Becoming Them: A Zombie Novel

Fifteen

     Everyone stared at their surroundings with confusion, anger and worry.

     The prisoner had escaped and the two children were missing.

     I stood next to Cara, also confused.

     "How did he get out?" Cara asked.

     "Don't know. He probably took the kids," Aaron replied, banging a fist on the table. "That bastard."

     "Will we be able to find them again?" I asked.

     "Not likely," Cara said. "We don't know where Gavin actually stays. He and the kids could be anywhere right now."

     Adrian sat silently on the couch. Evie crept to him and joined him there.

     "What do we do now?" she asked him.

     Ignoring her, he continued to stare into nothing, as if he was just waiting for the answer to appear out of thin air.

     "Adrian?" she tried again, now slightly wary.

     "I don't know."

     With the smothering silence, Aria chose the time to step forward, a cautious look on her face.

     "I don't think he took Skylar and Elliot," she stated.

     "Then what else could have happened?" Aaron retorted.

     "I think the kids let him go and left with him."

     "Why would they do that?" Adrian asked this time.

     Aria shrugged dismissively. "I don't know. But I heard them talking before. It was only when they knew I was waking up, they stopped talking like they were keeping some sort of secret."

     "You should've told us. Now he's going to take them to God-knows-where," Adrian said.

     "Why do you even care?" Holly muttered.

     "What?"

     "Why do you even care?" she repeated louder. "You've never cared about the children before."

     "I don't know," he replied. "I'm pretty mad that they let him go. And now that he's escaped ..." A sullen look came over his face, mixed with realisation and anger.

     "What is it, Adrian?" Aaron asked.

     "We have to leave."

     "Why?"

     "Where d'you think Gavin ran off to?" Without waiting for an answer, he said, "To his friends ..." Adrian waited for Aaron and everyone else to get everything to click into place.

     A few seconds later, Aaron wore the same look as Adrian. "And they could come back to finish us off."

     Without a second thought, Adrian looked at Nick. "Nick, go check how many vehicles we have."

     Nick zoomed past the group, and then returned moments later. "One's missing."

     "He took it," Adrian confirmed. "Alright. Everyone pack up. We have to leave."

     "You can't be serious, right? Maybe he knows not to mess with us. He won't come back," Aria said unconvincingly.

     "We can't take that chance," Nick replied. "We can't just wait for them to come back and complete what they started. Like when they killed Caleb."

     "Exactly. So let's leave. He could already have informed his friends and are on their way now," Adrian said.

     Not even a few seconds went by when everyone rushed off to their rooms to pack their things. After we buried all the essentials into our backpacks, a few others had already started to round up all the food and fill up as many bottles as possible with water. With the amount we had, each of us had a bottle tucked into our bags. A few extra bags were held filled with the food.