The Weapon Within: A Paranormal Dystopian Adventure (The Unexplainables Book 1) (16 page)

‘
Quite the opposite. You have given us hope.’

‘
Really?’

‘
Yes. You see, unless things change dramatically, we’re heading for a major crisis. We need order, security and a strong leader. All of which
you
can give us.’

‘
Me?’ I gaped at him. ‘Are you serious?’

‘
Yes, very,’ he replied. ‘You’re the only one who has the strength and power to do it. We need you to take your rightful place as leader of our society, for all our sakes.’

My head was spinning and t
he heat from the fire was making me feel drowsy. ‘What would it entail?’ I asked.

‘
Well, at the moment there is little we can do. Whilst the official channels agree with my point of view, they are reluctant to do anything that could cause any further eruptions. They are fools though, because conflict will happen anyway. The Unexplainables are plotting to overthrow the government and to take over. We cannot let this happen. You see, for all there may be a few Unexplainables who are righteous and aim to do their best, there are too many loose cannons. The Standards don’t stand a chance next to them. They are easy targets.’

I thought of Beth. Of Oscar. Of my friends at the commune.

‘The government will fall,’ Nicholas continued, urgently, ‘whether at the hands of the Nexes or through their own weakness. It will happen soon and when it does we must move quickly. The people who are on their way to our community are coming to help us defend the vulnerable. They will become our own army. The only way forward is to enforce much stricter rules. We need to keep Unexplainables and Standards apart from each other for their own safety. We need to gain control. Only then can we find a way for us all to live peacefully together.’

‘
Segregation? Is that really the only way?’

‘
Until we get to the point where Unexplainables can guarantee that they are absolutely 100 per cent in control of their abilities and vow to protect those without powers then yes, they must be separated.’

‘
What about me? I’m not in control of my powers yet. How am I supposed to enforce something like that on other people?’

H
e leaned forwards across the table. ‘Have you attacked anyone since your arrival here?’

‘
No, but . . .’

‘
Have you used your powers since your arrival here?’

‘
No.’

‘
You need to have more faith in yourself,’ he chided.

‘
But I haven’t been angry,’ I protested. ‘It’s easy to control them when I’m happy.’

‘
Were you not angry when you were faced with your former friends in town?’ he asked.

‘
Well, yes.’

‘
But you didn’t attack the young people present, is that correct?’

‘
I wanted to. But no, I didn’t.’

He smiled and sat
back again. ‘You are without doubt a true leader. Without you, who knows what will happen to us? Will you think about it, at least?’

‘
Sure,’ I agreed, desperate to get out into the fresh air. ‘No problem.’

*

The next couple of weeks passed quickly and there was a real feeling of urgency around. The foundations for the new accommodation blocks were laid and before long they were starting to look like actual buildings. Elsewhere, various groups of people stockpiled food and organised furnishings and clothing for the newcomers.

I didn
’t see Nicholas much during that time. Reluctant to go back into the darkened office, I busied myself with other things, hoping that he didn’t think I was being rude.

My sleep patterns weren
’t improving much either so I constantly felt drained and exhausted.

When I was awoken suddenly one night, my immediate reaction was one of annoyance
. But it quickly turned to panic when I realised that there was someone in the room with me.

‘Who’s there?’ I whispered, my heart beating furiously.

‘
It’s me,’ a voice whispered back. There was a scuffling noise and as my eyes adjusted I could just about make out the shape of a person, crawling into my room on their hands and knees.

‘
Gracie?’

‘
I need to talk to you,’ she whispered.

‘
Couldn’t you talk to me at breakfast time?’ I demanded grumpily.

‘
No. I need to talk to you alone – without anyone else listening.’

‘
And you couldn’t have given me some warning?’

‘
No, because I only decided to come this evening and it’s taken me the best part of an hour and a half to get here.’

‘
Why? You only live a few minutes away.’

‘
I know but I had to crawl all the way. Do you know they have guards on every street now?’

‘
No, but why does it matter? What on earth is this about?’

She shuffled closer to the bed.
‘I think they’re trying to kill me.’

There was no hint of exaggeration or a lie
on her face. She looked genuinely scared.

‘
Who’s trying to kill you?’

‘
They all are. Simeon, Linda, Nicholas – all of them.’

‘
Why would they want to do that?’

‘
Because they know that I’ve been questioning what’s going on here. And they think I’m trying to corrupt you.’

‘
Are you?’

‘
Yes!’ she hissed. ‘I’ve been trying to get you on your own for ages now so I can talk to you. Things aren’t what they seem here. I wanted to . . .’

A loud knock at the door made us both jump.

‘Don’t let them take me away, Ava, please!’ She was cowering against the wall. Flicking the lights on, I stalked through to front door. Two guards stood on my doorstep. They both tipped their heads to acknowledge me.

‘
Evening, Miss Ava. Is everything all right?’

‘
Everything’s fine, thank you,’ I replied, moving to shut the door but one of the guards held it open with his hand.

‘
It’s just that we believe that someone has just entered your pod.’

‘
That’s correct. My friend has come over to visit me. Is that against the rules?’

‘
Well, no, it’s just very late and, well it was a rather unusual method of
visiting
, you see?’

I raised my eyebrow.
‘Did you follow her here?’

‘
Yes, miss. We thought that she was sleepwalking – although sleep
crawling
might be a better description. Either that or she was up to no good.’

‘
Well, I can assure you that everything’s fine. Gracie will be staying with me tonight, ok? Goodnight.’

They looked as though they were about to argue but I shut the door swiftly and headed back to my bedroom.

‘Right, are you going to tell me what’s going on?’ I demanded, perching on the edge of my bed. ‘Because I am
seriously
in need of sleep and could really do without this right now.’

‘
I know, and believe me, I’m sorry. It’s just . . . blimey, I’ve been practising this conversation for months but it’s so much harder in real life. The thing is, Ava, things aren’t what they seem here.’

‘
Yes, you told me that already. But you haven’t said in what way.’

‘
Well, the thing is, it isn’t real. None of this is real. We really are being brainwashed.’

‘
Not you too!’

‘
It’s true! Haven’t you heard the voices? They come on in the night when we’re asleep. Maybe you don’t have them in here but we do.’

Something deep inside my stomach tightened.

‘Our accommodation isn’t like this, you know,’ she continued, gazing around my room. ‘It’s much smaller and more basic. Anyway, the thing is, this whole place exists because of you. It was built for you.’

‘
Don’t be ridiculous.’ I laughed. ‘Paradise Community was built long before I arrived on the scene.’

‘
Yes, but it was built on the basis that you would come. We were waiting for you.’

‘
That’s crazy.’

‘
It’s true! I don’t know the ins and outs of it all but I do know that we’re living under some sort of spell here. I’m not the only one who’s beginning to realise it. I’ve been asking questions about you and about the things that happen here, and they don’t like that. Once we became friends they started watching me all the time.’

‘
Are you sure you’re not just being paranoid?’

‘
I’m sure,’ she replied hotly. ‘They’ve been following me all the time and now suddenly I’m on the building team.’

I rolled my eyes.
‘Not that again. Why don’t you just ask to change?’

‘
Because then they’ll know they’re getting to me and I can’t let that happen. I’ve never felt so scared in my life.’

Sighing, I got up
, went over to the wardrobe and pulled out a spare duvet and pillow set.

‘
Ok, here are some covers. You can sleep on the sofa tonight and we’ll talk more in the morning. I really do need some sleep.’

Without another word, she stood, took the covers and walked into the lounge.

My pod was empty in the morning. If it weren’t for the neatly stacked pile of bedding on the sofa, I would have sworn that the whole thing had been a dream. Unable to face other people just yet, I grabbed a yogurt and a banana and took them back to bed.

With some classical music playing, I rested back against my pillows and was just starting to feel relaxed when there was a knock at the door. Groaning quietly
, I climbed back out of bed.

‘
Hi, I hope you don’t mind me popping round.’ Linda smiled. ‘It’s just you weren’t at breakfast. Are you ok?’ She glanced down at my nightclothes, her eyebrows raised.

‘
I’m fine, I just decided to have a lazy morning.’

‘
May I come in for a moment?’ she asked.

‘
Sure,’ I replied, stepping back to let her in and gesturing to the sofa. She perched on the edge and waited for me to sit down at the other end before she spoke.

‘
I believe you had a visitor last night.’

‘
Yes, that’s right.’

‘
Would you mind telling me who it was?’

‘
It was Gracie.’

She nodded slowly.
‘I thought as much. We’re very worried about her. She seems so unhappy and we’ve tried talking to her but she just shuts everyone out. Her actions last night caused us great concern. I mean, it was just so unnecessary. Why on earth would she crawl all the way over here to talk to you in the middle of the night?’

‘
She’s scared of the security guards.’

‘
Why? The guards are here to protect us. There’s nothing to be afraid of.’

‘
I know, but she seemed genuinely scared. She also said to me that this place isn’t what it seems and something about hearing voices. To be honest, the whole thing was a bit strange. I hadn’t realised how paranoid she was until last night.’

‘
She told you she was hearing voices?’

‘
Yes. She said something about hearing them at night.’

Linda
shook her head sadly. ‘This is far worse than I imagined. You see, Gracie has suffered with depression in the past and she has a history of self-harming. Her mother was at her wits’ end. They tried all sorts of doctors and psychiatrists,’ she wrinkled her nose in distaste, ‘but then she met Nicholas and he persuaded her to move to the commune with Gracie. As soon as they got here, Gracie’s mother wanted to leave but Gracie didn’t want to go with her. Nicholas told her that she was welcome to stay and she accepted. We thought for a while that she was doing ok, but recently she’s shown signs that she’s struggling with things again.’

I sat back against the sofa and pulled my knees up, hugging them into myself.
‘I didn’t know that – about Gracie’s mother. I never really questioned why she never introduced us.’

‘
I think Gracie was pretty crushed when her mother left her, even though she knew it was an option. I guess she never really thought she’d go and she sank into a bubble afterwards where she refused point blank to talk about her mum and carried on as if nothing had happened. Everyone’s been walking on eggshells around her. The guards didn’t approach her last night because they didn’t want to scare her.’

‘
I’m afraid I wasn’t quite that thoughtful. I was annoyed at being woken up.’

‘
Don’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have known that she was having problems.’

‘
But I did know. She’s been quiet for a while and then recently she told me that she wasn’t happy about being on the building team. I tried to get her to talk to someone about it but she wouldn’t.’

‘
It sounds like you did everything you could. And the thing is that now we know there’s a problem, we can look for a solution. I think maybe we need to have a conference with Gracie – Nicholas and the two of us if you’re happy to be involved. Then we can look at the options and see if we can come up with a strategy to make her feel happier.’

‘
You would do that for her?’

‘
Of course! We look after our own. Now, shall we go and organise a time with Nicholas? If you need some more time to rest I can talk to him.’

‘
No, that’s fine, I’ll come.’ I stood, stretching my muscles. ‘Just give me a moment to get changed.’

*

It was quite a nice day really. A butterfly with delicate cream-coloured wings fluttered past as we walked, its antennae wriggling as it searched for somewhere to land. Flowers were budding all around the pods, their scent filling the air with a pleasant fragrance, and somewhere up above me, a bird chirped merrily. I was just thinking how surreal it was that such tiny pieces of tranquillity could be mixed up in a world full of chaos when an enormous bang echoed all around us, followed by a scream.

‘
What was that?’ Linda whispered.

‘
There’s only one way to find out.’ I set off, sprinting around the perimeter of the main building until the new accommodation project came into sight. The entire end of one of the new blocks had collapsed. A huge cloud of dust was falling slowly down to the ground and several people were standing around a mound of rubble, frantically trying to lift planks of wood and bricks off the pile.

‘
What happened?’ I gasped, racing up to the nearest person.

‘
I don’t know,’ he panted, ‘one minute we were working and the next minute it just went.’

‘
Is everyone all right?’

‘
There were three workers down this end. We’re trying to get to them now.’

‘
They’re under there?’ I looked down in horror. The pile of rubble was huge. It would take hours to shift it at this rate.

‘
Ok, everybody stop.’ My voice cut through the noise. The workers paused, their faces turned towards me. Somewhere in the distance I heard sirens. ‘Can everyone take a few steps back please?’

They did as they were instructed, exchanging wary glances with each other as they moved. Crouching down, I blocked them out, focusing my attention o
n the mess in front of me and willing the rubble to move. It obeyed me instantly – the entire mound rising slowly into the air before my eyes. I knew that the people around me were reacting to what was happening but I couldn’t afford to break my concentration. When the rubble was high enough to reveal the bodies underneath, I stood and walked away; far enough to ensure that no one else could get hurt then moved my focus to what was left of the accommodation building. Bit by bit, the rubble flew back up towards the ragged end of the block, until the damage was completely repaired and the building was back in the same state it had been in before the explosion. As soon as I was satisfied it was secure, I ran back to where the people were gathered. Three bodies lay crumpled on the floor. My heart sank when I realised that one of them was Gracie.

Two ambulances screeched to a halt, their blue lights flashing and sirens b
laring. The injured workers were lifted carefully on to stretchers and moved over to the vehicles. Gracie had an oxygen mask covering her mouth and her were eyes filled with pain.

‘
Ava,’ she murmured.

‘
I’m here.’ I squeezed her hand gently.