Defensive Instinct (Survival Instinct Book 4) (21 page)

As the group moved on, they did their best to wipe off the blood using street trash: things like really old paper, the rare rag, and a lot of leaves. It was unfortunate that there wasn’t a stream or river close at hand in which to rinse off, but at least the street litter was wet from the storm. For the first time, Doyle found himself cursing efficient storm drains. Flooded streets wouldn’t be so bad.

Upon entering the bookstore, they split into two pairs to search the place for threats.

“Clear,” James called out, and received a similar response from Rose.

Once safe, everyone split up to look for their favourite genres. Doyle went straight to the mystery section, and was greatly disappointed to find it was next to the broken window. Most of the selection was heavily water damaged from not only the previous afternoon’s storm, but from several before it. Still, Doyle managed to find a few that had escaped enough harm to be readable. He checked out the books in the surrounding categories, not caring about their sun-faded covers as he added them to his pack, even surreptitiously sneaking a book from the erotica section. He wanted to include books for more readers than just himself, and that meant taking a few books he wouldn’t dare have touched in his previous life.

When he heard Canary and Rose giggling nearby, Doyle wandered his way over to see what was up. The women were in the magazine section beside the register, huddled closely together, with a large swath of formerly glossy covers scattered about their feet, knocked there by intruding winds. Rose had removed her prosthetic, some of the straps hanging out of her pack.

“Can I know the joke?” he asked, coming closer as he spotted a collection of bookmarks to loot.

“We’re just imagining what some of these actors would be like today,” Canary told him, a bright smile on her face.

“Yo, she totally still wears high heels,” Rose chuckled, pointing to a cover Doyle couldn’t see.

“Oh no, my shoe!” Canary mocked in an excessively girly voice.

Doyle didn’t get their amusement and moved on, spotting a few pens and notebooks that might be good to get.

In the middle of the store, where it was surprisingly bright thanks to the skylights scattered overhead, James was taking his time reading the back covers of some general fiction novels. Doyle hadn’t bothered when he had selected his books; he’d read anything these days.

“I already picked out what I think are the most useful ones to us, but the science section is over there if you want to take a second look.” James pointed without even glancing at Doyle, his attention completely absorbed in the back cover of the book he held.

Doyle decided to take his advice and went to the science section. There were a lot of books about space and theoretical physics that he completely ignored. If future generations ever got to the point where they were comfortable and settled enough for that kind of stuff, they’d probably have to recover a lot of ground. Adjacent to the science section was history. Doyle thought preserving some of those books was more important, so he chose a few that covered different eras. His bag was quite heavy now, so he decided he had enough.

As he made his way back to the women, curious about what they may have helped themselves to, his blood went cold as one of them swore loudly. His leisurely meander among the stacks, turned into a sprint. James reached them seconds before he did, the group now all together by the front windows. It didn’t take long for Doyle to figure out what the cursing was about. A substantially large horde was shuffling toward them, quite possibly the zombie mob they thought they had avoided.

“Check the other sides!” James ordered.

Doyle was already moving along the outer wall, peering out through the windows. Everywhere he looked, more and more zombies were filling the surrounding area.

“How did so many get around us like that?” Rose called out from the far side of the store.

“They’re coming toward the back door too!” Canary shouted, appearing from the stock room.

“We’re surrounded,” James relayed, oddly calm. “Start pushing the shelves against the windows.

Doyle obeyed immediately, no longer caring about how well the books left behind would fare against the weather. Several mystery books fell out of the broken window as the shelf he pushed up against it tipped over slightly.

“Skylights!” Rose called out from the middle of the store. She and Canary began dragging a bookshelf directly beneath one of them.

The closest zombies hit the outer walls and windows and began trying to push their way in. The air was filled with their groaning and moaning.

Canary screamed in frustration as she tried to open the skylight, balancing on top of the bookcase, but it appeared to be the sealed type.

“Just break it!” Rose shouted at her.

As the glass from the skylight cracked and rained down, so too did the glass of several of the windows. Doyle ran around the edges of the bookstore, battering back any zombies that appeared close to getting in.

“I’m on the roof!” Canary yelled down.

The bookcase James had dragged in front the door was slowly sliding, threatening to tip over with the concentration of zombies there pushing against it hard enough to bend the hinges backward. Doyle ran and threw his weight against the shelves. The glass in the door was broken; dead arms were squeezing between the frame and shelf backing to get him, scraping off their own skin in the process.

“Doyle!” Rose shouted.

Looking up, Doyle saw her on top of the bookcase beneath the skylight as James’ legs disappeared up through the opening. Lower down and beyond them, some zombies had gotten the shelves out of the way and were now pouring in, their already battered bodies becoming further cut up by the broken glass.

Doyle dashed away from the door; the bookshelf toppled over behind him as more zombies forced their way in. He reached the shelf that Rose was upon and began scrambling up, disturbed by how much the thing shook beneath him.

Once on top, he helped Rose by hoisting her up high enough that James could grab the loop on the top of her pack and haul her the rest of the way onto the roof, her stump arm seeking out whatever leverage it could to help the rest of her.

The zombies hit the bookshelf beneath Doyle and it wobbled precariously. His arms pin wheeled as he attempted to stay upright.

“Hurry up!” James called from the opening, sticking his arms through it, ready to assist.

Doyle reached up and gripped the lip of the skylight. Just as he got a hold, and James’ hands latched onto the shoulder straps of his backpack, the bookshelf below over balanced.

“Fuck!” Doyle cried out, his feet now swinging in the air. The toppling bookshelf caused a slight domino effect, knocking over several others. On the plus side, they crushed a bunch of zombies.

“Pull me!” James called over his shoulder at the girls.

Doyle did the best chin up of his life, assisted by the others, trying not to think about how close some zombie hands might be to his boots. Once he got his elbows over the sides, Canary and Rose reached down on either side of him and grabbed his belt beneath his pack. With everyone hauling together, he was quickly dragged up onto the tar paper roof and free of the skylight.

Lying on his stomach, Doyle panted, James doing the same in front of him. They looked at each other and started laughing. Doyle didn’t know why, probably just the joy of not being dead.

“I never thought a bookstore could be so excitin’,” Rose commented as she huffed down next to them.

“Let’s hope the roof is less exciting, shall we?” Canary responded. She had gashed her hand at some point and was now carefully tending to the injury. It didn’t look too bad, just painful.

“Come on, we’ve got more to do.” James sat up and brushed himself off. “We need to check out our options up here and make a decision as to whether we try to escape now, or wait them out. If we wait, we best inventory our supplies again.”

As Doyle sat up, his belly hurting from the scraping along the edge of the skylight, he was glad that he wasn’t in charge anymore. James was good at this stuff; he would probably get them out of this mess that Doyle had gotten them into. At least, that was the hope.

Cancer. She couldn’t believe she had cancer. Her parents had trained her to face everything—earthquakes, tsunamis, plague, war, alien invasion,
zombies
—except for cancer. All day, while Riley helped clean up the area above the Black Box, she found herself stopping and staring at nothing. Abby knew something was wrong; she had asked several times if Riley was feeling okay. Riley always said she felt fine, got back to work, worked hard for a while, and then found herself staring into nothing again. Even Hope realized that something was wrong. While she ran around with Peter, she frequently looked over at her mom, her little face lined with worry.

Riley had just hauled a load of fallen branches to the collection pile when a hand fell on her shoulder. She expected it to be Abby again, but instead she found herself faced with Freya.

Do you need to talk?
Instead of signing, Freya had handed Riley her small chalkboard that she had written on. Riley appreciated the courtesy. She understood that writing things down was more tedious and frustrating for Freya than signing was, but it was also more private. Since everyone had been taught sign, they could figure out whatever Freya was saying from a distance.

Riley found herself getting unexpectedly emotional. Tears threatened. She took a deep breath, looked down at her feet, and bit her tongue until it passed. Freya waited patiently until Riley got herself under control, and then gently took hold of the other woman’s arm to guide her somewhere more private. They went between a pair of train cars, sitting down on either side of the coupling mechanism, facing one another. Several seconds of silence passed between them.

Still respecting Riley’s privacy, Freya wiped clean her slate and wrote on it again, taking out a piece of chalk from the stylized tube-pendant she wore on a necklace. Riley listened to the tapping and scratching as she wrote, accepting the chalkboard when it was handed to her again.

Do you know what you’re going to do?

Riley nodded. “There’s really only one thing I can do. I need to tell some of the other doctors I trust and have them perform a double mastectomy.”

Freya gestured at her own breasts, miming cutting them off.

“Yes. Thankfully, it’s been caught early. I don’t think it’s spread. There’s no other option though. We don’t have radiation and chemotherapy treatments. All we have is surgery.” Riley knew she was speaking in a stilted, unemotional tone, almost as if she were talking about someone else. It was the only way she could talk about it.

More tapping with the chalk.
When?

“As soon as possible. Once everything is cleaned up here. Waiting would only put me in more danger.”

Would you like me to get

your sister and bring her here?

Freya had to write this in two parts, her little chalkboard not large enough to fit it all in one go.

Riley teared up again at the offer. She was unable to answer vocally, having to nod her head in response while biting her tongue again.

It is okay to be afraid.

Riley took a deep breath and steadied herself. “I know. I know it is. I just…” she didn’t know what she wanted to say. Her thoughts kept jumbling up, getting tangled together.

I will go and get your sister today.

We’ll be here tomorrow at the latest.

Riley wasn’t going to say anything, but she liked the pauses in their conversation that Freya’s writing created. It gave her an extra few seconds to try to extract a reasonable thought, or secure her emotions.

“There’s no dock, though.” Riley had seen what used to be the little dock attached to the barge dock, down river and caught on some rocks on the opposite shore. As they spoke, some volunteers were trying to free it and bring it back. There was no good way to connect the wood to the cement wall, but they were always coming up with new methods. While helping to gather the fallen branches, Riley had heard the latest suggestion was to drill more eyebolts into the cement to use as anchor points.

I do not mind the rocks.
Freya made a waving off gesture as Riley read her message. Most people avoided the cascade of rocks beside the river, as it was easy to break an ankle or leg between them. Riley could picture Freya among the rocks, moving calmly across them, no hesitation. She had a dangerous sort of grace to her.

“And they’ll just let you take a boat?” From what Riley understood, boats from here were only taken in groups or during emergencies, and Riley definitely didn’t consider picking up her sister an emergency.

Freya shrugged in an offhand manner as she wrote.
Someone should check on their storm damage.

This was true. Although they had the radios to communicate with, it was better to have someone go lay eyes on the situation personally. Riley looked at the damage that had been done here, and hoped that the others hadn’t been hit as hard.

“All right, if you’re sure you won’t get into trouble or anything. Make sure you have permission.”

It’ll be okay.

Riley’s heart squeezed in tandem as Freya gently gripped her shoulder. The other woman was about to get up and leave, when she clearly had another thought and sat back down.

Do I tell your sister? Or will you?

“You can tell her.” Riley was going to have enough trouble telling the doctors she wanted operating on her. She had no idea what to say to Hope.

Would you like me to wait?

Riley frowned, not entirely sure of the meaning behind Freya’s question.

Help you here, first.

With others
, she wrote as Riley still didn’t quite catch on.

“Oh, no. That’s okay.” Riley actually would have liked her to stay, but then it would take longer for her sister to get here, and therefore delay the surgery more. Every moment the cancer was in her was another moment it had a chance to spread.

Freya completely cleaned off her little chalkboard, using some dampness from the surrounding surfaces. She got up and patted Riley’s shoulder, the same one she had squeezed earlier, then walked off to get permission to take a boat. Riley watched her go, admiring Freya’s self-confidence. Thinking back on her life, Riley felt that she had used to be like that. She used to know what she was doing, what she wanted, but now? Even before the cancer, she always felt like she was drifting from place to place, job to job. Ever since Mathias had died.

She never talked about it, but Riley hated being this upset over him. It had been years since he was killed, and yet her throat still locked up whenever she overheard someone telling some story that involved his name. How had she become this person? How had her happiness become so entangled with the life of one man that she completely fell to pieces once he was gone? She had never wanted to be that woman, but there was no going back. Although she found happiness when she could, there was always this cloud of depression overhead, never letting it last.

Riley got up off the train car and made her way back over to the pile of branches. She grabbed a pair of gloves from the nearby bin, picked up a small handsaw, and started cutting limbs down into smaller, more manageable sizes. The small bits would be burned, while the larger, more useful pieces were separated into another pile. They would be woven into the fences, used as posts and markers in the fields, or carved into canes or other implements. Riley set herself to this work with a will, imagining her sickness sweating out of her; both the cancer in her body, and the darkness in her mind.