Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel Paperback

by Kristal Stittle

  “Got it.” Tammy held out her phone so Tobias could see the little digitised map on the screen. “The nearest one is on the other side of the park.”

  “No good,” Tobias shook his head. “Where’s the next closest on this side of the park?”

  “Umm...” Tammy used her thumb to scroll around the map, an expert with the touch screen. “Here. We have to get to those lights over there, and then head about five blocks down.”

  “All right, let’s go.” Tobias was about to step back out onto the sidewalk but stopped. “Actually, can you give me my hand back, so I can get out my camera?”

  “What do you want your camera for?” The girl held on tighter, suspicious.

  “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “Maybe if I record some stuff and give it to the authorities, it’ll help them figure out what happened here.”

  “Oh, okay.” Tammy let go, but watched him carefully.

  Tobias hauled his camera out of the bag for what felt like the hundredth time. He thought about putting it on his shoulder, but then decided just to cradle it against his armpit so that it wouldn’t block his vision. It was also still recording. He was going to have a lot of footage of the inside of his bag to edit out. At least he had the new drive loaded, the one that could record hours and hours of footage. Once the camera was settled in a way that it would record whatever was in front of him, Tammy grabbed his free hand again.

  The two of them headed up the street. Tobias let Tammy walk next to the walls and shop fronts, taking the brunt of the passers-by to his shoulder. He worried about his camera being knocked out of his arm, since he was still attached to it. Almost everyone was running in one direction or another, heading to destinations unknown to Tobias. Several people were just standing still, not knowing where to go or what to do. A few even broke down and sat crying in the street. As Tobias watched, a man went running down the centreline of the road. Close on his heels was a woman with blood running all down her front. Her teeth were bared and she kept reaching out, trying to grab the terrified man. They were gone before Tobias could even think about doing something. He just hoped the man wouldn’t trip.

  When Tobias and Tammy reached the corner, they started heading down a new street. The mayhem continued block by block, but so far, no one paid any attention to them. The crowd thinned out the farther they got from the park, until they finally reached a pocket where they had a considerable amount of space between them and the next group of people.

  As they passed in front of an alleyway, a bloodcurdling scream burst out of it. They both turned and found at least five people clawing and biting at what must have been a sixth down on the ground. One of the attackers was the screamer. She stood up and started running at them.

  “GO!” Tobias pulled on Tammy’s hand, half dragging her, as he started to run. Thankfully, Tammy kept pace, because all five of the attackers ran out of the alley and started chasing after the two of them.

  “Drop the camera!” Tammy shouted as she took a quick, panicked look over her shoulder.

  “I can’t just drop it! It’s strapped to my waist!” Tobias cursed the harness that helped hold his gear. “You go!”

  “What?” Tammy looked up at Tobias.

  “You go ahead! Get to the subway! I'll draw them off!”

  “But...”

  Tobias let go of Tammy’s hand and half shoved her ahead of him. “Just do it before I change my mind!”

  After one last look at Tobias, Tammy took off at a speed Tobias couldn’t match even without the camera. He headed into the clog of cars hoping his pursuers weren’t as agile. It turned out to be a good idea. One nearly had him but she clipped her hip on a bumper and was completely spun around. Too bad, she didn’t stay that way, because she quickly resumed the chase. Tobias weaved around the cars, but he knew he couldn’t keep it up forever. It was like when he was in high school and played for the school’s football team. Only this time, the goal posts were nowhere to be seen, and his camera weighed a lot more than a football. Not to mention that being tackled meant losing his life.

  He finally spotted a pizza shop that had its door open. He headed straight for it, listening to his pursuers pounding along behind him. Tobias rounded one last, sharp turn and headed straight into the pizza shop.

  The reason the door was open was because the door had been ripped off. Shit, well there went that protection.

  He spotted a door in the back and jumped over the counter. Here was the agility he had been missing earlier when hopping off the wall. Apparently, he just needed even more adrenaline for it. His pursuers slammed into the waist-high counter, knocking themselves flat across the top of it. Any normal person would have been badly hurt and winded, but these guys just started crawling across the counter as if nothing had happened.

  Tobias ran into the back room and slammed the door shut. Great, this one had no lock. The first thing he spotted was stairs, so he decided to head up. If he had taken more time to look around, he might have spotted an exit door in the back of the kitchen. It was too late now though.

  Tobias climbed flight after flight, listening to the sound of the others coming after him. They must be getting tired, right? Tobias was exhausted, so shouldn’t they be as well? There were just too many stairs.

  Finally, he reached the top of the stairwell and burst out through the door up there. He was in sunlight, up on the roof. Nearby were several wooden beams, and without thinking about what they might be for, Tobias started bracing them against the door. Someone thumped into the other side and started hammering away just as the last board was wedged in place. The wood dug into the gravel rooftop and managed to hold, but it wouldn’t last forever.

  Tobias ran to the side of the building and looked over the edge. Aw hell, he was at least four stories up. There was no way he could jump that. He looked up the street but couldn’t spot Tammy anywhere. He guessed she got away. He hoped she got away. He told himself she did get away.

  He then looked around the roof but couldn’t see anything useful to him. The building was detached from those around it and shorter by several stories.

  With a sigh, Tobias sat on the edge of the building and faced the door. The beams wouldn’t hold up much longer under the force of the hammering hands. Tobias put his camera up on his shoulder and placed his eye against the viewfinder. He took a deep breath and went into film mode. At least his last shot was going to be a killer. Literally.

  The door burst outward, the beams clattering off over the stones. The mini mob took no time to look around and ran straight at their prey. Just as they were about to reach him, though, something ripped Tobias’s mind out of film mode. Something had grabbed him around the waist, and somehow, that something pulled him over the edge of the building. Out into space.

  2:

  Cillian

  Cillian put his booted feet up on the dashboard, a cigarette hanging from his lips unlit.

  “If you’re not going to smoke it, why do you have it?” Jim sat to his left in the driver seat, looking out through the windshield.

  “I can’t smoke it in the truck, and I’m not going out there unless I absolutely have to.” Cillian settled deeper into his seat and closed his eyes. “I hate babysitting calls.”

  “Oh? And you have something better to do at the station?” Jim hit him on the arm. “We’re getting a free concert man, lighten up.”

  “So far they’ve only featured bands I don’t like.” After opening his eyes again, he hit Jim back. “They have their own security guards and a bunch of police officers are walking around. There’s no reason for us to be here too.”

  “But what if there’s a fire?” A sarcastic grin pulled up the corners of Jim’s mouth. He put on a stupid voice that all the guys used to represent the mayor, “Gotta have them there firemen all ready at the scene just in case. Maybe they should start putting us on street corners, and then we can always provide an immediate response.”

  This caused Cillian to break out into laughter, dropping his
cigarette. He liked working with Jim. Jim was all right.

  The back door creaked open and Doyle climbed in. “Man, it’s hot out there, especially in all this damn gear.”

  “No shit, Sherlock, why do you think we’re staying in here?” Cillian sat up straighter and twisted around in his seat. “You get the pop?”

  Doyle passed a can of Pepsi up to Cillian.

  “Pepsi? I thought I said Coke?”

  “Pepsi is all they had.” Doyle handed another can to Jim.

  “Lame.” Cillian snapped open the can and took a huge swallow. “Bleh. I don’t know how some people can say they can’t taste the difference.”

  “I’m one of those people.” Jim cracked open his own drink.

  “Yeah, but we’ve already proven you have no sense of taste. That goes for clothing too,” Cillian grinned at him. A good ribbing was common at their firehouse. They all had something to poke fun at each other about, but lately the guys had toned down on Cillian. You couldn’t poke fun at a guy’s long-term relationship if he was no longer in one.

  “You know we’re wearing the same shit right now, don’t you, Knight?” Jim pointed out.

  “Uniforms don’t count.” Cillian knocked Jim lightly in the head with a nearby helmet. After a thought, he put the helmet on his own head and pulled it down over his eyes. It was rather effective at blocking out the sunlight. “Now shut up, I’m thinking of napping.”

  The uniform was probably what Cillian wore most often and he had no problem with that. When not at work, he just wore whatever was clean. On a day like today, it would probably be just a pair of swim shorts. He personally thought the uniform suited his broad shoulders and chiselled, dark features. When he was in college, a chick who was an art student had told him he was made of squares. He hadn’t a clue what that meant at the time, but over the years, he started to figure it out. Abstract things always took him a little while to figure out. He liked simple.

  Cillian Knight was also a guy who liked his job... most of the time. Actually loved his job. It was during slow times like this that he hated it. He loved putting out fires, even the small ones. He loved paramedic calls, whether it was prying someone out of a three car pileup, or assisting someone who’d had a heart attack. He even loved hanging around the firehouse with the guys, waiting for a call to come in. This, though, was boring. At the firehouse, you knew a call would eventually come in, but here, nothing was likely to happen. All Cillian had to do here was nap.

  Of course, he had just taken a big swig of a caffeinated drink, so he wasn’t likely to fall asleep any time soon. He continued to take large gulps under his helmet until the can was empty. Maybe he could fall asleep when the inevitable sugar crash hit. He’d first have to ride out the sugar high though.

  As Cillian slouched there, futilely trying to block out the sound of the concert, he thought about Jessica and how it had all gone wrong. He and Jessica Clay were supposed to be getting married in about a week. Instead, he was living on Doyle’s couch and she was moving to Australia. They were happy up until about a month ago. Jessi was offered a big promotion: personal assistant to the president of the Australian branch of the company she worked for, the Marble Keystone Corporation. Her current job was assistant to an assistant for only a vice president. She had accepted the promotion without even talking to Cillian about it. Cillian didn’t want to go to Australia. He loved his life right where they were. One fight led to another, and another, and then to throwing dishes, and finally it ended with Cillian being booted out the door with a suitcase of clothes. Jessica was selling the house they shared and taking all her things to Aussie Town. She didn’t even tell Cillian the date she was leaving. She might have left already.

  Cillian had a lot of time to think about it over the last month, and talk it out with all of his buddies both from the station and not. He figured it was for the best. Better they had their fight and falling out now, rather than after they were married. Or worse, after they had a kid. That was something they did agree on. They both wanted kids. They were going to start trying right after they got married.

  He was thirty-six now. He had no idea where he was going to find another girl like Jessica whom he could love enough to settle down with. Raise a family with. Hell, he didn’t even know if he could find it in him to love again at all. That part still hurt deep down. Jessi was younger than he was by six years so she could easily meet a new guy her age. Cillian was lucky to have had her and he knew it. Maybe he should call her. Maybe he’d reconsider the whole Australia thing. They needed fire fighters in Aussie Town too, right?

  Cillian thought about that a lot, and like most times he thought about it, he fell asleep. Maybe that had been one of their deeper problems.

  * * *

  Cillian Knight’s dreams were twisted and strange. Throughout the course of his dreams, music was playing, and try as he might, he couldn’t turn it off. Other people tried to help him, but no one could. Even people who were dead. In his dreams, he saw the faces of victims he couldn’t save in the past. Everybody at the station admitted to having dreams like that, but this one was different to Cillian. Normally, he’d be frightened, or perhaps upset, but in this dream, he was rather indifferent to the victims. In fact, he found them comforting compared to the shadowy figures in the distance. That music though, it was so irritating! Where was it coming from?

  Cillian awoke with a slight start. He thought he heard something hit the back of the truck, but it was probably just the tail end of his dream. He noticed, though, that the music had finally stopped. Probably its absence was what woke him.

  “Jim?” Cillian propped the helmet up off his eyes and looked to the seat next to him. It was vacant. “Doyle? Guys?”

  He sat up and looked around the cab. The other guys were gone. Probably out to get more drinks. Thinking of...

  Cillian reached into the foot well to grab the empty can he had dropped when he passed out. His cigarette was down there too, now covered in dirt. He was debating picking it up anyway when a heavy knocking hammered on the door next to him and scared the crap out of him. As he jumped in his seat, he swung around to face the door. It was flung open, and a cop started climbing in.

  “Hey man!” Cillian crawled across to the driver’s seat, as the police officer wasn’t stopping. He didn’t seem to care whether Cillian was in his way or not.

  When the cop got in, he slammed the door closed and locked it. He also reached into the back and locked that door too. There was a look of panic in his eyes as he turned to face Cillian, “Lock the doors on your side!”

  “What? Why? What’s going on?” Cillian thought briefly that he might still be dreaming.

  “Lock them!” The cop climbed into the back and locked the door behind Cillian.

  Cillian locked the driver’s door. “Okay, done! Mind filling me in now, officer?” He let the word hang, not sure if he should be applying it to this jumpy guy or not.

  The cop looked at the driver’s door, visually checking that Cillian had indeed done as he said. He then sat back in the seat with a sigh. “What do you mean what’s going on? Haven’t you taken a look outside your rig?”

  “I was asleep,” Cillian’s brows came together. He turned around and looked out the windshield. Outside it was utter chaos. People were attacking each other and everyone was running everywhere. He once again had the feeling he was asleep, but his nicotine craving proved otherwise.

  “What the hell? What happened?” As Cillian watched, a man dug into another’s chest with his teeth.

  “I don’t know.” The cop climbed back into the front seat. “We got called in when some guy flipped out and started attacking people. Next thing we knew, lots more people were fighting.”

  “Some terrorist group or cult trying to stir up shit?” It was the first thing Cillian thought of.

  “Maybe...” The cop took a deep breath.

  Cillian sensed he wasn’t telling him something. “What is it?”

  “What?” The cop faced him,
his blue eyes wide open.

  “You saw something, I can tell. What happened?”

  The cop looked back out the windshield and then back at Cillian. “You’re not going to believe me.”

  “Try me.” Cillian liked to think he was fairly open-minded.

  “Well...” The cop took another steadying breath. “There was this security guard, right? He and a bunch of others were trying to subdue this attacker. The guy had already injured several people, even stabbed one with an umbrella. Well, this other officer tased him, but the guy bit into his throat. I mean, he ripped it right out. The officer bled to death right there.”

  “Jesus.” Cillian took the helmet off his head and ran a hand through his dark, stubby hair. “You didn’t know him, did you?”

  “No, different precinct. That’s not even the worst part.” The cop was starting to look a little green. “Later on, he got back up.”

  “Who got back up?”

  “The officer.”

  “The dead officer?”

  “Yeah, the dead officer.”

  “Are you sure he was dead?”

  “Of course I was sure!” the cop snapped. “You don’t think I've seen a dead guy before? I used to work with a cadaver dog. I’ve seen plenty. His blood had totally stopped pumping. He was dead. He was dead but he got up and started attacking more people anyway.”

  “I must still be asleep.” Cillian closed his dark eyes and shook his head. This cop was nuts, right?

  “You wish, buddy. Hey, can you drive this thing out of here?”

  Cillian looked over at the officer. “One, I’m not leaving without my partners. And two, there is no way I’m trying to drive through that mob of people.”

  “Dude, look out there. I don’t think your partners are going to come back.” The cop pointed out through the windshield. It was pretty hectic out there.

  “I’m still not going to drive through them. Someone is bound to get run over, and they might start attacking the rig. These things can be flipped with enough force, you know. Aren’t you supposed to be a cop? Shouldn’t you be helping those people?”