Free Paradise: An Apocalyptic Novel by Nicholas Erik

tense air with terse beeps. Ten. Nine. Eight . Jackson crawled closer to the door, elbows scraping the smooth ground, muscles straining to raise his body towards the opening. Three. It was only a foot or two away—and Jackson leapt through the opening with a final burst of energy, crashing to the ground on the other side.
    The door came down with startling force.
    Jackson screamed.

7
    Shadow Village
    Silver whipped the prisoner.
    “This is the harshness of The Hideaway,” he said, relishing each strike, “feel it in your bones.” The man whimpered as Silver raised the lash once again, but the next beating didn’t occur. “Now,” Silver said, adopting a sympathetic tone, “is that all you know?”
    “Yes, I swear,” the man said, through tears and pain, “I’ve told you everything.”
    “And they don’t know anything more than that? Where the virus came from? Or about us?” Silver said us like it was a clandestine operation, trading in shadows and secrets, like the Illuminati.
    “I don’t know who you are. Why are you doing this…?” The man’s voice trailed off, knowing that he wouldn’t receive an answer.
    “Now, now, Pierre,” Silver said, patting the cook’s open wounds, “it’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right in a few minutes. You’ve been very helpful, even if you didn’t know that much.” Silver gestured to his bald buddy, whispering something in his ear. Blood dripped from the ridges in Pierre’s back, pooling on the ground around his knees.
    Off to the side, Melina stood, the tip of a rifle planted in her back. She couldn’t say anything; the first time she’d protested, her captors had responded with a fierce coldcock to the temple. Her head still hurt, and that was five days ago.
    She could still see it—her and Pierre darting through the brush, surrounded by strange cries and rustles, searching for the homestead. They weren’t sure if it was exhaustion, or the weight of Sam, but it seemed like they’d run for miles. In their confusion and haste, they’d gotten lost in the jungle, were so far from Amanda’s homestead that it might as well have been a whole different world.
    What they discovered, upon stopping to take a breath, was that they were overlooking a village, a small encampment of palm tree huts and cabins, rigged with a makeshift string of cords and various other technological anachronisms. A palisade crafted of rusty wire and jungle thorns surrounded the outpost. A thick canopy of trees shielded the sun from striking the ground, and prying eyes in the sky from seeing all the way to the floor.
    It had been miles—the pair had ran more than six miles, fear and adrenaline pushing them forward, all the way to the edge of the island. They’d found Shadow Village.
    And Shadow Village didn’t want to be found.
    Sam’s breathing was faint by that point, and the group—five ragged looking survivors, two men and two women, along with a child—didn’t even hesitate with their decision. A single pistol shot to the head, and then an unceremonious burial in an unmarked grave, off in the jungle wilds.
    Blew his brains out there, right in the middle of camp, blood staining the ground, then dragged him off, like it was nothing.
    It was nothing. There used to be twelve of us , Silver told Pierre and Melina, we’re family . We don’t have use for anyone else . We don’t trust anyone else . And that’s why we’ve survived.
    And so it began: five days of questions and torture. They were relegated to an empty cabin— he died three years ago, the last one to die, Silver had said, like it was a shrine, a religious mecca.
    They wanted to know about the virus. How they knew about the virus was anyone’s guess—Melina couldn’t see how they knew, although they seemed to be connected to the grid somehow, which was an impossibility in and of itself.
    Each day, this man who called himself Silver dragged them into the center of the huts and questioned them.
    She