Adaptive Instinct (Survival Instinct) (25 page)

Robin didn’t know what he meant at first.  She thought he was going to dose Greg early, but then he lifted the pillow up from under Greg’s head.  Robin didn’t want to be here for this, but she couldn’t possibly look away.  She couldn’t leave River to this, not when she had been the one to bring it up in the first place.

“Greg, look here,” River spoke gently, drawing Greg’s eyes to his face.  “Do you remember that time we played in Florida?  Remember all those people?  And there was that one chick, in the front row, totally gaga for you.  Quin bent down to her, pretty much sang to her, but she didn’t even seem to notice; her eyes were totally on you.  Remember that, Greg?  And later, the two of us went to that alligator farm and saw a huge, hulking beast.  And when we were taking pictures of it, the guide told us its name and its name turned out to be the same as that chick’s.  Do you remember that, Greg?  Do you remember the name?”

“Sheila,” Greg croaked.

“Right, Sheila.  That was a good weekend, wouldn’t you say?  I want you to close your eyes and think of Sheila.  Either one of them will do.  Can you do that, man?”

“Yes.”  Greg closed his eyes, but what he was thinking about was unknown.

River lifted the pillow up over his friend’s face and brought it down.  Greg didn’t struggle until his body’s natural defences kicked in, and even those were weak, pathetic.  Robin watched as River stole the life from his friend.  Greg finally stopped moving; he was no longer in agony.

River sat there awhile longer, holding the pillow over his bandmate’s face.  Tears were flowing down his cheeks like his name.  Finally, he collapsed backward, letting Greg’s face remain covered.  Robin had no words of comfort to offer the old rocker.

“Did you tell the others you were going to do it?”  Robin croaked out just for something to say.

River looked up at her, startled.  He had probably forgotten she was there, or thought she had left.  “No.  I didn’t want to give them a chance to change their minds.”

“I’ll go tell them then.”  It was the perfect excuse to leave, and River let her take it.

Robin crossed the department store quicker than she had earlier.  She wanted to get away from Greg, away from his dead body that had been decaying while it was still alive.  It was
as if the smell had suddenly gotten to her again, and she gagged a few times.  She wanted nothing more than fresh air right then, but she knew she couldn’t get that.  Outside, the air wasn’t any fresher.  Dead bodies lay in the streets, while others walked upon them, their rot casting its stink on everything.  The heat wave they were having wasn’t making things better.  They hadn’t had any rain to wash anything away, just the blazing sun baking it all.  Not one drop of water had fallen from the sky since the virus had begun its spread.  It was like Mother Nature herself wanted to escape this monstrosity.

The kittens greeted Robin as she re-entered the protective ring of woodwork and metal.  It had been only a week, but Robin swore the little kittens were already bigger.  April was awake, but it looked like Quin wasn’t.  Quin was sweating and shaking, in the throws of a nightmare more terrible than any of the nightmares the others had experienced.  April had gently placed the old man’s head on her lap and was stroking his hair.  There was no way to tell if that helped at all.

The bed frame fortress didn’t smell any better than the rest of the department store.  The mattresses and sheets were soaked through with everyone’s sweat, although Quin was the worst with his withdrawal.  No power meant no AC, which meant that everybody would sweat all day long.  They still had a lot of water, but when that ran low, they would be in trouble.  Bad odours also came from the kittens’ litter box.  The box was enclosed, and Robin cleaned it every day, throwing the waste into a sealed garbage bin, but it still stank.  At least they had found kitten food for them; Robin didn’t want to imagine what their shit would stink like if they were eating people food.  Robin decided that was the thing she hated most about this whole situation: the terrible, awful smell.

“Greg’s dead.”  Robin didn’t bother sugar coating it.

April’s eyes went wide and her dark skin became quite pale.

“River put a pillow over his face and smothered him.  I hope you didn’t have a change of heart about your vote last night.”

April shook her head no, then quickly turned her attention back to stroking Quin’s hair.  She needed something to do right now, that was obvious.

“Hey, my clothes are starting to stink again, and I bet yours are too.  Want to go downstairs and change?”  Robin offered.

“Sure.”  April managed a smile as she lowered Quin’s head onto a pillow and got to her feet.  From one of the corners she grabbed a pair of small, single-strap sacks.  The sacks were good for carrying the kittens around.  April hung one off her neck and scooped Splatter up into it.  Robin took the other sack, wore it in the same backwards manner, and carried Charlie and Charcoal.

The two girls headed over to the escalator and opened their ‘door
.’  With River and Quin’s help, they had moved a large armoire to stand at the top of the escalator.  After removing the back panel with some hammers, screwdrivers, and April’s sword, the armoire’s doors became real doors.  And because of the handles on the front, they were able to lock them closed with a bike lock.  April picked up a key from a nearby desk and opened the lock.  The rule was that the lock was only closed at night when they were sure everybody was inside, otherwise, you could hang it from the handles if frightened, but not snap it shut.  After April put the key back, she and Robin stepped awkwardly through the armoire and onto the unmoving steps.  One floor down was the clothing level.

Robin had noticed that April had these weird mood shifts. When they were upstairs, safely behind their doors, she was fearful of everything.  She always fretted, and was concerned about Quin, and allowed guilt to eat her up about Greg, and worried about the food and water levels, but as soon as they were outside, that all changed.  Once she was through the bureau, she became like a hardened warrior or something.  With her sword in hand, she stalked grimly through the environment, constantly on the lookout for threats.  She often became alerted to things before Robin did, and took point in their hunts for supplies.

Robin found herself to be the complete opposite.  She took charge upstairs, holding it together most of the time, organizing their things and planning their outings, but once outside, she became a scared, lost, little girl.  She let April lead outside because she couldn’t.  She just wanted to run and hide, to get away from the walking corpses.  Her shotgun was always held in a white-knuckle grip, and she checked the kittens often.  The kittens occasionally warned them about nearby zombies they didn’t know about, but not always; some still got the drop on them.  Because Robin was coiled like a spring, she got the shots off quickly enough, but she was afraid one day she wouldn’t, or that one day, she would do what April had done and blast away a non-infected.  Since then, April wouldn’t touch another gun.  When Robin found a pistol and tried to hand it to her, April refused to take it.  Not as if it mattered, there weren’t any bullets in it anyway.

In the clothing section, Robin and April headed over to where they knew they would find clothes that fit them.  This would be their third time changing their clothes since day one.  Robin hadn’t changed the whole first week, even though she had some clothes with her when she was in the bank with Victoria.  The day after Greg’s incident, Robin felt a very strong desire to change.  Although that desire was gone and she didn’t like the feeling of vulnerability that came with being naked, Robin promised herself she would change every few days.  It had now been a few days.

While one girl changed quickly in a change room, the other stood watch at the door.  As Robin pulled a fresh, black T-shirt on over her head, she saw herself in the mirror.  She nearly screamed, thinking it was some zombie she hadn’t noticed before.  Her hair wasn’t tangled exactly, she did brush it, but it really needed washing.  It was gross, clinging to her scalp in stringy clumps.  All the makeup she had put on the morning of two weeks ago was gone; stripped off by sweat and replaced with grime.  They didn’t dare waste any water with unnecessary washing.  Under her eyes was the colour of bruising, and they had a wild look to them.  Even her clothing had changed a lot.  She didn’t exactly keep with the latest fashion trends, but she liked to think she used to have some sort of style.  Now it was black T-shirt, black pants, and whatever underwear fit the most comfortably.  All this, plus the strange lighting coming from the solar lantern on the bench, created a girl Robin had never seen before.

“Robin?” April whispered through the door.  She had been taking too long.

“Sorry, be out in a second.”  Robin picked up her kitten bag, putting Charlie back in because he had escaped, and grabbed her gun.  She stepped out of the change room so that April could use it.  “I saw myself in the mirror.  It…  startled me.”

April gave her a curt nod, understanding.  Maybe she had done the same thing the last time they changed, or perhaps glanced at the mirrors outside the change rooms.  Her own hair was fraying out of its cornrows and her makeup was equally replaced by grime.

Robin hated guarding.  The only light source in the changing room area came from their solar lamp, and because that was behind a closed door, it was very dim indeed.  It didn’t help that due to the light reflecting off the mirror, odd, moving shadows would be cast by the changing occupant.  Robin’s hands trembled as she pointed the shotgun barrel toward the only entrance, which was also the only exit.  She looked down at Charlie and Charcoal, or as she called them when they were together, the Char-Chars.  Charcoal was asleep, dead to the world, while Charlie was awake and trying to move around the small confines.  He wanted to play and kept attacking his brother’s head.

“April!” a whispered voice hissed from out in the store.  “Robin!”

Robin recognized it right away as Quin’s.  “In the change rooms, Quin!” Robin hissed back.  She watched as a light bloomed through the doorway and got larger as Quin neared.  He was carrying a flashlight.

Quin appeared, looking rather distraught.  “Greg’s dead.”

“I know, Quin.  He-”

“He must have passed in the night,” Quin cut her off.  “I’m so glad we didn’t have to put him down.”

Robin snapped her jaws shut.  Clearly, River had said nothing, and Quin had been too out of it to hear when Robin had told April.  Maybe it was better if he didn’t know.  He
was
the most emotionally fragile of them after all.

April stepped out of the change room in her new clothes, which were very similar, if not identical, to Robin’s.  Quin just seemed to register the new attire and that they were in the change rooms.

“New clothes.  I should probably change my clothes, shouldn’t I?”  Quin looked down at himself.  He had been wearing the same thing for two weeks straight; it was gross to think about.  At least River had the wits to change, although his odd, random style was still present.

“If you’re up to it,” April replied, although she was likely begging him internally to change.  Robin knew that she herself was.

“Yeah.  Yeah, I’m down for that.”  He wandered back into the store and the girls followed him.

Quin took his time choosing what he wanted and changed right in the middle of the store.  The girls blushed as he began to strip and quickly turned their backs to him.

“What?”  Quin sounded indigent.  “I have a very lovely body, you know.”

“I’m sure you do.”  Robin thought on her feet for a response that wouldn’t result in him being angry, or causing him to insist that they turn around.  “We’re just keeping an eye out for threats is all.”

“Threats?  But we’re inside.”

“If they try hard enough, they can get in,” April informed him.

Quin was silent for several minutes after that.  The only sound was that of him changing out of his rocker clothes into something else.

“I’d like to go back upstairs now,” Quin spoke in a hushed tone.

Robin turned to see that he had suddenly become his age.  In a simple pair of blue jeans and a too-big T-shirt, he looked physically frail as well as emotionally.  The only thing that remained of his old style was the black fedora on his head.  Even with that, he became like a meek child, ready to be led by the hand.  And that’s exactly what April did.  With the two of them, hand-in-hand, leading the way back to the escalator, Robin had the job of rear defence, which went mercifully well.

***

After they got Quin squared away upstairs, April and Robin decided to go out on a hunt.

“I think we should leave Charlie here,” Robin said as the little kitten scampered over River.  The guitarist had gone back to sleep.

“Why?”  April was testing the sharpness of her blade.  She had found a whetstone amongst some kitchen supplies, although the sword’s blade had remained remarkably fine.

“He’s being really energetic.  He’ll squirm the whole time and try to escape.”  Robin had noticed that the kittens had changed more than just their size.  At first, they were fairly lethargic, totally content with sleeping or lounging most of the day.  But with that one week’s growth, they had become a lot more active, a lot more energetic.  Sometimes it was hard to keep them in the bags.

“Then do you think we should leave them all here?”