LONE
BY
MERCEDES PRUNTY
Lone
Copyright ©: Mercedes Prunty
Published: 14th August 2016
Publisher: Mercedes Prunty
The right of Mercedes Prunty to be identified as the 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 and or events is entirely coincidental.
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Other Titles by Mercedes Prunty:
In the Alone series:
*Alone
*Lone
*The Keeper of the Key
Why not check out Mercedes Prunty on:
Facebook : Mercedes Prunty Author
Twitter : @MercedesPrunty
Blog : www.mercedespruntyauthor.wordpress.com
For Kevin,
A loving Dad, Grandad, Husband and
Father in law…
“To be superstitious in this world, now that is funny”.
‘Stacie’
Chapter 1 …
The lush greenery was slowly ebbing away as autumn was in full swing and winter was making its way into the atmosphere, the gorgeous green leaves and blossoming flowers that bathed in the heat of the summer sun were becoming bright reds, burnt oranges and crisping into nothing. The birds that chimed in the trees were leaving here, going to find warmer climates before the chill really set in. I could feel the chill in the air coming, taste it on the tip of my tongue and feel it in the back of my mind. I didn’t mind the winter itself the cold sort of kept the surviving creatures and other monstrosities at bay but it made survivors and scavengers desperate, it would make humans do things that in the old way of life would have been criminal, stealing, killing, amongst other things
I made my way up the deserted and mostly dilapidated high street of Tonbridge towards where I had made my home, the shop fronts were all smashed, broken or burnt out. Cars, push bikes and other vehicles lined the main road where people had tried to make a bid for freedom from the doom that came. A lot of people didn’t have the money to fuel cars back when this all started but a few had kept some by for that just in case moment if they had to use it. Not enough to get very far but enough for them to think they might have a chance of survival but it was a lie, skeletons, bones and other broken body parts lay dusting away in the old vehicles proving this.
The world had started to take some of the towns, villages and cities back, green vines and moss and other strong plants had taken to growing up around the machines, brick buildings and pot holed roads, if the world wasn’t full of starving creatures this might have looked strangely beautiful, especially in the eerie glow of the setting sun.
I pulled up my holey and old dusty blue hooded top up around me, my rifle hung from one shoulder along with my rucksack on the other, I had been out looting for supplies but hadn’t come across much lately, things were becoming more and more sparse and I knew eventually I might have to move on but I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, I didn’t want to. Their camp was only a few miles down the road but they were working together as a team, a team I wished I could be a part of but I couldn’t. They were making this place work for them but I couldn’t leave them, they needed me even if they didn’t know it. When the creatures came in their hordes it was me who took them out before they could even take hold of their scents, burning their bodies and vanishing into the night and when they came looking and stumbling across the burnt out carcases of the damned, they must have known deep down it was someone looking over them but mostly they just thought it was luck, blind luck that someone took them out before they did. I had made promises, promises I couldn’t bring myself to break, not fully.
I reached the end of the small block of flats that I had made into my home. On the lower levels I had blocked it all off making it so any innocent survivors wouldn’t come in, smashing stairwells and block aiding them up with rubble and other rubbish. To them it was another dilapidated broken building that was crumbling away but to me it was home. On the higher levels it was my own personal space, where I could be myself.
I knew that creatures or the not so innocent scavengers would try at nothing to get in if they caught wind of me being here so I laid out traps, small trip wires with handmade nail bombs, planks of wood that would fall down if disturbed but filled with ruthless amounts of nails, anything I could make to keep them out. I walked through a small back gate keeping lookout behind me and sending out my senses to see if I could feel anyone or anything there but as usual it was clear. Locking the gate behind me I then climbed over another fence I had erected to protect my small plot of land which once upon a time the flats would have shared but now it was all mine, I checked through my fruit and vegetables placing the ones that were ready to be harvested in my bag, I then turned to the block of flats and found out the foot holes I used to climb up the side into the first floor, there was a small balcony that hung loosely but took my weight and opened up into a hole where patio doors used to be, the bricks were lose and every now and then one would fall off in strong winds but the rest of the building was sturdy. Inside the first flat I had to walk through was littered with traps, some in plain sight others not so but I knew where every single one was and walked through with ease. The paintwork and wall paper peeled off the damp walls and mould spread across like freckles, water dripped through from an old leak from the flat above, a large hole gradually appearing in the ceiling but it didn’t directly bother my home so I didn’t bother fixing it. Climbing up a small ‘Stacie’ made ledge in the wall and reaching the second floor I stopped at the large gap where the stairs had once been, looking down I could see my traps. I reached behind an old door frame in the flat opposite mine and found out the large plank of wood I kept there and placed it over the gap, slowly walking across I lifted it again and placed it against the wall to my flat. The door was locked which I knew in this day and age was a weird habit but this was my home and that’s how I wanted it to stay, grabbing the keys from my pocket I unlocked it and walked in locking the door tightly behind me and hanging the keys on a small hook by the door.
My flat was nothing spectacular but it was where I felt at ease, I knew once I was here my day’s work was over and I could relax, as long as nothing decided to come into the street at night that needed my attention. The front door opened right into the main living room which was spacious, I had a rather battered and used old fabric three seater sofa, a small dining table, a bookcase filled with books on all different subjects from gardening, survival guides, cooking and some novels that I liked when I just wanted to escape from reality. From this room were a further three doors, the door to the kitchen that was small and boxy but had room for my camping stove, a large water butt which I had connected to the outside to collect rain water that I could then just turn the tap and use and all my food stuffs that I had managed to come across or grow. The next door led to a small but still useable bathroom, I had a bucket to use as a toilet which I emptied daily, the bath had soaps and shower gels all lined up arou
nd it along with buckets of rain water for washing in. The last door was the bedroom which was small but tidy, I had a double bed, a chest of draws and a clothes airer, I couldn’t risk hanging any washing out and people coming to investigate so I dried all my washing indoors. Another door led out from the bedroom to a small balcony but I never used it always keeping the curtains drawn.
I slumped down on the sofa and lay my head back, my tummy rumbling at me for food. I hadn’t found any more food today and although I had tins in the cupboard I didn’t want to use too many due to the winter coming. I had been hunting in some overgrown castle like grounds nearby but all I had managed was a duck and a rabbit and that was partly due to not wanting to waste many bullets for the rifle. I had only a handful left now, I had found some when I had looted an old farm house where they held shooting parties long ago but they soon dwindled down to nothing but the rifle for me was a comfort, the last thing my dad had given me the last time I saw him plus if I came across any scavengers the rifle sometimes was a great deterrent. I could use my otherworldly attributes to hunt but the more I used them the harder I found it to come back to normality and become me again but I had a plan. I had found a book in one of the old libraries that showed me how to make my own bow and arrow, a special survivor’s guide for getting trapped on a desert island but it came in handy in this country too. I had most of it nearly put together, I had the stave of the bow mostly complete, I had removed the bark and placed it near the camping stove whilst cooking for a few days to dry it out as with most of the moisture gone it would last me a lot longer, I had tapered the ends and cut notches into it so I could tie the string I had looted from a D.I.Y store around it. Now all I really had to do was finish the arrows, I had found as many perfectly straight long twigs out on my hunting missions, all I had needed to do was remove the bark on them and dry them like I had the bow, I had done some over the past few nights so now I was ready for the next part. I cut notches into one end ready for the bow string, the book advised flint to be used for the arrow heads but I didn’t have any to hand but I had a lot of spare animal bones from my hunting for food so I ground them down to make a sharp point attaching them by cutting a small slot in the arrow and pushing it in and then binding with string to make it secure. The book also commented on feathering the arrows to give it better accuracy, I had some from the unlucky ducks and pigeons I hunted. Placing three feathers around the base and securing them on with string I felt a sense of achievement at making my own weapon.
I knew I couldn’t fully test the weapon out until the morning when I could spread my wings a little and hunt through the woodland, I might even go as far as the old mansion which was a mile or so away from the camp. A little close for comfort but I would know if they were near me and I could easily hide or run plus the woodland there was always more glorious, full of animals that would fill a growling tummy.
Giving in to my hunger pangs I headed to the kitchen and opened a tin of beans and cutting up some winter veggies from my garden. I cooked them quickly on the camping stove before chowing down on them, they didn’t last a minute but it shut my hungry aching body up, almost, the hunger never really went, not the hunger I felt deep down. The bloodlust inside me could send me into a raving madness if I let it, the need to feed on bloody human flesh was a beast I couldn’t let out, a beast I didn’t want to let out. It had happened on a few occasions I had to admit but that was against my will, of sorts. My mind flashed back to the first time it happened, to that fateful day back at The Sanctuary with the damned and vile Prime Minister, she had pushed us all into a corner and left me no choice, I mean I thought I was dead anyway after fighting with Micah, Doctor Toni’s creation of her lover, I was hurt and I could feel the change coming. All I can see is us crashing through that window at the top of the hospital and falling like the autumn leaves off of trees down towards the ground but whilst the late Prime Minister had withered away like a dead leaf, I had not. The pain that had become me for those hours, days and maybe weeks that passed me by as for some reason my body didn’t want to die, it healed me from the inside out, changing me in ways I had never thought possible, turning me into a creature that should never have existed. The burning hot acid screaming through my veins and it burnt into every cell changing it, repairing it, mutating it until I became…this…thing. I had rampaged around the old hospital finding a bloodied and broken man lying on the front steps, he had tried to escape with the others but something had got to him first, his life was barely a light flickering in a dark tunnel when I took him. The image still haunted my dreams, his flesh in my hands bloodied and wet, how I had taken it into my mouth and chewed like a hungry starving child, how the hunger felt satisfied, the only time it had really felt satisfied. I had gone into a depression of rage, I had wanted to die for the sin I had just committed against another human being, I tried and tried as I might to end it all but my body and my own flesh healed within in me and out, a lot faster now that I had eaten the meat of sin. Feeling at a loss I had called out to the only things I knew could hear me, my Crushers, I commanded them to kill me to tear me apart like they had Amanda all that time ago but they refused, they shied away from me howling, hissing and crying, I was their Queen but I wanted out of this bloody thirsty world I was now a strong part of. So I did the only thing I knew was right, I banished them, told them to leave me and go far away and they did unwillingly at first until I threatened to tear them all apart but even that had been a lie, they were people deep down, they still had knowing and feelings and I couldn’t bring myself to do it but they took my word and left. They were still out there in the shadows hiding, waiting for my call but it didn’t come, I abandoned them and they were alone. I knew they were still alive as a small part of my brain could hear them, they called to me like a lost child to their mother but I didn’t return the call. Ever.
It had happened a few times after that but nothing compared to that day, I had learned to control it and not take anyone alive or partially alive, if I had to feed I would wait until I had found a dead body, the thought made me gag and my beans threatened to spew up but I held them down. I would not become that thing, that monster that feeds off flesh.
Standing up I went to my bedroom in the hope that some sleep would take me, as I approached I saw my reflection and like a lost soul I stood at the mirror that leaned up against the wall in between the bedroom door and bathroom door. My long blonde hair was tied up into a pony tail which I pulled out and brushed out with my fingers, my fingers then traced my face finding the scar that now became my best feature, it was long and trailed from the centre point of my parting in my hairline and down to my right eyebrow, the pink texture of the flesh pulling as I raised my eyebrow. That was the only scar that never healed, a long shard of window glass from the hospital had impaled my skull but it had released some of the pressure of the change, how my head ached and felt like it was going to crush in on itself when I first pushed her out the window but that had stopped the ache but the rest of my body flew into the change, I had torn the glass out from my face screaming and crying in shock and pain but when I focused the only reminder was the scar. Why that part didn’t heal I’ll never know? Maybe it’s a weak spot I have?
Not knowing or particularly caring I threw myself into bed and under the covers and fell into a deep dream that pulled me down like a strong dark tide.
The darkness was all around me, a cold wet darkness that dragged me under. I pushed my arms out trying to feel around me but my fingers grazed nothing but the chill of ice cold water. A light washed out in front of me and I kicked my legs towards it my lungs burning with the need to breathe. My face broke the surface and I found myself in a dark and gloomy house, a house that was flooded by a gushing storm that hit outside, I wasn’t alone there were many creatures like myself all swimming and sloshing to the same thing, meat. I could smell the meat in the air, the scent of the humans skin tickling my taste buds and making me salivate at the mouth.
THUMP, THUMP, THUMP…
> I looked around to see where the thumping noise was coming from, at a sash window was a young teenage girl hitting the glass trying to get in but her small frame didn’t do much damage. She was screaming and shouting at the man who was floating in the water, his head bleeding from a wound where it had been hit. I could taste his fresh blood dancing in the air like a strong aroma that called to me, he was mine! It was as if all of us thought the same thing at once, we wanted the meat and flesh in our mouths, the other creatures all thrashed around trying to reach him, their spindly hands making their way towards him. I felt rage and anger take over and flung out my claws tearing them to pieces, the girls screams got louder as she watched the water turn blood red around us. Without warning I felt it, a spark of something strange in the air and the window boomed in and shattered all around us like rain, sloshing into the water like raindrops. Some of the others got sliced by the glass but my reflexes were good and I dove under the water slowing the impact into my body, when I resurfaced the girl was trying to climb back in sobbing uncontrollably but I was close, so close to the lingering warmth or the half alive human…HUMAN! My heart stopped and I felt my own mind come back to me, I paused looking at the screaming girl as she batted away a creature that got too close, I was trying to attack a human.
I turned on them all slicing and dicing the ones nearest to me, tearing them apart feeling the warmth of their blood flow over the coolness of my skin from the chilled water, until there was no one left but me and her, I couldn’t see her face as the darkness of the room shrouded her in shadow but I knew she was young I could feel it, her young heart skipping wildly in the darkness and then she threw something up, an invisible wall and I couldn’t feel her anymore, I could just see the silhouette of her shadow in the gloom.
Alone (Book 2): Lone Page 1
