Snatchers: Volume Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 4-6) (70 page)

Chapter Thirty

His sleep was disturbed, his heavy eyes opened and found that he couldn't move his arms. Jason Murphy could see in the dusky area that six males were around the bed, including the two that were holding the arms.

Panic began to kick in, and he had a strong feeling that these men weren't here just for a little chat.

"What the fuck is going on?" demanded Jason. "How did you get in?"

A bald man leaned over and said, "You were seen, peering out of the window by one of the neighbours. She said that it was Jason Murphy, but I didn't believe her at first."

Jason was growling, but took in a deep breath to calm himself down. He spoke with more calmness in his voice. "I'm not here to cause trouble."

The bald man snarled, "Really? Then why is Richard and Iris lying in the next room, saturated in their own blood?"

Jason stared wide-eyed; he couldn't give them answer, not a satisfying one at least.

"I heard about your brother and father." At this point three of the men were beginning to chuckle. "Shame."

"Fuck you."

"Fuck
me
?" The bald man smiled and looked at his colleagues. His facial expression suddenly changed and he growled, "You're a dirty cunt that has done nothing, just like the rest of your family, but spend your lives in and out of jail. And when you weren't in jail you'd terrorise the locals as if you owned the place. Just because the nearest police station was two or three miles away in Rugeley, you thought you were untouchable, didn't you?"

Jason cackled, "What the fuck are you talking about, you baldy bastard?"

The man continued, "Your family are a pack of wild animals, and now that the world has fallen to shit you had been let off the leash, making you even worse than you were before. But now we've been let off our
own
leashes." The bald man looked around at the other five men. He took a breath in and added, "We're good men, standing here. This is something we have to do for the sake of the people that live here, for people like Richard and Iris."

"What the fuck are you babbling on about?" Jason began to cackle, then spat in the man's face.

The man never flinched. He wiped the spittle away with his forearm and pointed at the man on the left that was holding Jason's arm. "This man is Kevin Jacobs. He's fifty nine years old. He used to be a teacher at the local primary school. In fact, I believe he used to teach you and your brother, Gary, for a number of years."

"I remember Mr Jacobs," Jason sneered. "He used to touch-up all the boys in his class."

"No he didn't." The bald man shook his head. "That was just rumours that your family started when your performance was slated on a parents' meeting."

"If you say so," Jason laughed, trying to get a reaction from the bald man.

"The man on the right, holding your other arm is called James Thomson. He is in his thirties and was a serving member of the British Army for seven years, and then came back and began his own plumbing business. I believe that ten years ago, on November 11th, James was walking down the street, proudly wearing his uniform, ready for the parade in Rugeley and to observe the two-minute silence at 11am. However, you and your brother, Gary, spat on him and beat him with bats. Very brave."

"I was just putting him in his place; he thought he was something special."

"He had put his life on the line for his country," spoke the bald man. "As far as I'm concerned, he
is
something special." The speaker now turned to the other three men. He pointed at the one behind him. "This is Brian Marley. Retired policeman, and someone you don't know. He lives here now, but he was originally from Abbots Bromley, but the place became too infested. And these..." The bald man was now pointing at the two remaining men that were on the other side of the bed. "...are brothers Derek and Ian Ferguson. Both used to work for social services."

Jason sniggered, "Oh, I know these two cunts."

"Of course you do. You were in the same year as Ian at school." The bald man cleared his throat and added, " You used to make their lives hell at school, constantly beating them up, robbing them, calling them the
Ferguson Faggots
. That was bad enough, but to top things off, years later, your brother, Gary, robbed a bank and shot their sister in the face with a shotgun."

"That was hardly my fault."

"No, but it just proves that the whole of your family are vermin. And vermin needs to be taken care of."

The bald man took a couple of steps backwards, and went to the bottom of the bed, and Brian Marley followed him. They took a leg each and held them down. Jason was now panicking. He began to cuss and scream out, writhing like a snake on fire, but with his arms and legs being held, he was going nowhere fast.

The two Ferguson brothers looked at one another and nodded. Ian walked around the other side of the bed, so there was now Ian standing over Jason on one side, and Derek standing on the other.

The last words that Jason heard was from the bald man. "Take one last look around, because you're going to Hell."

The Ferguson brothers pulled out a knife each and began stabbing at the torso of Jason Murphy. He cried and shook his head from side-to-side, desperate to get free, but the stabbing continued. The bastards were making this slow. There was no knife penetrating the heart, and there was no slit of the throat. It was just stab-after-stab, penetrating and mutilating his stomach, blades going in and out, blood shooting up with every blade that was being quickly pulled away.

When Jason Murphy eventually passed out from the blood loss, the stabbing continued from the frenzied brothers, and they only stopped once they became exhausted.

All six men left the house, and left behind a mutilated Jason Murphy lying on the blood-soaked bed. Brian Marley was the first to exit the house, followed by Kevin Jacobs and James Thomson. The Ferguson brothers were behind these three, and as they left Richard and Iris Wilkinson's house they still had the knives in their bloody hands, their faces and clothes were also sprayed with blood.

The bald man was the last to leave and shut the door behind him. He clapped his hands together, now pleased that the remaining Murphy was no more, and said farewell to the men, and went back to his home, three doors down, to see his two children and his wife.

In the afternoon, Iris and Richard would be given a proper burial.

Chapter Thirty One

David Watkins remained awake and sitting on the floor. His back was still against the door and his eyes were stinging with tiredness. Now that he had a hold of the gun that had been keeping him awake at night, back at the camp, his excitement had diminished, and the only thing that was stopping the young man from nodding off was fear. He was certain that these things wouldn't be able to make the stairs, but he had heard of a story from Pickle that made him feel a little doubtful. He was unsure what to really think about these dead fucks.

A few days ago, Pickle had been talking to Paul Dickson while David was present, and told him the story when they were trapped in a house in Heath Hayes. Pickle told Paul how an ex-inmate had tried to kill them, and was dumped in the middle of nowhere by Karen with a bullet wound to his leg. Despite the wound, the man had managed to return to the place, only he brought hundreds of Snatchers with him, forcing the group to flee upstairs and jump out onto the roof of a prison van and eventually drive away.

These ghouls couldn't climb the stairs, but Pickle told them that they could crawl up them, albeit very slowly. David had never forgotten this story.

He screwed his eyes as they continued to sting, and widened them as much as he could in a futile attempt to wake himself up. It was a can of Red Bull he needed.

He then thought about the implications of having a crafty nap. What's the worst that could happen? If he fell asleep and these things did manage to get upstairs, the budging of the door would wake him up immediately.

There was also the option of leaving via the bedroom window, but was unsure whether the height was enough to break a leg or sprain an ankle, which is why he never attempted it in the first place. Even if he was brave enough to use a gun, the trouble was that it had only two bullets, and there were three altogether, two in the house and one outside.

*

He suddenly woke with a gasp and looked around the bedroom, confusion aplenty over his face. He leaned his head back against the door and gently laughed. He couldn't believe he had fallen asleep. He gawped out of the window, from where he was sitting, and saw the sky was still red and the day was still young. This suggested to young David that he may have only been out for minutes.

"Fuck this. I could be here all day."

He stood up and stretched his back. His bum was numb from sitting on the hard floor, and yawned, cracking his jaw a little. He had decided that he was going to leave. He placed his shaking hand on the door handle and slowly pulled it down. He pulled the door ever-so-slightly, and peered out of the gap and scanned the landing. He widened the gap by opening the door another inch, and looked once again.

It seemed clear.

Reasonably confident, he walked onto the landing and quickly checked the bedrooms once more for peace of mind. He then sat on the top step of the flight of stairs and wondered what to do next, while listening out for the dead.

For three minutes he listened and listened, but no sound was heard. Were they gone? Or did they go outside? Realising that he never checked out of the windows when he went into the bedrooms, he did just that. The grounds were clear.

"Come on, David. What would Karen say?" He giggled to himself and answered his own question. "You need to man-up. Grow some balls."

He stood up and slowly descended the flight of stairs, his eyes looking everywhere. As his feet reached the ground floor, he went to the kitchen and saw if there was anything untoward. It was clear, just like the living room, so David quickly strolled to the opened main door and shut it. He then relaxed a little and went into the kitchen window to peer out. The window looked out at the back and the side of the place, and David could see now that the three ghouls were near the long grass, by the hut, only a few hundred yards from the camp's hedge.

"Shit."

Just one of them getting through the gap could result in a fatality, and the people of the site would find out eventually that he'd be responsible for that. He didn't want to think what Vince would do to him if this happened. He needed to entice them away from the hedge, and the only way he was going to that was to show himself.

His plan was to make sure he was seen by the ghouls, then run out of the grounds via the main entrance/exit and allow them to follow him. After that he would have to travel back a few hundred yards along the main road, then cut across a field and run along the hedge until he reached the gap. By that time, he hoped that the dopey things would be lost and disorientated and hopefully still on the main road, possibly going back into Brereton.

Once he was back he was going to have to do one of two things: He could come clean and tell Vince what had happened, and possibly get a slap in the process, or, patch the gap up himself and hope that nobody would see what he was doing. It was still very early, so he presumed that most people would still be in their beds.

He walked to the main door, holding a knife that he had taken from his combat trouser pocket, and opened it to be greeted with an early July morning.

He ran out onto the grounds. He never looked back, he just knew that they had already spotted his presence and were following him.

When he finally got to the opened gate of the long drive, he turned his head and saw that the three were shambling clumsily towards him. He waited until they got near, just in case he ran and they decided not to follow him. He could see that the doors to the hut were being pushed a little, as if the beasts inside were also getting restless and pressing themselves against it, trying to find a way out. It was almost as if they knew there was something outside that they could eat, and this sent a shiver down David's frame when he thought about his friend, Harry Beresford, who was thrown into a hut and experienced an unimaginable death.

"I better make this quick."

Chapter Thirty Two

Helen Waite was dreaming again. She was dreaming about that terrible day when she had lost her family. It was Sunday morning and on that day she stretched out in the double bed and enjoyed the room she had—one of the benefits of being recently separated from that cheating rat—and saw her bedroom door slowly open.

"Oh, not again," she mumbled. She slowly sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Carla, you need to start sleeping in your own bed. You're not a baby anymore; you're eleven years old. You can't keep coming in here and waking me up."

Carla had been affected by her mum and dad's separation and her schoolwork had also suffered. It had been four months since her husband had told her that he didn't love her anymore and was seeing a young receptionist half his age. He had left behind a distraught and confused daughter, and a son who was eight months old at the time. Four months on, Helen still hated him for what he did, and was trying her best to keep it together and afford the house's mortgage on her low-income wage.

Helen looked at the digital clock. 2.14am.

Her daughter had now stopped walking and stood at the bottom of her bed, looking in her direction in the dark bedroom.

The mother sighed and said in defeat, "Did you have another bad dream?" She reached over and put her bedside lamp on. She looked over and once her eyes clocked Carla's face she screamed out.

Helen jumped out of bed, wearing only her pants, and went over to her daughter. Carla was wearing her yellow nightdress, but it was covered in blood and so was her chin. The daughter snarled and Helen took a step backwards, investigating her daughter's features. The eyes were milky, her face was ashen—it just wasn't Carla! The daughter took a step closer and tried to grab her mother's face, but Helen pushed her daughter back.

Drenched in fright, Helen jumped onto the bed to avoid Carla and ran out of the room. She closed the bedroom door behind her. She then slid the bolt at the top of the door and had successfully locked it from the outside, she was now panting and crying in disbelief. She remained motionless, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

The evening before Carla had been playing on her bike and had come back to tell her mother that some boy had bit her on the hand. She managed to fight him off and cycled away from him. Carla had been feeling unwell since that evening incident, and Helen dressed her hand, then put Carla to bed and decided to call the doctor if her condition didn't improve by the morning.

Helen was convinced that the bite had caused some kind of reaction with Carla. But how come there was blood on her chin? Helen remained by the door and then thought of baby Jack. "Oh shit." She ran from the door and went to see her one-year-old. She put the bedroom light on and took a gander in his cot.

Her knees buckled once she saw the bloody remains of Jack. He was unrecognisable and apart from a leg and some intestines, there didn't seem to be much left of him. Helen fell to her knees and released a scream that could only be made by a woman that had lost her child—in this case, two. She didn't understand what had happened.

There was only one explanation.

Carla!

The heartbreaking cries were enough to wake half the street, and Helen wanted to reach out and touch Jack, but there wasn't much left of him
to
touch. She noticed in the right corner of the cot was the remains of his little head.

Still sobbing, she turned to the side and threw up.

As soon as she threw up, in her dream, that was when she would wake up. She had dreamt about that terrible morning on nine occasions now, and always woke up after she vomited in the dream. The incident that had happened was nearly six weeks ago.

She was now sitting up, back to reality. It was early morning.

She remained sitting on the couch where she slept, staring into nothingness, trying to get her bearings. For Helen Waite, the last few weeks had been a blur. She had lost the will to live even before the power went. Her phone sat on the living room's side-table and was never touched. It was on silent when the network was still working, but she never once looked at it.

During the first week of the disaster, her estranged husband bravely came to the door and began hammering it and shouting through the letterbox. She ignored him. She assumed it was the kids that he was concerned about, not her, and in a weird kind of way, she had protected him.

If she had opened the door and allowed him to see that his one-year-old boy, Jack, was nothing but an unrecognisable bloody mess, and that the killer of Jack, his own daughter, had eaten most of him, he would have had a breakdown.

Jack's bedroom door remained shut.

Since the day she had found that there was hardly anything left of him, she never went back to that scene, and left the rest of his body to the noisy flies that seemed to have appeared from nowhere.

In her own room, the room she used to share with her husband before he started banging the receptionist, her daughter was still there. There was a lock on the outside of the bedroom door that Helen used to use to stop Carla from going in there and playing with her friends, but now she was using it to keep Carla
in
. Although she was sure that opening doors wasn't these creatures' strong point, the lock was extra insurance that she couldn't get out.

It had been over a month since Helen had seen Carla, and in the first week she would press her ear to the door to hear what she was up to, but by the second week she never bothered.

She had spent days, like everyone else, watching TV reports to educate herself about the scale of the problem. Helen was in shock for a long time, but after the first hour of watching SKY News, she learned why her daughter was the way she was. She thought back when Carla told her that she had been bit by a boy while she was out riding her bike. She was then taken to bed.

It slowly began to make sense the more she watched TV and learned more about the virus.

Now, Helen Waite's days consisted of lying on the couch, sometimes going for a walk around the house, then returning to the couch. She had two bathrooms. One upstairs and downstairs, but she hadn't been to the toilet in over three days; she hadn't eaten anything substantial for her body to remove any wastage.

In the downstairs bathroom there was a cupboard under the stairs where all kinds of crap was stored. Helen used to go for a weekly shop and would buy a lot of items in bulk because it was cheaper, especially toilet roll and toiletries that was still under the stairs in abundance. There were also tools and paints, amongst other useless bits and bobs.

The house was almost in darkness with every blind in the house down, but there was just enough light in to see where she was going. She took a stroll to the kitchen and, ignoring the pile of dishes in the sink, she reached for a dirty glass and went to the bathroom. She dipped the glass into the bath that she had filled in the first week—the media told everyone to fill up their baths and sinks—and took a gulp, moistening her dry throat.

Going back to the kitchen she looked through her almost-bare cupboards. There wasn't a lot left. She had rationed her food wisely, but it was always going to run out eventually. The cupboard to her right still had half a packet of crackers, icing sugar, brown sugar and a packet of digestive biscuits.

The fridge was defunct, and all dairy products and fruit were eaten in the first week. Two bottles of beer, a can of Red Bull, a mini meat snack and a chocolate bar was all that remained in there. The cupboard to her left had accessories that were no good to her on their own. A lot of them were spices, as well as salt, pepper, grated cheese, cooking cubes and tomato puree. The carousel cupboard was a little more promising. She still had a tin of tuna to consume, as well as a tin of mackerel, a jar of peanut butter that hadn't been opened, two tins of beans and a tin of chopped tomatoes.

She grabbed the tomatoes and took out the manual tin opener. She was used to the electric one, but having no power had put a stop to that as well as many other things, although on odd occasions she would sometimes forget.

Once the tin opened, she put the sharp round lid on the side, took out a spoon and finished the tomatoes in minutes. It was the first thing she had eaten in days. She took another gander at the lid from the tin. It was sharp enough. Sharp enough to cut the skin; to cut through a vein.

She shook her head at herself. She hated thinking like this, but with nothing to do all day
but
think about ending her miserable existence, it plagued her mind quite often. The world had gone to shit; her boy was dead, and her daughter had turned into the same kind of freaks that were on TV in the first week.

She never knew the situation outside in her street, because she refused to look out there. Her attic hatch was already open in case of a sudden invasion, but so far she had had a reasonably quiet existence.

She glared at the sharp lid again and wondered how long it would take if she slashed both wrists. It wouldn't be painful. She was certain that it wouldn't be painful. It'd be like going to sleep, but never waking up again.

Something was stopping her from going through with it.

Her family were dead, yet there was still something inside of her that wanted to live.

Why? What was the point? She had no answer.

She huffed and headed back to the living room, back to the couch. Another mundane and slow day was on the cards. She thought about her own demise once again.