Defensive Instinct (Survival Instinct Book 4)

by Kristal Stittle

  “Shit,” Boyle whispered to himself.

  The two strangers who were watching wandered over.

  “We could try setting off fireworks to draw them away, but I don’t think they’ll work on Dean,” one of them offered. “We haven’t seen him become fixated on things very often, but it’s nearly impossible to redirect him once he has. It might peel away a few of the dumb ones clustered around the edges, but they’re likely to return here once the fireworks stop. They’re drawn to Dean.”

  “So what do you suggest we do?” Karsten glowered at him.

  “Evacuate,” the man shrugged. “Do you have some other place you can go to across the water? Eventually, they’re going to figure out a way to get over that wall. If you’re gone when they do, they’ll eventually leave.”

  Karsten’s expression darkened further, but he said nothing. No other ideas were offered.

  Nessie imagined what it would be like to move back into the Black Box. She didn’t like it there, being underground. And with everyone returning, it would swiftly become overcrowded again. There wasn’t enough space for all of them. She thought about her go-bag and what else she might be able to carry. There was no way to bring everything. Sure, they could return when the zombies left, but the man had used the word ‘eventually’ twice. He had no idea when the zombies were going to climb the walls, nor when they’d leave.

  “I might have an idea,” Nessie spoke up, a little louder than she meant to.

  The others all turned to look at her.

  “Come with me.” Nessie turned and began walking toward the containers. Boyle, Freya, and one of the strangers followed after her, while the other stayed behind with Karsten.

  Nessie led the small group of people down an aisle of containers. The sun was late in the sky; they were going to begin losing the light in an hour or so. As Nessie walked, she wondered whether that would be better or worse. The sound would become more terrifying for sure, but then most zombies had even poorer night vision than the living and so they’d have a lower chance of being spotted if something did happen.

  Upon reaching her container, Nessie opened it slowly so as not to make much sound. Not so much because of the dead, but because she didn’t want to wake Dragon, who was probably asleep in his cage.

  “Mama?” came the bird’s whispered voice from the other side of the blanket. He wasn’t sleeping after all. Nessie pursed her lips to keep from answering. He was probably frightened. She couldn’t say a word to comfort him, however, because it might encourage him to be even noisier. Instead, she ignored his large cage and moved toward the back of the container, waving the others to come in after her. She lit a candle to provide light when the door was shut since the bottle bulb was growing dim. She moved to her bed. The other three gathered around as she knelt down and reached beneath the place where she slept.

  As her fingers found the box, she hesitated. She would get into trouble for this, there was no doubt about it. There was a possibility that nothing good would come of it, but thinking about moving back into the Black Box, and how Dragon always looked so sad seeing so little of the sky, spurred her on. She gripped the box of grenades and pulled them out.

  “Would we be able to do something with these?” she asked as she opened the lid and revealed the contents.

  25

  Riley’s Out Of It

  All day Riley had been drifting in and out of consciousness. She had never taken an anesthetic before and apparently it hit her system hard. Plus, her body was using all her energy just to heal. She had woken up in long enough bursts to comfort her daughter and to thank her sister again for coming. She asked a few questions of Josh, but left the majority of them until after her visitors had gone. She wanted to know if the cancer could still be present, if there were complications he didn’t want to say in front of the others, what all the technical details were.

  “Riley, you’ve asked that already,” Josh told her from where he sat on the next bed over, the only other person still in the room. She had finally been moved out of the surgery room and into a proper recovery room. There were no other patients in the rest of the beds; they must have been in the other recovery room. Had Riley requested the privacy, or did Josh just understand on his own?

  “I’m sorry, I’m having trouble remembering everything you say.”

  “That’s because you’re exhausted. Your body needs sleep, so let it.”

  Whenever Riley had the energy to keep her eyes open, she always directed them to her vitals monitor. Since she struggled to remember the numbers they emitted, constantly looking at them soothed her.

  “You’re sure the memory thing isn’t an issue?” Riley worried. “It’s not some sort of side effect? It’s not permanent?” She thought of Nicky and the memory problems the woman suffered from.

  “Trust me, you’re fine. I was put under anesthetic when they fixed my leg, remember? Everything was pretty loopy for me then too. I just had a generous helping of adrenaline to help balance it out. Not a good combination for teaching two scared women how to cast your leg, though, I must say.”

  “Which is why you’re going to break that leg again someday.” Riley rolled her head across her pillow to see the leg in question. “It’s not straight.”

  “So you keep telling me,” Josh grinned. “Now go back to sleep, it’s getting on night anyway.”

  “Don’t you have to be somewhere? Like dinner? With Anne? Won’t she worry?” Riley had already been fed, taking much longer to eat than normal.

  “She knows exactly where I am, and I have dinner here with me,” he said, gesturing to an area of the room that Riley couldn’t see from her current position. “Knowing you, you probably shouldn’t be by yourself right now. You’ll only end up trying to get out of bed and making a mess of things. No, I’m staying here all night.” He swung his legs up onto the bed he was sitting on, stretching out along its length.

  He was right, of course. Riley had already tried to get out of bed once, but was briskly stopped. She wasn’t being an easy patient.

  “I’m sorry.” It seemed to her she was apologizing a lot.

  “Don’t worry about it, you’d do the same for me.”

  Riley remembered the way she had let him get out of the ambulance on the Day, after she had explained what she believed was happening—what was happening as it turned out—and how he had decided to return to the hospital to warn the others. She wouldn’t go back herself, wouldn’t help him, wouldn’t help anyone, thinking only of her own safety. But things were different now. Her family had become a weird mix of unrelated people for whom she would sacrifice almost anything. Only Hope was held above them, the number one priority in her life.

  Riley’s eyes closed again while she was thinking, the medical machines a surprisingly soothing sound for her. It didn’t take long before she was unconscious again.

  ***

  When the sirens went off, Riley’s mind was as exhausted as her body, not ready to leave the soft folds of sleep. Still, she pried her eyes open, dragging her head around to look at her monitors. She had to know what was wrong with her. Blinking several times, she couldn’t believe her eyes had focused correctly and were accurately reading the numbers. According to the monitors, everything was fine except for an elevated heart rate, easily explained by her fear.

  It finally hit her that the siren wasn’t coming from her monitors, but from the ceiling, along with a red light. Rolling her head across her pillow, she looked to the door. Josh was there, dragging empty beds across it, barricading them in, pausing only briefly to turn on the main overhead lights—he must have put them on a dimmer setting when he had decided to sleep.

  “What’s going on?” Riley asked, but her voice was too soft to compete with the noise.

  With nothing left to push in front of the door, Josh finally turned and looked at Riley. Seeing her open eyes staring back at him, he quickly made his way to her side. Just as he reached her, the siren cut out, causing them both to glance briefly at the ceilin
g.

  “What’s happening? Is it zombies?” Riley asked.

  “No, humans. At least that’s what I heard.” Josh started looking over all the equipment hooked up to her, probably debating whether or not it was safe to free her.

  “What you heard? Was there an announcement I missed?”

  “No. I was still awake when the siren first went off so I went out into the waiting room. Robin came running in from the hallway, claiming there were armed strangers heading up the stairs.”

  “Up the stairs?”

  “Yeah, they must have gotten into the vehicle elevator shaft somehow.”

  Josh left her side and went to the cupboards at the back of the room where some medical supplies were kept. He returned with a scalpel and handed it to Riley.

  “Biggest blade I could find.” His own knife was larger, secured in a sheath at the small of his back.

  “It’ll do.” Riley carefully held the blade beneath her blankets, just as a heavy pounding began at the door.

  “Open up!” a gruff voice shouted from the other side.

  “Where’s Robin now?” Riley whispered.

  “In the other recovery ward. She’ll be fine; a few of them have guns in there, including her.”

  The beds in front of the door trembled rhythmically with the heavy pounding, accompanied by the sound of splintering wood.

  “Don’t try to fight them,” Riley warned Josh as he reached for his knife.

  “Why not?”

  “One knife against whatever is smashing through that door? Wait for an opportunity.”

  There was no time for Josh to reply, as the door was finally forced open enough to allow someone to enter. Riley closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep, her adrenaline making it impossible to actually do so. Still, she peered through her eyelashes. A large man entered the room carrying a small battering ram, the kind police forces used to use. He dropped the ram with a loud clang to the floor, quickly spotting Josh and levelling a revolver at him.

  “Turn around,” the man told him.

  Josh was holding up his hands and did as he had been commanded.

  “That knife. Drop it on the floor.” There was a lack of anger or madness in the man’s voice that worried Riley. He was completely aware of what was going on. He spoke with the detached coldness of someone who had done this before. It wasn’t personal, their reason for being here, which was far worse.

  Josh removed his knife and dropped it.

  “Kick it away,” the man commanded, and Josh obeyed. “I’ve got this room covered,” he then called over his shoulder. “Just some skinny doctor and an unconscious woman.”

  Riley couldn’t hear the reply from the waiting room. The big man started moving toward her, but no one came through the opening behind him. She closed her eyes completely, making sure not to tense up. A hand grabbed the top of her blanket and began to pull it down. She refused to react, praying he didn’t see the scalpel in her hand. The blanket never got that far, however, as it stopped after exposing her bandages.

  “Jesus Christ, you people here are butchers?”

  Riley gambled that the man had turned to look at Josh as he spoke and risked opening her eyes. The gamble paid off, and her quick reflexes zeroed in on his turned neck. Mustering all the speed and strength that she could, she sat up and lashed out with the scalpel. The blade cut through the man’s soft tissue like butter, the muscles providing more resistance. Pain screamed through Riley’s chest at the exertion; at least one of her stitches popped open. As the man stumbled away, with a hand clamped around his neck, she fell back, flat on the bed once more, trying not to scream. She didn’t want to alert whoever was in the waiting room.

  Josh was at the big guy’s side in a moment. As soon as Riley had made her move, he had dived for his knife, scooping it up off the tile. Although bleeding, the man wasn’t bleeding enough. Josh corrected that issue, plunging his knife into the man’s side, over and over, aiming for all his organs and the abdominal aorta. As the large man collapsed to the floor, a booming gunshot rang out from the waiting room, closely followed by two more. Josh wheeled around to the opening, no longer concerned about the big guy; he was already dead, lying prone in a large circle of his own blood.

  Robin popped into the room, a shotgun held ready before her. Her eyes quickly scanned over the blood covering Josh, and the heap on the floor.

  “You good?” she asked.

  Josh nodded.

  Robin left the room once more, her voice giving out orders about how best to secure the medical centre.

  “I’m going to wash off my hands and then I’ll be right with you,” Josh told Riley as he headed for the sink at the back of the room, doubling back once to pierce the attacker’s skull.

  Gritting her teeth as the pain slowly subsided, Riley nodded. She hoped her daughter was safe.

  III

  The Sneak

  Jo shyly peered in through the doorway of the security centre. Several men and women milled about, acquainting themselves with the systems. A few cameras displayed views from around the place and outside, but most of them were dead. Jo wondered if they had always been dead, or if the people who hadn’t been captured were breaking them.

  “Journey, come in,” spoke a voice from the centre of the room.

  Jo shuffled through the doorway. He was nervous, having been spotted by Logan with her expression in its usual unreadable rock of decision making. The woman stood in the middle of everyone, supervising their progress with the systems. A man squeezed past Jo, heading straight for Logan. She turned her steely gaze to this newcomer who was there to give a report. Jo looked away, his eyes trailing along the inner wall. There were drops of blood by one of the baseboards.

  “Come here, Jo,” Logan returned her attention to him. She stood with open arms and a small smile on her face. The man who had given his report was leaving again in a hurry.

  Logan was smiling. It lit Jo’s heart, making him unafraid. He went straight into her arms and received a brief, but comforting hug. It had been a long time since he had felt her warmth and revelled in it.

  “You did great, Journey. Really well. I told you, you could do it.”

  Praise from Logan was all Jo ever wanted. He smiled brightly up at her, ready to do anything.

  “Tell me, what was the hardest part?” she asked.

  Jo’s smile fell as he didn’t want to admit that any of it was hard, but he knew better than to lie. “They were really nice to me.”

  Logan nodded. “I know, it’s hard when they’re not bad people. Do I need to remind you why we do this?”

  “No, ma’am,” Jo shook his head. He was well aware of the ‘whys’, just as all the other children were.

  “Good. Now, I need your help one more time.”

  Jo felt light again. To be needed was the greatest joy of all.

  “You and I are going to go to where the prisoners are being kept. I would like you to pick out which ones I should talk to first.”

  “I can do that!” Jo nodded enthusiastically.

  “I’m sure you can. Barton?” she turned to a man at a computer next to her. “Keep an eye on things here. I’m going to go have a chat with our new friends.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Barton’s scarred head jolted in some version of a nod. Jo wondered if he’d ever be relied upon like that by Logan.

  “Come on, Journey,” Logan’s hand briefly alighted upon his shoulder as she stepped past him.

  Jo quickly fell in step behind her. He felt proud to be walking along with Logan, prouder of himself than he had ever felt before. He wondered what the other children would think when he told them. If he even got a chance to; Logan might keep him by her side as her assistant! Wouldn’t that be great!

  Section 4:

  Ultimatum

  26

  Misha’s Curious

  Misha moved through the recently fallen darkness, wondering what the summons had been about. Once the sun was down, it became too difficult to communicate wi
th those outside the walls. The flashlights weren’t as easy to spot as mirror-reflected sunlight—although the darkness did help with that—and nobody wanted to burn through batteries unless it was really important. Misha thought that since they were done talking to them, he was done for the night and could go to bed. It was while he was deciding whether to find himself a space in the community centre or find a way to climb back up onto his container in order to get inside, that Boyle had approached him and told him to meet at the end of the dock in an hour.

  The night was clear; the large U-shaped concrete dock stood out as a pale patch within the dark, faintly glittering water. He could see a few people already moving about at the end. There appeared to be at least ten of them, more than Misha had expected. As he approached, another group of five drifted from between some containers ahead, also moving toward the dock. That put the count at sixteen including him.

  When Misha reached the concrete, he glanced behind him. There were three more people moving through the darkness, coming toward the dock as well. Why were so many meeting out here? Were even more coming? He thought about his dogs, concerned for their safety. If some sort of plan to quietly abandon the yard was taking place, he’d fight whoever he needed to in order to go back for them.

  As soon as he got close enough to make out features, Misha started putting names to people, hoping that would give him some sort of explanation. There was the old woman who was always sewing things sitting on a fairly large metal box of some sort. Flanking her like a pair of guards were Boyle and Karsten. Grouped next to them were the three outsiders: Tommy, Suzanne, and Mark. Jon was moving from them to a cluster made up of Danny, Bryce, Larson, Lenny, and Shaidi, who were most likely the group of five who had arrived just before Misha. Scattered about on their own, Harry shifted from foot to foot, Jans paced in tight circles, and Freya stood perfectly still, looking over the group. Attaching himself to the fringes of the gathering, Misha looked back again, spotting the same three as before but no others. As they arrived, he identified them as White with two sharp shooters from the wall, Katrina and Yasmin. Outside of Nessie, everyone here was extremely capable of handling themselves in a rough situation, and the majority knew about what was really on the other side of the wall: Dean, the overly smart zombie.