A Congress of Angels (The Collective)

by Fore, Jon

  After unbuckling the top flap of her five day bivouac pack, Vega found right on top the M-9 in its shoulder holster, four clips of ammunition for the handgun, and eight clips of ammunition for the rifle. Oh, thank God, she thought, and pulled out the clips. Beneath she found clothing, batteries, flashlight, portable stove, M.R.E.s for five days or so, even her cell phone and solar charging mat--not that it would be of any use without the sun. But, with all of this, not only was her faith in humanity reaffirmed but she felt whole, or at least useful. "Do either of you know how to read a road map?"

  Jackson looked up at Maria, then back at Vega, "I guess I can. It's not in German, right?"

  "No, I have a street atlas I bought at the PX after coming to Germany. The names are German, but the rest is in English."

  "Well, I think I can help, but Maria will need to read them German names for me."

  "No problem, big guy.” Maria smiled up at him.

  "Good. Let me get this pack put back together. Why don't you two see if there is anything still edible in the kitchen?"

  "Yeah, I could use something to eat, boy-howdy.” Jackson shuffled his size fifteens to the kitchen with Maria following close behind.

  When Vega had her pack clasped shut again, she went into her bedroom to change. The clothing she wore now was her clubbing clothes, and used to be tight in the right places. Now they were oddly loose. That and she wanted the predictable reliability of her combat fatigues. In the armoire was her last uniform, what she called her inspection uniform. She didn't wear these every day, only for scheduled uniform inspections, so they were neat and pressed and ready to go at a moment's notice.

  She dropped her club wear on the floor and pulled on the camouflage pants to find these loose as well. Holding them up with one hand, she went into the bathroom and in the pale nearly useless light, she could see her body had changed. She was thinner but her muscles were easier to see. That and the freckles she hated so much while growing up were completely gone. She used to wear them like a chaotic necklace across her cleavage, but now that was smooth and milky white. The scar she earned crashing her bicycle was also missing from her collarbone, and her midriff sloped gracefully to the waistband of the too-big pants. Nice, she thought and then pulled the two side straps on the belt line to hold her pants up. To her relief that did, in fact, tightened across her hips, but not by much. She caught herself grinning in the mirror at the new and improved Vega, and almost laughed. It was never important to her before, but she liked being this damn hot.

  Returning to the armoire, she found a sports bra, which to her wonder fit snuggly, and put on an O.D. green tee-shirt. Over this she put on her fatigue top and a thick pair of wool socks, then her beige desert boots, and her winter jacket.

  When she returned to the other room, she found Jackson and Maria packing food in a box with a contour image of a woman wearing a dress.

  "We found some canned food and some Ramen Noodle Soup packs, but no way to heat them.” Maria held up a small red and yellow packet.

  Vega forgot she bought a flat of those things. They were great in a pinch, portable, and ready in five minutes. "I have a camp stove," Vega offered, "but not much fuel."

  "We should check the store across the way. There was also a restaurant me and Jackson ate at. They may have some dried stores. They did have a brick oven with wood, for making pizzas or something."

  "Let's go check it out.” Vega said, realizing she was ravenous as well. She strapped the loaded M-9 to her chest, seated a clip in the rifle, and slung her backpack. Then she strapped the rifle sling over top and let it hang under her right arm. That left the sword lying there, mute and indifferent, and Vega turned her back on it. Jackson was waiting with a nearly empty box of food in one arm, Maria in the other.

  They headed back to the Mercedes and Vega left her pack in the passenger seat, Jackson put the box in the passenger floor. They headed to the small grocery, but after peering through the windows, it was apparent that the store was cleared out before the evacuation. The few rows of shelves the store held were almost entirely barren save for a few odd shaped boxes standing and laying on their sides as well as three cans of what looked like beets. The German depiction was too foreign, the light was too dim to know for sure. Either way, it was clearly not enough to shatter a window or door frame to get at the three lonely cans, so they turned to the restaurant and its cold stony facade.

  The windows here were decorated with green plastic ivy or grape vines and crisscrossed with angled wood strips, making the inside impossible to discern in the low light.

  "Should we go in?” Jackson asked. His eyebrows were arched in an 'I'm-with-you-either-way' expression.

  "I think so.” Maria nodded.

  "I guess.” Vega said and stepped in front of the door.

  "I'll get that.” Jackson said and placed a large hand on Vega's shoulder.

  Vega saw it right off. It was her training, or her paranoia, but she could see this door wouldn't lock any more. She pointed at the door jam, the small area where the lock would be engaged. Deep gouges were cut into the wood, and Jackson urged Maria to one side as he nodded at Vega.

  "I'm not sure it's worth it now," Maria prompted.

  "There ain't no reason not to find out," Jackson said and waved Vega aside again.

  "There could be someone in there," Maria said.

  "And there might not be.” Jackson leaned his head down a bit and to Vega he looked like a bull preparing to charge.

  "If there isn't, I bet they took all the food already." Maria's voice was stressing toward worry.

  "There's no one in there," Vega said as she side stepped.

  "How do you know?” Maria was now clearly worried.

  "I don't know. It feels empty, I guess. Here, wait." Vega stepped back in front of the bull before he could charge, drew her handgun, and made a slow entry into a dark building. The rifle barrel prodded the back of her arm, and she hoped it wouldn't foil a shot if she had to take one. The interior was lost to darkness, and after a few seconds, Vega holstered the sidearm and brought the larger rifle up, depressing the finger pad to turn on the flashlight.

  The inside of the restaurant was destroyed. Tables were overturned and chairs shattered, paintings were tilted or pulled from the walls. A hostess stand lay on its side, collapsed, menus spilling from it like a laminated blood stain. The swinging door to the kitchen was mostly torn from its hinges, it hung agape like a loose tooth. That, and the place smelled of spoiled food and spilled beer. Vega thought she might even smell urine somewhere in the darkness.

  "What in God's name...." Jackson stepped around but not in front of Vega.

  "Who would do this?” Maria asked from behind them both.

  "Looters. There must have been a panic or something, and they turned the place over looking for food."

  "Let's go," Maria said, reaching around Vega to grab Jackson's shirt sleeve and draw him back toward the door.

  Vega felt the spark of anger again, but it subsided quickly, too quickly to be of any use, and it was replaced with a bland remorse. Some family at some point would return to their restaurant and find it destroyed. It wasn't right. But even she had to swallow the fact that the world had gotten too far from its own upbringing. People had become too reliant on society to handle something like this invasion. How quickly man could return to the animal state, and not remember how to provide for themselves or their family.

  She shook her head at the destruction, and followed Jackson back out and into the square.

  Chapter 8

  When they climbed back in the car, Vega pulled out three M.R.E packs, and passed two to the back.

  "Thank you, ma'am.” Jackson said, "I was getting hungry bad."

  "Don't worry about it, but we are going to have to find a place to get food. I only have two left.” Vega began driving around the fountain, back on the two lane road. Two miles later, she picked up Interstate Route 44 West heading to Interstate Route 1 North. It was a ninety mile trip, but th
e roads were clear and, as the soldiers had shown, no one really cared that they were still inside the evacuation zone. Vega supposed it would be an easy high speed trip in the well-tuned Mercedes, but she was wrong.

  When Jackson finished his meal, he passed the empty MRE packet forward to Vega. He had no good reason for this, and wondered later why he bothered. All the same she took it and tossed it into the box of Ramen and canned beans on the passenger floor. Maria passed hers forward unopened.

  "Aren't you hungry, Maria?” Vega asked, still holding the M.R.E. over her shoulder.

  "No, not really. I know I will be later, so I thought we would save it, maybe split one with Jackson later, for sure. I don't eat much."

  "Oh, I've seen you put it away," Jackson teased.

  "Quiet, dear. That's impolite."

  "Sorry."

  Maria kissed him on his temple, then laid her head down on his broad shoulder.

  Vega watched all of this play out in the rear view mirror and smiled. "When was the last time you two slept?"

  "I don't rightfully know.” Jackson sounded genuinely confused.

  "It's been two days," Maria said through a yawn.

  "Right," he agreed.

  "Why don't you two take a nap. It is an hour or so until I need to pick up Route 1. If I have trouble finding it, I'll wake you."

  "Are you sure, Vega?” Jackson asked.

  Vega could see in the mirror he was hoping she would say 'yes', but could feel his apprehension. "I'll be fine, Jackson, thanks."

  "Well if you’re sure..."

  "Yes."

  "Alrighty, then.” He laid his head back, careful not to disturb the already snoozing Maria.

  Vega turned her eyes back to the road and was pleased to find that open stretch of dark highway, four lanes wide and empty. If it stayed like this, she would make record time. She pushed the gas pedal gently, easing it up and beyond sixty, then seventy, then seventy five, then resting at eighty. She had gone fast, that's for sure. During her A.I.T. school, she excelled in her offensive driving class and was trained to drive more than a hundred safely; if one could call driving over a hundred safely. But this was not one of the well maintained patrol cars from the motor pool. For all she knew, the tires might be a little out of balance and wobble the living snot out of her before flying off the car. Hell, she didn't even check the tread to make sure there was any. There could be metal and white fabric showing on one or more of the tires and a blow out at eighty would be hard enough to handle.

  She flipped the old style radial knob and eased the volume up until she could hear the test pattern sound. Whoever owned this car might have been tuned into jazz or classical, but the station was off the air now. She twisted the tuning knob, which looked and acted just like the volume knob, through its ascending row of numbers. One after another, she found a station broadcasting a test pattern or dead silence. In one spot she heard the distinct sound of encrypted communication, most likely military, and it sounded very much like American. She had no idea if she could hear the difference audibly, at least well enough to identify who was transmitting, but she had heard these sounds many times before, especially during multi-force training exercises with the Navy.

  What it told her was a military was active in the area and that military had resources to broadcast radio signals, and that it was much more of a force then the pairs of wandering soldiers they saw outside the hospital. This was an organized fighting force, somewhere not too far, scheming and planning a counter assault on the demon things. This made her feel better, a lot better, but had she been able to decipher the clicks and screeching, she would have known it was a call to retreat and abandon any evacuation effort that contradicted or depleted military activity or assets.

  After some minutes, she turned the useless radio off and sat in silence, listening to the radials hum on the road, hoping that sound meant there was a tread on the tires after all. Then her own head lulled somewhat and a surge of fear mixed with a healthy dose of adrenaline snapped her head back up. No screwing around on this one, missy. If you fuck up and go to sleep, you'll be dead. Copper flooded her mouth and she tried to relax her grip on the steering wheel. That's when she almost didn't see the first car.

  It was abandoned on the side of the road. It came into view from the darkness and zipped by in a fraction of a second. Her foot came off the gas instinctively, and found the brake pedal. If there was one, there would be more, and hitting one at....

  The next one appeared in the middle of the road and Vega smashed the gutless break peddle and cut the wheel a fraction of a degree. No way to stop, she had to avoid and she prayed with all her soul there wasn't another car waiting for her on this new heading.

  The braking sent the two in the back seat forward and into the backs of the front seat. Nothing I can do about that, please don't let there be another car. She came close enough to the obstacle she could have stuck her tongue out and tasted the abandoned car, but still somehow managed to spare the driver's side mirror. She kept her foot on the brake, hard, hoping to cut the speed to nothing before clearing the car, but as they went by, she realized that wasn't even about to happen.

  As they drifted past she pulled the car back into lane and it drifted gracefully, handling like a dream. Many yards later, she was able to bring the car to a full stop, just as the headlights illuminated two more cars, both on her side of the highway. Breath was ripping in and exploding out of her lungs and her hands ached from the grip on the wheel.

  "You alright?” Jackson's head was resting on the back of her seat, his mouth close enough to feel his breath on her neck.

  "Yeah," She panted. "I found some traffic."

  Maria giggled from the back. "I have to pee."

  "I'll go with you," Jackson said.

  "I got this one, Big Guy," Maria replied and scooted out of the car.

  Vega was willing to bet the girl was actually going to go puke somewhere in privacy. But then again, she had not just witnessed how close Vega came to killing all of them. Vega could have thrown up had she had anything in her stomach.

  "That was some good driving.” Jackson spoke from further back in the car, and Vega looked in the mirror to see him sitting back in the seat again.

  Vega was still panting, and her heart was pulling a pretty good imitation of a bongo player tripping. "I almost killed us."

  "Boy-howdy...."

  "I need to get out," Vega said suddenly, pretty certain now she was either going to vomit or wet herself, both of which she should do in private. "Rifles in the front.” She called as she climbed out of the car.

  The darkness had become more like blackness, and when Vega checked her watch she saw that it was nearing ten at night. This global sun block was thick now, it was becoming difficult to tell when the sun set or rose.

  Vega squatted near the car and laid her arms horizontally across her knees, then her head on her arms and began forcing herself to breathe deeply and slowly. She had to get control of this adrenaline surge before her heart burst out of her chest. The face of her son-of-a-bitch driving instructor, Sargent Lewis Betters, appeared in her head. Had he been here, right now, she would have kissed him. Kissed him hard. As much as she hated that man, the way he yelled and punished and ignored improvements or successes; he had more to do with saving all their lives tonight than she had.

  God bless all son-of-a-bitches everywhere.

  When Vega was fairly sure she had control of both her breathing and her heart rate, Maria screamed and started it racing all over again. Vega stood, turned, drew her sidearm and began running toward the scream, "Maria!"

  As she passed the Mercedes rear bumper, Jackson exploded out of the rear door. Vega heard the vague weak whine of stressed metal as the door hit its stops, and she silently hoped he didn't run her over. "Maria!"

  "Here!"

  The voice was still a bit distant, but it was for all that, a voice.

  "Are you alright?” Jackson bellowed from behind Vega. It seemed his size made him
slower on foot than Vega, to her relief.

  "Yeah."

  She was closer now.

  By the time Vega reached her, she was almost blind in the darkness. Just the vague outline of her next to a car, the only ambient light from the Mercedes headlights reflected back from the tails of the cars in front. It was almost nonexistent. "What happened.” Vega panted as Jackson trotted up to embrace the girl.

  "They're dead," She said simply.

  "Who?"

  "In the car.” Maria allowed herself to finally be enveloped inside Jackson's arms.

  Vega cursed herself for not bringing the rifle and it's flashlight but remembered something and gave herself a quick pat down. She found the small disposable lighter in her front pocket. It was supposed to light the camping stove and would last a long while considering she didn't smoke.

  Holding the lighter in her left hand, she rolled the thumb wheel against the flint. The initial spark dazzled her for a moment, then the murder scene glowed in the soft yellow of the flame. Murder scene was not the way Vega would describe this, however. The bodies, she couldn't tell how many, were torn into large chunks and tossed against the inside of the car. By the amount of blood and what she thought might be arms, she guessed five bodies. But she could only see two tufts of hair, both the same color, both small enough to have come from the same scalp. This was no murder, this was animal vengeance. She let the light go out. "Good God.” Was all she could think to say.

  "What?” Jackson said and made to come forward.

  "No. No reason to see that. No reason at all.” She stuffed the lighter in her pocket, "We need to get back to the car, quick."

  "Why?” Maria asked, now free of Jackson's smothering embrace.

  "Whatever killed those people might still be around."

  "No way," Maria said this as more of an exhale then a statement.

  "Why would you think they are still around?” Jackson turned Maria towards the headlights still glowing down the road.