Survival Instinct (Book 5): Social Instinct

by Stittle, Kristal

  Angela opened her mouth, ready to snap off another insult, but Crichton cut her off. “A child showed up, starving and weak. We took him in, not knowing he was a plant for the raiders. He somehow got word out to them about the layout of our place. They came in during the night, captured several people, beat some, killed a few, and then ordered us out of our home without any supplies.”

  “Why are you telling this asshole everything?” Angela grumbled to Crichton. “She could be one of them.”

  Sherlock bristled.

  “Angela, there’s no need to mis-gender him,” Crichton told her, his voice just as calm as when he spoke to Sherlock. “If he is one of them, then he would know this already.”

  “You’re a bitch,” Sherlock told Angela.

  Angela looked like she was about to get up and lunge across the fire at Sherlock, but Harry placed a firm hand on her shoulder, and whispered something in her ear.

  “I take it these raiders didn’t know that you had another place to go.” Sherlock turned back to Crichton. “It must have been attacked by one massive herd of zombies. That slime trail is the largest I’ve ever seen. Probably why you sent out a bunch of groups. I’m guessing where you live is hurting.”

  “We’re talking an awful lot about ourselves,” Misha finally spoke up again. “Why don’t you tell us where you’re from? What you’re doing in the area? Where you planned to go after you kidnapped one of my dogs?” That last question was unnecessary, but Misha was still feeling rather prickly.

  Sherlock shrugged. The gesture was so nonchalant that it was irritating. “I lived in a community farther west and a ways north. They were of the same mindset as that one.” He pointed to Angela. “I decided it was better for me to leave. I wandered around for a while, trying to find a good place to fit in. Some communities were pretty good, but when I didn’t like it there, I moved on. When I came across all the zombie debris, I decided to see where it led. Better to know where the herd was so that I could avoid it in the future. Then I saw all your groups heading out, and I figured you had been hit by the dead. I already told you why I decided to follow you. As for where I would go afterward, I don’t know. The real question is, what are you going to do with me now?”

  “That is the question,” Crichton agreed.

  “I say we tie rocks to his ankles and chuck him in the lake,” Angela suggested. When she had used the male pronouns, she looked at Crichton to show that she was complying with what he had said. A bit of her hostility was now directed at the commander.

  “There’s no need for that,” Harry told her. “He hasn’t done anything to us.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Misha muttered. They hadn’t felt the paranoia that he had, or wondered if they were losing their minds. They hadn’t been nearly paralyzed by fear, discovering that Rifle was off beyond the fence.

  “What would you like to do?” Ki-Nam unexpectedly asked Misha. “You are the most aggrieved party here. It is your dogs Sherlock intended to steal.”

  Misha shifted uncomfortably under the gaze of the others. Even Crichton was looking at him, wondering what his answer would be. Misha didn’t know what he wanted done. He hadn’t thought about it. His plan had ended with bringing Sherlock to Crichton, and doing whatever the man decided needed to be done.

  Turning his head, Misha met Sherlock’s gaze. Sherlock was clearly trying to appear impassive like Crichton, even disinterested, yet there was fear within Sherlock’s rigid posture. Misha, returning his attention to Rifle who was lying comfortably with his head on his lap, knew that Sherlock hadn’t harmed his friend in any way. He had had no intention to cause harm, which Misha supposed should count for something.

  “Do people really call you Sherlock, or is that a name you gave yourself?” Misha asked. It was a stall tactic as he worked through the various options he could think up.

  “People did actually call me Sherlock. I like the name.”

  “Why did they call you that?”

  “Because I’m observant. I have a good memory and can put things together based on what I see.” He had shown them a bit of that with his deductions about them.

  “Are you sure it’s not because you’re self-centred?” Misha didn’t realize he was speaking aloud until after the words were out.

  Sherlock shifted in place. “That might be why some of them used the moniker,” he admitted.

  “We should tie him up and decide what to do in the morning,” Misha finally suggested. He was exhausted, too tired to come up with any real solution to their predicament.

  “Very well,” Crichton agreed.

  “Come on, now, it’s not exactly easy to sleep while tied up,” Sherlock complained, as the others began to move.

  “Good,” Angela grumbled, kicking dirt onto the low fire.

  Ki-Nam grabbed Sherlock’s large bag and proceeded to yank it off his shoulders.

  “Easy! Easy.” Sherlock pulled his arms in, letting the pack slip off. They were then pulled behind his back as Misha tied his wrists together. He then hauled Sherlock upright and patted him down. Sherlock flinched a few times, as Misha was very thorough. He wasn’t going to take any chances, and this wasn’t the time to be polite. Sherlock kept his mouth shut, perhaps understanding that Misha’s intentions weren’t actually meant to be hostile, and definitely weren’t sexual.

  The search produced a climbing axe on his belt and a knife in his boot which was removed during the process, then Misha frogmarched Sherlock over to the cart. There, he was made to sit beside it. His ankles were tied up, and the bindings around his wrists were tied to a wheel axle. He had enough slack to either sit up or lie down, but not much else.

  “Am I at least allowed to have something for a pillow?” Sherlock wondered.

  “You tried to kidnap my dog,” was the only reply Misha gave him.

  It was still his turn to keep watch. Misha settled his dogs, making sure they were all close this time. He even fed them all a little bit, hoping that would convince them not to wander off. He worried that maybe Sherlock hadn’t been alone, and that someone else was going to try the same trick.

  He kept awake by walking circles around the camp, staggering his speed and how widely he walked a circuit. By the time he switched with Crichton, it appeared that Sherlock had managed to fall asleep. Still, Misha watched him as he crawled under the cart. Other than shifting a little bit, with the changing of the guard, their prisoner didn’t move or say anything.

  Misha would have liked to keep an eye on him all night, but his exhaustion got the better of him and weighed down his eyelids.

  ***

  Misha picked through the debris with his whole dog pack. He was searching for anything of interest that they might have missed on the far side of the new lake. With Crichton leading Sherlock around, the prisoner was safe from Angela’s hostilities, and Misha wanted some time to himself to think about their options. Or rather his options. In the morning, Crichton hadn’t changed his mind, and seemed to insist that Misha decide what to do with the would-be thief. There had to be something they could do that would satisfy Misha, without disappointing Crichton or setting off Angela’s fury. It had become sort of a diplomatic situation, and Misha had always hated diplomacy. Sometimes he thought back to the Day, when it was just him and Rifle, and he didn’t have to worry about what anyone else wanted. Of course, those hours were filled with pain, terror, and confusion, so he never really missed them. He sometimes missed Riley’s cabin, though. Had that tree never fallen on the greenhouse, they could’ve made a good go of it, especially if Shawn had never shown up. Mathias, Alec, and Tobias would probably all still be alive. But if Shawn had never come, then Riley would never have been reunited with Cameron, and Abby would never have known that Lauren was still alive. Josh’s rivalry with Mathias would have gotten worse with time, Danny would never be around people his own age, and Hope wouldn’t have been born in a place stocked with medical gear—safer if something went wrong.

  Beside Misha, Rifle chuffed. The dog was loo
king up at him with concern. Misha had been standing still, lost in his thoughts.

  “Sorry, bratishka.” He gave Rifle’s ears a scratch. Bullet and a few of the other dogs saw this and wanted in too, so Misha gave them various scratches, pats, and rubs as well. Spring was not one of the dogs to come over, which was strange. Misha instantly feared that she had been taken, but that fear didn’t last long. She wasn’t far, sniffing intently at the ground. Had she found a rat’s nest?

  Misha walked over to Spring, calling to her as he got close. She raised her head at the sound of her name, but her ears and tail remained drooped with concern. Misha was just near enough to hear her whine, and so sped up when she lowered her head once more.

  It was not a rat’s nest that Spring had found. Sticking up through some of the Black Box debris was a hand. An animal must have been at it at some point, as much of the flesh had been stripped away. Ants were working on the rest.

  The dogs all took turns sniffing it while Misha found some rocks small enough for him to lift, but large enough to cover the hand. It must have been a raider, the rest of him buried beneath the surface, but Misha thought that he nevertheless deserved a better burial. The ants would still be able to get at the hand, and likely more, but there was nothing Misha could do about that.

  The raider’s hand had given him an idea about what to do with Sherlock, however.

  After rounding up his dog pack, Misha began to make his way back around the lake. He noticed a sort of irritation in his dogs that he hadn’t picked up on before due to his wandering mind. It was the same nervous nature they got when they thought a bad storm was coming. Misha didn’t know whether that meant they would be hit by one or not. Often they were right, but a few times they had been wrong, and the storm simply passed them by.

  Misha found Crichton sitting with Sherlock at the cart. Sherlock’s hands were still tied, in front of him now, and his ankles were free. The rope that had tied him to the cart axle remained attached, but now the other end was in Crichton’s hands. It was somewhat satisfying to see Sherlock leashed the way he had leashed Rifle.

  “Where’s Angela?” Misha asked.

  Crichton pointed. “Why do you need her?”

  “I want her to hear what I’ve decided to do with Sherlock.”

  Sherlock had been attempting to relax against the cart until that point. Now, he stood up straight, his fingers nervously scratching at the rope that bound his wrists. His brown eyes, so much darker than Misha’s ghostly pale blue ones, studied his face, trying to read Misha’s intent. It made Misha uncomfortable, but he understood that he would do the same if their positions were reversed.

  Crichton looked up to study the sky. “Should be lunch time soon. We’ll wait until everyone’s together.” Then his face pinched, his usual placid expression turning momentarily into a frown.

  “What’s wrong?” Misha looked up, trying to see what he was seeing.

  “There’s a storm coming,” Sherlock answered instead. “A bad one.”

  “I think he might be right,” Crichton agreed as he studied the cloud patterns.

  “The dogs think so,” Misha admitted.

  “Does that affect your decision?” Crichton asked him.

  “Maybe.” Misha shrugged, deciding not to elaborate further for the time being.

  When Ki-Nam eventually came over to join them, he was certain a storm was coming. He had climbed the fallen crane as Misha had yesterday, and had gotten high enough to see the storm clouds. He was rather concerned about them.

  “I don’t think we’re staying here much longer,” Crichton informed him, with a glance at Misha because he didn’t know Misha’s plan. “We’ll find a safe place to shelter.”

  Harry and Angela returned to the cart not much later. Once everyone had piled their finds onto yesterday’s gatherings, the cart became rather full. Crichton handed out equal portions of food for their lunch, including to Sherlock. He also gave Misha a second portion to distribute to his dogs, which was a little surprising. It wasn’t much once divided nine ways, but maybe after what had happened the night before, Crichton had decided that they should be fed a little better.

  “So what’s this plan you’ve come up with?” Angela asked while they ate. Crichton had mentioned that Misha had an idea while he handed out the food.

  “You said you’re observant,” Misha turned to Sherlock. “That means you should be good at tracking, right?”

  “Yes.” Sherlock’s eyes never left Misha’s face.

  “Are you good enough to track the raiders who left here?”

  Sherlock shrugged. “Depends on what’s left. After the coming storm, it’s not going to be much, if anything.”

  Misha turned back to the group. “We’re worried about where they went, right? Sherlock can show us. We’re not likely to find them, not with the storm coming, but we can at least get a good idea of which way they went.”

  Was that a smile that pulled ever so slightly at Crichton’s lips?

  “And what do we do with this turd afterward?” Angela gestured at Sherlock with her chin.

  “Let him go. No one was hurt. Helping us ease our fears about the remaining raiders will be payment for what he tried to do.” It seemed like a good trade to Misha: cause a fear, alleviate a fear. As long as the raiders weren’t heading for the container yard, that was.

  “Will I get my stuff back?” Sherlock gestured to his bag, which was sitting on the cart’s driving board.

  “You will,” Harry spoke up, firm in his words so that the others knew he would fight them if they wanted to decide differently. “We’re not thieves.”

  “We should get going then. We want to use all the time we have to move before the storm comes,” Ki-Nam told them.

  It didn’t take long to get going. The horses, Potato and Thumper, were hooked up to the cart while the fence opening was widened again. Most of their stuff was still packed, and it didn’t take Misha long to gather up what hadn’t been. Harry and Angela scanned the area around their camp one last time to make sure nothing was forgotten. While all this was going on, Crichton had taken Sherlock out into the fields to find the start of the trail. It took a little while, because the raiders had apparently moved about outside the fences quite a bit, but Sherlock eventually led them away from the Black Box. Misha doubted he would ever see the place again.

  They started by heading north-east, away from the direction of the container yard, which was a good sign. When they reached streets, Sherlock guided them straight north.

  “How will you know if they turned down one of these side streets?” Harry asked, curious.

  “I might not be able to tell,” Sherlock admitted. “It’s harder to track across paved areas. I look for footsteps in the areas where dirt’s accumulated, weeds and grasses that have been flattened, dead zombies left in their wake, buildings that have been recently broken into, that kind of stuff. These raiders of yours are interesting.”

  “In what way?” Harry was holding Sherlock’s leash, with Misha and Angela following closely behind. Crichton had chosen to guard the rear, and Ki-Nam drove the cart.

  “They left in two groups. A small one, I’m thinking three people, and a larger one that’s over a dozen.”

  “Which group are we following?” Angela immediately asked, glancing back over her shoulder, doubting that they were heading the right way.

  “Both.”

  “So the three are scouts,” Harry determined.

  “Sort of. They’re weird scouts, though.”

  “In what way?” This time Misha asked.

  “They’re a little gooey.”

  “Gooey?” Both Misha and Harry spoke at the same time.

  “I obviously can’t say for certain, but I think they disguised themselves as corpses. Wouldn’t be the first time I’d seen someone do that.”

  “Gross,” Angela wrinkled her nose. “Why would anyone do that? To hide from the zombies?”

  “No,” Sherlock shook his head. “The dead still
know. I’ve seen people do it as a way to hide from other people. At a distance, most can’t tell the difference.”

  “And a zombie at a distance can go by ignored,” Harry added. “The humans won’t bother hiding if they don’t think the dead have seen them.”

  “Right. I’ll bet your raiders first scoped out your place with people disguised as the dead before they sent that kid to you. Makes them easier to track though.” Sherlock pointed to a tiny stain, which Misha wasn’t going to admit he couldn’t really identify as anything. “To keep up appearances, the ones I’ve seen before tend to kill zombies fairly regularly. They use the corpses to keep up their shiny glisten. If they look fresh, they can walk more normally, because the dry ones tend to be slower and stagger about.”

  Misha had never spent that much time studying the zombies, and couldn’t say he had noticed. If it was near him, he killed it, and that was that.

  Harry was very interested in Sherlock’s tracking methods. Sherlock seemed to like the chance to show off, and so he freely told Harry all the objects he was looking at, even the things that weren’t tied to the raiders. Misha had to admit that Sherlock was seeing a lot more than he could. Hopefully the guy wasn’t bullshitting them all. His ‘signs’ could all be made up. He might be leading them in a random direction of his choosing, or worse, guiding them into a trap. The raiders had proven themselves capable of such deceit already.

  They passed an intersection, and Sherlock came to a stop.

  “What’s wrong?” Harry asked.

  “I lost the trail,” Sherlock said. He wandered back and forth across the street with Harry, like a dog searching for a scent. “They must have turned,” he decided.

  The east was checked first, partly due to the raiders’ original north-east course, and partly due to the fact that they hoped that that was the direction they had taken. But no signs were found. Sherlock looked to the west, and nodded.

  “You’re positive?” Misha asked.

  “Yeah. See, here’s another drip. And there, further along, there’s a footprint in those leaves.”