Surviving the Refuge (Survivalist Reality Show Book 2) Read online

  Survivalist Reality Show

  Surviving the Swamp

  Surviving the Refuge

  Surviving the Elements

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  RELAY PUBLISHING EDITION, APRIL 2019

  Copyright © 2019 Relay Publishing Ltd.

  All rights reserved. Published in the United Kingdom by Relay Publishing. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Grace Hamilton is a pen name created by Relay Publishing for co-authored Post-Apocalyptic projects. Relay Publishing works with incredible teams of writers and editors to collaboratively create the very best stories for our readers.

  www.relaypub.com

  Blurb

  They thought their journey would be over when they reached the island refuge, but life isn’t as simple as what they’d hoped.

  At first glance, Wolf’s home is a prepper’s dream, but there’s a whole new learning curve that comes with living on the island. Regan is frustrated to learn that Wolf’s twelve-year-old daughter outmaneuvers her constantly, and more seriously than that, Regan begins to feel like every move she makes is the wrong one—all except with Wolf, that is.

  Even as the group begins to acclimate to the island, Wolf has to stay strong for his team and his daughter. Making it “home” wasn’t the relief he thought it would be. Instead, he finds a whole new range of skills he has to teach the group, and it all has to happen in the face of failing equipment and a quickly approaching storm season. Everywhere he turns, he finds something else going unexpectedly wrong.

  Struggling to keep up with the demands of life on an island and as part of a group, Regan finds herself in a rapidly disintegrating situation that causes her to question everything: her survival skills, the integrity of the group, and even the promise of safety they’ve worked so hard to secure. It’s enough to have her considering striking out on her own—even if it means threatening the safety of the team. But when the true threat is revealed, it will burn down everything the team knows—the good and the bad.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  End of Surviving the Refuge

  Thank you!

  About Grace Hamilton

  Sneak Peek Surviving the Elements

  Also By Grace Hamilton

  Want More?

  1

  The calm aqua blue waters on this side of the island were mesmerizing. It was strange, surreal even, for Regan to find herself living in what looked to be an island paradise. If only it was paradise. It could have been, of course, if the world beyond the beach hadn’t been in turmoil.

  “Makes it look like there’s not a problem to be thought of, doesn’t it?” she asked Tabitha.

  “Ha. Not if you ask Geno—the way that man talks about missing the city! Don’t get me wrong, I’d love some air conditioning, but I’d rather be here on Wolf’s little island than there, the world the way it is now.”

  Nodding absently, Regan stared north as she strained to see the beach on a nearby island. All she could see were bald cypress trees mingled with palms stretching for the sky. Intermingled with the tall trees were slash pines, a variety of smaller brush plants that climbed between the tall trunks and covered the area with dense foliage. Her favorites, though, were the gumbo-limbo trees that grew sporadically on all of the islands. From what she could see of them, anyway.

  “Have you thought about exploring the other islands around here?” she asked.

  “Not really. You?”

  “Some,” Regan admitted. That was something Regan had never known before showing up here to Wolf Henderson’s secret island fortress. There were hundreds, no, thousands of little islands out here. Off to the north, she could see numerous tiny dots of land, each one indicating another island. They ranged in size from nothing more than a couple of acres to much larger.

  Wolf couldn’t tell her for sure whether the other islands had inhabitants, but she suspected they did. He’d said a lot of them had been made into state parks, and it made sense that there would have been people camping out when the EMP hit, and all of them would ultimately have been stranded. She supposed they might have left, but imagined the smarter ones would have stayed put. If the world as a person knew it was falling apart, her instinct would be to get as far away as possible from city centers; to seek refuge far away from others. An island seemed like a safe bet, which was exactly why Wolf had bought his own island and slowly transformed it into his own doomsday bunker of sorts.

  On walks just like this one, she had traveled the full perimeter of the island several times. Wolf had told her it was in the shape of a comma. The tiny end pointing east, toward the mainland, about fifteen miles south of Naples. The house was built in the center of the round part, with the south- and west-facing beaches opening into the ocean. That was where there was a small boat dock, out of view from anyone who could be fishing off the beach of the mainland.

  Pausing now, Regan stared at the inviting water, wanting to dive in to seek relief from the sweltering Florida heat. Even this early in the morning, it was already unpleasant—despite the lovely breeze blowing off the water. The sun had only just gotten to be full in the sky, but it was uncomfortably hot.

  “That’s something else I can’t get used to,” Regan commented absently. “I never thought about the gulf waters being so calm.”

  Tabitha reached down and picked up a stick that had washed up onto the beach, and banged some of the sand from her shoes. “Yeah? That was why I always wanted to come to the gulf, knowing the waves wouldn’t be so scary as those you see in the movies,” she answered, gesturing out at the lake-like stillness beyond the beach.

  As per usual, the water offered none of the large waves that would have been seen on the other coast.

  Tempting as a dip was, though, both women knew this wasn’t the time. Regan nodded at the path leading back to Wolf’s and Tabitha clapped her on the back as if reading her thoughts and giving her a push away from the water. Wolf was holding yet another meeting back at the house in what had become their morning ritual. Apparently, much to Regan’s displeasure, they had arrived on the island just in time for the kick-off to hurricane season. Another black mark against the island paradise that wasn’t quite so idyllic.

  Regan took a second to wipe at the sweat dripping into her eyes. She’d become accustomed to using the hem of her shirt to wipe her brow. It wasn’t the cleanest, but it worked. Her hand brushed across the butt of the Glock 19 she had in a small holster attached to the belt she was wearing. It was strange to be carrying a gun in paradise, but Wolf insisted. One of them was always carrying when they left the house, even though they were on a deserted island.
Actually, every one of them carried a gun whenever they moved around the island. After all the trouble they had in the city, she knew why he insisted and tried not to protest overly much—even if she hated the extra weight.

  The two women began heading back through the trees, focusing on weaving through the variety of bushes, some with thorns and vines, and heading on up to the house Wolf had built with this very situation in mind.

  Following Tabitha into the living room, she pushed one of the windows open wider to let in as much breeze as possible and then took a seat beside her friend, realizing they were a few minutes late. It was a little tough to tell time without an actual working watch, and time passed easily on the walks she and Tabitha had gotten in the habit of taking together as they patrolled the island. The woman knew how to enjoy companionable silence—not a surprise, Regan supposed, given how much her husband talked.

  Still, it was hard to tell time, and she didn’t know how Wolf expected them to keep to any sort of schedule. It was all about just knowing, which she really sucked at. Time’s a work in progress, like so much else about this post-EMP world, she silently mused.

  “Glad to see you made it back,” Wolf quipped as he slid a piece of notebook paper into her hand.

  She smiled and shrugged a shoulder in apology before turning her attention to the checklist Wolf had handed her. He’d copied out notes about hurricane preparation for each of them, it appeared, and then listed particular things needing attention at the bottom. There were even page references, gesturing back to the big binder of information Wolf used as a reference and had told them all to make use of. In fact, the heavy three-ring, four-inch-wide binder he had shown them was genius. He had checklists for preparing for hurricanes, power outages, flooding, tornadoes, and even an earthquake, which she wasn’t even sure was a possibility on the small island. However, in this day and age, she wouldn’t have been surprised by much of anything.

  The binder itself was neatly organized with colored tabs separating each disaster scenario. There were sections on what do in case of an emergency arising from one of Mother Nature’s temper tantrums along with a first aid manual. Regan had leafed through the resource during the first few days she had been on the island. It was a lot of information, which explained why he had felt the need to organize it all. She couldn’t imagine trying to remember every detail in the face of an emergency.

  “Does anyone have any questions?” Wolf asked, his hair blowing a little with the breeze coming through the large open window.

  Looking around her, Regan noticed that Fred was already at the side of the room, comparing something on his list to a page in the binder itself, while Lily and RC were chatting in a corner. The bulge of the large gun holstered at Fred’s side looked out of place on his lanky body. She didn’t know why, but seeing Fred with a gun on his hip was funny to her. She couldn’t imagine him in any quick draw situation. A little cartoon of him trying to pull the gun and it flying through the air with his awkwardness had her smiling.

  Her eyes moved to Lily. There was a rifle propped up in a corner, close enough for RC to grab, but Lily was the only one not carrying a firearm fulltime. Wolf had taught her to shoot, but he didn’t want his little girl carrying a gun with her. He had told Regan it stole her innocence. There was enough of them to protect her and if she absolutely had to, Lily could defend herself. Regan could understand his reasoning. Children should be allowed to be young and carefree for as long as possible. She’d been thrust into a dangerous world and it had nearly broken her. Lily’s innocence was a small fraction of what motivated Regan to keep the gun on her at all times. She never wanted Lily to be in a position where she had to shoot another human. Not yet.

  Tabitha and Geno had their eyes on a shared copy of the list, Tabitha pointing out various line items and quietly whispering to her husband.

  Geno raised his hand. “Are we expecting a hurricane? How do you know it’s coming? It isn’t like we can watch the weather channel.”

  Wolf drew in a deep breath, his eyes shooting out to the clouds hovering above the tree line. “We feel the air. We look at the sky. I don’t know that a serious storm is coming tomorrow, and we won’t, which is why we are prepping now. We don’t want to get caught off-guard. Some big storms are bound to come, though.”

  “I told you all that we’re fairly insulated here. We don’t typically see the really strong hurricanes that slam into the east coast and islands in the open water. Florida itself buffers us. We generally get the tail end of a storm or some strong winds. However, that doesn’t mean we don’t always prepare for one, because stranger things have happened,” Wolf explained. “And, things being what they are now, we’re not going to get any warning. Any storm could be your average afternoon thunderstorm, or it could be a lot worse, and we won’t know the difference until we’re in the heat of it. We have to stay prepped at all times.”

  Regan looked over and watched as Lily busily doodled in one of her notebooks, not paying any real attention now that RC had turned to help Fred with something. Over the last few days, Regan had noticed that the girl had been quieter than usual. She assumed it was because the teen was bored and lonely. Regan imagined hanging out on an island with a bunch of adults wasn’t exactly a fun time for a twelve-year-old. It wasn’t exactly Regan’s idea of fun either, for that matter, but these were different times they were living in. Fun wasn’t a priority; surviving was.

  Regan moved over and whispered to Lily as Wolf began explaining storm season in southwest Florida to Geno yet again. “Lily, do you guys do this a lot? Go over everything as the season approaches?”

  Lily shrugged. “Not really. We all know what to do. This is for you guys.”

  Regan smiled. “I’ve never seen a hurricane.”

  “The wind blows. You don’t actually see a hurricane; you feel it,” Lily snapped.

  Regan forced herself to smile in response, as if she appreciated the information, but she didn’t push for more conversation. Things had been a little tense around the house lately. In Lily’s case, Regan knew it was typical adolescent angst amplified by the current status of the world. At least, that was the excuse she was giving the kid. Nevertheless, her snotty attitude was getting more and more difficult to deal with.

  “Is it always this humid?” Tabitha asked, the fine sheen of sweat over her brow giving her a dewy look.

  “Yes!” Wolf, RC, and Lily said in unison.

  The elder Henderson smiled. “You get used to it. You learn to relax in the heat of the day and save chores for the late evening hours after it’s stopped raining, or get them done early in the morning before it starts.”

  Regan looked out to the sky—sure enough, afternoon storm clouds were already gathering, despite the fact that it couldn’t be much past nine in the morning.

  Fred groaned. “It’s humid all the time, day and night. Why do people want to retire here?”

  Regan bit back a laugh. Fred, who was always so practical, seemed to be suffering the worst. It seemed strange given his lean build and what appeared to be zero body fat. Regan had always assumed skinny guys were cooler in general. She’d been proven wrong by this one. Even now, he was dabbing a washcloth over his sweaty face and neck.

  She could see sweat stains on his shirt, too, under his armpits and forming a V around his neck. Regan looked down at her own tan shirt, relieved she wasn’t sporting the same sweat marks. Deodorant was in short supply. Wolf had stocked up on some, but with seven people on the island, it was going fast. And it did little to actually keep down the body odor that even now filled her nostrils as she breathed in the thick air in the room, made worse by all the bodies crowded inside.

  Showers were a luxury they couldn’t really afford to take often. Wolf had a basic RV-type shower in his house. When you wanted to shower, you turned on the pump, which drew from a fifty-gallon barrel outside the house that was filled with rainwater. When it came to deciding between a shower and a flushing toilet, they all agreed the latter was more import
ant. They could always sponge bathe and take dips in the ocean before giving themselves a quick rinse with freshwater.

  “What about flash floods?” Geno asked.

  “What about them?” RC asked.

  Regan studied the man now standing next to Wolf at the front of the room. The resemblance between the two men was striking. Each had thick black hair, and a defined jaw and cheekbones. Wolf was a little taller than his dad and a lot more muscular. Otherwise, though, the two men shared many of the same mannerisms, and both possessed that same quiet, serious presence she’d come to admire. They were the epitome of peace and tranquility, which made them complete opposites from their houseguests. Well, peaceful, if you ignored the guns and hunting knives they were never without.

  Geno shrugged. “You said flash flooding would be a concern if the rain really piled on. Then, you said it rained every day, so I guess we have to figure on them. But we can’t actually prepare for a flash flood, can we? Isn’t that why they’re called flash floods to begin with?”

  Lily snickered, earning a look from her father.

  “We keep an eye on things. Once we get further into the season, it really will rain every day, and we’ll have a lot of downpours. If we get too many for too long, or for too many days in a row, we fill the sandbags. The house isn’t in any real danger of flooding, but we have to watch the paths, watch the trees around the house to make sure the ground stays sure, and watch out for the supplies we have elsewhere on the island, such as the boats and docks, that could be affected by a heavy outpouring of water coming in one shot. I built on the highest part of the island, and the concrete foundation gives us another foot, so it’s not so much the house we worry about as everything around us when it comes to any flooding,” Wolf explained.