Survival Instinct (Book 5): Social Instinct

by Stittle, Kristal

  Claire moved at a jog, holding her tire iron high as she reached the turn. But there was nothing there. She had heard no running footsteps, and no doors opening or closing. She could easily see all the way to the stairwell door, and nothing stood between it and her. Still, knowing that someone had been following them earlier, Claire went to each apartment and tried the handle. They were all locked, as she had expected they would be. This place had been evacuated. People had had time to lock their doors. She also checked the stairwell, but couldn’t see anything in there either.

  “Claire?”

  When she returned to the hallway, Rose was looking around the bend at her.

  “What are you doin’ over there?” she asked.

  “I thought I saw something. I guess I didn’t.”

  “Yeah, places like this can get pretty spooky.” Rose’s shoulders were bunched up in a way that suggested she wasn’t just saying that to make Claire feel better.

  “Especially with the storm and that mannequin.”

  Rose nodded. “Wanna head back down together?”

  Claire agreed and they headed to the stairwell. Claire couldn’t resist one last look over her shoulder, but she still saw nothing amiss. Soon, they would have to start piling up stuff around the bend, as the hallway was already getting rather full.

  Reaching the second floor, Claire looked over the railing in the stairwell.

  “The water’s rising,” she told Rose.

  Rose, who had been about to exit the stairwell, turned around and joined her at the railing. “Yup. Ground floor’s gettin’ pretty flooded. We better hurry up, just in case. I’m not sure that this building isn’t in a low spot.”

  Claire followed Rose out into the hall. “Have you ever seen rain like this?”

  “No. This might be a once-in-every-twenty-years storm, or some crap like that. We haven’t been here long enough to know. And with the sewers and whatever never being cleaned out, the floodin’ only gets worse.”

  Claire could tell that Rose was trying to make the two of them feel better, but that she didn’t really believe this kind of storm could come every twenty years. The blocked off storm sewers was definitely fact. Claire wondered about the animals in the area, where they went during something like this. Would the alligators get washed out to sea?

  They left all the doors on the second floor open, so that they knew which places they had been through already.

  “Will the foundations of the building hold?” Claire wondered as she approached the next apartment being unlocked.

  “Don’t know,” Danny shrugged. “I don’t see why it wouldn’t.”

  “But what if it doesn’t?”

  “Then we won’t have to worry about the weather for very much longer,” Larson told her. It was the nicest way of saying that they would all be crushed or drowned. Claire actually preferred the former to the latter.

  “Do you think the container yard is okay?”

  No one answered Claire’s question this time. They didn’t want to think about it. Claire didn’t want to either, but she couldn’t help it. It was their home. The reason they were gathering all this stuff was so that they could bring it back there. Maybe the others couldn’t stop thinking about it either, but none of them wanted to give voice to their concerns.

  “Do you think we could catch any fish in that water?” Claire decided to change subjects with a gesture to the window once the apartment was opened.

  “We could try, but it’s unlikely we’d catch anything,” Danny told her before moving on to the next door.

  “We should try,” Claire told them, as Rose took the recently opened apartment. “Our food stores are pretty meagre. We counted on proper hunting and foraging to feed ourselves.”

  “We’re aware,” Jon sighed, getting exasperated by her chatter. “We’ll do what we can, but that won’t be much until the rain stops.”

  Claire knew her questions were bothersome, but the storm had her freaked out. The mannequin too. Whenever she found herself near her friends, she wanted to talk, to hear their voices. She was told to search the next apartment they got open, which meant no more questions. No more talk.

  In a bedroom, Claire found a corpse. It wasn’t the mobile kind, just a dried-out human form in a fetal position on top of the blankets. Claire stepped closer to it, to make sure that it was indeed dead, and not just a deaf zombie waiting to spot movement, or maybe a person who liked to move mannequins dressed in some crazy disguise. Her prodding with the tire iron produced nothing, and closer inspection revealed that there were, in fact, two corpses. Curled up against the belly of the first was a shrivelled toddler. Claire could see no injuries to their heads. The pair of them must have died fairly early on, before the contagion went airborne and infected everyone with a dormant version of the virus. Claire wondered if they had simply starved, or dehydrated, or if the larger corpse had given them both something so that they’d sleep without ever waking. Whatever the case, it was sad. Claire didn’t touch the blankets, but she raided the closet and dressers. It didn’t matter how sad the scene was; she still had a job to do.

  The apartment contained the same semi-useful stuff as the previous apartments Claire had cleared. She began carrying it in loads up to the third floor, always checking around the bend whenever she was up there. On one of her trips back down, she heard a grunt of frustration from one of the boys, along with what was likely a boot striking a door. She found that it was Larson, trying to get the final apartment open. Danny and Bryce, who’d been clearing out other places, had also heard and come out to see what was going on.

  “I got the door unlocked but something’s blocking it from the other side,” Larson complained.

  Danny walked over and placed his ear against the door. “Something’s moving around in there.”

  “Our mannequin friend?” Claire worried.

  “Doubtful. Whoever that is, they’re quiet. This sounds like a zombie. It’s on the other side of whatever is blocking this door.”

  “A zombie inside a barricade.” Bryce sounded pleased about this although Claire didn’t know why.

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “Only two reasons a zombie would be inside. Either they died of natural causes and the airborne shit turned them, or, they barricaded themselves inside after being bitten, either in a panic or because they didn’t know what was going to happen,” Bryce told her.

  “So?”

  “So, if it’s the latter we might find some really good stuff in there,” Larson said this time. “Could be someone who had been stockpiling canned goods when they got bitten. As long as they were stored well and haven’t rusted, they might still be edible.”

  “Might also be some dried goods, or MRIs,” Danny added. “Bryce, come over here. I think we can shove this open. On the count of three. One, two, three.”

  Bryce and Danny threw their shoulders into the door together. It didn’t open, but it budged a little. Danny counted to three again, and they repeated the action. By the third strike, Jon showed up, and by the fourth, Rose came as well. The door had opened enough for them to see the back of a tall chest of drawers, but the weight suggested there was more than just that in the way. They couldn’t get the door open much farther before it jammed completely.

  “Hold on.” Claire stepped up to the door as Danny and Bryce backed away from it, grateful to give their shoulders a break. “Someone give me a boost.”

  Jon obliged, bunching up on the floor so that Claire could use his back as a stool. She was high enough and thin enough to wedge her head through the opening above the drawers. Her flashlight rested on top of the dresser so that she had some light to see by.

  “Yeah, the barricade’s now braced against a wall,” Claire told everyone. “It doesn’t look like it can be easily broken by force either. There’s a couch and then a pair of big lounging chairs.”

  “What about the zombie?” Larson asked.

  “It’s there too. He’s on the living room side of t
he barricade. I think I can wiggle myself through to the hallway side.”

  “Are you sure you can do it safely?” Jon asked her from beneath her feet.

  “Yeah. The zombie can’t get over the barricade. There’s some dining room chairs overturned on top of the couch, and the thing is definitely stupid.”

  “Do it,” Danny told her.

  Claire twisted so that she could shove her arms through the opening alongside her head. Two of the boys grabbed her legs to lift her higher as she wriggled through, grabbing onto whatever she could in order to pull herself forward. The dresser met a short length of wall beside the door, but once Claire was past that, she was able to drop down into the hallway. It was not a graceful fall, and she landed on her shoulder fairly hard.

  “Claire? You okay?” Jon asked upon hearing the thump.

  “Yeah, I’m alright. Gonna have one hell of a bruise later, though.”

  “Can you kill the zombie?” Larson asked.

  “Not with my tire iron. I don’t have enough reach.”

  “What about my sword?” Jon asked.

  “That might do.”

  The sword immediately came sliding through the opening, safely enclosed in its scabbard. Even with it, Claire couldn’t take out the zombie right away. She had to perch on the end of the couch, holding part of the pile of dining room chairs for balance. Several thrusts of the katana missed, or didn’t penetrate deep enough. Claire carved up the zombie’s face until finally a strike sank through enough flesh and bone to hit its glob of a brain. The zombie dropped to the floor, properly dead. Once it was down, Claire set to moving the dining room chairs so that she could slide the couch out from the middle of the barricade.

  “Okay, push!”

  The dresser squeaked as it dragged along the floor, and threatened to topple over.

  “Stop,” Claire told them once the opening appeared large enough for everyone to squeeze through. If the dresser fell over, it could jam itself against the big, heavy chairs, and Claire couldn’t be certain she’d be able to move any of it on her own.

  When Jon came through first, Claire handed him back his sword. He instantly went with it to check the rooms off the hallway behind her. Danny squeezed his way between the dresser and chairs to investigate the living room.

  “Let me see your shoulder,” Larson said when he came in.

  They stood out of the way for Bryce and Rose, and Claire pulled her long sleeved shirt up around her neck, freeing the one arm with a wince and trying not to pull up her T-shirt at the same time. When she rolled up the short sleeve, they could both see that her shoulder was already changing colours. Larson gently prodded the area around the wound, causing gooseflesh to erupt across Claire’s chest. While not exactly attracted to Larson, she had to admit that he was very good looking, and it wasn’t often a handsome young man touched her skin in any way.

  “Doesn’t appear that anything’s broken or dislocated,” Larson informed her. “That’s going to be one gnarly bruise.”

  “It already is.” Claire thought she would have known if her injury had been worse, but then she could recall people hurt even more badly who had insisted they were fine. Claire was fairly certain she would never be one of those people, that she didn’t have the mind and body separation needed for it, but then Larson didn’t know that. Really, Claire couldn’t know that either unless it actually happened. Those people claiming to be fine as they bled out probably also thought that something like that wouldn’t happen to them. Claire shivered.

  “You all right?” Larson had seen.

  “Yeah, just not used to having my arm bare, is all.” Claire rolled the short sleeve back down and then winced some more as she put her arm back into the long sleeve. “How’s your finger doing, by the way?”

  Larson held up a hand, his missing finger replaced by a strip of cloth that was more to hide the wound than to act as a bandage. “Haven’t popped any stitches yet. Still itches like crazy sometimes.”

  There was some commotion going on in the kitchen, so Larson and Claire made their way in that direction, after Claire had picked up her pack that Jon had dropped by her feet.

  “Check it out!” Rose crowed, proudly displaying a cupboard full of cans and dried goods.

  “Nice!” Larson walked over to look at them, taking a can down to inspect it for rust.

  Danny was taking even more cans out of another cupboard. “I don’t think this guy evacuated. He must have stocked up before the infection reached here and thought he could ride it out or something. Claire, come over here. Turn around.”

  Claire complied. Her pack was slung over her good shoulder, but she attempted to lift it over the injured one as well when she felt Danny loading her down with goods. It hurt, but most of the bruise was on the outside of her arm and she thought she could tolerate it, as long as she kept the strap up high, near her neck. From where she stood, she had a view of a window. It didn’t really look like rain out there anymore. More like some sort of fountain curtain, given the amount of water coming down. The view was terrifying. Once it felt like Danny was done filling her pack, Claire drifted over to the window for a proper look.

  Trees were thrashing above the waterline, bending ridiculously low in the wind. Waves were being pushed up off the floodwaters; the crests were misting and blended in with the rain. Claire could barely see the closest structure, and nothing beyond it.

  “Best not to focus on it,” Jon spoke from behind her. He placed a hand on her good shoulder and turned her away from the window. “Focus on the task in front of us.”

  “We found another body in the bathtub,” Bryce explained as he stood in the kitchen doorway, waiting to see if his pack would be needed. “I’m guessing the guy who owned this place knew her, and let her in when he really shouldn’t have. She turned, he got bitten in the process of putting her down, then simply waited for the same thing to happen to him.”

  “You know it’s a female because she was wearing a sundress?” Claire asked.

  “Yeah. Dresses are the only way I know how to tell when the long dead are women, without getting too close. Why?” Bryce looked over at her.

  “Because this woman really liked sundresses.” Claire had spotted a cluster of framed photos on a table. In all of them were a rugged man and a woman who was always in a sundress. They looked like they were in love, but probably didn’t live together given the utter lack of feminine clothing and personal effects.

  “I guess that explains why he let her in,” Bryce agreed, walking over for a closer look. “It must have been really hard at the start; knowing your loved ones were bitten and being unable to do anything for them.”

  “It’s still really hard now,” Claire told him.

  “Yeah, of course, but back then people weren’t used to it. Someone got hurt or sick, you just brought them to the hospital and the doctors made them better. They had more hope than we do now. These days, we know better. We know we can’t do anything but give them the option of going out before they turn. It’s still hard, but we’re used to it.”

  “I’m not sure you’d say the same if it were Becky who had been bitten.” Claire knew that Bryce had lost his parents on the Day, but he hadn’t really had to see what happened to them. Claire, on the other hand, had had to watch as her mother, siblings, and friends were torn apart and drowned, only to reanimate and attack the person next to them. If it hadn’t been for Jon and Lauren, she might never have learned to live with the pain.

  “Maybe,” Bryce reluctantly agreed. His voice then dropped to a whisper so that the others couldn’t hear them. “You were asking about the container yard. What do you think? Do you think they’re all right?”

  Claire remembered that Becky was back at the yard. “They’ve ridden out storms before. You should know, you lived there through some of them.”

  “None of them were like this, though.” Bryce’s eyes flicked toward the window. “Not this bad.”

  “Maybe we’re getting the worst of it. We’re far en
ough west that they might not be getting the same amount of wind and rain that we are.”

  Without looking at her, Bryce took her hand within his and squeezed it. Claire squeezed back. Lauren, Abby, and Peter were all still at the container yard. Her second family. She had to believe that what she said to Bryce was true.

  “Bryce?” Danny stuck his head out of the kitchen. “We need your pack. This guy had MREs too.”

  “Wow, this place is the mother load,” Bryce replied as he turned toward the kitchen, his expression changing to one of more cheer and excitement. Claire now knew that that was false, that maybe everyone right now was wearing a sort of mask. But she understood that she should wear one too. They had to be a united front against their own fears.

  “Jon? Why don’t we try to move the barricade some more?” Claire suggested. “Make it easier to get in and out for multiple trips.”

  ***

  “You know, we might all just spend the rest of the night shittin’ our guts out,” Rose said as they laid out their bedding in a third floor apartment. The hallway outside was so full of things from lower down, that only a narrow path led through it. “Yet, I’m still gonna say that eatin’ out of those cans was worth it.”

  They hadn’t eaten much, maybe two-thirds of a can for each of them, because they wanted to save as much as they could to bring home. Claire had gotten a third of Jon’s can, and a third of Danny’s, and while she felt fine for the moment, neither of them had really tasted right. But there was food in her stomach. Blessed fuel to offset all the energy she had expended that day going up and down the stairs. Her legs felt like rubber, and she still had a headache, but it had lessened after eating. She always tried her best to ignore the aches and pains of her body, but as she lay on her bedding, she let them through. She actually preferred to think of them as opposed to her other options: the storm and whoever was leaving mannequins around.