Red Angel
Authors: C. R. Daems
RED ANGEL
by
C. R. Daems
Red Angel
Copyright © 2015 by C. R. Daems
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying,
recording, taping, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without
the permission in writing from C. R. Daems.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and
incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is
entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9911060-8-0
ISBN-10: 0991106083
Edited by Cherise Kelley
Check
out all my novels at:
crdaems.com
and
A Red Angel
Growing up
A new beginning
A new beginning—again
Intriguing patterns
Graduation
Night visitors
Homecoming
Priority One Access
Chasing missiles
Chasing Smugglers
Meeting at Holy Star
Inquiry at Oxax.
Breaking the information network
Returning Heroes
Angel
I felt like I was on fire and scrambled to kick my
blanket off. Sweat ran down my forehead into my eyes and down my cheek. It
tasted salty. I sat up and swung my legs over the edge of the bed. In the dim
light, the walls seemed to move—bulging outward then closing inward. My
head spun and my eyes felt like they were on fire.
"Mommy! Mommy!" I shouted, but she didn't
come. I was so hot I couldn't breathe. When I tried to pull my night shift over
my head, it was soaking wet. I whimpered in panic. Had I wet the bed? Mummy
would be mad. I felt the mattress. It was soaking wet, everywhere. Maybe if I
changed …
My legs folded under me when my feet touched the floor,
and I fell onto my hands and knees. "Mommy! Help!" I screamed, but my
voice sounded far away.
The door to my bedroom looked alive—throbbing
like my heart. I crawled toward it, determined to find Mommy. I stopped,
gasping and panting; sweat trickled down my chest and belly.
I woke lying
on the floor by the door. The room was a misty grey from the morning light. I
clawed my way onto my knees and reached for the door handle. Strange brown
blisters were on my hands and arms. "Mommy! Help me," I screamed, but
it came out a croaky whisper. When I finally managed to turn the handle and
pull, the door knocked me backward.
"Bad door." I said, and tried to kick it,
but my leg felt too heavy to move. When I finally got up on my hands and knees,
one of the brown blisters had torn open and blood dripped down my arm onto the
carpet. The hallway seemed to have grown and it took hours to crawl to the
living room. When I reached it, the sun was up and the light from the windows
lit the room. Mommy sat on the couch and Daddy lay stretched out with his head
on her lap. "Mommy! Help!" I whispered, too tired to shout. No one
moved. I crawled to them and shook Mommy's leg. She felt cold, and I leaned my
forehead against her leg. I sighed with pleasure. After a while, I managed to
use her legs to pull myself upright. "Mommy, it's me. Anna." Mommy
stared over my head, not moving, and looking pale—like Grandpa Ianus in
the box. Mommy had said he had gone to Heaven. I screamed, "Come back. You
can't leave me! Take me with you." I lay with my head against Daddy’s and
cried.
I was on fire. When I looked out the window, the lawn was
covered in white. Smiling, I staggered toward the front door, fell, but began
crawling, determined to get outside. After several tries, I managed to open the
door and crawl out and into the snow. It felt wonderful. I giggled as my shift
began to freeze.
I woke to a tickling sensation. Something was inside
my night shift. It slowly slid up my leg, onto my belly and then my chest.
Finally, a small red head appeared out of the opening at my neck
"Hello, are you the angel who is going to take me
to see Mommy and Daddy and Grandpa Ianus?" The little red face didn't
answer, just weaved back and forth with its tiny black eyes looking into mine.
Its forked tongue lightly touched my lips, nose, and cheek. Then it wrapped
itself around my neck and its fangs sank into my neck. "I'm ready to go,
Red Angel."
I heard voices, but couldn't see anything. It didn't
sound like Mommy or Daddy or Grandpa.
"Hey, Doc, she's over here." A man stood
looking down at me, dressed in a white suit that covered his entire body and
head except for his face, which was covered with a funny-looking mask.
"I want to see my mommy," I demanded. He had
to be an angel and this Heaven, I decided. Another man approached wearing the
same white suit. He picked up my arm, turned it, and sighed.
"Load her into the ambulance." He turned
away from me and lowered his voice, but I could still hear. "I hate it the
worst when the Coaca Virus strikes children. Judging by those blisters, she's
in stage four. Nothing we can do but make her comfortable until she dies."
He sighed heavily.
The other man leaned down and scooped me up into his
arms. I could see his eyes looked sad. I wanted to tell him I didn't mind dying
and going to Heaven
—m
y
mommy and daddy were there
—
but
I didn't want to go to the hospital.
"You're supposed to take me to Heaven!" I
said, angry now that I realized I was still on Oxax. The little red head
appeared next to my right eye. I stared back, waiting for an answer.
"There's a snake around her neck," the man
holding me shouted and dropped me .
The shock when I hit the snow-packed ground made black
spots jump before my eyes and shocked the breath out of me. I gasped for air,
and when I could breathe again, I croaked out, "Red Angel, I want to go
now!"
The little red head ignored me, wrapping himself
around my neck with his head lying on my shoulder. I wanted to thrash in rage,
but my arms and legs were too heavy to move.
"That looks like a blue krait, although I've
never seen one with a red head," the doctor man said, looking down at me
as he squatted a few feet away. "Maybe that's the best thing that could
have happened. That krait's bite will kill her fast. She’ll suffer less than …"
He sighed again. "However, the krait is probably contagious now, so you'll
have to take her and the snake to the hospital."
"How?"
"I don't know. I'm a doctor, not a herpetologist.
Maybe you can slip one of our biosafety suits over her and the krait, preferably
before the krait decides to leave. We don't want that snake expanding the
plague when we almost have it contained."
While I waited for the Red Angel to take me to Mommy,
they put me inside a bag and zipped it closed. Then someone lifted me and put
me on a stretcher. I wanted to see where I was going but couldn't open the
zipper from the inside, and the man outside wouldn't help.
"Please open the bag. I want to see where we are
going," I pleaded, but he wouldn't.
"We are taking you to the hospital. They will
make you better," he lied. I had heard the doctor say I was going to die.
"I don't want to go to the hospital. It's the
wrong way. I want to go to Heaven, and the Red Angel can't take me if he is
tied up," I said. For an adult, he wasn't too smart. I heard the doors
close and lay there listening to the sirens wailing. I woke, feeling the
stretcher being moved. They wheeled me past people talking, into a room and
lifted me onto a bed.
"Careful when you open that bag. A blue krait is
in there with the Paulus girl," the doctor man's voice said.
"You're joking …" said a woman's voice.
"No, I'm not."
"Mattus, you're an idiot. Why didn't you kill the
damn krait? It will kill her."
"With Stage Four Coaca, she won’t last the night.
The krait's poison may be a faster, more merciful way to go … anyway, the krait
is probably contagious. I called security. I don’t expect you to handle the
snake."
Footsteps and new voices where I couldn’t see made me
angry.
"All right, let me see the girl. One of you two
open the bag and let's see what we've got," a woman said, sounding like Mommy
when she was mad at Daddy. The zipper was slowly opened, and an old lady stared
down at me. Her round face went from a pleasant smile to surprise to angry.
"Mattus, she's not in stage four, maybe three,
and you left a krait in with her. You're not an idiot, you're
incompetent," she said in a low, grim voice. Just then, the Red Angel poked
his head out and laid it against my cheek.
"Red," I demanded, and thought my voice
sounded better. "Now! I want to go now."
Just then, the doctor's face appeared, frowning as he
stared down at me. "Renata … I don’t' understand it. She's not now, but
when I found her she was in stage four. That krait, maybe? Look at her neck. It
definitely bit her, but she certainly doesn't look to be suffering from krait
poisoning—no swelling or even redness around the area."
"You expect me to believe … Mattus, for your sake
I hope you're right. If she dies ..." She shook her head slowly.
"Security, I want that snake removed, but I don't want it harmed. Do you
understand?"
"We'll need to call someone who knows how to
handle—" a male voice.
"Do whatever it takes, but the snake is not to be
harmed ... or you won't work here tomorrow," said Renata's voice. Then the
zipper was pulled up and the inside of the bag became a murky darkness.
"Red stays with me," I shouted, but no one
answered, and the room became silent as the door to the room closed. "You
better hurry," I said, reaching around and grabbing the angel and pulling
him so I looked directly at him. His tongue brushed my nose with a feather-like
touch that tickled. "Quit that! Say something! Do something!" I
demanded and received another brush of his tongue. I let go of him, and he
disappeared into my smock, sliding down my chest and belly, and finally
wrapping himself around my leg, where he remained still. I kicked my leg
several times—nothing. Tears slid down my cheeks. "Mommy, help. Red
won't take me to you."
I woke when I heard men talking, "Doctor Renata
wants the snake removed unharmed," said a male voice. Soon afterward, the
zipper was slowly pulled down until the entire bag was open. A thin man with
dark skin and a stick in his hand stood staring at my leg.
"There you are," he said, looking toward my
legs.
"Leave Red alone," I said, trying to sit up
and scoot backward, but I fell back with my head spinning. The man ignored me.
I tried to hit him, but my arm felt so heavy I could barely lift it.
"Got you," he half shouted, and I could feel
Red being pulled from around my leg. I cried as I saw the man drop Red in a box
and quickly close the lid.
"He belongs to me," I sobbed. The man
ignored me, holding the box up and inspecting Red through a glass window along
one side. "Beautiful. Definitely a blue krait, but that red head and tail are
unique," he said, his voice fading as he walked away. "Mommy," I
sobbed over and over again.
The next two days, nurses came in often, poking me
with needles, taking my temperature, and examining me from head to foot. They
all wore white suits like the men who had found me. The only good thing was the
ice cream and cookies and sweets they brought me when I couldn't finish my tray
of food or didn't like the taste. That night, I woke soaking wet again and felt
on fire. I screamed, which brought a nurse running into the room.
"What is it, Anna? Did something scare you?"
she asked and then her eyes grew wide, and she ran out the door.
Sometime later, Doctors Mattus and Renata entered the
room along with two nurses.
"There. That's what she looked like when I saw
her lying in the snow. Stage four," Mattus said in an I-told-you-so voice Daddy
used when he won an argument with Mommy.
"Could be she was stage two and now it's
progressed to stage four," Renata said so quietly I could barely hear her.
"Mommy," I moaned. "Where is he? Where
is Red? I want Red," I choked out between moans. Sweat was running down my
forehead and dripping into my eyes. I screamed.
"Or that krait is a cure," Mattus said
loudly.
"Security, I want that krait brought to room
211," Renata said into a small phone like Mommy always carried. "I
don't care where it was taken. I want it here immediately. Send armed guards if
necessary. Use the emergency shuttle. I want it here
Stat
!" She turned to Mattus. "They have it at some lab
across town. I hope you're right."
The nurses put cold things across my body, arms, and
legs, which felt wonderful—like the snow had—and I slept. I jerked
awake as I felt Red twist around my neck. His mouth opened wide, showing a
white fleshy inside and two long fangs. He struck my neck. I felt the touch but
no pain. As he did, I heard gasps.
"It will kill her."
"Mommy, I'm coming," I sighed with relief.
"About time, Red." I closed my eyes as darkness descended upon me.
I used bad words to Red all day, every day as the days
passed and he hadn't taken me to see Mommy, Daddy, and Grandpa. I had lots of
visitors, but they didn't talk to me as much as to each other. I was treated
like a puppy: sit up, roll over, give me your arm, eat, sleep ...
"This is a real dilemma," Renata said to the
people standing in the room. "We can't take the krait away from Anna
because the minute we do the virus begins attacking her organs and she goes
critical."
"So the krait isn't a cure," an older grey-haired
man said. He looked grumpy.
"No. The krait keeps the virus in remission, but
it returns shorty after the krait is removed. We tried using Anna's blood with
its antibodies, but it hasn't produced remission in those we tested and didn't
produce immunity in the animals we gave a vaccine using the antibodies. Anna
and the krait seem to have a symbiotic relationship. We think the krait feeds
from her blood and in the process injects some poison that counters the virus
for a day or two. After that, the virus becomes dominant again unless the krait
injects more of the poison."
"So you’re saying the krait provides her only a
temporary cure. Have you tried sharing the krait with others infected with the
Coaca Virus?" asked a grey-haired woman in a white jacket.
"Yes. But the krait isn't hungry so it won't
feed. And if we waited until it was hungry and it fed, Anna's virus would be
active but the krait wouldn't be hungry for another two days. I don't know how
long her heart could take the strain of repeated activation of the virus. It's
academic since
her
krait doesn't
appear interested in anyone except her."
"And it's a nasty creature—" a young
security guard said, holding up his hand. It served him right. He was one of
the men who took Red away from me.
"Victor is right. It's bitten several people over
the months. We have antivenin available, but that is a nasty experience,"
Mattus interjected before the guard could continue.
