Famished (14 page)
“Don’t worry,” said the first voice. “It was probably nothing.”
Throwing my hands over my mouth, I took small, short breaths. It was so quiet that I thought any sound I made might give me away. And as far as I knew, I was in the middle of a dangerous situation and it was best for me not to take any chances.
Cocking my head to the side, I watched the two men who were meeting in secret. Finally, I was able to put faces to the footsteps and voices. Mr. Baker and Colin’s father, Mr. Martin. Come to think of it, what I was doing was actually kind of thrilling. I could see why Frankie found snooping around and eavesdropping appealing.
Mr. Martin spun around warily. I stared at him intently, picturing Colin as an adult. Their resemblance to one another was uncanny. The only difference was Mr. Martin was a few pounds overweight and had grey streaks through his midnight hair. “Are you sure everyone is asleep?” he asked.
“Positive,” Mr. Baker replied. “I checked everyone’s quarters myself.”
“So,” Mr. Martin began, raising his voice slightly. “Has it been decided, then? Are we going to rig the results of the lottery again?”
Rig the results of the lottery again? My breath caught in my lungs. I felt myself getting dizzy. They had complete control over the lottery the first time. They planted my name and Colin’s in there on purpose. Those jerks!
And Colin…. Colin knew about it all along! I couldn’t believe it. He seemed so sincere when spoke about protecting me and he was behind this whole plan from the beginning. But why? Were his advances toward me fake too? Was it just an act to get me to trust him? So I wouldn’t suspect what was going on?
Mr. Baker nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
“So who is going in for the boys?”
Mr. Baker brushed his forefinger against his lips.
“How about Dylan Edwards?”
Mr. Martin considered that. “The Edwards boy is a good choice.”
“I would rather your son go in again. I think she might have a fondness for him.”
They were talking about me! During that moment I thanked God
for Frankie. If it wasn’t for her this would have been a complete blind side. I assumed it was coming, but I never expected to feel so betrayed, by Colin especially.
“We can’t send Colin in twice. Then the colonists will definitely know that it’s been rigged,” Mr. Martin commented.
“How will we explain the Carver girl being selected again?”
Mr. Martin shrugged. “We’ll call it a fluke.”
As I took in their conversation, I mentally bantered with myself on whether or not I should tell somebody. Oh, when my mother found out, she was going to blow a gasket. How could my parents have been so naïve? I didn’t think that either one of them had a clue about what Mr. Baker and Mr. Martin were up to.
Me, I was like my mother. Neither one of us liked or trusted Mr. Baker. But, my father, he went on confiding in him like he was God’s gift to this colony. My father needed to have his head examined.
Mr. Baker propped himself against the wall. “Georgina Carver is too smart for her own good. You better believe she’ll wreak havoc when her name is selected a second time. She’s got that strong-willed nature about her. Just like her mother. It’s important that nobody, I repeat nobody speaks of this outside our circle. If the Carver girl catches wind of it, she might plot something and we can’t have that before she’s eliminated.”
Eliminated. What did he mean eliminated?
“She’ll never find out,” Mr. Martin promised. “The only people who know anything about it are you, me, Colin, and Hank Edwards. I know for certain that none of them will talk.”
“It’s a shame it has to be this way, but we are running low on food and supplies. We have too many mouths to feed and aren’t producing enough to keep the whole colony fed.”
“Sometimes, you need to destroy things in order to rebuild them.”
“Or wipe them out entirely.”
“So it’s done, then,” Mr. Martin stated. “Do you want me to handle rigging the names or do you want to do it this time?”
Mr. Baker straightened himself out. “I’ll do it this time. There is a secret doorway in my room. It’s covered by an old rug. Place the box in there and I’ll configure everything sometime tomorrow.”
“It will be there,” Mr. Martin said.
“You know,” Mr. Baker began, “We’re lucky we’ve found a way to do this over. The Carver girl was never supposed to come back. She was supposed to end up just like the Vickers girl.”
Chapter 15: The Truth Shall Set You Free
Darkness which may be felt.~ Exodus 10:21
For a while, I just sat alone in the mess hall consumed by the darkness. My mind was still processing key items from the conversation that I had just heard. Murder. These people were murderers. They conspired and had Monica Vickers killed. And now they were plotting to murder me! Over food!
The worst part was, that this plan Mr. Baker developed, about secretly murdering people to conserve food, wasn’t going to stop with me. Who was it going to be next? Grace?
Poor Monica. My heart went out to her, wherever she was. She was young, beautiful and kind, a lot like May. She didn’t deserve to die, especially over freaking portion control. If our food supply was running low, why couldn’t they just ask people to take less? I would have gladly sacrificed half of my food if I knew it would have kept Monica alive and well.
What would her family say when they found out? Would they believe me if I told them?
I had no reason to lie or make up such a story, but Mr. Baker had this slimy way about him when it came to manipulating people. No… I couldn’t tell them. Not yet.
As I picked myself up off the cold, damp floor, an empty feeling swirled around in the pit of my stomach, and it wasn’t because I was hungry. It surfaced because I felt used, like
a pawn in a game that I wasn’t invited to participate in. My life had no value to these people. They should have just chained me up and sold me off into slavery. Even a life of slavery had to be better than being surrounded by greedy, manipulative people who were full of lies.
How could I face Colin tomorrow, knowing what I knew now? Instead of feeling butterflies whenever he entered the room, I’d feel nauseated. Listening to the sound of his deep, once beautiful voice, would make my skin crawl. Separating the way I used to feel about him and my feelings for him now were going to be harder than anything I’d ever done. Colin was a con. A great big con artist. And I blamed myself for all of this more than anything because I bought everything he sold.
At the time, he had me genuinely believing he cared about me. Still confused, I debated on whether he was acting or not. He had to be, but there was so many times, where he displayed a chivalrous side. Like when he made his promise to me. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you. I will always protect you.” Or when he touched me tenderly, gazing deep into my eyes.
It always felt like he was looking past me, staring directly into my soul. If he didn’t care about me, I was convinced that he was one of the best actors I’d ever seen. Even better than the ones that were in movies. Perhaps. Colin could give Brad Pitt a run for his money.
Honestly. I’d always prided myself in being completely and totally honest with people. A person who could look someone directly in the eye and lie to their face didn’t have guts or a conscience. I had both. It was different when people who loved you did it. Yes, it was still wrong but, eventually when you found out, you knew they were only doing it because they truly cared about you.
My mother lied to me all the time but I knew she only did because she loved me so much. Like when I was ten and we had a heated debate on Santa Clause. She insisted that he was real, telling me that if I didn’t leave the milk and cookies out, that he wouldn’t come. I knew he wasn’t real. But Christmas isn’t the same without Santa. And even though she was lying to my face, I knew she wasn’t doing maliciously.
What Mr. Baker, Mr. Martin, and Mr. Edwards were doing was malicious. They weren’t just lying to me, they were lying and betraying an entire colony of people. The same people who took them in when they had nowhere else to go. None of us cared if that meant we had more mouths to feed. We were saving lives and that was all that mattered.
Sulking back to my room, I couldn’t hold back my deeply-rooted feeling of sorrow anymore. My eyes watered up, tears brimming over the edges. I was so overwhelmed with emotion, I had to stop in the middle of the hall and hold myself to keep it all together.
One tear after another, rained down my cheeks. Closing my eyes, I squeezed them together tightly, hoping to dry up my tears ducts. I let out a long sigh, and clenched my jaw as my temples started pounding and a sharp pain rippled through the stitched up gash above my forehead.“Get a hold of yourself,” I said, barely above a whisper.
It was time that I stopped crying and showed everyone who they were dealing with. I’d been through hell and back in the last three days and came out just fine. Part of my memory was gone and I was physically broken, but I wasn’t going to let that keep me down.
I refused to just sit back and let myself become another one of their victims. Like Mr. Baker said, “The Carver girl is too smart for her own good.” He was right about that.
Tomorrow, I would pretend like everything was perfect. I’d put on the best act of my entire life. I’d keep an eye on Mr. Baker at all times. I’d sneak in and out of the shadows, like a creature of the night. Then, when Mr. Baker and his family were out and about, I’d march right into his room, snatch the lottery box, and put his daughter’s name inside of it.
Chapter 16: Resurrected
Woe to her that is filthy and polluted, to the oppressing city!~ Zephaniah 3:1
The chatter in the mess hall died down to silence as I entered. My eyes wandered around the room, stopping at my old table. Grace beamed at me, motioning for me to join her. I smiled back and made my way over to her. Colin wasn’t here yet, if he was going to show up at all. Someone probably informed him that I was coming out of hiding today. News around here spread faster than an avalanche on a snow capped mountain.
“So glad to have you back!” Grace gushed as I plopped down on my bench.
I laughed. “Grace, you’ve seen me every day this week.”
She grabbed my arm and placed her head against my shoulder. “Well, I still missed you at mealtimes.”
Turning away, I had a hard time looking at Grace. I felt like I was betraying her just by keeping what I knew about her sister a secret. But my plan wouldn’t work if I spilled everything now.
Last night, after I pieced myself back together, I lied awake in bed, plotting. I knew every aspect of Mr. Baker’s schedule and my plan wouldn’t have worked if I didn’t. Usually, I hated that we lived in such close proximity with all the colonists, but now it appeared that the closeness would work out to my advantage.
In the morning, Mr. Baker joined everyone in the mess hall for breakfast. Then, after breakfast, he went into the kitchen to count the food inventory. He counted every item himself, to ensure that nothing was stolen. That took him about three hours. With this many people, and everyone contributing something, that was a lot of food to count. When the inventory was completed, he’d go back to his room and, at 11:30 he’d join everyone else in the mess hall for lunch.
Afternoons consisted of council meetings, making his rounds, family time, and then dinner. My best shot at sneaking into his room would be during that council meeting .His wife would be in the kitchen prepping, for dinner because she organized all the meals and his kids would be having recreational time.
All the kids under eighteen had recreation time on Tuesdays and Thursdays after lunch. I liked to spend my time reading or playing checkers with Grace. Sometimes, Frankie would talk me into playing some kind of board game with her. Candyland was her favorite. But I’d beaten her so many times, now it was boring.
I was staring off, in a daze, consumed with my plan that I barely noticed Mr. Baker and his daughter Elise, standing before me. “It’s nice to see you, back and well, Miss Carver,” he squawked.
Taking a deep my breath, I lifted my head. I kept calm, a bright smile forming on my face. “Thank you, Mr. Baker.” I pushed a strand of my fiery red hair away from my face. “I’m so thankful to be back amongst the living.” I emphasized on the word living.
He nodded. “As you should be.” He turned to Elise. “Let’s go, dear.” He turned back to me. “Enjoy your breakfast, Miss Carver.”
“I will, thank you.” My eyes followed him over to his table as he and Elise took their seats.
Elise Baker was the same age as me. We weren’t friends. We were acquainted with each other, like everyone else was down here but, she had this arrogant, superior attitude, just like her father. I kept my eyes on her, as she ran her fingers through her honey brown hair. I wondered if she knew what her father had planned for me. No…..
Elise was snobby, always walking around with her nose in the air, or not speaking to anybody that she didn’t speak to first, but I didn’t think she was evil.