Snatchers (Book 9): The Dead Don't Scream (13 page)

Stephanie's screams had stopped. He tried to look around to see where the young girl was, but his blurry vision wasn't picking her up. He looked down and could see that he had wet himself. "Oh shit," he said as soon as his eyes clocked the accident. Then he suddenly stopped caring. He had wet himself. Did it matter? He was about to die. It was hard to die with dignity at the hands of these creatures anyway.

He looked up at the sky and said, "I love you, Julie. I love you, Bell ... Kyle," then closed his eyes once more and said further, "Daddy's coming."

With his eyes still shut, Paul Dickson winced, expecting the first bite any second. But it seemed to be taking forever. He continued to wait.

Waiting.

Waiting for the first bite.

Chapter Twenty Six

Pickle, Vince, Sheryl and Karen were on high alert as they strolled off Sandy Lane and onto Burnthill Lane. They remained together and passed a Vauxhall Corsa. All four looked inside and could see that the driver had ran into trouble the night before and had died in the car. There wasn't much left of the individual, and the horde seemed to have eaten everything they could, making it impossible for any of them to see who it used to be.

"Must have panicked and tried to escape," Vince muttered.

"Can't blame him, or her." Sheryl spoke up, unsure what the sex of the defunct individual was. "We did the same ... eventually."

"Do yer wanna pop into yer house, seem as though we're walking along here?" Pickle asked Sheryl.

She shook her head. "There's nothing in there really. Everything that we need, as far as survival is concerned, will be in the Lea Hall building."

Pickle nodded. "Which will be our next destination once we've searched the place for survivors. Now that the road is open and the HGVs are gone, anyone can get in and take what they want."

"So what are we doing after this?" Karen muttered. "Are we going to move the supplies from the building and put them into a house that we're gonna stay at?"

"Wouldn't it make more sense just to live
in
the Lea Hall building, rather than moving all the supplies?" Sheryl queried no one in particular, but Pickle was the first to respond.

"Probably," he said. "It's a bit big, but I suppose we could make it work. We'll need someone on the door to watch out."

"You're quiet, Vince." Karen looked over and gave Kindl a small smile. "What do
you
think?"

"I think..." Vince stopped walking and everybody else copied him. "I think that if we stay in the Lea Hall building and these things are now allowed to roam freely because we have no barriers, the building could end up becoming our tomb, especially if a horde arrives and we get trapped. And as for the living..."

"Yer could say the same about staying in the houses," Pickle said. "But if we try and create another barrier o' some kind—"

"Out of what? And what's the point?" Vince snapped, which was out of character for the middle-aged man. "We have no people to guard a barrier. Take a look around. So far, all we've come across is blood and guts. There's no sign of anyone yet. This place is finished."

"We don't have any other option," said Sheryl. "And I'm certainly not staying in the woods."

"Me neither," Karen huffed.

"I've done my time in the woods." Pickle scratched at his head and look around. "So what do you suggest, Vince? A house on the Pear Tree? Back to your old camp?"

"Well," Vince released a breath out and continued, "when I went looking for Kevin Murphy in Little Haywood, I bumped into a man called John Lincoln. I met him as I was making my way back to my truck with Lisa in tow. Me and Stephanie met him again last week. Some of his guys—"

"Yeah, yeah." Pickle stopped Vincent from talking and added, "Yer have already told us this before. So what's yer suggestion? We go to Little Haywood?"

"Why not?" Vince looked round at his three companions for a reaction, but their faces were blank. "John Lincoln said I'd be welcomed back, and so will you guys. But first, we can have a check around the rest of the camp for survivors, then we put everything we can from the building into the back of the truck, then we drive the four miles to Haywood."

Pickle looked at Karen and Sheryl. "What do yer think?"

"Won't we be a target, driving a pickup along those roads?" asked Karen. "And how are we gonna fit the rest of the survivors in the back of the truck?"

"There may not be any to
put
in the back," Vince sighed sadly and added, "Little Haywood is only four miles. I'd rather try it than be a sitting duck here. This place stinks of death. I'm not sure I could live here anymore."

"Maybe we could give it a go." Pickle became lost in thought. "Little Haywood is a place I stayed before they put me away. The good thing is that it's in the middle o' nowhere. We can fill the pickup with supplies from Lea Hall, then leave for the place." Harry Branston stood up straight and folded his arms. "What if this Lincoln guy changes his mind?"

"He won't. Trust me." Vince ran his fingers over his scarred face and seemed agitated. "I'm gonna see if I can find Rosemary. We've been standing about too long."

Pickle said, "We'll raid Lea Hall once we've checked the rest o' the area."

"Why don't we forget about the supplies," Vince snapped. "Let's have a quick look around for survivors, then leave. The sooner we leave, the sooner we get there."

"Things aren't always straight forward, Vince. If we get a flat, or something else happens to the truck, then we'll need supplies to keep us going. Besides, if we're gonna turn up at this new place, we don't want to arrive empty-handed. It wouldn't be polite."

Karen said to Pickle. "When we arrive at Little Haywood, do you think we should mention to this Lincoln guy that we're cursed?"

Pickle stared at Karen, unsure what she meant. "What are yer on about?"

"Well, me and you have this cycle: We find a place, we think it's safe, then it eventually goes tits up. And so on, and so on."

"We're not cursed," Pickle chuckled.

"Aren't we?"

Pickle tried to explain, "We're in an apocalyptic situation, where the dead are trying to eat us and some o' the living are doing despicable things in order to survive."

"So what's your point?"

"We've been through this before," he sighed, a little exasperated. "Shit's gonna happen. Stile Cop was going to be short-lived anyway. We were there because we were unsure what to do, how long it'd last and were trying to come to terms with what was happening. The sports centre was doomed from the start as those things surrounded the fence the moment we got in. Wolf's cabin was okay. We left on our own accord because Vince gave us the opportunity to join
his
place. What happened to Vince's camp was bad luck, and we
also
left on our own accord because we were offered a place by Lee. Sandy Lane's demise is down to one evil bastard. Stop exaggerating. We're not cursed."

Karen huffed, "We're unlucky then."

"To a certain degree, but we're still alive." Pickle could feel himself becoming irate and released a long slow breath out, calming himself down. He wasn't in the mood for an argument. "We've only had two proper camps since this thing began, and we left the first one because we were given a better offer."

Seeing things were getting a little tense between Karen and Pickle, Sheryl cleared her throat and said, "So are we definitely going with Vince's idea?"

Pickle nodded. "Let's check the place out first for any more people. Then we'll fill the truck with the stuff from the Lea Hall building."

Pickle began to move and the rest followed. They scanned the houses and tried to see if they could see movement. Karen went over to a few that were occupied before the invasion, and knocked on the door and peered through the windows. Nothing.

"Wait," Vince said and pointed over. There were a few ghouls that were stumbling around, going in no particular direction. They looked lost, and Pickle wondered if they were on their own or had broken away from a nearby horde. His query was answered as Pickle and his group moved further up and could now see many of them around the railings of Hagley Park High School. There was at least forty.

"Let's go back," Pickle whispered to the group, knowing that cutting through Hill Street was going to be difficult, "before they see us. We'll go back onto Sandy Lane." Pickle looked at a concerned Vince. "Don't worry. We'll go to your house and check on Rosemary and the girls, as well as some others."

"Maybe there's people in the school," suggested Karen, and combed some of her greasy hair behind her left ear. "Those Snatchers are at the railings for a reason. They must have saw something or were chasing someone."

As soon as they reached the bottom of Burnthill Lane and stepped onto Sandy Lane, they walked up and passed the tennis courts to their left. Pickle and Karen were near their house. Fortunately the street was still empty and it appeared that most of the dead, that were still present on the camp, were at the school railings. As soon as Vince reached 24 Sandy Lane, his old home, he ran into the house, ignoring the protests from the rest of them.

He searched the quarters and couldn't find any sign of Rosemary, Lisa or Stephanie. He had noticed that Stephanie's bag had gone and assumed that they had already fled.

Maybe they were in the school. He had no idea.

Maybe there was nobody in the school.

Whatever happened to them, there wasn't a hope in hell getting through the dead by the railings to check the school out.

He went into the back bedroom and looked out onto the back gardens. He could see a few of the dead on the lawns. There was blood and remains in the garden to his left; he hoped they didn't belong to Rosemary.

No. He was convinced they had gone elsewhere—not the high school. Rosemary was no spring chicken and he guessed that, out the three of them, only Stephanie was physically capable of climbing those railings to get on the grounds. So where did they go? With Stephanie's background and experience, he guessed that maybe they were in the woods. He sighed. He wasn't sure.

"Vince." Karen ran upstairs, with Pickle and Sheryl following her close behind. She entered the back bedroom and could see him peering out of the window.

"We need to move, Vince." Karen cleared her throat and added, "If those things disperse from the school railings, then we'll have to leave without the supplies from the Lea Hall building."

"We could stay in here, or in one of the houses until they've gone away." Vince was lost in thought, and now had a change of heart about Haywood now that Rosemary and the girls were missing. Once it was safe, he hoped that the girls would return back to the area.

"Not a chance," Sheryl was next to speak up. "I've lived here for years, and I've never had to budge when this all kicked off. But now ... I think it's time to move on. You're right about this place before. It's finished. Little Haywood is our best option."

"I can't just leave, now that they're missing. I've got a feeling they could be in the woods, but they could come back."

"You told Rosemary about the camp in Little Haywood. Right?"

Vince nodded.

Sheryl said, "She's gonna assume that that's where
you've
gone. Instead of looking for a needle in a very large haystack, let her come to you."

Vince gulped, turned to stare at Sheryl with wide eyes and said, almost with a smile, "Maybe you're right."

"I think most people have fled," said Pickle. "I really do."

"Come on." Karen grabbed Vince by the arm. "We're gonna check a few more houses along Sandy Lane, and then we've got a truck to fill."

"Okay." Vince reluctantly followed the group, back out onto Sandy Lane.

They went over to random houses, knocked on the door and spoke through the letterbox. They stated who they were and asked the residents to make themselves visible. Some of the front windows of a couple of houses were put through, and there was the occasional Snatcher inside, but they were put down once they approached the window from inside the living room, receiving a fatal wound to the head by whoever was checking out the residence.

They checked a house at the top of Sandy Lane and found no sign of Lee James. 19 Sandy Lane was where Paul Dickson stayed, and Karen puffed out a breath of sadness when she went into the house and found it empty, and there was no positive result from any of the others that they'd checked. Five had windows that had been put through, and only eight of the dead were inside the five breached houses.

The lack of people surprised them; surely there should have been a few people remaining on the now-defunct camp.

They didn't all flee. Did they? Where were they all? Bentley, Stephanie, Rick, Gillian, Jasmine, Robert, Rosemary and Lisa ... What the fuck happened to them all?

There was evidence in the back gardens and on the road that some had perished, but not all of them, surely. There wasn't enough carnage to suggest that over a hundred had perished.

Once they had finished their hopeless search for survivors, coming across a few people that had committed suicide, they went to the Lea Hall building and went over to the entrance of the place where they had parked the truck.

Karen and Sheryl were the first to approach the doors of the building, and both quickly reached for their blades—Sheryl went for her knife, Karen for her machete—when they heard footsteps coming from inside the ground floor of the building.

Pickle and Vince did the same and stood by the side of the girls as two figures approached them. They hoped it was two people from their camp, but once the daylight from outside exposed the faces of the two individuals that were heading towards them, to the exit, it appeared that they weren't from the camp.

They were two women. Two outsiders.

Karen told her friends to put their blades down.