Snatchers: Volume One (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 1-3) (40 page)

Chapter Eleven

"So what book do you want me to read to you?"

Jack Slade took his son away from the group, and went into one of the rooms that would eventually be shared by another six people. The plan was to read to his son, get some shuteye himself before he and Gary were up for the night watch. The hall had a large room where most people slept on the floor, while others slept in the offices.

"I don't have any books." Young Thomas sniffed, and kicked the thin air with his right foot, as if he was in a bad mood about something.

"What's up, squirt?" asked Jack.

Thomas stopped walking and turned to face his dad, and sighed, with his young shoulders slumped. "I don't like it here," he said with sadness. "I miss my friends. I miss grandma. Why can't I go back to school?"

Jack owed it to his son to protect him, but was unsure that lying to him was the best idea, as it made his confusion even greater. "Have you been told about what's been happening?"

"About...the monsters?"

Jack understood that he should have talked to Kerry about the subject, but simultaneously felt that telling his son that he was on holiday and then also stating that he wasn't allowed to go out on his own and play too loudly, just made him even more confused.

Jack sat his son down on the floor on top of a sleeping bag. His place was in the corner of the hall, and Jack wanted to get him down before other people decided to turn in. Because it was a hall, the echo of even just footsteps was enough to bring someone out of a coma. It wasn't ideal, but at least his son was alive, all thanks to Kerry. Jack helped his son strip down to his pants, and he slipped his little body into the sleeping bag and stared at his daddy.

Jack quizzed, "What do you know about these...monsters?"

"Just that they're dangerous...and mummy's frightened of them."

"You do realise why we have to stay here, don't you?"

Thomas nodded. "Yes. Or they'll find us and eat us," he said with a straight face.

Jack twisted his face. "Who told you that?" Jack was annoyed that his son had this information, although what he said was technically true.

"Yoler," he said with no hesitation.

"Well, it looks like I'm gonna have to have a word with Yoler's daddy. She can't go round saying things like that."

Jack was referring to Yoler Parkinson. She was only eight years old, a cute kid with black curly hair. Her father was Ian Jenson, and her mother had been attacked while the family tried to escape from the house. The eight-year-old witnessed her mother through the back window being mauled by a gang of the dead as her distraught father drove away, a story she had told young Thomas on a few occasions.

Yoler wasn't upset about the situation. She missed her mummy. She had been told that she was dead, but Yoler wasn't aware that being dead was such a bad thing. When her daddy told her tearfully that her mummy was now in heaven, she nodded her head in agreement and then turned around and asked, "What's for dinner?"

Jack remembered when Ian told him
that
story about his wife and Yoler. Jack knew he had lost family members, like cousins, uncles and aunts, although he couldn't be completely sure, for all
they
knew,
he
was also dead. Jack thought that Ian Jenson telling his daughter that her mummy had died must have been incredibly tough for him.

Jack couldn't believe how tough Ian had been in the last few days that he knew him, as he thought that if that was
his
beloved that had been killed, he wouldn't be able to cope. Ian informed him that when you have children, you have to cope; you don't have a choice in the matter.

Even Kerry seemed to be cold, considering that she had lost her mother only a few days ago. The subject had only materialised once when Kerry and Jack were reunited for the first time. He asked where she was, and she told him coldly that she was dead, and that she had been buried in the woods. She didn't cry, although her face was filled with sadness, but her mother had lived till the age of sixty-seven and had died of natural causes, which these days was a comfort considering the way people were dying now.

To a certain degree, he envied her mother. She had managed to live a full life—although sixty-seven wasn't deemed that old in the civilized world they
used
to live in—and had died a relatively painless death. And although it was the beginning of the new world that had put stress on her mother's heart and had helped her to an early grave, at least her frail old mother didn't have to witness any kinds of barbarism that could involve her family members or even herself.

Thomas lay on his side, and Jack lay next to him and tried to remember some of the stories that he used to read him on a night when Thomas was a baby. There was a rigid rule set on a night by Kerry: He was allowed two stories and two songs.

Jack stroked his boy's head and begun telling a made-up story about Postman Pat who got stuck in the mud in his bright red van. This short story was followed by a story he used to be told by his parents, called Peepo. Once he finished Peepo, he noticed that his boy had fallen asleep, but he decided to sing him the two songs anyway.

After he sang Bananas in Pyjamas and The Rainbow Song—he still didn't understand the lyric 'listen with your eyes' even now, but he sang them anyway—he continued stroking his son's head. After he had finished the last song, he fell asleep as well.

Chapter Twelve

After thinking of nothing but the poor family who lay above them, both individuals knew that it was going to be a restless night until they removed the bodies the next day. Pickle had waited for this night for days, and now he had found a house that finally provided a bed with reasonably safe surroundings, his moment was going to be ruined by the knowing that a dead family lay above him. He thought at first that it wouldn't bother him, but it did.

They thought about trying the next house, but they both seemed content to stay where they were, despite the corpses that lay above them. It was nearly ten in the evening, and both individuals planned on sleeping together in the same bed as a security measure. Although each one was grateful for the company, neither one of them would admit it.

Pickle lay on his back, fully-clothed, and glared at the ceiling. Karen had her back to him trying to force herself to sleep, but she was wide-awake. Every time she closed her eyes, flashbacks of the previous week ambushed her. She thought about going home to Gary and finding him in such a state, seeing Sharon Henderson eaten to death, being carjacked, meeting Oliver Bellshaw, before he turned out to be some kind of sexual deviant and then finally meeting up with Pickle in the woods, although she originally thought he was a Snatcher and nearly broke his nose.

Pickle released a sharp breath out.

"What's wrong?" Karen had to ask.

Pickle sighed, "I was thinking about Laz."

"Why?"

"Well," Pickle cleared his throat, "the radio reckons it takes about an hour to change, yet, it took Laz hours before he slipped into a coma, or whatever it was, about six or seven hours to be exact. He was bit in the supermarket and was ill for most o' the day."

Karen added, "The truth is they have no idea. Half an hour, twelve hours—who cares? As soon as you're bit or scratched deep enough, you're screwed."

"It was just something that was beginning to bother me. Makes yer wonder if countries overseas end up nuking this country if it isn't a global thing."

"Isn't that a bit extreme?" Karen began to laugh, but she was sure he was being serious.

"Also, these things can't drown; there could be hundreds o' the things floatin' in the English Channel or the North Sea. The last thing the French would want is for those things getting washed up on their beaches and then for them to find their feet and start walking again."

"Now you're being ridiculous."

"Just saying." Pickle continued, "The winter's gonna be a nightmare. Unless it works in our favour and the cold kills these things off."

"I've thought about it. We're gonna be freezing our tits off. The snow will be a problem, not just the temperature."

Continued Pickle, "Not only that, with the snow we won't know when it's coming, how many inches we'll get, and how long it'll last."

"Sounds like my ex-boyfriend," Karen cackled and Pickle joined in as they continued to lay in the darkness, with sleep being almost impossible to achieve.

"Honestly, Bradley," his snickering was beginning to diminish. "Yer have a mind like a sewer."

Karen could sense that there was something else that was bothering Pickle, and there was another reason why he was still awake. She spoke once more. "You
really
okay?"

Pickle cleared his throat, and seemed to take an age to answer. "Not really."

Karen thought for a second if she should ask the next question. The subject hadn't been tackled for days, so she went ahead. "You thinking about KP?"

"Maybe," he snapped. "Yer thinking about Gary?"

Karen smiled, and wasn't sure if Pickle's question was a retaliation for bringing the subject of KP up. She lied, "I wasn't. But I am now, now that you've mentioned him."

"Sorry," he whispered.

His apology seemed false, but Karen forgave him. She had only known the man for nearly a week, and already knew that the pair of them were like brother and sister with a love/hate relationship. She thought back to the run-in they had when they were back at Stile Cop. Pickle thought that Karen had made an uncomplimentary comment about the body of Laz stinking the place out, and Pickle took exception to it. They had a couple of other run-ins during the week, but nothing that would give Karen sleepless nights.

Since the news officially broke last Sunday morning, Karen had to take up a new role in order to survive, and it was a role she had grown into with ease. Pickle was already a tough cookie being from the background that he came from, but found Karen equally as tough as him.

Karen had every respect for Pickle, despite his past antics, and said to herself that she would rather have someone like him by her side, than someone who was weak and would literally fill their shorts as soon as one of the Snatchers was spotted. In order for her to survive in this new, terrifying world, she needed someone to watch her back.

As Karen lay awake on her side, with her back against Pickle's back, she reminisced about a conversation they had a few evenings ago. The two of them had spent yet another monotonous evening on the top of the multi-storey car park, and Pickle and Karen were exchanging stories about their past. Pickle decided to confess something that he seemed deeply ashamed of.

According to a story Pickle told her, nearly ten years ago, he and a colleague had to visit a drug supplier at a dock who owed them thousands in drugs. They had paid for the delivery and one of Pickle's men put the merchandise in the back of the van and drove away. Once the merchandise arrived back at Pickle's place and was checked, they realised that half of the product—heroin—was missing. The van driver was beaten for not checking what he had picked up. Then Pickle himself, and a colleague, decided to drive back to the port themselves to meet up with the Dutch supplier. He was bungled into the van, and Pickle and his colleague tied the Dutchman up and drove him to an abandoned warehouse.

Pickle had informed the supplier that since he had fucked them, he was going to return the favour. The Dutchman was tied up and raped in the back of the van, then his legs were stabbed and he was driven back to the port and thrown out.

They soon switched suppliers.

That was the first and last time Pickle had punished someone by rape, and when the story was told to Karen, she didn't seem too shocked.

Still on the bed, the two were trying to sleep while wrestling with the horror pictures of the last week that was invading their psyche, which was keeping them awake. "So what do we do tomorrow?" Karen threw the question at Pickle, as if he was in charge of the pair of them. She knew he wasn't asleep, so decided to dilute the silence that devoured the room.

"Dunno," Pickle sighed. "See if we can survive another day, I suppose."

"Same old same old then," Karen began to chuckle.

Although Karen's remark was greeted with a blanket of quiet, she could almost hear Pickle's mind working. He was about to say something, she knew it; she could hear his intake of breath. "I'm sick o' hiding...I'm sick o' fighting." Pickle said with a deflated tone.

"It's called survival."

"Yeah? Well I'm tired of it. But I promised I wouldn't feel sorry for myself anymore, so I'll just need to get on with it."

"Trouble with you," Karen gently mocked, "is that you've had it easy in that prison. With your free accommodation, free gym, free medicine, free—"

"It weren't that easy."

Karen could sense that his mood was slightly up due to her mocking tone and decided to continue. "Out in the real world, it was always about survival: Paying bills, wondering if the cuts were gonna affect your job."

"Yer still had to survive in prison as well."

Karen half-laughed. "Bullshit! I bet you were top dog in there. I bet you had bitches on tap, queues of men lining up to give you a blow job."

Pickle began to chortle and half-nudged Karen in the side with his elbow from her ribbing.

He said, "Yer can be a right bitch sometimes, yer know that?"

"At least you're laughing again."

"Right, I'm going to sleep now. Don't disturb me unless one of those deadheads gets in."

"Didn't you barricade the doors?"

"Yip, we should be okay anyway. This street is pretty quiet."

A few minutes of quiet hovered over the pair and they were almost in the land of nod, but their senses were given an adrenaline shot once they heard a slamming noise.

Karen got out of the bed and went to the window. She could see two men who had broken into the Range Rover, sitting in the front of the family's vehicle, and a nervous looking woman holding a two-year-old infant, waiting for the car to start. It looked like to Karen that they were trying to hotwire the thing. Karen allowed it to happen; so long as the prison van was okay, she wasn't caring. The people looked desperate and she thought that the car might as well be put to some good use. She looked out onto the front garden where the van was backed up, in case they needed to escape via a bedroom window, and sighed. She knew they'd be screwed if that ever was stolen.

She returned to bed as the vehicle started. Pickle went to get out of bed, but Karen held him back. "It's okay. A desperate family are taking the Range Rover on the drive. Let them have it."

Pickle never verbally agreed or disagreed, he just grunted, and then went back to lying down. Pickle turned round on his side, his back now facing hers. "Once we get our energy back, we'll move out the family sometime tomorrow before they begin to smell."

"Defo."

"Good night, Bradley."

"Good night, Harry."