Survival Series (Book 1): Survival

by Hawkley, D. E.

  “Take them to the safe house,” Reaver told the others who were with her. “As promised Parker this is for you.” I watched as Reaver held out what looked like a remote control with a small booklet. “Instructions are inside,” Reaver said. “If you let the batteries in this die or you punch the codes wrong the control link is broken and then it’s your ass.”

  Parker nodded and took the items Reaver was holding out. He flipped through the book as Reaver was leading us away. The six mutated humans on leashes stood where they had stopped gnawing on the body parts they had arrived with. We had gotten just passed them when Parker called out to Reaver.

  “So,” Parker said. “What if I decided to send them after you? Right now.” Parker held out the remote and pressed a few buttons. The mutated humans didn't budge, they simply continued to gnaw at their treats. Parker hammered on the buttons but to no avail, the monsters did not follow his commands.

  “I thought you'd be stupid enough to try that,” Reaver said. “Such a pity you didn't disappoint me.” Reaver pulled out a second controller and flicked a switch. The mutated humans dropped the flesh they were eating and stood up straight. “I had a protective device, a signal jammer so to speak so they stayed in an idle mode till we were gone. Now however,” Reaver pressed a command into her remote. The mutated started towards Parker and his crew.

  “No,” Parker called out. “I'm sorry. Please.”

  Reaver clicked a few more buttons and the mutated broke into a frenzy. Screams filled the air as we were quickly led away from what was happening. Somewhere beyond, where we couldn't see, Parker and his crew were being torn apart; their screams were something I'd never forget.

  Reaver and her crew loaded us into a van, placing black hoods over our heads. I don't know how long we had been driving or how far, but I had nodded off and when I hoped my eyes we were being hauled out of the van.

  They removed our hoods and uncuffed us. The mutated humans they had brought on leashes climbed out of the back of Parker's truck and were loaded into cages. I couldn't help but stare at them.

  “So, you had those things kill those guys and that little girl?” I heard Kyle said. Reaver was talking with her crew but she had turned to attention to Kyle. The young girl that had gotten up in my face started towards Kyle but Reaver stopped her.

  “Why yes,” Reaver said in a holier than thou tone. “Those people have lured more people than I can count. Turning them over to us or using them as decoys to get away from the infected out there. They even turned you over to me, you should've been praying I dealt with them before they turned you over to me.”

  “Yeah cause killing a child is such a courageous thing to do,” again Kyle spat on the ground.

  Reaver nodded to two of the men in her crew. At first, I thought they were going to beat him up, but they didn't; they simply put him back in handcuffs and a Good and moved him into a crudely constructed cell.

  “Do you have any comments or concerns?” Reaver asked.

  It took her staring at me for a few moments before I realized it was me that question was aimed at. I simply shook my head.

  “Good,” Reaver said waving over one of her crew. “Put her in one of the hotel rooms. Lock the door. She doesn't need to be wandering.”

  Night had fallen, I had watched the sun drop below the horizon from the fifteenth floor where I had been locked. A plate of food sat on the table across the room from me untouched. I wondered what they had done to Kyle, was he even still alive.

  A few hours before I had heard screams, but I couldn't tell from where, or who, they had come. I spent almost an hour pounding on the door crying out for someone to tell me what was going on - no one came to answer me. At one point I would have accepted the beating for speaking out. I felt like I did after Michael and Dr. Harron had killed one another; lost and alone, trapped.

  Laying on the neatly made bed, one which looked as though it had not been slept in since before the world ended, I cried myself to sleep. I was awakened middle of the night by the sounds of something heavy being dragged outside my room. Drawing up the blankets I held my breath hoping that whatever it was would simply pass by without stopping.

  No such luck. I heard the dragging stop outside my door and two men exchanged words. There was the sound of keys and my room door being unlocked. I drew the blankets up tightly around me and waited.

  The door opened and two men dragged someone in, tossing the person on the floor before pulling the door closed and locking it.

  I stayed where I was. What poor soul had been caught and thrown in with me? Were they still human or had they tossed an infected, as Reaver had called them, in to torture and kill me? The form on the floor did not most, their breathing however was erratic. Slowly I got out of the bed and move slowly towards the stranger on the floor. It wasn’t until I was close enough to the face that I realized it was Kyle.

  Moving quickly forward I rolled Kyle over, he was unconscious and mumbling incoherently. His face was covered in cold sweat and his breathing was shallow and quick. My god, I thought to myself. What did they do to you?

  Rolling Kyle onto his back I noticed a sealed wrap I had not noticed at first over his left eye. I gasped, had he been hurt or had they... I didn’t need to think twice, I knew they had - they had removed his eye. Looking Kyle over I noticed it was not the only injury he had sustained. It looked like they had tortured him, but for what; he didn’t know anything. There were cuts and bruises all over his upper body. Some of the cuts were cauterized, likely whatever they had cut him with had been heated first.

  Getting to my feet, I slowly moved Kyle towards the bed. Lifting him, as best I could, he weighed less than I had expect, I put him up in the bed before crawling up beside him. I gathered up his head in my hands and laid it on my lap. Kyle had travelled across the city to dig me out of a hole in the ground only to be captured and tortured. How could I be the person Dr. Harron wanted me to be? I wasn’t strong or fast and I clearly wasn’t a protector, or a killer. Dr. Harron must have been wrong, there were obviously more than two types of people in this world now because I was one of the kinds he didn’t mention.

  I was the type of person who was going to watch the rest die until there is no one left, and I die too.

  .NINE.

  Broken Promises

  Kyle was still unconscious after three days. I had sat and watched him, fearful that any day now the slight rising and falling of his chest would cease and he would let out his last breath. But every day, when I fell asleep exhaust and awoke startled, he continued to hang on.

  Meals, all three, were delivered at gunpoint by a young man but Reaver never came and neither did any of the crew members that had been with her the day they took us killed Parker, his daughter, and their crew. Perhaps she was waiting for something; maybe for us to break, maybe for Kyle to die. I remembered what she had told Parker before we left them, before he made a decision that cost him and his crew their lives.

  On the fourth day, not long after breakfast was dropped off, Kyle began to stir. I was standing at the table examining this morning offering, which were barely fit for a dog, when I heard Kyle begin to mumble and he thrashed about slightly before his eyes opened and he struggled to sit up.

  “Woah,” I said moving quickly to Kyle’s bedside. I helped him level himself before slowly helping him up. “Not so fast; you've taken a lot damage.” Damage, I thought to myself, it wasn't the best description, but it was accurate. What Reaver and her crew had done to Kyle was enough damage to kill someone and yet someone, he had survived it all.

  “I know,” Kyle said as I helped him settle into place. “It hard to forget a nightmare when it's real.” Kyles breath came in long raged inhales and slow shallow exhales. Though he closed his eyes from time to time I could tell he was still awake. “ Is there any water, my throat is sore and dry,” he asked not opening his eyes.

  “Yes,” I said realizing it should have been the first thing I had offered him. Crossing the room, I grabbed the j
ug of water from the table and the small dirty glass I had been given with it. The water was far from cold, it had been given to me the night we were taken. Although it wasn’t cold it was better than nothing and I had yet to receive anymore. so, I was careful not to waste it. Pouring a glass, I handed it to Kyle, and he drained it in a single swallow. The pain in his expression told me swallowing hurt yet he held the glass out and motioned for more. Hesitant I refilled the glass and this time he drank it much slower. Holding the glass with two hands he laid staring at the ceiling in silence.

  “What - what did they do to you?” I asked hesitantly. “What could they possibly have wanted with us? Surely they knew we didn’t know anything useful to them.” I knew the moment I asked the questions I wouldn't want the answer, but I was going to get them. Kyle seemed to think about it a moment before answering though, choosing his words carefully.

  “They wanted answers,” Kyle said sipping at the water.

  I could hear his stomach making unease sounds and more to get him some food from the table; sitting on the edge of the bed I took the now empty glass and handed him the plate of food.

  “They had questions that I had no answers for. Reaver thinks we are part of a group that wiped out a bunch of their people. When I denied it, they tortured me with hot knives and whips. One of her crew suggested I was one of the people responsible for this whole end of the world ordeal. I tried to ask what they meant, if they knew who had done this, but I was hit repeated in the mouth for speaking without being asked a question. It was when Reaver threatened to drag you in there before me and let her men have their way with you before breaking your bones and stripping off your flesh, letting you beg for your death, that I couldn’t take anymore,” Kyle went silent for a moment. Clearing his throat, opened his eye and stared at the ceiling before he continued. “I killed one of their interrogators; that's why they took my eye. Reaver said an eye for an eye and that I should be so lucky she didn’t let her men have their way with me and take my head.”

  Though I wasn't physically hurt I felt like I could feel Kyle’s pain and I wanted to cry for him. Once again someone was being hurt, paying the price, for trying to protect me. Kyle must have seen what I was thinking plastered across my face because he reached out his hand and placed it on my thigh, patting it gently.

  “Look none of this is your fault,” Kyle said. “What they did to me, that is in them. That is there sin, not yours. It's on them and Parker and his men, though they already paid for their sins. Reaver and her crew will as well.”

  When Kyle leaned back, I moved the food close enough for him to reach. He thanked me and ate it slowly. I could see the wheels turning, he was planning something, something that would likely leave a lot of people dead. This was Dr. Harron all over again. Kyle was going to risk his life getting me out and die doing so. I wasn't going to let someone else die for me, not again.

  Moving to the table I sat and started in on my own food, formulating my own plan. If I was getting out of this alive, he would be too; he wasn't going to sacrifice his life for me like Dr. Harron had, I wasn't going to let him.

  As we sat eating in silence I was struggling with my own dilemma. On one hand I had made a promise to Dr. Harron, a promise that I would be different; but, did others have to die to save me for me to be that third kind of person. I couldn't live my life, my conscious would tear away at me, knowing people were constantly dying to let me live. If it came down to a choice being made, I would be the one to make it; if someone has to die, it wouldn't be Kyle.

  The day passed by in silence but as night fell there seemed to be an increase in activity outside. Somewhere below there were sounds of shouting; orders being given by Reaver to her crew. It sounded like someone was attacking. The gunfire shortly after Reaver called out for everyone to move inside. Within moments the room filled with men and women armed with guns, Reaver following them.

  “Handcuff both of them,” Reaver said. “I don't want them being more trouble than we need right now. We have enough to deal with.”

  Men crossed the room yanking Kyle off the bed, he groaned in pain as they forced him to his knees yanking his hands behind his back and not too kindly locking cuffs in place. I had no time to protest, even if I was brave enough to do so, three girls shoved me to the ground and the smart-ass teenager cuffed me, pressing her knee into my back as my hands were pulled behind me.

  Reaver stationed men at the door and the windows and then we waited in silence. Outside sounds of screaming and gunfire broke the silence and I closed my eyes; wishing I could cover my ears.

  Before the bombing I remembered seeing the horrors that fell upon third world countries, war-torn with the killing of innocent people. My coworker, who had died when the hospital was collapsing as she tried to save children, would always say how glad she was we lived in a country where those things didn't happen. I wondered what she would think of the world now - of our so called first world country.

  Suddenly the screaming and gunfire came to an end, it seems whoever had attack, those who caused Reaver and her big bad crew of goons to tuck tail and run, had finished what they'd come to do.

  “You and you,” Reaver pointed towards a man at the window and one at the door. “Slip out, take the back stairs and go check out the situation. If you're not back in ten minutes, I'll assume you were stupid enough to get yourself killed.”

  The two men left the room, a third locking the door after they left. Although it was only ten minutes, it felt like endless hours. We waited in silence. At one point I had considered screaming out, perhaps we'd die but so would Reaver and her crew, she must have seen something in my facial express.

  “If you make a peep,” Reaver said pointing her gun at me. “You will be dead before it's loud enough for anyone to hear.”

  I stared at this woman, someone who threatened my life and Kyle's life more with every second she drew breath and she stared back. Those eyes, they were the eyes of the killers Dr. Harron had mentioned. The ones that would kill everyone and anyone to survive. She had already massacred another crew and a little girl with them. Reaver was one of the threats of this new world that needed to be wiped out completely.

  There was phlegm building up in my throat I wanted to clear it, but I dared not; instead, I looked away. Reaver grunted, a nonverbal way of saying I thought so, before moving towards the window to speak with her look out.

  The wall suddenly exploded, the man, one of Reavers crew, was blown across the room into the wall. His body was broken by the blast or the impact I couldn't tell which; what I did know is that he was dead.

  Reaver recovered quickly, she took had been flung against the wall by debris of the explosion. When she got to her feet, she took aim at Kyle and but a second explosion, a floor below, caused where she was standing to collapse, and she vanished in the hole it made beneath her.

  “We need to go quickly,” I said crawling over to the dead man on the other side of the room. It was him who had handcuffed us, it was safe to assume he had the key. After a quick search I found the key in his pocket. “Kyle,” I said crawl over here, back up straight against mine. I should be able to unlock your handcuffs.”

  Kyle did as instruction, moving across the room as best he could and lining up his back with mine. I moved the key around, which was difficult my own hands cuffed, until it found its place. The sound of the ratcheting clicks were music to my ears as the cuffs that held Kyles hands let go and fell to the ground. He quickly took the key and unlocked my hands.

  Crossing the room Kyle to where Reavers dead crew member was he picked up the man’s gun and two fully loaded clips before searching the woman who lay dead near the door. She took had a single pistol with two full clips; these he gave to me.

  “My aim may be a little off,” Kyle said looking ashamed. “We will need to make every shot count, I don’t know what they did with our stuff, but given the current situation I think it’s a lost cause to go looking for it.”

  I was inclined to agree. We
had no idea how many people Reaver had in her crew and we didn't know who was attacking them or why. They could assume we were with Reaver as well and kill us on the spot. “What’s the plan?” I asked letting Kyle know I was onboard with whichever way he wanted us to go.

  The wheels were turning in his mind, he was working on a plan. Quickly he crouched down and moved to the hole in the wall that had been left behind by those who attacked Reavers crew. I watched as he scanned the skyline and it took a moment, but I realized what he was doing. Kyle was trying to determine our location by looking for recognizable landmarks. He squinted, nodded, and then rushed back towards me.

  “Okay,” Kyle said. “There are small groups of people down below, they look like they are searching the buildings. We are close to the harbor, if we can get out of the building undetected, we may be able to get to the waters and get out of here on a boat.”

  I nodded as Kyle laid out his plan and soon enough came time to leave the building. We took the right hallway and moved slowly. Kyle watched our front and I kept an eye on the back; we weren’t sure where the stairways were, nor did we know if any of Reavers crew or the attacks were close by, so we tried to stay quiet.

  After much searching, we finally found the stairs that would lead us down but the Reavers were not stupid. They made sure anyone coming in or out of the building would need to zigzag across the floors increasing their risk of getting caught.

  “We got four floors to cross,” Kyle said as we headed down the stairs. “The room they kept us in was on the fifth floor. The staircases going up have been destroyed or filled with furniture forcing us back and forth. However, on the third floor, I noticed as I looked out the window, is a scaffolding, we can climb out and down - if the way is clear.”

  The fifth and fourth floors were empty as we descended down towards the ground. This third floor however was not. Reaver had survived the fall she had taken and had rounded up a small crew of men and women. She was in the hallways, guns aimed towards the stairway we would need to take to descend any further than where we currently were.