The Unchanged (Book 3): Safe Harbor

by Starnes, T. M.

  “You got it, boss. Holy crap! Do you see what those babies did?” He was already waving at people to clear us a path as some vehicles were turning around to rebuild and reinforce, directed by him, Diego and two others.

  “We’re on our way, Caroline. How’s Janessa and her patients? More should be coming in.”

  “Oh, they’re doing fine. Smart young lady you found. She and that lady Patty, are busy. Janessa just yelled to ask if you and Cheyenne are okay. They’re fine!” Caroline shouted back. “You’re both fine, right?”

  “Yeah, I’m . . .” I looked down at my dirt covered leg bandage.

  I was bleeding again.

  Cheyenne realized what was happening, leaned down and peeled back my bandage. She cursed, “You’ve popped all your new stitches. I knew we should have just left it open. Get in the Jeep. I’m driving.” She took the radio from me. “Hey, this is Cheyenne. Tell Janessa he’s popped his new stitches, all of ‘em. He’s fine but I’m bringing him back. Tell Patty Randy is fine too.”

  There was a pause, then the radio erupted with laughter, “Janessa says she expected Taylor to pop them! What kind of trouble have you been getting him out of? She says to get back here, right now.” She laughed again. “Patty is calling Randy.”

  Mia whistled from the green monster and tossed Julie something. Julie caught it and grinned, holding it up to me as Cheyenne pulled my arm over her shoulder and told King to get back to the Jeep.

  “Hey, you.” Julie tossed me a small object.

  I caught it one-handed.

  A Tootsie roll!

  “Gimme!” I grinned as Cheyenne dragged me away.

  Julie laughed, “Nope, sorry, the others are for when we get back to your place. That was the deal.” My exaggerated frown made her laugh. “Anyway! We’re right behind you!”

  King jumped in, and Cheyenne buckled me in, even though I was perfectly able to do it myself. She ordered King to the rear and climbed in the driver’s side.

  I lovingly unwrapped the piece of chocolate goodness as more missiles exploded and a lone helicopter passed overhead heading toward town, a spotlight on the Blackhawk illuminated its course.

  “You and your candy.” Cheyenne smiled.

  I smacked my lips as I ate.

  She grinned and glanced at me sideways. “You know you’re gonna get lucky tonight, right?”

  I smiled as we passed through the returning vehicles, their headlights coming on as we passed.

  “I may be too bushed.” I grinned, smacking my lips and licking my fingers. “Keeping alive is hard work.”

  She shook her head. “Tell me about it.”

  We increased speed and she turned on our headlights, hurrying toward the Beta wall. Julie’s lights illuminated our Jeep from behind.

  King huffed in the back as he settled on the floor.

  I bit into the last piece of chocolate and made gratified sounds. Cheyenne shook her head.

  “Tonight, with the rough day we’ve had? You better treat me like that Tootsie roll.” She mumbled.

  Chapter 23

  By the time we returned to the rec center, the helicopter had already landed and was powering down.

  The Blackhawk landed in a cleared space on the left side of the soccer field. Our vehicles provided a corridor directly to the front steps of the rec center porch steps. A crowd of people were waiting with flashlights as we pulled up, cheering the pilots.

  Other cars followed us in with wounded from the wall. We, miraculously, hadn’t lost anyone, but several had sprains and cuts from running, falling off the scaffolding, or getting scratched.

  Janessa and Patty waited with a team of lifeguards and scouts armed with medical kits and a makeshift stretcher. Mrs. Gale waved at us from the porch, standing beside Caroline, who had Bass strapped into his front-facing baby carrier and who was covered with newly applied calamine lotion.

  We parked and other vehicles pulled in behind us. Janessa gestured for everyone to go help the wounded as she ran to the Jeep.

  When Cheyenne jumped out, shaking her head in mock disgust, directing our young doctor toward me. Janessa rolled her eyes and changed direction to the passenger side as King followed Cheyenne out.

  “It must be bad,” Janessa said as she opened my door, “if Cheyenne made you ride shotgun.”

  “Hey, she ain’t the boss of me.” I grinned, attempting to get out.

  “Sure she isn’t.” She stopped me from stepping out and checked under my bandage. “Taylor. Stop messing up my work.” She grinned and helped me out as Caroline hurried forward.

  “Hey,” Caroline said, “The pilots are going to shut down and meet-” She looked at my blood dampened bandages. “Taylor! What the hell? How bad are you hurt?” Her flashlight shone on my leg bandage.

  I squeezed Janessa hard to try to get her to say I’m not that bad.

  “It’s a bad cut, he keeps tearing it open,” Janessa said, ignoring me.

  Pfft. Women. When you need them to lie so your sister won’t yell at you, they band together.

  Cheyenne grinned as Caroline started calling me names and telling me how stubborn I am.

  My friends didn’t join in, but they didn’t calm her down either. They ain’t my friends no more.

  By the time they brutally, with such evil, malicious glee, dropped me on a cot and abused my poor ears and body, with no early warnings as they stripped the paper tape from my leg, exposing my bloodied injury, and poured gallons of caustic, burning, antiseptic into the wound before Janessa hacked apart my stitches with a rusty set of scissors before impaling me with a spear and forty feet of rough rope to close the damage, the pilots were just coming into the center.

  Hey. It hurt!

  “Hello, Mrs. Gale here says you’re the person in charge?” A woman asked behind me.

  A muscular, slim, copper-complexioned Army Captain in her late twenties or early thirties, carrying her flight helmet, and wearing sweaty flight gear, extended her hand to me.

  “I’m Captain Leticia Biggers.” She shook my hand and introduced her co-pilot. “This is Lt. Arthur Holstead.” Holstead was a slim, tanned man with a protruding gut and crew cut, wearing another flight suit. He grinned as he shook my hand, “The guy in the Hawaiian shirt is our gunner, Teddy Orsen.” Captain Biggers pointed at the tall older man behind them, gesturing him forward.

  Teddy was sunburned, going grey, and wore a flowered shirt, shorts, and hiking boots, “Hey, pleased to meet you. Hope your people are alright.”

  I sat up as I introduced everyone, King included, to the pilots who saved us.

  Captain Biggers shook her head, “It wasn’t just us. Our other pilots need just as much credit. You’ll meet them soon. I’m the ranking officer. My second, First Lieutenant Zaid Ahmad is on his way. Just so you’re aware, he’s not American and won’t be wearing one of our flight suits. Some people have a problem with that, we’ve found. We need to be past that. He’s a Jordanian officer from our Blackhawk training exchange program. You’ll know him when you see him.” She set her helmet down and searched for a chair, the others too as she named the other pilots and their crew back at the Alpha wall. “You’ll forgive me for saying this, but you look young to be in charge of all these people. You’re what? Twenty-five? Pretty beat up too.” She indicated my healing arms and leg wound. “Don’t you have any city officials? Police? Even military, here?”

  We told her a quick summary of where those people were and what had happened over the last week. We chatted for several minutes as activity continued around us.

  We fed the flight crew while the wounded and recovering thanked them for saving us after witnessing the scope of our danger.

  Captain Biggers was an open person, smiled easily, but she had that tired look in her eye that let you know she had seen combat and didn’t like what she saw. Lt. Holstead was ravenous as he ate, sometimes interjecting comments or fine points to the Captain’s statements or comments. Teddy Orsen was open and friendly. Not military in the least. He
just volunteered to shoot the machinegun after they found him at a military base looking for weapons.

  Lt. Holstead got up to meet the arriving Blackhawk as the Captain went to relieve herself. She mentioned that her crew and the others had been wearing the same clothing for a week when she noticed a pile of clothing set aside to replace survivors clothing. Mrs. Gale sent people to search for each of their sizes at the beach souvenir store across the street while the Captain and Teddy were in the bathroom.

  First Lieutenant Zaid Ahmad entered, and the rec center went quiet. He was an imposing figure in his Jordanian flight gear. His goatee was spattered with grey and two healing, stitched, claw marks stretched from his right temple to his cheek, offsetting the color of his dark, weathered, skin. He looked like a member of Sinbad’s crew from the Arabian nights. A stereotype to be sure, but none-the-less it made him a dashing figure. He saw the Captain coming back from the bathroom and waved. A warm smile destroyed his ominous features and presented a happy, friendly man in his place.

  “Captain! This is wonderful!” He motioned around the building. “So many! This is amazing.” He slapped Lt. Holstead’s back as he hurried forward to embrace the Captain. “Allah is good!”

  The Captain grinned, it was obvious First Lieutenant Ahmad was a hugger and the Captain wasn’t, but there was affection there.

  “Hello! Zaid Ahmad, call me Zaid.” He introduced himself to each of us and stopped at me. “You? You are the leader?” He furiously shook my hand. “Good job, my friend, you have done well to keep these people alive.”

  I stopped him to explain who we all were and that I couldn’t take all the credit since only part of the survivors were from our group and I wasn’t that comfortable taking the credit at all. I clarified I was only the interim leader at the moment also.

  “If they have made you their leader, and by the look of devotion they give you,” Zaid nodded at Cheyenne, Mrs. Gale, and a few others, “you have earned it. It is good to meet all of you.”

  Janessa rubbed at her lovely fuzzy scalp, clearing her throat to get the Captain’s attention.

  Captain Biggers brightened at Janessa’s manners. “Yes, young lady? I like your hairstyle, by the way, if I was braver, I’d do the same thing.” She ran her fingers over her disheveled, helmet-pressed hair. “Its too hot, but I don’t think my helmet would fit as well. You’ve got a question?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Janessa mentioned her father’s service in the military and asked her question, “Is the military still active? Is help coming?” Janessa glanced at everyone. “Is there any organization?”

  The Captain frowned and looked at her team. Zaid and the others’ happy expressions turned gloomy.

  “I’ll tell you what, Janessa,” The Captain raised her voice to be heard by everyone, “We’ll be glad to tell everyone what we know and have seen if you all wouldn’t mind if my team took a shower and changed into civilian clothes before we do.” Zaid reminded her of the last Helicopter crew. “Oh, yes, and if someone wouldn’t mind taking food, water, and clean clothes to the flight team still at your wall who are standing guard? They would appreciate it.” Several people jumped to go do it as we agreed to wait.

  * * *

  Leticia, Zaid, Teddy, and Arthur with Zaid’s crewmembers joined us at the dining tables we set up in the center of the cots in the middle of the basketball court at the rec center.

  Leticia wore a loose T-shirt, a skirt and flipflops. Zaid wore a bright Hawaiian-style shirt and baggy cargo shorts and his flight boots. The others wore various mismatched articles of clothing that fit them from the beachwear. Shorts, sun wear, and hats.

  Leticia, she preferred to be called by her name when out of uniform, the others preferring their first names also, stood to get everyone’s attention.

  “Okay, everyone, this is what we know. This event, what many of you call the Change, has happened across our nation and out to sea. We assumed it’s occurred worldwide. Communications have been shut down the world over. We have limited radio signals and no cell service or satellite telecommunication. We don’t know why. We have a Coast Guard cutter and 47-foot motor lifeboat en route to the Hatteras Coast guard station as we speak.” People cheered. “We also, like you with the boats anchored past the shoals, have a small group of boats accompanying them. They’re going to anchor somewhere north of us tonight. Without GPS or navigational buoys, it’s too dangerous for their approach. They’ll be here in the morning.” More cheers. “We’ve been conducting hit and run refueling attacks to replenish our helicopters. To our knowledge, so far, we are the only birds in the air.” No cheers, worried mumbles. “Washington is gone. Zaid and I actually came from Washington. I personally watched as the President became one of those giant angry monsters.” People gasped. “The President was personally meeting Zaid’s flight team for a regular Blackhawk exchange program with the Jordanian nation. The President, congressional members, and the secret service all changed right in front of us. The President, and as far as we know, the entirety of the U.S. government is gone. Zaid, a flight mechanic, and I, escaped by fighting through to my Blackhawk. We were able to find a few other Blackhawk-trained pilots among the survivors and were able to man two more. We had an Apache pilot, but he was killed during one of our refueling stops and his Apache destroyed.” Several people expressed condolences. “All along the coast, we have found survivors. We’ve helped them, and they joined our group or, sadly, we watched them fight for their lives and fail, as we tried to assist from the air.”

  Leticia stopped talking and just stood there, staring at the ceiling and blinking. I noticed she was flicking her right thumb against her pointer finger. Zaid called her by her rank and she nodded, saying she was just gathering her thoughts. Cheyenne and I glanced at each other, we knew that look.

  The Captain continued. “There is little, if any, power to the cities. Most of those are generator-operated and failing. We’ve found people out to sea, along rivers, and holding up in the center of lakes on watercraft. We’ve sighted people in isolated areas.” She took a deep breath. “Humans are outnumbered.” People mumbled and cried. “But there are still humans out there. There are still survivors. We’ll try to find them. We’ll try to gather them. If you are okay with it, we’d like to make a temporary base here.” Cheers and agreeable comments rose. “Your location and isolation provides a better chance for protection, barring further attacks like we just turned away. This, we will defend to the best of our ability. We plan to put up outposts to watch for and communicate with other survivors or with those who are willing to form small groups to relay information and intelligence to us.” Some survivors volunteered immediately. “That will take time to organize,” Leticia warned. “In the meantime,” she glanced at her team, “we need to tell you what we know and what might have caused this and the things we’ve seen.”

  People urged her to continue.

  Leticia held up her hands. “Zaid and I have agreed, as the ranking military here and among our flight team, to be forthright and honest with you and all survivors. Our governments don’t exist anymore, and we don’t feel keeping secrets is in the best interest of the remaining bits of humanity.”

  The crowd exchanged glances and frowns.

  “Has anyone here heard of the phenomenon of a celestial object floating around the Earth called the ‘Black Knight’?”

  One person raised their hand out of hundreds.

  Leticia nodded at him, “It’s a bit of space debris. A black object that’s been floating around Earth since the early part of the previous century. Discovered then but thought to be up there before that. Stories have been told about it, some true, some conspiracy, some researched.” She sighed. “It’s a real thing. It exists. Since the 90’s the world’s military has ‘unofficially’ been keeping tabs on it. One week ago, at the time of the Change, a pulse, directed toward the Earth, was pinpointed at the then position of the Black Knight.”

  Some people scoffed, others gasped, others paid closer atte
ntion.

  Leticia raised her hand. “Zaid can attest his country was also tracking these pulses along with several other United Nations countries. Within two days, the Change occurred. That was enough time in our speculation for the Black Knight satellite to cover the Earth with its pulse from pole to pole.”

  People began arguing with each other over the validity of the claims until Leticia held up her hands.

  “Please understand, it was not a signal. It was not a communication. It was only a continuous pulse. Our scientists could give no explanation to what the pulse meant.” She paused. “But that is not all that’s happened.”

  Leticia sipped some water before continuing.

  “On one of our at-sea searches for survivors, this morning, in fact, we came across what we thought was a large yacht southeast of Virginia Beach due east of Knotts Island. As we approached, we realized it was a sea vessel of a kind none of us, on any of the flight crew, recognized.”

  People asked her to explain.

  “If you’ve ever seen pictures of the USS Zumholdt, the newest guided missile destroyer of the Navy that’s all angles and flat metal that’s going to be a new class of ships named after Admiral Eric Zumholdt? It looked like that.” Zaid was grinning at her. “Sorry. I’m a military history buff.” She grinned back at Zaid. “It was similar to the Zumholdt, but of a design and color scheme we’ve never seen. We could make out four decks above the water from the main deck. As we approached, we could see groups of people in what looked like CBW gear watching us. Um, Chemical, Biological Warfare gear, sorry. We saw no flag, no designation on the hull, and didn’t recognize the style of the CBW gear. Further, the closer we approached, we began having engine failure and warnings from each of our Blackhawks about similar engine problems. There appeared to be nothing directed toward us from the ship to cause this, and the crew didn’t appear to be doing anything other than watching us. We took note of their position, flew back to refuel and get a mechanical check, set out again to try to locate them, and failed. There was no trace and we searched a grid pattern to find them until we finally picked up a clear transmission from your group, better than any we received all day.” Dante raised his hand and said it was him in a hoarse voice, which made everyone laugh. “Yes, thank you for not stopping your broadcast.”