The Unchanged (Book 3): Safe Harbor

by Starnes, T. M.

  BANG klik-klack

  It roared at her and stretched its left claw across the hood and clacked, closing on empty air a foot from Cheyenne’s head.

  BANG klik-klack

  The bullet impacted the creature’s right shoulder causing it to loosen, but not release, its hold. It clicked it’s claw at her again.

  I stretched over our seats and grabbed her belt, pulled her partway back in and began swerving to dislodge the monster.

  “It’s no good, it’s like a Tank, get the shotgun!” I yelled over King’s barking.

  Cheyenne shoved the rifle back onto the floorboard and crawled over the middle section between seats for her grandpa’s shotgun.

  The shotgun was a Mossberg 930 combo Field/Deer 12-gauge. It saved her from her own family on the first day when they changed and attacked each other during family lunch. Over the last few days, the shotgun had saved us numerous times.

  Currently, it was filled with heavy load shells; we found them to be effective in many cases.

  The crab creature swiped at the windshield trying to shatter it, but the swerving I was doing was keeping it considerably more invested in not flying off the hood. Our speed increased to fifty.

  “Alright, you son of a bitch!” Cheyenne yelled, crawling back out the window.

  Realizing she wasn’t tied to the seat like earlier, I grabbed one of her legs she stretched out for balance and hooked her hiking boot under my arm. Thankfully, years of kung fu conditioning made my arms and grip strong. And she didn’t weigh that much.

  BOOM

  Wow, that’s loud!

  The Crab man lurched to the left, one of its vestigial human legs blown off. It shrieked in pained rage and clambered higher on the Jeep to reach Cheyenne, it’s rear leg still stuck in the winch.

  BOOM

  A chunk of its back blew off and the thing’s horrible smelling, molasses-thick, dark blood began obstructing my view. I didn’t dare turn on the windshield wipers or I would be blinded completely, and not able to see the abandoned vehicles ahead.

  King was silent now and I could feel him shaking against my seat from the sound of the shotgun blasts.

  BOOM

  “Die!” Cheyenne yelled.

  BOOM

  The creature lurched forward and snapped its claws beyond my line of sight. Cheyenne lurched backwards from the snapping claws, and her leg slipped in my grasp, but she hooked her other leg around my arm as she bent backwards. I glanced over, and her left arm gripped the window and her belly muscles flexed as she pulled herself back up, Grandpa’s shotgun still in her right hand.

  She yelled something about the creature’s mother and something that sounded like ducker and mentioned a rectum.

  My hearing isn’t really that bad, but I try to self-censor the words coming out of those beautiful lips.

  Her left arm exited the interior to grip the shotgun with both hands.

  BOOM

  BOOM

  BOOM

  The first shot blew off the grasping claw.

  The second shredded the thing’s head.

  The third connected with the torso and the leg penetrating the fender.

  Noxious, gelatinous blood splashed the windshield. I applied the brakes since I could no longer see, and we slid to a halt. The monster slid off the hood, rolled to the left, and I drove over it.

  “Yes! Yes!” Cheyenne yelled, pulling herself back in as the Jeep finally came to a stop.

  I let her go as she leaned over the seats and retrieved more shells for Grandpa’s shotgun, reloading.

  King remained shivering in the floor behind me as I glanced back in the side mirror at the tangle of flesh and limbs laying behind us.

  I drew my single-action Uberti Cattleman .45 Colt as I stepped out of the Jeep and aimed back at the creature to make sure it was dead. Cheyenne came out of the other side and met me at the back fender.

  The wind shifted and we both dry heaved at the ungodly reek of the thing. Changed blood was no longer red. It was dark, thick, murky purplish in the bright light, and it stank. Like a skunk copulated with a zombie marinated in rotten eggs and maggot-ridden roadkill.

  Mmm, mmm, good.

  “Is it dead? Did I get it?” Cheyenne asked, aiming the barrel at the main section of the creature.

  We stepped closer as the Crab man stilled.

  “Yeah, it’s dead.” I lowered the pistol.

  “My god, Taylor. What was it? A new kind of Tank?”

  We circled the carcass, pinching our noses.

  The creature’s back was toughened, thick but not a shell. The head was gone so we couldn’t examine it. The humanoid part of the creature appeared to have the rest of the thing erupting out of its back from the neck down. The arms were thin with bony protrusions. The fingers and wrists merged and split down the middle of the hand and made claws. Enlarged fingernails became sharp notches along the inside length of the claws. Moss dried on its legs and back.

  I stared at the corpse.

  “Taylor? Why did it become this?” Cheyenne whispered. “This isn’t at all like what the others have looked like.”

  I shook my head, “It’s not like any Tank we’ve met. It’s a mix of human and another species.”

  Our road trip to my home, which should have taken just over nine hours from Georgia to NC, became days. We encountered thousands of Roamers and Runners, hundreds of “Porcupines” who were the least aggressive and the most intelligent of the Changed, and several hundred of the vicious, angry monstrosities we called Tanks.

  Tanks were more numerous with Runners a close second in cities and large population areas. Roamers were everywhere. Volcanoes, those that would spew and deflate and could transform you into a mutant or, if you weren’t susceptible to the change, burned you or your vehicle like acid populated mostly cities too.

  There were other human types but fewer and farther between. Screamers, Leapers, Spitters, the young Skittlers, Boobytraps, and more. The new animal types were just as strange.

  No matter the species, once changed, they sought to kill the remnants of their old species. Changed cats hunted and killed cats, dogs killed dogs, cattle killed cattle, deer killed deer, raccoons killed raccoons. Humans killed humans. But they seemed to remain similar to their own species even in a rudimentary way.

  This Crab man was a mixture and we didn’t know why.

  We looked up and scanned in both directions for signs of other Changed activities.

  Highway 64 was clear in either direction except for stationary vehicles.

  I shrugged. “Maybe they won’t stop transforming. Maybe they have no final form.” I turned and walked back to the Jeep, opening the rear door to get old towels to wipe off the blood on the windshield.

  “Do you think there’ll be more on the island?” she asked looking back east of us, cradling the shotgun in her right arm.

  I sighed. “I don’t know. I’m trying not to think about it. Let’s clean the windshield and head back to camp.” I glanced up at the noonday scorching sun in a cloudless sky except for one small, puffy, white cloud to the east. “We need to tell them about this thing. Everyone should be up, fed, and loaded up for the last few miles to Bruxton.”

  Cheyenne reached back and untied her wind-whipped hair and let it fall free with her left hand. “Yeah, they need to know this. I hope the others found more food and supplies better than we did.” She stretched her hand out for a towel.

  I smiled as she took it.

  She smiled back. “What?”

  “Your boob is still out.” I grinned.

  She glanced down and realized her left breast remained uncovered.

  She rolled her eyes, put the towel over her right shoulder, and covered herself. “Topless and shooting monsters. Does it get any better?”

  I shrugged. “You could be naked.”

  She gave me a naughty smirk. “Is that a suggestion or an invitation?”

  I had to think about it.

  She shook her head. “Nope, to
o late. Let’s get back to camp.” She smiled and gave me a peck on the cheek as she passed me.

  I put my hand out across her waist and pulled her close.

  Playfulness filled her features, rarely around others, but becoming regularly around me.

  She pressed up against me, whispering, “I’m sweaty and sticky.”

  “Me too.” I lightly kissed her lips.

  Her eyes dilated, and her eyelids drooped partly shut as she wrapped her towel hand around my waist.

  Then the wind shifted, and we smelled the dead thing behind us. We gagged and laughed.

  “Maybe some other time,” I said.

  She nodded. “Yeah, somewhere else. Later.”

  We separated and began moving to opposite sides of the Jeep.

  She grabbed my rear end before splitting apart.

  “Mmm, but not too much later.” She winked.

  I took a step toward her; the Jeep had great A/C after all.

  Then we heard the walkie talkie we carried for communicating within our group through the open doors of the Jeep.

  It was Janessa back at the camp and she was screaming.

  “Everybody! Get back here! Can anyone hear me? Taylor? Cheyenne? Julie? Anybody? The CDs are back! We need help!”

  Chapter 3

  As long as mankind has endured natural or cataclysmic disasters there have always been those who take advantage of the situation and the weaknesses of those affected by catastrophe.

  The “Constitutional Defenders” or “CDs”, as they’ve decided to call themselves, are one of those asshole groups that do.

  We’d crossed paths on the Georgia/South Carolina state line on our way north.

  At first glance, we thought they were remnants of law enforcement and military or national guard.

  But no, they were just a bunch of camouflage-wearing, “America-for-Americans,” flag-waving, “white makes me right” types. When we saw the state trooper vehicles and the camouflage Jeeps, trucks, and ATV’s, many of our survivors were ecstatic. They fooled us for a bit, even joined us for a few miles. But on the first rest break, they began expressing their discomfort for how many black and Hispanic people were in our group. Then they started asking if the Hispanic people were citizens, then asking if the black survivors had criminal records, asking the more attractive women, regardless of age, if they wanted to ride with them, and attempted to coerce them anyway to get them in their cars even if the women weren’t interested.

  They wanted to know where our supplies came from. If we paid for them. If we legally owned our firearms. They wanted to know if any gay (but they didn’t use that term) people were among us and that we should point them out.

  Most of the survivors from the hotel were younger people, kids, and women. The few men were businessmen, one or two ex-military, and farmers. When the CDs began harassing our one Indian survivor and demanded to know if he was a terrorist or not, Julie, offended already as a person of self-proclaimed “fluid sexuality”, spoke up to their leader, Amos Benson.

  The next thing we knew, at a rest stop on I-95, all hell broke loose.

  Members of the CDs grabbed the Indian financial analyst and began beating him, then they wanted the Hispanic individuals to show them proof of their citizenship, some of the men grabbed several of the young women and tried to shove them into their vehicles. Others demanded that the black people in the group drop their weapons and turn themselves in until their innocence could be proven.

  We outnumbered the CDs three to one, but they felt they could take us because they were heavily armed.

  Julie fired the first shot.

  She shot one of the Indian man’s attackers in the chest as he was kicking the man in the head as he twitched and spasmed, later dying from the beating.

  Julie’s shot released even deadlier violence.

  Everyone, no matter their age, or race, or gender, opened fire on the CDs if we were armed. Most of the CDs, like cowards who realize they don’t have the upper hand, scattered, and fired wildly back at us as they ran. We were able to save three of the four women they’d grabbed, but we lost most of our men to return fire, two kids died in the crossfire including a teenager who jumped in front of an eight-year-old girl to protect her, and we lost two vehicles.

  The CDs lost twenty men and three vehicles as they escaped.

  We had no time to rest or recover as the barrage of gunfire attracted Runners and a wandering Tank. We eluded the Changed and assumed the CDs were no longer a threat. I guess we were wrong.

  A colorful explosion erupted in the clear blue sky above our camp.

  “They set off a firework,” Cheyenne said, “They’re putting out an SOS.”

  “There can’t be that many CDs left.”

  Cheyenne grabbed the walkie talkie. “Janessa! How many are there? We’re on our way back right now.”

  Janessa screamed over gunfire, “Lexi says she counts at least thirty! They found help! Where is everybody?”

  Julie Nakamora’s voice interrupted, “We’re on our way back sweetie, hang in there! Shoot anything that moves!”

  The transmission was interrupted again. “We’re coming back from that Servisco gas station we passed on the way yesterday! We’ll be there in just a few minutes, we’re coming as fast as we can!” Randy Desilva, the previous leader of the hotel survivors sounded out of breath as the noise of his state vehicle dump truck and plow roared into life in the background.

  “Hurry! Hurry!” Janessa screamed louder over the continuing background fire fight.

  I swerved back through the obstacles we’d passed on the road earlier. Thankfully no Changed, animal or otherwise, crossed our path.

  Cheyenne rolled down her window and the sounds of gunfire steadily grew in volume.

  * * *

  “We can’t just charge at them,” I said, slowing down, and pulling off to the side of the access road, our approach covered by the sounds of intermittent gunfire.

  “Randy can when he gets here,” Cheyenne said as she grabbed her rifle with its attached hunting scope.

  I petted King as I retrieved Janessa’s Remington 700 BDL from the back where she usually left it. King panted, but lay his head back down on the seat, still too tired to even sit.

  “Oh, no you don’t you son of bitch,” Cheyenne said over the top of the Jeep as she stood on the door frame of the open passenger door.

  BANG klik-klack

  I glanced back toward the camp.

  We had driven slowly down the access road toward where we’d set up camp for the night. We slowed as much as we could, searching for scouts or guards. Gunfire was sporadic but fairly often and loud. The CDs hadn’t placed any guards. All their group were in a face-off against our people hiding behind the circled cars, trucks, and SUVs we’d gathered over the miles with last night’s tents set up in the middle.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “One of them was creeping through the forest trying to get around back of our group. Use the binoculars, you can see where they are.”

  I did as she asked and looked toward the CDs firing on the camp.

  “Oh, crap,” I said, “One of them must have seen the guy you just shot. He’s grabbing some others and they’re turning around.”

  Janessa was right. Twenty-five men were lined up behind cars in a semicircle facing the camp. Amos Benson’s large Santa Claus physique, bald head, long beard, and assault rifle was hard to miss, even hiding behind his big, black, 4x4, raised, Dodge RAM.

  As I lowered the binoculars something moved in the trees to my left

  When I looked that way, I didn’t see anything.

  Then a pickup started heading towards us.

  “Take cover,” Cheyenne said, kneeling on the road, partially hidden by the open door.

  I did the same as she did on the opposite side of the Jeep.

  Cheyenne mumbled something, I’m sure it was a reflection on the absent fathers of the men coming toward us, before she opened fire.

 
A hole erupted in the driver’s side front windshield of the approaching vehicle and the three men riding in the back held on for dear life as the now driverless vehicle turned sharply to the right and headed for a tree.

  One of the men jumped out and I shot him as he rolled.

  The truck hit the tree and the other two men in the rear slammed against the cab and the passenger smashed his head against the windshield.

  Always wear your seat belt, stupid.

  BANG klik-klack

  One of the men in back toppled to the ground.

  I shot the passenger as he pushed open his door and fired three more quick shots before I could hit him and finish him off.

  “What did I tell you about holding your breath before you fire!” Cheyenne yelled at me, “Slow exhale! Then fire!”

  Nag, nag, nag.

  BANG klik-klack

  BANG

  The last passenger tumbled backwards.

  “That was mine!” She yelled.

  I shook my head, “Nope, mine.”

  “Whatever.”

  She began firing at other men and I did likewise.

  Now the CDs were taking fire on two fronts.

  More motion out of the corner of my eye made me look back into the surrounding forest.

  “I think we’ve got company in the woods.”

  She stopped firing.

  “Hey! Cowgirl! Don’t be shooting my ninjas!” Julie’s voice rang out over the walkie talkie.

  “It’s the road warrior,” we both said, turning our attention back to the CDs who hadn’t heard our gunfire over theirs. Shooting is loud.

  Julie’s spoke again, “Everybody in the camp, when you hear the signal if you would kindly hit the deck, protect the kids, and keep still until I tell you otherwise.” She sounded much too pleased and confident, “Please, spread the word. You’ve got fifteen seconds.”

  We leaned back and glanced at each other through our open doors.

  “What has she got planned?” Cheyenne asked.

  I shrugged.

  “Hey, handsome.” Julie clicked again. “You and your lady might want to get out of the way in case they run for it. You’re on the only exit road. You’ve been warned.”