Defensive Instinct (Survival Instinct Book 4) (14 page)

Despite her restless night, Nessie was up and following her usual morning routine at the regular time. The only change was that she made her tea extra strong.

At breakfast, she observed that Dr. Riley and her patients hadn’t returned yet, and therefore Bill was still away. Making note of this in her book, she avoided looking at the entry about the metal box. While the others chatted as usual, Nessie found it hard to focus on their conversations, often withdrawing into herself.  Despite her efforts, the metal box continued to occupy her mind.

“Are you all right, Nessie?” the woman sitting next to her asked.

“I’m fine, thank you. I didn’t sleep well last night,” she forced a smile.

“You should think about taking an hour or two off today to take a nap.”

“Maybe I will.” She knew she wouldn’t. Not only was there too much to do today, but she had never been one for naps; she didn’t want to waste her life sleeping. Besides, she’d probably only think about the box again, and lie awake.

After breakfast, she left her sign in the ‘out’ position and gathered up her laundry. Once she had made sure that everything was in the basket, she placed the basket into a sort of harness she had acquired through a trade. It allowed her to carry the basket on her back, leaving her hands free for various things, including holding her cane. Dragon perched on the side of the basket, ready to ride. As she exited her container once more, she felt like she should close the doors; she now had something she wanted to keep hidden, but she managed to override the urge by convincing herself that closing the door would only make people more suspicious.

“Do you need any help, Nessie?” a young man on his way to the wall stopped to ask. He must have noticed that she was using her cane more than usual today.

“I’m all right, thank you.” She gave him the same forced smile that she had given her breakfast companion.

The young man nodded and trotted off to whatever job he had been assigned. Nessie sighed and looked up at the sky, wondering if some outside confirmation about what to do with the grenades could be found there. There wasn’t one; instead, she spotted some ominous-looking clouds in the distance out toward sea. Although the sky overhead was bright and sunny now, a storm was going to roll in off the Gulf in the near future. Ocean-born storms were always the worst. Without satellite imagery and a bunch of meteorologists pouring over complex data, they never knew how bad the storms would be. They never knew if it was just a lot of rain coming in, or if they were going to have to deal with a hurricane. So far, they had gotten lucky during hurricane season and hadn’t been directly hit by one. Some people in the group believed that if they ever were, their entire camp would be wiped out. Precautions were taken, such as keeping loaded and therefore heavy storage containers pressed up against the community building for stability in the wind and protection from flying debris. Living containers were lined up side by side in rows in the hopes that it would be easier for the wind to funnel down the aisles this made. Each container was braced by those next to it, provided the wind didn’t change course. Everyone knew the drills, knew where the safest places were, such as the dozen containers that had been painstakingly bolted deep into the concrete where the ends of the rows were closest to the community centre. Of course, if a big enough storm surge came along, there wouldn’t be much they could do beyond pray, as everything, themselves included, got swept away. Water was a powerfully destructive force.

Nessie was thinking about the strength of storms when she reached the wash basins. As with the barrel for washing hands, the water here was frequently reused, and consisted only of collected rainwater. The sudden influx of fresh water was the one reason to look forward to a storm.

A few other men and women were already at the basins, which were really a series of deep troughs, and Nessie found a place among those at the first one. Several washboards rested along the sides of the trough, ready to be used in the murky water. There wasn’t any soap in this water; it was for scrubbing off clumps of mud and other such stains before moving onto the next one. Kneeling down next to the trough on a padded mat she carried with her laundry, Nessie slid out of her carrier and set to work, with Dragon perching on the trough’s edge to watch. As she scrubbed the worst of the grime away, her mind began to relax, her tension leaving with the dirt. By the time she was ready to move onto the next trough, she felt like her old self again.

At the second trough, the water was frothy with soap; there was more soap sitting on a ledge just under the outside of the lip. Here was where most of the cleaning would be done and the most time spent. Down at one end of the basin, a trio of men were laughing and making jokes as they scrubbed their clothes. At the opposite end, a young girl was softly singing, a mountain of articles to be washed beside her; probably the laundry for a whole family. The atmosphere was lovely, and Nessie soon found herself humming along with the girl, while Dragon shuffled about, inspecting what everyone was doing, making the occasional remark, and drawing out more laughter from the men.

“Hi, Nessie.”

Surprised, Nessie managed not to startle when Becky settled herself beside the old woman. She wasn’t alone today; her older friend Dakota stood behind her.

“Good morning, Becky. Dakota,” she nodded at them both as she continued to wash.

“I went by your container, hoping to do some more knitting. Dakota said she wants to learn too.”

“I figure it’s better than shadowing a wall guard, or a blacksmith all day,” Dakota shrugged, as if she needed a good reason to be knitting.

“Well, you’re going to have to wait awhile. As you can see, I’ve already started my laundry.”

“Maybe we can help,” Becky offered.

“That’s very kind of you to offer, but I’d rather do this myself. Under garments, you know?”

Becky grinned, a chuckle nearly escaping from between her teeth.

“Come on, Becky. Maybe Adam is doing something with his dad today.” Dakota gestured for them to leave, not knowing the woman very well and feeling a little uncomfortable in her presence.

“We’ll find you later then?” Becky asked Nessie as she got to her feet.

“Once you see my laundry hanging outside my container, you’ll know I’m in.”

“Thanks. Bye, Dragon.”

“
Bye-bye,
” he squawked, not necessarily knowing who had spoken his name.

As Nessie returned to her laundry, she looked back toward the sky. From this angle, she couldn’t see the storm clouds, which hopefully meant they’d stay away until her laundry had dried. Although it was possible to hang them inside, things dried quicker when out in the sun, picking up any sort of wind that came along.

With the young girl singing, Nessie soon found herself completely absorbed in her work and humming again.

Outside her container, Nessie’s laundry waved in the breeze. She had rinsed it in the last of the three troughs, and waited in line to send it through one of the two presses. Then she had hung it on three clothes lines she had erected with the help of a footstool between the upper edge of her container and the one across from her. Becky and her friend hadn’t shown up yet, so Nessie was free to sew in peace. Her machine’s humming was nowhere near as nice as the young girl’s singing, but it was equally distracting.

After an hour went by with still no Becky, Nessie found herself getting unexpectedly worried. There was no reason for her to feel that way; Becky was young and could’ve easily found something elsewhere to distract her. Still, Nessie thought something might be wrong. As more time dragged by, she found herself looking out the front of her container more than at her sewing. Eventually, she gave up and snapped the machine off.

“Come on, Dragon, we’re going to look for her,” she said as she got up onto her feet.

The parrot cocked his head sideways. He had been climbing up and down the outside of his cage, agitated, and not likely for the same reasons. The bird sensed the coming storm, in that way that animals had. He had never liked heavy rain.

Once Dragon was on her shoulder, Nessie turned her sign around and stepped out amongst her laundry. The wind had picked up with the approaching storm, billowing her pants and shirts and in the process drying them faster. The wind was also good for loosening them up, for it had been a long time since anyone had any good fabric softener.

With the tip of her cane clacking along the concrete, Nessie set off in search of Becky. She had no idea where to start looking, and knew there was a risk the girl would show up at her container while she was out, but it made her feel better to be active. Maybe the storm was agitating some primal instinct within herself as well as Dragon.

Walking along the aisles formed by the container homes, Nessie looked into those whose doors were open. There were a wide variety of arrangements inside. Some were over-crowded with bunk beds, while others were Spartan. A few had very homey layouts, with curtains separating the sleeping areas and art hanging on the walls. All sorts of shelves inhabited the containers, from bookcases, to metal tool racks, to boards resting on milk crates. People used what they could get, some coming up with ingenious solutions. One container contained a hammock strung up near the ceiling, leaving the floor space open. Another had a rebuilt exercise bike to generate power, while yet another had modified their upper escape hatch with a funnel and trough system that brought fresh rain water to a large barrel they kept inside. People were constantly finding new uses for various items, resulting in containers that were all different from their neighbours. Nessie didn’t spot Becky in any of them, and the few people she asked hadn’t seen her.

After walking down every ‘street,’ Nessie went to the community building, thinking that maybe she was trying to help her mother cook, despite the fact that she hadn’t seen the girl there when she popped in to pick up lunch on her way back to her container, with her soggy laundry on her back.

“No, she hasn’t been here today. Can I ask why you’re looking for her?”

Nessie assumed the woman she had asked was the girl’s mother, based on the defensive tone.

“She said she’d come by and do some knitting with me,” Nessie explained, playing up her age in an attempt to keep the cook from worrying. “When she didn’t show up, I thought it would be good exercise to go find out why for myself. I assume she just found something more interesting to do with her friends.”

The woman nodded. “Try the dock and the rocky shore. Although Becky doesn’t like to swim much, she’ll be sitting there if her friends are.”

“Thank you. Dinner smells delicious by the way.”

The woman laughed and made a shooing gesture at Nessie. The food almost always smelled the same, as they were always using the same rotation of ingredients. So much corn, and there always seemed to be potatoes.

Nessie left the community building and headed for the dock per Becky’s mother’s suggestion. She could tell the girl wasn’t there just by standing at the head of it. Not only was there clearly no one on the dock, but there also wasn’t any splashing or giggling to suggest someone was swimming around the big concrete structure. It was possible they had gone to Animal Island, so Nessie made her way to the end of Bitch Bridge, which jutted out from the rocky shore. She had never crossed it herself, too dangerous, but could see a large chunk of the island from the end of it. The water was rougher than it had been when she saw it last, another effect of the on-coming storm. The bridge rode the waves, tugging at the moorings on either end. On the island, she could see several adults running about, gathering up the animals and bringing them to various, small shelters. It was unlikely that the kids were there, and they clearly weren’t swimming. They might have been on the island earlier, but as the ocean got rougher, they would have been sent back before it got too dangerous. Once the animals were safe, everyone over there save one would return across the bridge, and then the far end would be disconnected so that it wouldn’t be torn apart. If the storm was expected to be really bad, then it would be hauled in and dragged up on shore, piece by piece. Nessie wondered which one it would be today as she moved on, deciding to follow the outer wall next.

Where it met the rocky shore of the bay, the wall was only one container high, still waiting for some more to be emptied out, moved over, and hauled up; a long and strenuous process. There were a few other containers lying around haphazardly within the confines of the wall. These had been emptied, cleaned, and were in various stages of modifications to make them habitable. With less than five hundred people in the container yard and all them having a roof over their heads, it wasn’t a priority to finish these with any sort of haste. The smooth logs that were used to roll them from one place to another weren’t even sitting under any of the containers anymore; they had been brought nearer to the higher wall, ready to be hoisted over after another outside container was emptied. Nessie was surprised to find Becky and her friends there.

Up on one of the incomplete housing containers, the girl stood with Dakota and a boy who must be Adam. They had been talking in low voices, but when they spotted Nessie, they fell silent and attempted to drop out of sight. Clearly something was going on. Walking straight to the container on which she had seen them standing and going around to the far side, she found the wooden ladder they had used to climb up. Someone was evidently trying to pull it up onto the container with them, hoping they hadn’t been seen. Nessie took hold of the bottom rung before it could get any higher.

“Leave that down here, please,” she said, tugging it free of the younger hands above.

The tops of three heads appeared over the side.

“What are you doing up there?” Nessie wondered.

“Nothing,” Dakota instinctively responded.

“Uh huh, then you won’t mind if I come up?”

The eyes all looked at one another, clearly not liking this idea. Obviously, this meant that Nessie
had
to go up there. Tucking her cane under one arm, she tested the sturdiness of the ladder, and then proceeded to climb up.

The kids scrambled up onto their feet and backed out of the way as Nessie reached the top. Dragon fluttered off her shoulder to sit on the container’s roof, his head twisting to look up at Dakota.

“
Git along, little doggie,
” he commented at her hat.

Once standing, Nessie looked around for anything suspicious. After she had walked around the container, she saw that the doors hadn’t yet been modified, the outside latches still securing them. Up top, the hole for the light hadn’t been cut, but the emergency hatch had been installed. She couldn’t see anything suspicious.

But then a soft sound came out of the container beneath her feet. Nessie looked at Becky and her friends, who all looked nervously at one another. Walking over to the hatch, Nessie bent down to open it.

“We were going to tell someone, honest.” Becky’s voice trembled.

It caused Nessie to pause. She had thought that maybe they had locked one their other friends inside as a joke, but such a cruel prank wouldn’t have elicited those words. This was something else. Carefully gripping the edges of the emergency hatch, she raised it up and looked inside. The container was dark, only a small patch lit up by the sunlight streaming in through the opening. Dragon croaked, and quickly scuttled away from the hole, fluttering to rest on the highest rung of the ladder. Nessie had heard him make that particular sound only a few times before. A rattle drew her attention back to the hole. It was the rattle of a chain on metal. A shadow came into the light and Nessie found herself looking down into a pair of dead eyes.

“We didn’t do it,” Adam quickly said. “We just found it like this.”

The zombie had a collar around its neck, with a dog chain attaching it to something inside the container. The thing was silent, no groans escaping its diseased lips, the only sounds coming from its shuffling feet and the louder scraping of the chain. Pale, bony fingers raised up, as if to catch Nessie were she to fall. A mouth full of blackened teeth popped open, a silent gasp of awe for what its discoloured eyes were showing it. Nessie didn’t look long before carefully lowering the hatch back into place.

Secrets. More secrets. Although the box of grenades was one she could keep to herself, this one would have to be brought to the leaders. Someone in the shipping yard was keeping a zombie. He or she had either captured one and locked it up, or else had locked up a live human until that person had died. Nessie found herself hoping for the former, although neither option was good.

“You kids are going to come with me,” Nessie told them as she got back on her feet and headed for the ladder.

“We didn’t do anything, we just found it before you showed up,” Becky hastily explained.

“And I believe you.” Although Nessie thought that maybe the kids had spent more than just a few minutes up there, wondering what to do. It was possible they had known for a few days, and didn’t want to risk getting into trouble for one thing or another. Besides, they had never really gotten to look at a zombie up close, not really. Nessie wouldn’t be surprised if one day they started throwing rocks at it, or opening the front doors and daring one another to get as close as possible had she not gone looking for them.

Once everyone was off the container, Nessie took the ladder down and instructed the kids to return it to where they had found it. She followed along behind them. Along the way, Dragon fidgeted on her shoulder, frequently bobbing and twisting his head, and nibbling on her hair. He was even more agitated than earlier, having smelled or seen the zombie before Nessie had. The bird hadn’t made a sound since his initial croak, fretting that more might be in the area. Nessie looked at the other containers around her and hoped that wasn’t true.

The ladder was returned exactly to where the kids swore they found it, between two other partially modified containers. It had either been left there and forgotten by those doing the modifications, or someone had deliberately placed it where it was unlikely to be seen. No one ever really bothered with these containers; no one but a small group of bored kids.

“All right, we’re going to go tell the community leaders now,” Nessie instructed.

All six shoulders on the three kids slumped simultaneously. They didn’t complain though; they knew this was something that had to be done. Nessie didn’t think they’d get into trouble; she didn’t know of any rules that forbade them from climbing up onto the containers, and they obviously had nothing to do with the zombie. Still, she let it worry them as they walked, figuring they’d learn some sort of lesson in the process.

The sky cracked and rumbled with thunder, causing the little group to pause and look skyward. The storm was almost upon them. Great big black thunderheads were rolling across the sky, soon to swallow the sun. Beneath them would be torrents of rain and dangerous lightning.

“Your laundry is still out.” Becky pointed to where they could just see the end of Nessie’s row, her laundry flapping with the increased winds.

Nessie looked back to the community centre. People were scattering from it, carrying early dinners to various containers. They would rather ride out the storm in their own home as opposed to the drafty building.

“Come on, kids, let’s go save my laundry,” Nessie guided them toward her container. “The leaders won’t be gathered in one place right now anyway, and we need to get to cover.”

The kids ran ahead while Nessie power walked, the situation not quite dire enough for her to risk more speed. Becky was quick to locate Nessie’s stool and hand it to Dakota, still the tallest of the three. Adam might shoot past her when he hit his growth spurt, but for now he was a bit of a shrimp. Instead of trying to take down each piece of laundry, Dakota undid the end of each line and handed it down, the other two bundling it all up to keep everything off the ground. It made Nessie smile to see them problem solving so well. The world might have gotten fucked up, but the next generation seemed to be handling it well, considering their parents had no idea what to teach them.

When Nessie reached her container, the kids had finished and were piling her laundry on her bed. The first droplets of rain struck her back as she entered the safety of the container. Dragon fluttered off her shoulder ahead of her and landed on the side of his cage with a clatter. Nessie was wondering if the kids would have time to dash to their own homes when the skies truly opened up, a cascade of rain crashing down. The wind suddenly howled, throwing one of the container doors shut and pulling the other further open.