Desert Angels (26 page)

Angela kept moving. The light of morning crept over the polluted horizon and she felt suddenly the stirring of transformation within. Jack was awakening. Angela looked around herself in panic. She hated to leave Laura unsheltered in the middle of the desert, but she was comforted with the knowledge that she would suffer less cruelly out here than with the bloodthirsty mutants. Still, Laura would not last for long without medical attention. And she would not remain undetected with a full-scale search party by the Maddogs fervently underway.

Angela became Walter a second later, and she flew once around Laura, checking the horizon. Miles away, she spotted the Maddog campsite. Figures were moving and preparations for a march were underway. Walter assumed that a search for the escaped Laura had also begun.

Time was not on her side. Or Laura's. She would have to work fast.

* * *

Jack padded his way to the window from his bunk like a dog. His head hurt where Gleeson had clobbered him and his limbs felt shaky and treacherous, as if they would fail him should he dare the bold adventure of standing or walking. He settled for crawling during those first painful moments of consciousness and the first thing he wanted to see were the twisters.

Because he knew that just as sure as sugar, they had proceeded to blow the living shit out of everything in sight. He remembered that they were coming just before the world went black.

He also remembered what his trusty manservant and second in command Ronald E. Gleeson, III had done to him.

It didn't matter. He was in a forgiving mood. If Gleeson had somehow - miraculously - saved Eden, he would let bygones be bygones.

But something was wrong.

The time of day had changed, was too bright. And sand lay five feet high against the exterior of the Dome, almost occluding any visibility from the porthole Jack was looking through. He glanced down at his watch, trying to make one and one equal two and coming out with the differential (if there was one) of pie. It didn't make sense.

Because according to his water-proof, just-took-a-licking but-still-keeps-on-ticking Timex, he had just enjoyed a rather nifty nap of nothing less than twelve hours.

And not a blessed tornado was in sight.

He had missed everything. He didn't feel angry, though, as he hauled himself onto two legs; obviously the damage wreaked by the twisters was minimal, at least to the Dome. He could only hope the same could be said for the rest of Eden. And he would think about Gleeson's treachery later.

As he broke the seal to the outer door, sand caved lugubriously inside. Jack stepped into it, wading through the stuff like water; on the other side of the sand beast was Gleeson and two other men – apparently trying to get to him.

It was not a difficult task and within ten minutes, Jack's front door area had a neatly plowed look to it. Gleeson walked over to Jack afterwards and smiled a crooked familiar Gleeson smile. Jack tried to muster up rage, or at least indignation, but for the moment he was so delighted to see that Gleeson was still alive he couldn't help but grin himself. When his eye caught the nearby slope of the mountain that the Dome rested against – and Edenites crawling thereon – all feelings of irritation were instantly quashed.

"I should fire you, you know that?" Jack muttered, tired and groggy, but relieved; his head was starting to kick-in with a horrible ache. Delicious thoughts of bathing in Black Label scotch twirled invitingly in his head.

Gleeson was silent. Perhaps waiting for the wrath of Jack, and feeling, to some degree, that he would deserve it.

Jack surveyed his kingdom briefly; a panorama of sand lay before him, stretching out to an unrecognizable horizon of yet more sand, billowing in places where before lay rocks or hills. Eden had completely disappeared, or rather, those familiar items such as tents or gutted vehicles that housed its some two hundred residents were gone, out of sight, buried. Men dug into the sand - now and then, revealing a small patch of tent or promising glint of exposed metal from a truck or jeep. Behind Jack, the Dome looked as if it were both sinking into the ground and the mountain, as sand surfed up to its walls and settled, obscuring half of the structure.

From a tactical point of view, Jack had to admit that the sand provided the best sort of camouflage against any roaming unknown enemies. Unfortunately - and Jack knew this all too well - Eden's enemies were far from unknown and were too familiar with its location to be fooled by a little sand. If they were in the vicinity, and felt a little pugnacious, the Maddogs could have a field day with Eden in its present state of incapacitation.

Jack looked out into the valley, a place heretofore comfortably latticed with hundreds of feet of electric barbed wire. Now, only sand prevailed. For fucking ever, he thought bitterly.

"How many dead?" Jack asked, scanning the mountain, trying to count as many heads as possible, and praying that the casualties were miraculously low.

Perhaps, this one prayer was answered, because Gleeson fairly chirped his reply.

"None, doc. We rode the bastards out. Got a little dusty, but that's it."

Jack couldn't help but smile and put a hand on Gleeson's shoulder.

"Did they actually hit?"

"Missed us by a mile. They were almost on top of us, but then veered south, southeast. Still got a good blow, though. The shelter shook like a mother. We must have had angels on our side this time around."

Jack's eyes lost a little of their sparkle as he nodded.

"Yes. Perhaps so."

"I moved all the folks up the hill. It gives me and a few of the boys more working room to clean house."

"You did good, pal," Jack conceded, though his thoughts suddenly turned to Laura along with his head. He stared into the skyline, meditating on the thousand to one chance of Laura having survived the tornado attack. Not liking the dismal probability that hell had an excellent chance of embossing Christmas jingles on its walls before Laura would show up unshreaded and full of good cheer.

Gleeson, provided the answer to his unspoken question. The note of sadness in his voice was unmistakable.

"She didn't come back, doc."

Of course, Jack had known that as soon as he had awakened. He frowned at the sand around him; first things were first – no matter how badly he wanted to find Laura.

"We've been lucky.”

Jack's voice was low and tired; the
enfant
terrible
with a good deal of terrible kicked out of him. Gleeson nodded and turned to leave.

"Gleeson."

Gleeson turned painfully, the scratches on his face clearly new, Jack noticed, along with a limp and a dislocated arm. Jack squinted carefully at the mutant.

"What happened to you?"

Gleeson shrugged.

"I caught a little wind," he said, dismissing the incident with a careless wave of his good hand.

Jack watched him go and glanced once more at the mountain. The people of Eden stared down at him, exhausted. But still alive. And ever hopeful. And this much meant that no matter how crappy he was feeling, there was a reason to continue. To struggle.

For them.

Laura would have expected it of him; Angela, too.

Suddenly, a shout ripped through the air.

“LOOK!”

* * *

Maddogs, he at first thought with a horrible sinking sensation in the bottom of his guts; hitting us while we're down. His body, sore as it was, tightened like a steel rod, his senses instantly alerted and heightened. More shouts – coming from the mountain – hailed downwind; the good folk of Eden were seeing something that he, as yet, had not.

Jack focused on the skyline. And finally, the sky itself.

A bird.

Walter.

Jack yelled incoherently. The yell diminished to a groan, filled with desperation and need; an unspoken, primal noise that had no counterpart in language. He knew he was going bug shit batty, but he didn't care. He reached for the sky, his eyes tearing.

Walter circled once, then disappeared behind the mountain and reappeared. Gleeson watched Jack hop around like a deranged rabbit, pointing and screaming and otherwise behaving like a hyper-active Stiffer. Or a Maddog hopelessly hooked on acid.

Walter, counting on the affect it was having on him, made its move.

The bird did not land. Instead, it flew off in a direct line, west. It lighted on top of a sand dune rising a hundred feet above ground level – and waited. Jack began running; he tripped several times, crawled, hobbled and found his feet again. He did not discontinue his screaming.

And then he stopped. Rational thought cut through his ongoing visceral desire to howl and hoot some more.

He slowed to a jog, watching the bird take off from the dune it had been resting on and fly yet further away from him. As if it was trying to get away –

– or make him follow it.

"Okay! I understand! Just wait there," he gestured frenetically, nodding, moving backwards – and falling some more. He slapped at the ocean of sand around him, cursing it, wishing it buried beneath tons of lava or ice or some like punishment that sand would surely find unbearable.

He slammed the button to the Dome's garage door. He found the Humvee, badly parked and full of sand. Surprise momentarily immobilized him.

Someone else had been driving his vehicle.

He thought of the Angel first. Instinctively. Then suddenly remembering
who
the Angel was, he realized the improbability of Angela abducting his vehicle for a little cruise around hell.

Then he thought of Gleeson. And Gleeson's arm. And the rest of Gleeson looking like he had just been nicely chewed in a giant Blendomatic.

The pieces came together at light speed. Gleeson had tried to go after Laura after disposing of Jack, more confident in his cooler objectivity to rescuing the girl than Jack's passionate, irrational response to finding her at all costs – including the far too expensive one of dying in the effort. Gleeson had tempted the twisters as far as he could and probably got back to the Dome just before the storm's force struck in earnest. And obviously not in time to spare himself considerable pain in the process.

Jack dove into the Humvee and started up the motor.

He would tell Gleeson how much he loved him later. Always later. His litany.

Screeching out into the dust, he floored the accelerator and skidded into a semi-circle. Without stopping to shift gears, he fired forward, eyes on the distant feathery figure of his guardian angel, faithful friend and one time wife.

* * *

She was back in Coco Beach. The sun was bright, the air was cool – and she wept like anything to see such quantities of sand. Dad was around here someplace. So was Mrs. Davenport. And Tommy Ferguson, a kid who once loved to pick his nose and who had once pulled her pigtail in the fifth grade.

Do you suppose, she wondered, if seven maids with seven mops had swept for half a year? Do you suppose –

–
that I'll ever wake up from this dream
–

the Walrus asked, if they could get it clear?

Because she knew what it was. Unfortunately. A dream.

Questions were answered with more inane, impossible pictures of talking Kobalsi and dancing pile-drivers – the not-so unbelievable characters that somehow found themselves perfectly cast in the dream world. Her mind was on a roll and she knew that it would stop when it darned well felt like it. Until that time, she was along for the ride.

Someone was coming.

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's someone that I know; but the question, boys and girls, is it Laura's friend or foe
?

In the intricate, unmapped wonders of the brain that controlled both the conscious and unconscious, Laura had to congratulate herself for her gift of rhyme. One day she would have to use that talent of hers for great things. Writing songs, maybe. On bathroom walls. Something she'd always wanted to do.

One day.

The sun shadowed and Coco Beach dissipated into a hazy mirage of shapes and colors; from out of that foggy mass that seemed strangely palpable, came a figure. Maybe it was dad, she thought. Or Angela.

Because it couldn't be –

–
not for the life of her be
–

Charlie Davenport. Her pal the peanut. Surely not
him
.

But it was.

And he was on top of her again. This time forever, smiling, assuring her that his relation to peanuts was a ghastly misnomer in every sense, shape or form. And wouldn't she
have
to agree with him? And you'd better agree, Laura honey, or he won't ever stop hurting you or smiling or hurting or -

– screaming –

* * *

Walter spotted Laura from nearly a mile away. She was moving; no, crawling, unable to muster the strength to stand.

But she was able to scream.

It was
all
she could do.

About five minutes away, the Maddog army rumbled through the desert, sand and dust flying skyward, omniscient clouds of doom promising destruction and pain in their wake.

Jack could also see the distant dust clouds, the kinds he knew could only be produced by motor vehicles racing at appreciable speeds. If he had any doubts as to who or what was approaching Eden so eagerly, his skepticism was commended to a swift burial as the audible roar of motorcycle engines floated over the desert air.

If he was concerned about the uncomfortable proximity of so much mutant to Laura and himself, Jack didn't show it. All he could see or think about at the moment was the screaming girl writhing in the sand. If the Growler and his gang came flying over the horizon with Mary Poppins, Jack wouldn't have bat an eye. There was only Laura.

Screaming.

Even before the car stopped, Jack was out, running, falling, crawling, his medical bag in hand, toward Laura. Laura, her eyes nearly swollen closed, shrieked. A cry of the damned, Jack thought miserably.

"Oh, god," Jack whispered, feeling the frail flesh beneath his hands at last. He could sense the life seeping out of her even before he touched her.