Defensive Instinct (Survival Instinct Book 4) (11 page)

As she moved on to the next item in her ‘to do’ pile, Nessie thought about starting a sewing class. She could teach the kids not only how to use a sewing machine, but also basic hand stitching, crocheting, knitting, and even embroidery. Although they were still finding and repairing machine-spun fabrics, there might come a day when all clothing had to be made from scratch. Nessie felt it was up to her to make sure the younger generations knew how to when the time came. The scavengers had been told to look for looms and spinning wheels, but these items weren’t easily found and none of the teams had had any luck so far.

The sewing machine whirred on.

The next interruption came with an odd-sounding knock on the side of her container that usually meant whoever was there was holding something and couldn’t use their hands to create the sound. Nessie looked up and saw a young man standing in the sunlight. He was carrying a fair-sized metal box and kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other. Nessie had seen the scrawny, greasy man around but had never interacted with him directly. It appeared he repaired his clothes on his own and used duct tape to do it, which was a waste of useful tape in Nessie’s opinion. She thought his name might be Venti, but wasn’t sure.

“Can I help you?” she asked, watching as he continued to shift left and right.

“I hear you’re willing to trade for high-value items?”

“Provided I want what you have. Come inside.” Nessie got up from her chair as Venti stepped into the container. He was a loner of sorts, often out fishing by himself. Nessie wasn’t sure he had any friends.

Venti placed his box on the floor, metal striking metal, sounding heavy. “What kinds of things do you usually offer in return?”

“Clothing and blankets, usually made of leather or wool. You can request something, and I can make it special for you. I also have some other odds and ends in my wardrobe, but again, it depends on what you’re offering. It’s not just the metal box is it? Because, as nice as it is, I don’t need another box right now.”

“No, no. It’s what’s in the box.” Venti sounded nervous, like he shouldn’t have whatever he was offering.

“Tell me what it is then.”

Glancing over his shoulder, Venti made sure no one was going to see them. Nessie doubted anyone would. Her container was at the end of a row, and the one across from it was used as a storage depot to stockpile junk for which they had no immediate use. There was no reason for someone to come down here unless they were looking for Nessie.

Satisfied, Venti bent down, flipped up the latches on the front of the box, and raised the lid, allowing Nessie to see what was inside.

“How on earth did you get these?”

Doyle sat in the plastic chair, flipping through a battered collection of short stories in an attempt to find his favourite one to reread, with his fire axe leaning against the side of his leg. The scar on his face was itchy again, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. The itching sensation was lodged under the skin, and no amount of scratching or rubbing seemed to make it go away. He’d just have to ride it out as usual. At least it didn’t bother him as frequently as it used to; it was especially bad in the days after he sustained the injury when the Diana sank. A bullet had grazed his face, tearing the meat off his cheek, just inches away from killing him.

The door opened and Robin stepped in, startling somewhat when she spotted Doyle. She hadn’t been expecting him there.

“Doyle, what are you doing here?” she asked as she moved toward the boy on the bed.

“Crichton asked me to sit a spell for him while he takes care of some things. Wants me to let him know if the kid wakes up before he gets back.” Doyle held up the walkie-talkie that Crichton had given him; it was already tuned to the man’s channel.

“You can help me then. I’m going to pour some more liquid down his throat and could use your assistance.”

As Doyle got up to help, he tossed his book onto the seat and readjusted the axe so that it leaned against the chair. There were only a handful of times that Doyle had separated from that axe since the Day. It had saved his life on countless occasions. When the zombies had first broken out, he had been at an outdoor concert providing extra security along with some other firefighters. He had no idea where his buddies, Jim and Cillian, were now, just that they weren’t here. There had been a disturbance at the concert, now known to be caused by the zombies, and Doyle had reacted quickly. He didn’t know why he grabbed the axe off the side of the truck, just that he did. Jim had followed him; neither of them had thought to wake up Cillian who had fallen asleep in the front seat. In the crowds, Doyle and Jim had become separated, and Doyle found he could no longer help anyone but himself. Fighting his way across the park, he managed to get behind the stage where all the band buses were kept. He boarded a bus that happened to contain the mega band, Gathers Moss, and drove their asses out of there. Later, after he had left the bus in order to find help, he got together with a small group of strangers. Eventually, the group stumbled into Gathers Moss again, but by then, the band’s numbers had reduced to two, and one of them was trying to kill Robin and her friend. Hearing the screams, Doyle reacted to his fireman’s instincts for saving people by using his axe to cut through the hotel door, despite the risk to himself. He and Robin had been fairly close friends ever since, locating the Diana together with the rest of their group. Before that, Doyle would never have thought he could be friends with someone so much younger than him. The Day changed a lot of things.

Going over to the bed, Doyle helped hold the boy’s neck and head steady while Robin carefully poured some discoloured water into his mouth. Doyle assumed the water had a strange colour due to some dissolved nutrients in it. He was glad to see the kid swallow it on his own, that he wasn’t so gorked out that they risked choking him. Once Robin determined he had had enough, Doyle repositioned the boy so that he looked comfortable.

“I wonder what happened to him,” Doyle spoke over the prone body.

“Really?” Robin raised her eyebrows at him. “Looks pretty obvious to me. He was alone and couldn’t take care of himself.”

“Yeah, but I’m wondering how he ended up on his own. There are a lot of ways, but which one did he have to go through?”

“We’ll find out when he wakes up. If he even remembers.” Robin listened to the child’s heartbeat and carefully checked his blood pressure. Since she didn’t need his assistance anymore, Doyle returned to his seat.

Robin continued to perform a few checks on the boy and made chit chat with Doyle. Eventually she finished and Doyle was once more alone with the mysterious child. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone else, but he didn’t particularly like this job. Something about the kid was creepy, although he couldn’t put his finger on what. Maybe it was because, right now, he seemed no different from a corpse. And, these days, you didn’t want to be in a room with a corpse for too long no matter how the person had died. It had been quite a shock when they discovered the virus had gone airborne. Everyone had always been afraid of that happening, because then they couldn’t do anything against it; they couldn’t fight. It turned out to be not as terrible as they had feared, however. Instead of instantly killing everyone and turning them into psychopathic pathogen spreaders, the airborne crap stayed dormant. Robin made a habit of updating Doyle with what was known about it. While the active stuff attacked your organs and shut you down, the new and improved airborne junk waited until something else did the job for it, whether it be illness, injury, or active zombie virus. What it all boiled down to was that everybody would become a shuffler once they died, save those taken out by a massive head injury, say for example, a bullet to the brain. The boy lying in the bed looked dead, which meant he could be a larger threat than if he were alive. It was creepy and unsettling.

Doyle’s walkie-talkie crackled. He stopped watching the kid and looked down at it, waiting to see if anyone was going to say anything. It had already emitted a few bursts of static that turned out to be nothing. That was not the case this time.

“Doyle?”

He picked it up and pressed the button. “I’m here.”

“It’s Crichton. I’m coming back now. Has there been any change?”

“Robin came in, performed some checks and poured some watery stuff down his throat, but that’s it. The kid’s still out of it.”

“Thank you. I’ll be there shortly.”

This time Doyle didn’t hold down the button when he spoke, talking only to himself. “I look forward to it.”

He didn’t know why Crichton was so absorbed with this kid; why he, personally, had taken it upon himself to be there when the kid woke up. Doyle suspected it was because it was something to do. For the most part, Crichton took care of their defences, but lately those had been running themselves well. The farmers knew how to build fences when they expanded, the lookouts were always in place, and only the smallest of children didn’t know what to do if a threat showed up. This kid was their first visitor in months. With Brittany and James handling the smaller day-to-day operations, Crichton found in the boy something on which to focus his attention.

Doyle didn’t bother flipping through his book again. He knew that even if he found the story, he wouldn’t be able to read it in time before Crichton showed up. Studying the cover instead, Doyle began to suspect he had grabbed the wrong book: he wasn’t sure now that this was the anthology containing the story he was remembering. Sighing, he put the book in one of the large pockets on the side of his pants and once again wished they had found a copy that hadn’t had the table of contents ripped out of it. Books were not a high-priority scavenge item.

Maybe I should go out with a small team for a day trip just to get books?
Doyle thought. If the guys at the pre-Day firehouse knew he had those thoughts, they would think he had been replaced by a body snatcher. Doyle reading books? Unheard of.

When Crichton finally entered the room, Doyle was more than happy to vacate his seat, picking up his axe and sliding it into the holster he had made and wore on his back.

“You going to be down here all day?” Doyle asked as he moved toward the door, changing places with Crichton.

“Until he wakes up, yeah. Why? Something on your mind?” Crichton paused before sitting in the plastic chair.

“I was thinking of grabbing one or two people and making a run to the nearest bookstore. It’s not too far; we should be able to get back by tomorrow, two days at the latest.”

Crichton thought it over for a moment, looking at the boy. “We don’t know where he came from, or what dangers he could have lured this way.”

“Has dual purpose then,” Doyle shrugged. “We can see if anything’s amiss while we’re out there.”

Crichton’s expression rarely changed, but you could always tell when the gears were turning in his mind. “Very well. But you explain exactly what you’re doing and what the dangers might be to those who volunteer to go with you.”

“You got it. Oh, and what should I do with this?” Doyle held up the walkie-talkie. He didn’t usually carry one around; Crichton had just given it to him when he had shanghaied Doyle into babysitting.

“Take it for now. Radio me before you leave and tell me who’s going, along with what your supplies are. After that, hand it to anyone watching the fences and they’ll get it back to me.”

“You got it.”

“Anything else?”

“That’s it.”

“Get going then. The sooner you’re out there, the sooner you can get back. And try to take a good runner with you if you can, just in case you need to send a message back to us.”

“Will do.” And with that, Doyle slipped out of the room containing the creepy boy.

He thought to look for Freya first. She was an avid reader and would probably enjoy having more books on hand, as well as being a great person to have watching your back. Unfortunately, she also proved exceptionally difficult to locate. He thought about asking Robin, but it was probably best that all the doctors stay home, especially with the appearance of the boy and all the patients visiting from the container yard. Doyle tried to find the rest of the people with whom he had survived the Day; he trusted them the most. Like the majority of people who had survived without Keystone’s help, he felt closer to those people who had endured with him. Unfortunately, a good portion of them had moved to the container yard, including Harry, Elizabeth, and Cynthia. Quin, the old rock star, was still here but he wasn’t a good candidate for this mission. Not only was his body failing him because of his age and rough treatment, but he had never been all that well equipped to handle the zombies in the first place.

It took a while, but Doyle finally found his first volunteer: Canary. Her real name was Ophelia, but she had never been fond of it. When Robin admitted that she used to think of the young woman as the canary, thanks to her blonde hair and willingness to go into places first, she had jumped at the chance and had encouraged the nickname’s use. Now, more people knew her as Canary than those who knew her real name.

“I’d love to come,” she replied to Doyle’s request, even after being told what all the risks were. “It’d be nice to see something outside these fences again.”

When they had first moved to the Black Box, several scavenging teams frequently went out, but since then, there wasn’t as much of a need. People from the container yard were always giving them found goods in exchange for the crops they grew, and everything else they needed was inside the barriers.

While Canary went off to get her gear, Doyle searched for one more volunteer. He was a bit surprised when it turned out to be James Brenner.

“Crichton told me what you were up to,” he said with shrug. “I’d like to come, if that’s all right.”

“Sure. Any particular reason for wanting to come?”

“I’d like to see for myself if there’s anyone else out there. Also, being honest, I’d like to get away from some of these people for a bit.”

That surprised Doyle even more. “I thought you liked everyone here?”

“No, I get along with everyone, there’s a difference. It’s just…”  James paused, considering what words to use next. “Since the Day, I’ve been helping people survive. Every day for eleven years. Trust me, it wears on you. This will be like a mini vacation for me. With fewer than a handful of people, and all of them capable of taking care of themselves? It’ll be nice.”

Doyle nodded and agreed to let him come. How could he not? James was right when he said he took care of everyone. He got people to safety on the Day, organized a rebellion against Marble Keystone, helped get loads of survivors to the Diana, ran the off-shipper teams once there, and now directed their internal defences; their pseudo police force, fire teams, and doctors, all reported to him on roughly a daily basis. And despite that, people still came directly to him with various questions and problems. He had never been at the very top of the command chain, but was always right beneath it, keeping things running smoothly and doling out advice.

“It’ll be great to have you,” Doyle told him honestly. “Based on my current luck finding a volunteer, it’ll probably be just us and Canary. Pack as light as you can and we’ll meet by the truck.”

“Thanks for this,” James clapped him briefly on the shoulder and then turned away to get his gear.

Having two volunteers he could both trust and find, Doyle went to prep his own gear. He would bring food and water for four days, just in case, but not much else. He wanted as much room as possible in his rucksack for books, as well as any other useful items they might find. Once he was ready to go, he headed out.

The truck was a broken down long hauler, with busted tires and all sorts of detritus piled up underneath. It hadn’t worked since the day they positioned it as part of their fence, siphoned out the remaining gas, and deliberately crippled the massive vehicle. Even the gap between the trailer and the cab had been filled with old bricks and rocks removed from the planting fields. Still, it continued to be useful in that it made a distinguished marker along the fence, and was also the easiest place to pass through. As Doyle approached the truck, he spotted Rose sitting on the footboard. There was a backpack at her feet.