AN- a school assignment, actually....the ordered genre was horror, and as that's my LEAST favorite genre to write for......

This actually came out in a very Edgar Allan Poe-ish style, with the small difference that he's an amazingly talented writer, and I'm...er.....not so much. So, yeah, feel free to classify this as wannabe-worth-reading.

Posting because with some crit, I figure this might actually turn out ok.

An Endless Seven Years

He’d only ducked into the bar to escape what was supposed to be a quick passing storm, but here he was two hours later, with the rain still raging, not showing any sign of lighting up. Annoyed, he drummed his fingers against the worn, chipped wood of the bar he was sitting at, his third drink so far sitting relatively untouched.

It wasn’t that he had anything against bars, of course, but the one he had stumbled into was less then the perfect place to kill time. One of those tiny, rundown joints that can be found hidden away in nooks and crannies all over London, it was dark and dank, and smelled noticeably of rot and mildew. The only other customer—who’d been there when he’d walked in, and would probably be there hours after he left—was fast asleep, head resting on the stained table in front of him, most likely attempting to sleep off the effects of alcohol poisoning. The barkeeper was cleaning smudged glasses with a dirty rag, adding an almost stereotypical touch to the whole affair.

Turning back to the beer bottle in front of him, he wondered if it wasn’t time for him to head back home. Frankly, he’d had enough of London, with its muddy back alleys and crowded streets, and above all, the ceaseless rain. The sky was always grey, and—being a native of sunny California—the wet, pervasive dampness of the climate was starting to seriously offend.

It wasn’t like there was anything keeping him here, per se. Nothing ever kept him anywhere, he often liked to comment—he was a drifter, breezing along with the flow, heading from place to place as it suited him, as it seemed appropriate. At first, he’d reason his roamings with half-thought-out plans for fame and riches, but they never pawned out, and he never expected—or really wanted—them to. He was a drifter, and that was perfectly fine with him; after all, from the moment he’d been born, or so it seemed, it’d been his way of life, so why stop now? There was no desire to ‘settle down’, ‘start a family’, or any of that—he was a man who above all required freedom, freedom in its purest sense. The freedom to roam at will, the freedom to come and go as he pleased, the freedom to not be chained down forever in some pigeon-hole life.

Freedom was his only master, and at the moment it was giving him an order: Get Out Of This Country. He’d first wandered to England with the vague intent to ‘see something new’, but the newness of the place had long since faded. Not to mention, recent events had him on edge, and that was simply no fun at all.

He glared down at the local paper that slumped in his hands. ‘Germany Invades Poland, Great Britain to Issue War Declaration!’ it screamed in big, bold letters. The drifter’s mouth tightened in disgust. War….what a mess.

War was his sacred enemy, although his views were hardly pacifist. (The number of beer room brawls and fist fights he’d gotten himself into over the years could attest to that.) No, war was a nuisance to him solely because it got in the way of his freedom. If countries wanted to act like children having temper tantrums, that was no business of his, but when borders shifted and became impossible to cross, when transportation and good food and housing were all snapped up by the war machine, when suddenly there were drafts and shortagesand men giving patriotic speeches to try and rip him from his comfortable life and send him to fight someone else’s fight…

He could die on his own, please and thank you;he didn't need anyone else's help.

Eyeing the article, which promised an inevitable war, the drifter decided to have one last beer and then shove off, rain or no. He figured he’d head down south, to some warm South American country where the girls were pretty and no one ever bothered to ask for passports, and above all, where he wouldn’t risk waking up one morning to find a rifle in his hands. This war with Germany was no concern of his.

The door flung open with a bang, startling the old drunk in the corner awake. He glared, eyes still glazed over and confused, but evidently decided nothing was amiss and dropped back off to sleep. The cause of the commotion sloshed through a puddle—hopefully of water—on the floor and sank down on the bar stool next to the drifter.

Having had enough booze in his system to feel rather generous, the drifter turned to the newcomer with a smile.

“Hey, buy you a drink?”

The newcomer mumbled a reply in the negative, his accent decidedly American. Surprised at both coming across another man from the States, and at the answer to his friendly query, the drifter raised an eyebrow.

“You sure? Swill here’s nothin’ special, but a day like this takes some fortifying…”

Once again, the only answer from the newcomer was an incoherent ‘no’. His curiosity aroused, the drifter looked the other man over. He wasn’t very tall or very short; whatever his build was, bulky or otherwise, was hidden beneath mounds of worn-looking clothing, and both his hair and his eyes were a dull blondish brown color that couldn’t quite be described. His thin face was pale and strained under the garish lights, and every so often he would cough slightly, perhaps as a result of breathing in the musty air. And to top it all off, there was a strange quality to this man…he seemed to fade away into the background even if you looked right at him. His pale eyes stared off at nothing, and he made no request for a drink, which certainly wasn’t common bar behavior.

He just sat there, colorless eyes darting from one direction to the next, looking as if he’d woken up and found himself in hell…

Waning attention caught afresh by the stranger’s odd appearance, the drifter decided to try one more time to start up a conversation and raised his voice. “You’re from the States, right? Heh…good ol’ U.S.A….hard to believe, but after a month in this dump I’m starting to miss it. No place like home, eh?” There was no response from the stranger; he might as well have been talking to himself. “So, what brings a fellow American here? See the papers lately? There’s a war comin’. I’d get out if I was you, no sense in getting caught in something you can’t shake off later, eh?” He laughed.

The stranger jerked as if he’d been stabbed.

“Getting caught…” he repeated slowly, almost to himself. The drifter stopped laughing, puzzled.

“Everything ok over there?” he tried.

“That just….reminded me….”

The drifter nodded, pleased with the promise of a story to sit through. The stuff people blabbed about in bars tended to be pretty attention-grabbing, especially when one was as bored as he was. At this point, just knowing the stranger wasn’t mute was a bonus.

“Just…reminded me…of something.”

“Eh? Care to share it?”

“No.” The answer was abrupt and final.

“Oh come on,” the drifter coaxed. “It’s pouring, we’re stuck here, and the beer’s not fit for a dog, we might as well talk about something.” When the stranger shook his head, he continued: “What, is it some big secret? That’s ok, but if it’s serious it might help to, uh, ease the guilt—”

That seemed to do it; the stranger was staring at him now.

“Yes? Speaking about it would help?” The drifter nodded, reassuringly, although to be honest, he really had no clue whatsoever if that was true or not. “Yes…well…” The stranger stared off at not much. “It is just that…years and years ago…”

“Yeah?” The drifter thought hopefully that this story had to be a real shocker, what with the fuss the other man was putting up. “So what happened?”

“This girl…” began the stranger slowly. “She was…so beautiful, so kind…everyone who knew her loved her, it wasn’t something that could be helped…when she married, her husband was…so happy…”

Uh oh, the drifter mused to himself, looks like this guy’s nursing a lost love. It didn’t take much to figure out that this guy was the husband, the only question was what had happened to the wife.

“They had money, enough to live on, and a daughter…such a cheerful, bubbly child…” His voice trailed off.

The drifter, unsure of the direction this story was headed, waited for him to continue without interrupting.

“So wonderful…such a wonderful family…” The stranger’s voice grew noticeably louder, startling him. “There was…no reason for the wife, the child…no reason for them to have to die!”

The drifter swallowed. “Oh, uh…I’m sor—”

“No! There was no reason! Such wonderful, perfect people they were! To be killed in their prime—there was no point!” His voice was shrill and shrieking, fingernails on a screeching blackboard. “The murderer had no right! He had no right to take them away! He thought he could get away with it, thought it was a crime he would never pay for—but he will pay! I am sure of this!”

The drifter swallowed. This story was starting to be a bit too interesting for his tastes.

“Yes! He thought that simply by avoiding arrest, he could escape the punishment for his crimes! Such innocent life he stole! The very nature of this atrocity begs for vengeance! Those victims, those pure victims, they will be avenged. Even now…even now, they work their revenge, burdening the filth who killed them with guilt, never giving him a moment’s peace—he runs and runs, but he cannot run fast enough to elude him! For seven years, they have extracted their vengeance, and still they are not through!”

The stranger had by this point gotten up from his seat, waving his arms around madly, raving like a lunatic. Which was probably what he was, the drifter thought, not without some horror at the violent, angry words being spilled. Except…

Except, that haunted, hunted look in the crazed man’s eyes…you didn’t wear a look like that if you were insane…you wore it if you had seen so much you should have been insane.

“Imagine it!” the stranger cried, wilder then ever. “Imagine running, for seven years, never once being able to rest! Imagine how horrible an act must have been, how loud the cries for justice were, for such unending torment!”

“Y-Yeah,” the drifter said nervously, “it…it doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun, but uh, I guess the guy got what he deserved—”

“No!” shrieked the other, “No, he has not come even close to getting what he deserves. His punishment can never be severe enough!”

“W-Well, I guess—”

“It was not just two lives he stole! He thought it was, but he was wrong, so wrong! He killed hundreds…hundreds! All those who would have come after, the child’s siblings, and her own children, and her grandchildren, and all of the future! Picture it! Picture killing an entire future’s worth of people! Picture all those who will never be. The yells of those both born and yet to be born chase the murderer—I know it! Every man is punished according to his crime…and he…he will be punished worst of all, because his crime is worst of all! Thousands and thousands of people, he killed, so for thousands of years he will get no rest!”

The stranger suddenly screamed, pointing his finger frantically at nothing, staring at the bare brick wall in front of him: “See! See how they follow him, always, never for even a moment turning away! They have followed him even here! See! Can you not see them? They are watching me, stalking—they won’t leave! Hundreds of them! Thousands! There they all are…they will never cease!” He took a step back, then another, back pressed up against the door, finger tremblingly outstretched. “God! Will they never quit their endless chase! When will I have paid my dues?! Was not escape promised for anyone who tried to repent? Why does God not send me my salvation? Thousands, thousands, thousands of years, days, lives….all those who have met their death by my hands…! I have killed so many…for an endless seven years, they have destroyed me! They pile their rage onto me, unendingly, I cannot rest! If they would only leave! God!”

The door gave way underneath him; still screaming, the stranger turned and fled off into the storm.