The Survival Games (Book 2): Hide & Seek

by Everheart, AJ

  Galen has no interest in coming to Redemption with me, and I’m struggling to keep my anger back as we trudge on. I need a plan. I need to get to that village and rescue Anna, without taking Luke with me, if possible.

  “Stop making that face,” Fischer says as she nudges me. “Galen has something up his sleeve. And you’re going to like it.”

  I narrow my eyes at her as she just smiles sweetly and carries on walking, this time taking Luke with her. ‘Charlie’ is his new best friend after me and his mum as he happily said earlier, as I shared my cold tin of beans with him. I don’t know why, but I felt a little jealous at his words, but also pleased that I was now ranking with Anna.

  Lily fills his place in the time it takes me to blink. I take a breath, if I didn’t say something now, I’d find myself back at Litchfield with a new bed mate. “Lily, look...I’m not after a relationship or anything right now.”

  Her face falls a little. “I know. But I feel safe with you. Is that okay?”

  Who am I to take that away after everything that she’s been through? I nod, dreading the next chat we’ll have to have.

  The sun is low in the sky when we finally stop for a break. We’re closer to the motorway now than I’d like, yet when I mention it to Galen, he just tells me to trust him. He’s got his map out again and keeps looking around as if he’s expecting someone. I can’t hear much over the sound of engines in the distance and the rumbles of motorbikes, but there’s no missing the arrow that plants itself in the tree next to my ear. Lily jumps to her feet beside me and lets out a squeak, as does the rest of the group. They’re all stood, weapons drawn, looking into the shadowy forest. I look at the arrow shaft closely and smile.

  “Mia, come out here, you sneaky witch!” I call out, tugging the arrow out and running my finger over the M carved into its shaft. Since she’d been making her own, she’d been marking them as a way to keep track of her kills. She was going through a delayed morbid teenager phase. Galen looks at me, arms crossed, face smug. He’d called in reinforcements.

  Alex steps out of the shadows first, his bad boy grin, baby blue eyes, and tattoos making him look like a badass. Mia is close behind, long dark hair whipping around her heart-shaped face as she stares intensely with those big green eyes that are always watching. Behind them steps forward Lee, Jenkins, Pete, and a few other faces I recognise.

  Mia grins and runs up to me, throwing her arms around my neck, followed by Alex. These past few days have felt like weeks, and I’d missed the fuckers.

  “Glad you’re still alive man,” Alex says as they both let go.

  “Alex!” Gemma shouts before launching herself at him. I hide my smirk as Mia glares at the woman wrapped around her boyfriend.

  “Gemma! Shit. How are you here?” Alex asks excitedly as he steps away to search our small crowd for other faces he knows.

  “Donovan found us. I’ll explain it all later,” she says coyly as she links her arm through his, her crush apparently still a thing. She reaches up and brushes some of his hair out of his eyes, grinning like the cat who got the cream.

  Alex seems oblivious as Mia’s anger cools, and her face goes still, but it’s a calm Mia that’s a dangerous one, and he should know that by now. I’m not surprised to look over at Fischer and see her watching the same thing unfold as me, trying to hide her grin. Gemma leads Alex away, chattering excitedly in his ear, leaning in closely and repeating how much she missed him when Mia steps forward, grabs a fistful of the woman’s hair, and tugs her backwards.

  “I don’t think so,” she says calmly, standing over Gemma, who’s landed on the floor in a heap.

  “Mia?” Alex asks, confused.

  “I don’t share.” She shrugs and smiles sweetly.

  We all wait in silence, unsure of how to react until Alex laughs.

  “That’s my girl,” he says before kissing her. When they break apart, he gives Gemma an apologetic smile. “Sorry, Gem, this is Mia. She’s a little possessive.”

  Fischer helps the girl up who looks like she’s ready to throw herself at Mia.

  “I wouldn’t,” Fischer warns, her voice low. “Mia isn’t a force to be reckoned with. She’ll skin you and wear you like a coat if she has to.”

  Gemma’s mouth closes quickly as I walk past the gobsmacked girl to where Mia, Alex, Galen, and the others are coming up with a strategy. If Gemma has any sense, she’ll avoid Mia and Alex like the plague.

  I turn my attention back to Galen, who has decided that he’ll take the Invictus survivors and head back to Litchfield, while I’ll go to Redemption with Mia, Alex, and Luke. Fischer crosses her arms, and I know she’s about to put Galen in his place once again, what was it about the apocalypse that brought out all these badass women? I swear, before the world turned to shit, everyone I knew was mild-mannered, or maybe that’s just because I taught their kids and lived in a well-off area?

  “I’m coming to Redemption too,” Fischer says stubbornly, confirming what I already knew. I wouldn’t be able to keep her away from the danger. Galen opens his mouth to argue, but Fischer gives him a look that has him swallowing his words. Hell, it even has me squirming in my boots.

  Moonlight filters in through the branches above us, tingeing everything it touches with a soft grey filter. I sit with Luke curled up against one side of me, with Fischer on the other side of him. The boy had been happier since we’d rescued Lily, but he had also clung closer, not that I’d thought that possible. He was worried about Anna, and I didn’t blame him. He’d refused to go back to camp with the others, and I didn’t have the heart to make him. We’d parted ways from them a few hours ago, and we’d wandered around in the woodlands until Mia had insisted that we stop and rest. Gemma had almost joined us, but one withering look from Mia had put a stop to that.

  Watching the last embers of the fire die out, we sit in silence, all lost in our own thoughts. Alex hadn’t wanted to light a fire, arguing that it would draw too much attention between Invictus and zombies both looking for us. But he’d been outvoted by Mia and Fischer. Invictus wouldn’t be stupid enough to be caught in these woods in the dark, Mia had very kindly pointed out, they would wait until first light and then see if we’d survived. As for the zombies, well, they were unavoidable, and if we were going to be attacked and eaten, we may as well be warm when the shit hit the fan.

  Poking the ashes with a stick, Alex asks the question I’ve been waiting to hear ever since we left Galen. “So, Sammy is here, and he’s looking for anything he can use against me...And you’re sure it’s him? And that Leo is dead?”

  Mia spits on the floor when Alex says Leo’s name. After he’d killed her father, she wanted to be the one to even the score, but what was done, was done. I stroke the top of Luke’s head as he starts to snore softly, head against my arm.

  “Yep.” Fischer nods, we’d both seen him, and after our little stint in Canary Wharf, it wasn’t a face we were going to forget soon. Plus, he looked like an older, more worn around the edge version of Alex. There was no denying the blood between them.

  “Shit,” Alex curses, making the sleeping Luke flinch. “Why won’t he just fuck off?”

  “Shhhhhh,” I say, reminding him to lower his voice. Luke was eight, and while he was doing his best keeping up with us, he needed to rest. Snatched moments of peace were far and few between, but right now, he was as safe and warm as he could be. I didn’t want to disturb that.

  Alex holds a hand up in apology. “He can keep his stupid little village down by the Thames, and the people who do his bidding. Why does he need me?” he hisses.

  “Power? Control?” I mutter, unsure of why Sam was so determined to bring Alex to heel.

  “He wants you to do his bidding,” Mia scoffs, her disdain clear.

  “Well, I won’t fucking do it.” He tosses the stick aside and shoves his hands into his jacket pockets, looking every inch of the young twenty-something-year-old he was.

  “We know.” I say it softly, but resolutely. Alex’s heart is in
the right place, and he won’t risk Sammy destroying what little we have. We didn’t come this far. We didn’t fight our way through the last two years to be brought down by a gang member with a power complex.

  Holding Mia tightly, Alex whispers, “All I want is to go back to Rosehill and have some sort of fucking life, why is that so hard?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, end of the world and all that?” Fischer offers up with a grin and a shrug, breaking the sombre mood that was beginning to settle over us. We stay quiet after that, trying to get some shut-eye, but it’s pointless, we’re all too much on edge.

  Not long after, a strange trilling noise fills the air, but trilling doesn't quite cover it. It’s like a guttural clicking, almost crossed with screaming. Both Alex and I jump to our feet, while Mia and Fischer gather up their weapons. The noise comes closer, but it’s too dark to see anything clearly. Alex signals to us to start moving in the opposite direction of the sound that makes my ears want to bleed, but something stops me.

  “I’m over here, motherfucker!” Fills the air and the clicking noises stop, as if whatever is creating them is listening too.

  The noise of people running through the trees, kicking up leaves with pounding footsteps grows quieter as it moves away from where we’re all frozen in silence.

  “Kaleb, you spineless piece of shit! Come and get me!” Echoes around us, bouncing off the branches. I don’t even breathe as I try to work out where the sounds are coming from.

  The voice is familiar, and a sense of dread fills me. I feel sick to my core. Please. No. Don’t let it be...

  “Mum!” Luke shouts, seconds before Fischer pins him against a tree, hand over his mouth to stop him from drawing the screeching creature towards us.

  The clicking, trilling noise starts again, ever so faintly as Mia screams, “RUN!”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Anna

  We run, I don’t know where the hell we’re going, we could be headed back to Redemption for all I know, but it doesn’t matter. Kaleb can’t catch us. I won’t let him have this baby or Avery. I can hear him crashing around in the trees behind us, I can’t have hurt him badly as he still sounds so close. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I'm aware of another noise, a strange clicking, but there’s too much going on to linger on it. The baby begins to cry, and I bundle her tighter against my chest.

  “Come back, you bitch!” Kaleb screeches like some sort of demented banshee.

  He must be shaking with fury, that plus the blood loss. Not only did I lead him on, but I also stole his sacrificial lamb, leaving him empty-handed, and I stabbed him with the letter opener I stole from his office. Ouch, I was a bit of a bitch. But he deserved every bit of it. That man and his ego were the least of my worries right now. Angry men made bad decisions, and the way he was thrashing about in the woods after us was one of them. If the monster Avery described was out there waiting, he was going to lead it straight to us, which I suppose must be his plan to save his own skin.

  “Anna, the road is this way, we need to keep moving!” Avery whispers as we stop briefly to catch our breaths. Thank goodness the dark provided some sort of shelter against Kaleb.

  Seconds later, I feel my blood run cold. There’s a howl, but it’s not like any animal I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s like a garbled scream. I know in my bones what it is, but I’m too terrified to say it.

  “It’s the creature...Anna, we need to leave now!” Avery is hissing as she tugs on my sleeve. She was right, we did need to leave, but Kaleb was too close on our tail.

  I give her the wriggling Abigail and listen carefully for a moment. I can hear Kaleb calling out my name, his voice low as he tries to avoid a run-in with the strange zombie who lived in these woods.

  “Take the baby, head to the motorway. Get to Litchfield and don’t stop until you do.” My voice is calm, even though I am nowhere near calm.

  I’m petrified.

  Angry.

  Sad and exhausted.

  I am a million different emotions all rolled up in one, but not one of them is calm. I knew what I was suggesting was risky and stupid, but what other choice did we have?

  “No.” She grabs my arm, and I can hear her choking back tears. “What about you?”

  “I’m going to be a distraction, and then I’m going to follow you.” My words are lies, we both know I’ll be extremely lucky if I make it out of this.

  “Are you ready?” Avery’s hand trembles as she strokes my cheek in goodbye and then nods before taking off. I count to ten as she disappears into the darkness, her shadow hidden as the moon slips behind the clouds.

  Taking a deep breath, I prepare myself for what I’m about to do next. I’m sacrificing myself for a second time. Have I always been this generous with my mortality? I wonder for a second? No, having Luke changed everything. I would risk everything for him. And when I saw Abigail being offered up like dessert, I couldn’t just leave her behind. She triggered every maternal instinct I had. I start to run in the opposite direction of Avery, and I’m not quiet about it. As I move between the towering trees, I call Kaleb's name.

  “I’m over here, motherfucker!” I bellow, “Kaleb, you spineless piece of shit! Come and get me!”

  The ground beneath my feet gets mushier and sloshes under my steps. I’m nearing the river, and I can hear him somewhere to my left, cursing me as he tries to follow my shouts. To my right, I can hear running water, and I head towards that, but not before I hear something else: groaning and shuffling. There’s a zombie nearby. I race to the river and slide down the embankment. I wade along for a little while until the water gets deeper, coming above my knees, and the ground begins to hang over the water. A guttural moan, an angry guttural moan, makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on edge.

  I swear I hear Luke calling for me, and I still for a moment, but all I can hear is my own heart beat having a rave in my chest. Nothing. Great, now I couldn’t even trust my instincts, these damn woods were playing tricks on me. I can’t stay here, zombie or no zombie nearby, I had to give Avery a chance.

  I make a split-second decision and shout out once more.

  “Over here, fuckface!” I scream with everything I have before dropping onto my arse in the water and keeping my back pressed against the underside of the overhanging embankment. I have to stretch to keep my mouth from filling with water as it comes up over my chin. Hopefully the noise of the water and my position combined with the darkness will hide me, my scent should also be faded, which should help with the mutant zombie. Should.

  I hear Kaleb break through the trees above me, and I hold my breath. He stomps around angrily before standing still to listen. My traitorous heart is still pounding so loudly I swear he’ll be able to hear it if he comes any closer.

  His voice is carrying in the cool night air, echoing all around me. “Come out, come out wherever you are, Anna.”

  It’s gentle and soothing as he tries to lure me out by hiding his rage, but it’s too late. It doesn’t last long, and soon, he’s back to roaring into the night.

  “Give me back what you stole!”

  I can hear footsteps, although hear is the wrong word. I can feel them, vibrating through the mud and dirt against my back. Something is coming towards us.

  Kaleb continues, his voice getting louder and louder. “When I find you, I’m going to make you wish you were dead, you little cun—”

  A screech unlike anything I’ve ever heard rings out, making me want to cover my ears the way it cuts to my core. I can hear the zombie somewhere above me, not quite at the river’s edge. I can’t see what’s happening, nor do I need to. I can hear a strangled noise as Kaleb begs.

  “No. No... wait. I can get you another sacrifice. There are three here in the woods, take them!” He struggles to get his words out, and I picture a mangled zombie with its rotten hands on his weaselly throat.

  Kaleb only gets a growl in response, the clicking noise getting faster. He begins to sob through desperate breaths, “You can
have the whole village—all of them.”

  What a piece of shit. Of course, he’d offer up everyone before accepting his fate. He keeps pleading for his life, but this time, his words are broken up with a thud, a scrabbling noise, and the rustling of leaves. He must have fallen onto the ground, and is now desperately trying to escape. Another screech fills the air, and I dig my fingers deeper into the river bed, trying not to make a noise. I was going to be hearing that noise and the odd clicking for the rest of my fucking life...if I survived this. There’s a heavy grunt. Kaleb’s screams. Then there’s a sound I can’t really describe other than ripping, followed by snapping and cracking. A mushy, wet plopping noise signals Kaleb’s silence, and I know that he’s been torn to shreds. That his insides have just splattered all over the woodland floor. Entrails mixed with dead leaves and insects.

  I want to be sick.

  It takes every ounce of control I have not to throw up...that is until I hear a slurping noise. The sucking, chomping, and tearing of flesh fills the stillness of the night, and only the noise of the river is keeping me anchored. My body sways softly with the current, and I try to think of something else, anything else. The clicking slows, and it has a satisfied edge to it now, like a cat purring almost. It begins to crunch on something, and I can’t help myself, I retch. Tears start rolling down my cheeks as I wait anxiously to see if my hiding spot has been discovered, but the monster just keeps chowing down on the Prophet of Redemption.

  I wait, I don’t know how long for, but my body is frozen and my fingers are pruned up in a way that makes me want to never have to touch water again. My legs are numb from sitting for so long and the temperature of the water, but finally, the eating sounds stop and the creature seems to wander off. I’m eager to move, but I wait a little longer, just to be safe before I finally crawl out of the water.