Defensive Instinct (Survival Instinct Book 4)

by Kristal Stittle

  “You got it,” Boyle smiled, acknowledging his attempt. He then turned back to the opening. “Now you.”

  Evans was shuffled across the wall to a second ladder he had to climb down. At the bottom, his sword and knife were taken from him and laid on a large tarp where his shotgun already rested, and then he was patted down for more weaponry. Looking around the place, Evans could see they stood no chance. They were well armed here, with more rifles that were better for distance than the many handguns his party carried. There were also just more people. They had as many combatants as Evans had people in total. He couldn’t help but wonder where their food came from. Once he was cleared for weapons, Evans’ hands were bound together by a zip-tie, but they were careful not to make it too tight. Really, if Evans had to, he knew he could get out of it using his teeth, but for now he’d co-operate.

  Allowed to stand to one side, Evans watched the proceedings, Arman and Ki-nam doing the same nearby. The wounded were assisted over and quickly divided into those who needed medical attention immediately and those who could wait. Evans was glad to see a surprising number of people who acted like doctors taking care of them. As the kids came over the wall, they looked frightened and unsure, their parents still below.

  “It’s all right,” Evans called to them. The sound of his voice and spotting his face calmed several children.

  “They’re not going to take my doll, are they?” little Annabelle called back to him as she was moved to the ladder to get off the wall.

  “No, they won’t take your doll,” Evans told her without really knowing. He looked to the man who had been assigned to guard him, a squat but powerful-looking fellow. He nodded, letting Evans know that he hadn’t just lied.

  The children were grouped together while they waited for their parents, but the elderly came over ahead of them.

  Evans was momentarily distracted when the pulley system went into use. He was impressed by the way they were able to lift a horse up and over with everyone working together. It didn’t shock Evans when he noticed that the first horse over was one of their own. Beyond that, a second pulley system was being set up.

  The elderly joined the children, and then the parents came over. Despite all of them being non-combatants, the pile of weapons on the tarps was growing; even many of the children carried a blade. As soon as the parents were with them, the group was escorted deeper into the container yard, presumably heading for whatever the community centre was.

  He spotted Tommy off to one side, talking to two young men. He guessed one of them was Mark. The other carried a katana on his back, a blade Evans thought he might have seen before. Both young men were soaking wet, leading Evans to think that they had gotten around the wall by swimming at some point.

  A young woman Evans didn’t recognize came over the wall. She was separated from the others and for some reason wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  “Mark! Tommy!” she called out, waving at the two.

  Tommy immediately ran over and Evans could make out just enough words to hear him explain to the people surrounding her that she was part of his team. Some terse words were exchanged, and then she was let down. Tommy’s white T-shirt flag was handed to her and she slipped it on. The one Evans guessed was Mark walked over and then quickly led her to meet whoever the other soaking wet man was: someone Evans was pretty sure had been with Danny’s small group when his party members attacked them.

  When Evans finally returned to supervising his own people, he noticed they were moving faster. His combatants were coming up the wall now, several forced to gather in clumps as they caused a backlog. It clicked in Evans’ mind then. The woman had been watching for the zombies. She was here now because they were close.

  Evans studied the wall itself. At two containers deep, it was certainly thick enough, but was it heavy enough? Did these people think to fill the containers with junk, rubble, or even fill them with cement when they became part of the wall? He had seen that the upper ones weren’t. Although the two containers were easily good enough to keep out humans and most zombies, would they be able to withstand the pressure of thousands of corpses pressing against them? And there was always the height problem. If they managed to remain unseen, unheard, then the zombies would have no reason to start piling up, to start climbing over top of one another. They would simply bump into the wall and change direction. If they knew humans were beyond the containers, however…

  Evans silently urged his people to hurry up, to climb faster, to ignore their reservations about these people. He didn’t care if they were caught out there and devoured; he just didn’t want them to give away their hiding spot.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Evans spotted Arman taking a sliding step to his right. It drew Evans’ attention, wondering what the scavenger was up to. The pale man, Misha, who might have been guarding him, had his back turned to Arman, who was sliding still closer. When Arman spread his fingers, Evans realized what he was about to do but it was too late to scream at him to stop.

  Arman lunged, wrapping his fingers around Misha’s skinny neck. The man thrashed, his body made of pure muscle, but Arman’s was as well, and he clearly outweighed him. Evans knew what Arman was planning. He was going to use Misha as a hostage, to bargain that the party get to stay together and that it be the container yard people who got locked up until the zombies left. From a distance, it was impossible to tell if Arman was already cutting off Misha’s oxygen supply. However, Arman had apparently chosen the wrong man to grab.

  Before any human could react, a furry streak burst forth from alongside the nearest containers. Evans had just enough time to identify it as a grey muzzled German Shepherd before the dog leapt upon Arman, digging his teeth into the man’s shoulder.

  Arman screamed, the weight of the dog throwing him to the ground. He dragged Misha down with him, but quickly let go so that he could draw up his arms to defend himself. Misha rolled away, quickly scrambling back up onto his feet.

  “Rifle, stop!” he commanded. The Shepherd released Arman and limped over to Misha, who dropped to his knees again to check over the obviously old dog.

  Evans had run over during the confrontation, as had several other people, but he reached Arman first; he had to. Even with his hands bound together, he was able to deliver a solid punch to the side of Arman’s face. The scavenger had sat up just in time to get knocked flat again.

  “You fucking idiot,” Evans hissed at him as a pair of arms looped under his to pull him away. “We need to get along with these people.”

  Arman lay on his back, stunned, his face rapidly swelling as his shoulder bled. Evans could only hope that his display kept the container people on his side, that they weren’t going to change their minds about sheltering them just because of Arman’s bone-headed manoeuvre.

  As Evans was dragged away, he saw several other dogs in the area, all of them hunched low, their hackles up, their lips twitching in a snarl, and all of them pointed at Arman. He had really chosen the wrong person to mess with. The furry beasts made their way over to Misha, sniffing him in a familiar way as he scratched their ears.

  With a large man on either side, Evans was ushered through the container yard. Despite being told that he could monitor the proceedings, they had decided that he had seen enough. He was manhandled toward a large warehouse structure that was in much better condition than the one in which his party had holed up. From inside, he could hear the muted sounds of people and guessed that it was the community centre. Evans was moved past it, toward a handful of containers alongside the building. These had clearly been storage units for these people, as evidenced by the piles of stuff heaped around the outside of them, and several people were hurriedly emptying the last one. The door of a container was opened, and Evans was shoved inside.

  Even once the door closed behind him, there was light in the container. Some strange light bulb-like thing poked through the ceiling, too bright to get a good look at. The container was already partially filled with his party members, none o
f them bound like he was, but all of them nervous.

  “Did everyone get over the wall?” Old Salt separated himself from the group to ask.

  “I don’t know,” Evans answered honestly.

  “Don’t know?” Leo asked from where he was hunched alone in the corner, looking oddly frail. Nathan was nowhere to be seen; he must have been stashed in one of the other containers.

  “Arman did something stupid. I had to punch him to save face, and they decided to put me in here.”

  “I heard that shirtless girl talking,” Helen spoke up next. “She said the zombies are getting close.”

  “Everyone will get over, don’t worry. It looked like just about everyone was in before I got dragged here.”

  People muttered and murmured but eventually fell silent. Not knowing how much sound would carry outside the container, they didn’t want to risk making any noise loud enough to be heard beyond the wall. Evans moved through the crowd, seeing who was in there with him and scrutinizing the metal walls. He spotted what appeared to be an emergency hatch in the ceiling near the back. In the same vein as being able to chew through his restraints if he had to, he could also lift someone up to that hatch. Hopefully no one was as stupid as Arman in the other containers and decided to attempt some half-assed jailbreak.

  At the back of the container, he leaned against the corner and slid down to a sitting position. A familiar black and white creature appeared between people’s legs and rubbed against his shins. Someone had carried the cat in, and for some reason it had been locked up in the container with them. Evans found himself glad it wasn’t out there with the dogs and actually gave it an uncharacteristic head scratch.

  One by one, everyone else in the container sat down in whatever space they could find. It seemed that Evans was the one to bring them to capacity, because the doors weren’t opened again to let in anyone else. By pressing his ear to the metal wall, he could hear the sounds of people moving about in the container next to theirs. They were calm sounds.

  As the cat climbed onto Evans’ lap and made itself comfortable, Evans wondered how long the wait would be before they were released. He also planned what he should do if the zombies didn’t just pass by this place.

  19

  Doyle’s Burnt

  With every passing moment, the sun got lower in the sky and the shadows deepened. Doyle was grateful for that. The roof had been a searing inferno despite the cloud cover, driving him and the others to seek out whatever shade they could find. James had brought a tarp with him, which he had strung up from an air conditioning unit on the roof for the girls to lie beneath. He joined Doyle in the soft shadows cast by the ledge surrounding the roof. They had all been lying up there, unmoving so as to produce as little noise as possible. With the edge of the tarp pinned to the ground between them, Doyle couldn’t see the women and wondered how they were fairing. At least he wasn’t completely bored, what with the books they had taken. Doyle found the best way to pass the time was to read a chapter, then listen to the zombies below for ten minutes before starting the next one.

  Based on the sounds of things, a lot of the zombies had moved off, but not enough yet for them to risk an escape. Several still bumped around in the bookstore below, crashing into shelves and each other. Shoes and bare feet dragging over the pavement let them track the ones moving outside, with a dozen or so getting stuck in a loop, following one another around the building. It was impossible to tell where all of the stationary ones were. A couple wheezed and moaned as they pawed at the walls, but there were always more who were silent. Doyle was content waiting for James to voice a plan.

  When the sun had finally gone, making it impossible to keep reading, Doyle thought about sleep. It wasn’t exactly comfortable on the roof, but he had slept in worse conditions. Between the Day and getting to the Diana, he had been on the move a lot, sleeping in whatever safe space he could find. He distinctly remembered the sixth night being the hardest: the first night he had spent alone, away from Gathers Moss and their tour bus. His intention had been to gather information, find a safer place to hide, and get some food in the process. None of that had worked out the way he planned. Instead, he spent the night crammed in a janitor’s locker in some building, unable to lie down or completely stand up, his limbs crunched at awkward angles. A trio of zombies had shuffled about just outside, cutting him off from his fire axe that he had foolishly put down for a moment. He had spent hours in that locker, drifting in and out of consciousness, all of his limbs going numb and tingly. When at last some distant noise had drawn the zombies away, he almost hadn’t been able to escape: his body no longer worked correctly. All his muscles and joints screamed when he finally found himself free, lying on the hard floor in a completely different pose. He hadn’t been able to move without agony for several minutes. The next night was better, when he slept in an industrial-sized laundry hamper full of towels. It was the day after that when he met Canary and her group, and chose to stay with them. Eventually, Doyle convinced the group to go looking for the band, or what was left of it, but Gathers Moss were gone by the time he returned. It wasn’t until later that he found Quin again by accident, along with Robin and April, the rest of the band dead or gone insane.

  Moving very slowly so as to create the minimum amount of sound, Doyle rolled from his side onto his back. With nightfall, the clouds overhead were invisible, just an all-encompassing expanse of black. He hoped it wouldn’t rain again while they were up here. Although the rain would give them some cover with the sound drowning out their movements, he and James would be forced to get under the tarp with the girls. They’d still get soaked, and it would be crowded under there. He hoped it rained somewhere nearby; a huge thunderstorm that distracted and lured the zombies away, but not here. Doyle didn’t want any rain here.

  Closing his eyes didn’t seem to have any effect on the amount of darkness; Doyle was essentially blind either way. Casting his mind elsewhere, to some happy, warm, bright, and comfortable place, he attempted to sleep.

  ***

  It had been a rough night for everyone. Doyle had woken up frequently, always worried that death was imminent. Once the sun had started to re-emerge, the clouds now broken up into large puffy amorphous shapes, it had helped, because he could see a bit into the grey when opening his eyes. As the sun continued to climb, however, it got to be unhelpful. The bright light made it more difficult to fall back asleep once awake, his circadian rhythm attached to the fire ball’s position in the sky.

  Glancing over at James, Doyle could see that he was awake, lying on his back, his eyes open and staring at nothing. All of Doyle’s bones hurt from lying on the stiff surface of the roof all night. He wanted to get up and stretch, but wasn’t about to attempt that without James’ go ahead. As he continued lying there, the cobwebs of sleep completely leaving his mind, Doyle realized that today would be worse than yesterday. Without the constant cloud cover, the sun would be even hotter. Already, they were on the wrong side of the roof for shade, and if they were still there at noon, there would be no shade to speak of outside of whatever they could produce with the tarp.

  Carefully stretching out an arm, Doyle tapped James on the shoulder, letting the other man know that he was awake.

  What’s today’s plan? Doyle signed. His signing had always been slow and a little clunky, but this morning it was especially bad, with him having to remain lying down, and trying to angle certain gestures to make them easier for James to see.

  James held up a finger; Doyle didn’t need to know sign language to know he was asking for a minute. Very slowly, and with a considerable amount of muscle control and strength, James sat up. He peered over the edge of the roof, carefully leaning to look down the length of the wall. Doyle could still hear the zombies trapped in a shuffling circle, so he knew they hadn’t all wandered off in the night. Focusing so much on James, Doyle nearly startled when a hand briefly gripped his ankle; only his intense desire to keep still and silent held him in place. Looking toward his f
eet, he saw that Canary had crawled over on her hands and bare feet. He gently tapped James to get his attention.

  Can I help? Canary signed, sitting back on her haunches to free her hands.

  I’m trying to figure out how many are out there, James signed back.

  Canary nodded and then headed out across the roof. It was eerie how silent she was, making only the occasional sounds: skin lifting off tar paper, or a light ruffling of clothing, which was easily swallowed by the scuffling from below. She made her way around the roof, peering over all the edges, then worked her way to each skylight to look inside the bookstore. Satisfied that she had seen enough, Canary made her way back to them, moving a bit like a spider, which was kind of unnerving. When she got close, Doyle could see that she was sweating and trying not to pant: her method of silent motion was taxing her body. With a fluttering of her hands, she gave her report. James seemed satisfied with the numbers.

  “All right, there’s no need to be completely silent anymore,” James whispered, his voice dry with disuse. “Let’s go gather around Rose.”

  Under the tarp, Rose was sitting up and waiting for them.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do. One of us will distract the zombies, lure them all to that corner of the building,” James pointed. “Once they’ve gathered there, we sneak off the opposite corner and book it.”

  “I should lure them,” Canary volunteered. “I’m the quietest and should be able to cross the roof without drawing them back around afterward.”

  After her recent display, no one argued. Besides, she had seen the zombies and might be able to tell if one hadn’t yet shown up.

  “Let’s gather with the packs in the corner. Canary, give us a thumbs up when we’re good to go. Remember, not too loud. We don’t want to draw in the dead that have already wandered off.”