by Angela White
Mary Brady hated anything that reminded her of our caravan history. For one of the family to flaunt it openly was a sin never forgiven. We had relatives that were missing from the holiday gatherings for years over breaches of her rules. Some were never allowed to return and others, like me, simply refused to go back under her thumb. Her own parents had been killed by an angry mob after an immigrant couple had robbed a bank and murdered a clerk in town. My grandparents had been in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and it had given my mother a fear that had grown when my dad wiped out the accounts and abandoned us. From that moment on, she and everyone under her reign had to conform or they were driven out. Considering that she inherited all the family loan notices and property deeds in the divorce, there wasn’t much argument. In fanatical defense, my remaining parent grew into a cold person afraid to love or show emotion, even to her own children. Appearances were all that mattered. As a result, we didn’t have many feelings for her either, other than fear.
A house with no love was all that I’d ever known, and I didn’t understand the power of the warmth that I was missing. I just accepted that my elder brothers and sister held value, while I was a potential embarrassment waiting to happen. I stayed out of trouble as best a boy can, and kept grades and friends that were approved of. The neighborhood kids, I rarely spent time around. They danced on the sidewalks in front of their parent’s gaudy shops. My mother would cross the street to avoid these reminders of her past and she fully expected us to do the same.
The only person I ever knew to challenge her and win was her brother. Georgie married without her approval, to a businesswoman who ran a rustic fortune telling shop as her cover for taking in male clients. It was exactly the type of person that my cold-as-ice parent hated. It shocked everyone when Georgie’s wife was officially allowed to enter our family and attend the gatherings and services. I never understood why my mother gave in, but I’ll always be grateful to her for that one thing. Because Georgie’s new bride had a little girl that I instantly felt something for. It wasn’t love at first sight, not at those ages, but it was just as powerful.
My time with Angie has been recorded in my mind under years and holidays. That’s how I view our past and every second is burnt into my brain. When you only get to see your reason for breathing a few times each year, you imprint every moment of it to hold you through those hundreds of other lonely days. It was like that for me from almost our first meeting. I gave Angie a part of my soul and I never really felt like it was enough to reward her properly for loving me back.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that life is full of terrible irony. Lying undetected on the fringes of our day-to-day schedules, it’s everywhere, but we rarely recognize it at that moment–like with the love that blindsided me. I had spent years waiting and longing for the time to come when I would be allowed to leave home, to finally escape my tyrannical mother. Then Angie filled my heart with her love and I hated it each time that I had to leave. Life is often splashed with irony, but it’s always streaked with pain.
Marc and Angie: A LAW Backstory
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Life After War: Books 1-3
by Angela White
Prologue
Like most days, the sound of the ocean is haunting. Not much scares me anymore, but the whispers I hear in those powerful swells are terrifying.
My name is Angela. I’m a mother, doctor, soldier, and now, in the year 2017, I am a leader. Thanks to the nuclear war that ended our world, I’ve become the guardian of an American refugee camp called Safe Haven.
Surrounded by carefully observing sentries, I sit by the immense Pacific Ocean as my people work and play nearby, confident my army will protect them while I tell you about the war, and about how we were forced to flee our beloved country in the awful aftermath. The apocalypse was a nightmare from which we couldn’t wake. Some of us still haven’t been able to forget, and soon, we’ll be at the water’s mercy again. In less than two months, we are going home. And I’m the only one who knows. The real America still waits for us to rebuild, but mostly, simply, for us to return. Before we undertake that perilous journey, I have to get the three hundred fifty-seven souls here ready for the trip, and I only know one way it can be done—Adrian has to come back and lead us home, as he promised.
Adrian...That incredibly patriotic man has been exiled, even though he is the only reason we survived. His secrets were the excuse the camp needed to turn on him, but I won’t do that. I can’t. I swore myself to him the same as the rest of his Council, and like them, I still believe.
I’ve gotten way ahead of myself, far beyond the beginning, when our future didn’t look as good is it does now. Most people here in New America won’t talk about the war or the long, ugly journey we made together. They say the memories have faded, but I know a lie when I hear one. Some horrors you never forget.
Like our final battle with Cesar and his large band of ruthless Mexican guerillas. It’s been five years, but I still see the deep red streams of blood running down rain-soaked trees. I still smell men burning alive in their metal coffins. I dream of it sometimes, of the cold, wet night when I was the bait, and I’m sure Adrian does too. It was the moment we knew our people would live—because of one man’s dream and his terrible lies.
Adrian kept us alive, gave us everything he had, and he always did what was best for the camp, no matter what it cost him personally. He taught us to be stronger than we thought we could be, to defend each other and ourselves and through it all he lied by omission. He knew these scared, hurting survivors would never have trusted him, would never have given him a chance, if they’d known who he really was.
We came a long way together in the year after the war, thousands and thousands of miles of heartbreaking devastation, and it hurts those of us who remain loyal to witness him accept their unfair judgment without a fight. It makes everything we lived through feel less important than it was, weakens the magic somehow, and I can’t allow that.
I’ve been detecting open doors again, and that sly ocean cautions me, says the trip home will be as hard as the one we undertook to get here. If there’s a storm coming for the flock, than it’s our guardian, we’ll need to guide us through it.
So, for Adrian and for those of us standing by him, still ready to die for him, and for the dreams he made me believe in from almost the first minute I set foot in his refugee camp, I will tell our story and leave nothing out. Maybe then, these people will realize what he did for our country, accept how much we owe him, and allow him to reclaim what’s rightfully his—us.
Before I tell you about our harsh, ugly journey, let me show you what happened on that day, what they did to us and what we did to each other.
This is how our story of survival began...
1
“All males will surrender to the draft! If you resist or run, you will be shot!”
The faint bullhorn woke those who had been dozing in the uncomfortable seats of the cold Greyhound bus, and a ripple of warning went through the armed man sitting against the frosty window. People were standing, muttering among themselves, but the grunt only observed, waiting to determine how he should react.
“Hey!”
“He hit an old guy! They can’t do that!”
“They shot a woman! Murder! Call 911!”
Sergeant Marc Brady used his military voice to be heard over the din, shouting, “Everybody out! Make room!”
The others who were stuffed into the crowded bus shifted toward the doors at the order, but they were panicked, shoving and yelling.
Marc hefted himself up onto the vinyl seat and dove out the open window as more gunshots and screams exploded from the traffic behind the bus.
People were pouring from their vehicles now, running for the nearby homes and businesses of Wytheville as the MRAPs full of sol
diers followed, firing M16s at the citizens who refused to surrender. Backdropped by thick, black smoke and an angry, red sky, these soldiers remorselessly shot fleeing males and anyone else who got too close to their intended targets. Only a few of the soldiers bothered with the bullhorns or their aim. These were government men, specifically selected for draft recovery, and they didn’t listen to begging or excuses.
Recognizing the bloodlust, Marc rolled through the slush, moving under the bus, and he stayed there as the chaos got closer, arms and ankles locked tight around the greyhound’s icy frame. The war had cancelled his leave, but he had to get home, and he was going—a decision these draft enforcers would shoot him for.
Gun in hand, Marc stayed still as the trucks rolled by and the citizens he was sworn to protect were gunned down.
A second later, the air shifted, thickened, and he instinctively shut his lids and buried his head against his arm as the sky lit up and the sun fell on him.
Life After War: Books 1-3
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Author Notes
Well, that was a quick ride! I hope you enjoyed this short glimpse into Marc and Dog’s first meeting. Perhaps in the future, I’ll release more novellas like this to show you the many adventures that they went on together. Until then, watch your six and keep reading!
Did you enjoy how clean this file was? Me too! Thank you: Jeff, Jeanne, Jan, Dave, Erin L. and Erin K., Shawndra and Brian!
Waving at you,
Angela White
All Angela White Books
Life After War (LAW) series
The Survivors
On The Road
Safe Haven
Life After War: Books 1-3
Adrian’s Eagles
From The Ashes
Where We Stand
The Price We Pay
Carved In Stone
LAW Backstories
Marc and Angie
Marc and Dog
Bachelor Battles Trilogy
The Change
Changeling Winds
Forever Changed
Alexa’s Travels
Bone Dust & Beginnings
The Killin’ Fields
Comic Books, Poetry, Flash Fiction
Hop-17
Twisted Shorts
Goodie Bag
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