Adaptive Instinct (Survival Instinct) (56 page)

Robin stuck closely to Doyle as she had been told which put her near the front of the group.  Although Doyle seemed to be the one in charge, a young woman actually led them through the building.  After entering, she had slipped her bare feet out of her flip-flops and now moved silently across the linoleum floor on the balls of her feet.  She stayed several steps ahead of everyone else, her movements and gestures like that of a frightened bird, ready to take flight.  Robin guessed that she was the figurative canary in the coalmine.

The front lobby area was clear, so they headed for the stairwell, which had no windows to let in the sunlight, and so a variety of flashlights clicked to life.  Not everyone in the group had a flashlight, but more than enough light was shed for everybody.  Their shoes and boots clomped loudly up the steps in comparison to their fleet-of-foot canary, who kept one flight above them.  Once they reached the fifth floor, they decided to check out the place.

Almost the entire floor was filled with cubicles, with some offices along the back wall.

“Looks like this used to be the offices for a newspaper or magazine.”  Doyle spoke barely above a whisper.  “They may have been open on the Saturday, so stay sharp.”

As Robin followed Doyle down an aisle between the cubicles, she realized she was trembling.  Gripping the shotgun harder, she swallowed her fear, burying it in the pit of her stomach.  She had asked to be here and wouldn’t chicken out now.

Each time they approached the opening to one of the cubicles, Robin tensed up, ready to blow the head off a zombie within it.  Each time they found nothing.

The group, which had spread out to check the aisles more quickly, reconvened by the offices in the back.  There were three of them, so they split again into three groups to investigate all of them.  Robin and Doyle’s were again empty.

“Here,” someone called softly from another room.  Everybody quickly gathered over there.

Slumped over a desk was the body of a balding man in a suit.  A mostly empty liquor bottle was clutched loosely in one hand, while the other was folded under his chest where they couldn’t see it.  One of the women of their party approached the body, holding forth a crowbar.  She poked at the man’s shoulder a few times with it then hurriedly stepped back.  Robin was expecting the body to spring up, groaning and groping for them, but it didn’t move.  The woman cautiously placed her fingers against the man’s neck.

“No pulse,” she whispered.  Although that meant nothing these days.

The woman pulled back on the man’s shirt, sitting him upright.  His other hand was revealed and an empty, orange prescription bottle rolled out from it.  The lower half of his face, his chest, and part of his desk were coated with a layer of old puke.

“Suicide,” the woman explained, nonplussed
, “and he wasn’t even infected.”

The group started to leave the room through the door behind Robin, but she continued to look at the dead man.  Suicide had never occurred to her, not once in her entire life.  She had sometimes wanted to curl up and do nothing, but to actively take her own life was a foreign concept.  This man hadn’t even been infected, yet he chose to die instead of trying to live in this world?  Why?

“Robin?”  Doyle had noticed that she stayed behind.  He placed a hand on her shoulder and turned her away from the body.  “Come on, we still need to check out a few more spaces before we decide that this place is safe enough.”

Robin allowed herself to be led out of the office.

***

Robin sat in one of the computer chairs, looking out over the street below.  After ascertaining that the office building would be a safe place to stay for at least one night, the splinter group was retrieved from the vehicles and brought up to the fifth floor.  Bedding made out of sleeping bags and pillows was laid out on the floor as things were moved around the office to make it safer.  The guys had taken apart a few of the cubicle walls and were placing them across the fronts of the offices, the elevators, and the windows.  They hadn’t yet reached where Robin was sitting.

“Do you have any bedding?”  Elizabeth walked up next to her.

“No.  We lost everything in the fire.”  That thought weighed on Robin.  She hadn’t been wearing any of the clothes she had brought from home so they had all been in the building.  Her pillow, her MP3 player, her books, everything from her former life, gone.

“Well then, how about you take my sleeping bag?  You and April can lay it out and at least have something between you and the floor,” Elizabeth offered.

“Oh no, I couldn’t do that.”  Robin would never want to impose upon a pregnant woman.

“It’s all right.”  She waved off Robin’s objections.  “I usually just lay on top of one with Harry anyway.  I get way too hot when Cynthia makes me bundle up.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”  Elizabeth walked over to grab her rolled-up sleeping bag, and Robin trailed after her.

“Which one is Harry?” Robin asked as she was handed the roll.

Elizabeth pointed out one of the guys as they moved another cubical panel over to the windows.  It was the man who had stayed with the vehicles earlier, the one with the bow and arrows.

“Is he…”  Robin trailed off, looking down at Elizabeth’s swollen belly.

“Oh, no.”  She shook her head, unconsciously running her hand across her stomach.  “The baby’s a result of a one night stand.  I was never able to track the father down after I found out.”

“And you decided to keep it?  Err, him?”

“I was going to give him up for adoption, actually.”

“You seem so calm.  I’d be freaking out.”

Elizabeth laughed.  “I freak out on the inside.  Besides, I’ve had a new lease on life since the dead began walking around.  It’ll be hard, but I’ve met some great people who are willing to help me out.  In fact, I never would have met Harry back before, and he’s been a rock for me.  I love him.  However things decide to work out, I’m just going to go with it.”

Robin still thought Elizabeth might be just a little crazy.  “Well, thank you for the sleeping bag.”

“No problem.”

Robin took the bag and left to stake out a good place to unroll it.  She kept looking from Harry to Elizabeth as she did so.  It was obvious they were in love by the way they would look at each other.  What threw Robin
off was when she caught sight of a wedding band on Harry’s finger.  She wondered what had happened to his wife, and how long it had taken him to hook up with Elizabeth.

Quin strolled over and collapsed into a chair next to the spot where Robin was setting up.  Splatter was perched on his shoulder, but when Quin sat, he crawled down to his lap.  Quin started stroking him.

“What’s going on with you?” he asked, facing Robin.

“What do you mean?”  Robin frowned up at him.

“I don’t mean anything.  I’m just asking how you’re doing.  You seemed really beat up about the kittens,” then as an after thought, “I tried to find them.  Before getting out, you know?”

“It’s not your fault,” Robin assured him, turning back to straighten out the bag some more.  “You didn’t light the fire.”

“But I was so out of it, I could have.”

Robin looked up at Quin.  He was still beating himself up over River, but maybe it went even deeper than that.

“I don’t know why I do it, the drugs,” he said without being prompted.  “I just… do it.  I see something, and I take it.  I don’t think either before or after, just do.  It’s gotten me in a whole world of shit, but nothing like this.  This is just…”

“Too much?” Robin offered.

“Yeah.  Like a bad acid trip I can’t wake up from or ride out.  Thanks for taking care of me though.  You and April.  I know I’ve been nothing but a burden to you both.”

“You turned against your best friend to save us.  You’ve more than earned your keep.”

“Thanks.”  Quin’s smile was weak, but genuine.  “Speaking of April, have you seen her?”

“Not recently.  I’ll go look for her.”  Robin got to her feet.

“I can do it,” Quin offered, about to get to his own feet.

“No, I need something to keep me occupied.  You just sit there with Splatter; I’m sure he enjoys the attention.”  Robin went off searching.

Finding April wasn’t too difficult; she just had to follow the coughing.  Robin was led to one of the cubicles across the room from where they had set up their little camp.  April was sitting on the desk chair there, her sword lying across her lap.  She looked like she had been crying.

“April?  You okay?”  Robin thought the question was dumb the moment it left her mouth.  Nobody could really be okay anymore, could they?

April sniffled and got up to her feet.  “I have to go.”

“Oh, I know where the bathroom is.  I can come with you if you want.”  Robin had misunderstood her statement.

“No, I have to go away.  Away from here, away from you.”  April put her hand to her mouth as another coughing fit took her.  The cough suppressants hadn’t lasted long.  This latest fit racked her entire body, nearly forcing her to sit back down.  Although she tried to hide it, Robin saw the bit of blood on her hand when she moved it away.

“What are you talking about?”  Robin tried to speak calmly.

“I’m sick.  I have to go away.”

“So what if you’re sick?  If you have something like pneumonia, you’ll need us to take care of you.  I mean, we should probably keep you away from Elizabeth but-”

“I’m infected with the zombie virus!”  April shouted, her eyes filling with tears.  “River was right!  I got infected.  When we were out in the storm and got separated for a moment, I bumped into a zombie.  He drooled all over me before I could push him off.  I think a bit of it got in my mouth, but at the time, I hoped it was just the rain.  There was so much rain, how could I know?”

“Maybe it
was
just rain.”  Despite her words, Robin found herself taking a step away from April.

“It wasn’t.  I know it wasn’t.  It’s in my lungs, I think.  That’s why I’m coughing.  This isn’t a cold.  My nose would be runny if it was.  My nose always runs when I get a cold.  This isn’t a cold.”

Robin didn’t know what to say.  She was upset and wanted to cry, but she was also furious at April.  Why hadn’t she said something sooner?  How could she let them just abandon River when it turned out that he was right?  It may have been wrong for him to try killing her like he had, but if he had been right, he was doing what he thought was best.  They should have brought him, tied up probably, but still with them.

“I’m sorry.”  April pleaded.  She reached out and grabbed Robin’s hand.

Robin reacted quickly, pulling her hand away.  Her hands formed tight fists, and she was shaking with the build-up of emotion.

“I couldn’t kill myself.”  April looked at the sword.  “God wouldn’t want me to.”

“There is no God!”  Robin shouted at her, all of her tightly guarded emotions coming forth at once.  Tears spilled from her eyes.  “There is no fucking God!  There never was!”

Robin turned and ran off.  She brushed past the others without saying a word.  She didn’t even register their concerned expressions or questions.  They had heard the girls shouting.

Out in the stairwell, Robin began to ascend.  Even though she felt cracked, broken, a part of her knew that it was safer going up several floors than heading down to ground level.  The floor she exited on was all hallways and offices.  She ran between the rows of doors, her mind raging at everything.

The zombies, April, River, Quin.

Her dad, her mom, her brother.

God.

How could God let all the things that happened to Robin happen?  Both before and after the dead began to walk, her life had been a series of nightmares.  There was no such thing as God, just bad people doing bad things.

The tears in her eyes and the rage in her heart prevented Robin from seeing where she was going.  She ran flat out into a male zombie in a blue suit that had stumbled out of the office ahead of her.  In a tangle of limbs, they both went down to the carpeted floor.  Robin screamed and kicked out, knocking the corpse to one side of the hall.  She scrambled to her feet and dashed into the office, intending to close the door behind her.  This plan was instantly foiled by the fact that the door had been cracked down the centre and
now lay in two pieces on the floor.

The zombie began to get to his feet outside the door.  It was slow and uncoordinated, but Robin didn’t want to risk trying to get past him if she didn’t have to.  She had no weapons though; the shotgun had been left behind with the others.  Searching frantically around the office, she came across a golf trophy.  The base was made of heavy marble, but not so heavy that Robin couldn’t lift it.

As the blue-suited zombie took his first unsteady step into the office, Robin swung the base of the trophy into his face.  His nose shattered on impact, and he was knocked backward off his feet.  Robin leapt upon his chest and used a technique she used against her brother when play fighting.  Sitting on his chest, she used both feet to pin the zombie’s arms down on the floor.  He was too weak to shove Robin off.  Instead of giving him a wet-willy like she did her brother, Robin began swinging the marble base again and again into the zombie’s face.  Bone cracked beneath the force of the stone.