Adaptive Instinct (Survival Instinct) (73 page)

Swimming zombies were very dangerous, as they could come out of nowhere like sharks, but the ship defence crew helped out with them.  As long as they weren’t too deep, the snipers up on deck could take them out.  Misha was always glad to know that Alec was up there looking out for him.

He and Alec were actually living together in a room with Rifle.  Misha didn’t like the idea of being alone anymore and Alec was glad for the help he provided.  Josh lived next door and
helped Alec with his rehab, which was going slowly.  Alec could now walk around the room like Frankenstein for short periods of time, but he was still confined to the chair nearly everywhere else.

While Misha was running his hand over the
bulkhead, checking it for barnacles, he felt a poking against his left shoulder.  Although the entire underwater team could get verbal communications from the surface, only the dive leader had a mask which allowed him to speak.  As such, the rest of the team had other ways of communicating.  Poking someone’s left shoulder was a way to get their attention without terrifying the person.  Being grabbed or touched anywhere else was most likely a threat.

Misha turned around to face his dive partner, an older woman named Sarah who used to run a scuba boat.  She had been found in her boat along with a few tourists when the cruise ship had headed south.  They had survived off fish and limited water, and were nearly dead due to dehydration when they were found.  She was an excellent dive partner.

Sarah pointed toward Misha’s back and started opening and closing her hands repeatedly.  This wasn’t a normal hand communication, and it took Misha a moment to figure out what she was trying to say.  He then remembered the one thing he had on him that the others didn’t.  He grabbed the line and pulled the device around from where it was floating behind him.  In a waterproof case was a beeper that had a flashing red light on it.

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

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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 Steps.  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.