by Angela White
He sounded older, used, and she winced at the pain of having him in her head. It reminded her of when it had been just them against the world.
“Are you still coming?”
Fear of the past made her hold her breath; fear that whispered, “No,” that she would be alone forever.
Yes. I should be in Cincinnati in less than a week.
Angela let out the breath. Five to seven days away. She had been afraid he wouldn’t come and was still worried he wouldn’t care once he found out what she wanted. She didn’t know what kind of person he had become, and she was depending on a debt that was very old.
Will you tell me what’s going on? I picked up a few things, but I can be better prepared if I know more.
But you do know what kind of person he is or you wouldn’t have called him, the old Angela, the one the war had almost freed, stated flatly from her twisted cell door. Tell him what he needs to know.
Angie?
“I’m here, Brady.” She could almost feel him wince this time, and it surprised her to discover she didn’t enjoy it. She owed him much worse.
Can you tell me?
The caution in his voice allowed the old Angela to open the door between them a little wider and the words fell with a simple awkwardness that made her cry huge, silent tears.
“My...son is somewhere in the middle of the country. I need you to get me there and help me steal him, if it comes to that. I’m leaving now. We can join up on the road.”
There wasn’t even a thoughtful pause after her request.
It’s bad out here, Angie. I wish you’d wait for me.
She could feel him immediately wanting to take it back, but her rage was quick, harsh. “I tried that already!”
She was suddenly sixteen again, hurt, betrayed, and alone, with no one but Kenny to turn to. She slammed the door on Marc’s incoming protests, but the old Angela was stronger now and she was forced to listen to the muffled apologies and explanations he labored to push at her. She heard the words and his remorse, but no matter what he said, Angela refused to answer.
In the dawn’s early light, Angela approached the shiny black Blazer waiting in the secluded garage. Her anxious gaze swept the extra tires on the luggage rack, the rear area neatly crammed with boxes, and of course, the tiny grave she had spent time at almost every day since the war. Leaving her baby boy behind was hard, and she had to force her grief down. She couldn’t abandon the living child to stay and mourn the dead one.
Angela wiped away her tears and finished her comparison of the contents to the long list in her hand. Did she have everything?
After another minute, she put the paper in the mailbox, along with an envelope in plastic and the door keys from around her neck. It would have to be enough.
She swept her Tempo, making sure the wind and weather hadn’t dislodged her notes. She had also written on Charlie’s bedroom wall and left the keys in the ignition of her car–just in case. Her quiet, respectful son was becoming angry and impatient, and if he slipped off on his own (and survived! Please, let him survive!), she would change course to intercept him.
She had no delusions about the world they were in now, and she made sure he would know the truth if he came back here. The real truth, not that bullshit she had been forced to tell him for the last decade. There had been a great love, a hard choice, a lie, and a deal of convenience, but really, none of that mattered now. What did matter was telling him how to survive if he found himself alone. The notes would do that, would hopefully keep him alive until his father could come for him.
Noticing the light, ashy flurries starting to fall, Angela got the last bag from the hallway. As she stepped out the door, she saw a woman reflected in the glass that she wasn’t sure she knew. She looked so much stronger than she felt, and she slid into the driver’s seat with a thin smile. She was changing again.
“Going somewhere?” Warren’s cold voice outside the open door was unexpected.
Angela flinched, but didn’t draw the gun her hand was resting on as she listened. How hard would she have to fight? Could a good bluff set her free? She hadn’t heard them come, hadn’t felt a warning. Probably, they had been here all along, letting her do the work of loading supplies.
The men were lined up across the bare, muddy courtyard in front of her building, cutting off any path of escape. They watched her openly this time, hunger in their leers and smirks, and they were quiet too, another bad sign. She recognized the outline of vests under thick layers of clothing. Her heart skipped a beat. They had come prepared.
Or so they think, the demon inside comforted. Hold your ground.
“He’s close. I have to go.”
Warren’s beaten face and slumped shoulders told her that the chain of command at the college had likely changed, making this a more dangerous confrontation. Talking her way out suddenly seemed very unlikely as she stared into his feverish zealot’s face.
“If you try to run, they’ll open fire. Get out.”
Angela slowly slid to her feet, scanning the six men spread out behind Aaron, each with a firearm aimed not at the Blazer, but at her.
She sneered at Warren with a baiting tone, seeing he still had the bible under his arm. “No longer under your protection, preacher?”
“No one is.”
It was confirmation, and yet none of the others stepped up to do the speaking, to take control. When Warren shut the door and turned to her, she noticed they stayed well back, even Aaron. He was probably the only one who would shoot her. The others wanted her alive. Aaron wanted her dead for humiliating him.
“Let me go. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
There were nervous looks exchanged between the half dozen would-be captors, instead of the scorn she had been hoping for, and it told her that they had probably already discussed the possibilities of getting hurt and were determined to follow through.
Her anger flared to life. She would have to fight her way out.
Angela slipped back to let the witch have a little more control. She had to fight–she didn’t have to kill. And I won’t!
Her reminder to the witch seemed to be a cue for the scruffy males, and they advanced toward her together, eyes grim, faces leery.
The witch whispered the words and Angela muttered, hands casting them out: “Poison! Blindness! Disease!”
Their reaction was instant.
“I can’t see... I can’t see!”
“Skin’s on fire! Someone put me out! The bugs!”
“Help me, Man!”
It was awful, powerful magic that had them tripping, landing hard on the cold, dirty ground, but Warren wasn’t fooled by the vivid bluff. He put a hand out to grab her and jerked away as lightning flew into a tree in the courtyard next to them, shaking the ground.
The oak exploded, raining down wooden shrapnel in warning, but Warren ignored it. He snatched her by her sweater, jerked her up against his hard, thin body. “Surrender yourself to me, witch!”
Her face became a snarl of hatred. “I belong to no man!”
Lightning crashed again, close, and she pushed him away with a strength he wasn’t expecting. When he tried to grab her again, the witch whispered two words and Angela felt power flowing through her, something alive and hungry.
She shut her eyes as her newest gift was revealed. “Fire! Ice!”
Lightning cracked for a third time, striking the truck Warren had arrived in, and it exploded, twisted metal raining over their battlefield.
Warren and Aaron ducked, but the witch didn’t flinch and Angela wasn’t hit.
The sky opened up a second later and chunks of hail, black and heavy, began pelting them. The four men whose names she had never known recovered too quickly, but they fled in fear, not thinking to use the guns they’d brought.
The witch held out a hand, where flames now danced along her fingertips, and the two remaining men stopped, expressions confirming they were in over their heads and knew it.
“If you push me, I
will kill you,” the demon’s voice was cold, without weakness.
When Aaron raised his gun, finger tightening on the trigger, the witch surged forward to laugh at him. “You think that’ll work on the likes of me? The woman may die, but I am immortal!”
The witch shoved forward, demon face merging with Angela’s and the man went pale at the sight of glowing red orbs and hungry white fangs.
Horns sprouted from the sides of her face, her long, crooked mouth opened to reveal razor sharp, needlelike teeth. When the demon’s forked tongue lashed out at him, Aaron ran. He didn’t glance back.
The witch remained, resisting Angela’s attempts to get her under control, but the preacher showed no fear even though he was now facing her alone.
“You are not strong enough to override her morals. She is a doctor. She will not let you kill me,” he countered, sure of his answer.
The witch grinned, red eyes changing, becoming reptilian. “You know so little. Doctors kill often. They just don’t murder. This would be self-defense.”
Leaning on faith, Warren grabbed her arm again, Bible still in his hand. “I am the Lord’s prophet and I see you, Demon of Souls! Surrender yourself to me in the name of the Father, the Son...aaahhhh!”
The witch released the ball of flames before Angela could stop her, and the fire leapt hungrily up the preacher’s bare hands and face. He slapped at himself frantically.
Angela shoved the demon back before she could hit him with a final, consuming blast. Stop! It’s enough.
Never! Never be enough! the witch roared, furious at the attempted theft of her freedom.
Angela glowered at Warren, ignoring his pain as he tried to put the fire out. “You have offended us, preacher, and the demon wants your soul as payment,” she stated harshly as he yanked off his smoking jacket. Fear and hatred filled his face.
“She’ll settle for your death.” Angela held out a hand, where tiny flames were again flowing in her palm, growing, shaping into a ball. “Does it have to be today?”
Warren wanted to push anyway, she could feel it, and Angela let the witch’s red eyes blend once again with her own. “Last warning…”
The religious fanatic spun away, tattered book falling to the muddy ground.
Angela sucked air into lungs that burned from holding her breath. She’d won. She was free! Her scream of triumph echoed as they fled.
More confident now that she had another defense to depend on (flames and ice, fire and brimstone–how fitting!), Angela moved toward her Blazer, reasonably sure Warren wouldn’t die and content that the others wouldn’t follow her, even if he wanted them to. If he came for her later, it would be only him and maybe Aaron.
Two against one is much better odds, she thought.
Above, fate laughed.
Angela pulled the Blazer’s door shut as Warren vanished behind the thick, rolling black smoke billowing from his burning truck. When his faint outline was gone, the witch retreated fully to allow Angela an untainted view of the empty home–prison cell–she had lived in for the last fourteen years.
All she felt was relief. She was finally free, and she wouldn’t wait another second to go.
Locking the doors, Angela pushed the wall of grief and guilt away as she stared at the tiny grave. Shadows darted and smoke rolled as she started the engine and shifted into drive. She felt sad and excited, but mostly scared, even with the gun at her side. Her kind was not meant to be alone.
With a last sigh of misery and excitement, she pulled her sunglasses over teary eyes and drove away. Empty and full mailboxes waved a final, hard goodbye in her mirror.
2
It was a long day for Angela. The slow going made her grit her teeth in frustration and then curse aloud as she spent the entire morning creeping west. She squeezed through wherever she could, gently pushing dog houses, a dumpster, furniture, and cars aside, and it pained her to see whole blocks still decorated for the holiday.
The pavement everywhere was cracked, full of weeds and potholes, and she found herself listening for the hit that would give her the first flat tire of her journey. She began to ease through muddy yards to avoid the glass that littered the streets, and then berated herself for only making two miles in four hours. More than once, she found her way completely blocked and had to drive through fences, wincing at every snap of wood, plastic, and bone.
Angela felt too exposed as she traveled through the riot-ravaged areas that she had known before the war. Everything was so different, so dangerous, that she would never have recognized the towns if she hadn’t been there before. Doubts about her ability to make the trip hit her hardest as she passed through Cheviot, Ohio. It scared her, shook her up more than dealing with Warren, and her dreams were filled with it when she finally slept.
Angela tried to steel herself as she entered the city limits, assuming it would be as bad as her own neighborhood, but it was worse. She cried as she drove, tears blurring the awful scene but not enough. The medical salve under her nose pushed back the stench, but again, not enough, and the gritty wind gusted harder.
Half of the buildings were gone, burned down to charred, blackened frames. Those that did remain had no windows, no doors. The main street was crammed with abandoned cars and wrecks, but the corpses made her heart ache. There were so many! Had no one in this small city found safety?
Angela wiped at her face, steering carefully around the blackened shell of an Army transport truck, the driver’s uniformed body still rotting inside. She sucked in a horrified breath as she cleared the vehicle, now able to see what remained of the small municipal building.
Only the tall pillars still stood, the wide field of rubble behind it unrecognizable, and the tears came harder at the sight of so many who had represented authority decaying on those charred stone steps. Police, soldiers, and citizens lay in a tangled heap, the scene gruesome.
Fishtailing suddenly on the ice, Angela hit the brakes too sharply and slid on the slushy side street. Her front tires slammed into the curb hard enough to throw her against the seat, and the scare allowed her to get control of herself. She wiped her eyes again, concentrating on the quiet rumble of her engine, and after a moment, she felt better.
She started to reverse, but something changed in the air suddenly, was different, and she turned off the heater to listen as she swept the area intently. She’d heard something.
Not a threat, the witch informed her, settling back. Just more starving people.
They were close, watching. Angela could feel it, and she put the Blazer in park. She climbed into the rear seat, ignoring the greed inside that was insisting she couldn’t spare anything. Yes, I can.
A few minutes later, she gently dropped two bags out the open window and then got moving again, hoping it would help. She had included a note with a list of stores that still had nonperishable food left, but in her heart, she knew she had only delayed the inevitable, and she hated the guilt she was feeling for leaving them here to die.
But they can search the stores. The old Angela didn’t understand. Why will they die?
Because they’re sheep, the witch answered sleepily. Without a shepherd, they’ll stay out in the cold and freeze to death. They’ve lost their strength. Those who cannot find hope will not survive.
Those words pulled at Angela, echoed in her bitter heart. Kenny had obviously found his reason to fight–Charlie’s dreams were full of the people they’d joined. She knew they were going to Montana, and it made her stomach burn to wonder what kind of sorry bastard was now in charge of her child. She didn’t trust Kenny’s judgment at all, and she paid little attention to her son’s inexperienced impressions. No one Kenn approved of could be good.
Being cautious, Angela drove slowly past long gravel driveways surrounded with pine trees and knee-high shrubs gone wild from lack of care. The houses on the outskirts gave her no comfort as she left the ghost town behind. They were sprawling beasts with paint-chipped porches and untended lawns, their fields ready to be planted. T
heir two-car garages would likely hold one white or red Ford Crown Victoria and one midnight blue 1966 Starfire or some other unknown treasure that would now wait forever for its owner to lovingly restore it, the most common hobby in this area. There were no signs of normal life, or any other life, here.
Angela took her first break around four, pulling behind a faded billboard that warned buzzed driving was still drunk driving, and she smirked at the irony as she lit a joint. It didn’t matter now. Probably hadn’t before, as much as the government had made out. Like every plant in nature, marijuana had its purposes. Right now it was keeping her calm, steadying her resolve, and she was glad she’d found the big garbage bag in one of her neighbors’ apartments. She was terrified, but there was no way she could ever turn back and live with herself, knew it for sure as she sat on the warm hood, sweater pulled tight. Her first-born son was out here somewhere in this hell, and she would find him or die trying.
3
Angela made camp her first night in an unturned cornfield lined with patches of black ice and small, dirty snow drifts. It was about half a mile from the jammed-up lanes of Interstate 74. The brown, brittle stalks didn’t quite come up to the roof, but when she threw a wide, dark tarp over the top of the car, scattering slushy snow on it, the vehicle blended in. She immediately felt better as darkness rolled over the broken land.
Angela went to the area she had driven through, straightening rows until the path was normal again, gaze darting nervously at every small sound and shift of shadows. She didn’t detect any insects or other wildlife, not even ants crawling over the dirt as she set up camp. She did hear a robin, but was unable to pinpoint its location by the weak call. Things were no better here than what she’d left behind.
Only getting out what she needed for dinner, Angela moved quickly and quietly, listening hard. Nursing a smashed thumb and a sore finger that she’d pulled a large splinter from after making her fire and hanging the tarp (nailing things and lighting them up were what her Marine was good at), she left the rear hatch open. With the ends of the wide tarp hanging down to the ground, she was almost completely shielded from the road.