Vigil

by Saunders, Craig

  He pulled his neck around with sheer will and she ran from him, leaving her mobile phone on the floor behind her.

  He could see further now that she was not filling his vision. There was a building in front of him. It was an apartment block. He could make out the name of the building on a plaque above the front door. A man came through the door at a run, perhaps to see what the screaming was about. Tom’s ears began to work again, and he could hear the man asking him in French if he could hear him, if he could speak.

  The man took his own mobile phone from a pouch on his belt and began speaking into the phone.

  Tom fought through the haze that was his thoughts. Something was different. Wrong, somehow. These people were talking on mobile phones. Mobile phones hadn’t worked for years. There was no power. He could see a hint of grey sky above. He was topside, out in the fresh air. He could feel the breeze caressing his face. His legs and arm were still numb, but he tried to push himself up with his right arm. Feeling was coming back to his left arm. At first it began with a tingling of blood rushing to his fingertips, then he was aware of a world of pain.

  The man was speaking into the phone, telling someone to come quickly, it was an emergency. Then he was saying it was OK, he would stay on the phone until the ambulance came. But there were no ambulances. There were vampires, and guns, and death and the endless hunt. The world belonged to the night kin. Where was he that there could be an ambulance, and by extension a hospital for it to take him to?

  He pushed himself from the ground with a grunt and a scream of agony. He sat up straight and pulled his left arm from underneath his body. He looked down at last and noted with hazy confusion that his lower body was facing the wrong way.

  The man was pale with fear, saying over and over that he, Tom, should stay still, don’t try to move, oh God don’t move, oh Jesus, oh fuck…and Tom saw the problem. Part of his upper arm was broken and the bone was poking through his skin into his back. He noted with amusement that he was naked. No time, though. There was urgency. He felt it come through his haze and make his heart quicken. He pulled down and out on his arm and the bone returned under the skin. Then the skin began to heal over and the man with the mobile phone beside his ear took one gasp of air and then passed out.

  Tom realised that there were other people crowding around him now.

  He was beginning to remember. He was in the past. This was a world he had known long ago. This was a place he remembered well. It was the street he had lived on once when he was younger before…what?

  The end of the world.

  In the future. It was coming. He had to stop it.

  It was easier to turn his torso round that to turn his legs so he turned to face the pavement once again and suddenly his legs, too, were overtaken by pins and needles.

  His hearing was becoming clearer and he was aware that the light was hurting his eyes. A thought came from out of nowhere: why didn’t I come through at night?

  He hated the light. It burned. He laid his face on the pavement while the pain in his hips, his legs, awoke with full force. He kept his eyes closed. He could hear the wail of an ambulance coming…coming for him.

  He didn’t want to be here when the ambulance came. He could not answer questions. There was too much to do.

  But what did he have to do?

  Save the world. Kill his father.

  Kill his father? He did not care enough about his father to kill him. Why would he think that? Think later. Get away. For now. Get away.

  He rose on unsteady legs, the left on still buckled at the knee. He was naked, in a Paris city street, and surrounded by chattering, screaming people. He had no answers for the questions that people were saying, to themselves, to others who were watching Tom healing.

  How did he do that? My God, what is he? How, how, why, why…

  With strong hands he pulled his patella back into place with a grinding crunch and a scream and he ran, pushing the people out of his way, hurling them from his path with power that he did not know he had. He ran down the street, faster, so fast. The air was glorious on his skin. His strength was returning. He felt better than he had for years.

  But how could he run so fast? He had a memory of a broken leg, badly healed, a weak heart…and he was old? How old was he? He looked at the firm supple skin of his legs and arms as they pumped him faster and faster down the street, away from the people who had seen him heal and past different people who cried out in surprise or laughed as he ran naked down street after street, trying to find somewhere quiet to rest and think.

  He needed time to think, but he did not have time. Time was ticking away. He was acutely aware of it. Time was something he did not have. He was not mortal, but he did not belong in this world. This world was in danger.

  He had come to save it.

  He stopped, barely panting, in a dark alleyway, thinking, his mind waking now and synapses firing.

  He had come to save the world. To save it from his kind. To save it from his father.

  His father was going to end the world.

  Fallon Corporation. The place of the birth of the vampire nation.

  This world was the past and with a cry of remembrance he fell to his knees in the shadows of the alleyway. He had come from that world and travelled through time to get to this world.

  He remembered the time he had set in the computer. He needed to know if this was the right time. The right place. If it was he did not have long.

  Good people had died so that he might save this world.

  He remembered them very well. He cried red tears for the loss of his friends as he searched for something to wear.

  And a newspaper.

  *

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Paris

  2025 A.D.

  Pre-Apocalypse

  Tom leaped over a high fence and took some clothes from a washing line in someone’s back garden. The shirt was short in the sleeves and the trousers were far too tight, but he managed to get a few buttons done and the fly on the trousers most of the way to the top.

  He could not afford to be choosy. He would look homeless, perhaps. If he looked bad enough then maybe people would look away from him. He did not need to draw attention to himself.

  He jumped over the fence again and began walking. He had bare feet but people hardly ever looked down at a man’s feet. If he could get into a crowd he could lose himself.

  He turned the corner at the end of the alleyway and emerged into a suburb, surrounded by high buildings. That they were standing was remarkable. He tried to stop himself from crying as he walked along the streets, passing people unaware of the cataclysm to come and the world darkened by death. Their clothes were bright. They spoke to each other with smiles and gentle words. Those that were alone walked down the street calmly, unafraid, the expressions on their faces something Tom had not seen for more years than he cared to remember. The people were well fed, content and safe.

  Cars filled the road, a sight he had forgotten in the years since the fall. Even the stupid cars made tears well in his eyes.

  He took a deep breath and walked down the street, trying to ignore the strange stares he got from people from the way he was dressed. He heard sirens in a distant street and wondered if it was the police or an ambulance searching for him. He needed to get off the city streets and reach his destination but he needed to be sure of the date before he did anything.

  He saw a café with a newspaper stand beside it. He had no money but as he approached he could read the date well enough.

  He had two days. Two days to save the world. He had planned for a week. The process was not accurate, but to arrive in the right city only five days late was remarkable.

  He did not have time to marvel at the wonder of it all. If he lived through the next two days he swore to himself that he would find a quiet spot in the countryside and live out his life in wonder. But for now he had something to do.

  He did not remembered everything about life before the fa
ll with perfect clarity, but he remembered one thing well enough.

  His old address.

  He put his head down and walked toward the apartment where he would be coming home from his day’s work at Fallon Corp.

  He hadn’t had time to worry about what would happen if he met himself after going back in time.

  He didn’t have time to worry now. He had but one chance to save the world, but he couldn’t risk his own life. If he died before the fall, he would not be here now. The nature of paradox was uncertain, as it should be. He did not know if he would cease to exist in this world if his past self should die, but he did not want to take the chance. He had to take what precautions he could.

  He reached his old apartment block, long since gone, and broken the front door open with a push. He climbed the stair to his floor, and waited for the sun to go down. It would be about this time that he would be coming back from work.

  *

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Tom Fallon's Apartment

  Tom Fallon turned the key in the front door to his apartment. He pushed the door open and stepped into the hallway. He juggled his shopping and his shoulder bag out of the way, set his keys on a round table he had bought from a second hand store and checked his messages.

  He listened to a long message from a girl he had been seeing, who he no longer intended to see. When the message had ended he deleted it, then headed into the kitchen. The kitchen was at the back of the apartment. It led onto a small balcony. He took his purchases from a hemp bag that he always carried with him, in his shoulder bag on the way to work, ready for his evening shopping. He always bought his evening dinner from the small market. He was a man who shopped day to day. He was single. He could please himself as to what he ate. Today he had fresh pasta, spoiled somewhat by the ready made jar of sauce to accompany it.

  Lastly, he took a bottle of red wine from the bag, set it on the side. The bottle opener was hanging from a hook on the tall fridge. Once he had a large glass of wine in his hand he walked through the apartment, sat on the couch. Then he promptly dropped the glass onto the pale rug that warmed the cold floorboards as Tom Fallon emerged from his bedroom.

  ‘Don’t say anything, just listen.’

  ‘What the fuck?’

  The elder, harder Tom Fallon walked across the room and slapped his younger self hard enough to bring tears to his eyes.

  ‘Don’t make me repeat myself. I haven’t got time. If you want to live, you’ll listen.’

  The younger Tom Fallon shut his gapping mouth and sat with his hands in his lap.

  ‘Good. I don’t want to hurt you. Believe me when I say that. Now, I’m going to tell you some things. You’re going to have many questions, but I can’t give you the answers. When I’ve finished, perhaps we’ll talk for a while,’ Tom looked at the watch on his wrist, a spare he had found in the bedroom. He was dressed in his own clothes, clothes he hadn’t seen for too many years. The trousers he had been forced to cinch tight with a brown leather belt. He was leaner that he had been in his twenties. He remembered his younger days all too well. Too little exercise, too much sitting around on couches.

  When he heard the girl’s voice on the answering machine, he remembered the sporadic love life he had enjoyed as a young man. He’d wasted his life on work and study and forgotten the important things in life. He intended to change that.

  How many people had a chance to go back to their younger selves, tell them a few truths about life, where they were going to end up?

  Hopefully, this child before him would never have to see the things he had seen. He had a chance to live a full life free of fear.

  Tom checked his watch again and forced himself to stop obsessing. He knew the time. He knew well enough what he had to do and how long he had.

  He took a seat himself and rubbed a hand over his face.

  ‘Can I ask a question?’

  ‘No, but in answer to the question you can’t ask, I am you. From now on, don’t waste time telling yourself this can’t be happening, because it is. I’m you, a you that could be. If things go the way I hope, you’ll never be like me. Your father, our father, is in the process of creating an experiment. There is a secret facility underneath the one in which you work. The project must not be completed. It is essential that it fails, because in a two days time a plague, also the brainchild of our father, is going to be unleashed on the world. The world as you know it will cease to exist. It becomes a nightmare world. I am from that world. I have seen things I hope you never will. I have become something other than you would believe.’

  The elder Tom nodded wearily as his younger self flicked his hand as though asking permission to speak in class.

  ‘I’ve been all over the facility. There is no secret facility. Besides, father may not be perfect, but he’s a philanthropist. Fallon Corp. research has done more good than any other in the world.’

  ‘Jesus, was I ever as dumb as you? The basis for much of the advances in his research was...is...built on a lie. He is driven by his desire to complete his project. Even in his coma he is more dangerous than you can imagine.’

  ‘You know about that?’

  ‘Don’t waste time on stupid questions. I know everything you know. Just take that as read and we’ll save time and make this quicker. I can’t stay here.’

  ‘I can’t believe this. You understand that.’

  Tom smiled at himself. He remembered the way he had thought, as a young man. He had been an idealist at one point. He had thought he was working toward a perfect world, in a time when disease and injury could be cured, all ills healed. It was a world on the cusp of evolution, born of science. Would death itself one day be overcome? He remembered dreaming about that, fervently believing his work could help mankind. Well, death had been overcome. But the price of immortality was life.

  Could his younger self understand? He did not think so. He didn’t have time to waste on a lecture that would last hours just to be discarded as a bad dream. The human mind had an amazing capacity to glaze over the things it could not hold.

  Would Tom convince himself that this had never happened? He thought he probably would.

  As long as he did what he was told until it didn’t matter anymore.

  ‘I have a few things to tell you. I need you to listen. I don’t understand enough about the nature of time to be sure. But if you die, I believe I will die, too, and I don’t want either of us to die if I can help it. I’m going to do something, and you can’t be around. When I leave, you are going to get on the first train out of Paris. Leave the country, buy a one way ticket.’

  ‘I can’t just leave,’ he said.

  Tom was out of his chair before his younger self could move. He had him round the throat in an instant.

  ‘You will leave, or I will tear your head from your shoulders and take my chances.’

  Tom threw himself back against the couch.

  ‘Now, don’t push your luck. You’re young, and this is left field, but there isn’t time to spend persuading you. I don’t think I’ll die if I break your arm. Bear that in mind.’

  The younger Tom nodded, suddenly afraid as he had not been before.

  ‘You will get on the first train out of Paris. No more arguments. Paris will soon become a place you do not want to be near. I’m taking your key card to the complex. I’m close enough to you to pass muster. I have just one piece of advice for you.’

  Tom took a breath and his eyes softened.

  ‘Many good people died for me to be here. I loved some. I respected them all. But I was alone for many years. I would not have you end up like me. I wasted my life. I can see you wasting yours.’

  The advice a parent gives a child isn’t the same as the advice you would give yourself. A child is told, work hard, study, be kind, be true to yourself. But when you talk to yourself there can only be truth.

  ‘My advice is this; love more. Life is for sharing.’

  Tom rose and held his hand out for the key card.


  The younger Tom handed it to him.

  ‘Get up.’

  He rose. The elder Tom hugged him.

  ‘I was always a good kid. Don’t think for one minute this is a dream.’ Tom held his younger self at arm’s length and took a good look at him. ‘Don’t waste this chance. Go, now. Don’t pack. Just go.’ He pushed him gently to the door.

  He watched him leave. He heard sirens in the distance, but he didn’t think it would be a problem for his younger self. They were different enough. After all, they were not the same person. Time had seen to that.

  Tom leapt from the stairs and ran into the night, the key card clutched in his hand.

  The downfall of his father’s empire must come this night.

  Tom ran through the darkening night, running toward his destiny.

  *

  The Parisian Countryside

  2025 A.D.

  Year Zero: Apocalypse

  The elder vampire has had centuries to learn. Centuries to think. He is wiser, more intelligent, better educated, than any creature of the earth.

  And yet he has failed, because for all his intellect he has forgotten one simple fact. When he was born, he was feral.

  The John Fallon upon the bed of his rebirth, chained in silver, with a knife at his throat, can no more hold discourse than read a book, write a note, drink a glass of milk, even. He is nothing but a beast.

  The John Fallon holding the knife has come centuries to meet himself and in doing so, understand what he was, and what he has become, and it is all for nought.

  *

  Part Six

  UnSub1

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  1949

  Nevada Desert

  U.S. Army Research Station Designation Osceola

  There was movement. They didn’t drug me. There was no bag over my head. These things would have made no difference for me. I could see through most materials. They hadn’t thought to test my eyesight. Drugs didn’t work for me. The only thing that could have made me insensible for a time was massive brain injury. I suppose they could have injected silver directly into my brain, but after they had seen the damage silver did to my body I believe they knew it was too dangerous for me.