The story of Mandy came to me when I tripped on the stairs, bruised my ribs and ate the nastiest tasting carpet. I may be an angel but this made me want to kick some ass.
Judy Dawn
Dirt mingled with Mandy’s tongue. The small amount of spit left in her mouth mixed with the soil and quickly became slimy clay. Instantly, she opened her lips and spat out three small rocks that crunched between her teeth as she exercised her jaw. Her cheek hurt on one side, stung on the other. Slowly she opened her eyes. It took a tremendous amount of effort to move her eyelids. When she began to focus, she realized she was horizontal. She blinked in the blinding bright sunlight. Her body remained motionless as she looked around and saw sagebrush. There were small clumps of sage brush, brown sage brush surrounded by dry brown sand. She blinked a few more times and flexed her hands.
She felt small rocks and loose dirt against her open palms, along her exposed forearms, and against her mid section. When she pressed her fingertips into the ground, her middle finger pinched on something sharp. Mandy moaned and closed her eyes briefly. Every body part hurt. On side of her body burned and the other felt raw. Dry, that’s all she could think, she felt too dry.
Her skin felt chapped, her throat scratchy, and the inside of her cheeks felt parched despite the clay that formed in her mouth. She spat again to clear the clay soup from her tongue. The wet substance that came out of her mouth made a small dust cloud beside her face that tickled her nose. She watched as a slight breeze pushed the sagebrush in the distance. The draft tingled across her burning backside. Slowly, she lifted her head from the ground. Instantly, she felt her neck ache.
Her body was heavy, so heavy that only the muscles in her narrow neck worked to lift her head. After some struggle, her spine shook with the effort to assist the muscles in her neck. Her slim shoulders trembled as she pushed more of her body weight off the ground. Her palms flattened against the sharp rocks under her hands. She felt the pressure in her lungs release as the weight eased off her chest and onto her thighs. She rose up on hands and knees. Her head dropped to rest the overworked muscles in her neck.
Her body refused to move any more without slight rest. She took the opportunity to spit more of the clay from her mouth into the dry sand. The wet and dry contrasted before her eyes and mingled into a puddle of muck that reminded her of an unidentifiable brown ink splotch on brown parchment paper. She loomed over the spot creating a shadow with the sunlight to her back.
Her shoulders shook. She lifted her head and leaned back to rest onto her bare heels. Her eyelids dropped in response to the brightness of the sun’s reflection off the earth’s surface. She rubbed her hands together. The dry sand and small rocks that stuck to her skin made her feel as if she were rubbing coarse sandpaper between her palms. She scratched her dehydrated lips with her parched tongue and rubbed her dry palms over her naked thighs.
She saw a pale green flag in the distance caught on a dead bush. She realized it was her robe. When she looked down at her body, she wasn’t surprised to see herself naked. Her botchy colored skin was covered in dirt and sand. She tried to wipe away some of the earth on her chest and thighs, but it clung despite her efforts. Her hands were covered just as much as her body and she realized she used energy she didn’t have. She couldn’t tell if she were clean anyway. She had bruises and cuts within inches of themselves. She felt like a handmade flesh patchwork quilt. With a sigh, she looked out over the open horizon.
She was in the middle of a nowhere desert. Instantly, she felt like a nomad. The loneliness wasn’t a new sensation to her. She figured she deserved to wake up here. When she was alive, she hadn’t been the best citizen and now that she was the walking dead, she hadn’t done much better. She lifted her shaking hand to her head and ran her fingers through long tangled strands of thick hair.
She hated her hair when she was alive. She had too much of it. The dark strands soaked up the heat in a situation like this. The weight of it gave her a headache. Every time she died her hair returned to the same style she wore when she began her undead life. She cursed herself for ever enjoying the waist length fashion. And every time she began to walk with the living, she cut it short and donated it to the less fortunate.
She pushed off the ground and stumbled on jelly thin legs. The bare souls of her feet ached and pinched with the sharp stones from the earth. If she could feel pain, she was sure the stones would seem like hot coals. She would feel the scrapes and puncture wounds the sharp rocks made in her flesh. Fortunately, she’s grown her threshold for pain over the centuries. It took more than the assault she just suffered to make her feel pain anymore.
She turned her head and was thankful to see that she’d been dropped next to a paved road. She wasn’t often thankful. Her undead life was full of too much violence and gloom for her to be thankful often. The emotion made her chest ache. She might have felt tears form in her eyes, but they dried as fast as they formed. At least she had some emotion left. She shrugged to herself as she looked up and down the road.
The two lane lifeline had to lead to civilization eventually. How long would it take to walk to the nearest town? Hours? Minutes? Days? She looked up at the clear blue sky and shaded her eyes with her hand. The sun was bright. She gauged the time to be high noon. She dropped her hand and her gaze to her robe.
She felt her backside skin pull tighter from the deep sunburn with every movement she took. Even with her high tolerance for pain, she felt the taunt pressure of her dry burned skin. The burn must be deep. Deeper than what she originally thought. She probably had blisters among other skin infections from being exposed to the elements for so long. She spit more clay from her mouth to her feet.
She knew by experience that night would naturally fall twice before she returned consciousness to her undead body. She had no doubt that she’d been laying naked for the entire time while she healed from the horrible assault that eventually landed her here. She’d need three more nightfall’s at least to heal the rest of her injuries.
She struggled to put her robe on. Even though her skin pricked more when the cotton rubbed against her, she knew she needed to wear it for protection as she journeyed into the living. She tied the robe in place and her body began to shake. She crouched to the ground for stability. Her human body had been through so much already. She knew her physical limits were far less than her mental ones. Lately she’s felt the physical limitations frustrating. However, she was in no hurry to return to the living. She sunk to the ground to sit on her bottom. She should be in a hurry. She should feel panicked at least. She was thirsty, hungry, and naked.
When she walked among the living again, the first thing she was going to do was take care of her body. She hated it when she received unneeded sympathy. Sympathy from others was too damn late. Sympathy made her mad. When she was alive, she never got consideration from anyone. However, now that she was the walking dead, she got more compassionate attention from humans that she could handle. She rested her elbows on her knees. Her head fell over her and she closed her eyes again. She was tired. She was tired of being a walking dead.
She was tired of fighting for a group that never showed her compassion when she was alive. She was tired of putting her human body in danger so often to save another. She was tired of being used. Even though she recovered every time she died, she still had the memories. Those memories turned to nightmares. Lately, those nightmares turned to depression. The depression was hard to fight alone.
Now, like always, she would retaliate against the men who did this to her body. She would avenge in the honor of brutalized women everywhere. At least avenge the ones who died at Tony’s cruelty. They fell into her plan and now she had the element of surprise on the scum sucking bottom feeder assigned to her over a year ago. He was going to suffer.
Tony was hard to catch. He always took care. She waited for this moment. She planned. She calculated and watched how his operation worked. She walked a year of hell under his roof with only the promises to herself that he would mess up someday. She smiled. That someday had turned into today. She will avenge as soon as she was healed.
She looked at her wrist. She turned it over so her light flesh reflected in the sun. She studied the black halo and wings tattoo that bridged her veins. The detailed picture permanently colored on her skin was her sign, her reminder, of the job she agreed to do when she died. Although she had little choice, it was either become an avenging angle or go directly to hell. When she made the decision, she didn’t know that she’d be in hell either way. Except the way she did it, she had to walk among humans and fight for humans when she really hated the group. She turned her wrist and rubbed at her forehead with her fingers.
This wasn’t getting her anywhere. Self pity only slowed her up and she wanted to be done with Tony and his cronies. The list of women who prayed to the gods for Tony’s death was long. The list was the only reason she hasn’t been reprimanded for taking so long on one case.
“Man, it’s hot out here.”
She didn’t have to look up. She was expecting the Grey Warrior to visit. He always visited when an avenging angle needed to renew her human life. “Don’t tell me about it.” Her voice sounded as dry as the dirt around her.
“Well, aren’t I a lucky Warrior? I haven’t seen you in years.”
She dropped her hand and stared at the grey warrior. He held the avenging angles souls. He was the one who assigned new casework. She hated him but through the centuries has grown to appreciate his position. He had as many restraints as the avenging angels. However, if one of them were in a bind, he did what he could to help within the rules.
“You look like you died and were pulled around naked from the back of a car. How nice!” His smile was genuine. He was as sick as Tony and all the others combined.
If she didn’t figure out a way to win her soul back, she’d end up as sick as he was. “You haven’t aged much since I last saw you.” She smiled.
When he died he was three years old. Even though he’s lived centuries and ran the grey zone as soon as his predecessor died, she knew he hated that he still looked like a little boy. “Oh, I’ve missed you.” His smile widened. “Nobody loves me the way you do.”
She laughed. “Love? I lost that emotion a while ago.”
“You’re so cruel.” He patted his chest with his young hand. “You’ll make me cry.”
“I’m not surprised. Isn’t that what babies do all the time?”
He stumbled as if he were hurt to sit in the sand across from her. “Keep going and you’ll make my little body wish it were older.”
She shook her head.
“Do you know why I’m here?” His mouth thinned.
“I assume it’s because I died and you need to restore my soul.”
He cocked his tiny blond colored head and raised his eyebrows. “Ha, that’s a good one. You know I own your soul. I only let you borrow it so you can walk among the living undetected.”
She sighed. “You can’t hate a girl for trying to get her soul back.”
“You think you’ll get it by trickery?”
She shrugged. “I figured I had nothing to lose.”
“You didn’t want it when you had it, why such a change of heart?”
She laughed. “Heart? Come on, I don’t have one.”
He didn’t laugh. He righted he head and stared at her for a moment. “You said it.” He shook his head and looked down at the dust covered earth between them.
“So, you’re not here because of my soul, and I know you’re not here because you like me, why are you here, Grey Warrior?” She narrowed her eyes in an attempt to see him a little better. Unfortunately, the light burned her retinas into shutting down. She closed her lids and shook her head. She forgot how her neck hurt. She felt a pounding between her temples. Yeah, she’s got her soul back all right, couldn’t he have waited until she was a little more…healed?
At first, when an avenging angle returned to her dead body, the sensations were overwhelming. Fortunately for her, she’s been able to tone down the feelings through the centuries. But no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t completely block the human emotions. She felt a tear surface in her eye. The reaction was completely physical. Mentally, she was fine.
When he didn’t respond, she opened her eyes to see a new form in front of her. The Grey Warrior was gone. She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. He was a tall man with blond hair. His eyes were so blue, they made her think of water. His skin was pale, his body looked athletic. She found him attractive. When he smiled at her, she scowled. “Who are you? What happened to the Grey Warrior?”
After a moment, the Grey Warrior reappeared. “Sorry about that, I had some business to take care of.” The Grey Warrior stood next to the tall man. “Meet Nathanial.” The Grey warrior smiled his three year old smile.
“Who is he?”
“I just said, Nathanial.”
“What is he?”
“I’ll let you decide that once you get to know him.”
“Know him?” She shook her head and rubbed at her dry lips with her sand covered hand. The action felt as if she rubbed sandpaper on open wounds. “Why do I want to know him?”
The Grey Warriors smile widened. He looked at his watch. “I’ve got to go.”
“No,” she pushed up slowly only because she was incapable to move as fast as usual. “What am I supposed to do with him?”
The Grey Warrior shrugged before he disappeared.
“Great!” She sighed. She stared at Nathanial for a moment. “Do you have any water on you?”
He shook his head, no.
“Great.” She sighed and sat back in the dirt. “Now I’ve got a second mouth to feed, for what ever reason.” She threw her arms lazily in the air. She decided to just give up for the moment and lay down. When she did, the man spoke.
“I don’t think you should rest right now.”
“Oh? Why not?”
“Half of your body is badly burned, the other half is….well…mutilated.”
She sat up and looked at him. “You think?”
He shook his head from side to side. “I think, that if you stay here longer, you’ll suffer more.”
“And that matters because?” When he didn’t answer she smiled. “Right.” She pushed herself off the ground and began her long hike along the paved road.