Survival Instinct (Book 2): Adaptive Instinct

by Kristal Stittle

  Misha gave Sarah a thumbs up acknowledgement, and they both began swimming toward their dive leader. Holmes, the dive leader, saw them coming. Misha showed him the flashing device.

  “All right,” Holmes spoke to them through his full face mask. “Sarah, see Misha up to the surface. I want you then to come back down here right away and partner up with Troy and me.”

  The two of them acknowledged this with a thumbs up and then headed for the surface.

  After climbing out of the water, which required scaling a rope ladder up to deck 1, Misha stripped out of his dive gear and changed into his T-shirt and shorts faster than he ever had before. He pulled his sneakers on as he hopped on one foot down the hall, and then began running, not wanting to be late.

  ***

  Riley screamed. She knew childbirth hurt, but that didn’t mean anything. Screaming made her feel better.

  “Where the fuck is Cole?” she barked at Cameron, who was actually laughing at her anger.

  “He’ll be here soon; he just had to wait for his replacement to show up.” Cameron brushed Riley’s sweaty hair out of her face.

  Mathias was high up the chain of command for ship defence, an important task, especially with the foreign subs coming, but Riley couldn’t give two shits about that. She wanted her child’s father here, now.

  In the room with Riley was Cameron, the two doctors she had picked to deliver the baby, and Robin. Robin was very nervous and fidgety. This was the first childbirth she’d be sitting in on. She had sat in on a surgery already, but this was different. Riley wanted her there. The doctors she chose were the same two who had delivered Elizabeth’s baby, Alan. Although she hadn’t been there herself, she had heard how well they handled the ship’s first birth and trusted them.

  To make herself feel better, Riley thought of the others. Abby was going to be a teacher, Josh was a doctor, Alec a sniper, Misha a diver. Tobias was putting together a zombie information video out of all the photos and recordings he and others had taken, while also working in the ship’s newsroom. Danny would be starting school with the other kids tomorrow. He lived with Milly in the room across from Riley and Mathias, who were made his guardians. His arm had healed well once they were able to get a proper cast on it. Cameron was doing the same job she had before: healing the many animals they had on board, including helping out the large animal vet when it came to their livestock. Everyone called that section of the ship Noah’s Ark.

  “I’m here!” Mathias burst into the room. Cameron immediately vacated the seat next to Riley and let Mathias take it. He picked up Riley’s hand in his own and kissed the back of it.

  “I’ll go tell the others how you’re doing.” Cameron left the room. In the hallway outside, all of Riley’s friends had gathered after being paged. Births were a huge deal these days. Because the number of pagers was limited, it had been decided that they would only be used for births. Friends, and what limited family the mothers may have, were each given one so they could be alerted when it was time. Doctors and higher ups that used to carry pagers in the past now had an arsenal of walkie-talkies they used.

  “You’re late,” Riley growled at him.

  “I’m sorry.” He kissed her cheek. He didn’t try to make excuses knowing that would just piss off Riley more. For a woman trained to survive, she sucked when it came to pain.

  After a lot of screaming and accusations thrown Mathias’s way, Riley finally gave birth.

  There was a flurry of activity as the baby was cleaned up, and they started doing skin-to-skin, but Riley had picked up that it was a girl. A beautiful baby girl.

  Once the baby was being nursed, Mathias and Riley had a moment alone together.

  “Do you know what you want to call her yet?” Mathias sat on the edge of the bed, his arms around Riley and the baby. They had discussed names but had never been able to pick one.

  “Yes. Hope.” Riley had never felt happier than she did at that exact moment.

  “Hope? You don’t think it’s a little cliché? Like, a hundred babies born this year will be named that.”

  “I don’t care. It’s cliché, but it’s perfect.”

  “All right then. Hope Cole.”

  “Hope Bishop.”

  “Hope Bishop-Cole?”

  “Our names sound terrible together.”

  “They do.”

  “Oh well, the last name isn’t important anyway. Hope is what’s important.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  The End

  Read on for a free sample of “The Thetis Plague” A new zombie thriller from www.severedpress.com

  Chapter 1.

  Tom Meyers’s first clue that something was very wrong was the girl in the quad.

  He and Dez were headed back to the house for lunch, and they were making their way across the lawn bordered by Powell Library and Royce Hall.

  Finals were looming, but all Tom could think about was Taylor Bennett, a tall and shapely theater arts major who sat behind him in Art 110: History of Baroque Art.

  “Meyers,” Dez said, “if you’re so hung up on this woman, ask her to the party next weekend.”

  “I’m not sure she’s the frat type,” Tom said.

  Dez shook his head. “You do have an amazing array of excuses when it comes to not asking the ladies out.”

  “Bite me,” Tom said.

  Dez began counting off on his fingers. “Wrong religion – never confirmed, by the way – too rich, too good looking, too icy, not enough time, not enough privacy…”

  Tom was about to tell Dez to take his comprehensive list and shove it, when he noticed her.

  She was a pretty girl. Korean, maybe, with long black hair and an athletic build. She had been walking almost hesitantly across the grass and now came to a halt, staring into space.

  Tom thought he might see if she was lost, although it was pretty late in the quarter for someone to be confused. Still, it was a big campus and the maps they gave out at orientation weren’t worth shit.

  “Bro, are you there?” Dez asked, but Tom was making a beeline for the confused girl.

  A big dude in a hockey jersey cut him off, and Tom could hear Hockey Boy starting to ask her if she needed directions, and then he hesitated.

  Tom noticed now that the girl had small reddish spots all over her face. Measles? Jesus, she shouldn’t be walking around campus – measles could really mess you up if you were an adult.

  “Hexagram,” the girl said, “Needle ketchup Halloween crystal.”

  She punctuated this stream of nonsense with a coughing fit, and Tom saw a large wad of phlegm catch Hockey Boy in the face. The jock cried out in revulsion and staggered back, yelling, “Bitch, fuck!” He wiped at his face frantically and then vomited on the grass.

  The girl looked at Tom, and with horror, he saw that the whites of her eyes were bright crimson, as if filled with blood.

  “Lettuce baby,” she said quietly, “Tornado paprika battery wipe.”

  With that, she turned and lurched across the lawn, pausing once to cough on two women and a man sitting on a bench. They protested, but she moved on, unperturbed, heading for Janss Steps.

  “Drugs,” Dez said, shaking his head.

  “Did you see her face?” Tom asked. “It almost looked like she had the measles or something. Maybe we should help her.”

  “Call the cops,” Dez said. “If she’s infectious, you don’t want to get near her… Unless you never want to have kids, that is.”

  “That’s mumps, you moron.”

  “Whatev, faen, let’s go – it’s grilled cheese day and this Mexwegian needs his full complement of trans fats and refined wheat.” Dez, whose full name was David Lukas Fernandez, looked very Mexican, but his mother was from Stavanger, Norway, something he honored by cursing in Norwegian whenever possible.

  Tom and Dez continued toward Bruin Walk and the route that would take them back to the house. Tom glanced back once and saw the girl pause again on the sidewalk near Janss Step
s. A girl on a bicycle was talking to her.

  They emerged from the tree-lined walk and headed past Pauley Pavilion toward the frat. The sun was bright and there were some spectacular girls in shorts or short skirts heading to campus. Dez smiled at each, and he was sometimes rewarded with a smile in return. He was a big guy, handsome, if somewhat overweight, a fact that never undermined his confidence. He stopped to chat up a redhead in a Misfits tee shirt and shorts, while Tom thought of Taylor Bennett. In his mind, she was thrilled to go to the party with him, and he spun out various scenarios where that date led to sweet and gentle sex (after an urgent and clothes-ripping first time), and the beginning of their lives together.

  Tom was smiling a dreamy smile when Dez smacked him on the back of the head.

  “Quit dreamin’, Romeo! I smell butter-soaked bread and cheese!”

  Tom swung at him and Dez avoided the blow easily.

  “Asshole,” Tom said without malice.

  “That’s MisterAsshole to you, jævel,” Dez said, walking on to the house.

  “Why can’t you swear in American? What the hell does that mean again?”

  “Look it up, you lazy jævel,” said Dez with mock disdain.

  Tom demonstrated some choice American swearing, and Dez laughed and applauded.

  By the time they reached Zeta Alpha Rho, Tom had forgotten the girl in the quad.

  Chapter 2.

  By that afternoon, the Reagan UCLA Med Center had four cases of what the press called “Mystery Measles.” Students were advised to report to the hospital immediately if they were running a fever, had any unexplained rashes, or had difficulty in speaking. Naturally, this brought in dozens of cases of summer colds, hives, exam-related anxiety, and even some cases of acne. The Med Center tried to refine its warning but the damage was done. Precious time was lost in getting data on actual cases of the disease.

  While Tom was staring at Taylor during a lecture about Caravaggio, the girl he had seen on the quad seemed to be making a remarkable recovery at the nearby Med Center.

  The girl, whose name was Angela Sook, woke with clear skin and a clear head. She told doctors that she had little memory of the past three days, not since her family had returned from a trip to Castaic Lake, near the Angeles Crest Forest.

  Then, her eyes widened, and she died.

  Attempts were made to revive Angela, but all attempts were unsuccessful. Her family was informed, while a little over a mile away, Tom tried to “run into” Taylor before she got to her next class. However, she was swept up in a group of laughing girls and Tom felt too shy to try and talk to her under those circumstances.

  While Tom was telling his tale of woe to his friends Dez, and Steve Newkirk at the Terrace Food Court, Angela was transferred to the Pathology Lab for further tests.

  The two pathologists attending her wore gloves and facemasks, but those were no help when she suddenly sat up on the table and tore out their throats.

  Similar scenes were being played out in hospitals, hotels and airports across the country, and on planes bound for all corners of the globe…

  ***

  Tom’s big break came when he chanced on Taylor sitting in the quad, reading a book on Elizabethan England.

  He almost passed her by. The sun was shining on her hair, and there was a slight smile on her lips. She looked radiant, almost ethereal to him, and he waxed poetic for a moment, thinking her like some Elfin maid from Tolkien.

  Guess that makes me a troll, he thought.

  He could almost hear what Dez and Newkirk would say. Why was he so freaking hard on himself? And he loved stories about ordinary people finding their courage and winning the day – was he going to be a coward in his own life?

  Was he?

  “History?” he asked her.

  She looked at him, not quite recognizing him.

  “I’m in your art history class,” he said.

  Recognition dawned on her face, and then she smiled. “No, I just like the period. I’m supposed to write a short historical drama for my film class, and I was thinking of something about Elizabeth.”

  At this point, he would normally choke, nerves preventing him from carrying on the simplest conversation. However, he had seen something in Kerckhoff Hall that was actually relevant.

  “Did you know that there’s a display of Elizabethan costumes and props in Kerckhoff?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t get to South Campus much.”

  “It’s tied in with that series ‘The Tudors’, on Showtime? Apparently, some grad students were involved somehow.”

  She nodded, and he sensed his window was closing. He had to act, to be decisive.

  “You know, I was thinking of going there, now.”

  “Were you?” she asked, teasingly.

  “Yeah, and I was thinking you might want to check it out, maybe get some coffee? Kerckhoff has a pretty cool coffeehouse.”

  She smiled and nodded. Taylor gathered up her books and they made their way south. En route, he saw Dez, who grinned and gave him a surreptitious “thumbs up.”

  Tom was so happy he didn’t even hear the sirens.

  It was an exceptionally beautiful day on campus, not too hot, the sky dotted with a few wisps of clouds. People lingered on the path or rushed to class. As usual, the university was a hive of motion and conversation.

  Tom only had eyes for Taylor.

  He loved the way the sunlight shone on red highlights in her auburn hair, how the faint breeze brought her scent to him, some pleasing mélange of shampoo, soap, and perfume. She looked over at him and smiled, and his heart quickened.

  If this was love, it felt spectacular.

  Bruin Walk sloped downward toward Kerckhoff Hall and the Student Union building. Their destination was a large room of display cases and vitrines of artifacts, then the coffeehouse on the second floor.

  As they moved down toward Kerckhoff, a swell of agitated people swarmed past them. Taylor was almost knocked down and Tom pulled her to the shoulder of the walk.

  There were screams now, screams of horror that were obviously authentic – this was no prank.

  As the panicked students ran past them, Tom could see from what they were fleeing.

  Several students lay on the ground, savaged and bloodied. Tom thought for the briefest of moments that some pack of feral dogs had invaded the campus, until he saw a spindly girl in a bathrobe bite into the face of a convulsing campus cop. The spindly girl came away with his nose and upper lip, and chewed on it as she looked up…

  … and fixed on Tom and Taylor.

  He saw that people who must have been students were biting, clawing, and feeding on others. Screams of the victims were answered with guttural moans, and the awful sounds of flesh being ripped and torn, chewed and gulped.

  Behind this carnage came a group of some twenty of the cannibals, some semi-nude and covered in blood. Tom was shocked to see the girl from the quad, her thin chest flapping open in the Y incisions of an autopsy.

  He considered following the students uphill, but now that group was screaming, and he knew they had run into another group of attackers.

  He wished he could take the gun off the campus cop, but it was too risky. He grabbed Taylor and she shrieked, thinking she was being attacked.

  She looked at him, pale, and wild-eyed.

  “Come on!” Tom shouted, taking her hand and pulling her toward the castle-like structure of Kerckhoff Hall.

  They ran, their way was relatively clear, but he saw that some of the lurching cannibals – zombies, Jesus, were they zombies? – moving to follow them. Fortunately, they seemed slow and somewhat uncoordinated. He and Taylor could easily outrun them.

  Taylor was crying and he felt sorry for her, but part of him was exhilarated in a way he had never felt before. Here was a girl he had feelings for, and he was saving her life! It was as if his pre-adolescent fantasies of being an action hero who gets the girl were coming true.

  Tom Meyers, Zombie Killer!

 
A giddy laugh almost escaped his lips, but he choked it back. He knew it was just adrenaline, but he didn’t want Taylor to think he was weird or insensitive.

  “Where are we going?” Taylor asked.

  “Gotta find something to defend ourselves with, and call for help.”

  Taylor looked back. “They’re coming, Tom.”

  “It’s okay, Taylor, I’ll protect you.”

  She clung to him and he led her into the display of costumes and props for “The Tudors.”

  As he remembered, there was a display case of weaponry in the center of the room, which included a broadsword, a crossbow, a mace, and a halberd.

  Tom grabbed a fire extinguisher off the wall and smashed the case. The shattering glass was shockingly loud, and surely, any creature in earshot would head their way.

  Clearing away several jagged shards of glass, he reached in and grabbed the mace. It had a comforting heft and the business end was covered with several blunt protrusions. He handed it to Taylor while he fished the crossbow out of the case.

  The first of the creatures shambled into the room, a man Tom recognized as a parking attendant for the Student Union lot. His UCLA Student Union shirt was covered in gore and tufts of hair. His eyes were bloodshot and moving almost independently of one another. He saw Tom and Taylor, and snarled as viscous pink drool, blood, and ragged chunks of flesh dripped from his mouth.

  Tom stepped in front of Taylor. In his mind, he had already saved her, and they were kissing ardently as police swept in to clean up the mess.

  “It’s okay,” he said to her, and grinned. He aimed the crossbow at the creature, and fired.

  Nothing happened.

  Frantically, he examined the crossbow, and saw to his dismay it was literally a prop, with no working mechanism and the bolt glued down, probably for shots of the user carrying it on horseback or something. Nothing that might go off at the wrong time and injure someone.