Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel (79 page)

Someone was looking for her.  Jessica peered out the door and could see Abby walking out of the corn.  She must have seen the horse and guessed that Jessica was in the barn.  Now would be the best time for Jessica to strike.

She looked around the barn for the best place.  She could jump from the loft, but that risked breaking her leg.  There was a back door.  Jessica ran over to it and opened it up.  There were no pigs outside this door.  There was a large flat stretch of land, and then a slope that led to a swiftly flowing river.  The owners of the farm probably walked their horses down there for a fresh drink every now and again.

Jessica left the door open and flattened herself against the outside wall of the barn.

“Jessica!”  The voice was much closer now, just inside the barn’s other door.

She waited in silence, taking the knife out of her pocket.  Only a few more feet to go.

As soon as a shadow passed through the doorway, Jessica whipped her arm out, striking like a cobra.  It wasn’t Abby though, it was Cillian.  Her razor sharp knife slid easily through the flesh of his face.

“Jessica!” Abby screamed.  “It’s us!”

“You made me hurt him!” Jessica screamed, wheeling on the other girl who stood just behind Cillian.  She raised her shovel and swung it down toward her shocked face.

Abby was quick though, and dived out of the way.  Jessica’s killer shovel hit only dirt.

“Jessi, what the hell are you doing?” Abby screamed.

“Don’t you dare call me that!”  She had no right to use that name.  No right at all.  She swung the shovel again, but again, Abby ducked out of the way.  Despite swinging it one-handed, Jessica managed to bury the shovel’s head into a wooden beam.  She didn’t bother to try to pull it out and focused on using her knife.

Abby scrambled backwards, but tripped over something in the dark.  Jessica grinned at her luck.

Two thick arms grabbed her from behind, though.  They dragged her outside and threw her toward the hill.  She stumbled, but managed to keep upright.  She turned, furious, and saw that it was Cillian.  The side of his face was a bloody mess.  Even in the dark, Jessica could see that her knife had sliced through his cheek.

“How could you?” Jessica screamed at him.  He cared more about that cunt, Abby, than he did for her.

He had to die as well.  It was better for both of them.  She went at him with the knife.  Unlike Abby, Cillian fought back; he didn’t just run away.  But he never directly hit Jessica.  He didn’t say a word.  It probably hurt his face too much to move it.  But he hit her forearms, knocking her stabs off course.

Jessica slashed at the air in front of him.  Finally she got him, the knife burying into his gut.  She had won.  Suddenly though, he tackled her.  Cillian charged at Jessica, wrapping his large arms around her small waist.  They went tumbling down the hill, head over heels.

Jessica managed to disentangle herself before they hit the water.  She collapsed at its edge.  Cillian however, went tumbling into it.  Jessica got to her knees and saw Cillian floundering.  He had never been a strong swimmer, and his heavy boots and firefighter’s gear were dragging down his bleeding body.  The river was deeper than it first appeared, and the swift current was quickly dragging him away.

If he managed to survive the river, she would deal with him later.  Right
now, she had a bitch to take care of.

Jessica looked around and found that the knife had managed to avoid the river as well.  She scooped it up and began scrambling back up the hill.  She went back into the dark barn, but couldn’t see the cunt, Abby, anywhere.  She went back outside to see if Cillian had made it to shore yet.  Maybe she
would
take care of him first.

“Hey bitch!”

Jessica turned around just in time for the field hockey stick to connect with her face.  She was swung around by the force and staggered back toward the hill.  Who knew Abby had that kind of hit in her?  Jessica spat out a tooth.  Her mouth filled with the taste of her own blood.  She turned around and saw Abby standing there with the stick raised high.  Tobias stood next to her.  Goddamn freak dog.

“Where’s Cillian?” he demanded.

“He flewwww away,” Jessica laughed, making wing motions with her hands.  She wasn’t sure what she found so funny.  Her tongue explored the space where a tooth had once been.

“Why?” Abby screamed, tears running down her face.  Weak.  “Why did you do that? 
What the hell is wrong with you?
”

“
Because you were stealing him from me
!” Jessica screamed back, her blinding rage returning in an instant.

“I would never,” Abby gasped, genuinely shocked.

“You fucking flirt.”  Jessica spat at her.  It was mostly blood.  The side of her face throbbed, a bone was probably cracked.  Again.

“I’m a lesbian, you selfish cow!” Abby screamed at her.

Jessica cocked her head to one side, barely understanding.  “A lesbian?”

“I’m more likely to flirt with you than with him.”  She was sobbing, her grip on her stick loosening.

Jessica started laughing.  A lesbian.  Of course she would be a lesbian.  A lesbian that lived right across the hall from a couple of gay men, why not?

She had felt threatened by a goddamn lesbian.  Cillian had flirted with her.  He had flirted with a chick who would never have any interest in him.  She had killed him because of a lesbian.

She attacked with a furious rage, her laughter suddenly cut short.  Abby was unprepared, but Tobias wasn’t.  He raised a pistol.  Jessica stopped short, an immediate reaction to the gun.  Tobias took several steps toward her, while she took several steps back.  They walked this way until they reached the water’s edge.  Jessica couldn’t back up anymore.

“Give me the knife.”  Tobias held out his hand.

Jessica looked at his hand, and then her knife.  What to do?  If she ran, she would be shot.  It was just like that time… like that time in the woods.  Helpless.

No, this time she had a knife.  Tobias had come too close.  She slashed out, grazing the knuckles of the hand holding the pistol while ducking out of its sights.

Tobias screamed in pain and dropped the gun.  Jessica tried to duck around him but he managed to grab hold of her shirt.  He yanked hard, pulling her off her feet.  Jessica tried to bring the knife around, but all of a sudden, Abby was there.  She swung her field hockey stick the way it was meant to be swung, like a golf club.  The crook end connected with her hand, breaking her fingers and sending the knife flying.

Ignoring the flair up of pain, Jessica wasn’t going to let something like a broken hand stop her.  She would bite if she had to.  She went for the freak’s ankles.  He grabbed hold of her and they ended up in a tussle on the ground.  Jessica realized that Abby could do nothing without risking hitting the dog freak.

Jessica kept trying to hit him in the nuts, every guy’s weakness, but somehow she kept missing.  She felt water on her hair, and then her back.  She was partway into the river.  Tobias got his hands around her neck.  Jessica’s eyes widened as she figured out what he was going to do.

She tried to scream out
no, don’t do that
, but a rush of water literally drowned out her words.  She should have tried to hold her breath, but she couldn’t, her lungs just wanted to scream.  She thrashed, trying to get at Tobias’s eyes, but his arms were longer than hers were.  She remembered his shoulder wound and starting aiming for that, but even solid hits didn’t loosen his grip.

No, not the freak, anyone but the freak.  Even being killed by the lesbian cunt, Abby, would have been better than the freak killing her.

Still, Cillian was in this river somewhere.  They would be together forever now, and nothing would be able to separate them.

Jessica breathed in, her lungs taking in the cold sweet water.

Daniel

Danny yawned so wide that his jaw cracked loudly.  It wasn’t the first time it had done so in the past half hour.  He was exhausted.  A day had never been so long in his life, yet so short at the same time.  It felt like both ages and minutes ago he had been sitting at home playing his video game with his online friends.  His limbs were beyond exhausted and felt like lead, but he continued managing to put one foot in front of the other and keep going.  The backpack felt like a sack of rocks strapped to his shoulders, but he wasn’t going to complain.  Alec had a much heavier bag strapped to his own.

Just getting up the off ramp was a struggle.  Alec was clearly tired as well, although he wouldn’t say a word to Danny.  Danny helped push him up the grade, sharing the load.  Even little Alice helped.  Shoes’s string leash had been tied to the armrest of Alec’s chair, but there was no way the dog was going to help.  It trotted along next to them huffing away.  Shoes was showing his age, getting a lot more of a workout than he needed.

Once they reached the top of the ramp, they took a much needed rest.  Danny sat on the pavement.  It was dark now, but the pavement still held the sun’s heat and was quite warm.

“How far to the service station?” he asked, slightly panting.  He didn’t think this would be so hard.

“Depends on the road surface,” Alec told him as he pulled his bag around in front of him and started rooting around in it.  “Dirt will slow me down, and so will hills.  If it’s a flat, paved shot, then maybe twenty minutes.”

“Let’s hope it’s a flat, paved shot then,” Danny sighed.

“Here.”  Alec passed him a water bottle and a protein bar.  “Your body hasn’t been getting enough of what it needs.  Those won’t exactly fix the problem, but they should act as a temporary Band-Aid.  Here
, Alice.”  He handed the same things to her.

“I don’t like this.”  Alice tried to hand the protein bar back to Alec.

“Have you ever tried one?” Alec asked her.

“No,” she shook her head twice.

“Then how do you know you don’t like it?” Alec wondered.

“I just do,” Alice said firmly.

“Just try some,” Danny told her.  “Look, I’m eating mine.”

“And my Daddy likes gravy and I don’t,” Alice pointed out.

“Even if it doesn’t taste good, you have to eat it,” Danny tried to convince her.  “How about we make a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Alice looked at him suspiciously.

“Whatever kind you want, so long as you eat that,” Danny offered.

“I want a princess Barbie,” Alice told him.

“Well, I don’t have one on me, but the moment the opportunity comes up, I’ll get you one.  Deal?”  Danny held out his hand.

Alice continued to look at him suspiciously.  “Pinkie swear?”

“I pinkie swear.”  The two of them hooked their pinkie fingers together and shook once.

Danny was scared for Alice nearly all the time.  He had charged himself with taking care of her, just as he had with Emma.  Emma hadn’t made it and Alice was considerably younger and smaller than she had been.  A tiny girl against the world.  Danny had to try very hard to not mentally superimpose little Nelly’s bloody face over Alice’s.

“Open this first.”  Alice held the water bottle out to Alec.  He cracked it open and handed it back, then opened his own.

Alice unwrapped the bar and took a tiny bite.  She made a disgusted face and instantly took a drink of water.  She kept eating it though, just washing down every bite with the water.

Danny had no idea what a princess Barbie was, or if the opportunity to get one would ever arise, but he would keep his promise if he could.

“Danny, hand me the helmet,” Alec asked, holding out his hand.

Danny took the army helmet off and passed it over.  Although he felt safer with it on, it was nice to take it off.  His scalp was all sweaty from it.

He watched as Alec poured some water into the helmet and put it down next to Shoes.  Shoes started lapping it up immediately.  Taking advantage of his bare head, Danny rubbed his hands through his hair, scratching at his scalp.  He had never wanted a shower more badly than right at that minute.  He wondered if he would ever again get the chance to shower like he used to.  Or use flush toilets and toilet paper.  He was not looking forward to the time when his body decided it needed a bowel movement.

“We should get moving again,” Alec eventually sighed.  He picked up the helmet from which Shoes had drunk every drop of water, and handed it back to Danny.

Danny decided to wait until it dried out completely before putting it back on his head.  He used the straps to attach it to his backpack then got up on his feet again.

At least leaving the off ramp was a downhill process.  Alec could easily go down on his own, and walking was just generally easier.  Alec probably could have gotten down a lot faster than Danny and Alice, but he applied his brakes in such a way that he kept pace.  He had also scooped Shoes up and put the dog on his lap so it could take a longer rest.

“Do you think my Daddy will be able to find me?” Alice suddenly asked.

“I don’t know,” Alec shrugged,  “it seems unlikely.”

Danny was surprised by Alec’s blunt honesty.