Free The Survival Game by Stavro Yianni Page A

always saw himself as a good person; he’d just been the victim of circumstance. One
skata
led to another and they couldn’t be undone. What Phillipo was saying to him made perfect sense—he didn’t want to kill, but he’d have to be prepared to for the sake of his family. He was the fisherman, utilising his instincts so that he and his family can live on. And he was about to go fishing.
    Survival of the fittest—
what a load of
skata.
    ‘Phillipo,’ John said in a more upbeat voice. ‘I want Holy Communion. Can you do that for me?’
    ‘Of course I can, cousin,’ Phillipo replied with a sincere smile and a pat on the shoulder. ‘Come with me to the office and I’ll do it for you.’
    Phillipo stood up and smiled down at John, who stood soon after. He zipped his jacket up fully, still horribly conscious of the gun stuffed into his trouser belt. He cleared his throat and followed his haloed cousin out of the main part of the church and out into the office for his Holy Communion.
    Above them both, the pained eyes of the
Panayia
watched on.
    *****
    John got back to the camper site just as rain started lashing down hard. He pulled up outside his home and killed the engine, the sound of the rain beating on the car windows like machine gun fire now amplified. He leant over the passenger seat and grabbed the bag full of Chinese food as well as the tulip he picked from someone’s garden near the takeaway. He stepped out of the car, the rain instantly soaking him. He protected the food under his coat as he made a dash for the caravan. When he got in, Alisha was lying sideways on their bed, a Sudoku puzzle book open in front of her. When she heard him enter, her haloed head turned to the side for a second, then went back again. John went straight over to the table, took dinner out from under his coat, and plonked it down, laying the tulip neatly next to it. He then returned to the front door, opened it, and stood in the doorway, arms folded, staring out into the rain.
    A little while later, he could hear the crumpling of the takeaway bag behind him. He smiled to himself. Alisha’s cravings for MSG clearly hadn’t eased off over the last twenty-four. He was happy about that. She’d calmed down a bit since earlier on as well, which was good. She had a bit of sleep, which probably helped, but it was most likely down to the food.
    ‘You not eating?’ she then asked out loud.
    John shook his head. ‘No. I’m not hungry,’ he replied over his shoulder. He took a
cigarro
from the box in his pocket, sparked it up, and puffed away, blowing the smoke out into the air outside. The nerves he was feeling had taken his appetite away, but it wasn’t just that. It was the whole uncertainty of the situation.
Who are these fuckers who mugged him off? Where are they from? How many of ’em are there, and could he take ’em on by himself?
He had no choice but to find out these things or he’d be nothing but the next sorry instalment in the Aziz delivery boy mythos.
    You got us into this mess, now you get us out,
was what Alisha said to him all those months ago when all this caravan
skata
started. And that’s what he was doing, nothing more, nothing less. When he was done, he’d ask God to forgive all the
armaties
he’d committed—however many that may turn out to be—just as Phillipo said, and hope that he accepted. The Holy Communion he had back at the church helped to ready him for the job in hand, helping to kill a lot of the crap on his mind, mainly guilt. But there was a load still left. And that would probably never leave.
    Behind him, Alisha ate. The smell of fried rice, crispy duck, and chicken Kung Po hit his nostrils, but still he wasn’t hungry. Instead, he just stared out of the doorway at his car. In the glovebox was the Glock he bought at the Cornershop. Waiting for action. And like him, it was getting itchy feet.
    He took a final drag on his
cigarro
and threw it out into the rain, blowing out the last lungful