Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel (91 page)

“I couldn’t without risking waking the kids,” Alec told her.

Danny gave him an annoyed look.  He still didn’t seem to like being called a kid even though, since his brother’s return, he had basically regressed to one.

“Got the keys?” Mathias asked next.

“No, but they’re most likely on a pegboard somewhere nearby.  If not in here, then out in the office.”  Alec thumbed toward the metal door.

They all searched the shop, but the keys were nowhere to be found.  Eventually Mathias went out to look for them in the office.  He found them and quickly returned.

“Doesn’t look like there’s any more zombies out there right now,” Mathias commented heading toward the car.

“Doesn’t mean there aren’t any right outside that roll up,” Alec gestured to the garage door as he rolled over to the trunk.  He knew the engine would start.  He had fixed it himself.  He had been good at three things his whole life; shooting, fixing engines, and pleasing women.  Although that third one had taken a beating lately.

Mathias sat in the driver’s seat and put the key in.  He turned it over, and the engine roared to life.  At least it roared as well as a twelve-year-old car with a knock
could
roar.

“Wicked,” Danny grinned broadly.

“I’m driving,” Bishop ordered Mathias out of the driver’s seat.

“Yes
, ma’am.”  Mathias popped the trunk first then climbed out.

Danny helped Alec bring the bags to the trunk.  “Is your chair going to fit in there with these?”

“I think one or two bags are going to have to sit in the back,” Alec sighed.  He was not looking forward to lifting himself up again.  His arms and legs both still ached from all the work they had done the day before.

“Hey, Mathias?”  Alec gave up trying to do it on his own.  “Can you help me get in the car?”

“Sure thing.”  Mathias walked over.  “What do you need me to do?”

Alec wheeled up to the front seat.  “Just give me a bit of a boost.”

Mathias grabbed his one arm and helped lift, while Alec used his other to pull himself onto the front seat.

“You must be having a hell of a time,” Bishop commented.

“Thanks for noticing,” Alec grumbled.

“Actually, I’m impressed,” she continued.  “A lot of people in your situation wouldn’t have made it nearly this far.”

Alec didn’t comment, but that did make him feel a little better.  Probably only because it was coming from her, though.

Mathias shut his door for him and walked his chair back to the trunk.  Alec watched in the rear-view mirror as Danny showed his big brother how to collapse it.  He clearly adored the guy and loved being able to show off some new knowledge.  Alec could see the resemblance in the boys.  Judging by Mathias, Danny had a good chance of growing up to be halfway decent looking.  Mathias wasn’t anything like movie star quality, but he had a face that wouldn’t scare anyone off either.  The bigger Cole even had some old acne scarring in the same place that little Cole was getting his.

They argued and debated about the best way to pack the trunk until Mathias played the ‘I’m older’ card.  They packed the trunk as best they could.  Danny’s backpack and Alec’s rucksack had to share the backseat with them.  Danny peeled Shoes up off the floor and sat down with him behind Bishop.  The dog grumbled.

“Everybody good to go?” Mathias asked, closing Danny’s door.

The other three in the car gave a thumbs up.

“Nobody needs to pee or anything?” he grinned.

Nobody said anything.  Alec had a feeling though, that about ten or twenty minutes out, they would need to pull over for a bathroom break.  Everyone just wanted to leave this place and fast.  Nothing good had happened here since the sun had come up.

Mathias walked up to the door and placed his ear against it.  He was listening for the sounds of zombies outside.  Smart guy.  Then he leaned down and grabbed hold of the rubber strip again.  The door lifted easily this time, but noisily.  Mathias quickly hurried back to the car and jumped in behind Alec.  As soon as his door was shut, Bishop pulled out of the garage.

“How are we on gas?” Mathias quickly asked before they could hit the road.

“Don’t worry, I checked,” Bishop waved off his concerns
, “we have a full tank.”

“That still won’t get us all the way.”  Alec knew the distance.

“No, but I know where all the gas stations are between here and there, so we’ll be able to stop and get some before we run out.”  Bishop knew the distance better than he did.

“That’s why we ended up here last night,” Mathias added as he shifted the bags to get comfortable.  “We were running low on gas, and Bishop knew about this place.”

Alec nodded.  Then he had a thought.  “You call her by her last name too, huh?”

“I’m pretty sure she’d kill me if I used her first name,” Mathias sounded like he was only half joking.

“I don’t even know it.”  Alec looked over at Bishop, expecting her to tell him.

“What does it matter?” she clearly didn’t want to tell him.

“I think we should all use first names,” Alec told everyone in the car.  “First names are more personal, and we’re going to be hanging out with each other for what will probably be a long ass time.”

“Well, you all already know me as Danny,” the kid spoke up.

“Right,” Alec nodded.  “And you can call me Alec.  It makes me feel more buddy-like with you.  Less impersonal.”

“I guess I’ll start thinking of you as Alec too then, as opposed to McGregor,” Mathias agreed.

Alec looked at Bishop, waiting for her to say something.

She sighed heavily.  “Fine.  I’ll call you boys by your first names, and you can use mine.  It’s Riley.”

“I would have taken you for a Samantha,” Alec told her.

This actually caused Riley to laugh.  It was a surprisingly harsh sound.

* * *

They reached the highway and came to a screeching halt.  Riley quickly slammed the old car into reverse and began backing up the way they had come.  The highway was full of zombies.  The mob from the city must have trooped by, trailing a secondary mob of undead behind it.  Some of them spotted the vehicle and lurched after them.  The groans and shrieks they made alerted several others.  Soon a swarm was peeling off the highway after them, many running full speed.

“Hold on!” Riley shouted and spun the wheel hard.

Alec had just enough time to grab his
armrest and the handle above the door before the car spun.  His hip was slammed painfully into the side of the door.

Riley seemed to be an expert driver as well as a doctor and a survivalist.  She slammed the stick back into drive, and they took off, flying away from the hoard.

Alec checked the mirrors, watching the crowd recede.  Soon enough, they were cruising past the gas station and mechanic’s shop again.

“I hope you know another way to get to your brother’s,” Mathias said, as he too, turned in his seat to watch behind them.

“I do, but it’s going to be a lot bumpier,” Bishop sighed.  “Alec, this car isn’t prone to overheating is it?”

“No idea,” Alec shrugged.

“Well, let’s hope it isn’t, I may have to push it pretty hard at times.”  Riley turned the car down a smaller road.  “What I wouldn’t give for four wheel drive right about now.”

The new roads were winding and in various states of upkeep.  Some were hard packed dirt, others gravel.  Some were two lanes wide, and another was so narrow the trees on either side brushed against the doors and roof of the car.

“I take it you wouldn’t find most of these roads on a map,” Alec commented as another branch scraped his side of the car.

“Nope,” Riley seemed rather calm as she drove.

“We’re not going to get lost are we?” Danny asked worriedly.

“We won’t get lost,” Riley assured him.  “I know these roads almost as well as the highway.”

“Why?”  Alec realized that was a very encompassing question with this woman.  There were a lot of ‘whys’ he had about her life.  He remembered what her house had looked liked.

“In case of an event where the highways were closed off and guarded,” Riley said it like it was nothing.

“Seriously, Riley is prepared for anything,” Mathias said.

Riley looked a little irked by the first name use, but didn’t say anything about it.

“Again, why?”  Alec thought it kind of insane.  Any other time it would be
completely
insane, but under the current circumstances, it was extremely useful.

Riley shrugged.  “People in my family have apparently always thought this day would come.  Maybe not zombies, specifically, but something.  Every situation you could think of has probably been thought up and planned for by my family.”

“Even aliens?” Danny asked.

“Yup,” Riley nodded, looking at him in the rear-view mirror.  “And not just aliens in general, but all kinds of aliens.  Locust-like types here to take our resources, enslavement types, body snatcher types.  Again, you name it, we Bishops have a plan.”

“What about sudden nuclear war?” Alec asked.

“Well, in my case, the plan is to kiss my ass good-bye,” Riley laughed again.  “My family was rather against me moving into the big city of Leighton.  Most world-ending stuff starts with cities.”

“So they would have thrown a shit fit if you moved to, say, Toronto,” Mathias said.  Alec could already picture his grin without having to see it.

“I wouldn’t be invited to Thanksgiving if I did that.  Leighton was as large as I could go,” Riley was also grinning.

“What if you went to New York?” Danny wondered, enjoying the conversation.

“Excommunicated.  They would deny my existence,” Riley sounded light hearted about this, but Alec also got the impression that she wasn’t lying.

“I don’t know, I think I’d opt out of your family’s Thanksgivings,” Mathias commented.

“Ah, but why?” Riley mocked sadness.  “Wouldn’t you want to be grilled on what to do if a tsunami was coming?  Or the Norwegians started invading from the north?” 

“Not the normal dinner topics with your family then I take it?” Alec chuckled slightly.

“Not even close,” Riley shook her head.  “Don’t even think about telling someone how your day went unless it included news about the possible end of the world or some sweet bow hunting kill you made.”

“You know how to bow hunt?” Danny was amazed.

“You know, we’ll probably have to learn, right?”  Mathias turned to his brother.

“Cool.  Bet I’m better than you at it,” Danny challenged him.

“Ha, I doubt it.”  They really were brothers.

“I’ll probably kick both your butts.”  Alec looked over his shoulder.

“FUCK!” Riley suddenly screamed, startling everyone.

Alec didn’t have enough time to face forward again to find out what the screaming was for.  The car was suddenly skidding sideways.  It went off the road and down a steep drop.  Alec could feel the car threatening to tip over, to roll, but it slammed into a tree, rock, or something instead.  They came to a stop on an angle, Riley sitting considerably lower than him.  The window next to her was smashed from the impact.  They had hit a tree.

“Everyone okay?” Mathias asked from behind him.

“I’m okay,” Danny’s voiced trembled.  “Shoes seems okay too.”

“Riley, Alec?”  Mathias grabbed the back of Alec’s seat.  He needed the leverage to pull the bags off
Danny, which had fallen on him.

“I’m okay.”  Riley checked herself over.

“What happened?”  Alec turned his head to look back at the road.

He quickly saw his answer.

Apparently, they had rounded a fairly sharp bend and almost smacked right into a large white truck.  Guys dressed up in gear very similar to Mathias’s and LeBlanc’s stood on the road with rifles pointed at them.  Keystone mercenaries, their personal soldiers.  Their faces were stone cold.

“Get out of the vehicle!” one of them ordered.

“Yeah, ’cause I planned to stay in this shit box,” Alec muttered and rolled his eyes.  “Mathias, you’ll probably have to be our liaison.  That tree seems to be blocking Riley and Danny from getting out, and I won’t be able to stand for very long on my own.”

Mathias nodded.  He was eyeing the soldiers suspiciously.  It was possible he even knew one or two of them.  He opened up his door and scrambled out onto the hill, arms raised high.

“Hey, guys,” Mathias said cheerfully.  “Lovely weather we’ve been having isn’t it?”

Alec watched the soldiers give each other strange glances.  They were probably confused by Mathias’s outfit.  One of them said something into a microphone attached to the side of his head, but he spoke too quietly for Alec to hear.  He attempted to read his lips, but he had never been very good at it.  His spotter, Nick, had always been the one to do it, if it needed doing.  That guy had a knack for it.

“How many in the car?” the man asked, glancing past Mathias.  He made brief eye contact with Alec.