Threads That Bind (Havoc Chronicles Series Book 1) (25 page)

“We moved to Indianapolis because my father was offered a job there. Only by the time we got there, someone else had been hired. My father was a proud man and continued trying for several years to support us, but the few jobs he could find were extremely hard labor, and he died of a heart attack when I was ten.

“Without our father around, my brothers and I were forced to beg and scrounge to get by. Mom found temporary work washing laundry, but it barely covered the rent of the broken-down apartment we lived in.

“It was during this time that I met Sophie. She was poor like us, but there was something different about her. In the midst of all the hunger and squalor, she always seemed to find something to be happy about. Being around her made life tolerable. She was my first love. Sappy, but true. For the next five years we were best friends and somewhere along the way became more.

“When World War Two broke out, I knew this was my chance to make something of myself. I lied about my age and joined the army to go fight the Germans. The pay was $50 a month, which was a lot of money for me. I proposed to Sophie before I left and promised that I would marry her when my service was up.”

Eric stopped talking and gave me a searching look. “Do you still want me to go on?” he asked. “It only gets more depressing from here.”

He hadn’t been lying about this being a depressing story. But now that I was into it, I wanted him to keep going. “I want to hear more,” I said.

With a shrug Eric continued. “I’ll spare you the gory details about my first year in the army. Let’s just say I saw plenty of combat and killed a lot of people. Apparently I had a knack for killing people because I was given a position as a squad leader.

“All this time I kept writing to Sophie. She was the only thing that kept me sane. I kept her most recent letters in my pocket so I could reread them. While I was gone, she joined in the war effort and took on work in a factory, helping to build weapons. Each letter, she told me she loved me and that she was waiting for me to come home to her.

“My mom passed away while I was in Germany, but I didn’t get the letter until two months later. I will never forget that day, because it was not only the day I found out my mother died, but it was also the first day I ‘zerked.

“I had gotten the letter that morning and we were ordered to move out in the afternoon. There was no time for grief - just the sick knowledge that I was now an orphan. As we marched, we were caught in an ambush. We ran for cover in the trees off the main road, but by the time we got there, most of my squad had been killed or injured. I had taken a bullet to the leg, and I could see that it had nicked an artery. We tried to put pressure on it, but the bleeding wouldn’t stop. There were too many other wounded to take care of who could be treated, so I was left alone to die.

“It was then that I felt an anger like I had never felt before. The unfairness of it all was just too much. My mother was dead, and now I was going to die in the middle of a war and never see my Sophie again. It seemed like too much to keep inside and my anger boiled over.

“I began to glow and the pain in my leg went away. The bleeding stopped and the wound healed. But at the time I didn’t notice because I wasn’t exactly thinking clearly. Pure, raw emotion dominated my brain. All rational thoughts were thrust away. 

“I don’t recall much about my initial ‘zerk. When it ended I realized that my wound was healed, and that everyone within a mile radius was dead – enemy and friends both. In my rage, I had somehow killed them all.”

I gaped at Eric, unsure how to respond. He had slaughtered all those people? His own friends? How could that have happened?

“I don’t blame you for staring at me that way. Believe me, there is no accusation you could make that I have not already made against myself.”

“I wasn’t accusing you,” I said. “It was just that I...” I had no idea what to say that wouldn’t sound horrible and make the situation worse.

“It was a lot of years ago,” said Eric. “I can’t change what I’ve done, but I do find comfort in knowing that I did not consciously choose to kill those people. My body may have been the instrument of their death, but my mind was not the driving force behind it.

“I’ve since learned that it is not uncommon for the first ‘zerking to be violent and uncontrollable,” he said. “But that is cold comfort to me. I was so repulsed by what had happened that my mind was unable to process it. I huddled in a ball and waited to die. Instead, I was found the next day by the reinforcements who had come to our defense. As the lone survivor I was given a medal and put into another squad.

“War is confusing and scary enough without also dealing with emerging Berserker powers, but I didn’t have a choice. I vowed that I would make up for the lives that I took. That I would master this power and use it to kill our enemies. If I could only kill enough of them, I was convinced that I could make up for what I had done to my friends.

“During the next few months, I learned how to control the ‘zerk. I snuck out past our patrols at night, seeking enemy camps. I killed everyone I found without hesitation or mercy. They were not people to me - they were my chance at redemption.

“I didn’t stop killing until Scottie and Rhys found me. They explained what I was and what was happening to me. They wanted me to come with them, to abandon my fellow soldiers and to fight mysterious monsters that I had never seen or heard of. They said my powers were meant for saving the world from enemies more powerful than the dictators I was fighting, that I wasn’t meant to kill humans with these powers. But they didn’t know how many people I had already killed. I was afraid to tell them – or anyone for that matter – what I had already done. Besides, following them meant leaving my Sophie behind forever.

“I couldn’t do it. I refused to go with them and threatened to expose them when they wouldn’t go away.” Eric gave me a sour grin. “We kind of got off on the wrong foot. 

“They finally left me, but it was clear they would keep in touch in case I changed my mind. From that point on I stopped using my powers to fight enemy soldiers. I realized that more deaths could never make up for the lives I had taken.

“When the war was over, I went back home to Sophie. I remembered what Scottie and Rhys told me about the aging, but I didn’t care. It didn’t matter to me if she got old. Did they really think my love for her was that shallow? We would make it work.”

I heard a tiny buzz and looked over to see several bees floating from flower to flower. My first instinct was to move away from them. I was so allergic that a bee sting could potentially kill me. But I was afraid that if I made a big deal about the bee Eric might stop his story, and I wanted to hear the rest. I had my EpiPen in my purse, so I sat tight and tried to ignore the buzzing.

“We got married a few months after I returned. I was able to put my memories of the war atrocities behind me and for the most part, we were happy. At least that’s what I told myself. Sophie’s extreme optimism once again made life bearable. For five years everything was fine – until my oldest brother came for a surprise visit.

“I hadn’t seen him in almost ten years and his shock at my appearance opened Sophie’s eyes to the fact that I wasn’t aging. When she confronted me about it, I told her what had happened to me. To my surprise she embraced it with the same enthusiasm that she had for everything. She encouraged me to work with the Berserkers and fulfill my responsibilities to the world.

“For the next twenty years we lived together happily. We never stayed long any one place. After a few years in a city we moved on. It was tough for Sophie to constantly move around and leave her friends. I at least had the Berserkers for friendship, all she had was me. And I was gone most of the time.

“Fortunately, money wasn’t an issue because the Berserker before me had been quite good at investing his resources. When I came on board, I inherited more money than I had ever dreamed of owning.”

“Wait,” I said. “What’s this? You inherited money from the Berserker before you?”

“Oops,” said Eric, not sounding very regretful. “Let’s just pretend I didn’t say anything about that.”

“Eric.” I gave him my best glare.

“Okay, but remember you didn’t hear this from me.” He gave me a conspiratorial wink. “Your Dad doesn’t want you thinking about this part yet. Berserkers have been around for a long time and in that time have fully taken advantage of the miracle of compound interest. Basically, we’re all filthy rich. Since we also live long lives, we have to take on multiple legal identities; so all the money is put into a trust for each of the Havocs. That way the money is not attached to an individual and the Berserker can access it for hundreds of years by using multiple identities. When a new Berserker comes on, the trust is transferred to him. It’s one of the perks of the job.”

Eric picked up a leftover piece of watermelon and popped it in his mouth. He closed his eyes, savoring it. When he opened his eyes again, he chuckled.

“It’s not as great as it sounds,” he said. “Money gets boring after a three or four decades. When you can have anything you want, acquiring material possessions loses a lot of the thrill.”

I really wanted to pursue this topic, but I figured I could grill Kara about it when we got back. “So what happened next?”

Eric hesitated. “It gets really boring after this, and even more depressing,” he said. “Let’s just stop here.”

Did he really want to stop? I studied Eric’s face to see if this was just another of his ploys for attention, or if he really had dealt with too much pain today. “I guess we can stop,” I said. “If the memories are too painful for you.”

“That’s not it,” said Eric. He stared into the sky for a few minutes without saying anything. The he took in a deep breath. “I suppose we might as well finish the story,” he said. “There’s not much left. In nineteen sixty eight Sophie was diagnosed with stomach cancer. We began treatment immediately, but the cancer was too far along. She died six months later. The end.” He picked up a bottle of root beer and tilted it up to drink down the last few drops. He looked rather cavalier about the whole thing, but I could see through his façade to the pain below.

“So Sophie, who was good and sweet and kind, died an early death, while I, who had more murders to my name than all the famous serial killers combined, continued living looking practically no older than I had when we first were married.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing I could come up with seemed to be adequate, so I closed it. When he had said his story was depressing, I had figured he was exaggerating or at least being somewhat dramatic – it was Eric after all. I had no idea what kind of guilt and horror he had been living with all this time.

And just like that, in an instant, my entire perspective of Eric changed. The jokes and bravado now were visible for the defenses they were.

Eric laughed, and I jumped, not expecting that reaction.

“I warned you,” he said. He stood up and stretched. “But please don’t get all sentimental on me,” he said. “I’m not going to break down and cry or anything.”

I started to deny it, but he gave me a look that said he knew exactly what I had been thinking.

“Please,” he said. “Do us both a favor and spare us the lies. Yes, what I just told you was painful, but it’s old pain. The wounds have healed and while they may have left scars, they made me stronger and are part of who I am today.”

He walked over and reached out a hand, pulling me to my feet. I felt the cool grass poke up between my toes.

“Unless, of course, you wanted to try and kiss it better?” he said, his usual gleam back in his eye.

Talk about knowing how to ruin a moment. I pushed him away, but since I wasn’t even pre-zerking, all I managed to do was to push myself backwards. I took a step back to regain my balance.

Big mistake.

I felt the pain immediately. I didn’t have to look to know what had happened, but I couldn’t help it. I lifted my foot up and there in the soft arch of my foot was a red mark with a tiny back dot in the center.

I had stepped on a bee.

For most people, this was just a minor annoyance. Not for me. I had only been stung once before. I was eight at the time, and it had nearly killed me. I wasn’t allergic to very many things, but what I lacked in quantity, my body made up for in horrible throat-constricting quality.