Alone (Book 2): Lone

by Prunty, Mercedes

  “Rise up my child”, and the girl done as he said, she tried to stand straight but the pain from the whippings was too much and she hunched over, “You have been cleansed of your sins, now you must pray to our god for his forgiveness”.

  A man and a woman strolled over to her and tied chains to her wrists, pulling her top down over her raw and bloody exposed back and leading her away back towards me, keeping in the shadows of the old tables I watched as they headed behind another restaurant and down a corridor. Quickly studying the area I couldn’t see Monique or Callum or any of the other camp mates so I decided to follow them to where ever they were taking her. The corridor was dark but candles had been lit and drawings scribbled all over the tiled floor, they gave a menacing glow as I passed each one, realising they had used glow in the dark paint for their artwork.

  I could hear the girl hissing curses at the people as they hauled her into a small hall like room which by the looks of things had once been a small hall with kids toys, tables and chairs inside which had been piled up in one corner completely disregarded, sneaking in behind them I took to hiding behind some old garden benches which had been lined up around the room like old church pews facing towards an altar but this one was not just a Jesus statue, oh no this one had Jesus, the devil and other menacing creeps all glaring down. Candles also lined this room most of which had melted down into puddles over the floor with new ones just stamped into place. Incense filled the air but I noticed it couldn’t quite cover up the smell of blood, what they hell did they do here?

  The girl was chained up to a wall near the altar and was given what looked like a sedative, she collapsed down in a coma like state whilst the two people left and locked the door behind them. I gave it a minute or so making sure they weren’t coming back in before I ran to her, I lifted her dopey head and tried to talk to her but she was gone, out like a light. Now what? The truck? I thought back to the others and decided I had to try and see if they were here or not, the girl looked safe, well as safe as an unconscious chained up person looks like but I couldn’t go round carrying an unconscious person around it would slow me down and get me caught, I spoke to the girl telling her I would be back soon although I didn’t know whether or not she heard me. I used the knife and broke the lock on the door and snuck out closing it behind me, I knew they might notice the lock but just think it was something they done, I hoped.

  I made my way out into the corridor and turned away from the cult’s camp site, I followed it round and came to a small set of stairs taking them I came out to a row of hanging bodies, luckily I didn’t scream as one of the hanging men’s feet swayed and caressed the top of my head. I sensed two people patrolling around this level and knew I needed to play this game properly, I needed to make a plan to take them out or I would risk the girl being hurt and maybe myself being caught, especially as they seemed to have a sedative in their midst. The poor people who had been caught and hung in what looked like some weird ritualistic game weren’t that old judging by their skin, no more than a few weeks old at most, they were starting to stink a rather pungent smell of decaying flesh and flies buzzed around them. Swatting the flies away I made my way along the platform which led either side to rows of broken and smashed up shops it was then I spotted the first patrol person, he was standing there smoking near to a ‘Babycare’ store when suddenly someone stumbled out of the shop, their neck and body covered in blood followed by creatures.

  The man who had been bitten fell to the floor trying to gargle out words but spat out blood in the process, the patrol person stepped up and took down all but one of the creatures which was then taken out by the second person on patrol. Looking at the chaos of blood and gore I waited and listened.

  “Geez Steve what the hell happened? Where’s Maria?”

  “Some…Black Bitch…let out the motherfuckers and they ate Maria now they ate me, I’m fucking screwed man”, the dribbling bloodied man cussed.

  “Monique?” I whispered to myself, it had to be her.

  “What happened to the trespasser?”

  “She pissed of through the stock room and jumped on the lift, …haha…but the poxy thing crashed and burned, served her right…stupid cow getting us killed”.

  “You ain’t dead yet bro”.

  “Might as well be, I can feel it…the pain…the burning…argh!” He sat up and coughed up blood which spewed all over the guy closest to him.

  “We need to do it now”.

  “Wait no…I changed my mind, I can live, it don’t hurt that m…?”

  But before the bitten idiot could say anymore the blood covered patrol man stabbed him in the gut and then in the throat leaving him to bleed to death of the floor, hissing and gurgling until final the lights went out.

  “Was that really necessary?” the second one asked.

  “Sure was”, he replied wiping the bloodied blade on the dead guys clothes, “He was gonna turn and we would have been his first meal”.

  The guy made sense but he was still a cold blooded killer and an asshole. Sending out my feelers I felt down into the babycare store locating the body of someone and instantly I knew it had to be her Monique and she was alive, she was moving around.

  “So what now?”

  “We tell Lucas and then we burn the body”, they both gave the dead man a look before heading off in the direction of the stairs and up to the camp site level. I took this as my chance and rushed into the store, I followed the trail of blood up a small set of stairs where I came across a broken looking creature and a small headless child. Looking at the handiwork I knew it had to be Monique, only she could wield a blade like that and take a head clean off a creature. Searching around I came across the stock room door which was smothered in blood from a fresh corpse under foot, treading carefully and opening the door I spotted the old lift door which was wide open and ran to it. Shining my torch down I could see that the lift had indeed fallen down the shaft but had been stopped by water which I could see and hear sloshing around inside the old lift. Reaching inside I found one of the old maintenance ladders and set to work climbing down, I jumped onto the metal roof of the lift which wobbled before lowering myself down into the flooded box. Sending out my feelers I could sense her down here but as I crawled out into the old loading bay I couldn’t see her, there was a rather bloated looking dead creature which floated on the surface of the water but no Monique. Taking to the old shutters I tried them but felt they were locked tight same went for the door next to it. I was just about to call out her name when I felt movement beside me but all that was next to me was a wall, was she the other side? Placing my hand on the wall I trailed it along walking with it until I kicked an old metal air vent cover over into the water sending it rippling around me, looking down I noticed the vent and knew what she had done.

  Ducking down I looked into the vent but I couldn’t see anything, until I heard a rasping of breath, shallow and cold, sloshing through the cold water I made my way through the old vent and found her semi-conscious. Her eyes fluttering open and closing with each breath she took, her body was rapidly losing its heat and I knew hypothermia would soon set in if I didn’t help her.

  Leaning past her I ripped the vent grate off the wall that had kept her in this watery prison and slowly pushed her out, she moaned a few incoherent words, “Mil…k…Mi…lk”.

  “Milk?” taking hold of the two bags she had by her side I opened them to find they were full to the brim with baby milk, so that’s why she had risked coming here in the snowy season because a baby needed milk. A will of steel but a heart made from cotton candy that was Monique.

  I could see by how she responded to me lifting her up and resting her on one shoulder with my arm wrapped around her side that she was delirious and not completely with me but I knew she would be fine, all I had to do was get her somewhere safe and warm. Struggling out of the loading bay which was so flooded I could hardly make out where the floor was or what we might be standing on, I came to a door which wasn’t locked so I ope
ned it wide and peered in, it was the multi-story car park and there had to be hundreds of cars here. Some were still together, others had been pulled apart for spares. The smell of mechanical motor oil filled the air along with the smell of petrol, diesel and also the faint smell of disease. Keeping our movements slow I stayed low behind cars keeping lookout the whole time, Monique was still in a world of her own muttering about someone called ‘William’ which I had no idea who it was maybe it was someone she knew back at the camp, maybe that was the babies name who needed the milk? Voices alerted me to people at the other side of the car park, I lay Monique down against a car and stole a look, there was a group of around ten men all chattering and balling about.

  “So who do you think will be the next sacrifice to the girl?” One of them asked.

  “If you don’t shut up we’ll pick you”, another laughed.

  “Shut up I’m serious we haven’t found any other survivors to sacrifice for weeks now. Lucas said he wants the sacrificial servant in place before supper, so who do you think it will be?”

  “With Lucas it could be anyone”, a lone voice spoke from behind them all, it belonged to a guy who looked around mid-twenties, he was an albino, his hair almost platinum blond, his skin the palest of whites I had ever seen, his eyes bright with a strange almost red glow to them but what got me was the fact that he was infected and the others didn’t know. I could tell they didn’t know by the way they acted around him, they all sniggered at the albino, shoved him as he walked by, he laughed it off but little did they know what might happen if he flipped out.

  “I think it should be Albi”, a large gutted man said shoving the albino to one side.

  “Yeah haha very funny”, Albi replied.

  For a moment it looked like Albi looked right into my eyes, they glittered with faint humour before flashing away. I ducked down behind the car with Monique and saw that she was sweating heavily, feeling her skin I could feel a fever coming along. I had to get her somewhere safe and warm, I had to get the girl and Monique out of here and back to the camp, Monique needed a doctor.

  Chapter 3 …

  Monique knew she was falling, falling deeper into a strange illness but there was nothing she could do about it, not now that she was here and the glowing golden goddess who was carrying her to safety saying her name and telling her all would be ok was in charge. She remembered that milk was important somehow but she didn’t know what for or who for but she told the goddess that the milk was needed. The goddess spoke back saying she knew about the milk and to be quiet as the danger wasn’t over yet. Monique felt the fall come in quick waves and before she knew it she was back to the beginning, back to where it had all begun.

  That day had been just like most ordinary days to start with, the clouds had been their normal grey tinged selves, they had looked angry and threatening like at any moment their seams would split like water balloons that had been filled too much and the water that was bursting to come out would in waves and crashes. The filtering dull grey light from the sun which was trying it’s hardest to break through blossomed over the dank, dark city before another water balloon cloud would charge in and block it out again. The streets were already damp from the night before, in fact the rain had been falling for days and there looked to be no give in it at all.

  Monique wished for the warmth of the sun to penetrate her dark skin but instead as she rode her rusty push bike she was splashed by the cold earth polluted puddles that chilled her already cold body.

  She was like most mornings on her way to her small but very time consuming and chaotic job, due to the war over fossil fuels and other energy sources there had to be special operations put in place to stop people over consuming and turning the country into a starving nation, first of all the old way of the rations books which hadn’t been seen since world war two had shown their faces again, the card which had to be stamped to show when you could or couldn’t collect your food rations. This in place meant some people had to be there to hand out the rations and man the stations to make sure the hungry, desperate and starving people didn’t abuse the system and take too much. Monique didn’t mind her job, in fact she quite liked it as she was helping somehow and taking her mind off her own hunger and struggles, the people who she worked with were a lovely bunch cheery, happy and full of laughter and most of the time the people coming in to collect their rations were polite and calm but sometimes there was the odd one or two, the trouble makers who liked to make a scene and try begging for more. They tried all sorts of tactics like screaming, crying, threatening to take their own or other’s lives by which point security would have to step in and escort them off the premises. Shame it came to this but rules were rules and they could not be seen to be giving one person more or less as it would start a chain reaction of more trying their luck.

  Splashing through another murky puddle she braked hard and turned the bike at an angle, just coming to a stop at the security gate to the old church which had now become the ration station for this suburb of the big city of London. Typing in the key code and nodding to the security guard who was standing by the back door smoking she closed the gate behind her locking it shut and then fumbled with her cold, damp fingers to lock away her bike against an old metal railing. Looking through the railing she could see below the old graveyard, even in the day time it looked unnaturally spooky, the old granite headstones glistening with the damp air and rain drops, the green moss and long grasses that grew all around them almost waving like a moving green ocean. There was even a large statue of an angel with her wings spread wide looking up to the heavens, her eyes lit up as a flash of lightning rippled through the skies and then she heard it, the thunder. Monique held her nerve as the angel lit up again, her eyes burning into Monique’s, looking deep down as if trying to talk to her, trying to tell her something but it was only lightning and the statue wasn’t real, the grey stonework making her look pained. Another roll of thunder rumbled through the atmosphere but it sounded odd, not like the first crash, then she felt the first few splatters of rain dripping down on her leather jacket.

  Running inside she closed the door shut leaving the security man to have all the fun in the rain to himself. She headed for her locker which was situated just by the back door and another door to a storage room, unlocking it she rammed her leather coat and bag inside, along with her keys and mobile phone. Not that it had any credit there was no money now a days for credit or even enough electricity to power mobiles but Monique knew an old shop which still had its power running and every night after work she would sneak in and charge her phone. Sometimes she could even glance at the news which back street and illegal reporters posted using illegal amounts of electricity but it was good to know what was going on in the world around them. Most of the electric now a days was saved and permanently used for hospitals and prisons, to help the needy and to keep the assholes behind bars locked up.

  She walked towards her station glancing over at the clock on the wall, they had about five minutes until mayhem would be bestowed upon them once again.

  “Morning Miss Monique”, a tall, greying and frail older gentleman said to her, his name was Frederick but he liked to be called Ricky for short.

  “Morning Ricky, you hear that thunder?” she smiled at him standing at her post ready and waiting.

  “Yeah I heard it, blooming glad I’m in here and not out there like the poor sod Tinny”, he grinned, Tinny was the security guard, called Tinny as he always managed to find tins of beer, they all joked he had a secret stash hidden in the graveyard which as it goes could be totally believable as why would anyone wanna go out there? “You ready for today?” he added.

  She nodded but knew why he said it, there had been a shortage of rations over the past two weeks and today wasn’t any better, which meant there would be a stampede of people rushing to get theirs before it all ran out.

  “Good, good and remember don’t take no crap off em”, he smiled passing her a box with her name on it, she passed him her r
ation card and he stamped it. She placed it under her station where it would go unseen until she could go home. They all had collected theirs today she could see all the other’s boxes sitting waiting under their stations. There were five stations in all, or posts as Ricky liked to call them. Wire mesh had been tied up all over with a square hole just big enough to push a box of food through, two security guards stood by the main doors waiting whilst two more stood near us but on the other side of the mesh. Monique had to give it to them their job was crappier than hers, she had seen fights break out and some of them get bitten, knifed and even shot once as people tried to get more rations. Although she could understand why people done it, why they got so desperate, the ration boxes where meant to last a week but in reality it was more like three days. Monique’s box had to feed five people, herself, her mother and father, her big brother Tyrone and his girlfriend Bianca and there was no way this one box fed them all for a week, it just wasn’t possible even with all the small portions and rationing the food at home.

  “Get ready!” she heard one of the guards shout over another roll of thunder.

  Just as they all expected there was a stampede of bodies cramming in as soon as the door inched open, people were shouting and shoving one another trying to be the first in line.

  Sighing Monique turned to her post and put on her politest smile, “Name, date of birth and book please”, she said to man in his late thirties, he held a young child of around three in his arms, a little boy with fear all over his face at the mad rush of adults steaming in.

  Passing his book through the mesh hole and telling her his name and birthday she then stamped it and passed him a box, he thanked her and rushed off through the crowd vanishing out of site as the next persons face blocked her view.