Adaptive Instinct (Survival Instinct)

by Stittle, Kristal

  The shooting suddenly stopped. The mercenary ran up to Bryce, Larson, and Becky.

  “Is it all right if I carry her?” he said, pointing to Becky.

  “She’ll cry,” Bryce told him.

  “I don’t care about that right now. We have to run.” He scooped Becky up into one of his big arms, and the squat dog into the other; the large rifle was slung across his back. Becky started wailing. “Stick close to me. Keep up as best you can.”

  Bryce was confused, but he was going to obey. He would keep up with this man no matter how fast he ran. He was carrying Becky after all.

  An argument erupted between the old woman and the three teenagers, who had started crying. In the end, the old woman pulled out a gun and shoved them toward the group. Whatever she said, the girls obeyed, although unwillingly. The other black woman placed a comforting arm around their shoulders and nodded to the old woman, who nodded back.

  Tobias, the scrubs-wearing man, and the pale guy, all picked up the stretcher with the muscled guy lying on it. The three teenaged girls carried a beat-up wheelchair between them, while the black woman took up the rear with a pistol in her hand. Although everyone else was leaving in a hurry, the old woman continued to stand where she was, leaning on her cane. Bryce knew instantly what was going on. The old woman was doing what his mom had done; she was giving everyone a better chance.

  Bryce turned to look forward, focusing his gaze on where his feet fell, and on the mercenary’s back.

  “We have to find shelter!” someone Bryce couldn’t see or identify shouted.

  This was not the way Bryce had intended to meet new people. He had expected more greeting, having time to learn names, that sort of thing. Instead, more running.

  They crossed the field to where there was a big barn. The mercenary led them past the barn, however, and toward a big, metal-sided silo.

  “Inside!” he called out without looking behind him. He reached the door and ripped it open, dashing inside first.

  Bryce followed quickly after him, with Larson and the other boy right on his heels. It was dark in the silo, and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. Whereas he expected a high ceiling, all the way to the top, he was surprised to find the ceiling as low as it was. It was shaped like a funnel too, with the centre lower than the outer ridge. A thick pipe went from the bottom of the cone to the wall, where it exited higher than Bryce’s head.

  Everybody crammed into the space, hurrying out of the way to make room for those behind them.

  “Come on, Milly!” The pale man patted his legs by the door.

  Bryce looked around and figured that everyone but the old lady was there. He then noticed the white dog wasn’t there and determined that she must be the one named Milly. She trotted through the door as fast as she could, her missing limb requiring her to work extra hard to keep up. She flopped onto the ground with a huff.

  The mercenary slammed the door shut behind the dog, sealing out their only light source.

  “By!” Becky cried. “Scary! By!”

  “It’s okay, Becky!” Bryce started to follow the sound of her voice. Three flashlights clicked on allowing him to see the rest of his way over to her. The mercenary was just placing her on the ground.

  “You need to keep her quiet,” he said as Bryce reached them.

  “I know.” Bryce set to work, getting her to calm down. In the end, they sat on the floor, Becky in his lap with her arms wrapped around his neck. Larson and Maggie sat with them too, and that little dog lay nearby as well.

  Everyone else stood or sat around the silo in perfect silence. The three teenaged girls wept as quietly as possible, holding onto each other and the black woman. Bryce figured it was their grandmother who had stayed behind to defend them, to give them more time. He understood their pain completely.

  When the monsters showed up and began surrounding the silo, tears sprang to Bryce’s eyes. As they started to roll down his cheeks, he clung tightly to Becky. The monsters were loud as they hit into the sides of the silo, causing hollow reverberations inside. The group instinctively bunched into the centre, under the tip of the cone. Quiet and afraid, those with guns levelled them at the door.

  Bryce wasn’t going to let anything happen to Becky as long as he was breathing.

  26:

  Robin Paige – Day 17

  Robin tried not to shudder as she sat in the front seat of the lead SUV. It wasn’t cold out, not at all, but she had an internal chill that wouldn’t subside. She suspected it had to do with leaving River behind. There was nothing they could do about it, though. If they found him, they could take him with them, or at least warn him, but there was no way of knowing where he went. The most that Robin could do was pray for his safety, and because she had never been a praying person, she didn’t take comfort in it.

  “Sorry about your friend,” Harry said from the driver’s seat next to Robin.

  At first, Robin thought he had read her mind and was talking about River. Then she realized he meant April, and her jaw locked up, cutting off any words she might have replied with.

  “I saw you looking at my wedding band earlier,” Harry continued. He spoke with a pleasing, Australian accent.

  Robin still didn’t have anything to say.

  “My wife was probably one of the first to die,” he said. “It’s rough, losing someone you care about like that.”

  “You don’t seem too bad off.” Robin rolled her eyes. In the backseat behind them, two others were fast asleep. Robin chose not to ride in the van, because she didn’t want people she knew talking to her. She didn’t expect an almost complete stranger to start a heart-to-heart conversation.

  “That’s because I found something new to hold onto. Shortly after my wife tried to kill me, and I had killed her, I thought about offing myself.”

  “I would never do that,” Robin informed him. This must be why he was talking to her; he was worried about her doing something stupid. “I didn’t survive all the shit I have, just to go and take my own life. I’m not an idiot.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  The car was silent again, the only sound coming from the tires rolling over the pavement.

  “So why aren’t you in the van with Elizabeth?” Robin couldn’t believe she had gotten suckered into a conversation, but her curiosity got the better of her.

  “The van is the safest place for her, and I have the best eye when it comes to looking for places to spend the night, hence, why I drive the lead car.”

  Robin nodded, it made sense.

  “And why aren’t you in the van with Quin? Why are you riding with strangers?”

  “I didn’t want to have a conversation,” she said truthfully.

  “I see. Well, I hate to break it to you, but we’re having a conversation anyway.”

  “I noticed. I blame your accent.”

  “My accent?”

  “I like the sound of it. I like hearing you talk.”

  “Ah,” Harry nodded. “Elizabeth said something similar once. You should hear me when I sing.” He grinned at her roguishly, suggesting that maybe he was no good at singing.

  “Are you kidding? I’ve been travelling with Quin from Gather’s Moss, the lead singer of the greatest band ever. No one can touch his singing.”

  “Maybe we can sing a duet. He’ll sing the good part, I’ll sing the bad.”

  Robin fought against her facial muscles that were trying to grin.

  “Although it’ll have to be a football chant; they’re the only things I know all the words to.”

  That time Robin did smile.

  “Ah, now see, you may like my accent, but I like your smile. You should do it more often.”

  “I have been. This group just seems to bring it out of me despite myself. And despite all that’s been happening.”

  “Well then, just keep sticking with us, and we’ll have you laughing in no time.”

  Robin liked the sound of that. She managed not to think about River or April for a full
five minutes after their conversation had ended.

  ***

  “Say goodbye to the skyscrapers,” Elizabeth said, looking back toward the towering buildings. They had reached the edge of the city and were about to enter some suburbs, but had stopped first to pee and get gas.

  Or as Quin had put it, “to empty one set of tanks, and fill up another.”

  The cars were corralled around the restroom door, providing a little more protection while they took turns using the three stalls inside. Doyle, Harry, and the canary were dashing to and from the underground tank, filling up gas cans using a hand pump they had found and loading them into the cars. They had filled the cars’ tanks over there before moving over to the washroom, but after finding some empty jugs, it was decided they should bring some spare gas along. It was unlikely they would make it on one tank, and couldn’t be sure they’d find another safe station to stop at on the way.

  Robin looked at the towering buildings, expecting to feel something for them. She didn’t though. They were just mountains of glass and steel to her, like they had always been. Her sadness was for River, lost out there somewhere, and for April, who would remain in the glass towers forever, like a princess whose knight would never come. There was nowhere to bury her in the city, and no one wanted to risk bringing her body along to find a spot. In the end, they had ripped the curtains down from an upscale office and covered her with them. Robin had gone to see only after April had been covered up. She didn’t want to see her pale skin and so had said her good-byes to a maroon lump. Other than the shroud, the only thing decorating her grave was an origami crane that Quin had made. The folded paper bird had been an unexpected, but nice touch. It let anyone who found her in the future know that she was loved and cared for at the end, even if they didn’t have much.

  “Mew, mew.” Splatter pawed at the windows in the van. He was currently all alone in there, since everyone was stretching their legs and relieving themselves. Robin walked up to him and started scratching her nails on the glass, prompting the little cat to attack them.

  “We got zombies closing in, we better get moving.” Doyle jogged over to the vehicles, cradling the last of the gas jugs in his arms. “Who’s still in the bathroom?”

  “Uh, I think Quin is the only one still in there.” Elizabeth looked around at everybody, confirming their presence.

  “I’ll go check on him,” Robin offered. She walked away from the van and pushed through the swing door into the restroom. The only light in the room came through a pair of windows set high in the wall. They were covered in grime, and had wire mesh on top of them. The bathroom itself looked like it used to be sparkly white, but had faded to a pale, yellowish tint. The green paint on the stalls was chipped, cracked, and covered in graffiti.

  As Robin stepped inside, she could hear the sounds of weeping. Crouching low, she spotted Quin’s ankles in the last stall. Judging by the fact that his pants weren’t bunched up around his ankles, he wasn’t using the porcelain seat as a toilet.

  “Quin?” Robin asked gently, hoping not to startle him.

  There was a loud sniffle and the sounds of crying ceased. “Yeah, Robin?”

  “There are zombies on the way. Doyle said we need to get going.” She stepped closer to the stall.

  “Okay, just give me a minute.” Although it sounded like he had stopped crying, his voice sounded strained.

  “You don’t have drugs in there, right?” They really didn’t need him to have a relapse.

  “No. No.” The stall door opened and Quin stepped out. His face looked more haggard than ever. His eyes were sunken and red rimmed. He had taken off his hat and was nervously fidgeting with it, which revealed his greasy, flyaway hair. He had never looked so old.

  “It’s about River, isn’t it?” Robin guessed.

  Quin’s face distorted into one of utterly hopeless sorrow. The teenager walked up to him and wrapped her arms around the much older man. He in turn folded himself over her, and cried on her shoulder.

  “He was my friend,” Quin blubbered. “My best friend. We’ve known each other our whole lives. All of them. They were my friends, my brothers. Now they’re all gone, all of them, and I never got to say how important they were to me. How important they have always been. I punched him, Robin. He was just trying to help us, to help me, and I punched him. I pushed him away and left him behind. How can I live with myself?”

  “Because you can.” Robin found that she was also crying, but this time felt different from all the other times. She didn’t feel that black hole trying to suck her down into oblivion. “You can live with yourself. We’ve all done things we’re not proud of. Awful things we’ll regret the rest of our lives, but we still have those lives. It’ll be hard, it’ll hurt, but you’ll live. Not going on… That just makes what happened worse. Eventually the memories will hurt less. Eventually you’ll be able to remember the good times without the bad sitting on top of them.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’ve been there. I sent my father to prison.” This was the first time she had ever told anybody that. “He was hitting my mother, and my brother. When he hit me, I didn’t stand for it any longer. I went to the police, and he went to prison. He was my father, and I did that to him. I sent him away. This was the man that took me to see you guys when I was little. He would hold me on his shoulders and tell me that you made the best music in the world. I loved him, but told myself I hated him so that I could send him away. I still love him.” Robin hadn’t realized that until she said it. She always told herself, over and over, that she hated her dad. That he was a sick, vile man who didn’t deserve love. After repeating this to herself so many times, she came to believe it. And maybe part of it was true. Maybe he didn’t deserve love, but he still got it. If it weren’t for him, Robin would be a much different person, likely a weaker person. Without him to toughen her up, she probably would have died on day one.

  “Can we leave him a note?” Quin wondered.

  “Hold on.” Robin and Quin let go of each other, and she headed for the door. She quickly wiped the tears out of her eyes and off her face before poking her head out of the washroom. “Excuse me; does anyone have a permanent marker, or something like that, that I could borrow? It’ll just take a second.”

  The others looked around at each other. Her request was an odd one, but they murmured to each other, discussing what they had.

  “Here,” one woman said, stepping forward. She reached into a purse at her side and pulled out a tube of lipstick. “Will this do?”

  “It will, thanks.” Robin accepted it.

  “I don’t even know why I was still carrying that around. Haven’t worn any in days,” the woman’s voice followed Robin back into the washroom.

  With the tube of lipstick, she went up to the large, relatively clean mirror over the sinks. While Quin watched, she wrote a message to River, explaining where they were going and why. It was unlikely he would find it, but it was something.

  “Maybe we can write a message every time we stop,” Quin said.

  “Sure.” Although Robin didn’t think they would be stopping again anywhere with writable surfaces again any time soon. She turned back to Quin and pocketed the lipstick. Taking the hat from his hands, Robin placed it on Quin’s head. “You don’t look like Quincy Beharry, lead singer of the legendary Gathers Moss, without your hat.”

  Quin smiled for her. The two of them left the restroom with Quin’s hand on her shoulder. When Robin returned the lipstick, nobody even asked what it had been for. These were strange times, where odd behaviour was becoming the norm.

  Everybody loaded up quickly into the vehicles, with Robin and Quin taking the backseat of the van. Robin started playing with Splatter by scratching her nails on surfaces, as they pulled away from the gas station.

  ***

  “Fuck!” Doyle screamed as he slammed on the brakes. The tires squealed as everyone was thrown into their seatbelts, Robin’s digging painfully into her shoulder. She
heard Elizabeth gasp, as they stopped just before hitting the SUV in front of them. The SUV behind them didn’t stop nearly as suddenly, causing a crunch of bumpers as the van was pushed farther forward and sandwiched between the two vehicles. Splatter, who had been sleeping on the bench seat between Quin and Robin, got up from where he had been thrown to the floor, and ran under Doyle’s seat.

  “What just happened?” Quin yelled toward the front of the van.

  “Elizabeth, are you okay?” Cynthia worriedly asked the pregnant woman. Robin found herself to be equally worried for her.

  “I’m all right.” She sat back in her seat, running her hands over her expansive belly. “Just startled is all.”

  “I’ll find out what happened.” The canary had been riding up front with Doyle. She slid gracefully out of the vehicle before Doyle could volunteer to go instead.

  “What happened?” Elizabeth asked again despite the fact it was pretty obvious that no one knew.

  Doyle shrugged. “They slammed on their brakes, so we had to slam on ours.”

  The farther away from the city they got, the less clogged the roads were, and they had actually been able to drive with some speed. They had just experienced the down side of faster driving.

  The canary was back in a flash of blond hair, ripping open her door and jumping in.

  “Back up! We have to get out of here!” she shouted. She rolled down her window and started shouting at the SUV behind them, telling them to back up so that they could.

  Robin looked frantically out the windows all around them, but couldn’t see the threat that had sent the canary into a tizzy. Just trees lining the road, with empty cow pastures beyond them.

  The vehicle behind pulled away with another bumper-on-bumper crunch. The van began backing up, swinging sideways to perform a three-point-turn on the empty road. As the back end swung past the side of the SUV ahead, the rear wheels bumping along the soft shoulder, Robin was able to see the road ahead; it went up a hill and ended at a wall of zombies.

  A writhing, groaning, shuffling horde was coming down the road. Harry, in the lead car, must have been startled when the mass came over the top, and that’s why he had slammed on the brakes. Robin had to admit she was rather startled as well. Where had they all come from? Surely, they weren’t the dead that had left from Leighton; they would be going the other way. As the van began to turn some more, to straighten itself out facing the opposite direction, Robin looked out into a pasture. There were more of them there. A staggered line of dead, stumbling across the rolling hills of grass. They stumbled faster at the sight of the moving cars.