Adaptive Instinct (Survival Instinct)

by Stittle, Kristal

  “I know how dangerous it’ll be for you.”

  Everybody had eaten dinner and swum in the lake, washing the grime from their bodies in the process. Now, they all sat around the living room and kitchen debating Riley’s crazy plan.

  “Do you really want Danny back out there?” Riley knew that Danny was Mathias’s weakness.

  “Then only I’ll come.”

  “And leave Danny behind, without you? Are you kidding me?”

  Danny kept looking from Mathias to Riley and back, as if he were watching a tennis match, as if he weren’t a key point in this debate.

  Mathias’s jaw tensed as he tried to think of a work-around to this, but knew there wasn’t one.

  “And don’t you even begin.” Riley faced Joshua before he could even open his mouth. “Your cast may be off by the time I plan on leaving, but your leg will still be weak. Besides, you need to be here. While I’m gone, you’re the doctor on call.”

  Joshua’s face flushed a deep red, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Why don’t I go alone?” Mathias spoke up again. “I trust you to take care of Danny.”

  “Besides the fact that you’ll be shot on sight by those people, my sister won’t trust you. No matter what you say to her, she’s not going to go with you. She’s a hell of a lot more distrusting than I am. It has to be someone she already knows and trusts well. I’m the person she trusts most in the world.”

  “Aren’t you going to say something?” Mathias turned on Shawn, who had been quiet this whole time. When he said nothing, Mathias rounded back on Riley. “Why doesn’t he go? Your sister must trust him, and he already has experience flying the Osprey.”

  “I don’t want to go.” Shawn spoke barely above a whisper, but everybody heard him just fine. “I’m too scared. If Riley wants to go, I know I can’t stop her. Not for Cameron. But I can’t go myself.” As he spoke, he looked at a point between his feet.

  “Why not for Cameron?” Alec asked.

  “Because she’s my sister,” Riley sighed. “She’s my twin sister; identical twin. She’s also my best friend.”

  Alec nodded as if this explained everything to him. Misha had no idea that Riley’s sister was actually her identical twin. It was never mentioned. She had always just been referred to as the sister.

  Mathias looked around the room, trying to find a friend in his fight against Riley’s plan. “Tobias? Surely you must think this is crazy.”

  “Yeah, I think it’s totally nuts. But I also don’t think I could stop Riley if she’s really determined to go.” Tobias took no real side, trying to remove himself from Mathias’s glaring eyes.

  Mathias turned to Abby.

  Abby didn’t look at Mathias but instead turned to Riley. “Riley? If you want to go, you don’t need our permission. But can I ask a favour? Could you look for Lauren while you’re in the prison? I can describe her for you.”

  Mathias threw up his hands. Realizing that no one was going to help him, he got up and stormed outside, slamming the door behind him. Both of them.

  “He’ll come around. Eventually,” Danny said. “I guess he already forgot what it was like when we were apart. I can’t imagine what it must be like for twins; especially if you know where she most likely is.”

  Riley gave the boy an endearing smile and looked around the room. “Thank you all for understanding. That actually went better than I expected.”

  “That’s because we’re all missing someone,” Tobias spoke up. “I’m pretty sure everyone here would be doing what you’re doing if we had the kind of evidence that you do.”

  Not everyone, Misha thought to himself, side glancing at Shawn. Just one week. In just one week, Shawn would be taking care of them instead of Riley. A shiver ran down Misha’s spine.

  Power Struggle I

  Triston Chelios had managed to survive an entire week so far. He was amazed by his accomplishment. If his luck continued to hold out, he could survive another week as well. When everyone else had fled, Triston had stayed. He stayed to keep the generators running. Every day, he had to go out and hunt down diesel fuel, but so far, he was succeeding in keeping the tanks topped up. Where Triston was staying was a nuclear waste storage facility, the only one in Leighton. If the generators weren’t kept running, Leighton would experience a nuclear disaster. Triston had taken it upon himself to keep this from happening. He kept thinking that any day now, the power would come back on. After a week of this, his hope had begun to wane. He was beginning to have the reverse thoughts, that the power would never come back on. Despite his efforts, the generators would run out eventually, and Triston didn’t want to be anywhere near the facility when that happened. He decided he was going to give it one week. One more week of risking his neck for the generators. It’s not as if he saw anybody out there anyway. No one but the dead. After one more week, he would top up the generators and make a run for it. He would run as far away from that place as he could.

  He would run as far as he could, because days after he stopped filling those tanks, most of Leighton would be burned to the ground in a nuclear fire.

  Section 2:

  The Storm

  9:

  Bryce Christopherson – Days 10-14

  Bryce Christopherson lay in a tight ball upon his bed. It had been a few days since he had seen the monsters, but he still couldn’t sleep. He didn’t think he was ever going to be able to sleep. Every night, when he closed his eyes, he saw them. He saw their terrible, torn-up faces. He saw the blood on their teeth and clothing. He heard the sounds that they made, the awful, awful sounds. When Bryce had seen them, he had screamed, which caused his father to turn around and notice him. Bryce’s dad swooped over to him, covered his eyes, and quickly got him out of that room, but it was too late. Bryce had seen something he was never supposed to see.

  All the lights in his room were on; he refused to turn them off. If his mom or dad tried, he would start shrieking and crying, so they let him keep them on. Bryce’s mom had tried to console him, to tell him that monsters weren’t real, but he knew differently. He knew they were as real as he was and that only four doors and a pane of Plexiglas separated him from them. Five doors when he was in his bedroom. His father didn’t speak about it, at least not to Bryce. He didn’t try to explain what Bryce had seen, which just further confirmed it. He didn’t try to explain, because if he said anything other than what Bryce thought, it would be a lie.

  The worst of the monsters had been a woman. She wore a white lab coat and a nametag, just like his dad, just like all his dad’s friends. This woman had been normal once. She had been just like everybody else, but now she was a monster. And if she could become a monster, then who’s to say that nobody else could? Might his dad turn into a monster? His mom? His baby sister? Bryce didn’t know. Maybe he would become a monster. A terrible monster that would hurt people, hurt his family, hurt the ones he loved and cared most about in the whole wide world.

  Unable to sleep, Bryce got up and walked around his room. It was late. His clock said it was nearly three in the morning, an hour that Bryce had only seen once before when he woke up with a fever. His head was muzzy, but he refused to close his eyes. He didn’t want to see that bloodstained lab coat again.

  As Bryce passed near his door, he thought he heard voices. He lay down on the carpet and looked through the crack between the floor and the door. He used to do that at home all the time to spy on the help. His mom was in the living room, letting someone into their place. Bryce couldn’t quite see who it was, but as they moved to sit on the couch, he could hear what they were saying. The second voice belonged to his Uncle Jeffrey, Larson’s dad, and his mom’s brother.

  “How’s he doing?” Uncle Jeffrey asked.

  “Not well,” Bryce’s mom replied, “he’s terrified all the time, and exhausted. He’s barely sleeping and has lost most of his appetite.”

  They’re talking about me, Bryce realized.

  “Has Richard said anything about it?” Jeffrey wond
ered next.

  “He’s refusing to tell me anything.” Bryce’s mom sounded really sad. “Jeffrey, I’m frightened. From what I’ve gotten out of Bryce, it’s those things, those things the virus makes. They must be keeping some here for study or something.”

  “And you’re surprised?”

  “Really, I’m not, but I should be. But Bryce… He said one of them was wearing a lab coat. A lab coat and a name tag just like his father’s.”

  There was a silent pause here. Bryce wished he could make out the adults’ faces, but they weren’t facing the right way.

  “You shouldn’t be so stressed,” Uncle Jeffrey finally said.

  “I know, I know. But it’s impossible not to be. What if one of those things gets out, Jeffrey? What would we do?”

  “We can seal off sections of this place, keep it contained. Even if the automated containment were to fail, I can manually lock down this entire place from my office. Besides, they’re not going to get out.”

  There was another silent pause. Bryce suspected that his mom felt the same way he did right now, and that Uncle Jeffrey’s words weren’t comforting at all. Uncle Jeffrey was the head of White Box security; it was his job to keep them safe, but then why did he let the monsters be there to begin with?

  “Forget all this, how are you feeling?” Uncle Jeffrey broke the silence again.

  “I told you, I’m scared,” his mom replied.

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”

  Bryce’s mom took a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. “Same as usual, I guess. I’m tired though. I’m tired of the daily injections. I’m tired of being scared that I’ll become immune to the drugs, that it’ll get stronger. I’m tired of my husband looking at me like he does his work, like I’m just one of his experiments.” She began to cry, and Bryce wanted to go out there and hold his mother, but he knew he shouldn’t. He wasn’t supposed to hear this conversation, and knowing he did might make her more upset. “I don’t love him anymore, Jeffrey.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t love Richard anymore. Since I got sick, he’s drifted further and further away from me. He doesn’t love me anymore. I’m just something else for him to fix.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s true. I can’t remember the last time he kissed me, and I mean truly kissed me, not just some peck at a function or at breakfast. To him, I’ve already died. I know this, and he knows it too. We’re just keeping up appearances for the family. For Bryce and Becky. If it weren’t for them, I would’ve stopped taking the injections a long time ago.”

  “Don’t say that,” Uncle Jeffrey repeated himself, almost angrily this time.

  “Again, why not? You asked me how I felt, and that’s the truth. I can feel it inside me, just waiting for its chance to kill me. Even with Bryce and Becky in my life, I’ve been thinking of letting it win. Knowing they’re not safe though, that those things are here, I can’t do it. But I can’t stay here. My kids can’t stay here. No matter how safe you tell me it is, it’ll never be safe enough.”

  “So what would you do? Leave this place? Your kids would be no safer outside. They’d be in more danger in fact. You’re not the only one who doesn’t like it here, but there’s no other choice.”

  “I heard some people talking. There’s a group of survivors to the south somewhere, at some motel. They’re not being run by Keystone, by us. If I could get Bryce and Becky there, I’d feel so much better. They deserve more than this hole in the ground. They deserve real trees and fresh air.”

  “You’d die.”

  “As long as my kids were safe, I wouldn’t care. Let it take me.”

  Bryce couldn’t listen anymore. He pulled away from the crack under the door, hurried over to his bed, and pulled the covers up over his entire body. In the darkness beneath his blankets, he began to cry. His mother was dying? Since when? How long had this been going on, and why hadn’t she told him? What was worse, was that she wanted to die. How could she want to die? Why would anyone want to die?

  While hiding in the darkness of his blankets, which was surrounded by the bright light of his room, Bryce managed to cry himself to sleep.

  ***

  For the next few days, Bryce drifted through life in the White Box. He kept a closer eye on his mom, trying to be with her whenever he could. She didn’t look sick. He noticed something though; his mom always wore long-sleeved shirts. It wasn’t exactly hot in the White Box, but even before they moved down here, she had been wearing sleeves all summer. It’s because of the injections, Bryce came to realize. She was hiding where the needles went in. One of Bryce’s relatives had diabetes and had to have injections all the time. He had marks because of them. Maybe his mom had diabetes too? Bryce didn’t think so; she wouldn’t have kept it a secret. Besides, what she had said about his dad, about how he saw her as an experiment, meant it was much worse. The fact that his parents didn’t love each other had shocked Bryce, although not as much as he thought something like that should. He suspected that on some level he already knew. Whenever his parents were in a room together, he now watched them closely. The way they acted around each other, the distance between them was obvious. If Bryce hadn’t noticed it earlier, then he must have been blind.

  Bryce still played with Larson a lot, but he didn’t like to be near the other kids. He could hear them whispering about him behind his back; they thought he made up the monster stuff. Larson didn’t. Larson believed him when he said there were monsters; he even seemed worried about them. That made Bryce feel better. Sometimes he thought he was just being a big baby about it, but if Larson was scared of them without ever having seen them, then Bryce had every right to be terrified. Bryce didn’t even mind having Maggie around so much. He still didn’t like dogs, but she could probably bite the monsters if they showed up. However, that wasn’t likely to do much good.

  More and more, Bryce liked his mother’s idea of leaving this place. The White Box was getting on his nerves and not just because of the monsters downstairs. He hated the hallways, how white they were. He hated the playground, with its digital blue ceiling that had the same clouds drift by, over and over. He hated that the breeze never changed, that his fake window liked to tilt and make him feel off-balance, his food and drink all tasted like it came from a can, none of his favourite shows were new, all his clothes smelled like the cheese smell after they had been washed, and the shower soaps were no better. Bryce wanted to go home. His real home.

  However, his mom mentioned something about there being monsters outside the White Box as well. Why there were monsters out there made no sense to Bryce, but it did explain a bit about why they were in the White Box in the first place. These people to the south though, if they were there, then they were safe, right? No monsters? Bryce was confused and overwhelmed by the whole thing.

  Currently, Bryce’s mom was taking a shower, so Bryce was watching over his baby sister. She was playing with a bunch of toys scattered all over the living room, running from one toy to the next. Bryce was playing a PSP game on the couch, pausing it often and checking on Becky. A few weeks ago, back at their house, Becky had grabbed a handful of decorative beads out of a bowl and tried to shove them into her mouth. Bryce’s mom was too far away to stop her, but Bryce wasn’t and smacked her hand. Becky cried from being smacked, and his mom said he shouldn’t have hit so hard, but she was so relieved that none of the beads made it into Becky’s mouth that she wasn’t angry with him. If any had gotten in there, Becky would have swallowed one for sure, and most likely have choked. Their White Box home didn’t have much in the way of decoration, but something small could always break off a toy.

  “By!” Becky patted his knee.

  Bryce looked up from his game to see Becky holding one of her bright block toys out to him.

  “Thank you,” Bryce told her as he took it in his own hand. His mom had told him that whenever Becky gave him anything, he should say thank you. It promoted a sharing behavi
our and good manners.

  Becky ran over to her blocks and grabbed another one. She brought that one to Bryce as well.

  “Thank you, again.” Bryce took that block too.

  As Becky ran for a third block, Bryce knew he wasn’t going to get much further in his game. He knew this routine well enough by now; Becky would find a collection of something and bring it to him one piece at a time. After she had given him everything, Bryce was then expected to hand them all back to her one at a time. Sometimes this pattern would repeat until Bryce wanted to pull his hair out, but he was actually glad for the distraction as he turned off his game. Becky knew nothing about the monsters; she probably didn’t even understand what a monster was. She was completely happy and carefree as she ran back and forth, handing Bryce blocks. On her fourth trip, she started babbling away in that nonsensical speech of hers. It was impossible to tell what she was saying for sure, but Bryce liked to imagine it was something grand, intelligent, and witty; the kind of speech that presidents, prime ministers, and clergymen could only dream of giving. That it was the most beautiful string of ideas ever to be uttered. Or that sometimes she was just talking about what the poop in her diaper felt like.

  During the third time that Bryce was handing the blocks back to Becky, Bryce’s mom came out of the room that she shared with his dad. The smell of her flowery perfume came with her, but even that couldn’t completely cover the cheesy smell clinging to her skin underneath.

  “Playing the sharing game are you?” She smiled her heart-warming smile. In Bryce’s opinion, it was the best smile in the world, closely followed by Becky’s.

  “Yup.” Bryce nodded, handing Becky another block.

  “Your Uncle Jeffrey is coming by later with Larson. Would you mind watching Becky for a little bit while I talk to him?”