The Survival Games (Book 2): Hide & Seek

by Everheart, AJ

  “It keeps The Unclean at bay, away from the camp. If that isn’t a sign, then what is?” she asks softly, but I see a flicker of doubt in her eyes. She calls them ‘The Unclean,’ like the zombies are some sort of biblical plague rather than a biochemical cull created by the rich.

  “How can you be so foolish?!” I rock back on my heels, horrified at what’s going on. “They hunt for food, but if you’re serving it up on a platter, then they don’t need to come here. It isn’t a divine miracle, it’s instinct!”

  Her hands have curled protectively over her bump now, but it isn’t the truth that has scared her. It’s my hostility. And I’m starting to draw attention as two of Kaleb’s disciples look our way. I exhale slowly and make a fist as I try to reign myself back in. I’m only a guest here. I need them. Right now, there’s nothing I can do about their baby farming, and that makes me feel sick. I want Luke. I need to hold my son in my arms and tell him that I would die for him. I would never let anything hurt him. I trusted him to Donovan because I knew that’s where he would be safest, and right now, that’s one of the best decisions I have ever made. But it still hurts like a bitch, and seeing this woman so prepared to serve up her own flesh and blood as a zombie starter has shaken me.

  “Sasha...I’m sorry.” I grind out, I need food and water. I need their antibiotics for a few more days.

  “When you are with child, Anna, you’ll understand the gift of life we give to our people.”

  When I was what? I say nothing but continue watching her carefully. It explains why Kaleb was so keen to have me examined by Avery so closely. He wanted to find out if I would be a suitable incubator for his sacrificial lambs. I bite down on my knuckles to stop myself from saying what I really think and sit wordlessly back down. I need to escape, I can’t stay here for the next feeding.

  “When exactly does this sacrifice take place?”

  “On a full moon,” Sasha says with a grin. She’s excited for it, fuck, it’s probably the highlight of her month. For a second, I feel like I’ve been transported back to the dark ages or some lawless, crazy time where witches roamed the moors, stealing little children and offering them up to their gods.

  The next full moon is two days away...I have two days to get my shit together and make a break for it.

  “And what exactly happens?”

  “Kaleb leads us in a prayer, and we spend the evening in thought. We thank God for saving our souls, and then the child is baptised.”

  “And then…” I don’t know why I keep pushing the subject. I don’t want to know. It breaks my heart every time she speaks.

  “Then Kaleb follows the path into the woods with the child. There’s a clearing with an altar, and there, another prayer is said.”

  “And?” I push.

  “I... I don’t know. We aren’t present for the final prayer.”

  Of course, she isn’t. Handing over your baby to God is one thing, giving it to a bloodthirsty zombie horde to save your own skin is another. Even Kaleb understands that.

  Chapter Twenty

  Donovan

  The day fades into night, but Sammy and his band of merry fuckwads still haven’t left the services. I guess they’re stopping for the night to refuel. Ha. Refuel. At the services. I snort at my own joke as Fischer looks at me oddly. She’s offered to take the night watch, but we both know it’s only so I can sneak down into the camp without Galen breathing down my neck. I lean back into the base of a tree as I wait for him to fall asleep first, it’s only when an hour passes that I realise he isn’t my problem. A certain clingy eight-year-old is.

  Luke’s got his arm linked through mine, his head resting on my arm as he dozes fitfully, waking himself up with a start every fifteen minutes or so. I try to de-tangle myself, but it only makes him hold on tighter, half-asleep. The fourth time I try, I’m a little more forceful; after all, I’m doing this for him. For her.

  “Why do you keep trying to get away?” he asks groggily, and I feel a pang of guilt.

  “Because I need to go somewhere,” I reply, keeping my voice at barely a whisper. Galen has hearing like a bastard bat, and knowing him, he’d hear me, even snoring like he is.

  “Are you going to get Lily?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “You want me to stay here with Charlie?”

  I frown, who the heck is Charlie? I can feel his gaze on me, even though it’s too dark to see anything clearly. I can also feel his smile, it changes the air around us, and I’m grinning too, even though I don’t understand the joke.

  “Charlotte Fischer,” he finally mumbles as he unwinds himself from me and creeps towards where Fischer is keeping watch.

  Charlotte. I don’t know why it never occurred to me to ask her name, she was always just...Fischer. I take a deep breath and try to get up without making too much noise, I’ve already wasted precious time trying not to disturb Luke. No, wasted is the wrong word.

  I creep back down the hill and pause briefly at the bottom. When I can’t hear any footsteps behind me, I let out a soft sigh. Now for the hard part, getting to Lily.

  I follow the trees and overgrowth along as much as I can, keeping low and in the shadows. It isn’t hard, the light given off by the bonfires they’ve lit doesn’t exactly illuminate much. I find a panel of wire mesh in their homemade fence, and using some cutters I stole from Sonia earlier, I snip a hole just big enough for me to slip through. I don’t know how they always manage to do this in the movies, because it’s not exactly the quietest thing in the world. Thankfully, someone nearby keeps coughing and spluttering, the racket almost covers the small noises I’m making with the poxy fence.

  I manage to get inside the perimeter with only one cut, a gash in the palm of my hand where one of the metal wire prongs caught me as I cut into it. The camp has come back alive since Sammy disappeared inside somewhere. Now there are people everywhere I look, just going about their lives in this place they call home.

  I think I see a face I recognize in the crowd, but I must be mistaken. There’s no way…

  A crashing noise forces me to move before I’m seen, and I weave through the trees and quietly slip behind the building closest to me. If I could just get into the food court without being spotted, then I could find Lily. If I can get to Lily, then maybe I have a hope of finding Anna...or at the very least finding out what happened to her. Don’t be dead. She had better not be dead. I’ll kill her, I swear it. She can’t just leave us here.

  “Lily!” I hiss, spotting the blonde woman coming out of a doorway near where the entrance to where Burger King used to be. “Lily!”

  She looks around confused before she spots me. Her eyes widen with surprise as she realises who I am and where she knows me from. She rushes over to me and grabs my arm, pulling me into a nearby tent.

  “What are you doing here? Where are my children?” Her words come out like a waterfall, fast and unrelenting as I look around her in the slim hope that Anna was somehow with her.

  She peeks outside the tent when we hear voices, motioning for me to stay quiet, but as the noises pass, she relaxes.

  “I’m here for you,” I whisper the words, hoping that she’d be pleased, but instead, she looks panicky and nervous.

  She twists her fingers and bites her lip. “You can’t be here…”

  I don’t understand why she isn’t happy to see me, what does she know?

  I rest a hand gently on her arm as she exhales, letting out some of the tension she’s been holding on to. Her eyes begin to water, and I feel like we’re moments away from a meltdown.

  “Your children are safe, and I can take you to them, but we need to leave now.” I take her hand in mine and give it a soft squeeze. Reassuring her seems to help as she takes a big breath, looking up at the ceiling of the tent she wipes away the fat teardrops that had begun to form.

  “Only if we find Anna first. I can’t go back to Luke and the army base without her.” There’s a guilty twang to her words, and I briefly wonder what h
appened. How did they make their way from London to here? They were so close, a few more days and they’d have reached us.

  “She isn’t here?” I say it, even though I know she isn't. I’d spent the better part of the day watching, with Luke helping me since I could barely remember what she looked like. Lily shakes her head, fuck. I knew it, but that doesn’t make it any easier when your suspicions are confirmed. Somewhere in the background someone starts singing, and soon, other voices join in, offering us a little protection from Invictus ears.

  “Okay,” I try to stay calm, “where is she?”

  Lily starts shaking, panic taking over as she grabs a shawl, a torch, and some other pieces from a table behind her. “We need to leave now. Sammy is coming for her.”

  “Sammy? Why?”

  “She’s one of his favourite playthings,” Lily mumbles, turning away from me. “Leo and Sammy both wanted her.”

  I clench my fists, that’s why Luke was chosen to go on raids with Leo’s men. It was a display of power over Anna. They took what she cared about in an attempt to break her. The anger I feel in my chest rises as I think about how hard it must have been for her to stay behind, those sick fucks wouldn’t have let her betrayal go easily. I mean, we never would have gotten out if it hadn’t been for Anna, Lily, and the others who helped. We would have died at the hands of the Wharf Rats.

  Lily explains between anxious breaths, “Sammy wants to use her as a bargaining chip against Alex. He wants both of us, but Invictus won’t turn me over without something in return.”

  Of course. Dickhead clearly watched too many spy movies if he thought using Anna as leverage to get Alex to come back to London was going to work. Don’t get me wrong, it would pull on the heartstrings. Alex wanted Anna and Lily to be reunited with their kids, but he couldn’t risk Sammy getting his hands on weapons he shouldn’t even think about, let alone own.

  “And Leo?” I can’t believe he commanded his men to travel this far just to drag back two women. That man was seriously unhinged.

  “Dead.”

  Well, that explains why Sammy is coming after Alex like this. It’s personal.

  “Where is she?” I ask again, there’s something wrong. Why won’t she tell me where Anna is? She’s clamming up tighter than a jam jar that doesn’t want to open.

  “Redemption,” she breathes.

  I don’t know where the fuck Redemption is, but the sinking feeling in my gut tells me that it’s not going to be good.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Anna

  I fold up some bandages the morning after my discovery, avoiding Avery. I don’t know what to say every time she catches my eye. How could she help Kaleb with this? Did she know what he was doing with the children she carefully brought into the world? She must know. It’s probably why she refused to attend his church services. Why would she help with this?

  “Anna, about yesterday...I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude, I just wanted to make sure you were in the best condition when you start your journey again.”

  Her words sound sincere. They sound honest. But her hands have a slight tremble, and she still refuses to meet my gaze directly. Her body language screams guilt so loudly, I don’t understand how I missed it before.

  I can’t help myself, I snort.

  Her eyes lock with mine, and I see desperation. Fear. And self-loathing.

  “I want to help,” she starts, but I hold up my hand to silence her.

  I sigh, she’s a nice girl. How did she get mixed into this crazy scheme? “I know that deep down some part of you wants to make a difference, but I said it yesterday, and I’ll say it again: my fertility is none of your damn business.”

  Avery fiddles with some glass vials as she chews on her bottom lip nervously. “But…”

  I drop the bandages into the box and shoot her a warning look. It’s the same one I use on Luke when he nags me for whatever has caught his eye. “No buts. My body, my rules, and if you try to come near me again, Avery, then we’re going to have a problem. Do you understand?”

  She steps back and presses a hand to her forehead like she’s checking her temperature or trying to stop her head from exploding.

  “Kaleb won’t be happy.” She whispers the words, her voice hitching on his name.

  What the heck had he done to her to make her so afraid of him? Why was she supporting that monster?

  I shrug. “I don’t give a toss about that wanker.”

  I say it because it’s the truth. I planned to run and not look back, and if I had to go through Kaleb first, then I would. It's mind blowing how before the apocalypse I would never hurt a fly, I used to scoop spiders up in cups and set them free in the garden...but now? Now I’d kill just for the promise of seeing my child again.

  “Anna! Someone will hear you!” Avery rushes over and covers my mouth with her hand, her eyes wide and frightened.

  Again, I shrug. I refused to stay here and be some incubator for zombie snacks. I would die before I lived a life like that.

  Keeping her voice low, Avery murmurs into my ear, “If you don’t let me test you, Kaleb will force the issue, and trust me when I say you don’t want that. You’ve seen what they do for punishment here, and that was only the tip of the iceberg.”

  She steps back, eyes darting around as though the walls have ears and eyes on us and lifts up her sleeve to show a crescent moon mark with lines along the curve. The raised skin didn’t look like a tattoo...it was a brand. She was his property. I was willing to bet that if I asked all the women in this village to strip naked, they’d each have one.

  I rub my face wearily. “How can you let him do what he’s doing? Those poor babies. Those stupid girls.”

  She knows that I know. I may not know the full extent, but I get the gist of her little baby farm, and instead of looking shocked, she looks relieved almost.

  “I don’t have a choice. You do what you must to survive,” Her eyes water, and in that moment, I remember just how young she is. “We can’t talk here.”

  She takes my hand in hers and leads me down by the river, not saying a word as we stroll along the embankment, arm in arm like we have almost every other day since I arrived here.

  I snatch free the second no one can see us. I get that she’s just a scared young woman, but how can she help the evil that is Brother Haines?

  “Avery, you need to explain what’s really going on here. Why does Kaleb take the babies into the woods and leave them to die?”

  “Because it keeps the creature away.” She wraps her arms around her body, trying to cocoon herself away even though we know it’s pointless. She can’t ignore what happens here or her role in the whole shitty affair.

  “Creature? There are zombies everywhere, but you don’t go fucking feeding them.” I run my hand through my hair, exasperated. I wanted answers, and then I wanted to get the fuck out of here.

  Reaching out for me, Avery stops just before her fingers reach my arm, remembering that I am not on her side. “No, this is different, it’s hard to explain unless you see it for yourself.”

  She squats down, her arms around her knees like she wants to just shrink, to disappear, and my anger fades a little more. How much had I put up with back at the Wharf? How many questionable acts had I done when I was stuck in a shitty situation? Sometimes there is no other choice, and I’m trying to remember that, trying to keep it firmly in my mind as I look at the doctor who knew what she was doing was barbaric, but felt like she had no other option.

  I sit on the damp grass beside her and wait. I can hear the buzz of the little village carrying on the breeze, the sounds of children playing somewhere over by the church, the clucking of the chickens they kept near the old shop, and of course, the expectant mothers going about their daily lives, chattering and laughing as if this was a life they chose. It had only been two years, had they really forgotten their lives before that? They say ignorance is bliss, but hearing them go about their day makes tears sting my eyes. Humanity was a fucking mes
s.

  Finally, Avery speaks, her voice tiny. “There is one zombie, but it isn’t like the others. It’s a monster, an undead thing, but it’s also something else. Kaleb feeds it, and in return, it keeps others away.”

  That wasn’t possible. Zombies were brainless flesh sacks driven by hunger. Greed. I almost want to laugh, I guess something of their human side did remain after all. They weren’t territorial, they didn’t fight with each other. They didn’t guard or horde food supplies…that requires a functioning brain.

  “How?”

  Avery shakes her head. “I don’t know. Fear? Like I said, this thing, isn’t like the others.”

  My thoughts flash back to the teenager in the red hoodie...no. No. They can’t. If they were thinking for themselves, we were in deep shit, and Kaleb and his cult were only making it worse. I try to process my jumbled thoughts. I’m not a doctor, not a scientist, for fuck’s sake. I’m just a single parent, working in a shitty job as a receptionist for minimum wage, trying to survive a zombie apocalypse, and yet, I can see that there may be truth in her words. I’d seen it myself.

  “So, let me get this straight,” I say, plucking some pieces of grass. “You have a monster bodyguard to protect you in exchange for your children, as snacks.”

  I play with the green stems, not really sure what to do with the information I was receiving. I needed to leave here, to hide away with my child and just lay low until the world righted itself again. I wasn’t equipped to deal with this. I tie a piece of grass into a knot and twirl it between my fingers, maybe I could convince Avery to come with us. Just run away.

  “It doesn’t have to be children,” she whispers next to me.

  I drop the knotted piece of greenery. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

  “The babies are Kaleb’s idea.” she croaks out the words so quietly I can almost pretend I never heard them. “It’s his way of maintaining control over Redemption.”