Survival Instinct (Book 4): Defensive Instinct Read online

  Abby started to recite. Having grown up with something like an eidetic memory, she could remember every book she had ever read and every movie she had ever watched. Books and movies were being found all the time and added to the massive basement library, but inevitably some would be lost forever. Fires, nature, and destructive humans were whittling away their history. Abby, with Lauren’s help, had made it her personal mission to preserve what she could. Although unable to remember every word, Abby could recall all the scenes and some exact sentences from the books she had read; the same was true of TV shows and movies she had seen. While dialog was simple, Abby didn’t have the imagination nor the writing skills to transfer the images to page, so that’s where Lauren came in. She was more creative, better at describing things. While Abby recited, the computer recording her voice, Lauren would take notes. Afterward, they would work together to write a sort of script for the film or narrative for the book, and at the end, they would write facts about it and the people involved in its original creation. Before the Day, before the zombies came, both Lauren and Abby had worked on a television show and had a lot of experience with scripts so they were easier. The two of them felt it was the least they could do for those who were no longer around.

  With her eyes closed, Abby spoke, diving deep into her memories of the movie, which allowed her to push back the memories of death.

  ***

  “Have you heard the news yet?” Winchester plopped down into a nearby chair that rolled a few feet before stopping.

  “What news?” Abby asked. She and Lauren had finished the initial recording and were now working on a proper script. The recording would be saved to a hard drive, but once the script was done, they would print it, bind it—often using something simple like string—and then store it in the library.

  “I heard Riley will be coming to visit. She’s got some patients who need scanning or something.”

  “Will Hope be coming with her?” Lauren asked.

  Abby couldn’t help but notice Peter in the corner, tilting his head slightly in their direction.

  “Don’t know, the message didn’t say.”

  Peter’s head resumed its studious position. Abby felt a bit bad. All of Peter’s closest friends had moved to the container yard, and he hadn’t really been able to make new ones. They came to visit from time to time, or Lauren and Abby would take him there, but it wasn’t the same as getting to play with them every day like he used to. Despite his obviously superior mind when it came to math, the kids at the container yard still treated him the same: as one of them. Some days Abby felt it was her fault for separating Peter from his friends, that she should have moved to the container yard with the others. But she couldn’t. So much had happened, and she felt safe inside the Black Box even if others didn’t. Lauren had been willing to go along with whatever Abby wanted, but there was also Claire to think about. She was very adamant about staying at the Black Box. In the end, staying put won out, even if Abby’s own group of friends—family really—got split up in the process.

  “Do you know when she’s expected to arrive?” Abby asked.

  “No idea,” Winchester shrugged. “Sometime later today is all I know. There’s a very likely chance she’ll be spending the night.”

  “She can share with us,” Abby immediately offered. It wasn’t unusual for Riley to sleep on their couch and Hope to take the top bunk in Peter’s bedroom whenever they visited.

  “Any other reason for you coming down here?” Lauren wondered.

  “Other than trying to see what you two are working on, not really.” Winchester leaned forward, attempting to read what was written on the screen.

  Lauren quickly blocked his view with both hands. “Don’t you have other things to do?”

  “Probably. Do you want to help me with it?”

  “What is it?” Lauren raised her eyebrow sceptically. She was much better friends with Winchester than Abby was. The two of them had survived the first few weeks together, holed up in a motel crammed with people where Lauren had somehow been put in charge of all the orphaned children. There had been quite a few, Peter among them. Since then, they had been taken in by other adults, some who were new couples willing to take on the responsibility, others were individuals who had lost their own, and still more were families that had managed to stay together through it all and were willing to expand. Lauren and Abby had kept Peter, Claire, and Jon with them, although Jon was now twenty-seven and off living at the container yard when he wasn’t out scavenging.

  “We’ve picked a new area to sow, which means clearing out the crap that’s already there. Want to come do some hard slugging work? Volunteers make the workload lighter.” Winchester grinned like a used car salesman.

  “We should probably—” Lauren started but Abby cut her off.

  “Sure!”

  “Sure?” Abby’s partner looked at her with suspicious eyes.

  “I’m tired of sitting down here all day. I’d like to go outside and do some manual labour.”

  “All right, I guess. Why not?”

  “Excellent.” Winchester got to his feet, the movement propelling his chair to clatter away into a desk. He looked at the other six people in the lab, all hunched over their desks and working on who knew what. “How about you folks? Any of you want to help clear our next field?”

  Half the people ignored Winchester; the other half shook their heads.

  “All right, just us then.”

  Abby walked over to Peter. “You going to stay down here all day?”

  Peter nodded.

  “Want me to come get you if Hope shows up?”

  He nodded again.

  “All right. Try not to fry your brain with this.” Abby kissed the back of Peter’s head, breathing in the scent of his hair, then made her way to the door where Winchester and Lauren were already waiting. Abby had never imagined herself as a mother until Lauren had shown up with Claire, Peter, and Jon under her wings. Now, she couldn’t imagine her life without them.

  “Will Claire be joining us?” Lauren asked as they made their way toward the stairs. Even though the Black Box had a working elevator, unlike the Diana, Abby always made them take the stairs. Not only was it healthier for them, but Abby’s experiences insisted that the stairs were safer.

  “She up top?” So Winchester hadn’t seen her up there yet. It wasn’t unusual: there were always quite a number of people on the surface and a lot of fairly large fields to be tended. There was no way to tell where Claire was unless you happened to spot her or started asking around.

  They exited the underground lab-turned-hideaway beside an old set of train tracks that had a forest of weeds growing up between them. The train cars were secured in place, often used as homes or a place to sleep outside in safety for those who didn’t want to go below for the night. Beyond them was an old facility, presumably a chemical plant of some sort, although Abby never bothered to confirm that. Over the years, the place had been thoroughly cleared out and stripped of virtually everything. They took apart all that they could—including metal wall panels—to use as fencing material around the growing fields. Winchester led them first to the road and then down toward the barge dock. Abby squinted up at a massive crane as they walked below its overhanging arm. The distance and the sun prevented her from seeing who was up there, but she could make out at least three people, their legs dangling into nothingness. Old plastic chairs had been brought up there a long time ago and bolted at various locations along the frame. With the addition of belts and harness restraints, they made relatively safe lookout points, the only danger coming from moving to and from those seats. Abby shuddered, never having dared go up there herself.

  It turned out that the new field was going to be next to the barge dock, alongside the river. On their way there, they had passed other fields, all of them being carefully tended. They were irrigated when dry, monitored for pests, defended from birds, and picked when ready. Every field was labelled and sectioned off with string wrapp
ed around posts. Signs designated what was planted where and when. They tried to time the plantings so that they always had something ready to be harvested. It wasn’t always easy, and insects were a menace. With an extremely limited and ever-shrinking supply of pesticides, they used them only if an infestation got really bad.

  “This field looks terrible,” Lauren commented on the one to which Winchester had led them. Several people were gathered on the cement that made up most of the barge dock, waiting for the go ahead to start on the field. They all looked to have the same opinion as Lauren.

  “Some of the fields we use today didn’t look much different before we decided to plant them,” Winchester reminded her. “At least there aren’t any trees we have to cut down here.”

  “Pretty sure there’s more rocks though.”

  The trio joined the rest of the group, who handed them work gloves from a box. Only people who constantly used work gloves owned their own, and therefore had a matching set. The rest were always so disorganized that one was lucky to get a pair that fit. Abby pulled out a set that looked the same; however, the left glove was bigger than the right.

  “All right everyone, I think we got all the volunteers we’re gonna get,” Rose called out to the crowd. “I’m assumin’ you all know what to do; if not, ask whoever’s next to you for help. Get to work.”

  Everyone headed out to the field. Only Rose, the organizer of this task, stayed at the end of the field, not because she felt she was above the work, but because she couldn’t do manual labour the way everyone else could. Her left arm ended just below the elbow, and, so far, no one had been able to find a prosthetic hand that fit her. She had jury-rigged some things for herself in order to do certain tasks, but nothing had yet proved useful for fieldwork. She couldn’t wield tools or grasp rocks as well as someone with two hands, and her self-made implements couldn’t stand up to the stress. Instead, she found other ways to help. As well as moving people around when it looked like someone needed help, she would at regular times strap a large water barrel to her back and walk around to give everyone a drink. There were a few younger kids who were also tasked with that job, but they pulled and pushed a wagon of water barrels across the uneven terrain.

  Abby was sweating in no time. Later, horses would help plough the fields, but that couldn’t be done until all the large rocks and tree stumps were removed. Winchester and Lauren worked together to get them out of the ground, while Abby pushed the wheelbarrow of debris to the far end of the field for dumping. Although there were plenty of people nearby, Abby was nervous every time she went to the edge of the field. There was a fence there, one that she was reinforcing with the debris, and it led all the way to the water’s edge, but still she worried. Fences had fallen in the past. Instead of worrying, she tried to focus on the salt-water river that Riley would be paddling up, but that didn’t stop her eyes from being dragged outward.

  “What’s going to be planted in this field?” Lauren was asking Winchester when Abby returned to their side with the wheelbarrow. They were sweating just as much as she was, but Lauren seemed to be enjoying herself despite her initial hesitation to volunteer. She liked being outside and wasn’t as afraid of it as Abby was.

  “We’re going to plant another corn, squash, and beans combination, as that seems to be working really well in several other fields,” Winchester panted, straining against a particularly stubborn rock that didn’t want to let go of the ground.

  “I’m glad Una is with us and told us about that.” Lauren worked a shovel around the rock, loosening the soil.

  “She’s been a real help. We’re lucky she stayed with us instead of leaving with that tribe who came through here a couple of years ago.” With a grunt of effort, Winchester used all his weight to pull on the rock. When it finally decided to move, it slid up and rolled onto the ground, nearly crushing his feet.

  “Worms!” Lauren called out, dropping down next to the hole that had been created.

  Abby grabbed a satchel hanging off the wheelbarrow, and unzipped the top as she knelt down beside her spouse. Inside the hole were several large, fat worms trying to escape. Winchester decided to take a breather, so Lauren reached into the hole and grabbed every wiggly nightcrawler that she could, stuffing them into the satchel that Abby held open and ready.

  “You found worms?” Rose jogged over, narrowly avoiding being pulled over by the weight of the water barrel that sloshed on her back.

  Lauren had just secured the last of them, a few having escaped into the dirt. Abby zipped up the satchel and held it out to Rose.

  “Great!” Rose stuffed it into a sack hanging off her belt. “I’ll empty this and brin’ it back in case you find any more.”

  She turned to leave, but Winchester stopped her. “Water first,” he gasped.

  “Get that rock into that wheelbarrow and I’ll see what I can do,” Rose teased.

  Winchester shook his head but did as she ordered, hoisting the rock up like an extremely heavy baby and then dropping it into the metal receptacle with a mighty clang.

  “Your reward.” Rose handed him a plastic cup that she kept strapped to the other side of her belt. While he held it, she filled it using a nozzle on the end of a hose that was attached to the bottom of the water barrel.

  After Winchester had his drink, the cup was refilled again for Lauren and a final time for Abby.

  “Right, so you all know what to do if you find worms and don’t have a pouch or anythin’ to put ’em in?” Rose questioned as she resecured the cup.

  “Use a glove,” all three responded, each raising a hand.

  “Fantastic.” Rose then turned and walked off, accompanied by the sloshing of water. She would dump the worms into a large box on wheels that sat by the barge dock, and later they would either be put to work making fertilizer, or given to the fishermen as bait.

  “Break’s over.” Winchester stretched his muscles and moved to the next rock.

  Abby kept up with the wheelbarrow until it was full again. She walked back to the far edge of the field, watching her footing, and then dumped the load.

  “Help.”

  Abby’s head shot up, quickly scanning the field. Everyone else was acting normally. The call had been so faint, she could have imagined it.

  “Help,” she heard again, noting a hoarse tone to it. Because she had been listening for it, she was more able to pinpoint the source. With the hair standing up on the back of her neck, Abby turned to look beyond the fence. There, stumbling across the uneven terrain, was a small human.

  Abby turned to find help, but instead spotted someone running to the fence with a rifle. The man raised his gun, intending to fire.

  “Stop!” Abby yelled at him.

  The man paused, confused.

  “He spoke! He can’t be a zombie, he spoke!” Abby yelled to everyone who was within hearing range. Her words caused several individuals to come running to the fence, Winchester and Lauren included.

  They all stared silently out at the boy—if he was indeed male—watching him painstakingly approach them.

  “Help,” he called again, his voice so quiet and stressed that no one would have heard him if they hadn’t been listening so intently. The child then tripped and fell.

  “Get me over this fence!” Abby turned and demanded of Winchester.

  He didn’t hesitate to make a stirrup of his hands.

  “I’ll get a boat to bring him around. Get him to the water!” Lauren called out as she took off across the field like a flash, risking a twisted ankle.

  “He could be infected!” a worried bystander called to Abby as she scrambled over the top of the fence. “He could change soon!”

  “Hush,” a woman next to the bystander barked. “It’s just a kid, we’ll take our chances.”

  Abby hit the ground on the far side of the fence, acutely aware that she had just exited her safe zone. Her blood sang through her veins and her muscles froze, fear locking her in place.

  She startled at a heavy th
ump next to her. It was James Brenner: he had been working in the next field over and had immediately run to the commotion.

  “I figured if you have to carry him, you could use some help,” he told Abby.

  Abby nodded, and the two of them made their way across the scrabbly earth where long, looping grass threatened to trip them. They advanced slowly, James holding his rifle at the ready, watching for any movement in the grass. Legless zombies were a big threat anywhere the ground couldn’t properly be seen. Abby kept her focus on where the boy had fallen. Her pistol remained holstered on the back of her belt, but her hands remained aware and ready to grab it or the knife alongside her right leg. She was very grateful to have James with her, finding it slightly amusing that she and others had reason to mistrust him upon their initial meeting eleven years ago. He had become one of the most trustworthy and reliable people that Abby knew.

  “There he is,” Abby whispered once she could see the boy. His body was sprawled across the ground.

  “Is he moving?” James asked, his eyes continuing to sweep the ground around him.

  “A little.” The boy’s limbs were moving a bit: nothing to confirm he was still alive.

  Abby approached with caution, kneeling down beside the fallen form’s legs, away from his head in case it was too late. A groan from the child caused her to freeze momentarily, but then she reached forward and felt the boy’s wrist.

  “He still has a pulse,” she sighed with relief after taking off one of her work gloves to check. She quickly put it back on.

  “Hold this.” James held the rifle out to Abby. She accepted it and locked her hands around the grip and barrel, her awkward gloved finger resting against the trigger guard.

  Pulling his own work gloves out of a pocket, James tugged them on as he knelt down beside the boy. Abby swept the area with the gun, even glancing back toward the farm fields. Quite the crowd had gathered at the fences, their work momentarily put on hold. James scooped up the boy, carrying him bridal fashion but with the child’s face turned away from his body.

  “Let’s get him to the river.” James turned toward that edge of the land. He walked carefully across the rough terrain, with Abby close at his side vigilantly sweeping her rifle.