Daughters of the Mayflower Universe: One

by Celie Wells

“So, you are all protection path? When do you start your first territory patrols?” Jason asked, changing the subject.

  Difference and his crew answered in unison, next week, Monday, Wednesday. You could see Aqua was too interested in Diff to join in the conversation. Her face scowled in defeat when she heard he had a fiancé, but her flirty smile returned when she learned the girl was years underage.

  The people at our table began to cluster together in smaller groups leaving two of Diff ‘s friends chatting with us. Jason spotted two female classmates at a neighboring table and called them over to join in. The women were meant for Diff ‘s friends, but they seemed more interested in Jason’s every word.

  Chicago was quickly able to gain the interest of one of the girls Jason encouraged to join our table. But, the second girl would not be distracted, soon we had several more people mingling around our table. The food vendors flashed their lights, signaling they would be closing in a half hour.

  “Let’s go grab another round of drinks and some sandwiches before everything closes down.” Jason pulled me away from the table and towards the lights of the food vendors.

  “That fat girl won’t stop touching you. What is her problem?” I asked, thoroughly annoyed.

  “Ooo jealous. Not like that walking cologne bottle wasn’t planning on taking you from me,” Jason noted.

  “Oh please, that was never going to happen. A third, we haven’t even been a two yet.” We reached the churro vendor first. I signaled the vendor for a dozen sticks.

  “Speaking of two, I don’t want you to feel like you are obligated, you know, do anything you’re not wanting to do because of anything we did. There is nothing we have to do right now. Not that I’m opposed to doing whatever you want. Just know it’s not a big thing. For me, in general.” Jason caught the eye of a drink vendor and requested a mixed box of sodas and beers.

  “Oh, well. What if it’s something of a minor thing for me. I may want to sample the goods before buying this whole shipment.” I pushed my way to the churro vendor’s payment circle and swiped my new bracelet over the credit machine light.

  “You do? Of course, you do. Why would you want to go blindly into a lifelong agreement with me?” Jason grabbed the box of drinks from the vendor and bumped his watch against the crude rubber payment post.

  “Lifelong. I do like the timeframe you’re suggesting. Though I haven’t heard a formal proposal yet, I like the idea and scope of the project,” I mused.

  “That’s good to know because upper management has some huge plans for your future.” Jason winked and motioned for me to follow him back to our friends. He stood in the dwindling crowd holding the box of drinks in both hands.

  I found myself stuck behind a group of sloppily intoxicated older people. Jason stood off to the side of the main walkway waiting for me. He motioned to people in my way, and they let me pass. I was a few steps behind him when the first popping sounds rang out from the far edge of the complex.

  THE REDS

  Several loud pops echoed off the cement walls and tables. The noise bouncing off the lively, painted concrete vendor stations turned my head in several directions. I became disoriented. Diff jumped on top of a nearby cement retaining wall. He was yelling and franticly waving in my direction, trying to get my attention.

  People ran past me. Someone knocked into my arm, spinning me around. I dropped the churro bag on the ground, and a man running in front of me slipped and fell on his back. The smacking sound of his head hitting the smooth pavement startled me, and I shrieked.

  I pushed the next person in my path out of my way with both hands and started running towards Difference. Several more pops came from behind me. Jason appeared out of nowhere and grabbed me by the arm. The car key was in his other hand, he frantically pushed the button on the fob, as we approached the lights inside the cabin came on.

  Jason runs faster than me and he pulled me after him so hard that my wrist popped and began to ache. He opened the car door, pushed me in the back seat, and slammed the door shut. I bit the end of my tongue and bumped my head on the armrest. All I could hear was the high-pitched noise of an emergency siren and pop, pop, pop.

  The trunk jolted open. Soon after, Jason crouched down beside the driver's side door with a gun in his hand, and Diff leaned on the passenger door with a long shotgun in his.

  A blast rattled the windows and cracked the glass with a flash of orange.

  Jason dropped out of view—glass from the backdoor flew into my lap. The car door flung open. Heavy breathing, gunpowder, and dirt filled the backseat. Cold night air rolled over my skin as I was thrown to the ground. I tried to catch myself, but my wrist gave out and I fell face-first into the side of the car.

  The sounds of struggle behind me turned my attention to a dark area behind the car, I thought it was Jason in the shadows, but he was lying in the dirt by the car's front tire with his arm covered in blood.

  Someone had a tight grip on my arm. I started screaming and tried to pull myself toward Jason, but I kept getting dragged further away.

  Aqua yelled my name off to the right. I felt her thin hand grab at my arm, but I was being pulled in two directions. Her voice brought me back to the moment, but the panic around me smeared into flashes of muted colors and shapes disappearing in front of my face.

  The panicked noise was replaced by the deep throbbing of blood rushing in my head. Chicago slid into my view, wrapped his arm around Aqua like she was a basket of laundry, and swooped her out of my sight.

  Blue was next to me. Her white-blond hair was unmistakable from anyone else. She was silent and bouncing up and down like a rag doll caught in the grasp of a running child. As I was lowered to the ground, I saw two unconscious young girls lying next to me. My legs were wobbly, but I scrambled to stand and run. That is when I heard the unmistakable sound of a shotgun cock behind me.

  I sucked in a deep, dust-covered breath. I stood tall as all my senses became acutely alert.

  “NO! Stop, stop. Please stop!” Jason was on his knees, ten feet in front of me. The skin on his arm looked shredded. Blood was trickling from his shirt to the ground. He was severely wounded and needed medical attention.

  The fingers on the hand that wrapped around my arm were large enough to wrap around my bicep. My brain began to quickly calculate blood loss rates and body mass, the sounds of the unseen force behind me, the shotgun, and the size of the hand that had me.

  I turned my face toward the captor at my back. “Don't kill him. Take me. Leave him alone,” I begged. A wide, tall, bearded young man with deep blue eyes and a violent stare smirked at me.

  “I'm taking you already.” He growled his words, twisting my bicep under the weight of his wide grip.

  Diff was shoved to the ground at the side of the group of captors. A large knife rested on his throat as two young men took the rifle from his hands.

  “Let them live. I'll go willingly.” I forced myself to stare into his eyes as I pleaded for the lives of my friends.

  “Do you swear this to me, topsider?” He asked in a deep and solemn voice. The proclamation anchored my mind setting it cold and vacant. A chill ran down my back. Aware of all my skin I let the terror pour over me until I found my voice again.

  “Yes, I swear it on my life. Please.”

  Several motionless bodies lay scattered on the pavement. Whatever this was before, it was over now, and we had lost. Sirens from transports began to whale in the distance. There was so much noise. Tears streamed down my face as my blue-eyed captor pulled me to his chest. My abductors began scrambling to leave. An even taller man tossed me over his shoulder.

  Jason stood under a light post, pointed his gun in my direction, and pulled the trigger. The slap of the empty clip made me jolt. “Better dead than with the Reds” floated in my mind. I watched Jason prop himself up against the light post and take aim. I closed my eyes. I was too afraid to scream. As he slid to the ground, my stomach dropped. My field of view fell below the street level, and we sl
ipped into the darkness.

  They carried us through the old sewer system and over the dry seabed floor, down the crag rock face, and out into the night. It was dawn before we reached flat, even ground and were allowed to walk on our own.

  The bright early sun rose filtered by long shadows cast by the high sea walls. Narrow, tall structures of dirt and rock seemed to grow randomly across the flat ground. Shear drops of unseen depth, coupled with the razor-sharp crag walls, kept us from trying to run. Besides, with so little information about exactly where I was or where we were going. An escape in the full sun would end badly. It was brown and beige and ultimately the same dry looking terrain in every direction.

  My captor walked very close behind me. It was a ridiculous precaution. There was no place for me to go. I followed the man in front of me, and he followed the person in front of him, it remained this way for some time.

  Finally, I couldn't take the silence any longer. If my kidnappers killed me here in the dirt for asking questions at least, someone could find my body. My family would have closure.

  “How is it you can stay exposed to the sun's rays this long? I asked openly of the group. There was a murmur of laughter from the young men.

  “It's not as harmful in the shadows,” A pleasant male voice explained.

  “You can take your coat off if you're getting hot. We have canteens, but we won't have fresh water for another hour.” A captor at the front of the group held a metal object over his head.

  It was hot, and my stomach was starting to sour. I wanted to wake up to find this was all a horrible dream and take a nice hot-steam shower and eat a bowl of rehydrated fruit.

  “Any moment now, I'm going to wake up. So, if you're going to turn into a dragon and fly away or take your shirt off and dance around for me, you better hurry up,” I chuckled.

  “Ha, this is not one of your sweaty dreams, girl,” One of the captors laughed.

  “But it can be if you want,” My tall, blue-eyed captor bent down and whispered near my ear. His voice was half man and half low growl. The tone stirred a primal fear deep inside the pit of my stomach making my muscles tense.

  “My name is Karine, but everyone calls me Kar,” I responded, not knowing exactly what to say to the man I bartered with for my friend's lives. The rules of abduction rolled in my mind. Don't let them get you alone was already blown, make yourself a real person, and find a way to escape.

  “You let these friends call you by this odd sounding name?” He asked.

  I shrugged my shoulders, removed my jacket and my white shirt, and dropped them on the ground. Blue was walking behind me. She picked up my clothes and hurried to catch up with me.

  “No, Karine put your shirt back on, hold your jacket, this isn't a dream you idiot. Straighten up.”

  “Ah, Blue Bell, how I hated you. Your perfect smile and that long hair of yours, but when your face started to break out, we all hated you a tiny bit less.”

  “Karine!” Blue hissed, pushing my hand into the armhole of my blouse.

  “They are just going to eat us. “I threw my arms up at the sky and spun around, stirring up a thick dust cloud. “These are the Reds we were warned about,” I yelled. “They eat young women. That's why the bodies of the taken are never found.” There was a low rumbling of sobbing, and the caravan began to slow down.

  “Damn it, woman, we are not going to eat you. Drink some water.” My captor and I stood still in a shadow while the others passed us by. He handed me a metal cylinder as if I knew what to do with it. “Drink,” he commanded.

  “Drink what?” I asked, confused.

  “Look, clean water.” He poured clear water from the container into his mouth. I grabbed the odd-looking cylinder and copied his movements.

  “We don't use containers like this, they would need to be cleaned. We use refreshment stations with reclaimed containers. If this water is poisoned, leave me out here, so someone can find my body,” I requested, buttoning the last little button on my shirt.

  “It's clean water, not poison. If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't waste water to do it. I have a knife.” The young man produced a short, fixed blade knife from a sheath on his belt.

  “So, you do kill helpless girls. I'm not even sixteen yet. You would technically be killing a helpless child.” I contorted my face to mimic a choking death.

  “How do you say these awful things with such a pretty face?” he asked with genuine confusion crinkling the skin around his eyes.

  “How do I say awful things?” I laughed and kicked at a pile of dirt at my feet. “Do I hurt your feelings?” I yelled.

  Something let loose in my mind—I wanted to fight. I wanted to see how far I could push him. “You're an animal,” I yelled at the sky. “You haven't even told me your name. My arm has glass in it from the car window. Your people shot my fiancé.” I stopped walking and kicked at the dirt with my boots again.

  I spun around and poked my captor in the bicep. “They won't stop looking for us, you know.” He leaned close and inspected the wound on my arm. “This stupid shit of yours is going to tear apart my family and my entire township.” I pounded on his chest and dropped my hands to my sides when I saw it had no effect.

  He nodded his head and looked indifferently at me. “Are you done?”

  “Not even. I might throw up. I need to pee, and if I get any hotter, I'm going to crap all over this canyon floor.”

  “Well, where to start, I'm not going to hurt you. My name is Noah,” he said, moving his backpack to the ground. “We can stop here for water and your personal needs.” Noah handed me a thick piece of salted meat. I smelled it and gnawed a bit from the end.

  “If this is drugged, you're going to have to carry me. Better yet, just leave my corpse here in the dirt, but either way I will piss all over the place in a few minutes,” I yelled.

  “I understand my options, now let's find you a private spot.” Noah led me to the edge of the cliff face, there was a narrow path to a sizeable landing with nowhere else to go but over the side. I was handed a bundle of fabric strips and left to my task.

  “You can look away now. I can't go anywhere from here.” I yelled behind me.

  “What if you fall over the edge?” The young man questioned while looking around at the vast open miles of sand.

  “Are you going to fly down and save me? Turn around pervert.” This was not a dignified activity by any means, but it was made all the more frustrating by the total lack of privacy or usual accommodations.

  “Fine! But I would save you if I could, and your information about us is totally wrong. We don't eat people, and we can't fly.” Noah turned his back to me grinding his heal sharply in the rock as he turned.

  I found a shaded nook between the rock wall and the edge and squatted down.

  SURVIVORS REMORSE

  “In breaking news, a brawl broke out in the township of Mid Valley. Authorities were summoned to the East commerce square at half-past nine this evening with reports of multiple gunshots fired.

  “Several witnesses reported the abduction of four young women. At the time, a small crowd celebrated the successful execution of the area’s most recently convicted murderer. Reports are still trickling in from the scene, but there are three citizens confirmed dead and twelve injured so far.”

  “Jason. Jason, wake up.” Difference was in the ambulance with me. His frantic tone pulled me from my forced sleep, bringing along all the pain I was escaping. “They took her. They took Karine. We have to go after her, they have been gone for half an hour now.” Diff explained excitedly.

  “Take my phone. Call my grandfather, tell him everything, then call Kar's parents. We have to get men out looking for her,” I explained.

  “I’ve called your grandfather. He's on his way to the medical station now. He wanted to be the one to tell Kar's family.”

  “She was in the car. I should have driven off. I stayed to fight them. I should have run.” This was my fault. “She would be safe at home if I didn't ta
ke her out tonight.”

  “You did what you needed to do. The Reds only got away with four this time. In past years they took ten or more women,” Diff explained.

  “Who else did they take? Was there any with lineage, we need men to overwhelm the Red encampments,” I asked, surveying the injuries I could feel.

  “They took Blue Bell Tilley, and people are saying two other young girls are missing from the crowd.”

  “That's good the Tilley's will pull in the Coopers and the Winslows. We need the most current air surveillance to find them. We need to get the local armies on the right encampment.” I could see the local military grid in my mind, the list of families that would band together to find Karine was large.

  “Did you get a tracker on her commerce bracelet?” Diff asked, rubbing his bruised arm.

  “No. Damn it, I opted for health information instead. Get it hacked. Tell Dredge what you need. He can give you access to my room. The packaging with all the device information is on my desk still.

  “She traded herself for me Diff. She bargained with that animal for my life. I tried to shoot them, but I was out of bullets. I could have killed her. I could barely see to shoot straight before I passed out.”

  “Keep that shit to yourself. Don't tell anyone else you fired even one round. People died and the authorities want a reason to take guns from the civilian class. We were drinking, and we were fired upon. That's all the story we have to tell.” I nodded in agreement. Diff brought up a touchy situation that I hadn't fully considered.

  “Tell my grandfather what happened, all of it, he will know what to do.” We reached the medical station quickly. The main hospital was over twenty minutes away and government-run. My grandfather called in his private physicians and a plastic surgeon to meet me at the local facility for treatment.

  The families pulled together and mobilized over a hundred men, including Kar's brother and father. Karine's mother, Rose, had to be sedated and occupied the room a few doors down from mine. Even the Tilly women were joining the rescue efforts. With the local government's help, the newly formed militia set out towards the closest Red stronghold.