Extinction Level Event (Book 4): Rescue

by Jones, K. J.

  3.

  Stanton’s yoo-hoo at the piazza door.

  “Thought you couldn’t go anywhere without Robert,” Jayce said as he unbolted.

  “We have other escorts.”

  Phebe stepped out onto the piazza to watch what was going on. She spooned peanut butter into her mouth from a plastic jar.

  Jayce opened the door. Stanton had on one of his outfits. Phebe smiled. He matched excruciatingly well. Still clean and well-groomed.

  Manuel wore a bold floral blouse that he could pull off with his wavy-haired Latino looks.

  There were more people following them in.

  A man in his late fifties-early sixties. Eyes blue. Skin pink. His graying hair showed to be blond at the lower areas by his neck. It was the most prevalent coloration for white Southerners – blond, blue, pink – Phebe had observed.

  With the man came a teenage girl. Her blue eyes wide to look around. Blond hair in two braids. At least she looked unwashed. Her clothes had the decency of being a bit grimy.

  The next middle-aged man carried an AK-47, in addition to two handguns. The holsters had thigh straps, making him look as if he was of a whole other level. He had the usual white Southern coloration.

  Coming through the door, AK-man looked Jayce up and down with a scowl and frown. Then gave Stanton and Manuel a wide berth to get around them, nearly sneering at them in the process.

  “Hi, y’all,” undaunted Stanton cheered.

  Jayce chuckled at Stanton’s bubbliness. He bolted the door behind them.

  AK-man looked at each one of the group in the same up-and-down manner. Phebe cocked a brow when he did so to her.

  Angela came out, wiping her hands on an apron. “Who do we have here?”

  “Darling.” Stanton air-kissed her.

  Nia laughed at her mother’s surprise until it was her turn for air kisses.

  Stanton took a step towards Phebe.

  “Don’t,” she said.

  He cleared his throat and backed away. Fast recovery to a big, expensive white teethed smile. “Let me introduce. This is our Dr. Jenkins and his lovely daughter Karen.”

  “Hi,” Karen gave an awkward wave.

  “Good to meet y’all.” The doctor shook hands with Angela.

  “Angela Jackson.”

  “Good to meet you, Angela. Justin Jenkins.”

  “I’m Nia Jackson and that’s my brother Jayce.”

  “Karen, come over and meet people. Be sociable, girl.”

  Phebe eyed AK-man. “Stanton.” She gestured her head to him.

  “And this heavily armed man is our Mr. Henderson.”

  He nodded, acting tough. His body language told not to touch him.

  “This frightening yet beautiful young woman is our Phebe … um, what’s your surname, dear?”

  “Sullivan.”

  Brows raised from her group. She had never presented by her married name before. Not that she had so much time to do so since being married.

  “I heard y’all are looking for maps of the river.” Henderson lowered a long bag he carried. “I got what you need. And radios.”

  4.

  The pharmacy was a disappointment. The looting team moved to the store in which they had previously acquired clothes. All clear on the route there. Eerily quiet and still. Robert stood guard at the door as the others went in.

  “Hello?” Mazy yelled into the silence. “Come out if you’re here.”

  “Is that how you do it?” Ben smirked.

  “Yes, it is.”

  Tyler ran the aisles, checking for anyone, man or beast, then the stock and employee rooms in the back. “All clear.”

  Mazy and Brandon lowered their empty duffel bags.

  “Let the loot begin,” Brandon said.

  “Do you know her size?” Mazy asked.

  “She gave me a range.”

  “Smart girl. She’s learning. Follow.”

  Brandon entered the female section, previously taboo for a man, especially the underwear section. It was a store geared towards the outdoorsy types. No frilly lingerie to make him feel more of a pervert.

  Mazy’s practiced hands went to work. She grabbed packets of women’s underwear first.

  “You can go bigger,” she explained to Brandon. “But never smaller.”

  Brandon’s slow hands showed his lack of experience.

  “Faster, Marine.”

  “Trying. I gotta see labels.”

  “Toss the smaller sizes, the two’s and shit, outta the way. Grab everything above size six and below triple X.”

  He sped up with the new directions, shoving clothes into his duffel. Mazy snapped plastic hangers to shove hanging clothes into her bag, rather than wasting time by removing the clothes from the hanger.

  Ben and Tyler went to work in the male section.

  “Assume none of this will be here later, Pell,” Mazy said.

  Filled duffels slid into the main walkway.

  Rucksacks came down from the walls and filled with camping items. A no-money-world did have its perks.

  “Calling it,” announced Ben. “We have filled the Subaru Crosstrek. Want anymore and you are walking back.” The Crosstrek was a smaller SUV.

  “Move out, Pell,” said Mazy. “We’re done.”

  “Okay.” His first store loot successfully concluded.

  5.

  “Whoa,” said Ben. “There’s more people.”

  “Meet the neighbors,” responded Jayce.

  Mazy told Brandon, “The loot goes straight inside for sorting and distribution.”

  “Gotcha.” He craned his neck to look at the new people while he walked inside through an open window, duffels, and rucksacks hanging off of him.

  Maps lay all over the piazza floor with Phebe knelt in the middle, studying them.

  While Dr. Jenkins and Karen were friendly and warm, Henderson looked Mazy and Ben up and down in the same wary way.

  “Y’all the Marines?” he asked after introductions.

  “We are,” answered Mazy.

  He nodded. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

  Ben didn’t care. He had radios. Even throat mics. And he was determined to get the intel on the HAM radio.

  Henderson chose a seat far from the gay men. Any time Stanton was too loud, he cut a cold glare at them.

  Mazy joined Phebe on the floor.

  “There are multiple routes they could have taken,” said Phebe. “Here’s the island. And here’s us.”

  “If they were being hunted,” said Mazy, “they’d take a less frequented route. We don’t know what kind of boat they had.”

  Brandon stood in the window. Emily, Angela, and Nia sorted clothes in the room behind him.

  “The possibility of them having made it…” He received glares to shut up. “Then we should start at the island and search outward, heading towards here.”

  “That’s good,” said Mazy. Her volume raised, “Raven, do we got enough daylight to start the search and rescue now?”

  Ben looked up at the sky. “We’re not even at noon yet.”

  Dr. Jenkins asked, “You’re searching for more people?”

  “Yes, sir,” responded Ben. “Close friends.”

  Henderson said, “I can help you with it. I’ve fished the rivers before.”

  “We’d appreciate it, sir.”

  But Henderson’s beady eyes stared at him as if trying to figure him out.

  Ben ignored it. “Pell, how good are you at hot wiring boats?”

  6.

  The refugee island was wreckage. Scorched ground. Charred lumber stood in right-angle shapes. The black masses had been houses. Not a single thing remained unharmed. Every tree and blade of grass gone. The island was as flat as if an atomic bomb had dropped.

  “Jesus Christ,” Brandon muttered.

  “Focus,” Phebe ordered. “We start at their starting point. Where would they go from here?”

  Her hair was held back with a hairband. She wanted nothing to get i
n her way. Her brown eyes burned with intensity.

  “Phebe, you know this is a long shot. Look at what happened.”

  “Pell, I will seriously hurt you if you don’t follow the plan and shut up. I’m serious.”

  “Why are you threatening me with violence?”

  “Shut up and drive.”

  “I’m driving.” The motor roared. The skiff moved forward. “Anyone ever tell you, you have issues?”

  “Shut up and drive.”

  “Yes, Miss Daisy.”

  “Pell,” Ben barked.

  “I’ll be quiet and steer.”

  Phebe scanned back and forth over the muddy river water, searching for any sign.

  Ben signaled up a river.

  “Aye-aye, Mister Daisy.”

  “Now the asshole thinks he has a sense of humor.”

  “Wish he’d shut up,” she responded.

  “I’d have Ty shoot him in the leg, but it would be unproductive for us.”

  “We’ll save it for later.”

  Ben smiled at her.

  The skiff raced down a broad river. Gators entered and exited the banks, appearing like a nature documentary of a landscape somewhere in South America.

  “They’d head north,” said Phebe.

  “I’d keep away from these broad rivers.” Ben turned around. “Pell, heads up. There’s sunk boats ahead.”

  “We really need the Molly’s equipment out here.”

  “We’re not going back,” said Phebe.

  “Man,” said Tyler. “If you don’t stop being negative, dude.”

  “Whatever. I’ll shut up and drive the boat.”

  Chapter Four

  1.

  “Can I sleep in here with you?” Tyler asked from the doorway.

  “Yeah. C’mon.” Phebe patted beside her. “The bed’s big enough.”

  He closed the door and showed no reluctance in climbing into the queen-sized bed with her.

  She wondered about this new vulnerable child side of him coming out. Maybe he felt the void like she did. Peter and the guys were the center of their group since the catastrophe began. The idea of living without them … it was beyond anything imaginable.

  She rolled over, not wanting to think about it. Or think about anything. That was the torture of night in a bed, trying to sleep. The nefariousness of the mind chewing on things that should be left alone.

  She punched the pillow and rested her head back on it. Memories. Thinking. She sat up. This wasn’t working. The boy seemed asleep. Good for him.

  2.

  Sunlight through the closed window drapes woke Tyler. The room smelled of a fire that had burned through the night. He looked around for Phebe. She wasn’t in the bed. But then he noticed a loveseat that had been against the wall was now in front of the fireplace.

  “Why are you there?” he asked, standing in front of the loveseat.

  Phebe looked uncomfortable. Too tall for a loveseat. But she had fallen asleep there. “Just felt better here.”

  “Okay.”

  She picked up her head and looked at the windows. “Shit. It’s late.”

  “It’s dawn. We’re still good.”

  “We need to get out on the rivers now.”

  “I gotta piss first.”

  She sighed. The bathroom issue. She eyed the cleaned porcelain chamber pot with hatred. An antique. But one whose usage should never have been applicable again. Tyler would just piss off the piazza balcony, knowing him. But the poo issues would come soon.

  She groaned.

  A moment passed. She shot up and ran to the chamber pot where she puked.

  Chapter Five

  Day Four in Charleston

  1.

  They took their own skiff to avoid Brandon’s negativity. He had another skiff and took another river. Emily was with him. She’d keep him in line to continue the search.

  Angela had packed them food. Beans and rice with tinned corn in plasticware. A jar of peanut butter for Phebe. Though the nights were chilly enough to use the fireplaces, the coastal South Carolina days were warm. Even hot at times. Spring came early to the Deep South. All of their food and water would heat up.

  It was day four. The likelihood the guys and Heidi were still alive was slim. Phebe was aware of this. But she had to know for sure.

  They had the doctor with them. Henderson was too much of a pain in the ass to deal with, so he was on a third skiff. Mazy had him.

  Phebe sat in the bow. The hairband keeping her hair from slapping her in the face as the boat sped down the river. Alligators came and went from the banks.

  “We’ll have to start hunting them.” Ben sat near her. “Get some fresh meat. Wish we had somebody who had done that before with us.”

  She scanned back and forth.

  The bow bumped something.

  Tyler decreased throttle. “Was that anything I care about?”

  “Floater,” Phebe yelled back.

  A floater was a dead body. They were still in the water. They looked and smelled worse than ever.

  Vultures and other carrion birds hung out in trees. Ben expressed his thoughts that they were inland birds. Sea birds – egrets and such – were few. The gassings probably got them, as happened to the brown pelicans in North Carolina.

  Phebe didn’t care about the wildlife. She looked for anything – anything at all – that indicated the guys and Heidi. It would be too cruel if they entirely disappeared, just vanished, and she would never know.

  “Whoa.” She stood up and signaled for a stop.

  “What do you see?” Ben asked, standing and trying to get his landloper legs balanced.

  “Pink. There.”

  He followed her point.

  “What is it?” the doctor asked.

  “Our friend wore a pink hoody last we saw her,” said Ben. “Ty, see it?”

  “Affirm. Head to it?”

  “Yes.”

  At a slow pace, Tyler steered towards the floating bit of pink in a current of brown. He cut the engine. Phebe and Ben moved to the side. The doctor hurried to the opposite side of the boat to prevent too much unnerving tilt. The gator-filled rivers were not his comfort zone.

  “Crap,” said Ben. “I see long hair.”

  Phebe grabbed a boat hook and plunged it into the water.

  “Oh, God.” The doctor vomited over the opposite side.

  “Jesus.” Ben covered his mouth and backed away until he fell onto a seat.

  “Is it her?” Tyler asked.

  “I believe so,” said Phebe. “It’s her university hoody. Long hair.”

  The rest of the corpse was unidentifiable. Face bloated and blackened beyond any recognition. Eye sockets empty. Skin coming away in sheets.

  She let the body re-enter the water.

  “We should do something for her,” said Ben, looking green.

  “I don’t think anyone should see this.” She yanked the hook free and pushed the body under. “Nobody needs that.”

  Her gaze moved to the banks.

  “How far could the current bring her?” she asked Ben.

  “How fast is it?”

  “There’s some trick with knots to tell speed.” The doctor wiped his mouth with his shirttail.

  Ben said, “The current is going this way. So we keep going that way. Slow, Ty.”

  “Roger that.”

  Several minutes and they found a sunken skiff caught up in the roots of a tree that grew out of the water. As they closed in, they could see it was only the bow. The nose tilted towards the sky. The rest of the boat missing. It bobbed when they touched it.

  Ben examined the fiberglass remains. “This was blown up. I’d bet money a missile did it based on the nature of the blast damage. Or an RPG, but I don’t think those were being used. The explosion definitely wasn’t from within the boat. It came at it.”

  Panic threatened. Phebe fought to remain in control and unemotional.

  Ben took up the radio and relayed their location and finding He
idi’s remains. This was the right river.

  The other search boats responded they were on their way.

  Phebe looked back at Tyler. His face hardened. A scowl and a deep frown. She wanted to go to him and hold him. But she’d lose it. So she remained in the bow and looked forward, scanning for any more signs.

  There was nothing for over ten minutes as the skiff went against the current. Only the usual debris that could not be identified as coming from any individual boat.

  “Look.” Ben pointed.

  She saw carrion birds in the sky. The circle they did when they found food. Or something that would soon be food.

  “There’s a smoke column,” Ben said. “Ty, that way. Faster.”

  The boat picked up speed. Then cut towards the river’s edge. A grove of trees covered the bank.

  The doctor startled and yelped as the hull scraped over something in the shallower water.

  Tyler quickly raised the outboard for the prop to avoid hitting the hard object. They had encountered so many underwater things during the searches that he knew how to avoid losing the engine.

  Looking over the side, Ben said, “It’s a piece of a boat. The same boat, I think.”

  “Look!” Phebe stood so fast, she nearly toppled everyone. She pointed. “A shirt.”

  It hung on a branch over the water in a position that wouldn’t happen naturally. The branch went through the armholes, holding the shirt upright.

  Scraping over the piece of boat, the hull cleared. Tyler lowered the engine and the boat progressed towards the shirt.

  It was a bright blue t-shirt, large, 3X at least. She laughed. The logo on the front was the Carolina Panthers.

  “It’s Chris’s,” Phebe said. “He wore t-shirts under his uniform. That’s one of them.”

  Ben smiled. “Who the hell else would have a fat man’s Carolina Panthers shirt out here?”

  “There’s a clearing just there, Ty.”

  Tyler turned the boat towards it.

  An alligator grew annoyed by a boat coming aground within feet of it.

  “Gator,” said Ben. “Get out the other side.” He protectively helped Phebe, despite she nearly leaped over the gunwale onto the muddy ground.

  Her boots sunk deep. She yanked them out. He tried to assist. But she was out of the mud and running towards the campfire they now clearly saw.