To Light Us, To Guard Us (The Angel War Book 1)

by Sean M O'Connell

The time he wasted in surprise hurt him. Kalea leapt for his face with her petite hands splayed out in wicked talons. For some reason, he did not exercise the same restraint he normally would when confronting a woman. Perhaps it was the look in her face, the eyes so devoid of emotion or even recognition. Perhaps it was the way she screamed “I’ll kill you!” over and over.

  He snatched one of her flailing wrists and twisted until white bone showed.

  She wailed. Afraid now, but still coming.

  Careful of the sharp bones now exposed, he flung her bodily into the closet. Long hair whipped about as she tried to get up once, twice, four times.

  “Peni wait! It’s me, it’s me!” But he couldn’t stop himself to grant the reprieve she disingenuously pleaded for. He stomped her back down, feeling bones relax into unnatural positions under his bare heel. After what could have only been seconds, she stopped resisting and curled into a fetal position, wailing into the carpet.

  Peni turned away.

  Two more young men met him in the hallway as he left her. The gun in his left hand felt new, unfamiliar.

  He wished it really were.

  This pair wore the same murderous mask of the fat man and the neighbor woman. Peni frowned grimly as the shadowed figures came at him. A glint of steel winked from one hand.

  Peni raised his gun and squeezed twice.

  Both men fell. One voided, filling the house with stink. His partner twitched and bled on the carpet. Peni did not pause to study their faces, thankful that the house was darkened. He knew who they were anyway.

  Somehow he knew who they all were. And what them being they actually meant.

  It was in him deep. A primal sense of separation from what he once was, and what they once were.

  He strode down the hall and kept going. Out the front door and down again to the beach. More were coming for him. His former neighbors and friends and beneficiaries and rivals.

  He just knew it.

  A few appeared within sight, closing fast, running and swimming his way. Leaping over the cars on the highway and pounding across the sand to get to him. Some of them called to him desperately, or cursed openly. Some he wanted to answer, dear friends who he wished he could help. It was too late. He knew it. Knew it.

  A feeling of great power and peace washed in with the low tide. He looked out and up, away from the island. His island.

  The light had a strange quality to it, as though he were seeing a larger spectrum. It sprayed silver off of the golden water and golden off of his silver hair. He guessed the roiling smoke columns from town -and from the far off cities all over Oahu- heralded the arrival of something big. Bigger than anything his lifetime had yet seen.

  Penisimani considered this for a moment, having thought the interesting chapters were over for him. He had lived and died already, and lived again. His story was already written, he thought. Whatever was in him now told him there was a chapter yet to be penned. Or at least a page.

  Still, the story was not here, on a Pacific paradise already lost.

  Not here.

  So he looked out and up over the ocean.

  Offenders bore down on him with unnatural speed and intent.

  One of the closest called him by name. Something in the tone of her voice made Peni ignore whatever would come next.

  Cold water lapped at his ankles for a moment. Until..

  He decided to go, and the water no longer kissed him.

  Peni did not run, did not swim away. He simply went in a way he never had before. In a way that should have been impossible but wasn’t.

  The sensation was almost dreamlike.

  His pursuers followed, some even gave chased and the closest of them caught him up right away. Each in turn splashed down broken and bloodied. Peni tired at the effort. But he did not have far to go. He swung back for the shore, following the white tracing of surf on the strand now so far below him.

  He headed for the place where Hawaii hosted its historical events.

  Pearl Harbor.

  Flying. On wings of his own.

  Salt Lake City, Utah

  “The cuff won’t fit.”

  Scott looked down at his own arm and chuckled as Allie struggled to attach a sphygmomanometer to his beefy right bicep. She strained against the nylon and Velcro contraption. Her brow furrowed deeply and she licked her lips.

  “I’m going to need an extender.”

  “I told you Al, I feel just fine.” He called after her as she hurried away to grab a bigger sleeve to check his blood pressure.

  It was Scott’s turn to frown as he noticed a slight limp in her gait. She was running herself ragged.

  A moment later Allie Dayne reappeared with the tool she’d been searching for and crashed down onto her stool in front of him, still frowning.

  “You almost died today Scott. You can hold still long enough for me to give you a quick check up.” The bubble in her grip wheezed and sighed as she spoke. “Besides, my husband is worried enough with Bluejean missing, I need you around to keep him out of trouble.”

  He could only nod.

  She was right, of course.

  His friend had drawn into himself more and more with every passing hour as the crisis unfolded. He had been overly confrontational in their discussion with E.T. and the Indian painter. Most importantly, Aaron had been forced to relapse into the violence of his younger days, his military days.

  Scott still had the letters sent to him from the front lines.

  They would come in greasy, yellowed envelopes, on paper smelling faintly of sulfur or smoke or something else altogether. He would read them in the locker rooms of his own young adulthood, surrounded by muscled giants who fancied themselves warriors. The tales of real conflict a world away had always given the gridiron gladiators perspective. Aaron’s narrative of the carnage was haunting and confessional. Some things in those letters Scott kept to himself. Knowing all the while that even more was kept from him.

  His friend had slowly transformed in those days. One postcard to the next gave away the buildup of guilt and shame and self-hate and doubt. Aaron never wrote those things, but Scott could read a shift in the run-on sentences and cold verbiage.

  He frowned now at the unpleasant memory.

  The Aaron Dayne that had come home from Argentina was not one that he wanted to confront again.

  His frown deepened, folding lines into his baby-cream skin.

  “Well, I don’t know if this is good news or bad, but you appear to be fine.” Allie was finished poking and prodding. The diminutive woman took a step back and let out a weary sigh.

  She looked like hell, all chapped lips and loose hair. Her scrubs -already changed twice or three times- kept getting dirty.

  Scott could hear her heartbeat from where he sat. Just a touch fast. She wore her fatigue like a wet shirt, physically and emotionally drained, as they all were.

  It must be worse for her though. This was her job. She did not have the luxury to pick and choose who to care about and to worry over.

  But then, Scott had to admit to himself, he didn’t seem to be able to choose either. Something had switched on in him that was simultaneously scary and exhilarating. He had been compelled to fight all those men in the hallway, had known it was the right thing to do.

  The only thing to do.

  The same compulsion pressed in the back of his mind even now, to go find more.

  Poor Allie was responsible for the well-being of all of them. For him, for the men he and Aaron had fought, the missing Bluejean, the thousands of strangers quarantined in the hospital and the thousands more camped out on the lawns.

  Hers was a daunting undertaking. But she plugged away. Scott was suddenly very glad that his best friend had married her.

  She was strong.

  “Thanks again Allie. I’m sure somebody else is in far greater need of your attention right now anyway.” He tried to smile, but the effort fell short. It was not a happy day.

  She rubbed her own temples, swept
a sweaty shock of hair out of her eyes before responding.

  “Let’s go down to the cafeteria and find my husband.”

  After the meeting in the break room, Aaron had growled something about finding Bluejean and headed for the commissary.

  Hours ago, the expansive room and its numerous tables had been converted into a makeshift triage unit. The overloaded hospital and its staff had gleaned enough information from the National Guardsmen protecting their doors to know that it was time to make do with what was available. No protocol existed for a medical emergency of this magnitude, outside of maybe earthquake disaster plans. Dayne still had two capable hands, and was far from squeamish. So he had volunteered himself to help.

  His lack of formal training meant he’d spent the last hour or so carrying medical equipment, helping the haggard nurses deal with panicked patients, and desperately clinging to those in the most violent throes of seizure. An orderly in bloody jeans and a t-shirt.

  Scott saw him moving through the crowded room toward them, a look of relief in his hollowed eyes at the sight of his young wife.

  The heat here was oppressive.

  Scott’s senses rang with the alarm felt by those around him. He could smell blood, sweat, piss. A thousand chemicals of medicine.

  He overheard crying and breathing, even a laugh.

  Focused again on Aaron, pacing his progress through the vibration in the floor. It was an altered state of mind and perception that Scott had a hard time wrapping his head around.

  Frightening.

  But also richer, better.

  Aaron was still yards away, disappearing and ghosting back into view as he navigated the maze of ravaged humanity. Between he and they, groups of traumatized people huddled or stared or whined for a way to make it all end.

  At Scott’s shoulder, Allie gestured to where two aging nurses struggled with a manic patient, an elderly man who gnashed and bit at them like an animal. This mania was proving to be common amongst those struck by symptoms. Still, this man was special, because his anger wasn’t directed at the nurses. He was staring hard at Scott as he struggled. Trying to loose himself from their restraint.

  What is this old guy trying to do?

  His parchment skin was mottled with purple bruises and the ugly tracks of varicose veins.

  “We should help them.” Allie said. But Scott was already there, drawn to the fearfully deranged man. He gripped one of the flailing ankles and held it in a vise grip. His huge hand wrapped almost all the way around the milky-slick skin of the bouncing foreleg. Beneath his palm, some fierce fever burned.

  Preternaturally hot, like the men he had fought in the hallway.

  This man also shared their bloodshot eyes and deceptive strength.

  It could not be a coincidence.

  He knew that it wasn’t a coincidence. Still, his rational mind had a hard time accepting it.

  Greatwater and the man named E.T. had been telling the truth. Something was changed in these people, and in him too. This change is what drew them all together, E.T. had said.

  The same alteration of physiology that had healed Scott of his years-old maladies also made this nameless geezer a threat.

  It was the change that made them want to hurt one another.

  The old man howled curses at Scott’s touch. He jerked and kicked. Pale spindly arms swung so violently that the nurses couldn’t hold on.

  A stirring in his own stomach told Scott that he should be careful. Careful not to scare anybody, not to be too brutal. The same stirring told him it was his job to stop this geriatric lunatic from whatever he was about to do. Scott turned momentarily to address Allie and the other nurses.

  “Get anybody who can move out of here. It’s about to get bad.”

  He turned back just as Old Man Crazy sunk wax-yellow teeth into his forearm. Blood welled as he bit deep.

  The stirring in Scott became more than that. Became an imperative.

  He breathed a moment. Trying to make sense of this. Not needing to. The man gnawing at him made the situation clear enough.

  In the milliseconds it took to debate the best course of action, Scott noticed a contradiction. His vision, hearing, olfaction -all of his senses- were on edge and heightened. But the pain he should be feeling as tooth sought muscle and bone was almost absent, more an implication of pressure than the appropriate knifing sting.

  “Step away ladies!” The voice was hardly his, full of command and confidence.

  Full of purpose.

  As the nurses complied and backed away in horror, Scott yanked his arm free of the old man’s jaws.

  The coppery smell of blood hanging in the air grew that much more potent as he dripped. Grimy fingernails sought his eyes and throat. He cuffed the skinny arms away and used his own broad hands to end the attack.

  He hurt the man. Badly.

  There was no more resistance.

  The pale hair on his arms and the back of his neck stood on end. Somewhere nearby, Aaron’s heavy boots thumped the floor and much nearer Allie’s voice, full of concern and reprimand. Perhaps he should have been more careful with the aging manic.

  No. Perhaps not.

  The hisses and beeps and thousand intermingled voices of the makeshift E.R. overloaded Scott’s ears.

  Somewhere, hot dogs were being cooked. Or was that the smell of cauterized flesh?

  He caught a moment of fervent whispered prayer from a few tables away. From behind, a phlegmy cough and the squeak of gurney wheels. If he concentrated, Scott could filter them, get the details. There was an industrious sort of rhythm to the sounds of suffering and relief, malady and medicine. Overlapping cues created a middling and percussive song.

  Cutting through all of it, like trumpet blasts at a symphony, came the sound of approaching trouble. More screams for help from across the room, or right next door, from down the hall. Distinct howls and hateful words came from changed minds and tongues. Gurneys and tables rocked as more seizures gripped uncounted people. From within the crowd he saw them coming. Two, no, three. Two women and a limping man.

  They would arrive before Aaron would.

  His super-hearing picked up their whispered plan to flank him from either side.

  “Allie,’ again the voice seemed detached. “You need to get these people out of here! Someone is going to get hurt.”

  She was checking the vitals of the man he had restrained. She rounded on him angrily.

  “Someone already did. This man is a patient damnit! He is ill! We just needed to strap him down!”

  Scott was unaffected by her rebuke. His response was uncharacteristically flat and cold.

  “No, he was a patient. Now he’s… changed. They all are, Allie. The ones with the fevers and the anger issues. They are dangerous! They are the enemy now. To me, and to you, and to all the people you are trying to keep safe.”

  He looked around, taking stock of the crowd in the converted cafeteria. He wondered how many were being treated for something that wasn’t an illness at all. And when would they join those already headed toward him?

  Too many.

  “Look Al, this is dead serious. Dangerous. Clear the room!” It sounded ridiculous, even to him. There was nowhere else to go.

  “Changed? Changed Scott?! What do you m..?”

  The three that he had picked out from the crowd arrived in that moment, drowning out Allie’s words.

  Stinking of heat and vomit and greasy sweat, they attacked.

  One wild-haired woman swung a scalpel with wicked intent. He reached for her wrist, missed, and the blade bit deep into his flesh. Again, the wound failed to sting like it should.

  Scott ignored the blood and snatched at her again. This time his fingers found purchase on the woman’s upper arm. Hair whipped his face as she struggled. A quick jerk of his wrist yanked her toward him and something under her skin gave way. The arm went limp and her screams faded to a menacing hiss, then to a gasping sob. Scott paused, momentarily unsure of what to do with her desp
ite the vengeful instinct welling in his chest.

  His choice was made for him as two more bodies collided with his own. The scalpel handle protruding from his arm snagged on a sheet as the trio spilled across the crowded room. Medical equipment and frightened observers scattered as they went. He heard more of them coming somehow. Even as he pummeled the limping man beneath him and strained against the clutching fingers of the other woman.

  Aaron’s voice was there too, shouting for help. Scott could not see him, but pictured his friend vaulting over tables and gurneys and oxygen tanks. Bones cracked as he worked his attacker over. Blood began to run into his eyes from where his female attacker clawed into his scalp.

  The conflict labored in slow motion.

  Their commotion incited screams from all around.

  Something heavy crashed to the floor. Observers and would-be Samaritans were pushed aside by the chaos as hands and knees sought purchase on the blood-slick floor.

  Something hard and sharp bit the back of Scott’s head, and for a very brief moment his vision swam. The heavy backhand he swung met something meaty. The sound that followed let him know he needn’t turn and continue. One blow was enough this time.

  A momentary pause in the assault gave him time to assess the damage he was taking. Here -unlike the battle in the hallway- there were endless angles for the attack to come from. Medical implements glittered and beeped from every direction, waiting to be used as weapons. Worse, every swipe of a blade or tossed heart monitor had the potential of finding an accidental target and hurting someone totally innocent.

  The notion panicked him.

  Fear for his own safety was absent.

  No desperate self-preservation.

  Instead, his overprotective nature was on high alert, sharpened like the rest of his senses.

  Every passing moment, the danger and unpredictability of the situation escalated. In the rare nanosecond of calm, he took in the potential avenues for shutting it down.

  More scrambling bodies tumbled in and out of view and far off shrieks told him things would only get worse before they got better.

  Sometime during the melee, a huge chunk of broken glass had imbedded itself in the muscle of his leg. A wicked edge protruded from his left thigh, blood leaking around it.