Snatchers: Volume Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 4-6) (44 page)

"All that stuff happened before Jack joined the camp. He told me all about it." Vince was quick to respond, and his wrists were burning as he tried to free his hands. There was so much anger inside of him, he wasn't feeling any pain. "He was with a friend, trying to survive, and then your sister and your men barged into his son's house and he fought them off. What else was he supposed to do?"

Gavin smiled. "But you were all together as a group when your lady-friend broke my sister's nose."

"We need to eradicate any danger to ourselves." The bearded man had been silent for a while, but now had broken his silence. "We heard that a gang, a family from Little Haywood has been rampaging, and if we come across them, then there could be trouble."

"These guys were apparently bad fuckers even before the apocalypse," Gavin added. "And with Little Haywood being a tiny place, it wouldn't surprise me if they were already in Rugeley. Another reason for us to move to the middle of nowhere."

"I don't get it," Pickle couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Why can't we all get along? Why does it have to be this way? Why can't we work together?"

"People
are
working together," Gavin's sister threw her opinion into the discussion. "That's why these camps are being formed. Another few months and they'll be camps everywhere, attacking one another for supplies, while we'll be in our country house, in the middle of nowhere. You can't keep robbing people, because what are you gonna do when there's nothing left to rob? Why do you think we're here? This stuff will keep us going for months, and no one's going to take it from us."

"It's survival of the fittest, and fuck everybody else." Gavin cackled, "I'll see you all in one hour. Take them back inside." Gavin strolled away and jumped into his car to leave the premises.

Chapter Thirty Four

The car crawled along the road and turned left at the junction. It then turned into another barren road, and Paul told Kyle that they were going to pull over once they reached the next bus stop. Paul pulled the car in and had a look around. Farmland was to the right of him, as well as a large hut that was probably used as storage for farm equipment. The edge of a new set of woods was to his left.

"Daddy, I need the toilet."

"So do I, son." Paul pointed to the side of him. "We'll just take a pee at the side of the road."

"No, daddy. I need a stinky."

"Another one?" Paul then remembered that his son wanted a 'stinky' back at the house, but he never had chance to have one because of the Murphy incident.

Paul sighed, but he knew these moments were going to happen. He thought about his 'staying out in the open' theory. Maybe it'd be more advantageous to drive to the next village and try somebody's house, or even check out his mum's place. Maybe he even should go back to his own small town and see if someone would put them up. The Murphy mob were rampaging through the place, but after four weeks of lawlessness, didn't all towns and cities have their own gangs of mercenaries? With being cooped up in the luxury of his own home for four weeks, it was hard to answer that question.

He looked at the dark blue sky and then glanced at his Citizen watch. He had three hours before darkness arrived. He opened the car door and walked with Kyle to the side of the road.

"I forgot toilet roll, squirt," Paul tried to explain. "So let me pee first, then have your stinky in the woods and I'll look for some big leaves to clean you up."

A minute had passed, and after Paul had emptied his bladder he walked Kyle further into the woods for his poo. The father took a fearful look around, and watched as his frightened boy pulled his trousers down and squatted to the floor. He shot straight back up and began crying.

Feeling stressed, Paul sighed impatiently, "What is it?"

"What if a fly goes up my bum?"

"It won't."

"But—"

"Just do it. No arguments."

Paul walked around with the claw hammer tucked into his belt, and started pulling off leaves for his son. He looked behind him to see his boy was still doing his business, and continued to select more large leaves.

"Daddy!"

"Won't be a minute, son." Paul had his left hand full of leaves and began picking a few more with his right.

"Daddy!"

"Give me a minute, Kyle."

Kyle cried, "I can see a monster."

Paul quickly turned around to see that Kyle wasn't seeing things. A solitary being stumbled along the road, passing the car, but it never saw father and son who were ten feet into the woodland. Paul crept over and began wiping Kyle. "Just keep quiet. Don't say anything," Paul whispered.

He pulled his son's trousers up and they knew they had to wait for it to pass before they could leave the condensed woods. Kyle took a step backwards and stood on a branch creating a loud snapping noise. Paul swivelled his head round to gently reprimand his son, but the snap had already done the damage.

Kyle pointed with a tremulous finger, and Paul looked to where the finger was pointing. The ghoul staggered into the woods and was heading straight for them.

Nervous as hell, Paul took out his hammer with his shaking hands, told Kyle to stay put, then walked to meet their aggressor. Paul slowly trudged through the greenery and then stopped walking, waiting for the creature to stumble nearer. He looked at the rotten male with disgust, and swung the hammer back, ready to strike. Weary of the dangers of getting blood in his eye with a weapon like a hammer, there was little hesitation in Paul because his son was in danger.

He told Kyle to look away and made his first strike. The flat part of the hammer struck the thing at the side of its head. It stumbled a little, but was still standing. The hideous-looking being then groaned and grabbed a hold of Paul around the throat, making Kyle cry out. Paul released a shriek, dropped the hammer, then grabbed its shoulders to push the thing back, but it was stronger than it looked.

Still scuffling, and Kyle crying behind him, Paul and the creature both fell to the ground. Paul then pushed his hand upwards against the creatures throat, trying not to get bit, and could see white maggots spilling out of its chops. Paul turned his head to the side, trying to avoid these insects, and retched a little when three of the ghastly things fell into his mouth. He now used both hands to push away the decomposed being, and managed to push it off of him altogether.

He quickly got to his feet, ran to his son and told him to follow him.

They both ran away from the creature and quickly veered left, back to the main road. Once they got to the road, they ran the few yards to reach the car; they jumped in, and Paul frantically searched for his keys.

"Oh, don't do this to me." He patted every pocket he had and realised that he may have lost the keys during the scuffle.

No hammer! No car keys!

"For fuck's sake!" Paul punched the steering wheel.

"Daddy," Kyle cried. "You're scaring me."

Paul turned to his son. "I'm gonna have to go back. As soon as I leave, lock the doors."

"Daddy, don't leave me!"

"I'll be one minute. You lock
one
door and they all lock. Okay, big chap?"

Kyle nodded, reluctantly, tears running out of his green eyes and down his plump cheeks that were scattered with freckles.

Paul left the car again, waited for the click to confirm that Kyle had locked the doors, then ran straight through the woods and right
at
the ghoul this time. With every ounce of anger he had in him, Paul front-kicked the beast into the mid-riff. It flew back a few yards and then Paul took the hammer from the floor and rained four blows into its skull, bludgeoning it to death.

The front of its head was brutally damaged, and the remaining two blows had smashed into the diseased brain. In shock, he looked at the hammer to see a small amount of contaminated brain debris hanging off the flat end. No blood flew back at him during the attack, and Paul wasn't sure that this was because of luck, or because the body wasn't alive anymore and the blood wasn't oxygenated, which meant that the blood inside the beast was probably thicker and less likely to spurt. He had no idea.

The damage to the head created black treacle-like fluid that poured out of the large wound, and Paul was surprised that he wasn't feeling nauseous.

Was he now getting used to this macabre world already? Or was his strength and bravery present because he had his boy to think of?

Paul then scanned the area of the woods, looking for his car keys. It was impossible to see through the long grass, but he ruffled through it as well as the long bracken.

A faint scream made Paul twist his neck, and he gasped as he saw three of the things surrounding the car. He was twenty yards away, but he could still see Kyle banging on the inside window with both palms of his hands, urging his dad to hurry up, terror scrawled across his red face and tears streaming out of his terrified eyes. There was another two walking up the road, and it appeared they had come from the hut, from the other side of the road. But what were they doing in there?

"Kyle!" Paul screamed. "Kyle!"

Paul's yells were not distracting the beings as they continued to slam their hands against the windows of the car, desperate to get in, desperate to rip the little boy to bloody shreds.

Grabbing the hammer, Paul ran at the car and could hear more rustling in the trees to the left of him. He couldn't see anything at first, but as he progressed towards the car to the edge of the woods, he could see a large man to the side of him running with a shotgun. The experience was beyond surreal, but Paul tried to focus on keeping his son safe. Then, suddenly, the man called out to Paul. "Go to the other side of the road and I'll distract them. Then get your boy."

How does he know I have a boy?

Paul didn't have time for questions. He emerged out of the woods, went past his car and ran across the other side of the road and began waving and hollering, trying to entice the three ghouls away from the car. All three turned, collectively, and shambled their way towards Paul.

"Get my boy!" Paul yelled at the strange man, who now stood motionless by the front of the car.

"Not yet!" the man snapped. He looked like he knew what he was doing. The man gestured to the boy in the vehicle to calm down, then turned to see the other two advancing ghouls walking towards the car, while Paul continued backing away from the other three heading
his
way.

"Keep walking," the man bellowed. "It's too dangerous to take all three out."

"Hurry up and do something!" begged Paul.

Paul could now see that the dark-haired man was quite muscular, and he guessed that he was trying to keep the two freaks away from the other three fiends to make their demise a little easier, rather than having to take out five, one after the other.

The strange man casually strolled towards the two ghouls. With the butt of the gun he put both fiends down. Once they were lying on the road, the large man pummelled them both with four strikes each to the head. Paul watched from afar as their heads caved in and almost cracked open like bloody Easter eggs, producing dark gunk all over the road. Seeing this, he immediately thought about the barbaric way Daisy was killed by the Murphy family.

The man then ran over towards Paul, where the other three were slowly walking over to him. Hearing his footsteps, one of the creatures turned away from Paul and stumbled towards the large man, leaving the other two, with his arms outstretched.

The man held the gun, and this time it was being held the right way, and he squeezed the trigger. The loud bang made Paul jump and saw the blast take half of the creature's head away. Dark blood, skull and brain matter flew behind and scattered all over the road while the victim dropped to its knees and fell face down on the tarmac, with the remainder of its brain slipping out of the gaping hole of its bloody cranium.

Both ghouls now had turned around, with their backs to Paul, and were now both meandering in the man's direction after hearing the blast.

While their backs were turned to Paul, he took the opportunity to smash his hammer, claw-ways, into the head of the one in the blood-soaked pink blouse. The female collapsed in a heap, taking the hammer with it that was still buried into the skull.

The stranger then turned the gun round again, butt-ways, and smacked the remaining one in its face, knocking it over. It was enough to kill it.

"Where the fuck did they come from?" He turned to Paul.

Paul shrugged his shoulders; he had no answer. "Me and my son just pulled in for a toilet break, we—"

"We need to get the fuck out of here." The man then pointed at the barn and another seven shambled out. They were a few minutes away. "I don't have the cartridges or the energy to sort these cocks out. Where're you headed?"

Paul couldn't give the man an answer. " I don't know, we—"

"Fine," the man snapped. "I've got a cabin a mile away from here; if you give me a ride, I'll let you and your boy stay for the night."

"A mile away?" Paul was baffled. "How come you're so far out?"

The man cracked a smile. "Food. Plenty of mushrooms and berries are in these woods." The man pointed at Paul's Mazda. "You get in your car and I'll go back for my bag in the woods."

"Why did you help us?"

The man glared at Paul, as if he had just asked him the dumbest ever question. "You've got a boy. I couldn't just leave you two. I saw you both in the woods." The man held up his hands. "It's okay, I'm no pervert or nothing. I heard noises, then saw you scuffling with one of them. I have a cabin in the woods, and a woman waiting for me. In hindsight, I should have brought my handgun."

Paul couldn't believe it.
He has a handgun?

The stranger ran into the woods, and returned a minute later, holding a bag in his left hand and the shotgun in his right.

Paul told the stranger that he had dropped his car keys somewhere in the woods.

"I'll stay here until you've found them," the man said, and looked at the seven members of the dead stumbling towards them from afar. "Hurry up. You've got about two minutes."

Paul told Kyle what he was doing and jogged away into the greenery. He was only in the woods for a matter of seconds before returning with the keys in his hand. Both men got into the front of the car and Paul gave Kyle a gentle pat on his legs. "Well done. You were really brave."

Kyle was relieved that his daddy was back and before he could ask about the new man, he introduced himself to Paul as Bentley Drummle.

"Bentley Drummle?" Paul had confusion on his face, as if he had heard that name before. "Wasn't that a character in Great Expectations?"

The stranger shrugged his shoulders. He had no idea what Paul was talking about.

Paul pulled away, and as they passed the barn they could clearly see another three inside it. The other seven were too slow to get to the car and by the time the vehicle had disappeared around the windy, country lane, the ghouls had only reached as far as the middle of the road, opposite the barn.