6. Playground

Something had gone wrong. She felt it even before she heard her husband scream, before he did that absolutely crazy thing of trying to shoot El.

At first it hadn't all been so bad. The person they'd been waiting for had turned out to be Michael, whom she recognized immediately when he got out of the old silver Chevy. How could she not, considering he was the one who had saved all their lives, considering he was the only reason her baby had even been born? – Hell, he was the one who had held her hand during childbirth. – He hadn't changed, not at all; it was like a sort of déjà vu, in fact. Different car and no coat, though. And she was no longer pregnant, raw and young. – She would've kept that last quality if she could. – She had survived twenty years in a post-apocalyptic world and she had raised her son – the new messiah.

Was Michael's appearance now and in this place a good sign? She really doubted that, remembering his first visit. – You don't know, do you? – Yeah, she hadn't known back then, and it had been a happy ignorance, until he burst into her life and turned it upside-down. So, his reappearance probably heralded some new sort of trouble. But she never expected it to come so fast, so very fast.

At the same moment as Jeep fired his rifle, El spun to the left, crouched down and took up a firing stance, kneeling on her right knee. Michael twitched, and Charlie realized he'd been shot, though she couldn't see how badly. The next moment he was aiming at Jeep with a gun in his left hand. – God knows where he had hidden it, because it hadn't been there a moment ago. That was one of El's things as well: weapons just seemed to appear in her hands from nowhere. At first she had found it creepy, later… well, she had started to find it useful. – And she recognized that look on his face. – Open the door. – She knew that blank, unemotional look only too well…

xxx

Jeep was kneeling on the ground with a barrel pointed at his forehead. The baby's basket was on the ground as well, right in front of him. The little one was screaming, because that was what his mother was doing. She had struggled desperately, but what could she have done against the two men who were keeping hold of her?

They had made a huge mistake when they had stopped in this small town ("Population 101, welcome to Desert Rose"). They should've been more careful, but they were so tired… The last two days had been so very exhausting.

First a nice old lady had suddenly turned into some sort of spider-zombie version of herself and tried to kill them, then – hello, guys, I'm the Archangel Michael, and Charlie's baby will be the next messiah. Oh yeah, and God doesn't believe in humanity anymore, so welcome to the Apocalypse. And those nice black-eyed sharp-toothed guys outside, they're angel-possessed and came here to prevent the child being born. Want some more? Even if we somehow handle all that, one of my own kind is coming to kill the baby. Actually that was my job, but I went AWOL.

Holy crap! Could you believe that? And the most incredible thing was that they had made it, although of the eight of them at the beginning only two had made it to the end. – And the baby was born in the process. – Even Michael had died. – Or does it not count if he came back from the dead? This supernatural stuff can easily drive you crazy.

So, when it was finally over, and they found out that there were still normal people somewhere outside, and life seemed not so fucked up after all, they lost it. They acted as if it were the same good old country. But it wasn't.

When they came to a godforsaken settlement that seemed empty (no people, no corpses, nothing), they just started searching for anything useful for the baby and for themselves. – She would have been glad even to find Dr. Spock, though she was never a big reader, because back then she had no idea what she supposed to do with her baby. – And they had been caught unawares by three armed men.

Charlie had not had any illusions about what would happen next. Best case scenario, they'd take her with them – 'Nice ass and boobs' said one of them, 'you'll do, honey,' – and leave Jeep and the baby alone. Worst case, they'd rape her right then and there, and then they'd kill them all. The strangest thing was that she wasn't afraid for herself, but that even to think about them harming her baby was unbearable. And there was no one there to come and rescue them.

And that was when she saw her for the very first time: a slender female figure in black clothes that looked slightly strange – something about them was wrong, they looked… well, like some kind of costume – walking straight towards them, unhurried, unworried, as if nothing special was happening. Just a routine day, with boring people going about their boring business.

When those freaks saw the girl coming, they hadn't been scared. Why would they be? She was alone, good-looking and unarmed. And she definitely hadn't seemed dangerous. Just some pretty girl. So they'd laughed, because now they'd have two chicks instead of one.

She had stopped right in front of the guy who was aiming at Jeep's forehead, and said with a cold, confident voice, "Take care of the baby." And what happened next, happened so fast that Charlie could hardly follow it.

The girl hit the first guy hard in the throat with a clenched fist before he realized what she was doing. As he choked, she twisted his hand, grabbed his gun and turned him round, pushing him away from Jeep. Using him as a live shield, she shot the two men who held Charlie: two shots – two corpses, with tiny accurate holes right in the middle of their foreheads. Then she kicked the first man in the subpopliteal recess, bringing him to his knees.

"Hands on your head. Get your fingers interlaced." She said this in the same tone of voice, and then added to Jeep, "I said, take care of the baby. Which part of that don't you understand?"

Jeep stood up, took the basket, reached across to Charlie and hugged her with his free arm. She threw her arms around his neck and started sobbing.

"And now we'll talk," the girl said to the kneeling man.

"Jesus Christ, you fucking crazy bitch, what have you done?!" he shouted, his voice still broken.

"Let me make it clear to you, when I said 'we'll talk' it meant you're gonna answer my questions and keep your thoughts about me to yourself." A very cold smile twisted her lips. "As for your reference to Him, that's pretty pathetic considering what you've been doing here. Besides, He won't listen to you anyway, so drop it. Now, tell me, were there only three of you, or are there more of your friends out there somewhere?"

"You have no idea what it is you're dealing with, honey. My friends will find you and make you pay. You'll scream until you lose your fucking voice." The anger in his tone was mixed with fear.

"Oh, I see, there were only three of you. Good." She raised her gun, aiming at his forehead.

"Are you fucking deaf? Didn't you hear what I just said?" Now his voice was completely terrified.

"Wait." That was Jeep. He had let go of Charlie and given her the child's basket. She had taken her son from it and was clasping him to her chest. "What if he's telling the truth? Shouldn't we find out more about his buddies?"

"He's lying." There were no doubts in her voice.

"I'm not!" the man shouted, but she ignored him.

"How could you possibly know that?" Jeep approached until he stood beside her.

She gave him a look that made him shiver. "I just know."

He glanced at her neck, which he now saw was covered with a tattoo. Her hands, from what he could see, were covered with it as well. "Oh, God…" he said. "You're one of them. Charlie! She's…"

"Say one more word and I'll have no choice but to shoot him." There was no warning in her voice. It sounded as if she really didn't care at all. "Yes, I am."

"Did he send you?" Charlie asked.

"By 'he', do you mean my Father or my brother?" There was a certain bitter humor in her voice.

"So, which one was it?" Jeep asked.

"Well, that's kind of complicated. Can we talk about it later? Because we have a situation to deal with here right now. This man and his buddies intended to rape your woman and then kill all of you, including the child. So the question is, what should we do about it?"

"Are you asking us?" Charlie said in a low, uncertain voice.

"It's your lives that were at stake, so yeah, I'm asking you."

"We can't just kill him," Jeep said, but without much confidence.

"He wouldn't show you such a mercy." The girl's voice sounded even colder than before.

"Why did you do that to us?" Charlie asked the kneeling man. "We'd done nothing to you."

"Why?" He choked down a laugh. "Look around, babe, it's the end of the fucking world. Open playground, no rules anymore. We just wanted to have some fun before it was all over."

"Shoot him," Charlie said, in a harsh, confident voice.

"What? No!" The shot interrupted Jeep, and the man's body fell to the ground.

The girl's face was completely blank as she did it: not a twitch, and then she lowered the hand with the gun.

"Humans." And her tone of scorn was the very first emotion she had shown.

Then she added: "I'm El, your new protector. Pick up their guns and we'll check this place out properly. I'm gonna make some sort of permanent shelter for us here. We can't keep moving right now, not with the baby. It'll be chaos out there for a while."

"But…" Jeep had started.

"If you wanna live, do as I said. And don't fuck up this time."

Jeep had frowned but complied. Charlie came up to the girl – no, she wasn't as young as she had seemed earlier: late twenties, certainly no younger – and asked quietly, looking at the dead man, "What if I'd said 'let him go'? Would you have done so?"

"Of course not. I would've executed him anyway," El shrugged.

"Executed? You mean killed. Then why did you ask?"

"We don't kill, Charlie, we execute. And I thought it'd be much funnier that way."

xxx

So, she knew that blank look all too well. That was why she shouted desperately, "No, Michael, please don't shoot! Something's wrong with him!"

And then she heard Michael's calm voice: "I know."

What happened next happened really fast. Jeep started to shake rapidly, his face twisting up, and his head looked like it was… spinning around, only his body wasn't.

"Fuck!" El, already straightened up, saw him and exclaimed in agitation. Cain had rushed towards Jeep, but El screamed like hell, "No! Don't go any closer to him! Get away! Get the fuck away from him, Cain!" – Charlie had never heard her scream like that before.

At the same moment, Michael shouted, "Hurry up, he's changing!"

El rolled across the SUV's hood and kicked the car door. It slammed into Jeep's body and he dropped the rifle. Charlie could have sworn that his eyes went red, but at that very moment El hit him hard in the right temple with her fist, and he fell down unconscious. El instantly turned him face down onto the ground and, taking a pair of handcuffs from her belt, snapped them onto his wrists. Then she held him down, with her knees on his shoulders. "Michael, a little help here!" she snapped.

"Done," he said, already approaching them, still aiming at Jeep, and he added, "Be careful."

"Oh, I fucking will!" she hissed.

"Hey, guys, what the fuck are you doing?" Cain exclaimed. "C'mon, El, leave dad alone."

"Charlie, for God's sake don't let him come near us," said Michael. "Jeep's possessed."

Charlie went numb. "What?! That's not possible. No! No! Jeep!"

And at the very same moment her husband raised his head and said… no, Jeep didn't say, his lips hadn't moved, and that terrifying voice was something that could never belong to her husband: "Jeep's not available, sweetheart, please try later." He chuckled. "Actually, don't. This is pointless." His head spun round, as no human being's could do, and red-flecked eyes stared at El and Michael. "Well, well, well, look what we have here – a fucking family reunion… how touching."