Survival Instinct (Book 3): Fighting Instinct Read online

  FIGHTING INSTINCT

  Kristal Stittle

  Copyright 2014 by Kristal Stittle

  For David Moody and his Survivors,

  I don’t know what or where these books would be without you.

  I

  Before

  Elizabeth didn’t know what was going on up at surface level. She didn’t know that a woman bearing the same name as her was pregnant and providing hope to a group of strangers. She didn’t know about the people being rounded up and taken to a prison, or of the rebellion that was rising among them. She didn’t know about a cruise ship floating off the coast of Nova Scotia that was about to become a haven for survivors. She didn’t know that her ex-husband—whom she had sent to find her notes—was dead, and because he had become infected and kept walking around, had his face blown off by a sixteen-year-old with a shotgun.

  Elizabeth didn’t know that she herself was dead.

  Having disobeyed the rules, Elizabeth had become part of the new experiments. These experiments were meant to make the zombies docile, to make them manageable. If they could be controlled, then Marble Keystone, creator and releaser of the virus, would have access to a work force that never tired, never had to be taken care of, and most importantly, never had to be paid. Things did not go as planned, and they did not succeed.

  Being a zombie, Elizabeth didn’t know anything. There wasn’t really an Elizabeth left. There was just a body that looked like her, shuffling back and forth in a small, metal cell, which had one Plexiglas side, down in the laboratories known as the White Box. Her new strain of the infection—which was really a cross between a virus and prion—didn’t make her any more controllable than the others. When something living was introduced into her environment, she would hunt it down, infect it by biting it, and then kill it so that the infection could take over the body.

  The scientists would walk by her cell, and usually, she would react by smashing herself into the transparent wall, but sometimes, she was just smart enough not to do that. Sometimes, a few fragments of her former intelligence would bleed through, reminding her that she couldn’t get out that way, that there was a wall there she couldn’t really see. Those times weren’t often, however, and so she had thrown herself against the Plexiglas, her teeth gnashing, her fingers clawing, and a snarl issuing from her throat when a small boy had made the mistake of following his father into the room. She had no idea what her actions had set off.

  Since becoming a zombie, Elizabeth had no sense of time. There was no difference between when she woke up dead and when she was set free. When memories were no longer being formed, time was not an issue.

  When the Plexiglas rose into the ceiling and alarm bells began ringing, Elizabeth wasn’t afraid, surprised, or happy. The thing controlling her body sent her out into the hallway, where she was joined by other experiments. For the most part, they ignored one another, interested only when one of them acted as if he had found something to infect. The hallway had been empty at the time, but a few remembered that doors led to places, and the doors at both ends were unlocked.

  All the doors in this white-walled place were unlocked, but the zombies wouldn’t notice such a thing. Elizabeth wandered about with the other infected, finding new corners, stairwells, and hallways. They entered living rooms, bathrooms, and laboratories, where they found a lot of humans to infect.

  If Elizabeth could form memories, she would remember the time she came across a group of her fellow infected trying to push through a barricaded door. She helped them out, and even managed to infect an old man who had been on the other side of it. She might also remember a certain public washroom she had somehow stumbled into, and could no longer find her way back out of. No other infected were in there to help her, and all the stall doors were the same. She had spent days in there until another zombie had pushed its way in at just the right moment for her to escape. Another time, inside an animal lab, she had watched a zombie unlock and lock the same cage door, over and over again. After watching it many times, Elizabeth found that she could do the same. The skill never came in handy, however, and it was forgotten less than twenty-four hours after leaving the lab.

  Eventually, she found herself near a massive industrial elevator. Hundreds of the dead had gathered there. She didn’t know it, but the last living human in the White Box had died in that elevator. What was important was the hatch that was open at the top of the elevator’s cage. A large pile of the dead had gathered beneath and they were climbing out. This had been where they last saw something living, and the zombies wanted to chase after it, even though none of them knew how long it had been since the woman they saw had left. Elizabeth stood around the pile, watching the others, until she figured out how to climb it. The pile was an ever shifting, writhing mass, and getting to the top was difficult, but after a significant amount of time, Elizabeth succeeded.

  There was a second pile on top of the elevator. Her fellow infected were attempting to climb a ladder that led up the shaft. Elizabeth joined them in this pursuit. It took far longer than getting on top of the elevator, although the pile at the base of the ladder moved less. This pile was mostly made up of those who had climbed and fallen, their skulls bashing against the top of the elevator and ceasing their movements forever.

  From the elevator shaft, the group of zombies who managed to climb up entered a parking lot. None of the doors here would open, but a large ramp led up, and up, in a giant spiral. The horde of White Box zombies followed this spiral to the very top, where a massive door opened into the middle of a forest.

  If anyone alive were to see the human zombies entering the forest, they might have mistaken their movements for wonder and surprise. For Elizabeth and all the others, this was not the case. The only thing they felt was a kind of sensory overload due to all the organic, shifting matter around them, and they didn’t know what to attack first. It took only a moment for the zombies to understand wind and bushes, which couldn’t be infected—although a few still attempted to attack the plants anyway—and soon, they continued moving, searching for things they could infect.

  Elizabeth may have been freed of the White Box, but she was still dead.

  Section 1:

  Loss

  1

  Alec’s On Patrol

  It had been six years, six months, and three days since the zombies had come. That August second was now simply known as the Day. Alec slowly pushed his wheelchair across the balconies of the cruise ship, wondering how so much time could have passed. He could still clearly remember the Day as if it had happened just last week. So much had changed since then.

  Alec sighed. It was not a good day. Although the weather was beautiful on this February fifth, as it so often was in the Caribbean, it was a sad day. Alec had a funeral to attend when his shift ended at four p.m. He hated funerals, this one especially. To distract himself, he focused on his task.

  Rolling slowly across the seventh deck balconies, on the port side of the ship, he kept an eye out for bodies in the water, ships in the distance, and trouble in the rooms. When the survivors had first boarded the boat, the balconies had been private, with clouded glass barriers between them. They had since discovered it was easy to remove these barriers, and had done just that. It allowed them to have patrols on all five of the decks that had balconies, in addition to the open public decks on four and twelve.

  Passing a room that belonged to a child, Alec checked the door’s handle. By now, just about everyone had found ways to secure the handle from the inside so that it couldn’t be opened from the outside without permission, since the locks built into the doors could be opened from both sides. Alec liked to check t
hese makeshift locks from time to time, especially when the room belonged to a kid.

  Rifle sniffed at the handle after Alec checked it, so Alec patted his head reassuringly. The German Shepherd was a great dog, and a wonderful companion, but the nervous energy emanating from everyone was in turn making him nervous.

  Looking back out over the sea, Alec focused on the other cruise ship out there. It had been spotted last night, before sunset, and was constantly getting closer. Although not on a collision course with them, it was of immense interest because it was moving under its own power. Attempts to hail it had been made, but there was no response. A boarding team of off-shippers was already on its way to this other ship. They would find out what was going on over there and report back. There could be other survivors on board, or it could be another ghost ship. They had never come across an abandoned cruise ship before, but there was always a first time for everything. Part of Alec hoped it was abandoned. If its engines were running, then there was fuel in the tanks, and there could very well be other supplies on board. Not to mention the fact that more people caused more problems.

  On the other side of the Diana—the ship that was home to Alec and roughly two thousand five hundred other people—floated a German nuclear submarine. It had been a good day when the sub, accompanied by a similar one from Russia, had joined them. The submarines and the people on board were very helpful, and most of them were willing to join the Diana. Not everyone they had met upon the ocean was like them, however. Three times, they had dealt with large bands of pirates, and once there was a container ship full of survivors who disagreed with everything the Diana did. In the end, the container ship decided to sail across the ocean, taking those from the Diana who wanted to go with it, and leaving behind their own members who did not. A lot of the Diana’s original service crew had gone with that ship. They were from various countries across the ocean, and wanted to know what had happened, maybe even have a chance to find their families, despite how extremely unlikely that was. Small boats had been picked up here and there, many of them joining the Diana, but not all. They used to have a fairly large flotilla until a massive storm came and wiped out all of the smaller ships, the people on them having been safely evacuated to the Diana before it hit. It was shortly after that storm that they lost the Russian submarine. It was believed that debris from a smaller ship had managed to strike it in just such a way that it destabilized the reactor. Although no one really knew if that was true or not, it’s what the Russian sailors said had happened when they abandoned the sub and allowed it to sink into the depths of the ocean.

  Alec wondered if they had completed the exchange with the German submarine yet. Every day, two of the Diana’s lifeboats would go over to the submarine to exchange crewmembers, batteries, and to resupply it. The reactor on the submarine was extremely useful for recharging their batteries, as well as a few small electric generators, and various other personal items. They had once considered hooking the reactor up to the ship itself, but that idea was quickly rejected, as no one wanted to risk having the Diana and the sub sitting so closely together, and so, the two were always kept a safe distance apart. Alec had a portable DVD player that had been sent over for charging yesterday, and he was hoping to get it back today. After the funeral, he was going to need some mindless entertainment before attempting sleep, even if it was a movie that he had seen a hundred times before.

  The crack of a door seal separating caused Alec and Rifle to turn around. A young woman stepped out of her room and up to the railing, taking a deep breath of fresh air. Rifle walked up to the woman, allowed her to stroke his head, and then returned to Alec’s side. Alec was used to seeing her, as she took care of the plants growing in boxes hanging on the outside of the railings. Every deck had plants and solar panels hanging off the sides, soaking up the sun. The woman was quiet, usually ignoring the patrols, and she often gazed across the sea. Alec noticed that her attention was on the second cruise ship this time. It’s what most people had been focused on since it had been spotted less than twenty-four hours ago.

  “What do you think?” Alec asked her.

  “I think it’s a bad sign,” she answered without turning to him.

  Alec hoped she was wrong as he turned back around and continued to roll himself toward the nose of the ship.

  Most of the curtains were closed, allowing the occupants privacy. Many rooms had plants growing in pots in the spaces between the curtains and the doors. It wasn’t mandatory to grow something in their room, but most people did, grateful for the added food and trading opportunities. Many of the plants that Alec saw were tomato plants, but a few were carrots, beets, or plants that Alec couldn’t identify. At least one plant was marijuana, but as long as it wasn’t causing harm, no one cared.

  Whenever Alec came across a set of curtains that were open, he would peer inside. Most of the rooms were empty, but sometimes someone would be home. A lot of the time he or she would be reading or sleeping, or it would be one of the cleaners asked to tidy up the place. Several of those people had the balcony door open, allowing the air to circulate, and those who saw Alec waved.

  The presence of the other ship did have one advantage: people weren’t bickering today. Being on the ship’s defence crew wasn’t just about spotting swimming zombies, drifting ships, and warding off pirates, but Alec also had to enforce the rules on the ship, and deal with disputes between people. He was essentially a police officer. People didn’t always get along, and not all of them were happy with the rules that had been established, but when a possible threat showed up, most people turned their discomfort and fear toward it, forgetting all about the problems they had with those on board.

  Reaching over to stroke Rifle’s back, Alec almost wished it were a trouble filled day, so that he had something to take his mind off the coming funeral. Almost.

  ***

  “You ready to go down, Alec?” Misha appeared from the room that he shared with Alec. The two of them found each other easy company, and didn’t mind sharing so that fewer people had to sleep in rooms without balconies. Most people found they preferred having two exits.

  Rifle trotted up to the skinny man, his tail swishing back and forth. Misha and Rifle had survived the Day together, and were bonded as tightly as brothers. In fact, the young Russian often referred to the dog as his brother in his native tongue. Although Rifle would assist Alec with his patrols, he would often spend the rest of the day with Misha. Rifle was technically Alec’s dog, but Alec thought the shepherd would go to Misha if forced to choose.

  “Not really,” Alec sighed, “you?”

  Misha didn’t answer. His eyes, which normally looked too white due to the incredibly pale blue of his irises, were red. He had been crying earlier, or had at least been close to it.

  “Well, my replacement is now on duty,” Alec looked down the length of balconies to where the man who patrolled after him had started, “so I guess we should go down.”

  Misha helped him wheel his chair over the bump into their room, and then headed for the door to wait in the hall. The rooms were small, but Alec didn’t mind. He had a twin sized bed to himself near the balcony, with Misha’s about two feet away. A long, narrow couch extended along the wall next to the beds, and a desk, complete with large drawers, a safe, a mini-fridge, and a large mirror was against the opposite wall. Flanking the door leading out into the ship’s interior hall, was a fair-sized closet, and a tiny bathroom, creating a sort of mini-hallway between them. Alec’s wheelchair couldn’t fit in the bathroom, but luckily for him, he wasn’t completely disabled.

  Stopping his chair next to the couch, Alec set the brakes. He then reached over to the couch and picked up the pair of leg braces that had been sitting upon it. With the braces, Alec could walk for a fair length of time, but for the long hours of patrol, he continued to need the chair. Ever since he had been strafed by helicopter fire back when he had been a sniper in the military, he had needed the chair and braces. Back when the Day happened, he could o
nly stand for a few seconds at a time, but his legs had gotten stronger since then. Temporarily stripping out of his pants, Alec buckled on the devices from his hips to his feet. He was still self-conscious about all the scars, and never wore shorts, despite the heat.

  Making his way to the door, he noticed that the creak in the right knee of his brace was back. He’d have to oil that again once the funeral was over. Misha met up with him in the dark and narrow hallway outside, and together, the two of them made for the stairs.

  Power on the boat was limited. There were six diesel generators on board, but only one was run while at anchor. Everything in the bathrooms always had power, but in the rest of the living quarters, there was only one light bulb allowed, and the occupants had to decide in which lighting fixture to use it. In the hallways, only enough light bulbs remained to guide the residents to where they were going. The elevators had been shut down, as well as the rooms’ temperature controls, and all the TVs and touch screen maps. Most of the ship’s power was dedicated to desalinating ocean water, recycling their used water, and powering the UV lights in the green rooms, although the laundry machines were also run fairly regularly.

  After reaching the stairwell, Alec took a brief break while a group of off-duty men jogged up the steps; he didn’t like tackling the stairs when there was a lot of foot traffic. As he rested, Alec looked over the edge of the nearby railing at the promenade two decks below. There was a hive of activity down there. What used to be the gift shop was now equipment storage for off-shippers, and the liquor store carried only bottles of water and juice. The clothing shop still had clothing, although it wasn’t nearly as fancy as before, and the workers there also performed on-site patch-up jobs. The jewellery store had been converted into a weapons locker due to its inherent security, although everyone who had proven capable and responsible enough to carry a weapon, did. Those people generally weren’t the same ones who frequented the pub. The pub was the only place on the promenade that remained the same, but it had been upgraded to include its own distillery equipment. Alec had visited it a few times, but found the drinks there too vile for his taste and the company unpleasant.