Defensive Instinct (Survival Instinct Book 4) (52 page)

Once up the ladder, Abby had to take a moment to orient herself. Provided the container yard residents hadn’t moved a bunch of stuff around, she knew the layout but had never been on top of it before. People walked about on the containers, or sat on the edges, while some climbed in and out of roof hatches. Several people were running to retrieve supplies from inside to bring elsewhere; others were bringing out pets that had been locked away. As Abby made her way across the containers, always heading for the bridge that appeared the most secure, she looked around the yard. In the container alleys, people moved the dead, clearing away the corpses from the doors. Farther from the community centre, she saw the dead were piled deeper, several heaps having managed to reach up to the top of the containers. Beyond, the wall was well manned. Men and women stood on the highest containers with large spears in their hands. As Abby got closer, with the sounds of voices, fire, and water dying away behind her, she could hear the zombies still moving and moaning beyond the protective barrier. Those with the spears were thrusting downward whenever they could take one out. Abby suspected Jon would be up there.

Walking along the container tops wasn’t always straightforward. With the hatches cut into them and many with those plastic bottle lights sticking out, Abby had to watch her step. She noticed a couple of round holes where the bottle lights used to be but had already been crushed, the adhesive holding them in place letting go and allowing the bottles to fall through. The holes they left behind were just large enough for a careless foot to slip through and an ankle to be broken. It was likely some of the people receiving treatment in the community centre were victims of just such an occurrence.

Nearing Misha’s home, Abby realized that getting into it wasn’t going to be as easy as she had hoped. The entire row of containers had corpses draped all over it, and the ladder bridges had been drawn back or knocked over.

“Need some help?” A young man Abby didn’t recognize wandered over from where he had been helping some others shove bodies off the top of the containers’ ends.

“One of my friends lives over there; I told him I’d get something from his place for him.”

“Sure, I can help. Come on, lift the other side of that ladder.”

Together, the two of them bridged the gap, the far side of the ladder resting unsteadily on top of a dead zombie.

“My name’s Elijah.” He took off his glove and held out his hand.

“Abby.” She shook it. “Are you one of the people who were attacking this place yesterday?”

The young man flushed as he put his glove back on. “Yeah, guess I was.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to embarrass you or anything like that. It’s just I didn’t recognize you, and I didn’t know if you came with that group or maybe showed up at some other time between now and when I was last here.” Abby knew she was rambling.

“Last here?”

“Umm, yeah… I’m from another group that works with this one sometimes.” Abby silently cursed herself, fearing she may have said too much.

“Is that why you’re in your pyjamas?”

“Kinda, it’s a long story.”

“Maybe I’ll learn it one day, maybe I won’t. How about you hold this end of the ladder steady, and I’ll go across to clear off the corpses around that end?” Elijah suggested.

“Yeah, all right.”

While Abby knelt on her end, the young man carefully crossed, his arms held out to either side for balance. She watched as he shoved off the nearest bodies, the ones barely balanced on the edge of the container, then stepped off to move the one that the ladder was resting on. Once it was out of the way, he resettled the ladder, making it secure so that Abby could cross.

“So which way is your friend’s container?”

“That way,” Abby pointed. “I don’t think you’ll be able to move all the bodies between here and there.”

Elijah shrugged. “The ones on the edge are easy to shove off.”

As Elijah inched along the edge, kicking bodies off with his large boots, Abby followed carefully behind him. A few times the young man had to lean over and drag a body with his hands to get it to move, but he was always able to make a clear space for their feet to fall.

“God that stinks.” Abby came close to retching up the soup she had eaten when a dead zombie’s belly burst open like a bubble. She covered her mouth and nose with her hand, but it was still like being punched in the face, an experience of which she had a very recent memory.

“Yeah, a bunch are so dried out that they don’t really smell, but the sloppy ones are rank. I think my nose has shut down to be honest,” Elijah commented. “That, or I’m learning to survive without breathing.”

Whenever Abby waited for a more stubborn body to be moved, she looked toward the wall, trying to identify one of the people there as Jon. Every time she failed to spot him, a knife twisted in her belly as a wordless thought fluttered through the back of her mind. She had a long time to search when they finally reached Misha’s container and Elijah had to clear several bodies off of the hatch.

“I feel bad that you’re doing all this work for me,” Abby said trying to pull her mind away from her thoughts but unable to remove her eyes from the wall.

“Meh.” Elijah shrugged as he peeled a black intestine off the hatch and tossed it aside. “All this crap has to be moved anyway, right? I don’t think it matters where we start.”

“Fair enough. After this I’ll find some gloves and come back to help you.”

“You don’t have to if there’s other things you should be doing.”

“We’ll see.” Abby climbed down the hatch once Elijah opened it, wondering how it was possible that he had been shooting at her friends just the other day.

Under the hatch there was light in Misha’s container, but it quickly turned to darkness at the far end. The bottle light had been knocked out and had rolled to the base of the ladder where Abby stood. Peering into the gloom, she could just make out a stain beneath the hole for the bottle caused by blackened zombie blood oozing through. Closing her eyes, Abby visualized Misha’s place as she had last seen it, picturing all the things on his milk crate shelves. Hoping everything was still in the same place or near enough not to matter, she stepped out of the light and squeezed past the dripping gunk. Her hands fumbled along the shelves, her eyes still adjusting, until they wrapped around the familiar feel of a flashlight. She hastily turned it on and shone the light all around the large metal box, feeling like something was in there with her. There wasn’t; she was alone as logic had told her she would be.

Figuring it wouldn’t hurt to grab several supplies while she was in there, Abby first located a backpack. She filled it with some of Misha’s personal food and water stores, and some treats for the dogs. She then packed their toys, a handful of items to use as masks, and both pairs of work gloves.

A shadow passed over the hatch opening and Abby froze. Her mind raced as she wondered if trusting Elijah had been a good idea. She knew next to nothing about him. What if he started tossing bodies inside, then closed the hatch and piled more on top? It would be extremely difficult for Abby to get out without getting infected dressed the way she was. With her heart in her throat, she hurried to the ladder and climbed back out into the sunlight. Elijah was shoving bodies off the sides of the containers; the shadow had just been his while walking by.

“You get what you were looking for?” he asked after picking up and tossing a corpse that was hardly more than bones covered in dried out flesh.

“Yeah, thanks for your help.”

“No problem. Hey, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Once this is over, like, the zombies still out there are all gone… Do you think I’ll be allowed to stay here?” The way he asked the question suddenly made him a lot younger and Abby realized she was wrong to think he was a young man. He was still in his teenage years, even younger than Claire.

“That’ll be up to our leaders.”

“Oh. Okay.” He turned away to shove off another body.

“I’ll put in a good word for you though, if I get the chance,” Abby offered.

“Thanks, that would be great.” He didn’t sound very enthusiastic about her meagre offer. “This place looks nice. Or it did before this mess covered it. Still better than out there.”

Abby wondered how much he had seen in addition to this invasion. “Well, I better get going before my friend wonders where I am.”

“Yeah.” Elijah returned to his work, deciding there was no point in going back to where Abby had first found him and continued to clear off the container he stood upon.

Abby crossed the ladder again and headed back toward the water. Part way there she realized she should have mentioned the food to Elijah, but it was too late to turn back now. If Lauren and the others didn’t need her help, then she’d put on Misha’s gloves and probably a mask, then head back to help him. She could tell Elijah about the food then, and maybe get to know him better, learn more about the outsiders and how they survived.

Choosing to cross as few ladder bridges as possible, Abby took the long way getting back to the row by the water, suddenly thinking about all the written work she had lost in the Black Box. She headed toward the end of the container row where another container had been placed sideways filling most of the gap. Corpses were still piled high at the very end of the row and up against the far side of the bridging container, but there was still a path. Abby hopped the gap, but froze the moment she landed.

Something in the corpse pile had moved.

Abby stood perfectly still, her eyes locked on the location where she had spied the movement. She felt naked standing there in her pyjamas and boots without any sort of weapon on her. Just as she was starting to think she had imagined it, the movement came again. A zombie’s mouth slowly opened, but there was no way it could still be functional. From where Abby stood, she could see that the top of its head was caved in, its brains leaking out. But the mouth was clearly opening. Had the virus changed? Was taking out the brain no longer enough?

A large black rat wiggled its way out of the corpse’s mouth, its fur slick with gore. It looked at Abby with its intelligent, beady eyes and paused for a second before springing at her, its mouth wide to show its blackened, infected teeth.

Abby reacted on instinct. Spinning in place, she allowed the rat to land on the backpack instead of her, then slid out of the straps as quick as a snake. The rat clawed and bit at the material, not yet realizing that it had failed to grasp its prey, but that wouldn’t last for long. Abby slammed her boot down on the creature, which squealed in pain but quickly twisted around to bite its attacker. Abby lifted her boot a short way, the rat’s teeth hanging on, then slammed her foot down again. The rat squealed through its mouthful, but persisted. She slammed again and the rat went slack, its spine broken. Lifting her foot higher, Abby brought her boot down one last time, the force of the impact breaking anything left of the rat’s bones and crushing its guts out.

While using her boot to shove it toward the corpses, Abby picked up the backpack, the fabric slightly torn, and slung it over a shoulder. She looked out over the rest of the zombie corpses and was horrified to see more small movements among them.

“Rats!” she finally found her voice to scream. “There are rats in the corpses!”

Nessie kept drifting in and out of the light. She preferred the darkness where it wasn’t so painful. Once, however, when the light returned, it wasn’t so bright. Wondering if night had come, Nessie held onto consciousness a bit longer. Her eyes focused just enough to tell her it was still daylight, but that she had been moved inside. Then she slipped away again.

When next Nessie awoke, she assumed she had been given something for the pain. It was still there, a terrible throbbing in her lower abdomen, but the severe bite had been taken away. Had she been able to, she would’ve refused the painkiller, telling them not to waste it on someone as old as she. There was also a lot of noise, a lot of raised voices. She was used to the screaming and crying that came with the light, but this was different. This was panicked orders. Something different was happening; were they being attacked again? Nessie tried to see but it was difficult to keep her eyes open.

“
Momma
?” a familiar voice whispered.

Nessie looked up toward the sound. An IV stand loomed overhead with a feathered face peering down from it.

“Hello, Dragon,” Nessie wheezed, barely able to get the words out. Someone had retrieved her bird for her. This made her happy, but she wished she knew who so that she could thank them.

“You’re awake,” a different, far-less familiar voice spoke from Nessie’s side.

She looked over and saw a face she had seen before but had never gotten to know. He was young, somewhere between eighteen and twenty-two by Nessie’s estimate. She had seen him around the container yard like she had seen so many others, but had never stopped to ask for a name, or at least not remembering it if told.

“Why did you have to tell them?” he asked, his eyes filling with tears.

Tell them? Tell them what?
Nessie was too tired to actually ask the questions.

“She wasn’t hurting anyone. She was my friend.”

Nessie didn’t like the odd look on his face. Although she couldn’t follow along with his words, there was something about his expression that was wrong.

“It’s okay, I guess. I can make new friends. Maybe you’ll be my friend.”

When his hands moved toward her throat, Nessie wanted to scream but couldn’t get it out in time. After one last breath, her air was cut off.

“It’s okay,” he spoke softly, soothingly, despite what he was doing. “You’ll come back. You’ll be more peaceful when you do. No pain. It’s better this way.”

The zombie in the container
, Nessie finally remembered, but it was too late. She tried to push him off but was too weak. She dug her blunt fingernails into his wrists as she attempted to pull his hands away from her throat, but it seemed to have no effect on him. The darkness was trying to creep back, but this time she didn’t want to go into it. This time she wouldn’t be able to get back out if she did.

“
Rooooaaaarrrrrrr!
” Dragon screamed above them. In a flurry of feathers, he swooped at the boy’s face. “
Zombie! Zombie! Zombie!
” he kept squawking in a harsh tone that Nessie had never heard before.

The boy shrieked and fell away, his hands batting at his attacker. Nessie took in a ragged breath, her throat burning with it.

“Get it off me!” the boy screamed, blood running down his face and fingers.

He finally struck a blow to Dragon’s body, sending the bird careening sideways. He got no respite, however, as a human tackled him to the ground. Nessie’s vision was fading again, but the cowboy hat was instantly recognizable.

“The bird attacked me! It went crazy!” the boy was screaming and wiggling, trying to buck Dakota off of him. He lost all chance of that when her friend Hope, and a boy whose name Nessie didn’t know also sat on him.

“Are you okay?” A gentle hand touched Nessie’s arm. “I’m sorry we didn’t see it until it was almost too late.”

Nessie looked up to see Dr. Riley standing over her, but she looked different. Her features were tired and weak, and her upper torso was covered in bandages.
Has she been injured too?
Nessie thought, not able to remember that Riley hadn’t been at the container yard during the attack.

“Quin! Help the kids tie that asshole up!” Riley barked, but it was followed by a wince.

A man at least as old as Nessie walked over to her and gently placed Dragon by her side. “I think he’s just stunned.”

“I’ll check him over once I’m done with you,” Riley told Nessie.

“It was the zombie,” Nessie croaked, her throat flaring with pain. “The zombie in the container. Him.”

“Don’t try to talk, you could make it worse,” Riley told her sternly. The doctor looked like she was about to collapse herself.

Nessie couldn’t remember what happened beyond that. She ran a finger gently down Dragon’s back then let the blackness take her.