Defensive Instinct (Survival Instinct Book 4) (17 page)

Is this how I die? Fighting in the dark?
Danny thought during the haze. His mind sharpened before his body was ready. Not only was he struggling against the men, but he was struggling against uncooperative limbs. Whoever had attacked him was taking advantage of Danny’s current ineffectualness. He felt hands flip him over onto his stomach, and then his arms were wrenched behind his back and roped together. His legs finally started to obey him, but from his belly he couldn’t get much kicking force. They were soon tied up as well and Danny felt that he was trussed up like a hog. Shaking his head, he attempted to throw the bag off of it. Light was seeping through the fabric now, as more lanterns and flashlights were lit somewhere. One of his attackers, seeing his attempt to free his head from the bag, bent down and tightly secured some sort of blindfold over where Danny’s eyes were, completely blocking out the light.

Things were calming down now. The attackers were panting nearby, talking in whispers that were muffled by Danny’s own harsh breathing within the bag.

“Put him with the others,” were the first words spoken loud enough for him to make out.

Others?
Danny had hoped his friends had escaped, but it appeared not all of them had. Unless these people had kidnapped someone else before him? It was a possibility. Danny wished he could do something, anything, as he was hoisted off the floor, his bound limbs crying out in pain. Had he managed to get the bag off, he might have been able to bite someone, but as things stood, the tightness of the blindfold kept it snug over his face. He was deposited on the floor with a thump, his captors not exactly dropping him, but they weren’t being gentle with him either. Danny listened to the sound of a door closing behind him and guessed he was in the employee bathroom based on the smell. It would stink worse in the back room with the horse waste, and there were no other doors in the place, so he was definitely in the bathroom.

“Who else is here?” Danny whispered.

“That you, Danny?” Bryce’s voice came from the other side of the room.

“Yeah.”

A soft, muffled groan filled the space between them.

“I’m pretty sure that’s Lenny,” Bryce answered for the groan. “I think I saw him being gagged.”

“What about the others?”

“I think they escaped. Jon and Shaidi for sure got outside on horses, but I lost track of Larson. Since they’re not in here, I’m betting they got away.”

“That’s good. Larson wouldn’t leave us behind, and Jon is good at planning. He’ll figure something out.”

“I hope so. What do you think they want with us?”

“Our stuff. What does anyone want these days?”

“Yeah, but why grab us? Lenny kept trying to negotiate with them, and they seemed upset that some of us got out.”

Lenny made an indecipherable response.

Danny could think of two reasons off the top of his head, neither of which was good: enslavement and cannibalism. As he lay in the dark, he wondered if he’d see his family again, either those back at the container yard, or the ones who had passed on before him.

Danny didn’t think he had slept on the bathroom floor; his limbs were far too uncomfortable for it, but his mind had certainly wandered. He had no sense of time, and his arms and legs had gone from being painful, to a strange sort of tingling numbness. A few times he had heard Bryce or Lenny shuffling about, but they had ceased speaking to one another. There wasn’t anything more to say for the moment. Beside him, Lenny breathed slowly and heavily, able to use only his nose due to the gag in his mouth. Danny worried about him suffocating. At times, he found himself startled into a more wakeful state, particularly whenever there was sound near the door. Every now and again, one of their captors would walk past, or a few snatches of conversation would drift over, none of it intelligible enough to make out.

When the door finally opened, Danny’s heart rate jumped from a resting pulse to that of a racehorse within the span of a few beats, all his senses becoming hyper alert.

“Could you take his gag off?” Bryce asked from the far side of the bathroom. “Please? He’s clearly having some difficulty breathing.”

Danny heard a grunt in response from whoever entered. More than one set of boots came into the bathroom, and Danny was painfully hoisted up again. He clenched his teeth as hard as he could to keep from crying out, the tingling numbness replaced by shooting stabs. As he was brought out of the bathroom, it didn’t sound like the others were coming with him.

After being lowered to the floor again, Danny’s binds were cut. His limbs flopped outward, bringing a whole new pain from the sudden release of stiffness and the return of proper blood flow. He was so startled by it, he didn’t have time to react before hands were wrapped around his limbs again, and he was placed upright in a chair, probably a dining room chair from the display floor based on the feel. Danny felt his ankles get bound to the legs, while his upper arms were strapped to the back. His lower arms were left oddly free, giving him a chance to rub his sore wrists after his captors were done manhandling him. His fingers traced the grooves left in his skin from the rope and where his flashlight used to be. The sound of footfalls retreated, but Danny got the sense he wasn’t alone. He kept his mouth shut, waiting for whoever it was to speak first. In the silence, Danny wondered if he’d be able to remove his own blindfold and suspected he might, but wanted to wait before trying.

A scrape of chair legs on linoleum tiles before him confirmed Danny’s thoughts. It also let him know that he was on the display floor somewhere, as it was tiled whereas the backroom was not. Hands untied Danny’s blindfold, then pulled the bag off of his head without ever touching him. The sudden light was harsh, making Danny squint as he struggled to adapt as quickly as possible. By the time he could see, the person who had removed his blindfold was sitting down across from him. He was a large man, very tall with broad shoulders, his short blond hair and beard covering unmoving features that included a pair of dull grey eyes. The man’s eyes reminded Danny of the storm as it had been rolling in. The light that had blinded him was a lamp sitting on a shelf beside his captor, but there was also a soft grey light from elsewhere. It was morning, and the storm had left behind a blanket of clouds, which now dulled the sunlight coming through the furniture store’s windows. Danny and the unknown man stared at one another, waiting for the other to react first.

“What do you know of the bus?” the man finally asked, his voice deep and without emotion.

It was a strange opening question. Had he asked it purely to throw Danny off guard, or was there another purpose behind it? Were his captors the people from the bus? He had already decided the sound he had heard while inside it must have come from these men. How long had he and the others been followed before that?

“Only that it wasn’t there the last time we had been through,” Danny decided to answer. He gave the man no indication as to when that was, or what destination they had in mind.

“What’s your name?” was the second question.

Danny chose not to answer that one.

“Telling me your name will only give me something to call you. I’m Evans.”

Danny thought for a moment, but decided he was right. It wasn’t like there were databases that could be searched to find people based on things like names. “Danny.”

“And your friends?”

“Bryce, and the black one you
gagged
is Lenny.”

Evans nodded slowly. “Lenny already told us his name, so thank you for not lying.”

The small hairs stood up on the back of Danny’s neck, no doubt the desired effect. By telling him he already knew Lenny’s name, and by mentioning the bus, Evans was trying to unnerve Danny with a show of knowledge. He was letting Danny know that lying might not be a good idea.

“Where were you going?”

No answer.

“Where were you coming from?”

No answer.

“Why did you kill Wycheck?”

No answer, but this time it was because Danny had no idea what the question meant. It must have shown on his face.

“Oh, right, you wouldn’t have learned his name, not from shooting him in the head with a rifle.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Danny retorted, breaking his silence again.

There was a shuffling of feet behind him. Danny turned his head to look, but couldn’t see anyone. Whoever it was, must have been listening from beyond one of the shelving units that flanked them. Evans didn’t bat an eye. The man’s focus was completely on Danny, to the point where it was unnerving. His voice maintained the same emotionless monotone as he told Danny about someone being shot as it had when asking Danny his name. When Danny returned his full attention back to Evans, the man reached beside him and picked up a pair of boots from the shelf, dropping them at Danny’s feet without a word.

Danny studied the boots, trying to make sense of what was happening. Had the boots come from one of their supply carts? It seemed likely, based on the way they were presented to him. But they had gathered several pairs of boots during their scavenging run; what made this pair so special?

“Allow me to jog your memory,” Evans continued in that calm tone of his. “Two nights ago, you, with three others and one horse, spent the night in a shop, the kind with the owners’ residence above it and a stairwell to the roof. At some point, you decided to beat up and gun down a man as he made his way along the street toward your fake camp a few blocks over. Very clever, the way you laid out the fire so that it would burn and smoulder all night. Tell me, how many others have you fooled with that trick?”

Danny had to reel back his memory to the time Evans was talking about. He remembered the crack of Jon’s rifle, the one he was testing, as he fired it from the roof. Jon had shot a zombie in the street, and they had taken its boots afterward.

“I see you remember now,” Evans commented on some change that must have occurred on Danny’s face or in his eyes.

“We didn’t shoot a man, we shot a zombie,” Danny defended their actions.

The scuffling happened beyond the shelves again. Whoever was listening, was upset. Evans still didn’t acknowledge it, but was shaking his head at Danny.

“We know that’s not the truth.”

“But it is!” Danny didn’t like being accused of murder and found he couldn’t hold his tongue. “We had recently found a rifle that needed to be tested, so we tested it on a zombie that was shuffling down the street.”

“Liar!” a pissed-off voice shouted from beyond the shelves.

This time Evans responded by turning his head toward the outburst, shifting his weight so that his chair creaked. There was some more scuffling from over there, and another voice or two shushing the one that had cried out. Danny had no idea how many people were listening in and found himself frightened by the prospect of being lynched.

Evans returned his gaze to Danny. “Tell me about the others.”

“What others?” Danny assumed he meant Jon, Shaidi, and Larson, but he wasn’t going to say anything about them.

“Carol, Hector, Lee, Moore, Millia. Of course, I wouldn’t expect you to know their names either.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Danny was now even more confused. It sounded like he was being blamed for more murders.

The scuffling and murmuring behind the shelves got worse. The small hairs on Danny’s arms stood on end as gooseflesh crawled along his skin.

“You stabbed them.”

“What?” Danny would have stood in outrage had he been able. “We would never do such a thing!”

Someone from the group of listeners had finally had enough. Danny had no chance to defend himself, before the back of his head was struck. He was stunned, and the world spun as he held tightly to consciousness, darkness creeping into the edges of his vision. The last thing he saw before the black bag and blindfold were returned, was Evans’ expressionless face.

Danny had been returned to the bathroom, still bound to the chair, and Lenny had been removed. Someone stayed in the bathroom this time, so that when Bryce tried to ask Danny what had happened, he received a threat about his teeth being kicked in. Danny’s head pounded as he sat there. Again, he might have been able to remove his blindfold and the bag, but decided against it. Not just because of the guard who was present, but if the blow to the back of his head had broken the skin, the blindfold felt like it was in the right spot to be applying pressure. Later, Lenny was returned, now also strapped to a chair by the sounds of it, and Bryce was removed. Lenny no longer breathed heavily around a gag, but that was all Danny could tell about his condition.

Time passed in darkness, with Danny doing his best not to throw up. He still felt dizzy from the strike and hoped that no permanent brain damage had been done. It was possible he had a concussion.

Bryce wasn’t returned to the bathroom. Instead, he and Lenny were hauled back out. The jostling movement as he was carried on a crooked angle, made Danny feel even more nauseous. He wanted to focus on where he was being carried, but not puking required all his attention. Had he actually eaten last night, he probably wouldn’t have been able to hold it in.

Eventually, he was stopped, upright, and potentially outside. The air smelt like outdoors, and there was a sense of space. With a rattling jerk, he began moving again, and once he identified the sound of horses’ hooves, he realized he was on the back of a cart. Unable to sit in darkness any longer, Danny reached for his blindfold and bag. Tucking his head down so low made his mind swim dangerously for a moment, but Danny was able to grasp both pieces of fabric and pull them off. The bright, white sunlight passing through the overcast sky stung his eyes, but again he adjusted to the light as swiftly as he was able.

Looking around, Danny assessed his situation. He, Lenny, and Bryce were all strapped to chairs facing backward on the rear end of a cart that was much larger than their own. Behind the cart, facing them, was a scarred mug Danny hadn’t seen before, watching his movements without comment. The horse he rode was unfamiliar, as were the two to either side of the cart’s rear, with still more strangers riding them. Lenny started to remove his own blindfold; Bryce didn’t have one. It seemed Bryce had taken the brunt of these men’s anger to his face, which was swelling and turning various shades of purple. His lip was split and bleeding, and as he looked back at Danny across Lenny, his tongue darted out to lick the wound. Behind the unknown horseman, Danny saw the front of the furniture store slowly receding. He had no idea where they were going. Twisting in his chair, he attempted to look ahead. The cart he was in was definitely larger than the ones he and his group had brought along, and was loaded down with supplies, all packed in a way that kept the contents safe from the weather. It seemed like a more permanent packing job than their own carts, and contained nothing that suggested the supplies were being brought to a camp. On either side of the cart, elderly sat upon running boards, a few of them eyeing Danny and the others suspiciously. It was hard to see beyond the front of the cart, but Danny suspected that one of their own was ahead of them. There were also more people walking along up ahead.

“Danny,” Bryce hissed, drawing his attention back around to him.

Lenny was already leaning toward the younger man conspiratorially. Danny did the same, eyeing the horse riding guard behind them, but the scarred man didn’t seem to care.

“They have our map,” Bryce told them.

Suddenly, Danny knew where they were headed. As vertigo struck him again, he looked back at the guard, this time specifically focusing on the rifle he carried.