Adaptive Instinct (Survival Instinct) (21 page)

“Can you help keep an eye on the fire tonight?” Misha asked as Tobias settled in on the couch.

“Yeah, sure.”  Tobias’s feet stuck out over the end of the couch.

Although the summer weather was far too warm to need a fire, Misha did what he could to keep it burning low throughout the night as a source of light.  He had the unpleasant experience of waking up in total darkness one night, which was why he now kept a small flashlight in one of his pockets.  The darkness, the blindness, was as terrifying as being in the open.  More so, in fact.

Under his sleeping bag, Misha took his belt off.  He had been wearing Connor Bishop’s clothes since he got there, and the pants were too large.  When he had first arrived, he had only the firefighter boots, the firefighter jacket, a pair of shorts, and his boxers.  He didn’t even have socks to wear. He was grateful to Riley for letting him wear her relatives’ clothes, but he still felt somewhat uncomfortable in them, especially now that Shawn was here.  Pretty much everybody else had to wear the Bishops’ clothing too; at least they did if they wanted to change.

Misha watched Rifle, Shoes, and Milly find places to sleep.  Rifle
lay down on the floor next to the recliner, while Shoes flopped down in front of the fire.  Milly seemed far more indecisive about where she wanted to sleep, and wandered around for some time.  Finally, she decided to lay in front of the door that led into the antechamber.  Once the dogs were settled, Misha closed his eyes and tried to sleep.  When you saw death every time you shut your eyes, sleep didn’t come easily.  It did come though, and because of the hard labours of the day, it usually came without dreams.

***

Misha pierced his knife through the tough hide of the polar bear.  It was already beginning to smell.  Flies buzzed all over.

“Just be grateful none of the big animals got to it last night,” Riley commented as she worked her own knife through the flesh.

“Would have been better if
no
animals got to it.”  The polar bear’s paw pads, nose, and eyes had already been viciously nibbled upon by small critters.  Misha expected to find rats inside the carcass; rats that had made their way inside through the partly opened mouth and the burrowed-out eyes.  They would have gone in for the food, warmth, and shelter provided by the inside of the bear.  Misha’s dad had once told him about a time he found a deer carcass in that condition.

Nearby, Milly sniffed about.  If she was as good a ratter as the Bishops claimed, she was going to come in handy.

Misha started the cutting near the ass end, while Riley was taking the head.  Earlier, Mathias, Tobias, Shawn, and Misha had rolled the bear from its stomach onto its side to make the cutting easier.  The bear was damned heavy, weighing at least 800 pounds.  Tobias was now out fishing in the canoe with Josh, while Mathias and Shawn were blazing a trail through the woods.  The fitter ones among them wanted a good trail for jogging each day.  Misha kept looking warily into the woods whenever he heard something, although it was almost always just Rifle sniffing around or chasing a squirrel.

“Thanks for helping with this,” Riley said gratefully as she sawed through a particularly tough spot.

“Like I said yesterday, my dad used to take me hunting.  I was never interested in killing things, but I had no problem skinning them.”  Misha had never skinned a polar bear before, but so far, it was going as expected.

“Still, thank you.”  Riley gave him a smile.  “Hold up.  I think we’ve got enough to pull out the organ sack, what do you say?”

Misha stepped back from the belly of the bear.  “Go for it.”

Riley reached her gloved hands into the bear and started pulling on the membrane that surrounded the organs.  There was a tear in the gut bag, and guts ended up spilling out in a stinking mess onto the hard-packed sand.  And wouldn’t you know
it; a few rats tumbled out with them.  They ran for the woods, squeaking in terror.  Milly perked up quickly and took off after them, head low to the ground and moving fast.

“That’s only slightly disgusting.”  Misha wrinkled his nose at the smell that came with it.  Freshly dead entrails smelled bad enough, but ones that had been dead for at least twelve hours smelled much worse.  He was reminded of a certain man he had seen get torn to pieces by a zombie.  He had thrown up when he saw that, but that was partly due to having eaten too much and then running a lot.  He managed to hold his food down just fine this time.

“Let’s get this over with as quick as we can, and then we can go swimming and wash all this crap off.”

The idea of washing, of using actual soap, appealed to Misha.  That morning at breakfast, Riley told everyone that they had biodegradable soap in the cabin.  The plan was that they would all take a dip in the lake and scrub a week’s worth of grime off themselves.  Misha used to be a very clean boy who worried about pimples, but since the Day, he had basically been a walking pile of dirt.

Misha pulled his firefighter’s jacket tighter around him and stepped back toward the bear.  He and Riley continued to slice the fur off in silence.

“Can I tell you something?”  Riley finally broke the silence as they were nearing completion.

“Depends on what it is you want to say.”  Misha didn’t want to hear anything about her relationship with Mathias.

“I’m thinking of doing something, but it’s probably something very stupid.  If I tell you what it is, will you promise not to tell anyone else?”

“Depends on how stupid it is.  If you’re thinking of suicide, you better believe I’ll be telling everyone.”

Riley let out a brief, humourless laugh.  “It could be suicidal.”

Misha looked up from his work, genuinely concerned.  She knew the most about surviving up here.  Sure, Shawn was here now, but Misha didn’t trust him.  He trusted Riley though.

“I’m pretty sure I know where my sister is, and I want to go see her.  I want to get her and bring her back here.”

“You think she’s in that prison.”  Misha turned back to his work.

“I do.  I was looking at a map this morning while everyone was still asleep.  I’m pretty sure I found the quarry Shawn spoke of and because of Alec’s GPS
that we have, I know exactly where the prison is.  They’re not that far from each other; they easily could have taken Cameron there.”

“And what if they did?  How would you get there?”

“I would take the Osprey.  I could refuel at Connor’s and find a closer landing site, then find a way into the prison.  Hell, I would just have to find one of those white trucks, and they’ll bring me in.”

“They’ll remember who you are, that you were involved in stealing their helicopter.”

“Maybe.  Maybe not.  I would need to wait a week still, until my ribs are better.  Can you believe that only one week has passed?”

She had a point; it did seem like the Day was forever ago.

“They’re probably so busy with other things, they may not remember me.  They’d remember Mathias for sure, maybe you and Tobias because you threw the firebombs, but I was mostly out of the way.  I didn’t have much direct contact with any of them.”

Misha spoke without thinking.  “I’ll go with you if you want.”

Riley looked up, shocked that he had just offered that, however, she shook her head.  “No, I have to go alone.  I would need the passenger seat of the Osprey empty if I’m to bring Cameron back.  And I won’t take the Otter; you guys will need that just in case, God forbid, something goes wrong.”

“Convincing the others will be hard.  Especially your brother, Mathias, and Josh.”

“I’m already working on my arguments against them.”

“They better be damn good.”  Misha hacked a hunk of muscle off a rear leg.

***

“Why don’t we all go?”  Mathias’s brows had probably never spent so much time together.

“Are you kidding me?  Do you know how dangerous it would be if we all went?”  Riley sat in front of the fire, brushing her wet hair.  It was longer and thicker than Misha had realized.

“I know how dangerous it’ll be for you.”

Everybody had eaten dinner and swum in the lake, washing the grime from their bodies in the process.  Now, they all sat around the living room and kitchen debating Riley’s crazy plan.

“Do you really want Danny back out there?”  Riley knew that Danny was Mathias’s weakness.

“Then only I’ll come.”

“And leave Danny behind, without you?  Are you kidding me?”

Danny kept looking from Mathias to Riley and back, as if he were watching a tennis match, as if he weren’t a key point in this debate.

Mathias’s jaw tensed as he tried to think of a work-around to this, but knew there wasn’t one.

“And don’t you even begin.”  Riley faced Joshua before he could even open his mouth.  “Your cast may be off by the time I plan on leaving, but your leg will still be weak.  Besides, you need to be here.  While I’m gone, you’re the doctor on call.”

Joshua’s face flushed a deep red, but he didn’t say anything.

“Why don’t I go alone?”  Mathias spoke up again.  “I trust you to take care of Danny.”

“Besides the fact that you’ll be shot on sight by those people, my sister won’t trust you.  No matter what you say to her, she’s not going to go with you.  She’s a hell of a lot more distrusting than I am.  It has to be someone she already knows and trusts well.  I’m the person she trusts most in the world.”

“Aren’t you going to say something?”  Mathias turned on Shawn, who had been quiet this whole time.  When he said nothing, Mathias rounded back on Riley.  “Why doesn’t he go?  Your sister must trust him, and he already has experience flying the Osprey.”

“I don’t want to go.”  Shawn spoke barely above a whisper, but everybody heard him just fine.  “I’m too scared.  If Riley wants to go, I know I can’t stop her.  Not for Cameron.  But I can’t go myself.”  As he
spoke, he looked at a point between his feet.

“Why not for Cameron?” Alec asked.

“Because she’s my sister,” Riley sighed.  “She’s my twin sister; identical twin.  She’s also my best friend.”

Alec nodded
as if this explained everything to him.  Misha had no idea that Riley’s sister was actually her identical twin.  It was never mentioned.  She had always just been referred to as the sister.

Mathias looked around the room, trying to find a friend in his fight against Riley’s plan.  “Tobias?  Surely you must think this is crazy.”

“Yeah, I think it’s totally nuts.  But I also don’t think I could stop Riley if she’s really determined to go.”  Tobias took no real side, trying to remove himself from Mathias’s glaring eyes.

Mathias turned to Abby.

Abby didn’t look at Mathias but instead turned to Riley.  “Riley?  If you want to go, you don’t need our permission.  But can I ask a favour?  Could you look for Lauren while you’re in the prison?  I can describe her for you.”

Mathias threw up his hands.  Realizing that no one was going to help him, he got up and stormed outside, slamming the door behind him.  Both of them.

“He’ll come around.  Eventually,” Danny said.  “I guess he already forgot what it was like when we were apart.  I can’t imagine what it must be like for twins; especially if you know where she most likely is.”

Riley gave the boy an endearing smile and looked around the room.  “Thank you all for understanding.  That actually went better than I expected.”

“That’s because we’re all missing someone,” Tobias spoke up.  “I’m pretty sure everyone here would be doing what you’re doing if we had the kind of evidence that you do.”

Not everyone,
Misha thought to himself, side glancing at Shawn.  Just one week.  In just one week, Shawn would be taking care of them instead of Riley.  A shiver ran down Misha’s spine.

Power Struggle I

Triston Chelios had managed to survive an entire week so far.  He was amazed by his accomplishment. 
If his luck continued to hold out, he could survive another week as well.  When everyone else had fled, Triston had stayed.  He stayed to keep the generators running.  Every day, he had to go out and hunt down diesel fuel, but so far, he was succeeding in keeping the tanks topped up.  Where Triston was staying was a nuclear waste storage facility, the only one in Leighton.  If the generators weren’t kept running, Leighton would experience a nuclear disaster.  Triston had taken it upon himself to keep this from happening.  He kept thinking that any day now, the power would come back on.  After a week of this, his hope had begun to wane.  He was beginning to have the reverse thoughts, that the power would never come back on.  Despite his efforts, the generators would run out eventually, and Triston didn’t want to be anywhere near the facility when that happened.  He decided he was going to give it one week.  One more week of risking his neck for the generators.  It’s not as if he saw anybody out there anyway.  No one but the dead.  After one more week, he would top up the generators and make a run for it.  He would run as far away from that place as he could.

He would run as far as he could, because days after he stopped filling those tanks, most of Leighton would be burned to the ground in a nuclear fire.