Defensive Instinct (Survival Instinct Book 4) (58 page)

For once, Danny found he couldn’t sleep come nightfall. He lay on his back in the dark, remembering the night before the zombie assault. This wasn’t so different.

“Jon, you awake?” Danny whispered in the quietest voice he could.

“Yes,” Jon replied immediately.

“I assume you volunteered for tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Are you scared?”

This time there was a pause before the answer came, but it was the same as the others. “Yes.”

They continued to lie in silence for several more minutes, but Danny knew that Jon hadn’t fallen asleep during that time.

“Do you think this will work?”

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly.

“I hope it works.”

“Everyone hopes it’ll work.”

“Do you think things will go back to normal after this?”

“No,” Jon replied bluntly.

“Boss thinks there’s something wrong with you, you know, like, in your head?”

“Well, he’s not wrong.”

“Yeah, but he said it like there’s nothing wrong with him either. Like he’s not messed up like the rest of us.”

“No need to get worked up about it.”

“I’m not, I’m just…”

“Distracting yourself?”

“Yeah.”

They lapsed back into silence, and this time Danny didn’t bother to break it. He continued trying to sleep and found himself staring into the dark once more.

***

The next morning, everyone was sombre, moving at a more sluggish pace than usual. Only around the construction project were things chaotic as people tried to get it done. For several nights, people had worked in shifts to complete it on time.

Danny shovelled the ashes of burnt zombies into the river all morning until he heard that the project was finally completed. He got his lunch from the community centre and forced down each bite, wondering how many of them were eating their last meals, and whether this one was his. Either way, he couldn’t taste it. Afterward, he reported to the docks.

“Thank you all for volunteering,” Bronislav told them once everyone had arrived. “Could you all try to split up into groups, standing with the people you’ve worked with most often?”

Danny found himself standing with Jon, Misha, and Bryce, whose face wasn’t looking nearly as swollen as it had, but was still discoloured.

“How’s Larson?” Danny asked him.

“He’s in the clear infection wise, but it’s not like the finger will ever grow back.”

A few days ago, Larson had been working on the construction project when a rat popped out and chomped down on the ring finger of his left hand, piercing both work glove and flesh. Luckily for Larson, he had been holding a pair of wire cutters in his right hand. Reacting quickly, he chopped off the bitten finger, with the rat still hanging off the end of it. His scream had been loud and shrill, quickly bringing the medics who found him crushing the rat flat beneath his boot while blood flowed freely from his new stump.

“I stopped in to see him earlier,” Bryce continued. “He was making jokes about never being able to marry. I think he’s mostly disappointed he can’t come today. How’s your shoulder?”

“Still hurts, although all this work has kept the muscle from stiffening and the stitches haven’t popped for several days.” The duct tape he had taken to strapping over the wound helped with that. A little voice within Danny begged him to back out, insisting there was still time. Danny squashed it. He wasn’t going to let his friends go without him.

“All right, you four will be pullers on the front,” Bronislav told their little group as he went by.

“That’s the most dangerous job, isn’t it?” Misha sighed.

“I think Bronislav has the most dangerous job, actually,” Jon corrected him. “He’s going to be on top of the conning tower shouting orders.”

“Not in the sub?” Bryce wondered.

“He’s got more than enough sailors who know what they’re doing; they don’t need him inside. Come on, let’s get on board.”

The U-boat rested lower in the water than it had when it first arrived. On one side of the top decks, their makeshift cranes for getting large things over the wall and lifting containers had been bolted and modified. Beneath them, half-below the water, stubby containers with doors on their sides had been welded on sideways so that their doors faced upward. On the other side, to balance the weight and offer protection, other small containers had been sliced up and welded back together to form a haphazard-looking barrier. The thing looked like a monster.

Danny scrambled across the gangplank, taking up a position with Jon, Bryce, and Misha at the front. A newly constructed and awkward wall bent at a ninety-degree angle along the forward deck, so the four huddled up in the corner where they wouldn’t be seen. The rest of the volunteers came aboard as they were given their assignments. The sub’s crew was already preparing inside.

“How are the dogs?” Danny asked Misha while they waited.

“They’re fine. Rifle’s been limping a bit more; I think he keeps overexerting himself. The rest are all delighted about the rats they’ve been catching. I’m glad they eat the things instead of bringing them to me like some of the cat owners have been dealing with.”

“Yeah, Robin was telling me that Splatter keeps doing that,” Jon added.

“Splatter made it out of the Black Box?” Danny hadn’t seen the calico cat anywhere.

“Apparently, he spent more time outside the Box than in. He was already out there when the attack came. Robin doesn’t know whether he followed the column to the submarine or someone found him and carried him, but he was loaded aboard and Robin came across him sometime after she got out.”

“I feel sorry for those people whose pets couldn’t get out,” Misha spoke quietly. “They’re likely still in there.”

“Don’t think about that,” Bryce insisted. “The animals that got left behind are likely already dead. Tell me, if your dogs were in that situation, would they just accept their new masters or fight them?”

“I know some would fight, but others I’m not sure about.”

“Once one dog attacks, those cunts won’t trust any of the animals. They’ve probably shot them all already.”

Danny had no idea if that was true or not, but he let himself believe it was. He needed to hate these people or he might never sleep again.

“I’m actually surprised you’re coming,” Danny commented in Misha’s direction.

“Why’s that?”

“I don’t know, you’ve just looked…tired.”

“I’ve been tired before.”

“I’ve never seen you like this though.”

“You didn’t know me in the first twenty-four,” Misha replied, obviously referring to the Day. The way his ghostly eyes pierced into Danny he knew not to ask more. Danny had been too young to hear and remember all of Misha’s story when they first met; all he really knew was that the former Russian had survived with basically nothing but Rifle by his side. Danny could remember the way he used to be a bit wary of Misha, but tried to hide it, recalling the man’s injuries, especially the way his cut-up feet looked, and how he was practically feral. Everyone had been weird that first day at Riley’s cabin as they adjusted to what had happened, but Misha was the only one Danny found himself frightened of. That didn’t take long to change, however, and they became good friends, family even.

“So why
did
you volunteer?” Jon asked. “I’m not used to seeing you without your dogs.”

“Why did
you
volunteer?” Misha countered, getting a little bristly with all the questions aimed at him. “Pretty sure we’re all here for the same damn reason.”

The sub was finally loaded up and rumbled to life beneath them, cutting off their chatter. With all of the new additions, they were slow to accelerate. Danny watched the far shore slowly slide away as they entered the big bay. They would pass between Animal and Quarantine Islands, but the wall was on the wrong side for Danny to be able to see anyone. Figuring he should at least try, he left the huddle in the corner, jumping up and grabbing the edge of the wall when he thought they were passing the right location. Hauling himself up, he peered over at Animal Island, trying to spot his nieces. They were easy to spot, as all the kids had gathered the moment someone let them know the sub was moving. Hope and Dakota stood with their best friends, Becky, Adam, and Peter, all of them waving. Dakota had taken her hat off and waved with that, while Peter and Adam were trying to hold Hope up for a better view. Danny waved back, but then lost his one-handed grip and stumbled back down onto the sub’s deck. He didn’t know why the others were doing this, but he knew he was doing it for them. Danny had only been fourteen when the Day happened, not much older than Hope and her group. He had survived thanks to the help and sacrifice of others, and now it was his turn to do the same for the next generation.

“Who’s watching?” Bryce asked as Danny rejoined the group.

“The kids, Becky included. I’m guessing all the adults are too busy.”

“I wonder how many of them need new parents,” Jon thought aloud.

Hopefully not many
, Danny thought to himself. “Hey, Jon, do you remember that girl you had a crush on back before the Day?” he suddenly remembered.

“What girl?”

“The one you went all vegetarian for.”

“
You
were a vegetarian?” Bryce raised an eyebrow. Jon could devour a slab of meat like nobody’s business.

“Haha, right! I totally forgot I was a vegetarian once. I’m pretty sure I forgot that the moment the zombies showed up.”

“Too bad
they’re
not vegetarians,” Bryce quipped.

The three of them continued to talk about idle matters like they usually did when going out on scavenger trips. Misha stayed quiet, clearly listening but not adding anything to the conversation.

“Quiet in the ranks, we’re approaching target,” Bronislav called down to everyone from the conning tower. “Get to your positions.”

Misha was the first to scramble over to the line, with Jon, Danny, and Bryce following closely behind him.

“I still can’t believe we built catapults on the side of a submarine,” Bryce commented as they picked up the length of rope.

“They’re more like trebuchets,” Danny corrected him, although they weren’t really that either. They couldn’t manage a counter weight or the height for a regular trebuchet, and instead used various pulleys and the four of them hauling on a rope; four others did the same for the one on the back.

As they neared the barge dock, Bronislav resorted to hand signals, keeping them quiet and unseen for as long as possible. Danny didn’t need to see Bronislav’s signals to know when other volunteers opened the containers that held their ammunition. The stench of the corpses they hadn’t burned was rather distinct.

Shouting came from the shoreline and Danny knew they had been spotted so he gripped the rope even tighter.

“Fire!” Bronislav bellowed.

The four men hauled on their rope, running together to the far side of the deck as fast as they could. Overhead, the arm of their former crane swung upward with a large leather sling on the end of it, not too dissimilar in concept from Danny’s. When the sling hit the right spot, the zombie remains it had been loaded with were let loose to fly and splatter onto shore.

“Reload!” Bronislav bellowed. There was no point in telling them if their aim had been true, as they couldn’t turn the devices they had built. Any aiming had to be done by repositioning the entire U-boat, and those commands were shouted down through the conning tower where Danny couldn’t hear them.

There was more shouting from the shoreline as the trebuchet was lowered back down. Danny caught a glimpse of their loading team: three people he remembered living in the Black Box before they had found it. For them, this place had been their only home since the Day. Danny could understand their hatred for these people and their willingness to do anything to them.

Without being able to see the loaders while in their start position, they had to wait until Bronislav shouted the command, as he was the only one high enough to see all of the teams. More zombie guts and heads, some of them with rats carefully duct taped inside that morning, were thrown overhead. Danny and the others quickly put on their mask gear when some drips and gobs fell onto them.

Soon, the trebuchets were out of sync, Bronislav having to shout at them individually. Bullets pinged and ricocheted off their wall, causing dents, and even holes in the thinner spots. The hope was that the zombie guts and the sub would be a distraction, drawing the guards away from their posts, but since they weren’t really that much of a threat, the majority of their people would stay inside. Danny knew these pseudo trebuchets didn’t have much range, that they were really only messing up the barge dock and surrounding areas. The rats would be problematic, but the dead zombie parts were just gross and a nuisance. Still, Danny hoped the other team in charge of setting off the bombs hurried.

“Fore deck, fire!” Bronislav shouted and they ran across the deck again. They were all beginning to tire. Even with the pulleys taking much of the weight, it was hard pulling up that arm with enough speed and force to get it to properly fling the infected projectiles. Danny was soon drenched in sweat, his legs and arms trembling. There were two other teams huddling somewhere nearby but out of sight, ready to take over when they were too exhausted, but Danny was determined to keep going as long as the others were.