Tony Coltrain was swayed and sent. The twin’s father was chosen for reliability, believability or something like that, but ultimately proved a poor choice. It stood as an undeniable sign to the dying of the last bit of sanity harbored deep inside Tyndystylyn, but still the Atra denied it and thought the choice sensible. It wasn’t. Tony was not a friend to the town or his own children. The time since he’d left Durham was spent, if anything, more wayward than his life before the birth of the twins, all due to a haunting guilt of abandonment.

News of Durham had spread and knowledge of what became of it led to wave upon wave of relief, but this only served to empower the guilt. Shortly after leaving he discovered a strong desire, nearly a need, for a companion such as Claire had been. He replaced her with another young, spry little thing under similar circumstances. She’d wanted escape from her life and he’d gladly provided it, but as demure as he presented himself he wasn’t nearly as stable as when with Claire. It showed from early on, but her desire to be free overpowered the obvious impending doom of it all. She left with him and within the month she’d died a victim of rogues. Tony couldn’t even remember her name.

He replaced her too, but this one chose to leave. He’d no idea what became of her. Then another whom he’d had to put down himself, but it felt good because he’d decided to lie to himself, saying it was the right thing under the circumstances. He didn’t really believe it. She’d tried to kill him. It was only afterwards he realized she’d offered salvation through death, even if she hadn’t exactly seen it that way. This only served to pile more guilt upon the growing mountain. A part of him began to grow in its belief that no one could ever replace Claire.

As with Tyndystylyn, denial was required to stave of both insanity and suicide. In service to this idea, his effort to replace Clair intensified. At the very least, perhaps another would try to take his life and give him the opportunity to let them. Of course, that was fairly ludicrous. Death in this brave new world was far easier to find than food or shelter. He could’ve let anyone end him, but he feared death. He was terrified of it. It was part of why he’d left Durham. As if a sixth sense, he’d felt it surrounding the town and himself in turn. Perhaps it was only the uneasiness of a largely unfamiliar situation . . . that of being a father, but he’d decided otherwise once he’d heard of Durham’s infamy.

He’d done the right thing in leaving. That he never doubted. He only berated himself for not having forced Claire to come with him. Naturally, leaving the kids behind was for the best. He was certain of it, but that was then. He wasn’t any more. He was chock full of doubt about nearly everything. He doubted his doubt. His only hope of staving it off was the continual influx of girls. He’d lost the ability to influence actual women due to his erratic behavior, but girls didn’t seem to know better.

He’d lost count of how many he’d seduced to what he now called “the dark side”. Nearly everyone else in the girls’ lives agreed with that corny assessment and many were saved because of it, but he’d always managed to snag someone else after a while. He’d begun to see Claire’s face on every one of them. More and more often her name slipped out too. Sometimes only because he’d forgotten or never bothered to learn their own names, but the result was still the same. They were obviously offended, but he could see in their eyes what he already knew . . . it was too late for them to go back.

They tolerated the incessant abuse, which became physical as well as verbal and from time to time he’d gotten his wish when they’d tried to kill him. Yet seemingly without thinking he’d always defended himself and often returned the favor with more success. Of course, he always regretted this afterwards, but most of him no longer gave a damn. This was his life and there was no going back for him either. Death was undoubtedly better, but too frightening, so he’d no choice but to deal with the unsightly alternative.

Sex was a very big part of his desire to win over the female persuasion. That always worked for a time, but his abusiveness won out in the end. Sometimes a girl would believe herself pregnant and that would unleash the memories, bringing out the worst in him. It was rare a girl could use the “P” word and live to tell about it. If they did it was only because they’d escaped. In one way or another, that word always ended the union. Then he was back on the hunt, but the hunt was waning along with his youth and sanity. Even for impressionable girls it became harder and harder to win them.

He was becoming what he fought at least once a month . . . a rogue, a trash dweller. Of course, he already was, but now he was beginning to believe it. That invited disgust. He didn’t know exactly why, but chose not to dissect it for fear of what he’d find. Not that it mattered. Death wouldn’t follow. Death never followed. As far as that was concerned luck was impeccably on his side. He’d even tried once or twice to test the theory by brazenly entering a rogue camp with guns blazing. The first time his “attack” just happened to coincide with a tribe war and he was powerless to take priority in the situation. The second time plague had overtaken the camp and nearly everyone was too weak to fight. In frustration he killed every last one of them, but somehow failed to contract the plague.

Death had become an elusive friend, but regardless of whether or not he’d admit it, that’s the way he liked it. Still, it was unbelievable. A group of ten rogues could ambush him and circumstances always, always, led to either his own victory or his own escape. Once he’d been captured and thought the end was surely nigh, but no. The camp was attacked and by unbelievable luck he’d been set free and ignored. They ran before him, killing themselves, as if he was fucking invisible. He’d even shouted but no one heard him. This got him to thinking about all things taboo.

He knew, as did everyone, certain things about the Atra and their intimate connection with Durham. They had the power to do unimaginable things. Was it possible he was being protected? He’d decided no, of course not and moved on with his bastardized life, but the thought stuck relentlessly in the back of his mind. After every unbelievable escape it rose to the surface. He shoved it back into its place, but it had mingled and won friends. It plagued him more and more. Why? Because the one thing he feared worse than death was losing control of his own life. The part of him that could somehow transform fear into bravery pined for death and couldn’t find it.

Whatever his fears, he firmly believed his life was his own. It was a freedom that granted whatever sanity remained, which he was losing. Before the battle was lost another thought came to him and seemed wholly his own even though it wasn’t. He felt an intense need to return to Durham and warn his kids of the very true rumors that another attack was being organized. One that was automated and devoid of the human factor. It offered a death born of fear and would finally succeed.

Incredulously, he’d finally found some ugly tramp the night before, but without a second thought left her while she slept off the unsightly coupling of yet another one of his endless honeymoons. She would survive, but Tony couldn’t be brought to give a damn one way or the other. He had more important things to do and set out to do them posthaste. In fact, he only took what was direly needed to survive the trip, as if it was his last, but that possibility never entered his mind.

He wasn’t close. He’d left Durham in the dust and thought it taboo to set foot in the rotting state of Oklahoma ever again. Living largely outside, he hated the cold and avoided the northern states, but frequented the south and what was once Mexico often enough. After all, borders no longer meant much. He just happened to be in Guadalajara. The sorry excuse for a woman he’d found was from the same place.

Time was of the essence, so the normal care he took in travel was not observed. Naturally, there were problems, but as usual Tony didn’t have any trouble with them. For the sake of the mission he hardly even seemed to notice them. For anyone else that would be suicidal, but for him everything miraculously worked out. He’d crossed warring tribes and military lines unnoticed. Some of these were the exact same threats he was coming to warn against.

After a while, he entered what was now known as the Forbidden Zone. It was a 200 mile perimeter around Durham where no human ever set foot. It had been tested. Everyone who tried had died or worse, gone fucking insane. Every town or other shambling rogue camp had either been evacuated or annihilated over the past couple of years. Durham became an island and the humans wanted their land back. Nothing worked, but they’d never stopped trying. Durham was the new war effort and it seemed all of humanity chipped in for fear the perimeter would grow and they’d eventually be next.

The area was constantly scanned, but Tony failed to show up on any radar or detection system. He’d become a ghost. He didn’t know why, but that just didn’t seem to matter. He just kept on walking. In the beginning he nearly ran. By now the soles of his borrowed and reborrowed shoes had been shredded. The skin on the bottom of his feet came next, despite deep calluses. He didn’t seem to mind.

He’d not slept a second since receiving the hallmark moment of clarity and urgency. He was not, however, dead on his feet. His energy came from a source he didn’t bother to guess at. It also supplemented food and water when that was gone. He had nothing. He was to all that noticed a man bent on suicide, but none noticed. Nothing could’ve been further from his mind anyway, but then there was no longer any room in his brain for anything other than the mission.

No emotion slipped out aside from urgency. No tears. No sorrow. No joy. No happiness. He was for all intents and purposes a machine controlled remotely. It was a strange thing, because that was precisely what he was coming to warn against. The irony never occurred to him. He just kept on walking till his feet bled, but that was alright because he felt no pain.

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The residents of Durham felt the man long before they saw him. They also had a clear view of the future and knew who the man was. They harbored no love for him, aside from a curiosity of how he could survive in the Forbidden Zone. For the twins this curiosity was something more, but most deemed it as childish to care for a human, father or not. Both Sarafyn and Wferium were still children, so a brief desire to know more was both understood and forgiven. Understood but not allowed. There was a shadow surrounding the man. A lie that if revealed would unravel the future.

They didn’t know why. That is to say they didn’t know the reason for the lie. They knew the purpose, just not the importance. The secret involved the twins who were of obvious importance to the Atra, but no one knew why. Why were these two so damned important? Tyndystylyn never answered that question. It only set the priority of their protection. It didn’t sit well that their god should play favorites, but one did not defy a god. So the truth was hidden and a lie was told as fact. This man threatened to destroy all of that. Not that they minded, but at what cost? They didn’t fear the twins. They feared the Atra and it’s wrath.

Tyndystylyn wasn’t able to relay the importance of the man or that he was sent by it. It was too weak for that. All it had left was entrusted to it’s puppet. Of course, it knew how it would end, but it no longer trusted itself or the future. All it knew was that it had to try. So it did.

<><><><>

The moment Tony was within sight a shot rang out. It wasn’t a warning shot. The distance and the wind caused it to miss, but not by much. Tony didn’t seem to notice. The residents of Durham knew he wouldn’t just as much as they knew the first shot would miss. Just as much as they knew the second shot wouldn’t. The loss of a few bullets was a price worth paying to end this threat.

The second shot was little better. A flesh wound having torn through the outer layers of his sleeve. Neither the newfound hole, nor the blood that now flowed did much change the man’s appearance. It did make him blink, though no hand rose, instinctively or not, to the protect the wound. He kept walking seemingly ignoring the pain, but in truth not feeling it.

Though, a change did occur. Contorted and possessed as he was, Tony or that which controlled him, opened his mouth in an involuntary shout. This was not one of pain or even a plead for mercy. It was what he’d come all this way for . . . a warning. What he said wasn’t clear and wouldn’t have been if he’d been standing next to his children. He hadn’t spoken, much less eaten in days. What came out was a croak and a deathly one at that. As unnerving as it would be naturally, this was far from natural. It was forced and could only be described as eerie.

The strange thing was that the people behind the walls heard this dry, tearing grind far more clearly in their vision of it. Now they heard little to nothing, but they knew all the same the noise had come forth and shriveled at it, thinking him no less an abomination than humans thought of them. Killing the man seemed more than a cover up. It seemed more than a mercy. It seemed a protection that the twins shouldn’t know what had become of their father. They already did, though. They had visions too, but the lie clouded it. They saw the man but didn’t know who he was. Through fear they wished him dead just as much as anyone.

Tyndystylyn kept Tony alive, but not cared for him. His throat was shriveled up and his tongue resembled an elongated raisin. He was basically a zombie. Influence aside, the man could do less than fail to stand . . . he would die in moments. His heart barely beat. Nothing of any clarity could possibly come forth from such a thing. Still it tried to make him, but the effort cracked the skin in numerous places and long restrained blood trickled forth, growing into a stream. Tony didn’t mind and made no move to wipe it away. It was a mystery whether or not the man could even taste the blood pooling in his mouth.

The vision saw without the knowledge, brought most to believe the man was already dead or near to it. That he or it was being used as the next incarnation of human cruelty and had they not known better would’ve expected an army of these bloody puppets to lay siege to the town. They feared the man and their only recourse was to end the thing. So they fired again, aiming for the hideous mouth they knew was there.

The third shot hit Tony in the shoulder and swung him into a spin. Remarkably he didn’t fall. Nor did he notice, as he recovered, that the high caliber bullet had left his left arm hanging by a few ragged strands of muscle, useless. Though he’d not come here to fight, so little use for his hand or his arm, either of them. His legs and feet garnered a degree of importance, and now even more so than his mouth. There existed a new hope within the Atra, who now believed it’s own foresight of the hideous warning. That was simply to get him close enough for the twins to recognize.

What good could come from that toward saving the town, it decided to ignore. What else could it do? The twins had already seen their father’s face in their own visions, but not recognized him. Yet who would. The man was barely human. He was little more than a walking corpse, reminiscent of the best of the ancient but cheesy zombie movies, albeit with an entirely different agenda. What more could be expected? This was more than the blind leading the blind. This was the dying leading the dying. It was equally hopeless. Still it tried because there was nothing left. Abandoning the man would kill the man, but with such a large investment, abandoning the man would also kill the Atra, who for all it’s power feared the unknown of death. So it pushed the man forward on shredded feet.

The fourth shot was a miss, but nearly took Tony’s ear off. It was a known sacrifice just as much as the first bullet was, but it led to the fifth bullet, which came in close succession. This one tore through the man’s stomach as if his belly button were the center dot of a target; a bull’s-eye. More to the point, the man did not stop. The knowledge of what would happen could not stand against the reality of it. As much as the visions felt real after a while they seemed little more than a nightmare whisped away by the simple act of opening an eye. Yet the eyes didn’t need to be closed to witness a vision, but the thought still applied. The knowledge of the thing the man had become instilled more fear than foresight, despite the fact reality gave them no clear view of the man, aside from those tortured souls looking through the scopes of their rifles or the few working binoculars.

Tony was essentially already dead, so such a wound would not stop him. Tyndystylyn could move inanimate objects and essentially was. If his spine had been shattered he would fall, but the bullet had been fired from an angle and so left it mostly intact. Blood poured from the wound that if any cared to, could see right through. Those who had did so accidentally and quickly turned away, the contents of their stomach’s sitting on the brink. They were strong and had endured much, but this was different and unnerving. The thing would not die.

So came flying the sixth bullet that shattered the thing’s left knee. Finally he went down, but some twinged in disgust as he seemed to try and raise his desiccated arm to brace the fall. It was likely just flopping in the wind and movement of walking. It didn’t matter. A few emptied their stomachs onto the dirt because of it. It was a funny thing to know you were going to vomit. It was not something to look forward to. It seemed they could’ve avoided it by looking away at just the right moment. They had, but that didn’t change the knowledge of what they already knew was happening.

Tony fell convulsing into the dirt raising a dust cloud that didn’t seem to want to be near the man. Still it laid a coating of fine, powdery earth over the blood that was now everywhere. Not that it mattered. Nothing so small could stop the man. He dragged himself forward with his right arm, grunting disturbingly as his left arm flopped in the dirt behind him. Blood streamed from his head as well as his mouth after having cracked his skull on the way down. Still he didn’t mind. It seemed to what was left of him that none had ever existed with a purpose greater than his at this very moment.

The seventh and eighth shots went wide since the target was now considerably smaller with the thing on the ground. However, the ninth shot succeeded in removing a flailing right foot that popped up seemingly involuntarily. The bullet would otherwise have also gone long. The thing obviously had no more use of either foot. It was the head that needed to disappear in a spray of blood, but that didn’t happen. Not yet anyway.

The tenth shot turned his right hand into mulch and continued on, perfectly or accidentally lined up, to hollow out his arm to the elbow. It would be misleading to say there was no longer any movement. The thing no longer moved forward, but it did move. Though, perhaps squirm was a more appropriate word for it. He no longer had a means of forward propulsion beyond that of a worm, but even worms somehow manage. So did he, flopping back and forth, moving forward now only by inches. It was a grisly sight.

The tiny part of Tony that was left did not beg for death. No. It begged for the completion of his mission. Death could come later. Something like being sent on a lunch break, but for now he had a job to do and was damn well going to do it. Or get himself fired in the effort. That didn’t happen until the fifteenth bullet came flying. It bore through the top of his skull straight into his heart, snapping ribs to reach its final resting place snug in the blood soaked dirt.

Tony Coltrain was finally dead. Soon DOE would claim the murderer as well. The heightened emotions of the shooter made them lose sight of that distinct possibility. Someone had to kill that thing and there was simply a price to pay for it all.