Survivors

Even though Luke had watched Bretnel drink the mystery liquid he still felt that there was something wrong. He didn’t drink the coco that night or for the next couple of nights and had made it pretty obvious what he was doing. Holly and Joe had drunk their coco with no obvious ill effects and Bretnel hadn’t made a scene about Luke not having his.

It was a couple of nights later that Luke decided to try something different. This time he took his coco like he was going to drink it but when nobody was looking he carefully tipped it into a jug he had hidden down the side of the sofa. He dabbed the sides of his mouth to make it look like he had drunk the coco and gave the empty cup back to Bretnel with a smile.

“Night all” he said.

“Good night young sir. May angels attend your dreams” said Bretnel with a smile.

“Yeah whatever” sneered Luke.

“Night big man!” Shouted Joe jumping up and giving Bretnel a huge high five. He did this every night because the sheer awkwardness with which Bretnel responded always made him laugh.

“Yes..yea..high five”

“Night Bretnel” laughed Holly

“Goodnight little princess, sweet dreams”

When Holly and Joe got to their bedroom they found Luke was already in bed with the duvet pulled up round his ears.

“Are you okay?” asked Holly.

“Me?” Snapped Luke.

“No, that other bloke in the room we’ve never met before” said Joe “Of course you”.

“Yeah, I’m fine”

“You don’t seem it” said Holly “You seem really tense, really uptight”.

“Yeah, even more uptight than normal. If that’s possible” sniggered Luke

“Look I’m fine , just leave it will you. Go to bed and get some sleep”

“Owww get him!”

“Just shut it Joe, will you” snapped Luke “I’m not in the mood”

Joe was about to say something else but Holly caught his eye and gave a little shake of her head. It was a signal that even Joe, who wasn’t known for his emotional sensitivity could understand, so he shut up.

Climbing into a bed with soft clean sheets and a warm duvet was still a luxury they hadn’t really got used to. Joe and Holly snuggled down, making satisfied comfortable noises, and within a few minutes their breathing had changed into the slower deeper rhythms of sleep.

Luke lay quietly so as not to disturb them and stared as hard as he could at the wall beside his bed doing his best not to move. He carefully studied the minute details of the paint, the cracks, the flakes, the subtle changes in colour absolutely anything to stay awake. He didn’t know why but he was sure something was going to happen. He waited and waited and as he did his eyes got heavier and heavier. Every now and then he pinched his leg to try and keep himself awake, nevertheless his eyelids got just too heavy and they started to close of their own accord. He tried blinking hard and screwing up his face pulling strange faces but nothing helped, in the end he was dragged into a fitful sleep.

Then suddenly he was wide awake, no need for pinching or blinking now, something had disturbed him. He did his best not to move so as to not give himself away, as he strained his ears to hear he could tell without doubt that someone was in the room. He had no idea how long they had been there and worst of all he couldn’t see what they were doing because he was still laying facing the wall. He cursed himself “How stupid to fall asleep and even more stupid that he was facing the wall, he couldn’t see anything. It was so frustrating. He had to find out what they were doing. He could hear someone shuffling quietly around but he couldn’t see. Still pretending to be asleep he took a deep breath and rolled over with a sigh. Through half closed eyes he saw Bretnel looking straight at him. Bretnel seemed to be trying to work out if Luke was awake or not. They both stayed absolutely still for about thirty seconds until Bretnel seemed to make up his mind that Luke was asleep and turned towards Holly.

He bent over her and gently took hold of her arm and placed it on the bed clothes. Bretnel then took out of a small black bag he had with him that looked like a syringe. He tapped the inside of her arm with his fingers a couple of times before carefully pushing the needle gently but firmly into her skin. Holly gave a small sigh as Bretnel pressed down on the syringe plunger before pulling it out of Holly’s arm. Bretnel rubbed the spot where the syringe had been with his thumb before putting Holly’s arm back under the bed clothes. He carefully put away the syringe and then turned towards Luke.

In a panic Luke couldn’t think what to do. Bretnel wasn’t a huge man but he was certainly stronger than Luke so fighting him on his own wasn’t a real option. It was pretty obvious that Joe and Holly were drugged so they would be no help. He couldn’t run and leave the others, and he didn’t want Bretnel to know he knew about the drugs, so in the end he chose to do nothing and just pretended to be asleep. The injection when it happened didn’t really hurt, it was just a quick pricking sensation which was over in seconds, but he was sure he twitched as the needle went in. The twitch nearly gave him away because Bretnel looked at him quizzically for a while and leaned in close to stare into his face.

“Luke” he said “Luke, are you awake?”

Luke sighed and turned back to the wall. Bretnel got up and walked towards the doorway, he stopped and turned round “Sweet dreams” he said, and left.

Later Luke told the others he’d done nothing because he’d reasoned that Bretnel had been doing this for weeks and so one more shot of whatever it was he was giving them wasn’t really going to matter. Whereas if he’d tried to stop him he could have turned violent and then who knows what might have happened. By doing nothing Bretnel wouldn’t get suspicious and they would be free to make their escape at some point when Bretnel went off to one of his secret parts of the base. In truth he’d been so frozen with fear he wouldn’t have been able to do anything even if he wanted to, but nobody needs to know that do they.

Luke didn’t sleep the rest of the night. He felt hot, feverish and kept feeling like his heart was racing . Perhaps this happened every night and whatever was in the coco stopped it happening, or perhaps because they were in a drugged sleep they didn’t notice it, or perhaps it was all just in his head. Real or not the feelings were enough to make him even more paranoid about what Bretnel was doing to them, if that was possible.

In the morning he went into breakfast and went through the ritual with as much normality as he could master. Once Bretnel left them and Luke was sure he’d gone off and locked himself away he said “Come on you two get packed up. We need to leave. Now!”

Joe and Holly looked at Luke and then at each other in complete shock.

“Come on” ordered Luke striding towards the door.

“Hang on a minute bro” said Joe “Are you off your rocker?”

“Just do it” snapped Luke “Okay!”

“No it’s not okay. Why on earth should we leave, everythings great here, it’s a bit boring but..”

“Just shut it will you Joe”

“Who the hell are you telling..”

“For once in your stupid life will you just listen” barked Luke, and there was something so earnest and serious in the way Luke said it that Joe did shut up. “Last night” he went on “Last night, I didn’t drink my coco like you did and I stayed awake. When you two were snoring away Bretnel came, took out a syringe and gave all three of us an injection”.

Holly gasped and put her hands to her face in shock “What was it?”

“How the hell should I know” snapped Luke. “What I do know is that I don’t want him to do it again. So I reckon we grab what we can and get as far away from here as we can before Bretnel knows we’re gone. And we do that as quickly as we can. What do you think!”

Holly and Joe said nothing for a few seconds as they tried to take in what Luke has just told them. The Joe said “Why do we have to leave? Why don’t we make him leave?”

“What?!”

“There’s three of us and only one of him. I like it here, there’s food, it’s warm and I really like sleeping in a bed”

“Are you mad!” Screamed Luke “How could we make him leave?”

“I don’t know”

“I suppose we could just ask him nicely, you know be ever so polite, yeah I’m sure that would work” said Luke sarcastically. “Would you mind leaving Bretnel old chap so we can take over, that would be awfully decent of you. Oh and would you mind closing the door on the way out there’s a good fellow”

“No I didn’t mean that” said Joe quietly.

“Well what did you mean then” demanded Luke “Because i’ve been thinking about this all night and I can only see one way of us staying here”.

“What’s that then?” asked Holly with just a little hope in her voice.

“If Bretnels dead” said Luke “And I for one am not prepared to become a killer for a bit of food and a soft bed. How about you little brother?”

Joe didn’t say anything for a few seconds and then slowly shook his head.

“So I reckon we’ve got no other choice than to get the hell out of here. Unless you’ve got any better ideas?” Neither Holly or Joe spoke “Right” said Luke “Let’s get going then”.

“Hang on” said Holly “We don’t have to actually go now do we. I mean if we’re going back on the road we should get as prepared as we can. We need to get some warm clothes, food, tents all that sort of thing, or we aren’t going to last very long are we!”

“Yean but what are we going to do about Bretnel” asked Joe.

They all thought for a few moments then Holly said “I reckon we can come up with excuses for a couple of nights why one of us doesn’t want the coco. If it is drugged, he’s not going to risk coming in if he definitely knows one of us hasn’t drunk it will he?”

“Yeah” said Joe getting enthusiastic about the plan “I could say I’m not feeling very well tonight and I don’t fancy any. Hey I could even go to bed a bit early to make it seem real”

“We could stash the stuff in our room under one of the beds” chipped in Holly. “Right, let’s make a list of what we need and decide who’s going to get what”.

“I’ll get the paper” said Joe springing up and dashing off.

Holly turned to Luke “Are you okay with this?” she asked.

Luke intently studied his shoes for a few moments, then looked up “Yeah, I guess” he said shrugging “Let’s make it a good list!”.