Defensive Instinct (Survival Instinct Book 4) (36 page)

As Jans ran off, Danny found himself wondering what he should do next. He thought about heading back to the community centre, but also wanted to find Boyle and let him know what was going on. Looking down the length of the wall in both directions, Danny could see no one who matched Boyle’s description, so he wasn’t there. Could he be looking into an escape route like Karsten claimed? That just didn’t sit well with Danny.

As he started walking, determined to locate Boyle, he felt a bead of sweat run down his torso beneath his shirt. As he continued to search, looking down rows of containers for anyone that might be him, he felt another bead. This one gave him pause, as it was in the same spot as the first one. In Danny’s experience, he didn’t sweat like that. Looking down, he saw a red stain blooming across his shirt. It wasn’t beads of sweat he was feeling, but blood. He had torn open at least one of his stitches.

Cursing to himself, Danny redirected back toward the centre. After this, there was no way he’d be allowed back out. He was going to be confined in there with the others, only able to wonder what was going on outside.

He got back just in time to see Misha setting up a ladder against a container holding some of Evans people. One of the doors was open, and it looked like Tommy was quietly explaining what was going on so that the noises wouldn’t freak them out. The guard outside the centre glowered at Danny as he approached, his eyes focused on his injury. Danny didn’t give him the satisfaction of an acknowledgement, just squeezed back in, careful of Misha’s dogs who were right there again, since he was outside.

As Danny looked for the person who had patched him up the first time, he continued to wonder where the hell Boyle was.

Nessie stood outside the community centre, her hands wrapped firmly around the head of her cane. She had spent too much time in the centre, bunched in with everyone else ever since before that other group came and shot at them. She was only allowed to go to the toilets in a group and accompanied by a guard. She needed some air and so had slipped out the side door. The main door had dogs clustered around it, and there was no way to just simply step out of the roll up at the other end, so she had picked the little side door between the heavy containers filled with supplies. A guard stood right next to her, making sure she didn’t wander off like she wanted to. Nessie wanted to go back to her container and check on Dragon, who was locked in his cage in the dark. It was the only way to make sure he kept quiet, but Nessie worried about the bird. She also worried about that zombie the kids had found before the storm hit. Once it had blown over, Nessie, with the kids in tow, had immediately made their way to where Boyle and Karsten were organizing the cleanup. Pulling them both aside, with the kids huddled together behind her, Nessie explained what had happened. Together, they all went to check it out only to find the zombie was gone. Evidence of it still remained: gross smears on the walls and floor, the U-bolt that had held its chain, but the thing itself had vanished. Whoever had imprisoned it in there must have seen Nessie and the kids discover it and then risked going out in the storm to move the thing.

Nessie shifted her weight back and forth, knowing that Boyle was even now searching for evidence and discreetly asking questions. The moment that other group had been dealt with, he got right back to work. When that mute woman, Freya, had arrived from the Black Box, she was quickly wrangled into service as well. It had been a long time since she had visited from the Box, and therefore she couldn’t have been involved in this, which was why Boyle and Karsten convinced her to help. It didn’t take much convincing. Nessie wanted to help too, but was confined to the centre. She also understood she wasn’t completely off the suspect list. Although the kids had been with her when she first looked at the thing, and had stayed with her until she had reported to Boyle and Karsten, their alibis weren’t completely trusted. They were kids, after all, and she had many things with which to bribe them.

A sound, barely discernible above the moaning beyond the wall, drew her attention. She turned around and looked up at the building, hoping it wasn’t a creaking that indicated a new weakness in the structure.

“It’s all right, ma’am, someone’s just climbing onto the roof. Some sort of plan of Karsten’s,” the guard whispered to her.

“Ma’am?” Nessie turned to the guard, her whispering combined with a scolding tone. “You know my name, Cohen, use it.”

“Sorry, Nessie,” the young man mumbled so quietly it was nearly inaudible.

Nessie let a moment pass before whispering in a much kinder voice, “What sort of plan?”

“I don’t know; they didn’t give me all the details. They just told me someone was going up on the roof and not to worry about it.”

“Well, I’m worried. Want to go find out what’s happening?”

Cohen shook his head. “I’m not leaving my post. And you’re not walking off either.”

Nessie sighed. She was just so
bored
. There wasn’t much to do in the centre but sit around yakking, and now that the zombies had shown up, people weren’t even doing that. There was only so much she could write in her notebook when nothing was changing. She wondered what Bill was up to over in the Black Box, how his health checkup was going. She wondered if this situation would get bad enough that the people here would need to call the people over there for help.

The roof couldn’t be seen from where Nessie stood, the angle far too sharp and the distance too great. She stared up at it anyway, attempting to divine Karsten’s purpose for sending someone up there. Perhaps she should go back inside and slip out the other door that was closer to where they’d be climbing up. She wouldn’t be able to see the roof from there either, but maybe there’d be someone she could ask questions of.

Cohen was also staring up at the roof and when Nessie turned around to look out into the container yard, she spotted someone moving from one container aisle to the next. This was a common occurrence, not even that unusual during siege times, but it was the way the individual was moving that bothered Nessie. Whoever it was—she was guessing male, based on her brief look, but it could have been female—had been hunched over and scurrying. Like he didn’t want to be seen.

“Did you see that?” Nessie whispered to Cohen, knowing that he hadn’t.

“See what?” he asked, turning to face the same direction.

“Someone just moved over there,” Nessie pointed. “They looked like they were up to something.”

“They looked like they were up to something?” Cohen repeated in a disbelieving voice.

“They were moving like this.” Nessie pulled her shoulders forward and bent at the waist, walking back and forth a short distance. “Only they were moving much faster, almost a jog.”

“So? Someone probably decided to wait this out in a different container and they’re afraid of being out here.”

It was a perfectly reasonable explanation, but Nessie wasn’t so sure. She had information that Cohen didn’t.

“Can I trust you, Cohen?”

“Of course you can,” he replied, confused by the question.

“No, I mean, can I really trust you? Are you a good man?”

Cohen paused a second before answering, his eyebrows becoming conjoined in their confusion. “I’d like to think I am.”

“Okay, I’m going to tell you something that only me, Karsten, Boyle, and a small handful of others know. We’ve been keeping it quiet so as not to alarm anyone. You understand?”

Cohen slowly nodded.

“You know those containers we keep near the short section of the wall? The ones over in the corner that are supposed to be converted into new living spaces eventually? Well, a zombie was discovered chained up in one.”

Cohen visibly flinched and paled at the news.

“The zombie has since disappeared. We think the culprit knew that his secret had been discovered and used the cover of the storm to move it. Boyle’s been investigating and has personally searched the rest of the containers over there, but there’s no sign of where the zombie’s been taken. Hopefully it’s been destroyed.”

“What if it’s not?” Cohen asked the question Nessie had been hoping he would ask.

“Imagine what would happen if that person lost control of the zombie right now? Or worse, deliberately let the thing loose? It would cause chaos, havoc. People would think that the zombies outside had gotten in. They would start screaming and running, which would definitely alert the other corpses, and then they really would start coming over the walls.”

It was almost possible to see the gears turning in Cohen’s mind.

“It’s our duty to go after that person and find out what they were really up to,” Nessie prodded.

Cohen shifted in place, torn between the orders he had been given, and the information Nessie was feeding him.

“The longer we wait, the farther away from us that person gets.”

“All right, fine,” Cohen gave in. “I’ll go check out what’s happening, but you have to stay here. Do you promise?”

“Sure.”

Cohen gave her a look like he didn’t quite believe her, but could no longer hang around. He was soon moving away as quickly as sound restrictions would let him.

Nessie watched him disappear from sight, trying to decide what she would like to do. Did she want to go after this person as well? Find Boyle and tell him about it? Or check out what was happening on the roof? Although she had half-heartedly promised Cohen she wouldn’t move, she intended to break that promise. She even thought up a way to keep Cohen out of trouble should that arise. There was an advantage to being one of the elderly, in that Nessie could simply forget she had made such a promise and people would believe her. Strangely, the thing holding her back was leaving the door without anyone outside of it. Most people weren’t like her, weren’t going to risk leaving the safest building in the yard, but it wasn’t them Nessie worried about. She worried about the little kids who might wander off, disappearing out the door the second eyes weren’t on them.

Standing outside the door, Nessie resisted the urge to tap her cane on the concrete, a habit she developed when nervous. Coming up with a possible solution, she turned to the door and poked her head through it. Scanning faces and postures, she searched for someone who could help her with her predicament. When she spotted a gangly teenage boy, she thought she was in luck. Unfortunately, he wasn’t facing her way, and Nessie didn’t want to leave the door. Staring hard at the side of his head, Nessie hoped that the kid would feel her eyes boring into him.

Eventually he turned, although it took nearly three minutes and Nessie had almost given up. The moment Nessie knew he could see her, she waved him over. The kid looked around, thinking that she was gesturing to someone else. Nessie pointed at him and gestured him over again. When he pointed at himself for clarification, Nessie nodded with an exasperated sigh. Continuing to look around him as if this were some sort of mistake or trick, he made his way over to where Nessie stood half-in and half-out of the building. As soon as he was close enough, Nessie clasped his arm and pulled him outside. He clearly became agitated about the sudden increase in zombie noises.

“How old are you, kid?” Nessie whispered to him. Whatever his age was, he had already hit puberty and had sprouted up taller than her.

“Fifteen,” he puffed out his chest, looking like he was about to debate the ‘kid’ comment, but then decided against it. “Shouldn’t we be using sign?” he said instead with a complex wiggling of his fingers and arms that probably meant an approximation of the same thing.

“Look at me, you think I’m young enough to be learning that shit?” The truth was, Nessie had tried to learn. She really had, but every time she finally got down one word, another slipped out of her mind. She continued to practice letters and numbers once a week, in case of emergency, but trying to learn more than that was beyond her capability. “You got a gun?”

The teen turned and showed her the small revolver holstered just behind his hip.

“Good, leave it there. But you’re going to do something for me, and for everyone else inside that building, understand?”

“What?” he asked warily.

“You’re going to stand here, and make sure no one slips out, especially the little ones.”

“Like a guard?”

“Exactly like a guard.”

“Where’s the guy who’s supposed to be here?”

“That’s what I’m going to go find out, but I can’t leave this door until I know it’s being properly watched. Can you do that? Can I trust you to do that?”

The teenager nodded immediately, his eyes lighting up with the responsibility. Nessie was relieved that she seemed to have chosen well, that she had picked a boy who
wanted
a job like this, an opportunity to prove he could handle himself and follow orders.

“If you have any questions, go to one of the building’s corners and flag down one of the other guards, but don’t step around the corner. Make sure that this door is always within your sight when you’re not in front of it. Got it?”

“I got it,” he nodded again, causing his hair, which needed trimming, to flop about on his head.

Nessie nodded back and patted him on the shoulder. She then turned and headed off toward the container that had held the zombie. She knew there was no way she could catch up to Cohen and whoever it was that had gone sneaking by, but she could look for Boyle. Figuring out what was happening on the roof still had her mighty curious, but potential danger within the walls was a greater priority. Technically, neither was her business, not since she had told Karsten and Boyle about what the kids had found. It was up to them now, and usually Nessie was fine leaving it at that, but with everything that was going on all at once, she was no longer content to sit on her heels. She bet if more people knew, more of them would be trying to get involved as well. Nessie wondered if that was part of the reason why Boyle and Karsten weren’t telling people, and not just because they didn’t want to tip off whoever it was keeping the zombie.

As Nessie made her way between the containers, cane clasped firmly in hand, she thought about how secrets had started this whole debacle. Everyone knew it was Marble Keystone’s secret science that had created the virus thing in the first place, and that they had released it upon the unsuspecting population of Leighton. Had someone decided not to keep either of these secrets before it was too late, something may have been done to prevent them. But many tongues were held, including several who were now living in the container yard. Nessie was willing to bet everything she owned that the zombie-holding culprit was someone who used to work in the White Box in some capacity. She wondered if they were attempting to develop a cure. A noble cause, sure, but when it put everyone in danger by allowing a zombie in their midst, it resulted in immediate banishment, no exceptions. No one knew for sure, but it was generally considered that a search for a cure had resulted in that Roy monster outside the prison. Nessie had hated living in that prison, and as she walked along, she was reminded of why. Although she almost never went outside the wall here, she at least had the option, unlike living at the prison. Now, with the zombies gathered outside, it was the same.