“Give me a second, I’m going to wash off a bit. Guard the horses,” Misha told Sherlock.
This time Sherlock stayed put as Misha climbed over the barrier at the side of the road and crawled down the rocks to the water. He pushed the pieces of a shattered boat around, using the wood to move away the seaweed and scummy foam until he had a spot of clear water. He dunked his head under and scrubbed his hair. The mud dried in it had been getting rather itchy. The rest of him he left muddy. Bullet had followed him down across the rocks, and then back up, where Rifle was standing and waiting. Sherlock hadn’t left the horses this time.
“Feel better?” Sherlock asked.
“Less itchy,” Misha told him.
“Which sounds like an improvement, so yes, you feel better.”
They followed the shore road, having to wind around from lane to lane, as the debris tended to be spread out more. Misha worried about getting a flat tire, despite the fact that the cart had already rolled through worse areas. He felt that if he was going to get a flat, it would be close to home, but not close enough to get help easily.
“Hey, what’s that?” Sherlock spoke. His voice then dropped to a whisper. “There are people down by the water.”
It took Misha a few seconds to spot them even after being told where they were. Two figures were huddled down among the rocks, trying to hide behind some debris and almost succeeding. Had they heard the horses coming and that’s why they had hidden? Or were they hiding from something else? Were they strangers, or some of the others from whom he had become separated? Misha made a choice and hoped he wasn’t going to regret it.
“Bullet,” he whispered, causing the Australian shepherd’s ears to perk up. “Sniff check. Go sniff check.” He pointed down at the people.
Bullet understood and wormed his way under the barrier beside the road. Misha readied his rifle, although without any bullets, it was just a prop. If those people down there decided to hurt his dog, there was very little he could do about it.
As Bullet neared the pair, Misha felt his throat tighten. It relaxed in an instant when the dog’s tail began to wag. Not slowly either, but a very rapid and happy swish. Misha instantly vaulted the barrier and hurried down the rocks, moving faster than he safely should.
One of the figures, the one petting Bullet, heard him scrambling along and looked up. Because she wasn’t wearing her hat, it took Misha a moment to recognize her.
“Dakota?”
“Misha!” She shot to her feet and rushed up to meet him, nearly breaking her ankle in the process.
Misha wasn’t one for hugs, but the shock of seeing her out there, without a shirt no less, stunned him long enough for her to wrap her arms around him. Feeling her whole body tremble, he returned the hug, hoping to provide a little comfort.
“What happened?” Misha finally asked, pulling back so that he could get a better look at her. Her bra and pants were stained with blood, and she had some pretty bad abrasions on her wrists. “Who’s that?” Bullet was sitting with the other person, a male who looked familiar but Misha wasn’t certain.
“Elijah. He’s hurt. I’m pretty sure his shoulder has popped out.” Dakota then spilled the whole story in a rush, and not completely in order; she was jumping back and forth between parts. But Misha got the gist of it. She and Elijah had been kidnapped and then escaped. They didn’t know where they were and had kept moving until they ended up by the sea, where they had needed to take a break.
“Come on, let’s get the two of you up to the road.” Misha made his way over to Elijah in order to help him up the rocks. Dakota went to his other side to help as well, being careful not to touch his arm.
“Who’s that?” she asked, looking up to the road.
“Sherlock. I got separated from my team and he’s been helping me find my way home.” Misha didn’t want to get into the whole bit about how he had tried to steal Rifle.
The dogs were very excited to see Dakota and got in the way as they helped Elijah to the cart.
“I saw your team. Most of them. Ki-Nam is still missing, but Crichton, Harry, and Angela made it back,” Dakota told him. “Spring and Barrel were with them.”
A weight lifted off Misha’s heart.
Elijah groaned in pain, but they got him up and seated on the driving board.
“You didn’t see them, did you?” Dakota asked. “The people who kidnapped me?”
“No,” Misha shook his head. “But based on what you said, about the zombie disguises, they came from the Black Box.”
“Something made them leave the factory. Only three of them remained to guard Elijah and me,” Dakota’s voice started to crack. “I’m worried that they’re going after the search team that will have been sent out to look for us. Misha, we have to warn them.”
“I don’t know how,” Misha admitted.
“I could find them,” Sherlock spoke up, unusually hesitant. Maybe he didn’t want the new people to hear his voice and learn that he had female genetics.
“How?” Misha asked him.
“Well, maybe not the search party, but I could find the kidnappers. I can follow her trail back to where they ran from, and then follow the kidnappers from there. You’ll at least be able to learn if they’ve found the search party or not.”
“We can’t bring the cart with us. And Elijah needs a doctor.” Misha had watched dislocated shoulders being popped back in, but he wasn’t about to go trying it himself. Besides, his leg wound likely needed stitches.
“I can drive the cart,” Dakota offered. “Just point the way.”
“This road will take you home,” Misha said, pointing east. “But can you drive the cart?”
“It’s one road. I get the horses walking, and they take us home.”
The horses were really good at finding their way. The road, while covered in small debris, didn’t look like it was blocked with any large stuff that would stop them.
“Please, Misha, if someone gets hurt because of me…” Dakota shivered as her eyes filled with tears.
Misha sighed. “All right. Sherlock and I will go look for the search party. We’ll warn them. But you’re to go straight back to the container yard, you got it? You tell everyone what happened to you, and explain where I’ve gone. Understand? You warn them that the people are the remains of the Black Box raiders.”
“I understand.”
Misha didn’t know if anyone in the search party was one of his good friends, but he could easily see a few of them volunteering. Brunt was likely to be part of the group, and Cameron too. He couldn’t say no to helping them.
“Puppies,” Dakota gasped once she joined Elijah on the driving board and saw Trigger behind her.
“You have to take care of them,” Misha told her. “Try to guide the horses along the clearest path so that there’s fewer bumps and less risk of damage to the tires. You don’t want to get a flat.” He gave Dakota a tutorial on driving the pair of horses, who wanted to go home just as much as the humans did, and so shouldn’t be difficult to handle.
“I get it, Misha, I can do it,” Dakota eventually became exasperated with his constant, repetitive instructions. “Please, go find the others. Tell them that we’re okay and that they can go back home.”
“All right.” Misha turned to his dog pack. “Rifle, come here. You’re going home with them too.”
But Rifle refused to come. When Misha walked toward him, the German shepherd moved away.
“Bratishka, what are you doing?” Misha sighed.
“I think he knows you’re trying to make him leave,” Sherlock suggested. “He doesn’t want to.”
Misha groaned. They didn’t have time for this. “Fine, you can come. Dakota, get going.”
He didn’t have to ask her twice. She flapped the reins and the horses got moving at a gentle pace. Before they got out of earshot, Misha heard Elijah say to Dakota, “Hey, I’ve finally seen the ocean,” which made Dakota laugh for some reason. Misha really hoped that they would be all right. He
also wished that he could be heading home with them, but the thought that Cameron might end up with those same abrasions spurred him to remain away.
Once the cart was a good distance off, Rifle walked over and leaned against Misha as if nothing had happened. Misha rolled his eyes, but bent down to scratch his ears and told him that he was a good boy even though he hadn’t been. The thought that the old dog, his best friend, might get hurt during this made Misha feel queasy.
“All right, Sherlock,” Misha said as he stood back up. “Which way do we go?”
34: Onida
8 Days After the Bombing
Onida and the others had been skirting around the edge of a city when a massive storm hit them. They had found a bus depot in which to ride it out; the inside was big enough for the horses to walk around freely. It had flooded, but there was a raised section that had stayed dry and could fit everyone comfortably. The horses didn’t seem to mind the water, but the humans wanted to be dry, at least while sleeping. Onida and Shawn sloshed around in it, however, since they hoped the flood would have forced some animals out of their homes to make for good hunting. Other than an opossum, they hadn’t had any luck. Onida suffered persistently wet feet, since she kept checking on the horses, making sure that they were all right. She especially focused on Nuna, who was miraculously still pregnant after all they’d been through, and Nixkamich, who was fighting off a minor infection. The infection finally looked like it was starting to get better, but Onida constantly feared a sudden reversal.
During the worst of the storm, they sat huddled around a small fire that sent its smoke pooling up against the high ceiling. Ronnie had the largest section of Hurit’s pelt draped across her legs, her hands stroking the fur of her former horse. She often did this when she was nervous, and Onida had to admit that she felt the same. She kept remembering the tornado, with its screaming winds mingling with those of the horses, and the church’s stained glass windows bursting inward with a flurry of colour and sound. They were all silently glad that the raised section of the bus depot wasn’t near any windows.
All night, the fire was kept alive. They had gathered plenty of wood before settling in, yet most of it was wet and needed to be dried next to the fire before being thrown on it. Some of it burned fast, like the broken pallets, but the downed hardwood burned slower. Wood was wood, however, and there was always someone awake to feed the flames. Whenever Onida stirred in the night, and cracked open her eyes, she took comfort from the glow.
The storm lasted a long time, almost long enough for them to worry about the water level rising to the height of their platform. They spent a second night in the bus depot, with the fire burning much smaller and lower as they attempted to conserve fuel. Shawn had gone out for more, but the wood he brought back wasn’t just wet, it was completely soaked through. Mask looked upset with his decision to accompany Shawn: the raccoon’s fur was drenched and plastered to his skin. To warm up, he snuggled with Onida, the only dry person willing to hold his sodden body. The horses were displeased with the water by then, and Onida worried about their hooves and skin, as well as the depth becoming too much for them. The raised section was up a ramp, so after convincing everyone to move their stuff, she brought the horses up to dry out a little. They would have to go back into the water at night, however, due to the lack of space.
Finally the storm began to slacken off after the second night, and everyone agreed to move on. It was still raining, but not nearly as hard as it had been. The horses made ripples as they walked, but they went slowly to reduce kicking up spray on themselves and the others.
“Are we still heading toward an ocean?” Mikey wondered.
“We must be,” Dom answered. “It’s not like we’ve changed directions in a while.”
“We could have gotten turned around,” Harper pointed out. Butter, the dog, was sitting awkwardly on Harper’s horse with her in order to keep out of the floating debris. He did not look happy about being draped over Harper’s lap like a dead thing. Shawn seemed pleased with how easy it was to keep his distance, though. Even after all that time, he didn’t like being near the dog. His fear of canines ran deep.
“We’re heading south, we’ll reach an ocean,” Dom told her, twisting around in his saddle to do so.
“What if we end up walking through Mexico?” Helen wondered, her voice dreamy as she spoke mostly to herself. “What are those little countries between Mexico and South America? We could walk through them. Head through the jungles. End up all the way down at the bottom of the point, close to Antarctica.”
“Yeah, that wouldn’t happen,” Gatsby informed her. “I think we’d notice the border. And even if we somehow didn’t and kept wandering, there’s the Panama Channel.”
“Canal,” Julian corrected him. “It’s called the Panama Canal. It’s not a channel.”
“Whatever. We’re not going anywhere near Antarctica is what I’m getting at.”
“Do you think there are zombies in Antarctica?” Anita asked.
“Why would there be zombies?” Gatsby retorted. “There’s no people.”
“They could walk underwater until they popped up on the ice,” Helen said, rather matter-of-factly. “Or float. And there’s people in Antarctica. There’s scientists there.”
“Doubt that there are anymore,” Dom grumbled.
“Maybe penguins can be infected,” Anita theorized. “There could be just a whole army of zombie penguins waddling around on the ice.”
“No, penguins are too cute!” Harper mock-complained. “Don’t make me think of them all gross.”
“More like in the ice,” Mikey added. “Anything dead down there will have become a Popsicle.”
“God, I miss Popsicles,” Helen sighed. “They were the best in the summer.”
“My mom would always give me one after a trip to the local pool,” Dom agreed.
“I liked Freezies better,” Ronnie chimed in.
“God, I hated frozen treats,” Harper spoke up with a hint of disgust. “They were always melting. So messy.”
“Wait, are you saying that you don’t like ice cream?” Mikey said, aghast.
“Nope, never have,” Harper affirmed.
“You’re crazy,” Dom decided.
“Yeah, it’s worked out for me. I’m not the one pining for anything right now.” Harper was quite pleased with her retort.
“What about your kids? Did they eat ice cream?” Anita asked. Harper was the only person that Onida knew for certain had once had children, because she was the only one who was able to talk about them for even short periods of time.
“You think I could stop them?” Harper laughed. “They loved the stuff. It felt like every day I was scrubbing melted chocolate stains out of the carpet.”
“So what did you have on a hot day then?” Gatsby asked, curious.
“Lemonade.”
“That’s it?” Ronnie scoffed.
“It was really good lemonade,” Harper defended her past self. “Freshly made, and incredibly cold. Our taps could pump out water so cold that it hurt your teeth.”
“I miss running water,” Helen sighed again.
The conversation continued this way for a while, with people randomly chiming in, changing topics, and occasionally trying to one-up one another. Only Onida and Shawn kept quiet. Onida never knew what she could possibly add to the conversation, and when she had tried in the past, she often couldn’t get a word in edgeways, or by the time she did, the conversation had moved on from what she had wanted to say. She did enjoy listening, though, learning random titbits about her companions. Shawn just had no interest in talking, and it was impossible to tell if he was even listening to those who were.
“Shut up,” Shawn eventually called out. “Zombies ahead.”
There was a cluster of them trapped by a tree that had been uprooted. It was possible that the zombies posed no threat, but they decided to go around anyway. More could be lurking underwater, and they didn’t want the horses receiving any
unexpected bites to their ankles. Besides, it wasn’t like they were in a rush to get anywhere. Before the storm, they had even had an unexpected little boon to their food supplies, having come across some good foraging as well as a group of travellers to rob. The travellers hadn’t had much to steal but any little bit helped them. The travellers had been an easy target too, as none of them carried a gun with any bullets in it. Onida and her group hoped to find more like them.
After going around the trapped cluster of zombies, they ran into a few more of the dead things. They had never run into a group of zombies so large that they felt the need to flee. Instead, they took turns riding up to them and putting them down. The horses didn’t like getting close, but they trusted their riders. Onida had gotten skilled enough to be able to ride past at a run, leaning over the side of her saddle, and lopping off heads with a sharp sickle as she went by. She liked showing off the skill whenever it was her turn, because the others always seemed so impressed. Shawn always just used his bow, retrieving his arrow afterward.
As night fell, they found themselves in an area full of low houses. Several of the houses had collapsed, so no one trusted spending the night inside one of the ones still standing. Instead, they set up their tents on a roof that had been dislodged and deposited in the middle of the street, after testing it for stability. The surface was uneven, and they needed to spread out across it to distribute their weight, but at least it kept them out of the standing water.
Onida checked all the horses, lifting their feet up to properly inspect them. She worried about all the time they had spent in the wet, but there was nowhere dry enough for them to stand. They couldn’t even get up on the roof without the risk of their weight snapping through it. Their hooves were all coated in mud, making it difficult to check on their condition, but Onida was determined to inspect each one. Several of the other riders found some greenery with which to feed the horses while Onida worked.
“We should have doubled back and gone a different way after that storm,” Dom complained as he sat on the roof. “This area has been decimated; there’s not going to be much for us to find.”
Survival Instinct (Book 5): Social Instinct Page 57
