One (Alone Book 3)

by Mercedes Prunty

  “Kaley”.

  He nodded, “Don’t get me wrong if she hadn’t I wouldn’t have found the camp that easily but…”

  “It’s ok…I’m sure your friend would understand”.

  He nodded, “Yeah”.

  We stood by the window for a while, the cool breeze soaking into our bodies making the cold settle in our bones. I soon told Kian to get some rest before leaving here, he had decided to try and travel by night just in case the Enok’s were watching. He didn’t argue.

  As he moved away his hand brushed over mine which was holding onto the window sill. He paused and looked at me deeply in the eyes, I looked back at him, those eyes shimmering in the moonlight.

  “ARGH OOOOW”.

  “What the hell was that?” Kian snapped from our interlocking stares, we both looked outside but saw nothing. I sent out my feelers again but felt nothing.

  “Sounded like a… Wolf”.

  “Whatever it was I don’t like it. I think we should stay here tonight, I know you wanted to travel by night as we got closer but…”

  “It’s fine, we travel by day till we get to Norway. That will be the location I think they will mostly pick us up from”.

  “Ok, well go get some rest”.

  “Sure thing”, he replied and went off into the other room.

  I looked out the window again, peering into the moonlit streets below but saw only emptiness and darkness. I knew something was watching us in the shadows but I couldn’t sense it, whatever it was just happened to be out of my reach. Sighing to myself I took out my rifle and the few bullets I had and took my shift to keep watch.

  ~

  Aksel Enok sat in his small study at home, his fingers tapping away feverishly at the computer before him. Every so often he would check behind his back to make sure his uncle hadn’t snuck in to spy on him, especially seen as he was spying on some people coming their way that he didn’t want his uncle to know about.

  He had managed to tap into the satellite feed from the security rooms and was keeping look out daily to see if they were coming and today his heart was dancing with glee as he spotted a group of people moving through Germany. After zooming in with the satellite camera’s he saw it was indeed the girl and that like a puppet on a string the security personal was bringing her back to him. Once night time hit the group had taken refuge in a building, which made him laugh. “There is no refuge anymore, the further you come the more dangerous it gets”.

  He felt so warm inside at how his virus was fuelling the flesh and bodies of the animals that roamed Germany. The group were soon going to have a field day with his pets. Just as long as the girl made it to him ok but judging by her gift he knew she would make it, her gift was strong and powerful, and he couldn’t wait to harness it and manifest it into something stronger and for his own agenda. Then again even if she didn’t make it he could always send out a chopper to retrieve her body to experiment on, give someone or something else her version of the virus. Make a newer, deadlier version of her.

  ~

  Morning arrived and there had been no other howls in the night and no sightings. By mid-morning we had already set off into the windy atmospheric day, none of us felt like we had slept, I knew we were all thinking about what Kian had told us and the strange noise we had heard last night and it hadn’t helped the eerie feeling we had all felt about this place.

  Hamburg to me was just a city made up of flats, flats and more flats…or maybe that was just the part of town we were currently residing in. By lunchtime we had crossed a large river which was starting to burst its banks with no one to keep it at bay but the rest of the place looked tidy, untouched almost. No bodies, not even skeleton ones, it was just empty.

  “Anyone else thinks this place is weird?” Damien asked, his strong bulking arms gripping his gun like a comfort blanket.

  “I have to admit I’m not liking it much”, Kian replied.

  “Let’s just keep moving”, I said marching ahead of the others and following the lines we had drawn on the map, but I noticed Kaley wasn’t moving, she was staring into space…Something was coming, I just knew it. “Kaley what is it?” I reached out to touch her shoulder and was immediately sucked into what it was she could see.

  Hungry mouths running, hundreds and thousands of infected humans and animals, running…running past buildings…flats, they were running past flats, their decaying bodies fast and strong…their teeth snapping, their jaws grinding and salivating following the human stench in the air…Crossing the river…

  I came back into me and looked around spotting a familiar building from the vision, “Move”, I commanded, “We have to move and lose our scents”.

  “What’s coming?” Kian hissed.

  “Creatures, hundreds of creatures”.

  Kian took my arm, “Just creatures? Your eyes are telling me it’s not normal creatures”.

  “Just like you said they are different here and…Animals, hundreds of hungry and infected animals”.

  Cain whimpered by my side and I took off my dad’s leather coat and wrapped it around him. Panic was ripping through my body, these creature were faster than the ones at home. I had to keep Cain safe but how? How could I stop them hurting him? I had promised her! I then took out my penknife and sliced my hand open and wiped some of my own blood over his cheeks, hair and over the coat.

  “Whatever you do, don’t get it in your mouth or eyes”, I told him.

  He nodded, “I won’t”.

  “Do you really think your infected scent will mask his?” Kian asked.

  “I have no idea but I have to try”.

  Kian smiled at Cain, “Don’t worry, it will all be fine…Won’t it?” he looked at Kaley her eyes still glossed over.

  “Maybe, if we go the right way”, she said flatly, her eyes not focusing on anyone or anything.

  “And what is the right way?” I said.

  But she didn’t answer.

  “And what is the right way”, I said louder almost screaming at her, not for the fear for myself but for Cain, for everyone.

  She blinked, “One of us must be bait, draw them away from the rest of us, so they can feast on one and not the many”.

  “Are you for real?” Ruth asked, “You want one of us to…commit suicide?”

  Kaley still looked lost and unfocused but she answered, “It’s the only way it worked out in the vision, every other way we all die”, her voice cracking up.

  Something was up, Kaley was acting weird. Her eyes zoning in and out at nothing and no one.

  “I’ll do it”.

  We all turned to him, Ruth had a face full of shock and anger, “You can’t, I won’t allow it, you and me…We weren’t meant to be included in this…They forced us into it”.

  “I thought you said whatever I say goes”, Kaley reminded her of what she had said to Lara in Rue de Leff.

  “That was before you were trying to murder my boyfriend”.

  “It doesn’t have to be him, he volunteered”, Kaley stated, “It could be anyone just not…” Kaley’s tone was off, it sounded harsh, distant and slightly amused.

  “You!” Ruth snapped, “Anyone but you”.

  “Stacie”, Kaley declared, “Anyone but Stacie”.

  I looked away, I knew it had to be me that takes her there but I had got her this far, maybe…maybe I could fight them all like before, when Tanya helped me.

  “I could try and fight them”.

  Kaley shook her head, her dark hair shaking free from her loose messy ponytail, her face waivered in the gloomy light and she looked just like her. My Tanya… Then I felt it then as she looked at me, her eyes connecting with me, an almost static electrical current in the air. I knew I had to do what she wanted, then she whispered “No…You won’t win this time…They are coming, we have to decide now”.

  “Bossy little cow”, Ruth snapped and ran at her, slapping her across the face but Kaley barely flinched, her stance solid and her face steely still focusing on me. Ruth th
en added, “Why don’t you use your so called power?”

  Then a thought occurred to me, Kaley hadn’t really used her power that much throughout the whole journey. I tried to speak to her but my mouth struggled to move, her eyes still hard focused on mine. Suddenly a bubble of force raged in me and I blinked turning my head away from her, “Kaley? What’s going on? Why where you in my head? And why haven’t you used your power much to help us, you could have defeated that army the other night but instead you left me”.

  “You needed to do it”.

  “Why?”

  “To show yourself who you really are”.

  “You’re not making much sense? You keep not making sense!”

  “I don’t need to”, she glared at me, trying to get in…Kian was suddenly at my side he clasped his hand around mine and I looked at him, “Remember what I said last night”.

  “What did he say?” Kaley hissed, “Don’t you listen to him, it’s me who knows what to do and how to fix this all”. Her hair flared out around her, a certain darkness echoed from her.

  “Kaley what’s happening to you? At one point your telling me he’s ok, then you change your mind?” I asked.

  “AHOOO WHOOOO”, the blood chilling cry filled the air as the threat loomed closer to our position.

  “Someone has to die now or we all die”, she hissed her voice held such an edge of danger, cutting our conversation short.

  “I will not lose anyone else”, I told her.

  “Then you will lose them all”.

  “Use your power”, Cain told her.

  She looked at him, “I can’t”.

  “And why not?” Ruth demanded.

  “Because it’s not really…with me anymore”.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, “You just tried to use it on me”.

  She shrugged, “I burnt out the other day, since then it’s blinking out, I can only use short bursts, enough to kill one person at the most but not many, enough to enter a mind but not hold control, you managed to push me out, could you do that normally?”

  I went to say something when Ruth beat me to it.

  “Exactly… Telling someone to die…you can kill one person”, Ruth snapped, “But it’s not gonna be him, it’s not going to be my Damien”.

  “I didn’t tell him anything”, Kaley snapped.

  A small flicker of the static current snapped past my ear.

  “I’m going to do it, one of us needs to do it and I want everyone else to live”, Damien said coming to Ruth and cupping her hands in his, she looked away and he pulled her face back, “Look Ruth…I need to do this, I can feel I need to do this…It’s only a matter of time anyway, you know that”.

  “But we might have found somewhere, like Rue De Leff”.

  “Would you really want to stay somewhere like there? If that’s the case then we should have just stayed back home”.

  “I can’t lose you”, she whimpered.

  “You aren’t losing me, I will see you again and you know that”.

  “Guys, times running out”, Kian told us as howls echoed down a few streets away.

  “Did she tell you to do it?” Ruth sobbed.

  “No”, he told her, but something sounded off, even to me.

  He let go of her hands as the screaming rage and hunger of the creatures echoed all around us, “Go, live on till we meet again, I’ll save you some chocolate in heaven”.

  She smiled then lunged at him kissing him passionately before letting go and letting Kian pull her away. He took out his gun winked at us all then ran, ran towards the killing horde that were speeding towards us. BANG, BANG, BANG! His bullets sounded in the gloomy air as we all ran in the opposite direction.

  A screaming chorus ran after us as we took to a side street and then down an alleyway and then back out onto another main road.

  “I thought his sacrifice would save us?” Ruth cried out at Kaley.

  “It has, these are just the stragglers that spotted us”, she replied.

  “Stop arguing and keep moving”, Kian commanded as we rounded a corner and came into a one way ticket through some flats, “Go in and try and come out the back doors or windows, don’t go up”.

  “They can’t climb stairs?” Cain said but more asking.

  “These ones might”.

  “What?” I said still running.

  “They changed the virus slightly remember, these ones might be able to climb stairs”.

  “What about doors? Can they open fucking doors?” Ruth hissed.

  “Not that I know of”, Kian laughed but it was nervous, telling us that he didn’t know what these ones were really capable of.

  We charged through the maintenance hallway of the flats, Kian ramming the door closed behind us and shoving a large abandoned sofa from the hall in front of the door to stop them opening it. We all cried out as the mountain of bodies crushed against the door, it shook and splintered a little but didn’t give…not yet anyway.

  Taking this as our time to run we took off for the back of the flats where there was indeed a back door, a fire exit which Kian kicked off its hinges and swung his gun side to side looking for any creatures that might be in waiting.

  “Argh”, one came hurtling towards him from the tall grasses of the shared garden. Its decaying hands tried to grip at his clothes but he twisted, slammed his fist into its jaw and as it fell back he kicked it in the stomach. It fell to the floor in a spray of saliva and blood but it wasn’t dead, so he lunged and smashed down the butt of his gun over the things head and watched as all its brains splattered over the ground.

  CRASH!

  The door and sofa had given up the fight.

  “Time to go!” The urgency in his voice spurred us on and we ran coming to a high fence but instead of trying to climb and jump it Kian just shot at the wooden panels, they crumbled to nothing and we shot through in a heartbeat but then so did the monsters behind us who howled and wailed for our blood.

  BANG! One collided into me from another direction and I was sent sprawling.

  “We waited too long, we waited too fucking long”, Kaley was screaming as she watched me go down, “Stacie, we must save Stacie”, her wails were louder than those of the creatures, her face filled with fear and grief. But I couldn’t understand her worry, I couldn’t die so why was she freaking out? Or had things changed now so that I could?

  Stabbing one in the throat and tearing it in half with my claws I tried to stand but more were upon me, not trying to eat me but just trampling over me, to get to the others…to get to…Cain!

  “CAIN”, I screamed.

  I saw a flash of panic in his eyes as the creatures turned back to me, momentarily ignoring him, my scent masking his own, but he was forgetting this as the creatures trampled over me more and he lost sight of my face. He thought I was gone, I tried to scream as I watched his feet running from underneath the monsters feet.

  “Get off me”, I screeched and slashed at the legs nearest me so they fell down. “C..ain”, I croaked but he was gone. Stabbing a few more that tried to rush me I screamed at them in anger, I was not going to lose him, no way.

  ~

  Kaley was losing sight on everything and everyone, this was not how it was meant to go, she knew it, she had seen it!

  Her eyes glazed over and she couldn’t stop them, even now when they were all in danger she couldn’t stop the vision from entering her mind.

  Snow, so pure white and sparkling like glittering sugar frosting covered the whole landscape before her, the ghost town of Pyramiden rose before her as she walked. There were people with her but she couldn’t turn her head to look, she could see shadows in the snow from the glow of a rising sun but there would only be sunlight for around an hour if that, it wasn’t high enough to cause a perfect silhouette of her and her people but at least she knew she wasn’t alone here. She wasn’t going to fight these people by her lonesome.

  A male voice, it had to be Kian’s telling her to turn a certain way and they came to
an abandoned building next to a mining tunnel, they ventured inside the tunnel weary and afraid of what was to come. At first she was sceptical that the mine might be too old and might collapse over their heads but the deeper they got the more she realised that this place was well maintained and looked after, some of the rotten wooden panels and poles had been replaced with metal ones to hold it stronger and for many years longer but they had been painted brown to give it a wooden effect to the untrained eye. The disguise was of the upmost importance.

  What felt like a few miles down but was only really one at the most was a door, hidden in the dust and grime of the mining tunnel. A hand, not hers reached for it, moving a cleverly placed rock and revealing a keypad, it typed in a code and the door bleeped open, a stark reality and completely different in the two atmospheres. The mine was dark dirty and grimy but just over the line of the thresh-hold was a clinically white, clean and hospital looking hallway. Once inside the door closed almost sounding like an air lock, steam etched from the door frame but she thought it was just a temperature change as it was surprisingly warm down here.

  She knew the other person beside her was definitely Kian now as he walked in front of her, telling her to run, opening her eyes wider she realised she had missed some of the next part, they were in a different part of the building…

  Darkness, something had gone wrong yet again, she opened her eyes but something was stinging them, forcing them open to look she found herself to be inside a test tube, a fully grown human sized incubator. “Nooo”, she tried to scream but all that came out was a gargled cry, she choked as a tube giving her air came out, she held her breath and tried to look around at the world outside the glass. She saw they were all trapped…And there she was… Stacie…but something was wrong…something about her felt different…her mind had altered somehow…And then like it did so often, it all went dark.

  Kaley came back to the warzone around her, Kian was fighting hard to stop the creatures from getting to her as she zoned out, Ruth was screaming at them to just let her go, that she was a lost cause and then Stacie erupted from under the flow of bodies, she was crazy, screaming and baying for blood, slashing down a whole wall of them, then she came for her.