Survival Instinct (Book 3): Fighting Instinct Page 18

  Forgiveness? That would be nice, but she couldn’t see a way anyone would forgive her. What else did she want? To be left alone, but how could she be left alone on a ship? Especially when everyone on that ship was looking for her?

  The answer was so simple it took a moment for Hanna to grasp it; she would leave the ship. She would leave the Diana. There was that other cruise ship nearby, she could go over to it. There were probably still some supplies on board. She could live there for a few days, gathering supplies, and then go to one of the islands. She could run away.

  She knew there were zombies aboard the other ship, but she could handle them. At least she thought she could. In Germany, Hanna had survived a lot on her own, surely she could do it again. Finally sitting back up, Hanna began to plan.

  ***

  Moving silently on the balls of her bare feet, Hanna headed toward the exit. Her shoes were tied around her waist, a trick she had picked up back in Germany. She was quieter without shoes on, and she knew the Diana’s floor was clear of debris.

  Upon reaching the door, she covered one of her ears with her hand, and pressed the other ear to the slab of metal. The laundry machines were still too loud and the door was too thick to hear any quiet sounds, but she figured if the doctors and Russians were just on the other side, there would probably be some shouting. She couldn’t hear anything, but that didn’t mean much.

  Easing the handle down gently, Hanna did what she could to keep it from creaking. Once it was fully depressed, she opened the door one centimetre at a time. With her eye pressed to the gradually widening crack, she spied on the hall outside. So far, she saw no one out there.

  Eventually, the door was open far enough for Hanna to stick her head out. She quickly scanned the whole area. It was completely clear. Voices could be heard coming from the medical centre down the way, but its door was almost closed so that no one could be seen. That meant that no one could see Hanna.

  She slipped out of the room full of laundry machines, and quietly padded over to the nearest stairwell. When she decided that no one was on the carpeted steps, she ran up them two at a time. It didn’t take long for her to reach the fourth deck: her final destination aboard the Diana.

  Hanna knew she couldn’t take one of the tender boats or a lifeboat. Not only did she not know how to lower them into the water or pilot them, but she didn’t want to steal anything so important to the Diana. In fact, she didn’t want to steal anything at all if she could avoid it. That wasn’t completely feasible; however, there was at least one thing she had to steal.

  Walking up to a section of metal framing along the outer railing, Hanna rolled a fairly large, plastic barrel out of the bottom of it. It was heavier than it looked. After reading the instructions on the side of the barrel, she grabbed a handle protruding from it, and hauled the barrel up and over the railing. The handle remained in her hand, a long rope extending from it, as the barrel plummeted to the sea. Just as the barrel reached the water, the rope reached its limit, giving Hanna’s arm a sharp tug. She pulled back hard on the handle, following the instructions, and heard the pop and whoosh of the raft automatically expanding itself out of the barrel. Looking over the side, Hanna could easily see the yellow emergency raft bobbing on the waves.

  There was one more thing that Hanna needed to take. After tying the rope around the railing, Hanna located one of the large benches along the wall. There weren’t as many out here as there used to be—most of them had been replaced by planters or solar panels—but a few remained. Hanna lifted the seat of the wide bench, revealing a storage box and looked inside. Tools had replaced most of the lifejackets, but there were still a few, and Hanna took one. She pulled the lifejacket on over her head and cinched the belts snugly around herself. Hanna didn’t think there would be time to head back down to the first deck to board the raft, and she would most definitely be spotted if she opened one of the doors down there. Besides, the raft wasn’t that close to any of those doors anyway.

  Heading back to the railing, Hanna climbed over the side between a solar panel and a planter. She untied the raft’s rope from the railing, and hooked the handle through the straps of her lifejacket.

  The fourth deck suddenly appeared much higher than it had a few seconds ago. Hanna had seen cliff divers before, and had known of a good spot to cliff jump in Germany, but she had never made the jump herself. From eavesdropping on those who had, Hanna knew a few things. She knew jumping feet first was the safest, and that keeping her feet together was very important, as was keeping her arms tight against her sides. It was important to be thin when jumping into the water from a high height, lessening the impact on her body.

  Looking down at the water made her dizzy. She wanted to jump, but she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t even let go of the railing behind her. Hanna was trapped between needing to jump, and being unable to do so.

  “Hey!” a man suddenly called from farther down the deck, startling her.

  Looking away from the water, Hanna saw a ship defender coming toward her. This was it. Jump or be caught. Sink or swim.

  Hanna jumped.

  She clamped one hand over her mouth and nose, while the other grabbed its wrist. With her elbows tucked in tightly, her legs firmly pressed together, and her hair flying up above her, Hanna plummeted toward the ocean. The drop was quicker than she had anticipated. Suddenly her feet were in the water, which forced them apart. The rest of her soon followed, her momentum dragging her deep underwater despite the lifejacket. Her crotch hurt as she slowed, the lifejacket’s buoyancy taking hold and dragging her back toward the surface. She hadn’t kept her legs together tightly enough, which caused her crotch to receive a hard smack from the water. She doubted she would ever do such a thing again, but if she did, Hanna would hook her ankles together next time.

  Breaking through the surface, Hanna exhaled explosively, the closest thing she got to the scream she had felt in her chest on the way down. Looking at the Diana, she saw it towering above her. The smooth, white side loomed overhead, broken only by a few circular windows until it reached the fourth deck. The ship defender she had seen was up there, looking down at her. He didn’t seem to know what to make of Hanna’s jump.

  Taking hold of the rope that attached Hanna to the life raft, she pulled herself along. She could kick, but it hurt to do so, and she found pulling herself was easier. What wasn’t that easy was getting into the life raft. Despite the ropes along the sides, the sides themselves were slippery, and she was oddly tired. Without a counterweight, the spot she was trying to climb up kept distorting. Thankfully, the raft’s size kept it on the surface of the water, and it never threatened to tip over.

  Once she was finally inside, Hanna lay on her back and looked up at the ship again. The ship defender was gone. He was probably getting backup and checking with his superiors about what to do. They had never had someone willingly jump over the side without it being a blatant suicide attempt.

  Hanna located a tiny emergency paddle and set to work.

  The going wasn’t easy. The paddle wasn’t really meant to move the raft on its own, merely stabilize it or be used alongside other paddles. Still, Hanna dug into the ocean waters, sometimes pushing the hexagonal raft from the back, other times dragging it forward from the front. Her arms were already tiring and she hadn’t even made it halfway yet. It might have been easier to swim, but Hanna wasn’t a great swimmer and knew she’d tire even quicker that way.

  Taking a short break, Hanna looked back at the Diana. With the added distance, it was no longer looming. Pain squeezed her heart. She suddenly felt an intense longing to return to the ship. This was Hanna’s first time away from the Diana since boarding. She hadn’t even stepped off the ship before, except for the few times she went into a parked tender boat, and during the mandatory swimming test all new arrivals took.

  The Diana was her home. This thought, combined with the sight of the black scar that Hanna had given her, caused further pain and fresh tears. She couldn’t go back. No
matter how badly she wished to return to the Diana, she could not. It wasn’t her home anymore.

  Hanna turned away from one cruise ship to face the other. With tears still carving tracks down her face, she continued paddling.

  ***

  The second half of Hanna’s journey took a lot longer than the first. She got tired quicker, and recovered slower. Sometimes the waves helped, pushing the raft toward its goal, but most of the time they were a hindrance. Still, she pressed on, knowing that forward was the only direction she could go.

  After a long time, and a lot of hard work, Hanna reached the other ship. It loomed over her just as the Diana had, but it felt ominous. It didn’t have solar panels and planters bristling along the sides as obvious signs of life. Maybe it was just that the sun was considerably lower in the sky, casting longer, darker shadows.

  For a moment, Hanna panicked, not knowing how she was going to open one of the doors from the outside, but then she spotted one already open near the stern. She headed for it, using the side of the ship alternately to punt her paddle against, and drag herself forward using the flat of her hands.

  The door was fairly high compared to Hanna’s raft, but she found that by standing and reaching as high as she could, she could just grab the edge of the door. It would be hard to pull herself up, but she knew she could do it. First, she sat back down to rally her strength again.

  That’s when she heard it: the sickly moan of the undead.

  Hanna instantly shifted to the far side of the raft, her eyes locking onto the opening above her. The ship was full of zombies. So wrapped up in her own problems, Hanna had somehow forgotten that she knew that. Corpses infested the ship.

  She couldn’t go in there. Hanna couldn’t face the undead, not again. She hadn’t had to deal with them since Germany, and she had barely survived her encounters over there. What happened to her in Germany bore forgetting, but that moan had set off a flood of memories. Memories of her family’s pale, dead eyes, and snapping teeth.

  Without realizing it, Hanna had started a high pitched keening. She scrambled back to the other side of the raft, snatched up the paddle she had left over there, and quickly retreated again. Her breath was hitching once more, her throat closing. She couldn’t face them again. She just couldn’t.

  Turning her back on the black opening, she started to paddle with a furious energy she hadn’t previously possessed. Keeping her head down, she focused only on the feeling of her paddle cutting into the sea. It didn’t matter what the people aboard the Diana did to her, she didn’t care. Execution by bullet was infinitely better than facing the dead.

  Looking up caused Hanna to stop in her tracks. The Diana was moving. While Hanna had been paddling, the engines had started up. The Diana was moving sluggishly, but she was indeed moving, the wake belching out of her rear giving it away. What was worse, she was turning away from the other ship. The Diana was leaving it, and Hanna, behind.

  “Wait!” Hanna screamed. “Wait! Stop!” She started paddling again. “Please wait! Halt! Sie müssen anhalten! Come back! Don’t leave me! Verlass mich nicht! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I want to come back! Let me come back! Es tut mir schrecklich leid!”

  Hanna stopped paddling when a vicious cramp seized her arm. She slumped onto the inflated side of the raft and watched as the Diana continued its slow progress. They wouldn’t stop. Even if they saw her, they wouldn’t stop. Why would they? Hanna had blown a large hole into the side of their home, and subsequently through her life.

  Everything was gone now.

  Sitting back up, Hanna considered her two choices. She could stay on this life raft, eventually dying of either dehydration or exposure, or climb aboard the zombie-infested ship. Neither option was even slightly appealing.

  Turning back to the strange ship, Hanna stared at the black doorway. Whether she liked it or not, she would have to board it. Most of her wanted to stay in the raft. Part of her mind kept throwing out strange rationalizations that she could find an island if she paddled far enough, or she could disassemble her lifejacket and fish using threads and metal buckles bent into hooks. Surviving on the life raft was slim odds at best. Hanna knew she needed to board the strange ship if she wanted the best chance at living. And she still wanted to live. So many of her decisions had been the wrong ones, but the choice to live was not.

  She crawled across the raft and then paddled to be alongside the cruise ship again. There was a small, plastic emergency kit on the life raft, which Hanna clipped to the straps on one side of her lifejacket, while hanging the paddle off the other. There was no sense in leaving anything behind. After listening for any further moans and not hearing any, Hanna stretched up and grabbed the edge of the doorway. Although her arms still hurt, there was no time to rest now. If she stopped, she might never summon up the courage again.

  Pulling herself into the ship was hard. Really hard. She had tried to keep up her fitness levels, but Hanna wasn’t as strong as she was when she left Germany. Back then, she could have made this climb with ease. Back then, she would have had to.

  As she pulled herself higher, she shifted first one hand to a better hold and then the other. Her chest rose over the edge, her lifejacket dragging across it and protecting her from injury. With her arms shaking, and her teeth gritted, Hanna held back the scream of effort building in her throat. Aware that a zombie was in all likelihood nearby, she didn’t look around for it. Hanna’s eyes were focused on the floor directly beneath her, shifting only to the left and right when she needed to look for a better handhold. At last, she was able to get one of her knees over the edge, taking some of the strain off her arms, and allowing her to wiggle the rest of the way up.

  Once stable, Hanna rolled onto her back, her feet still poking out through the doorway. She was exhausted, and her arms hurt worse than ever. When a groan issued from close by, all of that was forgotten. Hanna flipped back onto her stomach, tucking her feet up under her, and springing upright. She could see the zombie, but it couldn’t reach her. An aluminium fishing boat had been placed crosswise between them. Hanna didn’t know why such a boat was in here, she was just glad it was.

  Based on its clothing, the zombie had once been a woman. It kept bumping into the boat, trying unsuccessfully to get around it. The boat wobbled on its unsteady hull, but otherwise stayed put, too big for the single zombie to move on its own.

  Realizing she had some time, Hanna untied the paddle and emergency kit from her sides. Although she didn’t know what was in the kit, she didn’t want to hang around much longer to find out. Right now, she had to take out the zombie before it attracted others.

  By stepping closer to the boat, Hanna caused the zombie to get excited. It began to try harder to get her, its arms reaching over the boat. The boat rocked again, knocking into the zombie and throwing it off balance. The dead woman went down, falling flat on her face in the boat. A sharp crack filled the air as her nose was shattered against the metal bottom.

  Hanna watched as the zombie slowly struggled to get back up. She held her paddle tightly in both hands, knowing she should smash in the zombie’s skull, but for the moment, she was frozen. Too many memories were flooding her mind, keeping her limbs locked.

  As the zombie flailed in an attempt to right itself, Hanna pictured her little brother’s broken body at the bottom of the refugee centre’s steps. As the cut and bony hand grabbed hold of a bench seat, Hanna recalled the grey-skinned arms of her father reaching around the office door. The corpse lifted its face, bringing to Hanna’s mind the image of her mother and aunt stumbling around in the parking lot. When it got its rotting legs beneath it, Hanna remembered watching her cousin being run down by an out-of-control car. The sounds the zombie made brought forth memories of her big sister’s slow death by blood poisoning, while the smell was reminiscent of the centres for the sick. The centres she had helped burn to the ground before the contagion got out of control.

  As the dead woman finally managed to stand again, Hanna’s eyes locked
on the blackened teeth. Those teeth were everywhere in her nightmares.

  Suddenly, she could move once more. Hanna raised the paddle and lashed out with it. The tip of the paddle blade was thrust into the zombie woman’s face, driving the remains of her nose even deeper into her flesh. The flat crack was like the refugee centre’s reinforced window beginning to give way. The zombie fell back from the blow, hitting the side of the boat and tipping out of it. Just like Hanna’s friend falling off the public pool’s rooftop. The way the zombie’s legs stuck up in the air as it landed on its back was almost comical, save for the fact that it made Hanna think of her old boyfriend, buried in the rubble after a sewer had caved in. Allan may have just been using her sheepish nature for his own purposes, but Hanna had still cried for days over him.

  Hanna had tried to forget all of these things, and more, but this one rotting corpse brought it all back. It brought back the horror, and the fear. It brought back the rage.

  By stepping into the boat, Hanna was able to get to the other side of it before the zombie woman could get up again. The paddle was light, and blunt. It took a lot of swings before the zombie stayed down permanently.

  Standing over the zombie with the freshly caved in head, Hanna was panting from the exertion. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping her arms from falling off. More zombies would be coming; the kill hadn’t been quiet.

  Crossing the aluminium boat again, Hanna grabbed the emergency kit she had left there and reattached it to her lifejacket. The small paddle she threw out through the open hatch, as it had become bent and practically useless from the bludgeoning. Besides, there was a better paddle nearby. As Hanna crossed the boat one last time, she freed a long, solid oar from the cradle that held it along the fishing boat’s side.

  Already the sounds of other zombies were reaching Hanna’s ears. They were shambling down the nearby staircases. With a quick glance around the area, Hanna was able to ascertain that this new ship wasn’t that much different from the Diana. Even if she couldn’t trust it to be exactly the same, especially when it came to hidey-holes, she shouldn’t have trouble navigating.