Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel (52 page)

She looked at Walter first, who was shaken and pale but seemed to be taking it well.  Then she checked out the back seat.  Alice looked completely content petting the dog on her lap.  The boy, Danny, looked relieved.  The man though, McGregor, was clearly troubled by something.  She would have to find out what.

The Doctor

Dr. Riley Bishop looked at the blank wall in her bedroom.  Ever since she had moved to her bungalow in Leighton, it had been dominated by a massive map of the city.  Not only was it gone, but so were all her zombie route maps.  Whoever was here either knew they were zombies, or had made a good guess.  She hoped it wasn’t anyone affiliated with LeBlanc or Cole.  Whoever it was though, was travelling with Cole’s younger brother and this may prove advantageous for Riley.

She left her bedroom and went back out into the living room where Cole was sitting on her couch looking somewhat morose.  Riley didn’t like seeing him that way for a handful of reasons; the strongest being that he didn’t have his head in the game, and the game was survival.  LeBlanc was checking out a painting on the wall that she had bought when she moved in.  It was a simplistic black and white abstract piece.

“I have good news,” Riley said to both of them, but more so to Cole.

“What is it?”  LeBlanc turned to her, but Cole only gave her half his attention.  It was very obvious he cared deeply for his brother, but understood he wasn’t likely to see him again.  He was essentially beginning to mourn.  Riley needed him not to.

“I think I know where your brother and his current keeper are heading,” she announced.

Cole suddenly gave her his full attention, snapping into an upright position.  “Where?  How do you know?”

“I kept a bunch of maps in my room about where to go during an event,” she told him.

“An event?”  LeBlanc raised an eyebrow.

“You’ve seen my house; you know I’ve tried to prepare for anything and everything.  I refer to such things as events,” Riley informed him.  “Once I saw that my master city map was gone, I looked through the others.  It seems the wheelchaired individual stole all my maps labelled for a zombie outbreak.”

“You had a zombie plan,” LeBlanc grinned.

“I never believed it would happen,” Riley quickly told them.  “My father just happened to drill these kinds of things into me and my siblings.  No matter how much I thought it couldn’t happen, I drew up plans anyway.  Think of it as a hobby, except this hobby turned out to be useful.”

“So he took your zombie maps.”  Cole brought the conversation back on track.  “He knew they were zombies?”

“Maybe,” Riley shrugged
,  “or they made an educated guess.  Either way, if they took my maps, they’re likely to follow them.”

“And you remember where they go,” Cole didn’t make this a
question; he was smart enough to figure out where the conversation was going.  He smiled broadly.

“I do.”  Riley couldn’t help but give him a half smirk at his enthusiasm.  “Now I can’t say for sure they’ll even make it there, but if we head out there, there’s a possibility of finding your brother.”

“Let’s do it.”  Cole jumped to his feet, ready to head out the door immediately.

“Hold your horses.”  Riley held up a hand.  “We need supplies first.  It’s extremely rough terrain where we’re going, and there are no shops or other houses nearby.  There are supplies there, but we need to prepare for anything.”

“I thought we were.”  LeBlanc shifted his rifle.

“Do you know what happens when the power goes out?” Riley challenged him.

The random change of topic clearly threw LeBlanc off balance.  “The meat goes bad?”

“Six hours after the power goes out, and it will soon because people are probably already abandoning their posts, chemical plants can’t keep cool anymore.  Their generators will run dry,” Riley informed him.  “The chemicals will turn from a liquid to a gas.  The gas causes a pressure build and safety valves will release the excess pressure.  The pressure will be immense though, as all the liquid warms up and changes states.  Lots and lots of chemicals will be released into the air, causing poison gas clouds.  The gas clouds may also reach open flames or cars with the engines still running.  Now we have poison clouds
and
explosions to deal with.”

LeBlanc clearly didn’t know what to say to that.

Riley turned to Cole.  “Do you know what could happen ten days after the power goes out?”

Cole shook his head.  “What?”

“The generators at nuclear waste storage facilities will run out of gas if no one refills them.  The chilled water around the used fuel rods will no longer be kept chilled.  Roughly three days after that, the rods will have burned off all the water.  They’ll cause an explosion and a massive nuclear disaster.  Do either of you know how much food you need to eat during a day of say, -20 degrees Celsius?” Riley grilled them.  Neither answered.  “Do you know how to grow food in a green house?…  How about how to deal with a polar bear?  Hunt caribou?”

“Point and shoot,” LeBlanc offered an answer to the last question.

“Let me expand that; hunt with a bow,” Riley corrected herself.

LeBlanc didn’t have an answer to that one.

“All these things I’m going to need to teach you,” Riley informed them.  “Where we’re going, temperatures get real low.  There’s almost always ice except for four months out of the year.  We’re lucky that time is now.  It’s called
Polar Bear
Provincial Park for a reason.  There’s a lot of polar bears, they’re big, and they can be nasty.  You have to understand that this isn’t just something that’s likely to go away overnight.  You told me yourselves the hybrid infection is pretty much completely self-sustaining.  We could be there for quite awhile.  Bullets eventually run out.  Hunting with bows is the best option because you can retrieve your arrows and I can teach you to make more.  Due to the cold, we have to grow things in a green house.  Even that is really hard because, without much sun, we need sun lights and they run on generators and eventually gas runs out.  We need to go prepared.  Got it?”

“All right,” Cole sighed
,  “you’re the boss.  If Danny
is
heading there, he’s going to have the same problems, so if you know what we need, I’ll listen.”

“Look at you, taking orders,” LeBlanc ribbed him.

“LeBlanc, go outside and turn the ambulance around.  Back it up to the garage,” Riley turned her orders on him.

“Yes
, ma’am,” LeBlanc mocked, going as far as saluting her as he left the house.

“Cole, come with me.”  Riley led Cole downstairs and into her storage room.  “I was actually supposed to meet someone here
, but I doubt you’re willing to wait.”

“Not if I don’t have to,” Cole admitted.  “If Danny is headed north now, there is a chance of finding him along the way.  Not to mention that we could pass him and get the place ready before he gets there.”

“I’m willing to accept that.  The earlier we leave, the better.  A lot of people are likely to think that north is the way to go.”  Riley slid some flattened cardboard boxes out from behind a shelf.  “Start putting a few of these boxes together and load them up.”

“What should I load first?”  Cole readily accepted his role.  Riley did expect more resistance but
apparently, he loved his brother just that much.  Part of her understood that; she loved her siblings more than anyone.  Difference was, she knew they could take care of themselves.

“Start with the canned goods, and ammo for the hunting rifles.”  Riley pointed out which ones she meant.  “I’m going to pack a few bags for my friend and anyone he may have with him.”  She wasn’t going to abandon Cender completely.

Cole went to work on his task with military efficiency.  Riley was glad she had nearly run him over.  He was useful, and would probably continue to be.  LeBlanc was useful too, but he had a mouth on him.  He wasn’t very respectful so it was hard for Riley to respect him.

She picked out seven large hiker’s backpacks to fill with supplies to leave behind.  She didn’t think that Cender would be able to convince that many people to go with him, but due to the limited space of the ambulance, she’d have more than enough supplies to fill the seven large packs.  The medical supplies she knew that Cender would find useful were picked out first and set aside.  She would put those on top and label that bag just for him.  She also picked out the biggest tent and set it aside as well.  Since she didn’t know how many people would be showing up, she’d have to be careful how she packed the bags and she’d have to label them.  She didn’t want Cender getting stuck without something simply because it was in a bag he didn’t bring.  As she picked out what would go into the bags, she also separated a bunch of stuff she knew she and her companions had to bring, or at least, really should bring.  When LeBlanc came back inside, Riley gave him the job of taking the boxes Cole had packed out into the garage.

“Why do I have to do all the lifting?” he both grinned and complained.

Riley was beginning to hate that grin already.  “Because you talk too much.”

“I’m hurt,” LeBlanc made a show of pouting.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as sarcastic as you.”  Riley turned to Cole.  “Does he ever stop?”

“Nope,” Cole shook his head.  “He even talks in his sleep.”

Riley sighed.  “Just take the damn boxes upstairs.”

LeBlanc winked at her and took the first box.

“Would you mind if we left him by the side of the road?”  Riley was only half kidding.

“No matter how annoying he gets, it doesn’t change the fact that he saved my life.”  Cole put another packed box by the door.

“And yet you got shot in the chest,” Riley reminded him.

“Well, that part was Chant saving me.  She gave me the vest.”  Cole patted it through his black T-shirt with its Marble Keystone patches on the shoulders.  “To be literal, it was LeBlanc’s bladder that saved us.  He was behind the truck taking a piss when they opened fire.  Despite his yapping, he’s a good shot, better than me.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Riley rolled her eyes.

“So how did you get into all of this?”  Cole gestured around the room, changing the subject.

“My dad.”  Riley tossed a tent for them toward the door.  It wouldn’t need to be put into a box.  “Apparently it’s something that’s been passed on from generation to generation.  It started with my great grandpa during World War I and from there it only grew.  If my family hears something bad might happen, they prepare for it.  It was what I grew up with, and it became hard-wired.”

“Y2K must have been a really big deal for you then.”  Cole sounded serious, but Riley could tell he was joking with her.  She found him easy to read, which was pleasant and nicely, stress free.  Riley could normally only read her family; her people skills were underdeveloped.  Growing up, she had never had any friends outside of her siblings.  Her sister was her best friend and the only one she understood completely.

“Biggest and most isolated New Year ever,” she replied.

“I guess in the end though, it turned out for the best.  I’m curious, where the hell did you get the licenses to own most of this stuff?”  Cole picked up one of the military class assault rifles.  That particular model came with a grenade launcher attachment.

“I’ll be honest, most of it isn’t registered.”  Riley saw no point in lying now.  “My family made a lot of contacts and collected everything they could whenever they could.  That’s how we got the cabin too.  Although my parents never told me outright, it’s pretty obvious that it’s illegally placed.”  She remembered
that one time when she was a teenager, her dad had taken her to buy some illegal weaponry.  The cops had shown up and the two of them ended up running for their lives.  Talk about a daddy-daughter day.

“And no one’s found it?”  Cole placed another box by the door.

“It is literally in the middle of nowhere.  There are no roads going to it.  We’re going to need to fly in, or else do a lot of hiking.  It’s also hidden by some trees and a lovely giant mat of grass my mother wove,” Riley said this seriously, as it was true.  Her life was like no one else’s.  At least, no one else’s outside her family.

Cole couldn’t hold back his laughter.  Riley’s first reaction was to be pissed off, but once she started thinking about it, really thinking about it, it
was
rather amusing.  She started to giggle and then laugh too.  Their laughter played off one another until they were almost crying.  It was a lot harder than the situation and the discussion warranted but it was difficult to stop.

“What’s with the giggle fest?”  LeBlanc had come back for the next box.

“It’s nothing.”  Cole coughed and got his laughter under control, but he was still smiling.

Riley liked his smile a lot more than LeBlanc’s grin.

* * *

The three of them continued packing things until Riley thought they had enough, and they brought everything up into the garage.  Riley took the seven hiker’s packs and placed them near the door, where Cender would be sure to see them.  With a black permanent marker, she numbered each bag.  She then wrote out instructions about which bags to take and a rough list about what was in them.  The last thing she had to do was to draw up a map.  She grabbed one of her other maps to use as a reference, but drew up a much smaller and simpler one for Cender with only the directions he should need.  They were actually the directions to her brother’s place, because he had the plane they would be taking, but wrote a note about what to do if they got there and she wasn’t there.