Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel Paperback

by Kristal Stittle

  “How much longer?” Jessi asked quietly. She directed the question at Cillian, even though Cender was the one who knew where they were going.

  “I don’t know.” Cillian met her eyes. He saw something there he didn’t recognize, and didn’t like. It had been there since they reunited. He wanted to protect Jessi from all the bad things, but he wasn’t sure he could do that. He might have failed already.

  Jessi wouldn’t really talk about what happened. Cillian had heard a bit of Abby’s story, but it seemed that Abby didn’t want to talk about it while Jessi was around. It was probably because of B. Nobody knew how to approach that subject. The man wasn’t infected, but Jessi had killed him. It was pre-emptive self-defence and no one could blame her for it, but still… The man was dead, and she had caused it.

  Cillian thought of the people he had killed on the way to her. That was different, especially after what they had just learned. Apparently, they were already dead. But even before learning that, you could tell these were not people you could reason with. They weren’t going to listen to your pleas for life and mercy. B was still thinking though, still talking. Someone might have been able to talk him down given the chance.

  “How much longer until we’re out of the city and into the suburbs?” Cender asked Cillian next.

  “I can’t say. The traffic is completely random.” Cillian diverted all his attention back to driving. Not that it needed much attention. There was only one moving lane of cars. Everybody was following the same line, the same path through the abandoned and wrecked vehicles. Earlier they had been moving at a brisk pace, but now they were crawling again.

  “Can you change the radio back to the one with music?” Abby was the third person to ask a question.

  “Sure thing.” Cillian reached forward and changed the dial. They had found one station that seemed to play all music all the time. Nobody cared that it was all in French. It sometimes faded in and out, or became a garbled fuzz, but it stayed clear for the most part. There was actually a device in the roof in back that worked the radio, but no one had figured out how to make it work, and suspected it might be broken. It was easiest for Cillian just to do it.

  They came to their first full stop.

  “That can’t be good,” Tobias frowned even more.

  “I hope we’re not stuck because someone crashed.” Cender tried to see forward through the tinted window next to his head. “I can just see them now, getting out to exchange insurance.”

  Abby let out a tiny giggle, which she quickly stifled.

  “Then the zombie comes along and starts chewing on one of their heads,” Cillian added.

  “I say good chap, that’s quite the chapeau you have,” Tobias put on a lofty accent, mocking the pretend crashers.

  “Then another zombie comes along and clamps on that guy’s wrist.” Cender put on his own accent, “Why thank you, but it is nothing compared to your beautiful bracelet.”

  Abby giggled some more but still tried to hold it in.

  “Oh, this old thing? I just had it lying around,” Cillian did his best to put on the same accent that Tobias had. “You must tell me where you got that hat.”

  “It is a rather fine hat, isn’t it?” Cender sat up and pretended he was showing off a hat on his head. “Yes quite fine, although I must say, it does get rather hot and it’s murder on your hair.”

  That was the last straw for Abby, and she went into fits. Cillian couldn’t help but chuckle a few times as well; it was just so absurd. He couldn’t believe laughter still existed in him after all that had happened that day, but it did. It felt nice to laugh too, to just joke around and be stupid like his days spent at the firehouse.

  The laughter stopped when Jessi suddenly got up, went to the sunroof, opened the panel, and stood with her torso sticking out of it. Cillian immediately felt bad about joking and laughing. This wasn’t exactly the right time for it. They were still in danger, and they were joking about something awful.

  Jessi suddenly ducked her head back inside with a confused expression on her face.

  “There are trucks.” She disappeared topside again.

  “What do you mean, trucks?” Cillian leaned back and yelled toward the open

  sunroof.

  She didn’t reply.

  Cillian sighed and put the limo into park. He looked out the window, but, when he didn’t see any threats, he opened the door and climbed out. He looked up at Jessi sticking out of the roof.

  “There.” She pointed ahead.

  Cillian turned but couldn’t see anything. They had been following behind a rather large Hummer most of the time, which meant that in their shorter limo, they couldn’t see much ahead. Cillian climbed up onto the hood of the car and stood up. As he looked up the street, he did indeed spot some trucks. The line of cars in front of them went on for about seven vehicles before it came to a stop. They halted, not because they were blocked by wreckage, but because a tight, fast moving convoy of military-looking vehicles was zooming down a street that crossed theirs. Several people had climbed out of their cars to watch, and some even tried to flag down the military trucks in the vain hope that they would actually stop.

  The screech startled Cillian into slipping and falling. His shoulder left a good sized dent in the hood, but he didn’t feel the pain. He didn’t even bother to look for the source of the sound, just scrambled quickly over to his door, yanked it open, jumped in, and slammed the thing closed behind him. Jessi had dropped back into the limo the moment she heard the screech as well and was holding the button to close the sunroof, muttering something under her breath about it being slower than snail mail.

  “There.” Abby pointed back and to the left.

  Everybody turned to watch as an infected leapt upon the car behind them and started smashing on the windshield with its bare hands. Cillian put the limo into drive and scooted the long car as close to the Hummer as he could. In fact, he rubbed bumpers with it.

  “To the right!” Tobias yelled.

  They all looked right as a middle-aged man in biker gear ran face first into the window. Everyone on that side of the car instinctively moved to the other side. The zombie must not have been able to see them through the darkly tinted glass however, because he quickly regained his balance and climbed up and over the car. The sunroof had been closed by then, which was a small relief. The man leaped off the car and took off down an alley, where at the other end a couple could be seen fleeing.

  “There’s more coming up from behind us. A lot more,” Cender groaned looking back.

  Cillian turned around and looked out the back window as well. It did look like quite a few were coming. He shifted the limo into park again, snapped off the French radio, then scrambled and wedged himself into the little window that separated the back from the front.

  “What are you doing?” Jessi asked as she shifted out of the way.

  “The back windows are tinted really dark. They probably won’t be able to see through them. The front windows though are crystal clear.” The window was barely big enough for his large frame. It was even tighter than trying to squeeze through the air ducts, although he had more leverage.

  Jessi grabbed his arm, but she wasn’t much help. It wasn’t until Tobias got up and pulled on his other arm that he popped through. Cillian decided right then that he should go on a diet. Not that he was overweight at all, but right now, he’d prefer to be rail thin. That brief thought of food reminded him that he hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since the can of Pepsi at the concert. That seemed like forever ago. He never did figure out what happened to Jim and Doyle and was beginning to realize he never would. There were a lot of people that he was likely never to hear from again

  As soon as he had popped through, Jessi pressed the button to raise the tinted partition. Without the sunlight coming through the front windshield, the back of the limo became quite dark.

  “Try to stay still,” Tobias whispered. He probably didn’t need to whisper, but nobody was going t
o test that. Carefully, he set up his camera on the back of the rear seat and started recording. Cillian noticed during the brief time Tobias had the LCD screen opened, that the camera was running out of batteries. He wondered if he recorded any of the radio message and made a note to ask him later. The more Cillian was around Tobias, the more he cared about what he was filming. He was beginning to see the appeal of it. Like recording what was going on was proof that it wasn’t just some sick and twisted nightmare. Cillian preferred it to be reality over a dream, because in dreams, he never had control and anything could happen. At least the real world had some sense to it.

  Other than Tobias who stayed right behind his camera, the rest of the group huddled together in the middle of the limo. Cillian wrapped his arms around Jessi, drawing her warm body as close to his as he could. They all watched as the swarm came toward them. It smashed into cars, breaking windows and prying open doors to get at the people inside. A little Smart car was toppled over, the woman inside frantically screaming as a flood of zombies descended upon it. Its excellent fuel mileage did nothing to save her. Eventually, the hoard hit their limo. The infected people crawled up over the back and across the roof. They streamed around the sides, jostling each other as they madly ran. The banging across the roof and along the sides was deafening. It was like being in a hailstorm but the hail was the size of basketballs. Some of the zombies stopped and looked at the limo but then kept running. Except for one. It stood there at the back window and stared. No one could tell if it could see them or if it just decided to stop there for whatever reason. Others ran past it hitting its shoulders.

  Cillian realized he was thinking of it as an ‘it’ again. It was a man. Or at least it used to be. He was a somewhat portly Asian man who may have been nicely dressed, but it was hard to tell under the caking of blood and dirt. Cillian thought the man’s eyes were red, but the tinting of the glass made it hard to tell. His whole lower face was bloody with a few drops on his forehead. He cocked his head to one side and pressed his body up against the trunk of the car. Cillian instinctively moved back. Jessi grabbed hold of his hands at the end of his encircling arms, her ragged nails digging in. He barely noticed.

  The zombie man then climbed up on the trunk. He kept his face low, staring at something near the base of the rear windshield. It was like he was looking straight into the camera, like he could see it. Then Cillian remembered that cameras usually had record lights on the front of them. Lights that blinked when the batteries were low.

  “Toby, turn off the camera,” Cillian said as quietly as he could.

  He didn’t know if Tobias heard him over the racket on the roof or if he made the same realization, but he pressed a button, and the camera shut down.

  The zombie man’s head cocked to the other side. He slapped a fist down on the window causing everyone inside to jump. His hand slowly slid down, creating a long squeak. Nobody breathed. Then he was gone, climbing over the car with the rest of the flood.

  Cillian looked up and watched the man go over the sunroof. He hadn’t realized but several cracks and fractures had begun to appear in it. If the sunroof broke…

  Eventually the stampede began to subside. There were a few stragglers, some probably newly formed out of their convoy, who were still drifting by, but the main bulk had moved on.

  “There are more coming.” Tobias had pressed himself to one side, trying to look back as far as he could. “The walkers, the slow ones.”

  “I suggest we take this time to get out of here.” Abby slowly stretched out from the incredibly tight ball she had managed to curl up into. Her small form could probably have fit in the mini-fridge if she really tried.

  “I second that motion.” Cillian pressed the button to lower the partition so that he could take the wheel again. In the front, the windshield had a couple of large cracks, although not nearly as many as the sunroof. They shouldn’t be too much of a hindrance to drive with.

  “Anyone else think the bit with the hand was kinda cliché?” Cender pulled himself back up on his seat with one hand, the other still holding the drink. He still hadn’t taken a sip. In fact, his hand was trembling slightly, the half melted ice rattling against the glass.

  Cillian climbed back through the divider again. It was easier to go this way because he could grab the steering wheel and pull himself. That and he was pretty sure he had sweated off a few pounds. As he settled into the driver’s seat, he took off his jacket. Despite the car’s air conditioning, he was feeling very warm. Jessi followed him through the partition, eeling gracefully through it, and sat in the other seat without saying a word.

  Whoever was in the Hummer in front of them was fortunate and had also managed to survive the swarm. They were already moving forward again, using their big vehicle to shove smaller ones out of the way. Cillian threw the limo into drive and began to follow it. A car a few spaces behind them had also survived and was bullying its way toward them. It seemed the convoy was going to start again.

  The zombies that were still around headed toward the moving cars, but they were slow and shambling. The only quick one ran at the Hummer. It ran into the side of it and knocked itself on its ass. The Hummer’s rear wheels ran over its legs, crushing them. Still, the zombie continued to try to get up and attack the car again. Cillian didn’t try to hit it, but he didn’t try to avoid it either. He also ran over its legs. Jessi squeezed her eyes shut while they did, placing her hands over her ears. That made Cillian think that he should have avoided it. Too late now though.

  As they crossed the street the army trucks had used, Cillian looked up it to see that everything had been shoved to the sides, leaving a large clear swath. They must have had some big ass vehicle with a plow or something on it ripping along ahead of them to do that. Neither the Hummer nor Cillian opted to follow the path because the flood seemed to be chasing after the trucks, and the other direction led back into the city. Since the flood didn’t attack the rest of the convoy, they caught up soon enough and rejoined the parade.

  * * *

  “Anybody got any wiring?” Tobias asked from the back seat.

  “What do you need wiring for?” Cillian wondered.

  “I might be able to hook up my old camera’s battery to this one,” Tobias answered.

  “What are you? An electrical engineer or something?” Cender scoffed.

  “Not even. I’ve just always been good at figuring out electronics and stuff.” Tobias started searching around the limo for something he could take apart. “I spent most of my childhood and teenage years ripping things apart and then putting them back together.”

  “You ever blow anything up?” Abby asked.

  Tobias let out one short laugh but didn’t answer. Cillian saw in the rear-view mirror that Abby was disappointed he didn’t answer, even though that probably meant the answer was yes.

  “What about the radio?” Cillian offered.

  “That would probably work,” Tobias nodded.

  “Try taking apart that roof controller back there. It’s not like you guys figured out how to work it anyway.” Cillian looked at his hands then and noticed the red marks Jessi’s nails had left in them. He looked over at her.

  Jessi was staring out the side window and chewing on her thumbnail. It had always been a bad habit with her.

  “Hey,” he spoke in a voice quiet enough that it shouldn’t have travelled to the three in the back. “I thought your New Year’s resolution was to stop doing that?”

  Jessi turned to face him. That look was in her eyes again, the one that Cillian didn’t like. It was almost as if she didn’t recognize him at first. Then she smiled and tightly held her hands in her lap.

  “You remembered.” Although her outward appearance had become so much more haggard and stressed, her voice remained her own.

  “Of course I did,” Cillian smiled back. “I remember you bullied me into making some myself.”

  “I don’t remember what yours were.” Jessi’s face fell.

  “That’s
okay. I don’t remember them myself.” That was actually a lie, but he was trying to cheer her up. His major resolution had been to quit smoking finally. He had been doing well too, until they had broken up. Although he wasn’t going to say anything, all day whenever there hadn’t been adrenaline pumping through his veins, he would have killed for a single puff. The first thing he did when he got into the limo was to check the glove box for a pack, but he had no such luck.

  “How have you been?” she asked in a sheepish voice. The last time they spoke hadn’t been on good terms. Well, not including at the hospital, but then they had just told each other what had happened that day and how scared they were.

  “Okay I guess. Better than today has been, but worse since I was with you.” That time it was the truth. “I’ve been living on Doyle’s couch the whole time.”

  “I’m sure he’s loved that.” Jessi had met Doyle several times. They got along well enough but would probably never have spoken if it weren’t for Cillian.

  It felt like years since Cillian had seen Doyle, when in fact, it had been just that morning. He looked at the time and discovered that only about six hours had passed since his life had been normal, since he was annoyed by the crappy bands and complaining that he had gotten a Pepsi instead of a Coke. He really regretted not lighting that cigarette. He also wondered again what happened to Doyle and Jim. What became of them in that mob? Where had they gone while Cillian slept, and why hadn’t they woken him first?

  “Hey, Cender?” Cillian spoke over his shoulder. “Is there anything non-alcoholic in that fridge?”

  “There’s some water, why?” Cender leaned forward and took out a bottle.