Survival Instinct (Book 2): Adaptive Instinct

by Kristal Stittle

  Phil coughed loudly and rolled over onto his other side. The sound made Robin nearly jump out of her skin. She glanced out the window again and saw the head of a man pop up from behind a car. It was obvious he was one of the Things with all that blood running down his mouth, neck, and chest. He was looking straight at the bus. Robin quickly dropped out of sight. Without thinking, she wormed her way back under the seats.

  There was an agonizing minute of silence. This was followed by a scraping at the door. Robin’s eyes were wide, all sleep obliterated from them by raw fear. She didn’t dare move. She felt like a mouse hiding from a cat.

  The scraping grew louder, and Phil began to stir, slowly waking from his slumber. He didn’t wake fast enough. The Thing managed to pry the doors open and get inside the bus. Phil had just enough time to look up and scream before the man-Thing fell upon him with his jaws wide open.

  Robin couldn’t turn away, nor could she close her eyes. She watched every moment. Every brutal, bloody, awful moment. It was seared into her mind’s eye where she could always see it and dream of it.

  When the attack was over, the man-Thing stood staring down at Phil’s body. He hadn’t noticed Robin. He stood and stared, and stared and stood. Beneath him, Phil began to twitch. His flabby, flappy, ruinous body began to move again. Hunks of his skin were gone from all over. His right thigh was a ruined mess, while the left leg had been completely shattered and torn off. He no longer had a nose or ears and his hair had been pulled out in tufts. Skin was gone from those bald spots. Only one finger remained on his left hand, the ring finger. On his right arm, a patch of missing flesh was so large and so deep that Robin could see bone. Despite all of these grievous wounds and more, Phil moved. He pulled himself toward the bus’s front door, leaving his left leg behind. He left a large trail of blood as he pulled himself out of the bus. Phil was now a gruesome Thing.

  The man-Thing continued to stand and stare. He stayed there for hours. He stayed there until Robin’s aching muscles were screaming to move, just to move! Why wouldn’t he move? She stayed still, as still as the man-Thing. He stared at Phil’s abandoned leg while Robin stared at him. She was afraid that even moving her eyes would give away her position. Although, even if that weren’t true, she still wouldn’t move her eyes. This was the kind of situation where, if you turned away, the Thing would sneak up on you. If she closed her eyes for longer than a blink, the Thing would be right there in front of her, staring with his jaws open.

  A scream came from outside, nearby. The man-Thing snapped his head up, then turned and ran out of the bus. Robin couldn’t believe it happened. She thought at any moment he would come back. She figured the scream came from someone who ran into Phil, and that he was now doing to them what had been done to him. The man-Thing though, he would come back once it was over. Why wouldn’t he? Part of Phil was still here for him to stand over and contemplate.

  Robin waited another hour before finally deciding to move. When she did, her entire body shrieked with protest. She crawled out from under the seats slowly, so slowly. She lay between the seats and stretched. Her muscles protested further but she needed them loosened. There was something she needed to do and she didn’t want them to betray her by locking up. The whole time she kept her eyes on the front of the bus. Once loosened, she scurried forward, past Phil’s leg, to the doors, barely managing to avoid the blood. She pushed them shut as quickly as she could, then hurried to the back of the bus.

  Robin spent the rest of the day on the bus, cowering in fear. She hid beneath the seats in the back, but allowed herself to roll and stretch so as not to cramp up. The only times she moved to a new spot, were the times she needed to pee in the space near the rear doors. Yesterday, Phil had opened the doors so she could pee on the pavement, but today the floor of the bus was perfectly acceptable. It made the bus smell a lot worse, but she barely noticed that now. At no point did she dare look out the windows again. She didn’t read her books, nor listen to her iPod. She simply lay there and tried to think of nothing. It was hard to think of nothing when her head was so full of thoughts. So full of images. As darkness came, she drifted into a deep and mercifully dreamless slumber.

  ***

  When Robin awoke on day three, the first thing she noticed was that she was starving. The day before she had finished off the rest of the food in her bag. Almost all of the drinks as well. She had only the single can of coke left. The second thing she noticed was the smell. It smelled worse than it had yesterday, even after she had peed, and right away, she knew why: Phil’s leg. Phil’s leg was rotting.

  Robin knew it was time to leave the bus.

  She made her way to the front doors, trying her hardest not to look at the gore and Phil’s leg, but looking at it anyway. Seeing it there, with the shoe still on and perfectly laced up, made her head reel. If she hadn’t been so hungry, she would have thrown up. Instead, she made it to the doors and opened them as silently as she could. When she poked her head out and looked around, she spotted a gang of Things. Three of them were huddled near a car across the street. Robin was afraid of them, and with good reason. How could she get past them? Now that Robin had forced herself to decide to get off the bus, she wanted to get off the bus; she needed to get off the bus. If she didn’t get off the bus, she was going to go crazy and start screaming her head off until more Things came and got her.

  An idea sprang to her mind, coming from the oddest of places: the memory of Phil’s death. He had coughed before the man-Thing had come, and coughed quite loudly. The man-Thing had been drawn to the sound of Phil; perhaps some other sort of sound could draw them away? Robin thought of the movies, where the hero would throw a rock and the enemies would all turn and look that way. Robin didn’t think that would work. She had no idea if the Things would fall for it, and for her to get that amount of force into her throw, she would probably grunt involuntarily. Throwing something was out. She could try driving the bus; try to force it between the cars, but that idea went as quickly as it came. She had never driven before, and even if she had, she had no idea how to drive a bus. Anyway, the moment the engine started, those Things would be on her in seconds.

  Robin Paige was about to give up hope when escape presented itself. She had crawled down onto the pavement, just outside the bus doors, wondering if maybe she could spend the night under it instead of in it. While lying there, she could see under a few other nearby vehicles. There was one car with the doors standing open, and underneath it was an RC, race car. One of Robin’s friends had one just like it, so she knew what it was right away. Quickly, she squirmed over to the big car and pulled the small toy car out from under it. It appeared to be intact, but where was the remote? It wasn’t anywhere on the pavement. Robin finally had the thought to look in through the open car door. The remote lay on the backseat next to a baby’s car seat. The inside of the car looked normal, just abandoned. This was good, because if Robin had seen any blood near that car seat, she would have screamed. Or fainted. Maybe both. However, it was just a normal car that used to hold a family of four, maybe five if they packed in tightly. She checked that both the remote control and the RC car had batteries in them, which they did. She could only pray that they were also charged.

  Robin was going to have one shot at this. She positioned the little race car so that it was lined up with the straightest path that Robin could find through the full-sized vehicles. Being confined to about three cars near the front of the bus made this difficult. Robin flipped the switch on the car and on the remote, little LED lights illuminating on both. She sat just inside the bus’s doors so that if the gang looked over to her position, they shouldn’t be able to see her. Robin cranked the go stick to full.

  The little race car didn’t exactly roar to life, but it did come alive with a jolt as if hit by a Taser. It shot forward between the cars, producing a high-pitched whine as it went. Robin could only hope it stayed in a straight line, as she couldn’t watch where it was going. One of the Things was a screamer, and it let Robi
n know when it took off after the car. Robin gave them four seconds, and then flew out through the bus doors, making a beeline for the nearest building. She heard the whine of the little car die down as she ran out of range. Grabbing the door, Robin ripped her way inside the building. It was a bank of all places. She ran past the automated tellers, dropping the remote control, and through another set of doors. The bank was small, dark, and empty. Maybe running into here wasn’t such a good idea. From Robin’s left came a crash. She wheeled around to face it, expecting a Thing to come out of the mint green cubicle-like structures over there.

  “Shit,” a woman hissed under her breath.

  “Hello?” Robin hadn’t seen any of the Things communicate yet. They seemed only to scream and groan, if they made any noise at all.

  “Someone there?” the woman replied, sounding excited.

  “Yes. Who’s there?” Robin took a step toward the cubicles.

  A woman popped out of them and hurried toward her. “You scared the hell out of me, child, do you know that?” The woman’s eyes darted to the front of the bank. “Come, we shouldn’t stand where they might see us.”

  Robin followed the woman deeper into the bank. She was led behind the counters and to the bank’s vault. Inside the vault, a bed made of couch cushions was laid out on the floor and a pile of junk food sat in the corner. An electric camping lamp glowed in the middle of the vault. Once Robin and the woman were inside, the woman closed a metal gate behind them, but left the big vault door open.

  “You don’t close the big door?” Robin wondered.

  “I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to get it open again if I did that.” The woman smiled. “My name’s Victoria.”

  “I’m Robin.” The two of them shook hands. “Do you mind if I eat some of that? I’m starving,” she asked, gesturing to the food in the corner.

  “Go right ahead. When things were quiet, I stole it from the convenience store next door.” Victoria sat on one of the couch cushions and offered another to Robin. She accepted it as readily as she accepted the food.

  “I ran out of food yesterday,” Robin told Victoria. “I’ve been hiding out in that bus out there.”

  “So you decided not to listen to the woman either?” Victoria asked this as if Robin should understand it.

  “What woman?” Robin did not understand it.

  Victoria went on to explain about a radio broadcast that had gone out. Apparently, some woman from Keystone had told them all about a virus that had gotten out, and that everybody should flee the city. She said it was Keystone’s fault. Victoria was the one to give Robin the word zombie, which she had learned from the woman on the radio. There had been others at the bank when the horrors started, but they had all wanted to heed the woman and leave. Victoria didn’t think it was such a good idea; she thought they should stay. In the end, they left without her.

  Robin liked this woman, Victoria, and more so, she liked the bank. The vault with its heavy metal sides made her feel a lot safer than the bus did, even with the big door wide open. Victoria also told Robin that the power had gone out, which was why they needed the camping light. Robin liked that too. Although Things, zombies, could hide in the dark, she could hide in it as well. She had lived with an often cruel, blind man her entire life; she knew how to avoid things that couldn’t see her. She also knew how to see without her eyes. Robin believed in knowing your enemy, so she would blindfold herself occasionally to see what it was like. She had even done it for a full twenty-four hours once, using a school fundraiser as an excuse. She got quite a few donations that year. The dark was Robin’s friend.

  The rest of day three, all of day four, and all of day five, were spent inside the bank with Victoria, whom Robin had taken to calling Vicky. They drew their own monopoly board on the backs of forms and played with real money. Sometimes they heard explosions outside, mostly distant but a few that sounded relatively close. They didn’t dare go look.

  ***

  Day six was when they ran out of food. It was time for Victoria and Robin to leave the bank. They were scared, Vicky especially, but Robin convinced her that it had to be done. Vicky wanted to go back to the convenience store, just grab more chips and chocolate, but Robin had talked her out of that too. She wanted to find a grocery store, try to get some fruits, vegetables, and bread, if it hadn’t gone bad yet, and maybe grab some pasta as well. Sugary junk and salty chips just weren’t cutting it anymore. Robin would have loved a good cheeseburger, but she was fairly certain all the meat would have spoiled by now.

  They crept slowly out of the bank, sticking closely to the wall. The air was still. Most of the other survivors had left the city, or burrowed deep into their hidey-holes. All the cars that had been left running were completely out of gas now. Even if they weren’t, Robin didn’t want to drive anywhere. The noise would paint an instant target on them, and most of the streets were too jammed up to be driven on anyway.

  Robin was afraid of the city, not just the zombies within it. Leighton didn’t look right anymore. She associated it with art. Artists would take pictures of real places and paint over them. That’s what the streets made her think of, a painted-over city. Someone had made it darker, more sinister than before. It didn’t even look right when she stared at the handful of skyscrapers clustered nearby. They looked like someone had tried to paint a perfect image of them, but hadn’t gotten it quite right. Something, some nameless thing, was off.

  Robin and Vicky neared the corner of the street and paused, looking left, right, and ahead. Only one thing moved: a male zombie trapped in a car, pawing weakly at the back window. He was too dumb to remember how to use the handles inside the doors, although Robin was sure that if she opened the door from the outside, he would eat her alive. Robin had no idea where the nearest grocery store was, and so she didn’t know what streets to take. She turned to look at Vicky, hoping she might know. Vicky wasn’t there.

  Instead of being right behind her, Vicky was hightailing it back toward the bank. Robin clenched her teeth to keep from screaming at the woman. She was about to run after Vicky, to bring her along forcibly if she had to, when a zombie smashed its way out of a store front window right next to the woman. Vicky screamed, a sharp piercing sound in the still air, as the zombie dragged them both down onto the sidewalk. Robin forgot all about wanting company and took off running in the other direction. She was having a hard time deciding between flat-out running for speed, and slowing down some to be quieter, stealthier. Then she realized she couldn’t slow down even if she wanted to; she could only run as hard and as fast as her body possibly could. She didn’t even know where she was going, or what she was running past, she just had to keep moving. A painful stitch lanced Robin’s side, and she knew she couldn’t keep up this pace for much longer. She had never been a runner, never did well with those tests in gym class. For the twelve-minute run, she passed with the bare minimum.

  A cop car sat up ahead with the passenger door wide open. Without really knowing she was going to do it, Robin jumped inside and slammed the door behind her. She crunched down into the footwell, gasping for breath. She felt nauseous and thought she might throw up. Her head was swimming. Clamping her hands over her mouth to muffle the noise, Robin took in great, whooping breaths through her fingers. She had brought her backpack with her, lighter now that the food and drink had been consumed. Right after she got her pillow out of her bag, a howl came from up the street. Robin buried her face in her pillow, trying to breathe lightly, not puke, and not scream, all at the same time.

  The police cruiser filled with noise as a zombie ran up onto the roof. Robin could picture it up there, sniffing at the air, looking for any sign of her. Every time it moved, the roof popped. Every time the roof popped, Robin squeezed her eyes closed even tighter. The thing up there howled again and then ran off the back of the vehicle, perhaps having found a new target.

  Robin pulled her face out of her pillow and glanced at what windows she could see. She put her pillow on the passenge
r seat to give her cramped self more room, and noticed then that she had been crying into it. Absently, she wiped at her face and inched her way out of the footwell, closely watching the windows for any sign of movement. Once again, the world looked clear and empty. She saw something in the car however, something that made a slow smile spread across her face. There was a rack behind the driver and passenger seats, which was holding a pump action shotgun. Robin gingerly lifted it down.

  In her hands, the shotgun looked massive. Robin tested its weight, and decided to see if she could pull back on the pump. It wasn’t as easy as the TV shows and movies made it look, but she managed. No shells came out, so she figured the thing wasn’t loaded. She wasn’t going to test that theory while still in the car however. After checking the outside world again, Robin looked for ammo. She found a box of shells in the glove compartment that looked like they fit with the gun. Having seen many action movies with her friends, Robin was able to load the shells into the shotgun. She pumped the gun again, not realizing she had already put a shell into the chamber and caused it to eject. She located the flyaway round and loaded it back into the gun. Robin knew guns like this probably had a lot of kickback, and it was possible that firing it could knock her off her feet or even dislocate her shoulder. That wasn’t going to stop her from using it if she felt she had to. Running was still the first option, but having a backup never hurt.

  Robin packed the rest of the shells into her backpack, cramming socks into the box and wrapping it in her pillow so that the shells wouldn’t rattle around. When she left the cruiser, she didn’t bother to close the door.

  After several nerve-wracking blocks, Robin finally spotted a grocery store. She stepped into it slowly, letting her gun lead the way. Without power, the back of the store got mighty dark. She started searching the front of the store first, looking down each aisle, when up ahead something clattered to the floor. Robin swung around in that direction, but nothing came at her. Slowly, so slowly, she made her way to the aisle the sound had come from. As she swung into it, her shoe squeaked on the tile.