Adaptive Instinct (Survival Instinct) (54 page)

The impact was jarring, throwing Misha forward and then back into his seat.  Shoes began howling, the only sound that could be heard above the scraping, groaning, and crunching of metal.  The entire plane vibrated violently, shaking the fillings in Misha’s teeth.  They twisted sideways.  The moment Misha realized this, the landing gear on one side snapped off with a twang.  They pitched toward Misha’s side of the plane, and the wing scraped down into whatever it was they had landed on.  The wing crumpled, ripped, and tore apart.  It separated from the body of the plane as they began to roll over it.  Misha saw ground rush toward his window, as gravity pulled him to it.  The glass blew out, and then they were upside down.  Packs and supplies were launched around the cabin, getting torn open and spilling their contents everywhere.  The only thing Misha could do was hold tightly to Milly.  They were upright again for a moment, the other wing having also been torn off,
and then they were rolling back toward the roof again.  The frame of the cabin squealed and screamed as the metal was stressed and tortured.  Part of the roof above Misha’s head was ripped open as they began to roll upright again.  Suddenly they slammed hard into something, nearly ripping Milly out of Misha’s grip and causing her to yelp as his fingers dug into her sides.

It was nearly a minute before Misha acknowledged that they had stopped.  He was sitting on an angle with Tobias lower than
he was.  The interior of the plane looked nothing like it had before.  Everything was torn, twisted, ripped, and mangled.  Groans and pops came from every surface as they settled into their new configuration.

“Everyone okay?” Mathias asked.

A few people answered from both their group and Rufus’s, but not everybody.  Misha looked across at Abby and saw that she was hanging limply in her seat, with blood running down the side of her head.

“Oh, God.”  Milly dropped with another yelp, this one from fright, as Misha released her.  She quickly scurried through a hole in the fuselage while he fought with his seatbelt buckle, but it wouldn’t come undone.  He looked around for something to help him.  That’s when he saw the wicked
blade, which had buried itself in the seat next to his head.  He reached a hand up to the side of his head and felt a sharp pain when he touched his ear.  His hand came back bloody; the knife had sliced right through it.  Ignoring the terror tightening his chest, Misha pulled the knife out and used it to cut through the seatbelt.  Once free, he carefully moved himself over to Abby’s seat.  He placed two of his fingers under her slumped chin, trying to find a pulse in her neck.  He found one.

“Tobias, help me out.”  He looked down.

Tobias had freed himself and was assisting a dazed Joshua.  Once Josh was on his way out through the same hole Milly had taken, Tobias climbed up to Misha.  Together, the two of them freed Abby and gently lowered her to the ground.  Tobias took her out of the hole, while Misha moved forward in the plane to check on the others.

“Take Shoes.”  Mathias handed the basset hound off the moment he could, and crossed to Danny.

“I think my arm is broken.”  The boy winced.  A large red and purple, swollen section was forming on his left forearm.

“As long as you’re alive, we can patch you up,” Mathias told him as he helped him free.

Alec was freeing himself in the lower half of the plane, his right upper arm covered in bruises.  Rifle had a gash on his muzzle but otherwise looked all right.

“I’ll get myself out.  You take the dogs,” Alec ordered Misha.

Misha obeyed, leading Rifle over to the hole.  The big dog squeezed out first, as Misha put Shoes down.  The smaller dog followed easily after him.

When Misha crawled out of the plane, he was amazed by what he saw.  Pieces of airplane lay strewn across the entire length of a massive field.  Josh was examining Abby’s head wound, a beat-up boot he found covering the foot he hadn’t had a shoe for, while Tobias ran about locating supplies that were still good.  Rufus’s family members were still peeling themselves out of the wreckage, all of them with their own injuries.  Misha looked back at the main section of the plane.  The reason they had stopped rolling, was because they had slammed into the massive cement base of a water tower.

Once everyone was out of the plane, they discovered that three people had died, and a fourth was quickly fading.  Rufus, his wife, and his eldest daughter had all been killed on impact, having been in the front section of the plane.  His sister-in-law was gasping for breath, a large piece of metal having smashed her rib cage and punctured a lung.  She’d be gone very soon.  Rufus’s three surviving kids were bawling their eyes out, draping ratty looking blankets over the dead they had removed from the wreckage, and crying over their aunt.  Rufus’s sister did all she could to comfort them.  Somehow, the old woman had survived, and she watched over the girls with a stony expression.  Her breathing had a wheezing quality, and Misha couldn’t remember if that was normal for her or not.

Everyone who could move began gathering what they could, except for Josh who continued examining everyone’s injuries one by one.  As soon as any sort of medical supply was found, they brought it over to him, and most of the time it was used right away.  Misha’s ear was hastily stitched up.

“Alec, I found your chair!”  Tobias called from a short distance down the field.  He dragged the metal contraption over to the man so that he could look it over.  It had taken a beating, but looked to be in one piece.

“It’s not going to work as is,” Alec sighed.  “If you can find me some tools, I might be able to get it at least partly functional
.”

Misha added tools to his mental list of things for which to keep an eye out.  He was actually trying very hard not to burst out laughing.  Although they were in the middle of a disaster, he was just so happy that everyone he knew was still breathing.  He felt badly for Rufus and his family, especially considering this wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for them, but he felt no loss or regret over it.

Abby began to wake, dazed and confused about what just happened.  She couldn’t remember anything after flying over the suburbs.  Josh said that wasn’t uncommon.

Not long after she woke up, Misha looked toward the edge of the field.  There, coming through the trees, he saw the first of the zombies.

22:

Robin Paige – Days 15-17

Robin woke up and saw River standing over April with the sword in his hand.  Still half asleep, groggier than she had ever felt before, and with a raging headache, she managed to realize that something was terribly wrong.  Terror rose in her chest and then out of her mouth in a shattering scream.

River looked away from her, back to April, ready to strike with the sword.  Quin came out of nowhere and tackled River to the floor, knocking the sword out of his hands.

“Quin!  This is for your own good!” River shouted as he and Quin tussled on the carpet.

April woke up next to Robin, just as frightened about what was going on.  She curled up against the headboard, and that’s when Robin first realized they were in some sort of hotel room.  She wrapped her arms around the other girl, still trying to put things together but knowing that April needed protection.

River got back to his feet, the sword in his hand again, but Quin stood between him and the girls.  Even under his baggy T-shirt, Robin could see Quin’s body shaking with anger.

“What are you doing, man?” he shouted at River.

“She’s
infected. We have to kill her before she can infect the rest of us.”  River was talking about April.

Robin had a moment of hesitation.  Had she missed something?  Was April infected?

Quin glanced at them and sounded sure of himself when he spoke next.  “She’s not infected.”

“You’ve heard her coughing,” River said.

Robin put it together.  “We were out in a rain storm.  You don’t think it’s possible she might have gotten a cold?” she told him.  “She was never bitten.”  Clearly, River was mistaking it for the awful kind of infection.

“You can’t be sure of that.  Do you watch her every second of the day?” River challenged.

“She’s not infected.”  Robin had no idea what had happened when she was put to sleep, but if April were infected, she’d tell them.  Wouldn’t she?

River turned back to Quin.  “Quin, she’s infected.  You remember Zach, right?  He got sick first.”

Robin had no idea who Zach was.

“We have to protect ourselves,” River continued.  “It’ll be harder later, when she’s trying to bite us, to infect us as well.  You have to see that.”

Quin looked over his shoulder at Robin and winked, then turned back to River.  “You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

“Quin!”  Robin wasn’t sure what that wink meant.

Quin actually stepped aside, giving River access to the girls.  River stepped forward, readying the sword again.  Since he wasn’t focused on Quin anymore, he didn’t see the punch to the side of the head coming.  The surprise made him drop the sword once more.

“You son of a bitch.”  River wheeled on Quin, prepared to fight back.  “Fucking pussy wanker, ass bitch.”

Quin punched him in the face again, causing River to stumble into the wall behind him.

“You killed Greg.  And I saw you; I saw you light the fire.”  Quin’s eyes had filled with tears.  Robin’s did too as she realized what that meant.  River had killed Charlie and Charcoal.  That pain was still unbearably fresh and learning that River had caused it was like jamming a hot poker into it.

“I did it for Greg!”  River rammed into Quin’s waist, driving them both into the wall across the room.

As they fought, Robin sat frozen on the bed.  She didn’t know what to do, and her head hurt worse than ever.  Quin landed a solid kick to River’s head, which stunned him.  Just when the fight seemed to be over, Robin could hear a smashing and splintering sound coming from the door of the room.  Something was trying to get in.

Robin jumped off the bed, dragging April with her as the other girl began coughing.  She grabbed the nearest hockey bag and the sword, ready to fight her way out if need be.

“Quin, get Splatter!” she ordered as her head pounded worse than ever.  “April, grab the other bag!”

“Is someone alive in there?”  A voice outside the door shouted as a crack appeared in it.  Robin didn’t expect that the thing breaking in was alive.  The sharp blade of an axe crashed through the door, hacking out the locking mechanism.

Robin was too stunned to reply as the door was kicked in.  A man in yellow firefighter gear stood there.

“Are you okay?” he asked, looking at Robin.

“Uh, yeah.”  Robin wasn’t really sure if she was, but was too confused to think of a proper answer.

“He tried to kill me.”  April gasped, looking back at River.  Then she started coughing again.

Quin came out of the bathroom with little Splatter folded up in his arms.  “Doyle?”

“Quin?”  It seemed that Quin and the firefighter knew each other somehow.

“I thought you were dead,” Quin commented.

“I thought the same when I finally got back to the bus and found you gone.”

River groaned on the floor.

“Can we get out of here before he tries to kill us again?”  April clutched the sword tightly after Robin handed it to her.  She had located her shotgun and
she took it out of the bag.

“Yeah, of course.”  The man Quin had called Doyle stepped aside and let them hurry out past him.  He shut the shattered remains of the door behind them and then led them down the hall.

“What are you doing here?” Quin asked.

Robin had so many questions of her own
. She didn’t know where to start.

“I met a group of survivors.  When I brought them to you, you were gone.  I’ve been surviving in the city with them.  We were staying in this hotel, one floor down, when we heard all the screaming and fighting.  We figured that since zombies don’t fight with each other, at least one person in that room had to be alive.  I volunteered to check it out.”  Doyle led them to a staircase and they began heading down.  “We’re gathered in the lobby right now.  We were going to move to another location today.  We don’t like staying in one place for very long.”

“I’m fine with leaving,” April said when she wasn’t coughing.

“You got a cold?”  Doyle asked as they neared the bottom of the stairs.

“Yeah.”  April nodded.

“That cough’s not going to be good for drawing zombies.  We might have some cough suppressant you can take though.”  Doyle led them back out of the stairwell into the lobby.  Just shy of a dozen people stood there.  Three men and eight women, one of whom was very pregnant, were grouped together next to the front desk.

“Doyle?”  One of the women hesitantly stepped forward, looking at the three people trailing behind him.

“It’s all right,” Doyle assured her.  “This one has a cold, and a fourth in their party went a little overboard.  We left him unconscious up in the hotel room, but it’s probably for the best if we get moving.”

“You just left a man up there?”  A different, dark-haired woman frowned.

“He tried to kill me,” April said in their defence.