Tractors and Angels Don't Mix

I finally decided to share a bit of my work with the world.  This is a short story I wrote about two years ago as an assignment for a course I took through the Long Ridge Writers Group.  I enjoyed writing this piece, though it was challenging.  I don’t usually write short stories and find it difficult to keep it simple and small.  I always like to add so much detail and I like to build and build.  I had to think of it as a scene in a movie.  One that doesn’t give away much but can work as a synopsis in and of itself of the movie so it can be used in the trailer.  Not that I plan for this to be a movie, but I do plan on expanding on the concept of it later and maybe making it into a trilogy or something. 

Anyhow, please read it.  Feedback is very, very welcome so long as it is constructive and helpful.

Enjoy

Tractors and Angels Don’t Mix

            Myra crouched in the dark beside large piece of machinery.  She didn’t know where, exactly, she was and she didn’t care.  Her gray eyes tracked a shadow through the warehouse in which she hid.  Her breath frosted up in white plumes that framed her pail, slender face and her heart pounded against her ribs.

She only hoped he couldn’t hear it.

For a moment, he was visible in the illumination cast from an orange street lamp outside.  His short, dark hair stood in fashionable disarray.  His strong, square jaw looked gaunt in the shadows, and his eyes, the color of sapphires, were soulless.

Myra had to fight an urge to bolt.  Running away had never done her any good.  If she was going to survive, she needed to keep still, and be patient.

            Her hands worked with a surety and confidence that comes with practice as she slid the spent clip from her Hi-Power Browning 9mm.  The new clip slid into place with a little click that she hoped wasn’t as loud as it had sounded.

            He didn’t see me.  She told herself as she brushed a strand of blond hair from her eyes.  She squinted at him and nervously wet her full lips with the tip of her tongue.  He was good, a real fighter.  Better than the others she had encountered.  And worse of all, he was intelligent. 

            I underestimated you, Michael.  She thought.  I didn’t expect much after the other dimwits I’ve met.

            The black cloak over his shoulders swayed as he stalked silently into another patch of light that refracted off the great sword in his hands as though it were a prism.  As she watched, he swiveled it as though it weighed no more than a dagger.

“Show off.”  She whispered, as he moved behind another stack of crates.

            A nervous tickle ran up her spine when he didn’t reappear. It was the only warning she had.

            She shoved herself into a roll, scrapping her knees though her muddy Levis, only seconds before the sword came down, tearing through the back of her leather jacket and nicking her shoulder.  It bit into the floor, slicing through concrete like butter. 

The sword swept at her again and as she dodged back, time seemed to slow.  She watched the gleaming tip whistle through the air and she barely turned her head in time to keep from loosing an eye.  But that tip still brushed her eyelashes and nicked the bridge of her nose as she rolled over a stack of crates, squeezing off a couple shots that went wide.

            Her feet hit the pavement on the far side of the crate and time sped up just before the crate was cleaved in half. 

She aimed and fired, but his cloak suddenly unfolded into a huge pair of black wings that gracefully maneuvered him out of the path of the bullet in half a second. 

“Can we talk about this?”  Myra called out to him.

“I have nothing to talk about to a Gray!”  He snarled

“I have a name.”  She said.  “It’s Myra.”

“The body you took had a name.”  He circled around a piece of machinery, moving closer, swiveling his sword again.  She stared in awe at the brilliant, blue of his eyes and the fantastic spread of his black wings.  She wished things didn’t have to be this way.

            “You’re wrong.”  She said sadly, watching him down the barrel of the Browning.

“You have no idea how it works.  This body was dying.  The original…owner, couldn’t fix it.  But I could, so she gave it to me.  This one is rightfully mine.  And my name is Myra.”  She said, circling toward a tangle of pulleys.

“I don’t care what your name is.  Your kind never chose a side.  You ruin everything.  Just when we are about to prevail, you cause destruction and pain…”

“And when evil starts to prevail, I give hope.  Don’t you get it?  We were never supposed to choose a side.  Michael, the Grays were meant to keep balance!”  Myra protested, knowing he wouldn’t listen.  Angels are so stubborn, just like their dark cousins. 

            She was afraid that she might not be able to take Michael down.  He was, after all, an archangel.  One can’t simply drop a piano on his head. 

But a tractor might do.

Myra suddenly spun her gun away from him and fired on the tangle of pulleys.

            A tractor that had been suspended right above his head plummeted toward him.  His wings heaved as he tried to dodge aside but the metal beast still took him down in a scream of crushing metal. 

            Myra stood, breathing in the cold air as feathers and dust filtered down around the broken tractor.  Why someone had decided to suspend a tracker, of all things, was beyond her.  But she silently thanked whatever loon had done it.

            She found Michael pinned.  The sword lay out of reach on the concrete floor, inches from his outstretched fingers.  Silver blood stained his perfect lips and the sapphire radiance of his eyes was beginning to fade.

            She knelt beside his head and his eyes focused on her.  He smiled.

“This isn’t it, you know.”  He said softly, pain straining his silken voice. 

“I know.”  Myra whispered.

            He closed his eyes and winced.  “So clever.”  He breathed, glancing at the tractor.

“You keep killing Grays, but you don’t understand.  We are the keepers of balance.  And when you kill us, it’s for good.  We aren’t just banished like you are.”  She explained.

            Michael’s expression suddenly seemed so gentle.  “I know,” He whispered.  “But it is necessary.” 

            Her jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed.  Leaning in close to his angelic face, she looked into his eyes and said, “I’ll be waiting for you when you come for me again, Michael.”

            She stood and picked up the sword, hefting it with both hands – and trying not to tip over from its weight.  Michael’s eyes hardened as she did; an angels sword is a part of him.  Or her. 

She gave him one last look as she limped toward the exit. 

“See you ‘round…Myra.”  Michael’s silken voice whispered behind her, just before a brilliant, white light filled the warehouse.  Myra knew that if she turned around, Michael would no longer be there. 

            She stepped out of the warehouse and stood in the large snowflakes that drifted lazily from the night sky.

“…Beautiful…”  She breathed, as she adjusted the heavy great sword on her slender shoulder, and limped into the night.

-LRB-