One (Alone Book 3) Page 15

  “RAAAA”, I screamed and attacked the last few that staggered over to me, I forced my hands into them, ripping their spines out from their paper thin flesh, their rotten and infected muscles, their empty carcasses as their souls no longer resided inside.

  “Stacie stop”, Tanya commanded, she didn’t laugh or cackle, she sounded just like…Tanya.

  “Leave me alone”, I screamed, “Why are you still here?”

  “Because you need me here, you are losing yourself to the creature inside but you don’t need to, you can control it, you have the mind power to do so. Don’t become what you fear so much”.

  “I’m not strong, I’m weak. That’s why I’m still here”.

  “That makes you strong, all that you have been through. I’m here to remind you of that”.

  “Why, why have you come back? Why are you still here?”

  “I told you Stacie…”

  “No it’s lies, you’re lying to me”, I screamed.

  “I’m not lying it’s the truth”.

  “How can it be the truth, you left me when I needed you, when I had to kill…when I had to kill…”

  “Mum?” she whispered.

  I nodded and fell to my knees, as I fell the blood rose up over my knees, I was knee deep in a river of blood by my own hands.

  “I didn’t leave you Stacie, I was still there”, she answered.

  “You are a liar! I had to save you and dad, I killed mum and you were gone, not there, gone. I needed someone to talk to but you weren’t with me”, I screamed, “I had to deal with it alone, I couldn’t talk to dad, she was his wife, I think he hated me for it, that I saved him, that I saved us…If only I could go back in time, I wouldn’t do it…I would let us all go together”.

  “Then do it”.

  “Do what?”

  “Go back in time and change it”, she stated like it was the easiest thing in the world to do.

  “That’s crazy talk you cannot turn back time”, I snapped, “You’re a liar, why are you still here? To haunt me, is that it? To make me pay for failing you?”

  “You didn’t fail me, you made it to me just like you said you would, you kept your promise to dad. It was just…my time to go”.

  I looked up at her, “But just now you said?”

  “That wasn’t me…Look”, she pointed to all around us.

  I opened my eyes wide and took it all in, the road all around me was covered in bodies, rows and rows of dead bodies all torn apart but none of them were her. They were all creatures that had decayed over time and sniffed me and the others out in the air, they were just creatures, not Tanya.

  I looked over to her, she still looked like she did the last time I saw her, her hair was short and choppy, dull and lifeless but her eyes were glowing…it was her, really her.

  “Tanya? Is it really you?”

  “Yes Stacie, it’s really me”.

  ~

  Kaley’s tired and numb body ran with the others through the torn up town, the map had told them to go this way but it had been a dead end. A huge crater had been blown into the ground, there was no way around it as over the years the rain and pipes from the sewers had turned it into a large lake.

  “This way”, Dwayne said taking charge of the group and leading them around it.

  They came to a small street, rather more rural than that most of the places they had been to, but maybe that was due to the absence of the rest of the town.

  “We need to stop and rest”, Kian said catching up with Dwayne, “Kaley and Cain are exhausted as am I and the others”.

  “We need to get as much distance between us and those things”, Dwayne said, sweat dripping down his dark features.

  “Please, I need to keep my energy levels up in case we come across something bad, I can’t fight if I’m too tired”, Kaley pleaded, she hadn’t felt this drained in a long time, not since before Hever Castle, the feeling was odd and she couldn’t understand why.

  “No we keep going, I need to keep you safe”, he said looking out around them and pointing to a left corner turn.

  Sighing they all fell back and followed Dwayne, Kian had tried to take charge but Dwayne insisted, saying it was his duty to her but she knew he meant his daughter not Stacie or herself.

  She had to admit since leaving Stacie behind the images she kept seeing were becoming more and more blurry, she couldn’t see Stacie as strongly anymore, what did it mean? Was she dead? Or was it just being that far away from her? And even if she was alive how the hell was she going to find them again?

  Walking for another hour or two the group made it to the sign that welcomed them to Dunkirk.

  “Please Dwayne I really need to rest”, Kaley said, her brain felt frazzled and she couldn’t connect with any of the others with her gift, even though she had tried many times over the past hour. She was wiped out, too tired to do it, she needed time to recharge.

  Dwayne looked at the coming dawn and sighed, “Fine, let’s check these houses out and see if we can make one safe”.

  Feeling relief flood through her she followed on as he went to the first house but before his hand could open the handle to check inside a foreign voice sounded out. They all turned to where the voice came from and all of them came face to face with the barrel end of a gun.

  An armed group filtered out from all the houses, their guns pointed at them all. Again the so called ringleader of this armed army spoke in his foreign language, he wore a puffed up winter coat which had seen better winters, a woolly hat which let a few dark curls poke out the bottom and a face mask hiding him mostly from their view.

  “I’m sorry what you say bro?” Dwayne said lifting his own gun.

  “Ha, the goddamn British”, He laughed now talking so they could understand.

  Someone else in the group laughed with a similar accent, “He told you to drop your weapons and hand them over”.

  “I ain’t handing nothing over”, Dwayne retorted.

  The ringleader then came over to Dwayne and smashed him round the head with his own gun and shouted,

  “Give us your weapons, supplies…And your women”.

  Kaley tried hard to flare up the gift, her power but nothing, she was bone dry, she was empty.

  “You can have the weapons and our supplies but our women stay with us”, Kian said dropping his gun to the floor and kicking it over along with his bag.

  “The deal is the women come to if you all wanna live”.

  “I ain’t going nowhere, I would rather die”, Kirsty snapped from beside Kaley.

  The ringleader commanded something in his language and the other guy nodded, lifted his gun and shot Kirsty point blank in the skull, her brains flew out and covered Kaley.

  Kaley screamed out loud as she now felt powerless and vulnerable.

  “STACIE”, she screamed just before passing out on the floor.

  ~

  “STACIE”, Kaley’s worried cry hit my ears on the wind. Dawn was breaking on the horizon as I walked out of an old apartment store. I had managed to find some water to clean myself yet again, this time though the blood had tinged my hair a little as I couldn’t find any proper shampoo so some parts glowed with a pink tint. I had found some clean clothes in a small shop and had changed. I felt sad at getting rid of my mother’s jumper but it was so saturated with blood there was no way for me to save it out here. The only thing I kept was my father’s leather jacket, which I had spent half the night scrubbing. The scrubbing noises blotting out Tanya who still tried to talk to me.

  “She’s in trouble, you know that”, Tanya said her arms folded across her chest looking out into the horizon.

  “I’m not stupid”, I hissed, “I will find her, I will find Cain, I will find them all”.

  “Not without my help you won’t”.

  “I don’t need your help, you’re not even really here”, I told her.

  “I’m here for a reason and the reason is to help you”.

  “What like you did last night?” I r
etorted.

  “That wasn’t me. That was…something else, something inside of you that made you see me like that”.

  “Liar”, was all I said as I set off in the direction we had all planned. I had found another map and had drawn the way the others had set out, soon enough I should arrive at Dunkirk and be hot on their heels, I hoped.

  The sun was high in the sky as I raided yet another local shop, there wasn’t much in there in the way of looting but I found some cans of fizzy pop which brightened up the day ahead of me. Tanya still followed me close behind, keeping quiet but saying something every so often just to let me know she was still with me.

  “Fizzy pop won’t do you any good”, she said looking at me with distaste as I finished a can and threw the remains of the can to the floor, “And you’re a litter bug now too, just great”.

  “The worlds already gone to crap, what is one more can going to do?” I hissed, I had never found my sister this irritating before but I had to ask myself, was this even my sister or was it some other girl I had found who was tagging along? Or just my imagination? I turned to look at her and she stopped, she wasn’t dressed in winter clothes, in fact she was wearing what she had last been wearing at the camp in Bognor Regis all those years ago, “Aren’t you cold?”

  She eyed me, “What?”

  “Cold, you’re still wearing your old clothes and no winter coat. Aren’t you cold?”

  “I don’t feel the cold anymore”, she said looking to the horizon, “I think we should go this way”, and she started to walk off the way I hadn’t planned on the map.

  “No, me and the others agreed this way, so I’m going this way”.

  “Fine but I’ll see you this way soon enough”.

  I sighed and left her to it, if she wanted to be this annoying then she could carry on, I had to find the others so I had to go the way we had planned and the way they would have gone. After a while of walking I let out a hiss of anger.

  “Cow was right”, As I looked ahead of me I saw how the town I was meant to pass through was no longer there, it was a bomb crater which was filled with tonnes of water, it was now a lake and I knew the others would have had to have found another way around it. Setting off around the lake I watched as the sun’s rays rippled over the top, my reflection shimmering back at me. My hair was a little scruffy, I had rushed it up into a ponytail and parts of it had come loose and settled around my face. My face was slim and drawn in, I had noticed lately I had been losing more weight which was not good as I was already slim for my build and height but I think it had something to do with stress and depression, oh and of course the infection.

  Pausing I took the pills from my bag, I hadn’t taken them today but yesterday I had taken too many. Kian had taken some from me but I still had one strip left filled with a couple of tablets.

  “Those aren’t working for you, you know that right?” Tanya said, her face was my reflection in the water, then she rose up out the water her face dripping wet, her hair like silk behind her as she climbed out. Her water logged clothes spreading puddles over the ground.

  “I thought you were waiting for me over that way”, I said to her.

  “I got bored waiting”, she shrugged, the water dripping down her arms and pooling under her.

  “And how do you know they aren’t working?”

  “Because they make it worse, they make the creature inside worse. They affect it somehow, make it angrier. You needed that last night, you needed to let some anger and steam out, not have it masked by tablets. For normal humans yes it helps, but for you? No!”

  I looked at the packet in my hand, thought for a moment and then scrunched it up and launched it at the body of water, “Doc was only trying to help but it’s true I don’t need them”.

  “I know, and he would understand”, she smiled. As I blinked she was no longer wet but bone dry again, “Shall we”, she said motioning around the lake.

  I said nothing, just walked past her.

  “I take that as a yes then little sister”.

  A little while later we came to a small rural town, there wasn’t much there, other than a few run down houses and abandoned cars and trucks.

  I stopped and pulled out the map, “Did they come this way? Or did they go round the lake the other way?” I said more to myself than Tanya.

  “This way”, she replied.

  “And how do you figure that out?”

  “Look”, she said pointing to the ground.

  I leant down to what she was pointing at, in some mud were some fresh foot prints, “They can’t be too far ahead of us now”.

  “Us?” Tanya asked.

  I looked at her, “Fine…Me”.

  She nodded and then looked up, “What’s that?”

  I followed her eye sight and spotted what looked like a shoe and a leg sticking out from between two houses. I recognised the shoe. Taking a deep breath I ran over whilst at the same time sending out my sensors but I felt nothing and no one here.

  “Oh no…Kirsty”, my voice clogged up my throat as I saw her mangled body.

  “She from your group?” Tanya asked.

  I nodded, “Yeah, she wanted to help get Kaley there safely, her and her boyfriend, he’s dead now too”.

  “At least she and Mac can be together now”, she smiled.

  “If you already knew she was from my group then why ask?”

  “I had to make sure”.

  I sighed in annoyance and turned back to Kirsty, I checked her over and found who ever had shot her had also picked her clean, her weapons and supplies were gone. Her eyes fully glazed over or what was left of them, she had died a few hours ago by the looks of things.

  “I need to find them, Cain and Kaley could be in trouble”.

  “Then follow me”, Tanya said.

  “You know where they are?”

  She nodded, “That’s why I’m here Stacie, to help you”. I felt a chill filter through my body as her image suddenly glimmered and wavered in front of me. “Hurry we don’t have long. The effects of your overdose are wearing off”.

  “Is that what this is? Hallucinations from the overdose?”

  She shrugged, then nodded, “I guess it made me clearer to you so I could help and you fought off all those creatures, so it wasn’t all a bad thing you taking too many pills”. Then she walked off.

  I took off after her as she leapt into a run, every now and then she would pause looking at some tyre tracks or footprints trying to determine which way they had gone. I had a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach, were they all ok? Who had taken them? Why had they shot Kirsty?

  I had answers to none of these questions but I knew soon enough I would find the answer and then I would kill it. I would kill whoever had taken my friends and killed one of my own, they would pay, I would make sure of it.

  We walked through a tree line, a small breeze tickled at my face making goose bumps appear and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. The tyre tracks came through here along an old dirt road, I could see some vehicles parked up ahead but no people around or in them. Running up to the nearest one we hid behind it and I stuck my head out round the bonnet and looked out, in front of me was a small fenced in community at the bottom of a hill with a very steep ascent, the trucks had been left at the top of the hill, obviously because of the bad weather they didn’t want their transport getting stuck in the mud. I could see a few people manning the gate, their guns over their shoulders as they looked out over the tree scape. They didn’t look friendly, there was no noise coming from the camp either, not like the camp at home where people talked and laughed, children played and I knew it was friendly but this place, the silence, I knew something was wrong.

  “I need to get in unseen and find them”, I said.

  “You will, I’m sure of it”, Tanya said beside me.

  I turned to her confused by her words, “I thought you were here to help…me”, as I looked at her she shimmered, her body and image coming in and out of focus
. I could see the world behind her through her.

  “I’m sorry Stacie but this is where I leave you, you must figure it out on your own now”.

  “But I only just got you back”, I whispered, I now felt guilty for finding her annoying, I would rather have her here with me and annoying than not have her here at all, “Please don’t go”.

  “You can do it Stacie, I know you can. I will be with you just in spirit…not person”.

  “But…” I guess I had fooled myself that she was really here even though deep down I knew she wasn’t, “Are you just a figment of my imagination, my mind? Am I crazy?”

  “I came because you needed me whether that be because you imagined me or not, but now you need to help your friends”.

  “I don’t want you to leave though”, I sobbed, “What if I have a melt down again?”

  “They will be there for you, you just have to tell them what they need to know”.

  “Ollie…”I gasped, “I never told Ollie how I was feeling. Yet…Yet the doctor made me promise…I broke…a promise”.

  “You didn’t know he was going to die”.

  “I broke a promise…I never…”

  “You kept it, he knew you well enough Stacie to know if you didn’t want to tell him it didn’t need to be told”.

  “But it did didn’t it? I could have hurt someone”.

  “But you didn’t…”

  “Because of you…Because you took away my focus from them…I attacked you instead of them”, I replied glumly.

  “Maybe so”, she said placing her vanishing hand on my shoulder, “But that’s why you called to me, you knew in your mind you were losing it…I’m your big sister Stacie, I was meant to be the one to help you but instead you ended up helping me, you always were the one who helped me. You were more like the big sister, not me”.

  “Not really”, I sniffed, “If I truly helped you would still be alive”.

  “If you didn’t help then Cain would be like ‘Him’ like them…He’s not. With you he has a chance at a normal life”.