Snatchers (Book 7): The Dead Don't Yield (2 page)

Chapter Three

Harry Branston clambered out of the musty-smelling bed, that used to belong to an old man before he had had a heart attack four weeks ago, and sat on the edge of it. His head dropped in his hands and began rubbing his face.

He looked at the battery-powered alarm clock to the left of him, on the bedside table, and saw that he had been out for nine hours. Since he had moved to the Sandy Lane Camp, with the rest of the people from the Spode Cottage campsite, Pickle had never slept so well. This was his fourth day here and welcomed the sleep.

His stomach began to grumble for food, any food, and knew that there was a few packets of croissants in the kitchen cupboard downstairs. Three to be exact. He told himself that he'd have
one
, and that Karen could have the others, considering she was eating for two.

He finally mustered the energy to stand up straight, both knees cracking in unison.

He smiled and chuckled, "Old fart."

He then headed for downstairs to relax on the couch. With a copious amount of food stored in the Lea Hall building, from both camps, and the animals on the pitches, Pickle was pleased that the people of the site weren't being complacent and that runs for food were still ongoing. Lee James and a few others were due to leave for Hednesford this morning for weapons at an industrial estate, but another run for food was being organised by three others while they were away at Hednesford.

A week ago they had tried to get to the very same building on the industrial estate, but it was swarming with the Snatchers and they had to abandon the run. They were going to try once more before somebody else beat them to it. They were told about the place ten days ago by a newcomer who used to work for a paint and decorating company at the estate, and told Lee and the rest about a gun manufacturer at the estate that sold other weapons which were purely for sport in the old world.

In just a matter of days Pickle had got to know some of the people and he believed that there was trust between the thirty-odd people from the Spode Cottage and the hundred or so from Sandy Lane. Some were old friends anyway or ex-schoolmates or work colleagues from the old world. These were people that lived, shopped and worked together many moons ago.

Despite this, not everybody was pleased by the new arrivals. The apocalypse had created the horrific dead, but it also created deadly humans and this had stoked up paranoia amongst some people. Who was good and who was bad? Were they letting in people that could possibly cause danger from within the camp?

Pickle held out his hands and smirked when he saw the little finger from the left hand missing. Sometimes he'd forget about it. At least his nose was better.

He went into the kitchen and took a plastic bottle from one of the cupboards and sat back down again in the living room. He took a swig of water from a plastic bottle and looked up to the ceiling. He could hear the gentle thuds moving about and smiled to himself; his friend had woken up. He could hear the footsteps of the female making her way down to the ground floor. The door to the living room opened and Branston gave the woman a smile as she entered.

"I'm freezin' my tits off in this place," she huffed, and walked past Pickle and went into the kitchen.

Pickle chuckled, "Morning, Karen."

*

"Are you looking forward to seeing Rosemary today, son?"

Paul Dickson never received an answer from his son, Kyle, and looked over to the other side of the bed. Both father and son were lying in the double bed, both staring up at the ceiling. Paul tried again. "Big chap?"

Kyle snapped out of his self-hypnosis and said, not answering his father's question, "How long do we have to stay here?"

Paul sat up and stared at Kyle. He looked crestfallen and was sure that it wasn't just to do with having no mummy and little sister anymore. "What is it?"

Kyle shrugged, tears welling in the bottom of his eyes.

"Don't you like it here?"

Kyle, once more, never responded verbally, and shook his head. Paul guessed that Kyle wasn't being ignorant, he was just too choked to speak. Something was bothering him.

Paul queried, "Don't you like the maths and reading classes with Rosemary? Lisa seems to enjoy it. I know Rosemary's not a proper teacher—"

"I miss everyone," Kyle spoke with a whisper, then lay back down.

Paul was sure that he
did
miss everyone, so did
he
. But something else was bothering his seven-year-old, and Paul didn't want to push the subject in case both males came to blows.

It could wait for now.

Chapter Four

Karen Bradley took a walk along the empty stretch of road, and looked to her left. There were dozens upon dozens of burnt bodies in a pile, near the Lea Hall building, and she was told that they were planning on doing something about that situation in the next few weeks.

Since Lee had been informed that she was pregnant, she had predictably been told that she would have no job to do and that she shouldn't lift a finger. It was frustrating, but she knew it was going to happen. She accepted it without kicking up a fuss, but she thought that at least some kind of stock-taking job could be done.

She looked all around and could hardly see a soul. There were over a hundred people in the area, but because it was large it would sometimes look inhabited in the afternoon when everybody was up and awake. She knew that it was early, but there was still at least eight bodies on the two barriers, and some worked inside the Lea Hall building to see how the food situation was. That was the job that
she
wanted.

The farmers from the Spode Cottage stayed on the fields and had spent days building pens for the animals, with the help of Vince, which were fed by some of the bored youngsters to give them a feeling of self-worth. It was going to take time before that part of the set-up was going to be as good as the last one, but at least the fields were bigger.

A young man strolled across the road and held up his hand as a greeting to Karen. Daniel Badcock approached Karen with a big grin on his face. "Morning."

She responded, "Morning."

Both individuals knew each other from secondary school, and had occasional chats with one another since Karen and the rest had moved in. Karen felt comfortable in Daniel's company. He was a genuine nice guy and never seemed to have an hidden agenda with his niceness. With the exception of Pickle and Paul Dickson, she felt at ease with Daniel than any other male on the camp. He was easy to talk to and never produced any creepy sexual innuendos when they chatted.

"Where you off?" Karen spoke. "Anywhere exciting?"

"Not really," Daniel cackled. "Stock-check. Dishing out bottles of water for residents, that kind of shit."

"Sounds awesome," teased Karen, and brushed her greasy hair behind her ears.

"Oh, it is." This time it was Daniel's turn to be sarcastic. "What about you? You sure you should be walking about with those swollen ankles?"

"You cheeky twat!" Karen scoffed. "I'm not quite there yet. Anyway, as long as I do my leg exercises I should be okay."

"They look swollen to me." He peered down with a cheeky grin scrawled across his features.

"And so will be your lips if I get any more cheek."

Daniel laughed and held his hand up as an apology.

Karen added, "The only thing that's swollen are my pillows."

Daniel scrunched his face in confusion and took a few seconds to realise that Karen was talking about her breasts. He blushed, then cleared his throat. "I'm off to check on the Lea Hall building. Why don't you come in?" suggested Daniel, pointing towards the building and still blushing. "You can see what we've got."

"Sounds riveting," she sighed with little enthusiasm. "I would like something to do."

"I don't know why
you
can't do it. All we do is walk around with a clipboard and note what's there."

"Sounds better than nothing. Maybe you can suggest it to Lee, or whoever the fuck is in charge."

"I'll see if they can put it to a vote in the next meeting."

"Good. I'm bored out of my brains already and I've only been here a few days."

"Come on." Daniel beckoned Karen into the building; but she was unsure.

Asked Karen, "Am I allowed?"

"You're with me."

"I know, but I could imagine that a few of the people are a little paranoid with us new folk turning up—"

"Fuck 'em."

"Okay. If you insist."

The pair of them walked inside the main hall. There were boxes and boxes of stuff. Some were marked, others weren't. Karen pointed at three large boxes of prawn cocktail crisps and began to giggle.

"We raided a pub not so long back." Daniel tried to explain. "Beggars can't be choosers."

"I suppose if I ever need a packet of crisps..."

Daniel ignored her light ribbing and walked to the back of the place where six freezers were present. Karen looked inside to see an assortment of meat. The last freezer was rammed full of ice.

Daniel smiled. "The ice is good for injuries, as well as dehydration."

"How does this stuff work?"

"We used to use diesel generators for the first weeks, then we installed the solar panels on the roof of the building and mainly rely on Mother Nature to do the work. You won't believe the amount of panels we use, and when we have little sunshine, like today, a lot of power needs to be put back into the batteries..." Daniel laughed and paused in mid-sentence. "I don't want to bore you with the details."

"Thanks," Karen said cheekily and smiled.

"Sorry. I'm waffling."

"Can't really rely on fuel to keep freezers going when you've got runs to do," Karen muttered. "You need the fuel for the vehicles."

"Exactly. And we don't have a great amount of fuel left, to be honest. We try and grab whatever we can when we're out."

Karen moved away from the freezers and saw two pallets of baked beans to her left. She then turned to Daniel and queried, "Are you going out on this run this morning?"

"No, not his one." Daniel shook his head. "Me and a few other guys might check out Power Station Road. See if there's anything left in McDonalds and Tesco. There's a few other places we can check out."

"Can you do two runs at the same time?"

Daniel laughed and said, "Yeah. And we'll still have a few guards on each barrier."

"Vince used to have a man each, half a mile away from the camp to pre-warn us in case anything untoward was heading for the camp."

"I suppose that was a good idea, but Spode Cottage is situated on a dip. From
our
barriers we can see along the stretch of road."

"Well," Karen sighed, staring at a box of water purifying bottles. "You seem to know what you're doing. What's upstairs?"

"Medical stuff."

"What's she doing in here?" a voice bellowed behind Karen and Daniel.

They both turned around to see a skinny average-sized man. His name was James McDonald, or Jimmy Mac, and was a foul-mouthed individual who said what he thought. He had made it clear on more than one occasion that the new arrivals were not welcome, as far as he was concerned.

"Just showing the lady round," explained Daniel, looking embarrassed at the way he was spoken to. Jimmy Mac was middle-aged, but his worn face made him look older, suggesting he had lived on a bad diet of too much booze and cigarettes that had probably aged his skin.

"I don't give a fuck!" he snapped. "I don't want any of these new knobs walking around in here, got it?"

"Stop being so paranoid." Daniel tried to laugh the situation off, but the anger in Jimmy Mac's face showed no sign of diminishing. "We're all one family on this site. And some of the stuff in here is from
their
camp. Where do you think those animals from outside came from?"

"Let's not forget the HGVs that are now stretched across each barrier," Karen chipped in.

"It's a fucking joke, letting these folk in." Jimmy Mac pointed at Karen and added, "They're only here because their own camp was decimated."

"And you're only here because your house on the Springfields was overrun with the dead," Daniel said.

"Don't smart-mouth me, boy. You know what I mean."

"Well, we're here now," Karen decided to speak further. "So you better get used to it. We were voted in."

"Yes, you were." Jimmy Mac snarled, "You were voted in by seven to one. I was the
one
that wanted you lot to stay the fuck away."

"We're stronger together."

"No." Jimmy Mac disagreed. "We were strong enough in the first place. Now we've got another thirty mouths to feed."

"Well, looks like you're stuck with us." Karen smiled.

Jimmy Mac clenched his fists together and took a step forward. Daniel side-stepped in front of Karen and tried to make light of the tense situation. "What're you gonna do, Jimmy? Hit a pregnant woman?"

Jimmy Mac snarled once again, turned on his heels and stormed out of the building.

"Well, he seems pleasant," snickered Karen.

"I would like to say that he's alright once you get to know him."

"But?"

"But he's a true dick." Daniel checked his watch and asked, "Shall we go?"

Karen ignored his query and pointed at the metal box that was in the corner of the building. "What's that?"

Daniel scratched his head and finally answered, "Just a junk box. I suppose it's like a lost property box. There's some things in there that I've found on some runs, things that are useless really, but I kept them."

"What kind of stuff?"

"Just daft stuff really: Knives, there's an empty handgun in there, and we even found a pair of knuckledusters in a house."

"A handgun?" Karen was now intrigued. "What kind of handgun?"

"Come." Daniel beckoned Karen to follow him. "I'll show you." He went over to the huge box and took out a key from his back pocket. Karen had no idea what the key was for until she realised that the box was padlocked. Once the lock was opened Daniel flipped open the lid and went through it. He pulled out a pair of black leather gloves with spikes on the knuckles. "Any good to you?" he joked.

Karen shook her head. "Why do you keep this stuff anyway? It's weird."

"You sound like the guys," Daniel began to chuckle. "I don't know. I suppose the handgun is a nice touch. Never held one before. Didn't realise people had them in this area."

"You'd be surprised."

"Wanna see?"

Karen sighed and nodded, humouring the young man.

Karen took another few steps forwards until she was by the man's side and Daniel pulled out the gun and showed it to her. "It's okay. It won't go off."

Karen stared at the thing and asked, "May I?"

Daniel shrugged and gave the woman, the same woman he used to fancy in Geography class when they were at school, a hold of the gun. "I think Rick Morgan told me that it's a..." Daniel paused for thought.

"It's a 9mm hi-powered Browning." Karen spoke up. She released the magazine to see it was empty, clicked it back in, then pulled the slide back to make sure there was no round in the chamber. These bozos may have forgotten to do that, she thought.

Daniel glared, wide-eyed. "Shit. How..?"

"I'm not just a pretty face." Karen handed the gun over. "I fired one a few times in the first weeks."

Daniel remained speechless, still staring.

Karen giggled, "I can't be bothered to go into the whole story again, but if you want to know then have a word with Pickle or Vince when they've got a minute."

"Okay." Daniel still looked shell-shocked.

"Where did you find it anyway?"

"We were in the woods and stumbled across it at the side of the road, near that Stile Cop beauty spot."

Karen gulped and could feel her heart gallop. "
On
Stile Cop?" Karen asked, knowing that Janine Perry and Jamie Thomson died with their handguns.

"No." Daniel shook his head and took the Browning off of Karen. "A few hundred yards away, on the country road, away from Rugeley."

It was the gun that Pickle gave to KP, Karen thought. It had to be. Not many people in this area, living in the UK, had access to such weaponry.

Then Daniel said something that made Karen's heart giddy-up even more. "There was just the one bullet in it when we found it."

"It wasn't empty?"
Shit. He never did it. He never killed himself
.

On that terrible early morning at Stile Cop, when they finally reached the prison van, KP had ran out of ammo. He asked Karen for one bullet, for himself. That bullet was never fired, which meant KP had turned. He must have!

Neither Karen or Pickle heard a gunshot when they drove away in the prison van, because Pickle was thrashing the van in a low gear in order to drown out KP's gunshot. It appeared that KP had lost his nerve, or may have thought that he was strong enough to fight the infection. But was it definitely the gun?

"You okay?" asked Daniel. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Whatever happens," Karen began. "Don't show Pickle that gun. Don't let him in here, if you can help it."

"What?" laughed Daniel, and scrunched his eyes at Karen, seeing if she was being serious. She was. He glared at her as he locked the padlock and put the key into his back pocket. "Why wouldn't I tell Pickle about the gun? You're not making sense, Karen."

Karen gave a Daniel a short version of the incident at Stile Cop, which left him stunned, and hung onto every word she said. Karen finished off by saying, "Just don't let him get near that box, or even in the building, if you can help it. Please."