Snatchers: Volume Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 4-6) (13 page)

Chapter Twenty Six

Tommy Burns woke up to a blistering Tuesday morning. He yawned and began playing with the inside of the hair that dwelled inside each of his nostrils.

In the old world, before he had nothing to worry about, apart from doing a job, Tommy would constantly pluck himself on a daily basis. He hated the fact that he was hairy. His ears had hair on the outside and inside; his eyebrows were unusually thick and had to be plucked underneath the arch otherwise he'd look like a freak, and the nostril hair in the last few years had also become a bit of a problem.

He used his thumb and forefinger to work together, investigated the inside of each nostril, and pulled out a few hairs at a time. His eyes watered on doing this, but this was something he had been doing for years.

He yawned again and made an exaggerated noise which he quickly cut short. He'd completed forgot about the family in the next room and cussed under his breath, reprimanding himself. He stayed in the room that used to belong to Megan's brother, he still didn't know the age of him. He guessed he was an older teenager.

It had taken a while for the things to settle after Tommy's sneezing incident and once they did, Tommy still found it difficult to sleep.
I wish she would just let me shoot them
. He couldn't stop thinking about his mother, and that crazy guy from Paisley, Hooper.

He looked over to the defunct battery-controlled clock, and guessed that it was probably around seven in the morning. Another hour, he thought.

His eyes then noticed that his door was slightly ajar.

Despite the things being in the next room, he felt it was unnecessary to barricade himself in. The main bedroom was locked. It was safe. There was no way they were getting out, and Megan herself said that she slept with just her bedroom door closed and that was it.

Regardless of this, Tommy did get up three times during the night to gently check if the main bedroom was locked. Of course it was.

He estimated that he had six hours of broken sleep. He closed his eyes, ignoring his swollen bladder, and drifted off once again.

*

The strident noise woke him.

He gasped and his eyes investigated the room. He wondered where the noise had come from, and immediately thought that somebody had broken in.

He sat up, still in the clothes from the day before, and checked the bed. His Glock was missing. Thoroughly confused, he put his head in his hands and then remembered the state Megan was in. He remembered one of the last things she said to him before he went for a sleep. She had given up.

He went off the bed, pulled his door fully open and walked out onto the landing. He placed his ear against the door of the main bedroom and it appeared that the loud bang had stirred the dead inside. A mixture of bumps and thuds began to escalate, as their excitement—if that emotion was possible with these things—grew.

Again, he checked the door to make sure it was locked. It was. He couldn't wait a minute longer. He was almost doubled over with the pain. Despite the noise, which he was now certain that was from Megan's room, he walked to the bathroom and peed into the defunct toilet. It stunk, but the relief was immense, and his bladder was finally empty.

Once he was finished, Tommy approached Megan's bedroom. It was closed shut, and he prepared his knuckle from his middle finger to knock the door a few times, but he hesitated. He blew a breath out and bit the bullet. He knocked six times. The dead were already moving about in the next room, so he didn't see what difference it made to knock her door.

"Megan," he whispered through the door. "It's me. It's Tommy. Are you okay?"

There was no answer.

He tried again. "Megan. I..." He shook his head. "Fuck it." He tried the door handle and pushed the door fully open. He gazed inside and felt his knees buckle once his eyes witnessed the horrific scene.

He placed his hand over his mouth and was close to tears when he gazed at the young thing, slouched at the end of her bed, gun still in her right hand, and the top of her head covered in blood where it had exploded outwards when the bullet had penetrated her brain. It was clear that she had put the barrel in her mouth before pulling the trigger.

She must have taken the gun when Tommy was sleeping, which explained why his door wasn't shut properly when he first woke up before dropping off again. On a sheet of A4 paper, she had left a message for Tommy.

I'm sorry. But I will not be their victim
.

He walked over to her. Her head was a mess. Blood and brains had been scattered against the wall behind her, and he picked the gun up.

Why did she do it now and not sooner? Was there no pills? Or rope to hang herself with? Was the gun too much of a temptation? How did she manage to work it? She was just a kid for Christ's sake!

His anger began to simmer and he left the room.

The moaning and thudding began to grow louder from the main bedroom door, and this made his fury grow even more. More groaning could be heard by the three fiends that used to be Megan's family, and Tommy snapped. "Shut up! Shut the fuck up!" This short rant only fuelled the deads' eagerness to get outside of the room, and a few slams began, their hands smacking the door.

"Shut up!" he screamed, punching the door with his left fist. "Fucking shut up!" Tears rolled down his eyes and he gritted his teeth so hard with the anger, they immediately began to ache.

The groaning and the pounding continued at the door. He went back into Megan's bedroom, making sure not to look at the body, and began knocking on her wall that was the main bedroom on the other side. He placed his ear against the wall and it seemed that his objective, to get those things away from the door, was working.

He continued knocking with his ear placed against the wall and could now hear the sounds of thudding and moaning behind the partition.

He left her bedroom, readied the gun, then front-kicked the main bedroom door in. The dead were on the left side of the room, near the wall. The smell hit him; the walls and bed linen were covered in blood—probably from all the vomiting when they were changing, he thought, and the three ghouls simultaneously turned and went for him.

Megan's brother was first in the queue and took a bullet on the left side of his head, spitting out dark blood. It fell to the floor and the mother snarled at Tommy, almost like a prehistoric animal.

Where did that come from?

He'd never heard anything like it, and the surprising roar made his hand judder. He was supposed to have nerves of steel, but this new world was taking some getting used to.

Despite his shakiness, Tommy squeezed the whole of the trigger, pushing the blade down. The firing pin was released in the slide, striking the primer in the round and released the bullet out of the barrel. She was only five yards away and took the round inbetween the eyes. Her fall caused the dead father to tumble over her body, falling flat on his face. Tommy took a step forward and pointed the gun at the back of his skull and indiscriminately fired four rounds into the back of its head. The mess that was caused was predictable, but horrific all the same.

Panting heavily, Tommy Burns took a few steps backwards so that he was outside the room and on the landing, grabbed the door handle and slammed it shut. He trudged downstairs, still with his Glock in his right hand, and entered the living room.

He headed for the couch against the other side of the room, turned around, then dropped onto it. He threw his head back and sighed.

This wasn't the start to the day he was hoping for.

He sat silently for a while, and after a couple of minutes he finally found the energy to get off of his behind. This was not what he had planned, but the situation was irreversible.

He now had some tidying up to do.

Chapter Twenty Seven

As they passed the pile of dead bodies to their right, the four individuals went through the large gap in the hedge and strolled along the football field. Shaz pointed to the farm fields behind the Pear Tree Estate and asked, "Through the field, or through the estate?"

Said Vince, "It'll take forever through those fields. Even on foot we're better off going through the estate. And besides, we're not gonna find a vehicle in there, are we?" Vince began picking his teeth with his little finger.

"But the fields will be safer."

"And how do you know that? Those corn...wheat fields, or whatever they are, would come up to your waist. How do you know those things aren't in there, crawling round? How do you know the place isn't littered with traps?"

Pickle coughed and winced a little. He was still tender in the torso area, but never complained about it. "Once we get to the other side o' the estate, the Sandy Lane camp isn't far. If we get a vehicle, we'll have to go the Slitting Mill way, the long way round. Personally, I would rather just go on foot."

"Anyone know how to steal a car?" asked Jack.

No one answered verbally, but all looked at one another sheepishly.

"Great!" Vince snapped. "No one. So we're gonna need to walk along the railway track, and get onto the main Brereton road to the camp. Then it's two miles from there."

"We could break into a house and steal the keys to a car," suggested Shaz.

"I think we should go on foot," Pickle spoke up. "Driving will be quicker, obviously, but if we're on the road, we could be targeted by mercenaries."

"But if we go on foot we could be attacked by the Rotters," said Vince. "And anyway, we're gonna be coming back for dad and Karen by truck anyway."

"Yeah, but coming back we'll have a strong vehicle, and we'll also be armed."

"Okay," Vince sighed. It was obvious that he preferred to get to the camp by car, despite already being a victim of a carjacking, resulting in the death of Claire and Paul.

"What would yer rather have, Vince?" Pickle queried. "Being in a car and having men armed with a bat or a gun, chasing yer? Or, being on foot and takin' care of a stumbling member o' the dead, carrying no weapon apart from the teeth in its mouth?"

"Neither," laughed Vince, then held his hands up. "Okay, I see your point. It's gonna take longer, but as long we come back in one piece, that's all that matters."

They had walked through the estate and were all surprised to see the place was barren. The occasional evidence of violence could be seen, including bloodstains on the pavement, a few scattered body parts and burnt out houses, but there was no dead meandering the streets at all. It was very bizarre.

Jack looked around and couldn't see a single sign of life. "I bet this place was jumping a few weeks back."

"It was." Shaz nodded sadly. "Before I met up with Pickle I was going from one abandoned house to the next. They were everywhere; but where are they now?"

All four had reached the main road and began following Vince's lead. He told them that they needed to walk a few hundred yards down, veer right to avoid the Sandy Lane camp, then climb over the railings and down the steep bank to get to the rail track.

Jack smiled when this was announced, and it took him back to his childhood. He and two other friends used to climb over the very same railings and walk along the rail track, then they'd hide in some bushes and throw stones at the signal box, forcing the man inside to come out and chase them. Their actions were very dangerous, but they never possessed a phone or a games console back then; they had to entertain themselves and by doing this they caused misery to others.

Jack couldn't believe the amount of things he got up to when he used to walk the streets of Rugeley as a ten-year-old. He and his friends would run across the backs of peoples' gardens, throw fireworks under cars, and use the red phone box to make hoax calls to the fire and rescue services. Thinking back to those days, he felt a little ashamed. Then his thoughts went to Thomas; he hung back and Shaz hooked her arm in his, seeing that he was becoming upset.

"It's okay," she said. "I think about Spencer every minute of every day. Don't forget, it hasn't even been a month yet."

Vince could see that Pickle was more eager in his strides than he was, and tried to catch him up when he looked over his shoulder to see Shaz and Jack comforting one another.

Vince quickened his steps and caught up with Pickle. He decided to get to know the muscular man. "So what's
your
story?"

Pickle looked at Vince, a man he hardly knew, and took a while to answer. "Well, I'm the youngest o' three, ma parents are older. I left school and became a trampoline salesman, off and on."

Vince laughed at Pickle's dead-pan humour. "No, I meant your story during the outbreak."

"What do yer mean?"

"We all have a story how we got where we are." Vince was keen to find more about this intriguing man.

Pickle struggled to answer Vince's question at first. Where would he begin? Lost in contemplation, Pickle took a while to answer Vince. Eventually he uttered, "I was in prison when it all kicked off."

"What were you doing in prison?" Vince didn't give Pickle much time to continue his story, and seemed impressed already that a member of the group had done time. "And how did you get out?"

Pickle sighed and had a chuckle to himself. He knew that Vince was going to interrupt him every other second with queries, so Pickle tried to leave nothing out. "In short," he began. "I used to be a dealer, and I'm not talking about the kind yer see in a casino. I was doing time when the outbreak was announced. We all panicked and began banging our cell doors. Fortunately, I was in a house block that had two officers in charge that were sympathetic. They released us and finally gave us a lift."

"So how did you meet Karen? Shaz told me she was a nurse at Stafford."

"I met up with Karen at Stile Cop. We stayed there for a few days before we were attacked during the night. We lost the two officers as well as my partner, KP."

Vince screwed his face and said, "KP? Funny name for a woman."

"KP wasn't a woman."

"Oh." Vince looked embarrassed, and was about to crack a joke to lighten the mood, but he feared he would upset Pickle who looked the type of man that could take Vince with one arm tied behind his back.

Pickle continued, "Anyway, when we were attacked at Stile Cop, me and KP ran down a hill to get to the van that was surrounded, while Karen created a distraction by shooting them."

Vince gave Pickle a surprised look.
Karen created a distraction by shooting them?

"We used to have Brownings. Karen was alone, in the dark, shooting them. She was surrounded by dozens o' the fuckers. She's got some fucking balls, I can tell yer. Anyway, KP never made it, and me and Karen left Stile Cop in a prison van that the officers stole. Then we stayed at a car park, then a house. Then we met up with Jack and fled to a sports centre. That was short-lived. So we fled into the woods and came across yer dad's cabin. He's an absolute life-saver."

"Jack told me about the sports centre." Vince released a sad sigh and added, "He told me about people being bit, and what happened to his son, with the blood getting into his eye."

Pickle pointed at Vince and announced, "If yer ever see me get bit, leave me. As soon as those teeth get into the flesh, yer finished."

Vince nodded, unsure whether Pickle was giving him some advice or it was some kind of threat.

"So what's the deal with Karen?"

Vince never had the chance to get an answer from his question, when Shaz yelled out, "Look." Shaz pointed up ahead, and reached for her machete.

Two ghouls were up ahead, walking in their direction. The one on the left was a rotund woman, and the creature on the right was a male, with a thin black beard.

Vince pulled out his hammer and said to Shaz, "You deal with the salad dodger. I'll deal with Jack Sparrow."

Pickle and Jack stood back while Shaz and Vince made little work of the ghouls' demise. Once they were finished and left the beasts on the floor, heads pouring out the dark stuff, Vince pointed and announced, "The rail track is just up there."

They walked for a few minutes and could see the remains of a corpse lying in the middle of the road. Shaz had already pulled her grey T-shirt up, anticipating the horrendous smell, and when all four reached the body, they could see only the head and a couple of limbs were left. Intestines were strewn across the road, and whoever or whomever had caused this destruction, had now disappeared and gone elsewhere.

"Damn shame." Jack shook his head. It didn't matter how many times he witnessed these images, it was still horrific. Every time he saw something like this, he couldn't help imagining what it would actually be like to be devoured in such a way, especially by a group of them.

Was that the way
he
was going to go? He hoped not.

Vince nodded in agreement with Jack's statement. "It's happened to many thousands, especially in the first week, but it's still awful when you see it."

The head of the victim was lying on its side; the mouth of the decapitated head was wide open, and the eyes were still present. The head also sported long black hair, tied in a ponytail, but most of it was covered in blood, and there was also a cut to its face.

"Fuck 'im," Pickle sniffed. He felt the eyes of the group glaring at him as soon as he released the unsympathetic statement.

"That's a bit harsh, Pickle." Shaz was taken aback by Pickle's unusually cold manner. It wasn't like him at all. Shaz thought that this would be the kind of thing that Karen would say, and Pickle would then tell her off or give her one of his looks.

He responded to Shaz's comment. "It's not harsh at all."

Shaz, Jack and Vince decided to keep their mouths shut for fear of causing an argument, or worse.

Pickle pointed his finger at the decapitated head. "That's the guy tha' took ma finger off."