Snatchers (A Zombie Novel) (31 page)

Chapter Fifty

An hour had passed, and the car of the Clio's engine was switched on, which alerted everyone's attention. The vehicle began to slowly move and was adjacent to the prison van that was blocking the entrance. David rolled the window down and Pickle stuck his head in the window and saw a distraught Isobel leaning forward in the back of the car, clutching onto her daddy's sleeve.

"Where the hell are yer going?" Pickle questioned.

"We're leaving. It's too dangerous here. I told you I wasn't staying."

"Yer leaving
now?
But we have food, we have guns."

"That's right, you have guns. One of them has killed my wife."

David realised what he had just said and turned around to see the reaction on his daughter's face that was oblivious about what the conversation was about, and was still unaware that her mum was no longer alive.

"But she was already bit."

"And whose fault was that? Who was supposed to be watching out for her?"

Pickle's face was stony; he released a breath out, and pushed his lips out making a circular motion, like a smoker trying to make smoke rings. "Where yer gonna go?"

"Anywhere, but here. What happens if a swarm of those things come up during the night? Me and Isobel would be in danger with just this car as protection. You lot have the comfort of sleeping in a secured van."

Pickle thinned his lips and could understand David's predicament. "I can swap and make room for you two. The farting and the snoring would probably drive yer mad though."

"Move the van, or I'll roll this thing down the hill instead. Don't think I won't do it!"

There was a look of defeat etched on Pickle's face and he nodded. "Fine, I'll move it myself."

Karen and Janine walked over to David as he waited as patiently as he could for Pickle to move the van, which he had just got into. His eagerness was for all to see, as his hand shook as they rested on the steering wheel. If he could release a scream of frustration, anger and mourning, he would do, but his little girl was with him and he needed to stay calm for
her
, although deep down he was hurting inside and the pains in his chest occurred every time he took a deep breath in.

"Are you sure you won't change your mind?" Janine quizzed hopelessly. "At least take some food with you."

A fuming David never even acknowledged her and continued to stare straight ahead. He wanted to see the back of the camp, and felt they were better off away from these cursed people and away from the exposure of the outdoors.

"Goodbye, Isobel," Janine said with an emotional flutter in her voice. "I'll see you soon."

The four-year-old stared at Janine and managed a thin, but brave smile. Neither one of them had the time to get to know one another, but on looks alone, Karen and Janine could see that she was such a sweet thing, and if the opportunity had ever arose, if they ever had brought a daughter into the old world, they would be more than satisfied if she had turned out like little Isobel.

"Don't worry about us," David added with gritted teeth. "At least we'll be safe where we're going."

The prison van began to reverse back and David turned to his daughter and asked her to sit back into her seat, as it would be safer for her.

She agreed without a fight, and he got out of the family car quickly, strapped her in and kissed her on the forehead for being a good girl for doing what she was told.

He wasted no time in driving through the only way in and out, and left the Stile Cop beauty spot area with vamoose. He checked his rear view mirror and saw Janine and Karen waving sadly behind them. Isobel was looking out behind her, waving back, confused about what was going on and where she was going.

"Where's Mummy? Where are we going, daddy?" she sobbed.

"Somewhere safe, Babs," he replied with a frog in his throat, and put his window back up. "Somewhere where nobody can hurt us. Mummy's meeting us there."

As he left the area, he saw a fire in the rear view mirror, it was so far away he couldn't make out what it was, but it wasn't of any concern of his and decided to hit the accelerator.

The drive continued through the country roads through Upper Longdon and they entered the main road that led to the town of Lichfield. David had no clue where to go and the last thing his daughter needed was to see more of those things that would no doubt be in the heavily populated town of Lichfield.

He veered left down a country road he had never been to before; he didn't even know the name of the place, but it looked like one of those places that probably had a population of about a couple of hundred, had one pub and one shop. It was farmland, and the two main farms had a 'trespassers will be shot' sign on the front gate, which reminded him of the episode in Colton.

Fearing his determination to find a safe bed for the night would indeed get him shot and leave his daughter an orphan, he continued down the bendy roads, and he could see that the weather was now beginning to turn for the worse. The heavens began to open and he put the wipers on to medium speed to ensure his view wasn't restricted and that
he
wasn't distracted as well.

He was leaving, what looked like, the last house of the small village and saw five of the creatures stumbling around the road.

"Don't look, Babs," he ordered.

He turned around and saw that his instruction was fruitless, as she had slipped away into unconsciousness. Probably the stress of witnessing the execution, as well as the bumpy car ride had made her fall asleep. David was thankful, and floored the gas pedal, hitting two of the things, one going under the car.

David prayed that the car wasn't too damaged, especially as far as the electrics were concerned. He continued through the country road and took a gander to the right where something caught his eye. At least nine of them were in a crowd on their knees in a field feasting on, what looked like, a cow. He shook his head, still unable to come to terms what had been happening over the last few days.

The car left the area and went round a sharp bend, which revealed a long road. He stopped the car suddenly, and gulped hard. There was dozens of them walking in the same direction, toward the village, toward the car. He saw that the nearest being was at least three hundred yards away, but nevertheless, it was an awesome and frightening sight to see, as the small army of the creatures lumbered toward his direction. His body was overwhelmed with so much apprehension, that he had temporarily forgotten how to put the car into reverse. He crunched the gears on a couple of occasions before finally getting the gear he wanted, and went back the way he had come from.

He had no idea what to do. Back to Stile Cop? Back to Rugeley?

It was only a few days into this pandemic, and he was already sick of running.

The Renault Clio passed two more isolated houses; both had garages that were wide open, as if the owners had got into their cars and fled the place in a rush. David decided to stop. He took one look back at his daughter and stepped out into the pouring rain.

He ran over to the main window of the two houses but there was nothing inside. He banged on both front doors for a minute, his clothes getting soaked in the process. He decided to give up, realising the situation was hopeless. He ran over to the garages and decided that the first abandoned garage was the one he was going to drive into.

Again, he slipped the car into reverse, and this time managed to find the gear first time, and slowly reversed into the garage. He got out of the car and shut the garage door, and stuck the light on. He got back into the car, knowing that those things were probably five minutes or so from entering the village.

He looked over his left shoulder to see his baby girl, still dressed in her black leggings and her Barbie T-shirt, her arms wrapped around her body giving herself comfort, with her usual sleeping face and her ruby lips pouting perfectly.

She looked angelic, and David broke down. His head fell on the top of the rim of the steering wheel and liquid from almost every orifice fell out from his face, his shoulders shrugged up and down as the crying began to become uncontrollable.

As his eyes remained closed, he could see Davina as she was when she was in her twenties. Her hair was brown, down to her back and her figure was slightly more slender, unspoilt by childbirth, and it was just how he remembered her during their courting days. Those were the days they would just look at one another and rip each others clothes off, those were the days he used to sometimes stroke her to sleep and be thankful for such a wonderful woman.

He loved her that much it scared him. It scared him what he would do if ever she left him for somebody else; it scared him to think that she could be taken away from him, by a road accident or some debilitating disease.

They used to discuss this subject when they were in bed together, along with other topics, and David had told Davina that selfishly he wanted to be the one to go first, as she was mentally stronger than him as he just wouldn't cope.

He was right; he wasn't coping now, and she hadn't even been gone for a couple of hours.

He remained sat in his seat and took another look at his beautiful daughter who was sound asleep.

With the garage door tightly shut, he put down the windows of the car and placed his head back on the steering wheel and sniffed hard to prevent his runny nose from starting again.

He hit the gas pedal furiously for a few seconds.

He apologised to his wife, and thrashed the gas pedal once more.

He then apologised to Isobel, before stamping on the accelerator another time.

He finally apologised to God, someone or something he claimed not to believe in, and he once more applied pressure on the gas.

His head remained sitting on the steering wheel, as the carbon monoxide snaked its way into the car, already beginning to poison their bodies. He coughed gently as the poison danced its way into the airwaves of both father and daughter. He managed to find one last ounce of energy to apply pressure on the pedal for one final time and kept his foot there.

He did so until he coughed once more; his foot slipped off the gas pedal and he and his daughter left the new cruel world, peacefully.

Chapter Fifty One

Jamie Thomson had spent his guard-time making himself useful. He was carrying a little weight despite his decent size, and knew that this new world of running and lack of food was going to make the thirty-nine-year-old, very fit and very lean.

Taking advice from Pickle and watching him train when it was his turn to guard, Jamie had performed six sets of pull-ups using the strong branch of the tree that hung above his head, followed by push ups.

Pickle swore blind to Jamie that it was the pull-ups that gave him his muscular back and informed Jamie that to increase proper size, squats or deadlifts was the answer, but at the moment they would have to make do with what they had. It was the first lot of exercises he had done for years, and knew that his muscles were going to suffer from it in the morning.

He looked over to the camp where KP was starting another small fire, and Pickle threw a metal tray over it and placed eight potatoes on top. It looked like after the barbecue, the group were beginning to ration the food and make dinnertime more basic. He couldn't grumble, he had had good food the night before despite his minor bowel altercation afterwards, and had a fair amount of alcohol and food before that at the Wolseley Arms pub. It was inevitable the food was going to get more basic; at least they
had
food.

The gun that he had was only going to be used in a case of an extreme emergency. Even if a solitary one of them appeared from out of nowhere, he would rather resort to clubbing its brains in, rather than wasting a single bullet. Pickle had pre-warned them to do their utmost to refrain from using their guns in case the noise attracted the things from afar; the two gunshots from KP in the woods from earlier had seemed to have passed without any kind of reprimand so far.

He saw a bored Janine saunter over; her fingers brushed back her now greasy blonde hair. He greeted the twenty-seven-year-old with a warm, welcoming smile.

"It's not your turn yet, is it?"

"Nah." She stretched out her arms and yawned loudly and unabashed. "Just killing time. I see you've been working out."

Jamie shrugged, and released an embarrassed grin. "Preparing myself for the outside world. We can't stay here forever. And these woods don't seem to be safe either, despite the hill."

Janine said, "Pickle said that thing was just a stray."

Jamie guffawed falsely, "And he knows that because he's checked the whole of the woods?"

Janine paused with her stretching, and lowered her arms and turned to Jamie and narrowed her eyes inquisitively. "You said we can't stay here forever. Why not?"

Jamie twitched his shoulders; he wasn't expecting Janine to question him. "Well, once that supermarket has been cleared out, where are we gonna get food from?"

Janine playfully twisted her hair like a child and shrugged. "There's another one three miles up the road, outside the village."

"Exactly,
three
miles up the road. So we'll be using fuel as well. It's all gotta run out one day."

The mood was sombre, and Janine never thought for a second that Jamie was feeling sorry for himself, although he looked genuinely down. Janine was certain that he was trying to look to the future with realism rather than false hope.

She tried to lighten the mood and stroked his arm. "We've got guns now," she joked. "We could take a farm, kill the family and have their livestock."

Jamie grinned, and mockingly wagged his finger at her naughty remark. "That is so wrong, on so many levels."

Janine and Jamie remained in a silent state for a long twenty seconds. Their eyes both wandered over toward the fresh fire, that sat burning in the middle of the sandy region.

Janine spoke once more. "Has it ever crossed your mind, that one morning Pickle and KP will just up sticks and leave us in the lurch and take the van?"

Jamie shook his head and pouted his bottom lip. "No. Why would they do that?"

"In case we start running out of food, and they decide they'd be better off being just the two of them, and then suddenly shoot off with
our
van."

"But then, why would he give us a gun each?"

Janine was lost in thought and produced a menacing grin, Jamie could see her little mind was doing overtime. "What if
we
ran off together and leave Pickle, KP and that new girl? It's practically an armoured van, and it's full of food."

Jamie placed his hand on his forehead, and couldn't believe what he was hearing. "You're a naughty girl."

"I've been naughtier," she playfully giggled and quickly raised her eyebrows.

Was she joking?

"You know at first, I never fancied you at all," she confessed.

"Really?"

"I thought you were a meathead. Now, I think you're a sexy meathead."

She turned around and walked away. He playfully smacked Janine's bum as she walked off, and she left his presence, giggling to herself as she walked back to the camp and tried her hardest to make a depressed KP smile.

*

It had taken nearly two hours for Jack Slade and Gary Jenson to reach the house, and it had been quiet, apart from seeing a group of about fifteen of the creatures from a distance at the edge of the village. They got to the top of the road, where the pub sat to the right and the Primary School was on the opposite side of the road, and they could see that the danger was small.

They had slowly walked the last mile, as neither one had the energy left. What had got them through the first mile was the last bit of adrenaline that pumped through them after the attack. A mile later, the adrenaline was beginning to wane and their legs were becoming heavy and Gary could feel his hamstring pull again.

The darkness was creeping up on them, and they passed the Primary School railings and marched down the road drenched in sweat and rain. Gary looked to the skies and noticed the sky turning into a darker shade of blue between the dark abusive clouds; the day was coming to a close once again.

They were so confident that the danger was limited where they now were, they strolled down the long road toward the house, as if they were just two regular guys walking back from the pub without a care in the world.

They finally got back into the street and could see that there wasn't a soul around. The street was also in complete darkness, apart from the streetlights. They got to the house to find that the BMW bike had been stolen while they were away. Unbothered by this, they went inside and Gary checked if the house still had electricity.

For now, it did.

They locked the doors and began moving furniture against it. They placed the cupboard back at the bottom of the stairs in a feeble way.

Something had caught Gary's left eye. It was a tiny flashing green dot, and as his head swivelled around toward the answer machine, it flashed to say that there was one message on it.

Gary gestured to Jack to stand next to him before he pressed the button. Jack gently patted a nervous Gary on the back and told him to go ahead. He exhaled out and his index finger pushed the silver button on the machine.

Machine:
"You have one message. Message received today at four-thirty-six-pm."

It was followed by a long and exaggerated beep.

It was Jemma's voice.
"Hello, this is Jemma Marlow,"
at this point, Gary broke down and shouted 'yes.'
"If you're listening to this, then you're in my house. There are twelve of us. We are all well, considering, and we still have a small amount of food left from what we took from our homes. The names of the people I am with are Jason Barton, Kevin Houston, Oliver Newton, Karen and Sean West, Yoler Parkinson, Ian Jenson, Paul Parker, Lee Haywood, myself Jemma Marlow, Clare and Kerry Evans and Thomas Slade. If anyone is related to these people, please ring or come to us at the Longdon Community Hall, just outside of Hazelslade near Cannock. I'm calling from the hall's landline as our cell phones have either gone flat or the signal is impossible. The number is 555 63524."

Gary looked to his side and saw Jack with his head in his hands, he was crying. Gary sat slowly and placed his arm comfortingly around his older compatriot.

"Thomas is with Jemma. They're alive," Gary whispered.

Jack nodded and lifted his head up to reveal his stained cheeks and his bloodshot eyes. He struggled to find words at first and stammered. "I c-can't b-b-believe it. If I hadn't of met you…" Jack pulled himself together. "Where is the place?"

Gary grinned. "About a mile up the road. It's in the middle of nowhere and quite secure."

"What are we waiting for?" Jack stood quickly to his feet.

Gary raised his hand. "We're not going anywhere tonight! I need to ice this leg; I'm knackered and we now have no transport and it'll be getting dark soon."

"I can't stand here knowing my son is up the road."

"Well, you're gonna have to. We're knackered. Let's get a decent night's sleep, and I'll steal a car in the morning and we'll make our way up. I'll give them a ring right now."

Gary shook as he picked up the phone and felt similar to the first ever time he spoke to Jemma on the phone.

Jack watched him intently as he slowly dialled the landline number that Jemma had given out on the message. As soon as he pushed the last number, he stood up straight and blew out an overwrought breath that would have been strong enough to blow out sixty candles on a sixtieth birthday cake. Jack was unsure whether to call them at all in case the phone alerted outside predators, but Jemma had given out the number, so he assumed that it must be reasonably safe where they were.

"Hello," Gary greeted. Jack could see from Gary's glassy eyes that it was Jemma that had picked up the phone.

The conversation was teary and short. Gary explained very briefly that he had escaped from prison and he also informed Jemma that he was heading their way first thing in the morning.

"One more thing," Gary said to his girlfriend, as the short conversation was coming to a close. "You have a little boy called Thomas Slade there, put him on. I have his daddy standing next to me, believe it or not."

Gary passed the phone over to Jack, and Jack held the clammy handle of the phone. "Hello."

There was a pause on the other end, and Jack waited another few seconds and opened his mouth to say hello once more, when he was cut short by a voice he so desperately wanted to here.

"Daddy?"

"Hi son," Jack sniffled, and was finding it desperately difficult to restrict his emotions. "How are ya?"

"Okay, I suppose. Mum's been crying a lot. She keeps on saying she has something in her eye."

"What are you doing?"

The question wasn't needed, but it was hard to engage in a conversation with a six-year-old-boy, Jack just wanted to hear his voice, even if it was balderdash, he didn't care, as the last time he heard his voice he seemed scared and mentioned the 'monsters' trying to get in. This time he seemed a lot more relaxed and his voice demonstrated to Jack that his boy was in a safe place.

"Not a lot. My mum says I'm on holiday, but they won't let me outside, and there's no swimming pool."

Jack chuckled and shook his head at his innocence. That's what he loved about kids. They saw the good in most people and were completely unaware of what a shitty world they actually lived in, and this was before the infection had taken place.

"I love you, son."

Thomas had no time to respond as the voice on the other end had been replaced with Kerry's.

"What are you doing here? How did you find me?" There was genuine concern in Kerry's voice for her ex-lover, and Jack was touched by this.

"I needed to see him, Kez. I went to your house, but it was empty. I thought about checking your mother's. I met a guy called Gary, he's Jemma's boyfriend."

"As long as you're okay. Jemma told me that you and this Gary are coming up tomorrow morning?"

"That's right."

"Just be careful."

"Careful? I managed to travel from Glasgow without any hitches, didn't I?" He lied, trying not to worry the mother of his child. "We'll be up first thing, as soon as we get a car."

"I'll see you then. Stay safe."

Jack hung up and didn't have time to emotionally collapse, as they were both immediately distracted by the sudden screaming in the distance that was coming from outside. He and Gary looked at one another and ran upstairs, heading for the bedroom window that would give a better view of what was occurring.

They both peered out and saw a father and young son running out of the house, whilst being slowly chased by a group of seven creatures along the main road that was clear only minutes ago. The boy looked no older than ten and Gary and Jack felt for the poor soul who was probably wondering, like everyone else, what was going on?

He and his father disappeared up the road as they went by the last streetlight and then were swallowed up by the darkness that had quickly arrived.
I wonder where the mother is?
Gary thought.