THRIVE
SEASON ONE
Harrison J. Lamb
Copyright © 2020 by Harrison J. Lamb
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First Edition
Visit the author’s website at:
www.harrisonjlamb.com.
A Note on Spellings
I am a Brit, and as such, I use the British spellings of words rather than the American-English variations. They are what I learned to write growing up and I feel most comfortable using them.
This book is also set in Britain; I wanted it to feel authentically British.
Therefore, this book contains the British spellings of words (colour, realise, etc.). If you are one of those readers not from the UK who cannot stand these spellings, here's your warning: either put this book down now or, better yet, give it to a friend who doesn't mind them.
Cheers!
Harrison J. Lamb,
April 2020
E P I S O D E O N E
Kill
1.
“What are you hoping for, Kingsley? A pity text?” He looked up at Sammy guiltily, holding the phone face-down in his lap to hide the screen.
What am I hoping for? Good question; a sign that his relationship with Emma still had a chance? A sign that he was capable of living a normal life with her? Hoping for these things, maybe, but not expecting them.
“Can we not talk about this right now?” he said.
“Of course. Put the phone away.”
Kingsley sighed. As he bent to tuck the phone into his backpack on the ground beside his camping chair, his eyes travelled over a news headline on his Twitter feed and absentmindedly read the words: Zombie Virus Rumours Confirmed By CDC.
“The whole point of coming out here is to leave all those distractions behind,” Sammy said. “You need that more than anyone.”
It was true. If there was one person here who desperately needed a weekend camping in the woods, away from the rest of the world, it was Kingsley. Usually, he would be the first to zip his belongings away in the bottom of his bag and embrace the solitude of the British countryside. What was better than escaping from the monotonies of everyday life that he spent so much time complaining about?
This time, though, Kingsley was almost beginning to regret coming out here. The natural surroundings – rather than providing an alternative focus – only seemed to be giving him space to dwell on everything he had temporarily left behind him, back in Colchester.
He watched Sammy whittle away at a stick with her Swiss pocket knife. She started to shave the end of the stick into a sharp point, and Kingsley realised that she was trying to make a spear.
This nearly brought a smile to his lips. When the four of them used to piss about in the woods near their high school as teenagers, they would always try to make spears and bows and arrows out of branches. Then they would test their makeshift weapons, first against branch-limbed enemies and then, inevitably, turning on each other.
Kingsley glanced around at each of them. James busied himself with setting up the tents. Eric lounged in his own camping chair next to Kingsley’s, drinking a beer and enjoying everything in the way only Eric could. And Sammy perched on a log, whittling like she also longed for those old days, even when her hair had been a brighter shade of red and made her an easy target for bullying.
Kingsley stood. He needed to occupy himself. “I’m going to look for some firewood. Eric, you coming?”
“Let me just finish my beer.” Eric gulped the last few dregs from his can, then followed Kingsley into the surrounding trees, snapping branches along the way to add to the firewood pile.
Eric was strolling behind him, humming whatever tune was playing on the constant radio inside his head, when Kingsley asked, “You hear about that guy in America who cannibalised his pregnant wife? It was in the news. He ate their unborn baby. How fucked up is that?”
Eric paused in his examination of a branch and stared at his friend with his eyebrows raised. “Since when do you pay attention to the news?”
“I don’t, but everyone’s been talking about it. I can’t stop thinking about it for some reason. I guess stories about children dying just really get to my head.”
“Huh. You’ve been silent all morning and now you’re making small talk? You hate small talk. What’s up with you, mate?”
“Nothing in particular. Just… everything, you know?” Kingsley shrugged. “I need to get drunk already.”
“Listen,” Eric said, holding his friend’s gaze. “There’s no point dwelling on shit you can never change. Only makes it harder for you to plan for the future, for the shit you can change. I know that sounds like one of those quotes middle-aged mums share on Facebook, but it’s true.”
Kingsley knew that well enough. But it was so easy to forget every bit of inspirational advice you’d ever heard when you had accidentally taken a life.
*
The two men returned to the campsite, each with a stack of twigs and branches enfolded in their arms. Once they had a fire going and had begun heating some pre-made stew in a pot, Kingsley finally started to lose himself in the festivity. Admittedly, the booze helped. The four friends relaxed around the fire, chatting, laughing, drinking, eating, and James even pulled out his ukulele. The singing got increasingly tuneless with each drink.
Soon they were all passed out in their tents.
Kingsley only woke once in the middle of the night, hungover and delirious from sleep. Eric snored beside him on his own fold-up bed in the two-man tent. The camp was dead quiet apart from that.
Kingsley fidgeted to get
