by Angela White
She wasn’t looking forward to telling him her story, planned to put it off as long as she could, but the odds were against her making it alone. And then there was Kenny. He wouldn’t just hand her son over and let her go. Between her Marine and the terrain, she would definitely need help, and Marc Brady was the only one she had left to turn to.
"You can’t!" her fear shouted, telling her Kenny would kill her for it and the door in her mind stayed firmly shut.
Angela stood stiffly in the dark hallway of her apartment building, fear preventing her from making the call. Once she did this, once she left, there was no turning back. The urge to go inside and keep waiting was incredibly strong, but she shook her head, heart taking control.
“I’ll kill him if I have to! He won’t keep us apart!"
The rush of angry energy blew her fear aside and the door swung open. Her breathing became shallow, hair beginning to gather static, and power ran through the mud-tracked hall as the Witch gathered the energy needed to find the right doors that would cover hundreds of miles. Her eyelashes fluttered shut as the memories washed over her, strengthening the connection.
Jet-black hair, long and feathered, and soft on her fingers as their mouths touched. He was the only man she had ever loved and she called for him now, releasing a powerful vibration that rattled like an earthquake as it went.
“Marc!"
His hands had been light, gentle magic as they crossed forbidden lines.
“Marcus!"
He had loved her and walked away, and she had never recovered.
“Marc!"
“I’m here, Angie."
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, whispered, "No,” that she would be alone forever.
“Yes. I should be in Cincinnati in less than a week.”
Angela let out the breath, ashamed of the grateful cry from her anxious heart. 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 find 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 of loss.
“My...son is somewhere in the middle of the country. I need you to get me there and help me steal him back, 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 really 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!"
Suddenly, she was sixteen again, hurt, betrayed, and alone, with no one but Corporal Kenny to turn to. She slammed the door on his 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. She was ready to go and could deny her mother’s heart no longer.
In the dawn’s early light, the doctor approached the shiny black Blazer waiting in the secluded garage. Her anxious blue eyes went over 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 back. She couldn’t abandon the living child to stay and mourn the dead one.
Angela wiped away her tears and looked at the Blazer again, finishing 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.
Her eyes looked over her Tempo, making sure the wind and weather hadn’t moved 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 inpatient, 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 where he could turn 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 now and she slid into the driver’s seat with a thin smile. She was changing again…
“Going somewhere?" Warren’s cold voice just 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’d been here all along, watching and letting her do the work of loading supplies they would have if she wasn’t careful.
They 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 eyes. They were still and quiet too, another bad sign, and she saw the outline of bulletproof 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 shook his head. His beaten-up 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 looked into his feverish, zealot’s eyes.
“If you move the car, they’ll open fire. Get out."
Angela slowly slid to her feet, eyes going over the six men spread out behind Aaron, each with a firearm aimed at not the Blazer, but her.
She looked at Warren with a baiting brow raised, seeing he still had the bible under his arm. “No longer under your protection, Preacher?"
Warren shook his head, eyes bitter, discolored. “No one is."
It was confirmation and yet none of the others stepped up to do the speaking, to take control. When Warren closed the door and turned to face her, she noticed they stayed well back, even Aaron, who she thought was probably the only one she really had to worry about shooting 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 and anxious heart flared to life. She would have to fight her way out then. Angela slipped back to let the Witch have a little more control. She had to fight - she didn’t have
to kill. “And we won’t!"
Her reminder to the Witch seemed to be a cue for the scruffy males, and they moved 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!"
"Help me, Mac!"
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, but jerked back 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 closed 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 wasn’t hit.
The sky opened up a second later and huge chunks of hail, black and heavy, began pelting them. The four men whose names she had never known recovered too quickly, her magic weak, but they fled in fear, never thinking to use the guns that most of them had dropped from panicking fingers.
The Witch held out a hand, where flames now danced along her fingertips and the two remaining men stopped, eyes confirming they were in over their heads and knew it, but were still unwilling to back down.
“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 black man went pale at the sight of glowing red eyes and hungry white fangs. Horns sprouted from the sides of her head, her long, crooked mouth opened to reveal razor sharp, needlelike teeth. When the Demon’s forked tongue lashed out at him, Aaron turned and ran, never looked back.
The Witch remained, resisting Angela’s attempts to get her under control, and 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 back, red eyes changing, becoming reptilian. “You know so little. Doctors kill often. They 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 drunken 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 looked at Warren with hard eyes, ignoring his pain as he tried to put himself 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.” The woman held out a hand, where tiny flames were 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 fall back 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, even if he wanted them to. If he came for her later, it would be only him and maybe Aaron. Two against one were much better odds, she thought, not knowing how wrong that was.
She pulled the Blazer’s door closed as Warren vanished behind the thick, rolling black smoke billowing from his burning truck. When his faint outline was gone, the Witch slid fully back to allow Angela a last look through her own eyes, at 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 couldn’t wait another second to go.
Locking the doors, Angela pushed the wall of grief and guilt away as the tiny grave caught the corner of her eye. 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 look, she pulled her sunglasses over teary eyes and drove away, empty and full mailboxes waving a final, hard goodbye.
2
It was a long day for Angela. The slow going made her grit her teeth in frustration and curse aloud as she spent the entire morning creeping her way 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 that would never come.
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 and back yards, wincing at every snap of wood, plastic, and bone.
She felt very exposed as she traveled through the riot-ravaged towns that she had known before the War. Everything was so different, so dangerous, that she would never have recognized them if she hadn’t been here 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 had tried to steel herself as she entered the city limits, sure it would be as bad as her own neighborhood, but it had been 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 own to charred, blackened frames. Those that did remain, had no windows, no doors. The main street was crammed with abandoned cars and wrecks, but it was the dead that made her heart ache. There were so many! Had no one in this small city found safety?
Angela wiped at her eyes, 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 it, eyes drawn to 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 hit the curb hard enough to throw her against the seat, an
d the scare allowed her to get control of herself. She wiped her eyes again, just concentrating on the quiet rumble of her engine, and after a moment, felt better.
She started to back up, but something changed in the air suddenly, was different, and she turned off the heater to listen as she looked around 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 back 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, ignoring the flies that snapped at her, 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 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 - her boy's dreams were full of the people they’d joined. She knew they were headed to Montana, and it worried her, made her stomach burn as she wondered 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 the Charlie’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, and they gave her no more comfort than the homes she could see as she left the ghost town behind. They were sprawling beasts with paint-chipped porches and untended lawns, their fields ready to be planted. Their two car garages would likely hold one white or red Ford Crown Victoria and one midnight blue 1966 Starfire that would now wait forever for its owner to lovingly restore it. There were no signs of normal life, or any other, here.
