Survival Instinct: A Zombie Novel (75 page)

Mathias sucked in a sharp breath.  He wondered what colour the bruise was, purple or black?  Probably black.

They walked over to the car and opened the passenger side door.

“I forgot, put this in the trunk.”  LeBlanc handed his pack to them.

Mathias took it and his own bag to the rear of the car.  The trunk popped open as he got close.  LeBlanc had hit the switch inside.  Bishop followed him with her own stuff.  There was already a lot of stuff in the trunk, so they had to shift things around to make room.  They didn’t even discuss just removing it.

“I’ve been meaning to ask.”  Mathias thought of the question he had had earlier.  “Have you had any military training?”

“No,” Bishop shook her head.  “Not officially, anyway.  My dad trained me and all my siblings in a very military-like fashion.”

“Sounds tough.”

Bishop shrugged.  “Not really.  I didn’t really know anything else.  And hey, it’s come in handy.  Wouldn’t you agree,
Matty
?”  She added that last part with a bit of spite, clearly hoping it would irritate him.

“Seriously, he has never called me that before,” Mathias told her.  “I mean, other people have a few times, but never him.”  The name didn’t bother him in the slightest.

“So?”

“So it has me worried, is all,” Mathias sighed.  “The name plus what he asked me earlier just doesn’t jive with who he is.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re all doing things lately that don’t jive with who we are.”  Bishop stepped back from the trunk as Mathias closed it.

“You mean like sitting on a strange man’s lap?” Mathias grinned as he led the way back to the front of the car.

“For starters.”

Mathias opened the door and climbed in.  Bishop hesitated a moment, but then climbed in on top of him.  It was a bit of a squish, but once they had the door closed, they found she could sit sideways against it with a bit of comfort.  LeBlanc put the little car into drive, and they started down the highway once more.  At least now, the gap between him and Danny wasn’t going to get any bigger.  If he would just stop, then they would have a chance of catching up.

It took a lot of washer fluid to clean off the windshield.

Sergeant

Alec McGregor, or Mr. Eggor as Alice had apparently been calling him until recently, looked down at the small girl sleeping against him.  She had very blonde, wavy locks, and when they were open, vividly blue eyes.  Currently, she was somewhat chubby and had a large gap in her front teeth.  It looked like she had good bone structure though, and her future, at one time, held the chance of her becoming someone famous.  The future was changed, though.  Even if the zombies all suddenly dropped dead, this event would be a serious mark in history; a definite turning point.  Alec wondered if he had played a hand in it; if something they had found in that jungle led to the nightmare he was now living.

He looked over at Danny next.  The boy wasn’t asleep, but he certainly didn’t look awake.  His eyes were open, but he hadn’t moved in some time, except for his hand that was sticking out and riding the air currents.  It looked like his mind was very far away.  The kid was scrawny, all bone with some thready muscle attached to it.  Short, too.  It might just be the awkward teenage phase, but Alec didn’t have high hopes for him growing up to be a good-looking guy.  His eyes were small, which made his forehead look big.  If his brow line developed more, he could wind up looking like a bruiser.  If he built up some more weight and muscle, that was.  He also had a viscous rash of acne on his left cheek and jaw.  He would grow out of it, and as long as he didn’t pick at it, there shouldn’t be any scars left behind.  If he lived long enough to grow out of it, that was.

Alec sighed and thumped his head on the truck.  Not hard enough for those inside or outside to hear, but just hard enough that he felt it.  He wondered how he, of all people, ended up being a shepherd of children.  He had no desire to have kids of his own.  He loved the act involved in their creation, but that was as far as it went.  His sister had always been the child lover.  She had wanted a big family.  It was her first child who had killed her.  Complications with the pregnancy; a cancerous-like growth had suddenly shown up near the end.  It was left to Alec’s brother-in-law to decide whom the doctors should focus on.  In the end, it didn’t matter, and both of them passed away.  Alec had never asked his brother whom he had chosen.  Maybe that’s why they were able to stay on such good terms.  The baby had been a boy, and they were going to name him Jacob after Alec and Beatrice’s father.  Well, he was still named Jacob, but only on his headstone.

While they bounced on down the highway, his thoughts also wandered over to Kara.  Despite being an older woman, she was beautiful in her own way.  It was obvious she had never had any work done and had just let herself age the way nature had intended.  She didn’t even dye her hair and just let it grow the steely colour it was.  She was very fit as well.  Alec probably would have hit on her if she had been twenty years younger. 

Instead, he had attacked her with words.  He wasn’t upset about how they parted.  He
had
directed his anger at her, there was no denying that, but, he felt some pity for her which put her in the neutral territory in Alec’s books.  In the end, her lovely features had been shattered.  She had a nasty scalp laceration that caused a chunk of skin and hair to hang off the side of her head.  There was blood everywhere.  Alec wouldn’t let Alice look and tried to do the same for Danny, but he thought the boy looked anyway.  He was only half surprised when she woke up.  The wound was devastating, but she had also proven herself to be tough as nails when the time called for it.

Walter was a different matter.  Alec had seen the bite wound when they first met and had suspected the worst.  He didn’t think he would turn so fast though, or so suddenly.  Maybe he had been infected at an earlier time and it just caught up.  Alec wondered if one of the kids might be infected.

Alec wondered if
he
might be infected.

It wasn’t impossible.  He shared a home and a job with a guy who got up to who-knows-what during the day.  A simple, unwashed glass or mistaken toothbrush apparently had the risk of spreading the virus.  Not to mention all the times they shared cheese-covered nachos.  He also spent a lot of time at the rehabilitation centre.  He might have picked up something there.  His injury though, did work in his favour on that front.  He used to hit on a lot of women who would almost always flirt back.  Alec was aware that he was good looking and played to it.  He was a male slut and he knew it.  And was totally fine with it.  The chair changed his appearance though, both to other people and to himself.  He still flirted a lot, but it never went to the bedroom.  He wouldn’t admit it, but he was scared about what the women might think about his battered and torn legs.

There was also Rifle, his dog.  The woman on the radio said nothing about dogs; maybe they were carriers.  Rifle had a habit of sticking his nose into things and had no qualms about slathering his tongue all over Alec’s face.  If dogs were carriers, that was his biggest risk right there.  Heck, he even let Rifle sleep on his bed.

Alec reached down and scratched Shoes’s belly, which was sticking out under Alice’s arms.  Now
there
was a dog that clearly loved its child.  Alice dragged the pooch around as if it was a favourite teddy, and the dog didn’t get fed up once.

Suddenly the truck began to slow and pulled off to the side of the road.  This brought Alec jarringly back into the present situation.  Next to him, Danny snapped out of his stupor.  He looked around the truck bed then settled his eyes on Alec’s face.  The kid had been through a lot.  It showed in his eyes.

“Wake up, Alice.”  Alec gently shook the girl’s shoulder.  “We’ve stopped.”

“I don’t wanna go to school,” the girl mumbled, snuggling down deeper into his coat.

The man named Corey hopped out of the truck and looked up at Alec.

“The girls have to pee,” he told him.  “Maybe it’s best if we all took a quick pit stop while we can.”

“Sure thing,” Alec nodded.  “Come on Alice, wake up.”

“Mr. Eggor?”  Alice looked up at him, rubbing sleep out of one of her eyes.

“It’s Alec, remember?”  He helped her sit up.  “We’re making a pit stop.  You should go pee while you can.”

Alice looked around the area.  “I don’t see a bathroom.”

“You’ll have to pee in the woods,” Danny told her, shaking his legs out.

“Like when Kara taught me how to pee in the bushes today?”  Alice crawled toward the tailgate, disentangling herself from the large coat as she went.

“Yeah, like then.”  Danny had no idea what she was talking about, but just went with it.

The two kids climbed out of the truck, Shoes being unceremoniously dropped out.  Once Alec had the room, he used his arms to manipulate himself toward the
tailgate.  He dropped it down and sat on the edge for a moment.

“Can you handle things yourself?”  Danny looked at him.

“Sure I can.”  Alec looked back.  “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Shoes is coming with me,” Alice said as she walked off into the bushes.  “No other boys allowed.”

Kelly and the twins from the truck went over to the other side of the road to use the bushes there.  Although Alec wasn’t keen on the idea of Alice being alone, he figured Shoes would make a ruckus if something happened.  Danny walked up the road a way to pee while Corey crossed it and went down a ways.  Alec was pretty much alone with the truck, which he was grateful for.

He locked the knees of his braces again and slid off the truck on his belly.  His legs were killing him.  He had been on them way too much today already.  He avoided putting much weight on them by keeping his upper body prone across the truck bed.  He used one hand to help hold himself to the truck while the other went south of his belt.  Alec hadn’t realized just how much he needed to pee until he let it go.

* * *

Even though he had kept most the of weight off his legs, Alec was still exhausted by the time he zipped up.  It was possible he had peed on Corey’s truck, but he wasn’t too concerned about that.  He began hauling himself back up into the truck with his arms again.  His arms were nearly as tired as his legs.  The muscles ached from the constant strain he had been putting on them all day.  His hands hurt as well.  Even though he had been wearing his leather sniper’s gloves all day, the ones that covered his hands but not his fingertips, the palms of his hands were starting to feel a little raw.  When he finally managed to get his body up into the bed, he lay flat on his back for a while.

“You all right?”

Alec raised his head to see Corey coming back.  “I’m fine.”

“You look a little sweaty.  You don’t have a fever, do you?” Corey eyed him suspiciously.

“No,” Alec shook his head.  He knew what a fever implied.  “Just been using my fucked-up legs too much is all.  My muscles are tired.”

“I noticed the kid’s helmet.”  Corey nodded in Danny’s direction.  “That yours?”

“It was until I gave it to him,” Alec told him.

“What were you in?”

“Special forces.  Sniper division.”

“Oh yeah?  What rank?”

“Sergeant.”

Corey nodded.  “My father was a Corporal by the end.”

Alec nodded back.

“Is that what happened to your legs?”  Corey pointed to Alec’s booted feet.

“It was a helicopter.”

Corey nodded again.

Danny came back around the truck then.  “Alice not back yet?”

“One thing you’re going to learn Danny, is that women always take forever when it comes to everything having to do with a washroom,” Alec told him.

“I’ll go check on her.”  Danny headed toward the woods.

“Careful!” Alec warned him.  “An embarrassed girl is a dangerous girl!”

“He yours?” Corey asked.

“No, neither of them are.”  Alec started to pull himself into a more upright position.  “I’ve just been picking up strays as I go.  There were two other adults with us earlier, but one of them got sick.  The car crashed, and neither of them made it.  The twins yours and Kelly’s?”

“Yup.”  Corey looked toward the woods, but Alec caught a brief glimpse of an expression he couldn’t read.  “Tessa and Terra.  I wanted to give them different names but Kelly insisted.  She thinks it’s really cute.”

Danny returned from the woods again, this time with Alice and Shoes in tow.  Danny helped Alice up and then lifted the dog up himself.  He was quite the helpful little bugger.

Alice crawled over to Alec and held her hand out to him.

“Look what I found!”  She was clearly delighted by the object she stuck under Alec’s nose.

Alec carefully moved her hand away from his face and looked into her open palm.  A small chunk of glittering quartz sat in the middle of it.

“It’s very pretty,” he told the young child.  He was honest; he didn’t like lying to children when it was unnecessary, but he held back his whole thought.  There was a ton of quartz in this area, much of it probably pinker, or shinier than hers.