Snatchers: Volume One (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 1-3) (43 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Hector Jones had finished the tying up of the last man, and went over to his colleague and took out a Marlboro. He lit it, sucked the poison deep into his lungs, and blew out the smoke delicately. They were in the canteen area of the supermarket, which was a place that was cordoned off and was used for hungry shoppers during the breakfast, lunch and dinner periods.

Both Hector Jones and his accomplice, Kasper Andrews, were from the small town of Colton, and after a few days of being cooped up in their homes, they had decided to take refuge in a place they considered practical. They were both single men and had spent a considerable amount of time in Staffordshire prisons, so the family they used to have wasn't there anymore for the forty-somethings. They lived together and spent their days, before the new world emerged, robbing shops and drinking the profits. They had had a run-in with members of the notorious Murphy family a few days ago, and managed to live to tell the tale.

When they first emerged at the supermarket on the Wednesday, they had a clear up operation to do. At least a dozen of the creatures were shambling across the car park, and this forced them to unload cartridges into their faces until the last four were crushed with the butt of their guns. Another two had made their way inside and were in the aisles; they were also hit by Hector and Kasper, dragged out of the area, and left near the trolley park to ooze out the rest of the dark liquid from their rotting craniums.

Jack Slade, Gary Jenson and Paul Parker had adhered to every instruction from these men, but had no idea what fate waited for them. Their hands and ankles were tied together with rope, and it felt so incredibly tight that Jack was thinking that his wrists were cut. Jack was convinced that they were going to get a warning for trespassing on the guys' newly crowned establishment, which was fine by Jack. He just wanted to get the hell out, after all, there must be other supermarkets out there, he thought.

Paul and Jack were placed in the corner of the dining area for whatever reason, whereas Gary had been placed on the cold floor in the middle of the room, with the tables and chairs moved to the side to make a clear area. Whatever punishment was going to be dished out, Gary was going to get it first. Some kind of beating, Gary thought. And he wasn't looking forward to it.

Forty-two-year-old Kasper Andrews returned to the dining area wearing his Burberry cap and holding his shotgun. He had been away to get something; the others weren't sure
what
, but once he pulled the KY jelly out of his pocket and placed it on the table, Paul and Jack's eyes widened with consternation; then their eyes looked at a tied-up Gary who was unaware what
they
could see. Then, they finally looked at each other and couldn't even mumble information to one another as their mouths were gagged.

They knew exactly what was going to happen to them now, but what about afterwards? Would they be released once these idiots had had their sick pleasure out of them, once they had satisfied their perverted, rapist needs?

Gary looked over to his two pals and could see the fear scribbled onto their faces. He tried to turn around to see why they looked so worried and what the two men were up to, which was hard with his wrists tied to the ankles and lying on the floor on his side, but he somehow managed it and released a muffled scream that refused to be released at its full volume.

Both Kasper and Hector placed their guns against the door that read,
Kitchen Staff Only
, and walked over to the frightened Gary Jenson.

His dark eyes looked up to the two menacing individuals who looked like they lived in a caravan and lived on a diet of cheap booze and cigarettes, going by their appearance of their clothes and heavily stained teeth. They looked like typical Chavs. If they were from Scotland, they would have been labelled as Neds, and if they were American, they would have been classed as Trailer Trash or Rednecks by certain individuals.

Strangely for Gary, the actual episode that was about to greet him wasn't his worst fear; the main thing that concerned him was if these men were carrying diseases. After all, they looked like the kind of men that would fuck goats if they were desperate enough. Kasper Andrews began to menacingly unbuckle his belt; his eyes never left Gary's presence.

Hector walked by Gary and went to the corner of the room, over to the remaining tied up victims, and pulled out a long hunters knife and placed the cold steel against Jack's throat. Jack Slade shuddered with fright, but was too terrified to make a sudden movement in case a slice to his throat was created.

"There's two of us," Hector spoke up. "But three of
them
. You think you can handle two? Or should I just cut this fucker's throat now?"

Kasper grinned a grin that Lucifer would have been proud of, and replied, with his dirty jeans opened at the waist, "You bet I can handle two. It's been a few months since I've seen any action, and these puppies are gonna wish they never stepped in this place."

Hector shrugged his shoulders and placed the blade back into his inside pocket. "Okay, if you're sure."

Forty-two-year old Kasper took off his Burberry cap that was saturated in sweat, and placed it carefully on a plastic orange seat at one of the tables. He pointed at one of the chairs, looked at the red-cap-wearing forty-six-year-old Hector Jones, and motioned with his head to place the chair in the middle of the room as if they had done this before.

"I can't do it if I'm being watched!" Kasper bellowed over to Paul Parker and Jack Slade, who gazed hypnotically at the two men, wondering if this was just one sick joke.

Surely in this world now, the main aim was to survive, not to rape! But these men seemed to have got their priorities all wrong, and the lack of brain cells that they probably had, compared to the average human, didn't help matters.

Not wanting to feel the cold steel against their throats, Paul and Jack tried their best not to look and antagonise the men. They shuffled round so their heads were facing the wall.

Paul's wrists burned as he tried to free himself from the rope. It burned his skin every time he moved, but could feel the rope loosening. He looked over to Jack who stared into space, and seemed to have given up. It was almost as if he was ready to accept the physical abuse, then go back to the village hall, if they were allowed back.

Paul Parker, however, had other ideas.

Chapter Eighteen

Karen at last pulled the van up by the local chemist and could see the green cross outside the shop. She was on the outskirts of a residential area and could see down the straight road, that had woodland on either side, that there was at least twenty of the things situated hundreds of yards away, but looked not to be a threat. She felt no panic when she entered the already opened chemist, and thought that it must have been broken into a few times over the last few days.

In a strange kind of way, it was almost as if she was desensitised by these creatures now. When she first saw a group of them, when she was at Milford in her jeep, she shuddered with fright before running them down. Now, even though it had only been a week, it was as if that it was accepted now that this was normal. This was the way life was going to be from now on.

She gently pushed open the chemist door and was careful not to upset the hanging glass from it. A couple of loose shards of glass fell as she opened the door to its fullest and she looked around, making sure the area was clear of danger. Once her eyes established that the area was clear, she relaxed and tried to look for things that would assist Pickle in his time of illness.

Man-flu, she jokingly thought.

She stepped over the reasonably, and surprisingly, clean area where the shelves were still up and the remaining products seem to be still in their correct positions, and went into the back room where chemists would normally go once the customer had handed in their prescription at the counter.

Karen was a big believer that flu and fevers were usually best to be ridden out; it was something that didn't have a cure. Plenty of fluids and plenty of rest is what Pickle needed. Nevertheless, she pulled out a carrier bag and popped in anything that could be of use for the future; she picked up some antiviral medications such as relenza and tamiflu, as well as an assortment of painkillers and medicines. A first aid kit was the last thing to be put in the fragile bag that was beginning to stretch because of the weight inside it, and she then made a conscious decision to leave.

She placed the bag on the passenger seat of the van, and went round the other side to start the engine. The beings from afar seemed a little closer last time she looked and she decided to go down that particular road to inspect how the small village, of name she didn't know, was coping. The van's engine roared as she slipped it into first and moved off without checking her blind spot.

As the van increased its momentum, with a mixture of the declining hill and Karen adding a little more gas, she could clearly see that this particular tiny village was awash with the creatures. Every street, every main road, and every private area—like the cemetery, a children's play park and a set of tennis courts—was populated with these things. There were a few on the main road, and if they weren't so spread out, she would have had to have hit the gas pedal to get herself through the masses of walking bodies, but it seemed reasonably easy, as she swerved by most of them. Only two bounced off the solid van.

As she got to the top of the main road, now exiting the small village, she decided to turn right and go the long way round, back to the house where Pickle was. She was now driving along a main road, surrounded by woodland, and she noticed that the further she progressed along the long, lonely main road away from the village, the less of them there seemed to be. She estimated that there must have been fifty of those things, and some appeared to be leaving the village.

But why were they leaving? Was there nothing left to eat?

She didn't have the answers, but felt a chill knowing that these things were slowly leaving. She was now only half a mile away from the village she had just left, and she thought to herself that the sooner Pickle gets over this illness, the better, because in a matter of days they may have to move once again.

The van continued to growl along the desolate road and she looked at the gauge seeing that the van was half-empty. She decided on no more ventures and headed towards Heath Hayes to the first house of the village.

How long would it be before those things got to Heath Hayes?

Pickle was in no fit state to be moved, but Karen had made the assumption that if there was a sighting of just a few of them, she would seriously consider thinking about moving out once again.

She wasn't sure Pickle would agree. Illness or no illness, Pickle had made it plainly obvious on a few occasions that he was sick of running, and announced that even if their new street was swarming with the things, they were still safe as long as they never got inside the house, and if they kept quiet and made no unnecessary noises, there was no reason why the creatures wouldn't eventually just shamble past the house and go on to the next village. A theory that he was still unsure of.

It appeared to Karen, that once a village was devoid of life, they seemed to leave like some of them did eventually in Rugeley when they headed towards Stile Cop on that fateful night.

Pickle's theory was that if he and Karen continued to run, they would eventually run out of petrol. He would rather be in a scenario of being surrounded by them in a barricaded house, rather than being on foot and running from swarms of them in the woods or the populated villages and towns of Staffordshire.

Karen remembered what Pickle had told her about parking up the van. He told her to back the van up onto the front garden of the establishment for a quicker escape, if need be. Before she had chance to do that, and before she had chance to enter the street that was the entrance to Heath Hayes and was now a hundred yards up ahead at the next turn off to the right, she could see a figure up ahead.

She panicked a little, as she thought that maybe this was already the start of the possible invasion, but the more she gained on the being, the more it seemed like it was of human kind. The man in front turned as if he had begun to hear the groan of the van's engine and began to wave both his arms, the way a stranded individual on a desert island would when seeing a boat pass by.

To his credit, he never jumped in the middle of the road as he waved his arms. He remained at the side while trying to flag the van down, giving Karen the option to drive past if that was the option she preferred. Impressed by the fact that the man kept to the side of the road, she decided to pick him up. She reduced the speed of the van and eventually made the vehicle come to a stop.

She wound the window down, to be stared at by a flustered and tired-looking man. He was bald, had a few days growth on his face, and was dressed in casual clothes. He beamed at the twenty-three-year-old former nurse; it was a welcoming and relieved smile, and she responded by doing the same.

"Where you headed?" she asked.

He replied, "I was just gonna try one of the houses for refuge." He pointed over to the village. The man glared at the van with confusion and then stared at Karen. He threw his hands in the air. "I'll go anywhere, away from those things. Where did you get this van?"

"Never mind. I got a place for now, a quiet street. I think most of the people have left, as there're hardly any cars there. Wanna jump in?"

"Really?" The man seemed amazed at the offer and never hesitated to open the passenger door. He made himself comfortable and looked at Karen Bradley with a thankful stare.

"I'm Karen."

He held out his hand. "George. George Jones." He looked around the inside of the vehicle, still baffled how a young woman was driving a prison van.