The Ruins Part 2 (Sequel to The Ruins)

Chapter 66

Vix, Sam, Max, Killeen, Johan, Rin, Lugh, and Alec crouched in the limb of a tree and stared at the starlit facade of KillGames. For two hours now they had watched people arriving on horseback and in armoured trade wagons. Townsfolk and people who lived rough out in the Ruins. Coming for the games. Coming to wager on the lives and deaths of children in the Infected pits. All the way here Alec called upon the Saviors to coordinate them, but there was no response. They hoped to come across Tom, Negan, and Mal, but Sam found were their footprints... and later signs of a scuffle near the front of the hotel. It was certain they had been taken.

Back in the forest the Greenman had given Alec a map and pointed out the fastest way and led them to the edge of the field that ran along the road to Wawona, but he refused to go with them.

"There's going to be a fight," Alec said. "Won't you come with us?"

He smiled at him with eyes that seemed ancient and sad. "No. I'm done with fighting. It tore away too much of who I was. It took me a long time to find myself again. I made a choice never to fight again."

"But- we need you." Killeen pleaded.

"No, son, you need you. Your friends. If it's your choice to go and help your friends, then that is your choice. Not mine."

Then he gave a slight nod to Alec for curtesy and a warm smile to the rest of the group, and vanished into the woods. They stop watching the trembling leaves. Then they turned and began hunting along the trail to KillGames. The kids followed Alec's steps as they evaded a dozen guards and slipped past ditches and over fences an finally found the tree that overlooked the hotel. This was a different KillGames from the one where Vix, Lugh, and Alec had seen. Different, but still the same.

"Negan and Mal must be in there." Whispered Sam. "If the Saviors are coming, we don't know how long they'll come. We have to do something before their thrown to the pits."

"Us against a full army?" Rin said.

"But we're smart and we have enough girth to fight these people." Max explained. "But how can we get in?"

"Can't exactly knock on their doors." Said Lugh.

"Or sneak in. Too many guards around the perimeter." Alec pointed out.

Sam had a thought, and it burned in his mind. He smiled and told them, and they smiled back and climbed down from the tree.

-:-:-:-:-

The Calvary Boys walked Mal and Negan outside, which Negan almost attacked on Ryes holding Ellie in his hand, but the boys hold him back, and they exited the hotel. It was like stepping into a weird modern version of the ancient Roman circus. There had to be more than two hundred people gathered in the field behind the hotel. Bleachers made from planks and pipes had been erected, and these were completely packed by a laughing, yelling, jeering crowd. The scene was lit by dozens of torches set atop tall poles, and their light cast the whole scene into a fiery unreality, where every pair of eyes reflected flickering flames. The whole are was fenced in by three walls made of armoured wagons that had been parked tightly together, and the front was the entire back wall of the Hotel Wawona. On the right-hand side, between sets of bleachers, was a huge circus tent whose flaps were closed. Guards stood in a long row in front of the flaps, and on the top of the tent, painted in huge red letters, was the word BELIEVE.

Mal saw that the amphitheater surrounded seven large pits dug into the bare earth. The crowd cheered and yelled and laughed and made obscene jokes as Mal and Negan were led to the edge of the first pit. The dozens of guards were armed with knives and swords and spears. No guns, Mal noticed, and she thought about that. Were they afraid of wild shots in so densely packed an area? Or was there some other concern?