One (Alone Book 3)

  ONE

  BY

  MERCEDES PRUNTY

  One

  Copyright ©: Mercedes Prunty

  1st Edition Published: March 2018

  Publisher: Mercedes Prunty

  The right of Mercedes Prunty to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All Rights Reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that of which it is published. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents and dialogues are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events is entirely coincidental.

  Published using CreateSpace.com.

  Other titles by Mercedes Prunty:

  In the Alone series:

  *Alone

  *Lone

  *One

  * The Keeper of the Key

  *Junia

  *The Amoeba from the Ash

  Why not check out Mercedes Prunty on:

  Facebook : Mercedes Prunty Author

  Twitter : @MercedesPrunty

  Blog: www.mercedespruntyauthor.wordpress.com

  For my mum, Sharon .x.

  “You’ll understand one day and you will pity her too”.

  ‘Sian to Ollie’ – One…

  Prologue …

  Loneliness, something I have become the creator of. Like god had powers to create the world and lands in seven days that we live on and had the power to take it away if and when he desired. I too have become not too dissimilar to a god, a demi-god of loneliness and I can give it or take it away. I can give someone the friendship they need to survive or if they cross me I can take it away and leave them to bleed on the pavement.

  Loneliness is something I know all too well, I survived on my own with only my thoughts and my own voice for comfort for so long…Now there are people, so many people…Warm, fresh…people.

  ~

  The fight had begun, the end to the war of the infected world as we know it, to stop all this unnecessary suffering and the birth of horrific creatures and monsters.

  The ‘One’ had been awoken from her slumber as she fought on with the creature before her, a thing of pure darkness, a thing that not even time or space could escape from. For it had control over everything and everyone.

  The darkness swam before her as she stood ready to fight to the death, lifting her own arms with her powers, her own gift, the gift that had been revealed to be the key to ending all of this. The darkness swirled and time bent, causing a wall of concrete to disintegrate like it was nothing, it exploded right by her side but using her own power she stood tall and felt the impact envelope her, then swirling it into her own unique gift she threw it out before her, causing the thing of darkness to fly backwards towards its own undoing.

  Time slowed down as she watched the gaping void of inky blackness swallow up parts of the building they fought in, it sucked in everything in its wake, small crumbs of cement and tile filtered through the air to the gaping vortex, falling into and vanishing into nothing, she could even pick out a small fly caught in the spiral of doom.

  This all felt too easy, until the thing of darkness lurched forward one last time grabbing onto her clothes and pulling her with it, the hot snarling breath of decay spoke to her, “If I go, then the chosen One comes too”.

  Chapter One…

  I grabbed my father’s rifle which sat beside me in the small red pick-up, placing the butt end of it between my knees to steady it, I then lifted the barrel to my mouth and placed my finger over the trigger, gently squeezing it but not quite enough to make it shoot. I knew I could mentally do it, the thought of taking my own life was an easy one, a safer one for everyone but it wouldn’t really kill me. Only bringing me the never-ending pain of being rebuilt from the inside out by the virus that resided inside my veins and anyhow, who knew whether I would come back with my human mind or my creature one. One that would still love and cherish the people I cared about or the one that would rip them to pieces and destroy them where they slept.

  I lowered the rifle and sighed to myself looking over the land around me, the snow was starting to melt, still winter but not quite as cold as it had been. Animals had come out from their hibernation and were skittering around trying to find food, just like us humans or half humans however you wanted to look at it.

  Slowly winding down the window of the truck I lifted the barrel out over the glass, pulling it in tight to my shoulder I pointed and aimed. Holding my breath I let everything flow out of me, only the swirl of the mist of my breath dancing in the air around me and… BANG! I let out one single shot and hit my target. Opening the door, I climbed out, my boots crunching on the melting snow and ice, shouldering my rifle I set out to where I had shot the animal. Reaching it I could see the heat from the blood rising in the air, the snow around it pooling in wet blossoming flowers. The deer lay dead, my bullet stuck in its brain. I tied some rope around its legs and dragged it back to the truck and hauled it into the flat bed.

  I didn’t immediately go for the ignition to drive home, instead I stood by the back of the truck staring out over the world. It was so peaceful here, no people to chatter and disturb my peace, not that I didn’t like people, I just wasn’t good around people anymore but none of them got that, instead they made me their saviour. Their leader…Their disaster waiting to happen.

  Closing the bed of the truck I then climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine, I had been out for two days on the hunt for food for the community and now I had a truck load full it was time to head back before the meat began to sour.

  Arriving back at the camp I spotted Ollie and Dwayne on lookout, the huge metal main doors opening before I even had time to toot on the horn. Pulling up in the centre of the main street that we all called home I killed the engine and stepped out and knew what was coming.

  “Stacie where have you been all this time?” Ollie’s strong but commanding youthful voice called out.

  I turned to him forgetting how tall he now was, he was a full on two inches taller than me which caused me to look up at him slightly, the low sun flickering in my eyes making me frown. “I was getting food Ollie you know that”, I playfully smiled opening the bed of the truck and revealing two deer’s, six rabbits and a wild pig.

  “One day you told me you would be gone for, one day. I’ve been worried sick about you”, he scolded me.

  I shrugged, “There was no food near here I had to go further afield”.

  “One day you told me”.

  “Look Ollie I’m sorry I made you worry but it’s me alright, I can handle myself better than anyone else here. Why not worry your little self about someone else”.

  “What like the new guy that woke up yesterday from his semi-coma? I wanted to question him but of course I wanted to wait for you”.

  “Ah”, I sniffed, “He’s awake then?”

  “Yes and wondering why we won’t let him out of his bed”.

  “Tell him its doctor’s orders”, I pouted.

  “We did but there’s only so long we can do that. We need to question him Stacie, we need to know what we are up against”.

  I thought back to those few weeks ago when the helicopter crashed, the survivor had told us the war wasn’t over but before we could question him about it he lost cons
ciousness. No one knew why, he just passed out and didn’t wake up. Stuck in a coma like state for over a month.

  “Fine…Give me a few minutes to freshen up and we will go and talk to him”, I said passing him the truck keys, so he could offload the meat to the resident butcher.

  Within half an hour I was washed and dressed in clean clothes. My trusty jeans with holes at the knees which had been sewn many a time but the fabric was so thin it kept splitting, a black vest top with a grey hooded top over it and my rifle. I didn’t really need to use it now a days but I wanted to keep appearances up especially for the newbie and it made the camp not look at me so much like a freak, plus it was a comfort, after all these years.

  Ollie was waiting for me by the door to the doctor’s surgery which was a house converted into one, the doctor’s own home was the house attached next door so he could be there in a flash in emergencies. As I neared I noticed how Kaley wasn’t on his arm like normal.

  “Where’s Kaley?” I asked.

  “Inside with the doctor”, he replied still with a moody tone.

  “Shall we”, I lifted my arm as if to motion to go in.

  “Is everything ok Stacie? I mean, with you?” he asked, his flame red hair shining in the low sun.

  “Yeah…Why?”

  “You’ve been acting differently lately. Like going off for two days alone, you never normally do that, not now. Not with Cain…”

  I cut him off lifting my hand in front of his face, “Ollie I don’t mean to be rude here but I’m fine, I went hunting and couldn’t get anything nearer to home, I had to travel a little out and wait it out so we all don’t starve. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong with me”.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure…Look I thought we were questioning the new guy not me”.

  He nodded still watching me carefully. Since Callum and Monique had been taken from us he had risen up to the task of looking after the camp. Although I had been voted in charge I let Ollie do a lot of the important stuff. I was mainly the security personal, making sure the gates were always manned or creatured as it were with my Crushers keeping look out. Ollie reminded me in some ways of Callum, his strong demeanour, his want to keep people safe…He just wasn’t the ass Callum had been sometimes…I cut the thought off, my heart still bled for him and Monique but I needed to keep a strong aura about me now, I didn’t want the newbie thinking we were weak.

  Ollie opened the surgery door and we strolled in, the clinical smell of bleach and latex filled my nose and made me flash back to the old hospital in Brighton. ‘The face came closer to the vent and I could just make out a young girl no older than 14 with large eyes and the most striking red hair I had seen, she had pale skin and was covered in freckles, behind her was a younger boy of maybe 10 or 11 with the same hair and complexion’.

  I shook my head and pushed the thought away, now was not a good time to be thinking about Sian… Luckily Ollie didn’t notice my little stumble of thought as he was already walking into the room where the Doctor, Kaley, Dwayne, Lara and Chantelle stood. They were our circle of trustees, the people we trusted with the knowledge of the camp.

  I spotted the man sitting up in his hospital type bed rubbing his wrist where the cuffs Dwayne had secured him to where digging in. It was strange seeing him rub his wrist as the arm he done it with had no hand, just a nub type shape where the hand used to be. He noticed the atmosphere change as I walked in and he instantly knew I was in charge, “Where’s my hand, I would like it back”, his voice held a French accent to it.

  “We want reassurance that you will speak up when asked the questions we wish to know. If you answer them you can have your hand back”, I said taking a seat next to the bed, I placed the rifle against the wall and placed my hands on my knees, “Is that a deal?”

  “You have no right to take my prosthetic hand away from me, I haven’t done anything wrong”, he hissed at me from the bed. His face full of anger, his grey eyes glaring into mine reflecting the grey tints in his ash blond hair.

  “We just want some answers”, I told him.

  “And I want my hand, I ain’t talking no bullshit till I get it”.

  I turned and nodded at the doctor who rushed off into the room next door and came back with it. The guy took it and attached it back on with some difficulty with his other hand cuffed. Once finished he sat back against the pillows and turned back to me, “So you in charge here?” His voice held a tone of distaste for me.

  “I am, and so is everyone else in this room”, I told him.

  “Hmm”, he sniffed looking directly at me and not bothering to glance at the others, “What is it you want to know?”

  “Kian isn’t it?” I asked and he nodded, “Before you blacked out you said something that all of us would very much like you to elaborate on”.

  “What’s that then?”

  “The war isn’t over”, I said carefully watching his features, “What did you mean that it isn’t over? We thought it ended years ago when the acid rain fell”.

  His eyes flashed up at me with amazement then sorrow, not answering my question he then asked, “Where’s Candice?”

  “The lady asked you a question”, Dwayne huffed from the other side of the room. “The polite thing would be to answer it”.

  “Where’s Candice?” he repeated himself.

  Dwayne went to move to shake the answers from him but I took a step forward making Dwayne flinch back, not out of fear, or at least I hoped not but out of a knowing that I would handle this. Kian studied this little episode between me and my people and opened his mouth, “Please she was my friend”.

  I lowered my eyes, “She died in the crash…I’m sorry. We tried to keep her as long as we could in our chapel but the smell…We decided to bury her with our own dead”.

  “You still bury the dead?”

  “Only the ones we care for, the bastards get burned”, Dwayne said.

  “Bastards?” Kian asked amused.

  “The scavengers, robbers, murderers…The dislikeables that don’t belong in this new world”, I stated. “Now can you answer my question?”

  He nodded, “Yeah…The war ain’t over, the war never ended…Far from it”, he said.

  “What does it mean? And you said you saw a girl, ‘the girl’?” I already knew who he meant, Kaley. But I wanted him to tell us why in his own words, I wanted to hear what it was he thought he knew.

  “The war isn’t over because ‘they’ don’t want it to be, they know of countries who have large numbers of survivors and some countries that haven’t yet been affected at all because they had a deal with them but the deal is off and they plan a second much deadlier attack, starting with the countries that are living fine then they will hit the countries like this one with survivors still roaming around it”.

  “There are still places in the world that aren’t like this?” Dwayne asked.

  “Who are ‘they’?” I added.

  Kian answered Dwayne first, “Germany, India, China and Japan managed to buy themselves time, the past six years they have been playing happy families with them, they have made deals to keep their countries safe but one of them, Germany crushed the deal by creating an army to destroy them but they found out and have already sent a strain of the virus over and infected them all. In a few weeks the newest version of the virus will be ready and will be flown over to the other countries too and set off, not only will it kill all the people but it will kill off the land too. Make it uninhabitable at least for so many years, a bit like a nuclear bomb which has radiation that lasts for periods of time but this virus, it will live and breed on the land killing any survivors for years to come”, he paused, “They are dangerous and sick people, this world is not enough for them, they wish to create an Aryan race, like Hitler, they want the world as their own and they will stop at nothing to create it, even going as far as to wipe out the whole world and leaving it to rot for ten or so years before coming out and rebuilding the world their way. They have to be s
topped”.

  We all stood and sat there in shock, taking all this information in until I repeated my question, “Who is… Them? Who is it you speak of?”

  He just looked at me.

  “Who did all this? Who are planning more? Who are they?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  We all shook our heads, “All we were told back in the day was the whole world was at war over fossil fuels, all we knew was that it was a country over the channel”.

  “Well you guys remember the EU, the European Union?”

  We all nodded in agreement.

  “Well Britain left it god knows how many years ago and it created an almost domino like effect, other countries soon began to leave making them a weaker community, the EU was losing power. Then the shortage of fossil fuels became apparent and they took control of the situation finding new sources and selling it to the highest bidder but with all this money came greed and great power, they built a hidden ‘Town’ on the one place on Earth that was so inaccessible. The EU bigwigs decided to change their name to ‘Enliven’ they are now known as the E.L. They wanted to change the way they ruled and so they all moved to this ‘Town’ and created the virus, they had the power, the money, the top scientists and the fuels to do so and while everyone else slept silently and fought with everyone else about fuels and food they unleashed it on the world as punishment for them leaving. They wanted to show the other countries still in the E.L who was boss, they wanted no one else to leave. They cut off England and trapped everyone on their tiny island, the other countries they hit were blown to smithereens and any other countries they didn’t agree with got hit too”.

  “Nah way mate I don’t believe it, I voted to stay in when they did the whole Brexit thing, I would never had voted for a bullshit system if I didn’t think they were legit. They were the people of human rights, this is against their beliefs”, Dwayne said.