Desert Angels (19 page)

“Thank you,” she said softly, still amazed at what Jack had just relayed to her.

“So this thing – this Angel – it has never revealed itself to you?”

“No, never,” Jack said. “Just through the written word.”

Laura reached for the many notes that the angel had left for Jack in the past few years.

“It’s female,” Laura said at last.

“How would you know that? I’ve always assumed it’s a creature that is genderless.”

“That’s because you’re a man – and dumb,” Laura said. “No, this angel is female. And it loves you.”

Jack considered this for a moment, about to protest, but then he paused mid-thought. He nodded. “I think you’re right.”

“But how it’s able to get in here every night, undetected, that’s the wild part,” Laura said.

“I now believe it – she – simply moves through walls as easily as we move through air,” Jack said.

“If it’s pure energy, it could do that, theoretically, anyway,” Laura agreed. “An intelligent, female force able to materialize and dematerialize at will,” Laura said, realizing she probably sounded like her father. “It’s incredible.”

“Not so incredible considering as how the world has changed, in case you haven’t noticed. Zombies and such.”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “There’s also the lights,” she added.

Walter flapped over to Jack’s shoulder from her perched position near his computer, and he stroked the bird softly.

“I call them the Light Storms,” Jack said. “Another energy entity, in my opinion. Intelligent. An intelligent collective.”

Walter flapped over to Laura’s knee, and landed, looking up at the young woman. Laura smiled down at Walter. “Yes, my father thought that’s what the lights represented as well. But there’s no proof –“

“No, no empirical proof to back up these theories, but in my heart, I know they are sound,” Jack said, sipping his wine.

Laura considered this for a moment, then stood, and approached Jack. Walter flapped to the desk nearby.

“There’s also the strange shadows,” Laura said, looking at Jack evenly.

“I have a theory about that, too,” Jack said.

“May I hear it?”

“I believe the Light Clouds are a kind of positive energy force, possibly intelligent. I have never felt apprehension or fear in their presence, only the typical anxiety of witnessing something inexplicable. With the shadows –“

“—with the shadows, I always felt fear,” Laura completed his thought. “I always thought that they were malevolent. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s what I felt. I felt anything they could touch would turn that thing – or person – into something monstrous,” Laura said, then offered a grim smile. “Of course, as with you, it’s just a theory.”

“I don’t believe you’re wrong. It explains the Stiffers – if the shadows came into contact with anyone, their mutative natures would become more than just purely aberrational in the radioactive sense – they would also transform into fucksticks with no heartbeat, and the ability to walk and consume as evil entities that defied death – or double-defied death, if you will.”

Jack looked down and sighed.

“In some ways, the world hasn’t changed, it has simply
shifted
in terms of paradigm. There are still positive and negative forces, like those forces that comprise the magnetic glue which holds together the universe. Except now, they manifest themselves visually,” Jack said, sipping more wine.

Laura thought about this and then reached for Jack’s glass, and put it on the desk.

“Jack. If we had the luxury to wait … if we were back in the world … I’d say let’s take some time to get to know each other,” Laura said, her voice steady and clear. “But the world has changed. And I don’t know how long either of us has left.”

Jack looked at her with admiration. He nodded and took her hand.

“I know the feeling,” he said.

Walter suddenly flew out of the open door to Jack’s quarters. Jack stood and then closed the door and looked back at Laura.

“Time is precious,” he said.

“Yes,” she nodded, and stepped toward him.

Their kiss was far from gentle, their need beyond that of polite restraint.

At least for this night, the horror of a strange new world would be kept at bay for a few precious hours of stolen joy.

* * *

Walter flew to every room in the Dome, restless and perturbed. For an hour, she flew non-stop.

At last, she made her way to the lab where the Stiffer was shackled from either wall, both arms and legs of the monster, firmly bound by navy link chain.

The bird flapped to one of the examination tables and stared at the Stiffer.

Hello, little one
, the Stiffer said – without moving its lips.

Walter flapped in surprise, recognizing the Stiffer’s telepathic capabilities.

“What are you?” Walter queried with her mind.

I am like you. A creature of another world, far, yet very near, to this one.

“That’s cryptic and unworthy of you,” Walter baited the thing.

Not cryptic. Just accurate. I was born out of the hell fires of Man’s last war. Released, actually. Free now to –

“To what?” Walter interrupted the thing.

To rule, little one
.
To rule.

“No, to destroy. I can sense it in you. You are a destroyer, a hater of all that is human and good,” Walter conveyed her thoughts with venomous rancor.

There is little that is good in this new world. That is why I am here
.

She had to destroy it. Now.

As if in answer to an unspoken prayer, Walter transformed into Angela. Which meant that Jack had fallen asleep (no doubt in Laura’s arms, Angela could not help but wince to herself).

She looked around, and saw Jack’s .23 Glock lying on one of the dissection tables. Jack was always leaving weapons around the Dome, in every room it would seem, mainly out of absent-mindedness.

Angela seized the weapon and aimed it at the Stiffer.

You are an interesting hybrid,
the Stiffer invaded her mind again.

Part of you belongs in the world of Man; part of you belongs with me,
the Stiffer continued infuriatingly.

“No,” Angela said clearly, and then pulled the trigger to the Glock.

* * *

Jack awoke with a start at the sound of the distant gunshot.

He glanced to his side at Laura, who remained fast asleep. Jack gently disengaged himself from her hold, and then ran out into the hallway.

The shot had come from Lab C, he was sure of it.

When he entered the lab, he found the Stiffer snarling in fury, it’s chest and abdomen bloodied, yet it was far from mortally wounded. Given the Stiffer’s undead characterization at the outset, Jack assumed the Stiffer would survive whomever shot it.

He looked around and then ducked as Walter flapped past him and into the hall.

“Walter, what the hell are you doing here?” he shouted out into the hallway.

But Walter had already turned a corner and was nowhere to be seen.

Jack considered the Stiffer once more, staring into its eyes.

“You and I are going to have a nice chat tomorrow, big boy,” Jack said. “That is, if you’re capable of speech, which I doubt.”

The Stiffer snarled at him and drooled some green shit from its mouth that Jack did not even want to imagine what the contents consisted of..

He took his .23 Glock, and examined the firing chamber. Three rounds had been discharged. But, again, by whom?

The Edenites as a whole slept in the lower levels of the Dome, or out in the open air, under makeshift teepees, and this was Jack’s restricted area where no one was allowed access without his presence.

“The angel,” Jack muttered at last, looking back at the Stiffer once more. “You saw her, didn’t you, you ugly bastard?”

The Stiffer was now eerily silent.

But those eyes bore into Jack’s with steel-sharp acuity.

Jack activated the combo lock and the lab was sealed. He should have done that earlier in the day, but he had been distracted by Laura.

He headed back to his quarters and crawled into his bunk, holding Laura tight.

He fell asleep within minutes.

* * *

When Walter transformed for the second time that night, Angela exited the Dome and sat on the stoop of the entrance, looking out into the huge yard area filled with tents. The Edenites were all asleep.

She was still trembling from her encounter with the Stiffer, and the portent of its vitriolic and pestiferous communication with her.

And then she saw the Light Storm moving past the main gate, and directly toward her.

She stiffened as the lights suddenly stalled and remained stationary a few inches above the sand.

Jack had earlier told Laura the lights were a collective intelligence; a hive entity that mysteriously occupied this world for no apparent reason.

The Clouds generally came and went so quickly, she had not thought further about them, any more than she had done in the past whenever they appeared. She had dismissed them as nothing more than colorful, albeit puzzling, pieces of weird nature. She might very well have pondered the origins of the canals on Mars with more diligence.

Part of you belongs in the world of Man; part of you belongs with me
, she remembered the Stiffer transmitting again and again.

Angela suddenly found herself surrounded by the Lights – enveloped by them. She closed her eyes. The sensation they provided, their presence, their fusion with her body … all felt oddly comforting.

When she opened her eyes, the Lights were gone. She had felt momentary peace in their presence, but now felt only anxiety again.

Walter imagined the Stiffer roasting over a spit; a mental picture she enjoyed outlining for herself in sizzling detail.

Though well behaved (suspiciously so, she thought), the Stiffer was a presence that put Walter on edge. It's purpose was clear. It was here to destroy, to torture, to murder. She could see it; she believed Laura and Gleeson, all of Eden and Francis the Talking Mule could see it, too. Everyone and their pet rock could see it – except Jack. And he was the one that counted.

A dark, swirling image of Jack trying to kill the Stiffer, as she had once tried, invaded her imagination. Of course, the Stiffer (even in a vision she controlled) was resistant to the idea and in protest began its own offensive against Jack. Only its eyes - those eyes from the deepest, hottest part of a volcano, the lifeblood to a hell more dank, more diseased, more fetid than any Jack could ever conjure up - served as weapons in the Stiffer's counterattack. It was all it needed. For suddenly she could see Jack being torn apart, limb by limb, his

blood geysering in all directions from his body; a human pipe that had spontaneously sprung a leak. A picture of white agony, twisting, leaking, screaming. Throughout, the Stiffer only stared. Those eyes, working, watching, killing.

Her Jack.

Walter made a growling sound in her throat, obliterating the mental montage of violence.

It would have to be destroyed, pronto. No more half-baked attempts would do. It was beginning to dawn on Walter that the Stiffer was no more a captive to Jack than she was; its ultimate purpose in allowing itself to be restrained obviously part of a blacker, deadlier plot that was far from promising for Jack Calisto's continued good health. Yet to attempt another act of execution (and perchance to fail!) could not be risked again. Not without the certainty that such an effort would deliver a satisfactory and conclusive payoff. She needed a weapon, a doomsday device that was completely Stiffer-proof.

And she needed it fast.

The Stiffer, she noticed with some irritation, had opened its eyes and was regarding her again. Languidly. A knowing predator that was but waiting for the perfect moment to strike. To rend. To devour.

A weapon, she thought desperately.

Or an ally.

Walter's thoughts returned to the Light Clouds. Perhaps the Stiffer had given her enough after all. If communication with the strange, glowing vapor was the only link to Jack's salvation - and possibly her own as well - then she would have to make an attempt at contact with the Light Clouds. At all costs.

She closed her eyes, and in her mind’s eye, she could see the Stiffer was smiling, its eyes wide with hate and madness. Somehow, Angela thought,
knowing
exactly what she was thinking. A living Jack-O-Lantern, weary of holidays, ready for action.

And Walter knew that time was running out.

FOR DEAD MEN RISE UP NEVER,

AND EVEN THE WEARIEST RIVER,

WINDS SOMEWHERE SAFE TO SEA.

                                    Charles Algernon Swinburne.

ELEVEN – RACE AGAINST TIME

Mathias stared out at the night in pain. Since his beating by the Growler – punishment for the failed attack on Eden - he had been unable to keep anything down and his bones ached horribly. The process of dying, he acknowledged miserably, was a bitch; being close to it so often of late did not improve his perception of it. Dying, Mathias philosophized further, was worse than death. It hurt more. And it lasted longer. At least the dead were dead, free of the eternal lights of agony that radiated through the body like determined ferrets, burrowing into every sensitive nerve, gnawing into vulnerable organs that were already unfairly preoccupied with fending off disease, radiation and malnutrition, tireless in their singular activity of nurturing pain.

At least, Mathias took some comfort, the dead were at peace.

But while he may have longed for death eventually, he did not want to die just yet. Not before Jack Calisto got what he deserved, good and fair. And not before he, Mathias, could see the "getting" get done proper.

The Growler had ordered his people, the Maddogs, out on an expedition, far beyond the boundaries of the encampment once known as the Children of Free Perdition.