Total War - II. Distance

Callan, John and I managed to find an empty compartment on the very end of the train. There, we put our luggage in the special luggage rack and closed the lid. I sat near the window seat facing where we were going, and Callan sat opposite me. John took a seat beside Callan. Since there was only three of us, it was rather roomy. The seats were scarlet and plush and it was well air-conditioned in here.

Suddenly the compartment door opened up. It was a boy, younger than Callan and I, about twelve or thirteen. He had short red hair and was in uniform, like us. He seemed nervous.

“Can I sit with you guys?” he asked.

“Sure.” I said.

He smiled instantly and sat beside me. His name was Liam Tiernan, but he encouraged us to call him LT. He had just turned thirteen years old, and like me, had been working in a factory. He had been living with only his older brothers, and one had gone to enlist a year ago and never came back. So LT himself had snuck out and enlisted, claiming to be fourteen.

“And here I am.” LT said.

“What about your parents?” John asked.

“My mother died when I was young, and my father is in jail. Tried to steal a police bot.” LT explained. He seemed upset when mentioning his mother, but shrugged off his father’s arrest easily.

“Sorry to hear that.” John said.

As the train went through a dark tunnel, my memories began to consume me.

I giggled, rolling down the biggest hill I’d ever seen. The grass was a perfect emerald green, the sky a vast blueness above me, marred only by clouds. I was wearing a white shirt, with a wolf on it, and a pair of blue shorts and white sneakers. Callan came running after me, about ten years younger than I knew him to be, wearing green camouflage shorts and a white shirt exactly like mine.

“Hey Teddy! Callan! Wait up!” a voice cried. I was shocked. I knew that voice. I turned and saw Dad.

He was every bit as handsome as I remembered him to be, with brown hair and blue eyes. He stood, six foot two, with lots of muscle and the world’s brightest smile on his face.

In that very instant, both Callan and I ran for our dad and hugged him. He seemed pleasantly surprised by our affection, but lifted us both up in the air.

“Now here’s my little men!” he cried, grinning. I was hugging him very tightly, and I could tell Callan was doing the same.

“What was it that you wanted to be when you grew up again Callan?” he asked.

“An artist!” Callan chimed. I was a bit more than surprised. Callan and I would go on to fend for ourselves and support our family so much in the future, that our childhood dreams for adulthood lay forgotten. I knew Callan could have achieved his goal too. I’d never met someone who could draw like how he did. I could draw a bit myself, but it was only okay drawings. Nothing like the magnificent art that Callan could accomplish.

“And what about you Ted?” he asked. Mentally, as sixteen year old Ted, I was surprised and rather curious about my answer. I had long forgotten what my dreams for the future were.

“A knight!” I said, to my own surprise. Then I remembered. When I was little, ever since I was a knight for Halloween, I’d been practically obsessed with them, wanting to be one myself.

Suddenly I was not six year old Ted, but sixteen year old Ted, standing apart from my dad, Callan, and my six year old self. I tried to yell for Dad, but he couldn’t hear me.

I jolted awake. John and LT had fallen asleep, but Callan was awake.

“Well that was a short nap, Ted. I guess nineteen minute naps are your new record.” he said, with a shrug.

“Cal, my dream wasn’t a normal dream. It was a memory. I couldn’t remember it until now.”
He responded by looking at me curiously.

“What was it about?” he asked.

“Remember when we used to live in the country? Before Dad died?” I asked.

“Yeah...yeah of course.” he said.

“Remember what we wanted to be when we grew up?” I asked.

Callan paused to think for a moment, before looking back up at me, crestfallen.

“No.”

“I remember now. You wanted to be an artist when you were young...and I wanted to be a knight.”

Callan looked puzzled for a moment, then his face changed to one of complete shock.

“That’s right...”

“I just remembered that.” I said.

The trip was many hours long, but I passed it either sleeping or talking to Callan, John, and LT. When the train finally stopped and we were told to disembark, it was night.

We lined up in rows and saluted, then were released. There were stations where a soldier could find a hotel willing to keep him for free, some stations listed paid for lodgings, and some had cards that bore the names of families that were willing to take a soldier in. The lines for these stations were long, so Callan, John, LT and I went outside. I was holding the cap of my uniform in hand, having taken it off when we disembarked.

A young brown-haired boy approached us. He kind of reminded me of Damien, in a way. He had brown hair, and was rather small. He may have been older than Damien, for he looked about nine years old. He was, strangely enough, wearing a uniform identical to the one we wore. The boy moved closer, and then snatched my hat out of my hand and started to run.

“Hey!” I yelled. The boy kept running and so I ran, suitcase in hand, after him. Callan, John and LT followed. I pounded after him quickly. Was it me, or was he trying to keep himself in sight of us? And was it a trick of the night, or did it look as though he wasn’t alone?

He ran into a building, right into what looked like an apartment complex. I went in. The door upstairs, on the left, was ajar. Light poured out and I squinted against it, letting my eyes get adjusted from the dark night that lay behind me. I tentatively went up the stairs, and went into the building.

There was the boy, sitting at an oak table. My cap lay on the table near him. I stepped forward. Callan appeared behind me, panting a bit, and I could hear LT and John coming.

“Why’d you take my hat?” I asked the boy, who stared at me. There was something odd about his eyes. They were black, black as the night without stars.

“You needed a place to stay, didn’t you?” he asked. I dropped my suitcase.

“What?!”

“You can thank me for inviting you and your friends to stay here.” he said.

Putting aside the odd feelings I got, I explained the situation to the others in a hushed voice before joining him at the table. There was someone else there.

It was a guy about our age. He was bigger than Callan or I, with thick, messy dark hair. He was wearing a uniform, just like ours as well. And he was pretty muscular.

“Hello there. You guys new to the military?” he asked. I nodded.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Murdock. Kain Murdock.” he said, with a grin. He reached to shake my hand. I took it and shook it.

“I’m Ted Alborn, and this is my twin brother Callan, our friend, John Davies and LT Tiernan.” I said, gesturing to my friends individually as I said their names.

“I’m Hilbert. Hilbert Hinterher.” the boy said.

“Why’d you take my hat and run like that?” I asked.

“Because something just told me to do it.” he said, seeming a bit unnerved.

“Weird...” I heard Callan mutter under his breath, quiet enough that nobody other than myself had heard.

Kain and Hilbert had only a spare room with a single bed and a fold out couch to accommodate two. Callan and I took the bed, since even back home we’d shared. Mother only had enough money for two, and when Damien got too old for the crib, he and I had been made to share. Not that I really minded, because there was always some comfort in knowing even in sleep that you weren’t alone. And even since back then, I’ve always had a tough time sleeping in a room when Callan wasn’t in it. I think it was a twin’s sort of feeling, that I always got enough comfort in his presence alone to send me from hopeless thoughts in the dark of night.

Alone in that room though, I had the opportunity to discuss things in a hushed voice with Callan. And after the day’s events, I wanted to discuss things with him.

“Callan?” I asked.

“Yeah Ted?” he replied.

“Did you notice anything....odd?” I asked.

“Well the kids in this town, save from the ones in this house seem to be annoying.” Cal said. “They were screaming things and jabbing at people and whatnot.”

“No I mean did you notice anything about Hilbert?”
“Well he seems pretty jumpy about something doesn’t he? And I’ve noticed he doesn’t smile an awful lot for a kid either.”

“Yeah, I noticed that too. Think something’s happened to him before?”

“Possibly. He seemed shifty to me.”

I wouldn’t have long to find out what it was about Hilbert that I was missing.

{C}The next morning Callan and I pulled on our uniforms and began to walk through the streets. It was a pretty cold morning, and the wind practically began whipping at us as soon as we left the apartment. When you were looking for odd things, you saw them everywhere in this town. There weren’t kids playing freely in the street. The people walking around us didn’t make eye contact.

As Callan and I were walking down a lesser-used street some guys came out of nowhere. I allowed Callan to get a step closer to me before I kept walking. The biggest guy came towards me. He had thick brown hair and a rough look to him. The second boy was smaller than the first and slender, with black hair. The third was small and blond, a bit bigger than Hilbert and looking only a bit older.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the big one asked. He shoved me back. The slender black haired one snickered.

“Who do you think you are to bother us and question where we’re going? It’s none of your business.” Callan shot back.

They moved in closer to us. The big one pulled a switchblade out of his pocket and I knew these guys were going to be trouble.

I immediately acted on instinct and began to grapple the biggest of the three. In his surprise he dropped the switchblade. I saw Callan pushing the slender black haired boy up against the wall. The small blond was going for the switchblade.

I pushed the big guy aside just enough to kick the switchblade over to where Callan was. Callan scooped it up and the slender dark haired one made a go for him. Callan dived and threw the switchblade high in the air. I heard it make a small skittering noise as it hit the rooftop.

“You son of a bit-” the second boy said but I kneed him in the stomach. Almost immediately the small boy jumped on me and clung to me. With the awkward position and the way he was holding onto me, I lost my balance and fell. From my viewpoint on the ground I could see Callan and the slender boy rolling around, cursing as they tried to grapple the other into submission. The biggest guy got right up on top of me and started hitting me pretty hard. Just then I heard a yell.

The guy went flying off of me as a blur hit him. A smaller but more muscular figure pulled the slender guy away from Callan and began hitting him. A red-haired blur was having at it with the small blond kid. Soon enough the three rescuers lifted me off the ground.

I recognized now the one who had knocked out the biggest of our attackers. It was Kain Murdock, rubbing his fists (which had dealt a great many punches) and swearing. The red haired figure was none other than LT, grinning and looking a bit worn for the wear but not injured. The third, who had taken care of the slender black haired attacker was someone I wasn’t familiar with.

“Bastards.” Kain snarled. He spat at one of them and we began to walk away.

“Who were those guys? And what did they want with us?” I asked.

“The tallest one was Rex Teague. Big jackass if I ever saw one.” Kain said, his voice still having that snarling nature present in it. “The skinny black haired guy was his buddy, Gale Massarotti. And the little shrimp was Mick Cosman. They’re all annoying little bastards who like to stop people on the streets, to mug them.”

“Gale’s the worst. Real ass.” the guy I wasn’t familiar with said.

“Oh yeah, this is Malcolm King, but I just call him King.” Kain said, gesturing towards the guy who had beaten on Gale Massarotti.

Callan and I exchanged handshakes with him. None of us were too injured to really raise any alarm, so we headed back for the apartments. As soon as we went in, Callan and I made a beeline for our room to relax. Once there, we began to talk.

“Really nice city isn’t it? There’s no kids on the streets, no one will look you in the eyes and there’s thugs roaming around like they own the place.” Callan said with an almost heated contempt.

“Something’s terribly wrong with this town Callan. And I want to figure it out.” I said.

“It’s not just the town. What about Hilbert? He still seems a bit...shifty.” Callan pointed out.

“Yeah, he definitely has some dark history going on here.” I said.

Just then the ground beneath our feet shook. Something fell off a shelf and broke. Callan and I made a dash for the door. In the living room, John and Kain were moving the couch, while Hilbert, King and LT brought supplies over. There was some kind of trapdoor under the couch.

We clambered down a ladder into the darkness, Kain securing the door above us. I’d never felt anything like this. It was...not an earthquake. I knew that much.

Far below there was a room, where we camped out. I took the time to talk to Kain.

“Kain, what happened?” I asked.

“We got bombed again.” he said, looking upwards with a sort of uneasiness about him.

I stared at him, surprised.

“What about the city’s police force?” Callan asked, looking just as startled as I was.

“They all got taken out by the past bomb raids.” King said, playing idly with a pocketknife.

Callan and I exchanged a significant look. We both moved to the far end of the room. Kain left, as the bombs had now stopped.

“You think that’s why this town is so messed up Cal?” I asked

“Probably. I mean, no police force to keep people in line and bombs being dropped around here...no wonder the people are so distant. And if they aren’t distant but normal, they’re criminals.”

“What about Hilbert?” I asked. Right now the young boy was sitting a fair distance away, seeming distant, but in a different way than the people from in town.

“We’ll have to find that out soon enough.” Callan said.

Kain returned with a worried look on his face. We all stopped, frozen.

“Get loads of sleep tonight, guys.” he said, seeming a bit stunned.

“Why?” John finally asked.

“Because they want us out there, ready to fight.” he said.

“Tomorrow?” LT asked.

“Tomorrow.” Kain stated, and the darkness in the room seemed to become akin to the uncertainty that seemed to surround us.