Snatchers: Volume Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 4-6) (27 page)

Chapter Fifty Three

Karen walked over to Jack, holding a folded orange sheet in her hand. She placed the sheet over Jack's face. She gawped in Vince's direction and said, "He could turn any minute now."

Vince nodded sadly and walked over to Jack, holding the steak knife in his right hand. He slowly sat down so that he was sitting next to Jack's head, then with two fingers from his left hand he felt for one of his eyes.

Vince stopped what he was doing and looked at Karen. "You're a nurse. What would be the best way? Through the eye or the ear?"

"Either will work." Karen gave Vince a rare smile, knowing that he was finding this difficult. Although he hadn't been on the camp for long, Karen guessed that Jack and Vince had grown close over the days. "
I
can do it, if you want. I've done it before."

Karen stopped talking, realising that it was Vince's own mother, Grace, she had killed. Wolf had asked her and Pickle to kill the infected woman. Karen had done the job by ramming a sharpened handle from a spoon through the eye, whilst Pickle held the head back. It wasn't that long ago, a week maybe, but it felt like an age ago when she did this. She was going to tell Vince, but telling him just before he needed to destroy Jack wasn't the best of timings.

Seeing that he was full of hesitation, Karen repeated her offer.

Vince said, "I'll do it. It's my camp."

He felt for the eye socket again and placed the tip of the knife onto the soft eyelid, and with two hands he pushed it into Jack. He took it out after five seconds, and headed for the door. He tossed the stained knife from afar into the sink, and went past a crying Shaz.

Karen called after him, "Are you okay?"

"Never been better," was his response as he reached outside and went to his own caravan.

He opened the door of his own place and sat down on the dusty settee. He fought back the tears and couldn't believe he was upset over a man he had only known for a week. Tears were never shed for his own father and mother, yet, Jack's death had affected him.

Why?

Vince stood up and began pacing the floor, tormenting himself about Jack's demise.

You shouldn't have let him go out. You could see the state he was in. He was hardly in any condition to be out with those...things out there.

Vince then remembered something Karen had said, about Jack being a hero.

"Maybe she's right."

He stopped pacing the floor. Vince thought to himself that maybe it was Jack's selflessness and bravado that had got him killed, not his lack of concentration due to the excessive intake of alcohol from the night before.

Whatever the real reason, whether Vince was partly to blame or not, he had lost his friend, and the guilt ate away at him. His rage boiled over and he punched the nearest wall, above the fireplace. "Fuck it. He's a fucking adult. I'm not his babysitter."

Vince reflected on Jack's condition before they went out. He was still drunk from the night before, but when he broke down on the bed and sobbed for his son, Vince thought that maybe that should have been the moment when it was obvious that Jack was in no condition to go out. Putting the alcohol to one side, he wasn't mentally fit to go out there. But Vince thought that it would be a simple run-of-the-mill drive to the Ash Tree, pick up the girls, eventually, then back to the camp for tea and biscuits.

Vince sat back down and inspected his knuckles on his right hand which were marked red. If it had been a proper wall, he would have broken his hand, but because the caravans were basic and the walls were made of interior wallboards, the damage to his hand was just a bit of throbbing and light bruising.

There was a rap at the door and Vince quickly composed himself in case the person knocking decided to walk straight in. "What is it?"

"Hey, Vince. It's me," a familiar voice spoke up.

"What do you want?"

"Two things," the voice spoke. It was Raymond Parsons; Vince recognised the voice. "The water pump for the well isn't working."

"Again?" Vince snapped. "What's the other thing?"

"Some of us have heard that Jack has been bit." He then paused, then added, "They sent me to your caravan as a...kind of...spokesman."

Vince shot up and burst through his door. He walked down the three steps to the grass and went face-to-face with Raymond. He was a rotund man, wore spectacles, and a computer programmer back in the old world, so Vince didn't have any real use for him. He seemed quite lazy and didn't like to get his hands dirty. He was offered a post guarding the barrier, but he said it played havoc with his knees. Vince then gave him the position of emptying the wastage down the nearest drain for his laziness. It was fair to say that Vince didn't like him very much.

A week ago Vince had cruelly insulted Raymond for feigning sickness to get out of his chores, and told him to get his fat arse in gear, or he'd start to reduce his meals.

"What's Jack got to do with you?" Vince eventually queried.

"Well, should you be bringing infected people onto the camp? I mean—"

"I've had to kill him. He's dead." Vince could feel his rage boiling over.

"Oh."

"Satisfied?"

Raymond pushed his specs back up to the bridge of his nose and stammered, "What shall we do with him? Shall we..?"

Vince's eyes were demonic and was a matter of inches from Raymond's features. He snarled, "What do
you
think we should do with him?"

"Well, we usually
burn
the Rotters."

Vince grabbed the man by his throat and slammed him up against the caravan. Raymond screamed out, frightened of what was about to happen to him. Vince was sleight in weight, but his appearance, especially with the scars and scratches over his face, made him look a lot meaner than he actually was to the average man.

"No! We won't...
burn him
! He's getting buried on these grounds!" Vince could see three people in the corner of his eye and let go of the man, realising he was gaining an audience. The last thing he needed was rumours flying through the camp that their leader was losing it.

Vince slowly took a step back and looked apologetic for his behaviour, but an apology never left his lips.

"Okay," the man looked shocked at Vince's reaction. "I was just suggesting."

"Well, don't."

"I'll go then."

"Forget it ever happened."

Raymond wandered off and turned right, leaving Vince seething. He hated that man. Vince then looked at the family of three from caravan eleven. "What's the matter? You want a photo?"

They never responded and went back to their place. Vince then saw Karen and Shaz walk around the corner of one of the caravans. The two girls were arm-in-arm and stopped next to him.

Karen inspected Vince's face, noticing that he looked angry. He had just lost a friend, but she guessed that it was something even more recent. "You look annoyed about something."

Vince shook his head. "It's nothing. What have you done with Jack?"

Karen was the first of the women to react. "He's wrapped up in a sheet."

Shaz appeared to be in a better condition than she was five minutes ago, and looked to be in more control. She said, "Have you a plot where to put him? I was maybe gonna start digging."

"Of course." Vince nodded and added, "I'll help. There're shovels in the shed, by the chicken pen. I think I know just the place where to put him."

*

After burying Jack, and the three of them mumbling The Lord's Prayer afterwards—the only prayer they knew between them—with little enthusiasm, they stood and stared in silence. It was obvious that neither one of them were believers in the afterlife, but felt a prayer of some kind needed to be said. It seemed right. It was tradition.

It seemed that Shaz had become caught up with the emotion of it all after saying The Lord's Prayer, and her tears fell, but they weren't just for Jack, they were for her husband and Spencer. God, she missed them so much!

"If Pickle was here, he'd know what to say." Karen then smiled and said further, "He was kind of an expert with these things." She looked at the grave that the three of them dug. It was shallow, three feet in depth, but it was a better send-off than what most other people had received over the four weeks.

"That's right," Vince said. "He was a bit of a religious man, wasn't he? He would probably know what to say."

"He buried a lot of people over the weeks."

"Who like?" asked Vince.

Karen tried to think. "You didn't know most of them. He buried a guy called Laz. He was an inmate that had been bit. Then there was a woman called Davina. She was bit, and Pickle's boyfriend, KP, shot her in the back of the head after she asked him to do it." Karen remained silent for a few seconds while she thought of others. "He helped to bury Jack's son and his ex-girlfriend."

"Wow," said Vince. "That's heavy shit."

"Oh shit," sniffed Shaz. "I didn't even know that."

Added Karen, "That was one of the saddest episodes of this whole outbreak. Thomas got blood in his eye from a Snatcher and turned. Kerry, Jack's ex, took a gun off of me and eventually shot Thomas and herself." She then turned to Vince and said, "Pickle also made a grave for your mum...after I had killed her."

"God, this is really some fucked up shit," Shaz said. "Some of your stories make ours sound like a holiday trip."

Ignoring Shaz's comment, Vince screwed his face in puzzlement and asked Karen, "What do you mean,
you
killed my mother?"

Karen pulled her lips in and breathed out through her nose, preparing to tell Vince about his mother's demise, not knowing how he was going to react. "When me and Pickle arrived at the cabin, your dad kept her in the bedroom, tied up. She was one of them. Pickle and I...well, we took care of her. We were as gentle as we could have been. I promise you that."

"Thank you." Vince's remark surprised Karen and Shaz, and the focus went back to Jack. "And I'm sorry about Pickle."

"Vince!"

Vince jumped when one of his men called his name. He turned around to see Jason Manifold. He was carrying a cleaver and looked like he had something urgent that he wanted to say. Vince asked, "What is it?"

"We've got Rotters heading towards the barrier. We've got one coming over the brow of the hill, and two others on the other side of the blockade coming from the Armitage area."

"Great."

"You said that we should tell you everything that happens as soon as we can."

"Yes, I did."

Jason Manifold asked, "Shall I take them down?"

"No. I'll take them down myself." Vince removed his stare from Jason and looked at Jack's fresh grave. "I need the therapy. I need to release some anger."

"If that's what you want."

"It is." Vince turned his back on Jack's resting place and began heading towards the barrier, leaving the girls by the shallow grave. As he made his quick stroll towards the blockade, Vince shouted out to no one in particular, "Someone get me a crowbar!"

Chapter Fifty Four

Vince stormed to the barrier and climbed to the top of one of the HGVs where one guard was present. There were two trucks stretched out over the road, and were both positioned so that each truck was quite a few yards from each other and each was at either end of the large entrance of the camp.

On the other truck were two of his men, both holding shotguns that had been in their possession for years when they used to be humble farmers.

Vince could see that two beasts from the Armitage area were quite close, but the one on the other side of the blockade, coming from where he had just been, The Ash Tree area, was just over the brow of the hill, heading slowly for the HGV where his two farmer-guards were. It was rare that they would get Rotters coming at them from each side of the barrier, but at least they were small in numbers.

Vince could see that he was gaining funny looks from the guards when he climbed down the HGV where there was just the one guard, and casually walked to the two Rotters that had come from the Armitage way.

"Where the hell are you going?" one of the guards yelled from the other HGV. "Have you got a death wish or something?"

"Shut up," Vince called out to them, gripping his crowbar. "I need to handle these two myself."

As soon as Vince advanced five yards, something made the first creature stumble towards him with more speed than it was showing beforehand. He swung the metal contraption at the first one, its head obliterating into a gooey mess. It hit the floor, and Vince gave it two more blows as it lay motionless, with its head smashed to shit.

The second ghoul had become a little excited—if that was at all possible—that it was just a matter of yards from feeding on the warm flesh of a human being, but it never got the chance. Vince could see that the beast was, or used to be, a female, and her body shape saddened him. She looked heavily pregnant, at least eight months, and it confused Vince.

When she turned, did the baby also turn inside of her, or did it just die?

It was sometimes hard to tell with some of them, but Vince guessed that she could have been a beautiful young woman. But now she was a dead mess.

She wore a heavily bloodstained dress, had ripped tights that showed her ashen and bruised legs, and had a couple of fingers missing from her right hand. Maybe she had attacked someone in the past and the potential victim had hacked her fingers away while she attempted to grab them.

Vince puffed out his cheeks and swung his bar at the woman, putting her down immediately. He could see she was still twitching, and turned the bloodstained crowbar around, holding the hook-end, and rammed it straight through her skull. Vince pulled out the weapon and crouched down to inspect her. "Damn shame."

He then stood up quickly and took a step back.

He could have sworn he saw movement from within her stomach. Surely not. He gazed at her stomach, but no more movement could be seen.

Did he really see it move? Was it his imagination?

There wasn't a chance that a human baby could survive inside a woman that had turned; if there
was
movement, the baby inside must have been one of them as well.

It didn't seem right that a baby of the dead was inside the thing, and with his anger dwindling, it was eventually replaced with sadness. Despite his despondency, he swung the crowbar back and began to batter at the ball-shaped stomach of the dead woman. Strike after strike smashed into the stomach where a healthy baby should have been, and the bar was soaked in dark blood as it smashed through the woman's exposed, bloodied and mutilated belly.

The crowbar had pounded the area so much that there wasn't a hint that a baby could ever have been in there as the area had been so mashed up, but he didn't want to take a closer look in case he caught a glimpse of a little arm or a small foot. He was sure that that sight could break him.

Keeping his eyes away from the belly, he wiped the crowbar on the dress of the dead beast and went back to the line of defence. When Vince returned to the barrier and went through the HGV's cab to the other side of the blockade, he climbed onto the second one that was stretched along the road. He was now facing the other end, the way
in
to Brereton and Rugeley town.

Vince gripped the crowbar tightly with both hands and could see that the staggering, blood-soaked Rotter had another fifty yards to gain before reaching the barrier.

"Give it another minute," a guard to Vince's right spoke, "and I'll take its head off, then we'll burn all three."

"Don't bother." Vince looked to his left at the other guard. He was one of the guards that had gone with Vince to remove the remaining ghouls at the Ash Tree area. "You saw the state of that place when we rammed those fuckers. Let's only use the guns if it's absolutely necessary." Vince then joked, "I'm gonna take care of this one as well, seems as though I'm on a roll."

The man to the right turned to Vince. "I thought you said using the guns was a safer option, and that we shouldn't take any risks."

"Yeah, well, things have changed now. We've always had the odd one that would turn up, but a mile away there was a gang of the fuckers. Any loud bangs in future could create hordes coming our way, and we're hardly blessed with an abundance of ammo."

"Even if a shit-load came here, they wouldn't get past the HGVs or the massive hedge that surrounds the place."

"Maybe. But these people need to feel safe." Vince climbed down, crowbar in hand. He looked up to the men and added, "Getting up on a morning and having fifty Rotters outside isn't going to help with their nerves, especially with the older ones, whether they can get in or not."

"Maybe we should get two men with a vehicle each and they could drive five hundred yards away. One goes five hundred yards, heading for Armitage. The other goes five hundred yards towards the Ash Tree, seem as though we can't see over the road in both directions," one guard said, "and they can warn the people at the barrier that there are Rotters, or whatever, coming our way."

"Already thought of that. And now we've got the people," Vince spoke with a croak in his voice, then quickly cleared it and spat on the floor, "we can start and do that tomorrow. The camp is great, but we've always been vulnerable because we are on a dip in the road. Even in the old world, the pubs and caravans used to suffer whenever we had storms. We always got flooded."

Vince then turned his attention again to the lone beast making its way down towards the obstruction in the road that they had created. He grew angry once more thinking of Jack's death, and was ready to come face-to-face with another putrid-smelling member of the dead.

He walked forwards, now only yards from the staggering creature, and then stopped walking altogether. He stared at the bloody face, its body shape, and its short brown hair. Although it was a mess, it looked familiar. He recognised the face—at least he thought he recognised the face, and had to glare at the thing to make sure; to make absolute sure.

Vince lowered the crowbar and rubbed his eyes, making sure he wasn't imagining things. The glare of the sun was also not helping as he squinted at the thing that still continued to slowly lumber towards him. There was a lot of blood on the thing's clothes and its neck was covered in black liquid.

Vince scanned the body for any wounds or bites, but couldn't see any. Vince didn't want to wait to the last second to see if it really was a Rotter, and he didn't want to strike the thing if it wasn't a member of the dead either.

Vince knew they couldn't talk, or understand the English language—any language for that matter, so he decided to try something out. He called out, "Stop!"

The thing stopped walking.

"Turn around."

It slowly turned around and stopped once its back was facing Vince.

"Face the front."

It did as it was told. Vince could see the thing licking its lips as if it was about to speak. Its knees buckled with exhaustion, but it managed to stay on its feet, just.

"Vince," it finally said.

Vincent Kindl took a step forward to get a better look and said, "Well, suck me sideways."

*

His head was pounding. His lips were dry and his throat felt like rust.

After climbing over the small fence, he was now on the road and saw the incline that needed to be completed in order get over the brow of the hill. He looked ahead, wondering if he was ever going to make it. Fuck it. He'd come this far.

In the exhausted state he was in, his walk to the peak of the hill felt like the equivalent of walking through thick porridge with heavy boots on.

When he arrived at the start of the incline, even the first few steps were a struggle. Getting used to the smell of guts and blood that he was caked in, he panted heavily as he struggled his way up the road. The sun beating down was burning his neck as if someone was behind him with a blowtorch, and he had already pissed in his pants earlier before climbing over the field's fence to get to the main road.

His feet dragged and his thighs felt like they had been punched. They didn't even feel like his legs anymore. He was numb.

As he reached the top of the hill he looked down to see a HGV, the camp to the right, and a hedge that surrounded the camp.

He stumbled to the floor as the road began to decline. He then slowly picked himself back up and heard panicky shouting from two men that stood on top of the HGV.

He'd been spotted.

One of them disappeared, and he wondered if he was going to get shot. Despite his exhaustion, he was mentally aware that with the condition he was in, and the stuff over his body, he could quite easily be mistaken for a Snatcher.

If only he could shout out.

After spending a long minute staggering towards the blockade, he looked up at the HGV once more to see that there were three men there, one of them was climbing down onto the road. He tried to yell, but his throat was so dry that nothing came out apart from a small croak.

The man from the camp was now strolling in his direction, holding a crowbar. He then stopped walking altogether. He licked his lips to speak again when he heard the man call out, "Stop!"

He did as he was told.

"Turn around!"

He adhered to this command, then realised he could be seconds away from getting a crowbar in the back of his head.

But I obeyed his stop command, so surely he must know by now I'm human. These things don't understand language.

"Face the front!"

As soon as he was facing the man again, he recognised his face. He finally managed to release a word from his lips. "Vince."

The man from the camp glared in disbelief and said, "Well, suck me sideways. Pickle?"

He dropped the crowbar to the floor, and as it made a noisy clatter the two guards on the HGV yelled at Vince, wondering what the hell he was doing. Vince placed both hands on Pickle's head, stunned by the presence of the person in front of him. "But you were bit. I saw you go down."

"I got out," Pickle said in a hoarse voice.

"I saw the teeth..." Vince was baffled, and couldn't find the words to finish the sentence.

"I was lucky," was all the explanation Pickle could muster. He didn't have the energy to go into detail about the young boy that had slashed him at the field near Cardboard Hill, and the thick bandage saving him. That would have to wait at a later date, preferably when he had been showered, fed and had had a lie down.

Vince burst out laughing and exclaimed, "I don't know how the fuck you did it, but...you did!"

"I've had plenty of practice."

Pickle's eyes closed slowly as if he was about to fall asleep, and he staggered a little to the left.

"Come on." Vince held out his hand. "We're gonna get you cleaned up."

"Karen?"

"Karen's here," Vince snickered and said further, "She's gonna piss herself when she sees you."

Pickle raised a small smile, staggered a little, then collapsed to the floor.