Lycan Fallout: Rise Of The Werewolf (44 page)

It was not a plan that completely lacked in merit. I turned and began to swim back. Bailey seemed unruffled as I came out of the water naked. She had started a small fire in my absence.

“You will need clothes if you wish to hunt Lycan,” she said as she tended to the flame.

“And what of you, Bailey?”

“It is my place much like BTe m/p>

“If you remember correctly, that didn’t work out too particularly well for him.”

Bailey looked at me queerly. “He lived a long life, surrounded by family and loved ones, and he had an incredible tale to tell his children and then their children. Would you deny me that?” she asked.

“I would not.”

“When do we start then?”

“I suppose we already have,” I told her.

Tomas’ mother died during his birthing. His head, which had been abnormally large, had torn the lining within her birthing canal. She had bled out on the fur and dirt floor of their mud hut in 1500s Germany. His father had never forgiven him that. If not for Tomas’ sister Eliza, Tomas would have joined his mother in the afterlife. Henrick had wanted nothing to do with the baby. He had let it wail in the afterbirth for hours before he had allowed Eliza entry.

“Shut that thing up no matter what it takes,” he told her in their
severe sounding native language.

Eliza was five at the time. She had run in and dropped down to her mother’s side. A small sob escaped as she looked upon the rapidly purpling body of her mother. A pool of blood spread between her legs, a fat cherub of a baby crying throatily. There was nothing she could do for her mother, but her brother she could love and would. They were all each other had. Henrick was a cruel man that ruled with fear, intimidation and often fists. Eliza figured her mother had probably welcomed the darkness when she saw it coming.

She grabbed the kettle of hot water the midwife had been using, some clothes and more furs. She first grabbed the baby who immediately quieted down from the contact. She cleaned him up and then swaddled him in the furs.

“What shall we name you?” Eliza asked the smiling baby.

“How about leech,” her father had suggested, coming back into their hovel. “Another mouth to feed. She should have just taken the baby with her.”

Eliza subconsciously shielded the baby; one never knew when an attack from Henrick was imminent. He had various trigger points some could be set off by no more than a cross look. And that was how it went for another five years, Tomas became attached to Eliza’s hip, wherever the young girl went so did Tomas. From an early age Eliza knew Tomas was different, he would often warn her when father was coming home. It was safer for them to feign sleep; he was less likely to strike them although that defense didn’t always work.

Tomas always knew where to find untended food. They had survived on his ability to feed them. Tomas clung to Eliza as the only mother he had ever known and Eliza had loved her brother. He was her oasis in a desert of desolation. Eliza had already started talking to Tomas about leaving; it was a fantasy of theirs. She would often times tell him of the land of dragons, where children were treated as lords and they were given sweets along with their meats.

“Is this true?” he would nearly beg her.

“Every word.” She would smile at him.

Eliza’s bright outlook on life began to dim when Henrick stepped over the line from physical abuse to sexual. Tomas had watched as his father forced himself upon the girl. Her first scream of pain had sent him into a fury and he had banged his small hands against his father’s back. He had been rewarded with a punch to the side of the head that sent him reeling into the corner. He fell over backwards, his head slamming hard into the stone hearth. Blood had leaked out from his ears as he sat up; his thoughts became scrambled from that point forward. For a moment, he wasn’t even sure who the two other people in the hovel were.

When Henrick was done, he stood, pulled his pants back up and fastened his crude belt. Eliza sobbed on the floor, blood and semen spilling from her.

“Oh, Tomas,” Eliza had cried, having difficulty sitting up. When she could, she came over to him and cleaned his wound. It was strenuous for him to keep his eyes focused on any one object.

“Are you a dragon?” he had asked before he passed out.

It was a few more years before Henrick sold his daughter to the highest bidder. He had traded her life for corn meal. Tomas had become slow, not stupid, from his father’s strike. He knew he would be next.
Maybe for some rice
, he thought sourly. For a year longer he had stayed with his father, the beatings becoming more frequent as Henrick dealt with his demons in the only manner he knew how.

Tomas had slipped out in the middle of the night, but not before he made sure to relieve himself on the
grain his father hoped to use for the remainder of the winter. That act alone had nearly sapped him of his courage; he wasn’t sure how he was going to survive outside. Then a light came on in his head, he would not survive inside the hovel. Soon or later, Henrick would beat him into oblivion. If he was to die then it would be with his Lizzie. He grabbed his only other set of clothes, all the dried goat jerky and struck out, unsure where he was even going.

The village was quiet this time of the evening except for the tavern where his father spent any extra time and coppers he may have had. He made sure to leave town, skirting the establishment as best he could. Life was difficult for a runaway, especially one whose thoughts were addled. He had a tenuous link to his sister. He could feel her, it was like a vast spider web and he could feel her vibrations trembling along the line. He could also feel his father’s –
that one he closed off as best he could, hoping that by concentrating on just his sister he would get a stronger signal. For years he had followed in her footsteps, torturously close on many occasions.

Finally, his break had come. He could see her at the end of the alleyway. He shook not only from the intense cold that blistered through his ragged garments, but also for the joy of reuniting with his beloved sister. The dark-cloaked figure she was
with held Tomas at bay as he sent waves of malice radiating away. Tomas didn’t dare move from his concealment behind some crates. Fear jogged through his spine. The fluid that leaked down his leg was most likely the only thing that kept him from freezing where he crouched.

Tomas noticed the man look exactly where he hid, but that was impossible, nobody could see him in this darkness. Tomas watched as The Stranger ‘kissed’ his sister’s neck. A flash of anger welled up in him.
How dare someone do that without a marriage first!
He stood up just in time to see his sister swoon and fall. The Stranger looked back once at Tomas, laughed a small, cruel laugh, and then seemingly vanished into a darker shadow. All fear disappeared with the removal of The Stranger. Tomas ran the length of the alleyway dropping to his knees to cradle his sister’s head.

Her eye’s fluttered open as he cascaded her face with his tears. “Tomas? Is that really you Tomas?”

“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.” He wept for joy, but something evil was coming…he could feel it. His innate ability had proved an invaluable tool while he lived on the fringes of a distraught society. “What is the matter, Lizzie? You are burning up.” The heat emanating from her prone form was melting the snow around her.

“You should go, Tomas.” She closed 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.” It was common in early Europe to convict the mentally challenged of witchcraft. “I love you Lizzie.” Even as he said it, he could tell his sister was slipping away.

“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
, 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, wiping his blurring eyes.

“GO!” She said pushing him away. Her eyes seemed to produce their own light as she looked at him menacingly.

“I will not!” he screamed, even though his inner-thoughts revolved around one word: ‘RUN’.

Lizzie sat up. Factions warred within her. The looks she sent him fluctuated between love, sadness, and predatory awareness. Tomas kept backing up even as he shook his head in denial of what was happening right in front of him.

With an ungodly speed, Lizzie wrapped her hand around Tomas’ neck. He found himself suspended six inches off the ground.

“Lizzie, please,” he begged.

Lizzie pulled him in close and punched two neat holes into his exposed collar. Tomas screamed in pain.

“Lizzie, please, I love you!” His tears splashed down on her upturned face.

Some last remnant of Lizzie rose to the surface. She pulled her extended canines out of his neck. “GO!” she screamed again. “I won’t be able to stop next time.” She looked defeated, with her head bowed. Tomas dropped to the ground as she releas asines oed her grip.

He scurried away scarcely believing the turn of events. “I love you, Lizzie. I will follow you until I find a way to fix whatever has happened here tonight.”

And he had run, running until his legs burned and his chest couldn’t move fast enough to pull in air. The
connective string upon which she danced now hummed with electricity, his thoughts which moments before were clouded now shone as if under the brilliance of a noonday sun. He was unsure what Eliza had done to him, but she had awoken a hunger within him. A hunger for revenge, for retribution, and more importantly, for blood. He pulled the shroud from a segment of his mind he had actively blocked for close to five years. The string that connected him to his father was a cold gray thing but it moved and that was all the impetus he needed.

For three days he ran, seemingly without the ability to exhaust. He did not understand what was happening he also didn’t question it. It was early evening when he returned to a home he vowed he would never set foot in again. Nothing had changed
; even the bag of grain he had soiled with his fecal matter was still in the corner. A pang shot through him as he looked upon his and Eliza’s bedding. It had been tossed about surely by his father in a drunken stupor, but it was still there.

He pulled one of the heavy wooden chairs away from the table and closer to the embers that burned in the hearth. He placed some logs in it to stoke a good flame. He had a cold within him that sank to the depths of his soul. He had been staring at the flames intently divining the meaning of life when his father walked in.

“Figured you’d come back someday. My stupid boy has come home,” Henrick said with a cruel laugh, opening up his mouth to reveal black and rotting teeth.

Tomas stood.

Henrick had to look up, he licked his lips nervously. “Been eating well boy, since you shat on my food have you?” He moved in to strike at the boy and once again assert his dominance. Tomas flinched as Henrick struck him in the side of the head. “Hurt, boy?” Henrick spat.

“No
, not really,” Tomas said, placing a hand to his face. “Let me know if this does.”

Tomas struck his father flush in the mouth. Blood exploded from the man’s lips as Tomas’ knuckles split them wide. Henrick stumbled a few steps and fell over. Henrick was a big man and never, not once in his life had someone put him on his ass.

“Good one, boy.” Henrick wiped the blood from his mouth and stood back up. “You’re going to pay for that, though.” He pulled a long filet knife out from his waist.

Henrick charged, driving the blade deep into Tomas’ midsection. All the air was forced from his lungs as he absorbed the steel. “Should have done that outside, now you’re going to bleed all over the place,” Henrick said, letting go of the hilt. He went over to a small cask and placed his head under the tap.