Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel (98 page)

“It’s all right,” one of the soldiers had told them,  “he’s not one of the infected.  He just panicked a little, and we had to restrain him.  He won’t hurt you.”

“
Igoon
.”  Misha called him liar and wanted to spit on him.  Unfortunately, he was too far away and he risked hitting the others who were innocent.  Although, he sort of wanted to spit on them, too.  They had more of a choice than he did, and they had chosen to get in the truck.

“Sir, I hear something coming.  An engine,” another soldier told the first.

“Stay inside,” the soldier told the women and child.  “You’ll be safe in there.”

This time, when they had closed the doors, they left the lights on.  It didn’t take too much longer for them to open the doors once more, and three more people got in.  They were a lot friendlier than the first three.  One of them was actually a doctor.  Although Misha didn’t trust them at first, he discovered that they had been travelling with
Cillian, which took him by surprise.  He was sorry to be the one to tell them he had died, although they were able to fill in the back story about why it had happened.  Apparently, another member of their party had gone insane.  Insane with a knife no less.  Misha was very glad he had decided to travel with no one but a dog.  People just brought trouble.

They also filled him in on the whole infection deal.  Misha had laughed at first, but no one else had.  Apparently, there had been some sort of radio broadcast about it that he had missed.  At least now he knew that the map in his pocket had been the right thing to follow.  Still though, zombies?  Dear god, he was in a bad horror film.

Thinking of film, one of them, Tobias was his name, filmed a lot, apparently.  He showed some footage to Misha, which was how they confirmed they knew the same Cillian.  It was weird for Misha to see him alive.  Alive and without a vicious wound slicing open half his face and caking it in blood.  He was also surprised to find out they had filmed his abduction.

Tobias and the two that had come with him, Cender and Abby, were interested in getting to know everyone in the truck.  Misha answered their direct questions, but he had none of his own.  He didn’t really care much for making friends; he had a feeling nothing good was going to happen to them soon.  The two women and the child had no interest in them at all.  One of them was polite enough to give their names, but that was basically it.  They barely even talked amongst themselves.

When they reached their destination, the doors in the back opened and several soldiers made them get out.  Well, made the others get out.  They had to come in and unlock Misha and Rifle.  Misha was dragged out, hands still cuffed together.  Tobias, Cender, and Abby stuck up for him, but that didn’t do squat.  They still shoved him around.  Misha knew they wouldn’t listen.  They were pissed off and blaming him for what happened to that other soldier.  The man had chased Misha through the streets with a gun; it wasn’t his fault he ended up getting eaten by a… well, a zombie, if Misha was going to go with the idea.

The women and child went willingly and were treated much nicer.  Even Tobias, Cender, and Abby were treated nicer despite their many verbal protests.  They were led away from Misha.

“What do we do about this one?” one of the soldiers had asked another.  “He’s clearly not going to go through inspection without a fight.”

Misha grinned internally because he had been right.  He would bite them if necessary, risk of infection or not.

“Put him and the dog in a cell,” the superior office had told him very nonchalantly.  “We’ll wait a week and if he hasn’t turned, then he isn’t infected.”

* * *

So now Misha was in a cell, pacing back and forth.  He wondered what was going to happen once the week was up.  He had no window and through the bars, he could only see into the empty cell across from him.  He could see the fronts of other cells, but not really into them.  He assumed they were empty.  If there were the same amount of cells on his side as on the other, there were ten cells total, five per side.  At one end was the door he had been dragged through, a big metal thing with extra locks on it.  On the other end was a large and heavily barred window, which provided Misha with enough light to see by.

He sighed and sat on the little cot.  It didn’t even have a pillow or a sheet.  Rifle looked at him and squeezed his skunk, so Misha reached over and scratched his ears.

“What are we going to do when you have to poop?” Misha asked the dog.

He himself had been given a bucket.  Apparently, the toilet in there wasn’t working.  He had no problem with the bucket, but he was fairly certain Rifle wasn’t trained to use one.

Rifle circled a spot on the floor and lay down with a huff.  He placed his toy down next to him.

“I hope they bring us some food soon.”  Misha lay back on the dingy cot.  “I’m starving, and I’m sure you are too.”

The soldiers had said they would feed him, but he had no idea how often this would occur.  He assumed they would continue to treat him as badly as they had been and spit in his food.  He was hungry enough not to care.

He sat up and took his boots off.  They were still damp inside, and his feet could use some airing out.  Carefully, he unwrapped the bandages.  They had become soggy and clung to his feet, which still looked raw, but at least they were clean.  Taking off the firefighter’s jacket, he saw that it had mostly dried, but a little bit of dampness still clung to it.  He hung it across the useless toilet bowl.  Misha lay back down on the cot and stared at the ceiling, wondering how he was going to get out of here.  He had never expected he’d have to one day attempt a
jailbreak, and yet, here he was.

Rifle suddenly stood up and trotted to the cell’s front, drawing Misha out of his planning.  He rolled off his cot and walked up to the bars just as the door at the end of the hall opened up.  A soldier walked in, leading Tobias, Cender, and Abby.  Two other soldiers trailed behind them.  The first soldier opened the cell next to Misha’s without giving him a glance.  He directed Cender into it and locked him in.  He then opened the cell across from Misha and put Tobias in there, then Abby went into the one next to him.  The soldiers said nothing; they just left.  The outer door clanged a hollow and ominous sound.

“Hi, Misha.”  Tobias waved from his cell.

“What are you guys doing here?” Misha had to admit to his curiosity.

“Well, you know my broken leg?” Cender spoke from the cell next to his.  “Apparently, for their examination they wanted the cast taken off, which isn’t going to happen.  Even they don’t want to go through the trouble of recasting it, so they decided I needed to go into quarantine for a week.”

“We told them we weren’t going to separate from him, so they stuck us in here too.”  Tobias shrugged out of a large backpack and placed it on the floor.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a key in there, by any chance, would you?” Misha asked sarcastically as he turned from his cell’s front and lay back down on his cot.

“Sorry,” Tobias laughed.  “You don’t have any supplies?”

“Do you see anything in here that could be classified as supplies?”  Misha gestured with one of his scrawny arms around the cell.  He knew Tobias could see him.

“When was the last time you ate?” Tobias asked, sounding almost concerned.

“Let’s see, what time is it?” Misha kept up the sarcasm.  “That would be, sometime yesterday.”

Tobias didn’t answer, but Misha heard some rustling.  Something rattled across the floor and hit the bottom of his cell’s bars.  He lifted his head and looked.  There was a tin can sitting there.  He didn’t think, he just scrambled over and grabbed it.  It was a tin of fruit that had a pull tab on top to open it.  He yanked open the tin and started to devour the delicious and juicy fruit inside.  It wasn’t until he was licking the tin clean, that he realized he should have offered a piece to Rifle.  He felt badly for temporarily forgetting about the dog.

“Here.”  More stuff came skittering across the way as Tobias threw more things.

Misha reached through the bars and scooped them up.  There were four power bars, two granola bars, another fruit tin, and something called an MRE.  Misha started to gobble them down, thinking of nothing but filling his stomach.  He split the power bars, granola bars, and ‘Meal Ready to Eat’ 50/50 with Rifle, who wolfed his share down faster than Misha could.  Misha held a piece of fruit up to Rifle who sniffed at it.  The dog licked the fruit, but decided he didn’t want it.  Misha ate it despite the dog’s lick.  He ate the rest of the fruit one piece at a time, always offering it to Rifle first.  Rifle though, had no interest in it.  However, when he was given the tin full of juice, he quickly licked it up.  He was probably thirsty.

“Thank you for the food.  You wouldn’t have some water you’re willing to share, would you?” Misha turned and asked Tobias.  He knew he was being selfish, but at the moment, his stomach was more in control than his mind.

Tobias had been filming him, which was a little unsettling, but he reached down and pulled out a water bottle.  He rolled it across the floor.  Misha cracked it open and took a swallow.  He then poured half the bottle into the still clean bucket for Rifle to drink.  Both of them drank every drop.

* * *

Once the impromptu meal was over, Misha gathered up the litter and stored it in a corner with the bandages.  He doubted they would have a use, but just in case, he would keep them on hand.  He looked back at Tobias again.

“Why did you do that?” he asked.

“Do what?” Tobias gave him a confused look.

“Give me your food.”  Misha sat cross legged on the floor in front of the bars.  He could just make out the girl, Abby, sitting in front of hers.

“I don’t know.”  Tobias also sat down.  “I guess ’cause you were with Cillian when he died.  He saved my life, you know.  I would never have made it without him.  I would have gotten munched not long after the outbreak happened.”

“He saved my life too,” Abby chimed in.

“I don’t think he saved mine.”  Cender must also have been sitting against the bars judging by the location of his voice.  “I feel left out.”

“So, because you feel like you owe him, you’re helping me?”  Misha didn’t understand that.

“I guess,” Tobias shrugged.

“Whatever, I’m not going to complain.”  They were helping him, which was more than anyone had done so far.  Well, except for Rifle.  And, he guessed, maybe the addle-minded woman, but she had no idea who he was or what was going on.  He wondered if she had been taken to this place.

“Did you see anyone on your way in here?”  Misha hadn’t had the opportunity to look around.  He was just hustled quickly through a
cellblock and shoved into this offshoot.  His large captors blocked off most of the view.

“Not really,” Tobias shook his head.  “I caught sight of a few people milling around, but most of the people I’ve seen so far have been soldiers.  Well, Keystone mercs, I guess would be a more accurate term.”

“It seems like there aren’t enough people here,” Misha voiced aloud.  “When I saw those trucks in the city, there were a lot of them.  They were going door to door, grabbing everyone out of their homes.  They even had these guys in these bubble suits.”

“We saw some in the city, remember?” Abby spoke to the other guys.  “When we were in the limo, before that flood of infected swept over us.”

“There must be other places set up like this,” Tobias suggested.

“Or they killed off a bunch of people,” Misha muttered.

“Why would they do that?” Abby asked him.

“I don’t know, but they had no problem gunning down a man who didn’t want to go with them.”  That was an image Misha’s mind would hold onto for
a while.  Possibly for life.  “Did you get a good look at what they were doing to the outer walls?  I saw some welding equipment but I didn’t get a good enough look to see what exactly was being done.”

“No, sorry,” Tobias shook his head again.

“You might be paranoid,” Cender suggested.

“I might be,” Misha agreed.  “But you don’t sound very trusting of them either.”

“The woman on the radio said that Marble Keystone had let out the virus on purpose,” Abby told him.  “If they did that, why would they then want to protect us?  It all does seem rather suspicious to me.  What can we do though?”

She brought up a very good point.  In their cells, they couldn’t do anything.  They couldn’t even see outside.  Misha got up and lay down on his bunk again.  He was tired of talking.  Instead, he went back to thinking, trying to plan.  Now he had slightly more options because the others had some equipment with them, equipment that they might be able to use.

* * *

Misha was lying there, perfectly still, for some time before the next interruption.  The door at the end of the hall was once again opened.  Misha sprang to his feet and looked out through the bars at the man coming in who looked like a Keystone merc, but was behaving rather oddly.  He moved cautiously, checking around him a lot,
as if he was trying not to be seen.

“Cender?” the merc whispered.  “Joshua Cender, are you in here?”

“Yo.”  Cender stuck his arm out through the bars and waved.

The merc walked over to him.  “Hey, I’m Mathias.  I’m a friend of Riley’s.”