Snatchers: Volume Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 4-6) (71 page)

Chapter Thirty Three

It was nearly 5am and Harry Branston sat yawning his head off. It had been a long morning and he had been sitting on the cab of the HGV for nearly four hours. He called over to one of the guards, a nervous fellow who didn't have it in him, and asked what time it was. He was told that it was nearly five, and they both had one more hour to kill before being relieved of their duties.

Pickle couldn't wait to get on that lumpy bed. He'd even sleep on one of the benches if he had to. His mattress was so thin that he could feel the springs of the bed digging into his back, but spending days of sleeping in the woods made the bed a luxury.

The watch was so monotonous that sometimes he would think about what family he had left, and, of course, KP. He wondered if he had any family left at all. He only had a handful of cousins and an aunt before the new world arrived. At 2am, he was so bored that his mind wandered and a scenario involving Karen getting killed by a monster played in his mind. He had no idea why this make believe story entered his head, but it snowballed so much that Harry Branston was almost in tears at the end. He shook his head and cursed himself for being so stupid.

*

Shaz tossed and turned for most of the night.

She constantly thought about Spencer and was sorry that when she stroked him to sleep, like she did on most evenings, she never got to say goodbye and told him that she loved him to the moon and back.

She was half-asleep and smiling to herself when her mind reminded her of the many times she would finally leave his room to go downstairs. After reading him a story, she would sometimes stand by his doorframe, blow him a kiss and he would catch it and scoff it into his mouth. It was silly moments like this that she missed, and she sat up in bed and sobbed as gently as possible, knowing that Karen was in the next bed.

"I can't sleep either," whispered Karen.

"Sorry." Shaz rubbed her blue-soaked eyes. "I seem to be having a bad night."

"Night?" Karen checked the side-table where a white battery-powered alarm clock sat. "I think you'll find that it's nearly five in the morning."

"Shit."

"Tell me about it." Karen rubbed her face and moaned, "I've been awake since three. Haven't been to sleep since."

"I'm not sure I slept at all. It felt like I've had daydreams."

"You did sleep. I heard you snore a couple of times. It wasn't for long, though."

Shaz groaned, "What day is it today?"

"Does it really matter now?"

"I still like to try and keep track. I don't know why."

"Let me think." Karen remained silent for a while, and Shaz remained-tight-lipped, knowing that her friend was trying to work it out. Karen finally said, "My mum's birthday was two days ago. So today is the sixteenth day of July, which makes today...Monday."

Shaz never responded and Karen sat up to see if she could see her friend in the murkiness. From what she could see, Shaz was on her back, and had one leg up with the knee pointing to the ceiling. She was beginning to snore lightly, and Karen raised a smile that she had finally drifted off, but for how long?

"That was quick." Karen had a light chuckle to herself. "I didn't realise I was that boring."

Karen rested her head back down and could see it was getting lighter outside, despite the blind being fully down. She thought about the winter. This caravan was going to be a lot colder in December or January, and the mornings would be lucky to see daylight at 8am. She was dreading it. Not only that, she would also be around six or seven months pregnant. That thought alone terrified her.

Trying to shake away these thoughts, Karen took in a deep breath and slowly blew out the air in an effort to calm her heart rate, so she could relax enough to grab a few hours before she had to get up.

She remained lying on her back and licked her lips. A quilt of tiredness began to smother her frame, and the twenty-three-year-old began to drift off. She had no time for dreams, as she woke up again, but this time with a loud gasp. The gasp was strident enough for Shaz to wake up.

Shaz asked, "What is it?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I thought I heard something."

"These caravans are practically made of paper. It's probably nothing. Just go back to sleep."

"I thought I heard someone shout something out."

"Male or female?"

"Male." Karen didn't look certain.

"What did he say?" Shaz was unworried about Karen's story, and was ready to drift away again.

"It sounded like:
God, help me
."

Shaz sniggered, "You're sleep deprived. Go back to sleep."

Chapter Thirty Four

David left the premises and could see, along the main road, another eight creatures heading his way. He had no idea why and how they'd got there and where they were going, but they had spotted his presence and now had more energy in their legs now they could see potential food.

The overall plan was to run along the main road and cut into a field and get back to the camp via the damaged part of the hedge. He didn't want to be followed by them and see him crawl through the gap in the hedge. If they copied his action, it could prove a disaster.

Now he had nowhere to go. He didn't fancy his chances running through eight of them. One bite and it was all over for him. The three behind him were progressing, but if he barged past them and ran through the long grass and through the gap of the hedge, which they would no doubt see, it would bring danger to the camp.

"Shit, shit, shit."

The only other way he could go was along the main road, the opposite way, but the roads were sharp and bendy and he had no idea what lurked around every turn. He needed to make a quick decision, and whether it was the right or the wrong one, David Watkins ran back onto the grounds of the farm and headed back to the house. The safety of everybody back at Vince's camp swayed his decision to go back into the farmhouse, but his nerves were shot to pieces when he saw the doors to the hut were still being pressed against and pushed from the beasts inside it.

He burst through the main door and tried to lock it. He had no key, so he bolted upstairs and went back into the bedroom where he had been before. The main door immediately opened—more-than-likely one of them had stumbled into it, and he gasped when he heard the groans in the house, underneath him.

With the main door opened, he could now hear what was happening outside as well. The doors to the hut continued to creak loudly as they were moving to and fro from the pushing of the beasts inside. Then he heard a clunking sound at the bottom of the stairs, followed by a series of noises.

David began to cry. "Oh Jesus, they're trying to get upstairs." These things were docile, but they had followed a man inside a house and he wasn't around on the ground floor, so the first floor seemed the only place he could be.

David opened the door slightly and peered through a gap. He couldn't see anything, so he stepped onto the landing to see what was happening. The eight that were on the main road and the three that were on the grounds were all inside the house—eleven in all. David burst into tears when he saw them, most of them climbing their way upstairs. One of the dead, an elderly gentleman once upon a time, increased his crawling when his dead eyes clocked David briefly.

Before the frightened fifteen-year-old had the chance to get back into the room and close the door behind him, he heard the faint snap and splinter of wood and he knew that the doors to the hut were giving way. He thought back to the brief diary.
How many did that farmer put away? Twenty? And how many are in the house? Eleven? That's over thirty Rotters.

David felt he had no choice, so he immediately opened the bedroom window, and jumped out. He landed hard and went over his left ankle. He cried out and picked up the revolver off of the floor that had fallen out of his pocket during impact, and put it back. He stood up and hobbled his way back to the long grass, wincing with agony. He checked his pockets to make sure the gun was still there, but the knife was missing.

Unbothered by this, he bit his bottom lip and tried to go through the pain barrier. He tried to speed things up by hopping, but after just four hops he fell over, grazing his hands. He struggled to get up, and swore when he saw a crowd of them that had escaped the hut. Three were heading for the house, but the rest seemed unsure where to go.

David's presence, which was eventually spotted by one of the dead, forced their bodies to struggle over towards him. He hobbled away as quick as he could, but fell over once again. It appeared that the quicker he tried to go and the more he went through the pain barrier, the higher chance he had of falling over.

He struggled through the long grass and felt for his gun again. It was still there. He began to reprimand himself for endangering others and himself, all because of his fascination with a gun that he had seen. Initially, the naive youngster thought that it was a simple matter of walking to the farm, grabbing the gun, then going back to the camp. But was anything simple these days?

He fell over again, going over the injured ankle, and the exhausted young man began to cry. He tried to get back to his feet, and even though his life depended on it he felt paralysed.

David Watkins had only been around for a short time, but he desperately wanted to live, even in
this
world. He was luckier than most, he was now staying in a place where they had water, cattle, and people who constantly went on runs for more supplies. While others were out there, getting killed, or still indoors, starving, dehydrated, he was living in luxury.

He looked up to see that a gang of the dead were making their way through the long grass, heading towards him. He knew he had to get on his feet soon, or he was going to experience a death similar to the one that his friends Ollie Hopkins and Harry Beresford had endured.

He grimaced through the pain as he stood up once more, and tried to hobble to the hedge that was twenty yards away. He fell over again and cried out, knowing that the first pair of feet was just metres away. He pulled out his revolver and held it with both hands. The gun shook as he aimed it at Rotter Number One, and he tried to squeeze the trigger, but it wouldn't budge. "Oh shit." He tried again, but by this time they were beginning to encircle him.

He turned on his front, left the gun, and tried to desperately crawl along the floor through the tall grass. He was gaining ground, but one of the dead had still managed to claw at his back and went to take a bite out of his shoulder. David slapped the thing away, tears running down his cheeks, and his heart galloping to a ridiculous rate. He had never been so scared in his life.

He was only yards away from the hedge, and took a look behind him. There was no chance he was getting out of this alive, but he tried. As soon as he reached the gap in the hedge, he felt the first bite. He had been bitten in the ankle, and this seemed to have paralysed him, or was it fear?

He turned on his back and screamed, "God, help me!" But there was no help for David Watkins.

They all crouched down in their numbers and tore his stomach open, making the youngster pass out almost immediately. His liver was the first thing to be plucked out and the bloody intestines were pulled out by dozens of hands and rammed into their hungry, diseased mouths. As many seconds passed, more than twenty of them were around David's corpse, ripping off whatever they could, and one sank its teeth into his neck and began eating it like someone would eat an apple. Another ghoul started on the other side and the meaty tongue was grabbed and pulled away. It greedily forced some of the tongue into its mouth, even though it was still chewing on muscle and cartilage from its first bite of the neck.

A female Snatcher, dressed in a muddy black frock, as if she had been to a ball, clambered on her knees, ignoring what was left of the feast, and noticed movement from afar. It was one set of legs on the other side of the hedge, walking away.

A guard.

It crawled through the gap in the corner of the hedge at a snail's pace, almost, and once it got inside, it struggled to get to its feet. Once it did, it stumbled to the nearest caravan where it saw some kind of movement.

Behind the lone creature, more were slowly coming through, as the remains of young David were becoming less and less.

Two, three, four...eight had crawled through the gap in the hedge to the campsite so far. And there was more behind, waiting to get through.

Many more.

Chapter Thirty Five

Helen Waite looked at her Tissot wristwatch and saw that it was still early morning—not that time had a large significance anymore, but it did tell Helen how much light there was left during the day. She could hear a noise outside.

She went over to the large roller blind and pulled it up by a foot. Behind the blind was her patio door that led out into the back garden. She wondered where the noise was coming from, and lay on the floor to have a peek outside. She saw one pair of feet stumbling around the garden. Maybe the gate was left open.

She had two options: She could go outside and kill the thing—What did they say on the TV all those weeks ago? Destroy the brain? Or, she could ignore the situation and hope that it was gone by the afternoon. Of course, the other scenario of ignoring this minor intrusion was that a group of them could be loitering in the back garden by the next day. She was in a quandary, and she had no idea which was the right decision to make.

She got off the floor and decided to ignore the problem in her back garden, for the time being.

In a daze, she walked into the kitchen and pulled out a black bin liner from the cupboard under the sink.

She trudged upstairs, with the black bag in her hand, marigolds in her pocket, and made it to the landing. She stood and glared at the closed bedroom entrance that Jack used to sleep in, and took a stroll forwards to his door.

The first thing that she noticed was the smell. It was an awful, fish-like smell, like rotten meat. She was certain that it was a smell that she would never forget.

Aware that the stench would be a thousand times worse once the door was opened, she put her marigolds on, she took a deep breath in, her eyes still staring into emptiness, and pushed it open and went inside.

Ignoring the winged pests she peered over into the cot, staring at the maggot-infested remains, and pulled out the black bin liner and began putting the leftovers into it, starting with Jack's decapitated head.

She tied the bag in a knot and casually walked out of the room, ignoring the smell, ignoring the insects buzzing around her face, and ignoring the fact that she was carrying her one-year-old son's remains. She shut the door behind her and went downstairs. She went into the kitchen and placed the bag on the floor, near the pedal bin. She turned and looked at the set of knives that were on display to the left of the defunct fridge, and picked out a steak knife.

Gripping the knife in her right hand, she headed back upstairs and went for her bedroom door.

With no hesitation she unbolted the door and pushed it open to see Carla sitting on the floor in the corner, her back was to her mother. Helen ran her fingers through her brown greasy hair and walked into the room, making little noise, and stood over her daughter. She brought the knife over her head, holding it with two hands like she was going to perform some kind of sacrifice, and by the time the contaminated Carla turned her head and snarled, realising there was something behind her, the knife was brought down and embedded itself into the top of her skull.

The body of Carla fell to the side, and showing little emotion on her face, Helen Waite bent down and took out the knife, scooped up Carla in her arms, and headed for downstairs.