Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel Paperback

by Kristal Stittle

  They reached the glass entry and Cillian pulled open the door. The Isaac buildings were always open to the public because the lower five floors were dedicated to shopping: basically, a mall. The other five floors were offices, mainly for the businesses that had shops below. Cillian looked around carefully as he stepped through the doors. Tobias followed him, gripping his axe tightly. It was very bright in Isaac One but eerily quiet. Usually it was filled with the sounds of busy shoppers and sellers in kiosks trying to off-load their wares. Today it was almost entirely silent. Tobias could hear the humming of all the fridges in the food court they had stepped into.

  “Where do you think everyone is?” Tobias whispered, but he felt that his voice carried too much in the empty space.

  Cillian answered by pointing over to some tables. Almost every chair in the food court had been toppled over and kicked around. The tables would probably have been the same if they hadn’t been bolted to the floor. Many of them still had trays of food on their surfaces, and a few abandoned bags lay scattered about. One of the tables that Cillian had pointed to was covered in a bloody smear that, for a moment, Tobias thought was just an exploded ketchup pack. A streak of red stained the floor from the table to a Subway shop. Tobias turned on the camera and filmed through it. He didn’t want to be there, to be seeing that, but he couldn’t leave, so he resorted to the next best thing.

  For the first time that Tobias could remember, he was utterly disturbed by the lack of a crowd.

  “I don’t mind you filming, but use your eyes,” Cillian whispered quietly, “you don’t want something sneaking up on you because you have no peripherals.”

  Tobias nodded as he lowered the camera. Cillian was right, of course. His real safety depended on using all his senses. His mental health would have to take a back seat unfortunately.

  They crept through the food court giving the Subway shop a wide berth. Here and there were more bloodstains or sometimes just a few drops, a handful of which could actually have been just ketchup. Food was all over the place. Although some trays were completely undisturbed, others had been scattered everywhere. In the splattered contents of a Mayo packet was a perfect footprint. Tobias wondered if it was from a zombie or someone normal. He was getting used to thinking of them as zombies now. When he eventually learned what they really were, he was probably going to feel like an idiot, but zombies was a good name for them in the meantime.

  The delicious aroma coming off the fast food made Tobias suddenly very hungry. It disgusted him that he should be hungry at a time like this, surrounded by such markings of death.

  The two men finally made it out of the food court and to a staircase.

  “Do you know what floor the closest walkway is?” Cillian whispered back to Tobias while looking up the stairs. He couldn’t see very far. Due to ongoing construction, a wooden barrier had been erected around the entire staircase.

  Tobias thought for a moment, going over the layout of the mall in his head. It was probably the only place in this part of the city that he even somewhat knew. “There’s one on the second floor but deeper into the building. On the third floor, I remember there being one near this staircase.”

  “Third floor it is then.” Cillian started climbing the stairs.

  Tobias didn’t know if he liked the fact that the stairs were enclosed. The wooden structure had been put up to protect the mall patrons from potential hazards. Too bad they couldn’t protect them from the disaster that had happened… was still happening.

  As they reached the landing, they took it slowly, rounding the corner with caution. They both crawled up the next set of stairs so that they could see over the edge without exposing too much of themselves. They lay side by side, as they looked around the second floor.

  “You see anyone?” Tobias asked Cillian in a whisper.

  “No, you?”

  “No.”

  After taking a deep breath, they stood up and exited the stairwell. When they weren’t immediately attacked, Tobias slowly let out his breath.

  “I wonder where everyone is,” Cillian spoke above a whisper and his voice echoed. His face paled as he clearly regretted his volume. Both Tobias and Cillian stood perfectly still, waiting for something bad to descend upon them. Nothing did.

  “Well, most of these upper floors are closed for construction,” Tobias whispered, gesturing to the wooden barrier around the steps. “Mostly it’s just the food court open downstairs and only a handful of shops up here. I guess everyone was downstairs when it happened, and they probably fled the building.”

  “Sounds logical to me,” Cillian lowered his voice to a whisper again.

  They turned the corner and headed up the next flight of stairs. Although they were still being careful, they climbed faster.

  “All right, which way to the walkway?” Cillian asked once they reached the third floor.

  “This way.” Tobias now took the lead. They headed around the construction blockades meant to keep patrons out. There was clear evidence of construction on this floor, with scaffolding and tools littered about. Tobias wouldn’t be surprised to find that the higher floors were completely closed to the public. As they passed by a pile of tools, Cillian bent down and picked up a crowbar.

  “Not as good as the axe but at least I’m armed now,” Cillian shrugged when Tobias gave him a quizzical look.

  Although they kept a constant lookout, they didn’t see any signs of life. Or unlife for that matter. They still went slowly, just in case, but finally made it to the entrance of the walkway. There was a big sign labelling it as walkway two, and under it hung a giant plastic sheet that covered the way through. Tobias slowly pulled back the sheet and looked into the walkway. He saw someone standing in the middle of the passage and quickly dropped the drape back in place. It crinkled slightly causing Tobias to wince.

  “Someone’s there,” he whispered very quietly to Cillian, placing his head near the firefighter’s. If the crinkle didn’t cause instant murder, then that level of whispering should be safe.

  “Then go deal with them,” Cillian whispered back.

  “Why me?” Tobias frowned.

  “Hey, you wanted the axe. All I have is this damn crowbar.” Cillian shook the crowbar for emphasis.

  “What if it’s not a zombie?” Tobias feared killing someone innocent.

  “Talk to them. If they don’t answer, axe to the head,” Cillian shrugged. He also made a gesture with his crowbar to his own head, nearly hitting the helmet.

  “What if it’s one of the ones that screams, and it draws others?”

  “And what if it’s the queen of England?” Cillian sighed. “You gotta deal with it.”

  Tobias sighed as well and looked back at the curtain. “Hold this.” He took the camera off his neck and handed it to Cillian. He didn’t want to risk getting it more damaged, or having it get in his way. Once Cillian took the camera, Tobias drew the curtain aside and stepped into the tunnel made of glass and concrete. Cillian hung back, watching from the entrance, even lifting the camera to film. Tobias didn’t really want this on tape, but he couldn’t very well ask him not to do it now. Especially not after he had put up with Tobias getting the camera in the first place. He stepped down the tunnel keeping a close eye on the pedestrian. It was an elderly woman judging by her clothes and grey hair.

  “Excuse me?” Tobias barely heard his own whisper, his throat choking it out. There was no reaction. Tobias looked back at Cillian who waved him forward. He was filming, but kept the camera at chest level so that he could still see all around himself. As Tobias was looking at him, Cillian took a quick glance behind him to make sure nobody was sneaking up on him. Tobias was going to have to get better at that himself. So far that day, he had learned he was decent at running away from things, but not very good at avoiding them in the first place. Cillian was better at that part. Of course Tobias’s escapades on the roof suggested he wasn’t that good at running away either.

  At the moment though, he had to deal with a
confrontation he couldn’t avoid or run away from. “Excuse me, ma’am?” Tobias said a little louder.

  The woman’s head snapped around and looked at Tobias. Her eyes were a pure white. At first, Tobias hoped she was just blind, but then she started running straight at him, teeth bared. She was so silent.

  Tobias lifted the axe up like a batter at the plate. When the woman got close enough he took a quick side step and swung with all his might. The axe buried deep into her upper chest, lifting her up off her feet. She fell on her back, and Tobias placed his sneaker on her neck to keep her down, but the axe wouldn’t come out no matter how hard he pulled. He was concerned the woman was going to bite his ankle or claw his leg through his pants. She was making a good attempt at doing just that.

  “Cillian!” he whispered as loudly as he dared. “Help!”

  Cillian quickly placed the camera on the ground and rushed over. Without hesitating, he swung the crowbar into the top of the old lady’s head. The clawed end thumped into her skull. She stopped clawing at Tobias’s leg, and her snapping jaws relaxed, but she still moved slightly, jaws working open and closed at a sluggish pace.

  “I’ll hold her, you get the axe out,” Cillian told him.

  While Cillian held her head still with the crowbar, Tobias moved his foot onto the woman’s breasts and pulled the axe. He had to jiggle it around before it slid free of the ribs. The sound was one he would rather forget, but likely wouldn’t. He seemed to have found what he was good at, though: being an axe murderer.

  “Aim for the neck,” Cillian gestured.

  Tobias grimaced as he lifted the axe up and swung it down on the poor old woman. It took three swings to sever her head completely. Tobias then quickly walked away, back to the camera. He didn’t want to watch how Cillian was going to get the head off the crowbar. Whatever he did, there was a slight squish and a crunch. More sounds to stick in his mind. He bent down and picked the camera up off the floor. If he didn’t have an empty stomach, he might have thrown up just then, as his stomach clenched painfully. He stopped the camera’s recording and slung the strap around his neck again. When he turned around, Cillian was standing halfway down the tunnel, looking out of its glass side. The woman’s head lay against its body, and if Tobias hadn’t chopped it off himself, he would have thought it was still attached from this angle.

  “What are you looking at?” Tobias whispered.

  “Our friend on the bus.” Cillian pointed.

  Tobias walked over next to him and looked out the side of the tube as well. The man on the bus was still going, but he was flagging badly. More and more zombies were making it up on the bus and he was being bitten a lot. His legs were shredded in such a way that it was impossible to tell what was torn pants and what was torn flesh. Tobias lifted up the camera and started filming again. They stood there watching until the man fell. A swarm had made it up on the bus and buried him under its mass. When it dispersed and cleared off the bus, the man was gone. They had no way of knowing if he had become one of them or if he’d just been dragged off. Tobias stopped recording and turned around. He looked out the other side of the tunnel. The street was in ruins all along it, cars piled everywhere into wrecks. There were a lot more car crashes here than simply abandoned vehicles. Some fires were starting as well. He spotted a few people moving among them and couldn’t tell if they were zombies or not. He filmed a few of them anyway until Cillian tapped him on the shoulder.

  “What?” Tobias turned to him.

  Cillian just pointed up. Tobias looked and saw one of the other tunnels on the fourth floor, the one nearest theirs. There was a zombie child pressed up against the glass, smearing its bloody face and hands against the wide window. Tobias filmed him too. He tried very hard not to think of him as a child and had to put the viewfinder against his eye to do it. For some things, he wasn’t ready to give up the detachment it provided.

  Eventually though, he did put down the camera, but he turned away first. “We should keep moving.”

  Cillian just nodded and they walked to the other end of the tunnel. This side was also covered in a tarp and Cillian poked his head through first.

  “Clear,” he whispered and then crossed to the other side.

  Other than the tarp and the little ‘sorry for the mess’ signs, there weren’t any construction-related things over there. Although the Isaac buildings were twins on the outside, they weren’t on the inside. They hadn’t originally been built to be a super mall, but somehow that’s what they had become. They were now doing a lot of interior reconstructing to make them more mall-like. Isaac Two had been remodelled first, and now it was Isaac One’s turn. Where Cillian and Tobias now stood was an open space with a cell phone kiosk and a map of the mall. To one side of the space was an electronics store and to the other was some sort of teen’s clothing store. The lighting for the space came from some impressive windows around the walkway and eco friendly lightbulbs hidden in the ceiling. Light also came from a wide open space ahead. One of the biggest changes being made was a great big gaping hole cut through all the floors so that windows in the roof let light down through the whole building. Tobias had seen it once before, and it was pretty impressive from the fifth floor, probably even more so from the tenth. They walked over to the railing surrounding the hole.

  Down below were hundreds of people, all of them zombies.

  * * *

  “I guess we found the shoppers,” Cillian grumbled, “why did they all mass here?”

  “There used to be a petting zoo for little kids there, right next to a pet shop,” Tobias grimaced.

  Cillian frowned. “So not even animals are safe. Surely they would have devoured them by now, right? So why are they still here?”

  “Nothing has drawn their attention away?” Tobias shrugged, “how should I know?”

  “Can you name three zombie movies?”

  “Uh, Dawn of the Dead, 28 Days Later, and Zombieland.” Tobias named the three that popped into his head first, but he didn’t understand why Cillian had asked.

  “See? You’ve seen more zombie movies than I have. Unless there’s some documentary or handbook I don’t know about, that’s all we really have to go on,” Cillian shrugged. “So, how are we supposed to get outside, past that?”

  Tobias was greatly unsettled that their only knowledge came from films. Having seen production crews work, he knew all too well that their facts could be completely and even deliberately fudged to add drama. Again: zombies. The people who made those movies didn’t have a guide either and just made stuff up as they went. Tobias filmed the hoard while the two of them thought of a way past this dilemma. Neither of them wanted to suggest doubling back.

  “Maybe there’s a way to distract them?” Tobias offered.

  “How?” Million dollar question.

  Tobias thought some more and started looking around. “Do you think they’d come if we broke one of these windows?”

  “I don’t know, maybe.” Cillian turned around and looked at the windows as well. “It’s worth a shot I guess.”

  “There’s a staircase on this side of the mall that they’re likely to use, but there’s one on the other end as well that we can use to get down.”

  “Let’s go up first.” Cillian turned and looked up the hole. “I want to have as many stairs between us and them as possible when we ring the bell and run for our lives.”

  “All right. We’ll go to the fifth floor then. Come on.” Tobias led the way to the next staircase.

  Tobias learned he liked the enclosed stairs. These didn’t have construction barriers around them and were open to the massive space. Only a waist high concrete barrier topped with a hand railing surrounded them. Tobias and Cillian crawled up the stairs, side by side, staying lower than the barrier.

  “I wish they built these higher,” Cillian said of the barriers in the merest of whispers.

  “Just be glad they didn’t go with the modern style of Plexiglas,” Tobias whispered back.

  They got to
the fourth floor and, remembering the boy in the walkway, hurried around to the next set of steps. They began crawling up again, trying not to let their weapons or the camera drag or click.

  “I take it you come here often?” Cillian mumbled halfway up the next flight.

  “Not that often, only whenever I need to do some serious clothes or gift shopping,” Tobias told him. “This place is so big you can literally find anything.”

  “Does it have a movie theatre?”

  “That was in the other building,” Tobias grinned. The common conversation held in whispers and in such strange circumstances somewhat amused him.

  “Ever take a girl there on a hot date?” Cillian also grinned.

  “A few times, yeah.”

  “Same girl or different ones?”

  “Different ones.”

  “You dog.”

  Tobias almost wanted to laugh but easily held it in. “You have a girl?”

  “I did,” Cillian sighed, “we went our separate ways awhile ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Tobias meant it.

  “It was for the best. Especially if it means she’s not here in the city right now.”

  Tobias nodded his agreement. He would give anything to be out of the city at this moment. To be back in British Columbia, where he grew up, and up on some high and empty mountain seemed like heaven. Instead, they were in hell.

  They reached the top of the stairs again. Once more, they crawled out onto the floor on their bellies, like alligators, and looked around.

  “Clear,” Tobias whispered.

  “Clear here too.” Cillian got up on his feet.

  Tobias followed suit. “So how are we doing this?”

  “That glass is going to be pretty tough.” Cillian looked over at it. “Give me the axe and I’ll smash it out. You stay near the railing and yell when or if they start heading up.”

  Tobias looked at the axe in his hands.

  “I’ll give it back,” Cillian rolled his eyes. “It’s just that the axe has a better chance of smashing through the glass.”