One (Alone Book 3) Read online

  Around 10pm people began to turn in, we had an early start but the Doctor called to me before I went home.

  “Stacie can I talk to you?”

  “Sure Doc”.

  We walked over to his home and he handed me a small bundle wrapped in cloth.

  “What’s this?” I asked him.

  He looked steely into my eyes, “I have packed a medical bag for you but I didn’t think it fair to give it to you in front of everyone. It has some things that will help like painkillers, bandages and also another pack of antidepressants and Valium which should last you at least until you get there. I hope. But I would like you to keep a look out for any others you might find out there, I worry about your sanity and safety of the group. I’m not trying to be rude I’m just thinking practically”.

  I sighed, “Thank you, I understand your concerns but I feel fine”.

  “For now, but what happens if you have a mental breakdown out there with all of them, with Cain?”

  I looked over to where my group where still laughing and joking, waiting for me. They had no idea their leader could become so out of control, they would trust me whilst they slept on this journey, they would trust me with their lives yet I couldn’t be trusted to look after my own if I had a meltdown. Kaley looked over to me and nodded her head slightly at me, I nodded back. Did she know? No of course not I hadn’t felt her in my mind, she wouldn’t do that, would she?

  “Stacie?”

  I looked back at the doctor.

  “What were you thinking?”

  I shook my head, “Nothing”.

  “Stacie, please you can talk to me, I’m your friend, I’m not here to hurt you”.

  “I know that”, I tried to smile sweetly, “I guess I’m just nervous of what we might find there. If they can cause this chaos over here what monsters do they have waiting for us there?”

  “You know very well that you can handle the monsters”.

  “I know…but what about them?” I said, “Am I doing the right thing in taking them with me?”

  “Yes…You need them just as much as they need you. But promise me one thing?”

  “What?”

  “Tell Ollie at least about your…Condition”.

  “Why?”

  “He’s stronger than you think and if something goes wrong he might be the only one who can bring you back or stop you”.

  The doctor’s words hit deep and hit home, he really did think I was a problem. But I also doubted his words, yes Ollie was a strong young man and we had a kind of sibling connection but the only real one who could stop me was Kaley. And if she had to stop me then I would be dead and so would Ollie because I probably would have gone psycho and killed or attacked them all.

  “I’ll tell him but not tonight, I want a smooth start and for everyone to be in high spirits when we leave”.

  “Very well that is your decision”, he said before placing a hand on my shoulder, “I wish you all the luck in the world, make sure you make them pay”.

  “I will…I promise”.

  Chapter Six…

  The morning sun arose over the camp but I was already wide awake and ready. Ollie too was on full alert and stood beside me, we had a map of Kent and Sussex over the bonnet of the truck and we drew on the route to take with a red pen. The plan was to leave Tonbridge and head through to Paddock Wood then onto Marden, then Staplehurst, Headcorn, then to Ashford where we would then follow the train line for the Eurotunnel entrance which would then lead us on through to Calais. We had no idea how long this might take us or what the weather conditions might be like, I had gone for a safe option wearing my dad’s old leather coat which was warm and waterproof, I also wore my mums old maroon jumper which both I had taken from my old home just a month or so ago. Their smell had left the items now but they were theirs and I hoped to god that they would grant me the luck I needed to keep everyone safe and alive. My jeans were old but still had a lot of life left to give and my trusty leather boots. My hair was tucked up and away from my face, the dirty blonde dull and lacklustre.

  Ollie was also in full on winter clothes, although the snow was pretty much gone here there was still a chill in the air and we had no idea what France and the other countries might be like. We could always off load items as we saw fit. Soon everyone was ready to leave, Cain stood by my side, a smart winter jacket that Chantelle had kept and given to him was wrapped around his young shoulders. I still couldn’t believe I had allowed myself into being forced into bringing him along but he looked determined and ready and I guess he would be safer by me for most of the journey.

  I sent the Crushers on ahead to clear whatever creatures might be lurking on our journey, the rest of the camp seemed sombre and saddened that we were leaving and that I was taking their protection away but I couldn’t risk the Crushers flipping out if I lost signal. I still hadn’t told Kian about ‘my’ condition and how I could control the Crushers, hell he didn’t even know they were standing guard.

  Lara and Kaley were the last ones to arrive, both held a box with small bags inside, they handed them out to everyone. Looking inside I found a few days’ worth of food had been placed inside, after that we would have to hunt and scavenge for ourselves.

  The doctor and Chantelle both came to the gate to see us leave and wish us luck, the doctor waved as I walked out the gate and I waved back, I knew he was worried and I tried to look calm and like myself but I knew he would forever worry. Just as the gates slammed shut the noise of the metal on metal ruptured through my mind, ‘The screech of metal on metal made my teeth hurt as the lift grinded its way down, I could hear the metal cables snap and buckle hitting the sides of the lift shaft as it soared to the bottom of the building before too it exploded at the bottom’.

  I had to shake the noise away, I didn’t want to think of what happened to poor Sian right now, I needed to be strong.

  “You alright?” Ollie asked from beside me.

  I nodded, “Yeah you?”

  “Yeah, let’s do this”, he smiled and held out his hand, his fist balled, I balled mine and gave a slight punch.

  “Let’s do this”.

  The roads were clear through Tonbridge but then again, they mostly were around our home area, we had cleared the streets out often so now it was just simply a ghost town. The burnt-out carcasses of buildings lined the streets from were Lucas had decided to burn the streets to the ground. As we made our way through the high street I could see my old home, my burnt out and charcoaled flat. Kaley also looked up at it, it had been the last place we had been with Albi together, she dipped her head down and carried on not bothering to look up again until we were out of the town.

  I could feel my Crushers up ahead in the next town, they hadn’t come across anything nasty yet but they were searching. Soon we exited Tonbridge and walked the road to Paddock Wood, once there we took to looking in a few of the still standing shops although we didn’t find much as Monique and Callum had most probably looted it years ago. The town was eerily quiet, rubbish was mulched into the pavements, magazines, papers and plastic wrappers from years ago mashed away into the nothing, decomposing to mushy dust. Tin cans and glass bottles were strewn around over some parts, the place looked like a dumping ground but then what town or city didn’t now?

  A few hours later we found ourselves nearing the outskirts of Staplehurst, the town had been bombed to nothingness in the war, it reminded me of the town Seaford that I had passed through all those years ago, just a huge crater in the ground covered in rubble, glass, skeletons and the odd metal from a car. Lara gasped as we passed through making our way around the crater, just in case of a sudden collapse from below.

  “I used to work here”, she said looking around at everything, “But nothing’s here now”.

  “What did ya used to do?” Dwayne asked from the back of the group.

  “I worked in a nursing home”, she replied, “All those people, gone”.

  I placed a hand on her shoulder, “They are in a bette
r place, at least they haven’t had to go through all of this”.

  “I guess”.

  She looked haunted, maybe the thought of all the older people stuck in the home with no one to help them when the bombs hit or maybe it was the thought of what could have happened, how the creatures could have got in and torn them apart and made them into their own.

  Once out of Staplehurst things livened up a little, a small group of creatures were lying in wait, my Crushers had missed them purely because they had gone a slightly different route to me but there wasn’t that many so I didn’t see the point in calling them back. Instead I grabbed the blade I had attached to my rucksack and launched an assault on them, Ollie and Kaley by my side. Ollie took down two older ones by charging at them and smashing their heads into walls, their skulls merely capable of protecting their brains from dust let alone a smash into brickwork. Brains and grey tissue splattered all over the walls. Kaley lifted her hands and lifted five up into the air before slamming them down into the ground, all of them dead and crushed. I took out the rest slicing and dicing until the roads were paved with red gunge and flesh.

  I turned to look at Cain to make sure he was safe, his face had paled at all the blood but he managed to keep his breakfast down. He was a strong boy, I had to remember that, he was from my family blood line. I did notice though how Kian hadn’t made a move to help, instead he had watched us take them down, figuring us out, maybe to see if we could truly take down the threat.

  The next town Headcorn was a little tricky to manoeuvre through, not because of the creatures the Crushers had dealt with the ones here but because of the collapse of most of the buildings. The bombs and aftershocks must have disturbed a lot of the structures and foundations making them weak, houses had crumpled into the streets, sink holes had appeared swallowing whole terraces. Flats and apartments had fallen too but were now leaning on other broken buildings. There was no way we were risking walking under any of them, a wrong gust of wind would be all it would need to send the cement and brickwork tumbling over our heads and crushing us all to death, well at least everyone else but I didn’t fancy my chances of ever coming back human if that happened to me.

  Taking a small detour, which took us an extra hour of walking and work we made it to Ashford, the town was indeed in ruins like most of the country, bombs had demolished whole buildings, a few office blocks remained, their windows dark, gloomy or smashed to pieces. Making our way through the town we came to the train station that would lead us through to the Eurotunnel, it was empty and still standing but a fire had ripped through it at some point over the past few years smouldering everything to ash. Reaching the platforms we had to try and work out which one was the correct one so we could follow the track to our destination, most of the signs had been melted, blackened with soot or weathered.

  “Ollie you search that side, Dwayne you and Lara that side, I’m going to see if there is anything useful inside Kian you’re with me. Kaley you stay with Cain, Mac, Kirsty, keep lookout, we need to find the right track”.

  Everyone went to their correct posts and done as I said, that left me and Kian to venture into the station together. I wanted him with me because deep down I didn’t completely trust him, something inside me was screaming he was trouble but my other voice told me that Kaley had found and picked him, that he had broken free of his employers grip to try and get us to stop them. But that nagging feeling just wouldn’t go away, but was it me just over thinking? I had been let down, betrayed and screwed over by so many innocent looking people that it had become so unclear on who to trust anymore.

  “What we looking for?” he asked as we stepped through the ash covered threshold.

  “Supplies, food, weapons, anything that might come in handy”.

  “Do you think we can carry more?” he asked looking around an old desk that once housed a customer services area.

  “If it’s important we will”.

  “Ok”, he said slightly with a sarcastic tone, after searching a few other desks and humming to himself he then said, “You fight rather good for a small girl”.

  I stopped what I was doing and turned to him, I hadn’t noticed he had come quite close to me but then I hadn’t really focused my feelers out, “Small girl?”

  He shrugged, “You never told me how old you are, what you about twenty? And yeah small girl, you’re not exactly a large woman with muscles, are you?”

  “I’m 22 I’ll have you know not that it’s really any of your business”, I huffed turning back to searching an old vending machine and coming away with two chocolate bars and a stale packed of crisps, I put them in my bag just as he asked another question.

  “Where’d you learn to fight like that? You’re fast, faster than me and I’m military trained”.

  “Is that how you lost your hand?” I asked changing it from me to him, I wasn’t in the mood for explaining my ‘Condition’.

  He nodded, “Yeah it was, landmine”.

  “Sorry to hear that”, I replied searching through another room and finding the source of the fire. A few bodies were all crisped and melted to the floor, an old oil drum had been placed in the centre which they must have used for fire to keep warm but they hadn’t counted on it losing control or maybe they left it burning whilst asleep and the fumes took them leaving the fire to take hold. Taking care not to trample all over their dead bodies I made it to a window and rubbed a small circle in the soot to look out over the tracks, a sigh on the other side caught my attention as it read ‘Euro…” but the rest was blackened out.

  “I found the right track”, I said taking my hand off the window, some of the other windows in the room had warped from the heat that must have blown through here.

  “You didn’t answer my question”, Kian pushed.

  “Which one?”

  “How you learnt to fight so well”.

  “Well years of fighting those things will do that, I’m slim and agile so I can be quick”, I turned to him and he walked up beside me looking right into my face so I then said, “Let me guess you’ve been holed up in that facility place since day zero right?”

  He nodded, “Pretty much”.

  “And you haven’t been out fighting these things very often no?”

  “Look I can fight, I was trained to fight and kill, that’s me, that’s who I am”, Kian replied, “Monster or no monster”.

  “That might be the case but fighting those things is…different. It makes you…A fighter when you weren’t one before”.

  “What did you do before all this?”

  “I was young, just left school or what was left of a school system in the war. I grew vegetables and fruit with my parents in our garden and cared for chickens and a goat. I wasn’t a fighter in any way shape or form”.

  He looked away from me, “Do you miss it, your old life?”

  “Of course, do you?”

  He shrugged and stepped away from me, “Not really”.

  “You prefer all this?” I asked feeling strange that he would prefer this to a normal happy life.

  He sighed running his hand through his short fair hair, “My life before this wasn’t great, I lived for the army, I worshipped the army then I got blown up and lost my hand and some of my arm, so I was deemed disabled and not physically able to work for them anymore. I got my artificial arm and found a few security jobs but nothing that made me feel alive inside anymore”.

  “Didn’t you have family or friends?”

  He shook his head, “No” but he didn’t elaborate.

  A shout from outside caught my attention and a quick glance outside showed me that Ollie had found the same track and spotted us through the window.

  “Time to leave”.

  “Time to leave”, he copied.

  Walking back out into the fresh air and facing the track line I could tell the others were flacking a little so I commanded we have a five minute breather and re-fuel.

  Cain came and sat with me, Kaley and Ollie. I noticed Kian went and s
at with Kirsty and Mac but his eyes kept flickering over to me, I knew he was annoyed I somehow put off his question about my fighting abilities but I was sure he would ask again but now he had me thinking about him, why he preferred this life and not the old. Yes, he lived for the army but there is more to life than a job and fighting for your country, right? Surely, he must have had someone he cared about at some point in his life? Something that would make this world worse not better?

  Dwayne was sat with Lara who was chatting away about some holiday she went on through the Eurotunnel and the train broke down for two hours, just simply a few years before the war started. Dwayne was entranced by her every word and I couldn’t help but smile, it was nice to see people talking and feeling comfortable with one another. Especially after what Lara had been through and what Dwayne was now going through, leaving his daughter behind must have been a hard decision to make but I knew he only wanted to make sure she lived on, somehow.

  Taking a bite out of some of the homemade bread that the camp had supplied us with I could feel Kian staring at me. I took hold of his stare and waited to see if he would falter and turn away but he kept it going. I only broke it when Ollie asked what was up.

  “Why’s Kian staring at you?”

  “Because he’s trying to work me out, why I can fight so good. He doesn’t buy the story I told him”.

  “Why not just tell him the truth?” Kaley asked.

  “Because I don’t want him knowing everything about our group. He knows about you and I think that’s enough and how it should stay. He can know about me when the time is right”.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t trust him, I don’t want him to know just in case I have to use it against him”.

  “Do you really think you will?” Ollie asked obviously concerned.