Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel (54 page)

What a strange saying that was, keeping your ears open.  As far as Misha could tell, the holes in the sides of his head were always open.  When he had been learning English, he realized there were many sayings that were odd, in all languages.  He often wondered where they came from, and sometimes, during his free time, he would look them up on the internet.  This one, he supposed, was just the auditory equivalent of keeping one’s eyes open.  Keeping your eyes peeled was another one.  That just sounded painful.

The large wooden slats of the fence loomed before him.  Misha crouched in the shrubbery and looked toward the top, and to the left and the right.  There was no gate in this fence to get to the other side.  Perhaps he could climb it.  He peered out from the shrubs at the house.  Movement at one of the upper windows caught his eye.  So there was someone in there.  He looked back at the fence, now hesitant to climb.  He would be exposed.  Some scratching turned his attention further along the fence.  At first, he thought it was someone on the other side scratching at the boards.  It turned out to be Rifle, on this side, digging furiously.

Misha scooted through the dirt over to the dog.  There was already a fair-sized hole under the fence from some other animal and Rifle was only making it bigger.  Once it was large enough, the big dog squeezed his way through, kicking his back legs in a way that nearly made Misha laugh out loud.  Once the dog was through he turned around and stuck his nose back under the fence, snuffling.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” Misha assured him with whispered breath.

As he squirmed under the fence, the boards scraped painfully across his back.  He didn’t like the yard on the other side.  There were no bushes,
flowerbeds, or trees.  There was no cover of any kind.  The only things on this back lawn were a back porch with a barbecue on it, and a clothesline with no clothes.  The sliding door that led out onto the porch was wide open.

Misha stuck close to the fence and crouched low as he made his way around the yard.  He tried to stick to the shadows cast by the wooden fence, but the sun was so high in the sky that there weren’t many.  There weren’t any clouds up there either; it was a perfect blue sky day.

“Excuse me, boy?”

Misha startled, wheeling around to face the back of the house, skinny arms up to defend himself.  On the porch stood an old black woman with a walker.  She peered at him though a pair of small spectacles perched upon her nose.

“Could you help me hang out my laundry?” she asked.

Misha had never been more confused.  He looked down at Rifle, but the dog hadn’t taken an attack stance.

“Who’s that with you?”  The woman looked at Rifle.  “Is it Harly?  Did you finally bring my grandson to visit?  Come here, Harly, and let me take a look at you.”

Misha had absolutely no idea what she was talking about, but he took a step closer anyway.  Rifle trotted a few more steps, sniffing at the air.  He swished his tail a few times,
and then went up to the woman.  Trusting the dog, Misha decided it was safe to follow.

“So good of you to come and see your mother, Clark.”  The woman gave Misha a winning smile when he came near.  “Come help me in the kitchen, I’m making soup.”

“I thought you were doing the laundry.”  Misha slowly followed the woman into her house, checking all the corners.

“Nonsense!”  The woman waved a hand about.  “I don’t do laundry on Tuesdays, you should know that.  Your memory must be going bad.”

With that, it dawned on Misha what was going on.  The woman probably had Alzheimer’s.  It was the only reason Misha could think of that would explain why he could be mistaken for her son.  She was completely addled.

“Where did my soup go?” the woman frowned at the empty stove.  “Oscar must have run off with it again.  He never waits until things are done cooking.  I keep telling him, ‘it’ll taste better when it’s cooked properly,’ but he just keeps on eating it too soon anyway.  No patience in that boy.”

As the woman prattled on about people Misha knew nothing about and filled up a pot presumably to make more soup, Misha looked around the whole kitchen.  Things seemed to be where they should be which led Misha to believe that the woman didn’t live in the house alone.

“Who else is here?”  Misha listened carefully for the sounds of other people but couldn’t hear any.

“That annoying buzzard Rachael is probably around somewhere.  Rachael!” The woman’s yell scared Misha into flinching and half ducking.  He instinctively stepped nearer the still open rear door.  The woman and Misha listened for a moment but there was no sound.  “She must have gone to the mart again.  I don’t know why you boys hired that woman.  I don’t need to be taken care of, and she spends half the time shopping anyway.”

Misha sat at the table, grateful to get a rest.  He knew he was taking advantage of this woman, but right now, morals weren’t too high on his list of behaviours.  He wasn’t even sure his list existed anymore.  It had become an instinctive free-for-all in his head. 

The woman continued going on about this and that.  It was hard for Misha to follow along.  Sometimes she seemed to know what year it was, other times she was far back in the past.  When she knew the year, she seemed stuck in thinking that it was Tuesday instead of Saturday.  Thankfully, Misha didn’t seem to be expected to reply to anything and could just sit there in silence.  Rifle lay down at his side, head up and following the woman’s path around the kitchen.  When the water boiled, she threw in pasta instead of soup.  Eventually the food finished cooking, and the woman piled pasta onto four big plates.  She set the table for four, not seeming to realize that Misha was still sitting there.  When she sat down across from him, she stared at him long and hard.

“Who are you?” she finally said.

Misha decided lying wouldn’t do her any harm.  “I’m a writer.  I came by to ask you your life story, remember?”  He couldn’t write anything good if his life depended on it, but it was the first thing to pop into Misha’s head.

The woman scrutinized him some more.  “I see.”  She then took a big bite out of her pasta.  “I forgot the sauce.”  She went to the fridge and took out a jar of pasta sauce. She dumped a heap of it onto each plate, cold.  “Eat up,” she told Misha.

Misha ate.  He had never been fond of pasta.  He had always preferred slabs of meat, but he dug into his plate with gusto.  Realizing he didn’t know when his next meal was going to be, he decided to make the most of this one.  When the woman wasn’t paying attention, Misha picked up one of the extra plates and put it on the floor for Rifle.  The dog’s tail wagged ferociously back and forth as he began gobbling it up.

“So, how have you been, Clark?” the woman asked.

“Umm.”  Misha didn’t really know what to say.  “I’ve been good.”

“Still seeing that whore?”

Misha nearly choked.  When he started coughing, the woman got up and got him a glass of milk.  She sat down and continued to scrutinize him.

“So, are you?” the woman asked again when Misha managed to stop coughing.

“Uh, no, I’m not,” he decided to answer.

“Good,” the woman gave a curt nod.  “You’re too good for her.”

There was silence at the table once more.  Misha cleaned off his plate and took half the pasta off the remaining plate.  He scraped the other half onto Rifle’s.

“Why are you putting food on the floor, you naughty boy?” the woman frowned.

“I’m feeding my dog,” Misha explained.

“A dog?”  The woman leaned over and looked down at Rifle.  The woman and the dog stared at each other, practically nose to nose.  “You are a dog,” the woman finally decided.  “Why is there a dog in my house?”

“I’m sorry, but I had to bring him,” Misha told her.

“When did you get a dog, Clark?  Why couldn’t you have gotten yourself a good woman, like that Rachael.”

Misha shrugged and continued to tuck into the food.  He polished off the plate and downed the glass of milk.

“Who are you?” the woman asked again.

“I told you-” Misha started to tell his lie again, but was interrupted when the woman suddenly shot up from her chair.

“What are you doing in my house?” she shouted.  “Oscar!  Oscar, there’s a strange man in the house!”

Misha got up out of the chair.  Rifle whined slightly and backed towards the open door, tail tucked between his legs.

“Get out!” she shrieked as she grabbed hold of her walker.  She kept trying to pick it up and threaten Misha with it.  “Out!  Get out!  Oscar!”

Misha quickly dashed out of the kitchen and into the backyard, Rifle at his heels.  The woman hurriedly closed the back door and glared out at him.  She wasn’t yelling anymore, but she was clearly still saying something, her lips moving near the glass.

“Thank you for the food,” Misha spoke in an indoor voice.  He knew the woman couldn’t hear him, but he was afraid to speak any louder.  “I hope you keep all your doors locked and that nothing comes through your windows.”

With that, he hurried around to the side of the house and made his way carefully to the front lawn.  The woman’s neighbours had a line of short pine-tree-looking bushes growing along the edge of their yard to separate it from the woman’s driveway.  Misha hurried over to them and lay on his stomach up against their stubby trunks.  He couldn’t quite lay under them, but there was a bit of overhang that made him feel somewhat safer.  Safer than being totally exposed, at least.  The massive amount of food he had consumed weighed heavily in his stomach.  He probably should have taken it easy, but he had been hungry.  It seemed like ages ago that he had eaten his waffles.  Of course, that was a time he’d rather not think about; he needed to focus on the now.  Next to him, Rifle burped.  He probably ate too much too.  Misha never owned a dog so he had no idea how to take care of one.  He figured splitting his food shouldn’t be too bad.

He rested for a while next to the brush.  Not only was he letting the food settle, but he was deciding on the best way to cross the street ahead. 
This street, and possibly only one more, was all he had to cross, although he was guessing at where the numbers were placed and could be totally wrong.  After his break, he inched toward the end of the scrub until he was at the bottom of the driveway and looked up and down the street.  He saw nothing that appeared to be a threat.  He then watched all the nearby houses, studying them carefully.  Some shadows moved in a few of them, but for the most part, things were still.

Misha thought about the woman with Alzheimer’s.  He wondered if the fact that she tried to attack him was related to what was going on out here or not.  He had no idea what was happening to his neighbourhood.  People just seemed to have gone nuts.  He had seen a few attacks occur during his journey.  They were excessively violent and were completely unprovoked.  Misha figured that he
had
kind of provoked the woman and, therefore, her attack wasn’t related to the rest.  Why the others were flipping out, he had no idea.  He decided then to avoid everyone, even people that at first seemed normal.  After all, Dean had been normal.  Although, Dean also seemed to have died.

That thought was quickly pushed out.  Misha studied the street again and decided that the best course of action was to make a mad dash across.  He pushed himself up onto his hands and the balls of his feet.  Both were cut and dirtied worse than the rest of him.  Rifle seemed to sense what was going on and got up into a half crouch.  After one last look around the area, Misha ran for it.  Rifle bolted ahead, intuitively knowing where to go.  Misha’s target destination was the porch of the house across the street.  Most of the porches in this area were made out of slabs of concrete on top of brick, but this one was wooden and had a space large enough for Misha to crawl under.  He squirmed his way inside and held his breath, listening.  The only sound he heard was Rifle panting at his side.  No shrieks, screams, or groans, no pounding of feet.  Misha shifted around and peered out from under the porch.  Nothing moved out there.

He crawled to the back of the porch and lay on his back against the house.  His stomach didn’t appreciate the run and was making some upset motions.  It was cool under the porch compared to out in the sunlight.  It also smelled of dirt, dust, and cobwebs.  There were bound to be bugs crawling around under there, but Misha didn’t think about them.  Rifle lay up against his side and huffed.  Misha put his hand on the dog’s head and scratched his ears a few times.  The dog’s tail thumped lightly in the dirt.  It was surprisingly comfy under the porch.  The dirt was more mushy than hard, and the heat off the dog combined nicely with the cold house wall.  He closed his eyes and sighed.

* * *

The next thing Misha knew, Rifle was licking his face.  Misha spluttered and pushed his snout away.  Rifle was standing as tall as he could under the porch, looking down at his face.  He couldn’t remember feeling the dog get up.  He must have actually fallen asleep.  Misha tried to ask Rifle what was up, but his throat was so full of mucus that no sound came out.

This turned out to be a good thing because a creak sounded from the wood above.  Someone was walking around up there.  Misha couldn’t tell what they were doing or whether they were dangerous.  The footsteps wandered from one end of the porch to the other and back.  Misha slowly pushed himself up on his elbows and peered through a crack in the boards.  He couldn’t see much more than part of the house’s outer wall and the eaves high overhead.  He heard the footsteps coming closer, starting near his feet and coming toward his head.  A bit of dirt fell between the boards and landed lightly on his bare stomach.  Whoever was up there stopped right above Misha’s head.  He couldn’t see what he or she looked like due to his very narrow field of view and some shadows being cast, but he could see that whoever it was, was a lot bigger than him.