Snatchers (Book 9): The Dead Don't Scream (16 page)

Chapter Thirty One

The fire had been lit and the group sat. They were six feet into the woodland that was opposite the pub and near the Wyevale Garden Centre. Their voices were a little raucous, considering the situation the world was in, and began opening the bottles of warm beer that they had taken from the pub. They had to kill seven of the dead that had managed to get inside the place.

They were all sitting down in a circle, around the fire, and the only standing individual was a tall man. The standing man had a grey scruffy beard, long grey hair to his shoulders and went by the name of Mac. His companions consisted of two females and seven males. The fire was now gathering momentum and the skinned rabbits sat over the dancing flames whilst the group drunk beer.

"Right," Mac spoke up, "we've got half an hour."

His six-foot frame was leaning up against a tree, staring at his jolly pals. He hadn't seen them this happy in a while.

"What are we gonna tell Drake when we get back?" said one of the women. Her name was Ina, and looked to be in her forties and in desperate need of a makeover. Her hair was a mixture of brown and grey, her teeth were rotten and her clothes looked like they hadn't been changed in weeks.

"We're gonna tell Drake the truth," Mac sniffed. "We'll say that we've checked out the area and had little joy. And now we move on back to Stafford."

"What about Great Haywood or Little Haywood?" Ina asked. "Or Abbots Bromley?"

"What about them? There was fuck all in those shit-holes
before
the apocalypse, so why do you think it'll be different now?"

"I just thought it'd be worth a look."

"Well, Drake doesn't want us out for too long."

One of the men around the fire, a butch man by the name of Des, decided to speak up. "You're shit-scared of Drake, aren't you?" Des mocked and took a swig of the warm beer in his right hand.

"And so should
you
be." Mac blew out a breath, thinking about the disastrous run. Returning from a run, empty-handed, wasn't going to please Drake at all, but as the weeks went by it was getting more difficult to return with anything substantial.

"Drake's not that bad," Des said.

"Just don't drink too much." Mac could see that his warning was too late. These guys hadn't had an alcoholic drink in weeks and suddenly they came across beer and couldn't help themselves. "Drake put me in charge of this run. It's bad enough returning with nothing, but if beer is smelt on your breath..."

"You'll get it," Des laughed, and threw his empty bottle into the woods and started another. There was only a few left.

"Exactly."

More laughter followed and the alcohol was being consumed at a quick rate. Going back to Stafford, on their mopeds and under the influence, was going to be quite a challenge for most of them.

"Hey, Ina." Des called over to the rough-looking woman in her forties. "What do you say to a quickie ... before we have to leave?"

"I'm not in the mood, Des," she moaned.

"Oh, go on. We'll take a quick trip inside the pub and I'll bend you over one of the tables."

"I said: no," she began to laugh. "Just have a wank instead."

"Fuck that." Des began to sulk and went in a bad mood. "What's the point having women with us if you're not allowed to fuck them?"

"Fuck off!" she cackled.

"Just remember I saved your arse two weeks ago, on that run. And remember what Drake said about keeping us guys happy?"

"I'm just not in the mood, that's all."

"Fine." Des was now behaving like a petulant child. "But I'm gonna have to tell Drake about this."

"For fuck's sake." Ina drained the remains of her beer and snapped, "Fine. But you're pulling out as soon as you're near. I'm not going back with spunk running down my thighs."

"Deal."

Des and Ina stood up. Des then went over and picked up his leather jacket that had the initials W.O.E. stitched on at the bottom, and told the gang he'd be no longer than ten minutes.

Ina began to jog out of the woods, passing the mopeds that were leaning against the trees, and continued towards the main road.

"Wait up!" Des called after her.

"Hurry up, slow-coach." She turned around, began walking backwards and made it to the main road. She beckoned Des to hurry up. She then narrowed her eyes. She thought she could hear an engine, but her group were making so much noise it was hard to tell.

He began to chase after her, making her scream. She ran across the road and went to turn around to see where Des was, but a screech of tyres was heard, followed by a red vehicle smacking Ina with huge force, making her companions gasp in horror as she went under the wheels of the vehicle before it came to a stop.

*

It had been ten minutes since Pickle had pulled the truck over, and occasionally he would peer his head round to see if the coast was clear. He had checked on numerous occasions. This time it
was
clear.

"It's safe now," he announced to Vince, Karen and Sheryl. "They've gone."

Pickle seemed agitated and remained on his feet, whereas the other three were sitting at the side of the road, stuffing their faces. Vince had already opened his third tin, spaghetti hoops, and told Pickle to relax and sit down.

"I can't sit down." Harry Branston began to pace the ground, unsure whether to leave right now or not.

"You haven't eaten anything yet, apart from that tin of soup." Sheryl had emptied her tin and was chewing the remains of the halved pears, drank the juice that the pears came in and threw the tin behind her, into the woodland.

"Have a tin," Karen advised. "Then we'll leave in five minutes. At least then whoever was hanging around the roundabout will be well-gone."

"Listen to the girls." Vince smiled and stood to his feet. He put his hand in the back of the pickup and threw Pickle a tin of salmon. "Hang around for a bit, but in the meantime try and keep your strength up. It's been a rough night for all of us."

Pickle looked at the tin and realised it had no ring-pull. With himself, Vince and Karen carrying machetes, he went over to Sheryl to borrow her knife.

With Sheryl's blade he stabbed at the tin, and managed to open it, then ate the food with his fingers within seconds.

He was a lot hungrier than he'd thought.

He threw the tin away and went round the back for a tin of Mexican spicy beans. Once he had managed to guzzle them down, he wiped his mouth and went for another look. He glared at the roundabout. It was still clear.

"Okay." Pickle clapped his hands together. "Let's get this vehicle moving before it gets dark."

"Don't exaggerate," Karen laughed. "It's the middle of the day."

Pickle waited patiently as Sheryl, Karen and Vince took their time returning to the vehicle. Once the passengers were in, he opened the driver's side door and plonked himself into the seat, shutting the door after him. He then turned the keys that he had left in the ignition and drove away. He went through the gears and cruised at a steady thirty. He slowed as he approached the roundabout, turned right and took a quick glance at the pub where he had stayed for a night in the first week of the apocalypse.

"So what's this John Lincoln like?" Pickle queried Vince.

"He seems like a genuine guy," Vince spoke up. "And some of the people I briefly met seemed okay as well, which is a nice change to what you can sometimes bump into."

Karen laughed falsely, "Tell me about it."

"Not only did their guys help me and Stephanie out when we thought we were goners, but John gave us a bed for the night in his own house. He also ordered two guys to drop us off in Rugeley the next morning."

"Yeah, yer mentioned before," Pickle said, then questioned further, "So this John Lincoln runs the show?"

"I think he does."

Pickle went over the Wolseley bridge, that ran over the River Trent, and added, "And what's their weaponry like? Did you get to see?"

"I only saw people carrying blades and bats," Vince sighed. "They may have a stockpile of guns hidden somewhere, but I doubt it."

"Was it a similar set-up to Sandy Lane?" This time it was Sheryl's turn to speak up.

"Not sure." Vince hunched his shoulders. "I wasn't given a tour as such. It's certainly a lot smaller, which isn't a bad thing."

Pickle nodded. "Sandy Lane was too big."

"I thought so," Karen agreed. "And there was a lot of people on there that didn't pull their weight."

"How many people are there?" Sheryl continued with her probing, but Vince didn't have a satisfying answer for her.

Vince sighed, "I don't know."

Sheryl added, "But surely—"

"Watch out!" Karen screamed, giving all three a fright.

The truck ploughed into a person that quickly came out of the woods. As soon as the vehicle hit the unsuspecting individual, the body went under both sets of wheels, making all four inside jump up, before Pickle managed to react and hit the brakes. Pickle had finally stopped the vehicle and gaped at his passengers to see if they were unscathed. They were.

"I hope that was a Snatcher you just hit," said Karen.

Pickle shook his head. "I don't think it was."

Vince rubbed his face and questioned, "Do you think we should go out and check?"

"Nah, fuck it." Sheryl looked restless and wanted to leave. "They're probably dead now anyway."

"Pickle?" Karen looked at her friend. "What do
you
think?"

Before Pickle could answer, the driver's door opened and Pickle was dragged out of the truck by many hands, and another reached for the keys and took them out of the ignition.

A middle-aged man poked his head into the vehicle and told Sheryl, Karen and Vince, "Out of the fucking vehicle. Now!"

Chapter Thirty Two

Pickle, Vince, Karen and Sheryl were out of the pickup, standing at the side of the road with their arms in the air as a sign of surrender. They were yards away from the body, and could see that nine people had come out of the woods, and two of them went straight over to the body and went on their knees, trying to help the woman that was hit by Pickle.

One of the individuals was so incensed at what had just happened, that he ran for Pickle, only to be held back by two of his pals. A wiry man sporting a scruffy beard strolled to the front of the group and held out his arm, appealing for calm.

Pickle and the rest had noticed that some of the group had leather jackets on and had the letters
WOE
stitched onto the bottom of them. He had no idea what this meant, but what was going to happen to them
now
was more of a concern.

"We're losing her, Mac," a member announced from behind. It appeared to Pickle and co that Mac was leading this rabble. Pickle and Vince moved their heads and tried to get a better look at the victim from where they were standing. She was shaking, moaning, and blood pooled around the head. It didn't take a doctor to confirm that the woman was seconds or minutes away from death.

Pickle stared in anticipation and gulped once he heard the words, "She's gone."

Eight furious people gathered behind the man they called Mac, and began to shout obscenities. One man ran at the four, but was held and dragged back by three of his associates.

Mac turned around and urged his team to calm down whilst he tried to speak. Eventually, their noise levels and their profanities began to subside, and Mac now turned around to speak to the four individuals from the pickup truck. But before he had chance, Pickle began to speak.

"It wasn't ma fault," he began to explain. "She just came out o' nowhere. Our camp was attacked the other night, so we're a little sleep-deprived, but she was too quick."

Mac held his hand up to silence Pickle, and it seemed to have worked. Now it was
his
turn to speak. "Maybe it
was
an accident."

"O' course it was. Why would I run down a fellow human being for no reason? She came out o' nowhere."

"Well, that's all fine and dandy," Mac mocked and looked a little twitchy, "but what the fuck am I going to tell Drake?"

Sheryl scoffed, "And who the fuck's Drake?"

"Someone better than you!" the remaining woman yelled from behind Mac. "Drake has looked after us from the beginning." She looked at her dead friend and burst into tears, now being comforted by a male, wearing a leather jacket and combat trousers.

"Drake is somebody that we all look up to," said Mac.

"Your leader?" queried Vince.

"If that's what you want to call it."

"You're all cunts!" The irate woman began to scream, now being held back by one of the leather-dressed men. "You should all die for this!"

Mac tried to shush the irate female, obviously upset that her friend had been killed. "The woman that you ... killed," Mac began. "Is ...
was
a woman called Ina. Now, I can't go back to our base, tell Drake what's happened, and tell our boss that we did fuck all to the creator or creators of her murder."

"It wasn't murder," protested Pickle.

"So ... this is what I propose." Mac cleared his throat and added, "You killed one of our women. Now we need compensation for what you've done."

Pickle, Vince, Sheryl and Karen all stared at one another, but never uttered a word at first. Karen leaned over to Pickle and whispered, "They wanna take the truck. That's fine. Let them have it."

Vince agreed with Karen and looked over to the blade-wielding gang, certain that the four of them would struggle against them. There were too many. Vince said, "Just give it to them, Pickle. We're only a mile or so from Little Haywood anyway."

Sheryl also agreed, but remained silent. It seemed that the decision had already been made.

"Okay." Pickle called over to Mac. "Yer lost a member and I'm sorry for that. Yer can have the vehicle, and everything we have in it."

Groans from behind the man they called Mac began to escalate, and it appeared that the rest of the group were not satisfied with Pickle's offer.

Mac looked confused at first, then a wide smile broke out on his face and he burst into hysterics. A couple of others joined him, but the rest seemed too upset or angry to do the same as it had only been minutes since they'd lost Ina, who continued to bleed out all over the road.

"Oh, we'll be taking the truck,
that
I can assure you." Mac slapped his thigh, still giggling to himself.

Pickle guessed that Mac's next sentence was going to begin with a
but
, and he wasn't wrong.

"But," Mac pointed his finger in the air, "you took a woman's life."

"I know. And I feel terrible." Pickle nodded, and looked behind him and pointed at his three friends, Karen, Vince and Sheryl. "We
all
feel terrible." The three of them nodded, showing the group with the mopeds that they were sorry for their loss.

"You took one of our women, now we need to take one of yours." As soon as Mac made this announcement, his group behind him groaned in agreement and nodded their heads.

Sheryl and Karen appeared uncomfortable and looked at Pickle. He shook his head at the two girls, telling them that no harm was going to come to them.

"There's no need for that." This time it was Vince's turn to speak up. "We're sorry for what's happened. Killing one of us won't bring your woman back."

"Tell that to Drake." Mac shook his head. He looked uncomfortable in this situation, but the fear of what this Drake character could do to him spurred him on.

But how would Drake know if Mac decided to just let them go? Pickle thought. He guessed that Mac didn't want to risk it, just in case one of his comrades let the cat out the bag. Some of the people seemed too angry to be persuaded to let Pickle and the rest go unharmed anyway.

Mac turned and looked over his shoulder, then sharply whistled at one of his colleagues. The young-looking man, no older than nineteen, walked to the side of the woods and grabbed something from one of the mopeds. There were six mopeds, a few feet into the woodland, and with there being ten members, four of the riders must have taken passengers.

The young man brought out an old shotgun, which unnerved Pickle's group that were standing a few yards away.

"What are yer gonna do with that?" Pickle had a bad feeling about what was about to happen.

Pickle took a step forward, letting them know that he wouldn't allow any harm come to either Karen or Sheryl.

"We found this at Shugborough Hall," Mac explained. "It only has one shell left, so we'll need to put it to some good use."

Pickle enquired, "Yer don't normally carry guns?"

One of the men yelled from behind Mac, "And where the fuck are we gonna get guns in this shit-hole of a country? Unless you're a farmer or—"

"That's enough!" Mac interjected, and turned his attention back to Pickle. "So which girl will it be?"

Pickle was nervous, but he managed a small smile. "Neither. I was the one driving. Kill me."

"Pickle," Karen said from behind, with gritted teeth. "Don't do this."

Mac smiled at Pickle's valour, and told the man with the gun to hold off for a while. Mac began to snicker and turned to some of his guys and nodded at three of them. He announced, "Let's have a little fun before we go." Mac asked them, "You want some fun, guys? You wanna beat this fucker?"

"Fuck, yeah!" one of them yelled.

On Mac's command, three men strolled forwards and pulled out their blades, making Pickle snigger. He pointed at his own machete in his belt and laughed, "Do yer see me pullin' out
ma
blade, do yer?"

All three stopped walking and took a gander at one another.

Said Pickle, "Let's settle this like men. Even three on one is a cowardly act, and yer pull out blades? Seriously? Maybe yer don't fancy yer chances. Maybe I should take it as a compliment."

Mac grinned and said with confidence, "I'm sure my men can give you a run for your money, barehanded. We've spent the last two months fighting to survive."

Pickle smiled at Mac, nodded, then raised his eyebrows. "And what the fuck do yer think
we've
been doing? Having picnics and sipping tea?"

Vince took a step forward and whispered in Pickle's ear, "Make that three on two."

Pickle pushed him back. "I've got this."

"But—"

"No buts, Vince." Pickle then gave Kindl a wink. "This could be my last hurrah."

"What the fuck are you pussies waiting for?" Mac growled at the three men and then pointed at Pickle. "Teach the prick a lesson."

One of them looked reluctant to attack and stayed back whilst the other two, blades now tucked away, ran at Pickle, fists clenched. Harry Branston side-kicked the right knee of the attacker to his right, putting him down instantly. Then swung round, with his elbow raised, and caught the man to his left on his chin. The man to the left dropped to the floor, unconscious, and Pickle could see and hear the first guy he had taken care of screaming out, writhing around on the road, clutching onto his right knee.

The third man, the reluctant one, looked at his comrades on the floor, then turned to stare at Mac. He shook his head and went back over to his group, shamefaced.

"For fuck's sake," Mac moaned. "He's just one man." Mac then shook his head in exasperation and told the youngster carrying the shotgun to stay where he was for now.

"Just shoot me!" Pickle yelled at the teenager holding the gun.

"No, Pickle. No!" screamed Karen.

"Yer keep yer mouth shut, Bradley." Pickle warned and said to Mac, pointing at Karen, "She's pregnant. Shoot me. Leave the girls alone."

Mac smiled. "I don't give a shit if she's pregnant or not."

"Kill
me
," Pickle pleaded.

Ignoring the man's pleas, Mac called on the rest of his men to restrain the four of them.

One was dead, and two were now injured, so the remaining gang, seven in all, went over together, including the female. Pickle and Vince put up a fight, they soon stopped when Karen was brought down by one of the men and now had a knife to her throat.

"Okay, okay." Pickle held his hands in the air. "We yield."

Vince and Pickle were told to lie flat on the ground, on their bellies, and were informed that if they moved, "the pregnant bitch" would get her throat cut. Karen was already on the floor. Sheryl was finding it difficult to do as she was told, because it was the surviving woman that was rudely given her an order, and with their lives being in danger, Sheryl's pride and stubbornness wasn't helping matters.

"Lie down!" the woman from the gang snarled.

"Make me." Sheryl stood firm.

"Jesus Christ, Sheryl," yelled Vince from the floor. "Don't be a cunt. If you don't care for yourself, at least do it for us three, or even just Karen."

Sheryl and the woman glared at each other, both refusing to back down. Eventually Sheryl gulped and sighed, "Fine."

She dropped to her knees and slowly lay down on her belly. All four that were on the ground thought it was unusual that the people hadn't taken their weapons off them.

"Let's talk this through," said Pickle. His hands were on the back of his head, his belly on the road, whereas Karen and Vince had theirs by their side. Sheryl had her arms bent and was leaning her head on her hands to protect it from the rough floor.

Pickle took a quick look at Karen and Sheryl and could see they were both nervous, but with his performance with the two men before, he was pretty sure that now
he
could be the target, despite Mac saying before that a female should be punished for the killing of Ina. After all, it was Pickle that was behind the wheel.

Mac told one of his men to pick up the guy with the damaged knee that Pickle had hurt. They did as they were told and dragged the man away. He also took a gape at the unconscious man that Pickle had elbowed and shook his head. He bent down to check on him. He was still breathing, but out cold.

He then looked at the body of Ina. Man, she was in a mess, and what was Drake going to say about this?

"Sonny," Mac spoke to a man that was in his thirties; he looked malnourished and had a patchy beard. "Get the pickup. You're driving it back. Gonna have to put Ina in the back of it."

Sonny went over to the pickup, keys still in the ignition, and saw the tins in the back. "There's supplies in here. We're gonna have to put Ina on top of it."

"Fine. Everybody get on your bikes!" Mac bellowed. "We're leaving. This has been a fucking disaster from start to finish. Maybe the pickup and supplies will keep Drake happy."

They got on their mopeds and started them up. Pickle and the rest, still face-down on the floor, could hear the sound of revving and the smell of fumes. Harry Branston looked up and could see now that there was just a couple left standing, whilst the rest were on their bikes, ready to go. Mac told Pickle and the other three that if any of them moved, they'd all feel a blade in their back.