Janessa and Cheyenne helped me to the locker room where a camp shower was set up in one of the center’s actual shower stalls. The camp shower limited the amount of water used, so I washed quickly. The center’s water supply was cut off to be used mostly as drinkable water. One clean shower per person on arrival. Cheyenne was waiting as I stepped out and made off-color comments about how sexy scars could be.
Not mine, but others, she corrected with a smile.
Yeah, she’ll pay for that comment.
By the time we left the locker room, Julie, Janessa, and Lexi were just finishing their yoga stretches. As we exited the building, after informing the person in charge that we were going to my home and would be back, we were informed a few of our people hadn’t slept so well and had decided to go watch at the walls for something to do. Anxiety kept at them and going and doing something, anything, was a way to keep their head in the game. Demetri didn’t sleep so well, so he decided to stay and get another hour of sleep.
Janessa found a walking cane for me to relieve some stress on my leg. It was hard not to do a cool strut with it. My version of cool, I mean. Cheyenne drove the Rubicon and we moved through town.
Bruxton looked so peaceful and quiet. Overgrown, dry, parched, but peaceful. Blood on broken windows, sidewalks, and covering abandoned cars reminded us of the price others paid for the peace.
“It’s a pretty town if this hadn’t happened,” Janessa said.
My anxiety grew as we neared my parents street.
“Hey,” Cheyenne asked, “How you doing over there?”
I shrugged, “Worried, but ready for whatever we find.”
Julie followed us with the Atkin sisters, her truck rumbling loudly in the abandoned streets.
We pulled down the street toward my parents’ house.
Cheyenne and Janessa oohed and aahed, as the house came into view. King sighed as Janessa scratched his belly.
Our house was large for the area. Four waterfront houses were on my street. They each looked deserted.
Walkers on the Water was a decent revenue for our family. The boat rental and fishing rental business was good. Paid for my brother, sister, and me, to go to college. My brother became an English professor at Duke University in Raleigh, my sister a Horticulturalist, pretty great one too, and I, the dreamer, received a degree from Columbia and became a mystery writer. A career I hoped would have continued before the Changed, but reality kicked in, right in the teeth.
My family home is a pale, ocean-blue, raised, two-storied home with parking spaces beneath. Twenty-five hundred square feet, four bedrooms, four baths, with a view of Pamlico sound behind it with our own pier. I lived in the small, square, ‘mother-in-law suite’ built on the rear of the acreage for my grandparents when they come to visit until I decided to move or build my own house.
“Wow.” Cheyenne murmured, “That’s a nice place.”
“Yeah, that’s my parents’. Mine’s in back.”
“Still. Damn.” Cheyenne whistled as we drove to the right of the house toward the MIL building.
As we drove around the house, anchored at our pier, the main mast of a sloop rocked in the current.
“And you’ve got a boat too?”
I frowned, “No. We don’t own a boat like that. I mean not a personal one. We have a few for business but none of us dock here. Pull up to the landing.” I pointed where I wanted her to park.
We parked, my place, the same pale ocean-blue, square MIL suite on our right, Julie moving in but not blocking us from behind. She jumped out as we stepped out. King hopped out beside Cheyenne, sniffing the air.
“Wow, Sinbad. This is a nice place!” Julie yelled.
Cheyenne hushed her and held up a rifle.
We wore our sunglasses and hats to shade us from the sun glaring off the water and its harsh reflection; Cheyenne’s straw hat, my trail guide hat, and Janessa wore her baseball cap. King moved closer to Cheyenne but didn’t obstruct her movements.
Julie understood something was wrong and climbed back in the cab and retrieved her rifle. The sisters jumped out with their baseball bats and took places by the front and rear of the truck.
Braced by my cane in my left hand and holding my Colt in the right, we slowly advanced toward the pier and the waiting sloop.
The sloop was covered with blood stains, Changed blood stains, on deck and on the hastily dropped mainsail. Dents and scrapes scored the hull. The stench of their blood filled our nostrils.
Cheyenne motioned for me and King to wait as she advanced toward the boat.
As I stepped down on the pier, a door slammed behind us.
We spun as a person flattened to the deck on the second story deck, sun glinting off a rifle barrel.
“If you assholes want to live another day, get away from my boat! Get back in your cars and get the hell out of here! I mean it!”
The voice was weak, but I knew it!
I dropped my Colt and pulled off my hat and sunglasses.
“Caroline!” I yelled, waving for everyone to put their guns down. “Caroline is that you?!”
A messy, unwashed, tangled knot of brown hair, a bandage wrapped around the head and over the right eye, slowly rose above the bannister.
“Taylor?” My sister pulled herself up, “Taylor! Oh my god! Taylor!”
I dropped my cane, hat, and sunglasses as I ran to the staircase and my sister came running down. My limp slowed me down, but I ignored it.
Caroline’s right hand was bandaged, and she stumbled as she ran down the staircase. We collided at the base of the stairs and both collapsed into the grass, laughing and crying, fiercely hugging the life out of each other.
My sister was alive!
Chapter 15
My sister looked like crap.
Once we calmed down and could get a good look at each other, she looked horrible.
Her lips were cracked and dry, she’d lost at least ten pounds. She stank, like we all did, but stank of Changed blood coating her clothes and bandaged hand. She was scratched, sunburned, covered in blisters and mosquito bites, bruised over her entire body. She wore an oversized, ripped T-shirt, a pair of men’s boxers and stained deck shoes.
Janessa came running to us with bottles of water, Julie carried packets of food, King lay down as Cheyenne knelt beside my sister.
Without a word and between sobs, Caroline shoved her mouth full of food and drank greedily from the bottles. I had to pull the water away from her or she would throw up.
“Bass,” she wheezed, her voice weak now, pointing toward the house behind her. “Bass. He’s in the kitchen.”
“Sebastian? Sea Bass? He’s here too?” I struggled to stand but Caroline wouldn’t let me go and my leg finally reminded me I was hurting. I hadn’t wanted to ask or think about my nephew after seeing how bad she looked.
Julie tapped my shoulder. “Where’s the kitchen? Is it a little boy? I’ll go see after him.”
“No, Bass is a baby.” I pointed at the middle doors above us. “Go through there.”
Julie sprinted up the staircase, the Atkin sisters followed her.
“Caroline? What about Alexandre?” Alexandre was her husband she met at college, an American born but French raised man with French parents.
Her response was a low wail as she wrapped her arms around my neck.
When she calmed, she held up her hand, and then, tapped the bandage over her right eye. “He became one of those things! He bit off my finger when I stopped him trying to kill Bass! I had to stab him, Taylor! I had to stab him to stop him from killing Bass! I had to! I had to!” She began crying again and I cradled my older sister in my arms like she was the baby of the family.
Alexandre Charbonneau and my sister were madly in love with each other. Her perfectionism coupled with his laissez faire attitude in life made them a wonderful couple. Sebastian was the child of their dreams. Never cried. Slept when they slept. A happy little infant with loving parents.
I couldn’t imagine w
hat she must be going through to have to stop Alexandre from killing their child or even harming him. Caroline was not a violent person, even when we took kung fu classes when we were young. Always, even when she was struck really hard, she always pulled her punches.
I glanced at Cheyenne, imagining how much it would take to get me to, in a life or death situation, even strike her. I just couldn’t conceive of it.
“Dad? Mom? Nash? Have you heard anything from them?” I asked, rocking her.
She pushed me back, “Yes! I was talking to daddy when this all started! They were at the Biltmore House! He said they were waiting in line for the tours to start when people started to spot! He said they were getting sick!” She grabbed my arm hard enough to make me cringe. “Taylor! He said mom was spotting before he dropped his phone! I tried to call him back but there was no answer! I tried to call him Taylor! And Nash! But he didn’t answer either. I tried you, but the phones were dead by then! Momma became one of them, Taylor! Momma is one of them!”
She began crying again.
Hugging her, I broke down too.
I hoped my family wouldn’t have changed. I prepared myself for it. Even tried to block it out of my head. Caroline’s words struck me deep.
Janessa caressed my head and Cheyenne rubbed my back as we cried, neither saying anything.
Once we calmed, or as best we could considering the knowledge Caroline had been carrying for a week, Julie whistled above us, and we glanced up.
“We’ve got the baby. He’s fine. We’re giving him some baby food she left out. He could use some water though. The taps are dry up here. He’s pretty parched.”
“My baby. My baby.” Caroline started to stand but I stopped her.
“I’ll get more water,” Janessa said, running back to the Jeep, “Go on up, I’ll bring it.”
“Julie come down here and help me with her,” Cheyenne said.
“I’ve got her.” I pushed myself to my feet.
“Taylor, no. You’ve-”
I looked at Cheyenne, “I’ve got her. She’s my sister. I’ve got her.”
Cheyenne blinked and nodded, knowing I’m hard headed.
I stood and lifted my shorter, exhausted, sister in my arms and began climbing the stairs. The pain in my leg numbed by the tenth step. I knew the pain was there, but my sister needed me.
We made it to the balcony and entered the kitchen.
Home.
I was home.
I carried my sister to the family room’s couch and found Lexi and Mia cooing over my little nephew as I set Caroline down. I knelt beside her and beckoned Lexi to give me her baby. King came in, placed himself beside Cheyenne and me and sniffed at Bass.
The little sea bass had sprouted hair since I last saw him.
He yawned, coughed, looked at me, grinned, and farted.
The fart made me smile.
“He’s beautiful, Caroline.”
She leaned up and brushed back his silky little patch of black hair.
“He doesn’t have a dad anymore, Taylor.” She rasped.
Janessa came running in and went looking for a baby bottle for him.
“My backpack.” Caroline motioned toward the kitchen. “The last bits of formula I was able to find.”
Julie took more bottles from Janessa as Cheyenne caressed Bass’s head.
“So how?” I asked. “How did you get here from Norfolk? Whose sloop is that out there?”
Caroline lay back as the sisters brought water over. The water had been shut off somewhere along the line, so Julie brought dry edibles from the kitchen cabinets to eat, sending the sisters back out to the Jeep for more food.
My parents enjoyed lots of windows and light wood in their decor. My mother always cleaned before going on trips and the house was spotless even if a little stale smelling, having been closed up for a week. Windows filled every wall. Their furniture was light brown with neutral tones and white everywhere. Ocean imagery adorned every wall, interspersed with photos of our family.
As I began feeding Bass from his bottle, Caroline told her story while Cheyenne and Janessa nursed her hand and eye.
“That morning, when this all started, Alex was taking me to the nursery, not Bass’s nursery, but my workplace,” she clarified for the others, “I’m a horticulturist. Cars were stopping or wrecking, and people started breaking out in those purple spots and convulsing. Alex had stopped the car, but when he started breaking out, we slammed into the car in front of us. Some of the purple spotted people were able to get out of their cars and that’s when I realized they were killing their passengers or others who were trying to help them.” She drank, and her voice sounded better.
“At first, I thought I could help Alex, but it was like a zombie movie!” She touched her face with her left hand, “Alex started scratching me and trying to bite me. He was pulling on my hair trying to get me close and I watched the mother in the car in front of me reach back and she . . .” she paused, “She pulled off-” she closed her eyes and shook her head, “She killed her child while it sat in its car seat.” She nibbled on an orange Janessa gave her. “When I saw that, I knew I had to protect Bass.” She flinched when Cheyenne removed her hand wrappings, exposing her missing pinky finger and the swelling in her hand. “Alex did that. I stabbed him as I fought to get out of the car. I keep a nail file in the middle of the dash. I stabbed my husband to get away from him, to protect my baby.”
“She’s going to need antibiotics,” Cheyenne whispered.
Caroline kept talking. “I got out of the car, thinking I had killed Alex and hurried to get Bass out of his seat.” She looked down. “Just as I got Bass out of his seat, Alex grabbed him, Alex was still locked in his seat belt. He tried to bite Bass and I shoved him in the face. He bit off my finger.” Tears began rolling down her face. “He spat out my finger and went after Bass again. I stabbed him with the file until he was still.” She inhaled and sat straighter. “I grabbed my child and ran. Those things chased me, but I got away. I watched as people mutated further and further over the next few days. Over the last week, I’ve been hiding in houses, mostly just going out at night, but Norfolk has hundreds of those giant ones, those huge monsters, you’ve had to see things like them?” We told her we had and what we called them. “I avoided each of them and made my way to the marina. I found that sloop out there and took it. It took me forever to get out of the harbor; monsters attacked me, and I fought them off. At night, I anchored where I could and searched for food and water for Bass. Those things are everywhere!”
I was immediately thankful our dad made each of us take sailing lessons. We were brats to him then and fought it every step of the way, but if it wasn’t for the lessons, Caroline wouldn’t be here, and neither would Sebastian.
Janessa lifted Caroline’s eye bandage to find the eye socket was bruised and the eye inflamed.
“I think Alex scratched my cornea. Everything is blurry and cloudy. Light really hurts me, and I’ve had a headache for a week if I don’t cover my eye.”
“Go on about how you got here.” I urged her to keep her mind occupied as Cheyenne cleaned her hand with antiseptic from our largest first aid kit.
I was shocked my sister used lethal force. She doesn’t have a mean bone in her body, well, except toward her younger brother, and to use it against Alexandre is just too much to believe.
“It was days. In and out of port. Running, hiding, I thank God everyday that Bass is just the sweetest, calmest baby you could ever have. Never complained. Never cried. But whew! His poops were getting really smelly, even worse than those monsters sometimes.” She smiled, and we laughed.
At least she still had a sense of humor.
“I saw all sorts of horrors on the shore and, Taylor, there’s some of those things that swim! They attacked the boat once and I had to use a machete to keep them away! I wasn’t going to let them hurt Bass.”
Cheyenne nodded appreciatively at her statement.
“Another tough butt kicker i
n the family,” Julie said and popped a bubble.
Caroline kept going. “I just made it to the Outer Banks yesterday afternoon. I watched a group of survivors come out to the beach and those monsters attacked them. Some people in a boat beside Jenny’s pier scared the monsters off and they got away. I headed further out to sea in case they swam out to me.”
My eyes widened, “Holy crap! Caroline, that was us! We were the people on the beach!”
Caroline frowned, “Seriously? That was you?”
Cheyenne and the others confirmed what I said.
“I think I saw your boat heading south!” I grinned. “Why the hell didn’t you come ashore last night where the pontoon boats and those other boats had anchored off the shore?”
Caroline frowned, “I’ve seen people doing bad things.” She glanced at Lexi, Mia, and Janessa. “Back around Norfolk, they had boats and were, they were, they were looking for young women. They were abusing them.” She nodded her head at Janessa, Julie in the kitchen, and the Atkin sisters. “Some were only taking women of color.” Janessa glanced up at Caroline, then me, and went back to work on Caroline’s hand.
“Sounds like people Amos Benson would love to get to know,” Cheyenne mumbled.
“So I avoided the anchored boats and headed for Pamlico sound and got home around 2 a.m. last night. I could barely walk and was exhausted, but I made sure Bass ate, drank, and was comfortable before I passed out.” She grinned at Julie. “I slept until I heard your monster truck outside and thought someone was coming to steal my boat or ransack the house.”
“You have no idea how glad I am to see you.” I smiled.
Sebastian farted, creating laughter.
“Nothing phases Bass, but he lets his opinion be known.” She smiled at my little nephew.
Janessa cleaned crust from Caroline’s eye and Cheyenne finished what she could do for Caroline’s hand until we could get her back to the rec center and our antibiotics. They disposed of the filthy remains of her soiled bandages and replaced them with clean ones.
The Unchanged (Book 3): Safe Harbor Page 12