Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel (80 page)

“I think he’s dead.”

Danny was even more surprised by Alice’s assumption.

“He would have found me by now if he wasn’t.”  Alice appeared emotionless about this.  “I think one of the bad people got him.”

“You can’t know that,” Danny told her.

“I do,” Alice nodded.  “Something happened.”

“No, you
can’t
know that,” Danny frowned at her.  “There’s no way you could know that unless you saw something happen.”

“Hey kid.  Come over here for a second.”  Alec gestured for Danny to walk next to him.

“What?” Danny grumped.

“What does it matter to you if she thinks something happened to her dad?” Alec asked him in a quiet voice.  “If anything, it’s better she start accepting it now, because the odds are she’s never going to see him again.”

“Because you shouldn’t give up like that.”  Danny couldn’t believe that Alec thought that way.  “There’s still hope.”

“This isn’t about Alice’s dad, is it?”  Alec cut to the chase.  “This is about your brother.  You still have hopes of seeing him again one day.”

“And why wouldn’t I?” Danny raised his voice a little.

“You really think that, when all this is said and done, you’re going to be able to find one another?” Alec raised his own voice.  “The odds are astronomical.  You don’t even know if he’ll survive.”

“He will.”  Danny knew he would.  “He works in the Keystone facility.  It’s safe there.”

“How could you know that?”  Alec mirrored Danny’s own words.  “If the outbreak came from Keystone, it could easily be worse there.”

“No,” Danny shook his head.  “They’d be prepared for stuff like this.  The facility is safe, I know it.”

“Then you have such a low opinion of your brother that you think he would hide in a hole and do nothing while this is going on?  You don’t think he would come looking for you?”

Danny didn’t have a response for that.  His brother wouldn’t just sit in a hole, not unless Danny was in the hole with him.  Alec had a point.

“Please stop fighting,” Alice whined.  “I’m sorry.  I’ll pretend to think my Daddy is still alive if you’ll just stop fighting.”

Alec sighed.  “I’m sorry, Alice.  This fight isn’t because of you.  You believe whatever you want to believe.  We’re all just tired and stressed out.”

They continued on in silence.

Danny knew that Alec had a point.  As much as he didn’t want to accept it, he was likely never to see his big brother again.  He was the last survivor of his tragic family.  How odd that one of the Coles managed to survive an apocalypse.  Of course, he didn’t know for sure he was going to survive, not by a long shot, but he thought things were going pretty well, considering.  The fact that he didn’t die alongside Emma was kind of amazing.

Poor Emma.  He had done all he could to help her, but in the end, it wasn’t enough.  And little Nelly, all covered in blood outside the park.  That dog, Tugg, had saved his life.  And there was Michelle, Alec’s friend or whoever she was.  She tried to help but only ended up undead.  Kara and Walter, they were gone too.  Like Alec, Danny had noticed the decaying condition of the little girl in the truck.  So many people were dying around him and yet he continued to live.  Why?  What made him so special?  Why did he get to live when so many others did not?

Danny had never been religious; he never saw a point to it.  He didn’t find God now either.  It was all so random.  Luck was what he chose to believe in, in the end.  Everything was a combination of good luck and bad, one thing leading to another.  Over all, Danny’s luck had been good, but he knew it could go bad in an instant.  He swore to himself that he would be prepared for when that happened.  He would do whatever needed to be done.  Whether it was God, fate, or luck that brought him to this point didn’t matter, he wanted to live.  No matter what happened to the world around him, Danny wanted to live.

He had never been a depressed kid despite everything, but he was surprised at the depth of his need for survival.  He had never thought about something like suicide, but he also didn’t have much concern over, say, being hit by a bus.  He had an indifferent opinion about death.

Now though, he wanted to live more than anything. Maybe it was because he was the last of his family’s line, or maybe it was because of all those others who had died around him.  He just felt the need to live, to go on despite all of it.  Live for those who had died.

“Alec,” Danny spoke up.  “I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

“It’s okay, kid.  I’m sorry too,” Alec replied.  “We’re just tired is all.  Our emotions are getting the best of us.”

Danny nodded, and they kept on walking.

* * *

There was another up hill between them and their destination, but at least it was gradual.  Alec didn’t need any help with it, and it didn’t add too much extra strain.  When the hill levelled out again, the service station was in sight.  Alec brought them to a stop.

“Give me a minute.”  Alec put down his pack and opened it up.  He took out the scope from his rifle and brought it up to his eye to inspect the place from afar.

“See anything?” Danny asked.

“No.  There’s no movement, and I can’t see anything out of the ordinary.”  Alec brought the scope away from his eye and held it out to Danny.  “You want to take a look?”

“Sure, thanks.”  Danny took the
riflescope and looked through it.  He didn’t know what any of the dials on the sides were for, so he didn’t touch them.  He trusted that Alec had set them to the appropriate distance.  The closest building was definitely a gas station, but the roof that jutted out over the pumps blocked off the view of the building next to it.  Danny guessed that it was probably a restaurant of some sort.

“Think it looks safe?” Alec asked him.

Danny knew Alec didn’t need his opinion; that he was asking as a way to make sure they were back on good terms.  Danny nodded and handed the scope back.

Alice yawned.  “I’m tired.”

“Don’t worry, we’re almost there.”  Alec ruffled her hair.

She scrunched her face up into an exaggerated scowl at him and tried to fix her hair.

Alec woke up Shoes and put him on his feet.  “Danny, do you mind taking his leash?”

“No problem.”  Danny untied it from the chair.

“Try to encourage him to walk in front of us too.”  Alec put the scope back in his pack and slung the pack back over his shoulders.  He then took out his pistol.

Danny got Shoes moving with a slight bump to his butt.  He yawned larger than Danny ever could and began waddling forward.  Shoes walked slower than the rest of them did on a normal basis, but now they made sure he took the lead, pacing his little legs.  Alice knew something was going on and stepped closer to Alec.  She reached up and held onto the handle at the back with one small hand.  Danny took a breath, then decided to take out his own pistol.  Holding it in one hand at his side, it felt heavier than it had all day.  Slowly they approached the gas station.

At no point while they were walking did Shoes react.  He just waddled along as if he was out on one of his daily walks.  They even had to stop for a moment while he did his business on the side of the road.

As they got closer, Danny saw that the other building was not, in fact, a restaurant.  It was a mechanic’s shop.  It appeared not to have many windows either, which Danny took to be a good thing.

They approached the gas station first.  Even though the sign announcing their hours indicated they should be open at this time, the other sign next to it stated that it was closed.  Alec went up to the glass-paned door and looked inside.  Danny looked through a big window between some brightly coloured advertisements.  It looked closed and empty.  It was also very dark inside and hard to make out much detail.  They didn’t bother to try the door, as there were security gates closed across it.  Danny thought it was likely that whoever worked there had heard the radio report and decided to close up early.

They went over to the mechanic’s shop next, where they checked things out through one of the few windows.  It appeared to be split into two sections.  The first was the reception area, with a desk and some waiting chairs.  Danny could just make out two doors behind the desk: one looked like it was labelled ‘washroom’ and the other ‘employee lounge
.’  There was a third door on the left that led into the other, larger section of the building.  It was unmarked and made of metal.  Judging by the two roll-up doors on the front of that section of the building, it was the actual garage.

Alec put down his pack again and opened it up.  He took out a pair of flashlights.  One was a large, police-style flashlight, and the other was a small, LED light on a shoestring.  He put the shoestring over Alice’s head so that the light hung around her neck.  It hung to her belly.  He turned on the police light and shone it into the shop.  There wasn’t much more to see with the added light, just more dirt.

Like the gas station, there were security gates over these windows and the door as well.  Alec handed the big flashlight to Danny.  He pointed to Danny’s gun, and then swept the area around them.  Clearly, he wanted Danny to watch their backs.  He then reached over and clicked on Alice’s light.  He held it up and pointed it at the gate, then got Alice to hold it up in that position.  He took out some of the tools that he had packed as well as his lock picks.

Danny didn’t watch him work; he did his job of watching everything else.  At
first, he pointed the light around, but it was spooky doing that.  He couldn’t see anything outside the cone of light.  It was a clear night and the moon had already risen, so he shut off the flashlight.  He decided to let his eyes adjust and use his night vision, resorting to the flashlight only if he thought he saw something.  That happened more than he liked.

When Alec broke the glass pane, it was quieter than Danny expected, but also much louder.  It startled him even though he knew it was coming.  The rest of the night was so quiet that it felt out of place.  As Danny thought about it, he couldn’t even hear crickets or frog song or anything, just a very light breeze through the trees, and Alec working to get the gate open.

In was obvious Alice wasn’t totally focused on her task.  Her light kept drifting down, only to be jerked back up, most likely by Alec correcting her.

Danny looked up at the stars that had started to come out.  It was odd how they were the exact same.  Despite all that had happened this day, the stars hadn’t changed at all.  Well, maybe they were brighter actually.

Danny looked toward the city then, or at least the direction he thought it was in.  There was no glow on the horizon, no light pollution.  The power must have gone out at some point.

He continued to scan the woods and the road.  He could see about a tree or two’s depth into them but then the brush was too thick, and it got too dark.  It was unnerving not to be able to see that far.  Anything could be between the trees.  Anything could be watching them.

There was rattling as the security gate slid open.  Danny turned.  Alec put down his tools and gripped his pistol in both hands.  He pointed to Danny and then Alice and then held his hand up in a stop sign.  He was going in, and he didn’t want them to follow.  He looked at Danny, pointed to his eyes and then the surrounding area again.  He wanted Danny to continue being a lookout.  Alec took the flashlight from Danny, then rolled through the door, broken glass crunching beneath his wheels.

Danny was left alone outside with Alice.  He hoped he wouldn’t fail her
as he had Emma.  He held out his hand to her, the one not holding the gun, the one that had Shoes’s leash looped over the wrist.  Alice placed her little hand in his, staring with him out at the forest.  The light hung against her belly, casting a weird light up from the ground.

Shoes seemed totally unperturbed by all of this.  He huffed and lay down.  At first Danny thought it might be his signal, but the dog rolled onto its side, wanting to sleep, and made no more noise.

Danny could hear Alec moving around the reception area.  The doors to both the washroom and the employee lounge opened and closed.  He couldn’t tell in which order they were checked, but they were both checked.  Next, the metal door was opened with a creak.  Once Alec went through that door, Danny couldn’t keep track of him with his ears anymore.

Waiting in both the silence and the dark was the worst.  Danny’s imagination started to act up.  Did that bush move against the wind?  Did he hear something scraping its way up the road?  He expected something to grab him out of the dark at any moment.  It was like watching a horror movie you didn’t know the ending to and couldn’t turn away from.  Or worse, having a nightmare and just not being able to wake yourself up.  Danny had never had as good an imagination as some of the other kids, but it was going full tilt at the moment.  Not that anyone needed much after today.

Alice’s hand slowly squeezed his harder and harder.  She was younger, so she probably had a better imagination than he did.  Danny looked down at her to see that she was looking up at him.  He was surprised to find no fear in her eyes.  Instead, she looked worried.  She looked like she was worried about Danny.  He realized she could probably feel his fear, and it was likely that he had slowly been squeezing her hand back.  He did his best to relax, for her sake.  If she could bravely face this, so could he.