William Forsythe MacGillicuddy Hawkins was born to a family of circus performers in 15th century England. It was the time of War of the Roses, a period of great unrest and conflict. They would move from town to town through England by horse cart, performing for the soldiers and their families. Sometimes the whores would throw them pennies, grateful for a little distraction in their otherwise drab and dreary lives. They would supplement their meagre existence by cutting purses and run games of three card Monte for the sailors at Portsmouth.

One day, little Billy Hawkins was practicing his juggling routines down by the filthy canal that was the only place circus performers were allowed to camp in town. Circus folk were considered to be little better than Gypsies, and there was much truth to this. He looked up in the sky and saw a bright light. A star, falling towards him. Being a devout Catholic (the Church of England not being yet formed) he believed it was the Angels coming to gather him to their bosom. The light enveloped him, and the last he knew was a tingling sensation as he became incorporeal.

When he awoke, he was in a modern hospital. Of course, he didn't know what this place was. It was dark inside (else he would have been frightened by electric lights). His body felt funny, as if it had angles it didn't before. Outside the windows beams of intense light shone into the sky, illuminating the clouds from below. Also, he was a girl, a change that frightened him (her?) greatly! A nun in a white habit was moving among the beds in the darkness, tending to patients. Confused, she (he?) called out in fear. "Wot's 'appenin'?"

The voice that emerged from her (his?) narrow chest was thin and high, he was definitely a girl. What curse or magic was this? Was God punishing him for some heresy, or accident of birth? The nun hurried over. In truth, she couldn't quite make out what Hawke said, as the nameless amnesiac girl was speaking in an archaic English dialect.

"Dearie, you've 'ad a dream, is all. Try to get to sleep..."

Just then, a howling filled the air all around, as if wolves the size of mountains were crying up at the moon! "Blimey, it's the Jerries, come to bomb us they 'ave, like the bomb that took your memory, poor dear. Come on, down to the bomb shelter, children! Everyone line up now, let's be smart about it!"

Frightened out of her wits, Hawke fled through the darkened corridors, ignoring the calls of the nun behind her. There was a buzzing and roaring above, then thunder that got closer. Trails of sparks drifted slowly up towards the clods. Finally, she fled outside, into a stone-flagged shadowy high-walled garden. Suddenly, there was a flash in front of her, and she was thrown backwards and falling...

To wake up in the bottom of a fishing boat. He was now a 15 year old fisherman out of Dover, working on his father's boat in the North Sea. Long days were spent pulling nylon nets out of the sea and depositing the bounty in the boat for later sale to the markets London, Dover, Southampton. He gradually forgot his former life as Billy Hawkins, then his short and terrifying life as a nameless amnesiac girl during the blitz. William Hawke went to church, married his second cousin Bertha, the catch of their small fishing community. Life was good, he was happy.

It was almost enough to make him forget that the dead were now rising from their graves to walk the Earth, consuming the living.