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Survival Instinct (Book 3): Fighting Instinct Page 26
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Jon reached Shaidi first, running on feet of lightning. One of his team members had already been badly injured, so Misha could only imagine the load of fear and adrenaline that coursed through Jon’s veins when that scream pierced the air.
Brunt reached her next, but he was closely followed by Misha and Danny, and then Brewster who had the farthest to run but was a lot faster than he looked.
“I’m all right,” Shaidi was gasping, her cat-like eyes wide open. “I’m all right.”
“No, you’re not. Keep quiet,” Jon told her while looking over her body. “You’ve been shot in the hip.”
Misha stood to one side as Brewster gently moved her away from the railing, and while Jon accepted a shirt from Danny and held it to the wound. Shaidi sucked in a sharp breath of pain, but didn’t complain. Brunt had begun radioing the medical team the moment she screamed and was now describing the injury to whoever was on his or her way.
It was probably only a couple of minutes, but it felt like a lot longer before a doctor finally arrived. The doctor turned out to be Josh.
“Misha, Danny,” he nodded to them curtly before dropping down next to Shaidi.
Brunt assisted Josh, mostly by holding a flashlight, while Jon stood behind them like a nervous mother. Brewster, Danny, and Misha all kept out of the way. The rest of the flight team was clearly interested in what was going on, but they kept working. Everyone not assisting Josh probably should have kept on working, but they didn’t, and Misha had no right to tell them so.
Next to him, Danny shivered slightly. With the Diana in motion, there was a breeze, which was chilly for someone who no longer had a shirt. A flash of memory went through Misha’s mind; he remembered the Day, and how he had been running for his life in nothing but a pair of shorts. He now had nothing but a wetsuit, only a slight improvement.
“All right. I think she’ll be fine,” Josh finally said. He sat back on his heels. From the way he had been kneeling over Shaidi, it looked like he was rising up from prayer. Perhaps he was, under the circumstances.
“Thanks, doc.” Shaidi shifted herself into a more comfortable position, wincing as she did so.
“Don’t treat it like it’s just some flesh wound,” Josh warned her and everyone around her. “You’re out of commission. I’m going to send up a stretcher team to bring you to one of the medical centres.”
“Oh come on,” Shaidi rolled her eyes, “it’s not that bad, is it?”
“You should be monitored by someone on the medical staff. It could easily be worse than it looks to me.” Josh spoke very firmly about this. “If you’re worried about taking up a bed someone else needs, don’t be. At this moment, most of the beds are empty, and if someone worse does come along who needs it, we’re not afraid to put you on the floor somewhere.”
Shaidi grinned, finding something amusing in that.
“Stay put, and wait for the stretcher bearers.”
She nodded her consent.
“Good.” Josh looked at everyone hovering around. “If she doesn’t, and ends up hurt even worse, I’m going to hold you guys responsible.”
“We’ll make sure she stays out of things,” Brunt assured him.
Josh radioed for the stretcher, and to say he was heading back to the medical centre.
“Take care of yourselves, guys. I don’t want to have to come back up here,” Josh told them all as he got to his feet.
Danny and Misha both said goodbye to him, and then Josh left.
“Sorry about your shirt,” Shaidi spoke to Danny. She held his shirt out in one hand. It was soaked in blood.
“It’s fine.” Danny shrugged. “If I hadn’t offered it, someone else would have. I can live without a shirt for a while.”
“Come on, back to work.” Brunt slapped his hands together for emphasis.
“What about the rifle? I was the one carrying it,” Shaidi told Brunt.
“Give it to Misha,” Danny said.
“Me?” Misha was startled by Danny’s words.
“Yeah. You trained under Alec, didn’t you? Give it to him.”
“I did, but I don’t know if I’m any good or not.”
“Oh please, you know as well as I do that anyone who got training from Alec is at least good. And remember, I was on that plane when you shot a zombie before boarding it.”
“I got lucky.”
“Take the rifle.” Brunt had picked it up from where it lay next to Shaidi and shoved it into Misha’s hands.
As everyone began to disband, Misha had no choice but to accept the weapon. He held it tightly against his chest, unsure what to do.
“I found the best spot to shoot from is near the top of the stairs,” Shaidi spoke to him from her prone position, pointing with one slender arm to where she was referring.
Misha walked toward the railing. When he realized that Rifle was following him, he stopped.
“Rifle, stay,” he commanded the dog, his voice wavering a little.
Rifle cocked his head sideways, but obediently sat down.
Misha continued on. Just before he reached it, a bullet whanged off the railing to the left, causing him to jump back. His heart was racing in his chest and his hands shook. Taking a deep, steadying breath, he shuffled back up to the railing.
Boats cruised past below. A few looped around in front of the Diana, giving her prow a wide berth to reduce their risk of being run over. Misha looked at the men aboard the boats. Here were thinking men, with ideas and fears. They operated machinery and waved guns around.
Misha raised the rifle in his hands, putting one of the boats into his sight line. This was not like killing a zombie. Misha had killed several zombies, but these were not zombies. These were not hollow shelled corpses, but living, breathing people. The closest Misha had ever come to killing someone, was when he had inadvertently led a man into a zombie, but it hadn’t been his idea to do that. Now, he was about to fire upon and attempt to kill a man.
Thinking back on his training with Alec, Misha managed to steady his hands. He tried to think of his target not as a person, but just a target. He tried to imagine the stuffed dummies Alec had set up as practice targets for his shooting students, back when they had enough ammo for such things.
He squeezed the trigger.
The head of the driver that Misha was aiming at exploded. Misha cried out a strangled sound, feeling actual pain for what he had just done.
The heads of the others whipped around to look at him, but Misha held up a hand, letting them know he was all right. Somewhere behind him, at a safe distance, Rifle began to whine.
That first shot wasn’t the only one to hit its mark, but it was the only one to cause such a reaction in Misha. The rest of the time, he remembered his training. It became easier as he started to think of them as infected. He knew from Jon and Riley that everyone was now carrying the infection, but he put that out of his mind and imagined it was only those men down there who were.
Misha didn’t fire often, but he fired enough times that the boats started shooting back fairly frequently. Several times Misha had to drop to the deck and cover his head, as bullets whined past. Still, he continued to do the job he had been assigned.
After one such duck-and-cover, Misha sprang back up, intending to take out the shooter. Just as he was lining up the target in his sights, the whole ship shook.
The entire Diana shuddered violently. Misha was thrown into the railing in front of him, and before he realized what was happening, he was being thrown over it.
Nothing but air surrounded Misha as he went overboard.
16
Hanna’s On The Other Ship
Hanna had fallen asleep in the employee’s rest area, curled up beneath a table that was bolted to the floor. She didn’t know how long she had been there, but it was long enough for the sun to have gone down. During all that time, she couldn’t think up a single plan. She had no idea what to do, and so had eventually fallen asleep.
Her dreams were as confused as her though
ts had been while awake. It wasn’t a restful sleep, and she woke up several times, but was always able to fall asleep again.
Eventually, she woke up and heard an unusual sound. Along with the hollow whistle of the wind and the shushing of the ocean being cut by the hull, there was a buzzing sound. Hanna continued to lie under the table, unmoving and looking at nothing, trying to identify the sound. It was familiar, but she couldn’t place it.
A much closer sound distracted her. A rattling groan became her sole focus. It sounded close. Much too close.
Moving her head so slowly it was barely perceptible, Hanna scanned the area with her eyes. The owner of the rattling groan was standing three tables over. She could see its legs, along with a dangling bit of guts. There was no question about whether it was a zombie or not. The thing wasn’t moving, and Hanna could see no way it could have gotten in there with her. She looked toward the gates on either side of the sitting area and noted that they were still closed and locked. Hanna was disheartened when she saw at least two zombies lingering around outside either gate. The bars were too close together for the zombie near her to have squeezed through them, so there must be another way into the seating area that Hanna didn’t know about. Probably one that led inside the ship.
Mentally, she took stock of her supplies. Only the oar was a good weapon. There was the flare gun, but that wouldn’t be very effective. Even if she hit the zombie and the thing caught fire, it would take far too long for the brain to burn away, and then she’d have a flaming zombie to deal with. Besides, she wasn’t even sure being hit by a flare would cause combustion. After several mishaps in Germany that she narrowly survived, she learned to mistrust things she had seen in action movies.
Pushing herself up onto her hands and the balls of her feet, Hanna slowly and quietly eased herself out from beneath the table. Some of the zombies at the gate nearest to her spotted Hanna, and began making a lot of awful noises, including the rattling of the gate. She froze to watch what the legs would do. The zombie shifted, reacting to the ruckus being caused by its undead brethren, but it mostly stayed in place. Hanna was relieved the zombie was too dumb to figure out what the other zombies were complaining about.
Once she was no longer underneath the table, Hanna shifted her legs beneath her and sat up. Every time a buckle or something on her lifejacket made a sound, she paused to watch the zombie legs, but each time all the other sounds drowned it out. The zombie continued to be unaware of her presence, even when she picked up the oar and held it firmly with both hands.
Moving slowly, in an uncomfortable crouch, Hanna headed toward the zombie’s back while keeping below the tabletops. She got very close, and positioned herself to come out behind the zombie based on the direction its feet were facing.
Gripping the oar tightly, Hanna sprang upright and out of cover. And then froze. The zombie was looking straight at her.
The thing had the decayed look of all the other zombies, but some extra trauma had befallen this one. Its torso was twisted nearly one hundred eighty degrees, its right side torn, allowing a bit of its guts to hang free. Had this zombie been one of the fast ones, Hanna’s pause would have been her end. Mercifully, it was slow and dumb. The twisted torso left it uncoordinated between its upper and lower halves. The thing stumbled, unsure which way was forward and which way was backward. After just a few steps, it figured it out and then moved toward Hanna.
By then, Hanna had gotten over her shock. As the zombie came within range, she swung the oar like a massive baseball bat into the side of the zombie’s head. There was a crack as the skull fractured, and an even larger crack as something in the neck broke. The spinal cord must not have been severed, because the zombie continued to have use of its motor skills, except they were even more uncoordinated now that its head was lying on its shoulder. Hanna raised the oar high above her and brought it swiftly down onto the same bit of skull she had struck earlier. A large dent appeared in the side of the zombie’s head, and this time it collapsed. Hanna didn’t bother to find out if she had destroyed the brain or severed the spinal cord. As soon as the thing was down, she spun around to face the direction from which she believed it might have come. No other zombies were sneaking up on her, lured by the sounds of those at the gates. The space was empty.
After a quick readjustment of her lifejacket and the supplies that hung from it, she moved under a dark overhang. While waiting for her eyes to adjust, she realized there was something wrong with the light. Turning around, Hanna looked up at the night sky. Above was the usual collection of stars, but ahead, two flares were brightly burning. Her ears then picked up the sound of gunfire. Hanna remembered that the ship she was on had turned to follow the Diana. She had assumed this strange ship was being piloted by off-shippers, but now she knew that was the wrong assumption. There must have been people on this ship, ones who weren’t friendly with the Diana. They were attacking her.
A sick worm rolled over in Hanna’s belly. When she had planted the bomb, she knew this ship was in the area. She knew it was possible that unfriendlies were on board, and she had gone ahead and crippled her home anyway. And why? Because she was seasick. Not the kind of seasick that resulted in spending all day lying down or throwing up in the toilet, but the kind that made her desperate to be on land again. To feel earth against her feet, to see a steady, solid horizon, to feel a large, strong, old tree beneath her fingers, and to walk away from everyone whenever she felt she needed to. Being on the Diana had begun to feel like being a rat in a cage, but she had been wrong to do what she did. She had been so very, very wrong. She should have remained peaceful like the others. She should never have let that old side of her take control again. That side that had somehow been sucked into a terrorist cell so many years ago. That side for which she should probably be taking medication. It was her fault this was happening.
Turning away from the sky and her thoughts, Hanna stepped back under the overhang. She walked through the dark until her eyes adjusted and her hands reached the back wall, which was gently curved, and she found an opening that led behind it. Following the back of the wall, she came across a hallway and was mildly startled. Steady, electric light was coming from an open doorway off to one side. Hanna hadn’t expected to see any lights on in this ship. She had assumed that it was like the Diana, and set up to conserve power.
“Assume makes an ass out of u and me,” Hanna whispered to herself. “Only in this case, it is just me.”
She tiptoed toward the door with long, ballerina-like steps. Once, a lifetime ago, she had wanted to be a ballerina, but hadn’t been able to take the criticism from her teacher and had quit. Her teacher was probably dead now, just like everyone else she used to know.
Holding the oar above her head, Hanna stepped around the doorway, prepared for any zombies that might be in there. The small room was clear of the undead. It seemed to be a tiny kitchen and storage area for the cruise ship’s staff. After closing the door behind her, Hanna searched the cupboards, fridge, and unlocked lockers for anything useful.
She found some food that hadn’t gone bad, mostly stale chips, and made a meal out of them. The food in her emergency kit would last for a longer period of time and was already packed away, so she saved it for later. In the lockers, Hanna found some sweaters, a few jackets, two pairs of men’s shoes, a purse, a gym bag, and a handful of personal knick-knacks. She was briefly paused by the photographs lining the inside of one locker. They were full of happy faces from long gone days, when the dead were dead and the living didn’t fight over every scrap of food like wild dogs. The people in the pictures were healthy and excited about life. Hanna couldn’t leave the photos. She carefully pulled them down, separated the sticky blue stuff from the backs of them, and carefully slipped them down the side of her emergency kit, where they could nestle up next to the fishing line and spare batteries. In the purse and gym bag, she found wallets that had small photos in them, but those she felt fine leaving behind. They were professionally done portraits of familie
s that felt impersonal after the locker’s photos.
Once she had gone through everything, Hanna grabbed a thick sweater and put it on under her lifejacket, unwrapping the rope from her arm to do so. Although it was still hot, she could put up with sweating for the added protection. If the sun had still been out, however, it would have been a different story. The sweater had a hood, which she pulled up over her long hair and then used the drawstring to tighten the hood around her face so that it wouldn’t affect her peripheral vision. She also took the time to adjust her shoes, which she hadn’t properly tied while in the ship’s belly, and carefully wound the rope around her arm again. With that done, she went over everything in the room a second time, specifically looking for something to use as a weapon. Even though her oar had served her well, it was large and somewhat cumbersome; not very good for the confined spaces in which she’d find herself. In a drawer beneath the oven, Hanna found a stock of frying pans. She picked out a very solid looking one that wasn’t too heavy to wield with one hand. It would do better than the oar.
After placing her ear against the door and hearing nothing, Hanna stepped back out into the hallway. There was a room across from the kitchen-like place, which she investigated. There was nothing dead or helpful inside, only useless cleaning supplies. She had turned the light on when she had checked it out, and now left it on as she made for the end of the hall. It wasn’t a long hall, and it ended in a T-junction, both arms appearing to head back outside. Turning to the starboard side door, Hanna peered out the little round window set into it. There were no zombies outside. It looked like the door led out onto a narrow walkway, which was used for boarding the lifeboats. Opening the door, Hanna stepped out into the night air. The lifeboat that would normally be in front of her was gone, giving her a vast view of the ocean.