Angels of America: A Circle of the Fallen novella

by Wendy Maddocks

  About 50 miles down the interstate, we pull off the road, bump down a dirt track that I’m sure has only been used by horses in the last century, and swing into the grounds of the Rusty Lee Motel. I didn’t know we had real people called Rusty Lee – it’s so Southern Belle cliché. Inside, it’s just as you’d expect it; bare, dusty and old. And cheap. We get a room and Jack and I go off to find it while Katie sorts out payment.

  “What number was it again?”

  Rusty Lee, if that was the bleach blonde at the desk, handed me a key with a big wooden tag hanging from it. I guess civilization (and magnetic key cards) hasn’t reached this deep into the ass-end of nowhere. I look at it, squinting to see the number carved into the wood.

  “Is that a six or a nine?”

  We decide it is a nine and walk up the metal fire escape stairs to the second floor, housing numbers six through ten and trudge down to the second one from the end. Jack opens up and vanishes inside while I’m still staring at my left ankle and how I sprang up those steps without a twinge. Then I hear feet dragging up the stairs and my head whips around half-expecting to see the men in suits coming for me. It’s only Katie struggling up. She doesn’t look as bad as she did in the car but there’s a sluggishness to her movements that shouldn’t be there. She slaps a hand on my back and propels me through the door, barely waiting for the door to close behind us before darting into the tiny bathroom.

  The room is pokey but clean – cleaner than the rest of the building indicates anyway. There are two beds pushed against the wall with a chintzy 70s pattern on the covers. The furniture is sparse; a bedside table between the beds, a closet fixed to the wall – though I have no idea why it’s nailed down, good luck trying to hide THAT under your sweater, a chest of drawers with a TV on top and a microwave and kettle plugged into the wall. Everything was bought about a hundred years ago. It looks comfy enough, though. How long are we planning to stay? I can’t wait to get back home and school – as weird as that is – but I don’t see that happening anytime soon… if ever. There is a long, loud groan when I throw myself and my pitiful bag onto the far bed. It seems quite sturdy and I think that creak was just through age, not structural weakness. It’s late afternoon and the darker blue of evening is just edging into the sky but I’m too panicked to think about sleep. I mean, trying to escape with your life is exhausting but it gets the adrenalin pumping and –

  “Katie’s been in there a while,” says Jack, interrupting my jittery, over-hyped flow. “I should go check she’s alright.” He looks at me as if asking me something. Does he want my permission or something? From what I’ve seen of those two together, there’s nothing going on in that pokey excuse for a bathroom that he hasn’t seen before.

  “D’you want me to go?” The relief on his face is so sweet!

  “Please. We’ve had… problems.”

  “What kinda problems?” I ask as I roll off the bed and walk around to the bathroom. I knock the closed door.

  “Jus’ problems.”

  Loving the specifics here.

  “Katie?” I try a few more times but there’s still no answer. Looking at Jack in the faint hope that he knows what’s going on but he only shrugs. Helpful. I try the door handle. It’s unlocked but I only crack it open to shout a warning first: “Katie, I’m comin’ in. If there’s anything you don’t want me to see, cover it up now” then I push the door open all the way and my vision goes blood red. Not that there is a lot of blood – just a few spatters around the sink and then a thick streak of it tracking down the sink and pooling on the tiles not far from my far – but it’s so red. And the room is so white. It hurts my head just to look at it and, for a minute, I don’t even realize that Katie is nowhere to be seen. “Jack, she’s gone!” Then there is a flicker by my feet and I can see her very faintly, slumped in a fetal position and cradling her head. I imagine I can hear her crying – more of a whimper, really – but it’s all gone as soon as my brain begins to process this impossible situation. I can feel my throat straining because I’m screaming but there’s nothing I can do to shut up.

  “What the hell?” Jack shoves into the bathroom at my side and quickly takes in all the blood. He seems disgusted but not all that bothered by it. Was he expecting this, or something like it? “Katie!” He drops to his knees between me and her ghost. I can barely see her but he seems to be looking at her as well as if she were solid.

  “Jack? Can’t… hold on… much longer.”

  No! This is not happening! Katie gets herself shot in my place, comes back to life in my apartment to help me escape the men in suits and now she’s dying at my feet. “We need to get you to a hospital. Call 911!”

  “No. Hospitals can’t do nothin’ for her.”

  “Jack, your girl is dying. Do you not get that?”

  He lifts his head and looks at me with so much sadness that I’m practically crushed by it. “She’s already dead.”

  The world blurs and my knees jolt like they’ve been taken from under me. Tears are filling my eyes and I’m sitting on the floor. This can’t be happening. This girl – this girl I only met a few hours ago – took a bullet for me; the least I can do is hold it together for her last few moments. “Rose.” I bend further to hear Katie say my name in a barely-there voice. “Give me your hand. Please.” I start to but Jack stills me with a hand around my wrist.

  “No. Let me. She’s not ready yet.”

  Ready? “I can’t… hold on. I need more… than you… can give me. Do it… together.”

  A look flashes between them – something that hints of a dark history between that pair. We both take one hand each, me on the left and Jack on the right. When she grabs on to me, it’s not like she’s touching me at all but like she really is a ghost with ghost hands that are going through my flesh and touching some part of my soul. Urgh! The feeling of being - soul-touched? Yeah, that one. That carries on and, if anything, it gets stronger until it’s a hairs breadth away from being a physical pain. With every second I can feel myself getting ever so slightly weaker and Katie getting stronger, more solid. “What’s going on?” I try to pull myself away but quickly realize I don’t even have the strength to do that.

  “Relax,” Jack instructs. “It’ll be over soon, Rose.”

  “What is she doing to us?”

  “Katie lost a lot of energy today. Normally, she lives on the life force around her – the bleed off – but she used up a lot of power trying to keep us safe. So she’s pulling some energy from both of us.”

  I nod like it makes total sense. “You do this often?”

  “Not as often as she needs to.”

  “How much longer? I’m gettin’ dizzy.” Glancing down, Katie is almost the same as this morning – solid and warm to the touch. Her hand is curled around mine and no longer sinking deep into my flesh, but she is pale beneath her tan and looks like she is unconscious. Even without medical training, I know that’s not good. She is more or less focusing on me though, which must be positive, but that’s the last thing I see before the world starts spinning and everything goes black. A brief falling sensation ripples through me and that’s it. Bye bye world.

  I knew I was dreaming somehow but the silver bridge felt so real beneath my feet… I could feel it tingling my bare soles in a not-quite painful way. Under the bridge is a drop of maybe 40 feet into a river. Below the surface, there is the dancing swirl of trapped flames. Impossible as it sounds, there is a fire burning under water. It’s oddly captivating and I don’t know how long I spend crouched at the edge of the bridge, clinging to the edge in case I fall and watching this impossible fire jump and lick at the water’s surface, trying to find an escape. Has the fire ever broken the surface? It would be more lethal than any normal fire if it ever does, that’s for sure, so angry and fierce. Some time after that, I stand up and turn on the spot. Which way to go. In one direction lies a thick wall of shimmering whi
te and grey cloud; in the other a length of this silver walkway which ends by merging onto a sheet of rock. Neither look like options I want to take and the cold, calculating part of my brain I always trust to save my troubled ass isn’t being much help. So I stand there, trying to decide, and all the time I know none of it matters because this is a dream and whatever is waiting for me will be there whichever way I go.

  “I wonder what she is dreaming about.” The vaguely familiar voice finds some crack in my dream reality and drifts down towards me. “If she’s dreaming at all. What if I took too much? What if I drained her into a coma or something. I bet I could do that.”

  “Ssshhh,” whispers a second voice. “She’s alive. That’s enough for now. Anythin’ else we can worry about tomorrow.”

  “But what if-“

  “Hey! It’s not like you took more than you needed to get better. She’ll be fine by mornin’.”

  “You should get some sleep.”

  “In a while. We need to clean the bathroom first.” It’s been taking me a while to place the two voices I can hear but, at the mention of the bathroom, it all comes slamming back: finding Katie bleeding and fading out of existence on the floor, the blood, the… energy transfer, all of it. And still I’m locked in my dream taking this sensory assault as I stand alone on a silver bridge not knowing where to go. Waking up seems impossible. The safety of this strange fantasy has me for now and I know deep down I can trust it. This place may be weird and random and makes no sense but I think it might be worse to wake up. For a few more hours, I can curl up on the narrow bridge and rest.

  I’ve barely closed my eyes when Katie’s soft voice with hard edges floats to me once more. “Where did you put the bullet?”

  “Flushed it.”

  “Jack! What if Rose tells somebody about it though? Oh shit, we should have waited till tomorrow. Worked out a story together.”

  “You have no scars or wounds. No blood or bandages. No-one’s gonna believe her even if she does say something.”

  “I suppose so. I just… this is the first one and I’m just worried we’re doing it wrong.”

  “I dunno if we’re doing it right or not but Rose ain’t dead so I reckon we’re golden. I don’t think you gettin’ shot or nearly caught was parta the plan but we’re still on track.”

  On track for what?

  “Get some sleep, cowboy. Long day ahead of us.”

  I’m not sure if they just start being quiet then, or if I slide back out of consciousness because all I see in my mind is that silver bridge. I keep turning on my heel and the very minute my feet start taking me towards the thick curtain of shiny cloud there is something blocking my way, making me struggle like walking through syrup for every inch I gain. Keep going. Don’t give up. Something is waiting on the other side of the cloudy wall. It might be something good or it might be something bad, but whatever it is, it’s meant for me. The nearer I get though, the stronger the feeling that something terrible awaits and I’ve come too far too go back now. I reach forward and my fingertips are mere millimeters from the barrier when a warm hand – it feels like a hand anyway – clamps onto my shoulder and pulls me back through the invisible goo I worked so hard to get out of.

  “ROSE!”

  My eyes snap open and I instantly scrunch them shut against the strong summer sun pouring through the window. Where...? What…? I’m not at home. I have thick dark red drapes in my bedroom - they never let light in if I close them. I put my hands down at my side and run them over the sheets. Not mine either. Not soft enough – industrial poly-cotton blend, where mine are just plain 100% cotton.

  Oh crap.

  The motel.

  That means yesterday was real. Oh crap twice. People are really after me, my principal got really shot, probably my fellow students took a few hits too. But – and please don’t let this have been the dream bit – there are some people here trying to save me.

  “Rose. You were dreaming. You were struggling. Wake up now.”

  I open up once more and I turn to the left where a cute boy with worried green eyes is fidgeting with the tab on a can of Coke. “Jack. I thought maybe I dreamed you.” I sit bolt upright as a wave of panic hits me and I remember the night before. “Where’s Katie?”

  “Out. She went for a run then to sort us a new car.”

  “In her condition? She nearly died yesterday!”

  “What can I say? My girl heals fast.”

  From a bullet to the brain? No point in taking this conversation further, though, he won’t tell me anything important alone.

  “You were dreaming. You were trying to go somewhere. Do you remember where?”

  Shake head like puppy. “No. I mean yes.” Let’s try this again. “I think I remember but I don’t know where it is.”

  “Did it feel like somewhere you know? Sometimes places look diff’rent but the feel the same.”

  “No, I’ve never been there before. It was weird – like I was meant to be there. And there was this bridge; I was barefoot and it felt warm. Not burning but like the ground on a nice day. I knew I was dreaming. That’s weird too. Normally dreams feel like reality.” I try to laugh but it comes out like a loud sigh.

  “You’ll be okay in a while. It just takes some getting’ used to. I dunno how Katie even coped when I did it to her the first few times.”

  WTF!? “Is this a conversation we need to be having right now?”

  “The energy transfer,” he clarifies. I don’t even know if that’s better or worse than the scenario that flashed through my head just then.

  ^Yeah, what was that again?”

  Instead of answering, Jack puts his drink down and stares anywhere but at me. And now I realize Katie must’ve put me to bed in just my tank top which is riding up over my ribs as the sheet falls down. I slide off the other side of the bed, grab my bag and cover my butt with it as I slip into the now blood-free bathroom.

  Katie is back when I come back out of the bathroom, the ends of my hair damp from the water I splashed on it in a vain effort to get it under control. Without my straightening irons I don’t think anything will tame it. I’m still in the tank top I wore to bed and the heels I nearly broke my freaking ankle in but I’ve got a shirt over it – paired with my cut off denims I look almost like myself again. Just wish I felt it! Guess we don’t get what we want, like, ever.

  Sitting on the bed I woke up in, I ask, “So, what’s the plan?” Simple, to the point, it sounded cooler in my head.

  “Today, we take you home, get your things, then you come with us.”

  “Home? Where there are men with guns? Waiting for me. With guns.” It bears repeating.

  “That’s the place.”

  And all I have the energy to do is drop my head into the crook of my elbows and then put that on my knees. It’s a solid plan. I just might die while we’re carrying it out. Not cool. Presumably the men in suits want to kill me. Or take me to that lady in the dress so she can… so she can what? If they weren’t going to kill me, why did they bring guns into my high school? I don’t even want to know how they got their weapons past the metal detectors at the doors.

  “Standard practice. Obviously they were expecting some kind of trouble and they came prepared.”

  Was I speaking all that? “Trouble from me?”

  “Yes, Rose, from you. For some reason, we have been sent to get you. It looks like we turned up right on time too, because you’d still be a sitting duck in your home waiting for them to pick you off.

  “They’re going to put a bullet in my brain aren’t they? Like they did with Principal King and who knows who else. Nobody would’ve got hurt if I’d just gone with them.”

  My one time rescuers just looked at each other with lost expressions. Jack sat on the bed opposite and pulled Katie down to sit beside him. “We dunno,” he shrugged at last. “It mighta made a difference, it might not.
But you’re important enough for them to risk a criminal record for. Why?”

  Now it’s my turn to shrug. Truthfully, my instinct is just to throw myself back on the sheets and cry – but the Blood women don’t do that. We hold it together for as long as it takes. “What makes me so important? I’m seventeen. A junior in high school and not particularly intelligent. It’s definitely not the Genius Club looking for a long lost member.”

  “Why do you live on your own? American teens have to be eighteen before they’re considered responsible enough to live alone.” I shoot the question right back at her. Neither of them look older than me but they’re evidently on some kind of road trip here. “I left home last year. Brits are classed as adults younger than you guys. Sometimes wrongly. We think we can handle more than we can just because it’s legal.”

  “Lady Katie, you never chose any of that.”

  “I know. It doesn’t make it any easier though. What about your parents?”

  “Never knew ‘em. I bounced around care homes until a few years ago. Then I ran away and I basically… dropped off the grid. You think they’ve come to find me? Take me back to a home?”

  “Seriously, did they look like social workers to you?”

  “No. But, then, who the hell were they? You showed up right after them – you must be connected somehow!”

  “Get your stuff,” Katie repeats, effectively shutting me down. I guess that’s a question she’s not ready to answer just yet. “Make a mental list of what you need and where it is so you can get it without messing around. We need to be in and out of there as quickly as possible. They won’t be expecting us to go back so soon but that doesn’t mean there won’t be anyone watching your block just in case. Pack light. Essentials only.”

  “How long should I...?”

  “A couple weeks at least.” Jack reaches out and squeezes my shoulder in what he means to be a comforting gesture. “Wear stuff you don’t mind getting dirty.” Oh I don’t like the sound of that. “You should change when you get home. Shorts aren’t- you don’t wanna run in that outfit if you don’t gotta.”

  “fine. Take me back but, get this, we’re going to have a serious talk about you, them, me and everything you’re not telling me when I come back.” ‘Cos I have every intention of going back.

  Chapter four