The Survival Games (Book 2): Hide & Seek

by Everheart, AJ

  There is no backup.

  No one is coming to rescue you.

  You've been sent in because you are expendable.

  You would have thought that a zombie apocalypse would have made us appreciate life more, but you'd be wrong. It's warping us, we don't care about anyone but ourselves. I watch from the corner of my eye as Luke settles back down, pulling his blanket around him like a cocoon to protect him from the bad dreams, except for his foot. He leaves that sticking out across the tiny gap and resting against my leg, like he wants to reassure himself that I’m still here. As he lets out a small sigh, I know that I would die for him. I refuse to be like Leo. If his mother doesn't get her ass here in the next ten days, then I'm going to go out and drag her back myself.

  I try to sleep but it doesn’t happen, it rarely does these days. Something about the Wharf has stayed with me. The way people have become monsters, and the zombies were once humans, lingers in my head like a shitty line from a catchy pop song. I’m consumed by it. Our fate either way is to become something else: either a creature, rotting and shuffling along devouring human flesh or a merciless, selfish beast who doesn’t care who is killed as long as it’s not them. Being a survivor is the third option, but what does that even mean? We aren’t living, we’re existing, scraping by.

  There’s something about Luke that reminds me of Layla, even though I try not to think about her these days. She’s a memory that I’m afraid of corrupting if I think of her too often. It’s something to do with the way his brown hair flops in front of his big dark eyes. Layla used to have this one rogue curl that would do the same, no matter how many times Elise would try to pin it back. Elise. More memories that hurt.

  Sleep is never going to come, so instead I pull my clothes on and go for a walk. At least the exercise and the fresh air might wear me out a little. I guess that is one bonus for the end of the world, the air is cleaner. Hardly anyone drives anymore, and most of the population is dead, so no carbon footprints or whatever the fuck it was we were all so worried about. Global warming wasn’t the biggest issue these days.

  The army base is quiet, everyone is tucked up in the bunkers, and hangars trying to catch a few minutes of much needed sleep before the day starts again. It was like a loop we were caught in, just trying to get through each day. But Alex and Mia had plans they were eager to start implementing, which gave the base this energy that was starting to build like a wave. I just hadn’t been caught up in it yet.

  The dawn light has broken now, covering everything in a soft pink glow, and it’s almost peaceful. As I near the boundary fence, I spot Mia sat on the grass, watching a lone zombie in the distance. Sitting silently next to her, I notice her bow clutched so tightly in her hand that her knuckles are white.

  “Is everything okay?” I ask gently.

  She snorts, but says nothing. Stupid question, but what else is there to say?

  Mia looks tired, her face seems to have lost some of the youthful quality it had when we first stumbled upon her holed up in the school. She appears older, harder somehow. We both stare out at the small figure lingering near the trees. It doesn’t look like an adult, and that always makes it worse.

  After a few moments, she says, “Do you think it will get better with the vaccine?”

  Her voice is quiet and low, as if she’s afraid to ask because she doesn’t want to hear the answer. I don’t blame her. My gut instinct is to say no. My common sense is telling me no. But the human in me, the foolish, optimistic side of me is whispering yes.

  “I hope so.”

  “I feel like we do a lot of hoping and praying these days,” she mutters as she stands, drawing her bow. The zombie seems to amble towards us, even though there’s still quite a distance between us, stumbling like a drunk person as it tries to navigate its way.

  Without another word, Mia releases her arrow, and when I squint, I can see that it hit its mark. The shaft is protruding from the creature’s head, no fuss, no muss.

  “It was wearing a Rosehill uniform.” Mia explains softly before she carries on with her patrol, and I get it, she was waiting to see if she recognised the child before she killed it. It’s the small things that remind us we’re still human.

  Chapter Three

  Anna

  I run quickly to the tent I used to share with Luke, Jenny, and her daughter, Cleo. Cleo was the driving force behind us finally taking a stand. She had been our reason. When Sam needed someone small and quick for his last raid on an apartment block and indoor market across the city, he didn’t even hesitate to take Cleo with him. We’d begged, pleaded, offered up everything we had and more...but it wasn’t any use. When Sam came home with all the spoils he was applauded, given wine and first pick of the scavenged items. Cleo didn’t come back at all, and now we’re not even allowed to say her name. It broke something in Jenny. Lily and I, we held our babies closer, praying that they wouldn’t be next. Luke had been out on raids twice, and that was two times too many. That’s what made us help the military people who turned up claiming to have a vaccine. That’s why we sent our children with them while we took the beatings.

  Jenny sits on her camp bed and cries. I get it, Leo is finally gone. We helped with the vaccine. I know that she’s still mourning her child. I know she’s exhausted. It isn’t the time to cry though, we have to escape.

  “Come on, grab your bag!” Lily hisses as she sticks her head back into our tent. She hands me a cup of water, and I take a huge gulp. If the vaccine worked, great. And if it didn’t, it couldn’t get much worse, right?

  “I’m not coming.” I knew those words were coming before she even said them. Jenny hadn’t planned on surviving our little breakout. She never intended on coming with us.

  “What?” Lily says, looking at her like she’s grown five heads.

  Jenny cries, tears flowing freely as she stutters out, “I’m staying. I can’t...I can’t fight anymore.”

  She curls up on Cleo’s camp bed, with her blanket clutched tightly in her hands.

  “Jenny, you can’t stay here.” I say it softly, hoping to get through to her, but I know it’s pointless. Once you give up in this place, there’s no going back. I place the mug on the floor next to her. It was up to her to take the vaccine, and I hoped she would.

  “Leo is gone,” she sobs. “Maybe it will get better.”

  I snort, throwing my bag over my shoulder. “Yeah, and maybe this is just a really bad dream.”

  “Fine, stay.” Lily grabs my arm and pulls me out of the tent, calling, “But Anna and I are leaving.”

  “We love you, Jen,” I say before zipping up the tent flap.

  “Stay alive,” she calls out as we make a beeline for the fence, both still hobbling along, the adrenaline barely keeping us together.

  It was the strangest goodbye. We didn’t have the minutes to spare, hanging around and exchanging well wishes and hugs. We couldn’t cry together and promise to find one another again. We couldn’t even wave each other off. We just had to leave her behind, her weeping for her dead child still ringing in our ears.

  “I feel like a bitch,” Lily groans as we lift a drain cover together, both wincing as our broken and beaten bodies scream in protest.

  “Me too,” I say, taking a second to catch my breath before lowering myself down into the tiny space.

  We don’t say anything else as we crawl. I never in all my life imagined that I would be on my hands and knees in the sewers under London, pretending not to notice the awful stench as I keep pushing forward despite the fact that I can’t see anything and I am struggling to breath. It feels like there’s a vice clamped around my chest as I try to suck in some air, and I know Lily isn’t doing much better.

  I’m not worried about Sam coming to look for us down here, only idiots climb down into the sewer system, but what choice did we have? The tunnel system we’re in opens up, until we’re able to stand and stretch out our legs. The old Victorian sewer system was built when some poor sod actually had to come down i
nto the tunnel network to complete repairs rather than using a machine, thankfully giving us more room to manoeuvre.

  On the other hand, it means it also gives everything else lurking down here space to move around too. Is it stupid to hope that we’re the only idiots moving through an enclosed space when there’s a rampant cannibalistic virus on the loose?

  “Shit, Anna, where are we going?” Lily asks, her voice strained.

  “Shit is the right word,” I laugh even though it feels like a red-hot poker has been rammed through my side.

  There is silence for a moment, and then she chuckles.

  “Can you see anything?” I ask.

  “No, and I’m not sure I want to.”

  My feet slide in the mulch that coats the floor, and I have to agree. I have to remind myself constantly not to touch my face. Fuck knows where my hands have been.

  We keep moving slowly for what feels like hours until I see a shaft of light up ahead.

  “Anna! Do you see it!” There’s a hint of relief in her voice as we move nearer.

  “Yes,” I breathe, my shoulders relaxing slightly as I pick up the speed of my shuffle.

  As we get nearer, the light flickers. And again. Fuck.

  “Lily, move back,” I hiss, trying to keep my voice low.

  “What? Why have you stopped?”

  I turn carefully and push her back against a wall. “There’s something moving up ahead,” I whisper.

  “What? What are you on—”

  I shove my dirty hand roughly over her mouth just as something lets out a low groan somewhere down the tunnel. Lily’s body tenses beneath mine as she hears it too.

  I hold my breath and try not to make a sound as I hold us as tight against the wall as I can. The groan is followed by a shuffle, but it seems to be moving away from us, getting quieter. I can hear the blood pumping around my body as I try to keep my shit together. Move. Please, move. Go away, I think, hoping that some sort of divine intervention will make the creature disappear. Something splashes in the distance, and the shuffling picks up pace, When I’m positive it’s moving away from us, I remove my hand from Lily’s face and drag her towards the light. For someone with broken ribs, who hasn’t eaten in days and has the grace of an elephant, I have never moved so fast. The light is another manhole cover, this one is partially open. It’s probably how that thing got down here when it was human. I’d place my money on the fact it came here to hide, not knowing it was already infected and became trapped.

  We both squeeze ourselves into yet another tiny space and use all the strength we have to slide the metal grate across. I give Lily a leg up, and once she’s clear, she pulls me through. As I sit back on my arse, trying to breathe and not look at how filthy we are, she slides the iron cover back into place. A pang of pity stabs at me, that thing would be trapped down there in the dark until it starved or died or whatever it was that happened to them. What a horrible way to go, just fading into nothing.

  “Why do you think it didn’t know we were there?” Lily asks as she hugs her knees to her chest.

  “Lil, we are literally covered in shit. Could you smell anything else down there?” I resist the urge to laugh, because it isn’t funny, but I think I’m becoming delirious.

  She wrinkles up her face. “Yeah...we stink.”

  I look around, we seem to be in an alleyway somewhere with tall buildings on three sides and a street up ahead.

  “What’s the plan now, Anna?”

  I look at the sky, it’s getting dark, and with hardly any supplies, no torches and no hiding place, we were just asking to be zombie food. “We need to find somewhere to hide.”

  “And then what?”

  “Then we need to get out of this bloody city.”

  She sighs softly as she stands. “You know, I never liked London. Lived here for ten years but never loved it.”

  “Why did you stay?” I ask, realising that I didn’t actually know anything about Lily’s life...before.

  She gives me a small smile. “My husband had a good job, he was a radiology consultant at a private hospital, and we just stayed where the money was. Kids used to love it when we went back to South Wales to visit my family in Swansea. Beaches upon beaches.”

  There’s a faraway look on her face as she says that, but it’s quickly replaced with concern. She’s wondering if any of her family survived. If she’d ever see them again. I did the same thing on an almost daily basis.

  She tries the side door behind us, and to our surprise, it opens without too much protest. We begin the steady climb up to a higher floor so that we have some hope of finding food and a safe spot to hide out until the sun rises. When we get to the fourth floor, Lily turns to me and holds her hands up.

  “I’m out of shape, I haven't been to Zumba or Pilates in almost two years. This is as far as I go!” She says it with a light joking tone, and I know it’s so we don’t dwell on the truth. It isn’t the lack of dance classes, it’s the malnourishment, the beatings, and the fatigue that are keeping us down.

  Our bodies aren’t what they used to be. They’re barely recognisable as our own anymore, and I don’t blame her for wanting to stop. I would have stopped on the first floor if she’d have let me.

  We try a few of the doors before we find one that opens out onto an office floor. Given the small booths, the headsets on each desk, and the targets written on huge whiteboards, I’d be willing to say that this used to be a call centre of some sorts. I press a finger to my lips to remind Lily to be quiet as we move around and check for anything living or dead. There doesn’t seem to be anything here with us. We quickly barricade the door before exploring properly. Lily begins rifling through the desks looking for food or water while I wander over to the windows. There’s blood smeared on the glass, I can see fingerprints and hand marks everywhere, and while the sight used to turn my stomach, now I just accept it as part of the normal decor, as common as street signs. My gaze shifts beyond the blood, and I look out into the city as the orange sun sets over it. Shadows cast from the buildings shroud areas in darkness, while some are bathed in the soft twilight. It doesn’t matter though, light or darkness, they’re everywhere. Lone figures shuffle around the streets, wandering aimlessly. I don’t even need to see them up close to know they’re infected, there’s something about the way they hold their bodies, limp and slouched, that makes them easier to spot from a distance.

  I place my hand on the glass, over a stranger’s handprint, and watch as the city that was once bursting with life is only an echo.

  “Anna! Look at my haul!” Lily whispers proudly, her soft voice interrupting my thoughts. I look at her, she’s holding half a pack of biscuits, a jar of jam, two cans of Coke, a tin of soup, and a packet of chewing gum like it’s gold. I guess someone found the staff kitchen.

  Chapter Four

  Donovan

  Another day drags by, and it’s like I’m going crazy with the endless waiting. Time moves slower these days, probably because without phones, the internet, and cars, everything feels like it takes forever. Having technology, being so reliant on it, and then having nothing is a bit of a shock to the system. My watch stopped working months ago, but I still wear it. I keep saying I’m going to hunt down some batteries for it. However, things are different when you’re out in the world scavenging. Surviving is more important than the frivolous things on your shopping list.

  “Man, you’ve had a face like a slapped arse all week. What’s eating you?” Alex asks as he sits on the bench next to me with his food tray. He’s still nursing a limp from London, but that isn’t slowing him down like it should.

  I’ve been hiding out in the mess hall, keeping an eye on Luke as he helps with some of the kitchen duties. He’s a hard worker, I’ll give him that. He never complains either, just cracks on with whatever task he’s been set. It’s a distraction from everything else, I guess.

  Alex follows my gaze to the small boy lugging a bag of vegetables. “Oh.”

  We sit in silence
for a few minutes before he sighs, rubbing his tired face. Since Hazeldine’s death, Alex has risen up the ranks around here, but the army is still in charge. A fact they like to remind us on a daily basis. The extra responsibility is starting to show on his young face, and I know that when it comes to the Wharf, he’s torn. He wants to go back, rescue the others, but he also can’t risk that type of mission again. It leaves the base vulnerable, and there’s a risk that we won’t return this time.

  He hasn’t sent me out on a raid since we got back because he knows that I refuse to be far from Luke, but I’ve also heard the whispers of supplies running low. There’s only so long we can live off the store’s supplies and the small vegetable patch the army base has.

  “Let’s send someone to have a look,” Alex whispers finally.

  “Lieutenant Kelp won’t allow that. You know it, I know it.” Even though I was planning to go myself if we hadn’t heard anything soon.

  Alex groans softly, he wasn’t used to being controlled—he was never the type to ask for permission, at least not during the time I knew him. Kelp was the new official leader, but he was an arse. He’d gladly do away with Alex and Mia if he could, but they'd become some sort of hero duo, fighting their way here, then to London to get the vaccine in the water. The soldiers who returned with us respected them, Fischer and Jenkins especially. Not to mention the people we brought back with us, including the three kids, Luke, Lexi, and Ryan. Those kids adored Mia, and Alex even more so. They were the glimmer of hope in this grey existence, and they didn’t even see it.

  “So, let’s keep it on the down low…”

  “Keep what on the down low?” Lee interrupts as he joins us, his food tray clattering on the table. “You look like you’re plotting something over here, and I want in.”