Adaptive Instinct (Survival Instinct) (20 page)

“Right,” Shawn nodded.  “I figure that when he heard about the shit hitting the fan, he thought we wouldn’t be coming back for them.  My guess is he dropped by with that big trailer of his, loaded our dogs up into it, and took off with them.”

“Then why was Milly there?” Misha asked as the dog in question followed a scent toward him.

“She was the runt of the litter.”  Riley smiled as the dog walked around the fire pit and then back out across the deck.  “She was too small to be a sled dog, and was born without a fourth leg.  Normally, my parents put the little dogs up for adoption as house pets, but because of Milly’s condition, no one was sure she’d be adopted.  She was such a little sweetheart though, so my parents kept her.”

“Plus she’s quite the ratter,” Shawn added.  “I’ve never seen a husky that could kill as many rats as she has.  Joseph must have decided that she was too small and lame to be of use to him, and left her behind.”

“You didn’t go look to see what happened to your dogs?”  Misha tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

“I was more than a little depressed,” Shawn told him.  “I moped about the house for some time, days I think, thinking too much about what Connor did.”

“So how did you get the plane?” Riley asked next, probably not wanting to hear about her brother’s thoughts of suicide.  She had already lost one that way.

“I finally decided I needed to get out of the house, to get up here.  I originally planned on hiking and packed up a bunch of gear.  On the way though, I ended up passing through Pickle Lake Airport.  I got there just as a man was landing that Osprey.  We talked a bit, spent the night sleeping in a hangar.  Turned out, he wasn’t that far from where he wanted to go.  Some camp ground on one of the lakes out there, but the lake was too small to land on.  He had no supplies having lost them on the way to his plane, so I made a deal with him.  I gave him my pack of supplies, which included a tent, and in exchange, he gave me the keys to his bird, and gave me quick instructions on how she handled.  Then I took off for here and nearly saw you get killed by a bear.”

Riley smiled at this, but there wasn’t much humour in it.  She had just gotten a lot of very bad news and
she was likely still processing it.

“What about you?” Shawn finally asked.  “How’d you get here and meet all these people?”

Riley began to tell her story, starting at the hospital.  Misha knew the story already.  She had left the hospital with Josh, Josh went back for others, she ran into and nearly over Mathias, met Danny and Alec at a gas station, got captured by Keystone and was brought to a prison. She saw Josh there, who had gathered Abby and Tobias to him and had just met Misha, busted out of the prison, flew to Connor’s in a helicopter, found him dead, and took his plane to the cabin.  Misha didn’t have much of an interest in hearing it again, especially with the others adding in all their own notes about what happened to them.  He knew what happened, he lived through it, so he didn’t need to be told about it again.  He remembered it every night when he went to sleep and every morning when he woke up.  Mostly he remembered his best friend Dean, who had turned into a zombie in front of him.  Misha had killed him with a broken hockey stick.  Did he feel bad about it?  He wasn’t sure.  Dean
was
his best friend, but when Misha killed him, he had been a zombie.  He was sorrier he hadn’t been able to save Dean from the zombie that bit him.  That was what really killed Dean, not Misha.  Misha had just put him to rest.  He also thought about the old woman with Alzheimer’s who had fed him, the one Keystone had taken away, as well as the family he had stolen a motorbike from.  Misha had warned the family to get out of the city, and he often wondered if they had listened.  Then there was Cillian.  He was the second man that Jessica had killed, the one who tried to protect Abby.  Misha had found him, stabbed, washed up on the side of a river.  He had watched Cillian die, unable to help him.

While the story was being told, Misha got up and slipped away without anyone noticing.  Except Shoes, of course, who got up and followed him around to the other side of the deck.  From there, Misha could see the greenhouse.  Like the cabin, it sat on a large concrete block.  The generators were housed within the concrete block underneath, and the exhaust puffed out of a chimney sticking up one side.  From the deck, it was silent.  There were two ways to get into the greenhouse.  The first was a rope bridge connecting the deck to a small porch in front of the greenhouse door.  The second way in, was through the cabin.  In the concrete block beneath where they lived, was a large storage room.  There was food, weaponry, medical supplies, and other assorted things down there.  There was also a door in the
floor, which led to an underground tunnel connected to the greenhouse’s concrete block.  That route was rarely used.  Not only was it cramped because of all the wires connecting the mini windmills and solar panels to the gennies, but you also had to go up through the generator housing.  It reeked in there when Misha had first gone in to start the gennies, and that was after they had been turned off for something like nine months.  Right now, if anyone went in there, they would probably be gassed out in minutes.

Thinking about the greenhouse, Misha decided to cross the bridge and go inside.  Shoes followed him across, and Rifle came halfway before stopping.  Milly stood at the other end of the bridge, not trusting the way it swung.  Misha figured the three-legged dog had never been to the cabin before.

“Its all right, girl,” Misha encouraged her.

Rifle trotted farther down the bridge and looked over his shoulder at Milly, as if trying to tell her everything was fine, and it was easy.

Milly took a hesitant step onto the bridge.  When all three feet were on the wooden planks, it shook a little, and she retreated to the safety of the deck.

Rifle looked from Misha to Milly, not sure which way to go.

“You stay with your new girlfriend if you want
bratishka
.  I won’t be insulted.”  Misha often called Rifle his brother in Russian.

Rifle looked back and forth between Milly and Misha again, unsure. 
Finally, he turned around on the narrow bridge and trotted back toward the husky.

With a smile, Misha opened the greenhouse door and admitted himself and Shoes into the warm air.  Inside, the greenhouse was split up into four inner greenhouses.  Each of the four sections had its own temperature and moisture control for growing different plants.  Misha went to one on the back left, which was kept the driest.  He had no idea what was being grown in there, but liked to visit it regularly.  The reason he liked that room best was because it was so different from everything else.  Misha was used to cold winters, and humid summers.  Hot plus dry was something he rarely ever experienced.  There was also the smell of fresh soil, and fertilizer.  It smelled somewhat like a zoo, but Misha didn’t know that.  He had visited a zoo only once when he was very young, so he couldn’t quite place the smell.  It was both pleasant and unpleasant at the same time.

Misha sat down in a lawn chair that took up one corner, and stared up at the sky through the glass ceiling while Shoes curled up on his feet.

***

Misha sat in the greenhouse for hours, not really doing anything.  He wasn’t even really thinking.  When Abby came in and began tending to the plants, he didn’t notice, not until Shoes got off his feet and walked over to her.

“Hi Shoes.”  Abby bent down and scratched him behind the ears.  When she stood up, she saw Misha looking at her.  “Sorry to disturb you, but I need to water the plants.”

“It’s no problem.”  It was common for Abby to find Misha sitting in here.  After the first two times, she stopped asking about it.  “I should head out anyway; I’ve been sitting here for too long.  Riley’s probably got something I should be doing.”

“Very likely.”  Abby gave him a smile as he left, Shoes at his heels.

As Misha crossed back over the rope bridge, Rifle ran up to meet him.  His skunk toy was hanging out of his mouth.  Rifle looked up at Misha, then ran a quick circle and looked up at him again.  It was pretty obvious he wanted to play.  Shoes, on the other hand, went to sit with Alec, who was reading a book he must have found in the cabin.

“In a minute, okay
bratishka
?  Riley might need me to do something.”  He rubbed his friend’s head and headed around the side of the cabin.  Everybody had vacated the fire pit area.  Misha looked around on the ground below, but didn’t see Riley anywhere.  Maybe she had gone inside, or down to the lake.  If she was down at the lake, Misha wasn’t going to bother looking for her and would just stay upstairs to play with Rifle.  He was going to look in the cabin, however.

Misha stepped into the antechamber to the cabin and took off his boots.  He still wore the firefighter’s boots that he had taken from Cillian.  He hadn’t really gotten to know Cillian, but thought highly of him anyway.  Those who did know him—Abby, Joshua, and especially Tobias—spoke very highly of him as well and were greatly saddened about what had happened to him.  Misha figured the reason they let him tag along on their way north was simply because he had found Cillian washed up next to a river, and was able to tell them about his final moments.  There wasn’t much to tell.  He had just wanted a cigarette and Misha was able to find him one.  He then took his boots and jacket and dragged him into a field as his final resting place.  Misha hadn’t even had the energy to throw some dirt on him.  The jacket hung in the antechamber next to the others.

When Misha entered the cabin, he saw right away that Riley wasn’t there, unless she was in a bedroom.  The living room and kitchen were basically one open space, with nearly all of the furniture pressed up against the walls.  The kitchen was delineated by the tile floor instead of hardwood, the bit of half wall sticking out, and the loose configuration of a table and chairs in the middle.  Shawn was sitting in one of those chairs.

“Misca right?” Shawn asked.

“Misha,” he corrected.  “I’m looking for Riley.”

“She’s in her room, having her ribs looked at by Josh.  Care for a beer?  I found a six pack in the store room.”  Shawn took a bottle out of a small box and held it out to Misha.

“No, thank you.”  Misha didn’t ever want to drink alcohol again.  Not only had he been drinking beer with Dean when all the shit hit the fan, but he never wanted his mind to lose its sharpened edge.  He was of average intelligence, he knew, but a primal instinct had awakened in him that day, and it was what had kept him alive.  The times he let his guard down, or didn’t trust that instinct, he got into trouble.  This instinct told him to distrust Shawn.

“Your loss.”  Shawn put the beer back into the case.

“Do you know if there’s anything Riley wants us to be doing right now?”

“Naw.  She’s going to spend the rest of the day catching me up with what’s been going on around here, what you got set up, what you don’t, and what all your skill sets are.  She’s given you guys the afternoon off.”

Misha looked at Riley’s bedroom.  “Well, tell her I’m out on the deck if she needs me.”

“Will do.”

Misha turned to head back outside.

“By the way,” Shawn stopped him
,  “I noticed you have a slight accent.  What is it?  Russian?”

“Yes, why?” Misha replied over his shoulder.

“No reason, just curious is all.”

Misha went back into the antechamber feeling more unsettled than ever.  Nothing Shawn said was threatening, and his tone of voice seemed normal, so then why didn’t Misha like having his back to him?  He wasn’t going to do anything drastic, nothing like what Jessica had done, he was just going to keep his eyes and ears open, his nose to the wind.

He put his boots back on and went outside to play with Rifle.

***

The sun passed through the sky, leaving behind the rest of the day without incident, and everyone sat down together for dinner.  It was a quiet meal, everybody having talked themselves out when Shawn arrived.  There was a brief discussion about sleeping arrangements, and an even briefer discussion about the polar bear carcass.  Apparently, polar bear could be poisonous if not cooked properly, and considering that no one had actually cooked polar bear before, nobody wanted to risk it.  However, they were going to skin it and use its guts for fertilizer.  Misha feared his pleasantly unpleasant smelling place was going to smell just unpleasant soon.  Still, he knew they had to do it and volunteered to help cut it up.

After dinner, he and Danny washed the dishes and watched as Riley and Josh helped Alec with his physiotherapy.  Misha hadn’t personally seen any improvement since they got there, but Alec claimed there was a little.  That might have just been him getting his own hopes up though.  Riley also
looked at Joshua’s leg.  She was worried the cast hadn’t been set quite right, and that his bone would be slightly crooked and weakened because of it.  Misha would be surprised if the thing
had
been set right.  The cast had been put on by Abby and Jessica, after all, who knew nothing about putting on casts, and Josh had been high as a kite on anesthetic drugs when he had instructed them.  Still, like Alec, Josh believed in hoping for the best and thought everything was fine.  That was the problem with having two doctors. Although the second opinion was nice, it did lead to disagreements on occasion.

After a few card games had been played, everyone decided it was time for bed.  Shawn was sleeping in his own bed, which meant that Tobias had been booted out into the living room with Misha.  Josh slept on the bottom bunk in Shawn’s room, while Abby shared with Riley, leaving Alec, Mathias, and Danny
, with the huge bed in the Bishop parents’ room.  Misha had been very annoyed with Mathias and Riley’s sleeping together last night.  It had thrown off the sleeping pattern they had been settling into, which resulted in Misha being on the floor in a sleeping bag.  Now, because of Shawn, he was back in that same sleeping bag, but he decided against the floor this time.  Misha sat in the recliner and reclined it as far as it would go.  It wasn’t level, but it was better than the hard floor.