She could hear the awful moaning sound from outside and it appeared to be getting louder. She guessed that more of those dead bastards had arrived, but she didn’t want to look. If they caught sight of her, it would only excite them. She was sure that the RV was reasonably solid, but with enough of them outside, there was no reason why they couldn’t force themselves into the vehicle.
Stephanie peered into the box that was behind her and saw large tins of beans. All the tins had ring pulls and she grabbed one and opened it. Realising she had no fork, and it would take a huge task to get to the cutlery drawer because of all the boxes stacked up inside, she shrugged her shoulders and began to eat the beans with her fingers.
It’s not as if she hadn’t done this before.
There were a few beans left at the bottom of the tin as she was finishing, but she chose to ditch the tin and licked her two fingers that she had used as a poor substitute for a fork.
The noise continued to grow outside and the sounds of hands slapping on the outside of the van continued. The intrigue was too much for Stephanie Perkins and she decided to go and have a look and check out the damage.
All curtains of every window were drawn, and she went to the kitchen window to have a peek. She peered out from behind the curtain and gasped. She had no idea what it was like now in front of the vehicle, behind it, or to the other side, but she could only assume that it was bad all around the RV, if what she could see was anything to go by.
She gulped and could see a sea of dead faces, some males, some females, but all with the same goal: to get inside and rip this young girl to pieces. Her heart skipped when a set of dead eyes gazed at her—or the crack in the curtain, she wasn’t sure, and slowly put the curtain back to where it originally was before.
Stephanie grabbed her bag and bow, then went over to the sofa. She placed her things down on the floor and began moving boxes off of the sofa and stacked them on top of the others. Stephanie had admitted that these things weren’t for budging and decided to try and move the van.
She went into the front and grabbed the keys that were dangling from the ignition. She looked out of the windscreen and could see dozens of the dead, and now they could see her.
She started the engine and smiled when it worked first time. Trying to ignore the dead in front of her, she slipped the vehicle into gear and tried to move it, but it wasn’t going anywhere. The wheels span and made a noise that was going to add to her woes and be detrimental to her safety. It was still stuck. She thrashed the vehicle, but it seemed to be making things worse.
She looked into the side mirror on the left and could see the back wheel spinning, mud flying, but going nowhere. Although the vehicle had managed to move off a grassy bank the first time she had stalled it, the vehicle was struggling on this particular patch of muddy grass.
She panicked and thought that the dead had no desire to pass. They weren’t going anywhere. They were going to be here for the night.
It looked like she was staying in the RV for the night, maybe longer, and there was nothing she could do about it.
She placed her hands over her ears as the sound of the rotting hands slapped the outside of the vehicle, desperate to get in. She eventually switched the engine off, left the front of the vehicle, and clambered back over some boxes to get back onto the sofa.
This whole trip was turning into a disaster.
Chapter Nineteen
August 26th
It was 3am and Stephanie was finding it impossible to sleep. She was exhausted, but her mind was racing and she couldn’t stop thinking about the dead surrounding the motorhome and wondering how many were now out there.
She knew their persistence was strong, but maybe, just maybe if nothing could be heard from inside the vehicle for the next six hours or so, some of the dead might disperse and finally go elsewhere. Maybe something else would distract them.
She was going to try the RV’s engine again, later on in the morning, regardless whether the dead were there or not, but she was certain that the vehicle was going nowhere. The area had had days of rain. This was only the second sun soaked day that the West Midlands had had in days and the ground hadn’t quite dried out yet.
As well as the ‘what if’ situations, memories and flashbacks were swirling around the girl’s head.
In hindsight, Stephanie should have stayed at the hangar and waited for help. Pickle and the rest knew where they were going, so if she, Elza and Ophelia hadn’t returned after a day or so, then surely people would come out looking for them. That was the only hope she had now, she thought. If she couldn’t get the vehicle to move, she was going to have to wait for help.
Colwyn wasn’t far away from where she was, so if someone did decide to go out looking for the girls, it’d be a ten to fifteen minute journey by car to where she was now.
The main problem she had was if the surroundings of the RV could hold out until that situation happened. If people were going to come out and look for her, it was probably going to be during the day. Travelling in the dark was too dangerous.
She remained lying on the sofa, suffocated by boxes of produce around her, and put her arms behind her head, thinking of yesteryear. She was trying to keep her mind off the fact that she was surrounded by dozens of creatures that would rip her apart and give her an agonising death.
Her mind was cast back to two years ago, when she was in the second year of secondary school. A boy by the name of Duane Matthews had spent the first three months of the year picking on Stephanie. He used to do the usual childish things like hiding her coat, pulling on her ponytail, but after a while it became a little too malicious. One day he had spat in her hair when they were queuing up for their biology lesson, and a week after that he had physically pulled her to the ground and emptied his water bottle over her hair in the middle of the corridor. Most kids were horrified, some laughed, but everyone was too scared to grass on the school bully for that year.
The bullying was making Stephanie depressed and she would sometimes feign illness to keep off from school, but that was the occasional day here and there.
Stephanie was a member of an archers club, but occasionally, just to mix things up, her father would take her up to the wooded Etching Hill and give her targets to practice on. They had done this for months, but one day, one Saturday morning, they could hear voices through the wooded area and her father, as usual when voices could be heard, told Stephanie to lower the bow and wait for the individuals to pass.
They waited and waited, and suddenly from out of the bushes Duane Matthews and two of his pals appeared. Duane didn’t seem bothered that Stephanie was with her father and burst into hysterics when he saw Stephanie. He began to mock the then twelve-year-old, calling her Stephanie Hood and Robin Perkins, because she had a bow in her hand. The mocking was pretty poor, as you’d expect from a twelve-year-old boy, and both father and daughter chose not to respond.
Stephanie hadn’t told her father that they were face to face with the boy that was trying to make her life a misery, and only told him about the bullying when they made their way back home. Duane and his two spotty friends weren’t shifting and Duane continued with his mocking; Stephanie had lost patience and attached an arrow to her bow and raised it, now pointing it at the cocky Duane Matthews.
She brought the arrow back, stretching the string, and could hear her father telling her to behave and to put the bow down. At this point Duane’s friends had scampered, and Stephanie’s father was still telling his daughter off, afraid to approach her in case she accidentally released the arrow.
“Stephanie, baby.” She could still hear her father’s voice. “Put the bow down. Don’t do anything stupid.”
Stephanie remembered gritting her teeth and telling Duane that she was sick of him and he was going to die. The arrow aimed at the boy for another few seconds before he dropped to his knees and burst into tears. He begged for his life and she could also see that he had wet himself.
She lowered the bow and to
ld him to go. Once her father snatched the bow out of her hand, he gave his daughter a severe dressing down. Stephanie tried to explain that the boy was making her life a misery at school, but her father said that her behaviour wasn’t the way to deal with such problems.
Stephanie nodded and took her reprimand, apologising to her father, but deep down she disagreed. It turned out to have a positive outcome. Duane Matthews, and nobody else for that matter, never bothered Stephanie Perkins again for the next two years.
Then the apocalypse happened.
She snapped out of her daydreaming and decided to go for another peek outside once the darkness died and the sun rose. She had come to the obvious conclusion that it was going to be impossible to sleep. She wanted to know how many of the dead were around the RV, and she also wanted to see how deep the crowd was, if there was a crowd of them.
If the crowd wasn’t deep, she could think about climbing through the sunroof and jumping off the roof of the vehicle, over the dead. This was just a desperate option, but it would be her only option if the dead started getting inside the vehicle.
She hoped that the numbers had dwindled since she last looked out. However, to her ears it sounded like there were hundreds, with the noise that was being generated, but she was convinced that it wasn’t as bad as before.
She remained on her back and waited for the long hours to pass, so she could check out the numbers situation later on.
Her thoughts then went to her family, then Elza and Ophelia, especially Elza, and could feel herself becoming emotional again. It was an awful way to go.
Was that the way she was going to die, or was she going to be one of the rare lucky ones that would have a reasonable life?
Just the thought of being bitten by one of those freaks sent a shiver down her back, let alone being eaten by one.
Stephanie tried to clear her mind and start again. She was trying to think of something different, less macabre, but thoughts of horror polluted her psyche constantly.
She didn’t want to think about what was happening outside.
What was happening outside was out of her control.
She released a moan and closed her eyes. She tried to drown out the slapping and the groaning, and attempted to sing songs in her head to keep her calm.
It wasn’t working.
Chapter Twenty
Pickle’s eyes opened and he released a yawn.
It was a new day and he guessed that it was around seven or eight in the morning—not that time mattered so much anymore.
He sat up and rubbed his aching head. He was unsure whether he was having a migraine or his body was telling him that it needed water. He swung his legs to the side and stood up, wearing nothing but his shorts that he had had on for days. He struggled to his bedroom door, ready to make his way downstairs and put some fluid inside him. He reached the landing and could hear strange noises coming from the next bedroom.
It was coming from Karen’s room.
He cocked his head to one side and shuffled across the carpet. He placed his fingers on her door that was already ajar, but only opened by inches. He gently pushed it open wider and gasped when he saw the back of a man in front of him. It was one of Drake’s men. He could tell by the attire that he was wearing, and the unmistakeable WOE letters that were stitched on the back of the man’s leather jacket.
“What the fuck are yer doin’ in here?” Pickle snarled.
The man turned around.
Most of his face was covered in hair, and the thick beard on his face was completely grey. His eyes were large and almost black, and in his right hand he held a dripping knife, the fresh blood running off the steel and staining the cream carpet of Karen’s bedroom.
Pickle gasped when the man moved away to the side and he could see Karen’s face. She had been stabbed in the stomach, the sheets were stained crimson, and she shivered with wide eyes, trying to call out Pickle’s name. She held her hand up, but it soon dropped and her eyes closed. She had taken her last breath, and Pickle almost sobbed, but with the man standing in front of him, the rage took over and ran through his veins.
Pickle’s blood boiled and his fists were clenched tight as he ran at the man. The intruder made a stance to suggest that he was ready for him, and Pickle took a stab to the arm as he dived for him.
The intruder had lost his grip and had dropped the knife once he was grabbed by the powerful former inmate, and the two males began to roll around on the floor. With the knife still lying on the floor, Pickle managed to get on top of the trespasser and wrapped his fingers around his throat. Despite the man punching Pickle in the face whilst he was being choked, Branston managed to squeeze his throat long enough for the man to pass out, and he never stopped squeezing until the intruder eventually died.
Pickle finally released his grip and tried to stand on his shaky legs. Once he did, he looked down at a blood soaked Karen Bradley. She lay on her back, on the blood soaked sheets, and he placed his hand over his mouth as his eyes inspected the wounds to her stomach. He went to touch the face of his good friend with his quivering hand, but before he could touch her, a noise came from behind him.
Was it another one of Drake’s men?
He grabbed the knife off of the floor, the same blade that had killed his female friend, and headed for the landing with tears in his eyes. He reached the landing and could see a blurry figure standing near the stairs. He wiped his eyes and looked at the figure. His eyes thinned and shook his head like a cartoon character would after seeing something unbelievable. Pickle gazed at the figure.
“What the...?”
He took a step forwards and could see a dark haired man, with a dark goatee beard, and had on the same attire Pickle used to wear when he was in Stafford Prison.
“It can’t be.” Pickle gasped, “KP?”
KP smiled and said softly, “Time to wake up, Pickle.”
“What?”
*
Harry Branston sat up, his neck soaked in sweat, and immediately got off his bed. Wearing just his black shorts, he went onto the landing and straight to Karen’s room.
The door was closed shut.
Pickle opened the door, and went into her room to see her sleeping peacefully. He walked over to her bed, bent over, kissed her on the head, and decided to head to the ground floor.
He looked across the landing where KP was in the dream, shook his head and sniggered to himself, then made the slow descent downstairs.
Pickle had grabbed himself a half bottle of water from the kitchen and went back upstairs to get dressed. He put his clothes on, the same clothes that he had on the day before, and drank the liquid down. He should really have brushed his teeth, but the former inmate needed some air, desperately. He went downstairs and left the house.
He could see the rare sight of Jim Danson and another recluse, Paul Smith, on guard. Jim was at the front gate and Paul was by the concrete wall, looking bored to tears.
Pickle walked down the empty street and headed for the gate. He said good morning to Jim, who said it back, and asked the man to open the gate so that he could go for a short stroll.
Pickle walked across the country road, hearing Jim shutting the gate behind him, and went over to the field where all the bodies had been buried. Some days he liked to go there and pray, get some piece and quiet.
Today was one of those days.
Pickle sat down, yards from the patted earth where many bodies, including John Lincoln’s, were at peace. He crossed his legs, straightened his back, and lowered his head. For minutes he sat like this, and then he began to mumble The Lord’s Prayer.
Once he had finished, he began to scratch the inside of his ears. Karen had given him cream for the mild eczema for his flaky skin in his ears, particularly his right ear, but the steroid cream had been finished and there wasn’t any more left.
He knew there was a chance the falling dead skin could eventually fall and block his ears, affecting his hearing, and had to make do with filling them full of
water whenever he washed. It wasn’t the same, but it was the only thing he could think of now that the cream was no more. He tried some of Karen’s face cream the other day, putting it in and around his ears, but it didn’t do anything to stop the peeling.
The middle aged man rubbed his face and tears arrived in his eyes, thinking back to the dream. It was only a dream, but it made him think what it would be like to lose Karen.
He liked Vince a lot. He was a good friend. But he loved Karen like a sister, a daughter even.
She was the only person he had left in the world, and the thought of her dying upset the man and tightened his throat.
He lowered his head and began to mumble a second prayer.
“In your hands, O Lord, we humbly entrust our brothers and sisters. In this life you embraced them with your tender love; deliver them now from every evil and bid them eternal rest. The old order has passed away: welcome them into paradise, where there will be no sorrow, no weeping or pain, but fullness of peace and joy with your Son and the Holy Spirit forever and ever. Amen.”
Chapter Twenty One
Vince had spent the night on his sofa. He had been awake for ten minutes and had just stepped out of his home, stretching, and looking around the area. Jim Danson and Paul Smith were at either end of the street.
In Vince’s eyes the two men were hardly fighting material. Vince told Rowley that the two of them couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag, which was the reason why they never did the night stint, but they could at least raise the alarm. With the numbers depleted they had to do their bit, whether they liked it or not, and like the guards on the night, the men now wore a whistle around their neck in case they needed to raise the alarm to warn the street of any intruders.
Vince stepped out onto the front garden path and into the sun soaked street of Colwyn Place, scratching his balls. He wore nothing but an old dressing gown he had found in the attic of the house, and scanned the street and could see the vehicles lined up on the other side.
The Dead Don't Yell Page 9
