Salvation, Damnation

It’s always the same question after we’ve found each other. After the panic, after the relief, after the dread sets back in and we’re reduced to small talk.

“When did you see your first angel? What were you doin’ when it happened?”

Bessy was hanging out the whites when it happened. She said she mistook the angel for a sheet and went right on peggin’, until the angel started cryin’. Bessy said it was sobbing real’ loud, so loud it distracted her from the fact there was an angel draped in white standin’ between Bessy and her washing.

Apollo tells his story a lot, before anybody has to ask. “I was out shootin’ rabbits. Shot a real’ big one and thought I’d caught Bigfoot. Walked over and it smiled at me with them pointed teeth and thanked me. Then it started cryin’.”

Me, well I was at Uncle Rick’s. He lives way out in the sticks, out further than Bessy and Apollo. The angel’s kinda just appeared for them, manifested out of thin air, stepped out from behind a tree that was never really there until the angel was.

I saw my first angel fall. It plummeted from the clouds, all soft and pink tinged, not graceful or ethereal or the way they make out in the books. It landed so hard I thought it was dead, til it did that real’ toothy grin they do. Razor sharp. It looked at me with all hundred eyes then looked at its back, between the shoulder blades, where cherry red blood was seepin’ through. That’s when it started the sobbin’ thing.

We didn’t think they were dangerous back then. There was a couple’a weeks of hysteria and the television told us it was armageddon or somethin’. The preacher in the street said Christ was comin’ but the angels started gettin’ bloodier. That’s when the attacks started. They were hungry, and it doesn’t say in the Bible that angels feed on blood. We had to work that one out for ourselves.

Salvation, damnation, somethin’ like that.

“Terra!”

My eyes snapped open. I used to be a heavy sleeper, immune to alarms and all that, but it was different now. It had to be.

“Terra,” Uncle Rick whispered again, a little softer. “We need to leave now. I’ll get the others, you get your things.”

Living in a constant state of survival mode has side effects, and they’re kinda superhuman. I slept three hours a night and felt recharged. I always had my backpack ready and I already knew where I would bury Uncle Rick if they got him before me.

You gotta prepare for everything when it’s the end of the world.

I met the others in the kitchen. The lights were off but I could feel the body heat of our group, and I could hear Bessy’s uneven breath. She hadn’t had a cigarette in two months since she was hangin’ out her whites with the angel, and Hell, she made sure everyone knew about it.

Uncle Rick did a roll call and we started movin’. We didn’t usually stick around long - a couple’a days at each house before the angels started to smell us. We used to argue plenty about where to go next but Uncle Rick took charge now. He kept us safest, and he grew up in the sticks before we did, so he knew all the short cuts.

We walked for a few hours ’til the sun started comin’ up. It poked out from the trees and filtered through the branches, broken, all dappled and pretty.

Bessy was panickin’. “They’ll see us soon, Rick.” Bessy never liked the walkin’ all that much.

“Funny, huh.” Uncle Rick’s voice was real’ deep in the mornings. Made the hairs on my arms stand up a little. “All those eyes, and not one can see in the dark.”

The morning rays reflected off a tin roof a few yards in front of us. The roof was sheet metal and almost blinding. We were all squintin’ into the sun.

Our towns looked the same out in the sticks, just a little overgrown, and plenty deserted. I was never much of a city girl, but I wondered how the cities were doin’. The angels were everywhere by now. Uncle Rick had a little radio he listened to when he thought we were sleepin’. New York City was empty, the radio voice reckoned. There were refuge camps set up but they’d get raided every few days. I don’t think anybody really knew what to do.

One of the newer kids we picked up a few houses before tripped on a branch and landed with a thud and a rustle of dried leaves. We turned to see what happened, and that’s when we saw ‘em.

About fifteen of ‘em. All eyes and pointed smiles, all hunger and fury. They were tall, taller than us, and real’ pretty, if you could get past the eyes and the teeth. Their robes were stained with grass and mud and bits of guts. I felt Bessy shudder. Most of ‘em had stopped cryin’ by now, but sometimes we’d see one reach for the sweet spot between its shoulder blades and remember somethin’ had hacked its wings off. Maybe it was the Devil, whatever that meant. I never went to church much. Maybe it was God.

“Alright everybody, stay calm,” Uncle Rick interjected. “Imma’ count to three, and we’re all gonna follow me through them trees, as fast as we can. Alright?”

He said alright like it was our saving grace, but we knew what we had to do. The angels were stronger than us, faster than us. They wouldn’t leave till they’d fed. Me and Uncle Rick had seen it a few times now. Someone had to die.

“One…” Uncle Rick began. The sun was a little higher in the east and his voice was warmer, softer, like honey.

“Two…” We all crouched down a little, for the momentum, like we did at the sports carnivals at school, just a couple’a months ago.

“Three!” We ran for our lives. The saying means somethin’ different when you have Heaven on your tail.

Uncle Rick and Apollo had Bessy by the arms. Me and the other kids were faster than ‘em, but we didn’t dare overtake.

Another tree branch snapped, followed by a familiar bodily thud. By the time we turned to see who fell, the angels had already got him. The new kid.

Bessy shrieked somethin’ inhuman and Uncle Rick cursed at the angels.

He was younger than I was, and he sure was sweet, that kid.

We didn’t stop runnin’.

When we made it to the next shack, Bessy collapsed. She wasn’t doin’ too good. The rest of us couldn’t tell what was tears and what was sweat on our face.

I tried not to think about the new kid, the gargling noise as he choked on his own thick blood, the way the angels stopped crying when they started feedin’.

“Who are you? Did any of ‘em follow you?” A high voice trilled.

My head snapped towards the noise.

She was small, thin, and had short honey gold locks loosely tucked behind her ears. I couldn’t tell if she was tanned or just grubby. She coulda’ been beautiful but my eyes were still filled with tears and I couldn’t see too well past ‘em.

“I’m Rick, and that’s my niece, Terra,” Uncle Rick tried to say calmly, gesturing towards me. “These are our friends, we’ve picked ‘em up along the way,” he panted, and Bessy and Apollo and some of the kids did a cautious wave.

“Did the angels follow you?” The girl asked again. She was yellin’, but I don’t think she meant to.

“No.” Uncle Rick dropped his gaze to his boots. “No, they… fed.”

I think we’d all’ve cried a little more if we weren’t so messed up by the sound of the angel’s tears.

“I’m real’ sorry.” The girl took several strides towards us. “Come in, there’s a few of us. We got a plan.”

We piled in the shack and exchanged names, ages, when did you see your first angel, where’s your momma, the whole thing.

I sat and curled my legs next to the girl who took us in. Every muscle screamed with the movement.

“Terra, right?”

I nodded my head. She was real’ pretty, I was right. I became conscious of the sweat beads rollin’ down my forehead and wiped them with the back of my sleeve.

“I’m Evie.”

I smiled at her. I wasn’t gonna ask no more questions, but she kept going anyway. I watched her lips move and pucker with each syllable, the words rollin’ off her tongue like pebbles, caught between her teeth before she would spit ‘em out.

“I’m seventeen, no clue where my family is. I was readin’ some Bukowski by the river when I saw it first. It swam up between the reeds and scared the livin’ daylights out of me. That smile they do, y’know.”

She tugged on a chain around her neck as she spoke. Her eyebrows furrowed.

“They won’t bother you here, with us. We’re headin’ down south, if you lot fancy.”

“What’s down south?” Uncle Rick chimed in. Evie’s ears pricked up and her grip on the chain tightened.

“Airport. They ain’t got no wings, do they? Can’t go through ‘em, but we can try go over ‘em.”

It was a locket. A silver heart-shaped locket, a little rusted where the charm met the chain. It fell through her fingers as she fumbled with it.

Uncle Rick seemed pleased. “We’ll head at dusk. My lot haven’t slept too good.”

Me and Evie shared a mattress. We paired up real’ quick, both bein’ teenage girls and all. She braided my dark matted hair and I helped her scrub the blood out of hers. She said I was lucky my hair was so long. I think I blushed a little.

“Evie,” I whispered when I thought everyone else was sleepin’. “What’s in the locket?”

Evie inhaled, a real’ big breath. It made me feel safe. I liked Evie a lot.

“It got caught in the reeds, when I saw it the first time. I don’t think it knew.”

“What are you talkin’ about, Evie?”

“A feather. Terra, I think it’s from them wings, wherever they are. But ever since I’ve worn it, they keep real’ far away. They want nothin’ to do with me, or any of us, for that matter.”

We laid there in silence, listening to the others breathe, inhale and exhale, the heavy deep sleep type. She let me mull it over for a while, before rolling in towards me and cuppin’ her hand around my ear to whisper into.

“They’re afraid of their own divinity,” she breathed.

I turned to meet her gaze in the darkness. Her crystal clear eyes were lit up by the moonlight pokin’ through the window.

“Death is the only God who comes when they call, and I got the last slice of their holiness.”

I thought about what she said for a moment, still holdin’ her gaze.

“Evie, I ain’t never been so scared of Heaven.”

And so it was. We trudged through the mud for a few days to the airport but the only monster we met was the weather. Bessy’s not lookin’ too good but she made it. We made it.

Uncle Rick thinks we got lucky. If I tell him about the feather he’ll do whatever it takes to claim it, so I’m not gonna tell him anytime soon. He’s real’ protective like that.

Evie links her pinky finger with mine and starts to skip towards the big front doors to the airport.

“Just you and me now, Terra. Just you and me.” Evie liked whisperin’, like everythin’ we said was top secret.

She made me feel real’ special.

“I hate to interrupt,” Bessy coughed, “but who’s pilotin’ the plane?”