Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel (17 page)

Of course, they were locked.  He left Emma leaning against the car and tried the next one.  Also locked.

“Danny!”  Emma started hobbling toward him.

The teenager had turned around, his eyes as white as his skin.  He opened his mouth and screamed, then began running.

Danny tried the next car, one that was parked on the street.  The passenger door was locked.  He tried the one behind it.  Also locked.  By chance, he glanced through the windows and saw that the rear door on the other side wasn’t.

“Go around the car!” Danny called to Emma as he dashed around to the street side.  He yanked on the handle and ripped the door open.

The older teenager was closing in on Emma.  Danny ran to meet her.  Finding strength he hadn’t been aware he had, Danny grabbed Emma and picked her up in his arms.  He ran for the open car door.  The older boy was fast, but he wasn’t very co-ordinated.  He had nearly grabbed Emma when Danny picked her up, but his leg smacked into the front bumper of the car and he spilled onto the ground.  It gave Danny and Emma the precious time they needed.

Danny reached the car and threw Emma into the backseat.  He quickly jumped in after her and slammed the door shut behind him.  The teenager smacked into the door right after.  Danny locked it and he and Emma moved as far from the window as possible.  The teenager scratched at the window, his head and body covered in red marks from the partial road rash he had given himself when he wiped out.

“What’s wrong with his eyes?”  Emma wouldn’t stop screaming.

Danny kept himself between her and the window, the two of them crunched up in the backseat.  If the teenager got in, he would protect Emma.  The teenager then started throwing punches.  His hands were slowly being mushed, but the glass was also starting to give.

Just as Danny thought, it was hopeless, when he thought he would have to sacrifice himself to give Emma a chance,
that’s
when they were saved.

It was by a car that came roaring down the street.  Whoever was behind the wheel was either not paying attention or didn’t care.  Or maybe it was even deliberate.  The car scraped along the side of the one Danny and Emma were in, hitting the teenager.  The teenager was flung and bounced up the road.  Danny saw it as if in slow motion.  He could actually make out the hairs on the teenager’s belly that trailed down from his navel into his boxer shorts before he went spinning off.  The car never stopped.  It didn’t even slow down as it swung wildly around a turn up ahead.

Emma finally stopped screaming and stared in shock.  Danny slid over to the street side of the car and looked out.  The teenager was up ahead, unmoving.  A large red smear led from their car to him and his limbs were twisted at odd angles.

“I think he’s dead,” Danny whispered, fearing his voice would somehow cause the teenager’s body to rise up, fuelled by rage at what had just happened and doubling his strength and efforts to get Danny and Emma.

“What if he’s not?”  Emma seemed to have the same thought.

Danny looked around the outside of the car.  “There.”  He pointed.

Emma shifted to see what he had spotted, her hands resting on Danny’s arm.  Her hands were surprisingly soft.  Emma saw only a house.  “Where?  What?”

“That house’s garage door is partly open.  We can get in it.”  Danny suddenly realized that one of his hands was resting on Emma’s creamy soft leg and that her sundress had ridden up quite a way.  If he turned, Danny might have been able to see her underwear.  He quickly removed his hand.

“Why would we want to do that?”  Emma seemed to take no notice.

“Because I don’t think we can make it to the school.”  Danny faced facts.

“But there could be something in there.”

“The door is really
low; we’ll just be able to squeeze through.  Not many people could get through that and we could close it once we’re on the other side.”

“Can’t we stay here?” Emma sounded terrified about leaving their current safe zone.

“The glass is weak.”  Danny pointed out the cracks, which gave him an excuse to move further away from Emma.  “Especially since that car hit us.”

“If you think it’s best.”

Danny didn’t like that the decision was being put squarely on him, but he would make it.  “Okay.”

He unlocked the street side door.  It took a few pushes
, but it finally swung open with a pop.  Danny looked up and down the street, trying not to focus on the teenager, and got out of the car.  Emma followed him and grabbed hold of his shoulders once more.  Unlike Danny, she wouldn’t take her eyes off the mostly naked teenager. His road rash had gotten a lot worse.

They crossed the street at an angle, trying to get to the house as quickly as possible.  The teenager never moved.

Once at the house, Danny leaned Emma against the garage.  “I’ll go first and make sure it’s safe.”

“Okay.”

He lay down on his belly, and peered through the gap, all too aware of Emma’s long legs and dress right next to him.  The gap let in just enough light for him to make out the wheels of a car, the bottoms of some tool chests, and what he thought might be a staircase leading into the house.  He couldn’t see any people but that didn’t mean they weren’t behind one of the tool chests or even the car.

Danny crawled into the garage on his belly, his back scraping against the bottom of the garage
door.  It was a bit painful but he bore through it.  Once inside, the ambient light was enough for him to make things out.  Still, he found a light switch and flicked it on.  The overhead fluorescents flickered a little, but provided great illumination for Danny to patrol the garage.  The stairs turned out to be a ramp, but other than that, everything looked like a normal garage.

That’s when Emma let out an ear-piercing scream.

* * *

Danny ran back to the front of the garage.  Emma was already trying to get through, but something was clearly trying to pull her back.

“Help me, Danny!” she shrieked.  “Oh God, he’s biting me!  He’s biting me!”

Danny grabbed her arms and pulled.  Tears were flooding down Emma’s cheeks.  She got mostly into the garage, but a flayed, bloody arm and face still held onto one of her legs outside.  The skin that was left on the attacker was pale white.  Danny kicked out and hit him in the face.  Still the attacker held on tight.  Danny kicked again, and again.  Eventually the attacker let go.  Emma pulled herself the rest of the way in.  Despite the repeated kicks, the attacker tried to follow but he was too big.  An arm snaked around inside, trying to grab either one of them.  Danny tried to close the large door
, but it was jammed, it wouldn’t go down.  He found that a wooden block off to one side was the culprit.  He kicked it out, feeling a pain like that of a bad toe stub, and the garage door slammed down the rest of the way on its own.  It nearly severed the arm of the attacker, but despite that, the arm continued to move and grab at air.

Danny grabbed Emma and pulled her away to the other side of the parked car.  He looked down at her leg.  It was bloody, but not as bad as he had feared.  There were no chunks missing.  He managed to find a clean rag in the garage and wrapped it around the wound.  Emma wouldn’t stop crying.

“It was him!” she bawled.  “It was him!”

“It was who, Emma?”  Danny hoped desperately that she would calm down.

“The boy in the street, the one hit by the car.  It was him!”

Danny Cole couldn’t fathom the teenager being able to get up and attack Emma like that, so he didn’t think about it.  Still, the flayed skin…

“Just calm down, Emma.”  Danny stroked her hair.  He hadn’t noticed, but at some point, she had lost her hair-band.  “Everything is going to be all right.  We’re safe now.  We’ll be fine.”

There he was
, lying again.

Alec

Alec looked up at the cases of water.  He wondered why a grocery store would put something so heavy so high up.  Even someone with a normal reach would have problems getting some down.  He looked up and down the aisle he was in, but the only other person was a great big, fat woman trying to decide which kind of pop she wanted.  She was also trying very hard not to look at Alec.

He turned to the German shepherd at his side instead.  “Rifle, go get me some help, would you?”

He unhooked the dog’s leash and Rifle trotted off down the aisle.  A moment later, he came trotting back with Anton, the stock boy, in tow.

“Hey, Mr. McGregor.”  Anton always sounded so nervous around Alec.  “What can I do to help you today?”

“You can stop stacking the heavy stuff up so high.”  For one thing.  “I need a case of water.”

“You got it.”  Anton hurried over to help.

Alec wheeled his chair back out of the way.  Rifle returned to his side and sat with a huff.  The dog was just as annoyed with this as Alec was.  Anton struggled a bit but managed to get a case down without the whole pile falling on his head.  He handed it over to Alec.

“Do you need anything else, Mr. McGregor?” Anton asked as Alec put the water on his shopping cart.

“Not unless you’ve stored another heavy item up too high.”  With that, Alec had dismissed him.  Alec liked the fear he saw in Anton, the nervousness.  He knew Anton was a punk.  Alec had once stopped him and his friends from beating up a younger kid.  Since then, he was a lot more cautious and helpful.

“Come on, Rifle, we’ve still got a few more things to find.”  He hooked the dog’s harness and leash back up to the front of the cart.  While Alec rolled down the aisle, looking for the next item on his list, Rifle pulled the cart along behind him.  Rifle was a big dog, larger than most German Shepherds.  He came in handy in a lot of situations.  When they reached the end of the aisle, Alec let Rifle pass him with the cart so that he could help steer it from behind.  Although his companion was good at pulling things in straight lines, corners were not his strong suit.  The two of them then headed down the next aisle.  Alec picked out which pastas he wanted.

“Hey there, wheely boy,” a voice sounded right behind him.

Alec answered without a reaction and without turning.  “Hey, Michelle.”

“You didn’t even flinch,” Michelle sighed, feigning sadness.  “Last I checked, pasta wasn’t a reflective surface.”

“I saw you come into the store awhile ago and figured you would try again.”  Alec shrugged a shoulder and turned.

“You still should have been surprised.”  Michelle bent over and pet Rifle, who thumped his tail appreciatively.  “Hello boy, how are you doing?”  She talked to him in baby talk, just
as everyone else did.  Everyone but Alec.

Alec put his pasta into the cart.  “I was able to move my ankle a fraction this morning.”

Michelle stood back upright.  “Really?”

Alec started down the aisle again.  “Only a fraction, but it moved.”

Michelle started pushing the cart to give Rifle a break.  “Most people wouldn’t even have full control of their toes yet.”

“Only the big toe,” Alec corrected her with a grin.  “The others still come and go.”

Michelle was his physiotherapist.  He saw her three times a week to work on his legs.  They hoped that he would regain full movement, but it was a slow and mostly painful process.  Movement started in his toes and seemed to be working its way up.

“Just don’t push yourself too hard,” Michelle warned him.

“And disappoint my favourite lady?” Alec grinned at her again.  It always worked on Michelle.

She was somewhat overweight, had lots of acne scars that her makeup couldn’t quite cover, and one of her
eyeteeth was completely sideways.  Nevertheless, she was Alec’s physiotherapist, so he felt compelled to be nice to her.  You got better help when you were nice.

Michelle smiled shyly, flushing slightly like a
schoolgirl half her age.  “Well, I better be going.  You look like you’re almost done here and I still have my own things to pick up.  I’ll see you at your next appointment.”

“It’s a date.”

Michelle giggled to herself as she walked away.

Alec sighed, his grin falling away instantly, and continued to do his shopping.  Michelle was a good person
, but he just couldn’t get past that crooked tooth.  It was a flaw of his he supposed, having high superficial standards.  Although some more exercise, some better makeup, and a dentist could make Michelle a beautiful woman.  Of course, he had no idea what her health plan was like, or her income.  Although he’d thought that physiotherapists would keep themselves in great shape.  Apparently not.  When he had first heard his therapist was a female, he managed to get excited, but it turned into a letdown.

Alec found the last item on his list and headed for the checkout.  Although there were shorter lines, he picked the one with the young and cute blond
e on the cash register.  He waited his turn until he could start placing his items on the conveyor belt.

“Cute dog,” the cashier said around the gum she was chewing.  Rifle was an excellent
wingman, or rather, dog.  A lot of conversations had been started because of his presence.