One (Alone Book 3)

by Mercedes Prunty

  A tear ran down my cheek, I hadn’t meant for it to fall and it was hot against the cold, “We can’t leave her and continue on. She is the one who needs to get there”.

  “I know…”

  “But what? We leave her here to die alone and we all die, the whole world dies with us”.

  “What do you suggest?”

  “We find a place to stay, keep ourselves warm until she wakes up”.

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  I shrugged, “There is no point in going unless she goes”.

  “So we just leave them to get away with it?” He hissed at me making me jump, “I’ve seen you fight, you could take them down, all of them”.

  “Maybe so but…”

  “But what?”

  “But…There was something Kaley was meant to do, I know it but I can’t say it, I can’t put my finger on it but deep down I know”.

  “Maybe it was just to get you there?” he suggested.

  I shook my head, “No, something more. She can fix all of this”.

  “And you killing them all would fix this”.

  “Not in the way I feel she could”.

  “That’s bull crap Stacie”, he said, “We can do this, me and you. Leave the others here to keep safe and me and you go it alone. Wouldn’t it be better to at least kill them and stop them, even if Kaley can’t do her thing?”

  I nodded, “Yes but I’m not leaving Cain”.

  “Fine…Of course…He comes too…But what are we waiting for?”

  “A miracle Kian, that’s what I’m waiting for a goddamn fucking miracle. I only came this way because of her, I wouldn’t have come otherwise”.

  “Not even for Cain?”

  A few more tears fell from my eyes, “Yes for Cain”.

  “Then do it now for him”.

  “I can’t, she needs to do something, something great”.

  “And you might be able to do, I know you can”.

  “Not…Without…Me”, Kaley’s voice whispered weak and wheezing from beside me.

  “Kaley”, I yelled and threw my arms around her, “What they hell are you playing at”, I scolded her and she breathed a laugh.

  “I’ll explain later”, she said, “I do need some more rest but give me a couple of days and we can go on, I promise”.

  Ruth came to the door, her voice weak and raspy, “There’s an old cabin back a mile or so down the road, maybe we should hole up there until we can go”.

  I nodded, “Think you can make it?”

  Kaley agreed, “Sure can”.

  She tried to stand but her legs buckled and she hit the floor of the van with a crunch, “Here”, Kian gave her his shoulder to rely on and he pulled her up, “Let’s grab our things and go”.

  Chapter fifteen…

  The Cabin was small, cluttered and full of its old owner’s dusty personal belongings. Hordes of books lined two whole walls in a handmade bookshelf which was built into the wall. Grabbing as many as possible we burnt the books in the old wood burner, Kian also smashed up the old wooden frame in the sofa and chopped it up for fire wood. The cabin was now full of warmth and scared away the bitter cold that was howling outside. A blizzard had set in making it hard to see if anything was outside watching us but I couldn’t sense anything and from past experience at home the creatures didn’t like the cold much and sort of hibernated in the winter, I just hoped it was the same for the creatures on this side of the Tunnel.

  Kaley was snuggled up on an old pull out mattress that was stored under the old sofa in front of the fire, she needed to rebuild her strength and she needed to be kept warm and comfortable to do it.

  Cain was asleep on the floor with his head resting on my leg and a rather dusty blanket over his small shoulders, I stroked his long dark now curling locks and watched him breathe. He really did look just like her.

  “We will make it”, Kian said as he put more wood into the burner, he had also raided the cupboards and found some old tins of soup, not a lot but enough to help us through the night and was trying to cook them over the wood burner. He passed me a small bowl and I nudged Cain awake for him to eat it.

  “I know”, I said finally replying to him.

  “But?”

  “I just have a feeling”.

  Everyone was listening now, other than Kaley who was still asleep.

  “A feeling, can you elaborate?” he pried.

  “I don’t think Kaley is telling us everything we need to know about what is going to happen. I know she feels she can’t for some reason but…I just wish I knew, it might help us if we all knew. It might take the burden off her and maybe she won’t be so exhausted”, I said pausing before continuing on, “And I’m worried about the infection spreading in her, at the rate it’s going she won’t make it to Svalbard… And if she doesn’t make it…All of this would have been for…”.

  “You have to believe in her…” Ruth winced cutting me off, the colour had all but drained from her face, her lips shivering in the heat like she was still cold, but I knew it was the fever raging in her veins. I could feel that her turn wouldn’t be long but none of us wanted to discuss taking her out and neither did she.

  “Do you? Last I heard you weren’t her biggest fan”. I asked bluntly.

  “Yes, I do believe in her… Because I have to believe that Damien died for a greater reason than she just told him to do it. I need to know he didn’t die in vain and neither will I”.

  I nodded understanding her reasoning, “I see”.

  “I still don’t like her, I think she is holding too much information away from us and I think she thinks she can control whoever she likes… Like you…”

  “She doesn’t control me now”, I answered looking away from Ruth and at the sleeping Telekinetic.

  “Are you so sure?” She replied.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t even know she was in there so much before, what’s to say she isn’t still?”

  “Because I feel clearer… Not so… Blurred and confused. I feel more like me… Even the…” I paused looking at her and Kian, “Even the creature inside me feels more subdued”.

  “So you don’t trust her anymore but you believe her?”

  “I do trust…” Then I thought about it, “Well I did”, I said stirring my spoon around my own bowl, “I don’t know what to think, I just want us to get there and for her to do whatever it is she needs to do and for us to be done with all of this”.

  “What changed?” Kian asked.

  “She nearly got Cain killed…She knows what he means to me and he’s only a child…”

  “She’s only a child herself”, Ruth sniped from across the room, “We have all been listening to and following a child, but you believed her for so long, why?”

  “Because she’s shown me those visions, I have seen where and what we must do, I do believe her I just…Think she may have lost her way a little…And now with the infection spreading I think it’s confusing her”.

  “She showed me to remember and yeah I believed her but…What if she was wrong! What if all this was just a dream, a fantasy in a girls mind that she could save the world”.

  “But we met Kian and he comes from the place we were meant to find, how could it not be true?” I stated.

  She shrugged, “Maybe he’s not even real, part of her dream too”.

  “I am so real”, Kian laughed stroking his artificial hand with his real one.

  “Maybe, maybe not”, Ruth snapped, “Either way we are all screwed”.

  “Kaley didn’t mean for Damien to go”, I said, “She just said someone had to volunteer”.

  “But it couldn’t be you, you who fought off so many just a day or so before? You could have done it again”.

  “Could I?”

  “Yes, you can’t die remember”.

  “Maybe she knew that I couldn’t, maybe she saw something, maybe I can die after all? I mean I killed the male version of myself and he didn’t come back”.
>
  “Whatever, makes no difference now does it”, Ruth hissed, “The sooner I’m with Damien the better”, and she stood up and made her way to the other side of the cabin, she took out her gun and watched out the window.

  I had to admit I did feel sorry for her, she had lost everyone in a few short days including the one she loved and now she was dying too, slowly but surely. I could sense the infection throbbing away through her veins. This strain was slower, it infected slowly, drawing out the illness and disease, shutting down her body one by one at a snail’s pace. I could taste the decay on her flesh, it was decaying her from the inside out but leaving just enough living tissue not the kill her, so she could turn and infect others.

  “Do you still believe in her?” Kian asked.

  I thought, then smiled and nodded, “Yes, deep down I do”.

  “Then…that’s all that matters”.

  His eyes gleamed into mine as I answered him back, “I guess it is”.

  ~

  Kaley lay there pretending to be asleep, in fact she was too hungry to sleep but Kian had said he would keep hers until she woke up, she was about to say that she was awake when they all started talking about her.

  That Ruth boiled her blood, she was rude and mistrusting, yes Damien was gone because Kaley had suggested something, but he had offered to go…Hadn’t he? She hadn’t made him go had she? Or did she? Her head felt so fuzzy now and she knew it was the infection finally taking over.

  She shook herself mentally, she couldn’t have put the idea there before in his mind, oh no she had more control than that, right? But now it just seemed that their friends were only here for her to use as bait, to lure the monsters away from her, away from Stacie…She knew if it came to it she would use Cain too if she had to, now that she knew what she knew she had to get Stacie there somehow but Cain would be a last resort.

  She sighed inwardly as Stacie voiced her concerns on her infection, yes it had begun to spread again and Kaley knew why but she couldn’t tell them, not yet, they would not want to go with her otherwise but she had to get Stacie there, then it could all happen and everything would work out fine. It just had to.

  ~

  A new morning arrived and I set out on a hunt, it felt so long ago that I was doing this back at Tonbridge, my old home, my old flat but this place was new, new prey, new food. I didn’t bother with my weapons, not anymore, what was the point? The creature inside wanted to ride the hunt with me and it would whether I wanted to let it or not, not that I cared, I was fully in control now. The only thing I did take was a short sharp blade.

  I found some forest land a few miles from the cabin and I set to work sourcing food, Kian had suggested we stay one more night as he knew the journey ahead from here was going to be cold and treacherous one. We couldn’t have done this in the summer months? I thought as my foot steps crunched in the snow.

  A snap of a twig on the forest floor caught my attention and I moved as softly and as quickly as the breeze, the scent of a deer on my tongue and I knew I could take it. I sprung out from the undergrowth and it let out a shocked cry then set off at a run but I was more than ready for the chase and set off after it, we ran side by side for a while, I just took in all the green and white scenery that flowed past my sight, the smell of the damp cold air, the taste of the forest floor and the goose bumps from the tension as I paced my body to pounce.

  I launched my body and landed on the deer’s side using the blade to stab it in the brain, it was dead outright, didn’t feel a thing. Dragging it back to the cabin was a long haul as I hadn’t noticed how far I had raced the deer but soon enough I was back and Kian set to work carving the meat up into palatable portions.

  “How’s Ruth?” I asked Kaley who was sitting on the sofa checking the woman’s bite wound which was oozing puss and gave off a rancid stink in the cabin.

  She shrugged, “Not long left”.

  I bowed my head.

  “I could do it now, peacefully and she’d never know”, she stated, her voice plain and monotone.

  “No, we should do it her way and she wants to ride it out”.

  “It doesn’t matter, not anymore”.

  “Of course it matter’s Kaley”, I said appalled that she would say such a thing.

  She didn’t even look up, “You will understand that soon none of what we went through matters, no one will remember it”.

  “They will, back at home they…They have the book that they will keep safe for people to know the history of the world, all what we done”.

  “It won’t matter, no one will know”.

  “They will”.

  “They will NOT”, she hissed.

  “Kaley what’s got into you?”

  “You will find out when we get there what it is I know, until then just trust me. I know it’s hard for you because you think I put Cain in danger and do you know what, maybe I did but I didn’t mean to, I’m only human and all humans make mistakes. I didn’t mean for Ollie to come and get killed, I didn’t mean for Kirsty, Mac, Lara and Damien either it just all happened”.

  “Kaley its fine…I’m sorry”, I said softly, my heart bled for her. She was so young, still a kid and she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. And now with her infection rife she must be feeling the sickness and the pressure.

  “Don’t be…It’s me who will be sorry in the end”. And with that she stood up and left me sitting with Ruth who was passed out, I could feel the heat radiating off her skin with the infection. Kaley stormed over to the front door opened it and went outside.

  Kian stood to follow her but I called out, “Leave her be”.

  “She’s out there alone”.

  “She’ll be fine, she wouldn’t do it otherwise”.

  ~

  The first part of Dr Aksel Enok’s plan was in place and he was about to execute it. A rap at the door indicated that his uncle had arrived for the small meeting he had set up.

  “Aksel what is the meaning of this?” His uncle asked looking around the board room, “Where are the others?”

  “Not here yet uncle but they will be, in due time”, he felt so calm inside, so super cool that he knew nothing could foil what it was he was about to do.

  “Aksel?”

  “Sit dear uncle, I have important news”.

  His uncle sat down on his chair and folded his arms over his chest, “Go on”. He looked bored, then intrigued as he noticed a chair that was turned the wrong way with its back facing the two men, he could make out arms tied to the chair with cable ties.

  Aksel started to walk, almost pace around the room, his shoes clicking with every excitable heartbeat, “You see dear uncle I have had the cure finished for a few weeks now, what your scientists are working on is purely just to waste time”.

  “You mean it’s done and you have kept it from me?”

  Aksel grinned, “Precisely uncle but I have my reasons why. Someone is coming here who I would very much like to meet but to set the C.U.R.E upon the world would kill her before she would get here and I couldn’t have that”.

  “Who is coming?”

  “A girl, an infected girl who could show me so much about what the infection can do to people”.

  “We have infected down in the tanks, why not just study them? And I cannot allow an outside infected person into our home, I will have to alert the security personal to kill all sightings of people at once”.

  “I’m afraid I cannot allow you to do that uncle”, Aksel jeered.

  “I am in charge here not you, you cannot overrule what I say”.

  “You were in charge uncle but not for the long haul, the rebels have been after you for some time now and they may have found what it is the C.U.R.E really is, the advanced version of the Acid Rain, the more deadly version”.

  “What are you babbling about Aksel”.

  Aksel paused by his uncle’s chair, his hand deep in his lab coat pocket, “I mean… uncle”, he paused and lifted his hand out, “That it wasn’t me that d
one this”, and he stabbed a syringe full of the new infection into his neck and pushed down until the syringe was empty, then he dropped it and let it clatter down to the floor, his uncle with his face full of pure shock reached up to his neck and struggled to breathe, he gasped for air as he clawed at his neck and at the table he sat at, moving around so much the chair moved out from beneath him and he slid to the floor, “Those damned rebels”, Aksel said amusingly at his uncle, his eyes cool and calm, his uncles full of hatred and fear and he placed a small torn piece of cloth and threw it to the floor making it look like his uncle had fought with someone and he tore their clothing. The clothing was from one of the civilians homes and that person was a well-known rebel suspect. It wouldn’t take much to put two and two together.

  “Should…Have…….Killed…Y…Y…You…W…W…When I had the …Chance”, his uncle rasped at him.

  “Yes dear uncle, you should have but that’s not all, I’m not completely evil, for I do have a gift for you, so you’re not alone on your death bed”. Aksel walked to the chair that was turned the other way and spun it to face him.

  “At least your sleeping whore of a wife can be with you till the end”, he snarled grinning with glee, “Seems fitting don’t you think? That she shall be your first meal as a monster”.

  “N…Nooo”, his uncle gasped in shock and pain, “Why? Why have you done this to me?”

  “You never treated me as an equal, yet I’m just as powerful as you! My mind created the virus, so therefore it should be me in charge”.

  “But why bring her into this? Why not just let her go?” he panted, raising his shaking hand to reach out to her.

  “Because you need to know what a dirty little whore she is. I mean surely you must know about me and her by now? She was after all an Amsterdam red district worker”.

  His eyes widened, “What did you do to her? If you laid a finger on…Argh…her”.

  “Your what?” Aksel laughed kneeling down to look his uncle in his infected eyes, “Kill me? Plus you should know it was she came onto me, invited me into your home, we made love in the kitchen on the table you eat, we made love on the sofa where you sit and we made love in your bed where you sleep. She said she was in love with the two Enok’s… How very deliciously funny!”