“That sounds very nice, but I can’t stay.” A bed did sound very nice, especially if it was the kind topped by a mattress as she imagined it would be. A place like this was definitely built before the infection.
“Of course you can stay,” Shawn insisted.
Onida shook her head. “I can’t. For your own safety, I have to leave. There are people after me.”
“People? What kind of people? Why are they after you?”
“The people I used to live with. I stole something.”
Shawn’s eyes jolted up and down, realizing that he hadn’t checked her person.
“I don’t have it anymore,” Onida shook her head. “But that doesn’t matter to them. They’re coming for me, and they’ll hurt you for helping. I need to go so that you’ll be safe here.”
“You can be safe here, too,” Shawn told her. “I can keep you safe. I know how to set traps, traps for people. If they come here, I can kill them for you.”
Onida could tell that he meant it. She shook her head again. “They would see your traps. They’re very good at that. They’re excellent hunters; you wouldn’t be able to take them all out on your own.”
“At least stay one night. Rest. One night can’t hurt, can it?” Shawn was very insistent. “I can pack some food for you to take with you, but you have to stay the night if I’m going to do that.”
Food in exchange for providing some company did sound like a fairly good deal. And there was a bed to boot. “Just stay the one night?”
“We can play cards. You can tell me about where you’re from.”
“Okay, I guess. But don’t expect any more than that. We’re not going to have sex or anything like that.”
Shawn scrunched up his face. “Don’t be gross, you’re only sixteen. I’m not like that, okay? I’m not that kind of guy.” He was genuinely offended.
“Sorry, I just needed to make sure we were clear on that part.”
He continued to be upset by what she had felt the need to say while he removed the dishes from the table and washed them in a bucket of water with homemade soap. Mask walked over to Onida, curious about the new human in his midst. She let him give her a good sniff, and then he let her run her fingers through his fur.
“I still have plenty to do before nightfall,” Shawn said once the dishes were on a drying rack. “I would like you to accompany me.”
“Okay.” She figured she was being invited along more so that Shawn could make sure she wasn’t going to take his stuff and leave, rather than for company. She didn’t mind; it meant she would be out in the open should her pursuers show up.
Leaving the cabin, Onida’s theory about Shawn dropping himself off the deck was proven correct. He let her climb down the ladder first, however, when he saw her reticence after he told her to jump. When he rolled it back up, the ladder was probably stored without the metal wire holding it, so that Mask could easily unroll it when they got back. On the other hand, maybe the raccoon was clever enough to know how to work the wire.
Onida followed Shawn around as he checked traps for animals, gathered mushrooms in a nearby cave, and picked berries. Whenever a critter revealed itself, Shawn’s bow and an arrow were in his hands in a heartbeat. Only once did he actually take the shot, felling a rabbit.
“Dinner,” he smiled back at Onida.
Most of the time, Shawn barely acknowledged that she was trailing along behind him. Occasionally he would glance back at her, making sure she was still there, but he whispered more to Mask than spoke to her. He didn’t even ask her to help pick mushrooms, and she wasn’t going to volunteer. Shawn seemed very choosy about the ones he plucked, and not knowing the reason for that, Onida wasn’t going to risk upsetting him.
It wasn’t until water was to be hauled from the lake to the cabin that Onida actually helped out. That was also when she finally spoke, a question digging away at her.
“Is that an airplane?” she asked, referring to what appeared to be one smashed and tangled into some trees at one end of the long oblong of water.
Shawn glanced from her to the plane as if he had forgotten it was there. “Used to be,” he answered.
“Looks like a rough landing.”
“It was.”
“Were you in it when it crashed?”
“I was flying. I wasn’t as good at landing on this lake as I thought, not in that plane.”
“Ouch. Was anyone with you?”
Shawn shook his head. “I was all alone by then.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why?”
Onida shrugged, not really sure how she wanted to answer that.
They dropped off the first of the water buckets under the edge of the deck—later they would hoist them all up—and walked back down to the lake for more.
“What did you steal?” Shawn asked. His tone had zero accusation in it, merely curiosity.
Onida shook her head as he had done earlier. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I had a dog once.” This seemed like a strange change in topic. He paused so long before speaking again, that Onida almost asked him about it. “My sister stole it.”
“Your sister stole your dog?”
Shawn nodded. “She and her friends. They abandoned me.”
This time Onida resisted saying she was sorry, given his confusion last time. “Why’d they steal your dog?” she asked instead.
“I don’t know.”
It seemed pointless to ask any more questions. The dog, Shawn’s sister, and all his sister’s friends could very well be dead by now.
They finished hauling buckets to the deck, and then lifted them up with a rope. It was a job that must have taken Shawn a lot longer to do on his own, but with Onida there to tie the buckets on whenever the rope was lowered, it didn’t take much time at all. After the last bucket left the ground, she joined Shawn up top and helped carry them all inside. The rest of the chores Shawn had to do that day were things about the cabin. Onida boiled the water, one bucket at a time, using a big pot over the fire she built, while Shawn prepped the rabbit in the kitchen. He was skilled at the task, very efficiently gutting and skinning the animal, separating the parts into their various uses. The meat was cooked over the fire Onida had built, along with some mushrooms that made it extra good.
They didn’t play cards for long, or even talk all that much. Shawn just seemed happy to have another human body in the cabin. Once the sun had gone down, he unplugged the dangerous wiring for the sunlamp, causing the fire-cast shadows to deepen. They played a single game of cards after that before Shawn had to go back to doing chores. Onida could tell he got anxious when not doing them. She didn’t mind though, getting to relax while he busied himself with drying mushrooms, preserving some blackberries, tending the potatoes, and beginning the tanning process for the rabbit pelt.
“You should go to bed,” Shawn told Onida after seeing her yawn several times.
“So should you.”
“Soon. I have some more chores to do. You don’t need to stay up; you can sleep in there.” He pointed to one of the doors that led off the main space. Earlier, Onida had learned that one of them led to a bathroom without running water, but the toilet could be flushed by pouring some water from a bucket. It was probably Onida’s favourite thing about deciding to stay there for the night, other than the food. Of course, it had some stiff competition when she went into the bedroom and climbed into bed. The mattress was so soft, and pillow so squishy, despite being somewhat dusty. Onida left the door open a crack so that she could have a tiny bit of light in the windowless room from the living room’s fire. Also because Mask had followed her in to explore and she didn’t want him becoming trapped.
Onida didn’t plan on sleeping until after Shawn had finished his chores and gone to bed. She didn’t think she could sleep with a stranger moving about out there. But her body won the fight, plunging her into the world of dreams.
***
“Wake up,” a soft voice hissed in her ear, barely penet
rating through Onida’s sleep. “Stay quiet.” A hand clamped over her mouth before she could ask what was going on. There was a subdued anger in the voice that badly frightened her. “Your friends are here. Come with me.”
Onida nodded in the pitch black. The only thing that terrified Onida more than the idea of her host turning against her, was the thought of her pursuers catching up.
Shawn took her hand and led her out of the room, pressing her moccasins into her other hand at the same time. She could see nothing, and the only thing she could hear was the soft scrabbling of Mask’s nails against the floor as he accompanied them. Onida guessed she had been brought to the kitchen. When Shawn momentarily let go of her hand, it made Onida tremble, being alone in the dark like that. She flinched at the soft creak that sounded close by, wondering if it had been Shawn or the others. But then Shawn took her hand again and guided it toward the floor. He had her feel an opening, some hatch he must have lifted. Onida brought her other hand forward, patting around the edges until they located a firm ladder.
A crack followed by a kind of foosh made them both freeze. Shawn moved away from Onida so that she couldn’t tell where he was anymore. She stayed put and pulled on her moccasins while she waited.
Light came into the cabin as Shawn opened up the cover over the porthole window. To Onida’s horror, it was firelight. If Shaun had disbelieved her about the people who were after her, he couldn’t now. Without even knowing who might be living in the cabin, her pursuers had begun to burn it. In that light from outside, Onida could see the pure rage on Shawn’s face.
“You can’t fight them,” Onida risked whispering.
“I know,” he whispered back. Not bothering to close the porthole again, he rejoined her by the hatch. Without a word, he gestured for her to climb down. She silently obeyed, having no choice but to trust him.
It was much colder down below. It was also deeper than Onida had expected. The hard packed earth beneath her feet was considerably lower than that of the ground outside. In the dim light that made it down from above, she could just make out the edges of shelving units crowding the space.
Shawn spent a few more seconds above, making Onida wonder if she was to hide down here alone. When his body finally blocked the light, which was growing brighter as the flames grew higher, he had his rig back on, with Mask nestled inside the pouch. As soon as his feet touched the ground, Shawn took Onida’s hand and led her into the dark.
They crossed to a wall, Shawn placing Onida’s hand against it. He then drew her down to her knees, and had her feel another opening: this one horizontal. Onida didn’t need to be told to crawl. She simply slid inside and scrambled forward, having no idea where she was going. She froze up only once in that dark, tight space, and that was when a hammering on the metal door reached its way down to her ears. Her pursuers were giving up their silence as they found ways up onto the deck and discovered no way into the cabin. A gentle tap on her foot from Shawn got her moving forward once more.
There was moonlight at the far end of the tunnel. When she emerged, Onida could see some of the firelight flickering along the edges of rotten beams overhead. Whatever had once stood on this cement block had been gone for some time, allowing the elements to rot away what was left. A couple of hulking pieces of machinery sat piled in one corner, while the rest of the space was occupied by old fire pits and pots for boiling sap into syrup, stretchers for large animal hides of various shapes and sizes, and a mound of soft dirt and unusable animal organs that Onida thought might be fertilizer for the potatoes. Shawn emerged from the hole behind her. He gestured for her to follow him over to the machinery, where he withdrew from the shadows two large hiking packs. One of them had a bow and arrow rig set up on its sides, and Shawn quickly transferred his weaponry over to it. There was another soft pouch for Mask to climb into: this one hung from the chest straps, so that the raccoon was against Shawn’s belly once he put it on.
Onida put her arms through the straps of the bag she had been given, feeling the full weight as she stood up with it on. This was the kind of bag of supplies she should have run with the first time. Still, she grabbed her backpack that she had dragged along with her and wore it on her front. Seeing this, Shawn grabbed some pelts he had stored there, along with a few small tools, and rapidly stuffed them inside her bag. He then pointed up the machinery: they were going to climb it. Onida swallowed hard, not certain she could while burdened by all that weight, but she would have to try. Her pursuers had begun to whoop and howl, an attempt to intimidate and frighten whoever they thought might be inside into coming out.
Shawn climbed first, clearly having done this before. Onida watched him carefully as she followed, placing her hands and feet in the same spots that he had. At the top, Mask crawled out so that Shawn could slide on his belly onto a section of old flooring that continued to hold steady. Onida wasn’t sure if she could make that last little bit of distance on her own, but Shawn was able to reach her and helped haul her up. They crawled to the side of the cement block and peered over the edge. It seemed Onida’s pursuers had made the mistake of ignoring this place, believing it was a completely separate entity, as Onida had upon first seeing it. There was nothing but earth and shadow below.
With no hesitation, Shawn slid over the edge, hanging by his hands for just a second before dropping down onto his feet. Mask jumped after him, completely trusting Shawn to catch him. Not trusting Shawn to wait for her, Onida scrambled over the edge. She pretty much fell over the side, unable to hold on with her hands for any length of time. She hit the ground hard, her legs collapsing beneath her so that she ended up on her side. Luckily, there was no pain, just the shooting tingle of a hard impact. Shawn was still there and helped her back up onto her feet.
They crept off into the forest together, with Shawn leading the way. He circled around a bit, not going in a straight line. Onida wanted to tell him to stop, or to run off in a different direction, directly away from the cabin. Through the trees she could see that the flames had become quite substantial. The roof, with its solar panels and mini windmill, was also burning now. In the bright light that was cast, dancing figures could be seen on the ground below. It turned Onida’s stomach to think that people would dance at her death.
It turned out that Shawn knew exactly where he was going and had a good reason for it. He took them to the pursuers’ horses: their means of hunting Onida down as relentlessly as they had, her reason for running almost constantly. There was a guard, but Shawn dispatched him with an arrow. Like a lot of things he did, Shawn killed the man without seeming to think about it. Clean headshot. A couple of horses tossed their heads and snorted at the sudden scent of blood, but they remained relatively calm, used to the stench of death. Shawn retrieved his arrow and wiped the worst of the blood off on some nearby fronds, pointing to Onida and then a horse as he did so. Onida understood, untying the horse’s reins from a tree branch, and then scrambling up onto the beast’s back. She waited as Shawn moved among the horses, unable to see what he was doing.
Just as Onida considered bolting, Shawn popped up on a horse beside her. He held a finger to his lips, needlessly reminding her to be silent. She nodded.
When Shawn started his horse along the trail, Onida discovered what he had done. Several other horses were strung in a line behind his, each one tied to the saddle of the one before it. Twisting around, the shifting weight of her pack nearly pulling her off with the motion, she saw he had created a second train behind her horse. Once the line that Shawn led had passed, Onida kicked her horse to follow them down the narrow trail. It seemed that Shawn had decided if Onida’s pursuers were going to burn down his home, he was going to take their transportation, as well as all the supplies the horses carried.
As they walked quietly out into the night, with the fire roaring behind them, Onida couldn’t help but grin.
4: Claire
4 Days After the Bombing
“Wait, wait, wait,” Claire urged, scrambling up the ramp before t
hey could start removing it. She paused only once in her haste to get over the wall, when she saw the damage done to the container doors that had been struck by a grenade. It was the one breach along the upper level. There was no time to think about that, however, since Claire needed to get down the far ramp before it was hauled back inside, which was going to happen at any moment. She grabbed a rope and hurried down, her virtually empty pack flopping against her back as she hadn’t had time to properly adjust the straps yet.
“Thanks guys,” she said to the men preparing to move the ramp, because they had stopped working in order to let her down. Claire then took off running, soon passing through the container aisles that formed a sort of maze. All the groups had left, but not very long ago, and it wouldn’t take much for her to catch up. Reaching where the zombie slime still coated everything caused her a minor misstep, but she had known she was going to come across it and so kept going. She was on a mission, after all.
“Excuse me. Pardon me. Excuse me, sorry.” She made her way past a few teams, careful not to touch any of the slick walls. Her shoe slipped on the gunk once, as it was deeper outside of the path where people and horses were walking, but she kept her balance. Even if she hadn’t, a friendly hand had grabbed her shoulder to catch her. “Thank you,” she said, before continuing on her way.
There were fair sized gaps between each team so that if the group ahead needed to suddenly turn and flee, they had some space to do so. Through those open spots, Claire moved as quickly as she dared, planting her feet wherever she saw the most pavement.
“Do you think we should go over that way and help them?” a familiar voice spoke from around the next corner.
“A bunch of teams went that way; I’m sure they can handle it. Another messenger will find us if we’re needed.”
“Needed for what?” Claire asked as she turned the corner and came upon the team she had been looking for.
“Claire? What are you doing here?” Jon was the first to ask.
Survival Instinct (Book 5): Social Instinct Page 5