The Unchanged (Book 3): Safe Harbor

by Starnes, T. M.

  Julie tended to call me handsome. I thought she had good taste.

  Cheyenne jumped in the Jeep, “C’mon! C’mon! Move it!”

  I knew better than to try to figure out what the road warrior had planned.

  I jumped in, put the Jeep in reverse and began backing up.

  “There! Go there!” Cheyenne pointed to my left.

  There was enough space between trees where I could drive the Jeep and turn it in a circle to face the road again. I pulled in and angled the front toward the road. We were far off enough off the access road and obscured by enough brown-leafed trees that we hopefully wouldn’t look like a target of opportunity.

  We climbed out and looked back toward the camp through scope and binoculars.

  An airhorn blasted once nearby.

  The CDs assault paused as they looked around in confusion.

  Suddenly the CDs were ducking and taking cover. Loud pings filled the air and cursed shouting erupted as the CDs began firing into the surrounding woods. Two CDs dropped to the ground, one like a sack of potatoes and the other screaming in pain holding his shoulder.

  The airhorn sounded twice.

  Water balloons began bursting against the CDs vehicles but mostly on the CDs themselves, as they covered their heads and took cover as the pinging continued. A second man’s head snapped back, and he fell like a ragdoll.

  We looked at each other, confused.

  “Water balloons? What the heck?” Cheyenne asked, “And they don’t have silencers, do they? Even then, silencers don’t stop all the noise a gun makes.”

  Then the men began screaming that they couldn’t see.

  One word echoed toward us.

  “Gas!” The CDs screamed one after another. “It’s gas!”

  A launched single fiery arrow hit the only vehicle not splashed by the gasoline-filled balloons. Then another, an unlit one, struck the vehicle door of the CDs bearded leader, Amos Benson, just to the right of his gas-soaked body. As he realized what it was, another unlit arrow hit on the other side of him.

  The area grew silent but for the groans of hurt men, and men crying they couldn’t see with the gasoline burning their eyes.

  Amos wiped his hand on his leather vest, sniffed, and looked back into the forest. Amos gave an order to his men and the lit arrow was carefully extinguished and pulled out of the door. The driver tossed it into the back of his truck bed. Amos yelled at his men, twirled his finger in the air and they loaded into their vehicles on the run. Amos led the way in his black Dodge RAM and flew past us. Cheyenne refrained from shooting any of them and giving away our position.

  Everyone knew, with the drought, the heat, the parched trees, and grass, that if a lit arrow hit any of the splashes of gasoline, the entire group would burst into flame. The downside would be that the grass, and the trees, and the entire refuge would too. On our way from south to here, we found forests burned, highways, towns, and even a city burning in the distance. We barely survived a forest fire on the second day after the change ourselves.

  Fire was a last resort. It was a definite threat response to their aggression.

  “Hey, Randy,” Julie’s cheery voice came over the radio, “Watch where you’re going. The CDs are leaving, you might want to take cover for a while and sneak back in. Oh, yeah, everybody else?” She released three blasts on the air horn. “That means its all clear. At least for now. Anyway! Hey, handsome?”

  Cheyenne was grinning as she handed me the radio.

  “Yes, Julie?”

  “You got any suggestions on what we should do now? How’s the road toward the coast?”

  “We need to pack everybody up and get moving. This much noise is bound to attract attention, especially the firework, and they’ll come back after they wash off.”

  “You got it, chief. On to Castaway island! We’re coming in, our rides are hidden in the woods, we’ll get ‘em on the way out. We gots food!”

  “Be careful coming out,” I warned, “I’m surprised none of you stepped on any gators as you ran through the woods to get here.”

  There was a long pause, “Wait. So . . . that’s not just the name of the reserve? There’s really gators around here?” Julie asked.

  I chuckled, “Um, yeah, hundreds. That’s why they call it ‘Alligator Swamp’.”

  “Eep! Everybody get out of the woods. Fast!” Julie yelled through the transmitter, “You need to warn us a little better!” She laughed.

  I chuckled. “Get back to camp and don’t step on any suspicious looking logs. Randy, do you copy?”

  Randy clicked. “I copy. We’re hiding now. We’ll let you know if they pass us.”

  “Good,” I said, “Janessa, we’re coming in. How are things in camp.”

  There was no response for a moment.

  “Janessa?”

  The walkie talkie finally clicked, “This one? Hold it down? Hello?”

  It sounded like Lori. She protected the youngest of the survivors. Lori was a twelve-year-old with Down syndrome but in no way, contrary to what the CDs said to her, did it make her any less brave, caring, or protective over her charges.

  “Lori?” I asked.

  “Hello? Oh, let the button up?”

  “Lori, this is Taylor. Is everything okay? Where’s Janessa?”

  Pause.

  “Taylor. This is me, Lori. Sheila is with Janessa, she got shot.”

  Chapter 4

  Cheyenne and I glanced at each other as I cranked up the Jeep and put it in drive.

  Janessa always rode with us. We were a trio. The only reason she wasn’t with us now was because she took her triage seriously since her mother had been a Nurse Practitioner and a great one, and Janessa was concerned over one of the men’s wounds that didn’t look right to her. Cheyenne and I planned to drive a few miles up the road on a scouting mission then turn back, which we did. Janessa wasn’t the only person with first aid or medical skills, though. Cheyenne had been in her first semester at the university of Miami as a cancer biologist. Janessa slid easily into the role of healer while Cheyenne’s talents leaned more toward our resident gun expert, having grown up in a family of outdoor types.

  “How bad is she hurt?” Cheyenne asked.

  “She says . . . she says it look like a marble’s in her shoulder.” Lori responded.

  “A marble?” I glanced at Cheyenne.

  Julie, four women, and two boys came running out of the trees ahead of us looking back toward the direction they came.

  Julie held up her hand. “Aw, man,” she said over the radio, “That was us. Sorry, friendly fire. Crap, crap, crap!”

  Julie Nakamora, petite and yoga fit, wearing a daypack, with a pink and white midriff-baring sleeveless top, striped gold and brown yoga pants under a black fringed miniskirt and black calf-high combat boots, waved us on as the others with her jogged after her. Wearing tunnel ear piercings and a nose ring, Julie continues to be a fashionable person, apocalypse be damned. She grimaced and shrugged as we drove by, running her fingers through her blonde faux hawk hairstyle. Julie, with a honey-colored skin tone, due to her mixed parentage, was tanned bronze. That mixture from her mother’s African American heritage and her father’s Japanese roots had produced a unique young woman. A Navy military brat, her parents were a cryptologist and a NCIS agent living on Hilton Head island in retirement. Julie had been a cyber security specialist before all this. She lost her girlfriend and, more than likely, her parents the day of the Change. She was a survivor and there was a reason we called her our road warrior. She was the luckiest and the most adaptable survivor of us all, I don’t think she’s even been scratched since we met.

  As we pulled up to the two abandoned cars left behind by the CDs, the two dead men lay crumpled beside or against their vehicles, one bleeding from a wound to the back of the head and the other from an eye penetration.

  “You shot marbles at them?” Cheyenne asked Julie in awe.

  “SBD, baby, SBD,” Julie responded, her voice cracking over the
radio, “Silent but deadly. Why do you think we’ve been shooting bottles with slingshots so much lately? It wasn’t for fun. You can’t run out of rocks, but we’ve got marbles now. Plus, we have these cool rubber slingshot thingies that you can dump a whole handful in and fire. Shotgun style! Anyway! Some of the marbles must have gotten past those knucklehead’s cars.”

  We pulled up to the wagon train circle, jumped out and ran toward the ambulance where we set up our emergency tent. Five people were positioned around it as Janessa’s helpers applied bandages and inspected wounds.

  “Janessa! Where’s Janessa?” I yelled as we neared, seeing Lori waving at us.

  Lori had short, parted-in-the-middle, auburn hair, and black rimmed glasses. At five and a half feet, the kids loved her like a big sister, willing to obey her every command.

  “She’s in the ambulance,” Lori said, parting the wounded to let us through.

  Most of the wounded were from previous days, three were new. Their wounds looked like shrapnel, or shattered glass related, but not life threatening.

  We ran to the back of the ambulance and looked in, afraid that Janessa was seriously hurt.

  Janessa glanced up, nodding at us as she dug into Sheila’s shoulder with a pair of clamps.

  Cheyenne grabbed my arm and squeezed so hard I cringed.

  “We thought . . .” Cheyenne gasped, holding back tears, “We thought . . .”

  Sheila screamed as Janessa dug deeper, Sheila’s right arm was gripped securely by one of Janessa’s new older female assistants.

  “It’s alright. I almost have it,” she said. “Right . . . there!”

  She pulled the marble free, just as Sheila screamed again, and Janessa applied pressure to the wound.

  I put my arm around Cheyenne and squeezed her close.

  “We thought you were hit,” I said.

  Janessa looked at us and realized we misunderstood what she told Lori to tell us.

  Janessa Simpson’s bright smile filled her face. Much more mature looking than her sixteen years, even with the two-day growth of hair topping her skull where she’d shaved herself bald days ago, she exuded a reassuring calm to everyone else while she worked on them but was just a young teenager in private with us.

  Janessa had been on the track team at the same high school Cheyenne graduated from. Shapely, noticeably shapely, we’d had to deter numerous men’s advances away from her direction especially during the brief time we shared the road with Amos Benson and the CDs. Everyone commented on her stunning beauty when they met her, and her personality added to her attractiveness. Her dark-chocolate-toned skin was unblemished for a sixteen-year-old going through her stage of life. She was an outwardly happy young lady with religious convictions and faith even during our darkest times.

  “I’m sorry.” She continued applying pressure to Sheila’s wound. “Let me give Sheila some more Novocain. Did I hear right? Was Julie shooting marbles?” She shook her head.

  Julie, breathless, came running up right then and saw who was wounded. “Aw, man.” She winced at Sheila’s appearance. “Sorry, Sheila, our fault. But if it’s any consolation, we took out two of them.” She produced a hopeful smile.

  Even in pain, Sheila, once an elementary school teacher and filled with infinite patience, forgave Julie immediately, “It’s okay. Thanks for scaring them off.” She winced once more as Janessa pressed and pointed for a syringe behind her assistant.

  Sheila was a heavy-set, short-haired brunette prone to wearing flowered dresses. She and Lori worked together to look after the kids.

  Julie beamed, “My pleasure!” She blew her a kiss. “Anyway, since you got hurt, I’ll pack up your stuff before we bug out of here. You let Doc take care of you, okay?’

  The injection relaxed Sheila and she nodded at our perpetually perky Asian super warrior. “Thanks. Lori and the kids will help.”

  Lori leaned into the rear of the ambulance from the side, she was close to tears. Julie and Cheyenne hugged her as soon as they noticed.

  “Is she okay? Was it a bullet? Or a marble?” Lori asked.

  “I’m okay, honey.” Sheila nodded at her. “You go with Julie and start packing everyone up. See if someone can help with the kids. I think I’m going to be riding in the ambulance until we get to Bruxton.”

  Lori nodded, taking Julie by the hand and went toward their vehicle, Julie giving orders to her road warriors to start packing up.

  Demetri Brooks, one of the few remaining survivors from the third day with us, with the Atkin sisters, joined us.

  Demetri usually rode shotgun with Julie, when she needed a stealthy smart person to help her on a run.

  Demetri was a short, slim, eighteen-year-old light-skinned black kid with glasses who wore a baseball cap with a big "3" on it ever since Janessa gave it to him. We thought he had a crush on her, but he was shy, so we couldn’t tell.

  The Atkin sisters were Lexi, the oldest, and Mia, the youngest. They were our lookouts. We found them as we made a wide circle around Tank-infested Fayetteville, NC near Fort Craig, the military base located there.

  Mia was born without a functioning voice box and communicated by ASL, American Sign Language. Lexi interpreted for her. The two young black women, with skin the color of cinnamon and umber, were smart, resilient, and out of the box thinkers. They had survived on their own for days avoiding every type of Changed we knew and some we hadn’t met yet. They were just finishing killing a trio of attacking Changed felines when our caravan of vehicles road through and they ran us down.

  Lexi carried a Desert Eagle, but both were proficient with their own individual Louisville sluggers. They traveled light and were inseparable. Lexi was thirteen and Mia was nine. They were skinny, wore shorts, sneakers, matching backpacks, and t-shirts. Lexi was a foot taller than her sister who stood at five and a half feet.

  “Hey, Taylor. Cheyenne.” Demetri nodded at us. “We lost four people.” He informed us without preamble. “Miss Carlyle, Tommy Briggs, Erica Lee, and the new person, Sandra.”

  “Damn,” I replied, “How many wounded?”

  Lexi stepped forward, pointing at several people being taken care of beside the ambulance. “Just these people. The guy, um,” she glanced at her sister who signed a name to her, “Yeah, Dante, the New York Italian muscle guy? He twisted his foot running to help Miss Carlyle, but he can walk on it.”

  “So how many survivors does that leave us now?” Cheyenne asked.

  Mia signed to Lexi. “Mia says she counts fifty-one people including wounded and people on the road.” Mia tapped her sister’s shoulder. “Oh, she also said she saw dirt and exhaust going back the way we came, toward the direction Randy was going to get more gas.”

  Mia’s eyesight was fighter pilot quality, nothing escaped her view.

  I nodded at Demetri and he contacted Randy. Randy replied they were well hidden and watching as the CDs headed back the way we’d come; west on 64.

  I nodded. “Okay, get some people and take care of the bodies. We’ll split up their supplies later. We’re bugging out. The road is clear of Changed as far as we know for several miles toward Bruxton. We’re almost there.”

  They nodded and ran off.

  We had no time to bury people anymore. We arranged the dead in a lineup, removed their important possessions like guns, bullets, and food, said some quick words over them and split their other possessions among the living.

  The Changed didn’t stand on formalities, they just wanted us dead. We kept on the move. The dead were free of this new world. We weren’t.

  Noises attracted the Changed, loud noises attracted larger, faster Changed. I didn’t want to meet any new Changed like that Crab man we just met on the road, either.

  The deceased were placed on the edge of the clearing. Most of the swamp around us had dried over the last month of parched, dry, heat, but gators still roamed out there. I knew, if no one else did, that the dead would soon feed the living dinosaurs walking throughout the refuge. It was the circle of
life.

  Three distant roars drifted over the tops of the tree line.

  Roars that loud meant one thing.

  Tanks.

  Chapter 5

  After the distant Tank’s announced their interest, everyone switched into hyperdrive and loaded their possessions as fast as possible, some just shoving their tents into their vehicles and climbing in.

  Randy let us know the CDs were past his position and met us at the access road entrance where we retrieved the road warrior’s vehicles. Julie and Demetri climbed into a raised lime-green Chevy pickup truck she nicknamed “the green monster” and took position behind us with Randy and Patty in the lead in Randy’s state-issued, dump truck and city plow.

  The plow had saved us multiple times when fighting against Tanks and crowds of Changed blocking our way. Basically, his plow was our battering ram. Along our northeastern progression a few days ago, we found an industrial rotary grinder and used it to make the edge of the plow even more blade-like to cut more easily through any aggressive Tanks blocking the road.

  Behind our Jeep, a row of fifteen cars, vans, SUVs, and pickups took position. Our calmer heads and higher-powered shooters comprised the last two vehicles as rear fighters. Situated in the middle were our children, the wounded, our elderly, and in each vehicle, a shooter rode shotgun to protect those riding inside. The Ambulance was our fourth vehicle in line.

  After stitching Sheila, and climbing into the Jeep with us, Janessa met King and they became quick friends.

  Resting his head in Janessa’s lap as she worked through his hair, she pulled out burrs and dabbed antiseptic on his sores and cuts. King, to his credit, flinched but never whimpered.

  “You’re one lucky puppy, King,” Janessa said, “We’re in the same situation. Your species is changing and so are ours. We’ll take care of you. Don’t worry, I’ve got you.”

  I glanced in the rearview mirror. “How’s everyone doing, Doc?”

  Janessa shrugged. “The little kids are fighting dehydration and heat exposure. They’re depressed and won’t drink. Lot’s of people are hungry, they’re not used to hunting and scavenging for food. Some of the older people are needing meds we can’t find.”