The Survivors (Book 2): Autumn

by Dreyer, V. L.

  Too full, hurts to breathe, I whined mentally but couldn’t work up the willpower to say anything out loud. Not that it mattered, there was no one there to hear it. Too full. No care. Must sleep.

  My eyes closed and I drifted into a contented doze, soothed by the distant sounds of happiness from the dining hall. I had no idea how long I napped, but eventually I heard the shuffling of feet nearby, then someone flopped heavily onto the mattress beside me. Ever the cautious one, I opened one eye to inspect the new arrival.

  Michael. Friend. Safe.

  I grunted an inarticulate greeting, and he replied with a groan. Ah, clearly he was suffering the same as me. Good.

  Resume sleep mode now, my brain told me in no uncertain terms. I acquiesced without a fight. My eyes drifted closed, and before I could form another coherent thought I was fast asleep.

  ***

  I awoke to the sound of Michael snoring beside me, the only sound in the silence. I rolled over and stretched, then looked around curiously to try and figure out what time it was. I decided that it was still daylight, based off the glow that filtered in between the haphazard curtains strung across the nearby window. A beam of light fell across us, bright enough that I could pinpoint the time at somewhere in the mid-afternoon.

  Michael was sprawled on his back with one arm draped over me. He was in such a deep sleep that he didn’t even stir when I extracted myself from under his arm and sat up. After so many years of living on a survival diet, where every mouthful was carefully rationed in case it was your last, the chance to actually feast was something neither of our bodies quite understood. It was like ten years of Christmases had hit us all at once. We’d both managed to overload our senses, as well as our poor, distended bellies.

  I was feeling better after my sleep, though. It had been ages since I’d eaten that much in one sitting, and all of a sudden I was bouncing with energy and ready to take on the world. So I left Michael sleeping, and went off to explore on my own – and to find a lavatory in quick order.

  Luckily for me, I discovered the door next door to mine was the toilet block, so I was able to relieve myself without any issues. Infinitely more relaxed as a result, I went off to wander the halls, sticking my head into various rooms to see what was happening and where.

  I found a few people hard at work in rooms nearby, but no one I knew well or felt any inclination to disturb. I left them in peace and moved on. Eventually, I found myself in a large room on the lake side of the building, where several small boats rested. Although I had grown up in an island nation, I knew a grand total of nothing about boats. I saw oars nearby so I presumed the boats were canoes, but that was my best guess. The only thing I was sure of was that there was a gap in the row, so one of the boats was missing or in use.

  Beyond the boats, a large concertina door stood half open, which let in a square of daylight and gave me a glimpse of the lake beyond. I moved closer to look outside. The day was still overcast, and it was raining lightly. Beyond the door, a patch of trimmed grass separated the building from the edge of the lake, where a small dock had been built out into the water. Someone sat on the end of the dock with a fishing rod. I could see dark hair pulled back in a braid and a feminine figure, so I assumed it was Anahera.

  A distant squeal drew my attention out over the lake. Shielding my eyes with my hand, I stared out across the water at a small boat in the distance, and realised that I could see blonde hair. Although I couldn’t see a face at that distance, it had to be Skylar. Curious, I stepped out into the drizzle and picked my way across the damp grass towards the dock. The day was warm despite the weather; the rain was nothing more than a pleasant coolness to counteract the heat.

  My feet made a hollow sound as I stepped from slippery wet grass onto wood, which made the person on the end of the dock look up. Sure enough, it was Anahera. She smiled when she saw me and beckoned for me to join her, so I did.

  Water soaked through the seat of my cargo pants as I settled on the edge of the dock beside her, but I didn’t mind. It was still late summer, so getting wet wasn’t an inconvenience. It brought back memories of childhood: like every child, I’d spent many a summer afternoon dressed in my bathing suit, dashing back and forth through the sprinklers in our garden.

  “What are they doing out there?” I asked curiously, canting my head in the direction of the distant boat.

  “Hemi’s teaching your sister to fish,” Anahera answered, absently adjusting the slack of her own line. “They bite more when it rains, so now is the best time for it. Fishing generally isn’t that noisy, though.”

  As if to punctuate her sentence, Skylar squealed again. We both grinned.

  “She is a little loud,” I agreed. On a whim, I shuffled my bottom back away from the edge, and started removing my shoes and socks.

  “Just a little,” Anahera agreed good-naturedly.

  When my shoes and socks were off, I rolled up my pants and slipped my feet into the cool water. It was nice, just hanging out, doing nothing. Like being a teenager before the plague. Even Anahera wasn’t trying very hard to catch a fish; I quickly figured out that she was just doing it to relax, rather than to be productive.

  Occasionally we chatted, mostly about fishing or the bounty of food the local area had to offer, but primarily we just sat in companionable silence. Skye squealed, laughed, and jumped around, keeping us both entertained with her antics. I was just happy to see her enjoying herself. After everything she’d been through, she deserved a moment of joy. Part of me worried that she’d fall out of the boat or hurt herself, but I wasn’t really concerned.

  She can take care of herself – and if she gets herself in trouble, Hemi will take care of her, I reassured myself. I was certain he would. They were of a like age and had swiftly become friends. Then, a thought occurred to me. I shot a sideways glance at Anahera. “Does Hemi have a crush on Skye?”

  Anahera laughed and nodded, then gave me a long look in return. “I think he has a crush on both of you, actually. But, Skylar is his age and you’re clearly enamoured with Michael, so she seems like the logical focus of his ardour.”

  “That’s adorable.” I grinned to myself and peered out across the lake. “I’m glad to hear it. After Ryan left her, I wasn’t sure how well she was going to hold together. They were together for a long time.”

  “Hah!” Anahera barked a laugh and shook her head. “I think you underestimate how resilient your sister is. There is a great deal of strength hidden within her. Just give her a bit of time to recover. She’ll be fine.”

  “I really hope you’re right.” I heaved a sigh, and eased myself back to lie on the dock, folding my arms beneath my head. The rain felt wonderfully cool as it fell on my face. For a moment, life felt perfect.

  Chapter Six

  We spent our afternoon doing absolutely nothing remotely constructive, and it felt great. Michael eventually emerged to join us, and the three of us talked about all kinds of unimportant things as we relaxed on the dock, watching Skye learn to fish.

  When the shadows started to grow longer, Hemi and Skylar paddled their boat back to shore. Skye leapt out of the boat as soon as it was tied off, anxious to show off her catch. She looked so proud that my inner big sister forced me to lavish endless praise on her.

  We trailed along behind the teenagers as they carried their fish off to be prepared for dinner, but when Hemi dragged her off to instruct her on how to scale, gut and fillet their catch, we decided to be elsewhere. Of course, by ‘we’, I mean ‘me’. I have a weak stomach when it comes to hurting lesser animals. That was one of my biggest flaws, and probably the reason I’d ended up so malnourished over the years. I just couldn’t bear the thought of killing an animal for the sole intention of eating it.

  Anahera led us out to the front of the building, to show us where her men were preparing the hangi pit for dinner. Although both of us knew the concept, it was fascinating to see the underground oven being prepared. The men laughed as they juggled red hot rocks into th
e bottom of the pit, and then laid the cloth-wrapped food on top of it.

  A second before they were about to fill in the hole to let the food cook, Hemi and Skye came tearing out of the building with their arms full of fish fillets, yelling for the others to wait. The men digging the hangi added the fish to the hole, then filled it in and left it all to cook in the heat.

  Later on, when the food was cooked, they dug the hole up again and carried the food inside to the dining room. We all helped to unwrap it and serve it, so that we could learn more about the traditions our Maori neighbours employed in their efforts to preserve their own culture.

  Dinner itself was a jovial affair, just like lunch had been, full of boisterous laughter and play. Since we were still full from lunch, my group only ate a little to avoid gorging ourselves unconscious again – but Skylar insisted that everyone had to try her fish. I wasn’t lying when I told her it was delicious.

  After dinner, we volunteered to help with the cleaning up. As it turned out, washing dishes was exactly the same in both our cultures. Skylar and I took that task while Michael went off to help the men with the heavier end-of-day tasks, leaving us alone together.

  I was up to my elbows in hot, soapy water, when Skye suddenly spoke up. “Hey, Sandy? Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course. What’s up, little sis?” I answered, handing her a freshly-scrubbed plate to dry, then I turned back to grab another.

  “What did Mum look like?”

  I dropped the dish I’d just picked up, splashing soapy water all over myself. That was a question I hadn’t been expecting. I glanced over my shoulder at her, wiping foam off my clothing. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean… well, I...” She sighed and lowered her head, staring down at her feet. “I don’t remember what she looked like, Sandy. I remember her name, I remember her voice, I even remember what she smelled like and what it felt like to cuddle her. But when I try to think about her, I can’t remember what her face looked like. When I dream about her, her face is just… kind of a blur.”

  “Oh…” Wow, that was an unexpectedly deep question to have to answer while doing the dishes. I chewed my lip while I thought over the answer, and finally decided to go with the most obvious one. “She looked like you, Skye. Just like you.”

  “Like me?” Skylar echoed, looking bewildered.

  “Yeah, just like you,” I answered. Her brow furrowed in confusion, so I set aside the dishes to explain further. “When I was little, I used to like looking at Mum and Dad’s wedding photos. She was eighteen or nineteen when they got married, so she was right around your age. When I first saw you as an adult, back at the bunker, I just about had a heart attack because you look just like her in those old pictures. The only difference is that her hair was longer, and you have a few more freckles.”

  Skye stared down at the ground, her young face set in such a look of confusion that I felt the need to hug her – so I did. I grabbed her and squeezed her hard, and she hugged me back.

  “Any time you want to see your mum again, all you have to do is look in the mirror,” I said softly.

  “Thank you, sis,” she whispered back, and then gave me one last hug before the topic was dropped, and we resumed washing dishes.

  The three of us had to share a room that night, as it turned out that the room with the mattresses was the only spare bedroom our neighbours had. The permanent members of the group each had their own hut built in the space between the yacht club building and the outer wall, made by their own hands and decorated to their tastes, but they rarely had guests.

  Skye teased us mercilessly as we settled into our beds, warning Michael and me that there would be big trouble if we got up to hanky-panky with her in the room. She was so silly about the whole thing that all three of us ended up laughing uncontrollably, with tears streaming down our cheeks.

  Eventually, though, exhaustion claimed us all, and we each drifted off into a deep slumber.

  ***

  I woke in the middle of the night, jerked out of pleasant dreams by a terrible, gut-wrenching sound: someone was screaming. I sat bolt upright in bed, straining to hear what they were saying, but I couldn’t make out the words over a weird crackling sound that was so loud it made it hard to think.

  Wait... a crackling sound?

  My eyes widened as I came awake enough to put two and two together. I leapt out of bed and ran to the window. My foot hit Skylar’s sleeping form along the way and almost tripped me, but adrenaline helped me to keep my balance. With no consideration for the delicacy of the curtains, I yanked them open and stared outside, at a yard turned hellish by the surging heat of flames.

  “Fire!” I screamed the word as I leapt back over to my companions, and dragged them from their beds despite their sleepy protests. The fire was huge, and it was close. The smell of smoke was already drifting into our room. My survival instincts kicked in straight away. Before anyone else was fully awake, I had them pulling on clothing and arming themselves. Without a thought for myself, I shoved my taser into Skylar’s pocket while she was still struggling to get dressed, and then shoved her baggage into her hands.

  Michael had his pants on but was struggling with his shirt. Time was running out. It was starting to get hotter, and a haze of smoke had started to fill the room. I stuffed the rest of our belongings into our packs, and dragged the baggage with us as we raced for the door.

  The smoke was even thicker out in the hallway and left us coughing as we struggled to find an exit. It seemed to be coming from the front of the building, so I led the way towards the rear instead. We burst into the boat room and ran the last few metres to the concertina doors, which had been closed for the night. We struggled with the latch in the semi-darkness, but finally we managed to get it open, and tumbled outside into the darkness.

  The air was clearer on the lakefront – at last, we could breathe. Gulping down a lungful of clean, cool air, I dropped our belongings on the damp grass and turned to stare at the burning compound.

  The fire was huge. I could see shadowy figures on the other side of the building racing back and forth, struggling to put out the flames, and realised that it must be Anahera’s clan. That was a relief. Perhaps we weren’t under attack after all. Perhaps it was just terrible misfortune.

  That thought lasted for about two seconds. There was a strange sound behind me, followed by a muffled cry from Michael. He hit the ground just as I was turning to see what had happened, his hand clutched over one side of his chest. Blood was leaking through his fingers; it took a second before I came to the horrifying realisation that he’d been shot.

  I dropped to my knees beside him, just as Skylar started screaming. There was too much happening, I was too confused; I couldn’t see past the fact that Michael was bleeding on the ground. I didn’t realise at the time that Skye was trying to warn me, that she’d seen the figures appearing out of the smoke behind me. Michael was in pain, and that was all I could think about.

  Then, something hit me in the back of the head, and I blacked out.

  ***

  I came to slowly this time; my brain felt muddled and confused. It took a few long seconds for memory to return, but when it did the sick feeling of dread settled into my belly. Only then did I start to feel my own pain.

  The ground was hard beneath my shoulder and sharp rocks cut into my bare skin. I struggled to get up and found my hands were bound cruelly behind my back, with ropes that were so tight my fingers were starting to go numb. I opened my eyes, and my head swam. I discovered that I was lying naked on the ground, stripped of all my clothing.

  A small fire burned in the clearing, and a shadow sat in front of it with its back towards me. It was a few minutes before dawn, and the sun was just starting to peek up over the horizon, heralding the start of another day.

  Perhaps my last day, I thought perversely, but for once I didn’t scold myself for my pessimism. I seemed to be in a pretty bad predicament. My heart hammered in my throat from the force of the adrena
line surging through my veins.

  As if reading my mind, the man by the fire turned towards me and I got a look at his face. My stomach dropped to my knees. I knew those tattoos, that blunt, oft-broken nose. The rotten teeth, and scars – and most of all, I knew that terrible smile when he was thinking about hurting me. That smile was on his face right now.

  “You’re awake. Good. I was starting to get bored,” he growled as he rose to his feet, his corpulent body swaying – I could smell alcohol, and realised that he was drunk. I wondered if that was good for me, or bad for me. Probably bad.

  “Awfully kind of you, really,” he slurred. “All this time, I was thinking that I’d have to come and get you later, once I got my revenge on that bitch at the village. And then what do my boys tell me? Two little blonde sluts showed up this very day, just waiting for us to come and visit? Perfect.” He leapt on me suddenly, and grabbed my chin roughly with one enormous hand.

  “You brought this on yourself, you little whore,” he hissed. I could feel his spittle on my face. His breath was rank, like something had crawled into his mouth and died; the stink of it made me feel nauseated. “You escaped once. You killed my boy. You could have left it at that, but you didn’t. Now I’m going to make you suffer so much you’ll wish we’d killed you the first time.”

  He shoved me back down and kicked me hard, sending me rolling away in the dirt. It was only then I realised that my feet were untied. It was a small thing, but enough to give me hope.

  Don’t be afraid, I told myself silently. He wants you to be afraid. That’s the part he likes best. My entire body was shaking, either from the cold or fear, but I fought to keep myself under control. I wouldn’t say anything, and I wouldn’t scream. I would not give him the satisfaction. There was always hope, until you were dead.

  When I righted myself, I realised he’d moved away from me and that he was bent over examining something. Then he straightened up, and I saw the glint of steel in his hand – a knife.