Defensive Instinct (Survival Instinct Book 4) (19 page)

Jo was curious about the water treatment, but Abby didn’t have much information for him. She had never taken the time to learn about it herself. Based on what she knew aboard the Diana, the Black Box probably ran much the same way, in that it cleaned and recycled the water that was used, while desalinating water brought in from the river.

“Last level,” Abby announced as they reached the next door.

“But the stairs keep going,” Jo observed.

“All you’ll find down there is a heavy, metal door. It’s where our power is generated. Only a few people have a key, and I’m not one of them.”

“Does Crichton have a key?”

“I’m not entirely sure who has a key, as there aren’t many. Come on.” Abby led the boy through the door for the floor they were on.

Beyond it was a large cement room supported by several pillars along its length. A few people were jogging around the vast room, and a group of kids were playing soccer in the middle. Some teenagers were gathered around a Ping-Pong table, the sound of a small plastic ball being swatted back and forth echoing off the ceiling and floor, joining the calls of the soccer kids, and the many slapping of many running feet.

“This used to be a garage, but now we use it as an exercise and games space, as well as a library.” Abby pointed out a bunch of equipment stored at one end, a few card tables and a pitiful stack of games and puzzles next to their bookcases. “It gets the most use during rainy days like today, when it’s better to stay indoors.”

“There are no cars.” Jo frowned.

“This place was almost abandoned when we got here. There are a few though. If you come this way, you might be able to spot them beyond the pillars.”

“I like cars. Can we go see them?”

“I don’t see why not.” Abby led Jo across the space, avoiding the joggers and the kids’ soccer game. When a goal was scored between two of the pillars, the cheers of the team ricocheted around the space, becoming even louder than normal. The goalie that had been scored on then had to chase down the ball. Any nets that would have been large enough to span the distance between the pillars, were either used on Animal Island or as fishing nets.

Jo ran over to the cars once they were in sight, his small hands slapping onto the dusty hood of the nearest vehicle. When Abby caught up to him, she noticed he was out of breath. Although he hadn’t said anything, the tour was clearly wearing him out.

“Is that how they got down here?” he asked, pointing to a massive, gated elevator shaft that all the cars had been pushed up against.

“Yes. We don’t use that elevator though, as it only goes between here and the surface. Maybe if we had to bring in something large we would, but we’ve never needed to.”

“Do you know who owns these cars?”

“Most of them, I think.” Abby began to tell him what she knew about the cars, answering what she could and giving him the names of people who would know the answers she didn’t have. She was fairly certain that all the cars belonged to the people who had been living in the Black Box before the Diana residents arrived and that they were all still here, none of them choosing to move to the container yard.

What Abby didn’t notice was that Journey wasn’t really all that interested in the vehicles. He had tons of questions, but wasn’t paying that much attention to the answers. Whenever Abby wasn’t looking at him, Jo’s eyes were locked on the giant elevator shaft, studying its size, and trying to estimate where it might come out on the surface.

The storm pounded on the shingles overhead; the wind howled through every crack and crevice. From out in the hallway came the
spat, spat, spat
of a leak in the roof dripping onto the carpet. Doyle sat on the bedroom window’s wide sill, looking out into the rain. It had become dark as night out there, and by the time the storm abated, it probably would be. He hadn’t counted on this rain when he decided to make this trip to the bookstore, and he hadn’t counted on the zombie horde they had to make a detour around the day before. Both had certainly slowed them down.

Behind him in the room, James was cleaning his weapons by candle light, Rose was doing yoga, and Canary was playing with a yo-yo she had found in the kid’s room next to this one. She was pretty good at it, doing various tricks and practising the ones she screwed up. Doyle turned away from the window and watched her for a bit; the little plastic thing whizzed through the air.

“Did you happen to see any board games or anything like that in the kid’s room?” he eventually asked.

“Didn’t really look,” Canary shrugged, her eyes never leaving the yo-yo. “I just checked that the room was clear and happened to notice this on the desk by the door.”

“I’m going to go look.” Pressing his hands on his knees, Doyle heaved himself up onto his feet.

“Scream if you need anything,” Canary joked.

Doyle went to the door and squeezed his way out past the bed. To create more room, they had upended it, and leaned it against the wall near the door so that they could use it as a barricade come nightfall. Based on the simple décor of the room in which they were squatting, it had formerly been a guest room. Seemed fitting, although they weren’t really guests.

In the hallway, Doyle avoided the ceiling leak and went into the kid’s room. He assumed it was a boy’s room based on the faded blue walls and scattering of robot toys that his flashlight illuminated. Over the bed, which hadn’t been occupied by the boy in a very long time, a poster had come loose at the top and flopped down over the headboard. Out of curiosity, Doyle went over and lifted it, checking out what image it bore. The poster was for
The Night of the Living Dead
. Doyle shook his head and let it flop back down. It was strange to remember that people used to get enjoyment out of this stuff. Living it was vastly different from watching it on some screen. It was painful, stressful, disgusting, and, occasionally, deathly boring. Things weren’t wrapped up after two hours, you didn’t get to go back home with a belly full of popcorn, talk about what the characters should have done, and sleep in your nice, cozy bed, feeling safe and secure. Instead, you did things like search a boy’s room—one who was probably dead—for a game to pass the time, and if something happened, if you fucked up, there were no rewrites or alternate endings to save you. Just because you’re the most important person in your own life, doesn’t mean you survive until the end. There is no end.

Doyle managed to locate some boxes that looked like board games in the dark gloom of the kid’s closet. Banishing his thoughts to the recesses of his mind, he pulled out the oldest and most beat up looking one in the hopes that it wasn’t some newer game that no one had heard of, forcing them to read the rules before they could play. Careful not to topple over anything else, he pulled it from the pile. He chuckled when he read the name of the game he had chosen and carried it back to the spare room.

“Did you find something?” Canary asked, her eyes darting to the box in Doyle’s hand.

“Yeah. This seemed oddly appropriate.” He held up the box so that everyone could see. In his hands, was
The Game of Life
.

Rose read the box and laughed hard enough to wobble out of her tree pose.

“I figure none of us can live a life like the ones found in this game, so why not play it?” Doyle moved to the center of the room and sat down on the carpet, where he was swiftly joined by Canary and Rose.

James took a little longer, first drawing the curtains so that when he moved the candle from the corner in which he had been working—a corner he had carefully set up to block the light from reaching the window—nothing outside would be able notice them. While Doyle and the women set up the board, James reassembled his weapons and stowed them away.

They had barely started the game before everyone agreed that the spinner in the middle was uncomfortably loud, even with the storm outside. Doyle returned to the kid’s room and picked up all of the game boxes this time. Back in the guest room, they pilfered some dice from another game, which were much quieter when rolled on the carpet. They also chose a few games they could play after this one. James seemed pretty keen on
Monopoly
.

As the darkness of the storm gave way to the darkness of night, the group ate some rations from their packs while they played. Despite having to whisper, everyone appeared to have fun with the board games, Rose and James forming a rivalry in everything they played, while Canary just couldn’t seem to win, but frequently came in second.

“We should bring some of these back with us; we don’t have nearly enough games back home,” Canary suggested.

“That’s a good idea,” Doyle nodded. “We should try to reduce the number of boxes we end up carrying. We should check the kitchen to see if there are plastic baggies we can put the pieces in, and maybe some rubber bands to hold down the box lids.”

“Once we’re done this; I’m about to win.” Rose rolled the dice, then groaned quietly when she still didn’t land where she needed to.

The game continued for several more rounds until Rose finally got what she needed and put everyone else out of their misery, as they were all doing terribly.

“All right, I’m going downstairs. Who wants to come with me?” Doyle got to his feet, his knees popping unexpectedly.

“I’ll come with you,” Canary stood as well.

“I think I’ll stay here and set up our sleeping mats.” James looked over at their nearby gear.

“I’ll keep James company,” Rose spoke as she began to clean up the game they had just finished.

“All right, let’s go then.” Doyle stepped over the board and headed to the door, taking his fire axe in hand along the way. Canary stayed close to his back as they exited the guest room.

Hugging the wall to avoid the leak, they made their way down the hall in the darkness. At the top of the stairs, Doyle reached for his flashlight, but was stopped when Canary’s hand tightly grasped his wrist. Facing her, Doyle could just make out her facial features beneath her nearly luminous white-blonde hair. She had the index finger of her other hand pressed to her lips. Doyle hadn’t heard anything, but trusted her judgement, gripping his axe tighter.

He descended the stairs, pausing each time his foot was planted until Canary tapped his shoulder for him to continue. Three steps from the bottom, Canary took longer to tap his shoulder. Doyle strained to hear anything over the pattering of light rain upon the roof, but couldn’t. There was only the breath in his lungs and the lighter breathing from Canary behind him. He could also make out a few shuffling sounds from Rose and James back in the guest room, but knew that Canary wouldn’t mistake those for anything else. Then she tapped his shoulder again and they continued to the ground floor. Their slow descent gave his eyes plenty of time to adjust to the gloom.

At the bottom of the stairs was the front door by which they had entered, with a couch shoved across it to make up for the now-broken lock. Doyle studied the darkness of the nearby sitting room, as well as the hall that led to the kitchen, dining room, and living room at the rear of the house. Canary perched on the couch at Doyle’s back, looking out into the rain through the door’s glass panel.

This time Doyle heard it. He couldn’t identify the sound, but he heard something that hadn’t come from them or from the two upstairs. Whatever it was, it came from the rear of the house, not the front. Using hand signals, Doyle and Canary agreed to split up momentarily. Canary headed down the hallway, with an iron grip on a long, sharpened screwdriver in her left hand and the rifle she had borrowed from James in her right, while Doyle drifted into the sitting room. His eyes scanned the windows, confirming they were all closed and intact. Nothing looked like it had been shifted, and he couldn’t see any damp spots an intruder would have left coming in from the rain.

At the back of the sitting room, he pushed slowly through a swing door into the kitchen. The only window in there was a hole cut through one wall that looked into the hallway. Doyle and Canary made eye contact through it, nodding that each was okay. Canary carefully finished closing the door to the closet under the stairs, which she had just poked around in, and moved forward toward the opening that led into the dining room. Doyle circled the large kitchen, checking out both sides of the island. He was no longer thinking about finding plastic baggies and rubber bands. At the end of the kitchen, a wide breakfast counter abutting a pillar separated it from the giant living room. Doyle waited at the end of the counter, next to the pillar, watching Canary’s fair hair move about the dining room across the hall. She walked all the way around the table, sweeping beneath it and the chairs with the end of her rifle, then gave Doyle another thumbs up.

Doyle stepped into the living room from the hallway; Canary pushed through another swing door at the far end of the dining room. They entered the large space together, hastily scanned all the hiding places and scoped out the windows, then jabbed at the deeper shadows to make sure they weren’t concealing anything. Everything looked fine. Canary pointed to the door that opened onto the basement steps, her eyebrows raised in a question. Doyle was about to nod that they should investigate it, when they heard the sound again. It had come from behind the house.

Keeping to the deeper shadows, Doyle made his way toward the sliding glass door, while Canary headed for a long, skinny window next to the TV on the other end of the room. Even with his face pressed to the glass, Doyle couldn’t see much of the backyard; almost no light was able to penetrate the cloud cover overhead.

They heard the sound again. It was some sort of rattle, definitely coming from outside. Doyle gritted his teeth, frustrated that he couldn’t tell if it was a soft sound close in or a louder sound farther away.

Canary slithered up beside him, tapping his shoulder and gesturing for them to move away. Doyle followed her back into the hallway.

“I don’t think we have to worry about it,” she spoke close to his ear, and in such a gentle whisper that Doyle wasn’t sure she believed her own words.

“Did you see something?” he whispered back, his eyes focused on the darkness toward the rear of the house.

“No, but I’m pretty sure the sound came from beyond the rear fence.”

“Pretty sure?”

Doyle could just make out her expression of pinched lips and furrowed brow, a few seconds of silence passing between them.

“Well, it’s definitely outside,” Canary continued. “Either we go out there, in the dark and the rain, to investigate, or we don’t.” She had a point.

“All right. Let’s just move some furniture in front of that sliding door first. It’d make me feel better.”

Canary nodded her agreement.

Working as quietly as they could, Doyle and Canary picked up the chairs from the dining room and placed them in a line along the expanse of glass. They hadn’t bothered to do it earlier when they decided to spend the night here, because anything trying to come in that way would have to shatter the glass. It gave Doyle peace of mind to have this little bit of extra security. Canary then went to the couch that faced the flat screen TV. Pushing it along the carpet, she jammed it up against the basement door. Once they were both satisfied, Doyle and Canary headed back upstairs.

Returning to the guest room, they found Rose and James standing in the middle of it, weapons at the ready, metal surfaces flashing in the flickering candle light.

“You heard it too?” Canary dared to speak a little louder in here.

Rose nodded. “That, and it was certainly takin’ you guys long enough.”

Doyle remembered his original purpose for going downstairs, and feigned slapping his forehead. “We’ll look in the morning, when it’s not so dark.”

James stepped around him to shift their blockade and cover the door completely.

“Did you see anythin’?” Rose asked.

Canary shook her head. “I think it’s coming from beyond the fence. You?”

“We blew out the candle for a bit and looked, but nah. Neither of us could see anythin’ out there.”

“It could just be something catching a bit of wind,” Doyle offered.

The others nodded, but they all knew it could be something else. If it was something capable of motion, then the repeating nature of the sound suggested it was being caused by a zombie. And frequently, where there was one, there were many, as the horde yesterday had reminded them.

Rose had not finished laying out their bedrolls, and now there was no point. Those that had been laid out, were re-rolled and packed. A sound outside like that made them tense, made them more worried about being attacked in the night. Without a word, the group unanimously decided to sleep on the bare carpet, using their packs as pillows with one arm still hooked through the straps. If they had to leave, they could leave in an instant.