Survival Instinct (Book 5): Social Instinct

by Stittle, Kristal

  Misha guided the cart through unknown territory. He had no idea if he had walked these streets before, as none of them looked the same. He just kept searching for the next opening, and the next opening, with the horses panting as they built up a lather.

  It wasn’t until he had stopped seeing zombies for several minutes that Misha finally brought the horses to a slow walk. Their muscles jumped and jittered beneath their harnesses, and their snorts came out hard and loud. When was the last time that they had eaten more than the small handfuls of grain Ki-Nam had offered inside the bank?

  Misha looked all about, attempting to orient himself. But the clouds hid the sun’s exact location, and nothing looked right. Casting all about, Misha couldn’t see any of his dogs that weren’t on the cart. How long had he been driving the horses? How far had he gone?

  Patting Rifle’s head, Misha comforted himself with the knowledge that he wasn’t alone. His bratishka was with him, as were Trigger, her puppies, Thumper, and Potato. He was not alone. But he was hopelessly lost, and night was coming.

  27: Claire

  9 Days After the Bombing

  Drifting in and out of a series of dreams and nightmares had Claire even more exhausted the next morning than just staying up late would have. But by now, she was used to feeling that way. In the soft grey light that marked the daytime, she reviewed her dreams. They were all completely different, involving fantastic landscapes, and friendly people. She then reviewed her nightmares. There were a lot of mannequins and narrow hallways in those.

  “You awake?” Rose whispered, lying only inches away.

  Claire nodded and turned her head to face her.

  Rose slowly signed that she hadn’t been able to sleep either. Claire signed back that she had had nightmares about the mannequins, and Rose nodded, because she had had them too.

  Larson padded past them. His bare feet were muted further by the apartment’s area rug. He was moving from the front door, where he had probably been peering through the peephole, to the balcony door, where he could look out through the windows. Rose and Claire both tracked him with their eyes, and he nodded to acknowledge that he saw that they were awake.

  Claire wondered if Jon, Bryce, and Danny were awake too, or if they were managing to stay asleep. The start of the night had been the worst, when their mystery visitor created some more loud sounds to try to lure them out, including knocking more things over in the apartment above them. But after about an hour of no one stepping outside, whoever it was had given up and fallen silent. Maybe Claire was wrong, and maybe that had been the worst time, wondering what their stalker was up to. Claire bet whoever it was had slept just fine last night.

  Rose asked her what was the first thing she wanted to do when they got home. Claire told her that she wanted to bathe and then sleep until next year. Rose agreed that that sounded like a great idea. They signed back and forth for a bit, silently talking about the things they missed about home, both the container yard and the now destroyed Black Box. Their clothing whispered as their arms moved, which was enough to rouse Danny to sit up. After signing to them and Larson, he went outside onto the balcony to pee. The bathroom was rank with the scent of urine, so Claire was happy to see that the wind had slackened enough that they could go outside. She and Rose would probably go out together, taking turns holding onto one another while they sat on the railing and peed over the side. She told Rose this, and Rose nodded in agreement.

  When Danny came back in, Bryce and Jon were up, so there was no more need for sign language. The guys all took turns relieving themselves outside, and then clustered in the kitchen to give the girls what privacy they could.

  The air was damp but fresh, smelling strongly of salt and mud. It was still raining, but it was almost like a heavy mist now. Looking over the edge, Claire could see that the water had risen only an inch or two, if at all, in the night. It had certainly slowed its upward climb. Maybe it would finally start to recede. Maybe it already had. Claire certainly hoped so.

  “That’s a lot of water,” Rose said, looking over the side with her and giving a low whistle. “We must be in a really low spot or something.” All the houses were drowning. The skeletal branches the trees managed to thrust up above the water line, were mostly stripped of leaves by the wind, but still standing.

  “Too bad we didn’t think to investigate up on a hill. You don’t think we’re in a bowl do you? That the water won’t recede from here?”

  “Naw, it’ll recede. If we were in a bowl, this area probably would’ve been flooded long before we came to look around.”

  They worked together to safely empty their bladders, and in Rose’s case, her bowels.

  “After this, we’re friends for life,” Rose said once she had pulled her pants up, now wet both inside and out from the rain. “Neither of us can risk a fallin’ out, because we’ve seen too much.” She laughed and Claire couldn’t help but laugh with her.

  They both stopped laughing when the head of a mannequin, with its neck tied to a rope, came swinging at them from above. They both squawked as it narrowly missed striking them. After the back swing, it started to retreat upward.

  Claire and Rose both grabbed hold of the railing and twisted around to look up. The mannequin head was being swiftly withdrawn to the balcony two storeys above.

  “You motherfucker!” Rose screamed.

  Claire was tempted to run up there and finally confront the person, but she knew that they would be gone before she could reach them.

  “I’m gonna kill your ass!” Rose kept shouting as the head disappeared and the boys came to investigate. “You hear me? You’re dead! I’m gonna crush your puny little brain beneath my boots!”

  “What’s going on?” Jon demanded to know.

  Claire briefly explained while Rose threw some more insults skyward. When she was done, they all retreated back indoors.

  “I really hate that guy,” Rose fumed, shaking the water off herself.

  “Could be a girl,” Bryce mentioned.

  “Fuck that,” Rose snapped. “No girl would be that stupid. This is definitely some male bullshit.”

  No one thought it was worth it to argue with Rose, and therefore let her continue to rant and rave until she was out of steam. She ended by sitting down in a huff; the rocking chair she had chosen creaked from the force of it. It didn’t take long for Rose to start rocking back and forth, the motion helping to calm her.

  The smallest manageable breakfast was passed around. Since they didn’t plan on going anywhere, or doing anything, they shouldn’t need to eat much. Claire was still hungry when she finished, and it hadn’t done much to offset her exhaustion. Once the adrenaline had worn off from the flying mannequin head, she was even more tired. Despite the light, and everyone else awake nearby, she actually managed to take a brief nap. In fact, she thought it was because of those things that she was able to relax.

  When she next awoke, she felt a little better, but could tell that not much time had passed. Her mouth felt scuzzy, so she retrieved her toothbrush and cautiously went outside to brush. She looked up, down, and to both the left and the right, grateful not to spot anyone hanging over a balcony railing, watching her. She brushed her teeth quickly and then retreated back into the apartment.

  It was fairly silent inside. No one was talking; they were all just sitting around, not even fidgeting with anything. Rose wasn’t even rocking in the chair anymore. If it weren’t for the rain outside, and the rise and fall of their breathing, Claire could believe that time had frozen in this moment. All the seating was taken, so Claire stretched out on her sleeping mat once more. She wasn’t there long before Jon moved, sitting upright on the couch and looking about the room.

  “We should go explore some more,” he said.

  “And what? Set off more booby traps?” Danny sighed.

  “Yeah,” Jon actually agreed. “Every time we find his shit, we dismantle it, keep the good parts for ourselves, and chuck what we don’t want out into the storm. Two
of us stay here to guard our stuff, and the other four stick together out there. We never allow ourselves to be lured away from one another, and we prepare for surprises.”

  “Sounds better than sittin’ around here all day.” Rose nodded. “Besides, I’d love to steal that prick’s toys. Teach him not to fuck with people. Maybe I’ll even get to punch him in the face.”

  “So? Are there at least four of us willing to go exploring? We might even find some more food.”

  “I’ll go,” Claire decided. She had to admit that she didn’t like the idea of just sitting around the apartment all day. That would definitely lead to her going stir crazy.

  Rose was very enthusiastic about the idea, but Claire was a little surprised when Danny also volunteered.

  “Bryce? Larson? You guys good staying here by yourselves?” Jon asked them.

  “Yeah, we’ll be fine,” Bryce nodded.

  “Just knock when you get back, and we’ll check the peephole,” Larson added. “Unless you’re worried about being coerced or something?”

  “We should all be together so you’ll see us all at once. But just in case, if someone does get separated or taken or something, we’ll flip you off to let you know we’re there of our own accord,” Jon decided.

  “Sounds good.”

  Claire got up, making sure her knife was still secure in its sheath, and located her tire iron. Not having to bring their packs meant they were ready to go fairly quickly. Rose didn’t bother with her prosthetic, feeling the quarters were too tight for it to be of much use.

  “We’ll check the second floor again and work our way up?” Jon wondered once they were out in the hallway.

  “Why not,” Danny shrugged, as the locks snapped behind them.

  It was unsettling walking down the stairs, getting close to the water. When they reached the second floor, Claire looked over the railing at the water. It was uncomfortably closer than the last time she had been down there.

  On the second floor, the doors were all closed.

  “We definitely left these open,” Danny commented.

  They walked along the corridor, testing each door to see if it was still unlocked. Their ‘friend’ had been there, and might still be hiding in one of the apartments. None of the doors were locked, however, and nothing rushed out when they were opened. Despite having searched these apartments already, they agreed to give them another once over.

  When they searched the apartments, they quickly settled into a pattern. All four of them would stick together as they went into each room, making sure they were clear of both the dead and traps. They even opened closets while standing only a few feet from one another. Then, two of them would perform a more thorough search, while the other two stood by the doorway and watched the hall for anyone moving about. They tried to keep up a constant chatter among themselves, so that they could always hear and ascertain that the other pair was fine. There was very little that they had missed during the first search, although they still found the occasionally overlooked or hidden item. Even good stuff, such as medicine, batteries, rope, tape, lighter fluid, matches, and candles. It was a shame to leave all the toilet paper behind. Eventually they accumulated more than they could carry in their pockets, so they took a backpack from one apartment to stuff it all into.

  “I’m surprised we missed this much and that it’s still here,” Jon commented as he and Claire watched the hallway. They were halfway along, standing at the dogleg so that they could see down to both stairwell doors. They rotated who did what job. Claire preferred searching the apartments.

  “Of course we overlooked things, we were rushing yesterday. But why are you surprised it’s still here?”

  “We left the doors unlocked all night. I figured our friend with the mannequins would have come in here and taken all this stuff when he closed the doors.”

  “Probably too crazy to take what’s actually useful,” Rose called out from inside the apartment. “Probably too busy fuckin’ a hole he cut into one of his plastic people. Gettin’ off on the idea of scarin’ us some more.”

  Claire scrunched up her face. She’d rather not have had that mental image. “Gross.”

  “Rose, you’re truly disgusting sometimes,” Danny muttered, almost too quietly for Claire to make out.

  Although she preferred it when it was her turn to search an apartment, Claire still didn’t enjoy it. Even though all the rooms and closets were searched first as a group, she kept expecting some sort of surprise booby trap in one of the cupboards or drawers. Every time she opened one, her body tensed, ready to spring away from something being launched out of the confined space. She noticed that the others tended to do the same, even Danny, who hadn’t yet experienced one of the tricks. Strangely, the more times something wasn’t found, the more tense Claire became. Even though she told herself that it was silly, she couldn’t help but think that when they did come across something, it was going to be so much worse. Like pressure building up with the passage of time.

  The second floor turned out to be empty of traps, and everyone was fidgety.

  “Maybe he thought just closing the doors was enough to freak us out,” Danny suggested. “And he could have worried about the water rising up to this level, so he didn’t want to waste time on anything elaborate.”

  “That’s a good point.” Jon did a poor job of hiding the fact that he was nervous.

  “God, look at us,” Rose laughed, sounding a tiny bit forced. “All jittery like some scared kids in a haunted house. It’s not even dark out.” She gestured to the diffused light that entered the hallway from the apartments. They had made sure all the curtains were wide open, so as to provide the most light.

  “We should check out the third floor now,” Claire said, trying to sound tough. She didn’t feel tough.

  “Hey, remember that four poster bed?” Danny suddenly changed topics as he pointed toward an open apartment door.

  “What about it?” Jon asked him.

  “It’s the kind of bed where those posts can be unscrewed by hand. I checked. I think they’re long enough that we can use them to jam the stairwell doors shut from the outside.”

  “Why would we do that?” Rose asked the question, and Claire was glad that she wasn’t the only one confused by the suggestion.

  “Well, if the mannequin man is on this floor, we’ll have trapped him. If he isn’t, then he’ll have to move the bedposts to get to this floor, and we’ll be able to tell if he’s done that.”

  “I like that idea. We should do it.” Jon didn’t wait for the girls to agree, he just started walking toward the apartment with the four poster bed. Neither Claire nor Rose had any objections to the plan, however, and so followed closely behind him with Danny.

  Danny had been right about the bedposts being easy to unscrew. They each took a corner and twisted it loose. The decorative knob on top wasn’t even secured there, it just slid out of a slot. The posts were carried to the nearest stairwell, and once the door was shut, they tested to see if the size was good.

  “Perfect fit,” Danny grinned.

  It wasn’t exactly perfect to begin with, but the metal screw on the bottom of the post could be adjusted until it was. Once the bedpost was wedged between the door and the concrete lip at the edge of the stairs, they tried the door. It couldn’t be opened. Maybe if someone on the far side threw themselves into it the right way, the post would slip and that person could escape, but Claire liked having it there. She liked knowing that she could look down from the higher levels and see if the man with the mannequins had entered a floor they had already checked. Looking over the railing now, she saw that the water level had lowered while they had been searching, revealing a couple of the previously submerged steps. Claire found herself thinking about the two dead bodies she had found, the adult curled around the toddler. She had warned the others before they went in there again, and was glad to see that they remained unmolested by the mannequin man. She wished she could protect their final resting place with more tha
n just bedposts.

  “Now we gotta go around to the other side.” Jon led the way back up to what Claire considered their floor. They had unlocked some but not all the doors up there before settling into their chosen apartment for the night. As they moved to the other stairwell, they tested the handles, confirming the doors they had unlocked remained that way, and the ones they hadn’t were still bolted.

  “Guys?” Rose spoke to stop them. “I don’t remember us unlocking this one.” She pushed open the door to the apartment beside the one Bryce and Larson were protecting.

  “That’s because we didn’t unlock it,” Danny confirmed. “Shouldn’t be surprised though. Of course our visitor would want to linger right next door.”

  “We’ll put another bed post down, and then come back.” Jon turned to keep walking.

  They had to use their flashlights again, and in the dim lighting, Claire almost didn’t see it.

  “Stop!” she shouted, but it was too late. Jon’s foot hit the fishing line that had been strung across the hallway, down near the carpet. They all heard the sound of a heavy spring letting loose. A large stack of blankets next to Jon was pushed from behind, the ceiling-high pile engulfing him in a mess of flapping fabric. As he was buried beneath the mass, Claire could see that a piece of plywood had been placed between the wall and the blankets, the spring having pushed on that to make sure the whole tower toppled at once.

  “Jon? You all right?” Danny didn’t sound very concerned.

  Several muffled yet distinct curses could be heard from beneath the blankets. Jon struggled to find his way out from beneath the heap, so Danny helped him. Rose and Claire simply kept out of the way.

  “I saw the trip line just before you hit it,” Claire said as Jon appeared, his hair sticking out in wild tufts, making the scar along the side of his head more readily visible.

  “Yeah,” Jon grumbled in response. “But that was not there when we left. We walked this way when we headed out and I very much doubt we would have all managed to miss it.”