Adaptive Instinct (Survival Instinct) (38 page)

“I thought this little one was done yesterday?” Haily said when she saw Peter in Lauren’s arms.  They didn’t actually draw Peter’s blood, but tested his saliva.  They weren’t sure how accurate that test was, but since Peter was being watched twenty-four seven, they didn’t think he could get infected without someone noticing right away.

“He was.  Richards asked me to start bringing him in every day so he can see how he’s doing.  He’s worried about his non-expressive behaviour,” Lauren explained.

“Well, Richards is next door right now.  I can get him if you’d like,” Haily offered.

“That’s all right, I don’t mind going.  And I’m sure these kids want to get their check-ups done and over with as fast as possible.  Don’t you, children?”

All seven of them nodded vigorously.  Haily laughed, a comforting sound, as Lauren left the kids in her care to go see Richards.  Richards was a bit of an odd man, but he knew more about children’s health care than
anyone did.  Not only had he been a pediatrician for most of his life, but also he had eight kids of his own, only one of whom was at the motel with them.  His eldest son had just started his own internship at the hospital, so they had come together.  Brave soldiers had gone to his house to look for the rest of his family, but no sign of them was found.  They had gone to many people’s homes, looking for the families of other survivors.  Lauren hadn’t yet asked them to look for Abby.  If they found her randomly, they would bring her in, but she hadn’t given them an exact address to look for her.  She focused on the needs of the children first, tried to get their families found before any others.  So far, they had only succeeded in finding one child’s mom, but watching them get reunited had been the happiest moment of the week.  Besides, Lauren would rather hear no news than bad news.  The group of men who searched for families was made up entirely of volunteers.  Already, two of them had died from zombie attacks, and another had been taken by the Marble Keystone guys.  The man who was taken was fine.  He wound up at the prison where they were in communication with some rebel mercenaries.

Lauren opened the door to the motel room and stuck her head inside.  This room and the next two over were sectioned off into several smaller, curtained areas.  The maroon-patterned wallpaper that adorned all the motel room walls was mostly hidden here.  She heard the racking coughs of a man coming from the other side of a curtain.  A nurse, who wasn’t really a nurse but a volunteer, was sitting near the door.

“Can I help you?”  On a tiny school desk next to her, she was dividing pills into Dixie-cups for the patients.  All of them were cut in half when they could be, to make the supplies last longer.

“I’m looking for Dr. Richards.  I was told he was here,” Lauren explained.

“They’re both here.  Which one are you looking for?”

“The older one.”

“I’ll go get him.”  The nurse rose from her seat and headed down the tiny aisle between the curtains.  The curtained areas each contained one tiny bed or cot, and one chair for a visitor; they weren’t wide enough for anything else.  In fact, the chairs were all wedged tightly between the beds.  Only the curtains really separated them.

The man coughed again, sounding like his lungs were trying to escape his body.  Someone else murmured soothing words to him.

The nurse came back with the elder Dr. Richards in tow.  He looked older every time Lauren saw him.  His salt and pepper hair was becoming a lot more salt than pepper, and the lines on his face were growing into deep crevasses.  He gestured to Lauren for both of them to step outside.  There was a bench outside the doctors’ rooms, and Richards led them to it, collapsing in a huff as he sat down.  He drove his palms into his eyes as Lauren sat down next to him, and then turned to her, blinking rapidly.

“Rough day?” Lauren asked.

“Just like yesterday.  And the day before that,” Richards responded.  “Let’s take a look at the little one.”

Lauren handed Peter over to the doctor.  The man placed the baby on his lap and began a quick physical examination.

“Has he been sleeping well?”

“He’s a great sleeper.  Better than all the other children as far as I can tell,” Lauren told him.  “He goes down for his nap easily and sleeps through the night.  At least I think he does.  He might not be.  He doesn’t cry or anything when he wakes up.”

“What does he do when he wakes up in the morning?”

“I think he lies there for a bit.  I’m usually too busy to notice for sure.  I only realize he’s awake when he stands up and looks out of that crib we put together.”

“Have you ever woken up to see him standing in the night?”

“No.”

“Then he probably sleeps through the night just fine.  Now if only the rest of us could do that.”  Richards started bouncing the boy on his knee, making silly faces, and chanting a dumb rhyme in the hopes of getting a response.

Peter just stared at the man, holding his hands, his expression unchanging.

“I would like to try something, but I would want your permission first,” Richards turned back to Lauren.

“And what’s that?”  Lauren frowned.  If he needed permission, then it was likely unorthodox.

“I want to give him a pinch.  Not a hard one, just hard enough to hurt.  I want to know what his response to pain is.”

“I don’t know.”  Lauren didn’t like the idea at all of hurting Peter.

“If he doesn’t respond, then we have a serious problem on our hands.  We couldn’t possibly know if he was sick, or hurt.”

Lauren looked at the small boy with the big eyes.  Hurting him would hurt Lauren’s heart, but the doctor had a point.  What if he didn’t have a response to pain?  And one day, something happened, like a bigger kid fell on him.  There could be internal bleeding or something, but if nobody knew he had been hurt, they wouldn’t do anything.

“Okay,” Lauren finally agreed, “but just a really little pinch.”

Richards rolled up Peter’s little pant leg revealing his chubby calf.  Very quickly, he reached his fingers forward and pinched his skin.  The response was immediate.  Peter
opened his mouth and wailed.  Big wet tears rolled down his cheeks.  He turned toward Lauren, reaching for her.  Lauren gladly scooped him into her arms, cradling him and stroking his fine hair.  He wrapped his arms around her neck in the first hug she had ever seen him give.  Richards was smiling.

“Wonderful!” he beamed.  “The response was good.  Not only did he become upset, but he instantly went to you for comfort.”

“Fantastic.”  Lauren’s voice oozed sarcasm.  Although it was good news, Lauren wished there had been a test that didn’t involve Peter bawling his eyes out.

The other seven children exited the exam room, holding sore arms from their blood draws and looking grouchy.  They saw Peter crying and hurried over.

“What happened?”

“Is he okay?”

“What happened to Peter?”

“Did he fall down?”

“Did he bump his head?”

“Was his blood taken too?”

“Does he want my sucker?”

“He can have my sucker.”

“Will he be okay?”

A thousand questions poured from the kids.  They had never seen Peter cry either, and
they were both amazed and very concerned.  Peter had been like a little mascot for everybody.  The fact that he was so calm all the time helped to calm the rest of the children.  They figured if someone so tiny wasn’t afraid, they shouldn’t be scared either.

“He’s fine.  No need to give him your suckers.”  Lauren stood and began to shepherd the kids back to their section of the motel.  She threw a quick thank you to Richards over her shoulder and told him she would see him tomorrow.

Peter had stopped crying before they reached the motel rooms.  Lauren put him down in his crib and gave him a toy to play with.  There weren’t a lot of toys, and all the kids had to share, but the scavengers who went out tried to bring back at least one every time.

“I’m hungry,” Leelo appeared at Lauren’s side.

“All right, I’ll go get you something.”  Lauren glanced at her watch and saw it was close to suppertime.  “Actually, I should be getting everyone’s dinner.  Could you round everybody up?”

Leelo just scowled at her.

“All right, I’ll ask Claire to do it then.”  Lauren had learned that Leelo could be a nightmare child sometimes.  Asking her to do anything could result in an explosion.

“I’ll tell her.”  Leelo walked off, hopefully to find Claire.  She and Claire could be called friends, in an odd sort of way.  When one was doing something, the other was usually nearby, watching.  Sometimes they would do stuff together and talk, but most of the time
, it was just one watching the other.

Lauren found Jason and asked him to watch Peter.  He was a much better kid than Leelo and set to the task right away.  He actually climbed into the
makeshift crib with Peter to keep out of the way and began playing with him.  Lauren had a feeling that if Peter ever laughed, it would be because of Jason.  The kid seemed capable of making anyone smile.

Jon was hanging out with some of the older teenagers who had their own room.  A few of them were drinking from tiny liquor bottles.  Although the mini-fridges had all been cleaned out first thing, a few people raided the supplies and stole them from time to time.  Those in charge of rationing usually let it slip by.  So long as they weren’t getting roaring
drunk or stealing more important, nourishing foods, then they weren’t concerned.

“Jon, come help me get the kids’ dinners,” Lauren called to him from the door.  She knew better than to go in.  Jon would probably feel embarrassed if she did, and for some of these eighteen to twenty-two year olds, this room was the first place they had ever lived without their parents.  It was their private space where they were learning to live on their own, without normal rules.  Thankfully, with so many people around, there wasn’t a true lack of supervision.  If there had been, things could easily have taken a bad turn.

After a few quick words to the others, Jon exited the room and walked with Lauren to the supply rooms.

“Were you drinking?” Lauren wondered.

“No, ma’am,” Jon answered automatically.

“It’s okay if you were.  I was just curious.  I haven’t had a good drink in far too long.”

Jon smiled.  “No.  Hard liquor tastes disgusting.  I’m more of a beer guy myself.”

“Do you like hanging out with them?”

“They’re okay.”

“You know, I think you’re old enough to live with them if you wanted to.  You don’t need my supervision like the other kids do.”

“But then who would help you get their food?”

Lauren smiled.  Jon was a good kid.  She had found out that, before all this mess, he had been a foster child.  He had lived in a home with six other kids, all of them younger.  His birth mom had been a raging alcoholic and his birth dad a major meth head.  Jon had trouble growing up, both before and after he was taken away from his parents.  He admitted to a lot of wrong doings, but he seemed to be on the right track now.  All it took was the end of
civilization, as he knew it.

At the supply rooms, they were met by one of the police officers.  He helped them pack their boxes with their assigned dinners for that night and sent them on their way.  Dinner was never a very large meal.  Breakfast was big enough to need Private Winchester to help carry it, but dinners were small.  Most of the kids went to bed not long after supper, because once the sun was down, there wasn’t much to do.  Not to mention that once the sun was down, everything became a lot more terrifying.  A lot of people in the motel spent more time in bed now than they did before the zombies.  For some, it was because they were depressed, others, because there wasn’t anything else to do.  The main reason though was because of the nightmares.  Although this seemed like a reason not to sleep, after two weeks, they had to live with it.  They would fall asleep, have a nightmare, wake up, lay awake for something like half an hour, and then fall back asleep only to be woken up again a few hours later. 
To get a full night’s rest it took longer than it used to.  Lauren barely had time for nightmares.  The kids woke up all the time, crying or even screaming.  Lauren got up every time to comfort them.  She was exhausted, but she couldn’t stop.

By the time Lauren and Jon got dinner up to the rooms, all the kids had been gathered from around the motel.  They formed a line through the double rooms and down the outside walkway, from youngest to oldest.  Except for Peter.  Lauren fed him once everyone else had their food.

“Peas?” Leelo complained when Lauren put some on her plate.  “I hate peas.”

“And?”  Lauren was given peas, so the kids were given peas.

“I want peaches.  Give me some peaches.”

“You eat enough peaches.  In fact, you eat too many peaches.  Eat the peas.”

“But I don’t like peas.”

“And I have no peaches.”

“Give me that.”  Jon took Leelo’s plate from her.  He began scraping the peas off her plate onto his, which would otherwise be filled last.  He handed her plate back.  “Now you have no peas.”

Leelo looked at her plate, which, without the peas, had barely any food on it at all.

“Give me my peas back.”  Leelo thrust her plate at Jon, nearly spilling her other food off.  “They’re my peas.  Give them back.”

“I thought you didn’t like peas.”  Jon taunted her.  “And if you don’t like something, obviously you shouldn’t eat it.”

“I lied.  I like peas.  Give me my peas back.”  Leelo scowled her fiercest scowl.

“Ask nicely,” Jon pushed.

“Give me my peas!” she shrieked.

Laughing, Jon picked up his plate and scraped the peas back onto Leelo’s.  She stormed off to eat.

Although Lauren didn’t approve of Jon teasing Leelo, if it got her to eat what she was given, more power to him.  None of the other kids was nearly as bad as she was, but there were a few grumbles and groans.  A lot of the kids were used to getting whatever they wanted cooked for them, but here, you got what you got.  If you didn’t like what you were given, you had to either force it down, or go hungry.  Lauren worried about a boy, Mike, who actually chose to go hungry instead of eating.  The few times they got some selection, she always let him pick what he wanted.

After the line ended, Lauren filled Jon’s plate and sent him on his way.  She then filled her own plate, a plate for Mary, and grabbed the one jar of baby food for Peter.  In the motel room, she fed Peter first, then herself, then went over to Mary.  The woman was fickle about food.  Sometimes she ate, sometimes she didn’t.  Lauren held a spoon of peas in front of her mouth.

“Come on Mary, you have to eat.”  Lauren sometimes had to treat the woman like one of the children.

Mary shook her head.  She was present, but being stubborn.  When it came to food, Lauren liked the days she was out of it.  On those days, you told her to eat, and she ate.

“You’re setting a bad example,” Dakota huffed.

Lauren looked down to see the girl sitting next to her.  Most of the kids were in the rooms now, as the sun started to sink below the tree line.  Mary cracked open an eyelid and looked at all the kids watching her.  They had finished their own meals some time ago.  Mary grabbed the spoon and shoved the peas into her mouth.  She then grabbed the plate, and turned her back on the room, eating with her head in the corner.  The stuffed bear sat on her lap.  Dakota smiled up at Lauren who smiled back.

From outside came a loud crash and the grinding screech of twisting metal.

***

The children screamed and flocked to Lauren, who was on her feet in an instant.  Jon appeared in the doorway that connected the two rooms, his eyes asking Lauren what happened.

“Children, stay here, I’ll find out what’s going on,” Lauren told them in a rush, trying to disentangle herself from their arms.

They wailed, refusing to let go.  Claire especially held on tightly.

“Let her go!” Jon yelled at them.  “You’re not helping!”

The kids cried more, but they listened to Jon, loosening their grip.  Claire ran over to the sixteen year old, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his chest.  Lauren got to the door.

“Jon, you’re in charge.”

Jon nodded, not needing to be told.  He was already getting all the older kids out of his room and into the room with the little kids.  Jason went straight to Peter, which was a relief.  Lauren opened the door and stepped out.

Right
away, she saw what had happened.  A pickup truck had careened off the road into the barricade.  Inside, the passenger was attacking the driver.  He must have been infected by a zombie, and the driver either didn’t know, or thought he could save him somehow.  Either way, he was being killed, and a hole had been punched into the motel’s defence line.  Slow zombies had been gathering outside the fence all day after the siren had turned off, and now they spilled in through the opening.  The defence crew was already going to work, picking off the zombies with headshots.  The gunfire was going to draw more though, and it was likely to draw the smart zombies.  They always had guards posted in case the smart zombies showed up; the ones who could climb walls and crawl through holes in the fence.  With warning and preparedness, they could take them out silently, but now, with so many slow ones coming in, they had to resort to gunfire.

“Ms. Sanford!”

Lauren was pulled away from the sight by Private Winchester calling her name.  She turned just in time for the man to shove a pistol into her hands.  Lauren had never fired a weapon before, but all the adults were taking classes on how to use them properly.

“Stay with the children!” he ordered and then took off in a flash to join the others.

Lauren was shaking, unsure of her capabilities.  It was one thing to save herself from zombies, but a room full of children?  She would stand her ground, and sacrifice herself if need be.  She was absolutely terrified.

The firefight raged on below Lauren.  A constant staccato of gunfire was punctuated intermittently with screams.  She didn’t know who was screaming or why; she didn’t dare look.  The hope was that they were screaming in rage, rather than pain.  Lauren looked down the length of the upper walkway.  One of the girls who Jon had been hanging out with earlier was puking over the side of the railing.  Beyond her was the only other person on the walkway.  Lauren recognized him as the father of two boys, one of whom Dakota played with, and the other hung out with Jason.  He also had a gun in his hand, a revolver.  He saw Lauren looking and nodded.  He looked just as terrified.

The fight seemed never-ending.  Lauren occasionally glanced at the failing light in the sky.  The day’s cloud cover had mostly broken up so she could see that the sun had sunk below the trees.  The sky was a disconcerting shade of red.

A loud thump sounded to Lauren’s right.  She swung the gun around, hoping she was ready for anything.  She wasn’t.  A rail thin, six foot eight zombie uncurled to its full height next to her.  His hair, which stood on end in all directions, brushed the ceiling above him.  He must have climbed over the fences, and then climbed up to the second floor.  Lauren fired the gun erratically.  Bullets buried themselves in the floor, the railings, the ceiling, the zombie’s lanky torso and limbs, but never its head.  He strode toward Lauren, the mouth in his long face stretching wide open.  Lauren tried to back away, but she stumbled from fright and landed on her ass.  He took another step forward on his absurd, spindly legs.  This was it for Lauren.  This was how it would end.

As the creature passed in front of the door to the room the children were in, it was yanked open from the inside.  Jon, along with a herd of kids, came pouring out.  Screaming, they wrapped themselves around the skeletal man, pinning all his limbs to his sides in a tight embrace, keeping low, out of reach of his jaws.  The twig man let out a rasping roar, barely heard over the terrified shrieks of the children.

“NOW!” Jon screamed in his loudest voice.

As one, the children lifted the man, bumping his head on the ceiling.  They rushed him to the railing and tossed him over the side.  There was a clattering like dried sticks below.  Lauren leapt to her feet and looked over the edge.  The twig man was moving, but barely; his spine was broken.

The children swarmed around Lauren, crying.