Hard Days and Warm Nights
March 18th
Somewhere in Missouri
1
They were lost.
The storm battered their vehicles, lashing out at them violently. The rain came in sporadic bursts, with cold droplets that set their skin on fire as thick, orange clouds rolled menacingly through the sky.
Marc and Angela had been making good time until they’d gotten to Kirksville, Missouri, but getting past the tangled piles of wreckage was impossible. Damage stretching as far as they could see, it was clear that a massive flood had destroyed this town.
Boats were on front porches, heavy river barges piled against a Don Pablo’s restaurant like firewood. Homes and businesses were collapsed and scattered, ambulances and fire trucks crushed together. For the first time, Marc wished for a navigation system, forgetting for an instant that it wouldn’t work without access to the satellites.
Their way blocked, they doubled back, but the new route was closer to the North Fork Salt River, and when the storm broke over them, the water began to rise, blocking their way. As Marc relocated them to higher ground, he jumped from one unknown street to another in order to escape the churning water, and now, they were lost.
Marc surveyed the area unhappily. He didn’t want to stop now, despite all the debris flying through the storm. He hated how low this area was.
“Let’s try that parking garage,” Angela suggested.
“It’s kinda low,” Marc pointed out.
“Sturdy though,” she answered.
Angela pulled around him to take the lead, trying not to react to the Santa hat that blew by her windshield as she searched for a name. The signs that they could see, they couldn’t read because the paint was too faded.
The four-story garage sloped gently upward in circles, and they were surprised to discover only half a dozen cars in the whole place as they did a drive-through check first. The vehicles were dusty, a couple with notes still taped to the inside of the windows, and there was a lot of garbage cluttering the lanes, including broken neon bulbs and a shredded exit sign on the first level.
Marc didn’t like it that they couldn’t see out once they were inside, but although there were bodies all over this town, there was none in here. The smell of them however, was under the salty, smoky rain.
“Up here should be okay for tonight, right?” Angela backed in, worried when he didn’t answer. “Marc?”
Silence.
She discovered him gesturing at his mike and then the ceiling and understood they had no radio in here.
Angela put her vehicle in park, but didn’t switch it off as Marc backed in next to her. She’d put them in a far corner, like he would have, but the rain was still dusting the hood and front windows and the wind was strong, rocking both Blazers.
Marc exited and disappeared, going to secure the perimeter with Dog.
Angela watched the darkness around them, gun in her tense hand. She knew the open area wasn’t to Marc’s liking as he came toward her, and she waited to discover if he would override her decision. If so, she would go along with his choice. He’d been surviving out in the world a lot longer than she had.
Whammmm!
They both ducked as something heavy slammed against an outside wall. When he opened her door, he was relaxing. “Probably the best place we can be, as long as nothing collapses. We can go up two more floors if we have to.”
Angela nodded, reaching in for her duffle bag.
The wind gusted against her door, and only Marc’s quick reflexes kept it from hitting her leg.
“Damn. We need to get out of this wind. We’ll make camp over by the elevators, in that hallway.”
Marc grabbed each item as she took it from the Blazer.
When she shut the door, empty-handed, he gestured toward the dark hallway he had already checked. “Light and gun. Let’s go.”
Angela started to tell him this wasn’t a good time for a lesson and then stopped, realizing this was the perfect time. “Okay.”
Dog now alertly at her side, Angela tried to concentrate as Marc had shown her, tuning out the distractions. She slipped quietly through the loud darkness.
Marc watched their rear. And hers.
A short time later, Angela was unpacking what they needed, preparing to hunker down and wait out the storm while he went for his things, thinking she wasn’t as nervous as she had been nine days ago. Killing had definitely changed things, changed her. She was suddenly a much harder person than she’d ever been before.
Angela set the heater against the wall and made up one large sleeping area between it and the cooler, creating a wall to block the wind. She started getting settled as he returned with his arms full, Dog at his heels.
“Great idea.”
Angela took off her sweater, listening to the wind howl as he added his own items to the barricade.
“Hungry?”
She was setting up the stove. “Not really. You?”
Marc dropped his trench coat on top of a box and pretended not to notice how her gaze went to his chest, lingering there. “No, but we should eat.”
She agreed, but only put on water.
“I’m gonna mark the water levels. Be right back.”
Angela pushed off her shoes and sat down against her pillows–journal, pen, and cup on one side, gun and ashtray on the other. She was calm. She had already seen them, safe and sound, in this very spot as dawn broke. They had seemed to be in a bit of a hurry to leave, but she hadn’t sensed any real danger. Trusting the witch inside was easier since Versailles.
Marc wasn’t as confident. He used a can of waterproof chalk to mark where the water was and then marked every ten feet, all the way to their Blazers. A quick glance would now tell him how fast it was raising.
Angela was lighting a joint when he returned, and he noted his own side of the big bed had been set up identical to hers. Even Dog’s quilt was lined with a bowl of food and water. Neat, organized.
I like that, he admitted to himself. I like her.
Marc put his gun next to the ashtray on his side of the makeshift bed. When she casually held the joint out, not looking up from her writing, their fingers brushed, sparked.
Angela dropped her hand without looking up, but Marc witnessed her nostrils flaring. That didn’t feel like fear to him, and if she wasn’t scared anymore, then it was proof he had made some progress by holding in all the things he still longed to say.
They were traveling well together. They started their days with a quiet meal and then a workout, where he taught her things, like how to breathe and read the ground. Afterward, they did a training session. First was hand-to-hand, and then weapons, which put them on the road around ten each morning. They traveled until it was too dark to keep going, and then he picked a place, if she told him it was okay. Her magic was something they had been avoiding. Marc had almost no experience with the subject, but her gifts were now being used when they made camp. He wasn’t taking any more chances with her life.
“So, tell me about him.”
Angela’s flinched before she realized who he meant. “Oh. Charlie’s a great kid, warm, funny.” Sadness was in her face. “Probably looks different now, older.”
Knowing he wanted more, Angela let her worried mother’s heart answer, “He’s smart. So much that it makes me ashamed that I’m so dumb, and I’m a doctor. He’s loyal, hardworking, and cares about things, like saving the whales. It’s agony for me to be away from him. Sometimes a boy needs his mom, and sometimes, a mom just needs her boy.”
Not wanting to let emotions get the best of her, Angela dug through her bag and tossed a yellow packet onto the blanket by Marc’s leg. “Those are from his first birthday. I still love the clown outfit.”
“He was born on Halloween?”
“Yes, on ten thirty-one, at ten thirty-one in the morning.”
Her voice was rough, sexy. Marc let his gaze roam her while she wrote in her journal. “Is he special?”
She tensed before giving a quick nod. She could trust Marc. “Yes. He’ll be stronger than me.”
“Is it because of being born on Halloween?”
“I assume because he’s male. Fate controls, not the moon and stars.” She inhaled deeply again, closing her eyes against a sharp curl of smoke.
Marc thought about how erotic it would be to give her a shotgun. “You still believe in destiny and the great plan?”
Angela hesitated, not wanting to stir up that old argument, and still not sure who would survive the encounter with her Marine. Marc was good, she had seen that, but so was Kenny.
“Yes and no. It’s not a set plan. People miss their purpose in life and have to spend eternity repeating it, searching for that one moment they missed.”
“And do they find it? Does fate give second chances?”
The implication was clear, and while she didn’t want to encourage him, she couldn’t lie. “Yes, almost always. Fate wants the world to be perfect, and each correct or corrected life is a step on that road.”
He took the joint. “You know that for sure?”
“No, but I examine the world around me and get my answer there. Everything on this planet dies, ends, and usually violently. If not war, maybe it would have been the plague again or another asteroid. For some reason, it was all fated to die.”
“But why everyone? Why not just the bad?”
Angela shrugged again, tone resigned. “That is a question I can’t answer.”
Marc held up the pictures as she eased down. “You want these back?”
“No. I’ve got the memories.” She rolled over and covered herself up to her neck. “Goodnight, Brady. See you in the morning.”
“Yes, you will. Sweet dreams, honey.”
Not likely, she thought, the nightmares a lot of the reason she smoked just before bed. Her heart whispered again about his arms. Angela couldn’t help thinking about it, but there was no way she could accept that comfort this time. She already had a fear that Kenny would sense it if she even touched the line, let alone crossed it, and try to kill her. In her dreams, he succeeded.
Outside, the storm showed no signs of letting up, and they were awake until well after midnight. Marc set his watch and checked on the water every half hour, and each time his footsteps faded into the darkness, Dog at his side, Angela knew it.
Around two o’clock, Marc and Dog went to check the markers again. He was relieved to find the water already going down.
Angela snuggled deeper into the thick blankets, trying to ignore the heart crying for her to slide into his spot. She sighed sadly, feeling guilty that hairy legs and maybe bad breath were the only things stopping her from sleeping in Marc’s big arms. Being attacked and then not only surviving, but also killing the person responsible, had unlocked the last of her chains. It had freed the young girl who feared nothing and slowly, Kenny’s timid mouse was disappearing.
How was she ever going to face her Marine after being with Marc again? Kenny would use her up quickly in this new world, and she would die young. With Marc, though, the witch said there was a chance for the future that had been stolen from them. She wanted to talk about it, to ask and tell, but didn’t. It didn’t matter that she was falling–
Angela stopped herself and tried to imagine telling him how she was feeling. “I can’t stop thinking about you, about us and how good we were together, and… I may want another chance with you once I get my boy back and find a way to ditch my other man.”
Never in a million years. Even if Kenny were out of the picture–and he wasn’t, not by a long shot–there were other walls between them. Still, the young girl who had believed in the dreams continued to whisper, and it was hard to ignore as sleep refused to come. They were a great match, and she still cared, still wanted the life he had promised her so long ago. Soon, Marc would figure that out and do something about it. Then they would all be doomed.
Marc returned to his side of their bed, thinking they were getting closer despite her trying not to let it happen. She was so strong! She not only recovered quickly, she grew more confident from each encounter. She wasn’t afraid to meet his eyes anymore, or to walk by him, and he could feel her thinking about him and the past. She felt it too. He could read it. She felt the... What? Love? Maybe. Lust?
You bet that sweet ass, he thought, slipping his belt and buckle loose. He had never lit up around a woman the way he did with Angie. He had no doubts about his feelings. He now had roughly four weeks left to convince her that giving into her man’s will wasn’t her only choice.
2
Waking with a feeling of revulsion, Angela brushed at her arms as she sat up. Her skin prickled with tiny irritations in the damp morning air, and her hair seemed to be moving on its own. She was so tired!
“What the hell?”
It was the sound of Marc’s voice that brought her awake, and Angela couldn’t stop the yelp of disgust that echoed off the concrete.
“Spiders or crickets, trying to get out of the water. I’m not sure which. Come over here and let me brush you off.”
His tone was soothing, and Angela stood still while Marc rid her of the nickel-sized spiders with legs twice as long as their bodies and bent over like grasshoppers.
“They’re under my clothes!” she moaned, horrified.
Marc immediately grabbed the edges of her shirt and yanked it up and off her. He shook it out and gave it back, watching Dog avoid the mutations, instead of snapping at them as he did with normal insects.
“Do under your pants, and I’ll get our stuff loaded. The water’s down enough to roll through if we’re careful.”
“It’ll all have spiders in it.”
Marc listened to the storm still rumbling, sure they should stay, but the water was rising again and they couldn’t share their shelter with spiders. He needed to get her out of here. “Yeah. When you put those on, tuck the cuffs into your socks and come get what you want. We’ll leave the rest.”
As he stepped past her with the heater and their duffle bags, it occurred to Marc that she hadn’t jumped when he’d reached for her shirt. His heart stirred. Things were changing.
Half an hour later, they were passing through Matenea, Missouri, and Angela listened to the voices as the wind pushed them along.
“I think we should take cover.”
Little black balls of hail were pinging off their roofs and hoods.
“What’s...? Oh, shit! Stay on my ass!”
Angela spotted the funnel cloud by following his line of sight and for a second, she couldn’t move. The twister wasn’t very wide, but it was moving incredibly fast and closing in, as if it had sensed the presence of humans and dropped out of the sky just for them.
“Come on!”
His shout startled her, Dog’s piercing bark through the radio broke her daze, and Angela hit the gas. It was a real tornado!
“Thought this only happened in the movies,” she whispered. She was scared as she caught up to Marc’s bumper, but the raw fury of something they had no chance of controlling was beautiful too, and Angela knew she would never forget it if they got away.
Marc turned them into a large, mostly empty parking lot, speeding up. When he sent his Blazer crashing through the front glass windows of the theater, plastic and glass flying, she followed.
Behind them, the tornado churned across the small city, smashing through anything in its way as it zeroed in on the enemy: man.
“Get as far in as you can!”
Angela swerved in next to him, lobby props tumbling, and they both ducked down as the tornado hit the theater.
The building shuddered, and both Blazers lunged forward with the wind, bashing into the concession stand’s high wall. Glass sprayed as the display shelves caved in, large chunks of debris banging off them as the roar grew louder.
A blast of straight-line winds swept through the cinema on the twister’s heels, grabbing and spinning Angela’s Blazer in dizzying circles before shoving it into a line of heavy arcade machines. Marc watched helplessly as the big games were sent flying into the air and each other from the hard impact, glass and coins erupting like tiny, silver volcanoes.
Bouncing back with a jarring thud, her muddy Blazer slid the length of the lobby before coming to a tire-squealing halt inches from his front bumper.
A second later, it was over except for the rain, and Marc scrambled over wet debris to open her door and help her out. “Are you hurt? Are you all right?”
“I don’t remember asking for the tour,” she joked breathlessly.
He laughed. “Me either. You’re okay?”
Angela trembled, a bit shook up, and didn’t tense when he surrounded her with his arms. She rested against his hard, comforting body and held on.
Marc rubbed her arms to warm her, knowing it was the shock of being woken so abruptly and being forced to deal with the fury of their environment before she’d even had a cup of coffee that had shaken her, made her vulnerable.
“Dog, up. Sshhh... It’s okay, honey.”
Angela kept her arms locked around his waist as the wolf leapt to the roof of his car. Marc held her, watching the drumming rain continue as his body tried hard to ignore hers. It was still a perfect fit.
“Are we safe here?”
Marc recognized the moment. If she could ask him that and be prepared to believe it, things had changed.
“I think so. I need to do a quick check.”
Angela shivered when he stepped back, immediately feeling colder as he disappeared into the dim shadows. The wind blew her hair around, and her witch whispered this storm was traveling northwest, toward her boy. She had to warn Kenny again. She gathered herself quickly, doing it before the fear could make her change her mind.
Marc could feel the energy humming through the cinema. Without knowing he could or that he was going to try, Marc slid directly in front of her, concentrating.
At first, he was blocked by a wall of crumbling mental bricks, but he sent his want ahead of him and it fell easily enough.
Angela’s lashes fluttered, but she didn’t protest, and then Marc was in her mind and angry.
Where are you?
The man’s voice was loud, intimidating, and familiar somehow.
You have to take cover. Bad storms are coming your way.
One more time, bitch! Where are you?
It was a struggle for Marc to remain silent.
A lot closer. How’s my boy?
Happy with me. How close?
The barely-controlled anger was clear, and Angela forced herself to stand, emboldened by Marc’s presence. I’m coming for my son as fast as I can.
You’ll never get him back unless you do what I say.
Searing rage filled Marc, but it was nothing compared to the fury coming off Angela. It came in clouds of heat that he could actually feel.
You won’t keep me from my boy, Kenny! That was the old world. Things have changed, and you’re the one who should be careful!
She sucked in a breath as he screamed obscenities, and then overpowered him with her anger. The words blasted out in a furious snarl. If anything happens to my son, there won’t be a place on this fucking planet where you can hide!
She slammed the door before Kenny could respond in kind.
“He’s in a good mood,” Angela tried to joke.
Marc was pissed. “I won’t let him hurt you or the boy. I’ll protect you both. My word on it.”
Angela turned away. That was the first time in over a decade that she had stood up to Kenny so openly. There would be a payment for it.
“You can’t promise that. You think you know what you’re up against, but you don’t. He’s a violent, trained killer, and in the end, someone’s blood will spill.”
“His, not yours,” Marc stated flatly.
Angela hated it that he was thinking of murder. “Please don’t. It’s on my hands if you kill him, and it would destroy me as sure as losing my son would. My freedom is not worth a life. I need you to swear to me that you won’t.”
“I can’t. You don’t deserve to be treated that way, and I won’t sit by and watch.”
“I’ll figure something out. For now, you think we can stay here until the storm’s gone?”
Marc sighed at her obvious distraction technique, running a hand over his neck-length hair in frustration. Wasn’t he getting to her at all?
“Sometimes, too much.”
Marc flinched guiltily, and she insisted, “Well?”
“I don’t know. Let’s have a look around, and we’ll decide.” Marc let it go, not telling her that he could make it appear like an accident and not feel any guilt. He was also a violent, trained killer.
“Dog, in.”
Marc shut the door behind the big animal, not wanting him to get distracted by things blowing in the heavy wind and run off into the storm.
“Guns and light. Move out,” he ordered, thinking if he decided to handle her man that way, Angie would never know. He’d lock it up so tight that even he wouldn’t be able to access the memory.
3
A few minutes later, they were on the upper balcony. The ghostly smell of popcorn and butter that still haunted the stale air was almost covered by the fishy rot blowing in with the rain through the broken doors.
“Wanna watch a movie while we wait?”
Angela smiled sadly. She hadn’t been to a movie since Charlie was a baby, and she kept herself from saying it only by looking at the poster for A Miracle on 34th Street, trading one pain for another.
“You know how?”
Marc listened harder, fighting the urge to find a room with a window. “Just have to find the generators and add some gas.”
Angela read the fading movie posters, ignoring the unease of her stomach. After the morning they’d had, that was to be expected.
“Okay. How about The Shadows of Fate? I loved The Chronicles of Riddick.”
Marc grinned, feeling unworthy of her with his long hair and unshaven face. “You just like Vin Diesel.”
Angela laughed at his joking accusation, admiring his sexy goatee. It added to his image of an old west gunfighter.
My own John Wayne, she thought, and said, “It was a good story.”
“It was crap with a lot of eye candy.”
She turned away, joking, “Not just for the eyes.”
Marc stilled suddenly, scanning the destroyed lobby and dark, shadowy hallways where he thought bodies should be but weren’t. This would have made a good place to hole up, but until they’d hit it (literally), there hadn’t been anyone here. “Did you hear that?”
Angela listened for a moment, hearing only the storm and things moving with the wind, and then responded, “No. What?”
“Sounded like someone clearing snow with a metal shovel.”
The image made her grimace, and Angela pushed at the door in her mind as her stomach dropped. They had made over a hundred miles in the last week, and she was tired. The door hadn’t opened on its own. Something was happening.
“Up, I think. We should go up,” she whispered.
BOHICA, Marc thought. Bend over. Here it comes again. “But Dog and the Blaz–”
“No time.”
The noise came again and they listened intently. It was a headache-causing sound of metal and stone meeting, but instead of a distant echo, it was loud and close. The vibrations rattled the walls and pounded through the floor under them.
Angela ran for the employee door to the right of the upstairs concession area. “We have to–”
The grinding noise was suddenly deafening, and Marc grabbed her arm. He shoved them both into the dark stairwell as the building around them shifted, knocked forward on its foundation.
A twenty-foot wall of mud and debris slammed into the rear of the movie theater like a bomb, blowing out walls and windows. The sound of it was like a tanker truck jackknifing, and the space immediately began filling with sliding ooze. The entire back wall of the cinema crumbled under the onslaught, filling the rows of seats with thick, dark mud. The side walls held against the mud, which slowed and then was finally stopped by something bigger–the strip mall around the theater, which was more than a mile wide.
Sludge continued to invade, flooding the theater and parking lot around it with ten feet of thick, lumpy glop. It gushed over counters and ticket booths, shoving the two vehicles against the glassless front doors and then out of them.
Angela and Marc flipped on their penlights to view the dim stairwell and bowed-in door below them.
“Is that mud?”
Marc shined his beam on the bottom of the door, where thick, blackish silt was gushing underneath.
“Yeah. A slide.” He motioned her upward. “That door’s not gonna ho-”
CCrraack! Sswwwooosh!
The door gave way, buckling under the weight of the sopping mud that began to flow into the dark hall. The soggy dirt was almost up to the ceiling, and pale worms the size of pencils squirmed all over each other and the debris, trying to rebury themselves. It horrified Angela. It was normal that the smallest and fastest breeding animals would begin to change first–snakes, rats, worms–but the sight was enough to wake that steel in her spine.
“Those are wrong. They shouldn’t be that big yet,” Angela stated with an odd tone to her voice, feet rooted to the spot as the desire to kill them flooded her. They were a future danger, an abomination. They needed to be handled.
“Not by us, honey,” Marc nudged her further up the steep, twisted stairs. “Keep going. It’ll take a full day to go that way.”
She turned reluctantly, and they climbed to the roof’s exit door, both listening for Dog.
Marc pulled her back before she could go out. “Wait. Always check it out first.”
“Teach me how to do this.”
He nodded. She really would have made a good Marine, a strong fighter.
“Stay no more than two feet away and put your feet where I do mine. If I fall, you should come back here and dig your way out with boards or whatever you can find.”
Angela kept her head down at the thought of losing him, and her mind flew to her gifts. She’d do what she had to, no matter how forbidden it was.
“The whole hillside’s gone!”
They stood outside the doorway, the rest of the roof cracked, crumbled, missing in places. The Show Me state gave them an awful view of missing homes, businesses, and roads that had been between the hill and the theater. Even the reeking turkey farm and rye field beside them was now a twenty-foot high pile of uneven, treacherous mud and debris for miles to the east. Small puffs of smoke and dust rose eerily in the early morning chill.
“Look.” Angela pointed to a black corner, where thick, sloppy mud was still spilling around the front of the theater. “Is that your Blazer?”
Marc sounded relieved. “Mud must have pushed them out. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
Angela smiled. “Think we already did. I hear Dog.”
“Come on. Let’s get down from here before the whole mall collapses.”
“We need rope.”
“It’s in the Blazer with my kit.”
Marc was reprimanding himself for leaving his kit when she pointed to the dead telephone wires.
“Can we use those?”
“It’s the grip that’s hard,” he explained. “The poles and wires are sprayed with a flame retardant chemical that makes it slippery. We’ll have to braid a rope together.”
He began fishing in his pockets. “We’ll hope the pole wasn’t loosened by the slide.”
He cut the phone, cable, and electric wires and quickly wove them together.
“Will this work?”
“We’re gonna find out. If it breaks, try to go limp.”
Angela watched as he stood up, studying a dark patch of brackish mud now covering a deer that had been impaled by the thin branch of a walnut tree. “What?”
Marc wrapped the braided cord around his fist and then his waist.
Angela scowled fearfully. “This is the best we–”
“Hang on!”
A second later, she was tight against his body, feet in the air, and then they were dropping off the side of the building.
“Semper Fi!”
His shout gave her the courage to wrap her legs around him and keep her head up as the ground flew closer.
Marc had swung them toward the pole, hoping to slow their descent. He put his feet straight out so that they slammed into the wood with a jerk that had their grip on each other tightening painfully.
Legs holding them to the slippery pole, Marc picked out a shallower-looking patch of mud and swung them for it and the braided cord snapped under their weight.
They dropped to the ground with a hard, wet thud.
They landed with her on top, legs pinned around his waist, and she winced as the layer of mud shifted beneath them, putting more pressure on her knee.
“You okay?”
His eyes were shut, and she leaned in, muddy hands feeling for his pulse. “Brady?”
Dazed but aware that she was getting upset; Marc opened his eyes and said the first thing that came to mind.
“Never have I seen anything so beautiful.”
Angela blushed, fighting the urge to lean down and kiss his pouty lips in relief. “If you say so. How about getting off my sore leg?”
They were on their feet a second later, and he was reaching for her. “Let me see.”
“I’m fine.” Angela flinched away, slinging mud from her hands. “Let’s check on Dog.”
Marc followed her, frowning. Another side effect of her man or the life she’d led?
Neither, his heart whispered. She feels the attraction. She’s not scared. She’s interested and feeling guilty about it.
That made sense. Angie and loyalty went hand in hand.
When Marc let the anxious wolf out, Dog eagerly rushed to check them both over, and Angela took a minute to scan what was left of the town for survivors. She still hoped they might be able to help if someone was stuck, or maybe leave food, but there was only silence. Kirksville was a ghost town, and it made her think of the History Channel. All the bodies that must be buried under that mile-long stretch of thick mud–would archeologists discover them hundreds of years from now and try to figure out what had happened?
“We got lucky.”
Angela didn’t say anything, sure it was more than luck. Fate had allowed both of them to survive repeatedly. Was it because it wanted something from them, something bigger than their tiny lives?
The two Blazers were mud-splattered, the glass on Marc’s side window cracked, but other than dents in the fender and bumper, both vehicles had held up despite being shoved through the glassless windows by a wall of mud. They climbed into their seats with squelches, grimaces, and shared shrugs. They were alive. It had been a good day.
As they drove, Angela’s mind was on her reaction to Marc reaching for her. She had wanted to melt into his embrace! She was no longer able to ignore the intimacy that was growing. Marc was still a good man.
Your man? the witch questioned, and Angela was glad when Marc interrupted.
“You okay back there?”
She flashed her beams in response and saw he wanted to say something but wouldn’t. She’d been a fool not to call him all those years ago.
“Ready to go till dark?”
She picked up the mike. “And then some. You lead, I’ll follow.”
“Copy that.”
They had been traveling together for a month now. Five hundred miles of heartbreaking, gut wrenching, unbelievable horror, and Missouri was no different from Indiana, Virginia, or Ohio. Except, the ground here felt bad and smelled worse. They had seen their first obvious mutation yesterday. Only a single black ant the size of a baby’s shoe, all of its eyes had watched them alertly as they went by.
When she’d stopped, Marc hadn’t said anything, just waited while she squashed the freak under her tires. It had been a powerful moment for him, seeing Angie so appalled by something that she decided it didn’t have the right to exist, and he had never felt closer to her than at that moment. It was how Marc had spent most of his adult life.
“Three o’clock, down low.”
Angela immediately hit the brakes, searching for a clear path to her target.
“Use your gun this time,” he instructed, and Angela didn’t fight the urge to destroy, the need to do something overpowering. She’d had to let the worms go. These she didn’t.
“Slow down. Don’t scare them off.”
The small pack of ants didn’t stray from their slow, disorderly course through the dying switch grass and they didn’t seem afraid of the tires and engines that rolled closer, but the witch said they were aware. The demon could feel the scent of alarm coming from them.
Angela slid her window down.
“That’s far enough.”
The witch protested the distance, but Angela agreed. She could hit them from here if she tried, and Marc knew it. He wanted her to use this as a lesson too.
My how we’ve changed, the witch commented as anger and revulsion took over Angela’s trigger finger.
Not a killer, huh?
Angela ignored the hurtful jab. These mutations were in reach and couldn’t be allowed to endanger more of her people, couldn’t be left free to turn America into a cheap slasher film. Angela opened fire
They tried to flee, squealing and panic-stricken, and she took a savage, guilty pleasure in their destruction, getting the last one with her tire as it darted for cover under the Blazer.
Marc was impressed, aroused, and he struggled to keep it from his voice as he keyed the mike. “Very good. Ready?”
“Let’s roll.”
4
They traveled until it was almost dark; the land around them was wet, deceitful-looking. By the time they hit higher, dryer ground, the mud had molded to them like a second skin.
Marc had chosen to make camp on a flat, almost deserted stretch of highway, and their only cover was two moss-dotted dogwood trees, both without a single bloom.
“You look like an abused dog.”
Marc snickered and stomped to the rear of his Blazer, trying to dislodge the mud. “Feel like one.”
“Let’s make a shower.”
He thought about it for a minute then began to gather a mental list. “Got an empty gallon jug?”
An hour later, the wolf was out roaming the breezy darkness around them, and they had tested their crude invention on the dinner dishes, sharing tired grins of accomplishment. It had been a long day.
“Where should we set it up at?”
She tossed a blanket onto the roof of his Blazer and moved one of the jugs they had warmed to the hood. When she turned, he was frowning.
“What’s wrong?”
“Who’s gonna hold the towel?” he questioned.
She was getting a bit nervous, but hiding it. “I’ll pull my Blazer alongside. Once we open the doors and hang a couple of sheets, it’ll be fine.”
Thinking this was probably going to be hard on her, Marc got busy. The privacy was for her, not him. He had showered with ten other naked men in the room nearly every day for years. His red face was from the images of her naked and soapy that had flooded his mind.
When the jugs were ready, Angela climbed onto the roof and sat down, supplies next to her.
Marc took off his Colts and entered the cozy four-by-four area. As he began undressing, Angela lit a smoke, trying not to imagine his every action and failing as she kept watch on the dark, Missouri sky. Her sharp gaze picked out shadowy forms of mountains to the east that she assumed were the Ozarks. Everything appeared normal here, but she wasn’t fooled and continued to keep watch.
Rap-rap-rap-rap!
Angela fumbled for her gun, and felt Marc’s displeasure even though she couldn’t see it.
“It’s a woodpecker.”
“This time of night?”
“Everything’s screwed up now for them, too.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Don’t be, just remember it. Once you familiarize the sounds of your surroundings, you’ll only react to what’s not normal for that environment. Your mind will sort it out for you.”
Angela smiled softly, grateful for him and all she was learning. Marc was the perfect teacher. He never made her feel stupid or acted like he was better, and she loved being with him.
Angela heard his dog tag clink and felt her mouth go dry at the thought of his naked chest. His belt buckle was next, then a zipper, and a rustle of jeans that made her heart pound.
“Hit me, woman,” he called cheerfully.
Angela slowly began pouring warm water into the shower they had made, thinking she hadn’t heard any underwear.
She sucked in a surprised breath when her body responded to that image. He was the only male she had ever been physically attracted to.
Liar.
She ignored the witch.
“Soap, please.”
That brought a new set of images, and she was careful not to touch his wet fingers as she handed him the blue cake.
“Washrag?”
She got it quickly, wishing he would hurry.
When he finally called for a rinse, she was relieved. Too many feelings and memories were coming back to her, and it had to stop. A spark hadn’t been enough then, and it wouldn’t be now.
“I’m done. You can stop drooling.”
Angela flushed, stuttering in embarrassed denial.
Marc laughed, drying off. “Well, I thought it was funny. Come on down. Your turn.”
Angela moved slowly, fear creeping into her veins at the thought of being defenseless with a man above her.
Pulling on his shirt, Marc sensed it. Their eyes locked, spoke.
I’m scared.
You can trust me.
Prove it.
“Hang on.” He pulled on his shoes and then dug out another blanket that he tossed over the opening.
“If it gets lighter, you’ll know I’m peeking.”
“Thank you.”
“Anything for you, Angie. You know that.”
Marc kept up a steady stream of chatter about their travel plans, and Angela hurried, body tingling from her hands and thoughts.
By the time she finished, Marc pouring water through a small hole, she had relaxed more than either of them had thought she would. She trusted him. Marc had always been hers, and that hadn’t changed.
5
A bit later, they settled closer to each other than usual, sharing a pot of hot chocolate by the fire. Angela was trying to comb out her hair, the length making it difficult.
Marc watched her while he cleaned their weapons, not glancing away as the flames danced over her black curls and pale skin.
“I can do that without ripping all your hair out. The birds could make a nest with what you’ve thrown into the fire.”
Angela’s first thought was no, and she was shocked to hear her own eager voice say, “Deal. You battle the tangles, I’ll roll.”
His surprised, happy look kept her from withdrawing the offer, and she surrendered the brush reluctantly when he held out a hand.
Marc shifted behind her and knelt down, then began to gently brush through the tangles. He started with the damp ends, aware of how shallow her breathing had become, how tense her posture was.
It was an uncertain moment for Angela, and she listened with a thumping heart, hearing leaves rustling in the soft breeze, the gravel crunching under Dog’s paws as he returned, panting. And all the while, she waited for the footsteps and gunfire, fear insisting Kenny could be here by now.
Dog sniffed their feet, their beds, and then curled up near the fire, and Angela told herself to relax. The wolf would hear anyone sneaking around, even a Marine. Besides, she wasn’t doing anything wrong. Marc was just brushing her hair.
By the time he had gotten a third of the way up her small waist, Angela had adjusted and Marc eased down, legs on either side of her. She tensed again as his big body surrounded hers, but when he only continued to work on her damp curls; she continued what she was doing.
Marc wondered if she would note today’s escape in her journal. She’d had him telling stories every night for the first few weeks, but hadn’t asked for one lately. He suddenly wondered why. Had his tale of betrayal and self-preservation during Katrina bothered her that much?
“Not so much your part. You followed orders. It just makes me sad all those people were hurt.”
Marc agreed. “I almost left the Marines over it. I mean, we could hear them screaming for help. How’s a guy supposed to live with that?”
Angela wanted to comfort him, but she was afraid to say the wrong thing and break the peacefulness.
She did the best she could. “They wouldn’t let you help. You were knocked out when you tried to anyway. Nothing you could do.”
Marc sighed glumly, wishing he had… He sighed. If he had shot his way out, he’d be dead now too.
Pop!
Angela jumped into his arms as the log in the fire exploded into a shower of sparks, bodies brushing as they laughed.
Marc was pleased when she didn’t move away. He kept his hands working, almost holding her.
When he finished, he laid the brush down and rested his chin on her shoulder. “You got that rolled yet?”
She held it up, and they both laughed at the misshapen joint. Angela’s stomach tightened at the feel of his warm breath on her cheek, but she didn’t pull away. “It’ll burn, but it won’t be pretty.”
He chuckled, fishing in his pockets for a lighter. When he leaned in to share the flame, their bodies made full, willing contact for the first time in fifteen long years.
Angela’s heart immediately settled into a rhythm of a peace that she hadn’t felt in a long time.
“Look, honey. The moon.”
She leaned against Marc’s hard chest to peer up and was happy to be able to see the dim outline through the grit.
“It’s a good sign.” She still didn’t move. “We need more of those.”
They smoked in silence, and Angela let the warmth and comfort of Marc’s body carry her away. She was safe, if only for this moment.
Her lashes fluttered when he slid an arm around her to pass the joint. Caught up in the good moment, Marc couldn’t resist putting a soft kiss on her smooth cheek. “Never did I see such beauty, such courage, such passion, and such fear in her eyes. The lonely heart demands and the mind refuses, but the body, the core, pulses with need.”
He inhaled and passed, continuing to speak his poetry as they relaxed in clean jeans and matching Marine sweatshirts.
“Never did I see such hair, dark as the night, and lips of love, red as a rose. A body that tempts me, begs me, and blue eyes that follow me into my dreams and beyond. Forgive me these careless slips of shameless flattery. I cannot explain, with mere words, what you mean to me. Hold to the truth, to your heart, to love… To us.”
“It’s beautiful.” Angela let her cheek rest against his chin, pushing away the voice screaming of Kenn’s anger.
“It’s the way you make me feel, what you make me see. My life was so empty without you.”
Hers, too. Other than her son, she’d had no one she could love or trust, and when Marc wrapped his arms around her, she relaxed against him, the long day wearing her down.
Don’t lie to yourself, her heart scolded, and Angela faced it this time. She was too aware of the man behind her to keep denying it. Marc was the only one who had ever understood her and what she needed.
When he kissed her jaw again, she said nothing to make him stop.
“You smell good,” he mumbled against her neck, sweet vanilla assaulting his senses. The feel of his lips on her skin sent an unexpected shiver of pleasure into her stomach.
“Are you cold?” he asked, tightening his arms around her.
Angela flushed, nodding so that he would pull the blanket around them and make their innocent embrace more private.
Aware that things were going too fast and that tomorrow she’d probably be standoffish again, Marc wrapped the quilt around them anyway and pulled another cover over their legs. As he wrapped himself around her, she slipped her hand into his.
Marc sucked in a breath, heart skipping, and they sat together in silence, both very aware of the other, yet content to be so close.
The day caught up to her quickly. When Angela was asleep in his arms, Marc gently laid them down and pulled the covers up. He cradled her, loving every second. As he buried his face in her hair, he placed a long, slow kiss to her neck that gave him chills and sent her eyes flying open.
Marc forced himself to stop despite how hard it (he) was. “‘Night, honey. See you in the morning.”
“Yes, you will,” she mumbled groggily, already falling back to sleep and Marc joined her, the wolf at their feet. They would face their demons together when the time came.