Defensive Instinct (Survival Instinct Book 4)

by Kristal Stittle

  “Freya, come on!” Boyle shouted at her. He had started to retreat with the others when he saw she hadn’t moved.

  The woman, Freya, waved him away, her eyes never leaving the opening. Frustrated, angry, and hating that he was doing it, Boyle turned and ran, knowing he’d be of more use on top of the containers than on the ground. Evans was so focused on what was happening in front of him, he didn’t notice when the dog man, Misha, lay down beside him with a rifle in his hands, or when a woman took up a similar position on his other side. He watched only the lone woman on the ground and the opening.

  A zombie appeared, clawing its way up onto the container wall.

  “Now!” Evans shouted, knowing he had a better view than Freya did.

  She didn’t know him, but she trusted his outburst. Pulling the pin, Freya’s sling became an immediate blur. During the seconds that passed, the zombie struggled up onto its feet, with more quickly rising behind him as the dead learned to climb and piled up on top of one another. When she finally loosed the grenade, Freya’s aim was perfect. The small explosive zipped up to the opening, then perfectly arched down to bounce between the first zombie’s feet. It exploded right over the pile, shrapnel destroying the muscles of those who had managed to learn how to climb. The doors of the containers, already weakened from the first blast they took, dented and cracked, one of them shearing off to fall and crush even more of the dead. The force blew the standing zombie inward, its body tearing apart and scattering all over the ground below. Freya wasn’t there anymore, she hadn’t even watched where her shot had landed. The moment the grenade was away from her, she had bolted for the corner where the bowman stood.

  Evans finally noticed the people who had stationed themselves around him. Without a rifle, he wasn’t expected to shoot the things as they came over the wall, but he took a kneeling stance to shoot anything that made it to the base of their container perch.

  There were so many. Already, more zombies were finding their way up, scrambling over the bodies of their fallen. The first shot came from Evans’ left, from Misha, closely followed by a second shot from his right. Two zombies fell beneath the bullets, but they were quickly replaced by two more.

  The fireworks are too far, Evans thought again. Maybe, if they were lucky, a few at the back would be drawn off, but with gunfire so much closer, that wasn’t likely.

  Shot by shot, the two flanking Evans took down the dead. At least the things were funnelled for the time being, but that wouldn’t last, and every shot that missed a skull meant one less bullet to take out the ones behind.

  “Reloading!” the woman on Evans’ right shouted.

  “I got them, Katrina,” another woman, who was farther right, told her, easily falling into the back and forth pattern with Misha. When Misha shouted that he was reloading, the young man on his left, the one with the katana, took over. This was something that had been planned.

  A bullet struck a zombie’s torso, knocking it over but not killing it.

  “Let it come,” Evans shouted to the shooters. “Don’t waste a second rifle shot on it, I’ll take care of that one.”

  The thing flopped over the edge of the container wall, nearly killing itself by landing on its head. Sadly, the corpses of other slain zombies had fallen before it, cushioning the blow. Evans tracked it with the muzzle of his shotgun, waiting until it was close enough that he could be certain he’d take it down.

  The roar of the shotgun was loud but effective as the zombie’s head was taken off. Evans pumped out the old cartridge, instinctively grabbing it and stuffing it into a rear pocket. He had no idea if he’d ever get to make it useful again. Not knowing how often he’d get to reload, Evans pulled out a fresh shell and slotted it into the shotgun. He intended to keep the weapon fully loaded whenever he could.

  The five closest to the opening adopted a rhythm. Whenever one had to reload, the person next to him or her would take up firing. If a shot was missed, a second shot wasn’t taken: the zombie was allowed to stagger close enough for Evans to deal with it. Through their brief bits of chatter, Evans learned the other woman was named Yasmin, and the young man was Jon. All of them had been slingers, but were proving themselves better with rifles.

  “Left side!” Boyle shouted farther down the container line, the call quickly repeated by Karsten and others.

  Evans glanced left to see another pile of zombies had mounded up and over the top of the wall. More riflemen and women began to take care of them, the crack of their weapons adding to the cacophony of chaos.

  More and more of the dead had to be left to Evans. They were surging over the wall now, being pushed by those behind, falling like a grotesque river. The opening was nearly entirely blocked by slain corpses, but more continued to crawl over them, heaved over the top by the masses below. The fully dead had formed a sort of ramp from the top of the wall to the ground inside. Rotting faces slid through blood and guts, occasionally hanging up on shattered bones, tearing themselves further in the pursuit of warm flesh. They were the slow creatures, the fast ones either trapped at the back or killed by the blasts, but the slick slide down gave them speed. It wasn’t always easy to tell which head belonged to which moving corpse; a few shots were wasted on those that had already been taken down. Evans found the amount of time he got to spend reloading was growing shorter and shorter each time, as the number of cartridges he expended grew and grew.

  “I’m out!” Misha was the first to shout, sliding out of his shooter’s position, slinging his rifle over his shoulder, and drawing a saw-backed machete. The other three continued to make do without him, each one getting less time to rest and reload before having to take up shooting again. It didn’t last long before Katrina shouted that she was out, followed by Jon and eventually Yasmin.

  A dog barked sharply beyond Yasmin. The younger animal was looking down at a zombie Evans had missed that had made it to the containers, its half-missing hands pawing at the metal sides. An arrow swiftly appeared in its skull, the bowman quickly moving down the line to search for more. Evans immediately had to turn and fire at another corpse getting close. As more and more riflemen ran out of bullets, more and more of the dead reached the containers. Pistols, shotguns, arrows, and even Freya’s viciously slung stones, tore through the nearby skulls, only to be replaced by more. Every time a corpse fell, another took its place, climbing through and over the bodies and getting just that much closer to the living people.

  “They’re coming up!” Misha shouted, having moved along the container without Evans noticing. He hacked at a head as it was dragged upward, the thing’s arms sprawled across the top of the container. The sharp machete bit into the rot-weakened skull, taking out the brain within, the corpse sliding back to increase the pile’s height as soon as the blade was freed.

  Evans fired upon another zombie, and another, and another, but the fourth time he tried, his shotgun was empty. Reaching for another shell, his fingers found none. He was out.

  Flipping the shotgun over, Evans swung the butt around and smashed the face off the zombie climbing up to him, its jaw separating to disappear amongst the rest of the miscellaneous body parts strewn about. Rising up off his knees, Evans hung his shotgun back in its hip holster with one hand, while drawing his broadsword with the other. He lopped off the head of a zombie coming up to him, already unsure if it was the one he had struck with the shotgun. Somewhere deep down, Evans’ brain continued to separate the zombies, to identify the features that had made them individual humans, but he had learned to ignore it long ago. It was easier to see only the major anatomy points, the head, torso, and limbs. To go beyond that was to see the gore, the decay, the rot, the horror that had befallen the people these once were. For Evans, only the smell remained, threatening to choke him and bring up his last meal, the one he and the others had received in the holding containers. He did his best to breathe through his mouth, but then it became a taste. He hadn’t thought to grab his scarf from the carts, but even it would do little against this se
nsory assault. The air was thick and heavy with it.

  “Fall back!” someone shouted, Evans too focused on swinging his sword to identify who. “Fall back!”

  Evans turned and saw that most of the people on the front line of containers had retreated back across the ladders and boards that connected to those behind them. Zombies had come over multiple points of the wall now and were crashing into the lower containers like ocean waves, some flowing up onto them, while others started flooding around the sides.

  “Rifle!” Misha was bellowing from half way across the ladder, the younger of the two dogs Evans had seen earlier clutched tightly to one shoulder while his other hand still held the machete now dripping with blackened blood. “Rifle!”

  Evans realized he was one of the last on the container, or at least one of the last who was still alive. He saw one man get dragged down, engulfed in dead flesh, while a few others had sustained bites. Those who had been bitten were continuing to fight, knowing they were taking their last breaths and using them to protect their friends and families from a similar fate.

  Evans was about to be cut off from the ladder by the dead. On the container row behind him, people were shouting, afraid of shooting him and encouraging him to get out of the way. Some shots were taken anyway, brains blowing out of heads around him. Misha had retreated to the other container, putting his dog down and looking like he was about to run back across the ladder, when Evans felt something against his leg. Raising his sword, he prepared to hack down at it, assuming it was a small or legless zombie. At the last moment he recognized fur, and redirected his blow back up to the nearest dead thing, striking its crotch and shattering its pelvis. Evans lashed out with his boot, knocking it back into the others coming at him, causing many to lose their balance.

  A reeking hand fell on his shoulder from behind, but it was gone before Evans could even finish turning around. The German Shepherd had grabbed the zombie’s arm and dragged the whole thing down, where the dog shook its head, tearing the limb from the torso. Evans drove the point of his sword through the dead brain and the dog instantly released the corpse.

  “I’m guessing you’re the rifle,” Evans grunted as he grabbed the old dog and slung it over his wide shoulder in the manner he had seen Misha use to carry the other dog.

  Charging for the ladder, Evans swung his sword before him with one hand, using the flat sides more than the sharp ones. He didn’t care about taking down zombies right now; he just needed to bat them out of his way and didn’t want to risk the blade getting stuck.

  Upon reaching the ladder, he couldn’t slow, no longer being cautious as he had been when first crossing it. As the other side neared, his foot missed a rung, his leg sliding down through the opening. Evans hurled the dog from him, the old mutt yelping like a pup as it went airborne. Misha was watching and waiting, however. He caught Rifle, leaning out over the ladder to do so. Jon was right behind him, and yanked the back of Misha’s shirt before both he and the dog could go over the side.

  Evans barely made note of all of this as he twisted around, swinging his sword. Some part of him had registered the vibrations coming through the ladder as those created by a pursuer. This particular follower was dead, but still of reasonable intelligence, a smart one crawling over the rungs with alarming speed. It seemed not all of them had been taken out by the grenade blasts, but this one certainly died for good when Evans’ sword bit into it.

  Yanking his blade free, Evans scrambled upright, pulling his leg out from between the ladder rungs. He scrambled the rest of the way across using his hands, then flipped over into a seated position the moment he was on the container. At the other end of the ladder, someone Evans hadn’t noticed earlier was about to come across. Everyone around was shouting encouragement to the man, urging him to come faster, but he was scared and picked his way along one rung at a time.

  Evans, with his lower vantage point, spotted the bloody tear along the man’s calf. Was it just a cut, a gash from an accident involving one of the two-bladed weapons hanging from the man’s belt, or was it a bite? Was the man already dead? Right or wrong, Evans decided that he was. He’d be dead soon with the sluggish pace he was using to cross the ladder. Most of the zombies were too uncoordinated, missing the rungs and falling from the container and bridge, but each one got a little farther having watched those before it, or by walking over those that had fallen along the ladder’s length. Evans started kicking the ladder.

  “What are you doing?” Jon shouted at him, his voice barely heard over the crackle of gunfire.

  “His leg!” Evans shouted back, still kicking, the ladder sliding sideways an inch at a time. It wasn’t until a zombie grabbed the back of the man’s shirt and pulled him down that Jon started helping. Evans had moved the ladder a fair way, but it was weighed down by the bodies on top of it. With Jon’s help, they swiftly got it over the edge and clattering to the ground, spilling off both the man and the zombies who were swarming him.

  Back on his feet, Evans quickly scanned back and forth, checking that all other temporary bridges gapping the distance between the first and second rows of containers were down.

  “Come on, Karsten ordered everyone without ammo to the back of the containers.” Jon took Evans’ arm and guided him past the shooters, with Misha and his dogs accompanying them.

  “I just need some shells and I can keep firing,” Evans insisted, preferring the front where he could see what was happening.

  “Not without a shotgun you can’t.” Jon gestured to his waist.

  Looking down, Evans saw that he had lost his shotgun at some point, probably when he had fallen on the ladder. Cursing, he allowed Jon to continue leading him. The second row of containers was connected to the third via a recently moved one. The gaps were just large enough that they had to jump a short way to cross them, meaning that the first zombies to try would certainly fall.

  Although Jon had been the one to tell Evans that they were to head to the back, it seemed that he felt the same and stopped when only halfway there. Misha hadn’t kept up with them, stopping to gather up all the dogs they passed and bringing them away from the front. Evans wondered if they were all his dogs, or if some people were trusting him to take care of theirs. Evans headed along the containers, attempting to get as close to the community centre as he could, so that he could see how his party members over there were fairing. All around, the sharp crack of gunfire filled the air, and the smell of gunpowder mixed with the scent of rot. Even back from the firing line, tense postures and nervous brows were everywhere Evans looked. Guns were in every hand as eyes carefully scanned for targets. At the edge of the container rows, a few shots began firing as some zombies found their way around. Looking to the community centre roof, Evans spotted a muzzle flash at the farthest end, the one with a view around the edges of the container rows on that end. Evans bet it was Ki-nam, the one he had put in charge of everyone up there, and who had a high-powered rifle with a scope that would allow him to fire at those coming over the wall. The party members, all perched around the solar panels, were probably giving him their ammo if it was compatible.

  When a few members of his party who were on the containers spotted Evans, they smiled and waved enthusiastically, glad to see he was still alive and presumably unhurt. For the first time, Evans looked down at himself to see the new streaks of blood that stained his clothes. There was even a chunk of something trapped beneath his bootlaces, but he’d deal with that later. He wondered how much splattering had landed on his face and reminded himself not to lick his lips no matter how dry they might feel. He wished again for his scarf even though it made breathing somewhat more difficult, but it was locked away in a container somewhere, and he had no idea which one.

  Evans stalked to the end of the container row, pacing back and forth behind the line of shooters with his sword gripped tightly in one hand. The adrenaline wouldn’t let him keep still. Every time someone near him fired their weapon, he hurried over to the edge to see if the zombies were f
looding around it, but so far, it had only been random wanderers.

  A great amount of shouting drew Evans’ attention to the far end of the container row. It didn’t take long for the words to be passed down.

  “They’re coming over the shorter section of the wall!”

  Evans ran down the length of the containers, his boots thudding heavily against the metal surface, nimbly avoiding escape hatches and the ends of plastic bottles sticking up. He saw what was causing the commotion even before he reached it. A group of zombies had finally learned to scale a section of the wall that was only one container high. Because of the lower height, the zombies could get up and over more quickly, faster than the shooters could take them out. Once the dead hit the ground, they moved toward the container rows, some heading for the nearest one, others moving into the spaces between them. A lot of the zombies still remembered their short climb as they reached the next barrier of containers and immediately began trying to climb the new obstacle.

  There was a strange shift in positioning happening. Most of the best shooters had been situated at the front of the container rows, with the weaker warriors defending the back rows. Although a couple of good shooters were over at the side, they clearly hadn’t expected this many zombies to come over. Now, some combatants were moving away from the danger, frightened and fleeing, while the more bold hurried to take their places. Evans got on his knees, out of the firing lines, and squirmed between the legs of two shooters who were busy picking off zombies as they came over. Neither had noticed the danger looming below their feet until Evans thrust the point of his sword over the edge, impaling a zombie’s face. Over the screams and shouts, he thought he heard a thank you before the shooters began firing at the wall again.

  Wiggling into a better position, Evans knelt in front of the shooters, stabbing and slashing at anything that tried to rise above the container’s edge. He got into another kind of rhythm, paying no attention to what the shooters were doing behind him. At one point, he thought he heard the call for the second line to retreat, but couldn’t be sure. Everything had become chaotic as ammo was depleted, lines reformed, and people died. Evans was sure he was half-deaf from all the gunfire that had been thumping near his head. His focus remained on the dead before him, those trying to climb up, and the flashing of his blade that grew duller with every strike. He changed positions, his arms tired and his knees sore. He started kicking out at the zombies, knocking them off the pile that had grown higher than the container.