Survival Instinct (Book 5): Social Instinct Read online

  SOCIAL INSTINCT

  Kristal Stittle

  www.severedpress.com

  Copyright 2019 by Kristal Stittle

  For Phyllis & Doug, Barb & Ken, and Doug & Pam

  Each of whom saved me from disaster at one point or another.

  Section 1:

  Hunger

  1: Evans

  5 Days After the Bombing

  Moe plodded along the side of the road, his hooves kicking up little puffs of dust. The old grey horse seemed to appreciate that he no longer needed to carry riders, only supplies. Evans barely had to lead him, the reins slack as the pair moved at the same sedate pace.

  “How much longer?” Gerald complained, following anxiously behind them.

  “Days,” Evans replied. “Even longer if your whining causes anything to take notice of us.”

  Gerald huffed. He was not a good travel companion, but Evans had promised to bring the teenager to some place that would accept him for who he was. While it wasn’t exactly a common belief, he wasn’t the first person to think the zombies should be treated as something other than a threat. Evans had met all kinds of people during his travels.

  “How many days?” Gerald whispered, unable to keep quiet for more than a couple of minutes.

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On who and what we come across. And whether my injuries get infected.” Evans had been glad to help the people in the shipping container yard, to make up for the pointless attack he had allowed his party to wage, but he hadn’t escaped the task unharmed. During their rush across farm fields to set off a bomb that would collapse an underground facility full of hostiles, they had been seen. Most of the enemy there had been distracted by the arrival of a submarine—which began hurling zombie offal at them with a pair of trebuchet-type devices mounted on top—but not all of them. Thankfully, the hostiles who had spotted the little gang of outsiders had come up from below ground, unready and relatively unarmed. Evans’ Scottish broadsword had come in handy at that point, as he was able to fend off the blades of others, keeping safe Rose, the one-handed woman who carried the detonator. He had received several minor cuts during the encounter, and a particularly bad one along the back of his left forearm that caused some concern.

  After the explosion, a deafening crack that had caused the ground to buck and sent great plumes of dust and debris hurtling through the air, the invasion team had had to about-face and run the other way. The confusion and chaos had provided some cover, but they had finally been spotted by men with rifles. Bullets whizzed past as they had run for the fence. Everyone had made it over and back to the building where they had stashed their gear, but they weren’t all in great condition. Rose was the best off, as they had protected her on the way in. She had sustained only one bad gash on her arm with the amputated hand during their escape. Canary’s older leg wound had reopened, and Doyle had received a fairly bad gash along his side. James had taken at least one round, maybe more, to his foot. Pure adrenaline had managed to keep him running on it. Jamal was the worst off, having had to be slung between Rose and James as they crossed the field. He might not have survived. Evans had no idea, because he had separated from them at that point, going back to where Moe and Gerald were supposed to be waiting. It wasn’t until Evans was safely among the trees with no sign of pursuit, that he had stopped for a breather and discovered a bullet hole through his pants. He had been very lucky that the shot hadn’t been just slightly more to the right where it would have caught his leg as well.

  “You should have gone to get medical attention,” Gerald continued to whisper. “They could have given you antibiotics.”

  Evans didn’t bother with a response. This ground had been covered before. If he had gone back with them, he wasn’t sure when he’d get the chance to leave again. Gerald wouldn’t have waited, and Evans didn’t trust the teen to take care of Moe properly. Instead, he had stitched up his arm himself—not the first time he had needed to administer his own aid—and then carefully wrapped it, using supplies the container yard folk had sent with him. A few of his other wounds he had bandaged as well, in order to keep them clean, but he wasn’t all that worried about them. He had survived worse.

  “What happens if you die?”

  Evans sighed. “Then I imagine you’ll take some rope and turn me into a pet.” The comment bought a blessed ten minutes of silence.

  “I can’t stop thinking about them.”

  “About who?” Evans knew he’d end up getting the answer to that question even if he didn’t ask.

  “All those people I killed who were attacking the container yard.”

  “You mean the giant zombie horde? They weren’t people; they were already dead.”

  “But how do you know?”

  “Because people want to do more than just eat my face.”

  “But what if they could be helped? Maybe if people just tried to communicate, they wouldn’t be like that.”

  “Trust me, if there was more to them than that, someone would have figured it out by now, and I would have heard about it.”

  “Right, ’cause you’re the great traveller. I heard you didn’t know about the mega horde before those runners showed up,” Gerald sneered.

  “Shut up.”

  “What, have I hurt your feelings?”

  “Shut up!” Evans hissed back at him as he brought Moe to a stop. “I heard something.”

  The colour drained from Gerald’s face as he scuttled closer to Evans, turning his back to Moe and searching the area with eyes wide. Evans watched the horse, as well as their surroundings, trusting the beast’s greater senses of hearing and smell. When Moe suddenly raised his head with a snort, and focused his ears ahead and across the road, Evans faced in that direction. He placed one hand on the hilt of his sword, and the other on his shotgun. Unfortunately, he had no ammunition for the latter and could only use it as a prop with which to scare people. The ruse had worked before, but it was unreliable and risky.

  A single zombie came stumbling out of the trees. Evans waited, expecting more, since they usually roamed in packs, but no others came. It was a lone dead thing, and a slow one at that, so Evans relaxed.

  “Here’s your chance to try communicating,” Evans told Gerald, nodding toward the zombie that was making its way toward them.

  “I’m not an idiot,” Gerald glared at him. “You have to spend time with them, like you would a wild animal.”

  “Either way, it’s your turn.”

  “My turn?”

  “To kill it. I’ve been taking care of all of them so far. I know you fought the mega horde, but with the way you think, I can’t trust you to watch my back until I witness it for myself. You have a knife, go put it down.”

  Evans was glad to see that Gerald didn’t hesitate. He walked straight up to the shambling corpse, side-stepped as it lunged, and drove his knife into the side of its head. As the thing collapsed to the pavement, Gerald turned with his arms out, as if inviting Evans to give him another challenge. Evans just tugged lightly on Moe’s reins to get him walking again.

  “Happy?” Gerald said as he returned to Evans’ side.

  “I’d be happy if you would stop talking. But yes, it’s good to know that you won’t hesitate to take them out. We’re coming up on another population centre.”

  The fear Evans was used to seeing in Gerald’s posture and expression returned. Lately, they had been travelling through what had once been farmland, as well as forests and bogs where no one had bothered to build.

  “Does anyone still live there?” Gerald’s voice dropped into a low whisper again.

  “I’ve never passed
through the town up ahead, so I can’t say. It’s unlikely. Small towns tend to be pretty empty, but it is possible for someone to have set up shop there. And the dead are always present where the living used to be.”

  “Can we go around?”

  “We can. It’ll add at least another day’s worth of travelling, maybe two depending on the terrain. Like I said, I’ve never been in this particular area before. It’s your call.” Evans had run into trouble in towns before, but he had also run into trouble outside of them. Going through the place would be quicker, whereas going around tended to provide more options for running with its open spaces.

  “We’ll go through,” Gerald decided, a little unexpectedly. “Maybe we’ll be able to find some more supplies.”

  Evans highly doubted that, but didn’t say anything. If something were easy to find, it certainly would have been found by then, and they weren’t going to be stopping anywhere long enough to do a thorough search.

  The town came upon them gradually. The wild spaces that flanked the road slowly gave way to more and more structures until Evans and Gerald found themselves surrounded by shops and houses on all sides. They had been following a road through the town for several minutes before Evans realized that something was wrong and brought Moe to another stop. Gerald crowded up close behind him, listening intently.

  “I don’t hear anything,” he finally whispered in Evans’ ear.

  “That’s the problem. We need to turn back.”

  “Why?”

  “I should have noticed it earlier. There’s no trash. No leaves in the gutters. This breeze isn’t moving anything. I should have seen it right away. Abandoned towns trap litter everywhere, and there’s always broken shit creaking in the wind. Someone’s cleaned this place up. We have to go back.”

  “Why would someone clean up a town like this?”

  “Noise draws the dead, so if something makes a noise, you get rid of it. Right now, we’re making noise, Moe especially. We’re turning around.”

  Evans guided Moe in a tight circle, the horse’s hooves clopping on the pavement that they hadn’t been able to avoid. Their footfalls echoed between the silent buildings. Evans cursed himself for not having been more observant, for not seeing what wasn’t there. Now that he had noticed it, the difference was quite obvious. It had been too long since Evans had travelled so alone, not surrounded by a party that he could rely on.

  Before they could reach open space again, a figure walked out from between two buildings. The individual was dressed in a formless heap of rags that matched the drab shades of the town, and made it impossible to identify gender. The long rifle in the person’s hands was unmistakable.

  Evans brought Moe to a halt once more and raised his hands.

  “You’re not going to threaten them?” Gerald whispered.

  “They’ve been watching us. They know exactly what I have on me. If they decided to come out, it’s because they know they can take us. Now put your hands up.”

  Gerald raised his arms.

  “We don’t mean you any harm!” Evans called out to the individual, betting that there were more hiding, and that they were listening. “We’re just travellers moving north, and came across your territory here by accident. We’re happy to leave and go around.”

  The shrouded person in their path made no move. Beside Evans, Gerald kept shifting his weight back and forth. His jaw twitched as if he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure what.

  Moe let out a soft whinny and snorted, suddenly half turning with his ears twisted in the direction they had been headed originally. Evans looked back over his shoulder and saw a similarly attired person close behind them, holding a dark blade. The eerie part was that Evans hadn’t heard a sound from either of them. These were silent people.

  “Perhaps you’d be willing to make a trade? We could make a toll payment.” Although what with, Evans had no idea. They weren’t carrying anything that they could do without. Then again, exchanging anything for his life would be worth it.

  “There’s another one to the left,” Gerald whispered.

  Evans glanced over to confirm this for himself and saw another blade as well. “Keep your eyes on as many as possible. We don’t want them getting closer.” Trying to watch every direction at once wasn’t easy, but at least with the two of them, it wasn’t impossible.

  Here and there, more of the clothing heaps appeared at the edges of the buildings and on rooftops. They were being watched by many eyes. But Evans again looked for what was missing and saw that only the first person carried a rifle. What would such silent people want with a gun anyway? Guns were noisy, and guaranteed to bring the dead.

  “I have a plan,” Evans whispered to Gerald over his shoulder. “But you’re not going to like it.”

  “I’ll take anything that’ll get us out of here.”

  “You’re going to jump on Moe and ride hard at the first person who showed up.”

  “You’re right, I really don’t like this plan.”

  “They’re not going to shoot. These are silent people; guns are too loud. They probably don’t even have any bullets.”

  “It’s the probably that worries me. And what are you going to do?”

  “Run after you.”

  “Run? As in on foot?”

  “I don’t see any horses among them, and I don’t want to put too much strain on Moe by having him run with both of us and our supplies on his back.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “I’m open to saner suggestions.”

  One of the silent watchers took a step closer in full view of Evans.

  “They’re getting bolder.”

  “All right, fine. We’ll go with your insane idea.”

  There was no sense in waiting, so Gerald quickly clambered up onto Moe’s back. Evans gave the horse a hearty smack to his rump to get him running, and then took off after them. He drew his sword as he ran. The old horse immediately outpaced him. The silent one with the rifle stepped aside as the large beast bore down, and remained at a distance as Evans rushed past. There was something unnerving about it. As his breath puffed in and out, Evans risked a glance over his shoulder. No one was coming after them. Half just stood there, watching, while the other half faded back into the gaps from which they had appeared. Who were they? What had they wanted? And most importantly, why were they letting them just leave?

  ***

  “What the hell was that?” Gerald asked after they had backtracked a fair distance and stopped to take a break in an overgrown field. Evans had removed the supplies and saddle from Moe’s back, swapping his reins for his lead so that the horse could take a proper breather and munch on the greenery.

  “I’m not sure. The only time I’ve ever run into silent ones like that before, was far to the north, but they didn’t act like that.”

  “Why did they surround us like that only to let us leave?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they just wanted to make sure we felt threatened enough that we wouldn’t think of returning.”

  “We told them that we were travellers just passing through.”

  “Says the known liar.”

  Gerald bristled, hating it whenever Evans said something along those lines. Having first met the eighteen-year-old during his trial, Evans learned that Gerald would immediately resort to lies if he thought they would get him out of a situation. It was one of the reasons why a travelling rule of theirs was that Evans would do all the talking whenever they came across living people. The other reason was that Evans simply had more experience at it.

  The pair lapsed into silence as they nibbled on a light lunch.

  “Which way do you think we should go around the town?” Evans eventually asked. He had been pondering the decision ever since they had been driven out.

  “What’s the fastest route?”

  “I’m not sure. I can only guess the size of the town based on that overgrown population sign we passed on the way in, and that tells me nothing about the shape of the
place. As far as I know, it’s the same either way.”

  “We’ll go that way then,” Gerald pointed to their right.

  “Why that way?”

  Gerald just shrugged, apparently choosing the direction on a whim, not bothering to attempt to study the terrain. Still, it was a decision.

  “East it is then.”

  Evans first checked on his injuries, unwrapping the bandages that ran up his arms. They didn’t look great, but none of them looked infected. He took the cleanest of the bandages, and rewrapped the deep one on his left forearm. The others had actually closed over a while ago, and should be fine as long as he didn’t reopen any of them.

  “All right, let’s get going,” Evans said with a sigh. He liked the field in which they had stopped. Despite having to keep an eye out for snakes, and other dangers that might be crawling through the scrub, the place had great sight lines for anything bigger. With the strange way those silent ones had acted, being able to see around themselves felt important.

  As Evans loaded up Moe again, the horse gave a disgruntled snort. He liked the field too, it seemed. They didn’t bother returning to the road to the west of them, opting instead for the quicker route crossing the open terrain. Gerald led the way, sweeping the ground ahead of him with a long stick that he had found to clear off any snakes. A rattler bite was about as good as a zombie’s when travelling. Hell, ever since the virus went airborne, the victims all turned unless someone took care of them after they died.

  At the far end of the field, they came to a forested, yet marshy, area. The ground seemed solid enough, and neither Evans nor Gerald minded getting their feet wet. Evans took the lead once more, guiding them through the muck. He wanted that town as far to their backs as possible by the time they stopped for the night.

  Evans’ only warning was a moment of stubbornness from Moe. The horse stopped walking, although he gave no indication that he was afraid. Evans tugged sharply on his reins to get him moving again, only to manage just a few more steps. The mossy ground ahead wasn’t nearly as stable as it had been everywhere else. Evans quickly found himself sinking hip deep into thick mud, unable to warn Gerald in time. The teenager also became trapped a few feet to his left and about a step behind him.