The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

Chapter Three



“Whattcha figure he’s writin?” the lean youth asked his friend next to him. Both were lying belly down, on the top of some rocks midpoint the rise. They’d gone there for a smoke, not to watch old man Silverman, at first.



“Dunno,” his friend retorted; “Why don’t you go down there and ask him, I’m quite sure he’d like that. After all, we’ve seen what he can do to company he don’t like…”



The first to have spoken was a lean youth dressed mainly in heavily patched black leathers, his complexion pale; his black hair long and greasy. The friend was the reverse in build, and sported a light ‘tache to match his sideburns that seemed to jut from beneath his flat black leather cap, he wore with similarly patched leathers.



“I hear tell that there’s people after him…” Tyree, the fellow with the cap opined.



“And what makes you say that?” Quizzed Xpire, his friend, a young man with a reputation, for being able to make trouble, anywhere it were possible to do so.



Tyree took the small pipe from his lips and expelled the pungent smelling smoke from between his lips, before replying, “I overheard me Dad and some of his mates, down at Dusty Jacks, the other night.”



Dusty Jacks had stood as the sole watering hole for man and beast in that sector of what had been the Cornwall and Devon Coast, of what had been England; before the waters left and much of the vegetation died off.



“Aye, your Dad and his mates talk a lot; but what do they know of the Silverman,” Xpire quizzed, curious to know more about this stranger to their lands.



Tyree inhaled then coughed, as he exhaled.



“Hey don’t waste that shit, damn hard to get hold of that stuff, you know that!” His friend snarled.



“Yeah, sorry man…” Tyree offered, suitably mollified. He knew Xpire was right, it was hard to get hold of the good stuff now, especially since Silverman had arrived in town. Many thought he was a Marshall, working for the City Protectorate, others felt he was working for a rival fraction, determined to take over this section.



Either way, many locals had cause to be paranoid, of the Silverman.



“What do me Dad’s mates know?” Tyree began, seeking distraction from his apparent waste of the fine white powder: “Well, they know ours is the last of a line of towns he passed through, on his way here. And, he caused mayhem in each of those towns, as he looked for someone…”



Xpire whistled through his teeth, as he continued to stare down at Silverman, “You gotta wonder what brought him here and, what’s he looking for?”



“Or who he’s looking for?” Tyree suggested helpfully.



Xpire thought on that: ‘Interesting,’ he mused, ‘Or… who he’s looking for?’

Chapter two



Short of stature and lithe of build, the young woman of seeming Asiatic appearance strode through the lush forest greenery smiling serenely.



At the forests edge she came upon a field of tall grasses, many with small, delicate, yellow wild flowers atop. And, as she drifted through the grasses, she traced a path with the fingers of her right hand through them with a languorous touch.



She paused a moment, in the centre of the field and felt a flower between two fingers; looking up to the red sun and wondering briefly whether the planet’s few human inhabitants knew just how few years they had left to appreciate such beauty.



It was just a thought, one of many she had, since she had begun her travelling to each and every place left, on the old Atlas she had found, in her companions cabin.



There was something she had to recall; yet in the decades spent journeying, Walker had not yet been able to remember what it was. It was there, it was important. Yet still, the thought she sought to bring to the fore would not. There were and had been, far too many distractions…’ she mused, running her fingers lightly over a leaf, as if it were flesh, his flesh… her Love’s flesh.



Barefoot, she wore a diaphanous gown, acquired a galaxy away, from a people grateful to her, for restoring their population. And, suddenly Walker recalls her companion asking, “What’s it like to be a god?” He had asked that before the void and, their encounter.



A spark within the dark had sped them away from where they had been and given the gift of acceptance, to her companion and, as he had allowed his passed to be just that, something deeper than known previously, had grown between the two travellers.



After that, everything had changed.



After all, they had communed somehow with the entity responsible for all and It had repaid sacrifice with compassion, allowing them both to become so much more than they had been. And yet, even now, Walker wondered whether they had been blessed, or cursed. It was a debate that Walker would have later, she decided, having suddenly been able to think of her Loves new name, the one he had taken, the day he looked for aid at the village, all those decades ago: “Silverman,” she said it aloud, surprised to hear her voice again, after such a long time journeying Mother Earth, the birth planet of those who had made Walker.



She decided to make her way back to the star-freighter, ‘The Forest’ which she had renamed, in honour of the previous two captains before her. And, as she did so, Walker idly wondered, “Will Silverman live still?”



‘Of course he will be,’ she decided, as she had settled into the cockpit and begun a pre-flight check: “The question is, ‘will he remember me?’”

COMMENTS

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dabbler
00:03 Feb 15 2015

well spun.. Well Spun indeed.

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POST COMMENT

Chapter One





Silverman sat on a boulder, his eyes darting back and forth, as he settled himself, to take out his paper, a pen and an ink-pot; that he balanced carefully on another rock, within arms reach.



He sat with his back to the white-cliffs, staring out across to where another country had been, when there had been water between there and where he sat.



And, though it was nearly noon, there were few of the town’s people out. He was there though; studying his surroundings, hoping his companion would show, again.



As yet, Silverman had waited a long-time and the many pages he had written were a testament to his need to record what he had seen and knew of. And, the fellow in the Stetson, a long battered dustcoat, blue-jeans and heeled boots, had a story to tell.



The townspeople knew of him and tried to avoid Silverman at all cost. A legend had followed the man, who had walked into town a year prior, seeking a companion he had lost. No-one had thought to challenge the man, when he had burst open doors and smashed windows and fingers, in his quest for information. Yet, none had been forthcoming and over time, the white-haired, wild-eyed fellow in the coat became a feature of the small town; called Elsewhere, ‘as that’s where everyone wanted to be’, the mayor of the town had laughed, one day.



Silverman might have laughed at the intended levity himself, but instead he had retired to his place on the former beach and begun to write, the beginning of the loose papers he carried, in the satchel now over his shoulder and beneath his coat, rolled up and held together with a faded purple ribbon.



He looked up and stared through mirrored shades at his surrounding, the wide brim of his hat shielding his from the worst of the red sun’s rays. Earth was dying and it was not a place to be if you had somewhere else to be, but Silverman did not.



The writing was a distraction, for a man normally focussed on one task alone; yet it was sorely needed, for without it, he would have to deal with the loss of his beloved companion. And that was too much to bear, for Silverman…