Avenging the Past

“It’s all been downhill since they shot him,” muttered one of the men behind Simon.

Simon blew into his hands. The effort made him cough. He wiped the blood into his greasy trousers, and rocked on his heels to keep his feet from numbing. In front of him, a shivering woman cradled her baby as it whimpered.

“Shit, here they come,” said the man.

“Eyes down,” said his companion.

Simon couldn’t resist glancing over though, as the Blackshirts marched into the square, their uniforms crisp, sharp and impeccable against the grey rubble. He looked to the ground. The hiss behind him told him the Blackshirts had passed, and he shakily stood erect. Pain radiated from his core.

He kept thinking he’d see someone he knew in these crowds, even among the Blackshirts. If someone had been sent to fetch him. He couldn’t accept that they’d let him rot here.

But it’d been years now. Thinking about the time made him wince. His left eye burned, and he plastered a pale hand over it. It showed him only a glance at the place he’d left behind – tantalising and cruel. Could be he’d destroyed that place with his mistake. Could be no one would come to get him.

“Move.”

The two men behind shoved him. He shuffled on, supressing a cough. The baby in the woman’s arms had stopped its whimpering. She started to coo to it. He winced again. Another death for his conscience. Hadn’t he been so proud before, thinking he could make everything right?

The line shimmied on, towards the only building left standing amid this sector of ruins. It was a condemned church, painted in atomic dust.

Simon’s eye watered. When he peeled his hand away, a flash showed him bustling cities, rows of cars, millions of people going about lives. Many of them would likely never be born now.

All because he’d fumbled the shot. All because he’d fled in terror. All because he’d hidden away for years, hoping things would get better, too afraid to try changing anything again.

“Move!” growled the man behind him.

Another shove sent Simon tripping into the woman. She dropped her baby to the cobbles. Both of them stared down at its ashen face, unblinking eyes. Simon stepped around her. One of the men behind him pushed the woman aside when she wouldn’t move. He heard her crumple to the ground. He didn’t think she’d get back up.

A whisper passed along the queue. Simon peered over the bald head of the old man in front of him. He could see the preacher handing out clean water at the door. The long wait was almost over, but a whisper made him swivel.

“Eyes down,” snarled the man behind him.

He blinked. A whole battalion of Blackshirts marched into the square. Some of them cradled rifles the way the mother had cradled her baby. All of them wore their skull-breakers, polished ivory and steel sticks that gleamed against the blackness of their uniform.

Behind them came a team of mutes, bowed and shuffling. Their muscles bulged. Simon winced at the coach they pulled behind them, an ornate black box gilded with silver. Fear wormed through him.

Of course, he wasn’t in danger of being made a mute. The Blackshirts reserved that punishment for those they wanted to make a display of. He’d just be sent to the mines, or sent to clean up the radioactive slag in the countryside, or, if he was lucky, they’d shoot him. His eye watered, and he hunched to hide his face.

“Prime Minister Mosley,” announced one of the Blackshirts. “Bow!”

The men and women of the queue scrambled to the ground. Simon bent his face to the dusty cobbles, and tried not to choke on a fresh cough. The old man in front of him cried out as he sank to one knee.

Simon risked a look. Did he glimpse the pale, pinched face of his former target glaring from the window of that black box?

A rarity. Simon had heard the self-proclaimed Prime Minister only left Westminster to give his yearly birthday speech from the balcony of Buckingham Palace. He struggled not to dwell on how corrupted things had become since he’d failed to change history.

Did a hand not wave from the window of the carriage? The Prime Minister veiled himself in shadows again, while one of the Blackshirts strode forward. Simon saw only his boots. Those boots crunched towards Simon as he lowered his gaze. They stopped before him. He held his breath, though it burned in his lungs.

“You don’t bow as low as the others?” asked the Blackshirt.

Simon said nothing, squeezed his left eye shut against the memories of the better future. A gun clacked. He waited for the shot.

“You think you’re better than the rest of this scum?”

That was the thing about the Blackshirts. Once they’d got done with those they hated, they’d revealed they were nothing more than bullies. Anyone could be their target. More fool you if you cheered for them.

All because of Simon’s failed shot. He hoped the others had done better, created better futures for themselves at least. He hoped this wasn’t the best they could do.

The old man beside Simon grunted. Simon opened his eyes.

The gun went off, and the old man flopped down next to Simon. Warm blood trickled through the cobbles, staining the knees of Simon’s trousers.

“You’ll stay like this until the Prime Minister completes his visit,” barked the Blackshirt.

He marched back to the carriage. He didn’t need to stay. No one sane would disobey the Blackshirts. More blood seeped around the cobbles, to where Simon had planted his hands.

All along the queue, silence held. No one so much as sniffed. Simon glanced up, and his left eye flared again.

This time, it showed him his friends gathered around him. He closed his eyes to try and bring the memory to him.

“We could kill Hitler,” said Donovan, swigging beer, in place of the Blackshirt. “Hell, we could kill every mean bastard who ever lived.”

“We don’t even know how it’ll work, Donnie,” muttered Simon.

“Test run?” said Donovan.

Jess, arms crossed. “I say we just stop this here. Forget it.”

“Think of the lives we could save.”

“Think of how much worse we could make things.”

Simon lingered with the others, between Jess and Donovan, waiting to see how their argument ended. Brash, hot-headed Donovan voiced their enthusiasm, while cool, stoic Jess appealed to the doubts creeping into their minds.

“We could all go to different points of time,” said Donovan. “You take Hitler, Jess. Herb, you can have, uh, Pol Pot. Caleb, you want Genghis Khan?”

“You aren’t thinking this through,” said Jess, gritting her teeth.

Donovan shrugged. “We start small then. Take out some mean bastards who never really amounted to much.” He swigged his beer, while Simon grimaced.

“When it comes to changing the past, Donnie,” he said, “I doubt there’s such thing as ‘starting small’.”

Jess sighed. “Thank you for seeing sense.”

But Donovan had that all-knowing smile on. “I know who you can have, Simon. You remember you told me your great-great-granddad got his eye gouged out by one of those, uh…”

“Blackshirts.” Simon nodded, looked to Jess, who raised an eyebrow. “But, Donnie, don’t you think there’s more to this than going back to just kill people.”

“Quickest way to make the world a better place, right?” said Donovan.

Jess frowned. “I bet that’s what a lot of the people you want to kill were thinking too.”

“Let’s make a pact then,” said Donovan. “We all go to different points. Make a small change, something one of us would notice.”

Simon was thinking bigger though, and maybe it was Donovan’s words stirring him. Maybe it was being tired of being powerless. No, he wanted to make a big change. He was thinking of the story his granddad told about his own granddad losing an eye to some rabid Blackshirt. He was thinking Donovan might be right.

“We’ll take guns from my old man’s cabinet,” said Donovan. “Just in case.” And he winked at Jess, who shrugged.

But that was when Simon had decided he would avenge his great-great-grandfather – a man he’d only ever heard about. He’d change history. Hell, he’d make the world a better place, and he’d show Donovan and the others his worth.

He couldn’t stop from coughing. The memory dissolved, and he hacked up bloody phlegm.

The boots came marching back. Simon went rigid against the cobbles, bowed as low as he could get. Bloody tears dripped from his left eye.

“Something wrong with you?”

Simon shook his head. Blood trickled down the side of his nose.

“Am I not worth speaking to then?”

“Sorry, sir,” he mumbled.

He waited for the gun to be cocked. He waited for the bullet.

“Let me see your face.”

The carriage trundled on over the cobbles. Its door squeaked open, and footsteps thumped down. The Prime Minister himself, walking the same dirt as Simon. He doubted he’d ever get another opportunity, but he held himself still. He’d tried to alter history once. Things had gone too far now to be neatly fixed.

Simon struggled to stand. The pair of boots in front of him remained rooted, shining like black mirrors. God, how haggard he looked.

He unbent himself to full height, but kept his eyes to the ground. Most of the Blackshirts were filing into the church after their Prime Minister. Only Simon’s interrogator remained, and his skull-breaker emerged from its sheath. The cold stick wedged under Simon’s chin.

“Be a good lad,” said the Blackshirt. “Eyes up.”

So Simon looked up. He almost shrieked, and his mouth quivered open. His left eye boiled in his head. His vision smeared. Hot blood dribbled from the socket, but he couldn’t move.

With his left eye, he saw young Donovan – the man who’d laughed about going back to kill Hitler. With his right, he saw a grizzled version of the same man – a man raised under the brutal circumstances of Simon’s failed assassination. No, surely, Donovan wouldn’t be this old.

Donovan’s cheek twitched. Simon stared at his old friend.

“Did you come to find me?” asked Simon, too confused to think of anything else.

The blow from the skull-breaker sent him to his hands and knees. He thought a rib snapped, and the pain cut through him when he prodded at his chest. Donovan stood over him, lips peeled back. Those illustrious teeth, once so quick in a smile, were bared in a hateful grimace.

“I ask the questions, worm.”

“Donovan?”

The skull-breaker came down on Simon’s back. He collapsed to the cobbles. Some of the other scavengers scuttled away from him. He curled around himself, trying not to whimper, dribbling blood.

He expected the killing blow to come. Perhaps the twitch in Donovan’s face had been the work of his guilty imagination.

Someone shuffled up next to Donovan. “Dust storm’s heading this way right quick,” whispered the newcomer. “Best to shelter the Prime Minister here until it passes.”

“Of course,” said Donovan. “Tell the rest of the men.” And he stomped off, leaving Simon to lie there in the dirt.

Simon eventually crawled from the square, once the rest of the scavengers had filtered off to find better pickings. The only ones left were the old man Donovan had killed and the woman cradling her still baby. At Simon’s tentative touch, her body keeled to one side, and he hurried away. From the church came the chants of the Blackshirts, as they feasted on the scraps the preacher gave out to local vagrants.

A herald in a black skullcap cried out from the rubble of a demolished building. Simon waved away his warnings of the dust storm.

On he limped, until he burrowed into a slit between two collapsed office blocks. Wriggling through, he emerged into a dim cellar. Other scavengers huddled by the paltry fire they’d started from old furniture. He recognised a few faces, but no one bothered to get acquainted much in these times. A pang of longing for his friends came – something he hadn’t felt in years.

Donovan would be sat with his fellow Blackshirts now, perhaps chanting along, probably leading the merriment. Donovan had always had a way of putting people at ease. Simon supposed he was the idiot for listening to him.

“Anyone heard the news from Europe?” said one of Simon’s fellow refugees, bony hands stretched to the fire. “Our Prime Minister’s friend is dead.”

Simon jolted. He broke his own rule, leaning close to look into the man’s eyes. “Hitler?”

The man nodded. There were soft murmurs around the fire. Sheltering from the dust storms was the only chance they had to exchange rumours. Some wanderers could be especially knowledgeable. Still… Simon had to know more.

“How? How did it happen?”

The man across the fire showed decaying teeth. “I heard it was his own people rose up. Thousands of them stormed his palace.”

“Makes you dream, don’t it?” said another old man.

“If any of you are brave enough,” came a new voice from the entrance, “I know where our Prime Minister is.”

Simon slumped as footsteps crunched on the loose gravel around the cellar. Everyone else hid their faces as best they could.

“No one?” asked Donovan, striding to the fire. It glowed over the pistol against his hip and the skull-breaker in its sheath. “Not moved by the news from Germany?”

“Of course not, sir,” mumbled the man across from Simon.

“How about you?” Donovan nudged Simon with his boot. “You given up?”

Simon looked up at his old friend. How many years since they’d seen each other? How many years spent trapped here?

Sorrow stained Donovan’s features in shadow, and he glanced away. Simon rose unsteadily, the bruises Donovan had given him flaring alive. Still, he didn’t look away when the Blackshirt turned back.

“I’m out of time anyway,” he said, stifling a cough, tasting blood.

Donovan might’ve smiled. It might’ve evaporated in an instant. How old he looked.

“You’ll follow me then.”

He went tramping back through the gap. The vagrants clustered around the bonfire watched after him with disbelief. They didn’t try to dissuade Simon from following.

“Here.” Donovan pushed a wad of cloth at Simon as he staggered out onto the rubble.

Dust skittered around them. Soon, the full might of the storm would howl through these ruined streets. Donovan had already applied his bandana over his face, so Simon did the same. He was surprised, when they started walking, that he felt no more fear of the man in front of him. A man who could easily kill him.

“How long have you been here?” said Donovan finally. He sounded almost embarrassed.

“I lost track,” said Simon. “No, that’s a lie. Fourteen years since we went back.”

Donovan grunted. “Twenty-six for me, I think.” He shrugged broad shoulders. “I don’t like to keep track anymore. I thought…”

He fell silent, but his words had opened gates between them. Simon couldn’t stop from speaking.

“Twenty-six…”

Donovan shrugged.

“Did you find any of the others? Caleb? Herb? Jess?”

The only reply for a time was the dusty wind wailing, and their footsteps grinding over crumbled brick. Donovan trudged on in the lead, bandana flapping around his face, coat hunched to his neck.

“I didn’t know,” he said with a sigh.

It unnerved Simon to see Donovan so despondent. Before, he’d idolised the man’s confidence – how sure he was of everything. People had commented Donovan was too extroverted to be any good as a physicist.

“I thought you’d come back,” said Donovan. “I thought it was only me who was stuck.”

“Maybe one of them found a way home,” said Simon.

Donovan grunted, lumbered on. His pace was slow, but his stride was long. Simon, devolving back to university habits, trailed in the bigger man’s shadow.

“You’ve been here longer than you were home,” he said.

Donovan shrugged again. “I stopped thinking about that.”

“All this time…”

“I don’t want to hear that, Simon,” growled Donovan.

So, they slogged ahead in silence, dust whipping by. The arch of the church came into view through the gritty haze. Fresh fear slithered through Simon, and he paused. Donovan glared back at him.

“I can’t get this wrong again,” muttered Simon.

“You won’t.”

“I caused this, Donnie. I shot, but I was shaking and I missed and…” His left eye flared, and he hissed.

Donovan stared at him over his bandana. “What else is there to do here then, Simon? Do we just carry on putting up with the shit and hope it miraculously turns to sunshine?”

“You put up with it,” said Simon, as blood leaked down his face.

Donovan snarled through his bandana. The animosity left his face in an instant, and he shuddered in the wind. The storm would be upon them soon. Simon would be happy to let it destroy them both. An end – no before or after or regrets or plans.

“You weren’t the one who ruined everything,” muttered Donovan. “I tried, you know. I actually tried to find Hitler and kill him.” He uttered a short laugh. “Turns out an English man with a funny accent doesn’t get far in Germany when they’re gearing up for World War One. I was sent here, had no way of getting back, so I… I looked for you. I looked for Mosley, and things changed. Something I did in Germany when they caught me. I thought I could warn them, maybe.” He cupped his head. “God, I was such a fucking moron!”

Simon stared around at the desolation. All this couldn’t be Donovan’s fault. It would’ve happened before he’d tried to kill Mosley. His brain burned in his skull, and his left eye wept blood. Thinking about time made him nauseous. How badly they’d done.

“I gave them the atomic bomb, Simon. They didn’t believe it at first, but then Hitler came to power. He believed it. Things must’ve only been getting started when you got here. The coup, the purges, the march on Westminster – all that was being planned already.”

Simon shook his head. The enormous weight of guilt he’d carried ever since his missed shot, ever since his flight into the gutter, would not be shifted.

“Believe me or don’t,” growled Donovan. “I’m giving you a chance to try again. Maybe it won’t work, but I have to try, and so do you, I think.”

“We can’t go back,” murmured Simon.

“I accepted that a long time ago.”

Simon hissed in a breath. Donovan lurched towards him, boots thumping loud in the square. The bodies of the old man and the mother with her baby were nearby, now coated in dust.

Donovan pressed something cold into his hands. A pistol, heavy with vengeance.

“I don’t know if I can,” said Simon.

“We have nothing else to lose.” Donovan clasped his shoulder.

Simon hid the gun under his wretched coat. Pulling it tight, he limped ahead of his old friend. He glanced again at the bodies shrouded in atomic dust. The church was quiet, and even the sound of the storm diminished as he stepped under the arch.

No one stood guard. After all, no one expected anyone to stand against the Blackshirts. Donovan’s footfalls were heavy behind Simon, as they advanced into the cavernous hall.

A rough snore jerked Simon to one side. Donovan grabbed him to stop him falling, but Simon glimpsed pain flitting across the other man’s face. The Blackshirt asleep against the wall groaned and rolled to one side.

They walked on. Simon had to step over another sleeping Blackshirt. Donovan lumbered along calmly as ever, but he didn’t have the weight of a pistol dragging at him. Simon rubbed sweat from his face despite the cold air of the church.

Past the nave, the hall divided into branches. One was caved in by an old bomb, and the storm whispered through this wound. The other ended in a wooden door – sanctuary for the wanderers the preacher took pity on. A dozen Blackshirts slept against the walls here.

Simon tiptoed between them. The slightest stumble, and he’d end up waking them all. A cough burned within his lungs, but he clamped his teeth into his bottom lip. Donovan snuck along at his back. When he glanced behind, he could see a vein bulging along the other man’s forehead.

One of the sleeping men yawned as Simon stepped past him. His head swivelled. Bleary eyes searched Simon, taking in his filthy rags, his grimy face, the pistol he’d unconsciously drawn from his coat.

Realisation made those bleary eyes widen. The man sucked in a breath to shout. Donovan darted to him. The skull-breaker made a sound like the storm as it arced. Then it met the man’s scalp with a dull thud.

Simon swallowed bile. He glanced around, expecting the entire hall to fill with shouting.

No more of the Blackshirts stirred. Their snoring continued unbroken. The unlucky light sleeper slumped to one side, eyes glazed permanently.

Donovan hissed, and Simon scuttled to the wooden door. Its surface was cool against his hands. He spluttered, then pushed it open.

A lone man sat by the shuttered window. His leg, likely aching from the bullet lodged in the bone, a missed shot meant to kill, was propped upon a stack of cushions meant for beggars. In the light of a faltering candle, the Prime Minister looked so different to the straight-backed, snarling man Simon’s grandfather had warned of, the man responsible for the loss of his great-great-grandfather’s left eye.

The Prime Minister’s resplendent black suit had been swapped for flimsy nightclothes. Pale skin dotted by sores showed on his raised leg. His eyes were hooded, not bright with feverish ambition. He blinked slowly as Simon raised the gun. Perhaps he’d been expecting this.

But, despite the suffering and death this man had caused, Simon’s hands still shook. They shook as badly as they’d shaken on his first attempt. He could make out the puckering of the bullet wound he’d left in the Prime Minister’s leg. His left eye burned. His vision smeared and reddened.

“I can’t,” he hissed.

“Give me the gun,” whispered Donovan.

“I failed.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Simon,” said Donovan gently. “You go. See if you can find a way back.”

The Prime Minister continued to blink at them, hands frozen on his desk. Maybe he thought this was a dream.

Donovan took the heavy pistol. It fell easily into his big hands, and Simon’s arms dropped down limply. Donovan aimed at the withered man by the shutters, as the storm began to howl around the church.

“Go on, Simon,” he whispered. “And if you see any of the others, tell them I’m sorry, but I tried to make up for it.”

Simon wanted to talk his old friend out of this. He wanted to pull him away from the Prime Minister. But a cough bubbled into his throat and stopped his speech, and his muscles were too weary to drag the man.

“This isn’t your mess to fix, Simon,” said Donovan. “Go.”

Simon nodded, unable to see much through the red blurring his vision. He scurried out into the hall again, and the door slid shut after him.

Gunshots barked through the church. The echoes were lost to the shrieking of dusty winds outside. As the Blackshirts scrambled awake, Simon ran through the halls, coughing up blood, and threw himself out into the raging storm.