A Guardian Angel (14 page)

“Where are
you going?” she cried, overwhelmed by so many emotions.

He had disappeared
in the distance.

PART
II

-----------------------

FORTY-TON
ANGEL

-Chapter Thirteen-

Crash

The song buzzed out
and the radio made empty electronic noises as the deejay changed his
source material. A voice came on.

“The news
coming in about the Decree supermax prison located near Lumnin, New
York has been shocking the nation continuously for the past four
days,” the news anchor said, his voice deep and gravelly. “Upon
the publication of her article highlighting the company's grab for
power, Haley Flynn opened up a lawsuit for the People versus Decree.
Skeptics have emerged all over about the validity of this information
until this morning, during one of the televised portions of the
trial, when Flynn introduced the surprise testimony of one Jane Doe,
who claims to be a previous inmate at the Lumnin Facility. Flynn was
able to produce several video tapes taken from the prison itself of
the Jane Doe in question being routinely irradiated until she was
diagnosed with stage two leukemia. Court doctors are currently
looking into the authenticity of such a diagnoses.”

The voice
transitioned to a recording of Haley Flynn's, speaking to a courtroom
of onlookers. “It is not only my belief but my knowledge that
the Decree corporation intentionally endangered this woman's life so
that she could act as a test subject. They purposefully gave her
cancer because,” Haley paused for effect, “who would miss
her?”

Back to the initial
speaker. “There is also evidence emerging that while Flynn
performed her investigation, an assassin that was allegedly hired by
Decree attempted to kill Flynn and the Jane Doe as they drove to
Lumnin National Airport,” he described. “The hitman has
been identified as twenty-nine year old Andrew Winter. It is believed
that Winter is wanted for the murders of over nine people within the
last three years. More accounts may be accredited to him, including
the shooting of Maxwell Shepard in Chicago over ten years ago.”

Tim Simacean got up
from his seat in the rocking chair and brought his empty coffee mug
to the kitchen sink. He started to rinse it out as he listened more
to the report.

“President of
Decree Sampson Miles was unavailable for comment, but it has been
rumored that he will resign within the night and place the company in
the control of vice president Leroy Graves. Graves issued this
statement.” The sound buzzed to an outdoor setting. The audio
was extracted from a newsreel.

“The people
at Decree, including myself, are stunned by the allegations facing
Mr. Miles. We are, however, certain that any actions the he may or
may not have taken were taken alone and without the knowledge of
myself, the staff, or any members of the board. The company continues
to stand for justice and maintaining peace to ensure that tomorrow is
always a comfortable prospect. God bless,” he said. The radio
voice formed back into the male anchor again.

“With
Decree's trials, many other accusations have arisen about several
large corporations, all regarding unethical violations against
humanity. Angry citizens dashed about have....calized their voices
so.....performed the largest on Americ.....”

Tim looked
suspiciously at the radio. It had buzzed in and out a couple of times
as he finished drying his mug and he turned his attention to it. He
adjusted the antenna on it but soon the buzzing was all that creeped
out of the speakers. Something had begun shaking in the sky and it
stole the rancher's attention from the radio. He peered out of the
window.

The sky erupted
with noise. Tim held onto the window sill as his house began shaking.
The radio fell off of the stool it was placed upon and the dishes
hopped about the sink, cracking. The air reared with an explosive
sound as a metallic form fell out of the sky and collided into Tim's
livestock.

The rancher
continued to gaze out of the window for several moments after the
crash, unable to send any signals to his muscles until the dust had
settled. He burst into action and grabbed his twenty-two and charged
out the front door. He held the rifle in loose fingers as soon as he
stepped outside, his grip slipping until the weapon dropped to the
ground. He stared at the shape that now towered where his corral and
barn had been.

It was a gigantic
metal angel.

Tim dropped to his
knees as he stared at the thing. Splinters of wood littered the area,
stones and mounds of dirt kicked up from the object embedding itself
in the soft ground. He glanced right and saw the hoof of one of his
bulls. He squeezed his eyes shut in disgust. The angel stood over a
hundred feet into the air, its rusted halo resting on its
expressionless head. The thing was constructed of thousands of
different sheets of ugly, misused metal bolted together in a divine
form.

“Well...shit,”
Tim said to himself.

-Chapter Fourteen-

Barney

“I think it's
terrorism or something, come on, you gotta send an agent,” Tim
pleaded into his corded land line. The insurance claims clerk he was
speaking to was a young woman who was clearly distracted by something
and rather upset that he wanted to use their services.

“Sir, we only
take serious claims,” she said after a slight pause and lots of
clacking of buttons.

“This is a
serious claim!” he demanded. “All my cattle are dead.
Only one survived the crash and it was so messed up I had to kill
it.”

“An angel?
Come on,” she responded.

Tim was kind of
taken aback by her lack of professionalism.

“Can I talk
to someone else?” he asked.

“Please do,”
she said before hold music started playing. It was a distorted and
poorly rendered copy of a Peter Gabriel song that popped at him for a
few minutes before a man answered.

“This is
Michael, how can I help you?” the agent said.

“My cattle
were killed by a storm and I need an agent to file my claim,”
Tim lied.

“Absolutely,
just give me your account information and we'll have an agent on his
way,” Michael replied.

“Thank you,”
Tim said before lighting a cigarette.

It seemed like a
lot of time had passed, several cigarettes lit and extinguished
before Tim saw a lone black Volvo pull off from the highway and onto
the hand dug dirt road of the Simacean Ranch. Tim stepped out onto
his dusty porch, lighting up again while he watched the man in the
car try to arrange his materials as he stared without blinking at the
metal angel.

The man had a
strong and well defined forehead but a small and scrawny form. His
hairline was composed of short, curly brown hair. He wore a dark tan
suit with a striped green-and-black tie, all hanging over a baby blue
shirt. His papers and folders had all been collected before he turned
to look at Tim himself. He had sharp, alert eyes. They almost seemed
to be extra widened as he stared straight into Tim's eyes, with no
regard for how long he sat in his car doing that before glancing back
at the towering enigma and stepping outside.

“You fuckin'
with me?” the man asked with a casual Brooklyn accent.

“Sorry?”
Tim asked.

“Your claim
looked like cuckoo horse shit, but I come here and you either put too
much effort in insurance fraud or I'm losing it.” He spoke in
rapid bursts.

“Who're you?”
Tim asked after staring down this man in skeptical condescension.

“Barney
Slechta, your claims agent from Founder's,” the New Yorker
said, peering back up at the older man with the same demeanor.

There was a brief
pause before the rancher stuck out his weathered hand for a
handshake. “Tim Simacean,” he offered.

Barney only stared
with mild annoyance for a moment until Tim lowered his hand and he
turned back to the bizarre shape in the distance. Without taking his
eyes off it, he said, “So what is this shit?”

Tim glanced back at
the claims agent like he was crazy. “Look, Mr. Slechta,”
he croaked.

Barney's expression
was still. “No, I mean are you serious that you want me to
investigate your art project for the next couple hours or can you
apologize and then me and my shit can leave?” he said, almost
as if he learned the question during training.

Open mouthed, the
rancher just cracked some indignant noises at him, trying to think of
the right way to tear Barney asunder and still be able to collect his
insurance. Barney continued to gaze at the rancher through squinted
eyelids, as if analyzing him. Tim searched for wit, clambered for
righteous phrasing, but came to nothing better than, “My cattle
are dead, sir!”

“Are they?”
Barney asked in a disbelieving tone, keeping his head very still. As
Tim noticed the New Yorker's stillness, it started to unnerve him.
“Show me,” Barney demanded, nodding his head toward the
incident.

“Show you?”
Tim echoed. “You got a shovel, pal? Because I'm not sure I can
lift that thing for you to peak.” He turned to it as Barney
wandered to his vehicle, opening doors out of the corner of the
rancher's eyes as the old man continued to rattle off at the younger
man. He scoffed as he sensed Barney returning. “Show you?”
he repeated.

“Yes,”
Barney said, holding onto a shovel. “Show me.”

Skeptical at first,
notifying Barney that his personal opinion was that trying to find
the bodies would be a waste of time, Tim started trying to help the
claims agent find a way down. Barney whistled with awe once they had
gotten to the site, becoming more and more fascinated as the
destruction painted its own picture for him.

“These
fractures weren't here before?” Barney asked, peering at one of
the many places where the earth had cracked from the impact.

“No, and I
had a recent geological survey done this spring, so I can prove
that,” Tim said. Barney followed the fissure to where it ridged
up and around the base of the metallic angel.

“Somehow I
believe you,” he said.

They continued
closer to the thing when Barney became interested and drawn by the
scattered bits of lumber. Once he found the obvious corner of a roof
and a wall, he indicated it to Tim. “What structure did this
used to be?”

It took a moment
for Tim to process the quick words but after coming closer and
observing the indicating point that Mr. Slechta held so generously
for him, he understood. “The barn,” he replied, standing
back up straight.

“Did you have
insurance on it?” Barney asked, for once not coming off stony
and resistant.

Tim bowed his head
down and looked at his feet in embarrassment as he realized that he
in fact did not. Disappointment in himself; it came off as obvious as
he shook his head without looking up. “Just the cattle.”

“Man, that
sucks Timmy,” Barney commented with genuine sympathy, standing
up himself. “Show me the crash.”

“Well,”
Tim groaned as he turned to face it, “I mean there's not much
to see but here it is.”

And there it was.

Splintered wood
came up like a grotesque fence around the base of the angel from
where the barn had been crushed and pinched inward. The rest of the
structure was either buried under the massive shape or thrown about
the landscape. Being in a rough hilly terrain, the dry and scraggly
land on which the Simacean Ranch was constructed was never a gorgeous
sight to behold, but with the dirt, stone, and wood that had dug
itself up and scattered all around the large, obscene cracks in the
ground detracted further from the aesthetics. The shape itself was
the prettiest bit of this self-dug crater that functioned now as a
mass grave.

The angel itself,
hoisted up at a tall angle from the ground, was made out of old
pieces of metal. Each varied from the others in such contrasting
ways, their hues and shapes and sizes. Even a few looked as if made
of old metal signs, but any design that could have been on them had
faded with passing years. Spots were rusted, some as a collective,
rusting after they had been joined in this divine shape, and some
separate, possibly from a different life as younger pieces of metal.
They all were bolted together, not a bit of soldering or fusing was
used. Gigantic, fist sized bolts.

“Well, I'll
be,” Barney mused as he stared up at the thing. And then he was
silent. He stood in still meditation, without a look of displeasure
but one of intrigue and thought. Tim was taken aback by the thing too
but in a much less pleasant and much more infuriating manner. He
turned away to poke around the crater, to see if he could find a way
into the collapsed barn and reveal the bodies of his cattle.