Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel (30 page)

“I’m Dr. Bishop,” the woman told him harshly.  “Shut up and I’ll fix you.”

Bishop rolled up his T-shirt and looked at the body armour.  She grabbed the Velcro straps that held the vest on him and pulled.  There was a familiar tearing sound as the Velcro was pulled away from itself.  Suddenly the pressure on Mathias’s chest released.  He took a huge gulp of air and coughed.  His lungs kept greedily sucking in more air than they could take, which caused further coughing.  The coughing made his chest ache.

Bishop rolled her eyes and then Mathias onto his side.

Mathias closed his own eyes as he got his breathing under control.  His chest still hurt fiercely, but he could breath.

“You good now?” Dr. Bishop asked him.

Mathias nodded.

“All right, let’s sit you up then.”  Bishop helped him to rise up and get into one of the little seats located in the back of the rig.  “Take your shirt off so I can get a look at you.”

Mathias painfully removed his shirt
and then pulled off the last of the Velcro straps so that the bulletproof vest slid off.  He looked at the vest.  A bullet was wedged deep into it, right over where his heart was.  Right where the pain was radiating out.

“LeBlanc,” Mathias called up front.  His voice was hoarse from the coughing.  “It wasn’t Chant.”

“What was that?”  LeBlanc glanced back over his shoulder and then faced the road again.

“It wasn’t Chant.  The sniper.”

“I know, buddy.”  LeBlanc turned his full attention back to the road.

Bishop started poking at his chest causing Mathias to hiss in pain a few times.  For a doctor, she certainly didn’t have a gentle touch.

“You’ll be all right,” she finally said.  “You’re going to have one hell of a bruise but it doesn’t look like any of your bones are cracked or broken.  You should probably get to a hospital and get an x-ray though, just to be sure.”

“Aren’t we going to a hospital?”  Mathias looked around the ambulance.

Bishop just gave him a sly smile and started to climb into the front passenger seat.  Mathias grunted and began getting dressed again.  He put the vest back on, but he didn’t wear it nearly as tightly as he had before.  He shifted around so that he was kneeling in the back behind the two front seats, his arms resting on each of them.

“So where are we going?” Mathias asked.

“I don’t know,” LeBlanc shrugged.  “Where does Danny live?”

“Hey, wait a minute,” Bishop cut in.  “This is my ambulance.  I was already going somewhere before you hijacked me.”

“Where were you going?” Mathias asked her.

“To my house first.”  Bishop had a stern and sharp look in her eyes.  Mathias could easily tell she was not just a hard woman, but a bristly one as well.

“Your house in this area?”  Mathias coughed once more.  He found his pack, took out a water bottle, and took a quick drink while Bishop answered.

“Yes, it’s just a few blocks away.”  She pointed in the direction of her place.

“Well, we’re making a detour.  LeBlanc, turn right at the next street.”  Mathias already had his bearings again.

“Great, so I save your sorry ass and you steal my ride.”  Bishop crossed her arms over her chest.

“Sorry, lady Doc,” LeBlanc grinned as he took the turn.

“If it makes you feel any better, it’s so we can find my little brother,” Mathias tried to explain.

“Do you know what’s going on?  What’s happening out there?”  Bishop was clearly aggravated.  “You might not survive just protecting your own ass, let alone someone else’s.”

“I know exactly what’s going on, thanks.”  Bishop was getting on Mathias’s nerves a little.  She had quite the attitude.

Bishop looked him up and down and then LeBlanc.  She just realized what they were wearing.  “You actually do know what happened, don’t you.  Tell me.”

“After we find my brother.”  She clearly wanted to know very badly.  Good, let it hang for
a while.  Mathias wasn’t above baiting to get things.

Bishop looked like she was going to say something more, but something in Mathias’s look caused her to stop.  She leaned back in her seat, looking out the window.

“I’m Mathias by the way.”  He held out a hand in front of her.  “Mathias Cole.”

“Dr. Riley Bishop.”  Bishop shook his hand briefly without turning away from the window.

“Riley?  Interesting name.”  Mathias sat back on his haunches.  “LeBlanc, take the next left, then the third right, then look for 47.”

“You got it,” LeBlanc nodded.

“I prefer if you just call me Bishop,” Bishop grumbled.

“Bishop it is then.”  Mathias got up and sat back in the side seat with a groan.  His ribs were going to be sore for days.  “Is there any pain killer in here?”

“You’re joking, right?”  Bishop turned and cocked an eyebrow at him from around her seat.

“Care to tell me where it is then?”  Mathias had no idea what most of the stuff in here was for.  Some of it was practically alien.

“Check the box on the floor.”  Bishop faced forward again.

Mathias dragged the box over to him with his foot and rooted around in it.  He found a bottle of aspirin and popped a few.  “What did you do?  Rob a pharmacy?”

“No, a hospital.”

Mathias found his water bottle and took another swig of water.  He closed his eyes and leaned back.  He prayed Danny was still at the house.

Path of Infection

A rat bit Louey while he was searching through a dumpster outside a pizzeria.  He found more food than usual that day.

A homeless man bit Marcus Detter
when he stopped to see if he needed help.  After his trip to the hospital to get it disinfected, he made love to his wife, then flew to Africa a few days later.  He was going there as a doctor to help people.

Mrs. Detter kissed both her children good night, every night.  She worried about her husband going to Africa.  The fevers were unexpected.

A child attacked Justin on his way home from the movies.  He had been on a date that didn’t go well.  He died in an alley from blood loss from several severe arm wounds.

Kevin Henderson was taking out the trash when he was attacked.  He died quickly from a broken neck, but not until after his shoulder was bitten.

Ellen was out jogging when she came across a fallen man.  When she tried to help him, he ripped into her throat.  She managed to get a few blocks before dropping from blood loss.

Kristina Dunbar was washing the dishes.  A woman broke in through a window and knocked her to the ground.  She was bitten only once on her hand, but then stabbed repeatedly in the back by shards of broken dishes.  Afterward, the fever took her upstairs to her children’s rooms.  She was put down outside, near the corner of her home, by a well-placed bullet to the head.

Section 2:

Infection

The Cameraman

Tobias took another careful step down the alleyway.

“This is stupid,” Cillian whispered to him from the street.

Tobias held up a hand for him to be quiet.  It probably
was
stupid.  Really stupid actually, but Tobias was doing it anyway.  He took another step toward the body, tightening his two-handed grip on the fire axe.  His goal was to get the handy cam lying near the body’s feet.  He didn’t know why, but he wanted to be able to keep filming what was going on.  He needed a new camera to do this, however, and this was the first one they had come across.

He took another step and was now right next to the body’s curled back.  It smelled
like… well, like something had died.  He let go of the axe with his left hand and reached for the camera.  He grabbed the strap and lifted it up carefully, slowly, trying not to make a sound.  He almost succeeded, but then the lens cap, which hung from it on a string, scraped across the asphalt.

The body wheezed out a groan and rolled over, revealing its pale and mutilated face.  Tobias yelled and brought down the axe.  It thunked into the man’s head, but since Tobias had only used one hand, it didn’t go deep.  The body reached for his legs.

Tobias quickly stood up, pulling the axe out of the man’s forehead and leaving a huge gash amid the smaller ones.  He trotted backwards out of the alley, keeping an eye on the body.  It was trying to drag itself along, although it wasn’t moving very fast.  It couldn’t seem to move its legs.  Tobias was reminded of all those zombie movies he had watched with his buddies.  Although ridiculous, those movies were very similar to what was going on around him.  Was it possible that these things were really some sort of zombie?

He reached the end of the alley and joined Cillian.

“I got it.”  Tobias held up the camera.

“Good for you,” Cillian grunted
,  “does it even work?”

Tobias looked the camera over.  It was a handycam made by Sony, maybe worth about three-hundred bucks.  Nothing really special, but it did have a viewfinder beside its LCD screen which was good.  Not having to use the LCD would save on batteries. 

“Looks like it.  Can you hold this a minute?”  He held out the axe to Cillian.  Then, realizing Cillian wouldn’t give it back, he tucked it under his arm.  The men passed a look between them, both knowing exactly what had occurred and that Tobias’s decision was right.  Well, right for Tobias because he got the axe.  He opened a little hatch at the back of the camera and took out the memory card, stashing it in one of his pockets.  Maybe the original owner had gotten some good footage.  He then took his own card out of his pocket and put it into the camera.  He got lucky that they used the same kind of flash memory.  “Here goes nothing.”

“Nothing is right,” Cillian rolled his eyes.

Tobias flipped the power switch, and the camera came to life.  He looked through the viewfinder and did a test recording.  “Cillian, say something.”

“Like what?” Cillian frowned.  “Get that stupid camera out of my face
!”

“Good enough.”  Tobias lowered the camera and reviewed what he had just filmed on the LCD screen.  “Well, there’s a small crack in the lower left corner, and the sound isn’t great, but that could also just be the playback.”

“Cool, can we get going now before legless catches us?”  Cillian gestured to the body down the alley.  Scraping sounds indicated it was still coming after them.

“Yeah, sure.”  Tobias put the camera strap around his neck and held the fire axe in both hands again.

They continued cautiously up the street, using the stalled, crashed, and/or abandoned cars for cover.  Occasionally they spotted other people doing the same.  When this happened there was a moment of pause for both parties, each wondering if the other was going to attack.  Tobias had already become paranoid of everyone, and clearly, so had Cillian.  Every time they spotted someone, the first reaction was to find somewhere to hide.  Tobias was glad Cillian was around because doing this alone would make it ten times more frightening.

As they scurried along, Tobias mentioned his thoughts about the zombie movies.  Cillian was oddly receptive to the idea; he didn’t laugh or mock Tobias, which was what he kind of expected him to do.  It was actually a bit disconcerting, because an idea like that should be ludicrous.

“Do you know where we’re going?” Tobias whispered to Cillian after several more minutes.  Cillian had been the one leading so far.

“Yeah, I know where the hospital is.  I’ve had to drive there several times before,” Cillian assured him.  “It’s part of my job.”

“Okay.”  Tobias still wasn’t completely sold on the hospital idea, but at least it was something.  Cillian seemed to think they would know what was going on there, although Tobias had no idea why.  “So I guess you were part of the security at the concert?”

“More like I was there for show,” Cillian didn’t explain further.  He didn’t ask any questions either, maintaining a single-minded focus on the task at hand.

Tobias started looking over his newfound camera as they travelled, if ‘travelled’ could be the right word.  It was like stalking, except they were the prey.  Tobias didn’t know a word for that.  The camera wasn’t a very good model, but it would do.  He’d have to keep it off most of the time to conserve power, but at least it had a quick start-up.  Although if he could find a way to jury rig some wires, he still had the battery from his last camera hooked up to his waist…  That line of thought was likely to get him electrocuted.

While Tobias was thinking and not paying attention, Cillian had stopped.  Tobias walked right into his broad back.  Cillian turned and frowned at him.

“Sorry,” Tobias mumbled.

“If you want something to film, film that.”  Cillian pointed ahead,
and then shuffled out of the way so Tobias could see.

Up ahead was a fairly major intersection.  Cars had crashed all around it, but right in the middle stood a city bus.  A guy stood on the bus brandishing a large piece of pipe, and all around the bus was a veritable horde of sick and bloody people, reaching up to him.  Most of them just pawed at the bus, but a few were smart enough to find ways to climb it.  Those that did were met by a pipe to the face.