Snatchers (A Zombie Novel) (35 page)

"It's gonna be scary times ahead," Karen agreed. "But if we let these things terrify us, life won't be worth living."

"Are yer a religious person, Karen?" Pickle was still enjoying the fresh air and breathed in a large gulp of it, with his eyelids still firmly shut.

"Not really."

"I remember a passage in the book of Zechariah. It went something like this:
Their flesh will rot while they are still standing, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths. On the day, men will be stricken by the Lord with great panic. Neighbours will engage in hand combat against each other.
That's what is happening now! Even if yer a non-believer, yer have to admit, that's some freaky shit."

Karen
was
a non-believer and changed the topic with a question. "Where are we going tomorrow?"

Pickle shrugged his shoulders, and waggled his head. "I want to go somewhere where I can be normal."

Karen said with a cheeky smirk, "Nowhere then."

Pickle smiled broadly and put his arm around her and kissed her on the head. His eyes produced more tears, tears for KP. "Let's see what tomorrow brings. Maybe one day we can
all
be normal again, whatever that means."

They both looked out and admired the view for another two minutes before deciding to rest for a while. It had only been days since the outbreak had been announced, and it had been days of sheer horror.

Unfortunately, the horror had just begun.

The End

~~~~~

If you enjoyed reading SNATCHERS, feel free to email me your thoughts or leave a review where you've downloaded the book.

Very kind regards,

Shaun Whittington

The following is the opening chapter to
Snatchers: Book Two
.

For information on the release date of
Snatchers: Book Two
, or any other future releases, go to:
https://www.facebook.com/ab.chaplin.7?ref=tn_tnmn
and follow me on Facebook.

Chapter One

He ran for as long as his heavy legs and gasping lungs would allow; his clumsy, clownish feet slapping the hard concrete, and exhaustion forced the crippling pain across his chest to snowball, and felt as if he was hit with a plank of wood across his upper body. He stopped running and bent over in a pathetic attempt to bring oxygen back into his lungs. He wished he was back at his flat, but they were now trying to get in, and escaping from his place seemed to be the only option left.

He held out his arms in front of him and could see his uncontrollable shaking, as if he was an addict on his third day of being clean. The shaking was down to the attack by two of the creatures that were waiting at the end of his street. He managed to swerve the two individuals like a rugby player who had just received the ball, and managed to get away with just a scratch to his left forearm as they desperately tried to claw at him.

Their stumbling was no match for his running and they had soon disappeared from view. He exited his village and could still see the steep road ahead of him; he began to pass the football field to his right—to his left was the entrance gates to the fitness centre—and something caught his eye, but carried on running as he knew it was something that was horrific. In the background he could hear a tired cry from a dying human on a football pitch just outside the village.

He didn't want to look behind, but he eventually did. He could see a lone figure limping its way toward him, completely ignoring the 'banquet' that was occurring behind with the poor man who was in a pain that
he
couldn't imagine, and was hoping that he wasn't going to experience himself.

He guessed at least seven of the things were on the football field munching on the dying individual, and had to turn away when he saw the left arm being pulled away from the body. He looked at his watch and it had been fifteen minutes since he fled the village, and he hadn't gained much considering he was supposed to be a cardio fitness fanatic, the hill had halted his progression.

He blew out his cheeks as if he was blowing out the candles of his birthday cake, and began running for a second time away from the village where he had stayed all his life. He finally went by the fitness centre where he worked out three days a week. He was now at the top of the hill and at a crossroad; he was confused which way to go. It was either Rugeley or Heath Hayes, but each town was a couple of miles away. He could see on the road what looked like a two-car crash, but there was no one to be seen, as it looked like the people involved in the crash had fled the scene.

He looked at the carnage once more and wondered if the people had casually walked away from the crash, or had fled from those things. Now at the top of the hill, he looked down from the main road and could see the road leading into his village which could be seen to have dozens of the things walking out of the village, slowing clambering toward his direction.

He desperately banged on the doors of the handful of houses on the main road, but to no avail, and wondered what was going to be the next plan of action. He could have broken in, but he feared two things: being stabbed or shot by the frightened owner, or, breaking into a house that might have had a family that were infected who were just itching to escape into the new world, where everything that walked and had a pulse was a potential meal. He decided to avoid the main road for the time being, and began to enter the small wooded area, which was about a tenth of the size of Cannock Chase.

He had spent over a week cooped up in his apartment once the news broke out and was pleased that the week had gone relatively well without a hitch.

From day one, his village was like a ghost town, but now it had escalated into something more sinister. There was dozens of them, and he wasn't sure if they were from his village or they had roamed from another place in desperate need of flesh. He wished he had made more of an attempt to flag the van down that went by a few days ago. He could see it from a distance from his bedroom window on the main road, only a hundred yards away from his apartment.

With food getting short, he bravely ran in the dark and decided to try and hitch a ride but once he was on the main road, the van was in no mood for stopping. He tried to wave his arms as it went by in case they thought he was one of them, but by then it was too late, and he headed back with sluggish and disappointed feet to the comfort of his home, and that was when he saw his first ghoul from being outside.

It stood in his street and glared at him from a distance. He tried a 'hello', to see if he was mistaken and the thing was actually human, but all it did was alert whatever senses it had left and began to slumber in his direction. He then ran back into his apartment, locked the door and began to pray, something he hadn't done in years.

Now, it was over a week since the news of the outbreak, and exiting the main road he looked around him and all he could see was trees. He didn't know whether it was shock, fear or confusion, but he had no idea where to go. He began to turn his walk into a gentle jog. His jogging only lasted another minute, and once again, he had to stop. Every time he turned around he began to see black trails. He looked behind him, ignoring the black trails, and had gained a reasonable advantage on his persistent follower that had probably given up. He was becoming tired, agitated, and sure that he was now hallucinating.

He bent over and placed both hands on his stomach and felt unwell. Something was happening to him; something he couldn't explain. He then stood straight, which was painful, and began to rub his tender throat. When he was five years old, he had contracted mumps. It was something that took nearly two weeks to clear up, and this felt similar. He was only five years old, but could still vividly remember the discomfort that he felt.

He felt the tingling sensation of pins and needles in his left arm, as if he had just woken up after sleeping on it for an hour. He delicately placed his hand on the affected area and could hardly feel a thing, as if he was touching a limb that belonged to someone else, despite there being a superficial wound on that very same arm.

His head spun and he half-sat and half-collapsed onto the grassy ground. He blew out his cheeks like a blowfish and released tension-filled air from his orifice. He rested his forehead on his hands and couldn't believe how hot he had become. He lifted his head straight up and cursed himself as tiredness was beginning to tease his senses.
Tired? With those things only a few hundred yards away from me? I must be mad.

He grabbed hold of a branch that was hovering over him attached to the nearest tree, and tried to pull himself up. Something was wrong. He felt awful, and it felt like every bone in his body ached and throbbed with pain. He managed to stand and his legs throbbed as if he had been beaten with baseball bats. His legs felt dead, numb, and couldn't fathom why he felt so terrible. He came to the conclusion that if his admirer had decided to change its mind and began to walk toward him once again, he would probably find it hard to outrun the thing, as he was now struggling while walking in baby steps.

He sat back down once again and stared up at the sky. He glared at the shy sun—for maybe too long—that had reappeared from an over-protective grey cotton ball of a cloud, and saw the sun spinning and spinning. He then looked away and saw the hexagonal red spots dance teasingly before his eyes, before eventually disappearing for good.

He felt a small pain in his stomach and without warning threw up onto the grass, most of it being blood. In any normal circumstances, he would have panicked, but this was no normal circumstance for Dale Smythe. He looked at the lumpy pile of vomit and blood and shook his head. What was happening to him? His eyes suddenly became so heavy, that he struggled terribly to keep them open. He looked down on his T-shirt, there were now specks of blood on it from the vomiting, but he could still see the writing
Slightly Damaged Human
across the chest in dark blue letters as he looked down.

Still sitting, he looked at his scratched left forearm that had been received from an altercation from one of them, and laid his head against the trunk of the tree. Trying to ignore the pain through his body, he closed his eyes.

Author's Note

This was written in June 2012. The sequel was written in August 2012 straight after.

I was reluctant to release it for many reasons. The main reason was that I was astounded at the amount of apocalyptic/zombie books there were when I decided to look up WWZ for my own personal use. The more I waited around to release it, the more zombie books were released by other authors, so I just decided to go with the flow and release it in 2013, but wanted to release a few standalone novels first because I didn't want to be known as just another zombie writer.

First of all, this IS a zombie/apocalyptic tale, even though the
Z
word is never mentioned once in the 115,000 words within the book. The book starts with a large clutch of characters and their stories and can be hard to keep up if you're the type of reader who reads for just ten minutes a day—this is one of the reason why the chapters are reasonably short. Most of the characters come together in the end, apart from the Jack Slade character. So why introduce Jack Slade at all?

If I deleted all the chapters on Jack Slade, the story would still flow and be a nice 80,000+ read—I've tried it.
(Slight spoiler alert).
Without giving too much away, Mr. Slade eventually meets up with Pickle and co in book two, and in the second instalment, the reader will finally get to meet Kerry Evans and young Thomas Slade, and that's all I'm going to give away.

Secondly, this book has many character flaws, most of them intentionally. How many times have you watched a horror movie and said to yourself: Why don't they just go outside? Why don't they call the police? Why is he going down in the basement? Did David Pointer really need to check on his neighbours?

As humans, we have many flaws. And when stress or panic kicks in, our decision-making is a lot poorer. Back in 2004, I was a prison officer and was taken hostage by 12 inmates. Instead of running for the emergency door or even pressing my alarm on my radio, I simply stood there in shock and was held until an agreement was made. Now, if that were a film, you'd be screaming at the screen: "Run, you fucking idiot!" But I didn't. I just stood there like a fool. I'm human, and on that day I made a mistake.

My wife is a nurse and when we watch medical dramas, sometimes she would say: "They're doing that wrong?" or "That would never happen." Even with cop or forensic dramas, I'm sure a lot of cops or forensics watch these high profile programmes and shake their head with a smile at some of the inaccuracies. Personally, I couldn't care less, as long as a book or TV programme is not
too
far fetched and ridiculous, I'm fine with it, after all, it's just fiction—a form of escapism.

Like I mentioned before, about the poor decision making when in a state of panic. I decided to put some of that into
Snatchers
to make the characters more human. I also wanted to write something that involved real or normal people, people who worked in a prison, people who were hungover and had just finished work, etc, rather than an ex-SAS soldier waking up to the apocalypse and he just so happens to have a fully loaded Glock 17 and a AK 47 under his bed.

The scene with David Pointer 'battling' hopelessly with one of them with a hammer was something I always wanted to put in to make it more believable. Some readers might have preferred if David Pointer pulled out a Berretta and blew its brains out, but gun laws are very tight here in the UK and is almost impossible to own one, so I decided to keep the storyline more BBC, rather than Hollywood.

Although the characters discuss many situations on how this virus could have happened, the cause of the virus itself was also in my original prologue. It was a set of headlines from over a week and gave the reader an insight on how it all started.

Then I read a blog by Zombie author, Craig DiLoue. He said:
"Restrict the reader’s knowledge to that of your characters. You can hint at the big picture, tease, titillate, but you do not have to reveal everything."
Then I thought about the film Dawn of the Dead, which also doesn't reveal why it was happening. And I must confess that, for me, the not knowing makes it even the more frightening. If they don't know what it is, they can't find a cure, right?

That was when I thought:
Okay, the characters in the book don't know how it came about, so why should the reader.
This convinced me to delete the prologue and not tell the reader where it had come from and whether it was global or not. It had been mentioned that there was pockets of incidents across the globe, but as far as the reader and characters are concerned, it's only the UK (so far) that has been brought to its knees.

Initially I was going to put the virus during the week and set one part of the story in a crèche, but I felt that that would be too hard—and too disgusting—to write. So I changed it to the weekend, to make it a little 'safer' for the reader.

Let's not forget that we really don't know what would happen in the unlikely event of something like this. Everyone seems to be an expert on something that has never happened.

What would happen with electricity, mobile phones, the Internet, etc? Does anyone
really
know? For sure?

Even the creation of the zombie itself has its flaws. If only their brain is working and their lower body isn't, then why do they eat? Instinct? And where does the food go? There is no peristaltic movement anymore in the stomach, so do they just eat and eventually get bloated and explode?

Going back to the characters, I remember watching one Z film and saw that within a day, a nurse and an odd job man suddenly became experts in firing handguns. I wanted to make mine a little more believable, hence the reason why the nervous survivors wasted about forty bullets on half a dozen
Snatchers
in the supermarket scene.

The story is set in my hometown that is pretty small and has zero skyscrapers at all. Stile Cop is a place that actually does exist—Google it, and you'll see the pictures—and is in the middle of nowhere, with no population and a pretty hard and steep road to walk up to, so this was the reason why I picked this destination for Pickle and co to stay. With the entrance blocked off, no noise, and a steep hill, what could go wrong?

Why didn't the characters just remain indoors?

I needed to base my characters on people that needed or had to leave and be exposed to danger, rather than characters that remained in their barricaded house. Jamie felt his and Janine's options were better outside, prisoners wanted to escape and be with their families, Jack Slade needed to be with his son, Karen Bradley was attacked in her own house by her infected fiancée and by the time she returned and had the courage to kill him, her street was heaving with the things forcing her to go on the run. Most of the people in the town had decided to stay indoors, hence the reason why the roads were quiet.

If I based my four sets of characters about families being stuck in a house, there'd be little action and a pointless storyline. If the characters didn't need to leave, we'd have a book about a family who simply barricaded themselves in their house and then have a cup of tea and a game of scrabble while the Snatchers walked past their front window. Sounds good? Would you read that if that were in the synopsis? Probably not.

Just imagine it. Chapter 13: Waiting for the virus to blow over, David and Davina Pointer were playing scrabble. David landed a triple word score and beat Davina, while Isobel was in the kitchen eating a cheese sandwich. Chapter 16: This time the Pointers got out the monopoly board—can you see where I'm going with this?

Honesty: Okay, there's nothing new in this book that you probably haven’t already read. No new slant on the Z genre—nothing! And let's be honest, if I did put out a new slant on this genre and gave the zombies/snatchers the ability to fly, sparkle or go vegetarian, the purists would come looking for me and put my balls in a jar.

The book is all about the characters and how they behave and interact with other survivors in such a dire situation, as well as their mannerisms and speech. It's important to give characters different traits to make them 'real' and less two-dimensional. For example, Karen Bradley empties her nose now and again and uses the word 'Cocksucker'. Pickle spits now and again, occasionally winks at people and has slurred speech and words like:
you
,
my
and
of
end up becoming:
yer
,
ma
, and
o'
when he strings a sentence together
,
and so on. Jack Slade sometimes has humorous thoughts, KP occasionally likes to stroke his little beard and little Isobel would sometimes bite her bottom lip after asking a question.

This is a book simply for the reader to escape reality and have a bit of fun.
Don't take it too seriously
. Like I said before, this was written back in 2012, and I was reluctant to release it by the time I had finished the first draft of the sequel. I had a think about it and thought that it seemed a little silly to write two Z books (205,000 words altogether) and not release them. So now I have.

Now, I know a lot of readers don't like being 'duped' into buying a second instalment of a book, which happens a lot with self-publishers, but in truth, it's the only way some of us can make a little money. However, with this book, you can read
Snatchers
as a standalone novel and be done with it. This is one of the reasons why I didn't want to end the book on a frustrating cliffhanger.

Finally, if you enjoyed it, great, there
is
more to come and the story continues with Pickle and Karen, among many other old and new characters.

I wish you all the best.

Shaun.

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