Nothing Left To Do
In 1942, I joined the Allied forces in what they would call World War II. In 2016, I returned to the site of my hardest battle I ever fought, the beaches of Normandy France to commemorate the brave men that fought with and against me in that awful battle, I, still only looking 19 years old. I was 200 years old.
When I signed up for the draft, this was my first war. I had never seen the glory in war before this, it seemed futile, and not to my intense liking. However, the reasons over World War 2’s beginnings seemed more… interesting isn’t the right word. I would have to say the reasons over this particular seemed more noble to me. A man should never have that much power, that much sway over the human race. As a forever-young vampire (how I despise that word), I feel that I have those same qualities, so I fought against a human that I knew could never live forever, that I could defeat, so no one would bear that same immortality that I was forced to live. How wrong I was, Adolf Hitler lives on in a more permanent immortality, if that makes sense. I will not be remembered, but he will. The soldiers in wars seldom live on forever, but the ones who led it all, they do, which is the immortality I think is more… permanent.
I always liked the US. The country was founded on freedom, and I can relate to that. Freedom is a wonderful thing, and a good battle to fight. I could never die by their weapons, so I figured I could join up and fight for the country I had lived in for centuries, be a part of something nobler than killing people for their blood and running around trying to stay hidden so I was never found out.
Immediately after the draft, after I had been proven in yet another state as being indeed old enough to draft (oh if they only knew), I was sent off to the European front lines, right to Italy, where I would spend two years, until the Normandy attacks.
I won’t go into the explicit detail of each meeting with an enemy because I can’t remember what happened, to be honest. Too much blood around me leaves me foggy in the brain. However, in each little village or town or city, we came upon, desolated by war, we would find families holding on to the rubble of their once-homes, their once-lives. I, not needing the rations the country provided for us, would create lies about surplus goods and give mine to families who needed them.
Sitting in makeshift camps even a month into my service, seeing the too-young 18-year-old boys exclaiming “I’’m gonna be a hero, by God. I’ll get home and ask my girl to marry me, a hero!!” The other men, fresh and worn down alike all looked to me as if expecting a similar response. I shrugged and made up some lie about not having anyone to go home to. They asked, “well, who’re you fighting for then, kid?” In my sad, twisted smile, I softly responded every time with “no one, but myself”.
They would all fall silent and look at the fresh young faces sadly, knowing that the boy they came into this war as would die. Maybe not literally, but even if he lived, the boy he was, would die as brutally as enemies and friends alike.
In 1944, the Battle of Normandy was harder to fight, only because of two things: the bullet wounds never killed me, and my fellow soldiers were incredulous and suspicious. The other difficult part… was that my best friend, the only one I told my little vampiric secret to, was killed in battle.
I begged him, sobbing, to let me turn him, so he wouldn’t die, he couldn’t, not yet, not with his wife at home, and his just-born daughter. Not with me all alone without him.
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“Please..let me do this… please, if not for me, for your family’ Emily… Margaret. She’s too young to not have a father”.
“No, you know I can’t. I’d rather both of them know I’m a dead hero than a live…”
I knew he meant “monster”.
He died exactly thirteen minutes and 17 seconds later. December 25th, 17:32., 1944.
When we began liberating the Concentration Camps, I tried telling my troops to not feed the emaciated prisoners their rations, as good as their intentions were. I could smell that their blood was too thin and that their bodies wouldn’t take well to the rich food. They seldom listened to me. I watched prisoners die from food, what an awfully nice way to go, though, if you think about it. To die by the food you hadn’t tasted in perhaps years, to die knowing that finally, these damn Yankees were finally showing kindness and goodwill toward them.
After the war, I returned to my small town in Montana. I thought that if my whole troop and all the rest of my men could drink away their problems, then I could, too. No bar would serve someone who looked 19, no matter how hard I tried telling them I was 21. No one would believe me, even the more sympathetic bartenders wouldn’t let me get drunk to forget all I had seen.
Fast-forward (a term I just learned) to now. I stand at the Normandy Beach Memorial. I see my old friend’s tombstone: “Joshua Potter, who died far too soon for a war far too long”. His daughter and grandchildren and great-grandchildren know of my… predicament. How could they not, Joshua was awful at keeping secrets from family. They didn’t seem to care, seeing as how this whole “vampire-mania” situation has taken hold of popular culture. One of his great-granddaughters has taken a special liking to me, and I to her, I futilely try to distance myself from her, but she looks so much like Joshua, that I can’t help but love her. But she will die one day, and there's only so many years of a seeming age difference that seems acceptable.
But this isn’t a love story, so I’ll stop right there.
I’m standing in front of my Lieutenant's tombstone. His, who I can only assume is his widowed wife, in her nineties, stares at me.
“I saw pictures of your grandfather from Andrew’s pictures. Alexander Saint was a good man. You look just like your grandfather, you know”.
I smile the same sad, twisted smile I did years ago, listening to kids talk about their grand dreams of heroism.
“Yeah, I get that a lot. Would you like to go to lunch with me? I’d like to hear about you husband”.
She says yes. And for the first time since the war, I hear stories about myself, Lieutenant Andrew, and my war. face