren’t there? You can’t hide forever. Eventually someone will hear your name and know who you are.”

  “Not necessarily. Not if Arthur De Muur is waiting here to greet whoever Commander Fenton sends.”

  Hendrik is more confused than ever, but De muur simply points to the hole in the ground at their feet.

  “We erect a marker here, beneath this cross, with my name on it in big letters so it can’t be missed. If you’re here and Fenton is told I’m dead, there will be no reason to continue looking for me. I’ll change my name and carry on as before, only this time I’ll kill the vampires where I find them. I’ve learned more than enough about them now. The time to hunt with a vengeance has arrived.”

  “What if they dig up the grave, you know… just to be sure?”

  “We put Baron Larouche’s bones inside. Those teeth will give Fenton something to think about, I’ll bet.”

  Together, they bury Larouche beneath the blackened cross, and begin to make the headstone with De Muur’s name on it.

  “Go prepare my things, Hendrik. I’ll need the stakes, crosses, holy water, garlic, and the silver chains… clothes and toiletries of course, but nothing that isn’t absolutely necessary. I must travel as light as possible and making haste is of the utmost importance. I’ll finish up here.”

  “Yes sir, I’ll handle it. Just out of curiosity, what will your new name be?”

  De Muur considers the question carefully.

  “I honestly don’t know yet, Hendrik. Larouche told me his master can be found in Amsterdam, so something Dutch, I’d imagine. Van Dyck? Van Buren? Van… who knows? Don’t worry… I’ll come up with something.”

  STORY NOTES

  Van… something? Any suggestions? God, I hope you all know who I’m talking about and what his last name is going to be or I haven’t really done a good job with this one. Again, this is a story I like a lot. It has that alternate history angle that I love, what with all the Knights Templar and real locations going on. And vampires… can’t go too wrong with them. Not the sparkly kind, of course, but when they are mean and nasty I’ve always enjoyed a good bloodsucker story.

  Beneath A Templar Cross was written for a mass market anthology being released by one of the major publishing houses in New York. It was about the fictional character my protagonist will eventually become (and no, I’m still not telling you who he is – figure it out!) and I badly wanted to be in that book. I didn’t have an invitation, of course, but it was open to the public to submit so that’s what I did. The trouble was I rushed it, the deadline for submissions sneaking up on me and the version of the story I handed in wasn’t all that great. I received the rejection that I fully deserved and the book went on to be published without me. I really didn’t have anywhere else to try and submit the story to so it sat on my computer going nowhere for a long time. It called to me though, and even though it might be unsellable, I wanted to finish it properly.

  So I did.

  GENOCIDE

  …We wait, in darkness.

  A jet-black room, in a jet-black world.

  Peter is trembling.

  “I hear something. I think they’re coming!”

  “No Peter,” I tell him. “Not yet.”

  “Yes, they are… I can hear them. They’re coming, oh God, they’re coming!”

  “No Peter,” I try again. “It’s still early. Too early.”

  I touch his hand, gently.

  He calms down. A little.

  Again we wait, in darkness…

  Time for us, is quickly running out. You see… Peter and I are condemned to die today – this morning, in fact. Peter is taking it much harder than me, his mind fading in and out like a flickering bulb, but perhaps that’s for the best. It will be easier for him to go to his death while swimming in the deep calm sea of insanity. I’m actually quite happy for him. I envy him!

  Death will be different for me.

  Don’t get me wrong. It would give me great pleasure to join him in that cool void. To swim with him toward the distant shore of our next lives, but I can’t. I’ve come close… believe me, but every time I start running for that frothing surf, something always stops me, pulling me back to shore. My lifeguard or sanity-guard if you will, has a name. Its name is… Anger, or sometimes… Rage, some days even… Hatred! MY ANGER, MY RAGE, MY HATRED!

  Whatever its name, it prevents me from giving in and quitting. So today I will die, but at least it will be with my head held high and proud. My dignity is at least one thing they can’t take from me. Not ever!

  But why must I die? And my friend Peter? Poor, sweet Peter, who’s never harmed a soul in all of his young life. Why must Peter die? The answers escape me. Haunt me.

  You see… neither Peter nor I have any idea as to why we are condemned to die today. We have neither committed nor been formally charged with any crimes. We were never even read our rights. Apparently, we have none. We are simply scheduled for elimination. Peter is almost beyond caring, but I am still very angry. I seethe at the injustice of it all, but there doesn’t seem to be anything that I can do about it.

  …Except wait, in darkness.

  ***

  …We wait, in semi-darkness.

  A sliver of sun peeking over the horizon like a razor slash in the dark throat of night.

  Peter is shaking.

  “Oh God, they’re here. They’re here!”

  “No Peter,” I tell him, “not yet.”

  “Oh God, Oh GOD, OH GOD…!”

  “Easy Peter. Take it easy, it’s still too early.”

  I drape my skinny, bruised arm around him.

  He calms down. A little.

  Again we wait, in semi-da
rkness…

  If my calculations are correct (they’re just thin scratches in our cell floor), Peter and I have been held here for forty-one days. Today is day forty-two. Sadly, for us, it will prove to be a short one, much shorter than the rest of the days have been.

  They began torturing us almost immediately upon our arrival. Poor Peter was taken away first. I could hear his screams echoing down the corridor. They went on and on and on. He returned to our cell bleeding, with glazed vacant eyes. It was my turn next.

  Only so much agony can be registered in the brain. After the pain tolerance threshold has been crossed and re-crossed too many times, the brain simply blocks it all out. By the end of my first session with their needles and their probes and their electricity, my brain had crawled safely away into a dark quiet place. Thank God for small mercies.

  I honestly don’t remember much about the subsequent torture sessions. I blocked them out too. They were daily and brutal, that much I recall. Worse for me than the pain, is the knowledge that Peter and I are not alone. There are more of us imprisoned here. A great many more. Cell after cell full.

  Most of their eyes are as glazed and vacant as Peter’s, but not everyone’s. There are a few, like me, who still wonder what the hell is going on. They’re just as angry and confused as I am. None of them seem to know why they are here either.

  There are rumors, though. Plenty!

  In hushed whispers we talk, vigilant bloodshot eyes on guard for the slightest sign of our unmerciful captors. Peter never takes part in these talks anymore. He talks only to himself. The general consensus is that war must have been declared – a war somebody conveniently forgot to tell us about.

  Genocide.

  That’s the word I hear a lot.

  “They’re going to slaughter our whole race,” someone on my left whispers.

  An old dry voice, two cells down tells me it is happening in other places as well. This house of pain is only one of many. All across the land, we are being herded up and packed into these slaughterhouses. “Death Camps,” the old one calls them. A place to be humiliated, tortured, played with… and then eliminated.

  Genocide.

  Could it be true?

  Could it?

  My mind flashes back to the day Peter and I were captured. Our families had been hungry. Starving. Peter and I took to the streets to beg, borrow and steal – anything to make the pain in our young one’s bellies subside. At least for a little while.

  We were lucky enough to find some food at the rear entrance to an Italian restaurant. It was mostly leftover scraps tossed in the trash, but we did find a tray of untouched pasta that had gone cold and even a fairly fresh loaf of cheese bread. Discarded trash to the rich people whose supper it had been – life to me and Peter’s families.

  We thought we had found heaven.

  What we had found, was a trap!

  Stern faced men in dark clothing quickly surrounded us. We fought bravely, but to no avail. That was forty-one days ago.

  Why?

  God damn it… WHY?

  The old one with the dry gravely voice says it’s because were not like our captors. He says that we’re different and they hate us because of it. He also says that they fear us because we are so different from them.

  Different? So they have the right to kill us?

  Thousands have been eliminated in our captor’s fleshy smelling torture rooms and gas chambers since Peter and I arrived. Thousands will probably die after we are gone. They seem to have a scheduled day to die for every one of us. Today is day forty-two. My day – Peter’s and mine.

  Genocide.

  There’s nothing that we can do about it.

  …Except wait, in semi-darkness.

  ***

  …We wait, in early morning sunlight.

  A blinding sun slowly reaching into our cell with a hand we’d rather not shake.

  Peter is silent, his mind thankfully gone from this terrible place.

  “It’s okay Peter,” I reassure him anyway. “They’re not here yet.”

  I know it’s a lie. I can hear them talking among themselves at the end of the hall.

  I hold Peter close, comforting myself probably more than him.

  It helps me calm down. A little.

  Again we wait, in early morning sunshine…

  It’s strange the things you think about when you know you’re watching the sunrise for the very last time. Of course I’ve been thinking about my family, they are always first and foremost to me. I hope my beautiful wife Heather is going to be okay. Damn these bastards if they ever lay a finger on her. I pray she carries on without me with her head held high and raises our daughter to be strong and proud of our race. I hope my dear little Samantha isn’t too young to remember me. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

  I pray for Peter’s family too, and the rest of the friends and relatives we know. Hopefully, God will spare all of them the fate he has chosen for us.

  Maybe God doesn’t have any say in it.

  Who does then? When I think of our captors it makes me want to scream. One second I want to rip their well fed guts apart, the next I find myself praying for their souls. I hate them for what they are doing, but I’m not capable of hating them the way they seem capable of hating me. Like the old dry voiced prisoner keeps telling me – I’m different. Our race doesn’t hate someone without a reason, like they do.

  They?

  Who are… THEY?

  That’s something I wonder about. I wonder who it was that has ordered me and Peter do die? Who’s calling the shots, in other words? What does he look like? How can he possibly go to sleep at night feeling at ease and justified in what he’s doing? I’ll probably never know. I do know that it isn’t one of the big sweaty men around here that are in control. There has to be people above them. Their boss, or perhaps even higher – who knows just how high up the chain of command the orders come from.

  In this poor excuse of a degenerating world we live in, the almighty corporate dollar is usually the boss. Those in control of the money are those in control of the power. Some people will step on and destroy anything and anyone that gets in their way of obtaining this power. Once they have it, they’ll crush anyone trying to take it away.

  It’s really sickening, but quite obviously true.

  Peter and I are living examples of this modern greed.

  Not for long, though. Soon we’ll be dead examples!

  They’re coming for us now. I can hear heavy footsteps rhythmically echoing off the cement floor, like a grandfather clock chiming out the hour.

  The hour of our death.

  We are removed from our small cell and roughly taken to the torture chamber at the far end of the hall. The sad, haunted eyes of our fellow prisoners follow along with us.

  Our executioners are huge muscular men in pale white uniforms. They tower above us like giants as they strap us down on a large blood stained table. Maybe it’s just my fear that makes them seem so large. After all, I am very frightened.

  One of them notices me trembling and it makes him smile. He simply walks away to help his partner prepare our death. We watch helplessly, as they fill two shockingly large syringes with some unknown amber liquid. There’s not much time left for Peter and I. We look into each other’s terrified eyes and pray. Besides that, there’s nothing left to do.

  …Except wait, in early morning sunshine.

  ***

  …I wait, in silence.

  A paralyzing fear gripping my heart like a thousand slowly tightening cast iron bands.

  Peter is dead.

  “They murdered him,” my mind screams.

  They are going to murder me next.

  “No!” I try to convince myself, but I know it’s true.

  I can clearly see them preparing the next needle for me.

  I’m trying to stay calm, but my composure is starting to slip. A little.

  Alone I wait, in silence…

  How can they be doing this to me? Wha
t have I done to deserve being treated like this? So what if I’m different than them, these people aren’t God. I have every right to live in peace.

  Don’t I?

  The smaller of the two men slowly walks toward me. He has the long needle in his bloody hand. Poor Peter’s blood!

  I have time to pray for Peter and hope he’s moved onto a better place. A place where there’s no more pain… no more hate. I say a quick prayer for myself too.

  And then the syringe is viciously jabbed into me.

  I feel the tip of it enter me just above the base of my long pink tail. My sharp claws are digging involuntarily into the hard wooden table and the whiskers on my face are beginning to twitch spastically as the poison swiftly courses through my small furry body.

  Why is this happening?

  Why?

  Through a haze I see and hear my two executioners talking above me. I see that it says 'LAB TECHNICIAN' on the pocket of each of their white coats. They’re talking about me… saying something about some big cosmetics company and how they’re trying really hard to develop new products for them.

  That can’t be it!

  Please tell me that I’m not dying just so some big company can get rich developing a new shade of lipstick. Please tell me that isn’t true! Who gave them the right to decide my life was worth so little?

  Maybe if I shout out to them, scream my little heart out, maybe they’ll begin to understand. I could let them know that I’m more than just some disposable plaything to experiment with. I could tell them that I have feelings just like them. I get scared, I get lonely, and I get confused!

  I wonder if they would even care?

  I wonder if anyone cares?

  My strength is almost gone now. I’m struggling for just a few more ragged breaths. I know I should at least try to make them understand but it just wouldn’t do any good. I’m just a little nameless white rat, and my feeble words would never be enough to put a stop to this madness. The corporate heads of business and science that run this world will always carry more weight then the little defenseless animals like me.