There were a few moments of import that characterized the year of 1972. The Black September Organization took members of the Israeli Olympics team hostage in Munich and ultimately killed them. Britain took control of Northern Ireland. Nixon began ping-pong diplomacy with China. By all accounts, the birth of Malachi James Blake was not destined to be one of them.

His mother was Madeline Carlisle, a young British girl that had come to America with dreams of the silver screen. She’d caught the eye of James Blake, a talent agent that focused more on managing his own desires than the careers of his naïve clients. Instead of the glitz and glam of City of Angels, Blake had left her stranded in Sin City as a second-rate piece of eye candy for performers that hadn’t yet realized that their career had run its course. The only memento she had left of him was the young boy with his father’s blue eyes and his mother’s incredibly pale hair.

Despite the lot she’d been given, Madeline certainly tried her best, but the life of a single mother and a showgirl in such a den of iniquity is hard and one must make sacrifices: of time, of pride, and of body. She was often gone, leaving the boy to fend for himself and giving him ample opportunity to begin running with a rougher crowd. By the time he was on the cusp of turning eighteen, he had been before a judge on several occasions on everything from theft to breaking and entering, to assault. He’d been given an ultimatum: join the military or go to jail.

The choice wasn’t difficult. Nine weeks later he was in boot camp. By the time he completed training and airborne school, the conflict between Iraq and Kuwait was in full swing and Bush senior decided to deploy forces into Saudi Arabia. Private Blake found himself in the middle of a desert much different from the one from his home. The conflict was over quickly, but it gave the previously drifting young man a surprising sense of purpose. Soon enough, he found himself challenging himself to become one of the vaunted Rangers, gaining his tab and joining the 75th Ranger Regiment. He was one of the 400 task force members that found themselves in the middle of the bloody battle of Mogadishu in October 1993. That harrowing time is something that never left him, especially his dreams, but it is something that drove him even harder.

Sanguine Nights

By the beginning of 2010, Master Sergeant Blake was supposed to be on the downward glidepath toward retirement. A few years after Mogadishu, he’d tried out and been trained to be a Green Beret. The last decade and change had been filled with operations in Eastern Bloc countries and South American rain forests, where his street sense and less-than-legal skills from his youth had become valuable assets again. Now, however, he found himself adrift and uncertain about the future. He’d had a purpose in the military. He’d had a mission. The promised civilian life ahead of him was more threat than gift. When the world begins to go to hell thanks to Drac-2, Malachi finds it to be a strange sort of comfort. He felt far more comfortable in a world of constant danger than he ever would in the idyllic world of corporate America. He thanks the powers that be when the emergency measures put in place to try and stop the spread caused his retirement to be stalled indefinitely and took the decision from him.

Lady Luck catches up with everyone eventually, however, and she can be one capricious bitch. His team was sent in to try and securely extract some high-level government types that had gone radio silent. What they found was a charnel house. Not unlike in Somalia, he and his team were outnumbered. Unlike in Somalia, however, there was no backup to help them this time. His memories of that time are hazy, filled scent of gunpowder, blood, and the desperate animalistic fight for survival. Then there was the pain: sharp and quick along his triceps, a shredding of his combat uniform and the warmth of blood.

They somehow got out…most of them…but the primary didn’t. Blake had wound up putting two bullets into the Congressman’s head himself when he came at him like some slavering beast. The survivors called in for evac, but the command and control seemed surprisingly reticent. Finally, they had the good news that a helo was on its way. When he finally heard aircraft, however, it was not the rhythmic sound of a helicopter blades, but the unmistakable shriek of an A-10 Warthog coming in. Something about it seemed off to his gut and he tried to get the rest of his people to seek cover, but it was too late. He heard the vicious ripping sound of the planes’ main gun tearing off just after the rounds chewed up the pavement in front of and through where his team was, ripping them apart.

Malachi doesn’t remember much after that. He was too stunned by the betrayal and the loss of men he’d known for years. Only his survival instinct had him finding cover and getting away before the treacherous fighters came around for another pass to look for stragglers. His last few weeks before he succumbed to the virus were filled with grief and rage before it all became a red haze of hunger.

The Gray Dawn

One day, in the pre-dawn light, Malachi found himself surfacing slowly from the bloody fog of unconsciousness. His mouth felt sticky, chin wet. Vertigo hit him as he realized he was perched on the banister’s edge of a city balcony, and he almost fell off. Stumbling back, he dropped down within the balcony itself, gripping the stone tightly as confusion washed over him. He had no idea how he got there, where he was, or even who he was, not at first. He didn’t know anything about himself; what he did know was that there were dangerous things nearby and he had to be careful. As he made his way quietly outside and down to the street, he found himself moving with an assurance he didn’t understand.

He didn’t know who he was or what was going on, but he did know things he didn’t understand: how to pop open a car door, jimmy a lock, and to check the black and white cars for weapons and equipment. He equipped himself, found some new clothes, and tried to find food. The latter was a mistake. When he finally did find something wild growing and tried to cook it, he found that the scent of it made his stomach churn. He quickly wound up regurgitating the little he attempted to force down his throat. He had better luck with a simple snare trap, on that strangled a hare along a run that his sharp eyes had noted. He had heard the creature fall into the trap and struggle. He found his mouth water and itch as he gripped the still struggling creature in both hands. With his stomach growling, he bit down, the blood slick upon his tongue. He should have been revolted. Part of him was. The other part, however, that part was far too sated for his internal debate to put up much of a fight.

For the next month, he slowly began to piece both himself and what had happened to the world together. Small pieces of self came back to him. It started with his name in a dream, and, like a puzzle, pieces would occasionally lock into place. It was the same with the end of the world. It didn’t take a genius for him to put two and two together when he came across snippets of old newspapers and other nuggets of information from the end of the world. None of it helped him make sense of what he was or how he had come back, but he wasn’t about to question the House when it dealt him a blackjack.

It was more than a year before he finally decided to try and contact some survivors. He’d seen them on occasion after catching their scent or following their own movements while he was foraging for supplies within the city, but he avoided them, not trusting himself or the Hunger. He only ever got close enough to listen so that he could try to understand more of how the world was now. He’d seen this group before and had shadowed them a few times. They were a group of five and they operated together well…clearly a seasoned team. He’d pieced together from the snippets of conversation he’d heard that they were part of a group called the Eclipse and they were charged with helping finding supplies for them and for others. They had traveled through this area often, searching it for things of value methodically.

This time was different, however, for they’d caught the attention of a reaper, traveling too close to a nest. He hadn’t been able to warn them, but he’d watched how the reaper and its fellow hunters slowly circling in on the group that was unknowingly walking right into their trap. He fired first, taking out the Reaper and drawing attention to himself and the creatures that had been stalking the group. The next few minutes were chaotic before the hunters finally broke off and ran away from the fight. A tense few minutes of conversation had followed that as Mal exposed himself to the barrels of the keyed-up survivors, hands up and non-threatening.

To the looters, he was a drifter, one of the crazies that risked their life trying to survive out in the wild town, but he was a drifter they owed their life to. Ultimately, they thanked him and asked him if he knew where to find some supplies that they’d been tasked to find for the junkyard. No one knew the city better than Malachi; he led them to what they were looking for and then led them back out again to the outskirts of town.

Under an Eclipse

This is how it was for three years: the team came to the city, met him, and he helped them find what they were looking for. The reputation of “The Sherpa” began to spread. Between the skills from his teen years, his military training, and his vampiric talents, he helped people find what they needed as safely as possible. That partnership slowly grew with one caveat: he had no desire to live in the Junkyard. Much as he works with them, he will not join them. He comes in from time to time to see when the next teams are coming out or to find what necessities and sundries, he can provide the Eclipse on his own, but then he is gone again. Even though it’s been more than eight years now since he came back to himself upon that balcony, he still doesn’t trust himself or the darkness that he can still feel is lurking just beneath the surface. Fortunately for him, he’s skills as a looter and a guide are valuable enough that they look past his eccentricities.