The Game

By the time they got to the cabin, the exhaustion was clear on everyone’s faces.

The truth was that this was a wild goose chase and Carmichael knew it. Ana was much too clever to get caught especially now that she was in the possession of the notebook…. even injured the likelihood of them catching up to her was low.

As they sat around the decrepit wooden cabin the heavy smell of mould hung thick in the air. It was clear that she hadn’t stopped here. The place looked like it had been untouched by human hands for years.

Carmichael passed the hot thermos to Hudson.

‘Take it…, it might be the last hot drink you have in a while.’

Hudson grabbed the thermos and without hesitation opened the lid and started drinking the warm liquid.

He quickly felt the warmth spared through his body. It was a comforting feeling, but it was short lived as a high-pitched shrilled scream pierced the silenced of the night.

In that moment Carmichael realised he was wrong and that worried him far more then had he been right.

Ana was here.

The debris that she had left behind of his lookout man was proof she was watching them. This was a warning and Carmichael knew that Ana only ever gave one warning.

As he watched Hudson and the others vomit at the mess she made of their colleagues. Carmichael was left to decide on his next move.

He knew that if he didn’t think fast he would lose her and with her he would lose the only hope of ever getting his hands on the notebook….and that was not an option…not again. He gathered the man he had left, and they set off. He would have to do the thinking as they hiked. This site was now compromised, and he couldn’t afford to lose any more soldiers.

Carmichael’s mind flashed back to how it all begun…. they had met some 4 years earlier in a military training camp. They were made to complete yet another punishing obstacle course when Carmichaels troublesome ankle finally gave out. It was by luck that Ana was running just behind him, and actually bothered to stop as the other cadets ran past him without as much as a backwards glance. From there they almost practically slotted into each other’s lives seamlessly.

The day they had found the black notebook, they had been out for a run together to burn of the frustration of, what was a disastrous day for both of them.

Ana wasn’t much of a ‘talker’, and that suited Carmichael just fine. In a way that’s what made them so good together. Those ‘uncomfortable’ moments of silence, seem to connect them, there was no need on either side to fill the silenced with unimportant talk.

They stopped at the water fountain at the entrance of the park so that Carmichael could adjust the strap around his ankle, as he stood up and tried to regain his balance, his toe caught on something hard, sparsely covered by decomposing leaves.

Ana bent down and uncovered the black notebook. It looked quite unremarkable really, and normally neither of them would even think about picking it up…. but there was something intriguing about it, as if it was drawing them to open it.

It was Ana who actually opened it…… on the inside cover in neat nondescript writing was a name and a number…. Dr Alonse Mariatte….0422287653.

It was Carmichael who call the number…. after just one ring an elderly man with an unsurprised tone to his voice picked up, as if he were waiting for them to call.

The events that followed on next would in one way or another change everything forever and turned the world as they knew it upside down.

It was the enticing promise of a dying man’s inheritance and the ease with which it could be theirs that lead them to be here. It all seemed so simple at the start…. a ‘friendly’ game of strategy and at the end regardless of who won …they would each inherit $20000 from Dr Mariatte’s fortune. However, Carmichael should have known that nothing is just given to you…there is a price to pay for everything…….and now he just hoped that the price they paid with wouldn’t be their lives.