Defensive Instinct (Survival Instinct Book 4)

by Kristal Stittle

  Jogging to the wall, Misha mentally prepared himself. It had been awhile since he had to shoot at living human beings, and he still dreamt about the other time. Often he dreamt about when the Diana was under siege, when he had to fire at invaders. The dream usually ended with sharks.

  White was standing at the base of the main section of wall, out in the open where those assigned could easily find him.

  “Misha, you’re just up there, two left of center,” he pointed while double checking a notebook he carried. “You’ll be working with Carson.”

  Misha nodded and headed for the ladder. He was glad to be on the main section of wall and not assigned to the far end near the rocky shore, where they hadn’t yet finished doubling the height, leaving anyone over there without as much protection. Carson, a wall guard who Misha saw regularly but didn’t talk too much, was waiting for him. The upper container doors had already been moved to seal off the wall save a small gap.

  “I hear you’re a better shot than me,” Carson said as they briefly shook hands. “I figure you lie down in the shooter’s position and I’ll back you up. Let me see what kind of rifle you have.”

  Misha handed the gun over, letting him inspect it. While he waited, he glanced over the side, down at his dogs. Rifle and Bullet were sitting nearby, looking anxiously up at him, while the remaining four wandered about, wondering what they should do.

  “Yeah, we got a fair amount of ammo that’ll work with this. I’ll keep you in supply.” Carson handed Misha back his gun. They had recently begun to make bullets, but there still wasn’t that much ammo. Misha hoped he didn’t have to fire a shot, and that if he did, only one.

  Lying down on the warm, irregular metal surface, Misha lined his rifle up with the small opening, staring out at the somewhat distant containers they had yet to search.

  The sun crawled across the sky behind some clouds. With every passing minute, Misha became more uncomfortable, but he refused to move beyond a subtle shifting. He knew that when that other group came, things would happen fast. He wasn’t aware of it, but he was even blinking less frequently.

  Something moved amongst the containers. A tiny reflection off something metal cast a pale beam of light onto the side surface of an upper container. Had Misha not being staring at the same thing for as long as he had, he would have missed it: an easily dismissed shimmer that he might still have written off if it weren’t for the tiny bit of movement and barely vocalized murmurs of other nearby watchers who had also seen it. The light hadn’t been far into the stacks. The wires that made up Misha’s muscle system tightened, his body hardening in place, wrapped around the rifle. He regulated his breathing and waited, counting in his head, peering through the scope.

  The first person to enter Misha’s sights was Danny.

  NO! the scream never made it out of his mind and past his lips. The next rifleman over pulled the trigger, too frightened, too tense to see properly. Misha watched the blood spray, saw Danny go down.

  Then everyone was firing, the men amongst the containers diving for cover, shooting back. Several shots pinged off the metal around Misha, forcing him to roll into cover temporarily. The moment it was safe, he rolled back.

  Where is Danny? Where is Danny? he kept thinking, scanning the spaces. There was his blood, but where was he?

  “Why aren’t you firing?” Carson was yelling at Misha from behind, not daring to shake him as he seemed to want to, worried about throwing off Misha’s shot.

  Misha completely ignored him, watching through his scope as a medical kit flashed through an opening, sitting on something with wheels. Were the supplies for Danny? He had to hope so.

  A stranger poked around the corner where the meds had come from, a rifle in his hands. Misha had a perfect shot to take him out, clean through the head. Instead, he pulled to the right, firing at the container next to his face, the spark causing the stranger to quickly withdraw.

  Misha couldn’t shoot anyone, not until he knew Danny was all right.

  17

  Dean’s In Motion

  His sieve of a mind couldn’t remember why they were heading in this direction. He shuffled along, the center of a comet made of rot, moving over the land as a diseased amoeba. Behind them, they left a trail of trampled everything; small, weak structures collapsed against their force, frail zombies fallen and unable to get back up beneath the feet of those behind, flesh, organs, and even limbs torn off, dropped to the ground, forgotten. A persistent, never-ending moan always announced their coming, scattering the animals, and a reeking, slippery mire always let one know where they had been.

  A tiny puff of smoke, black and wispy had risen briefly in the distance. It’s what Dean was heading for, even if he had no idea. Smoke frequently meant humans, and he was hungry. He was tired of eating the rotting flesh of his companions; he wanted something fresh. With such a large mob around him, it wouldn’t be easy; he’d have to fight through his own kind to make sure he got a bite, but he could do it. He had done it before.

  Saggy blue shirt bumped into him, the result of being bumped by another. Dean reacted by stumbling into the zombie on his other side, continuing the kinetic chain until it managed to ripple to the edge of the horde. This happened frequently while they were on the move, with the weakest of them getting knocked over, and never getting back up again. If Dean had a mind that wanted to look down, he would see his feet covered in the filth of those ahead of him. At the back of the comet horde, where the slowest zombies were thinned out, they wouldn’t even be able to see their feet for the debris they were slogging through.

  They were like a storm, a new natural disaster. Very few had stood against them, and none had survived. Only those who hid, who stayed quiet had weathered their coming and lived to tell the tale.

  Dean walked on, unaware of his southerly course.

  II

  The Watchers

  Mark Green pulled himself out of the river mud, fighting the suction threatening to keep him in place. He had just narrowly avoided being seen by one of the peripheral zombies, one of those that separated from the flood to wander off on their own. They were dangerous, for if one got excited and managed to alert the others, the entire comet could turn in its direction.

  Free of the mud, the twenty-six year old sprinted off through the woods, leaping over fallen logs, ducking under branches, and barrelling through bushes. He knew he was far enough away not to worry about the noise he made, but he still instinctively avoided the louder, snappier branches on the ground. Mark had been running for a full five minutes, not an unusual length of time for him, when he reached the tiny camp. Camp was barely the word for it. There were no tents, and at the moment, no fire. Nestled against the root system of a large, fallen tree within a jumble of rocks, a tarp splattered with natural colours was easy to miss if you weren’t looking for it. Not caring about the puddle that had gathered next to the tarp after the storm, Mark crawled underneath it. Gathered inside were his teammates, his family, all four of them crunched together within the hollow, only somewhat cleaner than Mark himself. There used to be more of them, but they had been lost along the way. Suzanne was the only person crazy enough to join them, the only one who hadn’t known Dean when he was alive.

  “They’re definitely moving in the direction of that large settlement,” Mark reported, accepting the water that Suzanne held out to him and taking a large swallow.

  “Fuck,” Boss sighed, running a thick hand across his flat features. “Can we get there in time?”

  “If we move now, and we move fast, I think we can make it.”

  “Right, are you good to keep going?”

  “Always.”

  “Then you, Suz, and Tommy haul ass. Betty and I will handle the gear.”

  “Can you get there in time to get behind the walls?” Tommy asked as he duck waddled his way out from under the tarp.

  “What does that matter?” Boss grumbled. “We’ve been fine outside before, and we’ll be fine again. Now run your young asses o
ff.”

  Mark crawled out after Tommy, Suzanne right behind him. All three left behind their packs, taking only their running belts each of which held a pistol, an extra mag of ammunition, a knife, and a bottle of water. They also left behind their two oldest teammates, who weren’t really that old. Boss was the only one starting to look it with the dash of grey in his hair, the increasing lines in his face, and the bad limp he had developed after breaking his leg just under a year ago. Betty would take care of him though; she was tough as nails and determined to keep everyone from dying.

  Tommy led the way, setting the pace at a jog instead of Mark’s earlier sprint. They had much farther to go this time. On Tommy’s belt, he carried two additional items: a compass and a map. Although each of them had a well-trained sense of direction and a good memory for places, it would be foolish not to bring them along.

  “So how was your mud bath?” Suzanne teased as she hurried along just ahead of Mark. Soon, they wouldn’t be able to talk and run, but for now she wanted more details about Mark’s investigation.

  “I feel so pretty,” he responded.

  She laughed and glanced back at him with a flash of bright brown eyes. Her very short, golden hair still shone, even in this flat light. That hair was the first part of her that Mark had fallen in love with, back when it was long and worn in a pair of French braided pigtails. It had been kept short, like his own, for years now, but Mark still loved the way it caught the light and how it felt beneath his fingers.

  “Any problems?” she asked next.

  Mark reported the details he knew she wanted. He told her how close the wanderers got, where they went—under the river water for the most part in this instance—the animals he spotted, and other odd bits, like the license plate that was nowhere near a car or road. By the time he was done, he was out of words. Suz wasn’t, and she recited the details back to him, a sort of memory game they played. When Tommy showed no interest in conversation, she sang for a bit, some old rock and roll song, until she couldn’t anymore. They fell into a vocal silence, listening to the rhythmic pounding of their feet, and the steady exhalations of their lungs.

  The three of them ran for a long time, moving through both woods and streets, a marathon that took them wide around the comet herd, around Dean’s mob. Mark could still picture the bullet-headed man when he was alive, when they had first met. After Mark had gotten separated from the people he knew, he managed to get back to his apartment where the mercenaries found him. Dean had sat on his couch, one of his large boots propped up against the edge of the coffee table. Thinking of Dean inevitably led to remembering the school where the mercenary had been tricked by the scientists there into being infected. Mark had disliked the scientists, especially the one named Roy, the moment he had clapped eyes upon them. His first instinct had proven to be right.

  Once the shit hit the fan and the school needed to be evacuated, the mercenaries who had been looking after Mark, brought him along, led by the black man, Boss. They separated from the rest of the group, who were heading to a prison, a place they thought would be no different from the school. Instead, they stole a canvas-backed truck planning to drive to Seattle, where Mark’s mom lived. They never did make it that far, at least not then. Mark couldn’t remember exactly how long they had been travelling before learning of Dean’s continued existence as a zombie far smarter than the others. For a while they thought that he was somehow following them, but then he stopped. They decided to make it their duty to follow him, and to warn everyone they could of his coming. Ever since then, they had been tracking the ever-growing herd around him. When Suzanne became the sole survivor of a group after Dean’s horde passed through them, she joined the team. It was the only time their numbers had increased, instead of decreased. The team was far too familiar with tragedy. None of them had ever been able to get close enough to Dean to put him down, despite numerous attempts. His wall of murderous flesh had so far proven to be impenetrable.

  Mark had no idea how long they had been running. His mind wandered through the corridors of his memories, his body followed Tommy and Suzanne on autopilot, and he drank when he was thirsty. Sometimes he thought of things that happened before the zombie outbreak, like riding on the back of his friend’s motorcycle, weaving through traffic. Other times, the memories came from after the outbreak: memories like spray painting messages for his dad, hoping the man was alive and would find him, and the first time he kissed Suzanne, shy and embarrassed as they sat side-by-side on a bridge, their fishing lines in the water.

  The distant, echoing crack of gunfire brought Mark out of his reverie. Tommy slowed them to a stop, all three walking in tight cycles to keep their muscles from seizing, and popping open their water bottles to take a drink.

  “That can’t be good,” Suzanne was the first one to comment.

  “They must be under attack by someone,” Mark agreed.

  “Doesn’t matter if there’s two groups, they both need to get to shelter before Dean gets here,” Tommy shook his head.

  “How are we going to handle this?” Mark deferred to the older man’s wisdom.

  “Do we have something to use as a white flag? Something we can wave on the attacker’s side, provided this isn’t a civil war going on within the walls.”

  “There’s my shirt,” Suzanne instantly volunteered, stripping out of the sweaty thing. Everyone on their team had seen each other naked on more than one occasion, so there was nothing odd to them about Suzanne standing there in her sports bra.

  “All right, I’ll take that and try to find the attacking leader if that’s what’s happening,” Tommy instructed. “Mark, go spy on the wall, and find the best way to approach them once we get any outsiders to understand the situation; but be careful, they may shoot anything that moves out here. Suz, you’re going to watch our backs. Find somewhere up high and keep an eye out for Dean’s approach.”

  Both Mark and Suzanne nodded their agreement to his plan. With the decision made, they split up, Mark and Suzanne kissing and placing their foreheads together briefly, as was their custom. They didn’t need to say the words: they understood how the other felt completely.

  Mark wasn’t sure what the best way to spy on the wall would be; it had been a while since they had first discovered and made note of the settlement, and they had never before made contact. He decided that circling around the edges of the yard would be best. He chose a side at random, and crept along, using anything he could to hide himself.

  Just as he was reaching the river that ran along one side of the container yard, a metallic sliding sound from behind froze him. It was the sound of a long blade being drawn: a deadly warning. Mark slowly raised his hands, keeping them far away from his gun and knife so that whoever was behind him wouldn’t think he was a threat. In his mind, he prepared all the usual words to inform the person about Dean’s comet herd, readying himself to field a lot of questions. When he turned to face the man who had managed to sneak up on him, the words died in his throat.

  The sword slowly lowered. “Mark?”

  “Jon?”

  Section 3:

  Antagonize

  18

  Evans Is Wrong

  It was all messed up, just as Evans had feared it would be. Lead flew through the open space, through no-man’s land, seeking out flesh. The gunfire was starting to die down some as Evans’ party began to realize they weren’t landing many shots, if any. This tactic wasn’t working: all they were doing was wasting ammo. Evans himself hadn’t yet fired a shot. He sat behind the container, alone with Danny, patching up his wound. Although no expert on such injuries, he thought the young man would live. Evans had laid his captive on the pavement, telling him to stay still and stay calm as he had removed his binds, gag included. Danny had so far done as he was told, more concerned with the pain radiating outward from where he had been shot than trying to fight Evans.

  The gunfire finally petered out altogether, with the last volley from the container wall, making sure that the
party stayed under cover.

  “This isn’t working,” Arman lamented.

  “No shit,” Evans grumbled only loudly enough for Danny to hear him.

  “We need to spread out more, get a better look at that wall,” Arman continued.

  “How? Every time we poke our noses out, they nearly get shot off,” someone that Evans couldn’t see spoke from beyond Arman. With his ears ringing with gunfire, Evans couldn’t identify the speaker through his voice either.

  “Some of us will head backward through the containers and circle around. Maybe other parts of the wall are less defended.”

  “No,” Danny croaked from the ground.

  “Tell me.” Evans knew he needed Danny’s help to get out of this, despite Arman’s bravado.

  “We outnumber you, out gun you. The whole wall is defended. Your best chance was surprise, but obviously you didn’t have that. You don’t have the power to get in there.” Danny spoke through gritted teeth, trying to move his jaw as little as possible.

  Evans looked up to where Arman was organizing his group, picking people to flank another part of the wall. He had no idea what Ki-nam was doing with the other group beyond Arman’s. As he looked back over at Elijah, he knew the teen was waiting for orders, as was everyone else huddled up around him. Nicks and punctures marred the side of the container they were hiding against and peppered the container behind them where it was exposed by the gap.

  For the first time in a long time, Evans didn’t know what to do. Arman was riled up, all for the continued assault, especially now that they had been shot at. Evans knew the man well enough to know that he saw this as verification of the deaths the scavenger teams had suffered: these people were to blame. Perversely, the continued attack would only result in more being injured and killed.

  “We should retreat,” Evans finally spoke loudly enough for those clustered up by the containers on either side of him to hear.