The Life After War Collection

by Angela White

“Something about the way my eyes work. What’s the temperature?”

  Using his lighter, Marc checked the small stick-on disc he had watched her put up earlier. “Either thirty or twenty-eight. Can’t tell which.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure.” he lit a smoke, staring into the thick shadows around them. “I need to ask you something.”

  Angela shut her notebook. “Shoot.”

  “Was calling me a way to make him realize you don’t need him, so that you can get what you want? Are you using me against him?”

  Angela flipped on her penlight as she stepped toward the rail, letting him detect the truth on her face. “Not in the way you’re thinking. He isn’t coming for me, but he intends to keep my son. I have to show him that I not only survive on my own, I thrive.”

  “Why isn’t he coming for you?”

  Fathomless grief flashed, and Marc drew in a sharp breath at the pain he read. Something awful had caused it, something she wasn’t going to tell him yet.

  “I’m a burden.”

  “You’re not a burden. Look how well you’ve survived.”

  “I was never allowed to be this person. He sees only what he’s created.” Angela peered at him, and the bags under her eyes were almost like bruises, they were so dark.

  “He heard the calls too and knows I’m on my way. He doesn’t think I’ll make it and doesn’t expect me to bring help that he can’t handle, so yes. I am using you, but only in the ways you’ve agreed to.”

  Marc knew she wanted to be done with it for now, and he pointed at the small black discs he had set out. “Those are motion and heat sensor alarms.”

  He picked up a rock and a stick, tossed them in different directions, and almost immediately, two different tones chimed loudly from his wristwatch.

  Marc quickly hit a button to give them silence, holding his arm up for her to witness the sequence, and Angela controlled her flinch at the movement.

  “Different sound for each breach tells how many intruders. Red buttons turn it off, green arms it.”

  “You learn that in the Corps?”

  “That and a few other things.”

  “Like what?” she asked.

  “Survival stuff mostly. I was always good at planning for trouble. It’ll come in handier now, I suspect.”

  He sounded wide-awake and she frowned. “Aren’t you tired?”

  “I’m a Marine, honey. This is par for the course,” he stated, but didn’t tell her he’d only gotten a short snooze before their escape from the fire. His mind had been too busy racing to sleep, and he had taken a pill after lunch.

  They were both quiet for a minute, scanning, listening. There were no lights or noises in the darkness around them, no insects or rodents in the brush, and Angela shivered. The world was dying. Would they too?

  Shaking off the morbid thoughts, Angela followed Marc into the warmth of their den.

  When he took off his coat, thick arms flexing, her gaze was again drawn to his muscular body.

  “I grew up, didn’t I?” He grinned, hoping for a laugh.

  “Yes.”

  Angela slid into her blankets, thinking it was all going to be so much harder than she’d expected. She tossed the black case toward his feet and observed for anger in case the throw made him jump. “Light the big one, will ya?”

  Marc leaned against an end table as he fired it up. His gun belts were under his pillow, boots nearby, and the sweet pot curled thickly around them as they smoked all of it without speaking. Neither of them cared for the tension, but it was a step down from what Angela had lived with each day.

  “In the morning, before we leave, I’d like to start showing you how to use that gun.”

  She was unbraiding long curls that he longed to touch.

  “Okay. Will you tell me about some of your missions another night?” she asked, smothering another yawn.

  “You mean about the places I’ve come through since the war?”

  “No, about your time in the Corps.”

  “Pick a city, state, or country.”

  “New Orleans.”

  “Before or after Katrina?”

  She heard the change in his voice and chose, “During.”

  “Okay.”

  She shivered at a strong draft, and Marc pushed the heater closer to her with his foot, very aware that the connection, the spark that had always been between them, was still waiting.

  “So what’s the first thing I should know about guns?”

  “Don’t have one, if you don’t know how to use it.”

  Angela understood the answer had been drilled into him, but still found his tone smug. She met his eye warily. “The second?”

  “When its life or death, like now, rule one means shit.”

  Marc grinned again, and she had to give him a tiny return smile, head starting to thump. “So, what will you do with me first?”

  His glance went to her mouth, and Marc forced himself to investigate the floor as the wind howled through the dead cornstalks around the farmhouse. “We’ll work on target practice each morning for a few minutes before we leave, so we’re not as likely to be tracked by the noise.”

  “That’s smart.”

  He stifled a groan of relief, dog tag clinking as he lay down on his side, facing her.

  “Won’t matter if someone’s nearby,” he warned, staring at the ebony curls resting on the blankets. Would her hair still feel like silk against his skin?

  Angela’s nostrils flared, as if she had smelled the thought, and the fear lurking on her face made him roll onto his back. He was enjoying the buzz, the heat on his feet, and most of all, the sights, sounds, and smells of her that were invading his senses, reminding him of pleasures long gone. She too had grown up.

  Yes, I have, she thought, easing down as the mild cramps of her sore stomach continued hurting her. Enough not to encourage what I’ll never be free to give.

  “Night, Brady.” She shut her eyes and felt him reach that cold, dark place in her heart with a single, beautiful, fiery blast of heat.

  “Night, honey. See you in the morning.”

  “Yes, you will.” The old, familiar, hurtful response came from her lips as if no years had gone by, and it was hard not to let the tears escape. Marc was here, and every wall that had stood between them before was still there, only now they were twice as tall. It would be a long time before they were even friends again.

  Marc lay with his hands under his head until her even breathing told him that she was asleep, and then he eased onto his side, letting his eyes go where they wanted. She was achingly beautiful and still more courageous than any female he’d ever known. How was he going to do this? Fifteen years had gone by without communication, but Marc had never put her out of his heart. There was no way he could make it a thousand miles without telling her the truth. He’d come for another chance at their love. He would agree to any deal she offered.

  Chapter Fourteen

  No Pain, No gain

  February 15th

  Devils Head, Colorado

  1

  “Damned spider wasn’t even the size of my fingernail,” Samantha muttered bitterly.

  She was about to cause herself a lot of pain because of it, though. Her leg was bad. The wound was hard and swollen, black in the center with angry red lines of infection aiming for her heart.

  Green Falls and Woodland Park, Colorado had both been looted, like every other place she had come through, but their pharmacies had been surprisingly intact. Sam had tried all the antibiotics she found on the spider bite, giving each a couple of days take effect. Though they had clearly slowed down the infection that had eventually made walking impossible, it was now life or death. She would have to do surgery on herself.

  Sam was holed up in the Devil’s Head Hunting Lodge, taking shelter in one of the large, rustic cabins. There were old, uncomfortable furnishings around a beautiful stone fireplace, an outhouse in the rear, and huge glass windows in the front that gave her a view o
f dwarf birch trees with black moss climbing the smooth trunks.

  The other walls were decorated with a buck, a bear, an angry bobcat, and a calendar still on December. Isolated and alone, she was about to try treating herself so she could recover while waiting out the powerful blizzard that she could feel approaching.

  Terrified of passing out and bleeding to death, Samantha let her mind go where it wanted. The thick layer of dust on the floor said no one had been here since all hell had broken out. There weren’t even the bloody smears that she was sadly becoming used to. There also weren’t any bodies, not even a stray cat, and that too, worried her. It said there were probably a number of predators around here that were keeping the carrion cleaned up.

  Her stomach dipped at that thought, and when she shut her eyes, she saw the doomed man on the sofa again, heard the single shot. The compound was fifty miles behind her, but Pat’s grotesque face was a daily companion.

  “Won’t last as long as he did if you don’t do this, Sammi,” she muttered.

  She could only hope that this drastic action would succeed. The bandages and other supplies were spread out next to her, flames were roaring in the fireplace at her booted feet, and Sam pulled her cap down tighter over her long braid. It was time to shoot, Luke, or give up the gun.

  Samantha, who had once created useful technology for the government and saved the life of the president, picked up the hot knife. There was a second one smoldering in the fire, and she tried not to think of how much more it would hurt. There was a shoelace tied around her upper thigh, cutting off the circulation, and she clenched her teeth as she pinched up the flesh around the nasty-smelling wound. Thick, yellow clots ran out and rolled down her thigh.

  “Don’t need someone to ride the river with,” she told herself. The leg of her sweat pants was cut away from the thigh to the knee, so if she passed out, she wouldn’t freeze to death. “It’s do or die time, Sammi.”

  The steel in her spine stiffened into an iron bar and after a quick prayer that she had no real faith in; Sam drew in a deep breath and pushed the knife into her leg.

  It sank into her flesh as if it were butter. She screamed as pain like she’d never known raced up her leg. White and yellow pus shot out, followed by scarlet streams, and she cut again, hoarse cry never completely stopping as a chunk of her leg slid to the sticky floor.

  Stomach and teeth clenched, the sobbing woman forced her shaking hands to drop the knife and grab the full, open bottle of rubbing alcohol.

  Sam dumped it over the heavily bleeding wound and snatched up the second knife with her other hand before the agony could overwhelm her. Tears blurring her vision, she shoved the red-hot end over the gaping hole.

  Her lungs burned before she stopped screaming.

  After using the iron twice more to be sure she had closed the odd, deep would; Sam could feel her heart thudding in her chest, but nothing else except the flames that had become her leg. She dropped the bloody metal into the fire, grasping the syringe of morphine with jerking fingers.

  Crying tears of misery, she only gave herself half of the liquid and was grateful when the pain immediately sank down into a nasty monster that she could tolerate. The morphine was powerful, consuming, and she was unprepared for the strength of the liquid gold as it made her thoughts swim.

  When she was sure she had herself under control, she shot a generous dose of antibiotics into her thigh and then sat still, trying to stay awake. She was afraid of the wound breaking open, terrified of her dreams. Melvin and Henry were with her most nights, often joined by the press secretary from the bunker, and while she knew it was her mind sorting through it all, she couldn’t help being afraid.

  While traveling over the broken landscape, brief flares of light in the darkness had come sporadically, and made her go still until they were gone. With NORAD destroyed, Samantha had found no reason to keep searching for the government. She didn’t know what she would do yet, but if the surgery succeeded, she might be in Cheyenne by April Fools’ Day.

  Pain came in thick waves, stealing her breath and Sam thought of her Seattle office with longing. She had spent more time there than in the condominium she’d received from her parents. She hadn’t been a public member of the weather service, only a computer message they had been told to listen to, no matter what their own data said. She’d been well treated, office full of luxuries designed to keep her distracted.

  “Prize rat in a cushy run,” she slurred, crying again, ashamed of her life. She’d been part of the problem. Some of this was her fault.

  Miserable and exhausted, her eyes shut. The pain and drugs were too much. Sam slumped against the bed of cushions and pillows she’d made as the darkness swallowed her.

  Outside, the snow began to fall.

  2

  Wwhhhoooo!

  Sam was moaning in agony before her eyes were even open, hands automatically going to her wound.

  She screamed as clumsy fingers found the raw, angry flesh of her leg and she jerked awake, groaning as the room spun. Taking shallow, rapid breaths, she gave herself the rest of the morphine in the syringe without sitting up, slamming the needle into her other thigh. Her empty stomach churned, and she gagged. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and Sam concentrated only on holding in her guts as the pain sank down.

  After a moment, she pried her eyes open. Cleanup had to be done. It had been an animal outside that had woken her. The mess was already drawing predators, even though she could hear the wind and snow beating against the cabin. Her dream flashed through her mind, the latest vision. A blizzard, and places on the edge of the storm would experience sudden temperature drops. The war’s death count was about to climb.

  As if to prove her point, the storm outside picked up, freezing rain slamming against the windows, and she jumped at a blur in the corner. Squinting, her blurry vision told her it wasn’t a threat. It was a mouse, and it appeared normal. It was the first good thing she’d observed in weeks.

  Samantha forced herself to use the bedpan, leg flaring up to shout at each jar and wobble. She gently cleaned herself with alcohol pads, relieved to discover the dark red lines lighter, and then forced herself to drink a cup of water and eat a pack of stale peanut butter crackers. She also tossed one into the corner for the mouse to find later.

  She already missed the fire, shivering and hating the dark, but she wasn’t up to the effort required to relight it. For now, she had a big stack of blankets and a couple of flashlights nearby, and that would have to be enough.

  Leg screaming, Sam took another half syringe of morphine, eyes closing in bliss. She tugged the covers over herself with numb hands. She would rest a while and then she’d be okay.

  She told herself that repeatedly, needing the comfort now that loneliness had caught up with her on her solitary journey. Sam had finally come to hate the constant silence that was their world now. She needed to be with people again, and as soon as she was able, she would be on her way to Cheyenne. Even if the people at the base were gone, there was an EPA approved weather shelter there. She would check it out and stock it for the winter, make it her hideout. She couldn’t resist hoping there would already be other survivors there, but knew it was too much to ask. Likely, there would be only more pain and death.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Birds of a Feather

  February 16th

  Near Roosevelt, Utah

  1

  “Harrison to Eagle One. Twelve o’clock, high.”

  Adrian glanced up from the roadmap he had splayed across the steering wheel, and narrowed in on the enormous black cloud coming over the distant hill toward them. It was like a badly trained platoon, spreading an evil shadow over the land.

  Adrian leaned forward. “What the hell is…? Shit! Convoy, halt! Put it in park, and get down as low as you can!”

  Doing about 35mph, Adrian slammed both feet down, reaching for the trailer brake. Pulling the curved handle, he applied the clutch as he downshifted through half the gears and then t
ugged the rear controls harder. The semi shuddered, grinding as the tires locked up, and thick white smoke rolled from the hind wheels.

  Left hand straining to keep the heavily loaded truck straight, he let go of the chicken-stick, using the pedals again, and the semi slowly shuddered to a stop. “Neil, Kyle, get that truck of turkeys away from us!”

  “What is it?”

  Adrian groaned as their birds clucked loudly, responding to the faint echoes. “Everybody stay down! Fate sent another wild card!”

  The sickly flying birds flew straight for the convoy, an enormous flock of possible contamination. Adrian had enough time to wonder what species they had been–picking out blackened wings and dead eyes–before the flock arrived.

  Birds slammed into them, shattering windows, banging off doors and hoods with awful thuds that sent blood and guts flying as the blind victims came in for a landing. They squelched against trees, ripped apart on sharp, bare juniper branches, and hit the ground with wet, sickening thuds. The gusting wind blew them down faster than the Eagles could shoot. The flock was uncountable.

  Adrian knew the sounds of their guns wouldn’t be enough to carry through the din of the birds calling, screams, glass cracking, and awful, wet thuds. A fire of some kind? Stereos?

  Now holding his spare vest over the cracked, gore-splattered windshield, Adrian spotted Kenn coming from his truck. He knew instantly that the Marine was about to work his bolt and make himself look good doing it. About damn time!

  That’s exactly what Kenn was thinking as he quickly climbed onto the roof of the school bus. Birds were diving in for sightless landings all around him, and he blew the air horn he’d taken from his glove box. The kids next to him had their windows down and were being pecked and scratched by the incoming birds. Sick birds and Kenn knew Adrian would be relieved that only a couple had gotten through so far. The lower half of the glass was taking the brunt of the aerial assault.

  Kenn blew birds out of the sky before they could get into an open window, rotating and blasting the piercing air horn. People were amazed when the flock immediately began to divert from their straight-at-the-ground course. He knew what they were thinking: how had he known that would work?