Sometimes he would forget what a cutie he and Julie had created. With the help of medical science—Kyle was an IVF baby— they had done well. Paul stared at his son's plump face, his freckles that were scattered over his nose and cheeks, his strawberry blonde hair, and looked at his wonderful big green eyes.
"I'm sorry, daddy, for running off like that," Kyle blurted out.
It seemed that those words were difficult for Kyle to say, and had lowered his head as soon as he said them. Paul smiled and said, "Let's forget it ever happened. Deal?"
"Deal." Kyle began tucking into his soup.
"After we've had this soup, we'll take a walk around the camp for an hour and then get ready for bed."
"Daddy?"
Paul exhaled hard; Kyle was an inquisitive child, but Paul would love a few minutes with his son where he wasn't bombarded with questions—some of them pointless. "Now what?"
"Do you think a man can run faster than a giraffe?"
"Just eat your soup, son."
Chapter Nineteen
Jason Murphy spent ten minutes hiding in his car on someone's drive. The big man was aware that he had left his brother alone with that maniac, and his dad was also sleeping in the bed upstairs. But he had a shotgun pointing at him, and he panicked. If he stood his ground, he would have been shot for sure.
While he was hiding, he saw the man walk past the street. He knew it was him. Not only did he recognise the face, but he had the little girl with him. "Bastard!" Jason spat. "Coming on our patch and lording it over us. We're the Murphy's, for fuck's sake. You don't mess with us!" If the man wasn't carrying a shotgun Jason would have gone for him.
He started his car engine up and made the short drive back to his house. He was only streets away. As soon as he left his vehicle, he went up his drive and entered his house and saw, in the living room, Kevin, sobbing and bleeding heavily from both legs.
"Oh, Jesus Christ!"
Instead of attending to his badly wounded brother right away, Jason ran upstairs to see if his father was okay. It looked that Kevin had been shot, so why didn't his father hear the bangs?
He burst into the room and immediately pulled back the duvet. His dad's face was unrecognisable, blood and brains were scattered along the bed and up the headboard. Jason Murphy screamed out and punched the nearest wall. He went back downstairs and saw that there was no helping his brother either.
"Jason!" Kevin cried, and held out his left hand. "I'm dying."
Jason crouched down and coolly asked, "What happened?"
"You left me on my own, that's what happened." Kevin looked scared, and was also upset that his big brother left him alone to deal with the aggressor that had entered their home.
"He was about to shoot me. What would you have done?"
Kevin never answered; he just sobbed instead.
"Dad's dead," Jason announced.
Kevin nodded, acknowledging to his brother that this was old news to him. He had already been told this news by his assailant, Vince Kindl.
"They're all dead. Dad, Lance..." Jason looked at his helpless brother and announced, "You're not gonna survive this. You do know that, don't you? That's two brothers and a father I've lost in a week."
Kevin nodded, shivering, with saliva running down his mouth. "I might be okay."
Jason shook his head in disagreement, and said coldly, "Nah, you're fucked. Even if I can stop the bleeding, you're a cripple. A cripple in this world is as good as dead."
Kevin sobbed, "God, it hurts so much."
Jason looked at both knees and winced. He couldn't imagine the pain his brother was going through. "Who could have done this?"
"We're the Murphy family," Kevin began to tell his brother a lie. "We've pissed people off for decades. It could have been anyone." He didn't want to tell Jason that a father seeking revenge for Kevin's sick past was the reason why he was crippled and his father was dead.
Jason gulped, took a hard stare at his little brother and asked him, "You want out?"
Kevin shook his head. "I want to live for a few minutes more."
Jason stood straight. "If that's what you wish, bro. I'll stay with you until..."
With tears running out of his eyes, almost faster than the blood from his wounds, Kevin nodded and held onto his brother, knowing that in a matter of minutes he would be dead from his wounds.
He was finished.
*
Vince and his little companion began walking to his car in silence. As he was about to leave the street, he heard a lone figure coming out of the first house on the right. He stopped in his tracks, waiting for the man to approach. He had his arms in the air, and he seemed to pose no threat.
"I come in peace," announced the man.
"I thought so," responded Vince.
The man stopped walking and lowered his arms. "Somebody informed me that you've just left the Murphy house, and I heard gunshots. Please tell me you've taken care of those bastards."
"You have spies?" laughed Vince.
"Something like that."
Vince looked around the street and saw three lots of curtains twitching. He was being watched. "You're not a fan?"
The man smiled. "They've been terrorising us for years. We know one's in jail. Another was killed last week."
"I just shot the old man and the pervert."
A smile stretched over the man's face. "You killed Kevin Murphy?" He burst out laughing and added, "I'm not going to ask you why you did it. I don't care as long as he's dead."
"Well, I crippled him. He should be dead by now."
The excited man looked around his street and was waving around. Vince had no idea what he was doing and what this meant, but his waving made six or seven residents open their bedroom windows and began to peer out.
The man that stood opposite Vince was a rotund fellow. He was bald, wore spectacles and looked to be in his fifties. "He said he's killed the old man and Kevin Murphy!"
There was delight from the people that peered out in the street, and some thanked Vince over and over again from their bedroom windows.
Vince announced, "But one got away."
"I know." The man nodded. "Together, as a community, we can handle Jason Murphy. We can finally do what we wanted to do for weeks."
"And what's that?"
"Block this street off on both sides and get some sort of order going on. It would be too much of a big task to do it to the whole village."
Vince looked around the street. There were sixteen houses, eight on either side, and asked, "How many people?"
"Thirty-two," said the bald man. "But if more want to join, then they're more than welcome. Maybe we'll end up extending it to the next street, but for now..."
"Well, I wish you luck..." Vince held out his hand.
The bald man shook it. "The name's John Lincoln."
"Vince." He then pointed to the little girl by his side. "And this is Lisa."
"Do you have a camp yourself?"
"We do," was Vince's short answer, not giving too much away.
"Well, Vince. We owe you." Lincoln snickered, "If ever you need to return here, don't hesitate to come back."
"Absolutely!" a man from his left yelled, hanging out of his window. "You can come here any time! We need people like you here!"
Vince thanked the man with the nod of his head, and turned back to face Lincoln.
Lincoln explained, "I think what he meant was that we could do with a man with balls round here. We're quite humble people. We've spent the best part of five weeks hiding, living off scraps."
"You'll adapt," said Vince. "I was a forklift driver a month and a half ago."
Lincoln laughed and playfully smacked Vince on the side of his arm. "Looks like it's time for us to get to work."
"Looks like it." Vince then placed his arm around Lisa and began walking away. "Good luck."
"You too, Vince. You too."
*
A few more minutes had gone by, and Vince was now back in his
vehicle and exited out of the Little Haywood town/village. He passed The Wolseley Arms pub to his right, and he turned and drove past a garden centre. He took a look at the place that had been there for years, but had never stepped inside of the establishment, and saw the sign: Wyevale Garden Centre. He had been to a garden centre before, in Rugeley, to get some seeds, but this was a place that sold sheds, instruments that could be used as weapons, and, of course, more seeds for vegetables.
He had passed the place when he went on his ill-fated trip to Stafford Hospital, but never thought to raid it. It never even entered his mind.
His mind began to do overtime.
If it hadn't have been completely stripped, there was a good chance that there could be stuff there that would benefit the people from the campsite.
He had decided to check the place out tomorrow, but couldn't help thinking that the locals from Little Haywood or members of the Sandy Lane Camp had already been there.
Trying to shake the thought off, he turned to his young female passenger and asked how she was.
"I'm okay." Lisa shivered a little, and Vince was sure that the poor thing wasn't entirely certain that he was a good guy. Was he just another pervert that was going to treat her the way she had been treated by the sick Kevin Murphy?
"We're a couple of miles away from a camp," he tried to reassure her. "There're some nice people there. There's a little boy there as well, a few years younger than you."
Not knowing that Vince was actually talking about her former neighbour, Lisa said, "That's good." She then lowered her head and Vince knew that something was bothering her and was apprehensive to speak out. "Mister?"
"Yes, sweetheart."
"Am I...safe?"
Vince nodded and took a stern look at the frightened child. "Yes, you are. Nobody is going to touch you ever again. Got it?"
She released a smile, and Vince could almost see the relief seeping out of her body. In such a short time, Vince Kindl had convinced Lisa that she was safe and that he wasn't a bad man.
"So what's your story?" Vince was nearing the town centre, and decided to go past the St Augustine's church and go the long way back to the camp, along the main road with the power station to their left. It was the long way back, but the safest as the area had no one there that was housed. All it had along the road was businesses, a Tesco and a McDonalds.
"I don't understand, mister."
"Call me Vince." Vince slowed down a little when he realised he was speeding. "How did you get to that house?"
"I live on the other side of the village," she began.
"Shit. If I knew you were from there, I'd have left you with the locals."
"Doesn't matter," she said sadly. "I have no one anymore. Doesn't matter where I go."
"Is it a village or a town?" Vince immediately shook his head at the pointless question. Who cares?
Lisa said, "They call it both."
"So what's your story?" Vince asked for a second time.
She cleared her throat and had already told Vince about her dad and little sister turning, and that her and her mother had stayed in the attic for weeks, but she went into more detail. She told Vince how her and her mother were near starving, and went to their neighbours and stayed there very briefly, until somebody tried to break in, and she and her mother were then taken. Lisa told Vince how she was thrown into the back of a van and the father of the family told her coldly that he had killed her mother in retaliation for killing his youngest son, Lance. She didn't want to go on after that, and Vince didn't even want to imagine the torment that young Lisa had gone through at the hands of Kevin Murphy.
He didn't understand the family's mentality. If that was his son, he would have had his balls cut off. But they protected him, made excuses for him, and told people that he had a sickness that he couldn't control.
In Vince's eyes Kevin Murphy was a worthless human being—the whole family were. He was a sick animal, and if an animal was sick then it should be put down.
He tried to put the family to the back of his mind.
Killing Kevin hadn't eased the pain, but Vince was satisfied that some kind of justice had been served. If Kevin hadn't bled to death, he was either going to be a meal for one of the Rotters, or the locals were going to take care of him. Either way he was fucked.
Vince raised a smile and flashed a guard, who was sitting in his car, as he went by the Ash Tree pub. He was nearly home.
Chapter Twenty
Despite getting a scare earlier, the arrogance in Jason Murphy's walk made a couple of people snarl in anger as they peered out from their blinds. Even in the new apocalyptic world he was still walking like he owned the place. He stopped in the street and took a look around. Most houses were barricaded in. He needed new digs, and staying in his own place where he now had two dead family members wasn't an option anymore.
He walked in the middle of the road and spotted a house to the left that he quite fancied. He clapped his hands together and walked towards the house. He looked up to the sky and could see that darkness was only a few hours away.
He was nearly on the other side of his village and away from his own street, and decided to keep away in case that lunatic decided to return.
He saw that the house had no barricading against the front door. He knew that because he could see through the frosted glass. The people had either left, or they were too incapable of lifting such heavy furniture.
He walked onto the drive that had no car, and went round the back of the house to check the place out. He peered through the kitchen and living room window, but both were impossible to see in with the blinds closed. He walked back round to the front door and tried it by giving it a gentle push with both hands. He smiled when he realised that he would have no trouble kicking the thing open, which he did.
He closed the door behind him and dragged a side-table from the reception area and placed it against the door. It was time to check out the house.
He strolled through the dark living room and poked his head around the corner into the kitchen. There was no sign of life. The ground floor was empty.
He looked around the kitchen and began going through the cupboards and drawers. He pulled out a steak knife and put it into his pocket before ascending to the first floor.
He went into the bathroom and saw that there was evidence that the bath had been filled, albeit many weeks ago. It was shallow, but there was still a little water left. He walked to the bath and cupped his hands and began slurping on the water. It didn't taste the greatest, but it was still a welcomed sight to see water, and the clear liquid was welcomed by his dry throat.
He then placed his ear on the door of a bedroom. He could hear something. He could hear breathing, a muffled cough and whispers. There appeared to be people inside, and it sounded like they were sobbing, as if they knew someone had broken in. He hoped that this wasn't the case, and that he was hearing things as Jason wanted a place to himself.
He positioned his hand on the handle and tried the door of the bedroom. It swung open and, inside it, he saw an elderly couple, sitting in the corner, shivering with fright. "Crap," was the first word that fell out of Jason Murphy's mouth. "I thought that nobody was in."
The elderly man was the first to speak. He was a heavy guy, with a head full of white hair, and was dressed in black trousers and shoes, and a white collared shirt. "We're just trying to survive, young man. Don't hurt us."
"Don't hurt you?" scoffed Jason. "I've just come looking for a place to get my head down for the night."
"You can stay here, if you want." The woman spoke this time and was visibly shaking. She spoke those words because she didn't want to antagonise the man. He was going to stay the night whether they liked it or not, because both of them knew right away that it was Jason Murphy that was standing, glaring at them.
Jason looked around the room, then checked the other bedroom to find that it was bare. He returned and said, "Got no food with you?"
The elderly woman loo
ked at her husband and lowered her head sadly. "No, son. We haven't eaten in two days."
"We had a Pot Noodle two days ago, with some cold water from the bath." The old man smiled a brave smile. "We're starving."
Jason looked disappointed that there was nothing for him, but couldn't give a shit about the two senior citizens. He lied, "I'm sorry about that."
Both couples gave their uninvited guest a nervous smile, and the elderly woman finally introduced herself as Iris. Her husband was Richard.
Jason introduced himself, but the couple already knew his name, but pretended that they didn't. He could see they looked petrified, and was certain that they already knew who he was. His family had been tormenting the people of Little Haywood for years. The only time when some of the residents would get some respite from the family, was when a serious crime had been committed by the family members and a stint in Stafford jail had been issued to them. It was just a shame that this didn't happen to all of them at the same time.
"So how have you coped so far?" Jason Murphy asked the elderly couple.
Richard was the first to speak up. He looked no younger than seventy-five. He stammered, "We-we just rationed our food. Iris has...had...a lot of tins of porridge in the small cupboard under the stairs, but we're running pretty low these days. The medication is a problem."
Asked Jason, "Medication?"
"We're both on medication for our high blood pressure, but we have ran out."
Jason looked disinterested right away, and couldn't hide his disappointment that the old couple were present. His plan now was to stay the night, then the next morning he was going to search another house for something to eat.
Apart from the house that he was in, the rest in the street seemed well-barricaded, and knew with the amount of streets his small town had to offer there was going to be a few people, like Iris and Richard, who hadn't bothered. The reason for this could be of many things: There could already be people inside, reanimated. And there could be older people like Iris and Richard who were too weak to be doing any kind of lifting. The other reason was that there could be people inside who had committed suicide.
Snatchers: Volume Two (The Zombie Apocalypse Series Box Set--Books 4-6) Page 60
