Adaptive Instinct (Survival Instinct) (2 page)

“You could also stand to brush your teeth today.”  Mathias grinned.  His teeth were probably no better.  The men shaving their face was somehow the only routine that held.  That would need to be corrected.

“I’ll try to convince everybody to go swimming today, and we can all wash up in the lake.”  Riley turned back to the railing and looked toward the lake.  She could just make out bits of the water through the leaves of the trees.  As far as Riley knew, the body of water didn’t have a name.  Her family always just referred to it as the lake, or as the landing strip.  The only way up to the Bishop cabin
, was to fly a plane that could land on water.  Or hike, but that would take days through the rough terrain.  The hope was that the terrain was too tough for zombies, but they still took extra precautions.

Mathias stepped behind Riley and wrapped his arms around her, placing his chin on her head.  He was considerably taller and broader than
Riley was.  She leaned into him with a sigh.

“Last night isn’t going to happen again,” Riley told him.

“Why not?”  She could hear his confused and frowning expression in his voice.

Riley wasn’t sure how to answer that question in a way that would make sense to him.  “Well
…we should figure out permanent sleeping solutions for everyone.  Poor Misha was on the floor last night.”

“And why can’t my sleeping solution be with you?” he asked the logical question.

“Because Danny should share a room with you.  He probably didn’t sleep well last night.”

Mathias sighed and released his hold on Riley.  He moved to stand next to her and lean on the railing.  “You’re probably right.”

“Not to mention that Josh already hates you.”  Riley couldn’t say she didn’t see it.  When she and Cender—she hadn’t completely gotten used to calling him Josh yet—had worked together, she always thought he might have had a thing for her.  She had no proof, of course, just speculation, but something in her gut told her.  When they had first arrived at the cabin, it was the first time that Mathias had kissed her.  They hadn’t kissed a lot since then, but Cender had developed this hostility towards Mathias.  To Riley, that was proof enough.  She didn’t want to antagonize Joshua Cender further.

Abby Walker, the only other female in the group, had told them all about a woman named Jessica.  Jessica had lost her mind due to the stress of the zombie
outbreak; on top of the fact that she had killed a non-infected man not long after it happened.  She had snapped and tried to kill Abby, thinking that Abby had been hitting on her man.  Her boyfriend sounded like a great guy, but Abby would never have hit on him: she was a lesbian.  While Jessica was trying to kill Abby, he had stepped in.  For his trouble, he had been stabbed and knocked into a river by Jessica, which eventually killed him.  Jessica continued trying to kill Abby, but then Tobias Mackenzie stepped in.  He managed to get the better of Jessica and drowned her in the river.  His knuckles still bore the cuts from where Jessica had slashed him with her knife.  Riley took from that story, that everybody needed to get along.  If they didn’t, they could end up with another Jessica on their hands, which was twenty times more dangerous than a zombie could ever be.

“Yeah, I guess.”  Mathias hung his head, looking down at Shoes.  He had heard the story as well.

There was a silent pause between them when only bird song could be heard.

“I’m going to check my traps before breakfast.”  Riley broke the pause.  “Want to come?”

“No.”  Mathias shook his head.  “Danny might be getting up soon, and I don’t want him wondering where his big bro is.  Take Shoes with you, though.”

“I’ll try, but he’s been very lazy lately.”  Riley slung her rifle’s strap over her shoulder and placed a gentle hand on Mathias’s arm.  She didn’t want to hurt him, but she couldn’t see any other choice.  It hurt her too.  She then headed down the stairs.  “Come on, Shoes, let’s go see if I was able to catch anything.”

***

Riley sat down at the kitchen table, wh
ere everyone else had already gathered around.  It was now just past 7 a.m., and Abby had made breakfast.  They were having pancakes made from a mix, and they were delicious.  The kitchen was part of the main room, distinguished from it by its different tiles, and a half wall spanning half way across the space.  The fire in the fireplace had been built higher, the porthole window had its metal cover opened, and a large, battery-powered lantern sat in the middle of the table so that they could all see their food easily.  The table was really meant to hold only six people, but they managed.

“You must have been up late last night, Misha,” Riley commented as he passed her the margarine.  They would run out of it soon.  “The fire was still burning when I got up.”

“I was keeping an eye on it,” he said defensively.  “I didn’t really sleep much.”

“That’s fine.  I wasn’t accusing you of anything.”  Riley liked Misha.  He did as he was told without complaint, but he always took a defensive stance.  Of everybody there, the skinny, young Russian was the closest thing to an outsider.  On the Day, the only one he had to rely on was Rifle, the German shepherd.  He had gone through the worst day of anyone’s life almost completely alone, and it made him distant.  Even after a week, he didn’t seem to trust them
completely.

“Catch anything in your traps?” Mathias asked Riley as he passed the pancake plate to Danny.  Danny Cole was Mathias’s younger brother; the Coles were the only ones with a relative present.  Throughout the Day, Mathias had been desperate to locate his younger brother.  It was by luck and chance that they had found one another.

“Only one rabbit.  It’s on the deck right now.  I’ll probably show some of you how to skin it after breakfast.”  Riley put just a small dabble of syrup on her pancakes.  She knew syrup was something they would run out of eventually, and did her part to conserve what she could.

“Are you sure after breakfast is a good time?”  Tobias raised an eyebrow at her.  “I mean, that might be something that brings breakfast back up.”

Tobias Mackenzie was the tallest of the group, but beyond reaching high shelves, he had the least number of useful skills.  He grew up a city boy who went camping only one weekend a year.  When they had first arrived, he had been more useful.  They had to set up the gas generator, the solar panels, and the small wind turbines, and Tobias knew a lot about wiring and electronics.  Now that those were all up and running, Riley didn’t know what to do with him.

She simply shrugged in response to his comment.

“I don’t think I’m ready for rabbit skinning,” Abby admitted.  “Mind if I take a pass today?”

“Sure, but I’d like to be showing at least two of you today.”  Riley understood that a lot of this stuff was new to them, and was still cutting them slack because of it.  She had been trained since birth to survive in any given situation.  Her family had always thought some sort of apocalyptic event was coming, and they had prepared for it
as if it was a religion.  Even Riley had given her parents flak from time to time for all the training, but here she was thanking them every day for their preparations.  If she hadn’t been drilled as hard and as often as she had, she would never have gotten out of the hospital in time.

“I’ll do it,” Danny volunteered.  He was always so eager to learn and volunteered for everything.  At fourteen, Danny was the youngest of their group by about seven years.  He worked hard though, and always tried his best.  Riley thought it was a defence mechanism, that he pushed himself into work to avoid thinking about things.  Whenever they had down time, he would convince someone to play a game with him, or run around with the dogs.  Riley was never good at psychology and had no idea if this was a good thing or not.  Cender knew more about that stuff than she did.  He had done a psych ward rotation, and he seemed fine with it, so Riley let it go.

“I’ll watch,” Cender also volunteered.  He would be fine with cutting open a rabbit, considering what he had gotten used to seeing every day in the ER.  In fact, if he had to, he could probably already do it.

“Tobias, if you don’t want to join them, I could use some help,” Abby turned to him.  “The dirt in the greenhouse is a little hard, and I wanted to find some softer stuff to use as top soil.  An extra pair of hands would be nice.  If we could find some worms, it would be even better.”  Abby Walker had been the most emotional person all week, especially when they removed the stitches from her arm yesterday
, leaving behind a large scar, but she was damned useful.  She might burst into tears at any time because of what happened, but she remained focused on whatever task she was doing.  She also knew plants, Riley’s weakness.  Abby was usually excused from lessons because she would spend all day in the greenhouse.  Not only was she planting, growing, preparing soil, and all that other stuff, but also, she was reading every book on agriculture and plant life she found in the cabin.  She spent a bit of time each day memorizing what they had in the storage space, and what the expiration dates were on the food down there.  Abby had a near-perfect memory and could keep inventory of everything without having to write any of it down.  Riley was teaching her how much everybody needed to eat each day, and once Abby had it down, Riley would put her in charge of rationing.

“I’m down for a worm hunt,” Tobias nodded.

“Find some extra ones for the fishing gear,” Alec spoke up from his place slightly away from the table.  “Maybe you guys can finally get that canoe into the water.”  Alec McGregor was confined to a wheelchair, which didn’t allow him to pull right up to the crowded table.  It also meant he didn’t get to help as much as he would have liked.  Despite his own thoughts on the matter, Riley thought he was extremely helpful.  In fact, if he could have used his legs, he would have been the most useful of the bunch.  The man was a trained sniper and knew all about surviving harsh terrain.  Riley didn’t have to teach him anything.  Alec even gave her a few pointers on shooting, and he was often the one teaching everybody else how to work a rifle.  Since being confined to his chair, he had worked as a mechanic, and was a great help in putting the small windmills together.  It was just too bad he could rarely leave the deck outside.  Although, Riley had to admit to herself that she liked having him confined there.  He would wheel around the deck with his M110 SASS sniper rifle in his lap.  The deck went all the way around the cabin and gave him a 360-degree vantage point of the surrounding area.  If something showed up, Alec would know, and, if it was dangerous, he could easily blow its head off.  It was nice to know that somebody was watching over them.

“I’ll put the canoe in the water,” Mathias offered.  “I already know how to skin a rabbit.”  Like Alec, Mathias had also been in the military.  He was a Ranger until he got dishonourably discharged for punching his superior three times.  Although he didn’t know as much as Alec and Riley, he knew quite a bit.  He was also their only source of information about the hybrid virus.  Mathias had worked as a mercenary for the Marble Keystone Corporation, a massive company that had started out in pharmaceuticals
, and branched out into… well, pretty much everything.  They had created the hybrid virus and set it loose, deliberately from what they’d heard.  Mathias didn’t know much about the thing, but he knew more than anyone else in their group did.  When they had gotten to the cabin, Riley had given him a notebook and pen and asked him to write down everything he remembered about it.  If he ever remembered something new, he was supposed to write it down in the book, even if the information seemed useless.

“I’m done.  Anyone else?”  Misha stood up from the table
, even though there was still food on his plate.

“Here.”  Alec lifted his plate slightly.  Misha walked over to him and scraped off the half-pancake that was left onto his own plate.  He looked around the table again, but everyone was finishing their portions.  As Misha carried the plate into the main room, Rifle and Shoes began circling him.  Making sure the dogs got portions according to their relative
size; Misha fed them the leftover pancakes.  Riley thought Misha could stand to gain some weight and told Abby to give him portions larger than he needed, but after every meal, he had leftovers, which he always fed to the dogs.  The twenty-something year old was practically all bone, but no one could force him to eat.  At least it meant they didn’t have to feed the dogs as much, since they were always getting scraps.

It was nice to have Rifle and Shoes with them.  Not only were they good at comforting, they could also work.  Rifle would often chase rabbits, and had managed to catch one just the other day.  He was also big for his breed and could pull the sled.  Right
now, they were still getting him used to the weight of the sled alone, hooking it up to the harness that he always wore, but soon enough, they would have him hauling wood.  Riley planned to bring him on hunts.  If they bagged something big, like an elk or a reindeer, having him help pull the sled would be great.  Shoes was handy in a much different way.  The old basset hound had been trained as a cadaver dog, and it was hard to break his habits, however, they had been learning how to use those same habits.  He would wander out into the woods and find animals that had died of one thing or another.  Once he found an animal, Riley and Josh would look it over and decide if it was safe to eat, or to use its fur or its feathers for things.  Not being animal doctors, meant this was an imprecise decision, and so far, they had always decided on ‘no.’  This didn’t mean the carcass couldn’t be used as fertilizer for the greenhouse though.  Both of the dogs could smell the infected—Shoes especially—and became their first line of defence, the warning system, if one were to show up.  That was Riley’s biggest fear; that the zombies would find them and swarm them.